This entire new outcry about strikes on Narco boats is not a serious concern. The Politicians shedding tears for the Venezuelan "fishing" boats, were defending Obama when he hit targets in a half dozen Sovereign Nations during his two terms.
For all the Monday morning quarterbacks who are using one newspaper article, citing one anonymous source (the other 5 already said they had nothing incriminating to add), as their proof of breaches of international law, your application of outrage is suspect.
If a second strike, with or without "survivors" is what your conscience suggests is an unforgivable, inhumane, breach of the Laws of War, then you will be horrified to find out that every single attack helo op, ie, Blackhawk and Cobra, engaging enemy combatants/civilian terrorists, with not one, but several bursts of 20mm cannon fire and missiles firing is based exclusively on the determination of a 100% kill.
So not one burst, sometimes two, three and more - to ensure the killing of ALL of them. And when you factor in that the Cartels are now officially declared Terrorist cells, addressing them militarily is exactly the same as handling Al Shabaab, Taliban, Abu Sayyaf Group, Al-Nusrah Front, Ansar al-Sharia, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Boko Haram, HAMAS, Hizballah, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Jemaah Islamiya, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Tehrik-e Taliban, or any other Terrorist non-state threat.
By the way, the last formal declaration of war was in 1941. Everything since has fallen under COIN and the vast majority of those have fallen under the Presidential Powers Act.
A total of 563 drone strikes were approved by Obama' s Administration during the last years of his tenure including the targeting and killing of 4 American Citizens.
How many Democrats including the Seditious Six, accused Obama of War Crimes?
Rhetorical.
For Leftists who are earnestly concerned about International Law and protecting the Due Process Rights of American Citizens (as they claim), should look at Obama's record as listed below:
• Yemen 2010: A drone strike in Yemen intended for al-Qaeda militants instead hit a tribe, killing at least 55 people, including 21 children.
• Pakistan 2012: A strike in North Waziristan killed a 65-year-old woman gathering vegetables and injured several children, including her grandchildren.
• Libya 2015: A strike on an Islamic State training camp killed over 40 peoiple.
• Somalia 2016: A strike against al-Shabab killed 150 people.
• Anwar al-Awlaki: An American citizen associated with al-Qaeda, al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011. This was the first time a U.S. citizen was intentionally targeted for a drone strike outside of an area of active hostilities.
• Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto: The administration later announced that an American aid worker and an Italian hostage were accidentally killed in a January 2015 strike in Pakistan. The same strike also mistakenly killed two al-Qaeda operatives who were U.S. citizens.
• Adam Gadahn: The U.S. drone strike in Pakistan that killed Weinstein and Lo Porto also resulted in the death of Adam Gadahn, another U.S. citizen who was a member of al-Qaeda.
If you weren't outraged then, and are still not, then you are engaged in selective outrage; cheering the lil' messiah while damning Trump for even less.
By the way, personally? I had no problem with Obama's strikes. What I hold him and every single Democrat accountable for, is every single COIN Op since 1945, all having been ordered by Democrats and all ending in disaster with the waste of American War Fighter's lives.
Mark Kelly is an absolute disgrace; issuing veiled threats against Service members while encouraging them to commit an act of insubordination and disobedience bordering on sedition based on the gut assessment of an 18 year old Private Schmucatelli, Seaman Rotten Crotch and 2nd Lt Dufus. Regardless of his Service Records, by issuing that Video statement/threat/call to Mutiny with zero supplied evidence of an extant, Trump/Jt Chiefs Order that is/was illegal. It was a partisan stunt sowing doubt with absolutely no concern for National Security or the welfare of American War Fighters - Period!
One-more-time:
PRESIDENTS ISSUE THEIR COMMANDER'S INTENT STATEMENT - NOT ORDERS!!
The Dems Encouraging Disobedience in the Ranks if not outright Mutiny - with zero specificity.....
Orders aren't made illegal because they "feel" wrong. And disobeying an Order because it causes friction with your delicate sensibilities will not save you from the Court-Martial.
By the way, all of us who have taken the Oath, past and present, know this, which doesn't let those six shills off the hook.
Orders are not sent from the White House and delivered directly to the Troops:
1. The President issues his Commander's Intent to the Joint Chiefs
2. The Joint Chiefs discuss strategy, logistics, equipment, manpower and JAG scrutinizes the intent and balances it against the Constitution, Laws of War, International Commerce Law, the Geneva Conventions and everything else that may conflict.
3. They deliver their assessment to the President, he consults with the appropriate members of his Cabinet and gives it thumbs up/down.
ONLY THEN, is the Order assembled and distributed and then not in some disorganized cluster like a school sorority handing out fliers. It is done in meetings at every level of the Command structure where elements of the order are broken down for every single element of Command from the Pentagon to Private Schmucatelli who are ALL confident that by the time of their receipt, every dot and tittle has been scrubbed for every conceivable flaw - including Legality!! .
The six Dem Shills are telling 2,100,000 Service members from 18 - 60 years of age to be their own judge and to ignore their Oaths, effectively committing to Sedition! They are the very definition of sniveling political hacks and a serious danger to order in the ranks and thus pose a threat to US Security.
SF
John Bernard
ADDENDUM 12/03/2025 2045:
I add this to establish precedence:
May 10, 1801 - June 10, 1805
One of the first post war ventures that Jefferson ordered was deployment of the US Navy and their complement of Marines to stop the Moslem Corsairs in the Mediterranean at Tripoli.
Those Corsairs were regularly attacking shipping, seizing their cargo and enslaving the crews. If the owners or their flagged nations didn't pay a ransom, the crews were sold as slaves to other Moslem Nations or put to the sword. This happened in the Med, by the Moslem, Barbary Pirates from the 16th century onward.
They sunk ships, killed the crews, landed Marines and took Tripoli leaving many dead Moslem Pirates in their wake.
Those Corsairs had also been raiding the Atlantic Shoreline from Norway to the Iberian Penninsula, slaughtering the men and selling the women and children into slavery and brothels largely to the Moslem Ottomans in what today is Turkey. History records that entire villages disappeared in Ireland, England, Spain, Norway.
They also raided African tribes, kidnapped people and sold them which is how slaves ended up in the USA; Black Moslems selling Black Africans to Slave holders (who were sometimes Black, btw),
Are Leftists prepared to accuse Jefferson of also doing "Illegal" things and committing Murder on the High Seas and for having not sought a Congressional Declaration?..again, Rhetorical! Most on that side have never heard of the Barbary Pirates or the Iberian Penn and couldn't find Tripoli on a map much less know who Lt Pressley O'Bannon was.
These Narco speed boats and their crews are engaged in slow-crawl Chemical Warfare, leading to the deaths of 100,000 Americans/year by fentanyl poisoning alone (thus my use of slow-crawl) not for ideological mandate, expansion, as punishment or for glory.
They are doing it for miserable money. Some of which, one day will prove to have come ashore as kick-backs all the way to the interior of DC.
