This smells of the whole WMD Iraq situation.
"It's true... trust me, bro!"
Trump is basically like a chimpanzee, pushing buttons on a panel at this point to see what will get people to like him.
I can't... I can't wholly condemn this though. And this will likely be my last post on this issue because I admit I am somewhat biased. I know how crafty the people in the drug trade can be. How it affects the lives of people who have to be in that environment. They are not above using innocent people to mask what they're doing. They literally would send pregnant women across the border from Mexico carrying packs of cocaine inside them because they thought no one would be suspicious. There's a reason these South American countries are so corrupt. Because the drug trade makes more money than anything they could make as an entire country through legitimate means, because places like the US are eager and willing buyers. So everyone in those countries is up for sale. Why sell coffee when you can make 10,000x more selling cocaine?
They do not play by the same rules that the UN plays by. And are all too willing to hide behind it to make their billions. Putting someone on trial is a noble thing... but in Colombia, judges literally had to wear balaclavas to mask their identities so they wouldn't get taken out by the cartels for presiding over the trial of a narcotics trafficker. A lot did anyway. Usually by a bomb of some kind. Go look at Pablo Escobar's war on his own country. That tells you how scary these people are when there are vast sums of money involved. They are not above using every dirty trick in the book.
Morality is great when everyone has the same idea of it and plays by the same rulebook. The US has been trying to take out the merest sniff of narcotics trafficking for over 40 years. They were just never as open about it until now. It was all secret ops by the CIA and DEA. Trump is just doing it for upvotes.
Part of me doesn't agree with it. You need better intelligence. You need to know who you're shooting at before you pull the trigger. To just say "trust me, bro!" isn't enough. But part of me thinks that you do need to pull the trigger, in some form. I don't like slippery slope arguments because it's a logical fallacy. You have to look at each issue on its own. Not "If you tolerate this, your children will be next." We already know Trump is not above going after Trans people. If anything, this latest thing is the lowest rung on the ladder.
The last thing I will say is that law doesn't work for the lawless. It just doesn't. Like I say, for something to be fair, you all have to play by the same rules. Sometimes that just isn't the case. Money, for some people, is more important than life. And they willingly sacrifice life to make money.
My Colombian friend tells me over and over that the US and the "West" plays by a whole different set of rules than the people they're trying to bring to "justice". Her uncle was beheaded and hung up from a motorway overpass as a message to deter people from defying the drug cartels. That was the last straw in her fleeing her country. I say this because sometimes you just can't see everyone as equal, when they don't see themselves as equal.
If people know that the US is going after these so-called "go-fast boats" and "narco-submarines" then if you're not in that line of work... just don't use them. If you know you're going to have a target on your back if you do... why would you? That's like saying "oh, hey, they're shooting everyone who flies a kite... let's not fly a kite for a while because if we do it's going to get shredded."
I don't trust US intelligence to have got it right, because they have form to just try and blow up whoever and whatever, but I also don't condemn them for trying to do something to stop this poisonous practice. "Imminent threat to life" is something said by people sat behind a desk, in an expensive suit, who have never had to face a longer term threat to many lives.
I will auction my soapbox now if anyone is interested, lol.
