The US Navy is obeying illegal orders to delete video evidence of the October 17 boat strike survivors

 

Senator Tom Cotton calling the September 2nd drug boat strikes righteous is utterly contemptible: The US military waited an hour to kill the shipwrecked survivors

 US airstrike survivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attack, video shows: Footage seen by US senators shows two unarmed, shirtless men struggling to stay afloat before they were killed, sources say

Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according to a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.

The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters.

The pair desperately tried to turn a severed section of the hull upright before they died. “The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said. ...

The US Department of Defense’s Law of War manual forbids attacks on combatants who are incapacitated, unconscious or shipwrecked, so long as they abstain from hostilities and do not attempt to escape. The manual cites firing upon shipwreck survivors as an example of a “clearly illegal” order that should be refused. ...           

 

These aren't even combatants. The military has no business in any of this. That's why we have a Coast Guard in the first place.  

But they did kill them all, including the survivors which is a war crime, and they're murderers because the drug runners are noncombatants

If the US military is allowed this completely novel idea that it can kill noncombatants, THEY CAN KILL YOU.

 They're also conspirators who tried to cover up their crime.

Admiral says there was no 'kill them all' order in boat attack, but video alarms lawmakers...  

After the September 2nd debacle, they changed their policy about survivors, which shows they knew all along that they were wrong to kill the survivors on September 2nd.

There were survivors of the sixth attack, on October 16th. Those survivors they recovered and repatriated.

That incident was reported as the first known case of survivors because they covered up that there were survivors on September 2nd.

These people know they committed murder on September 2nd and they tried to hide it. Now they're madly spinning.

What Trump is doing is wildly illegal, wildly un-American. 

U.S. military detains survivors of latest boat strike near Venezuela: The operation is the sixth known attack on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean, and the first known to have left some people alive.  

U.S. repatriating survivors of alleged drug boat strike to Colombia, Ecuador

Trump's base is not happy: Strong disapproval of Trump hits new high 46% in Rasmussen Reports Poll, strong approval hits new low 27% for a second day

Trump's total disapproval score remains at a record high 55% for a second day.

His strong approval score is now a record low 27%, lower than his April 9th tariff low of 29%, his only sub-30 score until the last two weeks.

Trump has had a string of eleven sub-30 strong approval scores since November 11th.

Trump kicked off the period on November 11th stating that we needed H-1B workers because we didn't have enough talent in America. The longest federal government shutdown in history ended on Wednesday the 12th. Around the 15th he reversed his tariffs on coffee and other food items which had contributed to their record high prices in the first place. The same day brought the news that he had also stabbed Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia in the back over her criticism of the GOP's refusal to extend the Obamacare premium tax credits. The Epstein files saga came to a head on the 18th requiring their release, but will we ever see them? TikTok was supposed to be sold or shut down by act of Congress, too, and it has not been. On the 19th Trump was kissing the ass of the Saudi killer of Khashoggi, MBS, in the Oval Office. On the 20th Trump's secret 28-point plan with Russia to carve up Ukraine came to light. On the 22nd Democrats went on camera talking darkly about illegal orders being given to the military in the Caribbean. A National Guard soldier was executed on the streets of DC on the 26th by an Afghan refugee let into America by Biden but given residency by Trump. By the 29th we learned that survivors of a Trump drug boat attack in the Caribbean on September 2 were executed in a subsequent strike by the US military, which they obviously hoped no one would ever find out about. They spent the whole time since making up shit about this being a war justifying military engagement when everyone knows it's not a war and killing people for running drugs in the first place is wrong, otherwise the job we give the Coast Guard to do year in and year out has been simply a pointless exercise.

Trump's base is not happy. Pick your reason(s). 

 

 

Trump isn't interested in Venezuela because of the drugs, it's the oil

This entire drug war is a charade. 

Trump, April 2011: "I'm only interested in Libya if we take the oil".

He just pardoned the former Honduran president sentenced to 45 years over cocaine, but he's going after the Venezuelan president over drugs?

Venezuela has 4x the proven oil reserves of the United States, tops in the world, and it's right in our backyard.

Trump isn't interested in peace and freedom in Ukraine, either. All he wants is a piece of action.

All that lizard brain cares about is money. 

 

 

This morning's drug boat crime cabinet meeting got one thing right

 

Comrade Karoline claims war crime was legal even as she said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth knew nothing about it but Admiral Frank Bradley did

White House Throws Admiral Under the Bus on Boat Strike

S.V. Date, HuffPost

 

... Killing survivors of a destroyed vessel is literally an example of a war crime in the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual. “For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal,” the manual reads.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, nevertheless, repeatedly stated that it was legal – even as she further claimed, as President Donald Trump did Sunday, that Hegseth was unaware that it had happened.

“On Sept. 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” she said.

At the time of the attack off the Trinidad coast, Frank Bradley was head of the Joint Special Operations Command. According to a Washington Post report about the incident, it was he who relayed the order from Hegseth to “kill everybody” by sending Navy SEALs back to the disabled boat to have them kill the two people clinging to the wreckage.

In October, Bradley was promoted to run the U.S. Special Operations Command. ...

Real Clear Politics is part of the problem, not the solution

 

Tom Bevan: Anonymous Sources, Convenient Timing, and Past Drone Strikes Undercut Caribbean Boat-Strike Outrage

 

Past drone strikes by Obama were also murder, making us the terrorists.

 

We don't have the guts to declare an actual war, so we pretend this is OK instead. That's the problem. 

Trump & Company just make stuff up after the fact about the drug boat attacks, which is their modus operandi

 Shoot first and ask questions later.

When Elon Musk went in all gangbusters cutting government willy nilly from January 20th, he was immediately challenged about his authority and the nature of his position until the Trump administration retroactively made him a special government employee on February 3rd. But Musk still controversially operated with unprecedented authority over all of government even though he never submitted to the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate, which is standard for all high-ranking federal appointees. His rogue status was never adjudicated. 

The retroactive appointment is called covering your ass.

The same thing has happened now with the drug boat controversy, twice.

After the first drug boat attack caused an uproar, Trump made up some shit to justify it weeks later, indicating he knew what they were doing was wrong:

... In the weeks following the attack, President Trump, 79, attempted to retroactively insulate those responsible from legal consequences by informing Congress that the U.S. was in a “non-international armed conflict” with “designated terrorist organizations,” and therefore those who killed suspected narcotics traffickers would be exempt from criminal prosecution. ...

Similarly, someone changed the protocol for attacks after the September 2nd incident because they knew killing survivors was wrong. They just hoped we didn't find out that's what they did that day:

The protocol for future suspected drug boat strikes was altered after the Sept. 2 attack, and the military was instructed to detain any survivors. 

This is Trump Amateur Hour 2.0. They don't know what they are doing. It would be amusing but for the bodies left in their wake.

More.

Seal Team 6 disgraces itself and the country it serves, obeys illegal Hegseth order to finish off survivors of already illegal September 2nd drug boat attack

One illegal act leads to another, and another, and another. 

Over 80 alleged criminals are now dead in such attacks, but we'll never know if they really were criminals.

 Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all: As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors.

... The alleged traffickers pose no imminent threat of attack against the United States and are not, as the Trump administration has tried to argue, in an “armed conflict” with the U.S., these officials and experts say. Because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats “amounts to murder,” said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces for seven years at the height of the U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

Even if the U.S. were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Huntley, now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law. ... "the state using force is judge, jury and executioner," Huntley said. ...

If the video of the blast that killed the two survivors on Sept. 2 were made public, people would be horrified, said one person who watched the live feed. The Intercept first reported that the survivors were killed in a follow-up attack. ... There has been no public release of a subsequent strike video ...

Straw Man Vance

 

Prioritizing Ukraine Over Your Own Country Is Bonkers

Vice President JD Vance, X

 

Hundreds of millions of dollars are presently being spent against Venezuela which hasn't attacked anybody, at least $5 billion was burned in the unsuccessful attempt to stop the Houthis in the Red Sea, Israel received close to $18 billion in help after 10/7, Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran alone cost several hundred million dollars, and DHS is going to burn through $170 billion over the next four years for immigration and border enforcement because of the Big Ugly Bill.

 

Recent Police State deployments of the National Guard to places like DC and LA have cost from $1-2 million per day.

 

America can do and does do many things at once, especially when it comes to spending money on "wars", whether foreign . . . or domestic. 

 

J. D. Vance is smart enough to know all that. He's just counting on fooling enough of the people who aren't. 

The guys in the military who actually have to do Trump's killing for him in the Caribbean Sea know that what they are doing is wrong

 White House blew past legal concerns in deadly strikes on drug boats

 ... In recent weeks, junior officers in the military, fearing potential legal exposure, asked military lawyers, known as judge advocates general, for written sign-off before taking part in strikes, said two people familiar with the matter. It does not appear that such memos were furnished. ...

Trump knows it, too, which is why he's getting rid of all the lawyers and military officers who tell him so.

Senator Tom Cotton sees absolutely nothing wrong with Trump acting as judge, jury, and executioner of noncombatant alleged criminals in drug boats

In an interview with Brian Kilmeade, who said on air that we should just kill the homeless. 

They don't believe in the rule of law.

They are a law unto themselves, no different than Democrats have been.

Our country is lost.

 

 

2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner wants war in Venezuela

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

 

As Mad King Ludwig speeds a carrier strike group from the Med to the Caribbean, American failure to restore freedom of navigation in the Red Sea is highlighted by the latest Suez Canal navigation report for 3Q2025

 It's a picture of dismal failure.

The U.S. Navy has not made the Red Sea safe for free trade.

The Houthis remain a potent threat to shipping. 

3Q2025 statistics compared with 3Q2023 show the number of ships transiting the Suez Canal down 49.8%.

Net tons passing through is down 65.8%.

 

 

One man is about to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Venezuela

 The more the Uniparty changes, the more it stays the same.

Bush invades Iraq. Putin invades Ukraine. Trump invades Venezuela. 

Expect Xi to invade Taiwan at any minute.

One big happy family of invaders, carving up the world.

 

U.S. Sending Aircraft Carrier Strike Group to Waters Off Latin America

 

Another Tuesday, another crime committed by Mad King Ludwig and his man who just follows orders

 

Will Trump be tried for murdering drug traffickers like former Philippine president Duterte is being tried?

 

... Duterte was arrested in March by Philippine authorities on a warrant issued by the ICC. He is now being held at an ICC facility in the Netherlands.

Supporters of Duterte criticized the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Duterte's political rival, for arresting and surrendering the former leader to a court whose jurisdiction his supporters dispute. ...

More. 

I suppose it depends on a future president giving Trump up to arrest by the International Criminal Court somehow.

... The strikes on Venezuelan narcoterror smuggling boats provide one possible avenue. Shortly after the U.S. Navy destroyed the first such vessel, Ken Roth, a former head of Human Rights Watch, endorsed ICC intervention. “Trump just did what the International Criminal Court has charged former Philippines Pres. Duterte with doing—ordering the summary execution of alleged drug traffickers,” Mr. Roth tweeted. Venezuela is a Rome Statute party, which in the court’s thinking gives it jurisdiction over U.S. officials and servicemen involved in the attacks. The ICC has already launched an investigation against a nonmember state (Israel) based on a single boarding of a vessel flagged by a member state, so it has all the precedents it needs.

Mr. Trump has thus far taken an incremental approach to the ICC. He revived a first-term executive order authorizing sanctions against the court and applied it against four ICC officials. None of this has significantly reduced the risk to the U.S. or led the ICC to change its ways.

The ICC’s supporters don’t see the existing sanctions as an “existential threat.” The tribunal can easily ride it out by lying low until a Democratic president lifts the sanctions, as Joe Biden did. The court takes a long view—its prosecutors and judges have nine-year terms, and its other staffers are part of a global deep state who can expect to remain at their jobs indefinitely.

International lawyers are already developing multiple lines of attack against the administration and its officials. ...

More.

Secretary of War Crimes Pete Hegseth wants you to know he was just following orders

German General Anton Dostler was executed by firing squad in December 1945 after admitting he ordered the executions of fifteen captured American soldiers in March 1944 because he was ordered to do so by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring.

The latter was convicted in the Ardeatine massacre of hundreds of Italian citizens and sentenced to death in May 1947, but, incredibly, pressure exerted by the sympathetic English, including by Winston Churchill and Harold Alexander, resulted in a commutation of his sentence to life in prison by General John Harding in July 1947.

Kesselring would have died in prison, but even more incredibly was released from there in October 1952 for health reasons, and didn't die until 1960 of a heart attack.

The Kesselring affair is emblematic of the decadent trajectory of the English character still plumbing new depths even today, a trajectory America is also on. At least the Americans of the time dispatched Dostler expeditiously within months of his arrest.

The Italians hated Kesselring about as much as they hated Mussolini.

It's probably too early to guess how Pete will be remembered here. After all, he has crimes to go before he sleeps, and promises to keep.

 

Trump couldn't defeat the Houthis in the Red Sea, now picks on someone his own size in what is both a phony and illegal Caribbean war, all because he needs a victory to save face

 Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told

 

...  In this case, the Trump administration is conflating the trafficking of an illicit consumer product and associated crime with an armed attack, asserting in the notice that cartels “illegally and directly cause the deaths of tens of thousands of American citizens each year.” But it has not explained how selling a dangerous substance constitutes a use of force, and Congress has not authorized the use of any type of military force against cartels. ...

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, accused Mr. Trump of deciding that he could wage “secret wars against anyone he calls an enemy.” The president “offered no credible legal justification, evidence or intelligence” for the strikes, Mr. Reed said.

“Drug cartels are despicable and must be dealt with by law enforcement,” he said. “But now, by the president’s own words, the U.S. military is engaged in armed conflict with undefined enemies he has unilaterally labeled ‘unlawful combatants,’ and he has deployed thousands of troops, ships and aircraft against them. Yet he has refused to inform Congress or the public.” ...