Last night, a fire broke out at a cooling tower at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in Russia. It had been hit by Ukrainian drones, this time causing more damage than any of the many attacks upon the plant over the last two and a half years. Not properly appreciated is that Russia has deprived itself of the energy from the plant for most of its time there, as the Ukrainian shelling doesn’t allow for the safe management of active nuclear reactors. The six reactors have been in a “cold” state for quite a while.
Today Ukrainian President Zelenskyy stated that “the Russian occupiers started a fire” at ZNPP. “We are waiting for the reaction of the world, we are waiting for the reaction of the IAEA. Russia should be responsible for this. Only Ukrainian control over the Zaporozhye station can guarantee a return to normalcy and complete security.”
Zelenskyy has waved this bloody shirt at critical moments over the last two and a half years. The world is supposed to react by joining in on a full-scale war against Russia. On one level, it is Kiev’s test whether they are really to be sacrificed alone on the altar of a geopolitical showdown, whether Zelenskyy himself is a dupe to be used up and cast aside. It makes no difference that his naked argument is that ZNPP will keep being attacked by Kiev until it is turned over to Kiev. It is precisely the logic of a two-bit mobster, selling protection—from whom? Why, from the mobster, of course.
Never before have two thermonuclear powers been in a full-scale war.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made clear yesterday that the U.S. is now adding a second carrier strike group, the USS Abraham Lincoln, with its F-35C fighters, into the Israel-Iran theater. He also ordered the USS Georgia guided-missile submarine, with up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, to the region. According to the Pentagon, he told Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that this is part of “the United States’ commitment to take every possible step to defend Israel.” He “noted the strengthening of U.S. military force posture and capabilities throughout the Middle East in light of escalating regional tensions.” The same day, in a possibly related development, Gallant told military combat recruits: “We have significant capabilities. I hope they take this into account and don’t bring about a war on additional fronts.” Is there any reason that Netanyahu’s gang would think the U.S. won’t launch nuclear warheads?
The July 31 assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader at the center of the peace negotiations, done quite flagrantly while Haniyeh was a guest in Tehran at the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected President, was unmistakably designed to invite an escalation into full-scale war—yet it seems that some in Israel are upset that Iran hasn’t yet struck back. Yesterday, Israel’s latest war crime was the bombing of a mosque in a school complex in Gaza City, killing over 90, including women and children. (They issued a curious defense, amounting to the claim that, for every four civilians, they killed one member of Hamas’ military.) Whatever else is involved, the simple reality is that this latest action is not retaliation for something Hamas or Iran did—but for what Iran has not yet done. As such, it is closely related to Zelenskyy’s peculiar logic.
Remember, never before have two thermonuclear powers been in a full-scale war.
If the White House really wants a negotiated peace in the area, what keeps it from laying down the law to Netanyahu? You are told, “Oh, it’s an election period. You can’t make an enemy of the billionaires of AIPAC” (or, for Donald Trump, the Miriam Adelson gang). “We have to win an election first.”
One can pretend to play the game to get in office, and then do what should be done—but what a corrupt fantasy! How’s that been working out in your lifetime? Did the Founding Fathers contemplate an election process as a degrading process, guaranteed to make people worse than they were before?
Consider an election process to be used to strengthen the population’s grip on principles. If more elections in the U.S. over the last 60 years had been lost on principle, the chances of having presidential power on the side of the temple of liberty and beacon of hope for the world would have been greatly enhanced.
Two independent U.S. candidates, Diane Sare and Jose Vega, running in New York for U.S. Senate and the U.S. House respectively, are the solution to that degrading practice. First, learn how to fight on principle, and then enjoy the election process done right.
Do elections have to be disgusting? Only if you like thermonuclear war.
