Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-12-01 Monday

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

Democracy Now! Monday, December 1, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. May God bless the United States, President Trump, his administration, and may God bless Honduras. President Trump's announced plans to pardon former Honduran President, one Orlando Hernandez, serving a 45-year sentence in the U.S. for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States. Trump made the shocking announcement ahead of Sunday's election in Honduras, where Trump-backed candidates leading in the polls. We'll go to Honduras for the latest. Then the Trump administration stopped issuing visas for Afghan nationals and has halted decisions on all asylum applications after an Afghan man.

who once worked for the CIA opened fire near the White House shooting two members of the West Virginia National Guard, killing one. We'll speak to the head of Afghan Abak, which has helped resettle Afghans in the United States. My number one concern is that all these

195,000 Afghans that came here during the last administration are going to be painted with the brush of this man. We'll also speak to reporter Spencer Ackerman, his latest piece is headlined, he killed for the CIA in Afghanistan, Trump blames Afghan culture instead of Langley's. All of that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

Venezuela's condemned President Trump's unilateral declaration in a Saturday post on social media that all airspace surrounding Venezuela is closed. Meanwhile, President Trump said the U.S. is poised to launch attacks inside Venezuela itself. This comes as Republican-led committees in the House and Senate say they'll hold oversight hearings to investigate the Pentagon's attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific following a Washington Post report, alleging Defense Secretary Pete Higgseth ordered the killing of all crew members on an alleged drug vessel, including the survivors of an initial strike. According to the Post Secretary Hegseth ordered the killing of two people as they clung

to the smoldering wreckage of their boat after a first attack by the U.S. off the coast of Trinidad. A source told the post, quote, the order was to kill everybody, unquote. Under international law, it's a war crime to refuse to spare the lives of people who are attempting to surrender or otherwise unable to fight. Human rights groups, meanwhile, have condemned all of the Pentagon's attacks on boats as war crimes. On Sunday, President Trump denied Hegseth gave an order to kill everyone aboard the vessel. But later in the evening, Hegseth contradicted Trump's denial, posting a meme on social media,

depicting the children's cartoon character, Franklin the Turtle, opening fire from a helicopter on boats below. Meanwhile, then as well as Vice President Elsie Rodriguez called on other, oil-producing states in OPEC to oppose any U.S. attack on Venezuela. Venezuela formally denounces before this body that the government of the United States of America intends to take control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves, the largest on the planet, through the use of lethal military force against the territory, the people and the institutions of the country. President Trump says he'll pardon Honduras's former president who was sentenced by a U.S. court last year to 45 years in prison for directing a massive cocaine trafficking operation. Prosecutors showed how Juan Orlando Hernandez was president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022 ran Honduras as a narco state, accepting millions of dollars and bribes from cocaine traffickers in exchange for protection, including.

deploying the Honduran National Police to safeguard cocaine loads as they were transported through Honduras. News of Trump's looming pardon came just days ahead of Sunday's presidential elections in Honduras, where a right-wing candidate from Juan Orlando Hernandez's party has taken a narrow lead just under half the votes, having been counted at this point. Nasrias Fora is the former mayor of Tagusa Galpa. He received a boost when Trump endorsed him and threatened to cut off aid to Honduras. if voters elected one of his rivals who Trump assailed as communists. The death toll from Israel's more than two-year assault on Gaza surpassed 70,000 Palestinians

over the weekend, according to Gaza's health ministry. Al Jazeera is reporting that Israeli drones dropped a bomb near Afarabi school Saturday morning, killing two brothers, Juma and Faditama Abu Asi. On Sunday, three more Palestinians were killed and two others injured in Israeli attacks, raising the death toll to 356 since the U.S. brokered ceasefire went into effect October 10th. Meanwhile, Israel returned 15 more Palestinian bodies to Gaza as part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal. This comes as Israeli forces claim to have killed 40 Hamas fighters in southern Gaza over the past 40 days. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces Thursday fatally shot two Palestinian men at point-blank range.

After they appeared to surrender to troops, the killings were captured on video, showing the two men coming out of a garage, holding their hands up and lifting their shirts to show they were not carrying explosives. The troops later shot the men dead. This comes as the Waha News Agency is reporting Israeli forces have arrested a 16-year-old child at a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as Israel intensifies drone operations over the Janine. refugee camp. Israeli authorities have freed a Palestinian-American boy after holding him for over nine months without trial in an Israeli military prison where he says he was physically and psychologically tortured. Muhammad Ibrahim of Palm Bay, Florida, was just 15 years old when Israeli forces arrested him in the occupied West Bank for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli settlers' vehicles. If convicted, he faced up to 20 years in prison. Ibrahim was released on Thanksgiving Day following a pressure campaign for more than 100 U.S. civil rights groups as well as 27 members of Congress.

He was hospitalized after his release, treated for severe weight loss and scabies that left him with a serious skin infection. His family said they had almost no direct contact with Ibrahim throughout his detention. In October, a boy told a human rights group he and other Palestinian prisoners suffered beating severe. cold, starvation, social isolation, and medical neglect. Meanwhile, in Syria, Israeli forces raided a village outside Damascus Friday, killing 13 people, including two children. Six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the clashes. Israel claimed to be targeting members of Lebanon's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime last December, Israel's launched frequent air raids across Syria and ground incursions in the South. The Trump administration stopped issuing visas for Afghan nationals and has halted decisions on all asylum applications after a 29-year-old Afghan man opened fire near the White House last Wednesday, killing a soldier with the West Virginia National Guard and leaving another in critical condition. Ramanola Lacanwal has been charged with first-degree murder, will likely face terrorism charges. He previously worked in a CIA-backed Afghan army unit known as a zero unit. He entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a program that saw the U.S. evacuate thousands of Afghans who face reprisals from the Taliban over the support of the U.S. occupation.

He applied for asylum in 2024 and was granted refugee status last April under the second Trump administration. President Trump called the attack an act of hatred committed by an animal, pledged his administration would revet every Afghan-granted asylum in the U.S. Meanwhile, United Nations Special Rapporteur in Afghanistan has spoken out against collective punishment. Richard Bennett said in a statement, quote, The perpetrator should face accountability, but the entire Afghan community must not be punished due to the actions of one individual, unquote.

President Trump's announced he is canceling all executive orders signed by former President Joe Biden using an auto pen, which is a device that reproduces signatures. President Trump has also used auto pen to sign official documents. Back in September, the White House hung a photo of Biden's auto pen signature instead of Biden's portrait in the walkway featuring portraits of former presidents. Biden signed 162 executive orders during his presidency, though it's unclear how many were signed using auto pen. President Trump rescinded nearly 70 of Biden's executive orders shortly after taking

office in another 19 in March. President Trump Wednesday blasted New York Times reporter Katie Rogers, calling her ugly after she published a story raising questions about President Trump's health, writing he was, quote, showing signs of fatigue. The article also detailed an oval office event last month where President Trump appeared drowsy with drooping eyelids, dozing on and off for several seconds. President Trump also insulted CBS News White House correspondent Nancy Cordes on Thursday after she asked him about the suspect in Wednesday's attack on two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. Trump snacked back at her, are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? unquote.

Last month, President Trump called Bloomberg's White House correspondent Catherine Lucy piggy after she questioned him about releasing the Epstein files. In Hong Kong, officials say at least 151 people died in a fire that engulfed a high-rise apartment complex last Wednesday. The blazes Hong Kong's deadliest of more than 70 years and the exact cause has yet to be determined. Eight people have been arrested on corruption charges after investigation revealed. The netting that covered scaffolding used in renovations was not up to fire safety codes. This is Joey Young, whose grandmother's home was consumed by the fire. All the memories have all gone, and it's all because of those people who cause the fire. I can't accept it.

So today I came with my father and my family to lay flowers. I'm not asking to get anything back, but at least give some justice to the families of the deceased, to those who are still alive. A Babson college student was deported to Honduras while she was trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. 19-year-old Annie Lucia Lopez-Belosa was told there was an issue with her boarding pass before she was detained by immigration officials at the airport and sent to Texas and then to Honduras. The day after she was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting the government from removing her from the United States for 72 hours. Lopez-Belosa told the Boston Globe she's currently staying with her grandparents in Honduras. A judge in Georgia's dismissed the election interference case against President Trump. The ruling effectively ends the last effort to prosecute Trump for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Pete Scandalakis, executive director of the prosecuting attorney's counsel of Georgia, said he would not pursue charges against President Trump. More than a thousand people have died in devastating floods and landslides in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand, leaving hundreds of thousands of people stranded without shelter. In Indonesia, nearly 600 people have died, and over half a million are displaced on the island of Sumatra as authorities frantically search for survivors. In Thailand, at least 170 people were killed in one of the worst floods in decades. Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, 334 people died as a result of cyclone dithwa. It's the worst natural disaster to hit the island in 20 years since the devastating 2004 tsunami.

On Sunday, low-lying areas of Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, were first. flooded after heavy rains triggered mudslides across the island. Nearly 148,000 people have been displaced. Rain nonstop for three days. We heard about the warnings of flooding, but we didn't expect water levels would get this high. As usual, we moved our belongings that could be moved to a higher level, but that didn't help. Everything is underwater. In the Philippines, tens of thousands of protesters marched in the capital Manila calling for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to resign after a corruption scandal revealed his government took billions and kickbacks from faulty flood

control projects. Heavy losses from two recent typhoons which killed more than 250 people spurred public outrage. Marcos has vowed that at least 37 government officials implicated in the corruption scandal be in jail by December. But protesters say many more officials should be in jail sooner. It's been five months since the flood control scam erupted and no high official has been jailed yet. After what Ombudsman Ramula said that at least 10% of Congress is involved in the anomalies in flood control projects, a case has been filed and a warrant issued for only one person. The senators and congressmen involved have still not been jailed. In California, four people were killed, 11 others hospitalized after a gunman opened fire on a child's birthday party at a banquet hall in the city of Stockton Saturday.

Police say a suspect or suspects remain at large, according to the gun violence archive. There have been at least 380 mass shootings in the United States so far this year. And the Trump administration announced it will no longer commemorate World AIDS Day, which is observed around the world today, December 1st. According to an email viewed by the New York Times, the State Department this month instructed employees and grantees to, quote, refrain from publicly promoting World AIDS Day through any communication channels, including social media, media engagement, speeches, or other public-facing messaging, unquote. Earlier this year, the Trump administration froze funding for many public health programs

dedicated to fighting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. Coming up, ahead of Sunday's election in Honduras, President Trump announced plans to pardon the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, serving a 45-year sentence for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States. We'll go to Honduras. Stay with us.

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Kalalata, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the war in peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. President Trump has announced plans to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, serving a 45-year sentence in a U.S. prison for trafficking hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States.

Last year, Hernandez was convicted in New York of drug trafficking and weapons charges. He once bragged, quote, we are going to stuff the drugs up the gringo's noses, unquote. A trial prosecutor showed how Hernandez ran her. Honduras as a narco state, from 2014 until 2022, accepting millions of dollars and bribes from cocaine traffickers in exchange for protection, including deploying the Honduran National Police to safeguard cocaine loads as they were transported through Honduras. One unnamed drug enforcement administration agent who worked on the case described Trump's move as, quote, lunacy. Trump's announcement came on Friday, two days before Hondurans went to the

poll Sunday to pick a new president ahead of the vote. Trump also endorsed the conservative candidate, Nasri Tito Espuda, the former mayor of Teguza Galpa. He's a member of the right-wing national party, the same party as Juan Orlando Hernandez. Asphoda has a slim lead in early election results. Trump wrote on Truth Social, if Tito Asphoto wins for president of Honduras because the United States has so much confidence in his policies and what he will do for the great people of Honduras, we will be very supportive. If he doesn't win, the United States will not be throwing good money after that. Trump continued. Additionally, I'll be granting a full and complete pardon to former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who's been, according to many people that I

greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly, unquote. This all comes as the Trump administration has been bombing drug boats in the Caribbean Pacific and has, called for the closing of all their space over Venezuela, saying that Venezuela is involved with drug trafficking. For more on the possible pardon and the Honduran elections were joined by two guests. Dana Frank is Professor of History of Merita at the University of California, Santa Cruz, author of The Long Honduran Night, Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the aftermath of the coup.

She attended the trial of Juan Orlando Hernandez last year here in New York. And in Honduras, Rodolfo Pastor is with us, the former secretary of the presidency under the current president, Yamada Castro. He's also a Libre Party candidate for city council in San Pedro Sula, where we're speaking to him right now. We welcome you both to democracy now. Let's begin with Rodolfo Pastor in Honduras. Can you talk about the pardoning, well, it looks like the imminent pardoning of, Juan Orlando Hernandez, often called Joe, J-O-H, in prison for 45 years for drug trafficking and other charges, the significance of this? Of course, Amy, good to be here. Thank you so much for paying attention to Honduras for waking up to results that are shocking the and are in a degree, at least, reflection of what President Trump stated a few days before

the elections happened. For us, it's shocking. It's a blow to Honduran dignity and democracy that a foreign president would, first of all, state publicly what his preferences were. he actually suggested that Honduran should vote for a specific candidate and he went even further as to suggest that he would pardon Juan Orlando Orlando. I think it exposes a very stark contradiction between what he is trying to portray as a justification for what's happening in the Caribbean Sea and against Venezuela

and at the same time what is going on here in Honduras. I mean, this is, as you very clearly stated, a man who conspired to traffic tons and tons of cocaine and weapons between Honduras and the United States. He is someone who has been sentenced and convicted for his crimes committed against the United States, but someone who has not been held accountable by Honduran justice. Hondurans were at a first moment very hopeful that because of what the U.S. had been able to do, what the Southern District of New York and the attorneys there had been able to do, what the court system in the United States had done, was just a partial justice for Honduras. Because here in Honduras, there has been no process against one Orlando, Landis.

So for President Trump to be so bracing, in intervening in a sovereign process right before the elections and also to be so hostile and aggressive in his stance, you know, he's almost threatening Honduras that if we don't do what he is demanding that we do, then that he will wreak vengeance against Honduras by sending back someone who's done so much damage here. Can you talk about who the three candidates are? And again, the significance of Trump saying, if he, as Foda doesn't win, that the U.S. would be withholding money to Honduras. Exactly. He's basically threatening Honduras if we go ahead and make a sovereign decision right before our elections, right? And the three candidates, the main party candidates were, number one,

Rick Zimonkada, who is the candidate for the official party and who represents the continuation of what Siomara Castro as president has started, which is a third alternative party that was born from the resistance to the coup back in 2009 and reshaped the electoral and political party system here in Honduras against two traditional historic parties that had alternated in power for the last. century. So this was a very progressive reform-oriented project that has been, as results are coming in, devastatingly defeated. On the second place, in second place, it would be National Tito Asfura, who represents the National Party, which is the same party, as you

also stated that Juan Orlando comes from and who is surrounded by most of the people who surrounded Juan Orlando during his government. And in the third place, it would be Nasrallah, who is this TV broadcaster who portrayed himself as an outsider, who represents the very traditional, the most historic political party in Honduras, the liberal party, and who was perceived as the most probable winner of the elections until Trump came in with his statement. So the result that T-plus-Fuda is now leading the polls, that Lived has been sent to a very distant third place in the results, is in many ways a reflection of this very hostile attitude by President Trump, who basically discarded Nasrallah as having any possibilities.

he accused him of being a socialist in disguise, of having aided Siamada, because, of course, at one point, we all joined forces to be able to oust Juan Orlando and his very corrupt, very authoritarian, very repressive regime. And for siding with Tito Asfura, so basically President Trump is saying we're going to double, we're going to bet down on the national party on being our closest partner. and we do not care if they have very deep, deep links with organized crime and drug trafficking. So when you contrast that against what's going on in Venezuela, it's just so much hypocrisy on behalf of Trump. Rodolfo Pastor, I remember interviewing your dad, Rudolfo Pastor Faskel, when I was in to Gus Agapa, flying in with the former president, the ousted president, Mel Zelaya, wife, Yamara Castro, who is president of Honduras now, when they flew back into Honduras after being ousted in a U.S. back coup. That was back in, what, 2009, and it was under Obama

and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. So this intervention is not new, and that led to the rise of Joe, right, of Juan Orlando Hernandez. U.S. intervention is nothing new for Honduras. Amy. You know, we are the emblematic Banana Republic. We've been in so many ways shaped by U.S. intervention for the last century in our country. And the coup back in 2009 was a shocking reminder of the fact that we're still subjected to that kind of empire. What happened after 2009, as a result of the coup, was that Juan Orlando was able to make it to power and not only be there for what the Constitution allowed him to be president for a four-year term, he got re-elected

against the Constitution that prohibits that re-election from happening and with the backing again of the United States. And so, you know, from the beginning, from the get-go, what we started learning was that if the United States knew and understood the links that Juan Orlando had to drug trafficking, the corruption that he was responsible for here, the crimes that he was responsible for here, and would stand for him to be re-elected against the constitutional prohibitions. We knew that there was not a lot to do. We went to elections in 2013, saw him get elected for the first time. We actually, the Libre Party won those elections, but, you know, through the fraud and through the advantage that drug money gave Juan Orlando Hernandez

and public money that had been grafted gave one Orlando Hernandez. We were defeated. We again went to the polls in 2017. We won again in that occasion with Salvador Narala as the candidate of the opposition, and yet we were again defeated through fraud and were repressed when we protested against that fraud. And it was finally in 2021 that Ciomara Castro was finally elected as the first woman president of Honduras, and a transition period had started.

It's been a very, very difficult four years for Ciomara Castro. We were confronted with a country that had been destroyed in so many ways by the Juan Orlando administration, which stole enormous amounts of public money, which stopped investing in health, in education, in energy. And so we were rebuilding the country. And for this to come to a halt in such a brutal way, in such an abrupt way again, and also as a result of U.S. intervention, or should I say directly as a Trump intervention, because he did so in a very personal way, he did so on his own social media. And I have not seen as of yet, Amy, any kind of statement coming out of the State Department or the White House or the Department of Justice. that was such an important ally to bring Juan Orlando to justice. I want to bring Dana Frank into this discussion.

University of California, Santa Cruz, professor of history, emerita. You've written a book on Honduras, deeply involved with covering what's going on there. And I last spoke to you when you were going every day to Juan Orlando Hernandez's trial here in New York. This is astounding. Our top news headline is Venezuela's condemned President Trump's unilateral. declaration that all airspace surrounding Venezuela's closed, Trump said the U.S. is poised to launch attacks inside Venezuela itself because he says the president of Venezuela is a drug trafficker. And here he says he's going to pardon a leading drug trafficker,

someone convicted of drug trafficking. By the way, that's in addition to his brother, Tony Hernandez, who's serving a life sentence here for drug trafficking. Can you talk about the significance of this moment? Well, you know, obviously this contradiction between Trump's criminal acts attacking people of Venezuela, Colombia, and other parts of an Ecuador in the name of fighting drug trafficking. And that, you know, that is up front for regime change in Venezuela and wanting Venezuelan oil. So all of this is about his rhetoric and really dangerous military acts against Venezuela, in the name of fighting drug trafficking

and at the same time he pardons one of the, you know, this famous bug fraff of her. And, you know, I want to underscore that the evidence from the Southern District of New York was overwhelming. And, and, Juan Orlando has been, Hernandez has been sentenced to 45 years in the U.S. federal prison.

And, and, but I, you know, one of the things that's missing here is that this is not just contradiction in terms of drug war. It's an outrageous subversion of rule of law in the United States. For the president to just, you know, tweet out on, tweet out or send out in social media that he's going to pardon a major former president of another country convicted of drug trafficking and other crimes

and just throw the Justice Department conviction of Juan Orlando and all their years and years of many people working on this case impeccably. To just throw that out the window is also terrifying for the people of the United States. So what he's doing is a threat to democracy in Honduras, outrageously, but also in the United States. And of course, we're used to saying it's outrageous, but here he is showing, he's showing overt sympathy to a criminal and saying, well, he, you know, he's obviously bonding with a criminal, another president who's a criminal in the, and, you know, supporting Asfuda, who's, who worked closely with Juan Hernando, and, you know, Osfuda, the candidate that Trump supports, you know, worked, um, Claus, uh, has himself been charged,

was stealing a huge amount of public money that was destined for a light rail system in Tegucigalpa and Masralla, the other right-wing candidate, you know, supports Laikasfura, Bukele, and Ile and Trump. You know, it's this authoritarian right project that Trump is supporting at the point of a gun here. You know, this is a really terrifying act of intervention into the, as, as Rudo pointed out, into another country. It's not news, but it's to so bodily intervene in an election. It's like blackmail. If you don't support us futa, we're going to, we're going, you know, who knows, the gunboats could be out there attacking Honduras of Brixie wins. And I think people know that in Honduras, and you want to remember about the question of the immigrants in here, because

a third or a quarter, the Honduran economy runs on remittances. And Trump is already attacking Honduran immigrants in really dangerous and terrifying ways and deportations. So, you know, I think we want to be alarmed about all this. What surprised you most? I mean, you've covered Honduras for decades. You've taught about it. You've written about it. When you sat in that trial, the extent of Juan Orlando Hernandez's involvement with drug

trafficking, with cocaine into the United States, the man who, Trump says he's about to pardon? Well, you know, it was breathtaking, and the evidence was not just like, not just about Juan Orlando about his Minister of Security, that the U.S. worked with for many years, about his right-hand man, Abald Diaz, you know, on and on, all sorts of people in his regime and in his party, with which Asfuda, the National Party candidate, is affiliated. And, you know, the other thing in this that, you know, I think people may not be aware is, you know, not only did Obama and Trump and Biden all support Juan Orlando and look the other way at his many crimes,

but his crimes, as Rulo underscored, are not just about drug trafficking. He supported the coup when he was on a, when he was on a congressional committee. He led the so-called technical coup that overthrew the Supreme Court in 2012 when he was president of Congress. He, you know, he turned the military and the troops on peaceful protesters in 2017, when he ran completely illegally for re-election. But, you know, I think something people are not aware of is also that the Biden administration and the Trump did not want Trump to be, excuse me, did not want, we have Hernandez to be extradited. You know, two weeks after Shamarro was inaugurated and Juan Orlando was out of office, Biden, you know, Biden administration finally allowed Juan Orlando and Andández to be extraded, the United States to be extraded. United States, but the Southern District of New York had been working on that for five years. And in the year before, had been trying to indict Juan Orlando, and Biden would not allow it. So there's this long history of U.S. military support for Juan Orlando and for his regime and for

his many crimes. And so it's not like even Biden acted heroically. This is a long history of the U.S. supporting Wanderlando. And Trump is just one more link in that chain. But, you know, it is shocking if you saw the amount of evidence in that trial and how impeccable those prosecutors are. It was extremely impressive to watch their work and how careful they are. And to see that thrown out, you feel that in your gut about what happened to the rule of law in the United States in this, as well as the subversion of the rule of law in Honduras. And why was Juan Orlando not prosecuted in Honduras? Because the U.S. supported the coup and the post- coup regimes, which destroy the rule of law and on many fronts. And that's why the gangs moved into that gap.

And that's why there's so much mass poverty and why people have had to flee to the United States. In addition to historian Dana Frank, we're joined by Spencer Ackerman, the Pulitzer Prize, a national magazine award-winning reporter. Author of Rain of Terror, had the 9-11 era destabilized America and produced Trump. And author of the Forever Wars newsletter. You wrote a very interesting piece, Spencer. The legacy of the war on terror reaches South America. As we talk to Rodolfo Pastor and Dana Frank, can you talk about this moment where President Trump has said he's going to pardon a major convicted drug trafficker who is supposed to spend

the rest of his life in jail and the bombing of supposed to drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific and the closing of the airspace over Venezuela saying he's about to attack it for drug trafficking, he claims. Yes, thank you. Good morning, Amy. I think we're at a really dangerous point in American history right now. Naturally, I don't need to tell you or your guests the legacy of the American dirty wars in Latin America of the 1980s on the war on terror. But now we've got the war on terror reflected in the way that the Trump administration is

targeting Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras, I'm sorry, Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, and beyond. We learned over the weekend that the initial strike on these fishermen boats back in September was a double-tapped strike, ordered by the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegesith himself and executed with the full approval of the, at the time, Joint Special Operations Command Commander, Admiral Mitch Bradley, who's now the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, this was beyond even many of the illegal actions taken of the war on terror. However, this shows the moral degeneracy that the war on terror has left as a legacy in the U.S. military, not just the tactic of a drone strike, but the willingness to kill civilians. The double-tap strike, the strike means that

that's a second strike on a target already struck to ensure no survivors. If those were, in fact, people with whom the United States is at war with, as the Trump administration claims, then the second strike is a blatant violation of the law of armed conflict. You are supposed to leave survivors and not give no quarter. If we are not in fact at war, as for other purposes, the Trump administration's Office of Legal Council says when it's trying to avoid congressional authorization of these sorts of strikes, then this is simply like every other strike that is killed now over 80 people, simply a criminal act of murder.

I mean, you have now Republican-led committees in both the House and the Senate saying they're going to hold oversight hearings to investigate the Pentagon's attacks on the boats, particularly that one September 2nd, where two men survived, were hanging on to the boat and they struck it again. You have President Trump trying to defend Hegseth, who sources say was the one who ordered the second strike. And what did he do last night? That's Secretary of Defense Hegseth. He tweeted out or put on social media a meme of the children's cartoon character, Franklin the Turtle, opening fire from a helicopter on boats below. So, both the House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats, like Senators Reid and Wicker, calling for an investigation into war crimes here.

And this goes together with the senators and the senator and Senator Kelly in Arizona and the other Congress members, former military and intelligence saying, do not follow illegal orders. It doesn't matter if you were ordered from a superior. you will not be protected if you engage in war crimes. This is a make-or-break moment for American democracy. We need Hegssith impeached. We need Bradley impeached. Obviously, there's a separate question about Trump, who's ultimately responsible for this. But these men must not be permitted to remain in their jobs. They are turning the military into a criminal operation.

We can have a great historical debate about all of the staff. necessary to produce that point and previous examples of military commanders following illegal orders. But this is unambiguous. This is as bright line of violation as it gets. This turns the military into something that I think even those Republicans on those committees who have been willing to put up with and have been complicit in so much, as frankly have the Democratic members, this is a step too far. But if there is no accountability for this moment, we should expect it to repeat. And you also have, at this point, in addition to Republicans and Democrats calling for investigation,

the top Pentagon lawyers, the military lawyers who would say to headset this is illegal, he fired them many months ago. As well as he fired the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman simply for being black. This is someone who never should have been anywhere close to the office. of the Secretary of Defense, one of the most powerful offices in the world. I want to point out a really important forthcoming date. That's December 12th. Reportedly, December 12th is the final day that Admiral Alvin Holsey, the Southcom

commander, who apparently quit to refuse these criminal orders, is out of his job and out of the military. It's going to be crucial to bring Holsey in front of congressional hearings to talk about exactly what he did ahead of his decision to quit, what Hegsith ordered him to do, what others inside the Secretary of Defense's office ordered him to do that apparently he was not willing to do. This is going to be a crucial moment of investigation if we are to recapture any semblance of lawfulness over the U.S. military. Spencer Ackerman, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, founder of the Forever Wars newsletter. I want

thank you for being with us and ask you to stay with us because we want to ask you at the end of the show about a piece you just wrote he killed for the CIA in Afghanistan. Trump blames Afghan culture instead of Langley's. We want to ask you about that. But I also want to thank Dana Frank for joining us, Professor of History America at UC Santa Cruz, speaking to us from California, and Rodolfo Pastored, Honduran politician, former secretary of the presidency under President Shemara Castro, speaking to us from Honduras. Next up, the Trump administration stopped issuing visas for Afghan nationals. After an Afghan man, who once worked for the CIA, opened fire near the White House,

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This This is Democracy Now Democracy Now dot org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We look now at President Trump's call to pause all asylum decisions after an Afghan man, who once worked for the CIA, opened fire near the White House last Wednesday, shooting two National Guard members killing one. Ramanula Lacanwaal allegedly killed West Virginia National Guard specialist Sarah Bextram.

She was 20 years old and critically wounded Andrew Wolfe. who is 24. On Thursday, Trump posted on social media, quote, I will permanently pause migration from all third world countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all the millions of Biden, illegal admissions, only reverse migration can fully cure the situation other than that happy Thanksgiving to all, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything in America stands for. You won't be here for long, Trump.

wrote. Lackin Wall's charge with first-degree murder will likely face terrorism charges. He previously worked in a CIA-backed Afghan army unit known as zero unit, often called a death squad by human rights groups. He entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a program that saw the U.S. evacuate thousands of Afghans who faced reprisals from the Taliban over their support of the U.S. occupation. He applied for asylum in 2024 and was granted refugee status last April under the second Trump administration. Still with us, Spencer Ackerman, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. We're also joined in Washington, D.C. by Lelai U, the executive director of Project Anar.

And in San Diego, California, we're going to start with Sean Van Diver, president and board chair of Afghan Evac. Sean Van Diver, this horror that took place in Washington, the shooting, of the two National Guardsmen, one of them now dead. Can you talk about Trump's response? Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me on this morning. Look, there's just no question. This is an absolute tragedy. No family should have to deal with an epidemic of gun violence in our country, and it's awful that we've lost one of these National Guardsmen, Ms. Beckwith, and that another one is fighting for his life in D.C. President Trump's reaction, though, and Kosh Patel's reaction,

and Christy Nomes and Marco Rubio's, is at J.D. Vance is all over the place. It's off base. They shouldn't be ascribing, they shouldn't be leveraging this absolute tragedy as a political cudgel to do whatever they were going to do anyways with our immigration regarding our wartime allies and other refugees and asylum seekers from around the world. an uncomfortable tragedy that they would leverage the awful experience, the awful incident that occurred there. And these folks served with us for 20 years. I was on BBC last night, and I called them liars, all of them.

They're lying about that he was, whether or not he was vetted. They're lying about the fact that they approved his entry. This is a case of a tragic breakdown in our mental health. system, not a case of messed up vetting or anything other than that. Explain who the people are, who you've been working on to get into this country. You yourself from the military. Sure. So I didn't serve in Afghanistan. I served all over the world, but not in Afghanistan. As we go around the world and we fight our wars, the U.S. military and our diplomats and other frontline civilians

needs support from local people who believe in our mission. And in Afghanistan, our longest war, over the course of 20 years, hundreds of thousands of people stood up for the idea of democracy, believed in our mission, and believed us when we told them, if you stand with us, we'll stand with you. If you work with us, you can come, become an American. You can have your shot at the American dream. The Trump administration, the Biden administration,

the Obama administration, the Bush administration, and everybody has let these folks down. For the very first time in our country's history, back in 2021, we, the civil society stood up with the Biden administration. We dragged them to the right place. We got them to build something called enduring welcome, which is the safest, most secure immigration policy in our country's history. And it represents the very first time that our country is actually answering the call for our wartime allies. It was too slow, but it was working. getting 5,000 wartime allies and their families out every month from Afghanistan to a third

country. They undergo even more security vetting and then come to the United States of America and start their American dream in a durable pathway. Before we built Enduring Welcome, Operation Allies Welcome brought about 77,000 Afghans here, but many came on a non-durable status. They came as parolees or they came as they were awaiting an immigration status like SIV. Many had to apply for asylum once they got here. And it's that population that's been really, everybody's been stuck in limbo, but this population's been stuck in limbo in the United States. And now they're being targeted by President Trump's political stunts at immigration court and, you know, they're snatching teachers out of classrooms. These folks have

done nothing but believe us and believe in the idea of America and we've really let them down. I want to bring Leila Ube into this conversation, Executive Director of Project Anar. If you can talk specifically about women who have come to this country who have left Afghanistan and your concerns about President Trump halting all evaluations of people applying for political asylum in the United States after the 20 year you have. U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and now the Taliban in charge? Yes. So this decision to halt or pause all asylum adjudications with USCIS, it is really clearly an extension

of this existing agenda that the administration has had towards abandoning the U.S.'s obligations under international and domestic law to offer. protection to people. We have been seeing advancements in other countries, particularly for women, for gender-based asylum claims. And earlier this summer, we saw the administration target those kinds of claims. Now we're seeing earlier last week, we saw a directive to re-evaluate all of the refugee admissions from under the Biden administration. Now we're seeing, we're we're seeing this administration weaponize last week's tragedy to scapegoat and collectively punish an entire community. First, they made announcements about policies targeting Afghans,

including restricting and pausing indefinitely the processing of all immigration applications with USCIS. And then we saw a number of statements that really went beyond that. and targeted the 19 countries on the travel ban list, as well as these undefined terms like third world countries and broader categories such as people who are not a net asset to the U.S. It's really dehumanizing. It is also illogical and irrational for many reasons, including because refugees and immigrants contribute to this country in so many ways. So this is an extremely concerning effort to punish all Afghans, all immigrants, and people who came here oftentimes as a direct result of U.S. foreign policy and didn't have really much of a choice left

other than to flee their homes. Lockenwall has a wife and five children. They're based in Bellingham, Washington. The suggestion is that they would be deported. Where, too, do you think, Leila? Well, we're seeing that this administration has been, there's been a pattern of removing people to third countries, not to that undefined term of third world, but third countries.

And there's also deportations to Afghanistan. So we don't know what their plan is with this particular family, but what we do know is that in order to accomplish these efforts of large-scale targeting of not just that family, which is not something that, you know, I am particularly aware of, but the Afghan community in general, the immigrant community in general, it requires surveillance. and increased militarism, increased policing, and none of these things really keep us safer in our communities here. They just harm more of our neighbors and more of our loved ones.

I want to bring Spencer Ackerman into this conversation. You have a new piece in Zateo, headlined he killed for the CIA in Afghanistan. Trump blames Afghan culture instead of Langley's. Can you elaborate? Sorry, I can't hear you. Start again. Start again. Yes.

Can you hear me, Amy? Yes. Yes, your guests have spoken very eloquently about the betrayal and the dishonor that the collective guilt of Afghan refugees ascribed by the Trump administration for this horrific murder is having. What we're focusing on less, is that the person, what we're focusing on less, is that the person who committed, allegedly, these crimes, Lackenwall, had a gun put in his hand when he was a child by the CIA. Apparently, when he was 14 or 15, he was brought into the zero unit number three around Kandahar.

Apparently his brother, the New York Times reported, was a deputy commander of this unit. This unit was a death squad. The United States made this person into a child soldier and now is experiencing what I think is one of the most horrifically bright-line cases of imperial blowback that we've seen throughout the war on terror. If the United States wants to find out whose culture is responsible for this horrific crime, it needs to start by knocking on doors at Langley and as well the Afghans who ran the, you know, U.S.-backed Afghan intelligence service, known as the NDS. It was this culture of violence, of impunity, of murder for political reasons that had a specific role. We'll find out more at trial of shaping Lackenwald in his circumstances.

To blame the Afghans who came here as refugees, desperate, overwhelmingly, as your guest said, who worked with the United States, who served the U.S. war effort. is perverse, and it is ultimately a cover for allowing the U.S. to continue to create death squads to outsource its most murderous and its most despicable wartime actions to locals who then it can blame them for. I was thinking about Timothy McVeigh, who was on the highway of death in Iraq. He comes back from there. He blows up the Oklahoma City building.

He kills, what, something like 169 people. No one said then that all white Christian men should be imprisoned, let alone deported. But your thoughts on those kind of comparisons? I think what we are really seeing is the horrific consequences of a violent, exploitative, and extractive U.S. foreign policy, once again, not for the first time, but once again, coming home. If the United States actually cherishes the lives of these West Virginia National Guardsmen, who should not have been in D.C. in the first place to backstop ICE. That's its own issue. But if the United States values their lives, it values the lives of other

service members and other Americans, then it has an obligation to, in the first instance, stop creating these death squads, to stop creating the conditions that are warping the people who serve in them to the point where they would commit horrific murders like these. That's a cherishing of human life that we never see from the United States in its foreign policy missions around the world. Spencer Ackerman, I want to thank you very much for being with us. We'll link to your piece. He killed for the CIA in Afghanistan. Trump blames Afghan culture instead of Langley's. And we want to thank Sean Van Diver, president of Afghan Evac, and Leila Ayub, executive director of Project Anar. That does it for.

our show. I'll be in Sag Harbor on December 4th at the Hamptons Dock Film Festival. Check our website at DemocracyNow.org. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.