Haiti: The “Gardeners” are Coming Back to the “Jungle”

by Daniel Espinosa / October 27th, 2022

Coups-d’etat, U.N. “humanitarian” massacres, a President assassinated by U.S.-trained, Colombian mercenaries, earthquakes, cholera… and even the “aid” of the Clinton Foundation! Now, the country ravaged by decades of natural and man-made disasters braces itself for a new “humanitarian” military invasion.

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In a recent speech, Josep Borrel, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, explained to the world how “Europe is a garden”, while the rest of the world is a “jungle” that “could invade the garden”. This is his solution:

…gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.

In reality, racist “gardeners” have been invading the “jungle” for centuries, plundering and scheming genocidal massacres, and Haiti knows it better than most countries. Their “gardening” has also ensured that the so-called jungle remains underdeveloped.

In another recent speech, this time at the United Nations General Assembly, Colombian president Gustavo Petro apologized to Haiti. The first leftist head of state of the South American country – also ravaged by decades of hypocritical U.S. “war on drugs”– was referring to the assassination of Jovenel Moise during a July 2021 attack, perpetrated by a group of mostly Colombian ex-soldiers. It also included 2 Haitian-Americans. The foreign gang, trained in part by the U.S. Army, posed as a team of DEA officers to gain entry to the presidential compound.

Since then, social unrest has severely increased all over the country, and there’s an almost complete breakdown of the rule of law and many basic social services. The Haitian elite — including its U.S.-approved, de facto President, Ariel Henry — is calling for another foreign “humanitarian intervention” (a.k.a. “gardening”). Western corporate media argue that Haiti is calling for such an intervention. By “Haiti”, they mean its corrupted and U.S.-aligned political and oligarchic elite. What many people on the streets of the convulsed country really demand — besides the ousting of Henry — is that foreign forces stay the hell out of Haiti.

Regarding Western (U.S. and vassal states) support for Henry, who already received armored vehicles, let’s read what the U.S. representative to Haiti said after renouncing his post on September 22, 2021:

Last week, the U.S. and other embassies in Port-au-Prince issued another public statement of support for the unelected, de facto President Dr. Ariel Henry as interim leader of Haiti, and have continued to tout his ‘political agreement’ over another broader, earlier accord shepherded by civil society.

The embassies referred to in his quote, as Canadian writer Yves Engler explains, compose the U.N.-approved Core Group, “made up of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, and the European Union.” The group, he adds:

…has heavily shaped Haitian affairs ever since American, French and Canadian troops assisted in the overthrow of the country’s elected government in 2004 and installed a United Nations occupation force.

What President Henry, himself a suspect in the killing of Moise, intend is for a foreign military or U.N. “peace-keeping” mission to enter the country and neutralize the gangs, particularly those not armed and directed by the government itself, as they currently control parts of the country and, most importantly, many vital highways and a sequestered oil refinery. Haitian gangs kidnap people to ask for ransom money, which then finances their criminal exploits, including the illegal trafficking of arms manufactured in the U.S. They have turned Haiti into the new kidnapping capital of the world. Murder and rape are widespread as well (more detail below).

Despite the many suspects arrested so far, the situation surrounding Moise’s killing remains obscure: there’s still no mastermind identified as responsible for ordering the assassination.

From the Brazilian Favelas to the Haitian Shantytowns

The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH, 2004-2017) was purportedly intended to ameliorate the chaos that overtook the country after the aftermath of the foreign coup against the first democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which happened in February 2004, two hundred years after Haiti’s heroic independence from France. In 2004, as mentioned above, the U.S., Canada, and France collaborated in the ousting of the popular leftist politician and priest from the Fanmi Lavalas party.

Conveniently, a group of Brazilian Army generals, many of them tied to the dictatorship that controlled their country until 1985, were placed in command of the U.N. mission, which was quickly associated with a handful of civilian massacres, particularly in the overpopulated slums of Cité Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, where around 300,000 people live in extremely precarious conditions. Cité Soleil is also where thousands of Fanmi Lavalas Party supporters live. These criminal raids resembled police and military incursions into many Sao Paulo and Rio favelas. There, under the cover of fighting criminal gangs, racist state actors killed innocent civilians, including boys, and unleashed terror over thousands of mostly black men, women, and children.

While the Haitian massacres were occurring, as documents released through the Freedom of Information Act attest, the U.S. and its intelligence services were aware of the brutality being unleashed over Cité Soleil. On their part, the most important human rights organizations –like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Organization of American States– “remained conspicuously disinterested and silent about the evidence”.

Some of the pictures of the chaos and murderous actions of the MINUSTAH –comprised of soldiers from 13 countries– are too explicit to be shown here, but the reader can visit HaitiAction.net to understand the extent of the cruelty exerted by these “peace-keepers”, who didn’t care to shoot at women and children with high caliber guns, even from helicopters, another terrorist tactic used by Brazilian police and military over the favelas.

The idea behind raiding Cité Soleil and other shantytowns around Port-au-Prince in reality was to eliminate and terrorize Aristide supporters, rightly infuriated by the 2004 brazen postcolonial coup d’etat ordained and executed by the usual “gardeners”. They demanded the return of their democratically elected President, forcefully exiled to Africa. Those demands would be a regular feature for many years after the coup.

Only between July 8 and July 17 of this year, 209 people were murdered in Cité Soleil. Half of them were innocent bystanders, without ties to any gang, and the rest, according to the BBC, were gang members “or people with links” to them (whatever that means). Other sources refer to many of these gangs as “paramilitary forces”, a regular feature when the Western “gardeners” control a puppet third-world government immersed in violent conflict. Between January and March of this year, 225 persons were kidnapped, 58% more than during the same three months of 2021.

The U.N. mission in Haiti was also accused of unleashing a plague of cholera by dumping infected waste into the tributary of an important river, killing more than 10,000 people. The U.N. blue helmets also stand accused of raping Haitian girls and women –or trading food for sex– leaving behind many “petit-MINUSTAH” as their abandoned offspring is often referred to.

The Montana Accord

Last September 29, in line with the Western “gardener” tradition, U.S. ambassador Pamela A. White said before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, referring to Haiti, that her country must put “boots on the ground right now!”

If history offers any kind of lesson, her declaration should be more than enough to understand that nothing good is coming toward Haiti in the next months or years of foreign occupation, now a very probable outcome as the U.N. Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution “demanding an immediate end to violence and criminal activity in Haiti and imposing sanctions on individuals and groups threatening peace and stability in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation — starting with a powerful gang leader.”

The gang leader referred to is the former police officer and “G9” gang boss Jimmy Cherizier, sanctioned by the U.S. and, now, also by the U.N. Despite the presence of many other gangs and their leaders, Cherizier, linked to various human rights violations he denies, is the only one to receive such sanctions so far. He is also the gang leader calling for revolution against the Henry regime.

The U.N. Security Council resolution (October 21) opens the door for a second resolution, already in the making by the U.S. and Mexico, to authorize a “non-U.N. International Security Assistance Mission”, which is what the “gardeners” are desperately pushing for.

The Washington Post Editorial Board, on its part, recently stated that the Montana Accord is “the right move for Haiti”. To be clear, the boots on the ground “right now!” option, in the form of a non-U.N. security mission, doesn’t exclude the Montana Accord, an assortment of Haitian political groups that include some shady characters. In fact, they are probably meant to work together, hand in glove.

The putative leader of the Montana Accord is Magali Comeau-Denis, Minister of Culture under Gerard Latortue, de facto President of Haiti from 2004 to 2006 (right after the coup that ousted Aristide). As Haiti Liberté reported, she was harshly criticized for starting unilateral negotiations –after the U.S. pressured her to do so– with Ariel Henry, which led to other participants leaving the Montana Accord. According to the leader of the Movement for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (MOLEGHAF), a revolutionary and progressive party from Port-au-Prince that left the coalition:

MOLEGHAF agreed to sign and join the Montana Accord because we were supposed to find this ‘Haitian solution,’ without bowing to the dictates of (then U.S. Chargé d’Affaires) Kenneth Merten, (and former) U.S. State Department officer and current head of the U.N. Office in Haiti, Helen La Lime, or the French, Canadian, and U.S. Embassies.

In other words, the accord supported by the Washington Post, a mouthpiece in the service of Western elites, marches on behind the façade of a “Haitian-led” solution but is nothing of the sort.

Certainly, the Haitian gangs –some of them substantially supported by the Haitian government as a way to control society, and armed with guns that the U.S. seems surprisingly incapable of controlling– must be stopped. But thinking that the way to achieve this is by allowing another occupation of the country goes stubbornly (and disingenuously) against, at least, a few hundred years of recorded history. The racist and colonial mentality of the “gardeners” imply that Haiti cannot rule itself, so it must be controlled from Washington.

Daniel Espinosa is a Peruvian writer and journalist. He is a columnist for Hildebrandt en sus trece, an independent Peruvian news weekly, and is the author of Propaganda Pura y Dura, his first book (in Spanish). You can follow him at: https://danielespinosawinenglish.substack.com Read other articles by Daniel.

Solution to Foreign Control Mess in Haiti is Not More Colonialism

by Yves Engler / October 25th, 2022

“The only way to save Haiti is to put it under UN control,” noted a recent Globe and Mail headline. Robert Rotberg, founding director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program on Intrastate Conflict, demonstrates a scarcity of imagination and knowledge in making his colonialist appeal.

Highlighting an openly colonial streak in Canadian politics, prominent voices have repeatedly promoted “protectorate” status for Haiti. In 2014 right-wing Quebec City radio host, Sylvain Bouchard, told listeners, “I would transform Haiti into a colony. The UN must colonize Haiti.” During the 2003 “Ottawa initiative on Haiti” conference to plan the ouster of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide US, French and Canadian officials discussed putting the country under UN trusteeship while a 2005 Canadian Military Journal article was titled “The case for international trusteeship in Haiti”.

In a Canadianized variation of the protectorate theme, constitutional law professor Richard Albert penned a 2017 Boston Globe opinion titled “Haiti should relinquish its sovereignty”. The Boston College professor wrote, “the new Haitian Constitution should do something virtually unprecedented: renounce the power of self-governance and assign it for a term of years, say 50, to a country that can be trusted to act in Haiti’s long-term interests.” According to the Canadian law professor his native land, which Albert called “one of Haiti’s most loyal friends”, should administer the Caribbean island nation.

In a similar vein, L’Actualité editor-in-chief, Carole Beaulieu, suggested Haiti become the eleventh Canadian province. In an article just after the 2004 coup titled “Et si on annexait Haïti?”, she wrote “Canada should annex Haiti to make it a little tropical paradise.”

At the less sophisticated conservative end of the political spectrum André Arthur, a former member of Parliament, labeled Haiti a “hopeless” and “sexually deviant” country populated by thieves and prostitutes that should be taken over by France as in the “heyday of colonial Haiti” (“belle époque de l’Haïti colonial”). “There is no hope in Haiti until the country is placed under trusteeship”, bellowed the Quebec City radio host in 2016. “We will never dare to do it, political correctness, it would be racism to say: So you say to France: … ‘For the next thirty years, you are the owner of Haiti, put it right. Kick the asses that need to be kicked.”

In his Globe commentary Rotberg displays a startling level of ignorance about Haitian affairs. While writing that “Haiti needs to become a ward of the United Nations”, Rotberg fails to recognize that the UN and foreign powers have dominated Haiti over the past 18 years. Haitians widely view the head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), Helen LaLime, a US diplomat, as colonial overseer. In 2019 BINUH replaced the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH), which replaced La Mission des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Haïti (MINUSTAH) in 2017.

MINUSTAH was responsible for countless abuses during its 13-year occupation, which consisted of 8,000 foreign troops and 2,000 police. After helping oust thousands of elected officials in 2004, 500 Canadian soldiers were incorporated into MINUSTAH as it backed up a coup government’s violent crackdown against pro-democracy protesters between March 2004 and May 2006. The UN force also killed dozens of civilians directly when it pacified Cité Soleil, a bastion of support for Aristide. The UN force was responsible for innumerable sexual abuses. The foreign forces had sex with minors, sodomized boys, raped young girls and left many single mothers to struggle with stigma and poverty after departing the country.

Aside from sexual abuse and political repression, the UN’s disregard for Haitian life caused a major cholera outbreak, which left over 10,000 dead and one million sick.

The 2004 coup and UN occupation introduced a form of multilateral colonial oversight to Haiti. The April 2004 Security Council resolution that replaced the two-month-old US, France and Canada Multinational Interim Force with MINUSTAH established the Core Group. (Unofficially, the Core Group traces its roots to the 2003 “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti” meeting where US, French, OAS and Canadian officials discussed overthrowing Haiti’s elected government and putting the country under UN trusteeship.) The Core Group, which includes representatives of the US, Canada, France, Spain, Brazil, OAS, EU and UN, periodically releases collective statements on Haitian affairs and meet among themselves and with Haitian officials. It’s a flagrantly colonial alliance. After President Jovenel Moise was killed 15 months ago, for instance, the Core Group effectively appointed Ariel Henry prime minister through a press release. Implicated in Moise’s assassination, Henry has overseen the country’s descent in chaos.

Those calling for foreign control of Haiti ignore its loss of sovereignty since the 2004 coup. By what standards was the usurpation of Haitian sovereignty successful? By basically any metric, 18 years of US/Canada, UN, Core Group influence in Haiti has been a disaster. But imperialists don’t simply ignore the damaging impact of foreign intervention. In a stark demonstration of how power affects ideology, the more Haitian sovereignty is undercut the more forthright the calls to usurp Haitian sovereignty.

As has been said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

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Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His latest book is Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People's History of the Canadian Military . Read other articles by Yves.

TOI INVESTIGATES

ISRAELI FASCISM
Ben Gvir’s policy goals: Going to extremes even Europe’s far right won’t touch

Moves advocated by Otzma Yehudit, such as deporting ‘disloyal’ citizens, go far beyond those of the continent’s ascendant nationalists and into areas where only neo-fascists tread

By JEREMY SHARON

The Times of Israel

Today,

Workers hang a large election campaign poster of Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben Gvir and take down a poster of Arab MK Ahmad Tibi, in Jerusalem on September 29, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

On September 25, 2017, Europe and the world woke up to a reality in which the radical right-wing Alternative for Germany party had secured 13 percent of the vote in federal elections and become the country’s third-largest party.

With the Holocaust still in living memory, the result sparked alarmed handwringing over the apparent resurgence of political extremism; both the international and domestic press were swiftly awash with concerns about the renewed rise of racism, xenophobia and even Nazi ideology in Germany.

In France, similar concerns bubbled to the surface earlier this year when Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally party, surged in polls ahead of a presidential election, finishing just five percentage points behind Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the election.

The Guardian newspaper warned of the “authoritarian” and “xenophobic” nature of Le Pen’s party ahead of the run-off election while The New York Times decried National Rally as “far right,” and op-eds abounded about the danger Le Pen posed to France of bolstering extremism.

On November 2, Israel may well wake up to a reality in which its own far-right outfit, Religious Zionism — which includes the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit party — manages to secure around half a million votes, winning a tenth or more of the Knesset’s 120 seats. Such an outcome would make it the country’s third-largest party — and possibly a core component of a Benjamin Netanyahu-led coalition.

On some critical issues, Otzma Yehudit appears to have staked positions even more extreme than the far-right parties troubling Europe, though Israel’s unique milieu limit direct comparisons.

Party leader Itamar Ben Gvir first entered the Knesset last year on a joint slate with Religious Zionism, but it was not until the current election cycle that the firebrand has taken center stage.

Both surging poll numbers and a propensity by opponents from across the aisle to use him as an example of the dangers of extreme nationalism have helped propel Ben Gvir from the fringes of the political conversation into a household name in Israel.

A wellspring of support, and a public softening of some of Otzma Yehudit’s most extreme positions, have allowed Ben Gvir to shed some of his previous status as a political pariah.

Just three years ago, Netanyahu’s decision to cut a deal that could have resulted in him entering the Knesset was so alarming that even the normally tight-lipped pro-Israel lobby AIPAC weighed in against it. By early 2021, the Likud leader was courting Ben Gvir’s support for his right-religious alliance, while also branding him as “not fit” for ministerial office.

Itamar Ben Gvir, center, visits Hatikva Market in Tel Aviv on Oct. 21, 2022. (AP/Oded Balilty)

With Israelis set to go to the polls in less than a week, Netanyahu has now begun publicly promising to appoint Ben Gvir to a ministerial position in any government he might form after the election, an acknowledgment of Otzma Yehudit’s soaring political clout, and a red flag to those who see the former follower of late outlawed rabbi Meir Kahane as a fundamental danger to the state.

A lawyer by profession, Ben Gvir is thought to covet the public security minister role, which would give him authority over the police. Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich has said the alliance is eyeing higher prizes such as the Defense, Justice and Interior ministries.

Ultimately, even if Otzma Yehudit does become the Likud’s senior political partner in a right-wing, religious coalition, it is unlikely that the party would be able to enact its most extreme policies for an array of reasons.

But with Religious Zionism consistently polling at up to 14 Knesset seats, with much of that forecast support tied to Otzma Yehudit itself, it appears that there is a large swath of the public potentially willing to back the party’s far-right positions, shining a light on a right-wing shift that may raise profound concerns.
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Undefined enemies

Among the most prominent policy positions laid out by Ben Gvir and Otzma Yehudit, either in the party’s manifesto or verbally, include encouraging Arab citizens of Israel to emigrate; annexing the West Bank without affording Palestinians the right to vote or other civil rights; imposing the death penalty for terrorists; using live fire against Palestinian rioters; immunity from prosecution for IDF soldiers for military actions they carry out; overhauling the legal system, crimping the High Court’s ability to strike down legislation and giving the government the ability to pack the bench with ideological compatriots.

In the 2019 and 2020 elections for the 22nd and 23rd Knessets, respectively, Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit issued a political manifesto, which was posted on the party website. Since taken down, though not replaced, it provides more details of the party’s goals.

While Ben Gvir claims to have moderated his positions in recent months, some have seen the shift as a campaign ploy. In September, video leaked of a party member describing the softened rhetoric as a “Trojan horse.”

Among the 13 specific policy areas listed in the platform, three are crucial to understanding Otzma Yehudit and Ben Gvir’s political outlook and agenda.

In a section on “The enemies of Israel,” the manifesto declares that “the war against the enemies of Israel is total,” and that Otzma’s goal is “to extend [Israeli] sovereignty to all parts of the Land of Israel which were liberated in the Six Day War and arrange the status of the enemies of Israel in the Arab countries surrounding us.”

The next related policy goal is on encouraging the emigration of Arab citizens of Israel.

“Out of a desire for true peace, Otzma Yehudit will work toward removing the enemies of Israel from our land. A national agency for emigration will be created to encourage emigration.”

The manifesto, barely two pages long and short on detail, does not lay out who the “enemies” are. (The Times of Israel made several requests to Ben Gvir’s office for an interview to elaborate further on the party’s goals but these requests were refused. A response sent by Ben Gvir to written questions posed to him appears at the bottom of this article.)

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post in 2019, Ben Gvir defined an enemy of Israel as, among other things “someone who doesn’t want a Jewish state.”

Baruch Marzel, a founding member of Otzma, said in the same year that he believes “the majority” of Arab citizens of Israel are enemies, “but not all of them.”

Head of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, Itamar Ben Gvir (C) with Bentzi Gopstein (R) and Baruch Marzel (L) at the launch of the party’s campaign, ahead of the Israeli elections, in Jerusalem on February 15, 2020. (Sindel/Flash90)

In comments published this week, Ben Gvir told The New York Times that “I have no problem, of course, with the minorities here. But whoever is a terrorist, whoever commits terror — and anyone who wants jihad and to annihilate Jews, and not only that, also hurts Arabs — I have a problem with him.”

In August, the Otzma leader told Channel 13’s Hatzinor program that all Arabs would not be automatically targeted by his emigration agency.

“I’m not going to get a truck and expel everyone. It’s not democratic.” As for who would be the first targets for his emigration ministry, he declared: “Whoever is not loyal, whoever hates, I will encourage to emigrate.”

Asked about the threshold for loyalty to the state of Israel, Ben Gvir replied, “Someone who throws stones, I know is not loyal. Someone who throws a fire bomb, I know is not loyal… You don’t need any test for that.”

However, he added that those convicted of such crimes would not be encouraged to leave but rather forcibly deported after serving their sentence.

In an interview with Channel 12 news earlier this week, Ben Gvir refused to label Jewish nationalist violence as terrorism and said such people should be imprisoned but not expelled.

“Someone who acts against the state, that is the test,” he added.

The MK also told Channel 13 that if in power he would annex the West Bank and abolish the Palestinian Authority, which administers the autonomous Palestinian areas of the territory. At the same time, he would deny Palestinian residents of the West Bank the right to obtain Israeli citizenship, essentially rewinding Israeli policy to before the Oslo Peace Accords.

He sharpened the plan in an interview with Kan in October, saying that Palestinians would have no ability to vote for the Knesset or their own representation, would pay taxes to Israel but not receive health insurance and would have no right to live in areas inside the Green Line.

The plan would in effect enshrine a regime of legal discrimination on an ethnic or national basis inside one enlarged state, now including the West Bank, in which Palestinians are denied the right to vote and denied civil rights.

Israel currently expends much energy on fending off attempts by international organizations and others to paint it as a revival of Apartheid South Africa or the Jim Crow American South. Ben Gvir’s plan would give saliency to those accusations, potentially turning Israel into an international pariah.

Activists protest against an election campaign conference of MK Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the Otzma Yehudit political party, in Tel Aviv, October 23, 2022. 

(Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Though the MK now claims to eschew the wholesale expulsion of Arabs advocated by Kahane, Otzma Yehudit’s proposals may be aimed at achieving a similar result.

The scheme would place large numbers of Arab Israelis and Palestinians, who have either taken part in low-level violent activity against Israel’s security services or are considered insufficiently committed to Israel as a Jewish state, at risk of forcible transfer or campaigns aimed at encouraging them to move abroad.

By defining loyalty as a commitment to Israel as a Jewish state, Ben Gvir’s emigration agency would target a broad segment of Arab society, including many law-abiding citizens who may not identify with the Jewish characteristics of the state, such as the national anthem.

According to a study by the Israel Democracy Institute in 2019, fully 77 percent of Arab citizens do not believe that Israel should be defined as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Ben Gvir declined to respond to a request for comment from the Times of Israel asking what means his ministry would use to encourage emigration and achieve its goal, or towards who specifically the ministry would direct its efforts.
Beyond Europe’s far-right

Ben Gvir’s proposals for Arab Israeli emigration would appear to put him even beyond the pale of far-right counterparts in Europe.

In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is often described as on the radical or far-right of the political spectrum.

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party (AfD), delivers a speech during an election campaign event of the AfD in front of the Charlottenburg palace in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. (AP/Michael Sohn)

The party rose to prominence on a harsh anti-immigrant platform accompanied by caustic rhetoric, and an agenda heavy on German nationalism. Numerous senior officials have made antisemitic, racist, or extremist comments.

And yet, even the AfD does not advocate for the emigration of ethnic minority German citizens and the establishment of a government ministry to facilitate it, as Ben Gvir and Otzma Yehudit do for Arab citizens of Israel.

The AfD pushes for strict limits on immigration, the overhaul of asylum laws and the repatriation of illegal immigrants, but nowhere mentions policies aimed at the emigration of ethnic minority German citizens.

The Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), whose founders were Nazi SS officers, is another European political party that has widely been described as radical or on the far right due to its xenophobia, anti-immigrant stances, and the association of numerous party officials with racist or antisemitic groups.

Yet the furthest the FPO goes is to call for strong restrictions on immigration and harsh standards on naturalization. The party’s manifesto says nothing about encouraging the emigration of ethnic minorities and neither have senior party officials or leaders.

It is only at the very outer reaches of the European far-right political spectrum, among neo-Nazis and fascists, where one finds factions advocating for policies similar to those sought by Otzma Yehudit.

The Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi pan-Scandinavian movement that has a political party in Sweden, is one such outfit.

Members of the far-right Nordic Resistance Movement march through the town of Ludvika, central Sweden, on May 1, 2018. (Ulf Palm/AFP via Getty Images)

The NRM proudly describes itself as “a National Socialist organization.” As a neo-Nazi movement, it opposes democracy as a form of government and is viciously racist, antisemitic and homophobic.

The NRM glorifies violence and has been responsible for numerous acts of violence against anti-racism campaigners, and LGBT activists, as well as vandalism attacks against synagogues and the Israeli embassy in Finland.

Among its various racist policies, the NRM advocates for the forced repatriation of “the majority of all non-ethnic Northern Europeans” including citizens of Scandinavian countries, a goal which would be achieved through the establishment of a “state institute” for repatriation.

NRM is far more extreme than Otzma Yehudit in numerous ways and its policy of repatriation does not even pretend to be voluntary, whereas Otzma and Ben Gvir deny they will engage in mass forced transfer.

One party whose policy is very close to that of Otzma Yehudit is the British National Party (BNP), a far-right group with roots originating in the British fascist and neo-Nazi movements of the 1960s.

A manifesto for the BNP states that the party would encourage emigration by “offer[ing] generous grants to those of foreign descent who are resident here and who wish to leave permanently” due to perceived threats to “the fundamental culture and identity of the indigenous peoples of the British Isles.”

Illustrative: British National Party (BNP) former leader Nick Griffin, center, talks to his supporters during a demonstration in central London, June 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

The BNP also advocates for discrimination in favor of “local people” for the purposes of allocating subsidized housing, and would ban religious animal slaughter practiced by Jews and Muslims.

Similar to Otzma Yehudit’s policy of expelling Arabs and Palestinians who engage in violence, the BNP explicitly calls for the revocation of citizenship “for anyone who gives aid and comfort to enemies of Britain.”

It’s worth noting, however, that the comparisons are only so useful, as Israel’s challenges and situation differ radically from those faced by Europe’s far-right parties.

Ongoing Palestinian terrorism, which has spiked significantly over the last ten months, drives fear and heightens nationalist sentiment, creating fertile ground for radical parties.

And the May 2021 riots in which thousands of Arab Israeli citizens participated in violent demonstrations in cities across Israel and which witnessed mob beatings and the arson and looting of synagogues and Jewish property is likely a proximate cause for the recent groundswell of support for Israel’s radical and far-right parties.
Democracy for the majority

Where Otzma Yehudit does line up with “mainstream” European far-right parties is on its socially conservative stances against abortion and LGBT rights, alongside advocacy for higher birth rates.

The Alternative for Germany, Freedom Party of Austria and the Nordic Resistance Movement all have specific policy platforms either promoting higher fertility rates, advocating against abortion, opposing homosexuality, or some combination of these positions.

Bentzi Gopstein (right), head of the racist Lehava organization and a former Knesset candidate for Otzma Yehudit until he was disqualified from running due to incitement to racism, stages a protest against the annual Gay Pride parade in central Jerusalem, June 6, 2019.(Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Otzma Yehudit’s support for discriminatory policies based on religious and ethnic “values” along with hostility to the tenets of liberal democracy also typify radical and far-right parties.

The party’s manifesto states specifically that the values of the state will be according to “Jewish ethics” and constitute a regime of “Jewish democracy,” which will “protect the interests of the Jewish nation-state as a value which supersedes any universal value.”

The policy statement adds: “We do not want to lose the Jewish state in any way, not through war, not in peace, and also not through the means of Western democracy.”

Otzma Yehudit and Ben Gvir’s full-throated support for measures that would strip the judicial system’s independence and place it under the government’s thumb would remove key bulwarks of “Western democracy” in Israel meant to protect minorities from the so-called tyranny of the majority and place civil rights at risk.

Such positions align Otzma, as well as the Likud and the rest of the right-wing, religious political bloc, with the illiberal, right-wing governing parties of Hungary and Poland, Fidesz and Law and Order.

Both those parties have hobbled the independence of their countries’ courts, including constitutional courts, as part of a wider effort to ensure that potentially illegal laws on asylum, LGBT rights and media freedoms can be enacted.

In Israel, Otzma Yehduit and Religious Zionism have the rights of asylum seekers in their crosshairs, as well as limitations on the ability of the state to seize private Palestinian land in the West Bank. The High Court has struck down right-wing legislation on both issues in recent years.

MK Itamar Ben Gvir, head of the Otzma Yehudit political party, and activists, protest in support of the deportation of asylum seekers in southern Tel Aviv, on October 12, 2022. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Ben Gvir’s recent call to use live fire against Palestinian rioters throwing stones or petrol bombs at security personnel, as well as rhetoric calling for the execution of terrorists by electric chair, and indeed the MK’s proclivity for brandishing his sidearm in confrontations with Arabs and Palestinians, are all reminiscent of the authoritarian approach to law and order issues advocated by far-right parties across Europe.

The world has raised alarm bells over the rise of the far-right in Europe, fearing the dangers posed to Western liberal democracy and what the growing appeal of political extremism could mean for the future of the European continent.

With forecasts showing up to 10% of Israel’s voting population poised to cast ballots for a party harboring an agenda even more drastic than those of Europe’s far-right, the klaxons may blare louder still.

A response from Ben Gvir

Ben Gvir declined to be interviewed for this article. In response to questions put to him in writing by the Times of Israel regarding Otzma Yehudit’s policies, Ben Gvir stated: “The people running the Palestinian Authority are supporters of terrorism, people who want the murder of Jews. The Palestinian Authority gives money to anyone who kills Jews. We need a strong hand against Hamas and against the Palestinian Authority. They cannot incite against us, call for murder, and harm us. We have a war with them, but not with all the Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Someone who wants to live there and understands that this is the State of Israel — they’re welcome.

“My vision is that there is a proud and secure Jewish state here. There can for sure be minorities in this country, I have no problem with Arabs as Arabs, but I do have a problem with people who are violent against the police, with people who throw petrol bombs, people who call to murder Jews and people who want to take control of this country and turn it into an Islamic state.

“In my vision, Jews and Arabs can live together but the State of Israel is the master of the house. We returned here after 2,000 years of exile, the Bible teaches us that Jews were present here on every part of the land and every field, not just in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but first of all in Hebron and Nablus. Our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Kind David were here. I am not a racist, I don’t hate Arabs, I hate terrorists and those who want to hurt us and there I do want a hard hand.”

Mississippi River water levels plummet to all-time lows

Anthony Wallace

WSWS.ORG

The fall in water levels on the Mississippi River, now lower in some places than they have ever been since recording began in 1954, is an alarming reminder of the climate catastrophe facing the world and of capitalism’s complete inability and unwillingness to address it.

Resulting from drought conditions throughout much of the Mississippi basin watershed, the outcome of the plummeting water levels in North America’s second-longest river, is a near standstill of barge commerce and the potential contamination of drinking water for thousands of people living along the lower portions of the Mississippi.                                                                                         

This image taken with a drone shows a river bank exposed by abnormally low water levels along the Mississippi River, Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Stephen Smith

The 1.2 million-square-mile Mississippi basin, which makes up 41 percent of the continental United States, and drains water from 32 states and two Canadian provinces, has been crippled by drought. From June through September, many states in the Mississippi basin—including Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota—are experiencing some of their driest months on record, and other rivers, including the Ohio, one of the Mississippi’s primary tributaries, are also enduring alarming lows.

The result of these months-long record drought conditions is that the Mississippi River is not being fed by many of the lesser rivers that empty into it.

According to data from the National Weather Service, water levels near Memphis dropped to 10.75 feet below minimum last week, which surpasses the previous low of -10.7 feet recorded in 1988. These measurements don’t indicate the river’s depth but the level in relation to the minimum depth to sustain river traffic.

Barges transport an estimated 175 million tons of freight up and down the Mississippi River each year, according to the National Parks Service, but in many parts of the river, water levels are so low that barge traffic has all but ceased. An estimated 1,700 barges, carrying countless tons of food and other goods, lined up for their turn to access limited navigation lanes near Vicksburg, Mississippi on Tuesday. Likewise, barge traffic was greatly hampered by low water levels on the lower Ohio River, where barges ran aground. The Ohio River is the conduit by which 184 million tons of cargo, especially coal and aluminum, is shipped per year, and the tributary that provides roughly 60 percent of the water to the lower Mississippi.

In the context of an already ailing economy characterized by inflation and increased cost of living, the likely result is the exacerbation of the struggles faced by millions of Americans to afford basic goods and services. Consumers will shoulder the burden while the capitalist class, the primary culprit in global climate change, continues to see climbing profits.

Commerce aside, the human health impact of these record lows, too, could be disastrous. Salt water from the Gulf of Mexico, far less inhibited by fresh water flowing from the Mississippi into the Gulf, is creeping upriver, threatening to contaminate drinking water for millions who live near the river in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Water uncertainty is already an issue in Jackson, Mississippi. As reported on the World Socialist Web Site, a boil-water advisory was implemented at the end of August and continued throughout most of September as the city’s water infrastructure proved unhealthy, insufficient and faulty. Though the boil water advisory has since been lifted, residents are still unsure whether the water they drink is safe.                         

What these two incidents have in common, the encroachment upstream of salt water and the utter failure of the Jackson municipal water system, is that they are both a result of capitalism’s policy of profits over lives.

Capitalism’s answer to this environmental crisis is to ignore the cause of the record-low water levels, global climate change brought upon primarily by industry and the capitalist class, and instead to extravagantly spend taxpayer money on shortsighted, temporary and potentially environmentally harmful tactics to ensure that business does not suffer.

Dredging the floor of the Mississippi River, thereby deepening it, has long been a tactic of the Army Corps of Engineers, the body in charge of maintaining the river. While dredging will allow an increase in barge traffic, with water levels continuing to drop throughout what is predicted by many climatologists to be a particularly dry autumn and winter, dredging will prove a temporary fix, at best.

Furthermore, dredging is not only an unsustainable response to a greater issue, but it is also prohibitively expensive. The Army Corps of Engineers dredges 265 million cubic yards of Mississippi River bottom per year, says corps representative Lisa Parker, and in 2020 that amounted to an expenditure of $2.45 billion.

As for the saltwater creeping upriver and into human and agricultural water supplies, the current plan by the Army Corp of Engineers is to build a sediment barrier. Though the details of this supposed barrier are not public, it is a desperate act of mitigation, at best.               

Meanwhile, according to the US Drought Monitor, “Topsoil moisture continues to dry out across portions of the Ohio Valley and the Corn Belt.” So, not only is it virtually impossible to ship foodstuffs to markets that depend upon the Mississippi and Ohio rivers for their transport, but the soil used to grow the food is also deteriorating.                                  

Likewise, the last few years, thanks to climate change and ever-warming conditions, have seen a marked increase in wildfires in the western part of the United States. These fires are not only increasing in quantity, says the US Forest Service, but also severity. Between 1985 and 2017, what the USFS calls “high severity” wildfires, those fires “more likely than low-severity fire to result in enduring changes to forests and negatively impact communities, other infrastructure, and municipal water supplies,” have increased eightfold, from 259 km2 to 2,103 km2 acres impacted per incident per year in this 32-year span.

Major climate disaster, however, is by no means limited to the Mississippi basin or the United States. Just this summer, Europe was absolutely wracked by heat and drought, and drought-induced wildfires have devastated many parts of the world. In 2021, according to the Global Forest Watch, roughly 23 million acres of forest were destroyed by wildfires, an area the size of Thailand.

Though the media has had much to say about the diminishing water levels of the Mississippi, precious few news outlets attribute the current widespread drought conditions to global climate change, and almost none attribute global climate change to capitalism.               

To further obfuscate, many articles about the sinking river levels focus on the lurid aspects of the crises. Much like the Lake Meade coverage which disproportionately focuses upon the human bodies found at the lake’s floor, or how recreational boating is no longer convenient, the Mississippi River articles seldom fail to mention Tower Rock, a large rock formation that, until recently, was an island only accessible by boat. Now, as is frequently reported, Tower Rock can be reached by foot. Dozens of news outlets have also picked up the story of the 19th-century ship whose remains, now exposed, were found by someone walking the previously unwalkable banks. 

An autumn storm is expected to hit the Mississippi basin early this week, providing some relief. It could be a month, however, before the residual water from this storm runs off into the Mississippi River. Furthermore, one fall storm will not fix this predicament that is more than a century in the making.                           

The only thing that can begin to mitigate and eventually counter the increasingly devastating effects of global climate change is an outright rejection of capitalism. The only body capable of hastening the end of capitalism and its brutal, profits-before-lives ethos is the international working class.

Lula's lead over Bolsonaro widens ahead of Brazil run-off

Leftist Lula has 53 percent voter support to 47 percent for far-right Bolsonaro, up from 52 percent to 48 percent the previous week, according to Datafolha institute poll.

Supporters of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva celebrate his 77th birthday in Rio de Janeiro. (Reuters)

Leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's lead over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro has widened slightly three days from Brazil's polarising presidential run-off election, according to a poll.

Lula has 53 percent voter support to 47 percent for Bolsonaro, according to the poll published on Thursday by the Datafolha institute — up from a four-point gap (52 percent to 48 percent) the previous week.

The figures exclude voters who plan to cast blank or spoiled ballots — five percent of respondents, Datafolha estimates.

Undecided voters represented just two percent.

The margin of error for the poll, which was based on interviews with 4,580 people from Tuesday to Thursday, was plus or minus two percentage points.

Lula, the charismatic but tarnished ex-president who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, won the first round of the election on October 2 with 48 percent of the vote, to 43 percent for former army captain Bolsonaro.

The candidates will face off in a final debate Friday night.

READ MORE: Brazil election turns into holy war as Lula, Bolsonaro woo religious voters

Categories of voters

Bolsonaro and his allies have attacked polling firms, accusing them of bias.

He outperformed pollsters' expectations in the first round, triumphantly boasting afterward, "We beat the lie."

Lula, who turned 77 on Thursday, leads among women (52 percent), the poor and working-class (61 percent), and Catholics (55 percent), according to Datafolha.

Bolsonaro, 67, leads among evangelical Christians (62 percent) and wealthier voters (59 percent).

The UK Tories are addicted to chaos. Can they kick the habit?

Unity is easier said than done for the modern-day Conservative Party.

Can the Tories remember what "stability and unity" means? 

| Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images

BY ANNABELLE DICKSON
OCTOBER 28, 2022 4:03 AM

LONDON — Westminster has been in a state of turmoil for years and the Conservative Party is largely to blame.

The epidemic of disloyalty and open rebellion which has brought down a succession of Tory prime ministers since 2016 reached a crescendo this year with the extraordinary dethroning of first Boris Johnson, in July, and then his successor, Liz Truss, three months later.

Rishi Sunak, who on Tuesday became the U.K.’s fifth Tory prime minister in just over six years, opened his tenure with a plea for “stability and unity” in the face of Britain’s “profound economic challenge.”

But the all-important question — as his divided party stares down the barrel of electoral wipeout — is whether the Tories can even remember what that means.
“Can we look at the days prior to Liz Truss resigning and say we were the addict who hit rock bottom?” one former Tory minister pondered, hopefully. “And that’s what allows us to pick up the pieces and get ourselves back together?”

Every Tory strategist knows the party must end the perpetual internal warfare if it is to stand any chance of a recovery in the polls.

But with painful tax and spending decisions looming, a Brexit hangover in Northern Ireland still to cure and deep divisions over the future of Britain’s immigration policy to contend with, rehabilitation may be easier said than done.

“I don’t discount our ability to shoot ourselves in the foot again,” the former minister sighed.

A former Tory adviser added: “It’s like the Tory Party have been going around a Formula One track for six years, and now you’re saying to them: ‘If you want to stay in government, you’ve got to stick to doing 20mph, otherwise you’re gonna get in trouble.’ I think it’s reasonable to question whether they can do it.”

Minor celebrities

The fear among senior Tories is that some of their colleagues have developed an addiction to the chaos which has consumed the party over recent years.

Former MPs and advisers who have operated in the Westminster bubble point to the “dopamine hit” of becoming a minor political celebrity when leading a rebellion.

Social media has allowed MPs to “invent a narrative” about themselves which is validated with the “likes” they get from their supporters on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, another veteran former government adviser said. It leaves too many MPs with a “complete inability to be able to compromise, reach across and rationalize,” they added.

Some say the chaos could stem from simply being in power for too long 

| Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images

“It is like a Facebook algorithm, isn’t it?” the former aide said. “The more you hit it, the more it feeds you that stuff that’s bad for you.”

They pointed to the toe-curling televised statement delivered by a group of euroskeptic backbenchers in the European Research Group (ERG) last week, announcing their views on the leadership contest.

“Look at the ERG, when they did that statement in central lobby,” the former adviser said. “The pomposity of it was totally off the scale.”

Others note how certain Tory MPs seem to have developed a compulsion to providing lobby journalists with aggressive, profanity-laden quotes about their colleagues, further fueling the sense of disloyalty and chaos within the party. The anonymized quotes are now traded in Westminster almost like currency, adding spice to insider articles published by news outlets across the board (including, of course, POLITICO).

A veteran former MP pondered that there had long been “dial-a-quote” MPs sounding off about their party hierarchy, but believes the phenomenon had got worse in recent decades with the advent of social media and text messaging.

“It’s similar to watching porn, I suspect,” the ex-MP said. “People just can’t stop themselves.”

Analyze this

One psychiatrist, asked by POLITICO for their professional analysis of the Conservative Party, suggested the growing lack of discipline may be a consequence of having been in power so long.

“I think that people can develop a belief that they have a natural right to government,” said Raj Persaud, a consultant psychiatrist and author.

“There was a famous thing called the divine rights of kings to be in power. They can begin to believe that no one is ever going to elect a Labour government because they haven’t elected them for so long,” he said.

Persaud also thinks some of the recent political turmoil may have its roots in the way the Conservative government reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic, imposing strict lockdowns on the British population — something he said had been a “trauma” for the wider party, acting against its every instinct.

“I think that a lot of people are now upset within the party that they’ve been in power for a long time, and they’re not entirely convinced the party has not drifted away from them,” he said.

But James Weinberg, a lecturer in political behavior at the University of Sheffield, is skeptical many MPs have really developed a taste for chaos.

It is “antithetical” to the classic personality of a Conservative MP, who research suggests tend to be “more bothered about stability,” he said.

He sees the rebellions as being motivated more by the idea Conservative MPs have “less and less to lose” by speaking out, and a belief that in extreme political circumstances — like their plummeting popularity ratings in the aftermath of Truss’ catastrophic mini-budget — the “alternative might be worse.”

Events, dear boy

Certainly, plenty of observers believe the extraordinary backdrop of the last six years should be a mitigating factor when assessing Tory MPs’ (mis)behavior.

“We left the EU, for good or for bad, and then as you were coming out and sorting that out, you had a global pandemic,” the first Tory adviser quoted above pointed out. “It’s unsurprising that it was chaotic politically.”

“People could have handled things better, for sure — but I think people will say it’s obviously a destabilizing time, and so therefore it’s unsurprising that’s reflected in politics,” they added.

Indeed, it is not the first time the party has gone through a period of division, as longer-serving party members point out.

The Conservative Party split in two after former leader Robert Peel repealed the protectionist Corn Laws in the mid-19th century. It was rife with division too in the early 1900s at the time of the Tariff Reform League, a protectionist pressure group opposed to what it saw as unfair foreign imports. There were further bitter rows in the 1930s over how to deal with dictators in the run-up to World War II. And in the post-war period, the U.K.’s relationship with European institutions became a bitter source of rancor in Tory ranks.

Time for a time out?

Every Tory MP can diagnose the problem, however. Whether they can swallow the bitter compromises required to restore unity remains an open question.

The veteran former MP quoted above believes a long spell out of power may prove the only solution for his divided party.

“It’s only after you’ve been in opposition for a long, long time that parties come to their senses,” he said. “It took from 1997 until the time when David Cameron became leader for the Conservatives [in 2005.] And then you had seven or eight years for Labour to move away from Jeremy Corbyn to Keir Starmer.”

The second Tory adviser agreed. “I think they’ve gone so far down that track as individuals,” they warned, “that they really don’t know how to pull themselves back.”

DUCK AND COVER

WW3.0

US to send high-tech nuclear weapons to Nato bases amid rising tensions with Russia

Daily Telegraph UK

By: Nick Allen , Nataliya Vasilyeva and George Styllis

28 Oct, 2022 

America is to bring forward the delivery of dozens of highly accurate guided tactical nuclear weapons to Europe amid escalating tensions with Moscow.

The new B61-12 thermonuclear bombs are “dial-a-yield” devices, meaning their payload can be changed. They are expected to be sent to Nato bases within weeks.

B61-12s have four yields that can be selected - 0.3, 1.5, 10 or 50 kilotons. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had a yield of about 15 kilotons.

The 12ft-long weapons feature new tailkits that allow them to be dropped from planes as a “dumb” gravity bomb, or in “guided drop” mode, with an accuracy of within 30m.

The move is part of a decade-long US$10 billion (NZ$17b) upgrade programme for several variants of B61-class unguided nuclear bombs, which first became part of the US arsenal in 1968.

Currently, the US has 100 older B61s stored at bases in European countries including Germany and Italy.

In what was seen as a move to reassure Nato allies amid Russian nuclear-sabre-rattling, the replacement process will begin in December, having previously been expected next spring.

Allies were told about the move last month, Politico reported.

The new weapons have had “all of the bomb’s nuclear and non-nuclear components” replaced or refurbished, according to the US energy department.

In addition to making them more accurate, the modifications have reduced the yield from the bombs they are replacing.

The US bombs being delivered to Europe can be dropped by a variety of aircraft including B-2 stealth bombers, and smaller warplanes like the F-15, F-35 and Tornado.

The Pentagon denied that the process of upgrading them had been affected by Kremlin posturing, or fears Russia could deploy a “dirty bomb” in Ukraine.

A Pentagon spokesman said it was “in no way linked to current events in Ukraine and was not sped up in any way”.

They added that the modernisation of B61 nuclear weapons had been “under way for years”.

The development came as Vladimir Putin dismissed accusations that Russia could use a tactical nuclear weapon as a “fuss,” and blamed the UK for initiating provocations.

He accused Liz Truss of having publicly threatened Russia with a nuclear attack when she was prime minister.

Putin claimed the former prime minister had made a “folly” and was a “bit out of it,” adding: “Someone should have corrected her. Washington could have said they have nothing to do with that.”

In a long speech, Putin described the Ukrainian crisis as part of “tectonic changes in the world order that have been going on for several years now”.

He added: “We are facing a historic milestone. Ahead of us is possibly the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time crucial decade since the end of the Second World War.”

First defence review in four years

As Putin spoke, the US released its long awaited National Defence Strategy, the first in four years, and its Nuclear Posture Review.

The 80-page defence strategy said China was “the most consequential strategic competitor for the coming decades”, and that would determine how the US military is equipped and developed in the future.

There was also a strong warning for Kim Jong-un that his regime would “end” if he used a nuclear weapon.

It said: “There is no scenario in which the Kim regime could employ nuclear weapons and survive.”

The review said US nuclear weapons were a deterrence not just against nuclear, but also conventional, attack.

“This includes nuclear employment of any scale, and it includes high-consequence attacks of a strategic nature that use non-nuclear means,” the document said.

It also confirmed the cancellation of a new submarine-launched cruise missile announced when Donald Trump was president.

Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said the US already had enough nuclear capability.

He added: “I don’t think this [the cancellation] sends any message to Putin. He understands what our capability is.”

Austin added: “We are certainly concerned about escalation, we have been so from the very beginning of this conflict. It would be the first time that a nuclear weapon has been used in over 70 years.”

On Wednesday, Putin watched the so-called “Grom” exercises by Russia’s strategic nuclear forces, involving intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and long-range bombers.

Austin said: “We haven’t seen anything to cause us to believe, at this point, that [the exercise] is some kind of cover activity.”

Pentagon’s strategy won’t rule out nuclear

use against nonnuclear threats

U.S. troops in Fort Bragg, N.C., prepared to deploy to Eastern Europe in early February in response to the crisis in Ukraine. | KENNY HOLSTON / THE NEW YORK TIMES

BY TONY CAPACCIO
BLOOMBERG
Oct 28, 2022

The Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy has rejected limits on using nuclear weapons long championed by arms control advocates and, in the past, by U.S. President Joe Biden.

Citing burgeoning threats from China and Russia, the Defense Department said in the document released Thursday that “by the 2030s the United States will, for the first time in its history face two major nuclear powers as strategic competitors and potential adversaries.” In response, the U.S. will “maintain a very high bar for nuclear employment” without ruling out using the weapons in retaliation to a nonnuclear strategic threat to the homeland, U.S. forces abroad or allies.

Biden pledged in his 2020 presidential campaign to declare that the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be used only to deter or retaliate against a nuclear attack, a position blessed by progressive Democrats and reviled by defense hawks. The threat environment has changed dramatically since then, and the Pentagon strategy was forged in cooperation with the White House.

The nuclear report that’s part of the broader strategy said the Biden administration reviewed its nuclear policy and concluded that “No First Use” and “Sole Purpose” policies “would result in an unacceptable level of risk in light of the range of nonnuclear capabilities being developed and fielded by competitors that could inflict strategic-level damage” to the U.S. and allies.

Mackenzie Eaglen, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said she is “struck by how strong their position is on nuclear modernization and policy, and how much national security continuity there is between administrations of different parties. They’re willing to postpone their visionary policies in light of the harsh reality on nukes from China and Russia.”

President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have openly raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons in their invasion of Ukraine. But on Thursday, Putin said Russia only gave “hints” in response to repeated U.S. and European discussion of a possible nuclear conflict. “We don’t need a nuclear strike on Ukraine — there is no point, either military or political,” Putin told an audience of foreign policy analysts outside Moscow.

In the document, which was framed before the invasion, the Pentagon says Russia continues to “brandish its nuclear weapons in support of its revisionist security policy” while its modern arsenal is expected to grow further.

Meanwhile, China remains the U.S.’s “most consequential strategic competitor for coming decades,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a letter presenting the new defense strategy. He cited China’s “increasingly coercive actions to reshape the Indo-Pacific region and the international system to fit its authoritarian preferences,” even as it rapidly modernizes and expands its military.

China wants to have at least 1,000 deliverable nuclear warheads by the end of the decade, the nuclear strategy document says, saying it could use them for “coercive purposes, including military provocations against U.S. allies and partners in the region.”

The nuclear strategy document doesn’t spell out what nonnuclear threats could produce a U.S. nuclear response, but current threats include hypersonic weapons possessed by Russia and China for which the U.S. doesn’t yet have a proven defense.

It does spell out, however, in the strongest terms, what would happen to another nuclear power, North Korea, if it launched a nuclear attack on the U.S., South Korea or Japan. That action “will result in the end of that regime,” it says. U.S. nuclear weapons continue to play a role in deterring North Korean attacks.

The nuclear strategy affirmed modernization programs including the ongoing replacement of the aging U.S. air-sea-land nuclear triad. Among them are the Navy’s Columbia-class nuclear ICBM submarine, the ground-based Minuteman III ICBM replacement, the new air-launched Long-Range Standoff Weapon and F-35 fighter jets for Europe carrying nuclear weapons.

The review confirmed previous reports that the Pentagon will retire the B83-1 gravity bomb and cancel the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile program. But the review endorses a controversial Trump-era naval weapon, the low-yield W76-2 submarine-launched nuclear warhead, which is described as providing “an important means to deter limited nuclear use.”

The broader strategy report also offered gently worded criticism of major U.S. weapons programs, which often runs years behind plans and billions of dollars over initial budgets.

“Our current system is too slow and too focused on acquiring systems not designed to address the most critical challenges we now face,” the Pentagon said. It called for more “open systems that can rapidly incorporate cutting-edge technology” while reducing problems of “obsolescence” and high costs.

The Pentagon strategy documents were sent to Congress in classified form in March so they were considered during congressional approval of the fiscal 2023 defense budget.

Golf-For 9/11 families LIV Golf is 'Death Golf,' says advocacy group

By Steve Keating - Yesterday 

FILE PHOTO - 9/11 families protest LIV Golf's tournament at Trump Golf Course© Reuters/EDUARDO MUNOZ

MIAMI (Reuters) - As Donald Trump was teeing off in a Pro Am event at the season finale of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Series at the ex-president's Trump National Golf Club on Thursday, the 9/11 Justice Group was meeting a mile away in a small hotel conference room.

As they have done at every LIV Series stop in the United States, the advocacy group comprised of family members and survivors of the attacks on the World Trade Center was in Miami to shine a spotlight on the Saudi government.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001 were from Saudi Arabia. However, the kingdom has long denied a role in the attacks on the Twin Towers, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

The 9/11 community accuses LIV golfers of being little more than well paid mercenaries in a "sportwashing" scheme by a nation trying to improve its reputation in the face of criticism over its human rights record.

Saudi Arabia's government has denied accusations of human rights abuses.

"When asked about Saudi atrocities and involvement in 9/11 and helping the Saudi's sportwash, some golfers stated they are just trying to provide for their families," said Dennis McGinley, whose older brother Danny was killed in the collapse of the South Tower.

"Our brother Danny and 2,976 others were just trying to provide for their families as well that day.

"LIV Golf to us is Death Golf."

Controversy has hung over the LIV golf venture, which is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, from the start and will follow the series to Sunday's final round where the team champions will be crowned and a whopping $50 million paid out.

LIV CEO Greg Norman, golfers and officials have all been questioned about taking Saudi money and on Thursday reissued a brief statement in response to Reuters' request for comment.

"As we have said all along, these families have our deepest sympathy. While some may not agree, we believe golf is a force for good around the world,” read the LIV statement.

That, however, is not how members of 9/11 Justice view things.

"Phil Mickelson recently stated that golf is a force for good. They are turning it into a sport for greed aimed at sportwashing," said McGinley.

The group said they have repeatedly asked for a meeting with LIV officials and golfers but have gotten no response.

JUSTICE CAMPAIGN

This week 9/11 Justice stepped up their campaign by running a television commercial on CNN protesting against the Saudi-funded golf league.

They told Reuters they also plan to be at Trump National for Friday's opening round but expect to be removed since they will wear 9/11 Justice baseball caps.

While LIV Golf has mostly ignored 9/11 Justice, the group says they have their full attention.

In a letter to Senator Robert Menendez, Democratic Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, seen by Reuters, the group said LIV is being provided with management and consulting services "apparently including monitoring and tracking the advocacy of families of 9/11 victims who were protesting the tour because of its ties to the Saudi government."

Trump, whose resorts hosted two of eight LIV tournaments, on Thursday praised the Saudis as "very good people" with unlimited money who had done a fantastic job.

But Juliette Scauso, the daughter of New York fire fighter Dennis Scauso who ran into the crumbling towers to rescue people and died, wants to ask LIV Golfers face-to-face if they really know where the prize money is coming from.

"How much money would it take for you to turn your back on your country," asked Scauso, a medical student who flew in from Ireland to be part of the protest. "My father died a hero.

"To all those involved in the LIV tournament and Donald Trump, my father wasn't the type of person who could be bought.

"I just want you to know that if you were there that day my father would have run in to save you without a second thought."

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Miami; Editing by Ken Ferris)