A (18:35)
All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So a few short years ago, Vladimir Putin was amassing troops along the border of Ukraine. I remember the debates from that time. Many reporters, geopolitical experts in the region, and leaders with experience navigating Putin were warning that he was about to invade Ukraine. At the same time, many anti mainstream heterodox thinkers accused those warning about Putin of being saber rattling warmongers who just couldn't let go of red scare politics. Well, we all know what happened next. In retrospect, it was also obvious Putin did what he said he would do. The hundreds of thousands of soldiers at the border, they weren't for a parade. We had no real reason to question what was coming. We just deluded ourselves into thinking otherwise. I've been thinking about this period as we watch the events unfolding in Venezuela. The Trump administration is extrajudicially killing alleged drug smugglers off Venezuela's coast, amassing troops in the region have moved the world's largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean and have approved a CIA measure to unseat Maduro. Trump has also declared Venezuelan airspace closed while simultaneously telling reporters not to read anything into it. Well, candidly I'm reading into it. It sure seems like preparation for war with Venezuela. The only potential off ramp the administration has offered at this point is Maduro stepping down. And knowing what we know about the authoritarian leader, that seems unlikely. This is the same Maduro who delivered an address in army fatigues while brandishing a sword that belonged to the independence leader Simon Bolivar, warning supporters to prepare for a confrontation with the United States on land which. Well, that doesn't seem great. Now consider the military leadership on the US Side. Before he was confirmed as Secretary of Defense, I warned about the dangers of putting Hegsetheff in control of the Pentagon. I've supported many of Trump's other cabinet selections, like Susie Wiles or Lee Zeldin or Marco Rubio. And I acknowledge that other picks whom I have ideological differences with are strongly qualified, like Stephen Miller or Tom Homan. Hegseth, however, is different. My concern isn't over ideological differences or a bad confirmation hearing or inexperience, though Hegseth does check all three boxes. I think Pete Hegseth is fundamentally unequipped for the job. He is deeply unqualified, with a preponderously failure ridden record, and is frighteningly ill suited to lead 3 million service members. Everything he's touched has turned eventually to chaos, and it didn't take long for huge controversies to spew out of Hegseth's Pentagon, culminating in several stories involving the mishandling of classified information which led to some of his closest allies declaring him unfit for the job. This was all bad enough, but the events of the last few weeks, they're worse, the Secretary of Defense is now openly, brazenly, unambiguously committing war crimes. If this isn't your first time reading Tangle, you know that I'm not trying to be hyperbolic or sensational. That's just not what I do. Hegseth and the White House have not offered a sufficient response to the explosive Washington Post report, which detailed Hegseth's order to strike a shipwrecked boat a second time to kill the survivors. If the report is accurate, which is so far essentially uncontested, the best case scenario. The best case scenario is that the US Committed a war crime. And it's only a war crime if you buy what the administration is selling, which is that we are at war with drug smugglers off the coast of Venezuela. Congress has not declared war, and we can't be at war with a cartel, so we aren't. It's all very simple, as National Review's Andrew McCarthy explained. Nevertheless, even if we stipulate arguendo that the administration has a colorable claim that our forces are in an armed conflict with non state actors, I.e. suspected members of drug cartels that the administration has dubiously designated as foreign terrorist organizations, the laws of war do not permit the killing of combatants who have been rendered hors de combat or out of the fighting, including by shipwreck. In other words, even if you buy the untenable claim that they are combatants, it is a war crime to intentionally kill combatants who have been rendered unable to fight. McCarthy added, it is not permitted under the laws and customs of honorable warfare to order that no quarter be given to apply lethal force to those who surrender or are injured, shipwrecked, or otherwise unable to fight. I suppose the administration could try to point to some gray area here. Hegseth could argue he has used the word war colloquially in public, while the administration's legal justification is more nuanced. The President has declared an emergency, and as the commander of the armed forces, he can direct the military to defend the country against an organized armed group. Obviously, that would require some proving, and perhaps that's something the Department of Defense is willing to do. But instead, Hegseth responded by calling the Washington Post fake news. This is obviously the administration's reflex. Calling something fake news is akin to an acknowledgment of receipt like thanks for your email or I appreciate you reaching out. What it isn't is a rebuttal of a single fact reported by the Post. Instead, Hegstaff emphasized the strikes were specifically intended to be lethal. Then the White House confirmed that the second deadly strike was deliberate, but pinned it on Admiral Frank M. Mitch Bradley. Before defending the decision, White House press secretary Caroline Levitt insisted Bradley was well within his authority. Again, this is nonsense. The White House is offering no argument to support Levitt's claim, which is tantamount to simply admitting Bradley and or Hegseth committed a war crime. Maybe they've drunk their own Kool Aid, but more likely it's a tactic to make the whole thing look less egregiously illegal and unholy. I hope it doesn't work. It brings me no satisfaction to say all this. My first reaction to the news of these strikes in September was, well, the cartels got what they had coming to them. I nod my head when Trump or his Cabinet members talk about the scourge of drugs that are ruining so many American lives. I want our government to do something to oppose Maduro and drug cartels. I do not feel sympathy for the people who profit off of polluting our streets, whether they're Venezuelan drug runners or Chinese fentanyl importers or the American drug dealers themselves. I've watched them destroy my hometown and so many friends and family members. Yet somehow, even on this front, the administration has made it impossible to support their actions. Not only have they openly committed a war crime, and importantly, nowhere in the United States is there capital punishment for selling or smuggling drugs. But their policy is incoherent. For starters, the administration frames their actions as a war against deadly drugs. But the drug that pours out of Venezuela is cocaine, not the opioids or fentanyl that has ravished American communities. And no, this is not an endorsement of using cocaine. Secondly, the administration is being pretty selective with how they oppose South American cartels. Just this weekend, Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, who was literally convicted of colluding with the cartels and trafficking drugs into the United States states. Third, the quote unquote plan here seems to be forming. While the strikes are happening, subsequent strikes have allowed survivors to return home, another tacit admission of guilt, and shifted from the Caribbean to the Pacific, which, by the way, has always been the route through which most of the cocaine is smuggled into the country from Venezuela. And this entire package of actions is now wrapped up in the very real possibility that in a few months time we'll be in a hot war with a South American country, undermining one of the fundamental promises of Trump's campaigns. And that has always made him so appealing. This whole episode is deeply upsetting and disappointing. It makes me feel ashamed and sad for the soldiers forced to carry out these orders, and even more affirmed in my initial position that Hegseth shouldn't be anywhere near a military authority.