Welcome to Thursday, December 18, 2025, the fourth full day of Hanukkah and only one week until the beginning of Koynezaa. It’s also National Roast Suckling Pig Day, definitely not kosher. Which reminds me of a joke. . .
An elderly rabbi, having just retired from his duties in the congregation, finally decides to fulfill his lifelong fantasy–to taste pork.
He goes to a hotel in the Catskills in the off-season (not his usual hotel, mind you), enters the empty dining hall and sits down at a table far in the corner. The waiter arrives, and the rabbi orders roast suckling pig.
As the rabbi is waiting, struggling with his conscience, a family from his congregation walks in! They immediately see the rabbi and, since no one should eat alone, they join him.
Shocked, the rabbi begins to sweat. And finally the waiter arrives with a huge domed platter. He lifts the lid to reveal-what else?–roast suckling pig, complete with an apple in its mouth.
The family gasps in shock and disgust, and quickly turns to the rabbi for an explanation.
“This place is amazing!” cries the rabbi. “You order a baked apple, and look what you get!”
It’s also International Migrants Day, Bake Cookies Day, National Ham Salad Day, and National Regifting Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the December 18 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The Senate passed a bill forcing the government to disclose evidence about the Caribbean boat strikes, and it was by a large margin. There are also enough votes to stave off a filibuster.
A measure in the bill withholds 25 percent of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until he provides Congress with video of the Sept. 2 operation and other materials related to the Trump administration’s unprecedented campaign against Latin American narcotics traffickers. Eleven people were killed in that attack, including two men who survived a U.S. initial strike on their vessel.
The footage is seen as essential evidence as lawmakers seek to determine whether military officials violated the law of armed conflict by targeting the boat’s wreckage with survivors present. Military law grants special protection to people who are deemed “shipwrecked,” meaning they are in peril and not engaging in hostilities. The commander who oversaw the operation has sought to defend his decision to order the subsequent strike that killed the two survivors.
Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where they briefed the House and Senate on the Sept. 2 attack and the administration’s broader counternarcotics campaign. To date, U.S. forces have targeted 25 boats suspected of ferrying illicit drugs, killing 95 people, according to the Trump administration’s public disclosures.
In brief remarks to reporters, Hegseth said he has ruled out releasing the Sept. 2 video, citing a need to protect U.S. military secrets. Members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees viewed the footage Wednesday and spoke virtually with Adm. Frank M. Bradley, who led the operation.
But the legislation also represents the GOP-controlled Congress asserting its authority overU.S. defense policy, after some Republicans have complained that the Pentagon under Hegseth has withheld critical information all year. The bill would force the Defense Department to consult with lawmakers before withdrawingtroops from South Korea and Europe and before restructuring military commands around the world.
The legislation includes other areas of bipartisan pushback against the Trump administration, including measures that extend security aid to Ukraine and the Baltic nations that border Russia. The Pentagon had intended to cancel the initiatives.
Members of some committees in Congress have seen the video but this video will have to be released to every member of Congress, and that means it will eventually find its way to the public. And then, perhaps, we can find out if our military’s behavior was criminal.
*The Free Press discusses whether Luigi Mangione, accused of killing CEO Brian Thompson, could go free. The author is Jed Rubenfeld, a professor of Constitutional Law at Yale.
Luigi Mangione might actually be acquitted.
Not because he’s going to succeed in suppressing the damning evidence found in his backpack when he was arrested a year ago at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
No, if he’s acquitted, it will be because he’s already succeeded in the carnival of American criminal justice. To many, Mangione is a hero. And a sex symbol.
But let’s start with the law. Mangione, who allegedly murdered Brian Thompson, chief executive of the health insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, is currently taking part in a pretrial suppression hearing. His high-powered lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, has invoked the “exclusionary rule,” under which evidence obtained in violation of the Constitution cannot be used at trial.
Mangione’s primary claim is that the search of his backpack violated the Fourth Amendment because the police didn’t get a warrant first.
Inside that backpack, the police found a 3D-printed gun that reportedly matched shell casings found at the murder scene, a silencer, and a highly incriminating handwritten note addressed to “the Feds.” The author of the note says he acted alone and loathes the U.S. healthcare system, singles out “United” by name, and congratulates himself for standing up to corporate greed (“I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty”).
It’s complicated!
If all this evidence is excluded from Mangione’s trial, he’ll probably get off. But it won’t be.
Did the police need a warrant to search the backpack? Maybe so. Mangione was handcuffed when that search took place. And once a person under arrest is secured, the law says that police are constitutionally required to get a warrant before searching any of his belongings that are beyond his reach.
Some courts have held that handcuffing alone is not enough to trigger this rule, because people in cuffs sometimes bolt and even try to grab a weapon from their belongings. On the other hand, if four armed officers force you to lie face down on the ground and cuff you behind your back, courts will probably find that you’ve been secured.
Also, even if there was no valid warrant, courts have ruled that the contents of the backpack would be inventoried at the police station, and the stuff would have been discovered then, and presumably admissable. Don’t ask me how that works. In the end, Rubenfeld thinks that Mangione may go free because he’s a folk hero, as he is to P. Z. Myers, who said, “Acquit Luigi Mangione. His job isn’t done.” It seems that Myers wants more CEOs being murdered.
But this is no ordinary case. Mangione is a folk hero. The GiveSendGo account for his legal fees has raised nearly $1.4 million. And his fans love him not because they think he’s innocent, but because they think he’s guilty. Something is rotten in the soul of the American left. A shocking number of people actually celebrate the murder of Brian Thompson, just as many celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk.
. . . If I were Mangione’s prosecutor, I’d be a little worried. Assuming the case goes to trial—and it might not, because Mangione might eventually plead guilty to avoid the death penalty, which the federal government is seeking in his case—it’s going to be a circus. Some of Mangione’s worshippers could conceivably work their way onto the jury, concealing their adoration. O.J. Simpson was acquitted despite damning evidence. It could happen again.
It’s clear Mangione was guilty, and most legal experts I’ve heard say the evidence will be allowed in. But again, remember the O. J. case. I think he was guilty as hell, but he got off scot-free.
*Bret Stephens’s latest NYT column, “Our petty, hollow, squalid ogre in chief,” should dispel any notions that Stephens is a MAGA man. It’s about Trump’s reactions to the horrific murders of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner:
Though I tend to think it’s usually a waste of space to devote a column to President Trump’s personality — what more is there to say about the character of this petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man? — sometimes the point bears stressing: We are led by the most loathsome human being ever to occupy the White House.
Markets will not be moved, or brigades redeployed, or history shifted, because Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were found stabbed to death on Sunday in their home in Los Angeles, allegedly at the hands of their troubled son Nick.
But this is an appalling human tragedy and a terrible national loss. Reiner’s movies, including “Stand by Me,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally…,” are landmarks in the inner lives of millions of people; I can still quote by heart dialogue and song lyrics from his 1984 classic, “This Is Spinal Tap.” Until last week, he and Michele remained creative forces as well as one of Hollywood’s great real-life love stories. Their liberal politics, though mostly not my own, were honorable and sincere.
To which our ogre in chief had this to say on social media:
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
I quote Trump’s post in full not only because it must be read to be believed, but also because it captures the combination of preposterous grandiosity, obsessive self-regard and gratuitous spite that “deranged” the Reiners and so many other Americans trying to hold on to a sense of national decency. Good people and good nations do not stomp on the grief of others. Politics is meant to end at the graveside. That’s not just some social nicety. It’s a foundational taboo that any civilized society must enforce to prevent transient personal differences from becoming generational blood feuds.
Well, is he a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath, or all of the above? Anybody who applauds the death of someone who is not a bad person but actually did good things, are themselves evil. And we have three more years of this stuff to go.
*The Wall Street Journal reports that “Putin warns he will achieve aims in Ukraine through negotiation or war.” He ain’t in the mood to compromise, either.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow would achieve its goals in Ukraine either through diplomacy or on the battlefield, days after U.S. and European officials met with Ukraine’s leadership to try to hammer out a deal to end nearly four years of war.
Speaking to Defense Ministry officials, Putin lashed out against the previous Biden administration’s stance toward Russia and called European leaders backing Ukraine “piglets” who wanted to feast on the collapse of Russia.
Putin’s speech on Wednesday signaled that the Trump administration’s push to clinch a peace deal hasn’t changed the Kremlin’s war aims in Ukraine. Those include permanently blocking Ukraine’s path to NATO, limiting the size of its military and exerting influence over the country’s political future.
“The goals of the special military operation will undoubtedly be achieved,” Putin said, using the Russian euphemism for the war. “If the opposing side and their foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical lands through military means.”
Putin has sought to engage in President Trump’s peace process, but has stopped short of making any meaningful concessions.
Since Trump embraced a 28-point peace plan last month, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have gone to Moscow to talk with Putin over the terms of a peace deal. The two also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders in Berlin earlier this week.
Trump said earlier in the week that the biggest issue at the moment was getting Russia and Ukraine on the same page regarding talks.
PIGLETS! “Feasting on the collapse of Russia?” What does that mean—approving of sanctions? It is unconscionable that we’re even urging Ukraine to give away a lot of its land to Russia, which has no claim on it, and keep Ukraine from joining NATO. Who does Putin think he is? Well, we already know the answer to that, but the question is how do we stop Putin without starting a nuclear conflict. The West is between a rock and a hard place on this one.
*From the AP’s reliable “Oddities” section, we learn of the huge prices that the last pennies made by the U.S. Mint have fetched:
To those who argue that the U.S. penny had no value: some coin collectors beg to differ.
In fact, they doled out millions for the final pennies circulated in the U.S. before the government ended the cent’s production back in November.
The U.S. Mint sold 232 three-cent sets for a whopping sum of $16.76 million at an auction last Thursday hosted by Stack’s Bowers Galleries.
The 232nd set — containing the last three pennies ever made — sold for $800,000. That bidder also got the three dies that struck those Lincoln cents.
John Kraljevich, director of numismatic Americana at Stack’s Bowers, said it was the kind of auction where you don’t know the items’ market value until people make their bids.
“I’ve been going to coin auctions for 40 years, and I can tell you, I’ve never seen anything like this, because there’s never been anything like this,” Kraljevich said.
. . .Stack’s Bowers President Brian Kendrella said: “They captured the public imagination like few rare coins we’ve ever handled.”
. . .Each set comprised 2025 pennies struck at the Philadelphia Mint, the Denver Mint and a 24-karat gold penny to cap off the end of an era. Each cent also bore a unique Omega symbol.
There were 232 grouplets to reflect each year the coin had been embedded in American culture.
“American culture has incorporated the penny into our lexicon, into our pop culture, into all of this stuff,” Kraljevich said. “And I think for a lot of people, the ending of production of cents for circulation is an item of nostalgia.”
That’s a lot of dosh: over $69.000 for each of the non-final sets. But they’re identified with that Omega symbol, so they’ll be worth a lot more in the future!
Here’s a video showing the last set, including the omega symbol and a special lagniappe item that made the prices jump:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is on a difficult quest:
Hili: Where are you going?
Me: To find happiness.
Hili: Make sure you’re back before dark.
In Polish:
Hili: Dokąd idziesz?
Ja: Szukać szczęścia.
Hili: Wróć przed nocą.
*******************
From Divy:
From Stacy:
From The Dodo Pet:
From Masih: audio of the arrests of Iranian women activists:
These recorded audio clips capture the terrifying early moments of the arrest of several women activists, including Narges Mohammadi, Pouran Nazemi, Sepideh Gholian, Alieh Motalebzadeh, and others who were detained during the memorial ceremony for Khosrow Alikordi.
While many of… pic.twitter.com/5AUhIFWa7I
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 17, 2025
Pictures of the accused shooter who killed two students at Brown University. I think they’ll get him soon with stuff like this circulating:
Investigators are asking for the public’s help in identifying and speaking to the individual shown in these photos who was in proximity of the person of interest.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the tip line at 401-272-3121. pic.twitter.com/DJ26rruuc9
— Providence Police (@ProvidenceRIPD) December 17, 2025
From Malcolm, a lovely video on how deep the oceans really are:
This is how deep and scary the ocean really is
[🎞️ life_laps_official]pic.twitter.com/NdvDLKlrVq
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) November 25, 2025
From Larry the Cat, a poor frustrated kitty:
Happy #Caturdaypic.twitter.com/hRoijzSBWs
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) December 13, 2025
One from my feed: Science girl always has great posts, and look at this example of camouflage!
Insane camouflage of a leaf insect
pic.twitter.com/rc0n7x822s— Science girl (@sciencegirl) December 17, 2025
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
A Hungarian Jewish boy and his sister were gassed to death as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. He was twelve years old. https://t.co/Qj9Qaedx6E
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) December 18, 2025
Two posts from Doctor Cobb. Of this first one he says, “Ascidians: our relatives. They have a notocord as larvae, then become sessile and don’t move again.
A colony of sea squirt Didemnum molle#gili #giliislands #lombok #diving #scuba #trawangan #diveandstay #giliair #ocean #sealife #marinelife #padi #ascidians
Don’t look at the purple stuff and you’ll see a great illusion:
Ok, this is nuts. Once you see it you cannot unsee it. Do you see it?(OP @drgbuckingham.bsky.social )
— Martin Hebart (@martinhebart.bsky.social) 2025-12-16T19:39:21.004Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. -Steve Biko, anti-apartheid activist (18 Dec 1946-1977)
At 1100 EST this morning, the window for a Jeff Bezos sub-orbital New Shepard flight opens at his base in Texas. This flight is of interest because a wheel-chair user is one of the passengers. This may seem silly because at first blush, she should be very comfortable floating in zero-g. But there are safety issues regarding movement such as egress in a ground emergency, securing oneself in zero-g, and who knows what else. NASA apparently stopped its program to investigate these issues on Shuttle. Because I believe the main science derived from “humans in space” programs are the data on the human behaviors and requirements themselves, I am pleased that Bezos is doing this. I still think that these flights carry danger and worry about the people on each one. Best wishes to these souls today. Article in Space.com at url
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/watch-blue-origin-launch-1st-wheelchair-user-to-space-on-dec-18
Interesting! It’s hard to imagine the challenges for the wheel-chair bound passenger. She’ll have quite the story to tell!
At around 1150EST, 50 minutes after planned launch, flight has been scrubbed after a half-hour or so hold for high winds aloft, then an unresolved issue that popped up about just 18 seconds before launch. The access/egress platform was extended back out to the capsule at the last hold. This will be a good real test of safety measures for Michi and crew. No new launch date/time was announced immediately.
Re the visual illusion, without giving it away, I can only ever see one version of the image, not two, unlike the Rubin vase, where both vase and human profiles can be seen alternately. So, for me, this is a poor example of figure–ground perception, although it obviously works for other people.
I don’t see any illusion at all.
It worked for me. But once I saw it correctly, I can’t see it incorrectly anymore.
I hope someone identifies the illusion.
I just see 4 forks.
I went to Bluehair and opened the photo up. Still can’t see it. Damn.
All I get, after staring at the full size picture, is that the forks become background, and the purple towel becomes foreground.
Is that it?
My experience was the opposite. I couldn’t see the forks at all, only the pinkish purple objects. Then I could only see the forks on plush carpet. When I came back to it I saw the pinkish purple objects again briefly and then the forks.
I saw it the other way around – first the purple, then the forks. And the forks pretty much stay put.
If you look at the top of the picture, you can see the tines and then the forks come into focus, look down lower and the purple carpet becomes dominant again
It is no syndrome to recognize the basic crassness and narcissism of the present White House occupant. btw – NY’er here and I have disliked this man since his Howard Stern days, and he has only gotten worse.
Fun. On my iPad I knew I was supposed to see the forks as background but I couldn’t make it happen. Even by imagining the purple shapes as carrots to make them “real”, I couldn’t do it. Then I switched just now to my desktop, scrolled rapidly down through the WEIT to find it, and the carrots popped out appearing as raised three-dimensional objects above the silver background.
The effect reminds me of how craters of the moon photographed by Ranger (and I think the Apollo missions, too) appear in sidelight as pimples and not pits.
(I find the effect is easier to see if you scroll the tines of the forks off the view of the screen so the fork handles are less identifiable as real objects.)
Yes. At first I saw large purple hanging things in the foreground.
I can easily switch back and forth between seeing forks on a purple table and hanging purple thingies in the foreground.
I see four upside down forks on a towel. I stared at it at length, focusing on different parts, but still saw forks.
This evening I showed it to Fr. Doctor Blancke, who saw upside down forks as well. She asked what she was supposed to see. I read some of the responses from here. She said “whatever” and went back to her book.
That, of course, raises the question of what a bad person is. I mourn the deaths of Reiner and his wife, and the terrible way they happened. Some of his movies are among my favorites. I found his politics odious, though, and many of his political statement were blatant falsehoods and would have been defamatory if their targets hadn’t been public figures. It was wrong, from the standpoint of good manners, to call out his Trump Derangement Syndrome when commenting on his death, but he absolutely had it. If Trump thought Reiner was bad, though, was it alright for him to say what he did?
No. Trump should at least have the civility to not dump all over Reiner right after he was murdered. That, at least, is my view.
I agree. Trump is a petty, hollow, squalid, overstuffed man, as Stephens rightly says. And there is nothing insane about pointing this out. Trump Derangement Syndrome, like Islamophobia is not real. Both are inventions aimed at silencing criticism. I can only hope that some Republicans may find this latest revolting behaviour to be the encouragement needed to stand up to him, rather than continuing to lie down with him.
TDS is very real. It is easy to find folks who claim that the election was ‘stolen’. Wikipedia has an entire article on the subject including the following quote from Fareed Zakaria “Fareed Zakaria defined the term as “hatred of President Trump so intense that it impairs people’s judgment”.
Define what “alright” means to you in this context.
Legally it was alright. Trump is allowed to voice his opinion.
Morally? No.
Politically? Probably not since even strong supporters of Trump (including you IIRC) balked at the statement.
Is this a statesman qualified to lead the US if his impulse control is that poor?
No. Trump took the occasion of someone’s brutal murder both to make the event about himself and to insult the deceased. That is in terribly bad taste, but also typical for Trump. I don’t excuse the liberals who cheered at Charlie Kirk’s death either, btw.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” is actually the name that’s been given to the derangement syndrome that Trump is suffering from. Consistent with their backwards perception that in is out and up is down (that a fair election is a stolen election, that an insurrection is simply a tour of Capitol, etc.), the MAGA world insists that it is actually the folks who recognize Trump’s derangement that are suffering from the syndrome.
Absolutely not. Even though it’s a vile thing for anyone to say, he’s the President of the United States. That was an office that was held in high regard and imposed a gravitas on its occupants, a gravitas of utmost importance to the American people and the world. The Orange Toddler has, once again, pissed all over that office and by extension, the American people. That man is not worthy of any kind of respect.
The current occupant is burning the house down, eating the seed corn, and frivolously squandering the capital accumulated over generations by prior occupants. This is a common failing among heirs to wealth, of all sorts. The current Progressive™ occupants of academic and other institutional positions are doing the same. The centre cannot hold….
Anyone care to lay odds on the 25th amendment being used against him?
No need to speculate as amateurs. The actual betting markets give him (as of 5 Dec) a 43.5% chance of not completing his term. This includes death, resignation, conviction after impeachment, and Articles 3 or 4 of the 25th. Article 3 would win the bet if he voluntarily transferred power to the VP before going under anesthesia or after a severe stroke and never regained conscious capacity before his term ended. Article 4 most likely, imho, envisions the new onset of a stroke or evidence of mental or neurologic disorder that he had sincerely no insight into, not anything that’s apparent now. Three years is a long time when you’re 79. I suspect these unknowable future events underlie the probability of exit before 2029. Only if the odds shorten in the coming weeks without any health news can you bet that Article 4 talk is reaching the markets.
I don’t expect to see that probability rise, though, on the basis of an fully-in-character nasty response to the death of a Hollywood figure who hated him and who is only vaguely remembered by old Boomers. The Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee (a Republican) has said he doesn’t think the boat strikes are a war crime, so that’s pretty much the end of that, too, I should think. Medical finding of disability or incapacity requires more than just a diagnosis. It’s not a psychiatrist or opposition politician saying, “Narcissistic personality disorder! Check! Out he goes!” The Cabinet would have to be convinced under medical guidance (of the White House physician plus any consultants he calls in) that what they are seeing in his behaviour showed evidence not just of a diagnosis — everyone has a DSM diagnosis these days — but actual impairment of ability to do his job. These same Cabinet officers would also know that if the Congress didn’t back up their invocation of Article 4, as they would know it surely would not, the reinstated President would wreak terrible political and probably criminal justice vengeance on them. Treason never prospers.
He’s the front runner for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, at 2:1 against. No one else is shorter than 5:1.
https://www.olbg.com/news/donald-trump-betting-specials-odds-nobel-peace-prize-impeachment-presidency-exit
FWIW I think the likelihood specifically that the Cabinet will invoke Article 4 and that Congress will “convict” are just about zero. It wouldn’t be worth betting against it because it would be like betting there won’t be an earthquake here in Ontario tomorrow. (We do get them….) I’d bet $100 and get ten cents in pay-off.
Thanks for the link. But I will not be making any wagers on general not-finishing, whatever the odds. I made a wager like that re Reagan. His near-assassination caused us to cancel it. There is no way I want to profit from a murder.
And, ahem, we old Boomers hold our vague memories dear, given the evident deterioration of our memories in general.
Yes, exactly. Bet only on Article 4 if the odds against term completion shorten from baseline. The baseline includes the death risk, obviously. And don’t bet the total odds. Try to figure the marginal odds that Article 4 will be successful, and bet those. That way if he dies, you don’t win. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience either.
I will check now and then for posted 25th-amendment-ouster odds. Whether they be long or short isn’t an issue for me; I presume the large bookmaking firms have much better info then I do and seek to set their odds accurately, so they can make money (via the spread) on bets either way.
(FWIW I’m not a regular gambler. I got interested in the industry as a teenager, as applied probability theory, reading Scarne’s Complete Guild to Gambling, Thorp’s Beat the Dealer, and other works of that genre. Interesting stuff.)
20 m. only 2% of the ocean’s depth? Someone needs to review their calculations.
Wow! The purple and silver thing is so cool! I’m refraining for revealing the secret so others can experience the transformation.
And Trump’s commentary on Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner‘s grisly death is quote telling, actually re-telling what we already know. His statement doesn’t benefit him; it only makes him look petty and vindictive. Why did he do it? Because he had an impulse that his brain couldn’t squelch. Its a failure of the brain’s capacity for regulatory management—a form of mental illness.
The scurry of his fighting brain-squirrels strikes again.
Are you sure that’s the ‘accused shooter’? I thought there were two people of interest: one wearing a mask and another person who was seen ‘in proximity’.
https://www.fbi.gov/video-repository/brown-boston-timelineupdate-121625.mp4/view
https://www.wmur.com/article/brown-university-shooting-investigation/69799711
Drug-boat strikes. I’m glad to see Congress asserting authority, but allow me to make a prediction: the public will eventually see a longer declassified version of the September 2nd strike video, which will show two men dying while on a disabled craft, and it will demonstrate nothing more than the strength of confirmation bias—no matter on which side of the debate one currently falls.
I’m curious whether there is anyone here who supports the US militarizing the “war on drugs,” to include using lethal strikes against drug-running boats, but believes that the specific strike on September 2nd crossed into illegality. It has struck me throughout that people are pointing at one thing and voicing displeasure (or approval) about another (or both) while hopeless conflating the two.
There is no question that two men were killed. And please allow me to point out that they were no more defenseless in the face of that second airstrike than they were when they—by chance—survived the first strike. The core issue is whether the boat and its nonhuman cargo were legal targets, both before the first strike and after. Strike footage will not resolve that disputed matter.
Some questions that I would like to see Congress pose, both as fact finders and as representatives in a deliberative public body:
What were the rules of engagement (ROE) for survivors on Sep 2?
Were any rescue and recovery assets on hand? Are we legally obligated to provide such assets?
Would it have been acceptable to let the men drown?
Would it have been viable to watch and wait for the vessel to sink? If, in the meantime, an unidentified boat had approached the disabled craft, how could you have determined whether it was conducting rescue or was recovering drug cargo, especially if it attempted to tow the disabled craft?
Were the ROE changed after September 2nd? If so, why? If not, why did we pick up survivors in a subsequent strike?
Have any combatant commanders, to include the recently retired commander of SOUTHCOM, voiced any concerns about the ROE?
Who was in the chain of command between the Defense Secretary and the commander of JSOC on Sep 2? Have USSOUTHCOM and USSOCOM disagreed about appropriate ROE?
And, finally, we have conducted lethal strikes not only in the Caribbean but also in the Eastern Pacific; yet, we are also seizing record quantities of drugs in the latter area by using traditional means: explain to me the perceived value or necessity of this mixed approach in which we destroy some boats, disable and seize others.
Jed Rubenfeld is married to the very famous Amy Chua (“Tiger Mom’). She wrote “World on Fire’” in 2004 (which made her famous in policy circles). Amy Chua is the daughter of Leon Chua who invented part of modern transistor theory and proposed the memristor.