Three days earlier, on 2 September, he was reported to have given a verbal order for a drone strike against two unidentified men desperately hanging on to the smoking pieces of their shattered boat in the Caribbean after nine members of their crew had already been blasted. “Kill everybody,” was the order, according to the Washington Post on 28 November. It was the first of 21 strikes that the Pentagon states have so far killed 82 people who are said to have been “narco-terrorists”, though their identities are unknown. Hegseth denied knowledge of the second strike.
Can’t say I’m in favour of either the first or the second strike myself. But that’s not the point here.
The question of whether Hegseth had committed a criminal act was immediately raised in response to the Post report in a statement issued on 29 November by the Former Jags Working Group, which “unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both. Our group was established in February 2025 in response to SECDEF’s firing of the army and air force judge advocates general and his systematic dismantling of the military’s legal guardrails. Had those guardrails been in place, we are confident they would have prevented these crimes.”
This international war crimes law is really very clear. If you’re not at war – meaning declared war against a sovereign state – then you cannot commit war crimes.
Murder is obviously possible, piracy is not – piracy is by definition something done by a non-state actor. Genocidal crimes are obviously possible and so on. But war crimes require there to be a war.
Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton,
Unbiased source there, right?
The British unilaterally decided they were going to stop the transatlantic slave trade and used the lethal force of the Royal Navy to achieve it.
Trump has unilaterally decided to stop the South American drug trade and is using the lethal force of the United States Navy to achieve it.
And oh, how times have changed, and now the ‘liberals’ are railing against the establishment for putting an end to a human tragedy instead of demanding they do it.
True, but even back then we either didn’t throw the slavers we’d caught overboard and use them for musketry practice, or we made sure nobody caught us doing it…
We did actually work quite hard to ensure we kept our (very successful) counter-slavery operations within the legalities of the day, if only to ensure that the nations whose ships we were boarding didn’t decide to offer any organised resistance (military, legal or diplomatic)
And if the nations who were providing the slaves didn’t stop it, we invaded them and organised regime change, annexing them to the Empire. That’s how we ended up with so many West African shitholes as British territories when previously we’d concentrated on trade routes and actual colonies where people emigrated to to settle.
Places like Nigeria were never colonies. Nobody left Britiain to settle in Nigeria to farm and raise grandchildren.
Yup, it was disgracefully illiberal of us to take unprovoked violent action against the citizens of sovereign foreign powers. Still, at least it wasn’t Iraq II, eh? I mean, the motive behind the Slavery Patrols genuinely was noble. Needn’t mean they were right, though.
I may be wrong, but I think Trump has declared a war of sorts on the Venezuelan cartels? Some 60 day thing?
And anyway – I thought there was a war on drugs? The Deep State are just pissed off because they’re behind the trade – they bring it in, they distribute it, they set up safe injecting sites, they make billions out of rehab, and law enforcement and court cases and on and on.
This is another one of those issues on which I am torn, because I believe people should be able to take drugs if they want to.
But that isn’t the law in the US, yet, and it does seem as though fentanyl is a bit of a game-changer – I don’t know that it’s all fentanyl on these boats, but I believe some of it is.
It is so lethal in such small doses that it’s essentially akin to a chemical weapon, a point I think the administration has made (or should if it hasn’t).
I saw someone say the other day that if you flew a crop duster over Chicago and dumped a ton of fent into the atmosphere some people would probably die and you would surely be arrested.
But if you dump 5,000 doses in pill form, that’s OK, because it’s taken quasi-voluntarily by people you have helped to get hooked, some of whom clearly don’t understand how lethal it is?
Fifty thousand doses? Five hundred thousand?
The States is already losing a Vietnam per year, probably more. Something had to be done I’m afraid. This is something. It’s probably the only something which stands much chance of working, and even then only to a degree.
Whatever, the leftist traitors are against it, and their judges are salivating, and if you’re teetering in the balance that ought to tip it one way over the other.
The States is already losing a Vietnam per year, probably more. Something had to be done I’m afraid
Why? Less than 1/5000th of the US population. People who, if they can’t get their fentanyl will find another drug to destroy themselves with.
It won’t work, because it never does. Destroying a few boats just raises the price a little.
50,000 deaths a year is not something a country, even one the size of the US, can or should just shrug off.
How much of a drug problem does China have?
It can be done.
It’s just a question of trade-offs.
I think that the trade-offs are not worth it, and that drugs should be legalised, but until that happens there’s a very bitter sweet-spot somewhere between that and sheer anarchy.
“50,000 deaths a year is not something a country, even one the size of the US, can or should just shrug off.”
So let’s deal with alcohol-related deaths, roughly 178,000 people per year. OK? You want to bring back the Volstead Act?
“How much of a drug problem does China have?”
I only know they have 1 million registered heroin addicts, which doesn’t exactly sound like they’ve won the War on Drugs.
“I think that the trade-offs are not worth it, and that drugs should be legalised, but until that happens there’s a very bitter sweet-spot somewhere between that and sheer anarchy.”
As I said, 178,000 people die from excess alcohol, which is a legal drug. I am not pro-legalisation because it saves lives. I am pro-legalisation because I believe in personal choice. In the same way that I don’t want to ban motorbikes and free solo climbing.
“178,000 people die from excess alcohol”
Could be. But why should I believe the claim? It’s the sort of topic on which Public Health people lie all the time.
“Could be. But why should I believe the claim? It’s the sort of topic on which Public Health people lie all the time.”
OK. So what’s the source of the fentanyl numbers?
I very clearly said I was in favour of legalising drugs – on the same grounds as you – so it would be odd if that were my position.
Moreover, because alcohol is legal and drugs are not, and thus the legal position vis a vis the two substances is not analogous, your analogy also makes no sense.
I think it’s more like 300,000, out of around 1.4 billion-odd, and those are the ones who are tolerated for various reasons. It’s closer to winning than losing, though I only raised the question to make the point that you can do more with enforcement action than nothing, if you choose to.
If you prefer, how many registered heroin addicts are there in Saudi Arabia?
How much of a drug problem does China have?
An impossible question to answer because it is a state secret, the divulging of which will earn you a lot of time in a rather nasty Chinese gaol or maybe a bullet in the back of the neck.
Interested said:
“50,000 deaths a year is not something a country, even one the size of the US, can or should just shrug off.”
Depends who the 50,000 are.
Sinking a few Venezuelan boats will make literally zero difference to the price and availability of drugs in the USA. Most drugs come in through Mexico. Furthermore, the US has thousands of miles of borders and coast for smugglers to target.
This is a PR exercise, nothing more.
Most drugs came in through Mexico, as did most illegals. Trump has all but shut the border. Are you saying that has had zero effect on either?
As I said, I would legalise drugs but (see reply to WB for the rest if interested)
Yes. I am saying it has had zero effect. The border with Mexico has always been closed to drugs and look at how much difference that made. The demand for drugs in the US means someone will always find a way to meet that demand. The USA seized more than 100 tons of coke in Trump’s first six months and no-one went short of a line.
You mentioned China. Yes it has a drug problem, particularly with meth and heroin. And this is despite harsh penalties for dealers and users, and being a police state. The problem is certainly not as large (or as publicised) as the US, but it is there.
How would a much harsher US regime work? If you want to disincentive drug use, jail people for possession. How will that work with 2 million prison places and 50 million drug users?
Full legalisation is the only practical solution.
You are reminding me of the Aussie campaign against that horrid tobacco stuff.
This is being done by colossal increases in taxes on cigarettes. It is stated that this will mean most of the unfortunate tobacco addicts just won’t be able to afford the stuff. And will thus be saved from its terrible effects.
Oddly enough, the result appears to be a huge increase in illegal tobacco sales. Who would have thought that Oz would react the same way as the US did to Prohibition???
It is literally impossible that it has zero effect.
I repeat, I’d legalise on grounds of personal liberty, but that doesn’t mean interdiction has no effect.
China has a very minor issue compared to the US (and I’m not saying they should go that far, either); but as with WB, let’s use Saudi instead. What’s their drug problem like?
It is totally possible that it has zero effect. Cocaine seizures in Europe are vastly greater than they were 20 years ago, yet cocaine is more widely available and cheaper than ever.
Saudi Arabia has a massive problem with captagon, an illegal amphetamine which is rife in the Middle East. You think these places don’t have drug problems because you are ignorant of the situation there.
Can I then exercise my ‘personal liberty’ to kick the living shit out of junkies stealing to feed the habit? Or let them die on the street? Or give them treatment consisting of a locked room with food through a hatch in the door? The notion that drug taking is an individual activity is utter nonsense.
“You mentioned China. Yes it has a drug problem, particularly with meth and heroin. And this is despite harsh penalties for dealers and users, and being a police state. The problem is certainly not as large (or as publicised) as the US, but it is there.”
The thing that it took me many years to grasp is how much of the state is theatre of the we’re protecting you and your family sort. And I bet the average copper in most of these “harsh penalty” countries don’t actually give that much of a shit. People work because of money and because of things they care about. A lot of policemen will work all night in horrible weather looking for missing children. They work hard at finding murderers. Someone wants to get wasted on opium? Who fucking cares. So, they probably use it as a way to get a little pocket money by people paying them a few quid to look the other way. This is why you get dirty cops in vice. There isn’t just money in it, but also, cops just don’t care that much about it.
Everyone has this image of super-efficient, super loyal totalitarian states and it’s only when they collapse that you find out that a lot of Stasi guys were just making shit up, or the degree of corruption of senior Nazis.
Here’s some truth to this, because all governments are prone to corruption and inefficiency, because most people are prone to corruption and inefficiency.
But the Stasi still managed to keep files on virtually everyone, and jailed something like 250,000 of them, killed and tortured others, and left many millions of others living in fear, with reason, for decades.
The Nazis were corrupt, yes, but they still managed to take over a country, build it to magnificent new heights with astonish technological advances, and then destroy it through an insane war, while rounding up and killing some six million of their fellow Germans.
I submit that the lesson to take from this is not that we don’t need to worry, because they’re all dickheads, but that that even corrupt and inefficient state dickheads are capable of quite appalling horrors, horrors which would be 100 times easier now.
The Stasi had to have a bloke listening to your calling and intercepting your mail and following you. Those days are long gone, unfortunately.
“The Nazis were corrupt, yes, but they still managed to take over a country, build it to magnificent new heights with astonish technological advances, and then destroy it through an insane war, while rounding up and killing some six million of their fellow Germans.”
I never understand where people get this idea that the Nazis did great things in Germany, then went a bit mad and went to war.
The plan was always to rearm Germany and then go invade the East. About the only thing the Nazis achieved was rearming. Which required a huge amount of debt.
A mate of mine works in this field, and there’s a sea route via Trinidad to Florida.
But it won’t make a sod of difference. Most arrests are tipoffs from other gangs, or someone low down the chain cutting a deal. So there isn’t a whole lot of the traffic that gets stopped. And those people making deals will be out of the gang and the information then stops.
You can’t really stop drugs because most of the public don’t care. You’re at a BBQ and someone lights up a joint, do you phone the police? No-one does. You have Tony Blair joking with Noel Gallagher about how he stayed up on election night (doing gak). And we have this bizarre situation where drug gangs are evil, but the consumers of what they sell? Big fat nothing.
Western Bloke said:
“we have this bizarre situation where drug gangs are evil, but the consumers of what they sell? Big fat nothing.”
That’s also pretty much the attitude of the Left to supermarkets selling “unhealthy” food.
It’s the left’s attitude to anyone who sells things to make a living
The Deep State are just pissed off because they’re behind the trade – they bring it in, they distribute it, they set up safe injecting sites, they make billions out of rehab, and law enforcement and court cases and on and on.
Eh??? I’ve been following TW for c.17 years, with various aliases, but this ranks as one of the most bizarre comments I have noticed on here. The state, deep or otherwise, is not behind the [drugs] trade, nor does it bring it in, or distribute it. And rehab, and law enforcement and court cases are a cost to the state, Deep or otherwise.
You used to be, pre-Covid, one of the most rational people on here, rebutting the idiocies of IanB and Mr Ecks. What happened??
To be fair, I’d be astonished if the CIA doesn’t dabble in the drug trade from time to time. I’d equally be astonished if it were a major player.
I’m just guessing. I suppose my feeling is that the CIA is almost unfettered by supervision by the executive or the legislature so why wouldn’t it dabble, either for raisons d’état or for nefarious private gain?
“There was the time in the 1980s where Manuel Noriega was running drugs to the US, to raise money, to fund the Contras in Nicaragua… and apparently the DEA agents on the southern border got so fed up with every narcosmuggler they busted turning out to work for Uncle Sam, that they spent their time on the beach teaching their sniffer dogs to catch frisbees.
I don’t remember much of it, of course… I’m afraid I was very, very drunk…”
Careful, this is dangerous close to conspiracy theory, except for the fact that it’s widely known, and (allegedly) we had the SAS in the jungle trying to help the US SF stop it at the very same time that the CIA was at it.
Most odd… but it all greases the wheels.
And you know this how? Putting something in bold and underlining it doesn’t change its probative value from assertion to fact. You’re a Tory party apologist of old, so of course you defend the state – they are the state.
All ‘deep state’ means to me is the blob, or the unseen powers working the apparent levers. If you think the politicians are in power, you’re sadly mistaken. Ask Liz Truss. Ask any of them. It’s why it scarcely matters a tuppenny damn which colour rosette is on the pig you vote for.
IanB was never nutty, Ecks was.
As for me, Covid brought me to the realisation that most of what we’re told is bollocks, and that the government I thought was utterly incompetent but basically well-meaning was actually deeply malign and quite competent at it.
I accept this is merely my own assertion, which is why I’m not employing flourishes such as this.
I’m speculating, a bit, admittedly, on the issue of importation, but the CIA spent a lot of time flying drugs into the US, so there’s a precedent in the west.
If you held my feet to the fire I would say that the state turns a blind eye to importation, save for a few major PR busts, and that this is probably because of money – quangos get billions for rehab and the like, and they all seem to vote for statists in return. Lawyers and the police love crime, and that, too, is very lucrative for all concerned.
And then there’s the sedative effect on the lower orders in particular. Stoned people tend to drift through life, without rebelling. It’s what we did to China, way back when, so the idea that governments led by people who openly have little or no allegiance to their own nation and people would do it here.
They could keep drugs out of prisons. They don’t. Why is that?
“As for me, Covid brought me to the realisation that most of what we’re told is bollocks, and that the government I thought was utterly incompetent but basically well-meaning was actually deeply malign and quite competent at it.”
Ditto. Remember how there were no boat people crossings during Covid? We keep getting told they can’t be stopped but they closed it down in an instant them didn’t they?
Putting something in bold and underlining it doesn’t change its probative value from assertion to fact.
It was a challenge for you to back up your evidence-free assertion…and you failed. I accept this is merely my own assertion
You’re a Tory party apologist of old, so of course you defend the state – they are the state.
*Sigh* Ad hominem. And my support for the Tory party was purely pragmatic. I held my nose and supported the Tories because – then – they were the bulwark against socialism. Now, that role is Reform’s – and the Tories are the ones threatening to split the right-of-centre vote. As for the Tories being the state, the state is the quango-ridden, Labour-dominated, left-liberal establishment — not the Tory party. Duh!
Covid brought me to the realisation that most of what we’re told is bollocks…
Agreed. However, it doesn’t follow from the covid fiasco that all of what the state tells us is bollocks. It only justifies general scepticism of the state.
…the state turns a blind eye to importation [of drugs]…
No, it doesn’t. Billions are wasted on the war against drugs…I favour staged abolition of drug laws.
…probably because of money – quangos get billions for rehab and the like, and they all seem to vote for statists in return. Lawyers and the police love crime, and that, too, is very lucrative for all concerned.
‘Charities’, drug-related quangos and lawyers are a cost to the left-liberal state – not a benefit. And not part of the state as such…
And then there’s the sedative effect on the lower orders…
Oh, FFS! Conspiracy Central! Er…Occam’s Razor, not POSIWID?
They could keep drugs out of prisons. They don’t. Why is that?
Incompetence? Human rights?
Theo
The cost is irrelevant – charities, quangos and left liberal lawyers are a vital part of keeping the show on the road. And if there’s a cost, what do you think MMT is for? Please don’t tell me you think that the state has no interest in promoting the third and fourth sectors? It’s where Richard Murphy comes from FFS!! A man who sees North Korea as ‘neoliberal’.
Oh fuck off you old twat.
“‘Charities’, drug-related quangos and lawyers are a cost to the left-liberal state – not a benefit”
Maybe they are a cost to the taxpayers but they are a benefit to politicians and others working there. Economists refer to this as the Principal-Agent problem or, in another version exclusive to politics Public Choice Theory
I think there’s a parallel universe where Ecks is still extant on this blog – many speculate he must have passed beyond this mortal coil. RIP. Great entertainment for me at least.
>They could keep drugs out of prisons.
How?
How is this assertion anything more than “I haven’t thought about this very hard so it must be easy”.
Assuming for sake of argument you were charged with keeping drugs out of
one specific prison and you were given unlocked funding and carte blanche, how would you go about doing it? At the very least we’d be looking at:
– complete elimination of any kind of visitation whatsoever, to prevent [potentially coerced] accomplices bringing anything in
– roof over any space currently exposed to the sky, to prevent drugs being dropped in by drones
– invasive searches of all staff every time
they enter the prison [because you could just as easily threaten them or their family]
– no mail/all mail is delivered as photocopies by staff you can trust somehow (see above)
– measures against any other method you’ve not thought about because your adversary is hundreds of intelligent people with plenty of time to think about it and you’re just one guy
It would be far easier to just put all the inmates in 24/7 solitary confinement, but even then you need to feed them so you need to be able to trust the people who do that
To be honest, Theo, even excluding bits of CIA skulduggery mentioned by others, I don’t think he’s far from the mark.
The “War on Drugs” kabuki is a massive industry. It has a budget in the billions,provides lucrative employment for (hundreds?) of thousands of State employees, including some very fat salaries at the top. There’s the NGO’s supposed to be dealing with the “problems” of drug use, their employees & leading lights. Throw in politicians enjoying marvelous holidays in delightful places on fact finding expeditions & conferences. Do you really think all these people want the “drug problem” to go away? WTF would they buy theirs?
They’re just as big beneficiaries of the drug trade as the cartels.
“Trump has declared a war of sorts” Not his to do, it’s Congress’s duty.
(Apols for provoking dismissive guffaws at the very idea of combining allusions to Congress and duty in the same sentence.)
Congress hasn’t declared war since WWII, and yet there have been quite a few since.
Go figure, as the septics say.
I acknowledge and agree with your guffaws!
[T]he Former Jags Working Group … was established in February 2025 in response to SECDEF’s firing of the army and air force judge advocates general and his systematic dismantling of the military’s legal guardrails.
Ah, right. So completely clear-eyed and objective, and not at all a group of malcontents who have an axe to grind.
Kill ’em all, the Former Jags Working Group will know their own.
Ooh, Steve will object to the allusion.
✝️
21 strikes? You’d think they’d get the hint.
Back when we were working Operation ATALANTA to reduce the impact of Somali piracy, the death rate of the Somali crews was about thirty per cent per trip (going a thousand miles out into the Indian Ocean in small open skiffs, was ruthlessly unforgiving and one in three didn’t make it back) even without any naval intervention.
Young men seeing a promise of life-changing profit, tend to assume “I’m smarter and better than those losers” and discount the risks…
I remember when Barack Obama killed innocent Americans by drone-bombing wedding parties….
Wot. Saint Barack Obama? Goodness me.
Maybe there’s something in the claim that he was a CIA “asset” from a CIA family.
Or maybe he’s just a Man of Mystery, beyond normal human understanding.
Indeed. This is my main concern with these interdictions – the quality of the intelligence they are based on. If it’s just remote night vision of boats blatting across the sea then it seems mistakes are very likely.
Hang on, isn’t this Post report based on entirely anonymous sources? They don’t have any proof of what he said.
Also, since when did we care about blasting the survivors of a military attack? The attack was meant to kill them all and sink the boat. If a soldier takes two shots at the enemy, the second isn’t a war crime.
I don’t think these attacks will make the slightest difference to the availability of illegal drugs in the US, but the pearl clutching is ridiculous.
It’s very strongly worded, in the relevant treaties and conventions, that sinking a ship can be a valid objective; but following up by deliberately attacking the survivors in the water, is not.
Hence why there’s merely the usual suspects (whatever the US does is Bad!) getting very agitated about the strikes on alleged drug-running boats; but finishing off survivors, gets into very troublesome territory.
Legally, the case law is that of KLt. Heinz Eck, commander of U-852 when on 13 March 1944 he torpedoed and sank the Greek-flagged freighter Peleus; Eck then surfaced and engaged the survivors (in life-rafts or clinging to wreckage) with machine-gun fire and grenades, killing most of them (some survived, were rescued, and this allowed the submarine responsible to be identified). He and four of his crew were charged, tried, and convicted; Eck and two officers were executed by firing squad, two others got long jail terms.
But doesn’t that only apply if the vessel is sunk? The “two unidentified men desperately hanging on to the smoking pieces of their shattered boat in the Caribbean” is journalise. If it’s still a viable craft it’s re-targetable. Plenty of examples from various wars of vessels being continued to be attacked although severely disabled.
From the available footage (and weaponeering knowledge), an open go-fast like that is not going to be “viable” after a Hellfire missile strike: you can see the fuel tanks going up in the initial hit, which is a mobility kill, and widespread sustained fire.
Some reports are stating that the boat had overturned after that first strike, which further puts it out of usability (after your fuel tanks have been ruptured, then the boat capsized, it’s not going anywhere… also, the cargo’s been lacerated with fragmentation, was covered in burning fuel and is now getting a seawater soaking..).
Experience off Somalia was that actually sinking vessels like that – closed-cell foam in a fibreglass shell – was nigh-on impossible since even if you blow it apart, most of the chunks float. However, “big bits still floating” do not a viable craft make.
Continuing to fire at a major warship until it strikes its colours or sinks? Entirely lawful in wartime (see the case of HMS King George V, HMS Rodney and HMS Dorsetshire vs. KM Bismarck, May 1941) (though, then, firing at the survivors is only justified if they continue to offer armed resistance… which is why we only did it once, and the commander involved was told not to do it again even if they had shot at him – though he did go on to win a VC for a different action)
But, this isn’t a war, it’s NIAC (non-international armed combat) and somewhat different provisions apply; if you’re engaging a smugglers’ boat to stop them delivering their cargo, then once you’ve set it on fire and capsized it that’s mission accomplished, and the wreck’s only useful for survivors to avert drowning.
Cynically, that we’ve gone from “of course we can release the footage of the second strike” to “we absolutely can’t release the footage” might lead one to certain conclusions…
But, realistically, not a lot’s going to happen.
Knowing a little of what’s going on down there, can’t say I’m particularly bothered. Caribbean’s become a bit of a no-go area. The drug smugglers are somewhat averse to buying the craft they use. Their preference is to catch someone innocently transiting the area, intercept & board them, shoot everyone aboard & dump the bodies
It’s a semantics issue being oversimplified by journalists.
“War crimes” are shorthand for “breaches of the customary Laws of Armed Conflict” (often shortened to “law of war”) – which don’t actually require a declared state of war to apply, they define what armed forces may or may not do within the generally accepted framework, whether in war or peace.
Hence why you get talk about alleged “war crimes” in the 1991 Gulf War (using combat bulldozers to close up Iraqi bunkers, trapping the occupants – not a nice way to go, but legal under LOAC) despite there not having been any declaration of war.
Recreational machine-gunning of helpless civilians is a “law of war” violation whether the troops firing, are in a formally declared state of war with those civilians’ nation or not. (Chapter 17 of the US military manual goes into depth on where the “law of war” applies to non-international armed conflict, such as suppressing piracy or the narcotics trade – short answer, it does)
However, the same reference is pretty unambiguous on some issues:-
There may well be a chain of evidence and decision that supports the decision to strike the various boats being hit (I’m familiar with the UK process, we’ve done “hit that vehicle once it’s safely clear of the village” during Op SHADER… with issues like the need for sufficient confidence in the target’s ID, and maintaining track to be sure you hit the correct scruffy white Land Cruiser) but it’s harder to justify a follow-up strike that’s explicitly directed at killing survivors in the water. That is, literally, the textbook example of “you are not only permitted, but required, to refuse to do so” in US military law.
And, again, it’s something that should be understood – at least by the uniformed personnel – as a serious breach that they Should Not Do, even if someone important is ordering them to keep firing until they’re all dead.
As I understand it, not having paid much attention, this boat was many hundreds of miles from the US, and was thus probably some sort of supply or resupply craft on its way to RV with a larger boat.
It will turn out that the second missile was fired because the boat was still a platform and the cargo was still viable, I expect.
There was (again, I think?) a 30-minute hiatus between shot one and shot two, and this was probably to give the thing time to sink on its own, which it didn’t.
If I’d been either of the two survivors I’d have preferred the missile, to be fair.
Either way, this Monday morning quarterbacking, while arguably what sets us apart from uncivilised nations (or nations whom we regard as uncivilised), is increasingly to me at artefact of a time when we (the west) had genuinely overwhelming power and faced very little risk, at least at home.
Against an enemy, which the current US administration will claim, is happy fighting asymmetrically and had the capability of flooding its cities with what is effectively a chemical weapon, can you really fight by the Queensberry Rules?
If you know a civilian is actually a soldier, with the ability and intention to take actions which will cost thousands of lives from Texas to New Hampshire, to whom are your obligations?
The mother of two sons in a depressed Arkansas town, or the Democrat Party’s finest media minds and soft shoe lawyers making $1000 an hour?
See also the ongoing persecution of SAS troops in Afghanistan, who may just have been too good at their jobs.
Must confess the persecution of the SAS troops in Afghanistan always pisses me off.
The legality of blasting the boats is crystal clear. Suggesting it’s not is base TDS.
The US drug problem is caused by . . . government. The cartels are in it for the money. Drugs like cocaine and heroin are simple agricultural products. They should be cheap as okra. Government making them illegal changes the game by CREATING INCENTIVES.
If legal, the cartels would collapse. Usage would drop as incentives to get people to use them disappear.
Thoroughly agree with you. But to put it into perspective – I wrote about this in the comments here, recently – the landed price of charlie in Europe is around €10/gram. The street price can be 60. So the vast majority of the added value occurs in market of the consuming country.
Landed price should be €10/kilo.
Other than the fact that no one said “kill everybody” there is some truth to this story. They intended to sink the boat, and the first strike didn’t do it, so they fired again, this is, actually, a bit different from shooting survivors clinging to debris.
I’m not sure if the President has, or should have, the authority for this sort of campaign, but drone strikes in foreign countries have been commonplace for quite some time. A bit like the Fauci Virus episode, all our civil liberties are legally protected unless someone says the word “emergency”. Once they’ve gotten away with something they’ll definitely keep doing it.
survivors clinging to debris
They were not. They were terrorists.
At the most, these individuals were drug smugglers. We grant the state special powers to deal with terrorists so we should be vigilant that the state does not expand the definition of terrorist. If Gavin Newsom is elected President, the likelihood of you being designated a terrorist is not zero.
Is that you, Mitt?
Thanks for sharing the Republican Establishment/Noble Loser perspective.
The videos are great!
Continuing to bombard a boat that is dead in the water, on fire with wounded all around is quite accepted. Y’all even have a little ditty about it.
We got to sink the Bismarck boys!
We got to put her down!
I say they should have left the Bismarck a floating hulk and tempt the Germans to recover it to Brest and take two years and massive resources to repair it then sink it. Although a rebuild might have meant the Germans running the gun control cables beneath the deck armour instead of on top. This may be considered just a little off topic.
Ahh . . . the old “better to wound a soldier than to kill him.”
Am I right to assume that the sort of American journalists who support the continuing killing of lots of Ukrainian and Russian young men for no good purpose are entirely opposed to the killing of drug smugglers? Have I to that right?
Yep.
Trump is a master of trolling the Dems.
Trump admin attacks narco boats. Dems, enraged by TDS, must resist. So they come out strongly supporting narco terrorists!
And invaders. And trans rights. And men in women’s sports. Dems for the most part are on the WRONG SIDE of everything.
And in January, we’ll start seeing the dumbassness of Zohran Madmani.
He is running rings around them
Epstein is a classic – I am convinced he has nothing to hide (nothing has emerged in a decade despite the Dems controlling all the information) yet he has managed to manipulate the Dems into a TDS paroxysm to the point that they have demanded the release of Epstein information and celebrated their ‘victory’ despite the likely casualties being their own donors
Brilliant
To clarify, Russian young men are killing Ukrainian young men, and Ukrainian young men are killing Russian young men, and neither group particularly cares what the United States of America has to say about it.
It is hoped, on the other hand, that the Armed Forces of the United States of America does care what the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America has to say about things, and that he in turn does care what the People of the United States of America have to say.
Disappointed to discover that, in this story about Caribbean drugs running, in the “Former JAGS Working Group”, the “JAGS” refers to “Judge Advocate Generals” and not “JAGS” McCartney, former chief minister of the Turks & Caicos Islands, who died in a ‘plane crash that has spawned numerous conspiracy theories.
According to ChatGPT the first public use of the term War on Drugs was Nixon in 71, although it or something similar may have been used by officials before that, so it really is about time to shit or get off the pot.
How much money has been wasted in all those years?
In WW2 in the Pacific campaign the US Airforce shot up a load of life boats from troop carriers that were heading towards an island the US was trying to capture. They successfully argued it wasn’t a war crime because had they got ashore they would have joined the battle, which seems reasonable.
While they were on the troop carrier they were legitimate targets and would have also been legitimate targets if they’d got ashore and been in a lorry on their way to battle, why were the lifeboats different.
I don’t now whether this can be followed through to account for the incident to hand, I’ll leave that for the lawyers, but is shows that there isn’t a bright line on this subject.
I see these narcoterrorist drug smugglers as pirates, operating the high seas outside the laws of any country. I have no qualms about treating them under the same rules or lack thereof that they treat everyone else.
All this pearl clutching is because the US commander in chief is someone they loathe. They didn’t care one bit about legality or morality when Saint Obama PBUH was bombing kids and first responders with second strikes on foreign weddings and suchlike, so likewise I have no craps to give when President Orange Man Bad does whatever he does. I’m done fighting by Marquis of Fantailler rules when every opponent fights low down and dirty.
Two wrongs may not make a right, but these smugglers are closer to pirates than enemy combatants, and I’m not convinced that finishing them off in spectacular ways isn’t wrong. Hell, between leaving them to die of thirst or be sharkbait and missile explosion, the latter may even be the more merciful end.
>This international war crimes law is really very clear. If you’re not at war – meaning declared war against a sovereign state – then you cannot commit war crimes.
I think the people of Yogoslavia would disagree with you there. The UN certainly disagrees. Even under US military law you can commit a ‘war crime’ without being in a declared war.
But the question as to whether or not its a crime still remains – commerce raiding is allowed.
Letters of Marque and Reprisal, you mean? Many states agreed to forgo them at the Paris Declaration in 1856, but not the US. Article 1 of the US Constitution permits Congress to still issue them, I believe.