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war & peace
Missouri Puts Profits Over People's Lives With New Israeli Chemical Limited Facility
A new ICL facility would further establish St. Louis as a hub of militarization and an exporter of global death and destruction while threatening the health and well-being of residents.
May 08, 2025
Early this year, as snow froze into sheets of solid ice, covering the ground for weeks, almost 20% of St. Louis Public School students were unhoused. Meanwhile, in warm town halls, former city Mayor Tishaura Jones praised a proposed new hazardous chemical facility, displaying the city's economic priorities.
St. Louis's northside has long been subjected to the environmental effects of militarization, from the radiation secretly sprayed on residents of Pruitt Igoe and Northside communities in the 1950s, to the dumped cancer-causing Manhattan Project radioactive waste that poisoned Coldwater Creek. A proposed new Israeli Chemical Limited (ICL) facility in north St. Louis would not only be another colonial imposition, but it also poses disastrous environmental risks for the entire state.
A new ICL facility would further establish St. Louis as a hub of militarization and an exporter of global death and destruction. In St. Charles, Boeing has built more than 500,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits, known as JDAMS. An Amnesty International report tied these to attacks on Palestinian civilian homes, families, and children, making our region complicit in war crimes. In addition to hosting the explosives weapons manufacturer Boeing, Missouri is home to Monsanto (now Bayer), which produced Agent Orange.
Why does a foreign chemical company with almost $7 billion in earnings need so much funding from our local and federal government at the expense of our residents?
What's lesser known is that Monsanto is responsible for white phosphorus production in a supply chain trifecta with ICL and Pine Bluffs Arsenal. White phosphorus is a horrific incendiary weapon that heats up to 1,400°F, and international law bans its use against civilians. From 2020 to 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense ordered and paid ICL for over 180,000 lbs of white phosphorus, shipped from their South City Carondelet location to Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. White phosphorus artillery shells with Pine Bluff Arsenal codes were identified in Lebanon and Gaza after the Israel Defense Forces unlawfully used them over residential homes and refugee camps, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Another ICL facility, combined with the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency that analyzes drone footage to direct U.S.military attacks, would put North St. Louis squarely on the map for military retaliation from any country seeking to strike back against U.S. global interventionism.
Within a mile of the Carondelet ICL site, the Environmental Protection Agency has identified unsafe levels of cancer-risking air toxins, hazardous waste, and wastewater discharge. The new facility would be built within five miles of intake towers and open-air sedimentation ponds that provide drinking water to St. Louis. An explosion or leak could destroy the city's water supply and harm eastern Missouri towns along the Mississippi. ICL has committed multiple Environmental and Workplace Safety violations, including violating the Clean Air Act at its South City facility. In 2023, it was declared the worst environmental offender by Israel's own Environmental Protection Ministry after the 2017 Ashalim Creek disaster, and were fined $33 million.
ICL claims the new North City site is a safe and green facility for manufacturing lithium iron phosphate for electric vehicles; however, lithium manufacturing is hardly a green or safe process. Lithium and phosphorus mining require enormous amounts of freshwater—a protected resource—resulting in poisoned ecosystems and a limited water supply for residents and wildlife in the local communities where they are sourced.
In October 2024, a lithium battery plant in Fredericktown, Missouri, burst into flames, forcing residents to evacuate and killing thousands of fish in nearby rivers. The company had claimed to have one of the most sophisticated automated fire suppression systems in the world, yet it still caused a fire whose aftermath continues to affect residents today, with comparisons being drawn to East Palestine, Ohio. Meanwhile, in January, over 1,000 people in California had to evacuate due to a massive fire at a lithium facility, the fourth fire there since 2019. Despite ICL claiming that the new site will use a "safer" form of lithium processing, it's clear that lithium facilities are not as safe as profit-driven corporations claim them to be.
Missouri leaders repeatedly prioritize corporate profits over people via tax abatements. ICL is receiving $197 million from the federal government. The city is forgiving a $500,000 loan to troubled investors Green Street to sell the land to ICL and is proposing a 90% tax abatement in personal property taxes for ICL, plus 15 years of real estate tax abatements. This is a troubling regional trend, considering that in 2023, St. Louis County approved $155 million in tax breaks to expand Boeing, also giving them a 50% cut in real estate and personal property taxes over 10 years.
Corporate tax breaks in the city have cost minority students in St. Louis Public Schools $260 million in a region where 30% of children are food insecure. Over 2,000 people in St. Louis city are homeless. Enough babies die each year in St Louis to fill 15 kindergarten classrooms. Black babies are three times more likely to die than white babies before their first birthday, and Black women are 2.4 times more likely to die during pregnancy. Spending public funds on corporate tax breaks instead of directing them toward food, housing, and life-saving medical care for Black women and babies is inexcusable. Why does a foreign chemical company with almost $7 billion in earnings need so much funding from our local and federal government at the expense of our residents?
Officials cite "job creation" as a major reason to expand ICL. Still, the new facility is only expected to create 150 jobs, and there is no evidence that these jobs will be given to people in the community where it is being built. Investing in Black and minority businesses would lead to actual self-sustaining economic development.
Despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government, local tax breaks, the backing of former Gov. Mike Parson, and approval from city committees, the facility's opening is not a done deal. The St. Louis City Board of Alders could still intervene. Stopping a facility with this much federal and international backing would require massive pushback from Missourians. Residents deserve more information and input in this process, especially considering the city's resistance to hearing public comments. Notably, when locals submitted a Sunshine request for the ICL permit in March, it was so heavily redacted that it was unreadable.
This facility would turn local Black neighborhoods into environmental and military sacrifice zones, and our response to city, state, and federal leaders should be a definitive and resounding No!
CODEPINK Missouri has a petition to stop the building of the ICL facility in St. Louis.
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What’s Behind Trump’s Decision to Cease Bombing Yemen?
The U.S. president appears to be heeding Saudi wishes ahead of a visit to Riyadh, with a potential eye on negotiations with Iran as well.
May 07, 2025
Middle East Eye reports that Saudi Arabia pressured the Trump administration to cease bombing Yemen in advance of his planned trip to the Kingdom next week because such raids would be an embarrassment for him and his host. U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was convinced that the Houthis were sincere in their new pledge to cease targeting shipping in the Red Sea.
The subtext here is that people in the region believe the U.S. is bombing an Arab country on behalf of Israeli shipping in the Red Sea and to protect Israel from repercussions for its Gaza genocide. Attacking the Houthis, who are not otherwise popular, on these grounds while Trump is in Riyadh would make it look like Saudi Arabia is also running interference for the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Houthi strategy of hitting out at Israeli interests has helped rally the people around them and lends them some regional popularity.
Both the Biden administration and the Trump administration have bombed Yemen in reaction to the Houthi targeting of Red Sea shipping and attacks on Israel in sympathy with the people of Gaza, against whom Israel has conducted serial atrocities.
MEE says that the Saudis have requested that Trump not bring up normalization with Israel on this trip, since Riyadh is determined not to recognize Israel until there is a firm prospect of a Palestinian state. Unlike the UAE and Bahrain, which did recognize Israel, Saudi Arabia has a fairly large population of citizens, most of whom would be extremely upset to see their king reward the Israelis for their Gaza atrocities by establishing diplomatic relations.
The Houthis do not appear to have made any pledge to cease targeting Israel with missiles, and the Israeli government was reportedly blindsided by the Trump move. Trump kept them out of the loop, much to their dismay. On Tuesday, Israel itself bombed Sanaa in retaliation for the Houthi missile attack Sunday on Ben Gurion Airport.
Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, confirmed the White House announcement of the cessation of hostilities. Oman has been a go-to mediator for conflicts in the region, and is helping negotiate a Trump deal with Iran.
A senior Houthi official, Politburo member Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, expressed cautious optimism, saying that the American pledge to halt bombing the small country on the southwest edge of the Arabian Peninsula would be “field tested.”
Both the Biden administration and the Trump administration have bombed Yemen in reaction to the Houthi targeting of Red Sea shipping and attacks on Israel in sympathy with the people of Gaza, against whom Israel has conducted serial atrocities. Trump alone has ordered 800 bombing raids on the desperately poor country. Yemen is the only Arab country to have reacted against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Its methods, however, have involved war crimes, since it has attacked civilian container ships, most of them not actually connected to Israel, and has attacked civilian targets in Israel—or has been unable to control its missiles, endangering civilian life—which is a war crime.
Former National Security adviser to the Iranian parliament, Heshmetollah Felahat, said Tuesday that the cessation of U.S. bombing of Yemen was connected to U.S.-Iran negotiations and was a way for Trump to block attempts of Netanyahu to draw the U.S. into war with Iran. He said that the chances of successful U.S.-Iran negotiations just went up.
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Pete Hegseth—Offense at the Defense Department
Pete, If you were to spend your time on our national defense—instead of “lethality” in attacking foreign nations with which we are not at war—you could probably rest easier about using your phone.
May 07, 2025
Isn’t the most remarkable—and least remarked-upon—aspect of the Pete Hegseth Defense Department reality show the fact that no one has appeared worried that the nation’s security might actually be threatened by this? That no one has seemed particularly concerned about any danger resulting from the vast U.S. military arsenal ostensibly being placed in the hands of someone who had obviously not read the job manual? But then why would they? Did anyone seriously think China’s Ministry of State Security was dashing off memos advising the country’s leaders to invade the United States because control of its armed forces had somehow fallen into inept hands? Or that something like that was going on in Russia… or Denmark… or Canada… or any other of our enemies, old or new?
Apparently not. Why? Well, at recent count, the U.S. was in possession of a fleet of 299 deployable combat vessels, 3,748 nuclear warheads, 5,500 military aircraft, 13,000 drones, and 2,079,142 military personnel. All of this comes with highly detailed operational plans for situations involving an actual attack on the nation. But no one seemed to think that what Hegseth was spending his time on had much, if anything, to do with that eventuality. From the point of view of the nation’s legitimate security, that’s a good thing. But it raises the question of what was Hegseth on about, anyhow?
The story that brought the question of the Trump foreign policy team’s competence to the fore has little to do with the matter of American national defense. What it’s really about is the unauthorized, global use of American military force. The few Americans whose well-being were plausibly threatened by Hegseth’s now infamous sharing of the details of upcoming bombing missions—with his wife, brother, lawyer, as well as the editor of The Atlantic—were the pilots of those missions.
While, as in so many areas, he may well be the crudest exponent and practitioner of American foreign policy that we’ve seen in some time, the bombs Trump orders do not fall far from those dropped by previous administrations.
The object of this ongoing bombing campaign—which the administration says has struck a thousand targets—is the Yemen rebel group called the Houthis, an organization allied with Iran and militarily opposed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The recent U.S. attacks came in response to a resumption of Houthi efforts to block Israeli shipping in the Arabian Gulf that followed upon Israel’s breaking of its cease-fire agreement with Hamas, along with its blocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza. In response to the renewed U.S. assault, the Houthis have attacked the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman, the aircraft carrier which then-President Joe Biden deployed to the Gulf last December as a base for the anti-Houthi airstrikes that he had ordered.
Now, although it may seem quaint to mention such technicalities as the law in relation to the routine U.S. bombing of another nation, the truth of the matter is that—whether one considers bombing the Houthis to free up Arabian Gulf shipping a good idea, or whether one doesn’t—we are simply not at war either with the government of Yemen or with the Houthis trying to supplant it. Nor has Congress authorized the use of force there, in lieu of a declaration of war.
If you have trouble recalling Congress declaring war, that’s because you probably weren’t alive in 1942, the last time it did so (against Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania.) The wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan? No declaration of war deemed necessary. And while the current Republican-controlled Congress may be distinguishing itself for new depths of subservience, generally the Democrat and Republican leadership alike tend to act as if questions of war and peace were above their pay grade, with only a minority of Democrats and a handful of Republicans ever making noise about the latest military action taken in our name. Congress’ ultimate responsibility notwithstanding, Presidents Biden and Donald Trump have made their decisions to launch attacks on Yemen unilaterally.
What we’re dealing with here is what we might call the Defense Department’s Offense Division—the part that maintains the 700–800 foreign military bases around the globe (the exact number is classified, but maybe if you could get your number on Hegseth’s phone list…), along with the ships that ply its waters and the planes and drones that fly its airs. As previously noted, Trump is not the first president to bomb Yemen. And while, as in so many areas, he may well be the crudest exponent and practitioner of American foreign policy that we’ve seen in some time, the bombs Trump orders do not fall far from those dropped by previous administrations. Prior to the current episode, the U.S. has bombed Yemen during every single year since 2009—nearly 300 times, primarily via drone.
Nor is Yemen the first country bombed during the second Trump administration; Iraq, Syria, and Somalia have preceded it. None of this was considered much by way of news—a failing of the news media, yes—but less so than of the congressional leaders who have failed to make it news. Here too, while Trump may denigrate his predecessors, he apparently takes no issue with their bombing choices, joining the George W. Bush, Obama, Trump I, and Biden administrations in the serial bombing of Somalia that has occurred more than 350 times over the course of those presidencies. The U.S. has also bombed Syria and Iraq every year since 2014.
All of this has been justified under tortured, expansive legal interpretations of the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force permitting military action against entities that “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons” as well as “to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.” Under Bush, the authorization was interpreted to extend to the occupation of Iraq. Under Barack Obama, it would encompass action against groups that did not even exist in 2001, but were “descendants” or “successors”—such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The first Trump administration would expand that logic to warfare against eight different groups—including the assassination of an Iranian military commander. It was now understood to allow for military actions anywhere on the globe.
Before the Trumpists coopted the use of the term “Deep State”—to encompass what they believe to be a malign government network that supports programs like the “Ponzi Scheme,” as Elon Musk sees it, of Social Security, or Medicare—the term was used by quite a different group of people to quite a different end. The Deep State back then referred to the unelected elements of the government committed to waging endless war, often covert, often illegal—e.g. the Central Intelligence Agency—the sort of thing President Lyndon Johnson was talking about when he said that under President John F. Kennedy the U.S. had been running “a damned Murder, Inc. in the Caribbean.”
We don’t call that the Deep State anymore because, as the above discussion indicates, our government no longer feels a need to hide these things. It’s above ground now—part of the DOD’s Offense Division. The CIA now conducts assassinations openly—via drone.
This is the part of the U.S. government that should really worry us. It’s what Pete Hegseth was hired to run, something that was clear right from his Senate confirmation hearings that culminated in a narrower win than even his boss’s on Election Day—his approval requiring a vice presidential tie-breaking vote for only the second time in history (the first being the approval of Betsy DeVos as Trump I Secretary of Education) From the get go, Hegseth was forthright in declaring himself against increased “wokeness”—and for increased “lethality.”
One simple way to increase lethality is to broaden the potential killing range. And in this area, Hegseth came with a pretty strong record, having successfully lobbied for pardons of soldiers convicted of war crimes during the first Trump administration, and suggesting in a book he wrote last year, The War on Warriors, that rather than adhering to the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. would be “better off in winning our wars according to our own rules.”
Nor has he missed a beat since taking office; he’s announced plans to terminate the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, and the Army will no longer require training in the law of war; henceforth it will be optional. Results have quickly followed, with the bombing of a migrant detention center in Yemen, for instance. One of Hegseth’s infamous Signal chats even described the targeting of a civilian location.
One last thought for the secretary: Pete, If you were to spend your time on our national defense—instead of “lethality” in attacking foreign nations with which we are not at war—you could probably rest easier about using your phone. Of course, we both know that’d get you fired in a New York minute. You’re there to play offense.
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