Drug Boat Strike

[Spekkio]

The funny thing about criticizing major newspapers is that they tend to get most of their stories right most of the time, and this scenario is no different.

The problem with major newspapers isn't the accuracy of what they report...

It's the information that they selectively exclude in order to paint their narrative and their selection of adjectives and adverbs, every one of which is a veiled opinion of the editors.

 

[123412131]

The Senate is effectively a 60 vote to win chamber. There are fewer than 60 Republican Senators.

I'm quite sure Schumer can barter votes for a GOP initiative if stopping the military use of force was important to him.

But it isn't, so he won't.

You were also quite sure that only 25% of representatives supported stopping the strikes which was wrong, that the hearing resulted in everyone throwing their hands up and saying there was no problem, which was wrong, that the media had lost interest, which was wrong, that Trump has the lawful authority to engage in a conflict with Venezuela, which was wrong, and that the Senate had refused to vote on it, which you guess it, was wrong. So, sorry if I don't trust you when you're quite sure about things when it's clear that how sure you are about something has no actual correlation to the truth of the situation.

This is once again one of those situations. The administration isn't actually particularly interested in going through legislative avenues, so they don't particularly care about the filibuster or whatever measly offer Schumer could put together. They'll pass their biggest ticket issue, cuts, through reconciliation and everything else can be done through executive order and judicial review.

 

[Randy Daytona]

Thought this was an interesting take on the legality of action in Venezuela.

 

[Swanee]

We bombed a wedding party to kill 1 guy, but somehow blowingup people funneling poison via water will make people sick.

Which incident/strike are you referring to, specifically?

FWIW, just because we may have done something in the past doesn't mean it was right, or lawful.

 

[123412131]

Thought this was an interesting take on the legality of action in Venezuela.

This is a good video, but it leaves two things out. First is that the United States hasn't technically engaged with Venezuelan state actors. They've actually taken steps to do the opposite, declaring cartels in the country as FTOs, and they've as of yet failed to act upon the claim that the Venezuelan military and cartels are one and the same. The second is that it doesn't actually matter if the military action is "legal" or not in the eyes of Congress. He mentions the 2/3rd requirement but it's actually only a simple majority to declare it "legal" or "illegal". The veto-proof requirement is necessary to stop the war, but the president can just technically choose to ignore it regardless. He mentions that the administration views the act as unconstitutional and presidents can legally refuse to enforce laws, they believe to be unconstitutional. Regardless, the chances of us going to war with Venezuela in the current political environment and the chances of the President willingly bringing such a case before the Supreme Court are about equal at 0%.

 

[Lawman]

With only a partial part of the story coming out so far I would not depend on statements or snippets so far. While folks may be lying they may not necessarily be telling the whole truth. For example, one can say they 'never received an order to 'kill shipwreck survivors' but then it turns out that there was explicit pressure or an implicit 'suggestion' to do so. We even had a term for it at my school, quibbling, when someone deliberately hid the truth.



I agree, show the world the strikes but at the same time we have the rule of law for a very good reason, and striking drug running boats certainly seems to circumvent it. When the folks on those craft don't present an 'clear and present danger' to us I have concerns about using deadly force as a first option.

We can and have executed a terrorist in the Red Sea or HOA for posing a “risk to US interests.” Plenty of precedent in places like Syria and Africa of using kinetic strikes on targets who pose little in the way of tangible danger to us.

Again, for all the things we have done and found a way to legal our way to a yes, blowing up a hostile opponents financial center of gravity which is a form of poison that kills tens of thousands of US citizens not to mention funds some of the regimes and groups it does doesn’t seem to far out of reach to get to that.

Which incident/strike are you referring to, specifically?

FWIW, just because we may have done something in the past doesn't mean it was right, or lawful.

I can think of a strike in CENTCOM and a strike in Indopacom. Both of which would have some pretty insane optics to the people now screaming about our current actions. Both of those occurred under the Obama admin, neither of them was in the war so to speak that the US was actively paying any attention to, and both went through a pretty thorough and lengthy review to nuance a way to yes. Those like these guys were also labeled foreign terror orgs that acting against our interests and presented some clear danger to it.

Again for all the protest and calls of war crimes by political opponents of the current admin to describe these strikes, you’ll find nothing out there in space for Al-Saim and that’s close enough to living memory that many of those same people were in their seats while that occurred. That was just another week in CENTCOM. Somehow I don’t think people would be giving this admin the same benefit of the doubt the last one got the second a newspaper were to print something with a title like “US air strikes against POWs” which would be a major editorialization of what happened but still technically correct enough to pillory the admin over.

 

[Swanee]

We can and have executed a terrorist in the Red Sea or HOA for posing a “risk to US interests.” Plenty of precedent in places like Syria and Africa of using kinetic strikes on targets who pose little in the way of tangible danger to us.

Again, for all the things we have done and found a way to legal our way to a yes, blowing up a hostile opponents financial center of gravity which is a form of poison that kills tens of thousands of US citizens not to mention funds some of the regimes and groups it does doesn’t seem to far out of reach to get to that.

I can think of a strike in CENTCOM and a strike in Indopacom. Both of which would have some pretty insane optics to the people now screaming about our current actions. Both of those occurred under the Obama admin, neither of them was in the war so to speak that the US was actively paying any attention to, and both went through a pretty thorough and lengthy review to nuance a way to yes. Those like these guys were also labeled foreign terror orgs that acting against our interests and presented some clear danger to it.

Again for all the protest and calls of war crimes by political opponents of the current admin to describe these strikes, you’ll find nothing out there in space for Al-Saim and that’s close enough to living memory that many of those same people were in their seats while that occurred. That was just another week in CENTCOM. Somehow I don’t think people would be giving this admin the same benefit of the doubt the last one got the second a newspaper were to print something with a title like “US air strikes against POWs” which would be a major editorialization of what happened but still technically correct enough to pillory the admin over.

Which one?

Let's talk about it.

 

[Randy Daytona]

Which incident/strike are you referring to, specifically?

FWIW, just because we may have done something in the past doesn't mean it was right, or lawful.

From the 10 January 2017 Council on Foreign Relations:

Obama’s Final Drone Strike Data

As Donald Trump assumes office today, he inherits a targeted killing program that has been the cornerstone of U.S. counterterrorism strategy over the past eight years. On January 23, 2009, just three…

www.cfr.org

The 542 drone strikes that Obama authorized killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians…However, many needed reforms were left undone—in large part because there was zero pressure from congressional members, who, with few exceptions, were the biggest cheerleaders of drone strikes…Should President Trump opt for an even more expansive and intensive approach, little would stand in his way, except for Democrats in Congress, who might have newfound concerns about the president’s war-making powers.

 

[number9]

The problem with major newspapers isn't the accuracy of what they report...

It's the information that they selectively exclude in order to paint their narrative and their selection of adjectives and adverbs, every one of which is a veiled opinion of the editors.

Is that the same thing?

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

I've not read much of James Bovard's material, read this article and found it interesting.

Obama’s PowerPoint Death Parade Led to Trump’s Venezuelan Killings - James Bovard

Obama's PowerPoint Death Parade paved the way for Trump's killings of suspected drug traffickers

jimbovard.com

 

[Swanee]

From the 10 January 2017 Council on Foreign Relations:

Obama’s Final Drone Strike Data

As Donald Trump assumes office today, he inherits a targeted killing program that has been the cornerstone of U.S. counterterrorism strategy over the past eight years. On January 23, 2009, just three…

www.cfr.org

The 542 drone strikes that Obama authorized killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians…However, many needed reforms were left undone—in large part because there was zero pressure from congressional members, who, with few exceptions, were the biggest cheerleaders of drone strikes…Should President Trump opt for an even more expansive and intensive approach, little would stand in his way, except for Democrats in Congress, who might have newfound concerns about the president’s war-making powers.

Sure. Pick one. Let's talk about it. Let's see the video.

Seriously. Stop beating around the bush.

This isn't an Obama vs Trump thing. If we broke the law in the past we should be held accountable to those actions.

So let's start here. Show me the videos, show me the articles, let's talk about the specific scenarios, let's learn something.

 

[Lawman]

Sure. Pick one. Let's talk about it. Let's see the video.

Seriously. Stop beating around the bush.

This isn't an Obama vs Trump thing. If we broke the law in the past we should be held accountable to those actions.

So let's start here. Show me the videos, show me the articles, let's talk about the specific scenarios, let's learn something.

That’s just the point, nobody here is claiming that we broke the law in those strikes either. We’re making the point that the sudden cognitive dissonance by people who were completely ok with the Yemeni wedding party strike, Al-Saim, etc were given complete avoidance from every touching the term war crime in discussion by anybody considered to rationally want to discuss the topics if they were even discussed at all in the wider public space. Do you recall a public discussion on the legality of killing prisoners of war? Because that was occurring in 2021, and yes there are circumstances which had occurred to allow for that, but we damn sure weren’t having an argument in the public space on its legality with partisan sides being drawn for the media. We simply weren’t talking about it at all.

Now somehow those same people are shocked and appalled by a strike on a boat from a named foreign terrorist org with ties to a tangible threat to our citizenry because of some feigned “this is not who we are.” Yeah sorry but that’s shows a complete inconsistency to the moral argument they are trying to make. Can we kill bad guys or not? Why the difference between admins of when it’s suddenly not ok.

Again… nobody would be giving this sort of automatic deference to a Trump admin had he been in the seat while 105 rounds and Hellfires were conducting “terrain denial” inside a prison complex. Somehow Obama coming out and just publicly saying “that shouldn’t have happened” was enough to stop the conversation after the strikes in Yemen where we didn’t actually kill the target. No serious calls of war crimes etc or demands the tapes be made public or demands for resignations.

 

[Spekkio]

Now somehow those same people are shocked and appalled by a strike on a boat from a named foreign terrorist org with ties to a tangible threat to our citizenry because of some feigned “this is not who we are.” Yeah sorry but that’s shows a complete inconsistency to the moral argument they are trying to make. Can we kill bad guys or not? Why the difference between admins of when it’s suddenly not ok.

Because many people hear "drug boat" and think law enforcement. Because many people don't want to accept that the President has the authority to designate who is and isn't a terrorist organization.

We are engaging TCOs with the same legal authority logic the Obama administration used in Syria and the Biden administration used to stretch the 2001 GWOT AUMF to engage the Houthis. But that was okay because Assad was ethnic cleansing and the Houthis attacked shipping. Drug boats aren't okay because "drug boats aren't terrorists." Which misses the point that we've gone past the point where Congress has to authorize military action over a decade ago. That's the governing body that's supposed to decide whether the reason for military force is justified or not.

Congress could take it back, but they don't want to. The status quo is politically convenient.

In the "information is a warfare domain" vein, the administration hasn't done anything to show the public why TCOs are a threat and why they're a terrorist org, because the administration is arrogant enough to believe that they don't have to. The reports are all out there, but few people will read them. It's Trump's job to communicate that beyond "drugs rrr baad, mmmkay?" They also are leaning hard into advertising the strikes instead of the defense-in-depth approach you outlined earlier. So the public divides along pre-conceived ideological lines, and the DOD who was fed "China bad" for 15 years and "Russia bad" for 80 is like wtf?

Contrast that with Bush 43's media campaign to sell Iraq, to the point where the AUMF passed with a supermajority in both chambers.

The media absolutely is biased, but the administration is making it easy on the media to paint Trump and Hegseth as depraved, bloodthirsty tyrants out to kill criminals for the lulz. And Trump's 10,000 tons of criminal baggage paired with Secretary of Defense's lack of qualifications don't help their credibility.

 

[Flash]

We can and have executed a terrorist in the Red Sea or HOA for posing a “risk to US interests.” Plenty of precedent in places like Syria and Africa of using kinetic strikes on targets who pose little in the way of tangible danger to us.

Again, for all the things we have done and found a way to legal our way to a yes, blowing up a hostile opponents financial center of gravity which is a form of poison that kills tens of thousands of US citizens not to mention funds some of the regimes and groups it does doesn’t seem to far out of reach to get to that.

The is a huge legal difference between a terrorist who intends to attack the United States and a drug smuggler heading...somewhere, with their product. You can debate about the philosophical differences between a terrorist and a drug smuggler but legally there is still a very significant legal distinction, for very good reason.

 

[Spekkio]

The Houthis attacked the U.S. after we intervened. The Syrians and Libyans did not attack the U.S.

This boils down to whether Flash believes the purpose of the mission is 'right' or 'wrong.' Which is supposed to be determined by Congress, but has been punted to the President as of 2001.