On September 2, the US government claimed that military operators acting on its behalf murdered 11 foreign nationals aboard a boat in international waters off the coast of Venezuela.

I say “claimed” because Venezuelan communications minister Freddy Ñáñez suggests that a video of the murders released by the US government is an AI-generated “deepfake.” Regimes lie, and it’s not obvious which regime is lying in this particular instance.

But let’s assume that US regime officials, including US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and US secretary of state Marco Rubio, were truthful in their claims.

If so, it’s reasonable to also assume they’re truthful when they claim that these 11 murders are just the start of a “campaign,” and that the US government intends to “blow up and get rid of” (per Rubio) even more victims.

When someone credibly confesses to murder, announces an intent to commit further murders, and clearly possesses the means to do so, it seems to me that whatever law applies should be brought to bear.

Under 18 U.S. Code § 1111, “Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, Whoever is guilty of murder in the first degree shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for life; Whoever is guilty of murder in the second degree, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.”

Said jurisdiction is defined in 18 U.S. Code § 7. It includes any vessel or aircraft belonging in whole or in part to the United States, meaning that the military personnel involved in the murder mission are themselves criminals … IF the law is applied.

Similarly, the entire chain of command, all the way up to US president Donald Trump (who has publicly admitted to approving the crime) are clearly on the hook for “conspiracy to murder” under 18 U.S. Code § 1117 … IF the law is applied.

Unfortunately, the US Supreme Court ruled last year that presidents enjoy immunity for all “official acts,” even illegal ones like, say, ordering 11 murders. So Trump himself is as unlikely to be held accountable for this atrocity as for other crimes he’s ordered, such as the murder of eight-year-old American girl Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki in 2017.

But what about Hegseth, Rubio, and the various military officers who must have been involved in planning and directing the operation?

Holding them legally culpable may be as unlikely as bringing Trump himself to justice, but it’s theoretically possible. So far as I can tell there’s nothing to prevent a grand jury from indicting some or all of them.

The biggest hurdle to get over is that the US Department of Justice answers to Trump and likely won’t ASK a grand jury to do any such thing.

So, once again, the US government will get away with murdering anyone it announces is a “terrorist,” “drug smuggler,” etc., without having to prove the charges.

The only unique aspect of this particular mass murder is that its sole purpose seems to have been to distract us from the matter of Donald Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Did it work?

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

Man carrying child’s body in Gaza. Fars Media Corporation.  Attribution 4.0 International license.

The Israeli regime has lost its multi-front war in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Yes, really. It may not look like it, but the defeat is real and  baked into Israel’s future.

Let me first make the case for Israeli “victory”:

Since its 2023 invasion of Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces report fewer than 800 troops killed, while in turn killing tens — maybe hundreds — of thousands of mostly civilian Palestinian Arabs (and 250 or more inconvenient journalists).

Since the beginning, they’ve established their ability to attack any point in Gaza at will, driving a displaced, hungry population back and forth over piles of bodies, while seizing more land in the West Bank and Syria, liquidating Hezbollah’s Lebanese strongholds, trading missile strikes with Yemen’s Houthis, and even emerging relatively unscathed, if not particularly successful, in an intermittent war with Iran.

Top Israeli regime officials confidently assert that the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank are inevitable.

Yes, that sounds rather like multiple “victories,” accomplished and pending.

But those victories didn’t come from nowhere. They were enabled by decades of massive financial, military, and diplomatic support from the United States.

Yes, other regimes too, but most of those “allies” are moving in the other direction already — cutting off arms sales, recognizing a Palestinian state, and sanctioning Israeli war criminals.

It’s quickly coming down to the “no daylight between us” US/Israel relationship under which the former annually shovels billions of dollars, and when requested direct military assistance, at the latter, no questions asked (US law “guarantees” Israel a “Qualitative Military Edge”), while using its own sanctions power and veto on the UN Security Council to protect Benjamin Netanyahu and Friends from the consequences of their actions.

That relationship is nearing its end.

In late August, a Quinnipiac poll found that 50% of Americans now classify Israel’s operations in Gaza as genocidal, and that 60% — 37% of Republicans, 75% of Democrats, and 66% of independents — oppose continued military aid to Israel, at least while the genocide continues.

The effects of changing American attitudes toward Israel may not make themselves felt immediately, but the outcome is more “inevitable” than the fantasies of expansionist Israeli politicians.

In domestic politics, Social Security is sometimes called a political “third rail” — you touch it, you die.

The “special relationship” with Israel enjoyed the same status in foreign affairs for decades due to a well-funded lobby. American politicians who didn’t want to lose their re-election primaries to lobby-funded opponents dutifully voted for every Israeli aid demand (usually after ritual photo opportunities at occupied Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall).

That third rail is losing voltage, fast. President Donald Trump may remain bought off by the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on his behalf by Israeli interests, but sitting and future members of Congress are beginning to grok that a loyalty oath to a foreign power is no longer the absolute requirement it used to be.

And without Big Bully unquestioningly backing its every play, Little Bully’s expansionist plans will quickly come to naught.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“District attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries,” retired judge Sol Wachtler told the New York Daily News in 1985, “that, by and large, they could get them to indict a ham sandwich.”

I’ve yet to see any public comment from Wachtler, now 95 years old, on a grand jury’s August 26 refusal to indict one Sean C. Dunn for THROWING a sandwich (maybe even a ham sandwich) at federal occupation troops in Washington, DC after giving them a well-deserved, if maybe a little alcohol-driven, verbal dressing down.

“Grand jury nullification” seems to be having a moment.  Earlier in August, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro tried and failed no fewer than three times to convince a grand jury to indict Sydney Lori Reid for “assaulting or impeding federal officers” after an FBI agent scraped his hand on a cement wall as he assaulted her when she tried to get video of ICE thugs abducting an immigrant.

“Jury nullification” usually involves a “petit” jury acquitting a defendant at trial, as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, “in the teeth of both law and facts.”

The jury may unanimously believe that the defendant did some particular thing, and unanimously know that thing is against the law, but also unanimously dismisses the law itself as immoral or badly applied.

The practice pre-dates American jurisprudence, and the constitutional prohibition on “double jeopardy” means that the defendant can’t be re-tried. “Not guilty” is forever.

Well, sort of. Disappointed prosecutors often  find other charges to file, or hand the same facts over to other levels of government for different framing (“he was found not guilty of murder, but now we’re charging him with violating the civil rights of the person he murdered”).

And unfortunately, as noted above, prosecutors can bring the same case before a grand jury (or more than one grand jury) over and over until they finally find enough servile citizens in one place to get the indictment they want … or just “re-charge” the same allegation as a misdemeanor if grand jurors won’t indict for it as a felony.

That seems to me to violate the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on “any person be[ing] subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”

The whole purpose of the jury system, including grand juries, is to constrain the power of government instead of just letting prosecutors and police throw people in the slammer at will.

When a government actor wants to deprive someone of freedom — or even of life itself — that government actor should get one, and only one “bite at the apple.” As soon as a jury (petit or grand) says “no,” it should be the end of the matter.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY