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

[Tinker Grey]

You messed up on your gotcha

Are you not a lad? I think the "gotcha" works just fine.

 

[BCP1928]

You can make up anything you want to, but that hardly nullifies anything except in your own mind.

I suppose you would know all about kind of thing. An expert, I should say.

 

[Servus]

Are you not a lad? I think the "gotcha" works just fine.

That't wasn't the gotcha, that was the sour grapes.

 

[Servus]

I suppose you would know all about kind of thing. An expert, I should say.

From reading your posts.

 

[Nithavela]

The scariest aspect of the whole situation, is that wildlife is becoming affected. A recent study showed that 92% of sharks, near the waters of Brasil have tested positive for recent cocaine use.

First report on cocaine and benzoylecgonine detection in sharks - ScienceDirect https://share.google/1XscrXO1VDXOi99k2

View attachment 374012

"This is the first report on COC and BE concentrations in free-living sharks. It is noteworthy that all analyzed Brazilian Sharpnose sharks were exposed to cocaine during their lifetimes, as COC was detected in all muscle and liver samples. Both COC and BE concentrations in sharks exceeded levels reported in the literature for fish and other aquatic organisms by up to two orders of magnitude."

And don't even start about the bears.

 

[RDKirk]

You want me to do the research for you?

There you go.

Section 5.4.7 of the DOD Law of War Manualsays:
Prohibition Against Declaring That No Quarter Be Given. It is forbidden to declare that no quarter will be given. This means that it is prohibited to order that legitimate offers of surrender will be refused or that detainees, such as unprivileged belligerents, will be summarily executed. Moreover, it is also prohibited to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors, or to threaten the adversary with the denial of quarter. This rule is based on both humanitarian and military considerations. This rule also applies during non-international armed conflict.

If we presume that this attack was conducted long range using drones, that rule requires the US Navy to have had rescue capability within the area. And that's how the law works. Carrying out an attack with no concept of how the shipwrecked would be rescued is against the law covering naval conflict.

 

[Hentenza]

If we presume that this attack was conducted long range using drones, that rule requires the US Navy to have had rescue capability within the area. And that's how the law works. Carrying out an attack with no concept of how the shipwrecked would be rescued is against the law covering naval conflict.

Yep. I agree.

 

[RDKirk]

Speeding towards the US, is not the same as speeding to the US. I also said anyone who thinks we're talking about drug carrying speed boats making a nonstop trip from Venezuela to the US aren't putting much thought into logistics.

You should be more carful when making critiques on wording.

Back when I was teaching intelligence analysts, if one came to me with that theory, I'd say, "Sounds plausible. Come back when you've located one of the points that any of these transshipment activities are taking place." That is, when they've spotted one of the same type of boats moored somewhere along the way.

 

[Servus]

Back when I was teaching intelligence analysts, if one came to me with that theory, I'd say, "Sounds plausible. Come back when you've located one of the points that any of these transshipment activities are taking place." That is, when they've spotted one of the same type of boats moored somewhere along the way.

So the conclusion is that no drugs whatsoever are being smuggled into the US via the Caribbean?

 

[DaisyDay]

And I think when it comes to certain people, most of the uproar is more out hatred of Hegseth and Trump, rather than actual concern.

Projection.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I find it strange how all this scrutiny is being put on the administration as though they are not credible.

Steve, they AREN'T credible. Trump never was, but at least in Trump I there were actual credible people around him (or even semi-credible people like Mike Pence). This is just no longer the case. There is no one credible at the top of HHS, or DOJ. Federal judges question the credibility and the presumption of regularity in DOJ filings (the presumption that they are telling the truth). Hegseth isn't credible, neither is Gabbard; Sec. Treas. Bessant shows how not credible he is on an ongoing basis. (Not to mention economic clowns like Lutnik and Kevin Hasselt.) The spokes people lie through their teeth with nearly every sentence.

This is all narrative to undermine the admin as far as I see. Especially coming from some who support the past admin and we know how they used lawfare and now finding out all the ciorruption and fraud.

mega snip

The point is your making judgements without any evidence and this doing exactly what your accusing the asmin of doing. You have already disqualfied yourself and so has anyone else who makes unsupported claims and narratives because they hate Trump.

I don't know if I am going to respond to another one of you wars on reality. I tried to demonstrate your wrongness, but you just double down with bad analogies, rejections of facts, and other sycophantic behavior. I think I have said enough for now.

 

[BCP1928]

From reading your posts.

So maybe you can explain to me why we are blowing up those boats and killing the crews instead of interdicting them in the usual way like the coast Guard is still successfully doing in the Pacific, stopping a flow of cocaine that is actually headed toward the US?

 

[Servus]

So maybe you can explain to me why we are blowing up those boats and killing the crews instead of interdicting them in the usual way like the coast Guard is still successfully doing in the Pacific, stopping a flow of cocaine that is actually headed toward the US?

As Hegseth said, it's being done as a deterrent. It's to scare them away. The soft passive liberal approach obviously hasn't been working considering the escalation of drugs that have been smuggled into the US.

For them there's a simple solution. Don't want to get blown up? Don't smuggle drugs into the US.

 

[BCP1928]

As Hegseth said, it's being done as a deterrent. It's to scare them away. The soft passive liberal approach

Arresting the crews and sinking the boats, you mean.

obviously hasn't been working considering the escalation of drugs that have been smuggled into the US.

For them there's a simple solution. Don't want to get blown up? Don't smuggle drugs into the US.

That's sick. Corrupt, degenerate and disgusting.

 

[RDKirk]

So the conclusion is that no drugs whatsoever are being smuggled into the US via the Caribbean?

The conclusion is that everyone has a theory they can pull out of thin air. If we want intelligence to plan rational action, we need more data points.

 

[BCP1928]

So the conclusion is that no drugs whatsoever are being smuggled into the US via the Caribbean?

The point is you don't know whether they are or not. You don't even know that all the boats destroyed had drugs on them.

 

[Belk]

As Hegseth said, it's being done as a deterrent. It's to scare them away. The soft passive liberal approach obviously hasn't been working considering the escalation of drugs that have been smuggled into the US.

For them there's a simple solution. Don't want to get blown up? Don't smuggle drugs into the US.

So, to be clear, you believe it OK to kill people in order to deter behavior you see as problematic?

 

[jacorian]

Most of the people actually in the boats are just poor fisherman trying to make living with a side job (as opposed to the masterminds behind the scheme). But, regardless, does that really change the argument?

"Even the top Nazis were put on trial. How are these South American drug traffickers so much worse?"

But also many Nazis were executed right in the camps. Likewise remember Osama Bin Laden. Obama gave the order. He didn't say oh let's have a show trial. And if you review very old film clips, Sec. Anthony Blinken also referred to the thugs as narco terrorists & a much younger Joe Biden did the same thing a long time ago. I think some people get mixed up in semantics. The advance of human civilization brings more ingenious types of committing terrorism. It could be slamming airplanes into buildings, starting a forest fire, drug-running, using a computer program to bring the grid to a halt. It's a shame that some people are backing terrorists & not seeing the forest thru the trees. You cannot negotiate with evil.

 

[durangodawood]

But also many Nazis were executed right in the camps. Likewise remember Osama Bin Laden. Obama gave the order. He didn't say oh let's have a show trial. And if you review very old film clips, Sec. Anthony Blinken also referred to the thugs as narco terrorists & a much younger Joe Biden did the same thing a long time ago. I think some people get mixed up in semantics. The advance of human civilization brings more ingenious types of committing terrorism. It could be slamming airplanes into buildings, starting a forest fire, drug-running, using a computer program to bring the grid to a halt. It's a shame that some people are backing terrorists & not seeing the forest thru the trees. You cannot negotiate with evil.

Not so with OBL. The brief was to capture him or kill him if he put up armed resistance.

As for me, I do not support organized crime. But if we are pushed into extra-judicial execution of criminal suspects, when they are putting up no violent resistance, then they have succeeded in degrading us. Not that they care about that. They just want to make a buck.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I've decided your post was so full of nonsense that I would take the time to dissect it.

Thats because your holding assumptions about whats this is about. As far as I understand the the administration has reclassified the Narco drug cartels as terrorist who are posing a national security threat.

This is a nonsense claim, but at least it isn't yours. No definition of "terrorist" overlaps with what the cartels do inside the US.

Both Biden and especially Obama and Bush all set the precedent for actions that bypass the courts in matters of national security.

Principally its the same. But instead of the water its into the social sphere where its absorbed. We treat any situation where for example organised crime will target a town or city to get them addicted to create new markets for distribution.

I think this is naive to say that there is no intention to harm people as part of the drug trade.

The problem is you don't know what is going on and how Narcos think. Or how bad actors and advereries can use the situation to undermine a nation or ideology they don't like. Undermine the system and create chaos. Once a nation is sor corrupted and weak they become easy targets for evil adversaries to exploit.

But I would rather trust the experts once again. The ones in the military intelligence who have assessed all this. In fact they have known it for years but the last admin was too soft and weak to do anything and actually aided in creating the chaos that is now spilling into some sities.

For some reason I cannot fathom, the above is written to counter the *fact* that the cartels are not transporting cocaine to use as a weapon against drug users. Do they care if some of their customers die? Most likely not. Is their intent to kill their own customers? I don't think so. This next bit was *also* in response to that statement, but it is so far from being responsive or on topic that I will address it separately.

I can see this narrative being cultivated with those 6 reps who were more or less telling the military to defy orders. The Left is creating a narrative that is very dangerous and destructive in undermining their own nation.

That is not what they said. They reminded anyone who heard it that members of the United States Armed forces have an OBLIGATION to refuse to obey an illegal order. As reporting has continued, it becomes more clear that illegal orders were issued.

No they were carrying several 100 tons a year. Stop trying to minimise this down to "its not so bad". You are not within the intelligence and you don't know.

The theoretical amount of coke that a single boat could carry in a year is not relevant. The people in that boat were not responsible for what could happen. That is not how culpability works. I ain't "minimizing" anything. I just think your claim that the crew of this boat was responsible for thousands of deaths and by implication deserved to be murdered was ridiculous. (You don't know the intel either.)

This is the same narrative that I think has caused the problems. This rationalising away that drugs and crime ain't so bad, it just happens and we have to live with it. Thats how far gone the US and other nations like my own are lol.

I realy don't care how far "gone" convict island is. The most depraved part of this incident is the extrajudicial murder of the boat crews.

Your spitting out a lot of unsupported data like its fact. This is all an attempt to rationalise the seriousness away. Like I said it is the Military and other intelligence agencies that have the Intel and way more than you have. Your not an intel expert.

I used widely available information about the drug trade, overdose rates, etc. Most of it the intel agencies would get from the exact same place I did. All of it was to show that your estimation of the potential deaths caused by the cocaine that was being transported was grossly overestimated.

Whenever actions like these are taken and especially in that Trump is hated so much they have to be particularly careful and therefore have crossed their 't's and dotted their 'i' s and checked the legality.

Trump is not relevant here. He didn't issue the order to kill.

Ok so lets change the drugs to say a poisonous carcinogenic candy they were smuggling in. I can't believe that people are justifying drug smuggling lol. Or at least minimising it. Any other issue that caused around 100,000 deaths a year and a million over a generation would be a national disaster.

I'm not allowing you to change the topic. They weren't carrying chemical weapons intended to attack the US. This is also not the place to discuss drug policy. It is a thread about drone strikes.

Everyone just put the problem to the backs of their minds and in the too hard basket. That it would sort itself out or some unreal programe like injection rooms or making it easier for them to get drugs or substitute drugs was going to fix it.

A big part of stopping drugs is stopping supply. I should know I use to be an addict and supplier. When police do raids and take out a couple of the big suppliers ie (bikey gangs usually). Then it dries up pretty quickly on the streets. So imagine a massive blow to the source. This will lead to massive supply shortages.

Of course this should coincide with prevent and rehab. Usually when supply is reduced it causes some to go onto other stuff but also some to stop. But it would be better to get these drugs off the street or at least restricted.

Wrong topic

Once again you don't know. The problem has become so big and organised that we don't know. With all the discoveries and connections to terroist with fraud and ant Us hate who knows.

No cartel has conducted terrorist operations in the US.

I am pretty sure we will see some Intel coming out about the connections to terror.

Its not just a law enforcement problem.

Because of national security. But they will release enough to support the case.

Those are the excuses I expect the Admin to make. I don't need them from you.

The point is your making judgements without any evidence and this doing exactly what your accusing the asmin of doing. You have already disqualfied yourself and so has anyone else who makes unsupported claims and narratives because they hate Trump.

I can judge the actions of the government if I like. I have that right. Their not bloody kings.