Trump’s Killing Spree Isn’t Stopping the Flow of Drugs Into the U.S.
19h 49m ago by lemmy.ca/u/girlfreddy in news from theintercept.com
The Pentagon claims that attacks on civilian boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific have severely curtailed the import of illegal drugs to the United States. And President Donald Trump says this has saved more than 1 million American lives. Experts call these assertions laughable and reporting by The Intercept shows that claims by the White House and War Department are baseless, phony, or both.
“The administration has failed to explain the long-term objectives of this mission or provide any evidence of reduced drug flows into the United States,” Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said about the campaign on Thursday. “I would ask for a credible answer to this most fundamental question: What is the operation actually meant to accomplish?”
Experts in the laws of war, as well as members of Congress from both parties, say the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. These summary killings are a deviation from the standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs, in which law enforcement agencies generally detained suspected drug smugglers and brought them to trial on criminal charges.
what is the operation actually meant to accomplish.
Test the waters for what officers and enlisted men will not follow an unlawful orders. Or the other way, make sure that the people will follow orders they should not.
I genuinely think that's what it's for. Testing the waters (if you'll pardon the pun) for pushback over what I would say is pretty blatant violation of international law and overall norms our Navy has abided for decades now regarding how we do or do not intercept and interact with these "drug boats".
I would argue it's pretty wrong and fucked up just on the face of it to straight murder people for drug trafficking and it still is against the law. Not that we seem to care anymore.
Even in some contrived scenario where they were flying a flag that said "cocaine on board for sure" and the dudes driving the boat all were clearly cracked out and swore they were gonna sell them off to someone in the USA - it still would be inhumane and improper to do what we are.
I'll tell you one thing for sure, any sort of good will agreements or help we may have gotten from partners in South America is gone now. If the goal was to lessen the amount of drug use in the USA, hell even if it was simply to try to slow and control the supply - this is yielding the opposite result.
murder people for drug trafficking
murder people SUSPECTED for drug trafficking.
But that was his point: even if it were 100.000000% blatantly obvious that they were guilty -- or Hell, even if they were convicted of it in a legitimate jury trial -- it would still be both illegal and morally wrong to execute them for it, let alone summarily!
Yes, that's a good point.
PS:
I like your accuracy on the 100%. 👍
Oh I know that's what makes it even worse. I'm just saying even if they were guilty of snuggling drugs the penalty shouldn't be extrajudicial execution.
All drugs need a good snuggling.
I saw the typo as soon as I hit post but I thought it was funny so kept it.
Drugs do need a good snuggle.
Absolutely, as someone wrote, it's probably a test to see which officers will perform illegal orders.
There is no law under which this is legal.
Has the goal of the war on drugs ever really been to eliminate drugs?
I think it's always been more of a pork barrel and geopolitical show. Because if you want to portray yourself as a hero saviour you're going to need an enemy everyone else hates too.
Of course Trump dialled it all to 11 just like he does with everything.
It's mostly to oppress people. Minorites, the poor, etc. The rich and well-connected get a pass on their drug habits.
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Why would cutting funding to USAid stop the flow of drugs into the US?
Why would bombing schools in Iran stop the flow of drugs into the US?
Oh, the other killing spree.
WHAT!? Something Trump is doing ISNT having the predicted/promised outcome?
How could this be possible, its as if he was incompetent :O
Tbh, I just figured they were beating down on one cartel so the CIA owned one can flourish? That or extortion (you pay or your boat gets sunk).
Better explode even more fishermen.
Yeah, but each murder gave Hegseth's whisky dick a semi, so he figures it's worth it.
It's almost as if most illegal drugs are stashed in cargo containers at every point of access, and we can't possibly stop even a tiny fraction without also stopping international trade dead in its tracks.
Oh well, guess we should murder some more people to stop other people from getting high off of opiates or cocaine, our hands are tied.
No worries. Surely, increasing danger from fighting this international trade won't encourage chemical engineers from continuing to produce even more and more deadly alternatives locally! We are so smart we stopped those darn opium dens we win drug war.
If there is any rationale other than the "we are the USA, we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, for no reason at all", I would be surprised.
It's not meant to stop the drugs. It's meant to stop people from asking about the Trumpstein files.
arnt they flowing through mexico border by land. and he isnt even targeting the cartels, just some easy targets.
I am pretty sure that he is just favouring friends handling their competition...
So what you are saying is; Drugs continue to win the war on drugs.
What! No way! You're saying that drug dealers are going to find ways to sell drugs in America. Holy crap who'd have thunk it!
The most important thing is that the orange child rapist gets his jollies off by murdering people. The ineffective drug thingy stuff is fluff.