For immediate release: August 18, 2025

Vandals destroy peace sign at long-time New Mexico peace group for 6th time

Previously: Anti-war yard sign cut down by vandal(s) for fourth time in north University neighborhood, Mar 24, 2025

Contact: Greg Mello: 505-577-8563 cell.
Permalink * Prior press releases

Albuquerque, NM -- Last night, a vandal struck an antiwar sign at the home office of the Los Alamos Study Group for the 6th time, this time cutting out the heads of presidents Trump and Putin.

The Study Group has been New Mexico's only full-time staffed peace and disarmament organization for more than 30 years. It is known nationwide for its technical acumen, policy impact, and strong advocacy.

Conscious of the momentous Alaska summit approaching last week, the Study Group reprinted this 3 ft. x 4 ft. sign, the same one which had been attacked before. (Our initial comments on that summit, prior to today's meetings at the White House, are below.)

Before and after pictures in situ are on this web page.

Since 2022, the Study Group has maintained an informative Ukraine War web page on the Ukraine War and U.S. Russian relations, given the topic's importance. Our then-proposed peace plan for Ukraine was published by Consortium News and by Zeit-Fragen (Current Concerns, Switzerland) in March 2022. (The plan we proposed then has aged well. In our eyes, it is still applicable in its spirit as well as many of its details.)

The Study Group had a prior sign promoting negotiations between Trump and Putin during Trump's first term, which was not vandalized. Neither did anyone vandalize any other prior sign at our offices, of which there have been many, over a period of roughly two decades.

The comments in our March 2025 press release (above) are all still applicable, except that we are going to update our sign following today's events at the White House, as soon as we have time to understand them.

Greg Mello, Study Group director: "Since the 2024 presidential race, we are seeing more political hate 'on the street' than ever before, most of which is unfortunately coming from Democrats.

"What we are seeing, in this sixth episode of vandalism at our house, is a pattern of political hate crime. Those who perpetrate such crimes feel justified in doing so by messages they are getting from their friends and from the news media. They are at bottom weak-minded individuals who have been duped by the propaganda in which our society is soaked. They have no defenses against it, either intellectual or of common sense. Coupled with a narcissistic sense of entitlement and lack of remorse, such individuals can become dangerous. What we see here is nascent 'brownshirt' behavior. This is not an innocent prank.

"Opinion leaders and politicians need to tone down the violence in their rhetoric. Lest we forget, last year there were two assassination attempts on the leading presidential candidate.

"We also need to tackle the epidemic of Russophobia in which we find ourselves. It was not present during the Cold War. Then, the Soviet Union was rightly feared -- but its people were respected. Now, the Soviet Union doesn't exist. Russia is not the Soviet Union.

"We call Russophobia an 'epidemic' because it is a disease -- a mental disease. It has deep roots, but it is also a recent phenomenon, the result of propaganda operations put together in the waning days of the Obama Administration by the Clinton campaign and senior intelligence and law enforcement officials. That much was clear to many of us at the time, even though the details were hidden and are only now coming to light.

Our initial informal comments on the Alaska summit, as of 9:00 am this morning:

Overall, we thought that the Trump-Putin summit meeting in Anchorage was a big "win" for the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Europe -- indeed for the world -- even though there are no concrete outcomes so far.

Only a few months ago, there was a real danger of nuclear war, as Scott Ritter reminds us.

In November 2024, the CIA briefed Congress on the risks of a nuclear war breaking out, estimating that there was a “greater than 50% chance” thanks to the Biden administration’s decision to greenlight long-range ATACMS strikes into Russia, Ritter revealed.

“The director of plans of Strategic Command, the American military command that carries out nuclear war briefed a Washington, DC think tank in November that the United States is prepared for a nuclear exchange with Russia, (that means nuclear war) and that the United States thought they were going to win,” he said. “When this was briefed to Congress, I asked a senior Democrat…’when the CIA briefed you, did the CIA say the Russians were bluffing?’ He said no. The CIA said the exact opposite. He said but that’s not the scary thing. The scary thing is that the Biden administration officials who were in that room said ‘oh we’re ready for that. If the Russians wanna play, we’re ready to go to nuclear war with them.’ This is the insanity that existed in November of last year!” Ritter stressed.

Of course that danger never fully goes away, but as a result of this summit and the steps preceding it, the danger of nuclear war has palpably receded. If the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists doomsday clock were reset each week, it would be time to set it back a few minutes. The irrational and irresponsible hatred of Russia emanating from the previous administration and its media minions is not present in this administration.

Yes, it could return as early as today, but for now the danger has lessened. The Trump administration, in all its voices, should stop trying to cover its ass with respect to the hawks in own its Party and in the militarized state more generally and do everything possible to hang those critics out to dry.

The people of this country want peace. The best thing Trump can do is to ignore the warmongers in the media and Congress and press on. Trump can and should speak to that desire for peace in the electorate directly.

We will see what happens today, when various European leaders -- all hawks and Russophobes, and the illegitimate Zelensky -- visit the White House. Will Trump and his team hold firm? Or will he undercut his own peace efforts by forgetting the leverage he has, and by being too agreeable and suggestible? The folks coming to see him want the war to continue. They need war and the threat of war for their political careers.

Regardless of what happens today, there is little doubt that Zelensky's time as president is nearly finished, one way or another.

In Anchorage, Trump behaved in a statesmanlike manner, for him, unlike the vicious statements that routinely came from Biden and his handlers during that administration -- and which still come from various members of Congress.

People may say this meeting was mere optics, that the absence of any definite outcome is a sign that the summit was a "nothingburger." The exact opposite is true. It shows the talks were serious. The vast gap between U.S. and Russian positions cannot be bridged in a day or a week, or smoothed over by a few words. It's going to take patient work.

The work of diplomacy includes optics like the red carpet, the ride in the limousine together, the flyover, and not least the respectful fighter plane escort back to Russian airspace. Building back the bridges to Russia that were so gratuitously burned is public work, as necessary as private talks (which do need remain private).

Candid pictures of the two leaders together, as well as the words they chose to use and not use, show a real mutual respect and a real desire for peace.

For its part, Russia made sure the summit would be a success by bringing so many top-level people in Putin's entourage. It was a public display of sincerity. It raised the ante for the U.S., which had to at least appear as sincere and morally committed as Russia appeared.

I don't enjoying saying it, but I agree with Putin and Trump: a ceasefire is a bad idea without real peace. The proposals floated by the EU leaders coming to DC are non-starters for Russia and I hope for Trump as well. 

We will put out another short bulletin when the results of today's talks begin to be clear.

Please go to our Ukraine page for daily updates on this conflict and its context, with our informal commentaries.

Or if you want a decent commentary with a comedic edge, try Mr. Kunstler's optimistic column today, thankfully without the Zionism that sometime infects his columns ("An Offer He Can't Refuse"), or Rachel Marsden's from Friday (The EU throws an epic tantrum as Trump meets with Putin").

Update: see the important Moon of Alabama for b's insightful take this morning.