Posts

On Eve of Illegal Venezuelan Invasion, Pete Hegseth Utterly Destroys His Ability to Lead It

/110 Comments/in , , /by

I think the trajectory of the last few weeks has been lost in the serial disclosures, so I want to summarize them here.

Mark Kelly and five other Democrats made a video reminding service members they can refuse illegal orders

On November 18, Elissa Slotkin released a video in which she and five other former military or intelligence officers — Mark Kelly, Chris DeLuzio, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, and Jason Crow — reminding that they can refuse illegal orders.

One of the tactics Republicans chose to use in response was to demand that the members of Congress describe what illegal orders had been given.

An even stupider tactic was to move to prosecute the six, in Kelly’s case (because his retirement makes him susceptible to such a thing), threatening to withdrawn him from retirement to courtmartial him.

Trump and Pete Hegseth chose to give Kelly, a genuine hero, likely presidential candidate, and far more of a man than either of them, a bigger platform and fundraising draw.

WaPo publishes the first double tap story

The video from the six Democrats was likely focused on orders to target Americans, not Venezuelans (or Colombians or Trinis, all of whom have been targeted in the murderboat strikes); it specifically describes that the Trump Administration is pitting the military and intelligence community against American citizens.

But then WaPo described Pete Hegseth — verbally — giving the quintessential illegal order.

The longer the U.S. surveillance aircraft followed the boat, the more confident intelligence analysts watching from command centers became that the 11 people on board were ferrying drugs.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said.

A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.

The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water.

The initial response to this was the same tactic that has gotten Trump where he is: to attack the press, claiming it was fake.

Trump promises to pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, destroying pretext for war

Meanwhile, Trump totally undercut the premise behind over a year of targeting Venezuela.

There were always problems with Trump’s pretense for the murderboats and planned Venezuelan invasion, which is that Venezuela’s government leads a cartel of narcotraffickers that amounts to an invasion of the United States.

At first, Stephen Miller’s bullshit about Venezuela was rooted in false claims about Tren de Aragua. Perhaps because the Intelligence Community publicly debunked those claims (but not before Miller relied on his bullshit to send 200 mostly-innocent men to a concentration camp, where they were tortured), Miller moved onto a new predicate. Nicolás Maduro wasn’t in charge of Tren de Aragua, Miller decided; he was in charge of Cartel de los Soles.

Tren de Aragua at least exists, albeit not in anywhere near the numbers of slumlord residents as Miller has claimed. It’s not at all clear CdlS does. Plus, if it does exist, it traffics in cocaine, not fentanyl, the claimed invading drug that justifies treating drug trafficking as war (almost no right wing Senators understand this problem, which would be hilarious if it weren’t about to become the new Yellowcake).

But then Trump promised to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who actually did what Trump claims Maduro is doing, who was convicted of it, who was sentenced to decades in prison.

You cannot credibly claim to give a fuck about drug trafficking when you’re freeing major traffickers. I mean, Trump doesn’t care, but the men and women risk their lives and their liberty have to attend to the likelihood they’ll be left holding the bag for Trump’s crimes.

White House concedes the double tap but defends Hegseth

Then, as Congress — led by Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker — begins to investigate the operation, demanding the full video of the strike and testimony from those involved, and as legal experts made it clear that this was not just a war crime, but murder, the White House changed tack. Trump knew nothing, wouldn’t have wanted it to happen, but in fact it did happen but Pete Hegseth didn’t give the order.

While NYT was publishing a story laundering Hegseth’s claims (that he did not specifically order the murder), WaPo was back with quotes from service members recognizing that Hegseth had begun underbussing his subordinates, especially Admiral Frank Bradley.

“This is ‘protect Pete’ bulls—,” one military official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations, told The Post.

Leavitt’s statement “left it up to interpretation” who was responsible for the second strike that killed the two survivors, a separate military official said, imploring the White House to provide clarity on the issue.

One official said of Leavitt’s statement, “It’s throwing us, the service members, under the bus.” Another person said some of Hegseth’s top civilian staff appeared deeply alarmed about the revelations and were contemplating whether to leave the administration.

Hegseth, writing on social media Monday night, said he stands by the admiral “and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since.” His statement is likely to deepen the sense of furor among military officials who suspect Hegseth is attempting to insulate himself from any legal recourse and leave Bradley — whom the secretary called “an American hero, a true professional” — to account for the fallout alone.

Whiskey Pete even posted a tweet claiming to have Bradley’s back while emphasizing that Bradley made the decision.

CIA’s disavowal of Rahmanullah Lakanwal

This comes amid several reports that Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the accused killer of two National Guard members last week, had done terrible things for the CIA, but then was abandoned by John Ratcliffe’s CIA before declining into bouts of depression in advance of the attack.

The struggles to start over, leave the war behind, and find work were ever present. Lakanwal was fired from his job at a laundromat because he lacked a work authorization card despite being approved for asylum and authorized to work by the Trump administration, according to his former unit mate, who fought alongside him for more than a decade.

[snip]

About a month ago, Lakanwal told his unit mate that his inability to work due to missing immigration paperwork meant his family couldn’t afford rent or food. He resorted to borrowing money from friends and former unit members, and during the conversation, he broke down in tears from frustration and desperation, his unit mate said.

“Every time, like looking [for] somebody [to] help for documents, somebody [to] help for pay the rent, he’s not going to work,” the Afghan unit mate said.

His unit mate said Lakanwal sought help in June from a CIA program designed to aid Zero Unit veterans with immigration issues. Rolling Stone reviewed a screenshot of the group chat in June where Zero Unit veterans shared information with a CIA representative about ongoing issues. Lakanwal posted messages asking for help. His last post went unanswered and was deleted by the chat’s administrator.

None of this excuses the killing. It just makes clear that Lakanwal is one of thousands of men damaged by America’s war on terror who needs — in this case, needed — help before something terrible happens. Nigel Edge, the former Marine sniper who shot up a club from his boat in Cape Fear in September, is another one.

Mark Kelly models leadership

Meanwhile, precisely because Trump and Hegseth chose to attack Kelly, he was able to stage a press conference for little other reason than to attack Trump and Hegseth’s leadership failures.

That included addressing the double tap, in which he mostly deferred to investigations, but still upheld the import of international law.

We don’t know how all this will end.

What we do know is that, in advance of a likely demand that service members do something patently illegal, Pete Hegseth has made it clear he’ll sacrifice everyone to save himself.

Share this entry

BREAKING: Venezuela Has Worse Human Rights Problems than Saudi Arabia … ?

/11 Comments/in /by

President Obama imposed sanctions on a number of Venezuelans yesterday, including — among others — the woman prosecuting Caracas MayorAntonio Ledezma Diaz, Katherine Nayarith Haringhton Padron. Apparent intelligence officers seized Ledezma on February 20, and since then, Nicolas Maduro, has been tying Ledezma’s seizure to a purported coup plan launched by exiles in the US, but also using the tools of American hegemony.

President Maduro played the audio of a conversation held between Carlos Manuel Osuna Saraco, a former Venezuelan politician living in New York, and a soldier, in which Osuna dictates the statement that the rebel soldiers should read out during the coup.

The Venezuelan leader informed viewers that he would soon call upon the United States to extradite the suspect Osuna for trial in his home country.

Maduro also noted that in addition to the call from Osuna’s base in New York, there was a second phone call from Miami.

Ledezma was in constant coordination with Osuna in New York via telephone.

[snip]

Maduro also showed a copy of a new “100-day Plan for Transition”, designed by the coup plotters and the opposition, which stipulated a series of measures which would be implemented by the planned governing junta.

The plan would take effect immediately after the coup, calling for early elections and the privatization of all public services.

The transitional government would request all of the current Venezuelan officials to turn themselves into the police within a period of 180 days. It also requested every Cuban worker within the government to turn themselves in unarmed to their local police station.

The plan also contemplated a role for the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to intervene in the Venezuelan economy.

In response, the US has been saying Maduro is making this whole coup thing up, even accusing him of making up some of the intelligence he was showing to make his case.

And then, even while claiming Maduro was making shit up about the US engaging in economic war and using its tools of hegemony to conduct regime change in Venezuela, President Obama used its dominant financial position to undermine Maduro’s regime.

The order imposing sanctions, like all such orders, makes a convoluted explanation for why the US has to use its purported capitalistic tools against foreigners. First, because Venezuela poses a threat to US national security.

I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, find that the situation in Venezuela, including the Government of Venezuela’s erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations and abuses in response to antigovernment protests, and arbitrary arrest and detention of antigovernment protestors, as well as the exacerbating presence of significant public corruption, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

It then defines sanction targets as those who undermine democratic processes, engage in violence or human rights abuses (including — though purportedly not limited to those involved in anti-government protests), those that limit freedom of expression, and those involved in public corruption.

(ii) any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State: (A) to be responsible for or complicit in, or responsible for ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, or to have participated in, directly or indirectly, any of the following in or in relation to Venezuela: (1) actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions; (2) significant acts of violence or conduct that constitutes a serious abuse or violation of human rights, including against persons involved in antigovernment protests in Venezuela in or since February 2014; (3) actions that prohibit, limit, or penalize the exercise of freedom of expression or peaceful assembly; or (4) public corruption by senior officials within the Government of Venezuela;

The fact sheet on these sanctions also argues Venezuela is the among the most corrupt countries in the world (but doesn’t mention that it ties with Yemen, and beats out Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as allies like Uzbekistan — all of also which rank much worse for human rights abuses than Venezuela.

In other words, the Administration is claiming that Venezuela’s corruption and human rights abuses present a much bigger threat to the US than a string of countries we’ve already destabilized that are worse in terms of corruption and human rights, as well as (in the latter category) Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s more severe human rights abuses.

All of which is receiving more scrutiny than it normally would, not least because the claim that Venezuela is a threat to US national security is so obviously bullshit.

As an official whose identity couldn’t be revealed because Obama’s is the Most Transparent Evah™ explained the other day, it’s actually normal for the government to claim that sanction targets are a threat to this country.

So I can start off and say in terms of how unusual this is, most of our sanctions programs began with the declaration by the President of a national emergency that results — that’s a threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.  And so most of the sanctions programs that we have, from Iran to Syria, Burma, across the board, rely on these same types of national emergency declarations.

So in that sense, it’s a usual part of the process.  And we have somewhere between 20 and 30 sanctions programs, depending on the way you measure them, that are based on these same types of national emergency declarations.

Either the same or another SAO insisted that this is not about the US bigfooting in Venezuela.

Can I just also — let me just say that there’s been a lot of commentary about interference in internal affairs of other countries by the Venezuelan government.  The actions we take today are clearly sovereign actions by a country about its own financial system.  These actions we take are sovereign decisions about who comes into the United States.  They’re not actions taken to involve ourselves in another country.

Other countries — notably Russia and China — are both affirmatively rolling out measures to counter our dominance in the financial world, in ways that could significantly undermine our obviously selective choice for sanctions targets. Whatever else these Venezuela sanctions do, they will also likely elicit more scrutiny of just how illegitimate our use of sanctions is (and to a significant extent, has long been).

Share this entry

Edward Snowden’s Extradition Request

/38 Comments/in , , /by

Screen shot 2013-07-06 at 9.31.58 AMAs I noted last night, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro offered Edward Snowden asylum last night. (The Spanish was “hemos decidido” and “he decidido ofrecerle asilio” which included none of the sense of hypothetical that Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega used.)

The government has released the extradition request they’ve sent to the Venezuelan government.

Perhaps the most interesting detail is the date: July 3. Way back when Maduro was (unless I’ve lost track of his chronology), still in Russia or Belarus, and when Bolivian President Evo Morales was making a big stink about being “kidnapped” in Vienna.

Since that time, Maduro finished his visit in Belarus. Flew (presumably with a refueling stop somewhere and possibly a stop at home) to Cochabamba, Bolivia, where at least 6 South American leaders either were personally or had sent a representative (in addition to Morales and Maduro, the Presidents of Ecuador, Suriname, Argentina, and Uruguay were present, Brazils Dilma Rousseff had sent a representative, as had, according to some reports, Peru and Chile).

Then Maduro returned home in time for Venezuela’s Independence Day celebration, where he issued his statement offering asylum.

It appears that after the US issued the extradition request to Venezuela, they issued an arrest warrant to Ireland.

Now, perhaps the US has real intelligence saying that Snowden remains in Russia. But these are the people who were sure he was on Morales’ plane just a few days ago. And they don’t really seem all too sure about where Snowden is.

Update: This is one of the few stories I’ve seen that affirmatively said Snowden was still in Russia after Maduro’s departure, based on a single Russian security source.

Update: And this has more Russian sources stating he remains stuck in Russia.

Share this entry

John Kerry Finally Meets a Close Election He Wants to Recount

/3 Comments/in , , /by

The other day, Hugo Chavez’ successor Nicolás Maduro beat opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski by 2% of the vote. In the days since, opposition figures have sown violence, claiming vote fraud.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Kerry encouraged a recount.

Mr. Kerry, in comments to a House committee, said, “We think there ought to be a recount.” He added that he had not yet evaluated whether Washington would recognize Mr. Maduro’s victory.

This, in spite of a leaked recording of a close Capriles advisor admitting that this result was a political triumph but an electoral defeat.

This, in spite of the fact that when Bush beat Kerry with precisely the same percentage of the vote in 2004 amid reports of (limited) electoral oddities, Kerry chose not to demand a recount.

On November 2, 2004, George W. Bush beat John Kerry 50.7 percent to 48.3 percent. Venezuela’s foreign minister immediately (either that night or the day after) recognized the results: “we will hope that in this second mandate we can improve our relations.”

Fast forward nine years, and Nicolás Maduro beats Henrique Capriles with 50.7% of the vote and the US refuses to recognize the result. “Look, we’re just not there yet,” said a State Department spokesman (who now works for—wait for it— John Kerry). “Obviously, we have nearly half the country that had a different view. And so we’ll continue to consult, but we’re not there yet.”

Most interesting of all is something James Clapper just said in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. In response to a question from Richard Blumenthal about whether there had been fraud in the election, Clapper said (my rough transcription):

There may have been some, but it’s unclear whether it was of sufficient magnitude to merit recount. Right now it doesn’t appear to be.

In other words, even the intelligence says, whatever fraud there was, it wasn’t enough to affect the outcome.

At this point, the Administration’s hesitation at recognizing Maduro and Kerry’s support for a recount do nothing but stoke violence.

Which I can only assume is the point.

Share this entry