r/Trotskyism

>On Thursday, as the US ceasefire entered its fifteenth day, President Trump issued an order to “shoot and kill” small Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the US Navy seized an oil tanker associated with Iran in the Indian Ocean.

>These developments, along with the arrival of a third US aircraft carrier strike group in the region, represent an escalation of the war against Iran and the deepening crisis inside the Trump administration’s military and political leadership.

>On Thursday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social an order for the US Navy to take lethal action against Iranian boats that he claimed are laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. In his 8:45 a.m. post, Trump wrote, “I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.”

>He went on, “There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine ‘sweepers’ are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!”

>Trump’s threat directive and authorization for immediate lethal force against Iranian boats is a war crime. There are no independently confirmed reports that Iran is currently and actively mining the Strait of Hormuz.

>In any case, despite the US and its imperialist and regional supporters assertion that Iran has no right to mine the waterway, doing so is a justified defensive act following weeks of an air war by the US and Israel that has been followed by repeated threats of an imminent amphibious invasion of the country from the strait.

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>Under the cover of a “pause” in the war, the White House is combining blockade tactics, interdiction and lethal naval actions to tighten the grip around Iran. The arrival of the Nimitz-class carrier USS George H.W. Bush and accompanying warships in the US Central Command area of responsibility, which covers American military operations across the Middle East, is also an aspect of this strategy.

>The presence of a third aircraft carrier strike group in or near the theater shows that Trump is now preparing for sustained war operations in the region. Carrier strike groups are among the most powerful tools of US military power, bringing fighter aircraft, surveillance, missile systems, destroyers and logistics support. Their deployment signals readiness for prolonged strikes, control of the seas and escalation across multiple domains.

>The presence of three carrier strike groups brings a level of force which is surrounding Iran, and the Middle East as a whole, with overwhelming American naval power. The deployment of the USS George H.W. Bush and its escorts are part of the military operations that will act on the administration’s “shoot and kill” order.

>The resignation of Navy Secretary John Phelan late Wednesday, announced by the Pentagon, is one of the clearest signs that the war against Iran is resulting in sharp conflicts at the top of the US defense establishment. While no official reason was given for Phelan’s departure, reports have pointed to differences inside the administration, and the timing strongly suggests that the conflict over the conduct of the war is intensifying.

>A senior civilian naval official leaving in the middle of a major military escalation is not routine. It indicates a level of crisis within the Trump regime that is severe enough to rupture the normal chain of military command.

>The forced resignation of Phelan reveals that the war is not proceeding smoothly. While the Trump administration is publicly projecting unity, the resignation portrays a deep crisis over the illegal war against Iran. When the departure of a senior military leader occurs in the middle of a war amid escalating naval operations, it is a sign of extraordinary instability and points to the likelihood of tensions over the direction of the military campaign. It comes only a month after the forcing out of Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, again at the direct order of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

>The human toll of the war against Iran is immense. Iranian authorities have reported that the death toll has reached 3,468. Thousands of deaths in such a short period of time means widespread destruction of infrastructure, civilian suffering and social dislocation. The impact of the killing and destruction of communities, the destabilization of the country on a massive scale will have a lasting impact.

>On Thursday, Lebanese and Israeli representatives met at the White House as part of ongoing talks about the Israeli invasion and annexation of southern Lebanon. The talks reportedly extended the ceasefire in Lebanon by three weeks. However, Israel has repeatedly stated that it will not withdraw from southern Lebanon during the talks, proving that this ceasefire, like the Iran ceasefire, only applies to one side in the conflict.

>A federal judge ordered the release of Hayam El Gamal and her five children Thursday, ending nearly 10 months of imprisonment at the Dilley family detention center in South Texas.

>The family’s attorney Christopher Godshall-Bennett announced the ruling on X within minutes of leaving the courtroom. “Just finished arguing the El Gamal family’s habeas petition in San Antonio. The Court has ordered their IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” Godshall-Bennett wrote. “I left the courtroom in tears, thrilled that this family can return to their home.”

>Co-counsel Eric Lee posted: “The El Gamals are finally, finally being released.” Less than two hours later, Lee reported that ICE was stonewalling the court. “The court order has been published demanding ICE release the El Gamal family immediately and ICE has still not yet even agreed to speak to us,” he wrote from Dilley. “We have been at Dilley for an hour.” By Thursday evening Lee posted simply: “The El Gamal family is free.”

>A third attorney for the family, Niels Frenzen of the USC Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic, said in a statement: “A federal judge has ordered the Government to release a family who have been unlawfully targeted and punished because of the alleged actions of their husband and father. This release order is long overdue. But the Administration’s efforts to deport the family continue, so their ordeal is not over yet.”

>US District Judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas issued the order Thursday morning after a hearing in San Antonio. Biery directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release “Petitioners Hayam El Gamal, Habiba Soliman, and the 4 minor children, E.S.; A.S.; H.S.; and O.S.” immediately. The ruling adopted the recommendation of US Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Chestney, who had found Monday that the government failed to show the family posed any danger or flight risk and warned of “significant risks that the Government will intervene to again target Petitioners’ case.”

>The family—Hayam El Gamal, her 18-year-old daughter Habiba, a 16 year old, a nine year old and two five-year-old twins—had been held at the Dilley Family Residential Center since June 2025. ICE seized them two days after the June 1, 2025 Boulder, Colorado firebombing attack for which Hayam El Gamal’s husband Mohamed Sabry Soliman was arrested.

>The family had no advance knowledge of the attack. An FBI agent testified to this in court. El Gamal filed for divorce from Soliman after his arrest. None of this prevented the Department of Homeland Security from shipping the family from Colorado Springs to a detention camp nearly a thousand miles away. An immigration judge set a $15,000 bond for the family on September 19, 2025. The Trump administration used legal maneuvers to block the release. They remained imprisoned for another seven months.

>The Trump administration attacked the ruling within hours. Department of Homeland Security Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis denounced Biery, who was appointed to the federal bench by former US President Bill Clinton, as an “activist judge.” “Despite receiving full due process and a final order of removal, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist’s family onto American streets,” Bis said. She added that the administration would “continue to fight for the removal of those who have no right to be in our country, especially national security threats.”

>The statement branded an 18-year-old student, a nine year old, a 16 year old and two five year olds as terrorists. None of them has been charged with any crime.

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>Dilley, opened as a “temporary” detention center in 2014 under the Obama administration, has been expanded and refilled under the second Trump administration with families seized in the nationwide ICE raids that began in 2025.

>Biery’s ruling also halted the administration’s removal proceedings against the family so the asylum case can proceed.

>El Gamal and her five children were held for 10 months in a Texas detention camp on the orders of the administration. None of them has been charged with any crime. A federal court has now ruled the imprisonment violated the Constitution. The administration says it will continue to pursue their deportation.

>In the summer of 2025, southern Argentina’s Patagonia region was overwhelmed by fires that burned over 270,000 acres of forests, and thousands of homes. The fires were attributed to a decade-long dry spell combined with very high temperatures. Regional rains have fallen by 20 percent. This process was accompanied by less snow in the Andes Mountains, which feed the glaciers, which in turn feed the rivers and lakes upon which Patagonia’s cities and towns, and its tourist industry, depend. There was not enough water to fight the fires.

>Further north from Patagonia, the vineyards of central Argentina’s Mendoza province are drying up from lack of water and being contaminated by gold and copper mining. The poor in many areas go days without potable water, which is diverted to rich neighborhoods.

>Indifferent to those links between the Patagonian fires, water shortages and water contamination due to the shrinking glaciers on the Andes Mountains, the fascistic administration of President Javier Milei rammed through a bill modifying legal protections to glaciers to increase mining activity in the Andes.

>A key provision in the new legislation leaves it up to the provinces and their corrupt politicians how to manage the glaciers within their borders, effectively pitting one province against another. These provinces will be allowed to decide on a case-by-case basis if they believe glaciers should remain protected or whether to permit open-pit mining projects that could destroy them.

>The purpose of the new law is effectively to hand over control of these water resources to mining and oil companies. This is justified by the corrupt and fascistic Milei administration as a road to economic development and greater employment to compensate for the attack on full-time jobs and the deindustrialization of the national economy.

>In effect, the right of workers, farmers and the middle class to water is to be sacrificed to further the profit interests of mining and oil monopolies and the financial oligarchy.

>On April 8, a special session of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies voted for Milei’s bill to change the Glacier Law that has protected the Andean glacial and periglacial zones.

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>On Sunday, September 13, 2015, 140 miles downriver from the mine in the town of Jáchal, in northern San Juan Province, the family of a Veladero worker received a WhatsApp message about an accident at the mine. Following ten days of silence, Barrick/Shandong, confirmed on September 23 that some 300,000 gallons of cyanide had contaminated a nearby river and its tributaries in the basin.

>This event resulted in a social explosion and revealed the collaboration of provincial governments which had turned a blind eye to the way the mines were being run by the corporate oligarchy, in violation of the 2010 law.

>The cyanide spill was the largest ever in Argentina, contaminating water in San Juan, and other provinces. Since 2015, there have been four more toxic spills from the mine. In 2017, 70,000 people signed a petition demanding the mine’s closure. In addition to cyanide, there have also been arsenic spills and mercury contaminations.

>Similar violations have become common in Chile, Peru and other Andean nations. Barrick has become infamous for its violations of environmental regulations but continues to operate copper and gold mines in Peru, Chile, Mexico, Australia and in several African nations.

>Outside of Milei’s governing coalition (La Libertad Avanza), the pseudo-left and some smaller parties (that voted against it), the voting for the April 8 legislation was mostly geographically divided. Legislators from eight mining provinces approved the law, regardless of party, while those from other provinces voted against. This was the case, also with those parties, and coalitions that brand themselves as Peronist. Support was also divided in the labor bureaucracy. The mining union (AOMA), the metal workers union (UOM) and truckers (STOTAC) supported the new law, while other unions passively rejected it without mobilizing workers against it.

>The lessons from Milei’s glacier legislation demonstrate that the defense of the environment, including the protection of glaciers and periglacial zones, cannot be left to the political parties of the ruling class, including the fascistic Milei administration, the bourgeois nationalist parties like Peronism, the pseudo-left organizations or trade union bureaucracies. It requires the scientific education and the international mobilization of the working class, united across every continent, in the revolutionary struggle for the socialist transformation of the entire planet.