Better late than never

For three months it has irked me greatly that the mainstream press in this country has treated the continual policy of Felon47 and his cabinet of criminal cruelty to extrajudicially murder Venezuelans (and others?) on the open seas as just another curiosity in the vast mozaic of chaos this alleged president has wrought. Now, after almost 90 people have been murdered by the United States for the offense of being on a boat out of (we think) Venezuela, it's finally getting some traction, but it took ancillary stories to get the media to care.

It took six congressional Democrats distributing a video reminding military personnel that it is their duty, as codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to refuse illegal orders; it took Felon47’s outraged reaction to that video in which he essentially admitted that he wants to issue illegal orders and have them followed; that apparently led to someone telling the Washington Post that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a war crime in the first of these murderous strikes on Venezuelan boats. That what it took to generate any real outrage.

That in itself is maddening, but hey, at least the outrage is starting to spread. Sadly, the outrage is still focused on one egregious element of one incident, the "double-tap" second missile fired to kill two survivors of an initial strike on a boat in September. Because that action is explicitly described by military codes of conduct as a blatantly illegal order that should not be followed—killing the shipwrecked—it's the focus right now. OK, at least it's an entry point to the greater issue. But talking about the killing of the two survivors of a first missile as if it is fundamentally different from the rest of the policy is yet another failure of the American press.

There is no legality—none—to any of the boat strikes. They are all crimes. They are all murders. Getting wrapped up in the nuances of the double-tap strike and Hegseth's alleged order to "kill everybody" as the reason for doing that threatens to justify by implication the rest of the killings. Hegseth and Felon47 insist that they are perfectly  within their rights to conduct these strikes because they are abiding by "the rules of war" in an "armed conflict" with "narco-terrorists" in league with the Venezuelan government. Except those reasons are all bullshit. 

a) The United States is not at war with Venezuela or any other nation. b) There is no armed conflict with these boats—none of the boats took offensive action against US personnel or property. c) The phrase "narco-terrorists" is just a made-up term to stoke propaganda, it makes no sense—the goal of a drug trafficker is to sell drugs, to make money, and instilling terror on their prospective markets is counter to that interest. d) There has been no evidence proffered—zero—as to who or what was even aboard those boats; were they really carrying narcotics? Were they really Venzuelan gang members? Were they affiliated in any way with the Venezuelan government? One thing that is relatively certain is that they were not heading for the United States; none of the boats had that kind of range, particularly if they were laden with a heavy cargo of narcotics. e) Felon47 doesn't give a tinker's damn about drug trafficking—if he did, he wouldn't be pardoning drug kingpins, as he has done repeatedly including just this week—so the entire motivation for the murders is suspect.

Further, drug trafficking, while a serious matter, is not a capital offense. Further still, even if it was a capital offense, it has to be proven in the judicial system before sentence can be carried out. Because, again, it's not a war.

The latest incident that we know about came just yesterday. Hegseth announced on social media that the US "just sunk another narco boat," this time in the eastern Pacific. An official announcement confirmed the strike and noted four deaths, bringing the tally of known  extrajudicial killings—murders—in these operations to 87.

Felon47 and his utterly lawless regime has killed and will kill untold numbers of people, both in the US and around the world; these Venezuelan boats account for only a tiny fraction. Reversals of international aid policies, destruction of public health infrastructure, rollbacks of environmental regulations and incentivizing fossil fuel pollutants, economic oppressions, and poverty-by-intent legislation will be far more deadly in the end. But the in-your-face audacity of just targeting a boat and blowing it up on the open sea because you want to feel like a tough guy is so emblematic of this tyrant and this regime that it should get covered more intently. And with that context: This is outrageous and easy to understand in the moment, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. MAGA is a death cult, even if the members don't know it.

More folks are calling for Pete Hegseth to resign, which is great, but it's insufficient. Pete Hegseth, along with everyone who carried out his illegal orders, should be prosecuted. So, frankly, should the tyrant-in-chief, but John Roberts and his corrupt majority of the Supreme Court decided presidents are above the law. Still, I'd like to see it anyway, bring charges against him and make the Court defend its ruling.