I'm sorry, but WTAF?!?

[davidgillon]

 I haven't been able to bring myself to actually read the new US National Security Strategy, but according to reports the highlights from the European perspective appear to be:

Adoption of the White Supremacist "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory as official US Government policy.

The US must therefore divorce itself from Europe because some European states might become non-White* majority in the future. (I think the appropriate description for this triumph of logic is utterly barking, the EU states average 5-15% non-EU born citizens, and that includes Brits nowadays, the only exception is Liechtenstein, and that has a population of 40,000, plus the whole international banking and financial services hub thing going on). 

Apparently the US has to protect Europe against 'civilizational erosion' by working to undermine the EU and further the Far Right, because protecting your population against racial hatred is contrary to the sacred principle of free speech.

Meanwhile, South of the Border, they're reinstating the Monroe Doctrine because apparently the South American states need an American guardian to tell them who they can have relations with.

As I said, I'm sorry, but WTAF?!?

 

* They don't actually say 'non-white', but they're fooling no one.

Comments

[sovay]

I haven't been able to bring myself to actually read the new US National Security Strategy

Neither have I, but various pieces of its horrific idiocy have been filtering across my friendlist and none, none of this needed to happen.

Also ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Don't forget shooting at any ship in the Caribbean they feel like sinking, allegedly for drug trafficking. Bit hard to proof when the evidence has gone up in smoke or down to the bottom of the sea.

[lokifan]

JFC. Truly nuts, in a way that's even scarier than Trump 1.

Re: Also ...

[davidgillon]

Oh, I've been following that story, and IMO the follow-up strike on survivors in the water* definitely counts as a war-crime, the Western powers hung several German and Japanese commanders after WWII for massacring survivors in the water. But it predates the New National Security strategy.

* And I'm far from convinced any of the strikes are legal.

Re: Also ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I don't consider any of them legal. Summary execution is not okay. You have to prove that a specific person is committing a specific capital crime, in your territory.

Even if a boat belonged to drug runners and was loaded with drugs, there's a high chance that it contained humans whose job was purely maritime rather than illegal. There might even have been hostages or conscripts on board. There is just NO way to tell from a distance that no innocents are in the field of fire.

I agree that firing on survivors in the water is also a war crime.

An exception would be if a boat fired on your equipment, personnel, or people then you would be justified in shooting back. Or if a visibly armed ship of war approached your territory, you could warn it off, and if it didn't stop then you could fire on it.

But even those don't excuse murdering survivors in the water, because once removed from an armed vessel they cease to be a credible threat. Even leaving them to drown is bad, and illegal if you're close enough to scoop them out. I'm less sure of whether it is considered acceptable to sink a ship from a distance, know that there are survivors, and do nothing. Someone at least could've notified the nearest port if they couldn't be arsed to pick up the alleged criminals.

>>But it predates the New National Security strategy.<<

I think these are part of a stepwise progression of violence, particularly since there are other clusters of activity that involve testing people's tolerance for abuses and then increasing the pressure as far as they can get away with. I tend to watch for patterns and connections across different incidents.

Re: Also ...

[davidgillon]

You have to prove that a specific person is committing a specific capital crime, in your territory.

Not if they're legally an enemy combatant (note the 'legally', I don't believe that point has been established). If they're an enemy combatant then they shift to the laws of war rather than the laws of the state or international maritime law, and it's perfectly legal to target them if they're a functional part of the enemy. I think someone on Trump's team thinks he's come up with a clever legal dodge, I don't believe international war crimes tribunals will agree, but the US is actively hostile to having any foreign jurisdiction prosecute its personnel, even where they actually have jurisdiction (this has been the situation for years, it's not simply a Trump thing).

Re: Also ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Not if they're legally an enemy combatant (note the 'legally', I don't believe that point has been established). If they're an enemy combatant then they shift to the laws of war rather than the laws of the state or international maritime law, and it's perfectly legal to target them if they're a functional part of the enemy. <<

I thought that required declaring war first, or conversely, being invaded, to activate the laws of war.

Re: Also ...

[davidgillon]

Effectively that's what the US did when it declared drug smugglers enemy combatants.

Re: Also ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

But they didn't go through the process of declaring war. I've seen threats but no formal declaration, which makes it not legitimate.