#loac

I'm glad that I waited to respond to this so I could experience the full splendor of this absolute shittiness. Now that we've received disclosures from the briefings which stated that the boat did not radio for help and did not have any surviving weaponry that would possibly render the passengers combatants instead of hors de combat, we now see the toxic influence of what a military can experience when it is led by the notion of performative strength - if we hadn't received that already with the abysmal performance of Russia in Ukraine.

Hegseth's clumsy handling of this situation, first denying it entirely as a fabrication, then embracing the performative strength, only then backtracking to throw field commanders under the bus after it comes under scrutiny, is a perfect expression of the LARP warrior that Hegseth embodies. He wants to showcase his might by discharging his strength, and so he seeks weak opponents so that he might showcase his dominance. Much like how Hegseth needed to brag to his family and lawyer over Signal to receive his performative need for validation, these strikes against drug boats are hollow expressions of strength from profoundly weak men who need to be reassured of their strength.

Everyone from Hegseth on down needs to be grilled on this. The people who performed the strike probably received bad intel when it came to the second strike, which is bad on a lot of levels. It's one thing for civilian leadership to be incompetent, but if in-theater assets cannot trust the operational intelligence that they receive from their leaders because they are pressured to satisfy the petty egos of the people in charge, it undermines the trust and cohesion necessary for operational assets to function on mission.

Hegseth should be arrested and face a war crimes tribunal, and his clumsy deflections of the "fog of war" hold no credibility with me. He said that he watched the operation happen only later to say he wasn't in the room? This is a cowardly cop-out, throwing the military under the bus to preserve his political career. It won't happen of course. Laws only apply to peasants, after all.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

You know the Petstuck story Loophole, the one where John takes in a Vriska and reading the story made you genuinely love Vriska and cry a lot?

What about Unwanted Free Ugly Troll where Dave and Dirk take in Karkat, Sollux and Cronus and reading the story made you genuinely love Cronus and cry a lot?

WELL! If you’re familiar with both/either of those stories, I found one that you might be interested in!:

The Luck of a Clover: It’s the story of Clover, from the Felt, bonding with Gamzee and Kurloz that takes place in the same universe as UFUT and Loophole. 

This story will make you GENUINELY LOVE Gamzee and Kurloz and CRY A LOT!!! 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/649682

First, this is pure barracks lawyer talk. Much of these charges wouldn't apply to me since I was enlisted. Enlisted can't be prosecuted under conduct unbecoming or contemptuous speech.

Retirees are liable for recall and court-martial under UCMJ if they collect retirement pay. Theoretically, you could commit a murder as a freshly-commissioned 2nd Louie, serve for thirty years, retire, then get court-martialed when new evidence comes to light, since there's no statue of limitations on murder. So the legal theory is sound.

The actual charges are spurious, unlikely to be return a referral for court-martial and extremely unlikely to secure a guilty verdict. Article 88 provisions would not apply since there is no explicit senior official mentioned. Article 133 also wouldn't apply, the conduct was not bringing disgrace upon conduct. Article 134, which is a catch-all clause for general conduct, would face a steep prosecutorial challenge. LOAC courses are drilled into everyone's heads and stress that they have an obligation to refuse it.

Now, the Trump defense might try the defense that Kelly and other Democratic Senators are encouraging insubordination of legal orders, but I don't think that passes muster. If a serviceman refuses a legal order, there's already a disciplinary resource for that, and the text of the video doesn't suggest the refusal of legal orders.

To me, this is just another example of Trump attempting to use lawfare to go after his enemies.

Thanks for the question, CC.

We shouldn't get the two issues confused. Wanting to do more to stop drug smuggling into the United States or address the drug crisis does not mandate support of the second strike on the drug boat. This false dichotomy is a big problem in political discourse (anyone remember the old standby: "If you don't support the ACA, you want me to die!" refrain?).

This is not about what should or should not be done in regards to fentanyl. This is specifically about how the military conducts itself in an operation, about adhering to the standards of the laws of armed conflict that is supposed to reduce harm to civilians and keep the battlespace limited to combatants as much as possible. If someone says "I don't care if we waste drug smugglers," refocus the argument, say "Not so fast, we're not talking about that. We're specifically talking about this one action."

Thanks for the question, Anon.

I've said my piece on why I think it's a problem - the erosion of trust in leadership is very corrosive. If someone disagrees I can't make them care. To people who say we need to do more against the drug epidemic, I'd say that this is one of the most expensive and inefficient ways to do it. Moreover, I say simply on the professional soldier argument alone, we should seek to punish our own when we conduct ourselves contrary to LOAC. We have already seen that Russia conducts war criminality as standard course, straight up encouraging and rewarding it, so we should do the opposite, which means bringing down the hammer on criminals.

This all means nothing though, if that's not why people are indifferent. Without actually seeing what the argument is, I can't address it.

Thanks for the question, Anon.