People are dying of opioid and fentanyl overdoses, not cocaine overdoses. That said, Trump just pardoned one of the world’s most notorious cocaine traffickers so he must not be worried about drug deaths.
U.S. destroys Venezuelan vessels | Double Tap strike scrutiny
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By that logic, whoever killed that CEO last year was ahead of the game.
Similarly Phillip Morris execs and Exxon should avoid open spaces.
TangledUpInBlue06
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According to reporting, it's based on what "the top military official overseeing the strike [Bradley] told lawmakers" "according to three sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings." Three sources, no indication of party, direct knowledge, based on Bradley's statements, not based on the video.
Don't forget distilleries and breweries.
uncjhodges
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Blindly defending Donald Trump is not a reasonable action.
ChileG
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And not just “considered.” But “plausible” to be “considered.”Considered, by you? By Trump? Sure, consider away. But "considering", by you or Trump, is not a legal basis to fire Hellfire missiles at random people you don't like.
There is extensive legal precedent which lays out in excruciatingly precise detail exactly how to adjudicate what constitutes a non-international armed conflict (NIAC).
To whit:
The first and most fundamental problem is simply that the United States is not engaged in an armed conflict with any drug cartel. Under the well-established understanding of the preconditions for a “noninternational armed conflict,” it is necessary (at a minimum) (i) that the non-State entity is an “organized armed group” with the sort of command structure that would render members targetable on the basis of their status because they’re subject to commanders’ direction and control and (ii) that the organized armed group has engaged in armed violence against the State that is of some intensity (think of al Qaeda’s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001) and that has been protracted. See Prosecutor v. Haradinaj, Case No. IT-04-84-T, Trial Judgment ¶ 49 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for the former Yugoslavia, Apr. 3, 2008); Prosecutor v. Tadić, Case No. IT-94-1-AR72, Decision on Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction ¶ 70 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for the former Yugoslavia, Oct. 2, 1995); International Committee of the Red Cross, Commentary to Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, Part C-2-b.
The Trump administration hasn’t made any effort—not publicly, anyway—to demonstrate that any of the drug cartels in question are “organized” armed groups with the sort of command structure that would render members targetable on the basis of their status. But even if it could do so, those cartels haven’t engaged in any protracted or intense armed violence against the United States.
The notice the administration sent to Congress this week asserts, without citing any evidence, that the cartels “conduct ongoing attacks throughout the Western Hemisphere” and that “their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States.” The notice, however, doesn’t identify any such armed attack against the United States, let alone attacks of sufficient intensity and duration to establish a noninternational armed conflict with the United States. (I am uncertain whether intense armed violence that isn’t “prolonged” or “protracted” would suffice to establish a noninternational armed conflict, but that question isn’t relevant here, where the cartels haven’t engaged in armed attacks against the United States that are prolonged or intense.). It’s fairly evident from the notice that when the President uses the term “armed attack” he is referring not to any actual armed attack as any States or international tribunals understand that term, but instead to the “flow of illicit narcotics into the United States,” which “illegally and directly cause the deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens each year.” The distribution of dangerous narcotics, however, isn’t an armed attack or armed violence in the sense used in international law to determine whether an armed conflict has commenced. As far as I know, there’s nothing in international law that even suggests that such drug activity is sufficient to trigger the right of the affected State to kill persons simply because they are members of the drug cartel (which isn’t surprising, given the radical implications of such a theory).
The second considerable problem with the president’s new “armed conflict” theory is that even if there were an armed conflict—i.e., even if, contrary to any evidence, a particular drug cartel was an organized armed group that has engaged in intense or prolonged armed attacks against the United States—it’s likely that the Constitution would preclude Trump from ordering ongoing status-based targeting of members of that cartel due to the absence of any domestic law authority. To be sure, Article II empowers a president to repel an actual attack against the United States (or its troops). But that’s a far cry from authorizing an ongoing series of status-based strikes by the United States against a non-State armed group as part of an exchange of attacks that is sufficiently prolonged or intense to establish a noninternational armed conflict. At least if one assumes, as Trump appears to do, that this purported armed conflict would continue for some time, then it would almost surely be of such “nature, scope and duration” to constitute “war in the constitutional sense” (see Office of Legal Counsel opinions across many administrations to which I linked in my September 10 article), and therefore would require congressional authorization pursuant to the “Declare War” clause of Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. (And, at a minimum Section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution would prohibit such attacks as of 60 days after they began, i.e., after November 1.)
For these reasons, the Trump administration’s newly announced determination that the United States allegedly is engaged in an armed conflict with an untold number of drug cartels does not offer any basis for concluding that the Caribbean strikes have been lawful. Moreover, as others will surely emphasize, such a determination raises very troubling questions about possible military action against alleged cartel members in the United States itself, and on the territory of other nations.
Legal Flaws in the Trump Administration’s Notice to Congress on “Armed Conflict” with Drug Cartels
Top legal expert analyzes the Trump administration's notice to Congress of an "armed conflict" with drug cartels.www.justsecurity.org
IOW, this is just plain old fashioned vanilla murder. Our laws don't make exceptions for "But what if I really, really,really didn't like that guy?".
This adherence to law protect you, every bit as much as it does me, as it also does drug mules.
The “don’t tread on me,” crowd doesn’t mind the government indiscriminately killing citizens, but don’t dare ask them to sometimes wear a mask during a global pandemic.
I think it's an oath Republicans take to refrain from logic and reason in favor of mystery and magic. I can't think of a thing that they support that has an overall cost/benefit advantage in terms of the nation as a whole. They do know how to pick out the prime cuts, though, and feel entitled to them.
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What if you're labelled a "baby killer"? Can you be killed at Planned Parenthood? Can a double tap be ordered if you are seen crawling out of the rubble? You could live to kill babies again.
Ddseddse
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"I insisted at some length in my book Opinions and Beliefs on the affective and mystic origin of beliefs, showing that a political or religious belief constitutes an act of faith elaborated in unconsciousness, over which, in spite of all appearances, reason has no hold. I also showed that belief often reaches such a degree of intensity that nothing can be opposed to it. The man hypnotised by his faith becomes an Apostle, ready to sacrifice his interests, his happiness, and even his life for the triumph of his faith. The absurdity of his belief matters little; for him it is a burning reality. Certitudes of mystic origin possess the marvellous power of entire domination over thought, and can only be affected by time.
By the very fact that it is regarded as an absolute truth a belief necessarily becomes intolerant. This explains the violence, hatred, and persecution which were the habitual accompaniments of the great political and religious revolutions, notably of the Reformation and the French Revolution.
Certain periods of French history remain incomprehensible if we forget the affective and mystic origin of beliefs, their necessary intolerance, the impossibility of reconciling them when they come into mutual contact, and, finally, the power conferred by mystic beliefs upon the sentiments which place themselves at their service."
-Gustave LeBon, The Psychology of Revolution, 1913
I think I first posted this quote on the old board about a decade ago in the run up to the 2016 election. If I recall correctly I was pretty roundly mocked. I stand by it and am reposting it today as it's more relevant than ever.
superrific
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It's not close to everything imaginable, but that's a rhetorical flourish on your part. Let's say "a lot of things."
Do you say that about other criminals? I mean, prosecutors often pull out all the stops to convict, say, gang leaders for murder. Who do you blame for that? The prosecutor? Do you talk about how god awful it is that they are trying to put the gang leader in prison? Of course not. You don't blame the prosecutors either. The reason that the gang leader ends up in jail was because the gang leader decided to commit crimes.
Donald Trump committed many serious crimes. That is why he was prosecuted. You folks love to gloss over that fact, which is why nothing you say on this subject can possibly taken seriously. He indisputably had hoards of classified documents at Mar-A-Lago that he was intentionally hiding from authorities. It wasn't a few papers in a garage or Mike Pence's office. It was boxes and boxes of stuff that was subject to subpoena, which was represented as having been turned in when it hadn't, which was actively moved around the facility to hide them. It was as clear cut a violation of the Espionage Act as we have ever seen from a high ranking official. He indisputably solicited election fraud from the Georgia Secretary of State. He indisputably led an insurrection in DC.
That is why he was prosecuted. As many legal scholars have noted, the only exceptional thing was the restraint. If he hadn't been president, he would have faced trial immediately on the federal charges. There would not have been a year of negotiations about the documents. There would have been a subpoena and if the documents weren't turned over immediately, immediate criminal charges. Trump got specially favorable treatment, not specially unfavorable.
superrific
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No. It isn't plausible. It isn't close to plausible. Giving a foot massage and putting your tongue in a woman's holiest of holies is more closely related.
1. The people on the boat were not enemies. That vessel was not headed to the US -- it couldn't possibly have made it. It was headed to some waystation. Almost certainly the drugs would be unloaded and transferred to another vessel, and the mariners in question would have returned to Venezuela. The drugs might have gone to the US, but they might have gone to Europe, to Mexico, to the Caribbean islands, etc.
2. They are not combatants. And this is an easy question that can be answered without parsing what is a combatant. Just ask yourself this: what would have happened if that boat had been apprehended, say, just outside of New Orleans. The mariners would face trial as drug runners. They would likely serve a couple of years in jail. Maybe the kingpins would serve longer. But even the biggest of all the kingpins, the head boss, the cartel boss, would not face the death penalty. In fact, it is unconstitutional to prosecute drug offenses as capital offenses.
There are hundreds of thousands of people in state and federal jails convicted for running drugs. They are not in special prisons; they are with the general prisoner population. They do not have life sentences. They are mostly serving a bullet or maybe a dime, but not life.
In other words, absolutely nothing about US law would suggest a combatant classification.
3. Contrast with a different case -- let's say the boat contained a working radiological "dirty" bomb and it was apprehended outside of New Orleans. What would happen? First, they would be held in Gitmo, not a regular prison. They would likely be tried before a military commission. They would be charged with a terrorism offense that is punishable with the death penalty -- and indeed, terrorists have received death penalties. So the people running the bomb wouldn't be textbook combatants, but there you could make a plausible case.
But drugs are not dirty bombs. Drugs are not aggressive. Nobody forces Americans to use them. Lots of people actually enjoy them. That's not to say that drug running is good, or that the people who do it willingly aren't messed up, but it's not remotely the same as flying a plane into a building or blowing up an airplane or an office building.
superrific
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You're being glib but let's not let the humor overshadow the legit point.
If these drug runners were enemy combatants, then that really, really sucks for any Americans traveling by sea. Because declarations of war go both ways. When the US classifies them as enemy combatants, that means they are enemies. And that means that a cartel has the reciprocal right to destroy American vessels.
In other words, Trump is trying to create a world in which piracy is legal. Anyone apparently can stop a boat if they think there's something bad on board, and blow it up if they want to.
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Because you’re stupid.
1moretimeagain
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Kill the courier, Pardon the Kingpin. USA! USA! USA!
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ChileG
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I’ve pointed this out a few times on this thread but it always falls on deaf ears.
The same crowd trying to convince you beyond all credulity that they are just trying to prevent drugs from getting into the country is the same crowd trying to convince you that two men clinging to a blown up boat were radioing for backup to engage in “battle” with the US.
It makes very little sense. So, we are forced to look for reasons that do make sense. Occam’s Razor. Apply it here and trust what in you hearts you know is true but maybe don’t want to admit.