Author Archive for jack

A 27-year-old Polish Carmelite monk now sits in a Belarusian prison, facing a possible death sentence on suspicion of espionage after reportedly being found with a photocopy of a classified document related to the “Zapad-2025” war games involving the Russian nuclear weapons now stationed in Belarus. 

On September 4, 2025, when Grzegorz Gawel was visiting the town of Lepel, north of Minsk, officers of the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) followed the monk into a town park and took video as he met an unidentified Belarusian man who handed him a sheaf of papers. Video of Gawel’s arrest minutes later was soon broadcast on state television to support the charge that he sought the sensitive papers on behalf of Polish state intelligence agencies. It was alleged he had “contacted a Belarusian citizen via social media and offered to cooperate with the Polish special services.”

Solemn and Powerful Gathering at the Livermore Lab Gates on the 80th Anniversary of the US Bombing of Hiroshima

by Marylia Kelley and Scott Yundt 

Around 100 people gathered at the Westgate entrance to Livermore Lab on the morning of Tuesday, August 6, 2025 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

The theme of the event was, 80 Years of Nuclear Devastation: Remember our History, Reshape Our Future.

The following is an adaptation of a presentation given by Jack Cohen-Joppa at the Pacific Life Community retreat held in St. David, Arizona in March 2025 (published in the August 2025 issue of the Catholic Agitator, newsletter of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker). 

THE WAR IN OUR BACKYARD

by Jack Cohen-Joppa

On the ancestral lands of the Western Apache and O’odham peoples, the United States is peddling war and death. 

In fact, more than sunshine, saguaros and scenic vistas, more than copper, cattle, cotton, and citrus, the largest dollar-value export of things made in Tucson — and in fact in all of Arizona — is war and carnage. Most of that is weapons that come direct from Raytheon’s Tucson plants.

Here in southern Arizona, we have all been sold on and suckered into war. For more than four decades, this region has suckled on the profits of war, and it sucks.