Regarding the heinous “second” boat bombing that killed two men clinging to their sinking boat, as reported in WaPo — Pentagon Pete forcefully denied giving an order to “kill them all” as WaPo reported. And yesterday Trump said he believed Pentagon Pete. But this afternoon White House press secretary and minion of tribulation Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Hegseth ordered the second strike.
Julia Manchester writes for The Hill, “Leavitt told reporters at the White House press briefing that Hegseth authorized Adm. Frank Bradley to carry out the second strike, which reportedly killed two people who were hanging onto the burning vessel after an initial strike.” Further,
“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war. With respect to the strikes in question on September 2, Secretary Hegseth authorized Adm. Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes,” Leavitt said.
“Adm. Bradley worked well within his authority and the law to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” she continued. “This administration has designated these narco-terrorists as foreign terrorist organizations. The president has the right to take them out if they are threatening the United States of America, if they are bringing illegal narcotics that are killing our citizens at a record rate, which is what they are doing.”
I believe most people who know anything about “the law” are saying that Trump’s boat strikes are not even close to being legal. I still say that if any suspicious boat enters U.S. territorial waters, let the Coast Guard take care of it. They’re pretty good at that, I understand.
But was there a decision to throw Pete under the bus? Or are they setting up Adm. Frank Bradley to take the fall? Or both? Hmmm.
Update: And the answer is — they’re offering up Admiral Bradley as their sacrificial lamb. The newest version of what went down out of the White House is that it was Admiral Bradley and not Hegseth who was responsible for the second strike order. Hegseth had merely “authorized” him.
Another follow up is from David Dayen at The American Prospect. In Marco Rubio’s Sales Pitch: War in Venezuela, Dayen addresses the “Why Venezuela?” question.
While you were shoving the last of your Thanksgiving leftovers into the microwave, another war was being furnished, not by a media mogul or corporate titan—though certainly some defense contractors are counting up future bonuses inside their mansions in Northern Virginia. No, the secretary of state has been ginning up this conflict, and while the concept of a war for oil is more emotionally satisfying and probably a side benefit of the imminent incursion into Venezuela, the more appropriate way of thinking about it is a war for Marco Rubio’s right-wing South Florida exile friends.
I’d read in several sources that regime change in Venezuela has been a priority for Rubio for some time. And I don’t think Rubio is all that concerned about the oil.
Trump was reportedly not buying the pitch until Rubio related it to something the president’s terminally 1980s brain recognizes: the war on drugs. Vaporizing alleged drug boats through summary executions, including what appears to be a patently illegal order of a second strike, has a visceral appeal for Trump. The inconvenient problem is that almost no fentanyl is produced in Venezuela, but fortunately for Rubio, Trump doesn’t read past the first page of the briefing book, and also doesn’t read that page either.
Sounds about right.
We have 3 years plus 1 month plus 19 days of evil left, assumimg we can get rid of the f..ing bastards.
"But was there a decision to throw Pete under the bus? Or are they setting up Adm. Frank Bradley to take the fall? Or both? Hmmm."
I'd say yes to both but the next question is WHY? I would guess Trump is reacting to GOP memebers of Congress showing some spine. So to appease them and make a small rebellion in Congress go away, Trump will offer not one, but two heads on a silver platter.
If/when the GOP decided the Keystone Cops routine isn't working, they will start to interfere. This is called "oversight" and Trump doesn't want it. It's why Trump is petrified of a blowout in November – if Democras win the House, oversight begins in one year. Trump's burried everything in a grave so shallow, you will be able to dig up gobs of gory crimes with just a teaspoon. Members of the military who Whiskey Pete forced out will be able to testify. Former members of the federal government will be able to testify. Scream "Fake News" til you are blue but the witnesses will be able to tell investigators where to find hard evidence And here's where Republican members of Congress will want to build some distance between their next campaign and DJT.
An impreachment in 2027 could succeed
From Asha Rangappa on Bluesky:
"Creating a military conflict with Venezuela gives this administration a legal "hook" to invoke the Alien Enemies Act. In other words, the foreign war is being manufactured in order to facilitate court deference for its domestic mass deportation policy. It's a Stephen Miller Special."
Just adding another thought into the mix.
Yes, I brought that up in an earlier post. I'm sure that's a factor.
But was there a decision to throw Pete under the bus? Or are they setting up Adm. Frank Bradley to take the fall? Or both?
The blame is cascading, from Trump to Hegseth to Bradley. The driver of this is, its a clear example of an illegal order, and some level of accountability may not be avoidable at some point down the road. (Could Rubio end up a US war criminal secretary of state, the next Kissinger?) Its an order that a commander would have been well within his or her rights to refuse, as the dems stated in their apparently timely video. When the video came out, they were clowning on the right, challenging supporters of the video with "gotcha" certainty, to point to an illegal order, insisting there were none. Now, here it is. (Interesting how, from Trump's "attempted assassination" to Charlie Kirk's LGBTQ "assassin" for example, every time the fascists come out with some outrageous lie — something occurs to expose their BS.)
I’d read in several sources that regime change in Venezuela has been a priority for Rubio for some time. And I don’t think Rubio is all that concerned about the oil.
Rubio has for some time positioned himself as the anti-Castro "freedom fighter" and has been obsessed with Venezuela because Cuba is a long time ally. And while he may not care about the oil, you can bet your last dollar that swamp king Trump is salivating over the potential for financial gain, for him, his family and/or venture capital friends. The drug war angle and the extrajudicial killing of small boat crews is the violence porn the right loves; used to keep "America" on board. It only requires a consideration of available facts, a modicum of critical thinking and common sense (the very skills Trump's "Real Americans" lack) to realize blowing up small boats that don't have the range to reach the US, are too small to carry that much cocaine and not fentanyl as claimed since it isn't produced there, and killing survivors destroying any otherwise evidence is an indication this ain't about drugs. Trump's "drug war" is the only policy he's not under water on yet. But we're a country that reelected Trump, a proven economic ignoramus, to "fix" the economy that wasn't even broken compared to now, so of course we're falling for this too.
Wag the dog. Latin America is now the new forever-war because a forever-war is useful to the elite for power and profit.
I don't think that the elites in the Department of War are too worried about consequences for war crimes, the ones that do have probably already all retired or quit. The remainders will count on an orange pardon and then rely on the propaganda machine to install a new right-wing lunatic to forgive and then encourage them to be even more lethal. They will struggle to retain their privilege at all costs and a forever-war in South America will be worth the cost of a bribe for a pardon.
This quote means something different to the perfumed princes than to a working stiff:
"All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."
I think better of career military than you do, I guess. I believe most of the upper-level brass take the military code of justice very seriously, and not just because they want to avoid jail time for themselves.
…and I'm not sure that smart military leaders will count on a pardon to give them room to commit war crimes. I think it might be a little complicated. There are the legal crimes in US code and UCMJ that would fall under US jurisdiction, but then there are international war crime that I doubt a US presidential pardon will have any effect on. Does anybody know that detail? The one thing that I feel confident about is that international war crimes take forever to reach adjudication. I don't know if a country's sovereign government can protect a war criminal from extra-national apprehension… in other words, no problem so long as you stay in the US. Can anyone here fill in those details?