US Military kills 14 in attacks on vessels in the Pacific, according to Hegseth | Hacker News Reader

US Military kills 14 in attacks on vessels in the Pacific, according to Hegseth

theguardian.com

13 pointsbeardyw12 comments

Let’s talk about the fact that we’re sort of ok with these murders. These are extrajudicial killings outside of a declaration of war. I’m not arguing we shouldn’t do it. But let’s talk about the fact of what we’re doing.

> I’m not arguing we shouldn’t do it.

Why not. Most human beings agree this is wrong.

> Let’s talk about the fact that we’re sort of ok with these murders.

If you are, in fact, okay with the murders, go ahead and talk about it.

I'm not, from either a moral, an international legal, or a domestic legal viewpoint, but, you do you.

> Let’s talk about the fact that we’re sort of ok with these murders.

I am definitely not ok with these murders but I know the press is working hard to manufacture popular support for them.

I'm conflicted. The narcotics situation is very bad. At the same time... Can't wait for cartel terrorist attacks in the US. What a time

I don't see how the cartel could win by doing terror attacks in the US. Nobody likes them here. They won't have popular support. The US military will have enormous popular support. This won't be like Afghanistan or Vietnam or anything like that.

> I don't see how the cartel could win by doing terror attacks in the US.

Retaliation (if the attacks were actually impacting cartels at all, which most reports that don't come from the US government cast doubt on) does not require a rational plan for victory. (OTOH, the way they could win by doing that is to provoke a reaction by a government intent on being seen to be doing something about the attacks so that it responds in a way which has either direct [because of poor targeting] or collateral [because of lack of restraint] adverse impacts on uninvolved domestic populations sufficient to make the government campaign unpopular independent of how unpopular its nominal targets are. Of course, this would take an administration that is both unusually prone to poorly aimed violent actions and unusually unconcerned with due process and the rule of law, but that’s exactly what produced the current situation, anyway.)

I'm not conflicted at all. No matter how bad a problem is the government can't just kill people with no due process. That's murder.

The Houthis only managed to kill 7.

If the barrels are full of fentanyl precursor, then the amount of deaths saved by the attacks could be in the tens of thousands.

Helping prevent people killing themselves is not a justification for murdering other people. That is animal.

"If" is doing a lot of work there buddy.

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