Extrajudicial
Even Rand Paul doesn’t admire Vance’s joy in murdering people.
The Republican senator who heads the homeland security committee has criticized JD Vance for “despicable” comments apparently in support of extrajudicial military killings.
“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” the vice-president said in an X post on Saturday, in defense of Tuesday’s US military strike against a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean Sea, which killed 11 people the administration alleged were drug traffickers.
See, vice presidents are supposed to know things like “you can’t just kill people you think did a crime without any due process first.” I’m pretty sure it’s taught on the very first day.
Trump also framed the boat attack as military activity against “terrorists” in subsequent statements on his social media platform, Truth Social.
“The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in international waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States,” he said. “The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No US Forces were harmed in this strike … Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
Yeah that’s not how that works. You can have them arrested, but you can’t have them summarily killed. Not legally you can’t.
This is thin edge of the wedge, with escalation on the way. The new normal will only get worse until enough of the right people (whoever the hell they are) say “No”. The more awful shit that gets accepted, the worse the shit they do will get. It’s the same old Trump playbook, with more firepower and a higher body count.*
*Trump’s got a ways to go to beat the death toll he racked up by botching COVID**, but in Trump’s failure to respond to the pandemic, nobody was pulling triggers or pushing buttons to unleash instantaneous death, so this illegal attack in international waters is a bit different. It was premeditated, deliberate ruse of deadly force by the armed forces of the United States of America, rather than just a ideologically motivated incompetence. Declaring war against US cities is another click of the ratchet. Using the same rhetoric as justification, there’s nothing to stop him from ordering similar strikes against Americans he doesn’t like.
**But with Bad Kennedy’s help, he’s gonna give it a good try.
And he will have immunity against all this lawlessness, because he is “Presidenting” while committing these murders.
Trump got booed roundly at the Arthur Ashe stadium when he attended the match between Alcaraz & Sinner. What’s the betting he tries to get the name of the stadium changed?
The story that the boat was running drugs makes no sense. Why would a drug boat carry 11 people? If those were men, each would likely weigh 80 to 100 kg, say 90 kg on average. So each passenger represents 90 kg of drug payload being left on the dock. Drug running is dangerous so maximizing speed and payload on each trip is important, as is minimizing witnesses. Cartels don’t mess around like that.
Well said Sumi. Another matter is, I think, that drug-smugglers would be unlikely to risk a trip like that when they know that American warships, charged with stopping drug-smugglers, are in the area.
I remember Donald Trump expressing approval of President Duterte’s method of dealing with drug-traffickers & users in the Philippines: murdering them.
What’s the difference between this and some country deciding, because Jeffry Epstein was a dangerous, child-sex trafficker, that blowing his private jet out of the sky/yacht out of the water would be a Good Thing? Did Trump travel on either? What’s to stop Greenland or Canada deciding a little pre-emptive target practice might be a Good Thing? Trump is certainly not being very Kantian….