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Justice Department Office Which Justified Torture Now Argues For Killing
In 2003 the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Council (OLC) issued a memo which declared the use of torture in ‘authorized military interrogations’ as legal when done under the ‘president’s constitutional authority to direct a war’.
The memo was widely condemned. The Obama administration withdrew it but refrained from prosecuting the torturers which had used it as cover.
The Trump administration now issued a comparable OLC memo to justify its wanton killing of alleged drug smugglers at sea.
Starting in September the Trump administration announced 19 strikes on boats in the Caribbean which have killed at least 76 seafarers. Most of them were random poor people:
One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.
The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs.
The argument of the new OLC memo is even more frivolous (archived) than the torturous reasoning of the former one:
The opinion, which runs nearly 50 pages, also argues that the United States is in a “non-international armed conflict” waged under the president’s Article II authorities, a core element to the analysis that the strikes are permissible under domestic law.
The armed-conflict argument, which was also made in a notice to Congress from the administration last month, is fleshed out in more detail by the OLC. The opinion also states that drug cartels are selling drugs to finance a campaign of violence and extortion, according to four people.
That assertion, which runs counter to the conventional wisdom that traffickers use violence to protect their drug business, appears to be part of the effort to shoehorn the fight against cartels into a law-of-war framework, analysts said.
The true purpose of drug cartels is obviously to make money. There is no evidence that any drug cartel ever has been or is in business because it wanted to create violence.
By framing the military campaign as a war, the administration is able to argue that murder statutes do not apply, said Sarah Harrison, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group and a former Pentagon lawyer. “If the U.S. is at war, then it would be lawful to use lethal force as a first resort,” she said. The president, she argued, “is fabricating a war so that he can get around the restrictions on lethal force during peacetime, like murder statutes.”
There is nobody internationally who will accept such a stupid argument as justification for blowing up random boats at sea.
UN officials have condemned such strikes:
Volker Türk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, has called for an investigation into the strikes, in what appeared to mark the first such condemnation of its kind from a United Nations organization.
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“These attacks and their mounting human cost are unacceptable,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for Türk’s office, relayed his message on Friday at a regular U.N. briefing.
“The U.S. must halt such attacks and take all measures necessary to prevent the extrajudicial killing of people aboard these boats.”
She said Türk believed “airstrikes by the United States of America on boats in the Caribbean and in the Pacific violate international human rights law.”
At the recent meeting of the G7 foreign ministers the French publicly declared that any such boat strikes are illegal:
In what appears to be the most significant condemnation so far from a G7 ally, France’s foreign minister says that the deadly boat strikes carried out by the United States in the Caribbean since early September violate international law.
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“We have observed with concern the military operations in the Caribbean region, because they violate international law and because France has a presence in this region through its overseas territories, where more than a million of our compatriots reside,” Barrot said.
Britain is allegedly withholding some intelligence from the U.S. because of concern about the boat strikes.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denies that but British officials confirmed their standpoint:
Marco Rubio has denied claims Britain stopped intelligence sharing with the US over its strikes on “narcoboats” in the Caribbean.
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It was a “false story”, Mr Rubio said, adding the US had a strong partnership with the UK.
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However, British officials reportedly believed the strikes, which have killed at least 76 people, break international law and agree with an assessment by the UN’s human rights chief that they amount to “extrajudicial killing”.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has likewise stopped intelligence sharing on the issue:
“The fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people,” Petro said on X.
Earlier this fall, Petro accused U.S. government officials of murder, alleging that a casualty of a mid-September strike was an innocent Colombian fisherman.
Anyone in the U.S. intelligence services and military should be aware that taking part in such strikes is a criminal endeavor which may get them prosecuted in international courts.
The OLC memo is a way too flimsy a cover to protect anyone.
An admiral recognized this and skipped out:
Top officers, including Adm. Alvin Holsey, the head of Southern Command, sought caution on such strikes, according to two people, who like several others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
Holsey wanted to make sure any option presented to the president was fully vetted first, one person said. In October, he abruptly announced he was resigning at year’s end, which will be about a year into what is typically a three-year assignment.
More soldiers should follow the man’s example.
‘I haven’t read all the comments so maybe someone already put this up but in my opinion it’s very important news and may help to explain much of what we currently witness in the world and the appalling misconduct of many leaders…’
Speaking of comments, the most popular comment to the article itself is this one:
The «Many headed bloody Hydra»?
The «War Mafia»?
Incredible to see how fearful everyone is of calling out the Jewish supremacists who orchestrated this war in Ukraine.
The dictator of Ukraine Zelensky is Jewish, the prime minister of Ukraine Shmygal is Jewish, the head of the president’s office Yermak is Jewish, the leader of the largest party in parliament Arakhmia is Jewish.
The minister of foreign affairs Sibiga is Jewish.
So are all the oligarchs like Kholomoiski.
The Mossad controlled SBU agents hunt down Ukrainian Orthodox Christian Slavs to send to their slaughter, while allowing Ukrainian citizens of Jewish descent to leave the country legally.
It’s a genocide against the Christian Slavs.
The war in Ukraine was orchestrated by the Jewish supremacist parasites who control the US through AIPAC.
Also their complete monopoly over the mass media in the Western world plays a big role in fomenting hatred towards Russia.
Yet everyone tells us it’s the “European war party,the deep state, the globalists, the oligarchs, the elites, the anglo-saxons, the self proclaimed global grandees, the Insane Europe and the US, the West» and now «the War Mafia» and « the many headed bloody Hydra» instead of naming them for who they really are, Jewish supremacists.
At least Putin mentioned that the entire Ukrainian leadership is composed of «ethnic Jews» but it took years of conflict for him to point to the ones who orchestrated the war in Ukraine.
As if they don’t know that the entire Western world and Ukraine are Jewish supremacist occupied territories.’
– Libertus, 11/13/2025 at 12:56 PM
The responses to Libertus’ comment include agreement as well as pointing out that Russia itself has its own Jewish Supremacist problem.
Posted by: Dan Kelly | Nov 13 2025 23:46 utc | 140
Of course, the attacks on the boats have nothing to do with stopping drug trafficking, which mostly comes into the US from other directions, or even originates from inside the US. It is well established that the CIA was heavily engaged in drug trafficking during the Indochina Wars, and it is not likely that that has changed at all. So all that is coming out of the government is pure hypocrisy and lying.
Rather, the US government wants to assert its right to kill anyone anywhere, and the attacks on the boats are part of that. It wants to normalize its own power to murder anyone, including US citizens, anywhere, including inside the US. That latter point hasn’t been established yet, but murdering people on the high seas is a step in that direction. It is the ending of law by replacing it with brute force, and, yes, the Zionists have also been active in trying to establish that as the new principle of politics and governance in the world.
The attempt to make drug trafficking an excuse to attack Venezuela is also ridiculous. For so many years we heard about the Cali cartel and the Medellin cartel, both in Colombia, and the various gangs of Mexico, like the Sinaloa cartel, are notorious. Those are the major drug sources. So maybe instead of dilly-dallying around with little boats, they ought to bomb Mexico City, and then see what the result will be.
The US assertion of a monopoly of a right of violence against all others can never be accepted and will be massively counterproductive. Obviously, it threatens to ascend the slippery slope of using that violence for other purposes, such as crushing all dissent in the US. That can’t be a formula for stability. It also encourages other countries to behave likewise, and then what is the US going to do about it? The biggest threat is that such an open, vile, outrageous aggression as any attack on Venezuela would be would definitely encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons. After all, why did North Korea get them? Because of constant US threats. So imagine what an actual attack will do. In the not-so-distant future, it is quite likely that Brazil, Mexico, and even Canada will get nuclear armed.
It would be so satisfying, for a moment, to shove nuclear missiles right down the throats of all the imperialists. But unfortunately, that would lead to the annihilation of far more innocent than guilty parties, including ourselves. So there is no solution. The message of the US to the rest of the world is, “Countries of the world, arm yourselves with atomic weapons as fast as you can, then you can be treated like China and North Korea, instead of like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, and now Venezuela!” Probably this proliferation will lead to annihilation in the future, unless God or random luck holds it back.
Posted by: Cabe | Nov 14 2025 4:11 utc | 173
The people being targeted are most likely smugglers of some sort. Tough to say if they were drug smugglers as the evidence is gone with the victims’ bodies, but there are a couple reasons to believe they are likely criminals. Of course, there is the issue of expensive boats. Normal artisanal fisherman stocking up for the morning fish market don’t have the profit margins to support “go fast” boats. Their boats are more workman-like. The point being to have economical and efficient equipment that leaves money left over to buy shoes for your kids.
While these boaters being targeted could be guides employed with taking well-off tourist sport fishermen out to the good spots and equipped with boats to accomplish that quickly and comfortably for their wealthy clients, there is another reason to suspect the targets are not just innocent civilians. There are a couple steps to the logic here so bear with me.
First of all, on a strategic level, the US Empire has no hangups about killing civilians. In fact, that is one of the top objectives of US interventions around the world. The “collateral damage” is not collateral, it is the main point. From blowing up civilians in Germany and Japan in WWII to Obama the Bomber personally picking out weddings and rural hospitals as targets for destruction, blowing up innocent civilians has long been a strategic objective of US interventions around the world as it is intended to demoralize the target people and is used to implement “Shock Doctrine” (look it up if you don’t already know what that is).
Aside: The preferred weapon/tool of the US-based capitalist empire is narrative control, and the Shock Doctrine is used to make target populations more susceptible to imposed narratives that they might not otherwise accept. As an example, the slaughter of innocent civilians throughout the Ukraine in 2014 at the hands of the Nazis was not just some senseless rampage. It was a calculated operation directed by the CIA to induce a state of psychological shock in the Ukrainian population that would weaken them to the CIA-orchestrated narratives being propagated by the completely Mockingbirded Ukrainian mass media.
But while Nazis and ISIS headchoppers are recruited by the CIA from among the dregs of their societies and thus are thugs, criminals, and deviants to begin with, normal military forces tend to not necessarily be predisposed to being psycho killers. The very mystique and honor of military service is based around standing between innocent civilians and harm. It takes effort to get normal troops to commit the criminal acts that “Shock and Awe” require, which is why much of those crimes are conducted with stand-off weapons and aircraft. Furthermore, Nazis and headchoppers can be easily loaded up with drugs that enhance their viciousness against civilians. While that is also occasionally done with normal US troops, it is more difficult to get away with on a large-scale and sustained basis.
The point here is that forcing the military to deliberately target innocent civilians is likely to result in push-back and resistance from that military. Sure, some people sign up for service just for the killing, but many do not. In a narrative environment supportive of the war crimes (Obama the Bomber’s war on terror, for example, where the presstitution industry ran aggressive cover for the crimes and rationalized them) the internal resistance from the troops will be more subdued, and so you will not see so many objectors and whistleblowers. On the other hand, in a narrative environment where the military actions are openly being called into question, truth-tellers and whistleblowers will be emboldened and their testimony more warmly received. You will see more organic opposition from within the military to committing the crimes.
This suggests to me that these are not just regular fishermen being targeted by the US military as that would cause problems with morale and insubordination within the military. The intelligence being provided to the military, while possibly fabricated, must still be sufficiently convincing for the military.
With all of that said, there is a major point that need to be addressed. Why is the imperial presstitution industry failing to fully back the Empire’s military adventure in the Caribbean like they have with literally every single other military intervention? It certainly cannot be due to civilians being killed as that is nothing new for the Empire. While it could be due to the pathology of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which compels the presstitutes to oppose everything Trump does (even when he does the Brer Rabbit/Briar Patch routine with them, they fall for it because it is a compulsion), orders from the CIA organists at the keyboards of the Mighty Wurlitzer should override that compulsion. Presstitutes are just presstitutes, after all, and they will do what they are told.
So then the CIA must itself be opposed to the attacks on the boats. Unlike the military, the CIA revels in the murder of innocents, so what else must there be about the killing of these boaters that concerns the CIA? Perhaps it is their agents who are being killed and their drugs marketable commodities that are ending up on the floor of the Caribbean? It wouldn’t be the first time that the CIA and the US military ended up on opposite sides of an issue.
In any case, one needs to ask what the objective of these attacks are. The scale and location are not conducive to Shock Doctrine. Think the Odessa House of Trade Unions massacre, where bodies of the victims of the Nazi violence were left in view to the public for days after the event in order to maximize the shock value and demonstrate the impunity. The killings of boaters at sea leave no evidence of the crime visible to the public. It is too distant and abstract for any of the supposed target populations to register shock from. If shock were the objective, at the very least far better drone video footage of the attacks would be prepared and released. As is, the attacks have almost no shock value.
As well, if the attacks really are on fishermen, then they are on wealthy sport fishermen and not regular working class fishery workers, who would be using using boats with small and efficient two-stroke outboards or with efficient inboard diesel engines. Maduro’s political base is among the working class, so they are not likely to get very worked up over some elite dandies in expensive boats getting blown up by Uncle Sam. The Empire’s strategists are not so tone-deaf on class issues (they serve the ruling class, after all) to overlook that point. There are lots of people in the world the Empire can kill for the sake of killing if that is their intention, so there must be some other objective beyond just sating bloodlust here.
I’d like to propose the possibility that these attacks actually are on drug smugglers, and that those drug smugglers are agents of the CIA’s off-budget business syndicates. That would make this military operation an extension of the internal rift in the imperial ruling class. One faction in that fight is trying to impair the finances of the other faction to weaken it. As a side benefit to the Empire it justifies a military presence in the area to bully the Empire’s adversaries.
Just something to consider….
Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 14 2025 12:42 utc | 191
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