• Mawks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    318
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    When asked in an interview how drone operators would know if the people being blown to smithereens were actually carrying drugs, he replied: “Same way a police officer would know … Same way somebody operating in Iraq would know. You know, these people in Iraq at the time, they all looked the same. You didn’t know who had a bomb strapped to them. So those guys have to make judgments.”

    Holy F, as a mexican that crosses the border often for vacations… this is extreme and scary

      • alnilam@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        38
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Funnily enough, if you suggest to do the same to people who advocate this approach to let God decide if the approach is good, they’re a lot less enthusiastic

        • Bizarroland@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          It doesn’t make any sense. In heaven, all the good people will have everything they’ve ever wanted forever.

          But when I offer to send everyone to heaven all at the same time, they treat me like I’m a bad guy.

          It just doesn’t make any sense

      • Silverseren@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        At the very least, that is certainly the case right now. All the polls of conservatives consistently show Trump smoking Desantis.

        • NaN@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          1 year ago

          Unfortunately he’s only 44 years old. Hoping he slides into oblivion but I worry he’s going to be flirting around for decades.

          • Silverseren@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            I do wonder if Desantis’ insanity will ever meaningfully affect his electoral chances in Florida or if the boomers there are too far gone to care about the state around them (and their ongoing dwindling Social Security and Medicare thanks to Republicans).

            • DrWeevilJammer@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              ·
              1 year ago

              He’s using a pretty standard tactic for a right wing politician down in the polls: throw increasing amounts of crazy against the wall until something sticks and the polls improve.

              His consultants will call this “calibrating”, to find the right level of insane to match voter expectations and grab media attention for a few cycles along the way.

    • BReel@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      39
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      As a white person from Wisconsin who never crosses the boarder… this is extreme and scary.

    • atticus88th@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Next time you cross just carry an ir strobe and IFF NATO friendly panel on your hood. Should be good to go.

  • flossdaily@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    200
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    How about a new rule that if you vote for a war, you are automatically enlisted. And if you’re ineligible to enlist you must either abstain or vote no.

    • admiralteal@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      73
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Congress members get as many votes for war as they have draft-age family members. For each vote they cast, they must enlist 1 family member. Starting with their own children.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          39
          ·
          1 year ago

          Some of em don’t care about their kids.

          As evidenced by their complete lack of concern regarding climate change.

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        37
        ·
        1 year ago

        Nah just ship the congressmen/women off with the infantry. Then they can see exactly what they’re voting for.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        1 year ago

        Given the low regard for their children and grandchildren they show when it comes to climate change, I doubt that would be an adequate deterrent.

        • flossdaily@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          Senators are (with few exceptions) extraordinarily wealthy. When climate change is destroying crops and making some areas uninhabitable, these senators’ families will still be living very comfortably.

      • Jim@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I see an obvious exploit with this: congress members enlisting family members who would rather vote ‘No’ just so they can get more votes for their own choice.

        You might think “nobody would enlist their child to fight a war that they’re against” but I promise you, there are people like that.

      • bauhaus@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        many have already gladly voted yes for both many times. I don’t think that will stop enough of them.

      • theneverfox@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        We basically had that a century ago, before the nobility moved behind the scenes and became the 1%

        Unqualified scions were sent to the battlefield to gain military merits, which was generally bad for everyone. I’m pretty sure it only really stopped after WWI, when the death toll from combat started getting ridiculous

    • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      39
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Smedley Butler solved this issue back in the 1920’s, change the vote from Congress to eligible draftees to solve us going to war for stupid reasons.

      Then during times of war, lock down every individual’s income and ability to earn money to that of the soldier. Keeping war profiteering from stretching wars on indefinitely.

      It’s radical, but would probably keep us from just “being at war” eternally. A reality we have had to live in since at least 9/11.

      • explodicle@local106.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        1 year ago

        The problem these “add a meta policy” proposals all have in common is that they assume we have any control over the legislature… which we don’t have; they don’t work for us at all. At this point only organizing and other direct action will have any significant impact on actual policy.

        In this particular case, legislators would continue to receive bribe income that they refuse to acknowledge as bribery.

      • TheDubh@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        1 year ago

        The problem is the us hasn’t had a formal declaration of war since WW2. Basically we’ve just had military engagements. Some haven’t even been authorized by congress.

        Basically we’d need to fix that issue before worrying about the other suggestions. Else it’d just be military engagement not a war so don’t need to fallow them.

      • AlexisFR@jlai.lu
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Is the US even still involved in a war since 2021? At least through direct action.

        • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          The Global War on Terror is what it’s called, it’s just a neverending operation of military sorties across the world to support whatever and wherever.

    • NaN@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Unfortunately he was a Lieutenant commander in the Navy. Going back probably doesn’t concern him.

  • afa@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    119
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Slightly misleading, he says that they should shoot at mexican cartels (which are now federally recognised as terrorist organisations) who are using planes and boats to smuggle drugs.

    He’s still a price of shit who wants to eliminate rights though, but it’s always important to get the facts right.

  • masquenox@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    106
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    The US has been waging unprovoked war on Latin America since before WW1.

    The only thing new about this is that this irredeemable piece of garbage is stating the quiet part out loud.

  • Lawliss@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    103
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    This cunt talks about Iraq like he did something there. He was a fucking lawyer 😂.

    • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      101
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Posing as a human rights lawyer and illegally aiding in the torture of POWs at Guantanamo is the best way of forming a valid opinion on Iraq!

      • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Well, he did use his position to gain the trust of gunatanamo prisoners and when they told him what was particularly stressful to them, he passed that info on to make conditions worse for them. Like, a prisoner would tell him “we usually pick the vegetarian option because we think the meat here isn’t halal” and a week later, no more vegetarian food option. Things like that. There’s also a pretty harrowing account of how he oversaw hunger-striking prisoners being force-fed. People screaming and throwing up and shitting themselves in agony and he stood next to that and laughed. I honestly believe that if he didn’t join the navy to live out his murderous sadism, he’d be a serial killer with a collection of human body parts in his basement. Guy’s a complete fucking monster.

    • ConditionOverload@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      49
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Truly don’t think it’s half. It’s just the way our elections and voting works. Every the stupid minority has a loud voice when we weigh votes instead of simply going for popular votes overall.

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        25
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        you can count all the people who don’t vote in the stupid category, so actually more than half.

        • some_designer_dude@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          You need to factor effects from gerrymandering and other forms of vote suppression. I think there’s a lot of wealth trapped in the hands of a few very shitty people, which has allowed them to shape / distort perceptions of just how “popular” their values really are.

        • AlexisFR@jlai.lu
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          With the way American elections are setup, I’m expecting a lot of non voters didn’t have had a choice…

        • ConditionOverload@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Well there’s also a lot of people that can’t vote because they can’t afford to take time off work, especially if they can’t mail in their votes.

        • Bucket_of_Truth@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Remember that a lot of people couldn’t vote. Either because of voter registration rolls getting purged or disenfranchisement from a criminal charge.

      • jorge@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        The second best result ever in terms of popular vote was Trump 2020, only behind Biden 2020. So it is close enough to half of America.

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    82
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Certain groups in the US have been building up to this for a while. They genuinely do want a war with Mexico. They’ve been trying to use drugs as an excuse to do it.

    Here is an excellent video going into this when it all started to get quite serious and AMLO (mexican president) started to aggressively fight back against it: https://youtu.be/3dw1pcDoewY

    He’s also called the american media sphere trying to build up to this fascistic “hitlerismo”, comparing american media to goebbels.

  • edric@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    76
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Dude is trying so hard to appeal to Trump’s base, but it isn’t working.

    • pingveno@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      26
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Same as any strongman leader. Talking tough reliably gets votes from a certain type of voter, even if what is proposed is utterly insane.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        30
        ·
        1 year ago

        If your analysis stops at “some people [enough to sway some elections] are just born wrong and are bad people,” it isn’t a very good analysis.

        The problem isn’t that people are “psychpaths”, it is that they live in an environment where they are told that Hispanic people are a threat, that caravans are “invading” the US to pillage it, and that an invasion like meatball Ron here is proposing would effectively be a counteroffensive.

        • Nagarjuna [he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          28
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          It’s worth looking at how that environment is produced too. There’s a need for cheap labor in agriculture, laundry, hospitality and textile industries that dovetails well with the US’s history of anti-mexican racism (grounded in the need to dehumanizing indigenous people to steal their land as well as the US-Mexico war).

          By controlling people’s movement through the border regime, we can make them willing to take sub-minimum wage jobs, while also keeping Mexico poor through lopsided trade agreements like NAFTA and low level insurgency achieved by escalating the drug war and flooding the country with weapons.

          In this context of US oppression of Mexicans, it becomes necessary to dehumanize them to justify the violence. This is where fox news comes in. Hell, even CNN plays a role by creating categories of migrants some good and some bad, and playing them against each other while justifying border control (think about the rhetoric about dreamers vs drug smugglers).

          To change this environment, we either need to undercut this propaganda by organizing white and brown workers together, or either take back control of media from big business or make our own media with similar reach.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            20
            ·
            1 year ago

            Absolutely, I was just trying to be brief because of it being on lemmy.ml, where an anticapitalist text dump might understandably be seen as a derailment. Still, I should have included more of the “why,” so thanks for your contribution.

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Oh it’s more complicated than that, but getting in to the psychology of fascism involves a lot of typing and there are more articulate authors who have already explained it at length.

          it is that they live in an environment where they are told that Hispanic people are a threat, that caravans are “invading” the US to pillage it

          They already hated us-foreign-policy brown people long before that.

        • zer0nix@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          These people don’t have to be told a damn thing. They suspect the worst of the best, the best of the worst, and when it comes to ‘others’ they have nothing but scorn, even if it’s completely baseless. It seems to be a kind of narcissism.

          “Good people can’t be good because I look bad by comparison. Bad people are good because I look good by comparison. Other people don’t look like me at all and so we must assume the absolute worst…”

          To be fair though, I don’t know how we can sustain illegal immigration of low income workers.

    • bdiddy@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      1 year ago

      The people who support him don’t know he said this… They literally don’t know shit about these people and only watch Fox news which wont air this

        • zer0nix@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m reminded of their support for that random Democrat from Hawaii. Turns out she was anti gay and pro intervention.

          • TheLepidopterists [he/him]@hexbear.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            Tulsi Gabbard is actually a member of a fringe cult that schismed of off the Hare Krishnas, she and her weird cultist dad have switched parties a few times to try to maneuver themselves into positions of political power to advance the cults material interests and ideology. They’re super anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim.

            She’s also an intelligence officer in the US military.

            An incredibly untrustworthy person.

      • new_acct_who_dis@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Dunno why you’re getting downvoted, you’re 100% correct.

        Most people aren’t on social media talking politics or thinking about any of this outside what they might overhear at church, from family/friends, on TV, shared on Facebook.

        • bdiddy@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          9
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yah the people I know haven’t even read a single thing about the “don’t say gay” bill nor have they even read 1 thing about the Trump documents. They call it a political hit job and I ask them about the specifics of the documents that were IN HIS BATHROOM and they legit hadn’t heard any of it lol. It’s because the media they consume actively avoid its.

          I’d argue that MOST of these whackos are so disconnected from reality because all they listen to is pod casts and watch fox news. They don’t read articles written by actual journalists with sources.

  • silvercove@lemdro.id
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    69
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Nothing is more American than invading other countries and murdering their people.

  • style99@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    59
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Before anyone calls this hyperbole:

    Ron DeSantis recently suggested that he would be open to ordering drone strikes on Mexican drug cartels and migrants, whom he accused of carrying drugs over the border. “We’re authorizing deadly force. They try to break into our country? They will end up stone-cold dead,” he said, and he’s not alone. Trump, Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Mike Walsh (R-FL), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Trump’s former deputy secretary of homeland security Ken Cuccinelli have all proposed various military actions in Mexico, up to and including sending in ground troops.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      33
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      He gets off on cruelty. I guess his time inflicting suffering at Guantanamo wasn’t enough, though.

      • BOMBS@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        1 year ago

        Why would anyone ever want the commanding officer of a torture prison to run their country?! What do they think he’s going to do?? It drives me crazy that anyone would want this, let alone even be okay with it.

        • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 year ago

          One of the biggest states in the country has already elected him right up to his term limits too… We’re absolutely fucked as a country

    • macarthur_park@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yikes.

      DeSantis is trying to run to the right of trump. Recall that trump began his 2016 campaign by saying

      ”When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. […] They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”

      I suppose advocating for war crimes is one way to campaign to the right of trump on border security.

      Granted trump also campaigned by calling for war crimes back in 2016, so this isn’t entirely novel for a GOP presidential candidate:

      The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families.”

      But on the other hand, DeSantis was a navy lawyer at Guantanamo tasked with making sure the soldiers followed the law. And we know how well that went.

      As a young navy lawyer, the Republican was posted to the notorious prison camp. What he did there – and his role in the investigation of three deaths – remains controversial

      In summary, when it comes to their policy on war crimes among the top republican candidates for president, Trump talks a big game but DeSantis has the actual experience to back up his “promises”.

      The fact that I could quickly write up this analysis with sources is a damning indictment of these candidates, their supporters, and their enabling political party. What a fuckin’ shitshow.

    • Gsus4@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      And to think somebody can be such a fucking idiot that they make Trump look almost normal. Is this some sort of trick like in France, where Zemmour’s antics were used to make LePen more palatable? Looks like it.

    • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      And they think Mexico will just be ok with us drone striking homes that these idiots think are cartel hideouts? These racists fucks would glass all of Mexico claiming anyone brown is cartel

      • NaN@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        They would relish Mexico trying to defend its sovereignty as a chance to destroy another country and show the world how big their ego is.

      • fear@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        19
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Are you really pretending there’s no difference between assisting a country in defending itself from an aggressor, and starting your own war as the aggressor?

        • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          My comment is calling out republican hypocrisy in calling the left pro war, not literally making that point.

          • Gsus4@feddit.nl
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Sound comment, but unfortunate ambiguous meaning got punished by people who gave you no leeway. In reddit I got a 3-day ban for something like this. Lemmy for the win.

      • BassTurd@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Russia and their ilk are the only ones that are pro war in Ukraine. Libs are pro Ukraine, which involves defending them from the Russian invasion. If at anytime, Russia agreed to (and actually did it) pull all troops including the land they stole, almost all libs would be happy.

        On the flip side, DeSantis wants to start a war and be the aggressor. Support of that is fucked up and deranged, which is why a large number of conservatives support it.

        • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m pointing out republican hypocrisy in calling the left pro war and also wanting to invade Mexico, which was the implication with “in the same breath.”

          • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Pretty sad that there are so many Pro-Russia shills on this site that this seemed like the least likely interpretation of your comment…

      • lingh0e@lemmy.film
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Are you honestly that confused? Do you really think this is some kind of gotcha?

        Russia invaded their smaller neighbor for a made up reason.

        DeSantis is suggesting invading our smaller neighbor for an equally made up reason.

        We don’t like either scenario. I would be just as supportive of Mexico getting military aide from other nations as I am about Ukraine getting military aide from other nations.

      • GreenMario@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        You’re right we should let Putin take everything he wants and stand down.

        Fucking retard.

  • anoncpc [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    51
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is why Trump will win. Trump maybe dumb, but he’s not that stupid to go around telling peoples he gonna invade this and that.

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    50
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    The two biggest things we could do to curb the cartels in Mexico there is absolutely no political appetite for.

    First we need a real federal gun registry database to start drying up the influx of weapons. Almost every gun in Mexico came from the US, almost half of the trace requests come up blank because these forms are all filed on paper in a warehouse that they aren’t even allowed to index properly. The most nauseating thing is the gun Industry is in on it… don’t believe me? Look up (38 Super El Presidente model).

    Second we need to legalize drugs. You can make it so it needs to be bought through a doctor and or psychiatrist, but make all that shit pennies on the dollar. Weed revenue might have dried up, but a significant portion of the rest of their revenue comes from harder drugs.