Wingate

He certainly does! He runs the White House Grift Shop. He's also Project Manager for what many people are saying will be the greatest ballroom in the history of the planet.

The Venezuelans probably don't have family members living in south Florida, and who have enough money from drug dealing to buy a membership at Mar-a-Lago. The Honduran President is financially elite, as is his family. Wealth erases a multitude of sins. It's kind of like being buddy-buddy with a Prince who ordered the killing and mutilation of a US Person and journalist for WaPo....if your company has 3 major projects planned for the Prince's country, all is forgiven. Oh, and like if you launder money via crypto, even for Hamas, you're a good guy if your company does business with World Liberty Financial, owned by the Trump family. A man's gotta eat after his term ends, you know? Got to fill the coffers while you can.

Wait for the video in full. Even with what has been released so far by the Pentagon, it hardly looks like a major shipment. A major shipment is more the purview of pardoned Honduran President Hernandez. No way that tiny little boat, with 11 people on it, had 400 tonnes of drugs.

The Armed Services Committee will get the entire video and we'll see. As for "had complete authority to do" does not constitute legality. Again, the video will show who might have given authority for a second strike, and such an order had better not note "survivors", because survivors and second strike violate the Pentagon's own Law of War Manual.

So you will ignore the facts I posted about what's in the Pentagon's Law of War Manual? Bad attempt at obfuscation, and makes your screen name seem.....ironic.

Oh, so the Pentagon released to you, personally, the entire video? I had no idea you were so special. I tip my hat. Any sort of JASOC operation is covered from start to finish. The video will begin as the vessel is located and end when the operation is clearly finished. Since you've seen the entire video, please tell us what audio took place as the video showed two survivors clinging to the burning craft. The second strike did not happen on its own. Somebody ordered it, and since you claim to have seen the entire video, please tell us who it was that ordered the second strike. Or maybe you haven't actually seen the entire video and are just behaving in a spurious manner?

Stay on topic. The issue here is how to deal with survivors of a strike. That is where the illegality enters and why "somebody"---Hegseth or someone else---may have violated the US' own rules of war.

No, you do not understand correctly. Is it possible your irrational hatred of non cult members clouds your judgement? First, a terrorist or enemy entity must first be designated by the government, such as "al Qaeda" or "ISIS". Once the enemy or terrorist org is legally established, they can be struck, provided the intel justifies it. Next, the Law of War Manual specifically states how one must deal with the injured or survivors. They are to be aided and rescued if possible, and the operation should have had that as part of its strike plan. The Law of War Manual specifically states that any order to kill survivors is an unlawful order and must not be followed. Does it seem convoluted? Yes. But that is how the US has drawn up its own rules for war. If an order---from Hegseth or the guy the WH is trying to throw under the bus---came to kill the survivors, it is unlawful and prosecution is inevitable. The Pentagon has the full video and audio. The Armed Services Committee in Congress will get the video and investigate. If such an order was given, somebody is going to jail---save for the pardon Trump will give him, just as Trump did to the Honduran drug-runner former President.

Wrong. Obviously you never served. You have no idea what's in the Law of War manual (produced by the Pentagon). The specific example of "unlawful order", which military personnel are obliged to ignore, regards survivors of a strike on an enemy vessel. Survivors are required to be aided and rescued if possible, and any military operation should have as part of its plan how to aid and rescue any survivors.

How ironic, or not so, that in the Law of War Manual that is required reading for all members of the military, the example given of an “unlawful order”, which military personnel are obliged to ignore, is “what happens if during a ship strike there are survivors”. The manual goes on to state that those survivors must be aided and rescued (and a plan should be in place before the operation to address the possibility of survivors). Because of the claims of 2 survivors, the Armed Services Committee of Congress is obligated to investigate, which means getting the complete video showing "two survivors clinging to the burning craft", and the audio of who gave the order to leave no survivors (which would be a direct violation of the US' Law of War manual). Hegseth went on his old network the day after the strike boasting about the strike and that he was involved live during the strike, which he claimed was a narco terrorist boat filled with drugs coming “to poison the US”. His Fox TV appearance is at odds with the statement from WH spokesperson Leavitt. The video of the strike, parts of which the Pentagon has made available, shows 11 people in a small boat with no major cargo, so “filled with drugs” is rather hyperbolic. The military and DEA also know full well that in any major drug running operation, personnel are kept to a minimum for two reasons: to allow more space for cargo, and to limit knowledge of the operation. A major drug runner is more like pardoned Honduran President Hernandez, who was part of an organization that ran 400 tonnes of drugs into the US.

As a never served armchair Rambo, you are unaware of the US Military's "Law of War" manual. Had you read it, as is required for military members, you would see what it says regarding unlawful orders. You would recall that the actual example given in the manual regards what to do if, after a ship strike, there are survivors. The manual states that survivors must be aided and rescued if possible---a pre-attack plan should have been in place in the event there are survivors---and it explicitly states an order to kill survivors in illegal. Now you know.

Lost the plot! Personally, I'll be forever grateful to the man for stopping the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. And that horrific war between Cambodia and Armenia. And also ending an equally horrific war between abajabababastan (Azerbaijan) and Albania. And saving me from the sharks if my electric boat sinks. And does anybody really think Albert Einstein or John von Neumann or Richard Feynman could have answered "Person Woman Man Camera TV"? Trump's a regular stable genius, to be sure. And really, isn't gold leaf in the White House far more important than a concept of a plan re healthcare?

"Biden crime family" LOL!!!!! You MAGAs are such a kick. Let's see.....a &47 from Qatar that couldn't possibly be retrofitted for AF1 use until mid 2028, at a cost of up to a billion dollars, and then on 20 January 2029, at a cost of a few hundred million, get de-retrofitted and turned over to Trump (if he's still alive) for personal use. Three---count'em---three projects in Saudi Arabia. Trump recently entertained the ruler MbS at the White House on the taxpayers' dime, despite SIGINT and HUMINT proving MbS ordered the killing and mutilation of US Person and WaPo journalist Jamal Khashoggi. $2 billion from MbS to Jared Kushner to "manage", despite having had zero fund management experience. Refinance by Qatar, during Trump 1.0, of a $1.2 billion balloon payment owed by Jared Kushner on his 666 5th Ave building. The building had an assessed market value of only $700 million but Jared had $1.4 billion in loans on it. Qatar was under sanctions at the time. "Coincidentally", a week after the refinance, sanctions were dropped on Qatar. A meme coin. His wife's meme coin. Pardon CZ, head of Binance, for money laundering (including for Hamas), as Binance just so happens to do business with World Liberty Financial, the firm run by Uday and Qusay Jr and Eric. His wife getting $40 million for her "life story" from Amazon. Pardon of David Gentile, who ran a Ponzi Scheme that filched $1.6 billion for 10,000 "investors", but who "coincidentally" gave millions to Repub Congressional candidates in the 2024 election. But BIDEN!!!!!! LOL.

You’ve got to love the Holiday Season. Don’t we all have fond memories of joyous times and sweet things with friends and family! Here’s yet another heartwarming story from the land of MAGA . On 20 November, with university out for a few days, Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, a first year student at Babson College, decided to fly to Texas to surprise her family for the holiday. At Boston’s Logan Airport, Ms Belloza was informed there was an issue with her Boarding Pass and she needed to be questioned. Belloza had been brought to the US by her larger family at age 7. Her family feared for her, as she lived in a gang-infested part of Honduras (the nation where the President was just pardoned by Trump despite being part of a smuggling ring that brought 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US). Since age 7, Belloza lived and was schooled in the US, doing well enough to gain acceptance to Babson College upon graduation from high school. At Logan, Belloza was quickly shackled by the brave and courageous agents of ICE and held while arrangements were made for her instant deportation. On the next available the flight, Belloza was flown to Honduras, a land she hasn’t known since a child, with no money and no one there to meet her. Rather than spend the holiday with family in Texas, Belloza found herself in a Honduran airport with nothing and nowhere to go. Happy Thanksgiving! I’m sure MAGAs will have lots of reasons why this makes America great again. I’m sure MAGAs feel much safer now that a Babson College freshman is no longer a threat to them. I'm sure MAGAs will praise the glorious ICE agents who postponed their own holiday celebration to rid the US of a college student, no doubt after ridding the US of all the undocumented Russian Mafia types in Trump Tower NYC and Brighton Beach. If only Belloza had run a Ponzi Scheme like David Gentile, or run drugs while serving as President of a Central American country, or was a convicted money launderer with ties to World Liberty Financial.

Okay, trucky. Isn't it odd that the economy performs better under those "Marxist" Democrats. Go back to the founding of the Republican Party, even before it morphed into the absurdity that is MAGA. Both the economy and stock market historically have performed better under Democrats in the White House. Not a single Republican President has ever NOT presided over the start of a recession. But knock yourself silly with a word you haven't the slightest understanding of what it actually means.

It comes as no surprise that people who belong to one cult join others. It's a personality flaw that makes them weak and vulnerable to charlatans and snake oil salesmen. "Climate Hoax" types are invariably MAGA, because their messiah called it Chinese or Democratic or leftists hoax. None is a climatologist and almost none is a scientist. All are sheeple, led by the siren song of the bloated moron.

"Many people are saying" nobody overreacts like Trump. In fact, nobody knows more about overreacting than Trump. A DOGEr who calls himself "Big Balls" gets beaten up by a 15 year old girl, so Trump sends on the National Guard. One Afghani refugee commits a horrible murder, so Trump bans all migrants from all Third World nations. It Thailand followed Trump's MAGA-approved style.... ---ban all Kiwis, because two years ago a couple of Kiwi brothers roughed up a cop ---ban all Brits because of regular drunken behavior and getting into fights ---ban all Germans, Swiss, Italians, Americans, etc., because some have been caught kiddy fiddling. ---ban everybody who isn't Thai, because surely one outsider from every non-Thai group did something bad Ban all white people from non-Buddhist countries, because they are spoiling Thai culture and never fully assimilate. <attacks on members holding differences of opinion were removed>

With Trump's new immigration policy, I wonder how long it will be before other countries start banning Americans? Turnabout is fair play. Perhaps Thailand should start. Kick out those useless and potentially violent American retirees...those "conservative" gun nuts who now even approve of attacking Venezuela and pardoning a CA President who ran 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US. Ban the whities, as look at what those whities have done to the planet...Imperialism, Colonialism, starting so many wars, with their siily talk of "empires" and the "white man's burden". The good people of everywhere from India to Ethiopia to Indonesia to Myanmar to Vietnam had to rise up and kick out the whities who were spoiling their lands and polluting their gene pool. Keep at it! Send whitey home! I'm sure all the MAGAs, absent their "cashier" wives in Thailand, would prefer to go back to the US and be closer to their messiah and a land quickly being purged of Third World miscreants.

So tell me why Trump released those 5000 jihadis, some of whom had killed US and Coalition forces, and some of whom now run Afghanistan? Those jihadis were not only battle-hardened killers, many were skilled in explosives. One wonders if it wasn't one of them who set off the airport bomb during the withdrawal. That wouldn't have happened if Trump had carried out the withdrawal? Please explain how.

In other words, you have no friggin clue how a withdrawal should have happened. Seems odd that a guy who "ended the Rwandan genocide of 1994", and ended wars between Cambodia and Armenia, and Abajaidiban (sic) and Albania...and who had 4 full years to end the Afghan War, failed to do so.

Yes, I'm sure the former Honduran President just dallied in drugs and weapons trafficking for maybe an hour one afternoon, and then came to his senses. OTOH, there's this guy in the US with 34 felony convictions, a civil conviction for sexual assault, a conviction for charity fraud, and absent a trial, likely a guy convicted of stealing highly classified documents and then lying about it, trying to force a State SecState to commit voter fraud, and even quite likely trying to overthrow 250 years of US democracy. Now THAT screams recidivist!

"Nigh on impossible", eh? There are 77,000 Afghan refugees currently in the US. You now have 1 who committed a heinous crime. That's .0013%. It seems just a few have assimilated rather well. Last time I visited the US i had dinner in McLean, VA, just across the river from DC. Afghani restaurant. Owner and all staff were immigrants from Afghanistan. Restaurant has a Michelin star. Packed to the gills the night I ate there. Enjoyed a lovely Barolo with my meal. Funny thing....the folks working there were uncomfortable under Taliban rule. They had a hankering for a secular society and certainly had succeeded in the US far more than the average MAGA. I'd say "nigh on impossible" is a bit of hyperbole, but hey, racists gonna be racists. Fortunately for many here, Thailand is kind enough to allow Americans to reside here, despite the regular practice of Americans shooting up schools, churches, post offices, etc. A lot of people might think it's "nigh on impossible" to tame such inherently violent people from stone age cultures like Americans.

Uh oh! Looks like plenty of "blame" to go around: "According to CNN, citing multiple law enforcement sources, the suspect applied for asylum in 2024 and was granted it in April under the current Trump administration." https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/keystone-kash-confronted-trump-approving-161241490.html

Vetted as much as any Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Iraqi or fellow Afghani was. I don't recall you cursing Nixon the last time a Vietnamese migrant committed murder. Oh, and some Afghanis were allowed into the US under Trump 1.0. Biden merely continued Trump's practice, as was also the practice of Obama, Bush II, Clinton (former Kosovans)....all the way back to Truman (Koreans who would have been above the parallel). It's primarily the military who pushes for certain people to be allowed into the US. You just want to hate. Knock yourself silly, if hate is all that keeps you alive. You are incapable of understanding gratitude toward allies, something those who served understand.

Calm down, old man. Before you get your Depends in a twist, you might want to know why people like the Afghani are in the US. Also, since you never served, things like gratitude and compassion toward allies are alien concepts, especially since all you live for is to blame "others". First, the Afghan War always was a mistake. After 9-11, the agency warned Bush that any attempt to do anything more than take out the al Qaeda camps would result in a protracted war that could never be won. The Bush Administration was blissfully unaware of Afghanistan history. Perhaps if a few senior members had read something like Peter Hopkirk's book "The Great Game", they would have understood. They might also have paid attention to a familiar phrase that has versions in Tajik, Pushto, Dari and Arabic: "Me against my brother; my brother and I against you". Well, water under the bridge...the US invaded and spent two decades and $3 trillion in a failed effort to impose values on a country where our system is both alien and unworkable. Iraq was even a worse mistake. So when a military action occurs in a foreign land, the US needs the help of local citizens for everything from translation to intelligence to labor. The people who work with us instantly become "traitors", at least to whatever group we are fighting. Their lives, and the lives of their families, are in danger. When such wars end, especially in a loss or tie like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans who worked with and benefited from the locals, want to help people they know full well will be tortured and executed after the US leaves. After Vietnam the US brought in tens of thousands of people who had aided US efforts in Vietnam. The same in Cambodia and Laos. After Iraq, the same. And after Afghanistan, 50-80,000 Afghans were allowed into the US. In each case, there are some bad apples. Some Vietnamese established gangs and criminal organizations which have been involved in drug running, protection rackets, prostitution and murder. Same same Cambodians and Laotians. Some Iraqis are fanatical and are a threat. Some Afghanis are the same. The vast majority of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Iraqis and Afghanis allowed into the US have become law-abiding, peaceful and solid citizens, grateful for the chance. For you to blame Biden or lefties or Democrats for a practice every President since LBJ has followed is hypocrisy. If you want a convoluted excuse, how about this: Blame DOGE. If Musk hadn't hired Big Balls, who subsequently got beaten up by a 15 year old girl, Trump wouldn't have sent in the National Guard, who then would not have been targets of this killer. Sounds silly? Yes. So does your silly MAGA excuse.