what would have come of the Vietnam era if people could be individually and effortlessly targeted in their daily lives for going against it?
Nothing. The U.S. lost Vietnam, not because it lost battles, but because it offered no governing alternative to Ho Chi Minh that the Vietnamese accepted. Millions of Vietnamese died and still they rejected every colonial gov't the French and then the U.S. tried to prop up.
The U.S.'s power coming from its ability to project organized violence is really a statement about the limits of its power. It can blow up anyone it wants to. It still can't remake other countries as it wishes.
What you're saying makes sense, and I agreem. But I don't think Karp, as he is described in the article, agrees...
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Karp referenced the political scientist Samuel Huntington’s belief that “the rise of the west was not made possible ‘by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion … but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence’.”
-snip-
Karp seems to be using that idea to pat himself on the back for tapping into the stream of money that flows toward "the guns" so to speak.
Does he think about whether the US' global hegemony will flourish under domestic fascism that he's paving the way for?
Because it's very doubtful they're actually transporting drugs at all. The US has presented no evidence of it, and they're well practiced at stopping, boarding, and searching such boats. They could do that here, perp-walk the guilty crew, and photograph them in front of barrels of illegal drugs, but instead they just blow them up and say "trust us". The boats aren't even capable of reaching the US. When they've picked up survivors, they're repatriated them rather than take them to the US for trial.
Also, "narco-terrorist" is a nonsense designation meant to allow the US to apply GWOT methods and tactics against drug traffickers.
Just like the IC story about Iraqi uranium refining was a "slam dunk"?
That's not actually to impugn the US IC, exactly. It's more to call out that the IC can do their job thoroughly and correctly and the powers that be will misuse or misrepresent their work product for their own purposes. Unless you know otherwise, we have to consider (among other things) that the US IC has nothing showing these boats are implicated, but the admin proceeded anyway.
You're assuming a level of adherence to norms, best practices, and laws that the current administration has demonstrated they do not do. They're not even bothering to present weak evidence.
Remember that Saddam was not cooperating with UNMOVIC, and not denying that he was building nukes. It seems crazy that he would do this until you recognize that his power depended upon being seen as strong and defiant of "The Great Satan."
Yeah, it turned out that he wasn't building nukes, but he provably did have WMD (chemical weapons), and had used them.
I don't doubt that GWB wanted "to finish the job" that his father started, and may have influenced the IC into producing "evidence" to support his goals. Obama did the same thing with the "Russia Collusion" hoax.
Most civil servants are stand up people who would never go along with anything illegal or unethical. The politicians are a different breed.
I will agree with this from personal experience. I've worked with several gov'ts on various projects and found almost everyone to be simply interested in doing their job well.
The story of the Iraq War and how faulty intelligence played into it is very different from that view. You have George Tenet, head of the CIA, telling GWB that the intel was a slam dunk for Iraqi attempts to build nukes when there was no such intel. Colin Powell, the day before his presentation to the UN on the Iraqi nuke program, went to Langley and demanded to review the evidence himself. When shown the paltry shreds they'd collected, he blew up at Tenet, saying "this is all you've got?"
Cheney set up his own mini-intel operation in the White House, headed by Douglas Feith, to look at the "raw" intel and construct their own case because the CIA analysts were unwilling to produce a National Security Assessment saying the same. It was 100% a case of the admin claiming that the US IC supported their policies when they did not (and the IC wasn't free to publicly dispute it).
The integrity of the IC is not a reason to believe that any admin has their work product to justify their actions... especially when they won't reveal that evidence.
The problem with revealing the evidence is the risk it poses to the "methods and sources." For this reason, it's highly unusual for CIA to release "raw" intel to anybody. They always want to "process" it. This feature can be exploited by politicians, as it was by President Obama and John Brennan against their political adversaries.
South American governments that refuse to stop the cartels are in effect supporting them. The cartels are powerful, and use any and every means to get what they want. The US recently offered to help Claudia Sheinbaum, and that offer was rejected. Nicolás Maduro is most likely supportive of the cartels because they pay him, and their actions are destructive to his enemies (namely us).
When I was in the Canadian army reserves in 1990, we were told that the operating assumption was that every population centre over 50,000 people was a primary target in a general nuclear strike, in addition to every military base or communications/logistics node.
In the Battle of Kapyong, Korea [0], Canadian forces refused to retreat from their position, delaying advancing Chinese forces long enough to cause them to regroup. The Canadian forces were encircled, and several times called down artillery on their own positions to clear the assaulting Chinese troops.
The fighting helped blunt the PVA Spring Offensive and the actions of the 2 PPCLI and 3 RAR at Kapyong were critical in preventing a breakthrough against the UN central front, the encirclement of US forces in Korea, which were at that point in general retreat, and ultimately, the capture of Seoul.
The race to the highest body count looks like Elon in first, RFK jr. second, and Stephen Miller a distant third but looking like he'll finish strong once the camps are fully operating.
There's apparently an old Japanese saying that goes "Asleep, one mat; awake, half a mat." It refers to the space on a mat that everyone, even the Emperor, occupies.
What are you talking about? CBP has been in Illinois for weeks. Greg Bovino, their commander, has been hauled before a judge this week to testify about how CBP (and he, personally) have violated the judge's TRO against unjustified use of tear gas [0].
This is very basic factual stuff that's in the news every day. How do you not know this is going on?
Nothing. The U.S. lost Vietnam, not because it lost battles, but because it offered no governing alternative to Ho Chi Minh that the Vietnamese accepted. Millions of Vietnamese died and still they rejected every colonial gov't the French and then the U.S. tried to prop up.
The U.S.'s power coming from its ability to project organized violence is really a statement about the limits of its power. It can blow up anyone it wants to. It still can't remake other countries as it wishes.
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