Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

People go overboard to defend it.

Even if there were, all these strikes will do is incentivise cartels to force innocents to drive future boats or face having family executed. It takes them no time to adapt. Either way innocents end up dead.

The clown whoever he is does not even know what he is talking about lol. A 62mph per gallon standard like wtf. Mph is the speed a vehicle travels at clown not the emissions it produces.

With the political heat from the sinking of the boats increasing, the media have become interested in it again. From The Independent [as recently as 41 minutes back]…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked a top U.S. Navy admiral to step down after the military chief expressed concern about the “murky” legality of the lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, according to a report.

The shock departure of Admiral Alvin Holsey one year into his tenure as head of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in the Caribbean, was announced by Hegseth on Oct.16.

It followed “months of discord” between the pair that intensified in the summer when the Trump administration began bombing the alleged drug boats, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing two Pentagon officials and former officials.

“You’re either on the team or you’re not,” Hegseth reportedly told 60-year-old Holsey during a meeting this year. “When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions.”

The Independent has contacted the Pentagon for comment.

It comes as Hegseth has been accused of “war crimes” over his handling of the deadly strikes, which have so far killed more than 80 people, as tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela intensify.

The alleged tension between Hegseth and Holsey has been previously reported, which Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell dismissed as “fake news” at the time.

“This is a total lie. Never happened. There was no hesitation or concerns about this mission,” Parnell said in a post on X.

Holsey was reportedly concerned about the legality of the Caribbean operation and objected that parts of the mission “fell outside of his direct control,” as other military units involved fell under separate chains of command.

Hegseth reportedly grew frustrated that Holsey was not moving quickly enough to tackle the drug traffickers in the Caribbean, CNN previously reported.

According to the WSJ, Hegseth had lost confidence in Holsey before the Trump administration’s strikes on the vessels began.

In early October, the tension came to a head during a “confrontation” at the Pentagon, according to the WSJ, citing former officials.

House Republicans have also tried to name the opera House in the Kennedy Centre after Melania Trump.

I've been thinking about the current orchestrations towards Venezuela and the only path that makes sense is that the US admin see it as only an oil play. I know, it's the most overtly obvious reason, but Trump fetishes Putin, constantly bypassing traditional European allies to cuddle up to him, and then on the other hand he slams India for buying Russian crude.

The USA is the world's biggest exporter of refined oil at around 14%, India is second with close to 10%, but it is India's rapid rise in this space that would have the US refiners rattled. As far as I can see the middle east crude exports to India are about the same, but since 2022 India's rapid growth in refining capacity has been funded mostly by heavily discounted Russian crude. That's refining business undercutting the USA.

I guess Trump sees Venezuela as being the most heavily discounted untapped supply in his backyard, it's of similar heavy crude to what the US already imports from Canada, so a "liberation" of that supply would be hugely profitable for US refiners. It would be a consolidation of Trumpismo in a similar manner to how the Russian oil oligarchs profited off Putin.

Now there's little love for Maduro in the rest of the Americas where refugees of Chavismo have been scattered, but the recent extrajudicial murders of boat crews very much reignites alarm for all nations to the threat of Neo Monroeism. We may hear little of it in our European sphere but Trump is chilling the Americas with these murders in a similar way to how he's sown deep distrust amongst traditional European allies.

There's something quite sickening about this glorified weekend warrior Hegseth telling an Admiral "You’re either on the team or you’re not…When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions."

If you saw this kind of shite in a movie you'd think it too far fetched.

There's a smack of Eric Cartmann off of it all.