Month: October 2018

The top U.S. general overseeing a deployment of more than 5,200 troops to the border with Mexico said on Tuesday that troop levels would rise further but declined to say how high or estimate what the operation will cost.

Many basic questions remain unanswered a day after the Pentagon announced an open-ended deployment of over 5,200 active-duty troops to the border, including the cost and scope of the mission as well as the Pentagon’s assessment of any threat posed by arriving migrants.

U.S. President Donald Trump has hardened his stance on immigration ahead of Nov. 6 congressional elections. He has drawn attention to a caravan of migrants that is trekking through Mexico toward the United States as he seeks to fire up support for his Republican party.

Republican lawmakers and other Trump supporters have applauded the deployment. But critics say Trump is politicizing the military, deploying them as a stunt to drive Republican voters to the polls without any real national security threat.

General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the head of U.S. Northern Command, defended the operation at a briefing Tuesday. He echoed Trump administration concerns about the caravan and compared the border support mission to other domestic military missions, like hurricane relief.

“I firmly believe that border security is national security,” O’Shaughnessy said.

The U.S. military still had no firm idea of what the operation would cost, he added. Pentagon officials have said the Defense Department will need to find a way to pay for the operation, suggesting money may need to be taken from other national security programs.

O’Shaughnessy said just over 1,000 troops had already deployed to Texas as of Tuesday, where they will carry out tasks like building barriers, erecting tents, and flying government personnel by helicopter to and from different locations along the border.

He said the more than 5,200 troops now slated to go to Texas, Arizona and California were only the start of a larger deployment and that eventually troops would go to New Mexico as well.

“What I can confirm is there will be additional force over and above the 5,239. The magnitude of that difference, I don’t have the answer for now,” he said.

The projected U.S. deployment is already roughly the same size as the U.S. military contingent in Iraq.

Trump railed against illegal immigration to win the 2016 presidential election and has seized on the caravan of Central American migrants at campaign rallies in the run-up to next week’s vote.

Trump has characterized the migrants as an “invasion” and falsely stated they harbor terrorists and are financed in part by Democrats.

O’Shaughnessy declined to comment on intelligence about the caravan when asked whether there were terrorists among the migrants. He said the caravans was “different” than those seen by the United States in the past, adding that they were better organized.

“We’ve seen violence coming out of the caravan,” O’Shaughnessy said.

Kevin McAleenan, the U.S. commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, estimated Monday that the caravan was comprised of about 3,500 migrants.
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For many Jewish journalists in the U.S., persistent online anti-Semitic harassment has become part of the job.

The phenomenon became pervasive during the 2016 presidential campaign, and there’s been a resurgence in recent months ahead of next week’s midterm elections, according to the Anti-Defamation League. 

Targeted journalists have found different ways of responding. CNN commentator Sally Kohn reaches out kindly to some of her online harassers. Michael Duke, an editor at the Houston-based Jewish Herald-Voice, has reduced his use of social media. Yair Rosenberg, a writer with Tablet Magazine, developed a method of tracking down and disrupting anti-Semitic accounts on Twitter. 

Rosenberg has written in detail about the vitriol directed at him, including a doctored photo showing him a gas chamber. When the ADL reported that he received the second-largest amount of abuse among all Jewish journalists on Twitter during the 2016 campaign, Rosenberg wrote, “My parents didn’t raise me to be No. 2; fortunately, there’s always 2020.” 

Twitter, over the past two years, has become more effective at removing certain types of virulent anti-Semitism from its feeds, according to Rosenberg. But he said the company is less effective at blocking the spread of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories in tweets that avoid certain phrases and hashtags that would catch the eye of Twitter monitors. 

Rosenberg said he has grown hardened to the constant flow of anti-Semitic material. 

Perspective

“I don’t feel like a victim,” he said by telephone from Pittsburgh, where and he and his Tablet colleagues are covering the aftermath of the synagogue shooting Saturday that killed 11 Jews. 

“What some people deal with in real life is worse than what I deal with online,” he said. “There’s life-and-death stuff, and there’s me getting mean tweets.” 

A few spots below Rosenberg on the ADL’s 2016 “Top 10” list was Kohn, a liberal political commentator who appears regularly on CNN. 

For a book she published earlier this year, The Opposite of Hate, she reached out to several of her own Twitter trolls, conversing with them about the reasons for their vitriol and in some cases receiving apologies. 

In an interview Tuesday, Kohn said she is now less tempted to engage with her harassers. 

“It’s all just so negative,” she said. “I’ve stopped paying as much attention to my trolls.” 

Also on the 2016 Top 10 list was Jonah Goldberg, a senior editor of the conservative National Review. He began receiving a torrent of online anti-Semitic invective in the second half of 2015, after Donald Trump declared his presidential candidacy and Goldberg was among the conservative commentators who expressed misgivings. 

“You had endless photoshopped images — Trump in an SS outfit putting me in a gas chamber,” he said. “You don’t see that stuff very much anymore.” 

However, he said there was a new surge of anti-Semitic material — much of it generated by bots — after the Pittsburgh massacre. 

“They flood the zone in the wake of these kinds of controversies … sowing discord and distrust,” he said. 

Like Rosenberg and Kohn, Goldberg tries to take the harassment in stride, though he took notice when photos of his dog became vehicles for further anti-Semitic abuse. 

‘Sheer inhumanity’

One specific episode still stands out: Goldberg said that at one point he made public reference to the death of his brother and was “pelted with jokes asking if he’d been turned into soap or a lampshade.” 

“I have a pretty thick skin,” he said. “The sheer inhumanity of it — that’s stuck with me.” 

At The Forward, a New York-based Jewish magazine, editor-in-chief Jane Eisner said anti-Semitic harassment directed at her staff surged in 2016, prompting new procedures for reporting particularly menacing threats to the police. 

“There’s no doubt we’ve gotten used to this, which in some ways is a tragedy, but we have to do our job,” Eisner said. “Just because you accept it and move on doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you.” 

At the ADL, one of the experts tracking anti-Semitic harassment is Daniel Kelley, associate director of the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society. Even if some prominent Jewish journalists are able persevere in the face of such harassment, he worries that some Jews might be deterred from pursing a journalism career for fear of becoming a target. 

In Houston, Duke, a Jewish Herald-Voice associate editor, was targeted with anti-Semitic abuse after the paper reported on a 2016 visit by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer to Texas A&M University. Duke was called a “Zionist Nazi” and was emailed a photo of Auschwitz with the tag, “We’re on the march.” 

But there’s been an upside to Duke’s subsequent decision to reduce his engagement on social media. 

“It’s made me a little better as a journalist,” he said. “With social media, you can be a little lazy. This puts me back in touch with people we write about.” 
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An American missionary died Tuesday after being shot in the head amid fighting between armed separatists and soldiers in northwestern Cameroon, the director of the regional hospital said.

Charles Trumann Wesco, a missionary from the U.S. state of Indiana who had been in the region for two weeks, was rushed to the hospital in Bamenda after he was gravely wounded while in his car, hospital director Kingue Thomson Njie said.

“He died in our hospital after all attempts to save his life,” Njie told The Associated Press.

Wesco’s wife, Stephanie, and eight children were still in Bamenda, he said.

Dave Halyman, assistant pastor at Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana, where Stephanie Wesco’s father, Don Williams, is the senior pastor, said that he had spoken to her after the shooting.

He said the shooting happened as Charles and Stephanie Wesco were in a car being driven by another missionary to the town of Bamnui from the Bamenda suburb of Bambili, where the family has been living. He said Charles Wesco was in the front seat, and two shots hit the windshield and struck him in the head. No one else was hurt, Halyman said.

The family had been in Cameroon for just 12 days before the shooting, Halyman said. He said they had raised financial support for two years and had been to Cameroon two years ago on a survey trip.

“We’re shocked and grieving at what’s occurred. We’re trying to get over the shock of losing someone as wonderful as Charles was,” Halyman said. “While we don’t like this, we understand that God has a great purpose.”

The missionary’s brother is Indiana state Rep. Tim Wesco, who confirmed that his older brother had been killed. “He loved the Lord. He loved people. The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord,” he said.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb issued a statement saying that he and his wife, Janet, “are thinking of Rep. Tim Wesco and his family as they grieve the death of his brother Charles. We ask that all Hoosiers join us in offering prayers and condolences to the Wesco family.”

Bamenda is in Cameroon’s Northwest Region, the restive English-speaking area where armed separatists have been fighting with the military while attempting to create an independent state.

Regional Gov. Deben Tchoffo said armed groups staged attacks to stop the reopening of the University of Bamenda, and the military fought back Tuesday. He said Wesco might have been caught in crossfire.

A military spokesman, Col. Didier Badjeck, told AP that the military killed at least four suspects in Wesco’s death and arrested many others. He did not specify if the people detained were military personnel or separatists.

Cameroon’s military said last week after launching attacks on suspected separatist training grounds that “many have been killed.” The attacks happened the day after President Paul Biya was declared the winner of a seventh term.

The increased violence began after the government clamped down on demonstrations by English-speaking teachers and lawyers protesting what they called their marginalization by Cameroon’s French-speaking majority. Armed factions emerged after the government crackdown and have been using violence to push for an independent state they call “Ambazonia.”

Protests against the 85-year-old Biya’s Oct. 7 re-election have been ongoing.
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President Donald Trump’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to postpone a trial set for Nov. 5 that will examine the legality of its decision to ask people taking part in the 2020 U.S. census whether they are citizens.

The administration is asking for the trial to be placed on hold until the Supreme Court resolves a dispute over evidence, including whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, can be forced to answer questions about the politically charged decision.

On Friday, Manhattan U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, who will preside over the trial, and a federal appeals court both refused to postpone the trial.

Furman said a stay of the trial was not warranted and could hinder a final resolution of the case before the government begins printing the census forms next year.

The lawsuit, brought by 18 states and a number of cities and counties, was spearheaded by Democratic officials. It is consolidated with another suit by several immigrant rights groups accusing the administration of discrimination against non-white immigrants.

Critics of the citizenship question have said it will deter people in immigrant communities from participating in the census, disproportionately affecting Democratic-leaning states by undercounting the number of residents.

The administration has said it needs the data to enforce a voting rights law as it relates to minority voters.

Furman said in a Sept. 21 order that Ross must face a deposition by lawyers for the states because his “intent and credibility are directly at issue” in the lawsuit.

Furman said there was doubt about Ross’ public statements that the Justice Department initiated the request to include the citizenship question and that he was not aware of any discussions with the White House about it.

But on Oct. 22, the Supreme Court blocked Ross’ deposition and gave the administration until Monday to appeal the trial judge’s orders.

The administration told the justices on Monday that there should be no trial into Ross’ motives for adding the citizenship question, including whether he harbored “secret racial animus” in doing so.

“The harms to the government from such a proceeding are self-evident,” the government said.

The U.S. Constitution mandates a census every 10 years. It is used in the allocation of seats in Congress and the distribution of billions of dollars in federal funds. A citizenship question has not appeared on the census since 1950.
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Opening a new front in its trade and technology disputes with China, the Trump administration on Monday took action to cut off a Chinese state-backed semiconductor maker from U.S. exports of components, software and technology goods.

The Commerce Department said it has put Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit Co Ltd on a list of entities that cannot purchase such products from U.S. firms, citing a “significant risk” that the Chinese firm’s new memory chip capacity will threaten the viability of American suppliers of such chips for military systems.

It said in a statement that Fujian Jinhua “poses a significant risk of becoming involved in activities that are contrary to the national interests of the United States.”

The action is similar to a Commerce Department move that nearly put Chinese telecommunications equipment company ZTE out of business earlier this year by cutting it off from U.S. suppliers.

ZTE, which had violated a deal to settle violations of sanctions on Iran and North Korea, was allowed to resume purchases of U.S. products after a revised settlement and payment of a $1 billion fine.

The action against Fujian Jinhua is likely to ignite new tensions between Beijing and Washington since the company is at the heart of the “Made in China 2025” program to develop new high-technology industries.

The world’s top two economies are already waging a major tariff war over their trade disputes, with U.S. duties in place on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods and Chinese duties on $110 billion of U.S. goods.

Fujian Jinhua, which is starting up a new $5.7 billion chip factory in Fujian province, is linked to the Trump administration’s accusations that China has systematically stolen and forced the transfer of American technology.

Fujian Jinhua and Taiwanese partner United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) were accused last December by U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc of stealing Micron chip designs through poached employees, a case still under way in a California court.

UMC countersued in a Chinese court, accusing Micron of infringing its patents, leading to a temporary ban in July on sales of Micron’s main products in China.

It was not immediately clear what effect the Commerce Department action will have on Fujian Jinhua’s operations.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that the Chinese firm’s new plant likely was the beneficiary of “U.S.-origin technology” and its additional production would threaten the long-term viability of U.S. chipmakers.

“When a foreign company engages in activity contrary to our national security interests, we will take strong action to protect our national security,” he said. “Placing Jinhua on the Entity List will limit its ability to threaten the supply chain for essential components in our military systems.”
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Following the shooting deaths of 11 worshippers at a synagogue in the eastern United States, a U.N. human rights expert urged governments on Monday to do more to curb racist and anti-Semitic intolerance, especially online.

“That event should be a catalyst for urgent action against hate crimes, but also a reminder to fight harder against the current climate of intolerance that has made racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic attitudes and beliefs more acceptable,” U.N. Special Rapporteur Tendayi Achiume said of Saturday’s attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Achiume, whose mandate is the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, noted in her annual report that “Jews remain especially vulnerable to anti-Semitic attacks online.”

She said that Nazi and neo-Nazi groups exploit the internet to spread and incite hate because it is “largely unregulated, decentralized, cheap” and anonymous.

Achiume, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law, said neo-Nazi groups are increasingly relying on the internet and social media platforms to recruit new members.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are among their favorites.

On Facebook, for example, hate groups connect with sympathetic supporters and use the platform to recruit new members, organize events and raise money for their activities. YouTube, which has over 1.5 billion viewers each month, is another critical communications tool for propaganda videos and even neo-Nazi music videos. On Twitter, according to one 2012 study cited in the special rapporteur’s report, the presence of white nationalist movements on that platform has increased by more than 600 percent.

The special rapporteur noted that while digital technology has become an integral and positive part of most people’s lives, “these developments have also aided the spread of hateful movements.”

She said in the past year, platforms including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have banned individual users who have contributed to hate movements or threatened violence, but ensuring the removal of racist content online remains difficult.

Some hate groups try to get around raising red flags by using racially coded messaging, which makes it harder for social media platforms to recognize their hate speech and shut down their presence.

Achiume cited as an example the use of a cartoon character “Pepe the Frog,” which was appropriated by members of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups and was widely displayed during a white supremacist rally in the southern U.S. city of Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

The special rapporteur welcomed actions in several states to counter intolerance online, but cautioned it must not be used as a pretext for censorship and other abuses. She also urged governments to work with the private sector — specifically technology companies — to fight such prejudices in the digital space.
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Flags on U.S. government buildings across the country will be flown at half-staff over the next three days to honor the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.

President Donald Trump calls it “a mark of solemn respect for the victims of the terrible act of violence.”

He also ordered flags lowered at all U.S. embassies, consular offices, military facilities, and Naval ships.

Interfaith vigils were held from coast-to-coast Sunday and in many Canadian cities. A number of National Football League games held moments of silence before kickoff.

The Vancouver Canucks professional hockey team also paused before their game with the Pittsburgh Penguins in Vancouver to remember the dead.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris was darkened Sunday night.

Authorities in Pittsburgh are calling what happened at the Tree of Life synagogue a “hate crime,” saying suspected gunman Robert Bowers shouted anti-Semitic threats as he opened fire.

The 46-year-old Bowers faces 29 criminal charges. Documents outlining the allegations against him say Bowers was armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and three handguns. He said that he wanted all Jews to die because he believed Jews “were committing genocide to his people.” That apparently refers to his belief that a Jewish refugee agency is helping foreign nationals enter the U.S. and that it endangers non-Jews in America.

In a message he apparently posted online just minutes before the attack, Bowers said the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t wait while my people are getting slaughtered…I’m going in.”

Officials said 11 people — eight men and three women — were killed. They ranged in age from 54 to 97. Six people were wounded, including four police officers, before Bowers was found barricaded inside the synagogue, shot, and arrested. He is recovering from his wounds.

The FBI said Bowers was not previously known to law enforcement, but apparently had posted a string of anti-Semitic threats online, particularly on the Gab.com website, where conspiracy theories are common.

Gab, which bills itself as the “free speech” alternative to Twitter and Facebook, has become a popular place to post content unwelcome or prohibited on other platforms. Gab responded with a statement Sunday:

“We refuse to be defined by the media’s narratives about Gab and our community. Gab’s mission is very simple: to defend free expression and individual liberty online for all people.”

On top of Bowers’ page, one quote said, “Jews are the children of Satan,” according to screenshots of the now-suspended account released by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist views.

Police had responded to emergency calls about 9:45 a.m. Saturday morning as regular religious services were being held by three congregations at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Witnesses said that Bowers, as he entered the synagogue, shouted, “All these Jews must die!”

Authorities said they found victims at three locations inside the synagogue, located in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood. The local medical examiner, Dr. Karl Williams, said, “Lots of shots were fired, there were casings everywhere.”

The Anti-Defamation League, which has tracked hatred and violence against Jews since the 1970s, said the mayhem is “likely the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States.”  

“We are devastated,” said the group’s head, Jonathan Greenblatt. “Our hearts break for the victims, their families, and the entire Jewish community.”

World leaders denounced the attack, deploring it as an affront to humanity.

President Trump told a political rally late Saturday, “This evil, anti-Semitic attack is an assault on all of us. We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters to defeat anti-Semitism and vanquish the forces of hate.”

On Twitter, Trump said, “All of America is in mourning over the mass murder of Jewish Americans at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We pray for those who perished and their loved ones, and our hearts go out to the brave police officers who sustained serious injuries. This evil Anti-Semitic attack is an assault on humanity. It will take all of us working together to extract the poison of Anti-Semitism from our world. We must unite to conquer hate.”

Former U.S. President Barack Obama said, “We grieve for the Americans murdered in Pittsburgh. All of us have to fight the rise of anti-Semitism and hateful rhetoric against those who look, love, or pray differently. And we have to stop making it so easy for those who want to harm the innocent to get their hands on a gun.”

Pope Francis at the Vatican called the massacre an “inhuman act of violence.” He prayed “to help us to extinguish the flames of hatred that develop in our societies.”

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “It is hard to overstate the horror of the murder of Jews who congregate on the Sabbath and who were murdered only because they were Jews. On my behalf, on behalf of the government of Israel and the nation of Israel I convey our heartfelt condolences to the families that have lost dear ones. We all pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the assault an act of “blind anti-Semitic hatred,” while United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a united world effort “to roll back the forces of racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of racism.”
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The mayor of New York City, home to the world’s largest concentration of Jews outside Israel, said there is only one way to deal with hate – confront it head on.

Mayor Bill de Blasio joined city religious leaders outside the Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan Sunday to condemn the massacre of 11 Jews inside a Pittsburgh synagogue.

“This gathering sends a message. New York City will never succumb to hate. We will never allow ourselves to be divided,” the mayor said.

He assured the city’s large Jewish population that police will protect synagogues and Jewish community centers.

“We will not let anyone harm you.”

De Blasio was joined Sunday by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian clergymen, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan. The cardinal said the fact that the Pittsburgh shooting victims were Jews – a people who have “suffered for centuries” – adds to the horror.

“The respect for the inherent dignity of every human being and the sacredness of human life, we must never, ever question,” the cardinal said.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered flags in the state to fly at half-staff all week.
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The United States is reeling after a spate of what appear to be politically-motivated attacks: a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 congregants dead and at least 14 explosive devices sent to prominent Democrats across the country. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports the horrific incidents are spawning a new focus on America’s often-toxic political discourse just more than a week before midterm elections.
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