Granted, it is a few dozen bungled policies ago, but remember when we were blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean as part of the administration’s Operation Dude Bro antidrug strategy? Well, the results are in, and they are sadly predictable. From The Washington Post:
In a recent assessment reviewed by The Washington Post, DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire. In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told lawmakers the strikes in international waters off South and Central America had not reduced its purity.
Americans snort way more coke weekly than what could fit on those boats combined anyway.
But was there ever any proof these weren’t just actual fishing boats?
And did they even bother to say they found drugs on the venezuelan oil tanker they seized at that time?
What they did though is proceed to attack Venezuela for its oil.
I’m fairly confident they just wanted to kill poor brown people for fun.
I’m certain of it.
I think they’re a bunch of non-military bros who got the reins to military firepower and thought they could scare off actual soldiers by wielding that firepower like “badasses”. Turns out: nope. Just a war crime.
Exactly, this whole thing wasn’t for nothing, it was for a bunch of war criminals’ egos
Waging a terror campaign on the Venezuelan coast had a number of second-order effects, not the least of which was to destabilize the central government and strong-arm neighboring states into complying with US foreign policy.
You can get a lot of what you want by pointing a gun at someone’s head and barking orders.
But was there ever any proof these weren’t just actual fishing boats?
The proof would have been capturing a boat full of cocaine. Hard to do that when it’s blown to bits and scattered across the bottom of the ocean.
Even if we knew the boats were full of cocaine, the penalty for smuggling drugs into the US is not death. And even if the penalty was death, it would (or rather, should) not be a summary execution without a trial.
These are clearly illegal orders, and everyone participating in these strikes needs to be removed and tried for their crimes, starting with Hegseth, and going all the way down to the man who pushed the button to fire the missile.
Americans
I have a question, are you American?
It was also about forcing armed forces officers to resign who wouldn’t bomb unidentified small boats (and double tap to kill survivors).
This weeds out officers who won’t fire on Americans when it is necessary to complete Trump’s coup.
It weeds out officers who won’t fire on thin pretexts. But it doesn’t do anything to improve the logistics or the communications or the intelligence or your engineering. Most of your army isn’t trigger pullers. That’s a very small part of the overall job.
“We” did not do anything. The US federal government’s actions are so far removed from the will of the people that we might as well considered separate entities at this point.
Don’t fool yourself, nearly half of the US population was either cheering it on, or simply did not care.
The boat strikes? That doesn’t sound probable to me, and since there was no vote taken on it I don’t see where that data comes from. Only the morons occupying the government right now think that what they are doing is just.
They are your representatives. You may not like how your representatives are representing you on the international stage but they’re still your representatives. None of us care that someone is “one of the good Americans.” It’s your country’s leaders that are taking a shit on everyone else and Americans are the only people who can do anything about it. From the outside it seem like although very few Americans like what’s going on, even fewer are willing to do anything about it and expect the rest of the world to do it for them.
Well guess what, Americans did this to America. We’re not coming to save you, we can’t. We’ll be annihilated by the United States if we even suggest we’ll try. You’re on your own, figure it out.
You are right that they are the representatives of the whole country. Which is pretty fucked up. I just want to point out that most citizens (definitely over half) see the murder of civilians as a war crime, and not something that the executive branch should have the ability to do.
We’ll be annihilated if we try to do anything about it too. The only “opposition” our overlords allow is to vote.
I think that’s how US leadership’s felt for a long time. You’re very separate.
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Like it or not if you pay taxes is on you too.
How does one get out of paying taxes on a W2? Just claim tons of exemptions?
What’s a W2?
In the US, for most “employee” type positions (as opposed to an independent contractor) you receive a form (form W2) that shows your total pay for the year and your total deductions. When you are hired you fill out another form (W4) to tell your employer how many income tax exemptions you claim. (More exemptions = more tax breaks). In every W2 job I have worked, my taxes were taken out automatically before I got my check. So your employer kind of “pays your income taxes for you” prior to every check. As far as I know the only way to stop them from doing this is to fraudulently claim more exemptions, which the IRS will absolutely catch onto.
There are other taxes (sales tax, property tax, etc.) which you can absolutely refuse to pay, if you’re okay with the IRS coming after you.
(Apologies if my explanation is slightly incorrect, I’m sure there’s someone out there who can explain it better)
Yea it’s illegal to not pay taxes. If the US bombed a school in france and murdered 150 white kids, not paying taxes to the government and go to jail as a result would sound as being part of the resistance.
Do back to my original question of how does one avoid paying income tax when working a W2 position? Or, now that I think about it, avoid paying sales tax? Places won’t sell to you tax-free unless you have a legitimate exception.
Property tax is easy enough, just don’t pay it.
Do back to my original question of how does one avoid paying income tax when working a W2 position?
you work “illegally” without paying taxes
It wasn’t for nothing. It was to make low IQ mouth breathers think they were doing something. Aggression is always a positive for conservative voters. And the Republican party always needs ways to make it look like they’re doing something of value for the American people while robbing them blind.
You can’t win. There are too many shipping containers, boats, planes, automobiles, an endless stream of commerce with a thousand different points of opportunity.
Every “victory” is Pyrrhic, the tighter you grip the more it will slip out of your fingers. You’re trying to treat a “disease” by controlling only one symptom, not the cause itself.
If you “succeed” in one facet, another will become much worse. For example, the war against opiates is what created the Fentanyl market. Good job, idiots.
Just let it go. Sell it all over the counter and control the quality to reduce overdose. Addicts are better off without you throwing them in dungeons. Leave it alone.
aw pissyboy just wanted to play soldier after talking it so much on fox
No? Really?
/s for the clueless.
You know tone indicators are used by neurodivergent people who struggle to understand intent, right?
I know I’m neurodivergent and am clueless about a lot of social monkey clicks and twitches. Sarcasm and the inability to recognize it has nothing to do with being on the spectrum. Its is more a function of one of the forms of intelligence.
Okay even then the point still stands. You don’t just shun people because they can’t recognize social cues, and you don’t assume they’re any less intelligent for it. It’s just presumptuous.
Not only that, but most cues for the intent of a message are either through tone of voice or body language. It’s disingenuous to assert that there’s no hindrance in the efficacy of communication when being done through a strictly written format. Something your first source lines out explicitly:
Other research has show[n] that sarcasm can be easily misinterpreted, particularly when communicated electronically. In one study, 30 pairs of university students were given a list of statements to communicate, half of which were sarcastic and half of which were serious. Some students communicated their messages via e-mail and others via voice recordings. Participants who received the voice messages accurately gleaned the sarcasm (or lack thereof) 73 percent of the time, but those who received the statements via e-mail did so only 56 percent of the time, hardly better than chance. By comparison, the e-mailers had anticipated that 78 percent of participants would pick up on the sarcasm inherent in their sarcastic statements. That is, they badly overestimated their ability to communicate the tenor of their sarcastic statements via e-mail. What’s more, the recipients of the sarcastic e-mails were also decidedly overconfident. They guessed they would correctly interpret the tone of the e-mails they received about 90 percent of the time. They were considerably less overconfident about their ability to interpret voice messages.
Given the risks and benefits of sarcasm, your best bet is to keep salty remarks limited to conversations with those you know well, lest you offend others—even as you potentially help them think more creatively.
That last argument I quoted can be directly overcome through the use of tone indicators, regardless of “how intelligent” the recipient is.
I get it. You can’t accept I don’t agree with you.
It’s less about you not agreeing with me and more about your opinion being based on false presumptions. You’re entitled to thinking that sarcasm and the ability to detect it is associated with intelligence; I would agree with you on that. But assuming it’s as simple as that without taking into account the method of communication is misleading.
No its not any of those things. Its you not agreeing with me and me not agreeing with you. Just another day ending in Y on the internet. bye.
I mean the whole thing was optics anyway right?
“Trump’s so tough on crime he launches missiles at it” kinda stuff. It’s stupid but his supporters think it makes their side strong. They’re even more about it if the “criminal” is brown.
Conservative voters value aggression. The GOP knows this. That’s why this took place.
i’m mostly mad at the AF drone operators who chose not to miss
I don’t think you can whiff a thermal signature
Edit: but your rage is justified reguardless
I grew up near an afb. Convenient target for rage since DC is all the fuckin way over there
Edit: but sure, those boats were comin right at em
Hellfires are laser guided.
It’s almost like your strategy for the “wAr On dRuGs” isn’t very useful
Didn’t it instead exacerbate the crisis in Cuba that is also the fault of the US?
When the biggest coke heads are in the highest levels of government, the war on drugs is as rigged as a carnival.
Here in America, we do things differently. With the good ol’ rugged pioneer spirit. We shoot first without evidence and ask questions later.
Also, we like the smooth, smooth burn of FARC™️ brand cocaine in our gullets.
He blew up all those boats, and he STILL wanted to touch a peepee!
wait, shouldn’t this guy host tv programs?
“lawful” assassinations, fun explosions and colonial theft make trump, hegseth, and the israeli leadership look “strong” which wins elections. Next step will be to use those methods domestically under the rationales that have worked out. They will use the same sledgehammer for every problem. This was not really about law enforcement.
