Speech by PM of Spain at UN General Assembly

 Click on the URL and open the link to see the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znvulfQjPh0

At the UN Trump threatens to use “unmatched military power” in Latin America

 

Melania admits Trump sometimes ‘doesn’t want to hear the truth’ as she grades his UN speech. (Photo: MSN(cc))

Originally published: Resumen: Latinoamericano and the Third World on September 22, 2026 by Pagina 12 Staff (more by Resumen: Latinoamericano and the Third World) (Posted Sep 24, 2026)

Empire, Imperialism, Inequality, State RepressionAmericas, Latin America, United StatesNewswirePresident Donald Trump, UN (United Nations)

The U.S. president took the podium at the United Nations General Assembly to reaffirm that he considers the region his country’s backyard. He cited Venezuela as an example of what he is willing to do and reaffirmed that he will continue to strangle Cuba until the Revolution falls.

He went on to promise before the UN General Assembly to use “unmatched military might” to secure Washington’s interests in Latin America.

“The United States will no longer allow threats against the Americas to gain ground anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And, if necessary, we will use our unmatched military might to secure the vital national interests of the United States,” Trump said.

He cited the case of Venezuela as an example of his policy for the region. He recalled the “major military operation” that ended with the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump described as a “dictator and criminal” in the presence of Venezuela’s acting head of state, Delcy Rodríguez.

The U.S. president celebrated the fact that last month he signed “the largest oil deal in history” with the new Venezuelan authorities and made no secret of the fact that his country is the primary beneficiary of that measure. “To the victor go the spoils,” he remarked.

Cuba in Trump’s Crosshairs

He also reaffirmed his intention to continue suffocating the Cuban government and said that Cuba “will fall.” “The communist regime is under intense pressure—the strongest it has ever faced. It will fall,” he said. Following these remarks, the Cuban delegation present in the plenary session was seen leaving the room.

“Communism will never reach the United States, but freedom will reach Cuba,” the U.S. president noted, accusing the island of having coordinated for “decades” with communist networks and left-wing groups in his country, such as the Communist Party of the United States, the Antifa group, and the Democratic Socialists of America—the party led by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“Mexico must regain control of its territory”

In addition, Trump issued a veiled threat to Mexico. Although he said he has a good relationship with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, he stated that Mexico is “the epicenter” of drug trafficking.

“Mexico is the epicenter of cartel violence. Unfortunately, it is unacceptable for the United States to share a 2,000-mile border with a territory controlled by enemy cartels. Therefore, Mexico must regain control of its territory from the enemies of humanity,” he declared during his speech before the UN General Assembly.

Along those lines, he asserted that members of drug cartels should be executed, exiled, or detained as if they were enemy combatants in an armed conflict. “The cartels are the ISIS [Islamic State] of the hemisphere” and, like ISIS fighters, “they should be executed, exiled, or detained,” declared Trump, who noted that his administration designated these groups as “terrorist organizations” last year.

Artificial Intelligence According to Trump

The U.S. president once again spoke out against regulating or curbing the advance of AI and insisted on using a new term to refer to the issue. He asserted that the United States will begin using the term “superintelligence” because “it sounds much better” and is “much more appropriate.”

“Whoever wins the race for super artificial intelligence is the one who will truly win, and we are far outpacing China,” he said, reaffirming that there will be no restrictions on the development of this technology despite experts’ warnings about the risks to humanity.

In that vein, he rejected any attempt to build a “globalist scheme” or to impose regulation and declared: “I am not going to stifle in any way the growth of something that will surpass the Industrial Revolution.”

Iran: Between Threat and Negotiation

“The Islamic Republic of Iran was the number one sponsor of terrorism; they were the thugs of the Middle East, but not anymore,” Trump said, celebrating his military actions against that country. He claimed that U.S. ships are hauling “millions of barrels of oil” through the Strait of Hormuz.

He then said that he must decide between making a deal with Iran or sending it “to hell” and “annihilating the Islamic Republic”. “Do I push them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of achieving any greatness in the future or for future generations?” he insisted.

“I think we’ll reach an agreement right after the elections,” he added, referring to the U.S. midterm elections.

Russia and Ukraine

After patting himself on the back for allegedly having ended eight armed conflicts, Trump said that an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the war will come “quickly,” sooner than expected.

“We are working very closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, and we are going to reach that agreement. It’s going to happen, I think, faster than people realize. They’re fed up,” he said.

Bases in Greenland

The U.S. president also announced that his country will build two large military bases in Greenland under an agreement with Denmark that is being signed today.

“We will immediately begin the process of establishing a major military presence in appropriate locations. We will build two very important military bases,” Trump stated in his speech.

Trump against the International Criminal Court

In another part of his address, Trump called for all member countries of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to withdraw from that body, which he accused of being “out of control.”

“The United States also opposes this out-of-control institution that is the International Criminal Court,” he declared from the UN podium. “I urge all ICC member countries to officially and immediately withdraw,” he added.

Source: Pagina 12, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English

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Women and Youth Are at the Forefront of the Struggle for Palestinian Liberation

 They follow in the footsteps of Palestinian women and children who have resisted colonialism in the past century.

By Nada Elia , Verso Books Published September 23, 2026

Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi (center) arrives for a press conference with her mother Nariman (right) after her release from an Israeli prison where she served a sentence of eight months for slapping an Israeli soldier in her hometown of Nabi Saleh, West Bank, on July 29, 2018.

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This is an adapted excerpt from the Introduction of Falastiniyyat: A Century of Palestinian Feminisms by Nada Elia and has been reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Verso Books.

“I am a freedom fighter. So I will not be the victim.” —Ahed Tamimi, upon her release at age seventeen from Israeli prison for slapping an occupation soldier (Guardian, July 30, 2018)

I grew up in a household of women and children that, as my sisters and I matured, eventually became a household of only women. My father was frequently gone on long overseas business trips before his untimely death when I was seven. I often wonder if this is the reason the expression “women and children” strikes me as essentially flawed: It suggests that women and children are the more vulnerable members of society, rather than its resilient survivors. It infantilizes women by grouping them with children, rather than adult men.

In the context of a national struggle, it strips women of agency, as if such agency can only manifest through armed revolt. In a military context, the expression “women and children” — or “womenandchildren,” to use the term coined by antimilitary feminist scholar Cynthia Enloe — presumes that women and children never take up arms or participate in resistance, even as we see such actions occurring in numerous struggles around the world. And in listing casualties, it implies that men’s deaths and injuries are less tragic, less mournable.

In the case of Palestine, women and youth have led, and continue to lead, some of the most transformative efforts and initiatives in our people’s quest for justice — that is, our resistance first to imperialism, then to settler colonialism and apartheid. They have not been spared Israel’s violence, just for being women, or children, and many have been and remain at the forefront of popular resistance to Zionism’s ultimate aim of eliminating all Palestinians. While this may have become more obvious during Israel’s accelerated genocidal assault on Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks, it had always been clear to anyone not deliberately looking away.

From a number of uprisings over the past century in Palestine, it is obvious that youth, “the children,” are not just among the leaders; they are the more effective, more transformational leaders. Unfettered by traditions and social norms they do not relate to, they engage in novel forms of organizing, seeking the complete abolition of oppressive systems, rather than their reversal. And women, in their capacity as autonomous adults, rather than merely as wives and mothers, have consistently resisted both the imperial ideology targeting their country, and the military assaults that accompanied it. They did so while providing men, as well as the youth and children, the moral, emotional, and practical support the Palestinian people need in order to persist. This was perhaps most evident on a global scale during the 1987–93 Intifada, when women organized most of the popular committees tending to the educational, nutritional, and health needs of Palestinians resisting Israel’s clampdown, as youth took to the streets daily to express their rejection of Israel’s decades-long oppressive rule. These defenseless children hurled rocks at armored tanks, fully aware of the hefty price they would pay for their defiant act, because they knew that risking limb and life is preferable to living without freedom and dignity.

Verso Books

Women’s and children’s agency is enacted daily in the courage of girls such as Janna Jihad, who was dubbed “the world’s youngest journalist” when she started documenting Israel’s crimes at a mere seven years of age. Jihad started recording Israel’s attacks using her mother’s cell phone, posting her recordings far and wide on social media. She has repeatedly said that her camera is her weapon of choice. Jihad is the cousin of Ahed Tamimi, the “lioness” who has confronted heavily armed Israeli soldiers determined to take over her village lands since she was a toddler. Israel imprisoned Tamimi for eight months when she was sixteen; she used the time behind bars to read up on international law, later enrolling in college planning to go to law school, so as to hold Israel accountable for its violations. “I am a freedom fighter. So I will not be the victim,” she told journalists upon her release.

Related Story

Op-Ed

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Human Rights

Palestinian Women and Children Don’t Deserve to Die in Gaza. Neither Do Men.

We can’t let Western media continue normalizing the acute dehumanization and pathologization of Palestinian men. By Sa’ed Atshan , Truthout

January 17, 2024

Palestinian children’s agency was also clear in the 2022 uprising of rebellious youth standing up to Israel’s might. Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, dubbed “the Lion of Nablus,” was eighteen when he was brutally assassinated by the Israeli Occupation Forces. Following his martyrdom, his mother, Huda al-Nabulsi, declared, “There are hundreds of Ibrahims now. You are all Ibrahim, you are all my children.” She did not mean that all young Palestinians will be martyred like her own son but, rather, that they will carry on the struggle she raised her son Ibrahim to fight.

Her statement recalls that of Fatima Breijeh, a decade earlier. Breijeh, who had lost one son to Israel’s violence, asserted: “I have decided to continue to resist until the last breath and to continue to urge people to resist and to teach my children to resist and to lay the foundation for this through their milk.”

Breijeh, al-Nabulsi, Tamimi, and Jihad are some of the more recent Palestinian women and children challenging Israel’s might, and its mighty oppression. They do not present a new social development but, rather, follow in the footsteps of generations of Palestinian women and children who have stood up to colonialism in the past century, deftly navigating their social and political circumstances as they have sought their liberation, and that of their people. And in the Diaspora, it is groups like the Palestine Youth Movement, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, and the youth-led Within Our Lifetime who are at the forefront of organizing for total liberation.

Since we are not yet a sovereign people, it is impossible to separate Palestinian women’s activism from the national struggle for liberation. However, there is no doubt that, while the struggles of Palestinian women in the opening decades of the twentieth century were inextricably connected to the broader national struggle for liberation, their activism also challenged the internal status quo of Palestinian society and should be understood as random acts of feminism, as it not only charted new paths for these women themselves but also sought to improve the circumstances of all women, whatever their social status.

25 Years of Truthout: An important fundraising appeal

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As we look to the next 25 years, we have launched a special fundraising campaign. At this moment, we have a goal to raise $27,000 in the next 24 hours.

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about:blank This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Nada Elia

Nada Elia is a diasporic Palestinian scholar and activist whose work, both in the classroom and the streets, focuses on exposing and redressing structural systems of oppression. She is the author of Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine. Nada also teaches in the Department of Ethnic Studies at Western Washington University.

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Stop Mad King Donald’s Iran War: An Open Letter to Members of the US Congress

The war with Iran is Trump’s folly but Congress’s disgrace for not stopping it.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Sep 23, 2026 Common Dreams

Dear Members of Congress,

In truly deranged remarks to world leaders at the UN, Donald Trump declared that “I have a big decision to make,” whether to negotiate a deal with Iran or instead to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and drive Iran “into hell with no chance of survival.”

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He posed it as his personal choice. The fact that the American people are dead set against Trump’s war means nothing. And as for the voters, he added that he gives “absolutely no credence” to the coming midterm elections in deciding on his actions and on Iran’s fate.

The President’s threat to annihilate a member state of the United Nations, delivered from the General Assembly podium, disgraced Trump in front of the world.

Nothing binds this President. He is not bound by law, the Constitution, the UN Charter, or public opinion at home and abroad. When asked at the start of the year whether he has any limits on his power, he said “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Trump opened his speech with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, hailing America’s freedom. The fact is that Trump’s authoritarianism far outdoes that of King George III, against whom the colonies rebelled. Among the founders’ indictments of Mad King George was that “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.” Yet our own mad king has decided that the survival of a whole civilization is in his hands alone.

Trump is emboldened in his contempt for Congress because the Republican members of Congress have abdicated their constitutional responsibilities, terrified of their own president, and forsaking their constituents for campaign lucre from AIPAC and the military-industrial complex.

The Constitution is unambiguous regarding Congress’s responsibility. Article I, Section 8 assigns Congress, not the President, the sole power to declare war. That is not a choice or an option. The Constitution doesn’t say that Congress can play dead and let the President declare war. The Framers made this choice deliberately, because they were explicitly rejecting the power of a king to take the nation to war.

In Federalist 69, Hamilton assured the public that the President’s war powers would be far less than the British monarch’s. Madison stated the principle plainly in a letter to Jefferson in 1798: “The constitution supposes, what the History of all Govts demonstrates, that the Ex. is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature.”

The founders’ careful design has been overturned because of the unconstitutional subservience of the Republican members of Congress to Trump and to the military-industrial-digital complex. And yes, under Democratic presidents, most Democratic members of Congress also looked the other way when those presidents chose to go to war.

The war with Iran is Trump’s folly but Congress’s disgrace for not stopping it. It is a war without a purpose that has created mass suffering in Iran, tens of billions of dollars of direct outlays, and staggering damage to American military bases in eight countries of the Middle East. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent world and American prices soaring for oil, gas, fertilizers, and more. And the world has duly noted that Iran can hold its own against US aggression, albeit at great sacrifice to the people of Iran and the region.

America’s much vaunted AI battlefield has been exposed in the most horrifying way. On the first day of the war, an American missile struck the girls’ elementary school there, killing more than 150 people, most of them girls aged seven to twelve, and the military’s own inquiry reportedly found that overreliance on artificial intelligence contributed to the targeting. Trump blamed “Iran or somebody else,” and seven months later the administration has offered no findings, no apology and no compensation to the families.

The President’s threat to annihilate a member state of the United Nations, delivered from the General Assembly podium, disgraced Trump in front of the world. It also violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits even the threat of force against another state. Nearly all the world stands aghast.

I write to you because you cannot simply walk away from Trump’s recklessness, shaking your heads silently. You have a job to do, so do it. The craven Republican Party has to find even a minimal level of guts to tell Trump, “No, you do not have the power to destroy Iran. Any war with Iran depends on us, and we don’t support you and our constituents want this war to stop.” A clear majority of Americans oppose this war, and poll after poll shows that the opposition to the war is growing. A few Republicans have found that courage. Last week three more Republicans broke ranks to support ending the war. Their colleagues should follow.

Many of you receive campaign contributions from military contractors and technology companies deeply involved in the war. Many of you take money from AIPAC, which champions the war that Netanyahu did so much to help launch. This has to stop, as it is a dereliction of your constitutional duty and a violation of your oath.

Congress holds the power of the purse. The fiscal year ends on September 30, and every bill that funds the Pentagon is your opportunity to prohibit funds for unauthorized offensive operations against Iran.

The right course for the US is simple. Congress should cut off funding, and the US should stop further attacks and go home. We need no agreement with Iran or anyone else to stop the war that we started. By ending the war you will immediately restore some sanity and safety to the world energy markets, food supplies, and prices faced by Americans and others around the world.

How America has declined from the glorious moment when John F. Kennedy stood at the same podium at the UN on September 20, 1963, after having negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union. He told the assembled leaders that the treaty can be a lever, and Archimedes, in explaining the principles of the lever, was said to have declared to his friends: “Give me a place where I can stand—and I shall move the world.” My fellow inhabitants of this planet: Let us take our stand here in this Assembly of nations. And let us see if we, in our own time, can move the world to a just and lasting peace.

Members of Congress, to save our nation’s honor and our Constitution, you must do your duty to stop this war, and stop Trump’s brazen, destructive, and unconstitutional grab for power.

Respectfully,

Jeffrey D. Sachs

University Professor, Columbia University

An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder

Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn’t last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don’t accept corporate advertising and never will. We don’t have a paywall because we don’t think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder

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

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development. He has been advisor to three United Nations Secretaries-General, and currently serves as an SDG Advocate under Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sachs is the author, most recently, of “A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism” (2020). Other books include: “Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable” (2017) and “The Age of Sustainable Development,” (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.

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Poll: Majority of US Voters Support Impeaching Hegseth Over Iran War

 by Dave DeCamp | September 22, 2026 at 1:20 pm ET | Iran

A new poll from The Economist/YouGov found that a majority of registered US voters support impeaching US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) of Kentucky introduced a resolution to remove him.

The poll, conducted from September 18 to September 21, found that 51% of registered voters surveyed support impeaching Hegseth for starting the war with Iran without congressional authorization, while 34% oppose it. Support for impeachment rises among likely voters to 54%, and opposition rises to 35%.

“This is why [House Speaker Mike Johnson] adjourned Congress to avoid the vote and why the President isn’t defending [Hegseth],” Massie wrote on X in response to the results.

Hegseth before the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 21, 2026 (Pentagon photo)

Massie introduced the articles of impeachment on September 15, and because it was a privileged resolution, a vote had to happen within two days. But Johnson canceled the House’s voting session for September 17, sending lawmakers home early for a long recess that pushes the impeachment vote until after midterm elections.

Impeachment is much more popular among Democrats, with the YouGov poll showing 77% supporting it compared to just 22% of Republicans. But Massie only needs a few Republican votes to pass the impeachment resolution through the House, and seven House Republicans supported the latest War Powers Resolution calling for an end to the war with Iran, signaling that he may get enough.

While the poll asked only about Hegseth’s role in the Iran war, Massie’s eight articles of impeachment also address how Hegseth has ignored US laws designed to mitigate civilian casualties, his role in extrajudicial executions at sea (strikes on alleged drug-running boats), the attack on Venezuela to abduct President Maduro, the bombing campaign in Yemen last year, and his efforts to chill free speech.

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

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Trump’s threat to “annihilate” Iran: The criminalization of imperialist foreign policy

 Andre Damon@Andre__Damon, WSWS, 23 Sep 2026

 

President Donald Trump speaks to the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, at the UN headquarters. [AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson]

US President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that he is deciding whether to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” of Iran and “drive them into hell with no chance of survival.”

The American president asked: “Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

Trump’s murderous language marks a new stage in the criminalization of imperialist foreign policy amid the eruption of global war. It is without precedent in modern politics outside the discourse of Adolf Hitler’s regime, which waged a Vernichtungskrieg, a war of annihilation, against the Soviet Union.

Unlike Trump, however, Hitler did not announce his war of extermination in public. He gave the order in private, to his generals. On March 30, 1941, in a closed meeting with some 200 senior officers, he told them the coming invasion would be a Vernichtungskampf, “a war of extermination,” according to the diary of his army chief of staff, Franz Halder.

The extermination of the population of Iran, which has resisted Trump’s efforts to subjugate the country through war, is in fact being actively discussed at the White House. The journalist Seymour Hersh reported on June 10 that Trump had raised using nuclear weapons against Iran, a country of 93 million people, in a secret meeting with his senior staff.

Trump’s criminal war of aggression against Iran had killed at least 3,468 people and wounded more than 26,500 by June 10, according to Iran’s Health Ministry. Last week, a UN fact-finding mission found “reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed war crimes,” citing the US missile attack on February 28 on an elementary school in Minab that killed more than 150 people, 120 of them children.

The war against Iran is one component of the US-Israeli onslaught throughout the Middle East, whose highest expression is the genocide in Gaza, which has killed 73,919 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The threat against Iran was one item in a series. Trump boasted that the US military had penetrated “deep into the Venezuelan capital” and “arrested” Maduro, and that the reward was “the largest oil deal in history,” 65 billion barrels. “To the victor belong the spoils,” Trump declared. Cuba “is an absolutely failed state … and it will fall.” Greenland is to pass under the “permanent control” of the United States, with two “very major military bases.”

During Trump’s speech, only the delegations of Iran and Cuba, whose government Trump threatened to overthrow, left the hall in protest. The representatives of the European imperialist powers, for all their constant talk of democracy and human rights, sat there and did nothing. Khalilur Rahman, the Bangladeshi foreign minister who presides over the Assembly, thanked the American president.

The UN Charter was signed in San Francisco on June 26, 1945, seven weeks after the surrender of Nazi Germany, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.”

Its Article 2 binds every member to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Trump’s speech was such a threat, made in the building constructed to outlaw it by the leader of a state almost seven months into an illegal war of aggression. Trump’s speech itself is indictable as a violation of international law.

The European counterpoint to Trump was given Tuesday by French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke of “the return of imperialism, of arrogance, the return of unrestrained force which knows no rules … A world in which some believe that they can undermine the international order so as to push their borders outwards.”

He added, “War crimes have been industrialized. We’ve seen the destruction of civilian infrastructure, human rights violations.”

But while some commentators took his remarks as a veiled critique of Trump, he never named the American president. Rather, his speech was a vocal and explicit denunciation of Russia and a declaration of intent to continue, alongside Trump, to fund and arm Ukraine.

Macron declared that “Russia has been waging a cruel war on civilians. It’s been occupying the territory of a sovereign state. France will continue providing unstinting support” for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

In Macron’s view, the appropriate response to Russia’s “imperialism” and “war crimes” is for the European imperialist powers to intensify their war against Russia. Macron made no effort to square his claims that the war against Russia is a war for democracy with the fact that Trump, his ally in that war, had just threatened to exterminate the population of an entire country.

In 1920 Lenin described the League of Nations, the UN’s predecessor, as “a league of mad dogs who are snatching each other’s bones.” The phrase is perhaps somewhat quaint. The UN General Assembly of 2026 is an active planning center for war.

After meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the same day, Macron announced a contract to supply Ukraine with radars and air-defense missiles, the Kyiv Independent reported Tuesday. Trump, for his part, also met Zelensky on Tuesday and confirmed that the manufacture of Patriot air-defense missiles in Ukraine was under discussion.

As the Trump-Zelensky meeting opened, a British reporter told Trump that “a lot of people in the UK are very worried about the mood music from the UK and other European leaders about the inevitability of direct conflict between us and Russia,” and asked: “Can you stop that happening?” Trump refused to give a serious answer.

In fact, Trump’s blood-curdling threats against Iran, and the fact that they provoked no serious protest among the leaders of the imperialist powers, demonstrate the extent to which global war, and its corollary, the extermination of entire populations, has been normalized by world capitalism.

The Democrats are not an alternative to this warmongering. Just days earlier, they had given Trump a blank check to escalate the war not only against Russia but against Iran. On September 16, 58 House Democrats voted for the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which authorizes the president to tax imports from China, India and the other largest purchasers of Russian oil at rates as high as 100 percent and extends for five years the sanctions on Iran’s energy and arms sectors. Thirty-six of the 45 Senate Democrats had voted for it on August 7.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries voted no because, he said, the bill did not go far enough against Russia: “You have to confront the bully, not appease the bully.” A Democratic majority in Congress after November 3 would take the war further and faster.

The day before his speech, Trump met New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), at Gracie Mansion. Mamdani said nothing about the war and told reporters: “We appreciate the president’s commitment to the city.”

Trump began his speech by boasting of “the golden age of America,” declaring, “The entire world is being lifted by the wealth, strength, spirit, and momentum of a newly energized and a very powerful United States of America.”

In fact, Trump presides over a social order and political system that is rotting on its feet—what Trotsky described on the eve of World War II as “the death agony of capitalism.” The same crisis is producing its opposite: the growth of social opposition, mass protests and global class struggle.

The opposition to Trump’s criminal warmongering will come neither from the European imperialist powers nor from the Democrats and their accomplices in the DSA. It will come from the international working class, armed with the program of international socialism.

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Majority of Democratic Voters Want to Prosecute Both Biden and Trump Administration Officials Over Gaza

 

Protesters gathered in front of the US State Department demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the US-backed Israeli military operations, and unrestricted humanitarian aid access on July 22, 2025, in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The vast majority of Democratic voters believe Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza and want its supporters in both parties to face consequences.

Stephen Prager, Common Dreams, Sep 22, 2026

The majority of Democratic voters believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza for the past three years. And they want the American politicians in both parties who supported it to pay.

In a poll released on Monday by the Center for Strategic Politics and commissioned by the magazine Liberal Currents, 683 Democratic voters were asked whether the next Democratic administration should “pursue criminal prosecution of members of the Trump and Biden administrations for actions taken related to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”

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More than half, 57%, of the Democrats surveyed answered “yes,” while only 22% answered “no” and another 22% said they “don’t know.”

Self-described “socialists” and “progressives” were most bullish on Gaza-focused prosecutions. But so were 52% of “liberals” and even 48% of Democrats who called themselves “moderate” or “conservative.”

It is one of several questions in the poll about a hypothetical Democratic administration prosecuting its predecessors over policies considered deadly and destructive.

About two-thirds, 66%, said they wanted to see Trump administration officials prosecuted for actions taken during its aggressive war with Iran, which has led to the deaths of more than 1,700 civilians and wrought economic turmoil.

Nearly three-quarters, 72%, believed Trump officials should face similar accountability for their campaign of extrajudicial strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which have killed more than 234 people in what a top United Nations official recently said may constitute “crimes against humanity.”

And more than three-quarters said they wanted to see Trump officials face legal penalties for actions committed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which have waged a violent mass deportation campaign that has entailed numerous documented due process violations, instances of racial profiling, and several shootings of immigrants and US citizens without clear justification.

The question about Gaza is the only one in the survey in which Democrats were asked about the prospect of prosecuting members of their own party as well as Republicans. And while fewer Democrats ultimately answered yes, it indicates that their ire toward the American politicians supporting the genocide transcends party loyalty.

The poll results come as some activists pursue accountability for the Biden administration in other ways. Last week, organizers launched a campaign to pressure universities and other prominent institutions to cut ties with what they called the “Genocide 20.”

These are officials like former Secretary of State Tony Blinken and former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan who crafted and defended the administration’s policy of unrestricted military aid for Israel despite mounting evidence that it was killing scores of civilians and enacting a campaign of starvation against the people of Gaza.

The United States provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military assistance between October 7, 2023, and the end of former President Joe Biden’s term in January 2025, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project. During that period, more than 47,000 Palestinians were confirmed killed, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Since President Donald Trump returned to office, the US has continued to provide Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, including $3.8 billion in regular annual military aid, while the Trump administration has approved billions more in arms sales and expedited weapons deliveries. The death toll has risen to nearly 74,000, according to official figures, but independent experts have suggested this may be a significant undercount.

According to Monday’s poll, more than 4 in 5 Democrats said that “foreign policy (including Israel and Iran)” is important to them in deciding which candidates to support, compared with just 4% who said it is not.

Foreign policy has been a critical dividing line in several recent Democratic primaries, in which voters have revolted against candidates backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

This includes Democratic Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who was defeated by Abdul El-Sayed in a contest for the US Senate despite her more than $30 million in backing from AIPAC, which helped to turn it into the most expensive Democratic primary ever.

AIPAC-backed House candidates have similarly suffered high-profile defeats at the hands of progressives calling to cut off US funding for Israel. Some of the victors include Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, and Aisha Wahab, who won a special election in California.

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