Author: admin

Having taken a brief excursus to discuss retributive and distributive forms of justice that are operative when fighting just wars justly, I want to return to an overview of the jus ad bellum and, specifically, the jab’s final requirement guiding evaluation of when it is right to fight: namely, right intent.

In case a remedial refresher is helpful, recall that the jab’s primary aim is to assist a nation’s legitimate sovereign—the authority over which there is no one greater charged with the care of the political community—in determining when nothing else but proportionate military force has any realistic chance of rescuing the sufficiently threatened innocent, requiting gross injustices, or punishing grave evil with the aim of ending conflict and restoring or imposing order and justice and, thereby, peace. You might also remember that these requirements, being deontological in nature, are essential if war is to be just. Moreover, their presence does not merely provide permission for war, but signal obligation.

The proper intention of entering a just war can be cast in positive and negative ways. Negatively, the proper orientation of the just warrior must be to avoid evils. As Augustine puts it: “The real evils in war are love of violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance, and the lust of power, and the like.” As we’ll see, the jus in bello framework—guiding how to rightly fight the fight that’s right to fight—helps prevent these evils by mandating necessity, proportionate force, and due care in targeting.

On the positive side, as we have already seen, war is waged with the intention of overturning the conditions that led to the just cause for fighting. That is, one fights in order to secure the protection of the innocent, to take back those things wrongly taken—thereby requiting injustice—and to sufficiently punish evil. But there is something more.

From Augustine to Luther to Calvin and onward, the purpose of war is always primarily to restore a disordered peace. This peace is desired first for the innocent victims under unjust assault. But in the second place, this desire for peace extends to the enemy—toward the restoration of the enemy into the fellowship of reconciliation. Naturally, you cannot reconcile with someone who has not seen the error of his ways, repented, and given you solid reasons to trust that he will not seek to harm you again. There is therefore more to say about this than can be said here. For now, let’s summarize the point this way: right intention casts warmaking as peacemaking. Just war is the initiation of the process of forgiveness.

In his letter to Boniface, the Roman military tribune in north Africa, Augustine insisted: “Peace should be the object of your desire; war should be waged only as a necessity…in order that peace may be obtained.” With the admonition there is a caution. It pays to remember, as Jean Bethke Elshtain reminded us, that Augustine is talking about the peace of the Pax Romana—a compelled or ordered peace. However unjust in the full light of eschatological shalom—that heavenly state of wholeness, harmony, and completeness—this imperfect peace was nevertheless very real and very significant. More than any competitor then in the market, the Roman Pax was capable of keeping neighbor from eating neighbor, and of preserving the interconnected web of culture, civilization, art, and tradition that, by Augustine’s day, was much in jeopardy. The imperfect good of ordered peace is much to be preferred to unadulterated anarchy.

But better still is what Augustine calls tranquilitas ordinis—“the tranquility [or peace] of order.” Such peace is not externally compelled but rather internally prompted by love of God and neighbor. This peace, Augustine writes in The City of God, is born of a commitment that “one will be at peace, as far as lies in him, with all men.” The basis of this commitment is “the observance of two rules: first, do no harm to anyone, and, secondly, to help everyone whenever possible.” This will not result, to invoke Elshtain again, in “the perfect peace promised to believers in the Kingdom of God, the one in which the lion lies down with the lamb.” Against this vain hope, Elshtain wryly observed: “On this earth, if the lion lies down with the lamb, the lamb must be replaced frequently.”

Nevertheless, Elshtain saw this pursuit of a tranquilitas ordinis as central to what good politics is all about. Peace is to be the product of order and justice, without which no other political goods can long perdure. What political goods did she have in mind? As she suggests in Augustine and the Limits of Politics, simply modest, quotidian ones:

Mothers and fathers raising their children; men and women going to work; citizens of a great city making their way on streets and subways; ordinary people flying to California to visit their grandchildren or to transact business with colleagues—all of these actions are simple but profound goods made possible by civic peace. They include the faithful attending their churches, synagogues, and mosques without fear, and citizens—men and women, young and old, black, brown, and white—lining up to vote on Election Day.

Here we come to a humility of purpose: there is only so much we can do. But “in this world of discontinuities and profound yearnings, of sometimes terrible necessities,” Elshtain mused, “a human being can yet strive to maintain or to create an order that approximates justice, to prevent the worst from happening, and to resist the seductive lure of grandiosity.”

An implication should be called out here. This “striving” after peace cannot be a half-measure. The final point of focus for a properly oriented intent embraces a truism: if it is right to fight a war, it is right to fight that war to win it. This is not for the sake of chest-thumping, patriotic bravado. Rather, first, remember as said above that the just cause requirement necessitates the offending wrong that started the war in the first place be corrected. To not try to do so, barring profoundly prudential excuses, is to hold the violated goods in contempt. Victory is, in most cases, the means to vindicate the innocent, to take back what’s been wrongly taken, or to appropriately punish evil. Moreover, it is most often only after an enemy has been sufficiently licked that they are in any mood to stand down and possibly be friends again. If nothing else has, the First World War taught us this.

Decisive victory, like much else in the wild contingencies of war, is sometimes a bridge too far. It must, therefore, remain a strong presumption based on prudent reasoning rather than a categorical imperative. But for both strategic as well as moral reasons, we should lean toward clean margins and err in the direction of thoroughness, just as we would in cancer surgery. It is because we desire the good of concord that we fight for a decisive end to conflict, one that secures and allows the enforcement of a durable peace.

Not incidental to the “right intent” requirement is a forward-looking expectation to what happens after the fighting stops. A durable peace does not simply emerge whole cloth simply because the smoke clears. Contemporary just war scholars often speak about jus post bellum—justice after war. I’ve made clear by now that victors—and victims—have responsibility for helping build—when possible—just conditions, including relations, following conflict. I also agree it’s necessary to articulate a criterion—such as order, justice, and conciliation—for what that might look like. I’m unsure whether the just war framework needs to be formally to include a third category as, properly understood and fleshed out, the just post bellum ambitions are all resident in the right intention requirement. But the articulations of a just post bellum ethic must, in any case, be made something more than merely tacit.

In summary, taken together, right authority, just cause, and right intent are the primary criteria regarding when it is justified to use force. Deontological in nature, they impose the burden of duty on those bearing ultimate responsibility for the good of the political community and for good relations among political communities. Otherwise put, the jus ad bellum requirements, if satisfied, do not point to when it is merely permissible to consider force but rather when it is obligatory. As we will see, secondary, prudential considerations regarding probability of success, last resort, and the like will serve as cautionary filters.

To flesh a little of this out now, it may be that simply because something is right to do, it might not be wise to actually do it. In such cases, when proper prudence dictates that we stand down despite the just cause arrayed before us, the decision not to fight should register as a tragedy. It can only mean that, for now, some innocents will not be protected, some injustice will remain unrequited, some great evil will go unpunished. And peace will thereby remain elusive.

The post Just War 101 E8: Right Intent appeared first on Providence.

Jamie Michele Bradley-Brun, 37, is charged with murder and attempted murder after deputies out of Beaufort County, South Carolina responded to an address on Sam Doyle Driver in Saint Helena Island.

Upon their arrival, they discovered Mackaya Bradley-Brun, 6, dead. It is believed that Jamie Michele Bradley-Brun drowned her 6-year-old daughter and attempted to do the same to an 8-year-old child, but the survivor’s plea for help alerted others in the residence, allowing them to intervene and call 911.

An autopsy will be conducted by the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office to formally determine the cause of death.

The investigation is ongoing and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s Special Victim’s Unit-Department of Child Fatalities is working alongside the Sheriff’s Office. Jamie Michele Bradley-Brun is currently detained without bond in the Beaufort County Detention Center.

The remains of a 20-year-old Texas woman named Madeline Pantoja were discovered in Midland City following her disappearance 10 days prior. It was reported that Pantoja was last seen on May 10, with witnesses claiming to have heard arguing coming from her apartment. Considering this, her ex-boyfriend, Mario Juan Chacon, 24, is being eyed as a possible suspect.

Midland Police arrested Chacon on Saturday, after Pantoja’s remains were found roughly 15 minutes away from her apartment. It is known that Chacon had the only key to her apartment, which was locked when investigators arrived. Pantoja’s keys, purse, phone and pet were still inside.

Pantoja was scheduled to meet with a friend on the 11th, but she never showed up. After many unanswered calls and texts, the friend got in touch with Pantoja’s family, and a maintenance worker unlocked the door for a welfare check. Her friend, Jasmine Hernandez, shared that it was unlike her to cancel plans or ignore communication.

On the 18th, Pantoja’s close friends and family held a protest outside the Midland Police Department, feeling that the investigation into her disappearance was not being taken seriously. It is currently unknown who found her remains or how they were discovered.

Chacon has been charged with murder, and is yet to make his first appearance before a judge. No bail or bond information has been made available. The cause of death is still unknown, but an autopsy will be conducted in Dallas County.

European leaders have had enough of the conflict and would be directly impacted by an escalation.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky compared the destruction of Bakhmut to Hiroshima, saying “there was nothing left” and that “for today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts.” He later clarified that Russian claims that it had taken control of the city were untrue.

The post WATCH: Zelensky compares Bakhmut destruction to Hirishoma, but denies Russia claims of capture appeared first on World Israel News.

The rare monk seal that has captured the hearts of Israelis and garnered media attention all around the world, has made the news once again after she was spotted at Hapalmachim beach days after she was reported to have left Israel’s shores for good.

The post WATCH: Celebrity seal clearly a Zionist: Yulia spotted again at an Israeli beach appeared first on World Israel News.

A manhunt to catch the terrorist is underway.

By World Israel News Staff

A terror ramming attack took place in the flashpoint Palestinian town of Huwara on Sunday evening against IDF troops, injuring one soldier.

The terrorist accelerated his vehicle toward the soldier, injuring him. Another soldier in the vicinity opened fire at the driver, who managed to speed off.

Paramedics were dispatched to the scene to treat the injured soldier and he was evacuated to Beilinson Medical Center in Petah Tikva where he was reported to be in moderate condition.

Other IDF soldiers present at the time of the attack opened fire on the terrorist, who fled the scene.

A manhunt to catch the terrorist is underway, the IDF said.

MK Danny Danon (Likud) called on the military to shutter all stores on Huwara’s main thoroughfare.

“Another attack in Huwara’s death corridor. Thankfully, there were no casualties, but the writing is on the wall. All businesses along the traffic route should be closed, and the entire length and width of the route should be secured. A zero-tolerance policy for terrorism is needed in Huwara.”

Huwara, near Nablus in Samaria, has been a hotbed of Palestinian terror for decades.

Over a month-long period earlier this year, three terror attacks took place.

At the end of February, two Israeli brothers, Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, were murdered in a drive-by shooting, prompting a riot by Jewish Israelis later that evening.  A poll later found that almost three-quarters of Palestinians supported their murder.

Two weeks later, former U.S. Marine David Stern was shot while driving through the town with his young children family. After being shot at at point blank range, Stern, a martial arts instructor, managed to shoot and neutralize the terrorist.

A week and a half later, two IDF soldiers were wounded in a shooting attack in the Palestinian town.

Earlier this month, an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in a Palestinian stabbing attack in Huwara.

A day later, a pregnant woman miraculously escaped her car after it flipped over during a terror attack in the same place with nothing more than scratches.

The post Israeli soldier wounded in terrorist attack in Huwara appeared first on World Israel News.

As the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces clash with the Sudanese Armed Forces, both sides are causing widespread destruction. The Sudanese people, meanwhile, are organizing to survive and keep the struggle for democracy going.

Sudanese army soldiers man a checkpoint in Khartoum on May 18, 2023, as violence between two rival Sudanese generals continues. (AFP via Getty Images)

On April 15, 2023, conflict between two military factions in Sudan broke out into armed warfare that has continued to ravage the capital city of Khartoum in particular. The outbreak in fighting follows months of rising tensions between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — a paramilitary group known for its atrocities, including in Khartoum in summer 2019 — and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), both of which have worked to quell the ongoing Sudanese revolution.

Begun in December 2018, the Sudanese Revolution overthrew thirty-year dictator Omar al-Bashir in early 2019. Since then, the movement has been adamant in its demand for full civilian rule and the complete overthrow of the military apparatus. However, the RSF’s massacre of civilians in 2019 brought the initial stage of the revolution to an end and brought about a process of counterrevolutionary negotiations that led to a joint military-civilian government. This opened space for the coup of October 2021, in which the military retook control of the state, and led ultimately to this current outbreak of warfare between the RSF and the SAF. Nonetheless, Sudan’s revolutionary forces still exist, and they remain committed to their demands. Radicalized, they now exist largely in the form of neighborhood resistance committees.

To learn more about the situation on the ground and prospects for the revolutionary forces in Sudan, Shireen Akram-Boshar spoke to Raga Makawi. Now based in the UK, Raga Makawi is a Sudanese editor and researcher. She was in Khartoum when the latest outbreak of violence began, and eventually managed to leave for Cairo.

Shireen Akram-Boshar

The fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese military has been going on for nearly a month, and shows no sign of stopping. We have heard reports of over forty hospitals attacked and civilians unable to leave their homes in Khartoum and neighboring Omdurman. What is the situation like on the ground? What areas are most affected, and how are people coping?

Raga Makawi

The situation is very dire. Fighting is widespread through the city and concentrated within neighborhoods where the RSF have set up its bases over the past four years. Moreover, as the two armed groups continue to battle in the middle of residential areas, people sheltering in place are cut off from either leaving or accessing lifesaving food and health items. There is no safe passage, and all attempts at brokering a short-term ceasefire have not held. There isn’t enough information on where the fighting areas are or how the street warfare is developing and in which direction; all we know is that it is widespread and has developed to engulf the entire city, flaring in some areas and dying in others before picking up again. On day two of the fighting, the military deployed its air force and since then it has been bombing the city indiscriminately. This act of hostility was met on the side of the RSF with rocket launchers, all in the middle of densely populated residential areas.

As the fighting moves from one part of the city to the other, both groups capture and lose areas at great loss of human life. Areas captured are being cordoned off and manned with heavily armed checkpoints, making it difficult for people to venture toward safety or leave the city. Furthermore, the dynamics of fighting are in themselves fluid. As both the RSF and SAF continue to redeploy their troops from the country’s peripheries and resupply their weapons stock, areas that were once relatively calm or captured are the focus of renewed fighting.

Omdurman and South Khartoum, relatively safer and quieter earlier in the week, are now experiencing more militarized presence and fighting as opposing troops regroup and re-strategize to attack each other. Lack of information and the failure of both generals to consider international laws of engagement have spelled catastrophe for the population of Khartoum. At the time of writing these words, the war strategies employed by both parties mean that the general public is being used as a human shield while being held hostage. Safe passages out of Khartoum available earlier in the week are closing up.

Lack of information and the failure of both generals to consider international laws of engagement have spelled catastrophe for the population of Khartoum.

The fighting in the city has also damaged Sudan’s already-skeleton infrastructure. Decades of state-directed austerity and the unrest it produced helped refuel conflict, redirecting much-needed funding from development to paying political favors to bolster the government’s longevity.

Just a few days after the fighting broke out, a Doctors Union spokesperson reported that fifty-five of seventy-eight hospitals in Sudan are now out of service. This spells catastrophe not just for the already high and increasing number of casualties, but also for the communities in adjacent satellite cities that are recipients of Khartoum residents pushing south to seek refuge.

Access to cash is another problem. Historically, sanctions meant that Sudanese people had limited access to global financial networks and had to rely instead on parallel monetary systems, further entrenching the hold of the black market on pricing and access. Today this problem is compounded: as local banking systems go off the grid, people cannot access their money locally, nor do they have avenues to receive financial aid from family and friends abroad. The rudimentary electronic banking system that was created in the past decade and expanded during the short tenure of the civilian transitional government, unreliable as it is, has locked most people out of their traditional financial support system. All this has managed to strengthen and expand the space for black-market trading, with fuel, food items, and bus tickets tripling in cost.

In the midst of this crisis, the civic groups that emerged from the revolution after 2018 are activating their communal networks of humanitarian response. The resistance committees have, through their coordination bodies, published a joint political statement, reiterating their antiwar stance, refusing to legitimize either party. They have also created platforms and apps to help the public coordinate access to services from medicine to food rations all the way to the dissemination of accurate information on safe passages and lifesaving referral pathways.

Shireen Akram-Boshar

Many of us have looked to Sudan with optimism, hope, and inspiration since the 2018 uprising began and quickly overthrew Omar al-Bashir. The revolution seemed to go much farther and accomplish much more than other revolutions in the region and beyond. Even after the SAF’s coup in October 2021, resistance committees continued their work and began to consolidate their efforts, refusing negotiation and compromise. But now, we are entering a situation that seems like long-term war. How did we get to this point?

Raga Makawi

The revolutionary movement in Sudan has not dissipated. If anything, the refusal of the pro-democracy grassroots movement to acknowledge or legitimize the political process since the [October 2021] coup reflects a thorough understanding of the long-term consequences of another partnership between armed factions pushing for power under the guise of civilian transition. The dynamic slogans that the revolution adopted in response to the botched political agreement — “No Legitimacy, No Brokerage, No Negotiations” — seems to have captured the essence of, and refuted, the liberal peace governance model that had come to shape post-conflict/crisis settings. Brokered from the outside and influenced to a large degree by regional interests and geopolitics, these unstable deals favor capital interests over any real transition to democracy.

Brokered from the outside and influenced to a large degree by regional interests and geopolitics, these unstable deals favor capital interests over any real transition to democracy.

The resistance committees’ approach to the takeover of Sudan’s political landscape by multiple warring factions enabled by external intervention has been to boycott the political process. They aim to put pressure on politicians, members of the pro-democracy movement including the Freedom and Change coalition, who up until the coup were the de facto legitimate representatives of the masses in the political process.

The latest rounds of negotiations since the 2021 coup have represented nothing more than a futile attempt by international brokers to reproduce the same failed process while further entrenching the hold of armed actors over the state by whitewashing their ceaseless atrocities. To this, the resistance committees responded by mobilizing to formulate their own political project. A tedious and drawn-out countrywide political process produced the Charters, a consolidated manifesto that provides both the road map and guiding principles for an alternative polity, one that is more just and democratic. Herein lies the hope of rebuilding a new Sudan. If there is any saving grace in the current moment in Sudan, it should be the lessons of international intervention under conditions of multiple and fractured sovereignty and a weakened state.

Shireen Akram-Boshar

What are the political roots of the conflict between the RSF, led by General “Hemeti’” Degalo, and the SAF, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan? What is driving this turn to fighting at this current moment?

Raga Makawi

At the core of the conflict is both generals’ dispute over power and becoming the next ruler of Sudan. Burhan runs on a platform of state sovereignty and the historic role of the military in politics and national affairs. Hemeti, on the other hand, has devised himself a popular outfit, exploiting none other than the rhetoric of the revolution. Hemeti has attempted, though with limited success, to recast himself as a reformer, drain-the-swamp kind of people’s man, ironically with the help of the international community and the lucrative funds of his regional backers, primarily the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Behind the political facade lies a more sinister politics, one of illicit financial flows and a war economy where both institutions, the military and the RSF, have laundered and reinvested their capital through the state for the purposes of legitimizing themselves in the long run. In this power struggle, Burhan is most likely to emerge successful. His legitimacy is drawn from the state. This puts Hemeti at a disadvantage, despite the backing he is getting from multiple regional and international players, who are all jockeying for their interests in a complex and multifaceted geopolitical game.

Nonetheless, Burhan is still at risk of an internal coup. Despite the interest-driven internal conflict within the army, the state and its institutions are expected to remain more or less intact, for the purposes of interacting with the international community.

Hemeti, as warlord-cum-statesman, has less legitimacy. The latest round of political negotiations that produced the December [2022] framework agreement to restore civilians into a joint government was meant to provide him with a civilian-backed political constituency, a leverage that would have been insurmountable even in the face of Burhan’s military-backed leverage. Both of them, however, have at different times leveled accusations of atrocities committed against the public in an attempt to exploit the transitional justice card, one that remains essential to the public and international community. In this case too, Burhan, as a representative of a state institution subject to possible reform, is more than likely to either pin the blame for atrocities on the RSF or merely lose his position should the day of reckoning arrive.

Both Hemeti and Burhan have at different times leveled accusations of atrocities committed against the public in an attempt to exploit the transitional justice card.

Shireen Akram-Boshar

Since the start of the 2018 revolution, the demand for civilian rule has remained strong, along with opposition to compromise with the military. What is the impact of the current war on the revolutionary movement in the coming weeks and months?

Raga Makawi

As the humanitarian situation worsens, it is left for the resistance committees to step in and coordinate relief assistance to the scores of stranded people en route to exit and others who have opted to stay. This refocus of priorities and the reorganization that comes with it will only strengthen the revolutionary movement through the recentering of people’s needs, which historically was never the remit of political discourse. This is no easy feat. Even before the latest outbreak of warfare, the policies espoused by the political class and backed by the international community over the past three years had further entrenched the dire socioeconomic situation.

The disentanglement of the previous government’s institutions — which the transitional government started in 2020 but abandoned abruptly under the pressure of political deals — had done away with whatever little safety mechanisms were available for the public. The anti-corruption committee, assigned with the impossible task of undoing the Islamist empowerment policies, left Sudan’s poor with fewer safeguarding measures than they inherited from the previous government. Each of these legacies — as well as the added burden of displacement and the war economy that has left a scarcity of provisions and inflated prices of commodities — means that resistance committees need to consider, unlike standard humanitarian aid, both the cause and the effect of the conditions at hand.

Amid raging wildfires and evacuations, Alberta is grappling with political inertia. Fighting for a livable future in the climate-denying, oil-producing province will require a bold politics of anti-austerity and just transition policies.

A burnt landscape caused by wildfires is pictured near Entrance, Wild Hay area, Alberta, Canada on May 10, 2023. (Megan Albu / AFP via Getty Images)

On a Friday evening at the beginning of the month, I sat on a rooftop patio along a main street in Edmonton as ash floated down from the sky and into my friend’s beer.

Hours later, my phone blared with the third evacuation alert of that evening, notifying people in a nearby county to evacuate because of approaching wildfires. I returned home to discover I had left my windows open. When I crawled into my bed, it smelled like a campfire.

The next day, as tens of thousands of people were forced from their homes, Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith declared a state of emergency. Soon, more than a hundred wildfires were burning across Alberta.

Fueled by an extremely hot and dry spring, the wildfires have already consumed a staggering 391,000 hectares this year, compared to just over four hundred hectares at this time last year.

The emergency has conspicuous timing: it started just five days after the writ was dropped for the Alberta provincial election, triggering a race between Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) and Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party (NDP).

But while there couldn’t be a better moment to reckon with the roots of this emergency, neither political party has shown the courage to address, or even to name, the crises fueling the fires: austerity and climate change.

The province has never been riper for a compelling vision of what a thriving and safe future for Alberta could look like, yet Notley seems bent on missing the opportunity. Instead of underestimating the readiness of everyday Albertans to grapple with the climate emergency, Notley could be appealing to what they’re most proud of — their diehard commitment to protecting their neighbors in the face of crisis.

But with indigenous communities being devastated and far-right extremists sowing the seeds of conspiracy, what’s unfolding is a dangerous sign of what’s to come if we continue to let Big Oil and the corporate elite set the political agenda.

Misdirected Rage

In Grande Prairie, tense scenes at public town halls have emerged of residents equating evacuation orders to COVID-19 mandates and threatening to violate the orders.

“If you guys don’t stop, we will be driving through the check stops because what are you gonna do?” said one unnamed person at the town hall. “You’re going to arrest everybody for going to their homes? This is like COVID all over again. ‘We’re going to lock you guys down, treat you like children, and you can’t do anything.’ We’ve dealt with this for three years and we’re done.”

According to reports from CityNews Edmonton, officials believe people have been violating orders and reentering their communities. Far-right websites and social media accounts have also begun to spread rumors that “radical eco-terrorists” set the fires, without any evidence.

With social cohesion and trust in government at an all-time low, first responders and public officials have been on the receiving end of harassment and vitriol. Far-right extremists have gone so far as to suggest that “feminist firefighters” from a women-in-training program accidentally set Banff ablaze.

Meanwhile, northern First Nations and Metis communities across the province have been amongst the hardest hit by the fires, once again showing that indigenous peoples bear the brunt of the climate crisis.

Dozens of structures have been destroyed in Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, where more than one thousand people were forced to evacuate. Thousands more were evacuated by firefighters and local leadership from the Little Red River Cree Nation. The northern community of East Prairie Metis Settlement has reported losing two dozen homes and a bridge after a wildfire blazed through the community and forced the evacuation of hundreds.

While the blame has been severely misplaced, the truth is that in an austerity-ridden, climate-denying province like Alberta, there’s no shortage of institutional culprits on whom to pin a degree of blame.

Many have rightfully called attention to the fact that UCP budget cuts have left the province under-resourced and ill-equipped to respond to the scale of the crisis. An elite wildfire fighting crew that specialized in rappelling into blazes while they were still small was cut by the UCP government in 2019, saving the province just $1.4 million from its $117 million wildfire budget. Former members of the team say they could’ve made a difference in key wildfire zones.

While the UCP says that the firefighters’ skills were better utilized on the ground, internal government documents suggest that rappel crews were deployed close to one hundred times per year between 2014 and 2018, including dozens of rappels into fires every year.

The lack of firefighting resources has resulted in some communities taking it upon themselves to haul buckets of water into the bush in order to extinguish spot fires surrounding their homes.

The Oil Industry Fuels the Devastation of Forest Fires

The forest fires that are now consuming hundreds of thousands of hectares of boreal forest — lands that the fossil fuel industry refers to as “overburden” — have been supercharged by those same corporations.

Alberta, of course, is home to many of the companies who collectively hold a disproportionate responsibility for the climate emergency.

In 2017, a report found one hundred fossil fuel producers to be responsible for 71 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Almost every single corporation operating in the Alberta oil sands appears on the list. Collectively, they own between four to five times the reserves that can be safely extracted and burned.

While food bank usage in the province has skyrocketed to the highest level ever, fossil fuel corporations have more than doubled their profits over the last year. And while the Alberta government could tax Big Oil’s excess profits and use the funds to cover the costs of the devastation they’ve caused, the idea has yet to penetrate the political mainstream.

But the province could not be better primed for this intervention.

Back in 2017, at the one-year anniversary of the Fort McMurray wildfire, I attended a conference hosted by the city’s local college to mark the occasion and share lessons from the disaster. During a session held by a local food bank, a worker described a “crockpot program” they had initiated when residents had returned home in the wake of the fire.

In order to support community members dealing with financial hardship and social isolation, the food bank provided free crockpots. Every week, they were given a basket of groceries and a recipe for a meal to prepare. Often, they’d choose to hang around and prepare their meals together.

The woman presenting beamed with pride as she described the positive impacts of the program. But then her voice lowered as she explained that with Shell pulling out of the oil sands, they were also pulling their funding from the crockpot program. During question time, I raised my hand to ask whether they had secured another source of funding for the program, expecting that the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo might have stepped up.

“We’ve asked CNRL [Canadian National Resources Limited] and Cenovus,” she said, “but sadly, we haven’t confirmed anything yet.”

As I listened to her speak, I tried to hide the confusion and disappointment on my face. I couldn’t help but think how basic the request was for people to have access to good food and be nourished by the community — and how enraging it was that they had to rely on the fleeting benevolence of a handful of corporations that were torching the planet.

NDP Ineptitude

In the midst of the current state of emergency, the Alberta NDP has been silent on both climate change and the urgent need to loosen Big Oil’s grip on the province’s economy.

Last week, as new fires erupted across the province, Notley took to social media to boast about her unwavering support for the Trans Mountain pipeline. Terrified of losing Calgary if the party so much as utters the words “climate change,” the NDP has essentially settled on offering “thoughts and prayers” to first responders and those affected. So while the province is experiencing one of the earliest and most devastating fire seasons on record, there’s no mention of the climate crisis to be found outside the provincial Green Party.

In perhaps the most tone-deaf move of all, the NDP chose to announce its “Hometown Alberta program,” promising to improve and build new hockey arenas “in every corner of the province.” Alongside social media graphics that could easily be mistaken for satire, it also announced a “Kids Activity Tax Credit,” promising families up to $500 to pay for swimming lessons, gymnastics classes, and hockey equipment.

Notley is missing a historic opportunity to speak to the material grievances of working Albertans and their anxiety over what the future holds. Instead of promising hockey rinks and subsidies for piano lessons, she could paint a compelling vision for this province. She could appeal to what the vast majority of Albertans are demonstrating they do best — come together in moments of crisis to fight for their neighbors and communities.

She could speak to how the fossil fuel industry is utterly failing workers, communities, and everyday people. She could point to how, while fossil fuel companies have been raking in record profits and siphoning billions out of public coffers, they’ve also been automating jobs out of existence, walking away from their cleanup obligations, and issuing pink slips to their lowest-paid employees.

Better yet, she could tell Albertans about the thriving economy we could build in the shell of the old. The robust public programs and social services that could enable our children to thrive. The beautiful, affordable homes that could shelter our unhoused neighbors. The indigenous and democratically owned renewable energy and restoration projects that could put hundreds of thousands to work. And the efficient, comfortable public transportation that could connect our communities in a fraction of the time.

She could invite Albertans who are now dousing their homes with buckets of water into the fight of their lives — a fight that, if won, could guarantee good work and a more dignified life for all.

Rising Above Self-Blame

Last year, as I was moving out of my apartment unit into the one next door, the next-door neighbor, himself moving out, asked me what I did for work.

“I work on climate change,” I said, reluctant to get too into it at 7:00 a.m. “No way!” he said, a smile spreading across his face. “That’s awesome.”

I put the question back to him and watched as he shifted uncomfortably. “I work in energy — out at the refineries,” he said. “I’m a boilermaker. I’m the enemy.”

I tried to give him a reassuring smile. “No, no you’re not!” I said. “I’m actually working on fighting for a just transition, so I’m trying to make sure that workers like you don’t get left behind.”

He told me he was familiar with the term and had actually looked up Iron & Earth, an organization of oil and gas workers fighting for a just transition.

“Honestly, if it weren’t for climate change, I’d want to keep working in oil and gas,” he said. “But living through the heat dome this past summer was hell. Looking around and seeing BC [British Columbia] up in flames, thinking to myself, ‘Fuck, this is all my fault.’”

We exchanged some dark jokes before I asked him where he was moving to. He explained that he and his girlfriend had bought a house in the suburbs. He had a young son who spent half his time with him and half with his mom. He wanted him to have a backyard to run around in.

As the wildfire alerts began blowing up my phone this week, I thought of him. I hope he knows he’s not to blame for the fires ravaging the province. I hope he finds a good job as a boilermaker, building the infrastructure of a new economy. I hope his son has summers of clear skies in the backyard. And more than anything, I hope we’ll fight like hell for him to have a livable future in this place.

On Saturday, at least nine people were tragically killed, with dozens injured in a stampede at a quarter-final matchup between Alianza and FAS at Monumental Stadium in Cuscatlan, El Salvador. The stampede was presumed to have been caused by fans rushing to enter the stadium through a gate.

The National Civil Police reported that the deaths were confirmed, and at least two injured people were in critical condition. Video footage showed fans on the field attempting to revive the victims lying on the grass, barely moving. Carlos Fuentes, a spokesman for the Rescue Commandos first aid group, confirmed the fatalities.

According to reports, the stampede ensued when fans managed to break through a gate to get in. An unidentified Rescue Commandos aid group volunteer said, “It was an avalanche of fans who overran the gate. Some were still under the metal in the tunnel. Others managed to make it to the stands and then to the field and were smothered.”

National Civil Police Commissioner Mauricio Arriza Chicas announced that a criminal investigation would be conducted with the Attorney General’s Office to analyze ticket sales, entry protocols, and the southern gate, allegedly pushed open to allow the fans into the stadium. The Salvadoran Soccer Federation expressed regret and condolence for the victims’ families.

The fatalities at the soccer match in El Salvador serve as a tragic reminder of the importance of safety precautions and underscore the risks of overcrowding. It is a tragedy that could have been avoided, and we hope that justice is swiftly brought to the victims and their families. The Salvadoran Soccer Federation should also take necessary measures to ensure that such a tragedy is never repeated.