Here’s a non-paywalled link: https://meidasnews.com/news/house-democrat-moves-to-impeach-defense-secretary-hegseth-over-deadly-military-strike
Thanks. I probably should have looked for one of those.
Watch how fast Agent Orange denies even knowing him.
This is gonna be fun.
So we can just label anything as terrorism and then kill without due process?
This is so fucked.
That’s been the ‘legal’ basis of the attacks this entire time. And a lot of what TFG has done, from tariffs to deploying the national guard. The ‘logic’ is that he’s the president, so all he has to do is declare something to be a national emergency and he has the authority to impose tariffs, deploy the national guard, or murder civilians on the high seas; and to hell with what the constitution has to say on the matter.
You’re right. You’re not wrong.
And with the joke of a Supreme Court, it’s all good, right?
One congressperson said the second strike was justified because the two survivors in the water were attempting to right the boat so they could continue on their way.
That was the admiral who ordered the strike, he offered that defense.
I find it interesting that they took 40 minutes to decide to make the second strike. You blew their fucking boat in half with a missile (well, two in the first strike and two more in the second). Did you think they were going to snort some of the wet cocaine and swim the rest of the way?
I’m still amazed the cartels haven’t retaliated yet. If you read Killing Pablo, you’ll get some very graphic descriptions of what drug traffickers will do to their opposition. And they definitely do not care if they kill civilians along the way.
They’re cutting off Don Jr’s supplier as we speak.
I’m not. The cartels are powerful, but not “challenge the US military” powerful, and any retaliation will give Trump a reason to ramp things up, maybe target cartel leaders or put boots on the ground in foreign countries. It’s also unclear to me how much any of this matters to the cartels. Are they losing more from this than in other enforcement or even inter or intra-cartel fighting? Losing literal tons of drugs and dozens of lives is a fairly normal occurrence for these guys, it’s very possible this is insignificant to them.
It hasn’t been proven that these boats are even actually running drugs.
One had 11 people on it. I’m guessing human trafficking and the kidnapped people where just murdered. Go 'merica.
That would be Tom Cotton, Senator from Arkansas.
Asked to describe what he saw in the footage of the second boat strike, Cotton chuckled.
“I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat ― loaded with drugs, bound for the United States ― back over, so they could stay in the fight,” he said. “And potentially, given all the context we heard, of other narcoterrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to recover their cargo and recover those narcoterrorists.”
(Actually quoting Tom Cotton)
Really? After being struck by two missiles and exploding and burning spectacularly there was still enough of a boat to “flip”? And it was still carrying a load of narcotics?
I want to buy my boat from that manufacturer.
The most interesting part is that Tom “chuckled” at a missile strike that killed all but two people on the boat. Because we all know how entertaining that is.
From the news reports:
The initial hit on the vessel, believed to be carrying cocaine, killed nine people immediately and split the boat in half, capsizing it and sending a massive smoke plume into the sky, the sources who viewed the video as part of the briefings said. Part of the surveillance video was a zoomed-in, higher-definition view of the two survivors clinging to a still-floating, capsized portion, they said.
For a little under an hour — 41 minutes, according to a separate US official — Bradley and the rest of the US military command center discussed what to do as they watched the men struggle to overturn what was left of their boat, the sources said.
Ultimately, Bradley told lawmakers, he ordered a second strike to destroy the remains of the vessel, killing the two survivors, on the grounds that it appeared that part of the vessel remained afloat because it still held cocaine, according to one of the sources. The survivors could hypothetically have floated to safety, been rescued, and carried on with trafficking the drugs, the logic went.
So “the logic went” that two survivors of an explosion and fire (probably not in the best of physical condition at that point) were struggling to un-capsize the remaining portion of the boat (which might not be any more seaworthy in that orientation) and could be rescued with the cocaine that still remained on board that part of the craft (assuming that they did a REALLY great job of securing the cargo, so that it could survive an explosion, fire, and capsizing) not so that they could merely survive the ordeal, but because they had the grit and determination to see to it that the remaining portion of the drugs got to the U.S., in spite of it all.
Apologies to @Smapti, who cited this quote in the Evil MFers thread.
Cotton is an Evil MFer, chuckling and calling the missile strike ‘righteous’.
This quote is from the news reports in CalMeacham’s post, not CalMeacham himself.
So, part of the vessel was still afloat because it contained cocaine. I did not realize cocaine was so buoyant. I wonder if the Titanic would still be afloat today if they would have had the foresight to pack the hull with cocaine.
Also, if we continue with the Admiral’s line of “reasoning”, it would appear the survivors were only clinging to the wreckage out of a burning desire to finish their mission of bringing cocaine to the United States. If the cocaine had been destroyed, they would have apparently lost their will to live and sunk silently to the bottom of the ocean, their dreams unfulfilled.
And how do we deflect the controversy regarding the Second Strike?
Easy, we simply blow another boat to smithereens.