“Don’t let them make you break the law,” read new digital billboards on expressways near U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida, where the U.S. military’s ongoing operations in the Caribbean Sea are being overseen
The billboards were put up in response to the ongoing military strikes ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration, in what the White House and Pentagon have described as a concerted campaign against “narcoterrorists.”
The strikes are illegal and immoral. They aren’t even war crimes because there is no war. They’re just straight up mass murder.
The veterans behind the billboards at Win Without War and About Face: Veterans Against The War, describe it differently, calling them “ongoing lawless strikes on boats near the South American coasts.”
The billboards are part of a very public pressure campaign run by veterans at the two organizations in response to the Trump administration’s unprecedented use of the military — the increasing use of the National Guard for domestic policing and an active duty force build-up in the Caribbean of nearly 10,000 troops, warships, guided missile destroyers, surveillance aircraft, and drones.
It’s even worse than we knew. Per Politico:
Defense Department officials do not know precisely who they have killed in multiple military strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean that have claimed the lives of at least 57 people, according to Democratic lawmakers who attended a classified House briefing on the issue Thursday.
The meeting with members of the House Armed Services Committee — which comes amid bipartisan requests from members of Congress for more legal justification for the deadly strikes — was conducted by department policy officials but no military lawyers, who were pulled from the briefing shortly before it started.
Lawmakers at the briefing said they were not given an explanation for the change and were left frustrated over the lack of clarity on the justifications for the military actions.
“[The department officials] said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on these vessels to do the strikes, they just need to prove a connection to a designated terrorist organization or affiliate,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.). “When we tried to get more information, we did not get satisfactory answers.”
Democrats who attended the briefing said Republicans also pressed the administration officials for more information, which suggests there is some bipartisan momentum for more oversight.
They don’t know who they are murdering and they don’t care. And now we know that they’re killing them on the basis of some “connection” to a “terrorist organization or affiliate.” We have no idea how they define any of that. What’s a connection? What’s an affiliate? And what fucking authority allows them to kill people based on any of this???
I’ve seen the government use the U.S. military to do some heinous things in my time, but this may be the most blatantly illegal without even the fig leaf of a believable rationale.
Politico interviewed an expert on international law who has recently published a book about the efforts to bring war criminal Augusto Pinochet to justice. He explains that as a head of state Pinochet had immunity but was arrested in the UK anyway and their high court ruled in a landmark case that he could be extradited to Spain under a warrant. It was found for the first time that where international crimes are concerned immunity is not absolute.
Anyway:
According to Philippe Sands, who frequently argues before international tribunals, the administration’s actions are “contrary to the basic precepts of international law.” The question, of course, is what that means as a practical matter and whether foreign governments — including the countries whose citizens have been killed in the attacks — might try to do anything about it…
The concern is, of course, that an American president could be said to have been given a greenlight to commit torture, to disappear people, to murder people — even to commit genocide, if it’s on that kind of scale — or other crimes against humanity.
Now I’m not sure that’s what the majority intended to do, but it’s an issue that is going to have to be watched very closely going forward. That’s largely because, in many respects, the U.S. led the world in 1945 in creating this new order. And the concern is, if the U.S. leaves the table, who’s left to pick up the pieces?
[…]
Just to be clear, my own position is that for a serving president, obviously, immunity on criminal process has got to be pretty watertight. And you can imagine that you don’t want frivolous cases brought under criminal process, in relation to a former president or former head of state, but in my view the Supreme Court offered no evidence of such cases.
But I went back to speak to one of the Law Lords — the UK justices who dealt with the Pinochet case — to ask him what he thought about the center of gravity of the reasoning — which seems to be that an American president should not be concerned, in taking important actions, that at some point in the future they might be subject to criminal process.
And David Hope, Lord Hope, told me it was a “ridiculous” argument. I think that captures the views of a lot of people
He says this is indicative of an overall rejection of international law by the United States. (He doesn’t specifically name the American right wing, but that’s who’s doing it.)
What is striking about the Supreme Court judgment is that it seems to be motivated by a similar instinct.
I mean, these are smart and savvy people. They will have known this will be read not just in the United States, but around the world. It’s a way of signaling that this stuff that was done in 1945 at Nuremberg and later in respect to Rwanda and in Yugoslavia — and the emergence of the International Criminal Court and these indictments that take place now — we have grave concerns about them.
We don’t need any laws when we have Emperor Orange Julius Caesar running the world. He will simply tell people to do the right thing and they will. So, case closed.
Obviously, the idea that the Supreme Court of the United States actually seems bought in on that idea is simply stunning. It’s right out of Idiocracy.
He goes on to point out that for the past 80 years the U.N/ charter has been very clear that a military response can only be legal in the case of an armed attack. (And yes, I know that the United States has danced on the head of a pin many times attempting to rationalize their decisions, but this is way beyond any precedent.)
But this is the kicker:
It’s not only that, but once you start saying that entities which basically exist not to destroy the United States, but to make money from the people in the United States — that’s essentially what they’re motivated by — if you start saying that people are combatants, that they are the enemy, that they are warriors who can be destroyed by the use of force, why can’t others make the same argument in relation to other categories of people?
They can make that argument against Americans right here in our own country! It’s exactly what Rodrigo Duterte did in the Philippines ( he is now awaiting trial for that in the Hague) and which Donald Trump complimented him for doing. If anyone can be called an “affiliate” of terrorism by having a connection to a drug cartel in some obscure, undefined way, Trump believes he has the legal right to murder them.
He certainly believes he has the right to murder anyone he chooses around the world on that basis. Why wouldn’t he? As he says every single day”I’m allowed to do it. I’m allowed to do anything I want.”
Sands continues:
I think most reasonable people across the political spectrum have concluded that this is a matter of international law. Using military force to take out drug couriers, drug carriers, narco-traffickers, and so on and so forth is contrary to the basic precepts of international law. Those precepts provide that action is to be governed by criminal law, not the law of armed conflict.
Read the whole thing. It’s obvious as a matter of domestic law, international law and common sense that Trump and his henchmen are murdering people on the high seas and they’re doing it under the presumption that the president is immune from all accountability and his pardon power protects everyone who carries out his murderous orders. They certainly aren’t concerned about international law — and frankly, they aren’t the first. After all, the U.S. has never signed on to the International Criminal Court.
Here’s a pertinent quote that just shows you how low we have sunk:
Chief prosecutor (and U.S. Supreme Court Justice on leave from the court) Robert Jackson:
“There will be no immunity in the Nuremberg tribunal for former leaders, because that is an obsolete relic. And in any event, it’s not what we do in the United States.”
Well…
