Cool cool, so a drunkard with supremacist tattoos gets to order kills that defy military law for alleged drug smuggling while the president pardons drug traffickers we've also prosecuted... Makes sense. No amendments needed there.
I just saw an article that one of El Chapo's sons pled guilty to trafficking, I wonder when we will see the pardon come through for him.
Must be a 4-D chess move in Op: Southern Spear that I'm not seeing. Absolutely ridiculous.
I wholeheartedly endorse this letter to the editor that appeared in today's NY Times. Please do not say "war crime" when it's straight-up murder.
Charlie Cooper
To the Editor:
Your article says the suggestion that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or Adm. Frank M. Bradley targeted shipwrecked survivors in the Sept. 2 attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea “has been galvanizing because that would apparently be a war crime.”
No, it would not be a war crime. No responsible expert in international law could conclude that these attacks are part of a war, despite the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary.
The use of epithets like terrorist and narcoterrorist to describe alleged drug traffickers changes nothing. These killings are simply murder — extrajudicial killings in violation of United States and international human rights law because the boats’ occupants are not attacking the United States, nor do they pose an imminent threat of attack.
Whatever risk of harm they do pose can be neutralized by interdiction and arrest, as has been the practice for years. While it is true that killing an incapacitated person is an especially heinous human rights violation, the initial use of lethal force against these boats is just as unlawful.
Gabor Rona
New York
The writer is a professor of practice at Cardozo Law School and a former international legal director of the nonprofit organization Human Rights First.
Two meaningless phrases: “Violation of international law” and “violation of humanitarian law”. Anyone who’s paid the least bit of attention to what Israel has been doing to Palestinians since 1948 knows that international and humanitarian laws are broken without consequences. And that’s just one example.
Supply and Demand. The cornerstones of American Capitalism. Kill the tobacco distributors and people still demand cigarettes. Kill the oil field people and we will still demand oil. Kill the McDonalds workers and we still crave unhealthy fast food. Kill the Narco Devils and we will still demand the narcotics.
And we will find them.
Change the values of your culture in positive ways and you will decrease the demand for drugs. It will take more than “benevolent”capitalists throwing money at the junkie problem. More than the Reagans giving grandmotherly advice-just say no to drugs.
History will tell the impossible to believe story of one country’s insane logic: Send out orders for narcotics to be delivered with one hand while taking potshots at the Door Dashers who deliver them with the other.
I know Kegbreath is lying. I know he gave the order to kill them all. I also know that Admiral Bradley will be not only thrown under the bus, he will be tied to the undercarriage and driven over a cobblestone street at 90 MPH. It's a shame after all the years he spent serving our country as a Navy SEAL. But if you become a member of the American military you expose yourself to every split-second decision, every life-altering crisis and every moral, ethical, spiritual and existential clusterfuck that descends. Seventeen or seventy, if you have pledged to uphold the Constitution, it is you against the sad, pathetic, immoral, top-heavy government that has been around for decades.
The thought of those humans who were blown out of the water by The United States of America makes me sick, disheartened, and more embarrassed than I ever thought possible.
I get a morbid laugh out of the latest war on drugs (although the cold-blooded murders are far from funny). I’m trying to remember how many wars on drugs I have lived through. But as you said, Ken, the amount of drugs flowing into the country hasn’t changed. Just another way to waste our tax money and to give the boys an elaborate, secret playground for their war games. Sickening.
Unfortunate, but true. The military-industrial complex wields an insane amount of power over our governance. They are as much a threat to democracy as the tech broligarchy. I worked for the Navy as civilian employee for a decade or more. The two-year POM cycle is a recipe for keeping dying programs alive. Rotating commanders through the Program Management Offices for 2-year tenures is an utter failure. The civilian staff they rely on want to keep their jobs, despite the relevance of the program. Political pressures from competing centers of political influence result in appointing unqualified candidates for crucial oversight positions. With the best will, those officers in charge are often defeated any the entrenched bureaucracy. Reform is essential.
What if they spent like… 1/3 of the JSOC budget on… expanding public housing and access to rehab services. I wonder what would happen if they spent all of it on that
It looks like the US armed forces are going down the CIA hole where anything is possible, there is no oversight, and we the people are the last to know what is being done in our name.
Trump brings something new to the Oval Office, openly expressed contempt for his fellow Americans and his cabinet of creatures mimics the chief. Name calling, direct insults, refusal to answer perfectly legitimate questioning of the use of power.
Even if there were oversight, in the administration we have now there isn't a hint of responsibility to the people and certainly none at all to the representatives of the people either in government or the press.
The other day, I noticed a panel truck for some construction business. On the side were pictured two heavily tattooed pumped up guys with the caption, "We are building America. What are you building?" It's exactly the same contempt picked up by members of the public who, one would think, would be eager to make nice to potential customers instead of demonstrating they think they have three testicles.
Ugliness and incivility is becoming all-American. Trump is the ringmaster.
I do see one sliver of light in this absurdity. By (finally) covering a war crime committed under orders, mainstream media is highlighting the obligation of military to refuse illegal orders. Maybe it will push some who were questioning *other* illegal orders into responding.
I sometimes think that intelligence and social status are inversely related. The more power one has, the dumber one gets. God knows we have the dumbest "leaders" that ever crawled the face of the earth.
Chest Puffin’ Pete will have no problem throwing Admiral Bradley under the bus if he has to. He’s already started trying to distance himself from that second strike.
Cool cool, so a drunkard with supremacist tattoos gets to order kills that defy military law for alleged drug smuggling while the president pardons drug traffickers we've also prosecuted... Makes sense. No amendments needed there.
I just saw an article that one of El Chapo's sons pled guilty to trafficking, I wonder when we will see the pardon come through for him.
Must be a 4-D chess move in Op: Southern Spear that I'm not seeing. Absolutely ridiculous.
I wholeheartedly endorse this letter to the editor that appeared in today's NY Times. Please do not say "war crime" when it's straight-up murder.
Charlie Cooper
To the Editor:
Your article says the suggestion that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or Adm. Frank M. Bradley targeted shipwrecked survivors in the Sept. 2 attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea “has been galvanizing because that would apparently be a war crime.”
No, it would not be a war crime. No responsible expert in international law could conclude that these attacks are part of a war, despite the Trump administration’s claims to the contrary.
The use of epithets like terrorist and narcoterrorist to describe alleged drug traffickers changes nothing. These killings are simply murder — extrajudicial killings in violation of United States and international human rights law because the boats’ occupants are not attacking the United States, nor do they pose an imminent threat of attack.
Whatever risk of harm they do pose can be neutralized by interdiction and arrest, as has been the practice for years. While it is true that killing an incapacitated person is an especially heinous human rights violation, the initial use of lethal force against these boats is just as unlawful.
Gabor Rona
New York
The writer is a professor of practice at Cardozo Law School and a former international legal director of the nonprofit organization Human Rights First.
Two meaningless phrases: “Violation of international law” and “violation of humanitarian law”. Anyone who’s paid the least bit of attention to what Israel has been doing to Palestinians since 1948 knows that international and humanitarian laws are broken without consequences. And that’s just one example.
Supply and Demand. The cornerstones of American Capitalism. Kill the tobacco distributors and people still demand cigarettes. Kill the oil field people and we will still demand oil. Kill the McDonalds workers and we still crave unhealthy fast food. Kill the Narco Devils and we will still demand the narcotics.
And we will find them.
Change the values of your culture in positive ways and you will decrease the demand for drugs. It will take more than “benevolent”capitalists throwing money at the junkie problem. More than the Reagans giving grandmotherly advice-just say no to drugs.
History will tell the impossible to believe story of one country’s insane logic: Send out orders for narcotics to be delivered with one hand while taking potshots at the Door Dashers who deliver them with the other.
What could possibly go wrong?
I know Kegbreath is lying. I know he gave the order to kill them all. I also know that Admiral Bradley will be not only thrown under the bus, he will be tied to the undercarriage and driven over a cobblestone street at 90 MPH. It's a shame after all the years he spent serving our country as a Navy SEAL. But if you become a member of the American military you expose yourself to every split-second decision, every life-altering crisis and every moral, ethical, spiritual and existential clusterfuck that descends. Seventeen or seventy, if you have pledged to uphold the Constitution, it is you against the sad, pathetic, immoral, top-heavy government that has been around for decades.
The thought of those humans who were blown out of the water by The United States of America makes me sick, disheartened, and more embarrassed than I ever thought possible.
I get a morbid laugh out of the latest war on drugs (although the cold-blooded murders are far from funny). I’m trying to remember how many wars on drugs I have lived through. But as you said, Ken, the amount of drugs flowing into the country hasn’t changed. Just another way to waste our tax money and to give the boys an elaborate, secret playground for their war games. Sickening.
Unfortunate, but true. The military-industrial complex wields an insane amount of power over our governance. They are as much a threat to democracy as the tech broligarchy. I worked for the Navy as civilian employee for a decade or more. The two-year POM cycle is a recipe for keeping dying programs alive. Rotating commanders through the Program Management Offices for 2-year tenures is an utter failure. The civilian staff they rely on want to keep their jobs, despite the relevance of the program. Political pressures from competing centers of political influence result in appointing unqualified candidates for crucial oversight positions. With the best will, those officers in charge are often defeated any the entrenched bureaucracy. Reform is essential.
Give Jack a gander. He’s been there. https://open.substack.com/pub/thejackhopkins/p/what-we-know-about-seal-team-six?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Thank you Ken for your reporting I always learn so much from your writing. I am curious what do you mean by Vanilla Military?
Vanilla military is my word for the conventional military or non-covert side. So like, non-secret squirrel stuff.
What if they spent like… 1/3 of the JSOC budget on… expanding public housing and access to rehab services. I wonder what would happen if they spent all of it on that
When does Academi get to wet their whistle? lol sorry Constellis now
It looks like the US armed forces are going down the CIA hole where anything is possible, there is no oversight, and we the people are the last to know what is being done in our name.
Trump brings something new to the Oval Office, openly expressed contempt for his fellow Americans and his cabinet of creatures mimics the chief. Name calling, direct insults, refusal to answer perfectly legitimate questioning of the use of power.
Even if there were oversight, in the administration we have now there isn't a hint of responsibility to the people and certainly none at all to the representatives of the people either in government or the press.
The other day, I noticed a panel truck for some construction business. On the side were pictured two heavily tattooed pumped up guys with the caption, "We are building America. What are you building?" It's exactly the same contempt picked up by members of the public who, one would think, would be eager to make nice to potential customers instead of demonstrating they think they have three testicles.
Ugliness and incivility is becoming all-American. Trump is the ringmaster.
I do see one sliver of light in this absurdity. By (finally) covering a war crime committed under orders, mainstream media is highlighting the obligation of military to refuse illegal orders. Maybe it will push some who were questioning *other* illegal orders into responding.
"Why Hegseth's Alleged War Crime Will Never Be Revealed"
We know that. The privates always take the blame for the stupidity of the generals. That's just one of the laws of nature.
Hegseth will go scott free and some poor slob who pulled the trigger will hang.
I sometimes think that intelligence and social status are inversely related. The more power one has, the dumber one gets. God knows we have the dumbest "leaders" that ever crawled the face of the earth.
Chest Puffin’ Pete will have no problem throwing Admiral Bradley under the bus if he has to. He’s already started trying to distance himself from that second strike.