WATCH: CN Live! — ‘Escalation’

Two wars, dragging humanity into despair and existential peril, have in the past week sunk to levels difficult to comprehend. The danger of a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West over Ukraine has been theoretically with us for nearly three years, but last week it took on terrifyingly concrete form. And in the metastasizing wars in the Middle East, which carry their own more distant atomic threat, the genocidal rage of an unbalanced Israel spread deeper into Lebanon, while all-out war with Iran simmers; the ethnic cleansing of at least the North of Gaza is no longer denied in the Israeli press, and much of the world’s patience with the Zionist state ran out as its prime minister was indicted by an international criminal court never intended to pursue Western and allied leaders. 

On the programme today to indeed help us understand all this was former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern; ex-U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Ted Postol, professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hosts: Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria. Producer: Cathy Vogan.