Another Oil War, Another Perfect Reason to Stop Burning It

It’s a dirty business that’s ruining the planet and jeopardizing our futures in countless ways, of which this despicable war in Iran is just the latest and highest profile.

Explosions erupt following strikes at Tehran Oil Refinery in Tehran on March 7, 2026.
(Photo by Atta Kenare/ AFP via Getty Images)


Kyle Schmidlin
Mar 31, 2026

Common Dreams

On February 28, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started a war with Iran. Since then, violence has spread throughout the Middle East. On the first day of bombing, the US bombed an elementary school, killing more than 100 children. Iran struck back, hitting Israel and US bases in the region. Israel expanded into Syria and Lebanon, bombing apartment buildings in Beirut. A few weeks ago Israel bombed oil depots in Tehran, engulfing the sky in flames and raining toxic oil on a population bigger than New York City.

But all Americans can think of, naturally, is the price of gas.



As Another Oil-Fueled War Erupts, Study Reveals Planet Heating at Unprecedented Rate



As G7 Weighs Measures to Confront Growing Energy Crisis, Officials Urged to Tackle ‘Fossil Fuel Profiteering’

Oil is both a major driver of this war and, for now at least, the primary way Americans are feeling its effects. The war drives home the grim reality that we are hostage to this toxic ooze that burns dirty, poisons wildlife, causes cancer, and accelerates climate change. The necessity to wean ourselves off of it, as quickly and completely as possible, has never been more apparent.

An Oil Crisis of Trump’s Own Making

Even Trump is subservient to the whims and demands of the oil economy. Since he started the war, he’s tried desperately to control the chaotic effect his bombing campaign has had on global oil markets. Trump may not be bright, but he understands one very basic political reality: He can cover up the Epstein files, get away with all manner of fraud and graft, and even commit war crimes—but he cannot let the price of gas get too high.

Oil makes all our lives dirtier and less safe. Fighting wars so we can dig it up until it’s all gone—or until we are—is as stupid, reckless, and self-destructive a thing as any animal has ever done.

From a strategic perspective, then, the focal point of the war quickly became the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow passageway out of the Persian Gulf that pinches down between southern Iran and the Omani Musandam Peninsula. The strait is an essential shipping lane for 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as a third of the global fertilizer trade. With essentially uncontested control of the strait, Iran has closed it to “enemy-linked” ships. Iran insists that non-hostile ships pay a toll in Chinese yuan, which is an attempt to undermine the supremacy of the petrodollar.

The crisis at the Strait of Hormuz is entirely of Trump’s own making, and has triggered an erratic series of threats, pleas, lies, and bargaining from him as he tries to keep his stupid war from grinding the global economy to a halt. Trump has even threatened to deploy the US Navy to escort ships through the strait. One has to wonder how sailors feel about being offered up as bodyguards for Qatari tankers, thrown into a situation where they would be wide open for Iranian drone and missile attacks.

Trump the Oil Imperialist

Trump sees this war almost entirely through the lens of oil. As part of alleged ceasefire negotiations, Trump claimed Iran “gave us a present… worth a tremendous amount of money… it was oil-and-gas related.” That turned out to be Iran allowing 10 oil ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Trump also implied that those high gas prices causing so many people pain at the pump are actually good for the country. Because the US is a net exporter of oil, Trump said, “When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money”—perhaps forgetting that most Americans do not own oil companies.

Compare Trump’s constant talk of oil with the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2003-06, calling Iraq a war for oil was considered a conspiracy theory. Dissidents and war critics were driven out of polite conversations for even bringing it up. Insinuating that the troops would ever be deployed for such an ignoble purpose was treated as beyond the pale, if not treasonous, by Fox News and the Bush White House.

This time, there’s next to no pretense of nobility in Trump’s war. While lots of motivations, with varying degrees of believability and logic, have been given—ranging from halting Iran’s nuclear capabilities to ushering in Armageddon—the Trump administration is perfectly open about the centrality of oil to their war mission. In a way, it’s almost refreshing to hear a politician speak so forwardly about their imperialist intent, even if it does lay bare the villainy of the US empire.

In addition to the Strait of Hormuz, Trump is focused on Kharg Island, a small island in the Persian Gulf that handles up to 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is among the most bloodthirsty war hawks on the planet, encouraged Trump to seize Kharg Island (and compared such an operation to Iwo Jima, in which 7,000 Marines died—no skin off Lindsey Graham’s back). Trump himself then said, while discussing his military options, “My favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran.”

Trump has long openly fantasized about using the military to conquer oil fields. In 2013, before his political career really started, he tweeted, “I still can’t believe we left Iraq without the oil,” and he repeated this urge to plunder Iraq’s oil during the 2016 election. To Trump, this is just how the world works: If your guns and bombs make bigger holes and explosions, you get to just take whatever you want, anywhere in the world. There is no right, no wrong, no law.

This also tracks with how Trump has handled the oil industry in Venezuela. Last year, Trump started claiming that Venezuela had stolen, or “unilaterally seized and sold American oil.” This claim was a reference to Venezuela nationalizing their oil industry and evicting American oil companies. Then, in January, the US military abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, an astonishing breach of international norms. With Maduro gone, Trump began shadily directing Venezuelan oil revenue into an offshore Qatari account.

The Need to Wean Ourselves off of Oil

Such oil imperialism long predates Trump. Just ask other offenders of the US oil monopoly, like Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein. Oil is the locus of US foreign policy. The US military itself is the single largest institutional polluter and user of fossil fuels. It’s a dirty business that’s ruining the planet and jeopardizing our futures in countless ways, of which this despicable war in Iran is just the latest and highest profile.

The simple answer to all this madness is to wean ourselves off of oil. It won’t be easy, and we’ll probably never be fully rid of it, but we aren’t even trying. There are a million ways we could start cutting back, a million investments we could make toward a future that is as oil free as possible. But Trump is doing everything he can to keep us addicted to it, including starting an unpopular and illegal war.

Trump has always been particularly pro-fossil fuel. He loves the nonsensical phrase “beautiful clean coal.” He calls green energy a “scam” and has repeatedly made the utterly deranged claim that windmills cause cancer. His administration displays a psychotic obsession with destroying green energy initiatives, most recently paying a French energy company $1 billion to cancel a wind farm and instead invest in oil and gas.

Oil makes all our lives dirtier and less safe. Fighting wars so we can dig it up until it’s all gone—or until we are—is as stupid, reckless, and self-destructive a thing as any animal has ever done. With a little bit of will and some leadership, we could control our greed and addiction. If we were able to do that, we might not find ourselves charging into the Middle East on such a regular basis, burning through American lives and treasure, killing countless men and women and children, and making the rest of the world hate us.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Kyle Schmidlin
Kyle Schmidlin is a freelance writer who also runs the Third Rail News blog.
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Disgraced ex-GOP rep claims US has a secret 'alien hybrid breeding program'

Matthew Chapman
March 31, 2026 

RAW ST0RY

 


Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) (Photo: Gage Skidmore)​

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) made an eyebrow-raising claim on air with a far-right talk show host: the U.S. government is not only covering up the existence of extraterrestrials, but breeding them.

Gaetz told Benny Johnson that he received this information from an official briefing.

“I had someone come and brief me who was in a military uniform, worked for the United States Army, that was briefing me on the locations of hybrid breeding programs where captured aliens were breeding with humans to create some hybrid race that could engage in intergalactic communication," said Gaetz, in a clip flagged by a social media channel following alien conspiracy theories. "An actual uniformed member of the United States Army briefed me on that.”

He went on to say that the humans who were "abducted from war zones" and even from "migrant caravans" were forced by the government to interbreed with space aliens and that crash sites of unidentified aerial phenomena often contain evidence of “non-human biologics.”

Gaetz did not provide evidence to substantiate that this conversation happened, and did not clarify why he didn't make this public while he was a member of Congress.

Gaetz was a firm ally of President Donald Trump in Congress and was the president's first choice to serve as attorney general during the transition. His nomination was derailed as congressional ethics committees uncovered fresh information about claims that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct with a minor, violated campaign finance law, and committed a number of other transgressions.

Gaetz has denied these allegations and was never charged with a crime, but was forced to step aside as a result of the investigation.

Judge May Reconsider Dismissing Maduro’s Case Due to US Blocking His Legal Funds

While affirming that the right to present a defense is “paramount,” the judge refused to dismiss the case — for now.

By Marjorie Cohn

March 28, 2026

Source: Truthout

Maduro kidnapping

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein refused to dismiss drug trafficking charges against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores on March 26, even though the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is blocking funds for their legal defense, in violation of the Sixth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

But Hellerstein reserved the right to revisit the issue in the future if he determines that OFAC is arbitrarily obstructing the money for Maduro’s counsel of choice.

Venezuelan law provides for the payment of legal fees for the president and first lady. But OFAC issued — then three hours later retracted — a license to Venezuela that would allow the country to circumvent U.S. sanctions and pay for their defense.

“As a result [of the sanctions], counsel cannot provide a legal defense to Mr. Maduro or receive funds from the government of Venezuela to do so without first obtaining a specific license from OFAC,” Barry Pollack, Maduro’s defense attorney, wrote in the motion to dismiss the indictment.

Maduro and Flores have been in custody in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since January 3, when U.S. forces illegally kidnapped them from Venezuela and transported them to New York, while killing approximately 100 people. The indictment charges that Maduro, Flores, and other members of the Maduro government committed narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine into the U.S.

“After invading another country and forcibly bringing its sovereign head of state to the United States, the government of the United States is now actively preventing him from retaining counsel of his choice and receiving a fair defense in this Court, in violation of his Sixth Amendment and Due Process rights,” Pollack wrote.

“The U.S. government has unlawfully interfered with President Maduro’s Sixth Amendment right to legal counsel by revoking the OFAC license that allowed for payment of legal services,” National Lawyers Guild President Suzanne Adely told Truthout. “This is an outrageous and direct interference in his legal defense and should be grounds to end this sham prosecution immediately and free Maduro and his wife Cilia.”

When Hellerstein asked U.S. prosecutor Kyle Wirshba at the hearing on the motion to dismiss, “What is the interest of the government now in blocking those funds?” Wirshba replied: “National security and foreign policy.”

Hellerstein said: “I see no abiding interest in national security in the right to defend yourself. The right to defend is paramount.”

The judge added, “We are doing business with Venezuela … Things have changed in Venezuela … We do business with Venezuela; the oil is important because of the Strait of Hormuz.”

Hellerstein noted that the executive order establishing the sanctions was signed by President Barack Obama. “The interests are no longer implicated,” the judge told Wirshba. “Maduro and Flores are here. We have changed the situation in Venezuela. I don’t concede that what’s in the executive order is implicated anymore.”

“There is the Constitutional right to choose counsel,” Hellerstein declared. Regarding payment of the legal defense, he added, “Isn’t that a matter for Venezuela?”

Hellerstein asked Wirshba whether the judge could order OFAC to issue a specific license, and he replied, “I do not believe you have the authority as part of this case.”

Maduro does not personally have the funds to pay his lawyer Pollack, who asked the judge to dismiss the indictment because OFAC is blocking the defense funds.

Pollack has said that if he cannot be paid, he would like to withdraw from the case so the court can appoint other counsel to defend Maduro. Although Hellerstein acknowledged the Sixth Amendment right of defendants to counsel of their own choosing, he refused to dismiss the case at this stage.

The judge told Pollack he could withdraw from Maduro’s defense because “Defense by CJA [Criminal Justice Act Panel] or Federal Defender is adequate.”

But the Supreme Court has interpreted the Sixth Amendment right to counsel as the right to effective — not simply adequate — representation.

Moreover, appointing a public defender to represent them would drain legal resources intended for those who can’t afford attorneys, Pollack said, and that is not sensible in “a case where you have someone other than the U.S. taxpayer standing ready, willing and able to fund that defense.”

Hellerstein agreed that defending Maduro would entail “great expense” and exhaust the resources of most public defenders.

“Not only would the Court need to appoint counsel and foist the cost of Mr. Maduro’s defense on the United States taxpayers, despite the willingness and obligation of the government of Venezuela to pay Mr. Maduros [sic] defense costs, but also any verdict against Mr. Maduro would be constitutionally suspect,” Pollack wrote in the motion to dismiss.

The judge reserved his final ruling, stating, “If I find that in this case a specific license was arbitrarily withheld and the government does not comply, you could raise dismissal. For now, it’s too serious.”

“Despite the presence of pro-Trump protesters calling for Maduro’s prosecution, civil society organizations are rallying, in New York and elsewhere, calling for Maduro and Cilia’s freedom and for justice and accountability for the criminal and violent kidnapping of a sovereign leader and imperialist aggression,” Adely told Truthout.

The first Trump regime severed relations with Venezuela in 2019, and the Biden administration continued that policy. Since the U.S. aggression against Venezuela and kidnapping of Maduro and Flores on January 3, 2026, the Trump administration is in the process of re-establishing formal diplomatic ties with Venezuela. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, interim president of Venezuela, is a member of Maduro’s Bolivarian government.

OFAC has issued a license for Venezuelan diplomats to travel to the United States this week. That puts a lie to the U.S. prosecutor’s claim that national security prevents the incarcerated Maduro from receiving Venezuelan funds for his legal defense.

The defense motion to dismiss the indictment did not address Maduro’s immunity defenses, which will be raised in future proceedings. Meanwhile, we await Judge Hellerstein’s ruling.Email

Marjorie Cohn

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People's Academy of International Law, and former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is a member of the national advisory boards of Veterans For Peace and Assange Defense, and is a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.

The Sordid History of State Collusion With the Far Right

During the conflict in the North of Ireland, British security forces colluded with loyalist paramilitaries responsible for hundreds of sectarian murders. The record of collusion should be a cautionary tale for the contemporary US as the far right grows.

By Shane Burley

March 30, 2026

Source: Jacobin

Image by Alisdare Hickson, Creative Commons 2.0

The protest taunt “Cops and Klan, hand in hand” emerged from an observable phenomenon: far-right vigilantes have long been either disproportionately represented in law enforcement agencies or allied with them. During the 1960s, Southern sheriffs fought civil rights advocates by day while Klansmen took over at night — and they were often the same people.

While the Klan may have seen themselves as opponents of the state, they frequently served the same ends. The far right has always played this role, drawing sections of the working class into reactionary movements that claim to be rebellious while ultimately defending the status quo by acting as an effective foil to the political left.

This dynamic has played out in other countries, especially in areas like the North of Ireland where minority rights are at the heart of conflict. When a civil rights movement emerged demanding equal rights for the nationalist minority in the late 1960s, unionists responded with violence, dismissing it as a plot by the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Loyalism was a militant working-class unionist movement based around paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), ostensibly to defend against IRA violence but primarily geared toward repressing Catholics in general. There was a thirty-year guerrilla war involving the IRA, the British state, and loyalist paramilitaries.

Although loyalists occasionally clashed with British soldiers, their violence overwhelmingly targeted Catholic civilians. From beginning to end, the state security forces treated Irish republicans and loyalists in radically different ways. Collaboration rarely appears as formal policy but instead operates through informal relationships, ideological alignment, and the quiet avoidance of accountability.

Crimes of Loyalty

According to the Sutton Index, the most comprehensive record of violence between 1969 and 2001, loyalists killed 1,027 people, of whom 878 were civilians, the vast majority being Catholics who were selected mostly at random because of their communal background. When the modern UVF formed in 1966, it was banned after carrying out sectarian murders at a time when the IRA was inactive in the North. Apart from a brief period of legalization in the mid-1970s, it remained a proscribed organization.

The UDA, on the other hand, was not outlawed until 1992. If journalists wanted to contact its leaders, they only had to consult the telephone book. UDA members carried out sectarian murders under a flag of convenience, calling themselves the “Ulster Freedom Fighters” (UFF) to hide culpability. The UFF had no independent existence, and its supposed members served time in prison on UDA-controlled wings.

In one 1981 government memo, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland is alleged to have said that proscription would be counterproductive, undermine the recruitment of informants, and lead to further distrust of the government on the part of Protestants. The chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary claimed that the majority of UDA members “did not act illegally.” In the year when the group was finally proscribed, loyalist paramilitaries killed more people than the IRA.Collaboration rarely appears as formal policy, but instead operates through informal relationships, ideological alignment, and the quiet avoidance of accountability.

The British Army had a locally recruited part-time militia called the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) whose membership was almost exclusively Protestant. British state documents admitted that it was “inevitable that a part of the Protestant element of a part-time regiment in Ulster will sympathize with the aims of the UDA; and it is suspected that there are cases where this sympathy is carried to the test of active membership.”

A 1973 British military intelligence document reported that “joint membership” of the UDR and the UDA was believed to be common, with as many as 15 percent of UDR recruits belonging to “Protestant extremist organizations.” A 2006 international panel report looked at twenty-five cases relating to a total of seventy-six murders between 1972 and 1976. It found that “evidence suggests collusion by members of the RUC or the UDR” arising from shared membership.

In 1974, in response to a proposed power-sharing agreement between unionist and nationalist parties, the UVF bombed Dublin and Monaghan, killing thirty-three people and injuring nearly three hundred. The following year, UVF members staged a fake UDR checkpoint near the border with the South, where they stopped a popular Irish music group, the Miami Showband. At first, they attempted to place a bomb in the band’s van to frame them as Republican terrorists who were accidently blown up by their own weapon. When the bomb detonated prematurely, they opened fire on the band members, killing three of them.

In both cases, there was extensive evidence of collusion by the state security forces with the UVF. Several UVF members who participated in the Miami Showband massacre were also members of the UDR. The Glenanne Gang, a squad of UVF-affiliated gunmen under the leadership of Robin Jackson, was linked with both atrocities, as well as dozens of other sectarian killings. The gang included serving members of the RUC and the UDR.

Intelligence Sharing

One of the most important forms of collusion involved the leaking of intelligence. Debate persists over whether intelligence reached loyalist paramilitaries simply because of political sympathy from members of the security forces or whether there was a high-level strategy to intentionally guide loyalist assassinations in service of the British state. The Force Research Unit (FRU), a secretive army intelligence force, is at the heart of those debates.

Brian Nelson, who served as director of intelligence for the UDA during the 1980s, was a paid FRU informant. He reorganized the UDA’s intelligence files with the assistance of his army handlers. The FRU is historically controversial for prioritizing the protection of its own agents over intervening to stop attacks. Nelson helped the UDA assassinate key Republicans and organized a major shipment of weapons from South Africa in the late 1980s.

Nelson’s targets included Pat Finucane, a Belfast lawyer who represented several IRA suspects and had exposed police misconduct. Two UDA operatives stormed Finucane’s home and shot him over a dozen times in 1989 while his wife and children watched. The murder was one of the most blatant examples of collusion in Northern Irish history: the men responsible for it included agents from the FRU and RUC Special Branch. There have been multiple inquiries into Finucane’s killing that have generated vast quantities of documentation about the record of collusion, despite efforts by successive British governments to conceal the truth.

In 1989, the UDA killed a twenty-eight-year-old father of four, Loughlin Maginn, who had no relationship with Republican organizations. In an effort to prove their target was a legitimate one, the UDA pointed to intelligence, including documents and videos, it had received from state security forces. This was one of the cases that revealed Nelson’s role as government agent and UDA intelligence chief. Two UDR members were convicted of Maginn’s murder, and Maginn’s family sued the British state over evidence of collusion.The peace process that began in the 1990s led to further revelations about Britain’s role in the ‘dirty war,’ much to the displeasure of British government officials.

One of the conflict’s most appalling atrocities took place in the small village of Loughinisland in 1994, when UVF gunmen murdered six men in a bar who had been watching the Republic of Ireland play in the World Cup. There were no arrests by the authorities in connection with the massacre. The police ombudsman later concluded police officers actively protected informants, interfered in the investigation, and knew that weapons were being imported for loyalist operations.

The peace process that began in the 1990s led to further revelations about Britain’s role in the “dirty war,” much to the displeasure of British government officials. The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act of 2023 shut down legal channels of accountability by halting criminal investigations into events that took place before the Good Friday Agreement.

Murky Boundaries

The patterns we can observe in recent Irish history have also been apparent in the United States for decades. In a 2019 Military Times poll, 35 percent of active-duty military personnel reported encountering white supremacist ideology among their fellow troops. Servicemen have been found associating with the Aryan Nations, a neo-Nazi organization, and more recently with accelerationist terror networks like The Base and Atomwaffen.

This led to a 2020 congressional hearing, which identified the influence of white supremacists in the military as an “alarming” terror threat. Anti-fascist researchers have further validated this concern over the past few years, revealing service members in the ranks of groups like Patriot Front and on the neo-Nazi Iron March forum.

With police forces, the connections to far-right groups are even more striking. As of 2022, the Anti-Defamation League reported that the Oath Keepers, a leading far-right group, had at least 373 active police officers in its ranks as well as at least 1,100 former officers and at least a hundred military personnel. Similarly, Reuters found a significant number of far-right militants operating inside police forces around the country, including the Proud Boys.

During the 2000s, the Minuteman Project ran “spot and report” missions on the border where they allegedly handed captives over to Border Patrol. More recently, we have seen the same picture with Arizona Border Recon. Recent reporting has suggested “murky boundaries” between local militias and private security officers who are being deputized to go after migrants near the border. The murkiness also comes from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) recruitment tactics, which seek to pull from the same ideological communities as militias and promote a general acceptance of far-right views.

Police have also been found to draw on support from far-right militias in arresting left-wing protesters, including a 2018 incident in Portland, Oregon, where a Patriot Prayer member aided a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officer in arresting an anti-fascist. This may be because the Portland police saw the far right as “more mainstream” than the anti-fascists, which may also be why they have passed information to them about counterdemonstrations.The Chicago Police Department declined to investigate Proud Boys and Oath Keeper membership among eight officers.

Far-right officers are rarely sanctioned. The Chicago Police Department declined to investigate Proud Boys and Oath Keeper membership among eight officers. Studies show police are three times more likely to use violence against left-wing protesters. In 2018, Santa Clara County police were found liable for publicizing information about anti-fascist demonstrators that could leave them open to assault and harassment.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the 2020 uprising, armed militia members walked the streets, allegedly to protect businesses. The police on the scene thanked these armed civilians, supplied them with water, and refused to enforce the curfew against them. Soon afterward, Kyle Rittenhouse, a seventeen-year-old boy who had traveled to the area with an AR-15, shot and killed two people. Rittenhouse was allowed to walk right past officers with his gun visible; he was later acquitted of homicide and lionized by the Republican Party.

Subsequent reporting showed that the police in Kenosha saw the militias as allies rather than as adversaries. This phenomenon is called “auxiliary policing,” where non-state actors committing violence are allowed to act as an extension of law enforcement against the shared object of their hostility. This was how loyalist paramilitaries were treated in the North of Ireland, with police and security forces seeing them as potential allies in the dirty war they were fighting.

America in 2026

Like the UVF and the UDA, far-right groups in the United States can engage in a type of violence the state is not able to deploy itself, one that is without accountability. However, such paramilitary squads are only necessary when the state cannot act with impunity in its own right. With ICE’s massive expansion and the National Guard deployment, the Trump administration may simply not need extrajudicial violence since it has state actors available.The Trump administration may simply not need extrajudicial violence since it has state actors available.

Trump has invited ideologically committed figures into a range of senior governmental positions, including Stephen Miller, whose connections to organized white supremacy run deep, and Ken Cuccinelli, an admirer of the Confederacy whose rhetoric echoes the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. These leaders are hiring the personnel who will enact their vision.

DHS social media accounts have been posting rank racist memes, including celebratory videos of immigrants being dragged away. The government has refocused “anti-extremism” on the alleged threat of left-wing violence rather than far-right terrorism and directed law enforcement to consider left-wing movements as inherently terroristic.

Trump has, of course, pardoned his supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. A recent Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee report found that both the FBI and DHS failed to assess the threat on January 6 despite advance warnings and did not share relevant intelligence.

One former FBI special agent was indicted for assault, as was a former police officer (himself a member of the Proud Boys) who participated in the raid on the Capitol. A Washington, DC, police intelligence lieutenant was later charged with obstruction and providing false statements after he leaked intelligence information to Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, then lied to cover up the collusion. For those with an eye to Northern Ireland’s history, this all looks uncomfortably familiar.Email

Shane Burley

Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of "Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It." His work has appeared in places such as Jacobin, In These Times, Political Research Associates, Waging Nonviolence, Labor Notes, ThinkProgress, ROAR Magazine and Upping the Anti.

Trial begins over alleged hit squad network linked to French Masonic lodge

A complex criminal trial has opened in Paris, where 22 people are set to appear in court over allegations of murder, attempted murder and other serious offences linked to a Masonic lodge accused of operating as a covert mafia network.


Issued on: 30/03/2026 - RFI

Defendant Pierre Lebris arrives for the opening of the so-called Athanor trial, in which 22 people are facing a wide range of charges, including murder, centred on the Athanor Masonic lodge accused of running hit squads, at the Assize Court in the Tribunal Judiciaire courthouse in Paris, on 30 March 2026. 

AFP - THOMAS SAMSON

Court proceedings, which got underway on Monday, are expected to run for at least three months, with seven of the defendants – including former intelligence agents, soldiers and business figures – facing the possibility of life imprisonment if convicted.

At the heart of the case is the Athanor Masonic Lodge in the Paris suburb of Puteaux. Prosecutors allege that the lodge served as a hub for a tightly organised network that carried out violent acts ranging from assaults to contract killings.

Among those in the dock are at least four freemasons, alongside four officers from France’s DGSE external intelligence agency, three police officers, six business executives, and professionals including a doctor and an engineer. Most of the accused, aged between 30 and 73, have no prior criminal records – a detail that has added to the intrigue surrounding the case.

The alleged ringleaders – Jean-Luc Bagur, Frederic Vaglio and Daniel Beaulieu – are all linked to the Athanor lodge and are accused of orchestrating a series of crimes through a structured chain of command. They, along with Beaulieu’s associate Sébastien Leroy, face the most severe penalties.

From botched plot to major investigation

The case first came to light following a failed contract killing in July 2020. Two members of France’s parachute regiment were arrested near the home of business coach Marie-Helene Dini while in possession of weapons.

Under questioning, the pair claimed they believed they had been tasked by the state to eliminate Dini, alleging she had ties to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

Investigators quickly uncovered links to Bagur, a business rival of Dini and the 69-year-old “venerable master” of the Athanor lodge. According to prosecutors, Bagur commissioned the hit for a fee of €70,000, allegedly passing the task through Vaglio to a network overseen by Beaulieu, a former agent with the French secret service.

Leroy, described as the operational leader of the group, later admitted in custody that he and his associates had carried out numerous violent acts on behalf of the network. These allegedly included robberies, assaults and at least one murder – that of racing driver Laurent Pasquali, whose body was discovered in a forest in 2018.

Prosecutors say the group’s activities escalated over time – evolving from acts of revenge to more organised and lethal operations. One alleged incident involved industrial espionage, in which a businesswoman was attacked and her computer stolen. In another, a car was set ablaze after its owner reportedly uncovered financial irregularities linked to Bagur.

Troubling questions

As the trial unfolds, it is expected to shine a light not only on the alleged crimes but also on the unusual composition of the group – which includes individuals from law enforcement, intelligence and professional sectors.

Leroy has told investigators he believed he was acting in the interests of the state throughout, claiming he had been misled by Beaulieu and encouraged to think he was working towards becoming an informant.

For Marie-Helene Dini, the intended target of the 2020 plot, the case is deeply unsettling. Her lawyer, Jean-William Vezinet, has described it as “terrifying”, noting that many of those implicated were figures entrusted with public responsibility.

Uncertainty remains over what testimony Beaulieu will be able to provide. His lawyer has said he suffered lasting impairments after an apparent suicide attempt while in custody, including difficulties with concentration.

Despite the gravity of the allegations, the trial is also being seen as an opportunity for the French justice system to demonstrate its thoroughness and independence – particularly given the sensitive roles held by some of the accused.

(with newswires)

Murder trial involving Freemasons, French secret agents opens in Paris court


A Paris court on Monday began hearings in a major trial involving 22 suspects accused of murder and other serious crimes on behalf of a mafia network inside the Athanor Masonic Lodge in the Paris suburb of Puteaux. The accused include police officers, former French intelligence agents and businessmen.


Issued on: 30/03/2026 
By: FRANCE 24

Businesswoman Marie-Helene Dini (L), the alleged target of a failed assassination attempt, enters a Paris court with her lawyer Jean-William Vezinet on March 30, 2026. © Thomas Samson, AFP

Twenty-two people went on trial in France on Monday on charges of murder and other serious crimes centred on members of a Masonic lodge accused of running hit squads.

Thirteen of the defendants face life imprisonment.

Those in the dock include four military personnel from France's foreign intelligence service (DGSE), two police officers, a retired domestic intelligence officer, a security guard and two business executives.

They are accused of the murder of a racing driver, the attempted murders of a business coach and a trade unionist, aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy – all on behalf of a mafia network inside the former Athanor Masonic Lodge in the Paris suburb of Puteaux.

Several freemasons from the 20 or so members of the lodge are in the dock.

Most of the accused, aged between 30 and 73, have no previous criminal records.

Five of the suspects are in custody and 16 are under judicial supervision, while one woman is appearing in court as a free person.

The alleged ringleaders are Athanor Freemasons Jean-Luc Bagur, Frédéric Vaglio and Daniel Beaulieu. They face life in jail if convicted.

So does Beaulieu's right-hand man Sébastien Leroy, who is accused of carrying out the trio's dirty work himself or through a hit-man network.

The case was triggered by a botched contract killing in July 2020, when two members of France's parachute regiment were arrested in possession of weapons near the home of business coach Marie-Hélène Dini.

Under questioning, they said they thought they had been asked to murder Dini on behalf of the French state on the grounds that she worked for Israeli spy agency Mossad.
Escalating crimes

Investigators discovered a link to Bagur, who is a business coach rival of Dini's as well as being the 69-year-old "venerable master" of the Athanor lodge.

Investigators say Bagur asked fellow Freemason Vaglio to arrange to have his rival eliminated for a fee of €70,000 ($80,600).

Vaglio, a 53-year-old entrepreneur, allegedly acted as the intermediary between the big boss and a hit squad working for fellow Athanor Freemason Beaulieu, a retired agent for the domestic intelligence service (DGSI).

The leader of the hit squad, Leroy, admitted in police custody that he or his associates carried out most of the Athanor mafia's assaults, robberies and murders – including the killing of a racing car driver.

As time went on, the crimes ordered by the Freemason mafia escalated from petty revenge attacks to homicide.

In a case of industrial espionage, Leroy's gang allegedly assaulted a businesswoman in the street and snatched her computer.

The car of one of Bagur's associates went up in flames in 2019 after she discovered evidence of financial fraud within his company.

In 2018, the body of racing driver Laurent Pasquali was found in a forest.

He had been bumped off, according to French media, allegedly for not paying a debt he owed to friends of Vaglio's.

'Terrifying'

Leroy, who left the military to become a security guard, told police he thought he had been acting all the time on behalf of the government.

He complained that Beaulieu had "manipulated" him and dangled the idea of him becoming an informant for the DGSI spy agency.

"What my client found terrifying is the fact that the key figures in this case – police officers, former DGSI agents and Freemasons – are precisely the people who are supposed to act for the good of society," said Dini's lawyer Jean-William Vezinet.

It is unclear what information the prosecution may be able to elicit from Beaulieu.

He made an apparent attempt to kill himself in police custody, which left him disabled and with "impaired concentration", his lawyer told AFP.

The trial is expected to run for at least three months.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

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