We’re just murdering people. That’s my opinion. And yes, I know – a great way to start a cheerful little blog post.
I actually thought about softening that opinion, maybe tossing a few pillows around it so nobody gets uncomfortable. But I can’t. I’m nowhere near an expert on military strategy or drug enforcement or… honestly anything at all. I’m just a regular guy watching the news and thinking, Wait, what? We’re blowing up people in powerboats now? On purpose?
Because that’s what’s happening – boats speeding through the Caribbean or the eastern Pacific, suspected of carrying drugs, suspected of having “narco-terrorists” onboard (whatever that label even means. Lawyer friends – is it even a legal designation?), and boom – literally boom. We think they have drugs. We think they’re the bad guys. We think. We think. We think.
Even if the suspicions were accurate – even if – how is the answer, “Well, let’s just vaporize them”? I hear the arguments…millions of deaths from drug trafficking, terrible consequences, heartbreak across the country. I get it. I’m not naive to the devastation drugs cause. I spent many years working with folks that went to jail on felony drug convictions. Not great stories.
But I keep returning to this question, if we know for certain what’s on those boats, then why don’t we say so? Not to me. I’m just Joe Blow down here in Georgia (no pun intended), but to Congress. Isn’t that the system? Isn’t that the whole point of checks, balances, oversight, democracy? Or did we just decide that the ocean counts as “international waters so rules optional”?
And if we’re fine with this logic, where does it stop? What’s the next step – designating a random car on I-95 as a “narco-terrorist vehicle” and blowing it up? Declaring an apartment complex a “narco-terrorist location” and dragging 2, 4, 8 people into the street because we suspect them and executing them? Extreme? Yes. But extreme helps test logic. And the logic here…does not hold.
We seem disturbingly okay with state-sanctioned death without due process as long as it happens far away, in water, to people we don’t know, whose guilt we assume. And I can’t get onboard with that. (caught that pun as I was proof-reading!)
Here’s the part that hits the motto – Create an environment that allows success to happen. That doesn’t work when the system skips straight to execution. Success – true national success – requires transparency, accountability, due process, and doing the hard, boring work of justice.
You can punish drug traffickers to the full extent of the law. Absolutely. But we actually need law for that. Not missiles and drones.
This has bothered me since the first strikes in September. I finally decided to write about it after all of the attempted justifications since the news of the “double tap” strike. “Oh my, the two survivors were trying to flip the boat back over, we should hit them again.” These guys were just trying to survive. Now, they may be bad guys, may be really bad guys but go get them and bring them to justice. Don’t murder them…they posed no threat at that point.
Quote of the Day – “Hard choices require harder principles.”
One Question – If we’re comfortable doing something far away in the ocean, why aren’t we comfortable owning it here on land?
MattMunnell.com 