The War Crimes Were the Purpose

I am not surprised that the Trump administration's program of targeted assassination in the Caribbean and the South Spear have not slowed drug shipments to the United States.

This is not a surprise.  The goal of this program was never to interdict drug shipments.  It's goal was to murder innocent fisherman for in order to generate the illusion of toughness.

The Trump administration’s deadly military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats have not reduced the amount of cocaine entering the United States, but they’re prompting criminal organizations to develop new strategies and tactics and undermining traditional investigative methods, according to a previously unreported assessment by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a closed-door congressional briefing and interviews with current and former U.S. and foreign officials.

It's all posturing and politics and corrupt murder. 

Headline of the Day

When Pete Hegseth Says “Lethality” He’s Talking About Killing Iranian School Girls

—Dean Baker, stating the obvious about what it means when SecDef Hegseth brags that our military not be constrained by "Woke" rules of engagement.

I’m going to give our “Secretary of War” a little credit. I will assume that even someone as openly bloodthirsty as Hegseth would not deliberately blow up a school building filled with little girls. But this tragic accident, that led to the death of at least 165 Iranian girls between the ages of 7 and 12, was the direct result of Hegseth’s policy.

The main point of the “woke” rules of engagement that Hegseth has constantly derided, and told the military to ignore, is to prevent tragic accidents like the bombing of a girls’ school in the middle of the day. The rules are designed to try to minimize civilian casualties. 

You give Hegseth more credit than I would.  I think that the Trump administration likes the idea of killing civilian noncombatants. 

There is Hope for Justice After All

Of all the horrors of colonialism, the Belgian's behavior in the Congo was among the worst, from its initial days as the private property of king Leopold to its post-colonial actions, when Belgian authorities orchestrated the coup against and the subsequent murder of the duly elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.

This happened 65 years ago, but finally, Étienne Davignon has been charged with murder and crimes against humanity.

Unfortunately, the 93 year old former diplomat is the only person still alive who can be charged.

A former Belgian diplomat, 93, should stand trial over alleged complicity in the 1961 murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what was then the newly independent Congolese state, a Brussels court has ruled.

Étienne Davignon, the only person still alive among 10 Belgians the Lumumba family accuses of involvement in the killing, is charged with participation in war crimes.

The decision, which follows a surprise referral by the Brussels prosecutor last June, can be appealed against. Davignon, a former vice-president of the European Commission, has denied the charges.

In a statement the Lumumba family welcomed what they called a significant step: “For our family, this is not the end of a long

………

If the trial goes ahead, Davignon will be the first Belgian official to face justice over the assassination of Lumumba 65 years ago. In its decision, the court went beyond the prosecutor’s decision, extending the scope of the trial to cover Lumumba’s associates, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, who were murdered alongside him. 

Davignon is accused of participating in war crimes on three counts, according to information provided by the court of first nstance in Brussels:

• The illegal transfer of Lumumba and his associates from Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to Katanga.
• The “humiliating and degrading treatment” of the men.
• Depriving them of a fair trial.

Maybe one day we'll see this in the United States.

I Was Today Years Old When I Learned This

I have been aware for some time of the term, "Perfidy," which is used as a synonym for disloyal or treacherous, what I did not know was that it was a specific term used in the context of the international laws of war, and that when the Trump administration fired missiles at fishermen to distract from Jeffrey Epstein from a plane in civilian markings, they had violated this law.

Even if one accepts Trump's claims that this is a real war, which makes you a blithering idiot, they are still required to follow the laws of war, so in addition to the double-tap strike on men clinging to the remains of a boat, the whole attack constitutes a war crime.

If there is another Presidential election, and there is a Democrat elected, not prosecuting the rat-fucks would be a betrayal of the Republic.

The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.

The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump “determined” the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.

But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called “perfidy.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, a former deputy judge advocate general for the United States Air Force, said that if the aircraft had been painted in a way that disguised its military nature and got close enough for the people on the boat to see it — tricking them into failing to realize they should take evasive action or surrender to survive — that was a war crime under armed-conflict standards.

There should be trials, but I do not think that there will be trials, because our elites are terrified that accountability applied to the most perfidious of them will eventually be applied to them as well.

Nixon gets his pardon, Obama says that we have to look forward, not back, and our country continues to circle the moral drain. 

Wagging the Dog

First, I would note that anyone relying on US mainstream media for their information is a moron. 

Between the Epstein files, persistent concerns about his health, and plummeting poll numbers it's pretty clear why Donald Trump authorized the abduction of Nicolas Maduro and his wife and strikes on Venezuela.

It had nothing to do with drugs, particularly not Fentanyl.

The fact that Trump has also explicitly stated his goal was to steal Venezuelan oil is part of that as well.

Maduro is now in custody in the US (Update: MDC Brooklyn.)

Trump is claiming that the United States is, "Now running Venezuela," though I would think that the Vice President of Venezuela and their Defense Minister differ on this matter,

The US attacked Venezuela and captured its long-serving president Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, with Donald Trump promising to put the country under American control for now, even as Venezuelan officials vowed defiance.

As part of a dramatic overnight operation that knocked out electricity in parts of Caracas, US Special Forces captured Maduro in or near one of his safe houses, Trump said.


With Maduro in US custody, “we will run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition”, the US president said during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

“We can’t take a chance that someone else takes over Venezuela who doesn’t have the interests of Venezuelans in mind.”

………

But a few hours later, the president’s claim was undermined by Rodríguez, who, in a televised address, maintained the critical tone adopted by all members of Maduro’s cabinet since the first reports of the US bombardment.

She described the US attack as an “unprecedented military aggression”, and demanded the “immediate release” of Maduro and his wife. The Venezuelan people “are outraged by the illegal and illegitimate kidnapping of the president and the first lady”, Rodríguez said.

The Venezuelan vice-president insisted that the country “will never again be anyone’s colony – neither of old empires, nor of new empires, nor of empires in decline”.

She also echoed an argument repeatedly made by Maduro before his capture: that the real objective of the four-month-long US military pressure had never been a supposed “war on drugs”, but rather “regime change” and the “seizure of our energy, mineral and natural resources”.

With little in the way of US ground troops in the area, I'm not sure how this is going to play out.

I'm with what Atrios said, "Look forward to Venezuela defense and retaliation being portrayed as criminal aggression."  (His hed, "Mommy, he shot me back," is prize).

Even if the current regime in Caracas capitulates, there is a very good case that it all goes pear shaped, with insurgencies and a possible civil war.

The Democratic Party House Minority Leader, part 1


The Democratic Party House Minority Leader, part 2


And the always simping to the Cuban diaspora in Florida Debbie Wasserman Schultz While Maduro is not a popular figure in Venezuela, the former eletes are even less so, so their return, accompanied by US companies seizing control of their oiil and other natural resources, will not result in any US occupying force being, "greeted as liberators,"if just because the first thing that any leader installed by trump will do is roll back public healthcare and social safety net provisions that were put in place by Chavez.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) is doing what they always do, and basically caving, and soft pedaling the whole thing.

Guys, you don't have to spend 60% of your talk saying how bad Maduro was.

This act, a war of choice, is against the war powers act and against the Constitution of the United States of America.

Presenting this is just some concerns about some Congressional prerogatives being stepped on is weak, stupid, and bad politics. 

In related corruption news, it appears that someone close to the Trump administration created an account on the Polymarket betting site and netted a quick  $½ million.

Econoimists can blather all they want about the value of predictive markets, but this is just corrupt as hell.

In the best of circumstances, betting on world events for fun and profit on marketplaces like Kalshi and Polymarket is an innocent way to make reading the news a little more interesting. Unfortunately, some suspect there are rascals out there who want to ruin it for everyone else by placing unfair, insider bets with the potential to corrupt the motives of powerful figures and their advisors. So with that in mind, when I say this next thing, I don’t want you to be suspicious:


On Friday, something that very much looks like a brand new account on Polymarket plowed $30,000 into bets on the toppling of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. By the very next morning, when Maduro was suddenly no longer able to act as president of Venezuela anymore due to having been dragged out of his bed by the U.S. military and spirited out of his country, that account had apparently bagged $436,759.61 according to Axios’s Herb Scribner. It’s not spelled out where that number is coming from, but an archive.ph snapshot being circulated on social media places the amount at $407,920.12, so either way, this lucky person made a lot of money off their totally wild guess.

About the only thing clear in this entire thing is that, to paraphrase Mitchell and Web, the USA is the baddie here,

One thing that is certain though, we are going to see a wave of migrants heading toward the United States to get away from this developing mess.

I wonder how that will play to Trump's MAGAt supporters. 

Torture Comes Home

Ice is using CIA torture techniques against detainees at Alligator Alcatraz, and possibly other immigration detention centers.

We are not talking about water boarding, (yet), but rather locking people in tiny boxes for hours on end.

One of the most horrific torture methods that the CIA employed in its post-9/11 incommunicado "black site" torture chambers was the Confinement Box.

Not many detainees in CIA custody experienced the Box. The most prominent of them is the man known as Abu Zubaydah, the first CIA detainee post-9/11 and someone the agency used as a guinea pig for all who came into their custody later. What follows is not pleasant reading.

For 20 days in August of 2002, after the Justice Department approved a proposed CIA menu of torture including something it called "cramped confinement," Abu Zubaydah was subjected to what the Senate intelligence committee's 2014 inquiry called "enhanced interrogation techniques on a near 24-hour-per-day basis." While the intensive waterboarding the CIA visited upon Abu Zubaydah has forevermore defined whatever passes for the popular understanding of his torture, the waterboarding was by no means the limit of what the CIA did to him.

On his first day of the August torture, after agency torturers slammed Abu Zubaydah's head against a concrete wall, they removed his hood "and had Abu Zubaydah watch while a large confinement box was brought into the cell and laid on the floor." A CIA cable records that they placed the box on the floor of the interrogation room "so as to appear [to be] a coffin." No one can misinterpret that message. But because the CIA was interested in driving the point home, its personnel at the Thailand black site known as Catseye or Detention Site Green "told Abu Zubaydah that the only way he would leave the facility was in the coffin-shaped confinement box."

A CIA medical officer—don't be fooled by the title into thinking they were there to help the detainees—cabled that Abu Zubaydah's liturgy of torture "progress[ed] quickly to the water board after large box, walling and small box periods." ("Walling" is using a rolled-up towel, positioned behind someone's neck and held on either side by someone in front of them, to slam someone's head into a wall.) The large box was the coffin. According to the Senate report, during those twenty days, "Abu Zubaydah spent a total of 266 hours (11 days, 2 hours) in the large (coffin size) confinement box and 29 hours in a small confinement box, which had a width of 21 inches, a depth of 2.5 feet, and a height of 2.5 feet."

………

I say all this because the following description appears in an Amnesty International report released Friday into the conditions of confinement for migrants at Alligator Alcatraz:
The four men interviewed by Amnesty International, as well as Florida-based organizations, told the organization about the ‘box’, described as a 2x2 foot cage-like structure located outside in the yard of “Alligator Alcatraz” where individuals are sent for punishment. Individuals are put in the ‘box’, their hands are shackled and their feet are attached to restraints on the ground. They are unable to sit down or move positions, and are forced to remain there for hours in the heat with hardly any water or protection from the sun, heat and insects. According to a man seeking safety, “People ended up in the ‘box’ just for asking the guards for anything. I saw a guy who was put in it for an entire day.”

A "2x2 cage-like structure… [an] extremely small space that prevents sitting, lying or changing position" has dimensions startlingly reminiscent of those the Senate documented in the black sites. The major difference is that in Florida, the Small Box is exposed to the elements and constructed as a barred cage, whereas in Catseye, it was a closed structure inside the larger closed structure of the black site. And in Florida, the box is used as punishment. According to one of the Alligator Alcatraz survivors in the Amnesty report, people were put into the box simply for alerting the guards to someone's need for medication. "They were taken to 'the box' and punished for trying to help me," the person told Amnesty.

………

Here we have Florida jailers using CIA-pedigreed torture techniques on migrants accused of being in the country without proper authorization, a civil, not criminal, violation. I have many questions about whose idea it was to import the confinement box to Alligator Alcatraz. But in the absence of answers to them at present, I submit to you that its appearance here, structurally speaking, is the direct result of there being no criminal or even substantial political penalties for the architects of the torture program, either at Langley or within the Bush administration. When there is no consequence for torture, torture will persist, going into abeyance—at most—until politically empowered sadists reach for a tool of domination. The lack of consequence ensures it is a matter of time before people who owe their positions of authority to declarations that they seek to dehumanize the vulnerable play a sick game of Well, if we did this to these Terrorists there, why not to these other Criminals here…

(emphasis original)

Every last one of these motherfuckers need to spend the rest of their lives in a 2 foot by 2 fit box. 

This is Fucking Depressing

According to leaked documents, the reason that the Trump administration is blowing up survivors clinging to the boats that they have sunk is because do not want a federal lawsuit filed against them.

Every time I think that I have become too cynical, these rat-fucks continue to exceed my capacity for pessimism, which is not an easy thing to do.

The Trump Administration’s murder-in-international-waters program debuted far ahead of its legal rationale. Many people inside the administration were blindsided by this sudden escalation. Those expected to stay on top of these things — military oversight, congressional committees, etc. — found they were even further behind the curve than the late-arriving “justification” for extrajudicial killings of alleged “narco-terrorists” that used to be handled by interdiction efforts that left everyone alive and anything of value (drugs, boats, weapons) in the hands of the US government and its foreign partners.

This was something new and horrible from a regime already known for its awfulness. Even after the belated (and then hastily revised) justification was delivered by the Office of Legal Counsel, it was difficult to see how the US government could justify extrajudicial killings of alleged “terrorists” who were — at worst — simply moving narcotics from point A to point B.

………

To be clear, this administration doesn’t actually care whether or not it engages in murder or other acts of violence. What it does care about is allowing the killing to continue for as long as possible before the system of checks and balances finally gets around to dialing back the murders a bit.

A recent article from the New York Times gives the game away, even if the lede gets a bit buried. The headline mentions a White House “scramble” to “deal with” people who survived initial extrajudicial killing attempts. In one case, two survivors were rescued by the US military after failing to die during the initial strike. The White House said they should be sent to El Salvador’s torture prison. The State Department — currently headed by Marco Rubio — said this simply wasn’t possible. Both survivors ended up being sent back to their countries of origin.

What a surprise.  That fucking paper buried the lede.

Important Context

For all the furor over what is clearly a war crime, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth's extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean in the name of drug interdiction, it should be noted that these sorts of activities are in fact routine for elements of the US foreign policy and state security apparatuses.

From at least the Bush administration, and including the Obama years, so-called "Double Tap" strikes were routine. (Yes, I know, it's Matt Taibbi, who has gone f%$#ing nuts, but the point still stands)

This was where an attack was launched, and when first responders approached to provide aid, they were targeted as well. 

Taibbi, as is his wont, makes his story (what I can read, I don't subscribe) about Democratic Party hypocrisy, but the bigger point, and one that he misses, is that the entire US polity, regardless of party, has been aggressively engaging and encouraging war crimes.

War crimes at the heart of American empire, regardless of who is office, and there will be payback.

You Need to Read This

I just read this essay on the shooting of the two National Guardsmen in Washington, DC, and you should do.

The thesis is that the shooting was not about terrorism, nor was it about immigration.

Rather it was about a kid who was recruited by the CIA into a death squad, and that this came over to the United States with him.

………

The shooter was a 29-year-old Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal. He worked for us. For a decade. He was part of what the CIA calls a “Zero Unit”—paramilitary forces trained and backed by American intelligence. Human rights groups have another name for these units: death squads.

According to the New York Times, a childhood friend of Lakanwal’s said he “suffered from mental health issues and was disturbed by the casualties his unit had caused.” His family told investigators he has PTSD from the fighting he did on our behalf.

We trained him to kill. We pointed him at targets. We made him part of a unit known for brutality. And then when the war ended and the Taliban took over, we brought him here—and apparently did nothing to address what we’d done to his mind. 

………

Lakanwal served in a death squad. American veterans were sent to Iraq to kick down doors, raid homes, and kill people’s families. They were sent to Afghanistan to call in drone strikes on wedding parties. They served at checkpoints where the rules of engagement meant shooting first and asking questions never. We ask human beings to do inhuman things, and then we act surprised when they can’t just switch it off.

The evidence is overwhelming: what we make people do in these wars destroys them. And destroyed people do violence. Doesn’t matter if they were born in Kandahar or Kentucky—the damage is the same. 

This is Manifestly a War Crime

Remember when I said that the obligation of servicemen to refuse illegal orders required that the order be, "Manifestly Illegal?"

The classic example of a war crime, both in US military training materials and in international protocols is machine gunning survivors of a ship sinking, whether floating in the water or on a life boat.

This is manifestly illegal, and Hesketh ordered it, SOCOM commander Admiral Frank Bradley relayed the order to command officers in the area, and everyone in the chain of this command, including whoever pulled the trigger, is guilty of a war crime.

So is anyone who had the opportunity to protest these manifestly illegal orders and did nothing .

This is not up for dispute. 

We executed German U-Boat sailors following WWII for doing this. 

Officials in Congress and the Pentagon said Monday they are increasingly concerned that the Trump administration intends to scapegoat the military officer who directed U.S. forces to kill two survivors of a targeted strike on suspected drug smugglers in Latin America, as lawmakers made initial moves to investigate whether the attack constituted a war crime.

The Washington Post reported exclusively Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken order to kill the entire crew of a vessel thought to be ferrying narcotics in the Caribbean Sea, the first of nearly 20 such strikes directed by the administration since early September.

When two survivors were detected, the military commander overseeing the operation, Adm. Frank M. Bradley, directed another strike to comply with Hegseth’s order that no one be left alive, people with direct knowledge of the matter told The Post. The Trump administration has said 11 people were killed as a result of the operation.

In addition to prosecuting everyone even remotely in the decision chain for this, perhaps breaking up SOCOM, which has had a spate of criminality in its ranks in the past few years would be advisable.

Dick Cheney has Died

While his legacy is profoundly troubling, since he has recently died, I would like to provide a summary of all the good works that he did in his political career.

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That is all.

 

Quote of the Day

To That, My Semi-Sardonic Response Has Been to Say That It Is Indeed Very Important That Initiatives like These Not Be Presented as “Rewarding Hamas” -- They Must Instead Be Framed as “Punishing Israel”.

—The Debate Link on accusations that the UK, France, et al recognizing israel is a reward for Hamas' attacks on October 7.

Israel is a Democracy, and in a democracy, a nation and its people have a responsibility for the leadership that they elect. 

That they have repeatedly elected a psycopath as a leader reflects directly on who and what Israel is.

To those of you who ask, "So, what does this mean about the United States and Donald Trump?", I respond, "Pretty much the same thing." 

This has been true since 2004, when George W. Bush was reelected. 

Another Trump Murder in Venezuela

Another boat sunk, and once again, no evidence is provided to support Trump's accusations.

Even if they were true, this would still be a murder, and even if the justification is that Trump declared war on them (he can't he needs Congress), the followup strikes constitute strafing people in lifeboats. 

It was a war crime when George Herbert Walker Bush did it in WWII, and it's a war crime now. 

What is really going on here is that Trump is attempting to provoke a reaction to justify an invasion of Venezuela. 

Not What I Expect from the Cato Institute

They just published a report documenting that at least 50 of the deportees sent to the Salvadoran gulag were in the country legally.

As Stephen Miller (יִמַּח שְׁמו), "Law, schmaw, we want to deport brown people."

At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the United States legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute.

The report, published by the libertarian thinktank on Monday, analyzed the available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), and focuses on the cases where records could be found.

“The government calls them all ‘illegal aliens.’ But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point,” Cato said in its report.

………

“The proportion isn’t what matters the most: the astounding absolute numbers are,” reads the report. “Dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their status and imprisoned in El Salvador.”

There needs to be trials of the Trump administration for crimes against humanity.

This Makes Me Smile

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is in  International Criminal Court custody in the Hague for his role in directing the summary executions of thousands of his fellow citizens.

He's guilty as f%$#, and there are many hours or recordings where he brags about his ordering the extra-judicial killings.

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was taken into custody by the International Criminal Court on Wednesday following his arrest in Manila on murder charges linked to his "war on drugs" in which thousands of purported dealers and users were killed.

The ICC said in a statement Duterte was "surrendered to the custody of the International Criminal Court. He was arrested by the authorities of the Republic of the Philippines...for charges of murder as a crime against humanity".

The 79-year-old arrived at Rotterdam airport on a chartered plane earlier on Wednesday. He will be brought before an ICC judge in The Hague in the coming days for an initial appearance, the statement said. He was transferred to a detention unit on the Dutch coast.

Duterte, who led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, will face allegations of crimes against humanity for overseeing death squads in his anti-drugs crackdown. He could become the first Asian former head of state to go on trial there.

There are, of course, many other heads of state who should be chilling their heels in The Hague, including many former Presidents of the United States, but I don't expect that to happen.

Not a Surprise

It appears Donald Trump is concerned that the International Criminal Court is interfering against his constitutional right to commit crimes against humanity.

Truth be told, this has been the official position of the United States since well before the creation of the ICC, that US criminality is our God given right, so this is not so much a departure in policy as it is saying the quiet part out loud:

Donald Trump has signed an executive order that authorises aggressive economic sanctions against the international criminal court (ICC), accusing the body of “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting the US and Israel.

The order grants the US president broad powers to impose asset freezes and travel bans against ICC staff and their family members if the US determines that they are involved in efforts to investigate or prosecute citizens of the US and certain allies.

Truthfully, if the ICC had any meaningful power over the United States, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would be spending the rest of their lives as cell-mates.

Expect US lawlessness to continue unabated.

Another War Criminal Has Died in His Own Bed

Jimmy Carter has died at the age of 100.

As I have noted, I consider Jimmy Carter to be a war criminal for the evil that he inflicted on Afghanistan.

He and Zbigniew Brzezinski bought a civil war in Afghanistan just to f%$# with the Soviets.  Brzezinski admitted as much in an an interview with the Nouvelle Observateur in 1998.

This was about 5 years after the Vietnam war had ended, with the deaths of 1.4 million Vietnamese civilians.

So massive destruction and death was almost a certainty when this decision was made.

1.5 million Afghan civilians died from 1978 to 1992, though it could be argued that the casualties after 1992 are also a part of Carter's toxic legacy.  (There is also about 200,000 additional casualties after 2001, but who's counting?)

And then there is the whole creation of the whole global Jihadi movement, and some unpleasantness in New York on September 11, 2001.

It should be noted that Carter is not alone in this sort of foreign interventions, nor is he alone in the long term failures that resulted.  (Look at Iran, Chile, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Syria, Guatemala, Nicaragua,  Indonesia, Iraq, Congo,  Dominican Republic, Brazil, Angola, East Timor, Argentina, etc.)

Credit where credit is due, he did not cash in after he lost the 1980 election the way that his Democratic successors did, but that is kind of like saying, "Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play."

Kind of Like Watching Your Mother-in-Law Driving off of a Cliff in Your Brand New Car

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu. (יִמַּח שְׁמו)

I have noted many times that I consider Netanyahu to be the single greatest threat to the continued existence of the State of Israel, and that I also note that he is a shanda far di goyim (שאַנדע פֿאַר די גויים).

If there is any justice in this world, Netanyahu will spend the rest of his life in prison.

I do not care if Netanyahu is imprisoned in The Hague, or Ktzi'ot Prison, or Tehran, he needs to be locked up.

It Must Be Election Season

After two decades of dysfunctional, and possibly illegal proceedings at Guantánamo Bay, authorities cut a plea deal with three of the alleged leaders of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Lloyd Austin has revoked the deal.

I have no doubt that the people in question are guilty as hell, but it is also true that the proceedings, both in the sham courts at Gitmo and before that in the CIA torture sites, have so polluted the proceedings that no credible trial is possible.

Unfortunately, because someone is concerned about the inevitable attack ads, they only possibility for a resolution has been unceremoniously dumped:

The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, has revoked a plea deal for the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and two other defendants, reinstating them as death-penalty cases, according to a memo sent to Susan Escallier, who is overseeing the war court proceedings.

The short-lived deal came 16 years after prosecution of the three men began.

On Wednesday, Escallier announced that she signed a deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two of his accomplices, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi. Defense lawyers had requested that the men receive life sentences in exchange for the guilty pleas.

In Friday’s memo, Austin argued that due to the “significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority”.

………

News of the original plea deal elicited sharp criticism from Republican lawmakers, including Mitch McConnell and JD Vance, who decried the deal, and the New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who accused the Biden-Harris administration of betraying the American people.

This is simply cowardice.

Headline of the Day

For the Rest of the World, the U.S. President Has Always Been Above the Law

—Foreign Affairs

This is a commentary on the disgraceful and corrupt Supreme Court ruling on Presidential immunity for Donald Trump.

It's true, as any wedding party droned by the United States can attest to.