A Deeply Fractured US

[Brad Sallows]

Setting aside how utterly bullshit it is to characterize a crime problem as an ‘armed conflict’, the U.S. has now adopted very specific and meaningful terminology in characterizing this as a Non-Internwtional Armed Conflict. In doing so they subject anyone involved in it to all the duties and protections of the Laws of Armed Conflict, and applicable customary international law. Adopting the terminology to enable the things they want it to permit also demonstrates an incremental movement in U.S. state acquiescence to the continued development of surrounding international norms, even if the U.S. isn’t signing on to particular treaties.

That's one frame.

Another is that they've decided they're dealing with Barbary pirates, and they're going to do it the way it was done the last time (in essence).

 

[Brad Sallows]

The fact there is so many tolerating it in the states is wild to me considering how many militia members and anti-government people they have there. Both the left and the right in the states have a vested interest in keeping the military off their streets.

There aren't actually that many military on the streets. When some people complain about riots ruining the country, others explain that the really violent ones only happen in a very few places, and the pockets of rampant disorder (eg. CHAZ) are less than the fingers on one hand, after accidental amputation of a couple. The same observation applies to military on the streets, but the politics of who complains and who excuses are reversed.

 

[Brad Sallows]

.

Oh, I'm sure those backing the president of the USA using the military to fight crime would be behind PM of Canada using the military to enforce the gun buyback.

To do otherwise would be highly hypocritical.

Kind of a dumb take, leaving out the signal characteristic : violent.

 

[Remius]

.

Kind of a dumb take, leaving out the signal characteristic : violent.

Also a dumb take.

Plenty of other violent crime and the military isn’t deployed.

The signal characteristic isn’t being equally applied.

Moving goal posts…

 

[Brad Sallows]

Also a dumb take.

Plenty of other violent crime and the military isn’t deployed.

Correct. They're being deployed where the federal government claims things are above some arbitrary level of "bad" for which they can't really provide a definition, and there's an easily identifiable political punishing-political-enemies nexus they can't wiggle away from which casts highly reasonable doubt on their motives. Possible uses probably exceed resources, but one effective way of dealing with insurmountable social problems is to make demonstrations that encourage others to deal with them. (See also, illegal immigration.)

But the violent crime comes first, often in a context in which the local authorities have as a matter of unambiguously stated policy declined measures which might contain some of it, and equally often expressed open sympathy for resisting federal enforcement of federal laws and leaving feds to deal with resistance. And that's an invitation to feds to take up the challenge. And the feds have soldiers in the toolkit.

 

[The Bread Guy]

U.S.-based Catholic media: private Catholic university in Florida getting a Christ-Kirk statue:

Sculpture of Jesus and Charlie Kirk to be installed at Ave Maria University

The day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, renowned Catholic sculptor Timothy Schmalz began working on a sculpture no one had commissioned.

www.catholicnewsagency.com

Also archived here.

 

[brihard]

That's one frame.

Another is that they've decided they're dealing with Barbary pirates, and they're going to do it the way it was done the last time (in essence).

They haven’t asserted that alternative frame. International law around piracy is very well established and with universal jurisdiction. That would actually be more of an ‘easy button’ to slap if the facts supported it. They don’t, so they didn’t. Instead the administration has specifically chosen and used the terminology “non-international armed conflict’. That’s not accidental, it is legally meaningful. They’ve picked a defined lane on this.

 

[Brad Sallows]

They haven’t asserted that alternative frame. International law around piracy is very well established and with universal jurisdiction. That would actually be more of an ‘easy button’ to slap if the facts supported it. They don’t, so they didn’t. Instead the administration has specifically chosen and used the terminology “non-international armed conflict’. That’s not accidental, it is legally meaningful. They’ve picked a defined lane on this.

I do not expect the administration to choose something they think works for them in international law and use it as a platform of convenience while acting in the way in which so many of them have been talking/writing.