jmdrake
Member
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2007
- Messages
- 52,907
It's getting bad for the Trump adminsitration. A military analyst who just YESTERDAY was trying to defend the boat strike as somehow legally justified has now flipped the script.
There is a term "Crossing the Rubicon" which was when Julius Ceasar defied the Roman Senate by bringing his army across the Rubicon river sparking a civil war. Are we near a Rubicon moment? It seems like it. Ceasar's actions were not the first bad action by a Roman official by a long shot. It wasn't Ceasar's first bad act. And I sure many of the people who opposed him had their own corruption issues. But that was a time when the good people of Rome should have recognized just how dire things were and stood up to tyranny. I believe we are at that same place. Some may call me "demented" for speaking the obvious. Declaring people "terrorists" for what up to this point has been a normal crime, blowing up their boats and then (allegedly) blowing up wreckage that survivors were clinging too is not "lawlessness as usual." It's a new low. It's a move towards absolute unchecked power. Even the mental gymnatics that has been used to support drone strikes around the world is now failing. There's a reason even Republicans besides just Rand Paul and Thomas Massie are starting to sound alarm. And that's a good thing.
What needs to happen next? The entire GWOT needs to be re-examined and frankly dismantled. I know that's not going to happen but it needs to happen. Osama Bin Laden is now dead. (I believe he was dead before Obama "killed" him but regardless he's dead). Al Qaeda no longer has an identifiable base of operations. Isis no longer has a caliphate. Sure terrorism still exists but there is no longer any justification, if there ever was one, to give such broad powers to the executive branch. As a refresher, here's a link to the AUMF.
Key section:
EC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.(a) IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use allnecessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed,or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to preventany future acts of international terrorism against the United Statesby such nations, organizations or persons.
Nobody Trump has ordered killed off the coast of Venezuela has been accused of aiding the September 11, 2001 attacks or harboring any of the people that did. They're not accused of terrorism at all. They are accused committing a crime. Sure, it's a serious crime. But it's not terrorism. Fentynal is not a "chemical weapon" like Trump likes to call it. And Venezuela isn't even really the main supplier of fentynal. At the same time Trump is murdering people in speed boats he pardoned a major international drug criminal.
There is a term "Crossing the Rubicon" which was when Julius Ceasar defied the Roman Senate by bringing his army across the Rubicon river sparking a civil war. Are we near a Rubicon moment? It seems like it. Ceasar's actions were not the first bad action by a Roman official by a long shot. It wasn't Ceasar's first bad act. And I sure many of the people who opposed him had their own corruption issues. But that was a time when the good people of Rome should have recognized just how dire things were and stood up to tyranny. I believe we are at that same place. Some may call me "demented" for speaking the obvious. Declaring people "terrorists" for what up to this point has been a normal crime, blowing up their boats and then (allegedly) blowing up wreckage that survivors were clinging too is not "lawlessness as usual." It's a new low. It's a move towards absolute unchecked power. Even the mental gymnatics that has been used to support drone strikes around the world is now failing. There's a reason even Republicans besides just Rand Paul and Thomas Massie are starting to sound alarm. And that's a good thing.
What needs to happen next? The entire GWOT needs to be re-examined and frankly dismantled. I know that's not going to happen but it needs to happen. Osama Bin Laden is now dead. (I believe he was dead before Obama "killed" him but regardless he's dead). Al Qaeda no longer has an identifiable base of operations. Isis no longer has a caliphate. Sure terrorism still exists but there is no longer any justification, if there ever was one, to give such broad powers to the executive branch. As a refresher, here's a link to the AUMF.
Key section:
EC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.(a) IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use allnecessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed,or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to preventany future acts of international terrorism against the United Statesby such nations, organizations or persons.
Nobody Trump has ordered killed off the coast of Venezuela has been accused of aiding the September 11, 2001 attacks or harboring any of the people that did. They're not accused of terrorism at all. They are accused committing a crime. Sure, it's a serious crime. But it's not terrorism. Fentynal is not a "chemical weapon" like Trump likes to call it. And Venezuela isn't even really the main supplier of fentynal. At the same time Trump is murdering people in speed boats he pardoned a major international drug criminal.
