Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-09-02 Wednesday

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

Headlines for September 02, 2026; U.S. Empire in Decline: Richard Wolff on Iran War, Rising Inequality, $40T National Debt & More; “Went to Sea and Never Came Back”: Families of Fishermen Seek Answers After Deadly U.S. Boat Strikes; “Stand Up for Multifaith Democracy”: U.S. Activists, Lawmakers Protest India’s RSS & Hindu Supremacy

New York, this is democracy now. The war on Iran is lasting longer than expected, and it's becoming a historical event. It is the decline of the American Empire, and as such is shaking the whole world, every company, every country, rethinking its strategy. And so the impact will be many and will be spread out over a long period of time. As the national debt surpasses $40 trillion for the first time in U.S. history, we'll look at the economic impact of the war on Iran with economist Richard Wolfe. Then killing its sea one year ago today, the Trump administration began blowing up small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. More than 220 people have been killed in roughly 70 strikes to date.

A new documentary from Al Jazeera fault lines goes to Colombia and St. Lucia to meet some of the families who say their loved ones were killed. What would justice look like for the death of your father? Sometimes I wonder there is justice. We'll speak to Al Jazeera's senior correspondent Josh Rushing, former Marine and spokesperson for Sentcom during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And finally, what is the Arirang? RSS, the Hindu nationalist organization, helmed by Mohan Bhagwad, rallied at Madison Square Garden over the weekend as protesters gathered outside. He sits at the head of a vast far-right network that begins in India, but also has spawned thousands

of Hindu supremacist groups all over the world aimed at spreading this exclusionary ideology of Hindutvah or Hindu supremacy or the idea that only Hindus are true Indians. We'll speak to Hindus for human rights action and congressional candidate Brad Lander, who also attended the protests. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Officials in Iran say at least 11 people are dead and dozens more wounded after the U.S. launched a wave of attacks across southern Iran. Among the alleged victims are five people killed when a U.S.

U.S. bomb fell on a house during a wedding celebration in the southern county of Syriek. One child was among the dead. Footage published by the Iranian Red Crescent Society appears to show several other children being treated for injuries. Hours later. Iran said it launched missiles on an American military base in Jordan and U.S. military equipment warehouses in Iraq. Kuwait says an Iranian drone attack caused a fire in a residential complex in the capital. The strikes come just days after U.S. and Iran exchange fire for the first time in a month. In a social media post-President Trump claimed the strikes from retaliation for Iran laying sea mines near the Strait of Hormuz.

This is Iran's Parliament Speaker, Mohamed Badr Khalibaf. If the enemy intends to prevent us from exporting oil from the Persian Gulf, know that no one will export oil from the Persian Gulf. This has been and will be our decision. And they will certainly pay the price for this military blockade. they have implemented. And the Americans in particular will fill this with all their being. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged continued support for Iran in its war with the United States urging Russian cooperation and countering U.S. sanctions. Putin's pledge came during a

joint appearance with the Iranian president, Massoud Peseschian, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Kyrgyzstan. Since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran in February, Russia's provided around with military hardware, including drone components as well as intelligence, including on U.S. assets in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, European officials are blasting the Trump administration for inviting Russia's finance minister to Asheville, North Carolina, for the summit of central bankers from the G20 nations. It was the first time a Russian official participated in a G20 meeting since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine over four years. years ago and comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Besant threatened to impose secondary sanctions

against Iran's trading partners. In Germany, officials said Tuesday, Russia is behind an attempted drone attack on Lipsig Halle Airport last month and announced a set of responses, including summoning Moscow's ambassador in Berlin and shuddering a Russian consulate. On August 4th, the drone loaded with military-grade explosives was discovered beside a Ukrainian cargo plane at the airport, a facility that also handles European and NATO military flights. Footage from security cameras seemed to show the device hitting the aircraft's wing, then dropping to the ground without detonating. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Germany planted evidence

in order to frame Russia for the drone attack. This is Germany's interior minister. We assume that Germany is the time. target of further hybrid attacks by Russia. It must also be assumed that there is a willingness to cause even greater damage through hybrid attacks. In the occupied West Bank, the World Food Program said Tuesday it'll slash its food assistance by half this month from 400,000 recipients to 200,000 due to serious funding shortages. This is Sean Hughes, the director for Palestine at the World Food Program. In my recent visits to the West Bank,

I have witnessed families once thriving and earning a living off their land, now forced from their homes, their livelihoods destroyed. They now find themselves in a chokehold, unable to move freely to access land or jobs, and so unable to afford food for their families. They face incredible injustice and hardship. The World Food Program has also been forced to cut humanitarian aid to Gaza, where the agency supports one and a half million people, including one million Palestinians who receive monthly food assistance.

And Israeli courts brought criminal charges against a dozen guards accused of beating nine Palestinian prisoners, one of whom died from the assault. According to the indictment, the 12 guards entered a cell during an evening headcount in November 2023, where they punch, kicked, and beat prisoners with clubs. The assault left Tahrir Abu Asab dead with severe injuries to his hard and respiratory system. In March, Israel's military dropped charges against five soldiers accused of assaulting and gang raping, a Palestinian man held at the Sdei Taman prison in 2024. According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel,

more than 100 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody since October 2023. Meanwhile, Israel's far-right national security minister, Itimar Ben-Gavir, has deleted a campaign video he posted to a social media account following backlash. The AI-generated animation depicts Ben-Gavir denying food to Palestinian prisoners and forcing them along a conveyor belt into what appears to be a concentration camp. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the death toll from an Ebola outbreak has to be. top 3,000 out of 6100 reported cases. The World Health Organization warns the outbreak is now on track to exceed the deadliest on record when a regional outbreak in West Africa that began in 2014 killed 11,000 people. Healthcare workers are racing to vaccinate people against the latest strain of the Ebola virus.

Our experience in Bunnia showed that those. who died from Ebola were largely people who had not been vaccinated. Among those who contracted the disease but recovered, the majority had received the Irvibo vaccine. Based on that experience, we believe the Avibo vaccine can also protect against other variants because it provides cross-immunity. An anonymous federal whistleblower has warned the U.S. Postal Service's new mail voting system is untested, fatally flawed, and likely to lead to a catastrophic, failure if it's implemented ahead of November's midterm elections. This follows President Trump's executive order in March directing his administration to create

federal lists of citizens and to refuse delivery of mail-in ballots to people not on those lists. In a complaint shared with the Office of Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, the whistleblower warns problems with the new U.S. federal ballot mail portal could lead to eligible absentee voters not receiving their mail-in ballots in time for the November election or at all. The whistleblower also warns of a zero percent failure policy that would see even a single mismatch ballot cause an entire batch of up to tens of thousands of ballots to be rejected until the discrepancy is resolved. The whistleblower's complaint reads in part, quote, USPS leadership, it appears, has discarded all best practices as they,

speed the project to be ready for a September 1st implementation, raising questions about whether catastrophic failure would be a feature rather than a bug, unquote. Meanwhile, in a party-line vote, all three Republican commissioners in Tarrant County, Texas, have voted to slash the number of polling sites in November's midterm elections by nearly a third, leaving 1.3 million voters with just 224 polling sites, shuddering close to 100 polling sites. Civil rights groups, including the ACLU and NWACP, warn the changes will disproportionately affect voters of color in Texas's third largest county, with majority-minority areas of Arlington and Fort Worth targeted. Federal immigration agents arrested roughly 50,000 people in August, matching July's record-setting

pace. That's according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official who spoke with NBC News. In Washington State, family members are calling on ICE to release 76-year-old Loretto Chavar. He's been held in ICE detention since June, even though he's a documented permanent resident and is battling stage four prostate cancer. He emigrated from the Philippines in 1995 and has lived in the U.S. with his wife and daughter ever since. He has no criminal record was detained during his U.S. citizenship interview. In Springfield, Ohio family members say 20-year-old Haitian immigrant Pierre de Masbel died by suicide after the Trump administration canceled protections for Haitian refugees and outfitted him with an ankle monitor. Bell was struck by a tractor trailer Monday morning on interstate 70 after he reportedly

parked on the shoulder and stepped into oncoming traffic. Bell had just begun his freshman year at Wright State University, where he was recruited to play soccer. He'd hoped to study neuroscience on his way to becoming a neurosurgeon. Pierre Damas Bell had a pending asylum claim with his next hearing in asylum court scheduled for October. His death came after he expressed feeling shame and humiliation at being forced by ICE to wear a GPS ankle monitor. A federal judge denied the Trump administration's attempt to block DACA recipient, Filipino activist Jacob Bhandre, from seeking release from ICE custody. He's been held at the Folkston Ice Processing Center in Georgia.

Federal immigration agents arrested him last October at gunpoint at his home in Texas. His lawyers claim he was arrested because of his photojournalism and social media posts critical of the Israeli genocide in Palestine and the U.S. government's treatment of prisoners of the so-called war on terror. In Mississippi, the police chief of Senatobia was fired Tuesday. Days after news reports revealed, he routinely used racist language against black people in his text messages. In one text message, Chief Harold Vanderford said he was having a, quote, racist moment. In another text, he wrote that he almost, quote, beat a man. using a racist slur to describe a black person.

Vanderford had submitted his resignation, but the city's board of alderman voted to reject it and fired him instead. Vanderford's police department came under increased scrutiny after a Senatobia police officer fatally shot a one-year-old black toddler named Cohen Wiley in a Walmart parking lot while responding to an alleged shoplifting call in June.

on Capitol Hill, the House censured Republican Congressmember Chuck Edwards, after a bipartisan panel concluded there was a substantial reason to believe he violated the Chamber's sexual harassment rules. Edwards announced that he would not seek re-election last month after a House report found he should be penalized for, quote, persistent, unprofessional and inappropriate conduct toward two young female staffers, unquote. According to the Ethics Committee report, Edwards had made repeated comments about the women's appearance, invited them to intimate, dinners and vacations, wrote them notes expressing his affection, and gave them gifts. And in Massachusetts incumbent progressive Democratic Senator at Markey, won his Senate primary on Tuesday, fending off a challenge from Congress member Seth Moulton, who argued Markey was too old to do his job. At 80 years old, Senator Markey is the oldest Senate Democrat running for re-election. This is part of Senator Markey's victory speech last night.

We need to build more. than just a Democratic majority in Congress, we need to cement a progressive Democratic majority, one that will use its political capital to take on the bosses, the billionaires, and the wannabe kings. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, DemocracyNow.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. And I'm Anjali Kometh. Welcome to all our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world.

As the U.S.-Iran war intensifies again and the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, we begin today's show looking at the economic fallout from the war, which began with the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran just over six months ago. On Monday, a critical meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from G20 nations wrapped up in Asheville, North Carolina. The New York Times reports that representatives from Europe and Canada repeatedly criticized moves by the Trump administration that have impacted their economies. Germany's vice-chancellor said the war in Iran and Trump's tariff policy are leading to global economic instability.

This all comes as the U.S. national debt has topped $40 trillion, and borrowing costs for governments and consumers are on the rise due to a global sell-off in government bonds. To help make sense of this moment, we're joined by Richard Wolfe, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, visiting professor at the New School, founder of the journal Rethinking Marxism and author of many books, most recently, Understanding Capitalism. Richard Wolfe is also the founder of Democracy at work. Welcome back to democracy now. It's great to have you with us, Professor Wolfe. Can you make sense of this moment as the U.S. passes the $40 trillion debt mark? Well, it's one of the many signs of an economy and of an empire that is now in decline, and that has to be faced, even though it is difficult for any population, to face that it might be at such a moment. We're borrowing beyond all words. The United States,

the most indebted country in the world. The People's Republic of China is the number two creditor of the United States, which tells you a lot about who's rising and who's falling. It is now the case, for example, that we will be spending a trillion dollars of the federal budget just to pay the interest on that $40 trillion debt. And what that means to every American citizen and every American business, you're paying taxes that are going to Washington not to pay for roads or highways or schools or medical care, just being collected by the government and given over to the wealthy companies and individuals. and foreign countries who have lent that money.

Had the government taxed, had the government function differently, we wouldn't be in this debt. That's not a manner from heaven. That is a political choice. There's one example that I learned about a couple days ago that I want to give you just to show you the ramifications of this war. The price of a ship going through the Panama Canal has gone up by 100 times compared to February of this year before the war began to Tehran. Panama Canal. And what's going on is that since the Strait of Hormuz is closed,

not open, as President Trump says, closed. One of the things that's happening is a crisis for shipping companies that would normally use the Strait of Hormuz. So what are the shipping companies doing? This doesn't take a genius to understand. They're looking for other routes. and one of them is to use the Panama Canal. So suddenly, ships are showing up at the Panama Canal in much greater numbers, and they're desperate.

They have to make their travel plans work. So the authorities in Panama have said, well, this is a wonderful opportunity. And to give you an example, the average price of a ship going through in February was $55,000, the fee. The latest number, $5 plus million. That's 100 times larger. And why is that important for everybody besides the obvious? It's going to be inflationary for us. All the goods that are going through there that end up being consumer goods will have to be priced at a higher price to cover the higher cost.

That's a direct outcome. If you hadn't made war on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz would have been open as a way. it was before the war. So this is right on the government of the United States. Their decision led to this burden. And because it's only been going on for a few months, the impact on the prices we pay is about to unload itself. It's just as dramatic, for example, as the crazy price of jet fuel, of the diesel fuel, because that also wrapped up in this story. And Professor Wolf, what is important for people to understand about the bond market? I mean, we keep seeing these headlines about bond sell-offs, higher bond yields, lower bond prices.

What does this actually mean? And what is important for people to understand and how this all relates back to the Iran war? The basic law of bonds is this. When the government borrows money, it gives you a piece of paper or an electronic version saying, we owe you a million dollars, if you've lent the government a million dollars. And we will pay you an interest rate, so and so many dollars, twice a year, between now and the time we pay you back. So that's what the deal is.

Well, you can buy and sell that IOU. It's negotiable. And so there's a huge market around the world where people and businesses and governments can buy and sell these what they're called treasury securities. If the price goes down, you still get the same interest payment. So that means that the percentage goes up. So the price of the bond goes down, the interest goes up. That's the way it works.

Now, here comes the punchline. If you keep borrowing like there's no end in the world, which is United States' behavior, by the way, not just Mr. Trump, although he has violated every commitment he made about getting rid of the national debt, it's gotten larger, solving the problem. He's made the problem worse. But to be fair, Mr. Biden did his share. of this also. This has been a joint project of both parties. They are afraid to tax, so they substitute by borrowing. But what people need to understand is they borrow from the rich.

Who else can lend to the government? You have to be either a rich company, a rich government, or a rich individual. And so what's going on is we're collecting interest, that's the job, from all of us, our taxes, which are then delivered to the rich people who've lent to the government. the government. Instead of taxing the rich, which would have gotten you the money, the government could have spent it. End of story. What you've done is borrowed that same money from the rich. The reason the government can borrow from the rich is because it didn't tax them. It's the same money, only it's going to the government as a loan rather than a tax payment. For a rich person, this is a no-brainer. Which would you rather have? Pay a tax? Say goodbye to the money? Or make it a loan,

gets paid back and pays you interest while you wait. And as this interest rate goes up to these people who the government is borrowing from, what does that mean for everyday people, people who are trying to take out mortgages? And how does the government plan to continue paying for this war in Iran as mortgage costs go up as the cost of borrowing for regular people goes up? Let me answer the second and then the first. What the government is planning, according to Mr. Trump, is a bigger budget deficit in the coming up, then we already have this year. There is an enormous increase in defense spending

or now war spending that is scheduled, and no comparable increase in revenue. Therefore, we're going to get a trillion-plus dollar deficit again, as we have had now for several years. So the problem isn't going away. It's getting worse. And now to your first part. Banks in this country, let's take a very simple example. They have a lot of money. They want to lend. One place they can lend it to is to human beings who want to buy a home, who borrow a mortgage, we call that. But that's usually a loan for 15, 20, 30 years. Well, the government borrows for 15, 20, or 30 years. And a bank is therefore always comparing where do I make more money? If the government is deeply in debt and therefore has to pay

higher interest rates, the banks are going to move their money. away from the mortgage market make it harder for people to borrow because they want to put that money to the government. And the simple reason, the government is less dangerous as a borrower

than an individual family, which could have a problem. So you're going to squeeze the mortgage market. That's going to hurt everybody thinking about borrowing to buy a home while they fund a government that is increasingly going into debt. It doesn't take any

foresight to understand this is not sustainable. This is the behavior of a government, which, to parrot Louis XVI, if I've got that right, who was famous for saying, After me, comes the catastrophe. We're watching that play out, only it's us this time. Let me ask you about a New York Times piece today. Headlined Allies grumble U.S. is hindering global economic growth. has eviscerated regulatory barriers for businesses, including the booming artificial intelligence industry, leaned into fossil fuel production. European leaders remain more cautious on AI and other deregulation, more committed to a transition to renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.

So if you can talk about the price of oil and what this means for this country and around the world. Yes, the crisis is played out because the Europeans, largely because of pressure from below of the mass of the Europeans, they're not letting the climate issue go. They're saying, and by the way, over the last two or three summers, as we all know, the temperatures of Europe have been record-breaking and deadly for large numbers of their people. So this is an urgently viewed problem. They're demanding long-term solutions. And those include not

relying on oil and fossil fuels. Those include conservation. Those include all kinds of measures that are being made more difficult by everything Mr. Trump is doing. In fact, the climate crisis is affecting shipping with a historic drought

in Panama. That's severely limiting water flows through the canal. And that's one of the reasons they're charging more money. Because, you know, it is a crazy quilt. This war is not only being lost by the United States, if you're going to be honest. But the reality is, it is a moment in which a relatively poor, relatively smaller country is confronting the big elephant in the room, the hegemon, the power country. And the whole world is watching this.

And the whole world is wondering, we have developed. a dependence on the United States because of the role we played in the world the last 70 years, coming out of World War II and all the other advanced industrial countries were destroyed. We emerged, thanks to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, we could survive. We inherited the great colonial empires. We became the sole one. That's why we were so rich. That's why we had this explosion in which we fancied ourselves the great American exception.

We weren't to the exception. We were under exceptional circumstances, which everyone should have understood would never last. But instead of preparing for that, instead of having a plan to deal with the inevitable disappearance of those conditions, we imagine they would last forever, and now we have a government that is actually trying to roll back the inevitable movement of history. We're not going to make America great again because the conditions for doing that aren't here. And all the bombast and all the verbiage doesn't change that. And the reality is being shown to us in Iran by the ability of this country, this little country, to push back effectively. Professor Wolf, you talk about the U.S. as an empire and decline. You also talked about the coming deluge.

Where do you see the U.S. economy heading? At this point, we're at what's called a knife edge. Those interest rates go up that we were just talking about. That's a marker for recession. If interest rates go up, people can't afford to buy that car and make the monthly payments or the house. And the inflation means we can't buy as much as we're crunching this economy down. And the irony is Mr. Trump seems determined to go in that direction,

even as the midterm elections are saying to the American people, here is a chance, think about what you're going to do when you vote, given what we've just been talking about. What is Trump gain from this, from his approach? Is it simply personal wealth? No. If I may be allowed, I'm married to a psychotherapist, and so I get tutored from her all the time.

This is a psychological problem. It really is. It's denial. He is the theatrical embodiment of we're tough and we're powerful. As you put it in your show right a few moments ago, this behavior of killing those people in the boats in the Caribbean, this violation of every law, of every tradition. You know, here in America, we arrest people for the drug trade,

which is what's claimed about them. But we give them a lawyer, and we give them a chance to confront evidence, and we give them a chance to face a judge. And if they're found guilty, we give them a prison sentence. It's not a capital crime in the United States. What are we doing killing people without any legal recourse? What kind of behavior is being dem- This is macho. This is the kind of behavior that we ought to be ashamed of,

but it is a, it is part of a denial. We are, look what we can do. It's very tragic. But if, in the history of the decline of empire, I hate to say it, but it is not unusual that the people caught up in that decline have a very hard time facing it. Well, Richard Wolfe, you have set up the next segment for us, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and visiting professor here in New York at the New York.

New School, co-founder of the journal Rethinking Marxism, author of many books, including understanding capitalism. Professor Wolfe is also the founder of Democracy at Work. Coming up, Killing at Sea. One year ago today, the Trump administration began blowing up small boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing more than 220 people. We'll look at a new investigative documentary from Albert's Jazeera will be joined by Josh Rushing.

Stay with us. One cancyon to love this night. It's what I want to give to give us. For that only you let's retosies to runper the diamond. A song of love this night,

Inesperated for my voice. A song by Silvio Rodriguez, the great Cuban musician. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. The Warren Peace Report. I'm Mimi Goodman with Anjali Comment. A year ago today, September 2nd, 2025, the U.S. bombed a small boat in the Caribbean, killing nine people on board. Two survivors clung to the wreckage for 45 minutes, reportedly waving for help before the U.S.

struck again, killing them as well. President Trump posted a grainy video of the first strike on social media, announcing to the world that 11 terrorists had been killed in action. The administration has refused to release video of the second strike on survivors, known as a double-taxed strike, but it's been seen by some members of Congress. The bombings have continued for a year, killing more than 220 people across roughly 70 strikes. Last month, the campaign dubbed Operation Southern Sphere was officially retired, but following a brief hiatus, the bombings have resumed.

UN experts issued a statement Tuesday demanding an end to the attack, saying, quote, international law does not permit governments to simply murder alleged criminals at sea. just as the police cannot summarily execute people on the street in the United States territory. In a new documentary, the investigative team at Al Jazeera's fault lines traveled to St. Lucia and Columbia to meet two families who believe their loved ones, both fishermen, were killed at sea by the United States. In a moment, we'll be joined by the film's correspondent, Josh Rushing, but first, an excerpt from the film, Killing at Sea. Normally when you're going out there, we're going all 50, 60 miles. After they explode their boat, the boat come.

All the way right here and come up. Our team at Fault Line spent months working with journalists in six countries to find families of people believed to have been killed in the strikes. Most of them do not want to talk publicly. They were afraid of cartels, their own governments, or the Trump administration. My brother Ricky Joseph was murdered by the government of the United States. But in St. Lucia, Ricky Joseph's family was willing to speak with us. I just get angry about this.

They told us he wasn't alone that day. He'd gone to see with another man, Joseph William, who was known as Nafi. Nafi was a brilliant fisherman. This is one of my highest paid captains. Cameron Talyam rinsed boats to local fishermen. Ricky and Nafi were aboard one that day. I tried calling Nafi, and I couldn't get in touch with him. I check all you multiple times.

Most of these attacks leave behind no evidence. But in this strike, Cameron recognized his boat in video circulating on social media and was able to salvage some of the remains before they sink. When I brought the boat on shore, I realized it had my colors. It had the green on the outside. It had black to the bottom. It had red on the inside. I don't want to believe it's my boat because.

I cannot believe that I just lose these brilliant guys. Cameron says multiple fishermen told him they saw a drone circulating above the boat before the strike. Ricky's brother Titus says fishermen told him that they saw an explosion in the direction of Ricky and Navi's boat. Did you talk to other fishermen who saw it? Well, the guys ourselves that still saw when the boat ran past them. After a while, this was the explosion. They see a big fire and a big black smoke. What do you miss most about Ricky?

It was everything about him, you know, but everything about him. As I tell you, it's my back boom. Everything is Ricky, Ricky. You understand? Everything is Ricky. Ricky left behind his partner, Lucia, and their four children. He was a good father. He would stay without clothes.

He would stay without shoes. And his children has everything. He loves rain on the sea. He'll go out to fish. On a weekends, he'll go with him and fish, me and him, the children. He likes to speed up the boat, make us laugh. Make us enjoy ourselves.

Life is harder now. Because right now, I'm the mother, I'm the father. I have to figure out where do I get money to buy books, bags, shoes, send them to school. How will I ever be able to explain to the children? Where did the father go? Nafi left behind two children and an elderly mother he cared for. Well, I would say the person that's most affected is my grandmother. Sometimes she called me and tell me that she cannot sleep.

So keep on herring in Colina. An excerpt of the new Al Jazeera Fault Lines documentary Killing at Sea, telling the story of two fishermen in St. Lucia who are believed to have been killed by the United States. We're joined now in studio by senior correspondent Josh Rushing. It's been a journalist for more than 20 years, former Marines, spokesperson for Sentcom during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Welcome to Democracy Now. great to have you with us. This is such a painful documentary as you visit the families of people who are believed to have been killed by the United States, not charged, not tried and convicted, but blown up at sea on this first anniversary of the beginning of what the U.S. has called Operation Southern Speer. That's right. Thanks for having me, Amy and Anjali. There's a real disconnect between the way the U.S. describes what is happening. They described it as a war. They describe these people as enemy combatants that are attacking America. They're posting the only reason we even know that these killings are happening is because they post the videos.

So during Operation Southern Spirit, which ended in August, we know that there's been more than 60 bulk strikes and they killed 221 people at least. Those are the ones they've told us about. Are there more we don't know? and there's no way to know because these happen over their horizon with no witnesses, no evidence, and for the families, it's very, very hard for them to confirm whether their loved ones actually been killed in a strike or not. All they know is that their dad, their husband, fishermen, went to sea, and didn't come back. And the U.S. announces a strike. That's all they know.

Around the same day, yeah. So they're trying to connect the dots, but it's really difficult to actually confirm it. So we had trouble. We wanted to know, okay, who are these enemy combatants of the U.S.? Let's go look at the other side of this war, right? And what we went down and found was something really very, very different. So, for example, one of the families you saw there in St. Lucia, the family of Ricky Joseph, his partner, Lucia, was left with four children. She says that he made about $2,000 a year as a fisherman, and now that's gone. And she's having to support the four kids. So when we found them, there was no electricity. there wasn't much food.

They're really struggling to get by. And that's who the U.S. is taking out in these strikes. That's who we found on the other side. And they have no idea that they're enemy combatants. They have no idea that they're supposedly a war against the U.S. And just to be really, really clear, they're in boats that are designed to go 50 or 100 miles. Ricky Joseph's boat was 1,500 miles away from the U.S.

when they blew it up. And so what we found by actually going down is a very different picture than what the U.S. government seems to be describing here. Josh Rushing, you also had a chance, while in St. Lucia, to question the Prime Minister, Philippeer, about the missing men. Here's a clip. We've been investigating the disappearances of two St. Lucians, Ricky Joseph and Nafi Williams, all evidence points toward their deaths being caused by U.S. boat strike on February 13, 2026. So my question for you, Prime Minister Pierre, what should justice look like in this situation? We've requested information from the United States

and we cannot bring any information as to what happened. We still consider the ambitious building schemes and our own reinforcement are trying the best to see if they can decide what happened. As far as we're able to do it. United States have given us no information. Josh, what answers did you get from the U.S. government when you took these questions to them? So we did ask the U.S. government through U.S. Southern Command, the State Department, the White House.

Very specific and detailed questions. Were these people involved in the strike? A lot of questions about the legality of the strikes. When they provided answers, they didn't answer any of our specific questions. they wouldn't confirm whether the people we found were involved in strikes. It's unclear, really, if the U.S. government knows who they're killing, to be honest with you. They've never named anyone in any of the strikes. I mean, when you say you went to Southern Command, the State Department, you're not just anyone. Yes, you're a journalist with Al Jazeera for many years, but you were the spokesperson for Sentcom.

You were the spokesperson for General Tommy Franks. So you're a former Marine, your assessment of what the U.S. government is doing. You know exactly what it means with the kind of answers or non-answers they give you. In the 21 years that have passed since I left the Marines and I've been at Al Jazeera, things have changed a lot in the military. And what I think at one point I saw as being a spokesperson for the military was my job to hold them open to the public because they should be transparent. they are the public's military, has become more of a spin and public relations job rather than the public affairs. And that certainly was happening while I was in as well. It's one of the reasons I resigned over the Iraq War and the way that I was used to sell it in ways that were

turned out to be dishonest. Do you see the echoes of that right here? Oh, this is Amanda Kassing, the head of Amnesty International in America, told me that this boat strike program is basically the result of we had the war on drugs, the war on terror. This is kind of the worst of both and something entirely new. But yeah, I think you can connect the dots going all the way from 9-11 to these boat strikes. And Josh, I want to go to another clip from your documentary killing at sea. You visited the family and friends of a fisherman Alejandro Carranza, and this is in Colombia and Santa Martha. For the families of those bleed to have been killed, there are a few ways to pursue accountability.

So far, just two cases challenging the operation have been filed in court. One goes back to the second strike of the campaign. Can you tell me the story about the last time you or your children heard from Alejandro? He contacted us through a video call saying that he was going fishing. He told me to take good care of yourself. Usually when he left, it would take. take three days, four days. And then he would call again, and he never called again.

On September 15, 2025, 42-year-old Alejandro Carranza was off the coast of La Guajara, Colombia, when his family said they lost communication with him. People began to whisper that Alejandro might have already died in one of the bombings. His childhood friend was one of the first people to connect his disappearance with a video of a strike posted by President Trump on social media. In the video you see that there are raised motors, that is a sign that they are drifting and presenting an emergency. What made you think it was Alejandro on that boat?

We had no doubt. Time has passed, and we never heard from Alejandro again. The family came out to recognize it, and we as fishermen realized that it was a Colombian boat that was all the evidence needed to say. What a terrible thing happened to my friend. I can only imagine what it must have felt like. The video where they fire that missile and don't give any time,

and it just leaves everything completely destroyed. Josh, this family that you featured in the documentary, they filed a petition Tuesday, they filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. They did saying Alejandro's Rights to Life and were taken away through this. And it's one of the few kind of legal actions we've seen come out of this. There's so many questions that this raises. Like, for example, in the same month in December where they killed multiple people at sea,

President Trump pardoned, the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who's convicted by a U.S. jury of trafficking nearly 500, I think 500 tons of cocaine into U.S. and was famous for saying, we're going to shove these drugs up the noses of the greengos. So President Trump decides he walks free while blowing up in that same month, blowing up these boats at sea. And as they blow up these boats at sea, cocaine trafficking into the United States has increased. There's no evidence that has gone down or that fentanyl has gone down. And they've really put it on fentanyl saying that that's what this is about. But fentanyl doesn't come from down there.

I asked so many people in St. Lucia, about fentanyl. And they said, what's that? They don't even know. Josh Rushing, the film has dropped today. It's on YouTube. Yes, it can be found now at 8am this morning, East Coast Time. Killing at Sea is the name of the fault lines Al Jazeera English documentary. The correspondent Josh Rushing will link to that documentary also at Democracy Now.org. Coming up, what is RSS, the Hindu nationalist organization,

helmed by Mohan Bhagwat, rallied at Madison Square Garden over the weekend as protested. gathered outside. Back in 20 seconds. New York City, Palestinian Youth Choir. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now, with Anjali Comment. Demonstrators gathered outside Madison Square Garden in New York on Saturday to protest against the RSS, a far-right Hindu nationalist paramilitary organization with close ties to India's ruling BJP Party and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The leader of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwath, held a rally inside Madison Square Garden to kick off a global speaking tour marking the 100th

anniversary of the RSS. The RSS has long sought to turn India from a secular nation into a Hindu state. Earlier this year, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that the U.S. impose sanctions against the RSS for their, quote, responsibility for and tolerance off, violent attacks against religious minorities, including Christians, Dalits, Muslims, and Sikhs. On Monday, nearly 100 political officials in the United States publicly pledged to reject any campaign donations linked to the RSS.

They include Indian American Congress members Ro Kana and Pramala Jaipal, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul-Said, and New York congressional candidate Bradlander. Brad Lander joins us now. He recently defeated incumbent Congressman Dan Goldman in the Democratic Party primary for Congress. He was also at the protests against the RSS in New York and were joined from Iowa City by Sunita Viswanath, the co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights Action, one of the groups that helped organize the pledge for U.S. lawmakers to reject political money linked to the RSS. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, is a member of the U.S.

RSS. Let's begin with our guest in Iowa City. Sunita, if you can just lay out very quickly why you are so concerned about the RSS, what it represents. For a global audience, many of whom have never even heard of it. Thank you so much, Amy and Anjali, for having me. I'm Sunita Vishanath, and I am a Hindu progressive organizer against every form of injustice and religious extremism. The RSS, the Rastriya's YM Seva-Sang, is not a religious organization. It's a hundred-year-old political organization that has birthed and spread this ideology called Hindutva. Its explicitly stated mission, its purpose, is to create a Hindu Rastra, Hindu nation, to take the India that is a secular and inclusive democracy and transform it into a country

that is just for Hindus, where Muslims, Christian, Sikhs, and other minorities are basically erased, our second-class citizens or don't exist. This is extremely concerning to anybody who cares about justice and human rights, but especially as a Hindu, a Hindu of conscience, the fact that this is happening in this very cynical way, in the name of my religion, in my name, is the reason that I am this dedicated to mobile, idolizing Hindus to say absolutely no, the RSS and its thousands of affiliate organizations around the world do not represent me. And Sunita, the RSS is an Indian organization, but it has, you know, as you said, chapters across the world and nearly 300 here in the U.S.

Can you talk about why you organized this pledge? How much political money is coming that's linked to the RSS into the American political system? Why was it important for lawmakers here to sign this pledge. This ideology, this Hindutva or Hindu nationalist, Hindu supremacist ideology, can be written off as something that's happening in a land far, far away. But there are so many reasons why we should be concerned. India at this point has overtaken China in terms of the most populist nation in the world. And so if it's democracy falls, that is something that affects the whole world. And Hindutva, RSS affiliates, these Hindu right-wing organizations, exist in growing numbers in the diaspora, especially in America.

The fact that this pledge that we have announced at the same time as Mohan Bhagavats tour around the world, the timing is incredible. Over 90 elected officials from coast to coast of America have signed it. They have said that they will not take RSS-affiliated money, Hindutva money, and they have said that they will return that money if they have taken any or redirected to pro-democracy organizations. When we say RSS-affiliated money, the money that we're talking about, the way that we know how a donation might be RSS-affiliated is based on research that has come out of Seance-Fou. It's called Seeing the Song. It's a database.

and they have unearthed about 113 RSS-affiliated organizations definitely operating in the United States. One of them is the Hindu Republican Council, which boasts Steve Bannon as its co-chair. The linkages between the democracy that is being decimated right here in our country in America and the Hindu right and its tentacles all through the diaspora are underwent. unmistakable, there were Hindu nationalists who participated in the January 6th attack on the capital.

So it is imperative that Americans who care about democracy open their eyes to the harm that is being done by Hindu nationalism here in this country and throughout the world. I want to bring in Brad Lander, a congressional candidate for lower Manhattan parts of Brooklyn. Brad, you participated in the protests at Madison Square Garden. You spoke at a press conference before. Why did you sign this pledge? I mean, we have information from an upcoming report that the top 50 Hindu nationalist donors have poured $17 million into the last six election cycles.

And it's not just to Republicans. Rokana just said he's going to return $6,000 he got from RSS-link money. Why did you sign this pledge? It's great to be on with the three of you. You know, as Sunita's last point about Steve Bannon makes clear, those of us who care about multi-faith, multiracial democracy have got us stick together against right-wing, too often fascist forces, you know, here in the United States like Steve Bannon, in India, like the RSS.

And of course, for me, this goes along with rejecting money from APAC as well, trying to, you know, push the U.S. to keep funding Netanyahu's wars. These struggles are late. And we work together to stand up for multi-faith, multiracial democracy, Hindus for human rights, which Sunita is one of the leaders of I've worked together with as a proud Jewish New Yorker to stand up for the rights of immigrants right here in New York City. We've done a lot of work together. And so when she reached out to say, I want to tell you about what's going on. Brad, you got arrested as you were trying to defend immigrants at 26 federal plaza. Let me ask you something. That's right. Twice, actually.

Let me ask you something. You likened at the news conference, the rally at Madison Square Garden this past weekend to the 1939 Nazi rally that was also hosted at Madison Square Garden. That's right. Yeah, you know, sometimes Madison Square Garden hosts great things like the NICs championship that brought New Yorkers together. But in 1939, they, hosted a Nazi rally with swastikas hung from the banners around a portrait of George Washington. They said they wouldn't do something like that again. And yet here they were hosting Mohan Bhagwat, spouting a similar fascist ideology. And Brad, you know, you've spoken out so much about Israel-Palestine, speaking out as a Jewish New Yorker.

What do you see as the similarities between what you're doing on Israel-Palestine and this struggle that we see somebody like, that talking about from Hindus for human rights? Yeah, I really feel solidarity with Hindus for human rights and Sunita. Look, as a Jew, I feel furious when my religion, when my faith, when my history, what my tradition is perverted to support ethnic cleansing or exclusion or supremacy or discrimination. So I speak out about it, and I think it's important for Jews to do that and make clear we're proud of our tradition of our history. We care about it and we fight. anti-Semitism, but we won't let it be warped or weaponized. And so, you know, to hear what's

happening with Hindutva, I really feel solidarity for what Sunita's doing, joining with Muslim organizations, with Dalits, with Sikhs, with Christians to build a multi-faith movement. Brad Lander, want to thank you for being with us. New York Democratic congressional candidate representing Lower East Side in parts of Brooklyn and Sinita Vizvanaf, co-founder of Hindus for human rights action, joining us from Iowa City. That does it for our show. I'll be in Madison, Wisconsin, Saturday night at the Barrymore Theater, and in Chicago for two events Sunday, details at DemocracyNow.org.

I'm Amy Goodman with Anjali Comment.