Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard posted a chilling video last week in which she described visiting one of the two cities destroyed with an atomic weapon toward the end of World War II while also dropping an ominous warning about the rising potential for \u201cnuclear war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The video was posted just days before Israel began a major military operation to destroy Iran\u2019s suspected nuclear weapons sites after two months of failed negotiations with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI recently visited Hiroshima in Japan and stood at the epicenter of a city that remains scarred by the unimaginable horror caused by a single nuclear bomb dropped in 1945, 80 years ago. It\u2019s hard for me to find the words to express what I saw, the stories that I heard, the haunting sadness that still remains. This is an experience that will stay with me forever. This attack obliterated the city, killed over 300,000 people, many dying instantly while others died from severe burns, injuries, radiation sickness, and cancer that set in in the following months and years,\u201d Gabbard began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNagasaki suffered the same fate. Homes, schools, families, all gone in a flash. The survivors, the hibakusha, they carried the pain of extreme burns, radiation sickness, and loss for decades. Survivors of this attack were asked to put in paintings and drawings their own memories and how they felt and what they saw and those paintings and the suffering that they conveyed, the pain and the sense of loss were almost more powerful than the photos themselves,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYet this one bomb that caused so much destruction in Hiroshima was tiny compared to today\u2019s nuclear bombs,\u201d the DNI went on. \u201cThe bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of just 15 kilotons of TNT, whereas today\u2019s nuclear warheads range in size from 100 kilotons to over 1 megaton. A single nuclear weapon today could kill millions in just minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJust one of these nuclear bombs would vaporize everything at its core, people, buildings, life itself. The shockwave would crush structures miles away, killing and maiming countless people,\u201d Gabbard said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd then comes the fallout. Radioactive poison spreading through the air, water, and soil, condemning survivors to agonizing deaths or lifelong suffering. A nuclear winter could follow with smoke and ash completely blocking the Sun, plunging the world into darkness and cold, killing crops and starving billions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAcid rain would scar the Earth, wiping out entire ecosystems. This isn\u2019t some made-up science fiction story,\u201d Gabbard continued before issuing a warning. \u201cThis is the reality of what\u2019s at stake, what we are facing now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBecause as we stand here today, closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elite and warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,\u201d she said. \u201cPerhaps it\u2019s because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won\u2019t have access to. So it\u2019s up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this Madness. We must reject this path to nuclear war and work toward a world where no one has to live in fear of a nuclear Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected President Trump\u2019s call for an \u201cunconditional surrender\u201d from Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him.They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn\u2019t frightened by such threats,\u201d Khamenei wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., also posted on Tuesday, writing \u201cThe forever war is the war that Iran has waged against the U.S., Israel, and the civilized world since 1979.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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