No.1086
Does anyone else think that part of the US government's intention with ICE's recent wave of murders, assaults, and abductions might be to direct public outrage away from US war crimes (and losses) in Iran (and Palestine, Lebanon, Venezuela, etc.)?
I saw, several months ago, that GDF put out a video titled "the ICE distraction" or something like that, but I didn't watch it because I kind of reflexively disagreed with the idea that ICE activity was just a distraction - which may or may not have been his argument, I'll watch it later. Anyway, while I still don't think ICE is just a distraction, it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore a pattern here, which I'll illustrate below:
1. US is facing massive public outrage for its pointless wars, and the atrocities, expenses and losses associated with it. Protests ensue.
2. The government ramps up repression, sending ICE out to abduct activists, or just cause general mayhem.
3. The entire focus of the protests then shifts to stopping ICE or getting activists released from unlawful detention.
4. ICE dials down operations, or the activists are released. Protesters celebrate a "victory."
5. Meanwhile, the US/"Israel" are fusing militaries, and during the course of steps 2-4 (approx. 1 month), the IOF and US occupation forces killed another several thousand people, and CENTCOM lost another several billion dollars in equipment and several hundred more (undeclared) US casualties.
This is now happening again and again, yet the western orgs seem deeply unaware of it.
Mahmoud Khalil gets abducted, protesters get together and yell about it, a legal fund is raised, he's released, the people cheer and claim their victory, he's taken again, the whole process repeats. At no point in this process has any of the effort spent to release Mahmoud Khalil been used to kill IOF terrorists or cripple the munitions plants, logistics hubs, or ports used to arms IOF terrorists with US public money. The methods used to free Mahmoud Khalil, which are entirely within the confines of the US legal system, cannot ever work without someone in the American state consenting to release him. There is no prison break, there is no tangible threat to the system which unjustly abducted someone on account of their wrongthink, protesters "win" without "winning" again and again and never build the organized power to get actual material wins which the state can't simply renege on. None of this is to disregard solidarity between activists in the United States, but it seems obvious to me that the American government is wasting people's time on purpose by making them deal with its draconian bureaucracy rather than fighting it.
ICE's killings in Minnesota became a lightning rod for activist fury, even as the IOF continued to blatantly violate the October 2025 "ceasefire" agreement in Gaza, killing many more with massive American support. Even Radiohead, notoriously staunch supporters of zionism and genocide, came out to pretend to be mad when ICE agents, who could have received training from Johnny Greenwood's girlfriend had she been in the IOF after Bush created ICE, killed a couple white Americans and sowed general unrest in the Minnesota suburbs using the same tactics the IOF uses every day on Palestinian children. Anger at these crimes within the US was used to launder the reputations of such zionist celebrities, and, indeed, seemed to draw attention away from the crimes being carried out against Palestinians, Venezuelans, and the Lebanese. When prolonged outrage and a Minnesota general strike led to ICE dialing down operations in the city and leaving in early February, activists celebrated their "win," and sought to take refuge from the great tension of this struggle, all as the US and its "ally" committed far, far greater crimes and prepared for even greater state repression before restarting the US/zionist war on Iran a few weeks later.
Now, the US has ramped up its zionist war on Iran again, and most of America's street-marching activists are practically ignoring it to focus only on a few more ICE killings, which, though a crime, is clearly d-list compared to the US participating in another forever war of aggression and the ongoing genocide in Palestine. The American activists seem to be completely satisfied with obvious false stops to US crimes abroad, as in the "ceasefire" in Gaza and the MoU signed with Iran, despite the obvious fact that "israel" and the US never intended to honor these agreements in the first place. This is, needlesstosay, a very pathetic display even compared to American anti-war activism of the past, and it's obvious that we need to exceed past activism rather than match it in order to get real wins. It's clear that the repression by the state serves the purpose of directly repressing activist movements, but it is also serving the purpose of distracting them by becoming the focus of their activism, and it's difficult to believe, today, that this is not a deliberate strategy on the part of the government.
Additionally,
Another such spectacle actually occurred, with comparatively less success, under Biden, in early 2024, when there was that clownish "showdown" between US federal border patrol and the Texas National Guard over whose jurisdiction it was to patrol the southern border of Texas, and whose job it was to put kids in cages. This was pumped up on mainstream news outlets 24/7, and became the entire focus of mainstream GOP attacks levelled at the Biden administration, which was, at precisely that time, the first administration in US history to be sued for genocide complicity by the family members of its Palestinian victims, a fact which proved decisive in the 2024 election, but which was conspicuously avoided both by the DNC and by GOP members pretending to oppose Biden. Nevertheless, this by itself failed to divert the attention of the anti-genocide movement, despite serving as a distraction for many.