The first is a big deal. All of these boat strikes have been a big deal. The problem is, despite not being at war, and the President not having the authority to declare we are, that’s basically what is happening, and no one with authority is stopping it. However, that makes the nature of these boat strikes “debatable” to some whether they are actions of war, which would make them potentially legal military actions, or whether they are extrajudicial international attacks during peacetime, i.e. murder. They also claim that they have absolute knowledge about who is on these boats, what drugs are on them, where they are going, etc. and are claiming the right to strike them based on these details that privileged knowledge that they arent sharing. This obfuscation makes it harder to call them out on their bullshit even though it really shouldn’t matter anyway, in terms of the legality of the strikes.
However, there is absolutely no legal justification, whether it be an act of war, drug enforcement, border control, etc. of double tapping survivors of a sunk vessel. As has been pointed out plenty, this exact scenario is literally the textbook example of an unlawful order that soldiers should not follow. So this particular situation bypasses that “debate” about whether these strikes are legal in the first place, and bypasses the obfuscation of information about who is on these boats and what activities they are participating in. Those things are irrelevant to the cut and dry fact that this double tap is illegal, full stop, and every level of command and execution of this specific action is culpable for either a war crime or murder. That’s why this is such big news. The certainty.
The first is a big deal. All of these boat strikes have been a big deal. The problem is, despite not being at war, and the President not having the authority to declare we are, that’s basically what is happening, and no one with authority is stopping it. However, that makes the nature of these boat strikes “debatable” to some whether they are actions of war, which would make them potentially legal military actions, or whether they are extrajudicial international attacks during peacetime, i.e. murder. They also claim that they have absolute knowledge about who is on these boats, what drugs are on them, where they are going, etc. and are claiming the right to strike them based on these details that privileged knowledge that they arent sharing. This obfuscation makes it harder to call them out on their bullshit even though it really shouldn’t matter anyway, in terms of the legality of the strikes.
However, there is absolutely no legal justification, whether it be an act of war, drug enforcement, border control, etc. of double tapping survivors of a sunk vessel. As has been pointed out plenty, this exact scenario is literally the textbook example of an unlawful order that soldiers should not follow. So this particular situation bypasses that “debate” about whether these strikes are legal in the first place, and bypasses the obfuscation of information about who is on these boats and what activities they are participating in. Those things are irrelevant to the cut and dry fact that this double tap is illegal, full stop, and every level of command and execution of this specific action is culpable for either a war crime or murder. That’s why this is such big news. The certainty.