Trump dispenses with trials, orders military strike on alleged Venezuelan drug-trafficking boat (Now up to 2, 3, 4...)

[RDKirk]

While I trust Trump about as far as I can throw him, there are really only a few types of people tooling around the Caribbean in submersibles:

1.) Rich guys
2.) Tourists/divers
3.) Drug smugglers

A 4+-person craft can easily run into the 7 figures (assuming this wasn't a DIY thing), and given how few people (esp in Central America) can afford a million-dollar toy like that, it ought to be pretty easy to identify the operators if they were on the up-and-up.

While this is probably correct, drone striking someone because it looks like they're doing something illegal is not okay. Especially when the law that they're hypothetically breaking does not carry the death penalty.

Eh, police intelligence and military intelligence are not the same.

In military intelligence, what a thing is can make it a valid target regardless of what it's doing at the moment.

 

[iluvatar5150]

While this is probably correct, drone striking someone because it looks like they're doing something illegal is not okay. Especially when the law that they're hypothetically breaking does not carry the death penalty.

Sure, I'm just trying to calibrate how bent out of shape we should get over it. Using "submarine" as a proxy for "drug smuggler" is probably a lot more accurate than ICE's using "brown" as a proxy for "illegal."

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Sure, I'm just trying to calibrate how bent out of shape we should get over it. Using "submarine" as a proxy for "drug smuggler" is probably a lot more accurate than ICE's using "brown" as a proxy for "illegal."

I don't think there's a need to "calibrate" how bent out of shape we should get over extrajudicial murder.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Eh, police intelligence and military intelligence are not the same.

In military intelligence, what a thing is can make it a valid target regardless of what it's doing at the moment.

Sure, but the administration has yet to establish that these are valid military targets.

 

[RDKirk]

Sure, but the administration has yet to establish that these are valid military targets.

Who is going to stop him?

 

[RDKirk]

I don't think there's a need to "calibrate" how bent out of shape we should get over extrajudicial murder.

It's already been calibrated. That calibration was done in the Clinton years in Iraq and the Obama years in Afghanistan.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Who is going to stop him?

I know you keep making this argument, and it's not wrong, but it doesn't really contribute anything to the discussion either.

 

[wing2000]

It's already been calibrated. That calibration was done in the Clinton years in Iraq and the Obama years in Afghanistan.

Declaring "war" on drug cartels was not part of the "calibration." I think past administrations have abused their power under "War on Terror", but that does not excuse this adminstration from falsely labeling Cartels as Terrorist Organizations in order to justify lethal attacks by the US military. The Cartels have not attacked the US or it's interest. Nor have Venezuela and Colombia.

 

[RDKirk]

I know you keep making this argument, and it's not wrong, but it doesn't really contribute anything to the discussion either.

I hate to sound like a right-winger, but seriously, where was this hue and cry when Clinton and Obama were doing it?

 

[RDKirk]

Declaring "war" on drug cartels was not part of the "calibration." I think past administrations have abused their power under "War on Terror", but that does not excuse this adminstration from falsely labeling Cartels as Terrorist Organizations in order to justify lethal attacks by the US military. The Cartels have not attacked the US or it's interest. Nor have Venezuela and Colombia.

Nor had Iraq or Afghanistan.

Although I'd hotly dispute that the cartels have not attacked the US or its interests. There are some US towns that are wholly under the pressure of the cartels.

 

[wing2000]

Nor had Iraq or Afghanistan.

Although I'd hotly dispute that the cartels have not attacked the US or its interests. There are some US towns that are wholly under the pressure of the cartels.

What is to stop the President from ordering the National Guard to kill suspected cartel members in U.S. towns and cities?

 

[Desk trauma]

What is to stop the President from ordering the National Guard to kill suspected cartel members in U.S. towns and cities?

Nothing. I’m waiting on it.

 

[wing2000]

2017.....

US President Donald Trump told his Philippines’ counterpart that he was doing a good job fighting an illegal drug epidemic in his country, an effort that has led to thousands of deaths and drawn international condemnation from human rights groups.

“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump said in the April 29 phone call, according to a leaked transcript of the conversation with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte published by the Intercept and also obtained by The Washington Post and The New York Times.”Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/donald-trump-rodrigo-duterte-phone-call-transcript

 

[RocksInMyHead]

I hate to sound like a right-winger, but seriously, where was this hue and cry when Clinton and Obama were doing it?

Personally speaking, I was a child when Clinton was president and I don't know much about his use of drones, so I can't really comment. I would bet that this applies to a significant percentage of the people objecting to Trump's actions in Venezuela.

As for Obama, there are several factors that contributed to the (relative) silence from the public:

1. He didn't gloat or brag about it. I think Trump's (and his administration's) attitude on this is a big part of the pushback.

2. While he was definitely pushing the boundaries of the 2001 AUMF, there was at least some connection, arguably, between the people that he was going after and Al Qaeda/the perpetrators of 9/11 given that they were all Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East (+/- Africa). Therefore, what he was doing was officially under a blanket Congressional approval. In contrast, while Trump is asserting that this still falls under the AUMF, there doesn't appear to be even the weakest of connections between South American drug traffickers and 9/11 and he hasn't even tried to claim one. The fact that Congress hasn't objected technically means that this is still Congressionally-approved, but the blanket is wearing mighty thin.

3. Americans have generally been conditioned to accept that people associated with terror groups are legitimate military targets. Trump is trying to play into that by calling drug traffickers "narcoterrorists," but I don't think most people are buying it.

Personally, I was uncomfortable with Obama's use of drone strikes in the Middle East, but I was also significantly more trusting of the government at that point in my life and generally assumed that he was taking necessary actions to protect the country. The last decade has done a lot to erode that trust, and I specifically don't trust Trump to have the best interests of anyone other than Donald Trump in mind.

 

[Yttrium]

Frankly, I'd say that I was more bothered by Obama's frequent use of drone assassinations against suspected terrorists, since they inevitably resulted in some innocent people getting killed. The Obama administration admitted that some innocent bystanders were getting blown up along with the suspected terrorists, but they kept doing it anyway.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

I hate to sound like a right-winger, but seriously, where was this hue and cry when Clinton and Obama were doing it?

I don’t remember Obama bragging publicly about his extrajudicial killings.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

What is to stop the President from ordering the National Guard to kill suspected cartel members in U.S. towns and cities?

Or labeling American groups as terrorist organizations and using the same justification for military actions against them.

Because I have serious doubts our friends on the right will be coming to our defense or even speaking out against such an escalation.

 

[rjs330]

I don’t remember Obama bragging publicly about his extrajudicial killings.

So that makes it better?

 

[GoldenBoy89]

So that makes it better?

Yeah, a little bit.

I miss having leaders with a sense of shame.

 

[rjs330]

There is s difference in hitting narcoterrorists on the high seas and going into American towns and cutting them down. Preventing them from crossing our borders in the first place is appropriate. And the military is under no obligation to give us the military intelligence regarding their actions on the high seas while protecting this country from these cartels that are killing Americans.