There's blood on their hands, democracy in America, and nuclear powers have hair-trigger fingers

Letters to the Editor

Blood on hands of Netanyahu, Trump

Gaza, Lebanon, Houthi rebels of Yemen and now Iran Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the Middle East bully and is really flexing his muscles, all of course, with the unwavering support and backing of the world’s biggest bully, the US.

While the US is pumping billions of dollars in military aid to the Jewish nation, Trump says, in his typical contradictory style, he wants a ‘real end’ to the deadly conflict between Israel and Iran . How could he be so blatantly double -faced when the US has supplied Israel with fighter jets F 16 and Lockheed Martin besides all the other military hardware?

Then Trump demands Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender.’ Who is fighting this war, the US or Israel?

The US is using Israel to maintain the balance of power in its favour. Iran’s nuclear ambitions are a threat to the super power and so it supplies Israel with the necessary ammunition to make a pre-emptive stroke on Iran and bomb its nuclear plants diminishing its nuclear ambitions. The US-Israel alliance suits both countries fine.

Surrounded by Arab nations, Israel can show the world it is as brave as David and can even take on a nation with nuclear ambitions and maintain its sovereignty in the Middle East while the US maintains it balance of power without getting directly involved in the conflict . But with a crank man as president of the world’s most powerful nation there’s always the danger that the Middle East conflict could spill over and spread, threatening world peace.

So how clean are Trump’s hands? He glibly talks about peace in the Middle East but supplies deadly weapons to his blood- thirsty ally to kill and destroy. His hands are just as bloodied and dirty as Netanyahu’s.

They are criminals, murderers and should be dragged before the International Criminal Court to face charges against humanity. | Thyagaraj Markandan Kloof

Nuclear powers on a hair trigger

The escalating confrontation between Israel and Iran risks triggering a catastrophic nuclear conflict with global consequences.

Sophisticated simulations suggest that a full-scale nuclear war could plunge both hemispheres into a nuclear winter with temperatures plummeting to –32°C and radiation levels becoming deadly to all forms of life. Africa, like much of the world, is wholly unprepared for such a fallout.

The first hydrogen bomb test released energy equal to 10 million tons of TNT. Today, just 3% of the world’s nuclear arsenal is enough to wipe out humanity. Detonating 400 bombs could obliterate all life on Earth.

Global powers are now on a hair-trigger: nuclear missiles are on standby across Asia, the Korean Peninsula is bristling with arms, the South China Sea teeters on the brink, and the Persian Gulf simmers dangerously. One misstep could trigger an inferno that spirals out of control.

Modern nuclear weapons are 4 600 times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Russia and the US alone possess arsenals capable of delivering five tons of dynamite for every person alive today.

The UN, like the League of Nations before it, has failed to enforce peace. It has become a ceremonial body, powerless in the face of mounting global aggression. The world stands on the brink, as the Doomsday Clock creeps ever closer to midnight.

War destroys not just cities and economies but the very values that underpin humanity. It reduces people to the debris of violence. Biodiversity is wiped out, ecosystems collapse, and entire populations become refugees.

If reason and diplomacy do not prevail, 2025 may be remembered as the year human folly extinguished the dream of peace and prosperity. | Farouk Araie Johannesburg

Democracy in America today

Democracy is under siege in America when torching cars, rioting and burning the flag is regarded by those of the Democratic Party as a democratic right to demonstrate opposition to President Trump’s deportation of illegal aliens as being a ‘threat to democracy.

The root of the Democrats’ support for rioting and violence lies in their embrace of Orwellian globalism which intends to supplant nation states and national sovereignty with borderless hemispheres. But Trump’s policy of deporting illegal aliens poses a severe threat to the Democrats’ intention to grant the illegals voting rights and thereby oust the Republicans from power.

That is why Democrat governors are protecting and harbouring illegals in sanctuary cities in defiance of deportation.

That is why Trump’s crack down on rioting and stepping up of deportation is why the Democrats’ regard it as a ‘threat to democracy.’

The battle within America today is between national sovereignty and globalist hegemony. Within those parameters, it is a battle between godless tyranny and the survival of Judeo-Christian culture, tradition and heritage. | DR DUNCAN DU BOIS Bluff

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