That's not actually to impugn the US IC, exactly. It's more to call out that the IC can do their job thoroughly and correctly and the powers that be will misuse or misrepresent their work product for their own purposes. Unless you know otherwise, we have to consider (among other things) that the US IC has nothing showing these boats are implicated, but the admin proceeded anyway.
You're assuming a level of adherence to norms, best practices, and laws that the current administration has demonstrated they do not do. They're not even bothering to present weak evidence.
Yeah, it turned out that he wasn't building nukes, but he provably did have WMD (chemical weapons), and had used them.
I don't doubt that GWB wanted "to finish the job" that his father started, and may have influenced the IC into producing "evidence" to support his goals. Obama did the same thing with the "Russia Collusion" hoax.
Most civil servants are stand up people who would never go along with anything illegal or unethical. The politicians are a different breed.
I will agree with this from personal experience. I've worked with several gov'ts on various projects and found almost everyone to be simply interested in doing their job well.
The story of the Iraq War and how faulty intelligence played into it is very different from that view. You have George Tenet, head of the CIA, telling GWB that the intel was a slam dunk for Iraqi attempts to build nukes when there was no such intel. Colin Powell, the day before his presentation to the UN on the Iraqi nuke program, went to Langley and demanded to review the evidence himself. When shown the paltry shreds they'd collected, he blew up at Tenet, saying "this is all you've got?"
Cheney set up his own mini-intel operation in the White House, headed by Douglas Feith, to look at the "raw" intel and construct their own case because the CIA analysts were unwilling to produce a National Security Assessment saying the same. It was 100% a case of the admin claiming that the US IC supported their policies when they did not (and the IC wasn't free to publicly dispute it).
The integrity of the IC is not a reason to believe that any admin has their work product to justify their actions... especially when they won't reveal that evidence.
South American governments that refuse to stop the cartels are in effect supporting them. The cartels are powerful, and use any and every means to get what they want. The US recently offered to help Claudia Sheinbaum, and that offer was rejected. Nicolás Maduro is most likely supportive of the cartels because they pay him, and their actions are destructive to his enemies (namely us).
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-confirms-he-off...
Reagan's opposition to social programs (demonizing "welfare queens") and outright racism was a big part of why he was elected. (Reagan quote from the Nixon recordings: "To see those monkeys from those African countries. Damn them. They're still uncomfortable wearing shoes.")
It wasn't a coincidence that Reagan began his presidential campaign where civil rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, with the cooperation of local law enforcement.
That is what is at the heart of the Republican Party, and has been for at least 75 years. There are many other examples of this kind of thing.
What you're describing from a couple of decades ago was essentially a facade, a mask. What's changed in recent years is that the mask has come off - as members of the party feel increasingly threatened by people who they see as unlike themselves, they can no longer afford the pretense of respectability.
There is nothing RINO about current republican party. It is logical consequence and result of this recent history and of what its voters believe in.
They supported Israel's right to defend themselves. That support evaporated when Israel decided to continue a war that was doing more than just removing Hamas. In this case, they're probably okay with fighting drug traffic, but not with blowing up random boats and killing those in them without any due process and any proof of them being drug traffickers... or whatever is going on with Venezuela.
Things like Brexit are different. Some managed to convince part of the population that the UK could be stronger alone and dictate terms to a much larger and stronger economic block. But reality doesn't care about what we believe and the UK still has to trade with the EU, be aligned in terms of laws and standards, be part of defense alliances, etc. The current government could ignore this reality and do what the previous government was doing, but clearly that wasn't working.
I know that saying "well they did crime X" is not a good argument, I am just pointing out how silly it all is.
So, they still have a vested interest in the safety of its subjects who may be using the international waters in the Caribbean. Even if those persons aren’t directly affected, they may be reluctant to perform their normal activities (like fishing).
Fixed it.
These guys are responsible for scores of thousands of deaths a year, both in the US and their own countries i have no idea why they are getting so much sympathy here.
Be aware that the US is constructing casus belli for invading Venezuela, who has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. There is more at play.
These are obvious questions, but i feel we don't agree on fundamentals here so it's important to clarify them.
For you: Do you think the US is facing a serious drug crisis? If they are, who is responsible for it? What do you think the correct response should be?
Do statistics show a significant drop in drug deaths? If yes, and i don't know, why would your response have better results?
Venezuela is too complicated, so i won't include it in my current discourse, unless you think it's the key factor without which no debate could be had. I'm not sure why that would be because there are plenty of other South America drug exporters.
Also, "narco-terrorist" is a nonsense designation meant to allow the US to apply GWOT methods and tactics against drug traffickers.
- UK, Canada, Guyana, probably more countries shared intelligence on suspected drug vessels in Caribbean
- US Coast Guard accosted said vessels, searched them, arrested everyone if anything illegal was found.
Now it's:
- UK, Canada, Guyana, have all said they're not going to share intelligence, decreasing(by whatever percentage) the chances of finding a drug smuggling boat, and increasing the chance of it making its way to the USA.
- US Navy blows up what boats it does find without checking them for drugs, increasing(by whatever percentage) the chance of killing innocents, and degrading intl law & norms.
What does the US benefit from this new policy?
(Edited for formatting)
Theatre.
This really makes me feel like a conspiracy theorist, but it doesn't seem as far from reality as it should...
If there's no response: exhibiting total dominance of the region and being able to make up whatever unverifiable statistics they want re: domestic safety (drugs, gangs, etc).
If there is a response: potential for armed conflict which could become a pretense for interning more citizens with hispanic heritage, similar to what was done to Japanese Americans in the 1940s.
blankx32•2mo ago