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PaperclipPerfector  21hr ago (text post)   2795 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 1, 2025

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https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/white-house-admiral-approved-second-strike-boat-venezuela-was-well-within-legal-2025-12-01/

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/some-us-republicans-want-answers-venezuela-strikes-despite-trump-2025-12-01/

Aaand (after previously denying it?) the White House confirms that a second strike killed survivors of an initial strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat. (Hegseth is joking about it) It even seems the purpose of the second strike was solely to leave no survivors.

Curious that the targeted smuggling boats have large crews, rather than conserving space and weight capacity for drugs...

  1. Anyone have a read on whether or not there are still "Trump is the anti-war President" true believers and, if so, how those people are trying to square the circle?

  2. The stupider this becomes, the more likely it seems that this conflict is a result of Trump's fixation with spoils of war and that he actually thinks we can literally just "take the oil."

Someone online pointed out that 18.3.2.1 of the Department of Defense Law of War Manual reads:

The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal. For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal. Similarly, orders to kill defenseless persons who have submitted to and are under effective physical control would also be clearly illegal. On the other hand, the duty not to comply with orders that are clearly illegal would be limited in its application when the subordinate is not competent to evaluate whether the rule has been violated.

That second strike, if it happened, is literally in the manual as an example of an illegal order that would be a violation of the laws of war. I am as-yet unclear on how involved Trump or Hegseth were in this operation but it sounds like, minimally, everyone in the chain of command between Admiral Frank Bradley and whomever actually executed the strike is, at least, a war criminal.

Interesting that the citation for that section is not to an actual law, but to a post-WWI German War Crimes trial of two U-boat gunners.

Is the DOD Law of War Manual itself a law? Does it get to issue binding commentary? Is something illegal just because the manual says it is?

Legally binding documents:

International Criminal Court Elements of Crimes art. 8 (2) (a) (i):

War crime of wilful killing

Elements

1. The perpetrator killed one or more persons.

2. Such person or persons were protected under one or more of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

3. The perpetrator was aware of the factual circumstances that established that protected status.

4. The conduct took place in the context of and was associated with an international armed conflict.

5. The perpetrator was aware of factual circumstances that established the existence of an armed conflict.

Second Geneva Convention of 1949 art. 12:

Protection and care

Members of the armed forces and other persons mentioned in the following Article, who are at sea and who are wounded, sick or shipwrecked, shall be respected and protected in all circumstances, it being understood that the term “shipwreck” means shipwreck from any cause and includes forced landings at sea by or from aircraft.

I will caveat that the Second Geneva Convention only applies between contracting parties by its own terms, so unless Venezuela wanted to do the funniest thing, it's not clear how binding it would be here. But the United States tends to flip back and forth about whether it wants to apply the same rules regardless, and it'd probably be a good idea.

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