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As Ukraine faces another winter under siege, the Russian military continues to escalate its violence and push forward along the eastern front. And it’s all taking place against the global backdrop of the U.S. transition to a new presidential administration, multiple collapsed governments in Europe, and the fall of the Kremlin-backed Assad regime in Syria.

In Ukraine, the Russian military appears to be priming the pump for retaking Ukrainian territory it had lost two years ago in the southeastern region, or oblast, of Kherson, using a particularly sinister terror tactic referred to by local residents as a “human safari.” The tactic involves the prolific use of unmanned “suicide” or “kamikaze” drones that appear to hunt down civilians as they attempt to go about their lives in distinctly civilian areas.

Such drone targeting has had a significant physical and psychological impact on the population of Kherson: Whenever residents step outside their homes, they face the real and frequent threat of being hunted down by a Russian-operated drone, generating persistent anxiety, fear, and an atmosphere of constant danger with no escape. The tactic takes advantage of the unique geography of the region and the proximity of Russian-controlled and Ukrainian-controlled areas. As such, it also seems to be part of a Kremlin strategy to seize the greatest-possible advantage before any potential peace or ceasefire negotiations. It also may be aimed at shaping the environment for the longer term — by threatening the population of a Ukrainian-controlled area enough to force them to leave in advance and to pacify those who remain in the event of another takeover.

How Russia’s “Human Safari” Functions in Kherson

The port city of Kherson is the administrative center of the oblast of the same name, located in the southeast of Ukraine on the Dnipro River not far from Odesa and Crimea. In the early stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began on Feb. 24, 2022, the city, which had a prewar population of about 280,000, was one of the first to fall to Russian forces in early March. It was a short but bloody battle resulting in the deaths of as many as 300 Ukrainian civilians and fighters and eight months of occupation.

Kherson’s citizens demonstrated against Russian rule and were met with forceful resistance from the Russian occupational authorities. But later that year, in November 2022, Russian forces withdrew under fierce pressure from the Ukrainian military, liberating large areas to Ukrainian control once again. Today, Ukrainian forces hold the city and some surrounding villages on the left bank of the Dnipro, while Russian forces control the eastern bank. In recent days, the city also has come under heavy shelling from the Russian forces on the other side of the river, and Ukrainian authorities anticipate a potential large-scale Russian ground offensive.

With the battle lines active around Kherson, civilians appear to be a key target for the Russian military. Since this summer, Russian forces have been using  several types of drones in what appears to be an effort to target and follow civilians in Kherson. The devices include first-person view (FPV) drones that allow the remote pilot to see what the drone sees in real time, Chinese-produced Mavic drones that face a potential ban in the United States over national security concerns, and Russian Lancet kamikaze drones. These drones can travel as far as about nine miles, which allows them to be controlled from temporarily-occupied territory of Ukraine and cross the Dnipro River into Ukrainian-controlled Kherson.

More than 9,500 Russian drone attacks have been reported in the city of Kherson and its neighboring villages just since August, causing at least 37 deaths and more than 500 injuries. The danger comes from the explosives these drones carry. Most of the devices are fitted with grenades or other improvised explosives. Others carry more powerful explosives, including anti-tank mines and RPG warheads that appear to be used more frequently to target humanitarian-response infrastructure and military vehicles. Some even carry incendiary bombs dropped to set fields and buildings on fire. Some use “petal” mines that resemble leaves when dropped from overhead.

Because of the volume and the small size of the drones, they are challenging for Ukrainian forces to detect and counter. Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, spokesperson for the Kherson military administration, said officials counted “dozens” of attacks per day in August, amounting to more than 2,500 over the course of the month.

Psychological Impact

The buzzing of drones and the danger that they portend have become an everyday backdrop to life in Kherson, a region already scarred by Russia’s brutal occupation in 2022, which included disappearances, abductions, and protests broken up by Russian forces with rubber bullets and stun grenades. Despite being liberated from occupation, civilians in the Kherson region remain under constant threat and have been forced to take unprecedented and difficult precautions in their everyday lives, oftentimes being forced to stay indoors as much as possible and, when they need to go somewhere, drive quickly or stop under trees to avoid detection from any drones overhead. As one Kherson resident told BBC News, the residents of Kherson “are in a horrible situation” forced to “move from one tree to another, taking cover.” Kherson’s local government has even advised residents of Kherson to stay home or carry a tourniquet while outside the house in case of attack. Residents find reprieve only in heavy rain, which makes it more difficult for drones to fly.

The scenes have echoes of images from the 1990s war in Bosnia, when residents of the capital Sarajevo were forced to navigate a city under siege by Bosnian Serb forces arrayed along the hilltops surrounding the town in the valley. Any outing for daily essentials of food or water or to and from work for those fortunate enough to still have work required speeding in cars along targeted corridors to evade snipers or dashing on foot from one place of cover to another.

One Kherson resident told The Telegraph that the sense of danger is so constant that “people have become calloused, they lose the meaning of life.” Russian military bloggers- soldiers in the army – have taken to Telegram to share videos that appeared to show Kherson residents being systematically hunted down and killed by drones. Videos of innocent Ukrainian civilians being chased down, struck, and left injured or dying on the street have been widely disseminated. Speaking directly to the term “human safari” as used by Kherson’s residents, one Telegram post declared, “the hunt has started,” and other bloggers in the Russian military who document their drone attacks openly brag that they aim to target “anyone or anything that moves.” The dissemination of these videos contributes to the sense of brutal dehumanization of the people of Kherson and exacerbates the atmosphere of terror.

Target Practice?

This form of violence is especially odious as the Russian military appears to be intentionally targeting innocent civilians and civilian objects, which would be a war crime under the international laws of armed conflict. The Ukrainian head of Kherson’s regional administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, deemed it “targeted terrorism,” citing the apparently deliberate nature and intent to kill or intimidate a civilian population.

Prokudin and other officials expressed their suspicion to the Financial Times that the widespread use of drones to hunt down civilians may be a new component of the Russian military’s training regime. In an investigation published this month by the Centre for Information Resilience’s (CIR’s) Eyes on Russia project, researchers found that the vast majority of such strikes in Kherson appeared to target vehicles, particularly non-military trucks, cars, ambulances, and buses. This suggests that the military may be practicing the targeting of moving objects, perhaps with the intent to replicate this type of drone targeting on other parts of the front line. CIR reported, “Russian units on the right bank of the Dnipro River using civilian targets for live training exercises is a realistic possibility.”

Terror, Depopulation, and Territorial Gains Ahead of Negotiations

The outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election and President-elect Donald Trump’s not-yet-clear approach to ending the war in Ukraine will greatly impact the trajectory of Russia’s aggression and may already be affecting the Kremlin’s operations and calculus. The incoming administration has already begun to push for peace talks, albeit without proposing a structure or preferred outcome when it comes to temporarily-occupied territories, NATO membership for Ukraine, and security guarantees for the country going forward. While Trump’s rhetoric may suggest that he intends to bring the Kremlin to the table, whether he will force Putin to do so at a benefit or cost to the Kremlin’s economic and military aims is still not clear.

That leaves the Kremlin looking for the strongest possible position in advance of any talks, a ceasefire, or pressure to enter a negotiated settlement in which the conflict is frozen along the battle lines at that time. In such an event, capturing the river-port city of Kherson would prove an asset to the Kremlin. There is not yet concrete evidence that the Russian military is making plans to cross the Dnipro and retake Kherson immediately, and Russia currently seems most focused on hotspots including the Ukrainian territory of Pokrovsk (where Russia is gaining ground) and its own territory of Kursk (where it is seeking to recapture areas seized by Ukraine in a surprise lightning maneuver in August this year).

But a move on Kherson cannot be ruled out in the medium- to long-term. Indeed, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov recently declared a goal of fully occupying four regions of Ukraine by 2025, notably including Kherson, as well as Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. Such Russian control of Ukrainian territory has proven devastating to residents, Additionally, a move across the Dnipro River into Kherson proper also would give the Russian military a significantly easier route to push beyond the lines it reached in the initial full-scale invasion in 2022, before Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson in November that year.

In the meantime, Russia’s “human safari” in Kherson is shaping conditions aimed at countering civilian resistance — and even existence. An exhausted population living in constant danger and distrust of their environment is more difficult to defend. One risk is that this Russian tactic will wear down the people of Kherson and prevent them from resisting a Russian incursion and the spread of Russian influence. It also may be intended to drive the people of Kherson to flee entirely, making the area that much easier to capture and – importantly — hold. One Kherson resident told The Guardian, “There were maybe 1,500 or 2,000 people in my area after the Russian occupation ended. Now, there are 1,000 at most.”

As depopulation in Kherson continues under the inescapable threat of targeted drones, the Kremlin moves closer to the goals of its potential strategy to take territory before a ceasefire along current lines. The effect also clears the area of civilian resistance and Ukrainian resilience to make way for Russian capture and occupation. The additional possibility that the Russian military is using Kherson residents as training targets also suggests that the Kremlin is ramping up its modes of aggression in Ukraine and expanding its highly illegal tactics of war.

U.S. and European governments supporting Ukraine should more frequently and forcefully call out and condemn these tactics and provide additional support to help the Ukrainian military intercept the drones and respond more effectively when they hit. Humanitarian organizations and human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also could help by drawing more attention to the depravity and illegality of these tactics. And the West should keep a keen eye on any such tactics used by Russia to gain more ground, in any way, in advance of or during negotiations.

IMAGE: Soldiers from Ukraine’s 124th Brigade of the territorial defense, stand in a defensive position and look for aviation and drones through binoculars on November 2, 2023, in Kherson Region, Ukraine. (Photos by Ed Ram/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The post Russia’s “Human Safari” Terror Tactic in Key Southeastern Ukraine Region of Kherson appeared first on Just Security.

President-elect Donald Trump is retaking office at an inflection point in Iranian nuclear policy. After long denying any interest in nuclear weapons, Iranian officials are now publicly debating the security value of a nuclear deterrent and threatening to pursue nuclear weapons if attacked. This shift in nuclear policy, along with the technical advances that have brought Iran to the threshold of nuclear weapons, poses a serious proliferation challenge that the Trump administration will need to confront immediately upon taking office.

Despite the increasing risk that Iran will weaponize its nuclear program, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian continues to emphasize Tehran’s interest in a deal and willingness to negotiate with the incoming U.S. President . Trump, too, appears to have acknowledged the necessity of reaching a nuclear deal with Iran in his second term, even though he withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in May 2018 despite Iran’s compliance. In a September press conference, Trump said that the United States has to “make a deal” with Iran because the “consequences are impossible” if the United States fails to do so. 

Even if the political will to negotiate exists on both sides, an agreement is far from assured. Iran’s nuclear program is technically more complex than when the JCPOA was negotiated. Furthermore, Iran’s attempt to use its nuclear weapons threshold status to deter further attacks ties the nuclear program and the prospects for diplomacy to the regional security situation, which is deteriorating. Iran is unlikely to accept significant restrictions on its nuclear program while Israel poses an imminent military threat and its “axis of resistance” is severely weakened through the degradation of key regional allies such as Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as the sudden departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Trump administration will need to take these factors into account as it determines its Iran strategy. 

A New Nuclear Reality in Iran

Iran’s nuclear program has changed fundamentally since negotiations on the 2015 nuclear deal. The Trump administration’s Iran strategy will need to consider Iran’s nuclear advances as it determines what is necessary for a new nuclear agreement to block Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons and how Iran’s recent threats to weaponize its nuclear program affect the U.S. approach to diplomacy and pressure.

Any new agreement, whether a limited, interim accord or a comprehensive nuclear deal, will need to take into account Iran’s new capabilities. Three areas in particular will affect negotiations. 

New Nuclear Knowledge. First, the knowledge Iran has gained from expanding its nuclear program over the past several years cannot be reversed and has altered the pathways available to Iran if the decision is made to weaponize.

When Iran began breaching the JCPOA’s limits in May 2019, a year after the U.S. had ceased complying, it initially focused on resuming activities that had been successfully halted by the nuclear deal.  For example, it began exceeding the JCPOA’s stockpile limit of 200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium (defined in the JCPOA as enriched up to 3.67 percent) and increasing enrichment levels to 5 percent. These breaches were troubling but had limited impact on proliferation risk and did not result in Iran acquiring new, irreversible knowledge. 

However, beginning in late 2020, Iran began to invest in new nuclear capabilities, including beginning enrichment to 60 percent in April 2021, a level far closer to weapons grade, and using advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium more efficiently. Although Iran’s decision to accelerate its uranium enrichment program was largely directed at gaining leverage to push the United States back to talks and responding to sabotage, the advances created a swift option to produce weapons-grade uranium (about 90 percent enriched). As a result of these activities, Iran can now produce enough weapons-grade material for 5-6 bombs in about two weeks as of late 2024. This timeframe, known as breakout, was roughly 2-3 months when the JCPOA was negotiated and about 12 months when the nuclear deal was fully implemented – through the final year of the Obama administration until May 2019. Iran would likely still need 6-12 months to build a nuclear weapon, but that work would be done covertly and be more challenging to detect and disrupt. 

Given the irreversibility of Iran’s knowledge gains, a new deal could extend breakout by limiting uranium enrichment levels, capping stockpiles that can be readily enriched to higher levels, and reducing the number of operating centrifuges. But it will be impossible to achieve a  breakout time similar to the 12 months achieved by the JCPOA. This is because the knowledge Iran has gained will allow it to more quickly reconstitute its nuclear program. As a result, independent monitoring by international watchdogs at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)– which was a key emphasis of the JCPOA – will be even more important in a new nuclear agreement to ensure rapid detection of any deviation from Iran’s declared program. 

Gaps in IAEA Monitoring. Second, gaps in the IAEA’s current monitoring increase the risk that Iran has diverted materials to a covert program and make it more challenging for the agency to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful. When Iran was fully implementing the JCPOA, its nuclear program was subject to intrusive verification measures that put every aspect of Iran’s nuclear program under strict IAEA monitoring. However, as part of the response to the Israeli assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020, Iran passed a law requiring the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to suspend the more intrusive monitoring required by the JCPOA, including implementation of its commitments under the additional protocol to Iran’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA. That agreement (which Iran had been required to implement under the JCPOA)  had provided international inspectors with access to sites that support Iran’s nuclear program but do not house nuclear materials. This includes facilities such as centrifuge production workshops and Iran’s uranium mines. 

As a result of Iran’s decision to limit access, the IAEA has not inspected key nuclear facilities in Iran since February 2021, increasing the risk that Iran has diverted materials to covert sites. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi even admitted in November 2023 that the agency cannot account for all of Iran’s centrifuges. Furthermore, Iran halted the implementation of a provision of its legally binding safeguards agreement, known as modified Code 3.1, that requires it to provide notification to the agency when a decision is made to construct a new nuclear facility. Early access to design plans helps the IAEA develop a more effective safeguards approach. Iran’s failure to provide information about the new sites complicates the IAEA’s ability to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and that there has been no diversion to non-peaceful purposes. 

Shift in Iran’s Nuclear Doctrine. The third significant factor is the apparent shift in Iran’s nuclear doctrine. Iran has long denied that it pursued nuclear weapons in violation of its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments, despite ample evidence from the IAEA and the U.S. Intelligence Community that Iran had an organized nuclear weapons program through 2003. Over the past year, however, Iranian policymakers openly discussed the possibility that Tehran would rethink Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei’s fatwa prohibiting nuclear weapons if necessary for the security of the state. 

This shift in nuclear doctrine appears designed to leverage Iran’s status on the threshold of nuclear weapons by threatening to weaponize to prevent further attacks. By raising the possibility that the Supreme Leader’s fatwa prohibiting nuclear weapons can be overturned, Iranian officials are socializing the concept of a nuclear deterrent. Furthermore, the threats to develop weapons will put more pressure on the Iranian government to follow through on building a weapon if Iran is attacked. 

Trump’s Path to a Deal

Further complicating the challenges posed by Iran’s nuclear advances and shift in doctrine is the short timeframe that Trump will have to reach a deal. His administration faces a deadline in October 2025, when the option to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran expires. The mechanism for restoring those measures, known as snapback, cannot be vetoed. The United States cannot trigger snapback due to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA in 2015, but the United Kingdom and France, as participants in the nuclear deal and permanent members of the Security Council, can do so. In a Dec. 6 letter to the Security Council, the United Kingdom and France, along with Germany, reiterated “our determination to use all diplomatic tools to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, including using snap back if necessary.”

If snapback is triggered, negotiations are still possible, but the focus will likely shift to deterring Iran from withdrawing from the NPT, which the Pezeshkian administration has threatened to do if UN sanctions are reimposed. 

Furthermore, given how quickly Iran can break out, NPT withdrawal would significantly increase the likelihood of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, even if there is no evidence of weaponization. If Iran withdraws from the NPT, it would no longer be legally obligated to implement safeguards. U.S. and Israeli intelligence may still detect breakout or a move to weaponization, but it will be much more challenging to track Iran’s nuclear materials and activities without the IAEA’s presence, increasing the risk of miscalculation. 

To avert a crisis in October and reduce the risk of Iranian withdrawal from the NPT, the Trump administration must be ready to move quickly to engage Iran after taking office. Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, Iran appears focused on maximizing its leverage while publicly reiterating its interest in a deal. The Trump administration might be similarly tempted to ratchet up sanctions pressure upon taking office, but attempting to consolidate pressure before commencing talks would risk wasting the 6-7 months Trump will have to reach a deal. The spectre of UN snapback should create more than enough leverage on the U.S./UK/France side of the negotiating table, along with a massive unilateral U.S. sanctions program currently in place, to strike a balanced interim deal. 

The Contours of a Limited Nuclear Deal

The short timeframe for reaching and implementing a deal suggests that the Trump administration should focus on a limited agreement that addresses Iran’s most proliferation-sensitive activities and, most critically, increases IAEA monitoring and access to nuclear facilities. The scope of the deal will need to be carefully calibrated. Too comprehensive of an agreement would be technically challenging to negotiate in the short time frame. If a deal is too limited, however, it may not be sufficient to mitigate the risks of proliferation and conflict over Iran’s nuclear advances. 

To thread this needle, the United States should focus on three areas of Iran’s nuclear program:

Intrusive Monitoring. First, the Trump administration should prioritize increased monitoring of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including restoring access to sites that support the program but do not contain nuclear material.  The most straightforward option would be for Iran to provisionally implement the additional protocol to its safeguards agreement, which it did as part of the JCPOA from January 2016 to February 2021. The additional protocol would give inspectors access to sites such as Iran’s centrifuge production facilities and more tools to follow up on any evidence of undeclared nuclear activities. If it is not politically feasible for Iran to implement the additional protocol, the deal could include regular technical visits for the IAEA to inspect facilities not covered by Iran’s legally required safeguards agreement. This access is critical for the IAEA to provide assurance that Iran is not diverting materials to a covert program. 

In addition to expanding IAEA inspections, a limited deal should include online enrichment monitoring to provide assurance that any move to weapons-grade levels would be quickly discovered and an agreed-upon process and timeframe for Iran to provide the IAEA with information about unmonitored activities that took place after Iran suspended the additional protocol in February 2021. Including the latter provision in a limited deal will help the IAEA begin to recreate baseline inventories for certain materials, such as uranium ore concentrate and centrifuge components. Baselines will be necessary for verifying limits imposed by any new deal. Additionally, reconstructing the history of Iranian activities will provide further clarity about whether key components of Iran’s nuclear program are accounted for. 

Enrichment limits. A deal should also seek to extend Iran’s breakout time by limiting Iran’s uranium enrichment program. This should include caps on Iran’s highly-enriched uranium, or HEU (both the 20 and 60 percent stockpiles), stored in gas form. Excess material could be blended down or converted into powder. HEU in powder form poses less of a risk because it must be converted back to gas before being enriched to weapons-grade levels. This option may be more attractive for Iran than blending it down to lower levels, given that it views its HEU as leverage and is unlikely to give it up completely as part of a limited deal.

In addition to stockpile caps, a deal should limit further enrichment to 5 percent and freeze centrifuge production and installation. In a limited initial deal, Iran could keep all of the machines installed as of the November 2024 IAEA report but would commit not to operate any installed machines that are not enriching uranium or deploy new machines. 

Weapons-related activity limits. The third area of focus should be a prohibition on certain weaponization-related activities, including the production of uranium metal and certain types of explosive testing. Given Iran’s technical nuclear advances and its ability to quickly produce weapon-grade uranium, even with enrichment limitations in place, blocking Iran’s ability to weaponize is more critical now than it was in the JCPOA. The JCPOA did include a prohibition on certain weaponization activities, but it did not address how to verify Iran’s compliance. It is unlikely Iran and the United States could agree on monitoring mechanisms to ensure the absence of certain weaponization activities in the short timeframe for reaching a limited deal. But even without verification, prohibiting these activities would have benefits, such as preventing Iran from gaining knowledge relevant to the weaponization process. Additionally, if Iran was caught conducting weapons-relevant research, it would cast serious doubt on Iran’s intentions to negotiate and implement a deal in good faith. 

The U.S. Side of a Limited Deal. In exchange for these nuclear restrictions, the United States should put meaningful sanctions relief on the table. This could include releasing additional frozen Iranian assets held abroad and transferring them to accounts set up in Qatar to pay for approved humanitarian transactions. The United States could also look at waivers for Iranian oil sales up to an agreed-upon cap. 

The Trump administration will also likely look for opportunities for U.S. businesses to benefit from any sanctions relief package. Providing waivers for specific commodities that Iran is interested in, such as civilian airplanes, would provide benefits to both the United States and Iran. 

Embed Nuclear Diplomacy in a Regional Security Approach

A limited nuclear deal can reduce the immediacy of Iran’s proliferation risk, but the threat will remain so long as Iran sees deterrence value in its nuclear program and its ability to quickly scale up its program to produce nuclear weapons. But the short time frame for de-escalating nuclear tensions makes it challenging to pursue a transformative agreement with Iran, address broader regional security challenges, or even a comprehensive nuclear deal. Trump, however, could increase the sustainability of a deal and lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive accord by embedding nuclear negotiations within a broader strategy of support for de-escalating regional tensions. 

In the short term, the Trump administration should condemn loose talk of strikes against Iran’s nuclear program and send a strong signal to Israel that the United States will not support preventive military strikes, which would be both unlawful and counterproductive to U.S. or Israeli long-term strategic interests. 

More broadly, the Trump administration’s strategy for the Middle East should take into account that Iran’s security concerns drive its interest in nuclear weapons. Supporting efforts between Saudi Arabia and Iran to strengthen ties and an end to Israel’s war in Gaza, for instance, would also be useful in de-escalating regional tensions and creating an environment more conducive to negotiating a more comprehensive agreement that builds on a limited nuclear accord. 

Trump faces a significant challenge in addressing Iran’s nuclear program, but he also has an immediate opportunity to reduce its proliferation risks. His administration must be prepared to move quickly to engage Iran on a limited agreement that rolls back Iran’s most proliferation-sensitive activities and increases monitoring. By reaching a deal that reduces the urgency of the proliferation threat, the next Trump administration can create space for negotiations on a longer, more comprehensive agreement that blocks Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons. 

IMAGE: Flags of the United States and Iran (via Getty Images)

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On the night executioners killed Joseph Corcoran, a glowing inflatable snowman stood on the front lawn of the Indiana State Prison wearing a top hat and frozen smile. Its left arm was raised in a wave, as if to greet the white vans waiting to take witnesses to the death chamber. Inside the brick building in front of the prison complex, shadowy figures stood at the windows, their movements inscrutable from the outside. As the clock struck midnight on December 18, a few dozen protesters sang “Amazing Grace.”

The 165-year-old penitentiary is located in the northern reaches of the state, just half a mile from Lake Michigan. In heavy coats and winter hats, the demonstrators had gathered across the street, braving the cold to stand in protest of Indiana’s first execution in 15 years. They were joined by a handful of reporters, who paced around the parking lot where yellow caution tape cordoned off a “staging area” for press. Under state law and the policies of the Indiana Department of Correction, this was as close as any journalist would be able to get to the execution.

No one knew when exactly the killing would happen, only that it would be carried out “before sunrise.” 

The rule is a relic of the late 1800s, when states carried out executions hidden from public view.

“No media briefings or interviews will be conducted,” said informational materials emailed in advance. Nor would there be bathrooms available. “Please plan accordingly.”

In most death penalty states, executions are scheduled to take place in the evening, with at least a few members of the press serving as witnesses. But Indiana planned to kill Corcoran in the dead of night, without a single journalist present. The rule is a relic of the late 1800s, when numerous states carried out executions hidden from public view. Aside from Indiana, only Wyoming, which has not killed anyone since 1992, still has a law barring media witnesses on the books.

George Hale, a reporter with Indiana Public Media, was interviewed in the parking lot by abolitionist group Death Penalty Action. One of the few journalists who repeatedly witnessed the federal executions under Donald Trump, Hale knows better than most that media witnesses are critical for documenting evidence of botched executions. Indiana planned to kill Corcoran with the same sedative used by the federal government: a single lethal dose of pentobarbital, which has been linked to pulmonary edema, the filling of the lungs with fluid. Experts have described the experience as torture. 

In an op-ed co-authored with a Freedom of the Press Foundation lawyer, Hale wrote that he’d worked with an anesthesiologist to develop a guide for media witnesses — a checklist of signs that an execution was going awry. Instead, the media ban would hide any red flags.

Hale and other reporters tried to raise alarms about the state’s lack of transparency. As in other death penalty states, Indiana had passed a law shrouding its execution drugs in secrecy. Since obtaining the drugs it would use to kill Corcoran, the Department of Correction had “denied virtually every information request related to the execution,” wrote a veteran journalist with the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “Agency staffers won’t say how many vials were bought, what it cost, the expiration date. Nothing.” 

The Department of Correction disclosed only one new piece of information in the hours leading up to the execution, shared in a brief email at 4:45 p.m. Corcoran, it read, “requested Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for his last meal.”

“His last words were: ‘Not really. Let’s get this over with.’”

At 12:21 a.m., a stream of uniformed officers exited the prison grounds and headed to a cluster of police cars in the back of the parking lot. It seemed too soon for the execution to be over, but the crowd knew better than to ask them questions. “Merry Christmas,” one officer said to a police colleague as he left.

More than 30 minutes later, at 12:59, the Department of Correction sent an email to the press. 

“The execution process started shortly after 12:00 a.m. CST on December 18, 2024,” it read. “Corcoran was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m.” 

“His last words were: ‘Not really. Let’s get this over with.’”

Grace or Retribution

The return of executions in the Hoosier state came largely at the behest of Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a MAGA stalwart perhaps best known for targeting a doctor who gave abortion care to a 10-year-old rape survivor. In a joint press release with the governor announcing the decision to seek an execution date for Corcoran earlier this year, Rokita called the death penalty “a means of providing justice for victims of society’s most heinous crimes.” 

Corcoran was 22 years old when he shot and killed his brother, James, and three other men, including his sister’s fiancé. It was 1997, and the family was still reeling from the murder of Corcoran’s parents five years earlier, a crime for which he was tried as a juvenile and acquitted. News reports said that Corcoran had committed the murders after he overheard the men talking about him. He immediately turned himself in.

Although there was no question of his guilt, there was reason to believe that Corcoran was not competent to stand trial. In the years after he was sentenced to die, multiple doctors diagnosed Corcoran with paranoid schizophrenia. Experts testified at a 2003 hearing that he believed prison guards were using an ultrasound machine to force him to speak. It was this delusion that appeared to have led Corcoran to refuse a plea deal before his 1999 trial; court records show that he would only agree to one if he could first have his vocal cords severed “because his involuntary speech allowed others to know his innermost thoughts.” 

Corcoran repeatedly sought to drop his appeals and volunteer for execution. Post-conviction attorneys argued that Corcoran’s severe mental illness made him incompetent to make such a decision, while the attorney general’s office insisted he was fine. In court filings, prosecutors cited a letter in which Corcoran claimed to have “fabricated” his delusions.

After the state announced its plans to kill Corcoran, one surviving relative of his victims spoke out loudly about her opposition to the execution. In a Facebook post in early December, Corcoran’s sister, Kelly Ernst, wrote that his death sentence had done nothing to assuage her grief or bring closure. 

“Instead, it is a lengthy, costly and political process,” she wrote. In the years since the crime, her brother had written to express his remorse and she had forgiven him: “I will not attend his execution, neither as family or as victim, as I believe it would take a piece of me that I will not get back.” 

As the execution drew near, the prosecutor who sent Corcoran to death row also came out against it. As the elected district attorney of Allen County, where the murders took place, Robert Gevers had urged jurors to send Corcoran to death row, calling it the only proper punishment for such “carnage.” But his feelings about the death penalty had evolved since then. “Times have changed, my own thinking has changed,” he told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. 

In a phone call two days before Corcoran’s execution, Gevers said he had come to oppose executions in part due to a conversation with his young son. After the U.S. government killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, his son, then 10 years old, asked him a series of moral questions about the death penalty, unaware that Gevers had once sent someone to die. As he struggled to answer, he began to realize his own stance was untenable.

“If this is what the public has said is a legitimate punishment for certain actions, then the public has the right to know how that’s carried out.”

Gevers later reflected on it in an unpublished essay, which included a scene from Corcoran’s sentencing trial he had never forgotten. The mother of one of the victims had taken the stand. “As she spoke about the loss of her son, the looming years of tragic memories, the future of emptiness in her family, and the awful task of burying a child, she opened the box and set a book on the table in front of her son’s killer,” he wrote. The book was a Bible inscribed with Corcoran’s name. The woman told Corcoran that she forgave him. To Gevers, it was a powerful act of grace. The death penalty was nothing but retribution, he concluded. 

Gevers learned about Corcoran’s execution date from a woman at the attorney general’s office, who called him earlier this year “out of the blue.” The news unsettled him. And he was deeply disturbed to learn the state would not allow media witnesses. 

“I thought, ‘You have to be kidding,’” Gevers told me. “If this is what the public has said is a legitimate punishment for certain actions, then the public has the right to know how that’s carried out.” 

Prosecutors’ Regrets

Among lawyers who once handled death penalty prosecutions, Gevers is not alone in turning against capital punishment. In Indiana, as in many other states, prosecutors are increasingly reluctant to seek the death penalty. And, in part thanks to improved capital defense, it has been a decade since an Indiana jury handed down a new death sentence. 

A month before Corcoran’s execution, I met veteran attorney Thomas Vanes at the Lake County Public Defender’s Office, an aging brick building that once housed a hospital. Located in the northwest corner of the state, just an hour from Chicago, Lake County once led Indiana in new death sentences, placing more than 20 people on death row between 1978 and 1990, the majority of them Black or Latino. Yet almost none had been executed.

Vanes handed me a packet containing facts and figures about the state’s death penalty record as a whole. Prosecutors frequently invoke executions as providing finality and closure for victims’ families. By this measure, Indiana’s track record was abysmal: Of 97 people sentenced to die after the state passed its modern death penalty law in 1977, the vast majority had not withstood legal challenges. Only 20 had resulted in an execution. As of 2019, 60 people had been removed from death row due to reversals by appellate courts, commutations, or deals reached with the state. 

Vanes’s own early career provided a vivid snapshot of this history. As a prosecutor in the Lake County district attorney’s office during the 1970s and 1980s, he sent nine men to the state’s death row. 

“Of the nine, only one ended up being executed here in Indiana,” Vanes told me. “And he was a volunteer.”

 Two others were executed in other states for different crimes. Of the remaining six, one man took his own life. The rest saw their sentences reduced.

To Vanes, such numbers are an indictment of the whole system — especially considering the tremendous amount of taxpayer money devoted to seeking and defending death sentences. “If you were a cold-blooded economic adviser, you would say that’s a poor return on investment,” he said.

It’s not hard to see why so many of Indiana’s old death penalty cases have failed appellate review. The earliest death sentences were the product of a system that had not created a legal infrastructure to provide meaningful representation to defendants on trial for their lives. As a prosecutor, Vanes said, he had a clear advantage over his opposing counsel. 

“The defense was handled by people who were part-time public defenders with their own private practice,” he said. “Meanwhile my workload shrank to afford me the time to do the death penalty cases.” In retrospect, he said, his court victories were nothing to brag about.

“We didn’t know what we were doing, to be honest.”

Vanes was just two years out of law school when he prosecuted his first death penalty case. It was 1978, and the state had just overhauled its entire criminal code. As Vanes recalls, neither he nor his own bosses were especially well-equipped to apply the new death penalty law. “We didn’t know what we were doing, to be honest.” 

Vanes won the case. When it came time for the sentencing phase, even the judge “didn’t quite know what to do, because it was all new,” he said. The defendant, a Black man named James Brewer, became the first person sentenced to die in Indiana’s “modern” death penalty era. 

The early victory was a significant career boost for the 27-year-old. Seeking the death penalty became part of the office culture in ways that sound disturbing in retrospect. Vanes remembered the case of a 16-year-old white boy who killed a bank teller during a robbery in 1988. Since the office had recently won a death sentence against a 16-year-old Black girl, Vanes said it felt necessary to try again. 

“We pursued it against her,” he thought. “How could we not pursue it against him?” 

The jury voted to spare the teenager’s life; today, the Eighth Amendment forbids the death penalty for juveniles.

Brewer’s death sentence was ultimately overturned after a Lake County judge concluded that his lawyer had provided ineffective assistance of counsel. By then, Vanes had left the prosecutor’s office and become a public defender. 

“There is always a danger that prosecutors treat their former cases like they were their own children: Protect it at all costs,” he said. By the time his old cases fell apart, it didn’t bother him that much. He did regret the impact on victims’ families who were misled by the death penalty’s false promise of closure.

Vanes articulated an uncomfortable fact that had loomed over Corcoran’s case regardless of the legal arguments over his competency. Sometimes the very evidence that was supposed to spare someone from execution instead convinces people they will always pose a danger, even behind prison walls, he said. “Unfortunately for this man, his mental illness scares people.”

A Glimpse Inside

The protesters had mostly disbanded when a trio of prison staff walked toward the parking lot at 1:06 a.m. A man in khakis and a black balaclava clutched a stack of papers, followed by a woman in a fur-lined hood. Behind them, an officer shot a thumbs up at the cops stationed in front of the parking lot. 

The man in the balaclava stuffed the papers in an inconspicuous box attached to a No Parking sign. With a teal marker, someone had written “Media Statement” in clumsy block letters. The papers were one-page press statements — printed versions of the email sent out moments before — never mind that there was virtually no one left to receive them. The officials walked back to the prison in silence. 

Shortly afterward, news broke that a local journalist had managed to attend the execution after all. Reporter Casey Smith from the Indiana Capital Chronicle had gotten on Corcoran’s personal witness list. Her dispatch, published around 3 a.m., filled in key gaps in the state’s narrative.

Official language stated the “execution process” had begun shortly after midnight, raising concerns that the lethal injection had dragged out for more than 40 minutes. But Smith’s article revealed that the execution had gone relatively quickly. 

“Blinds for a one-way window with limited visibility into the execution chamber were raised at 12:34 a.m.,” she wrote. “Corcoran appeared awake with his eyes blinking, but otherwise still and silent, at that time. After a brief movement of his left hand and fingers at about 12:37 a.m., Corcoran did not move again. Blinds to the witness room were closed by the prison warden at 12:40 a.m.”

It was not clear what happened in the four minutes between the closing of the blinds and the estimated time of death. Nor is it known what was said in the execution chamber apart from the words prison officials chose to share. Generally speaking, however, the execution appeared to have gone according to plan.

A spiritual adviser who accompanied Corcoran as he died described the final visit in an interview with Smith. “We had prayer together,” he told her. “We talked and laughed, we reminisced.” He said Corcoran seemed less concerned about himself than his neighbors. 

“He actually was talking more about the other guys on death row, and how it was going to impact them. He wasn’t talking about his own feelings and fears,” the spiritual adviser told Smith. “From my perspective, it was very, very peaceful.”

The post Indiana’s Midnight Executions Are a Relic of Another Age appeared first on The Intercept.

Mitch McConnell is perhaps the most important conservative politician of the post-Reagan era. Both George W. Bush and now Donald Trump have been reelected president as Republicans, but McConnell has wielded power for far longer than eight years in office. McConnell has arguably had more influence on the success and the future of conservatism, particularly in the judiciary, than anyone this century.

Michael Tackett’s new biography of McConnell, The Price of Power, is an important contribution to understanding our political landscape and recognizing McConnell’s vast talents. This is so even though Tackett is not a political fan of his subject. The book praises McConnell reluctantly, which makes the survey of his impact even more impressive. Tackett disapproves of how McConnell has helped reshape the Supreme Court, fill the judiciary, get Republican senators elected, reduce taxes, and combat efforts to have government impose more rules on campaign financing. Nevertheless, Tackett writes, McConnell “is a master of talent, scouting, and opportunism, of planning and execution, in the business of politics, where winning is the measure of success.”

The book begins with McConnell’s childhood, defined to a large degree by his bout with polio and his mother’s determination not to let this affliction hold him back. This childhood disease would have large implications throughout McConnell’s life, from the way it shaped his youth to the periodic stumbles the senator’s staff tends to attribute to “polio leg.”

McConnell took an early interest in politics. He got a radio as a gift at age 10 and used it to follow politics. He wore an “I like Ike” button to school for picture day. He continued supporting Republicans throughout his young life, with the one exception of backing Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964, largely over Goldwater’s opposition to civil rights legislation. McConnell moved to Washington and served as a congressional staffer in the 1960s, where he met numerous people who would be important to him in later life, including fellow future senator Lamar Alexander. Returning to Kentucky, McConnell sought a career in politics, which was not that easy as a Republican in the 1970s and ’80s. But McConnell applied the strategic sense that has served him well throughout his career to each one of his races, planning for each one well ahead of time and making keen assessments of his opponents’ strengths and weaknesses.

McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984, upsetting the incumbent Walter Dee Huddleston. He was so unknown that when President Ronald Reagan came to speak on his behalf, Reagan referred to the young politico as “Mitch O’Donnell.” In the Senate, unlike most of his other colleagues, McConnell had little interest in national office, but instead set his sights on leadership. Leveraging his keen interest in politics, he ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee from 1997 to 2001. He entered Senate leadership in the 108th Congress, in 2003, and has been in there ever since, a remarkable—and unusually long—run. McConnell also married extremely well: His wife, Elaine Chao, is a Harvard MBA and former cabinet secretary of two departments.

There is another way in which McConnell distinguished himself from his Senate colleagues. As Tackett writes, “Most senators cannot stop talking. McConnell is known for his inexhaustible capacity to listen.” In a group of show horses, McConnell was a workhorse. Where most senators love to be on TV, McConnell only granted media interviews when he thought they might be helpful to him and his political or policy goals. This means that the media—and his opponents—do not always understand the real McConnell. On this point, Tackett notes that McConnell is depicted as “humorless,” when in reality, “He has a strong, dry, sense of humor.”

McConnell also differed from others in politics by having a thick skin. On this, Tackett quotes CNN’s Scott Jennings, one of multiple talented McConnell aides who, having learned from the master, went on to other prominent roles in the political world. According to Jennings, McConnell always kept his emotions in check: “I think people have never been able to understand his ability to divorce political decision-making from emotional overreaction. … He does not get bogged down in grudges, tweets, insults, haymakers. He just has this uncanny ability to remove negative emotions from strategic decision-making.”

The Jennings insight points to Tackett’s method. While this is not an “authorized” biography, in which the subject gets to approve the final text, McConnell did cooperate in opening up his own diaries and allowing his colleagues and former staff to speak to Tackett. In addition to Jennings, those ex-staffers include Josh Holmes, now of the Ruthless podcast, and Steven Law of the Senate Leadership Fund. These former staffers not only help provide insight into the McConnell method, but they also reveal McConnell’s skill in finding, assessing, and keeping top talent. This skill helped McConnell stay in power as long as he has, outlasting three Republican House speakers since McConnell ascended to be the leader of the Senate Republicans. Tackett observes, “McConnell, never seen as a purely ideological figure, managed to keep his perch the way he always had: dispassionately, assessing strengths and weaknesses, and fastening a path to retain his position.”

McConnell cooperated with the biography in another way as well. As Tackett writes in the acknowledgments, McConnell “sat for more than 50 hours of interviews and granted access to sensitive oral histories well before he had initially planned to do so, and certainly not to his political benefit.” Tackett reveals a lot in this statement. He may have gone into this project intending to damage the senator’s historical reputation, but it’s hard to read The Price of Power without becoming even more impressed with the skills, talents, and accomplishments of Addison Mitchell McConnell III.

The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party
by Michael Tackett
Simon & Schuster, 416 pp., $32.50

Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute and a former senior White House aide. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Titans of Industry and Commanders in Chief.

The post McConnell’s Record Is Nothing To Snort At appeared first on .

Bernard-Henri Lévy’s Israel Alone contains much truth, but its title is fundamentally false. And this means that as insightful and eloquent as the author of this volume often is about the threats Israel faces, his thesis reveals that there is much about the world, and the Jewish place within it, that he does not understand. And for Jews to embrace this book is to countenance a calumny against some of the best friends Israel has in the world.

Lévy, a French-Jewish philosopher and public intellectual, begins Israel Alone by telling us how shocked he was by the events of October 7 and movingly describes how he visited Israel immediately after. His pain is evident as he decries the use of the word “context” utilized in defenses of Israel’s enemies, in statements that were “sung in unison by France’s politicians, the editorialists of the global South, and, in the United States, by the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and the University of Pennsylvania.” In fact, he asserts, “Israel was defending itself. Struck in the heart, Israel was attempting to neutralize the Nazis that had drawn its blood precisely to ensure that they could never do it again.”

All this is laudable. Israel is indeed at war against a Nazi-like evil, and many in European parliaments and palaces around the world have turned against Israel—as they have in the past. But is Israel, as the book’s title claims, truly alone? Are there not prominent political figures that have stood with the Jewish state? Lévy’s reply is that figures such as Donald Trump or Viktor Orban are unworthy of a Jewish embrace. “No accord is possible, no historic compromise is conceivable, with ‘friends’ such as these. The Jews are therefore alone.”

Yet whatever one’s views of Orban, or the once and future president of the United States, it remains clear that millions of regular Americans also stand with Israel. The exit polls of the recent election reflect that almost two thirds of voters advocate American support of the Jewish state, with half of those voters contending that the current administration has not supported the country enough. If these polls are even close to being correct, this would mean that at least many tens of millions of Americans harbor an affection for Israel.

What this means is that in fact, the exact opposite of Lévy’s contention is the case: Israel is less alone than it has ever been. In a certain sense, this is more historically wondrous than the rise of modern Israel itself. For consider: The Jews have had sovereign states before, first in the biblical period, and later during the reign of the Maccabees. Throughout these periods, one may have seen a world leader that reflected an affection for Jews. Hiram, king of Tyre, was an ally of David’s; Cyrus of Persia allowed for the Jewish return to Jerusalem; Julius Caesar was grateful for Judean support and bestowed special liberties on Jerusalem for as long as he led Rome.

Suddenly, for the first time, millions of citizens of the most powerful country on earth care deeply about the Jewish future in the world. This has never happened before. The striking nature of this phenomenon, from a historical perspective, can only be appreciated if we put it this way: For the first time in the story of the Jewish people, more Gentiles than Jews care about us and our future. Lévy, in his book, tells us that the Jews are not only alone, they “are more alone than they ever have been.” In fact, the marvel of our present age is that Jews are less alone than they ever have been.

Is the author unaware of this? In fact, for Lévy, the multitudes of Americans who support Israel are unworthy friends, whose friendship should be rejected. This is what Lévy has to say about religious Christians in this country:

And how should we view, in the United States, the evangelical Christians who are a mainstay of Donald Trump’s support? Yes, they are nominally “Zionists.” But only to the extent that they expect on Judgement Day to take Israel’s place on the very land where the Jewish state presently and provisionally stands. Are these really Israel’s friends? Isn’t theirs a path opposite that of the Christians of integrity who consider the Jews, not mere guardians of the holy sites who will be, at the end of time, converted or destroyed, but as brothers in faith?

It is in reading this paragraph that I was immediately inspired to ask: How many American Evangelical Christians does Bernard-Henri Lévy actually know? They are indeed Israel’s friends. And, if asked why they care so much about a Jewish state on the other side of the world, their response has nothing to do with visions of the end times, and everything to do with a citation from Genesis, God’s words to Abraham: And I will bless those that bless thee, and curse those that curse thee, and through thee will all the families of the earth be blessed. And, having read Genesis myself, I can confirm: They are right, Hebrew Scripture does indeed say that.

Contra Lévy, American Christians do not consider Israelis “mere guardians of the holy sites who will be”; they see the story of the Jewish state as the ultimate sign of the fulfillment of God’s promises to the Jewish people. To say these many millions of Evangelicals are not “Christians of integrity” is a calumny. And they are joined by millions of other American Christians who are not Evangelical, and still support the Jewish state because of the bond between America and Israel: because they understand, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once put it, that Israel, ancient and modern, and America, are the only examples of nations founded in conscious pursuit of an idea.

Meanwhile, Lévy joins his denunciation of millions of American Christians as lacking in integrity with a description of the Israeli prime minister as an unworthy Jew. Writing of Netanyahu’s political alliance with Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, leaders of religious parties on the right, and of the controversy surrounding Israeli judicial reform, Lévy fumes:

I see a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who—perhaps to please these two, perhaps for base political reasons, perhaps because he feels his time is coming to an end, or perhaps, alas, because he has served one term too many and has lost his Jewish compass—was busy before the war undermining a judicial system that has been the pride of Israel. With all its qualms and uncertainties, with the renewal, deepening, and continuous reinvention of its laws, with the limits it places on the hubris of cynical actors, isn’t democracy the least bad secular translation of the instruction given to the people of Israel to remain a just people?

It is odd that, with the exception of Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.), so many of Israel’s defenders who are not the political right constantly join their stated support for Israel with indignant denunciations of Israel’s prime minister. But the fact remains that nothing in the above paragraph is true. The legislation to reform Israel’s judiciary was not driven by Netanyahu, whose focus was on Saudi Arabia and Iran. Nor was it pushed first and foremost by the two religious figures to whom Lévy refers. Rather, the drive was led by Yariv Levin, a secular member of Netanyahu’s own party; and, whatever one’s views of the legislation may have been, a democratic vote relating to the judiciary is, by definition, not undemocratic. Tony Blair’s government abolished, by majority vote, rights of most hereditary peers in the House of Lords, producing one of several fundamental changes in British government and society, but Britain—which, like Israel, does not have a written constitution—did not cease to be a democracy. It is Lévy’s right to oppose this legislation—but that does not make those that feel otherwise devoid of a “Jewish compass.”

Netanyahu, like many seminal leaders, may have flaws, but there is one deep truth that he has shown he understands: that Israel is not alone, and that a true defense of Israel involves engagement with, and embrace of, Israel’s friends around the world, and especially in America. When the Obama administration advanced an agreement with Iran, Netanyahu seized on Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. The speech was criticized by allies of the White House—yet the Arab world, terrified of a nuclear Iranian regime, was impressed, and this set the stage for the Abraham Accords that followed. Recently, Netanyahu’s cultivation of pro-Israel Americans has helped set the stage for the support that it will receive from the next administration—and from the new Congress, which was elected by millions of non-Jewish Americans that do not wish for Israel to be alone.

As I write these words, a socialist Jewish senator has recently submitted a Senate resolution advocating a ban on American offensive arms shipments to Israel. The measure has received the support of a Jewish senator from Georgia, along with a third of the Democratic caucus. Meanwhile, the incoming Senate majority leader, South Dakota senator John Thune, stressed that the Congress that will be sworn in on January 3, 2025, will ensure that Israel receives all the materiel it needs in its war against Hamas and Hezbollah. Thune also insisted that the new 119th Congress would seek to sanction the International Criminal Court if it did not cease targeting the Jewish state. “To our allies in Israel,” Thune said, “and to the Jewish people around the world, my message to you is this: Reinforcements are on the way.” Thune represents a state that has, to put it mildly, few Jews. The same can be said for his colleagues in Alabama, Arkansas, and elsewhere. That such a speech can be given should be seen as one of the marvels of Jewish history, and it shows that there are millions of Gentiles who stand with Israel as it wages what Lévy rightly recognizes as a war of self-defense.

Lévy has declared his admiration for Alexis de Tocqueville, and, years ago, he sought to imitate the French aristocrat by taking a journey around the United States. But whereas Democracy in America remains the best book through which to understand this country, Israel Alone, by its very name, reveals that Lévy has a great deal to learn about America, and about the friends Israel has inside it. For Lévy to assert that Jews are alone is essentially to say that it is supported by multitudes of non-Jews of whom he does not approve, non-Jews who also admire a Jewish prime minister he does not like. It therefore falls to American Jews, blessed by America and its citizens, to declare: For a Jew to write of millions of our ardent allies the way Lévy has, and to declare their friendship unwanted and unworthy, is gross ingratitude.

Israel Alone
by Bernard-Henri Lévy
Wicked Son, 164 pp., $18.99 (paperback)

Meir Y. Soloveichik is the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City and the director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University.

The post Why Israel Can Count on Us appeared first on .

As a seminarian in the order, I heard whispers of the conservative titan among the ranks of Midwestern Jesuits. Everyone I trusted told me I needed to meet him. While in Chicago, I met an unassuming priest who introduced himself simply as “Paul.” We spoke briefly and parted ways. I was told later that I’d met the Father Paul Mankowski, S.J., about whom I’d heard so much.

That was in 2013. The following year would find me leaving the order, and our paths never crossed again. In 2020, that priest fell dead of an aneurysm at the age of 66.

Telling Fr. Mankowski’s story is a challenge, in part because his life was cut too short, but more so because he was prevented from telling it himself: His voice was suppressed by religious superiors who wished to be rid of a meddlesome priest.

The son of a working-class family from South Bend, Paul Mankowski earned degrees from the University of Chicago, Oxford, and Harvard. He received his doctorate in Comparative Semitic Philology for a dissertation titled “Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew.” Outside academia, his byline appeared in publications like the Weekly Standard, the American Spectator, and Commentary. By all measures, he should have been a leading voice in the public square.

But Mankowski was always a gadfly among Jesuits, and this boiled over in the 1990s. While doing research in his order’s New England archives, he unearthed documents that directly implicated local Jesuit leaders’ dishonest—dare I say Jesuitical—behavior in their dealings with both local bishops and Jesuit higher-ups in Rome in helping Father Robert Drinan get elected to Congress as a Massachusetts Democrat (after Drinan’s decade in office, Barney Frank took his seat). For readers in blissful ignorance, Drinan’s pastimes included an unbridled zeal for abortion access. Drinan’s writing and interviews—especially on rationalizing his enthusiasm for abortion—provide a politician’s masterclass in doublespeak, equivocation, and naked lying.

But Drinan left office in 1981. Mankowski, thinking its relevance had eclipsed, set aside his evidence of Jesuitical malfeasance. That was until 1996 when Drinan took to the New York Times to defend late-term abortion. This was a bridge too far. Mankowski shared his discoveries with a friend, who in turn published them in the Catholic World Report. Having had the integrity to affix his name to the revelation, Mankowski suffered accordingly.

As with all whistleblowers, the powers that be took offense not at the inconvenient truths at which he pointed, but rather at his nerve for pointing them out at all. The Jesuits’ response was both Orwellian and draconian. Mankowski was forbidden from publishing under his name anything other than academic work. He spent years fighting for his place in the order to which God had called him—one that he loved, warts and all.

Drinan published freely until he died in 2007. He was eulogized by senators and university presidents. The Georgetown Law Center gives an annual Fr. Robert Drinan, S.J. award, as does the American Bar Association. The law faculties at Boston College and Georgetown have chairs named in his honor.

Faithful to his vow of obedience, Mankowski followed his orders to the letter. He published pseudonymously as “Diogenes” before his superiors caught on and forbade that, as well. The last decade of his life saw his byline only on occasional book reviews, mostly in First Things. His energies centered on teaching and serving as a pastor—including to Karen Hall, whose book The Sound of Silence is the latest to give Mankowski a voice from beyond the grave. It joins two other posthumous collections edited respectively by George Weigel and Philip Lawler (Weigel’s includes an absolutely necessary account of the Drinan controversy—and a vindication of Mankowski’s actions).

Hall’s story likely involves too much inside baseball for non-Catholic readers, and even this sometime altar boy found himself wearied by Hall’s fawning over “Holy Mother Church.” But her journey is moving. Hers is the searcher’s life: years of unbelief, adolescent rebellion, divorce and remarriage, adult disillusionment, all woven together with the yearning for peace and meaning.

Into that journey entered one of the most singular Jesuits to ever pick up a pen. Hall pays him a debt of gratitude by letting him speak in death in a way he couldn’t in life. Mankowski was not forbidden from corresponding with friends, and his exchanges with Hall give a taste of the volumes of prose we were all denied. To take just a few examples:

On dealing with his superiors: “I’ve come to regard the libs (collectively) as a kind of impersonal vexation, as a soldier might regard the icy water that pours in over the top of his boots and makes his uncomfortable day more uncomfortable still. … To complain to my superiors about Brokeback Lent and NARAL at Holy Cross is as futile as a buck private complaining to his colonel about the weather, so I’ve just given up.”

On how he might respond to another Jesuit if he lost his temper: “In moral and human terms, I regard you all as Styrofoam packing pellets; every breeze of fashion carries you where it wants. You are pro-gay among gays, pro-feminist among feminists, pro-statist among statists. No opinion you hold is worthy of respect because your every opinion is held by the same reasoning you refrain from white slacks after Labor Day.”

On unwillingly being upgraded to business class: “I was beginning to attract unwanted attention and decided to bow to fate. I hold in contempt priests who fly upgraded and it was uncomfortable to find myself in that category myself; this discomfort was only partially relieved by Tanqueray and the inexpressible luxury of flying supine.”

The Jesuit cancellers did their worst to a priest who’s now accountable to God alone, and we can only hope that more collections of Fr. Mankowski’s miscellany now find their way to the press. In death, maybe this future patron of squeaky wheels and gadflies can encourage those who look at a deranged world and dare to say the emperor has no clothes. May his tribe increase.

The Sound of Silence: The Life and Cancelling of a Heroic Jesuit Hero
by Karen Hall
Crisis Publications, 240 pp., $18.95 (paperback)

Max Bindernagel is a teacher who writes from Alexandria, Va.

The post Rebel With a Collar appeared first on .

Biden Administration / South Sudan

• There’s Still Time for the Biden Administration To Act on South Sudan
  by Brian Adeba (@kalamashaka) and John Prendergast

ICJ / Climate Change

• An Interim Report on the ICJ’s Climate Advisory Opinion
  by Corina Heri (@cohelongo)

Israel-Hamas War

• The Amnesty International Report on Genocide in Gaza
  by Adil Ahmad Haque (@AdHaque110)
• A “Cramped Interpretation of International Jurisprudence”? Some Critical Observations on the Amnesty International Genocide Report on Gaza
  by Amichai Cohen (@amichaic) and Yuval Shany (@yuvalshany1)

Russia-Ukraine War

• Trump’s Endgame for the War in Ukraine
  by Michael J. Kelly and Craig Martin (@craigxmartin)
• The Wagner Group in Court: Justice is Catching Up with Russia’s Top Irregular Warfighters
  by Candace Rondeaux (@CandaceRondeaux)

Series: Tech Policy Under Trump 2.0

• The AI Presidency: What “America First” Means for Global AI Governance
  by Brianna Rosen (@rosen_br)

Middle East / Peacekeeping

• Amid Turmoil in Lebanon and Syria, What Future for UN Peacekeeping in the Middle East?
  by Tim Passmore (@timothypassmore)

U.S. Counterterrorism / Somalia

• What is the Future of American Counterterrorism Strikes in Somalia?
  by David Sterman (@Dsterms)

Cold War / Espionage

• Declassified US Memo on Ethel Rosenberg Confirms She Was No Spy: Time for President Biden to Correct the Record
  by Robert Meeropol and Michael Meeropol

U.S. Department of State / Human Rights

• The US State Department Should Prioritize the Human Rights Reporting Gateway
  by Charles O. (Cob) Blaha and John Ramming Chappell (@jwrchappell)

United Nations / China

• New Challenges to Xi Jinping’s Alternative Facts on Taiwan: Lessons for the Human Rights Space, Too
  by Sophie Richardson (@SophieDRich)

Podcast: Russia-Ukraine War

• The Just Security Podcast: Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Oleksandra Matviichuk on Accountability in Russia’s War Against Ukraine
  Viola Gienger (@violagienger) interview with Oleksandra Matviichuk (@avalaina)

The post Digest of Recent Articles on Just Security (Dec. 16-21) appeared first on Just Security.

Although he wrote it for Easter, George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is a December fixture in concert halls across the country. According to legend, King George II was so moved during the Hallelujah chorus that he leapt to his feet, thus starting the tradition of the audience standing for the choral showstopper. Handel composed some of the greatest treasures of Baroque music. His career, however, shows off the Anglo-American strategy for world domination.

The first step is to create a thriving, dynamic economy. Handel was born in 1685, three years before England’s Glorious Revolution brought William and his wife to the throne. When the royal couple left Holland to rule Mary’s home country, they brought the legal and financial innovations that had made the Dutch rich. During Handel’s lifetime, London transformed itself from a fire- and plague-ridden backwater on the outskirts of Europe into the center of global power.

Welcoming the world’s best minds and putting them to work is the next step. Handel was born in Halle, Germany, and lived in Italy before settling in London. Thanks to capitalism, musicians could make a good living there performing for common people without needing an aristocratic or royal patron, which suited Handel just fine. The English also welcomed other talented foreigners, such as the French Huguenots whom Louis XIV began persecuting just a few months after Handel’s birth.

Unleashing all this dynamism can disrupt a society’s necessary characteristics along with the outdated ones, so this strategy only works for a people whose identity is strong yet flexible enough to weather these changes. A society like that with a world-beating economy can take on all comers, even when led by a mediocrity like George III. Although Handel himself was probably not too religious, he made a fortune championing a tolerant form of Protestant Christianity that had taken root in Britain and the American colonies.

Handel’s relationship with Jews shows this. He collaborated enough with Jewish musicians and composers that Pro Musica Hebraica, a nonprofit that Charles and Robyn Krauthammer founded to perform Jewish classical music, included Handel in their “Jewish Baroque Treasures from Italy and Amsterdam” concert at the Kennedy Center. Handel frequently depicted Old Testament stories and Jewish heroes favorably, such as when he needed a story to celebrate the victory at Culloden that ended Stuart attempts to impose absolute monarchy on England. London’s wealthier Jews flocked to his Judas Maccabaeus.

Messiah itself fits within this philosemitic strain of Christianity. Charles Jennens, who drafted the text, was a proto-evangelical who sent Handel more Old Testament verses than the composer could fit in the oratorio. When a friend wrote him, “I am sorry to hear yr. friend Handel is such a Jew,” he fired back, “You do him too much Honour to call him a Jew!” For one thing, Jennens continued, “A Jew would have paid more respect to the Prophets.”

Much as the British borrowed liberally from the Dutch strategy on their way to geopolitical dominance, the Americans copied and improved on the British model. Americans kept their economy freer than Britain’s, and as a result, the United States is the top destination for global talent: For every titan of industry like Sergey Brin or Elon Musk, there are millions more beating down the door. The ones who arrive are joining one of the most open and tolerant societies in the world.

This strategy has an unbeatable record, but some still want to tear it up. Undeterred by socialism’s history of stagnation and failure, the American Left wants to jettison capitalism and run the economy like a DMV. And over the last year, the growing number of anti-Semites have shown that the enemies of the Jewish people hate most everything that makes America lovely.

Handel is not everyone’s cup of tea abroad either. The Nazis tried to “dejudaize” Handel’s music and downplayed his Britishness. And last December, the government-funded RIAS Chamber Choir in Berlin refused to perform Handel’s Israel in Egypt, since they did “not consider it appropriate to perform” a piece in which “a one-sided and all-conquering power … is represented primarily by the choir,” given the war that Hamas started.

A one-sided, all-conquering power freeing people from slavery and protecting persecuted Jews? May it ever be so.

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SOUTHERN ISRAEL—On December 11, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down NASDAQ’s diversity rules for corporate boards. The rules, which had been approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), required boards to have at least one member who identifies as a minority or LGBTQ.

The decision was another high-profile victory for Edward Blum, the activist behind 2023’s landmark Supreme Court case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which banned race-based college admissions.

Born to Yiddish-speaking cobblers in Benton Harbor, Mich., Blum has cited his Jewish upbringing as a formative influence on his values. At the time that the NASDAQ decision came down, he was in Israel on a moshav, or farmer’s co-op, pruning tomatoes about three miles from the Gaza border.

The Washington Free Beacon spoke to Blum about his recent victory and his time in the Jewish state. During the interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Blum discussed the significance of the NASDAQ ruling, the next stage of the fight against racial preferences, the mood in Israel after Donald Trump’s election, and the joys of Israeli farmwork.

Aaron Sibarium: Most Americans will never serve on a corporate board, and board members have only limited involvement in the day-to-day operations of companies. Why was it so important to challenge the NASDAQ rule?

Edward Blum: While few people ever serve on a corporate board, most Americans own stocks directly or indirectly. Requiring race and sex quotas for boards inhibits corporations from choosing the best-qualified candidates to serve. This outcome serves no one, including those chosen because of their sex and race.

AS: What are the real-world impacts of this decision likely to be?

EB: This opinion will prevent the SEC from wading into areas in which it has no statutory jurisdiction.

AS: What’s interesting about this case that the press hasn’t picked up on but that you think is important?

EB: I don’t know how to answer the question here, and it’s a good one, but there were really two parts of the case. One was about administrative law, which my limited legal net doesn’t really cover. And then there was the racial aspect of it, which my net does cover. When you read the opinion, it was more of an administrative law opinion.

AS: People often treat questions about the administrative state as separate from questions about civil rights and racial preferences. But it seems like the lesson of this case is that reining in the administrative state can rein in racial preferences too. Do you think there’s a strategic lesson here?

EB: Yes. It’s kind of like the old Marshall McLuhan line: The medium is the message. The administrative state has promoted and, in some respects, demanded the use of race and ethnicity in administrative policies, not only through the SEC but other agencies.

So I think what you’ve just said is correct.

AS: You’ve gotten affirmative action outlawed in college admissions. You’ve successfully challenged a host of race-based fellowships and grant programs in corporate America. Now NASDAQ is ending these diversity quotas. What’s next? Where does the fight against racial preferences go from here?

EB: I think the big fight will be uncovering, disclosing, and eliminating what we believe are racial proxies that are being implemented by colleges and universities, corporations, cultural institutions, and the like. We are in the early stages of learning about what colleges and universities and others are doing. But it is likely that my organization, as well as our allied legal friends, will be probing and litigating what I call racial proxies.

AS: That would be something like the Thomas Jefferson High School case, right, where they used zip codes as a proxy for race?

EB: Yes. Zip codes are a little fuzzy, but apparently there is some fairly sophisticated census data analysis that is being implemented by the College Board with their landscape tool, and something called the opportunity index, to name just two. The next big challenge in public interest litigation that challenges race and ethnicity will be learning what is being used for racial classifications and preferences instead of the checkbox.

AS: Let’s say that universities claim that the reason they’re using the opportunity index and zip codes and these other racial proxies is actually that they want socioeconomic diversity. Suppose they insist, “No, no, it has nothing to do with race. It’s all about class.” Which you don’t have a problem with, right?

EB: Correct.

AS: OK. But suppose that this has a racially disparate impact—the zip codes clearly help some racial groups more than others—which leads people to suspect there’s an ulterior motive. The schools say they’re pursuing socioeconomic diversity, but in practice they seem to be doing affirmative action by other means. How do you deal with that problem?

EB: As we argued all through the Harvard and [University of North Carolina] litigation, lowering the bar a little bit for students who come from modest or disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds is something that we support. Now, we support it if it is applied in all corners of the country where there are kids from modest or lower socioeconomic backgrounds. That means that kids from modest backgrounds who live in rural Missouri or rural Montana or Northern Maine or East Texas will have the same consideration and outcomes as kids who live in predominantly minority neighborhoods.

AS: You told the New York Times last year that your aversion to racial preferences stems in part from your Jewish upbringing. Can you tell us a little bit more about how that upbringing shaped your values?

EB: I’m 72 years old. I was a teenager during the early ’60s, you know, up through the late ’60s. My mom and dad spoke Yiddish. Of course, they were fluent in English, but they seemed to speak Yiddish to one another all the time.

The civil rights movement was a discussion at our family dinner table in 1964, ’65, ’66. So were the riots of ’68. I was in junior high and high school during those years. Growing up in Houston, Texas, basically the Deep South, this was something we were aware of, that my mother and father talked about. They witnessed and understood racial segregation. They understood policies that barred African Americans from entering certain businesses and restaurants and hotels. We talked about this a lot as a family, and I think that’s probably more than anything else what shaped my opinions about this, and maybe energized me as I grew older.

AS: How did your parents react when affirmative action came onto the scene and became a live topic of discussion in the ’70s and ’80s?

EB: Well, I’ll tell you how I reacted to it, and it’s sort of an unusual twist. I was at the University of Texas from 1969 through 1973. The introduction of quotas and race-based policies really began around that era. And as an 18- to 20-year-old, I was persuaded that, given what African Americans had gone through, it was a reasonable policy. It wasn’t really until the late ’70s and early ’80s that I transitioned away from that, seeing how unsuccessful and unfair affirmative action was. So my passion for this issue really developed in the late ’70s and early ’80s. And I will say that there was some evolution on my part.

AS: You said that affirmative action didn’t work. Can you talk a bit more about the inefficacy and how that played a role in your thinking?

EB: When I was in graduate school, I met a couple of Asian kids who were undergraduates. They told me about their academic background and how they were attending State University of New York because they had not been admitted to the Ivy Leagues and some of the more prestigious private schools. And these kids came from extremely modest backgrounds. So I started to noodle through that tension, and concluded that you can’t remedy past discrimination with new discrimination. That, I think, was the beginning of my revisiting the fairness of race-based affirmative action.

AS: Higher education experienced two big shocks last year. The first was your landmark Supreme Court victory that outlawed affirmative action in college admissions. And the second were the campus upheavals after the October 7 terrorist attacks, which sparked a lot of discussion about DEI and anti-Semitism. How, if at all, do you think the post-October 7 controversies have affected your work or changed the debate about racial preferences?

EB: Those are two really big topics, Aaron. Let me see if I can unpack this just a little bit. It is my belief that that opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard is one of the most popular Supreme Court opinions in the last generation. I cannot think of another Supreme Court case in which 70 percent of Americans agreed with what the Supreme Court did. So that opinion, I think, not only energized the legal endeavors against race-based policies, but also provided a shield for those who have been reluctant to talk about the unfairness of using race in our public policies. If the Supreme Court strikes down race in higher education, and everyone applauds that, then all of a sudden, people who have been subject to discrimination in employment and contracting feel like if race is wrong in education, it must also be wrong in all of these other areas too.

Between the growth of anti-Semitism on college campuses and the end of racial preferences in higher education, I think Americans feel more emboldened to say, yes, we’ve got to do something differently. We can’t continue using race in our public lives. And I think the embrace of Hamas by campus radicals has shocked not only American Jews but non-Jews as well. Many of us see that there’s always been an undercurrent of anti-Semitism just waiting to come out, and October 7 exposed it.

AS: What brought you to the Gaza border?

EB: I volunteered here last year before the IDF launched its attack into Gaza. It was a war zone then, with dozens of Hamas rockets still being launched into Israel daily. I helped to prepare meals for the IDF soldiers who were stationed here (all 800 residents were evacuated), picked fruit since all the Arabs and Thai employees were gone, and worked with the security team in patrolling the community.

AS: How is Israel reacting to the U.S. presidential election?

EB: Joyfully.

AS: Elaborate. How do Israelis think Trump’s election will affect life on the ground?

EB: I’ve been volunteering on a moshav that is three-and-a-half miles from Gaza. A couple of days ago, I was walking back from the tomato hothouse, where I’ve been pruning tomatoes, and a guy on a tractor and an older guy in a little golf cart stopped me. They wanted to know, “Who are you? Why are you here?” And then the next question was, “Who did you vote for?” I said, “Trump.” And they high-fived me.

Then I told them that according to some polls, it looks like about 35 percent of American Jews voted for Trump, and they could not believe it was that low. They thought I was making it up. They just could not believe that 65 percent voted for Harris.

Afterwards I read that 65 percent of Israelis supported Trump, and only 35 percent supported Harris. It was just the opposite. Sixty-five percent of Israelis are for Trump. Thirty-five percent of American Jews were for Trump.

I have been here a little over two weeks. I’m constantly being asked about the election: “What do you think,” “Were you happy?” I think Israelis are greatly relieved that Trump won the election, and I think the polling data supports that.

AS: There are obvious policy reasons why they would be relieved. Do you think the divide between how Israelis view Trump and how American Jews view him speaks to a deeper difference in worldviews?

EB: Oh, I think so. Israeli Jews have been surrounded since their founding in 1948 by tens of millions of neighbors who wish to eradicate them, who have done everything possible to murder and destroy the state of Israel. We American Jews have lived in a wonderful bubble since the end of World War II. We endured very modest anti-Semitism through the ’50s and ’60s, only to see by the mid-’60s it was practically gone.

The life experiences of American Jews are very different from those of Israeli Jews. For one thing, 18-year-olds in Israel, when they graduate from high school, are competing not to be admitted to a top university, but to be admitted to an elite army unit. Young men are constantly positioning themselves to be drafted into the Golani Brigade or one of the other high-profile Israeli defense units. American kids at age 17-18 are competing to get into Emory or Tulane or Duke or University of Chicago. This is a very different life here in Israel compared to what we have in the United States.

AS: It’s interesting that in the United States, prestige attaches to institutions like Harvard, which are in many ways the ultimate safe space. But in Israel, prestige attaches to institutions like the Golani Brigade, which are distinguished by how unsafe they are. People who serve in those units go to war and do intense special operations.

EB: That’s so well put. In Israel, the kids are competing to be in the most dangerous situations possible. That’s really well said.

AS: Last question: You mentioned you were pruning tomatoes. What was that like?

EB: The hothouse is about the size of a football field and covered with some kind of nylon netting. It’s about 10 degrees warmer inside the hothouse than outside. There are rows upon rows of grape tomatoes strung up on vines that go up about 8 to 10 feet. My job was to sit on a little box and trim the growth at the base of the tomato vine, because that growth impedes the nutrients in the water from reaching the tomatoes higher up. I did that for about 10 days.

The only downside was that I nearly ran out of Advil because I was taking about three or four a day. Bending over, reaching, and cutting can be a little back-breaking for somebody who’s 72 years old. But other than that, it was the best job I’ve ever had.

The post He Brought Down NASDAQ’s DEI Policies. Then He Went to the Gaza Border. appeared first on .

What killed Daniel Prude? The 41-year-old died in March 2020 after cops pinned him down during a drug-induced mental health crisis. For three minutes, Rochester, New York, police officers pressed Prude’s head and torso into the street, continuing their hold for nearly a minute after he began vomiting. It was one of the highest-profile deaths in police custody in a year that saw a historic nationwide movement against police brutality.

According to a state investigation, an autopsy, and the cops who held him to the ground, Prude was killed by something called “excited delirium.” The condition is said to turn people into erratic aggressors and can supposedly lead to cardiac arrest.

Authorities cited excited delirium in other notorious Black Lives Matter-era deaths in police custody, including those of George Floyd, Elijah McClain, and Angelo Quinto. The purported diagnosis had become so popular among first responders that, in Rochester, paramedics speculated even before they saw him that Prude was likely experiencing the condition, according to the state investigation.

Yet in the last four years, a vast swath of the U.S. medical establishment has rejected excited delirium as a diagnosis. Six leading national medical associations have fully disavowed it, while another two have distanced themselves from it. Floyd’s home state of Minnesota, McClain’s Colorado, and Quinto’s California have barred public officials from citing the syndrome. 

A “Debunked” Theory

Medical experts say excited delirium is a theory, not a recognized disease with a specific physiological cause. And they have argued it can obscure the actual causes of deaths, especially when police are involved.

Now, a training document obtained through a public records request by New York Focus and The Intercept sheds new light on how the disavowed diagnosis infiltrated the Rochester Police Department before Prude’s death.

Advocates and researchers blame the initial popularization of the excited delirium diagnosis on a corporate-backed campaign to absolve cops of responsibility for deaths in their custody. In Rochester, the training document, created in 2016 and last edited in late 2020, lifts directly from materials disseminated by an organization linked to Taser, producer of the eponymous stun gun. The document warns officers that the syndrome’s sufferers experience a “diminished sense of pain” that could render police batons ineffective. And it claims that “saying ‘I can’t breathe’” is a sign of excited delirium.

“It displaces any sort of blame from the perpetrator of violence — in this case, the police — to the person who’s on the receiving end.”

“It displaces any sort of blame from the perpetrator of violence — in this case, the police — to the person who’s on the receiving end, but under the guise of this diagnosis,” said Altaf Saadi, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, of the training document. Saadi, who has done research on how excited delirium rose to prominence, reviewed the training materials for New York Focus and The Intercept.

The document comes to light as New York grapples with its role in promoting excited delirium as a cause of death. After Prude died, state Attorney General Letitia James encouraged first responders to embrace the disputed concept. 

“Personnel must be trained to recognize the symptoms of excited delirium syndrome and to respond to it as a serious medical emergency,” she recommended in a 2021 report.

It’s unclear how many police departments in the state have trained officers on the theory — though the largest one has. Last year, New York Focus uncovered New York City Police Department training materials that provide guidance on excited delirium similar to what is in the Rochester document. (The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.)

Internally, the attorney general’s office has softened its stance.

In a statement, the office said, “Causes of death are solely determined by medical examiners, not OSI” — James’s Office of Special Investigation — “however we have not recognized ‘excited delirium’ or similar terms as a cause of death for several years because we are acutely aware of the scientific discourse and concerns regarding the term.” Her office did not comment on her use of the term in the Prude investigation nor her guidance that officers should be trained on the theory.

“It’s pseudoscience that all too often provides cover for fatal police tactics.”

With James avoiding a full-throated rejection of excited delirium, state lawmakers are taking up the fight. Citing New York Focus’s report on the NYPD, Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas introduced legislation in March to ban government agencies from referencing excited delirium.

“The term has been debunked by the major medical associations,” said González-Rojas. “It’s something that has to be done.”

She said, “It’s pseudoscience that all too often provides cover for fatal police tactics.”

“No Such Medical Disease”

“Excited delirium syndrome” was scientifically suspect from the start. In the 1980s, doctors studying cocaine use in Miami coined the term to describe how, in their observations, the drug could make men “psychotic” and potentially cause women to die during sex. The deceased women the doctors initially studied were later found to be victims of a serial killer. Other subjects had been restrained by police in positions that can obstruct breathing.

Still, the notion gained traction, and in 2005, a forensic pathologist and psychiatric nurse published a book on the syndrome. In the opening pages, it reads, “This book is dedicated to all law enforcement and medical personnel who have been wrongfully accused of misconduct in deaths due to excited delirium syndrome.” The publication caught the eye of Taser.

Amid increased scrutiny over its stun guns’ role in deaths involving police, Taser became one of the excited delirium theory’s biggest boosters. The company distributed the book and other literature on the syndrome. Taser-backed research made its way into first responder training materials, which recommended tactics to subdue excited delirium sufferers — including by using Taser stun guns.

The company hired experts who testified in police killing trials that the syndrome, and not stun guns or other uses of force, caused the victims’ deaths. Some of the same experts inundated medical journals with studies making the same arguments. Taser, now known as Axon, did not respond to a request for comment.

Taser concentrated much of its advocacy on medical examiners, whose autopsies play a key role in legal proceedings for police killings. Between 2000 and 2017, medical examiners listed excited delirium as a factor in at least 276 deaths that followed Taser use, a Reuters investigation found. (Little to no public data exists on how many overall deaths are attributed to excited delirium.)

Joye Carter Rush, a forensic pathologist and former longtime medical examiner, remembers receiving Taser materials on excited delirium, including the 2005 book. The dedication jumped out at her.

Taser’s medical examiner advocacy was peculiar, Carter Rush said, because there’s no special way for medical examiners to diagnose the syndrome. Rather, as a “syndrome,” it’s a list of simultaneous symptoms.

“There is no such medical disease as excited delirium,” Carter Rush said.

Excited delirium is sometimes linked with drug use, but the behaviors police have come to associate with it can result from a wide variety of underlying causes, medical experts said.

“Maybe they have dementia, maybe they have autism with behavioral issues,” said Saadi, the neurologist. “If they’re having fever and muscle rigidity” — among excited delirium’s listed symptoms — “it could be encephalitis. There’s literally so many different diagnoses.”

“‘Superhuman strength’ and ‘unlimited endurance’ we know are racist tropes.”

That murkiness is what prompted some of the top medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association, to fully disavow the diagnosis. 

Excited delirium’s reputation for endowing sufferers with super strength and imperviousness to pain can fuel more aggressive police responses, Saadi said.

“‘Superhuman strength’ and ‘unlimited endurance’ we know are racist tropes that have been typically used against Black men,” said Saadi. “It sends the message that it is okay to justify having this super aggressive escalation when that is often not the case.”

Zombie Pics

The Rochester materials obtained by New York Focus and The Intercept highlight critics’ concerns about excited delirium.

Look out for subjects who look like they “just snapped,” the training warns. Excited delirium may render “pain compliance techniques” like batons ineffective.

To reinforce the unearthly qualities of people experiencing the syndrome, the training presentation includes melodramatic photos and illustrations: deranged people screaming; a naked, bloody zombie eating a corpse; the Incredible Hulk. In one image, two cops pin a naked, wide-eyed Black man to the ground.

The training file’s metadata indicates that it was created in 2016 and last edited in late 2020, meaning it was likely offered to officers before Prude’s death.

The metadata also shows that the file was created by the Monroe County Office of Mental Health’s former chief of clinical and forensic services, Kimberly Butler, who also headed the county team that accompanies police on mental health crisis calls.

Butler, who did not respond to interview requests, resigned in 2020 after it was revealed that she sent privileged information about Prude’s mental health care to Rochester police officials after his run-in with the cops. She was one of at least 16 public officials, including the Rochester police chief, to resign, retire, or get fired in connection with their handling of the Prude case.

Both the Rochester Police Department and the Monroe County Office of Mental Health said that they don’t currently offer the excited delirium training. (The police department sent the file to New York Focus and The Intercept in response to a request for “currently used” training materials related to excited delirium.)

“It was co-sponsored by the county Office of Mental Health, and we do have officers who attend Office of Mental Health trainings, but I have no idea if they still use it or not,” Greg Bello of the Rochester Police Department said.

A spokesperson for the county Office of Mental Health said that the training document is from a prior administration — the current director took over in February 2021 — and the office can’t be sure when the last time it was used. Neither the police nor the mental health office responded to follow-up questions about their stances on excited delirium.

Taser Tag

Most of the Rochester training presentation’s first half — including the line that lists “saying ‘I can’t breathe’” as a sign of excited delirium — appears to lift directly from an informational poster published by a group called the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths.

The group was co-founded by a former Taser-paid expert named John Peters and a Taser attorney around the same time that the company’s excited delirium campaign was in full swing. The informational poster, written by Peters, touts that Taser’s stun guns “have been shown to be the most effective to quickly capturing” excited delirium patients.

In an interview with New York Focus and The Intercept, Peters, a longtime police administrator, said he now agrees with many of the medical establishment’s concerns about the diagnosis. The IPICD has recommended against using the term for nearly 15 years, he said. The organization now teaches officers to address what it calls “agitated chaotic events,” while leaving medical diagnoses to medical professionals.

The IPICD’s website, however, still boosts the theory. An advertisement for a current institute police training course, for example, decries pushback against excited delirium as a result of “post-George Floyd societal culture.”

The IPICD also still publishes the informational poster that appears to have inspired the Rochester training presentation. The poster is nearly two decades old and cites the 1980s cocaine research. Peters said that he planned on replacing the poster after the IPICD’s annual conference in November, but it remains on the group’s website.

Attorney General Report

Taser’s connections to the Prude case extend beyond the IPICD-inspired Rochester police training.

In 2021, Gary Vilke, a San Diego-based emergency medicine doctor, became the New York attorney general’s chief medical expert in the Prude case. As a frequent paid expert witness in police killing trials, including for Taser, Vilke has earned notoriety as one of the most influential members of a cadre of hired guns whose testimonies help absolve officers.

In a deposition last year, Vilke reportedly said he consults on more than a dozen cases a year and can earn as much as $50,000 per case. He said in a 2021 deposition that for nearly two decades he never blamed a cop for a death, according to the New York Times. (He told the Times that he did not recall the statement and disagreed with it.)

He was also one of excited delirium’s most visible proponents, co-authoring a seminal white paper on the theory at an early IPICD conference.

In Prude’s case, Vilke, who did not respond to a request for comment, was confident that police weren’t at fault. He told the grand jury, convened to examine whether the cops should be charged with negligent homicide, that Prude died of excited delirium and not at the hands of the officers.

“I wouldn’t do anything differently,” he told a grand juror who asked if officers could have treated Prude better. The body voted 15–5 against charging the officers.

The office of James, the attorney general, retained Vilke to advise on its investigation into Prude’s death, making him its sole cited outside medical expert.

The Monroe County medical examiner, who still works in that role and whose office declined to comment, ruled that Prude had died from “complications” from asphyxiation, excited delirium, and intoxication from PCP, the dissociative drug he was using. While a police practices expert hired by the attorney general said that pinning Prude on his stomach for three minutes was “unreasonable” and likely caused his death, Vilke steered investigators back toward excited delirium.

“Vilke noted that Mr. Prude displayed many symptoms consistent with Excited Delirium,” the attorney general’s office reported. The syndrome, brought on by his PCP use, “caused Mr. Prude to suffer cardiac arrest.”

In its final report, issued in February 2021, the attorney general’s office dedicated nine pages to the topic of excited delirium. It acknowledged the controversy around the syndrome and its racial implications but declared that excited delirium is real and can cause sudden death.

It was in the report that James’s office made its recommendation that first responders be trained in excited delirium. The report said the Rochester police academy barely taught the syndrome. It did not account for the police training materials produced by the Office of Mental Health.

The post What Killed Daniel Prude? The Cops and New York AG Said a Diagnosis That’s Since Been Debunked. appeared first on The Intercept.