Portside

When the US entered the nuclear age, it did so recklessly. New research suggests that the hidden cost of developing nuclear weapons were far larger than previous estimates, with radioactive fallout responsible for 340,000 to 690,000 American deaths from 1951 to 1973. The nuclear bombs dropped by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in 250,000 deaths. And now, Donald Trump is threatening to use nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

Just over 1,000 days of Saudi-led coalition war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen has been deadly and devastating for Yemeni civilians. The UN says that 7 - 8 million Yemenis are one step away from starvation. The BBC reports that more than 80% of Yemenis lack food, fuel, water and access to health care. The number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen has reached one million, according to the International Commission of the Red Cross.

Trump became president despite the will of a majority of the American people. A recent poll shows that 53 percent of voters want him to resign. The Resistance has been able to slow but not stop Trump’s agenda. Trump has done more to spur progressive political organizing than Bernie Sanders, George Soros and Saul Alinsky combined.

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As the US media obsesses about Russia’s involvement in the U.S. elections, it is ignoring nearly everything else about the Putin government’s role in the world. But recent warnings from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the Trump administration is dangerously escalating the North Korean crisis deserve serious attention.

By roping India and Japan into its standoff with China, the U.S. is raising the nuclear stakes in Asia — including, dangerously, between India and Pakistan. With the world focused on the scary possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula, not many people paid much attention to a series of naval exercises this past July in the Malacca Strait, a 550-mile long passage between Sumatra and Malaysia through which pass over 50,000 ships a year.

It should come as no surprise that Donald Trump has declared that the US is recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. For seasoned US-Israel watchers, it merely confirms what we have been saying for decades: Washington is no honest broker in negotiations to end the Palestine-Israel conflict.

“This is a real tragedy, and it’s one that’s backed up by sound statistics and sound science that lays out how important of a calamity it is."

Yes, we do need a vision of future possibilities, but right now we live in a moment where the other side has so much power, we must apply ourselves to effective defense. I am growing weary of the deprecation of "just playing defense". Every sports fan knows that championship teams are built on sound defense.

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