Dem
47
GOP
53
Again, neither Mark Kelly, nor any of the other five Democrats, offered any specifics as to what illegal orders they might have in mind. And when they have been asked about the matter since releasing the video, they have basically demurred. But they clearly think there's already a problem, or that there will soon be a problem. Otherwise, why record and release that video?
The obvious area of concern (at the present) is the various attacks on civilian boats in the Caribbean. And even if the six Democrats are not saying openly that the strikes are illegal, there are plenty of others who are willing to say it. Indeed, if you had to pick one person who would be THE expert on whether the strikes are not legal, wouldn't that be the senior judge advocate general for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami? That person is Col. Paul Meagher, who issued an opinion that the strikes are indeed illegal. This opinion was reviewed by lawyers within the White House, who are undoubtedly crackerjack experts in both military and maritime law. Amazingly, with Donald Trump sitting a few hundred feet away, they decided that Meagher doesn't know what he's talking about, and the strikes are perfectly copacetic.
How about another opinion? The British know a thing or two about the laws of war. After all, they made many of them, and they've broken all of them. His Majesty's Government has taken a long look at what the Trump administration is doing in the Caribbean, and is not happy. So, the Brits are now withholding intelligence gathered in the Caribbean, because they do not wish to be party to illegal attacks on civilians.
Even the Trump administration itself has indirectly signaled that it knows the attacks are illegal. There have been at least a dozen strikes so far, resulting in more than 80 deaths. However, there were a couple of survivors recovered after one of the attacks. If the Trump administration was telling the truth, and these people are drug kingpins (or mules for drug kingpins), then surely the White House would want to detain these men and interrogate them for information about their activities and their network, right?
Instead, the U.S. government hustled them back to their home countries (Colombia and Ecuador). The reason is plain: Their continued presence in the U.S., and their detention at the hands of the administration, would have triggered court cases that would have raised difficult (and unanswerable) questions about the legal authority under which Team Trump is operating. The only way to avoid dealing with those questions was to send the two men home.
It really could not be clearer that the administration is operating outside the bounds of the law right now. It won't be easy to put a stop to it anytime soon, since the (slight) majority of the 535 people who have the power to do it are more than willing to look the other way. The only good news, such as it is, is that the voting public overwhelmingly opposes the attacks. According to Reuters/Ipsos, 51% of voters are opposed, while only 29% are in favor, which means "opposed" is +22 points. And the margin is even higher among independents, at +31 points (53% to 22%). So, maybe this will cause some of those look-the-other-way members of Congress to find their spines. Failing that, maybe it will cause some of them to lose their jobs next November, to be replaced by people who WILL try to rein the administration in. (Z)