Tariff Checks And War Crimes

A listener asks a sharp question: can a president really mail out $2,000 “tariff dividends”? We break the promise down to its bolts—tariffs as taxes that raise consumer prices, Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, and a pending Supreme Court ruling that could fence off unilateral tariff moves until mid-2026. The math looks simple onstage, but it falls apart under constitutional law, budget rules, and basic economics.

From there, we widen the lens to a country that feels exhausted yet salvageable. We talk about the difference between spectacle and substance, why America reads as mismanaged rather than doomed, and how citizens can stop rewarding performance over competence. That same insistence on clarity anchors our plain-language guide to war crimes: deliberate killing of civilians, torture, starvation of populations, and other prohibited acts are not “fog of war,” they are illegal choices. After Nuremberg, “just following orders” doesn’t wash.

Recent headlines make the stakes real. Lawmakers privately viewed footage of a second strike on a disabled boat in the Caribbean, raising the question: was this lawful force or an illegal killing of men no longer able to fight? We examine the Pentagon’s law-of-war standards, command accountability, and why bipartisan scrutiny here is so rare. We also unpack the Supreme Court’s decision allowing Texas to use a contested congressional map, the majority’s presumption of legislative good faith, and a broader wave of gerrymanders shaping who gets a voice before a single vote is cast.

The throughline is simple and hard: truth over branding. Whether it’s circular “dividends,” euphemisms for unlawful force, or maps that pre-decide elections, the cure is the same—citizens who know the rules and insist they apply up the chain. If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review with the moment that made you think. Your notes help more people find smart, untribal media.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Listener Question
• 2:52 Can Tariffs Fund $2,000 Checks?
• 5:56 Congress, Courts, And Economic Reality
• 7:36 Daily Take: Managing A Fraying Republic
• 9:42 What Counts As A War Crime
• 15:48 Pentagon Strikes Debate And Oversight
• 19:33 Pipe Bomb Arrest And Evidence Trail
• 22:18 Supreme Court Boosts Texas Map
• 25:33 Gerrymandering And Power Choosing Voters
• 27:04 Alleged “Double Tap” And Command Accountability
• 31:48 The Test Of Law Over Euphemism
• 35:48 Archival Segment On U.S. Presidents And War

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 1:33

Welcome to the Darrow McClain Show. I'm your host, Darrow McLean, independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, so let us reason together. We're going to start off the show like we started off last time with a show question from a longtime listener. This is coming from Gene. The question is morning, since the Supreme Court ruling on the legitimacy of Trump's tariffs may not be announced until June of 2026, how likely can his administration issue dividend checks for$2,000, as he continues to say. So thank you for the amazing question. I always like to start off the show with something that I was not planning to talk about, something that you guys asked me to talk about. So let me put it to you like this. The Supreme Court, as you said, is not expected to rule on the case of 2026. So the translation is an aggressive tariff restructuring is sitting on the launch pad with the do not fly sticker on it. Why? Because if Trump actually wants to use the tariff residue as a justification for$2,000 dividends, the entire plan is actually chained to the constitutionality of that question. If the court is saying the president can't unilaterally impose broad national tariffs about Congress, then the whole dividend check thing is a daydream, and that daydream evaporates like a hot mist in the hot, hot Virginia morning. So number two, could he still try to issue the checks anyway? Technically, he could propose anything, he could promise anything, he could even brand it, package it, reshare it, and market it like a stadium tour. But sending actual money out of the US Treasury requires one of two things A, an act of Congress. Congress must authorize spending, period. No workaround, no magic wand. Tariff revenue does not give the executive branch a unilateral spending power. B Emergency powers, unlikely and legally fragile. He could do it if he would try to claim some kind of economic emergency to redirect to redirect revenue. So sure, in that scenario, could the court smack it down within days? Absolutely. Every court from every district to appeal it would sprint toward that case, like it was back, uh, you know, this uh we were going back to Black Friday again, and they would love to slap down a president. Now, here's a third thing. The big problem is tariffs don't work like a piggy bank. This is where the political marketing gets kind of sketchy and sometimes cute. Tariffs are not a part of gold the presidents get to hand out. Tariffs are taxes on imports, and the cost hits Americans' consumers, and that's economics one-on-one. So if the president says we'll send every American$2,000 from tax revenue, what the president is actually saying is we'll tax purchases and imports raise consumer prices, then recycle that money back to the people that and and we'll just call it a dividend. It's circular economics with a patriotic bow just wrapped on top of it. Now the real barrier, uh, which is this problem number four, is the House of Representatives. Even if Trump won, he needs a cooperative Congress. If Democrats control the House, even a slice of Republicans resist it, if Thistle Hawk starts sweating, then the checks die in committee before anyone can even spell the word dividend. Here's a fifth political uh point, which is the political reality check. And this is the part of the show where you, you know, I I let it lean in and so the listeners can hear it. Presidents don't cut checks, Congress do. And no president, red or blue, gets to send out a die without legislators signing on the dotted line. This$2,000 idea, it's a campaign promise, it's a political fantasy, it's a soundbite engineer to go to TikTok live. But as a governing policy, it has a structural integrity of a wet cardboard. Number six, most likely to happen, and here's the clean cut, honest, put it on a t-shirt summary. Could Trump propose a 2,000 uh tariff dividend? Yes. Could he send the checks without Congress? No. Would the pending Supreme Court case block the mechanism he's needed? Absolutely. Is June 2026 too late to build a legal foundation for those checks early in the term? 100%. This is more campaigning messaging than it is a fiscal reality. So, no, in my opinion, the president is not mailing out tariff dividends in early 2025 or in early 2026 without a miracle of a supermajority and a Supreme Court's blessing. So the bottom line is this Donald Trump can promise a tariff dividend, but he can't print one. Not without Congress, not without the Supreme Court case handing over the plan, and not without economics yelling, Are you serious in the background? Tariffs aren't magic money, they are taxes, and checks don't go out until Congress signs the receipt. Thank you for the question. Here's our daily take. America wakes up every morning like a hungover empire pretending it merely had a late night. The Republic creaks, the citizens scroll, and the politicians, those actors who forgot they in a play step onto the stage to deliver lines that they didn't write and they don't understand. We keep existing, we're a nation of rugged individuals, yet we panic at the Wi-Fi buffers for more than four seconds. We worship freedom while begging someone to tell us what to think, and we talk endlessly about the founders as if they were sacred script they handed us rather than a messy first draft written by men who disagree with each other more than we disagree with our cousins and uncles at Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, the great American pastime isn't baseball. It's actually blaming the wrong person. If something breaks, we blame the poor. If something explodes, we blame the foreigner. If something rots, we blame the youth. Never the powerful, of course. The powerful remain as innocent as newborn lambs, provided the lamb was born in a lobbyist office and they already knew how to foul pack paperwork. And yet, despite all the nonsense, all the cheap theatrics, all the moral bankruptcy we've dressed up as news cycles, this country still contains a dangerous number of people who can think, people who can tell the difference between spectacle and substance, people who refuse to bow before the cult of incompetence masquerading as leadership. That's what keeps the whole thing from collapsing. Just enough stubborn souls who won't let mediocrity become a national religion. So here's today's take. America isn't dying. It's simply being managed badly. And yet, the only cure for bad management is citizens who stop making clowns for kings. Wake up, pay attention, and don't let anyone gaslight you into believing the circus is the cathedral. This republic isn't doomed. It's just overdue for house cleaning. What is a war crime? Ladies and gentlemen, every now and then the world focuses us to revisit a supposedly agreed upon rule. In the lines that we swore were too sacred to cross. And in the chaos of bombs and bullets and speeches, we have to pause for a moment and ask a simple, but I think important and devastating question. What is a war crime? Now, on paper, it's easy. A war crime is any deliberate act in conflict that breaks the laws of war. The Geneva Conventions, the Hague, the whole body of international agreements humanity drafted to keep warfare from sliding all the way back into barbarism. But we have to break this down into plain English. A war crime is when you kill people you weren't supposed to kill. Is when you torture the people you already captured. It's when you starve a population because it's easier than fighting an army. It's when you treat human beings like trash because the battlefield gave you an excuse. Bombing civilians. War crime. Torturing prisoners. War crime. Using chemical weapons, war crime. Turning women and children into bargaining chips? War crime. These aren't accidents of war. These are tragic necessities. These are illegal choices made by leaders and carried out by soldiers that spit right in the face of the laws that we claim to live by. You see, war has rules, not because war is moral, but because unchecked violence eventually gets to eat the entire world. After Nuremberg, humanity stood up and said, We will not let a I was following orders be a shield for cruelty, evergreen. That power excuses wickedness. And history has shown us again and again that wickedness in uniform is still wickedness. Now here is the uncomfortable truth. It's not something other countries do. Every nation with guns and grievances have been attempted to do this very act. Some have crossed the line, some pretend they didn't, some rewrite the story afterward. But the law doesn't care about your flag. The law doesn't salute your anthem. The law cares about civilians, the wounded, the captured, the people with the least power caught over the boots of the people with the most power. And that's why we talk about this on this show. Because if you want a world where accountability means something, if you want a military that stands for more than might, if you want a country that honors its own constitution instead of abusing it, then you have to understand the gravity of the phrase war crime. It's not political, it's not partisan, it's not negotiable, it's the line where humanity draws its final boundary and says, Beyond this particular line, we will not go. Back with more in a moment.

SPEAKER_02: 14:51

Let me be clear: there was no new tip. There was no new witness. Just good, diligent policeman led investigators to him.

SPEAKER_08: 14:59

Also, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court to side with Texas Republicans. The lower court found that a new congressional man probably discriminated by race. What reasons did the court give to set that aside? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

SPEAKER_06: 15:16

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SPEAKER_08: 16:16

Members of Congress have now seen a video showing the second UN strike on a boat in the Caribbean. Democrats and Republicans interpreted it differently, but a few things became clear.

SPEAKER_09: 16:24

Democrats said they were disturbed by the second hit on a boat allegedly carrying drugs and killing two men after the boat was disabled. Republicans said the strike was justified because the two survivors of the first strike might have continued on to their destination. Republicans said the survivors were quoteful boat.

SPEAKER_08: 16:46

That is one of two big stories focused on the Pentagon and NPR Pentagon correspondent. Good morning. Thanks, Dave. Okay, so let's get this other story out of the way first. An inspector general report is now public about Defense Secretary Pete Hegsmith sharing information about an attack on the signal texting app. What did you learn by reading the report?

SPEAKER_03: 17:02

Well, it said that uh two to four hours before the airstrikes of American F-18 pilot. Secretary Heggseth, he was getting a classified briefing from General Eric Carilla about the upcoming attacks on Houthi rebels. A lot of detail about the number of planes, the targets, the timing. And while Heggsmith was getting this, he was sharing it on a signal chat with other officials and on another chat with his wife, his brother, and his lawyer. None of those three had security clearances, and all of this was secret information, the report said.

SPEAKER_08: 17:26

And let's just disclose as we do that NPR CEO, Katherine Maher, also chairs the board of the Signal Foundation, uh, which has a subsidiary that makes this map. But what has been the reaction of the Inspector General?

SPEAKER_03: 17:35

Well, Secretary Higgs uh spokesman said the IG report exonerates him. That is not true. Nothing in the 76 pages says anything close to that. It does say that the Pentagon should be aware of proper procedures and the handling of classified information. It only states fanatic speed, not what should happen next.

SPEAKER_08: 17:51

All right. So let's now talk about this second strike on the boat in the Caribbean. What are lawmakers saying, and what are you learning now that they have seen this video and also heard from the commander involved?

SPEAKER_03: 18:00

Well, Admiral Mitchell Bradley, the top commander overseeing Central and South America, appeared behind closed doors to explain what happened. Lawmakers said he defended that second missile strike, saying basically the survivors of the initial strike were still kind of being active, uh, uh trying to reach their comrades by radio, trying to corral drugs on the boat that was nearly destroyed. So Bradley again ordered the second missile strike to kill them, and then two more to sink the boat. Secretary Heggs has said he was only there for the first missile strike on the boat and didn't see the others he had meetings, he said. Now, lawmakers are asking, you know, did the second missile strike result in an illegal killing, a war crime? Because Steve, the Pentagon's law of war manual lays out what is an illegal order that no service member has to obey. And the manual has this example. I don't think there is. Uh, Senator Tom Cotton said these guys, the two survivors, are trying to uh flip over this capsized boat. Congressman Adam Smith and others said, listen, they were just shirtless guys, and not much of this boat was above water. So that's why it's important, I think, for the public to see this video. It shouldn't be released. And Mr. Mm Bumman, thanks so much. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_09: 19:20

The night before a mob of President Trump's supporter stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, somebody placed two pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic National Party headquarters in the witch near Bummy.

SPEAKER_08: 19:31

For almost five years, the FBI tried to find the culprit that came up empty until Thursday when the Justice Department announced that federal agents had arrested a 30-year-old man suspected of planting those devices.

SPEAKER_09: 19:42

So, what can you tell us about this person who's now in custody and what's he charged with?

SPEAKER_07: 19:45

Well, his name is Ronnie Cole Jr. He is, as you guys mentioned, 30 years old. He was arrested in Woodbridge, Virginia, which is about 20 or someone else south of DC. Court papers say that he lived there with his mom and that he worked in the office of a bail bond in North Virginia. Now, as for the charges, he's charged with transporting an explosive device with intent to kill, as well as attempted malicious destruction with uh explosive materials. Those are the charges as of this morning, but officials said yesterday that this is still very much an active investigation, and prosecutors could put more charges down.

SPEAKER_09: 20:10

So for almost five years, the FBI's been trying to find the person who planted these bombs that officials say yesterday what after all this time led them to call.

SPEAKER_07: 20:16

This has been a massive investigation to try to solve this mystery over the years. And remember, these bike bombs didn't go off on January 6th, but they did draw police away from the capital that day that they provided restored the building. Now, officials said yesterday it wasn't a new tip that broke this case open. Uh, here's Attorney General Pan Body speaking to reports yesterday.

SPEAKER_02: 20:30

Let me be clear. There was no new tip, there was no new witness, just good, diligent police work and prosecutorial work.

SPEAKER_07: 20:38

The FBI George Council tells that the Bureau brought in a new team of investigators and experts to re-examine all of the evidence that the FBI had collected over the past uh four plus years. And that new team tipped into all of the data and tells that that's what led to new investigative leads, including the critical forensic leads that, um, and ultimately the road led to coal. What evidence do the prosecutors have that allegedly tied coal to these pipe bombs? Well, then an FBI affidavit says that records of financial transactions show that coal bomb items that were the same as the components used to build the pipe bombs that were found. So galvanized pipes, um, end caps used to close the ends of the pipe bombs, steel wall, the same kind of white kitchen timers and red black electrical wires. There's also cell phone location data that shows that Cole's cell phone was taking cell towers in the area where the pipe bombs were left on the night that they were placed there. And then the affidavit says that a licensed pipe leader picked up Cole's car getting off the interstate near the Capitol on the evening of January 5th, just a half hour or so before the bombs were put in place.

SPEAKER_09: 21:26

People don't remember there have been a lot of conspiracy theories about these pipe bombs. Who left them now that the suspect is in custody? Do we know anything about the motive or whether these bombs were connected to the attack on the Capitol?

SPEAKER_07: 21:38

Well, those really are the million-dollar questions, and unfortunately, no, at this point, we don't know the answers to those. Ironically, one of the conspiracy theories that was out there, that the pipe bombs were inside job by the FBI, that was pushed by Dan Bongino when he was a podcaster. Dan Bongino is now the deputy director of the FBI, and he got a lot of credit yesterday for this arrest. Now, Cole is expected to appear in court here in D.C. later today. Um, and answers to a lot of these outstanding questions are most likely to come in court over the weeks and months to come as the as the Justice Department prosecutes in this case.

SPEAKER_08: 22:10

Okay, the Supreme Court has given President Trump and the Republican Party a boost in their fight to skew the results of congressional elections.

SPEAKER_09: 22:23

The court turned aside a lower court ruling that found a likelihood that this new map is racially discriminatory.

SPEAKER_08: 22:33

Good morning, Steve. Okay, so what one is the lower court ruling that the Supreme Court says doesn't apply. They pause.

SPEAKER_05: 22:40

Well, this was a three-judge panel that the majority ruling written by a judge nominated by the presidential Supreme Court has put a pause on this order. And this order by the lower court found that this congressional map Texas passed back in August is likely unconstitutional because it discriminates against voters based on race. This lower court ruling sent in a letter that the Justice Department wrote to Texas officials and multiple public statements by key Republican state lawmakers involved in developing the map. And I'll suggest Texas lawmakers pass this map to eliminate existing districts in Texas where black and Latino voters together make up the majority.

SPEAKER_08: 23:06

Well, that's interesting. Uh, why then did the Supreme Court say, no, you're wrong? Uh go ahead and use the map.

SPEAKER_05: 23:12

Well, a majority of conservative justices on the Supreme Court basically sided with Texas state lawmakers, which said they were not motivated by race and were driven instead to draw new districts and more likely to elect Republicans. The court's majority wrote that the lower court ruling, quote, failed to honor the presumption. Of legislative good faith. And the majority also said the lower court, quote, improperly inserted itself into Texas's primary campaign by releasing its ruling last month in the middle of a candidate filing period.

SPEAKER_08: 23:35

I was reading the rather short uh ruling on this rather short opinion, and I am fascinated by that idea that the court should have presumed that the Texas legislature did not mean to do it. That that should be the presumption going in. Was there any dissent in this?

SPEAKER_05: 23:47

Yes, the court's three liberal justices dissented. Justice Elena Kagan wrote their dissenting opinion and said that the court's majority decision to allow Texas to use this map for next year's midterms, quote, ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in like 12 districts because of their race, and that violates the Constitution.

SPEAKER_08: 24:03

I was interested also that the court ruling acknowledged the broader context here and said this is now spread to be a redistricting fight in state after state after state across the country. Where do things stand?

SPEAKER_05: 24:11

There's a lot going on, but let's start with California. Voters in that state approved the Democratic friendly congressional map last month that countered the Texas map that President Trump pushed forward to help Republicans and the Supreme Court is now allowing. And this month the federal court is holding a hearing on whether to block California's map for the midterms. Last week a different federal court ruled to allow North Carolina to use a new Republican-friendly map. Missouri's Republican friendly map is still facing lawsuits and a referendum effort. And I'm keeping watch for potential new maps coming out of Florida, Indiana, New York, and Virginia.

SPEAKER_08: 24:38

Is the Supreme Court done with this topic?

SPEAKER_05: 24:39

No, there's a major voting rights case I'm also watching about Louisiana's congressional map. The Supreme Court may rule on that very soon, and depending on what and when the court decides in that case, there may be another wave of congressional gerrymandering, particularly in southern states.

SPEAKER_08: 24:53

MPR's Antilo Wong, thanks for the update. You're welcome, Steve.

SPEAKER_04: 24:59

And then those who um make peaceful, peaceful transitions of power that difficult, uh, we will force violent violent changes of power inevitable. I am paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, who said though said something similar. Um let's let's go to this uh I mean I may do a whole show about this uh scandal in voting, which kind of gives the game away that voting is not a right that is not uh filtered and fettered by the people in power. And this is not anything new, it's just uh sh giving the game away that voters don't pick the politicians, politicians pick the voters. And now we can play this game like we we it's a Democrat-Republican thing, but this is more about a politicians in power not wanting to be held accountable thing, and using partisan politics to cover the shield around their asses because they're incompetent pieces of shit. But we'll get to that on a different day. Because I have to talk about the Pete Hexy scandal and a modern test case. Now, according to multiple reports, multiple reports, intelligence leaks and statements coming from Captain Hill, the intelligence leaks and statements are saying that during a military engagement, an order was issued or approved and authorized a second strike on an already ship-wrecked budget of sailors. We call it a double tap, a strike on men no longer in combat, a strike on individuals who under international law are protected persons. Now, this isn't a mistake, this isn't the fog of war, this is an act of the Secretary of War would have been forced to answer for for the highest levels. But today, everything gets filtered through bureaucratic blender of the defense apparatus, words come out of the other side as protocol deviations, investigative inquiries, operational decisions, or preliminary assessments. The clarity disappears, the more questions become legally puzzled, the legal puzzle becomes a political football, and truth becomes a hostage and an inconvenience. But something unusual is happening. Even the Senate Republicans and Democrats seems unwilling to let this one pass. They demanded documents, they've opened inquiries, they promised vigorous oversight, a phrase rarely used unless something serious has happened. It's the closest America has come in decades to confronting the truth without euphemism. We've seen this before. Only one officer, Lieutenant Cayley, was convicted. And then even then, he was spared from any real consequences. Two dozen Iraqi civilians killed, charges evaporated. Responsibility dissolved into a fog. Following orders is not a defense. Iran flight 655 in 1988. A civilian airliner was shot down by the USS in Venice in Venice. When war crimes occur, the system frequently protects itself instead of justice. But there's a difference today. He is now a ranking officer. He is a um a political figure, a public personality, a man who cannot be quietly and reside or buried in paperwork. This elevates the stakes dramatically. The moral level, if the allegations are true, then men in distress were killed after they ceased to be combatants. Now that act violates the oldest laws of humanity. You do not kill those who can no longer fight you back. The Geneva Convention is actually pretty clear here. Attacking shipwreck personnel is a war crime, and under US military law, if a commander orders, encourages, or permits an unlawful strike, he is legally accountable. This is where the pressure cooker is heating up. The Senate has turned bipartisan eyes on the incident, which is extremely rare. Why? Because they understand the stakes. If the United States committed an unlawful killing under color of command, Congress must respond or the entire system loses its legitimacy. This is what makes the story bigger than peak. This is about whether America is capable of looking itself in the mirror again, like it used to do when we still had a Secretary of War. We are watching now the ghost of the Secretary of War stepping back into the room, demanding answers that the modern system tries desperately to avoid. The old way said, you wage war, you answer for war. The new way says, you wage war, let's rewrite the vocabulary. But the vocabulary cannot save you from the truth. Because if a civilian dies unlawfully in a strike, no euphemism can be resurrected to resurrect him. No acronym can justify the behavior. No press release can resolve the action. America has decided. Do we confront this like a nation of laws? Or do we bury it like a nation of excuses? So here's the bottom line of Stone Coast and Lost in the Saints. What happened or didn't happen with Pete Hexett is not simply a scandal. It is a test. A test of whether the United States still believes in the rule of law. A test whether the United States still believes in the ethics of warfare. A test of whether the United States believes in the Constitution and the chain of command. A test that the United States believes in a Geneva Convention and the standards we claim to uphold. A test that the United States of America is willing to be accountable in ways that reaches all the way to the top. We are staring at the same ancient line of humanity has drawn for thousands of years. War is obviously violent. But war has never and cannot be reckless. If the allegations prove true, we must say so. If they prove false, we must say so with clarity. Either way, truth is the only way out of this. Because without truth, without law, without accountability, you do not have a military. You have an armed mob wearing matching uniforms. And if the United States is going to remain a nation worth defending, we must hold our leaders, civilian military, to be the very laws that we are to expect the world to follow. That is our standard. That is our duty. That is the weight of command. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where the story begins, not where it ends. Thank you for tuning into the Rome McLean show. We're going to go to a blast with intellectual past, and I will see you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_00: 33:26

You said that if the Nuremberg principles were applied, every post-World War II president would be uh indictable. Probably true. Can we run uh run down them real fast? What did Eisenhower do that you would indict him for?

SPEAKER_01: 33:39

Eisenhower uh overthrew the conservative nationalist government of Iran with the military coup. Uh he overthrew the first and last democratic government in Guatemala by a military coup and invasion leading to years of uh in Iran it led to twenty-five years of brutal dictatorship, uh finally overthrown in 1999. In Guatemala, it led to massive atrocities, which are still continuing. That's after almost fifty years. Uh in Indonesia, uh this wasn't known until recently, but he conducted the major clandestine terror operation of the post-war period up until Cuba and Nicaragua in an effort to break up uh Indonesia's triple of the outer islands, uh, where most of the resources are, uh, and uh undermine the what was then considered as a threat of Indonesian democracy. Uh, Indonesia was too free and open. It was allowing a uh political party of the poor to participate, and they were gaining a lot of ground. So that uh uh Eisenhower supported and helped instigate a military rebellion in the Outer Islands. Um this is just for starters. These are all indictable offenses. What about Kennedy? Kennedy was one of the worst. Uh Kennedy, first of all, invaded South Vietnam. Uh during the Eisenhower administration, uh, they had blocked the political settlement in 1954 and instituted a kind of a Latin American-style terror state, which had killed maybe 60 or 70,000 people by the end of the Eisenhower uh period and had instigated uh um uh a response, a reaction that Kennedy recognized, but it couldn't be controlled internally. So he simply invaded. Uh in 1962, uh about uh a third of the bombing missions that were carried out by the U.S. Air Force in uh uh South U.S. planes with South Vietnamese insignia, but U.S. pilot. Uh they author he authorized an A bomb, uh he began the uh use of uh chemical weapons to uh destroy food crops, uh uh they began programs which uh uh drove millions of people into what amounted to concentration camps. That's aggression. Uh in the case of Cuba, it was just a massive campaign of international terrorism, which almost led to the destruction of the world, led to the missile crisis. Uh, and uh we can continue. Again, these are all uh indicable offenses. Uh Johnson. Well, Johnson expanded the war in into China to the point where ended up probably leaving three or four million people dead. Uh he uh invaded the Dominican Republic to block uh what looked like a potential democratic revolution there, uh, supported uh the Israeli uh occupation in its early stages. Uh again, we can go around the world. Uh take them take St. Carter. I'll get there, but Nixon's next. Uh Nixon, we don't even have to talk about maybe we can skip that one came. But uh Ford Ford. Well, Ford was only there for a short time, but long enough to um endorse the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, uh, which became got as close to genocide as anything in the modern period. Uh they pretended to uh oppose it, but secretly supported, in fact, Lansa secretly, uh, the uh the U.S. uh immediately after the invasion, the U.S. did join the rest of the world in formally condemning it at the Security Council. But uh Ambassador Moynihan uh was kind enough to explain to us, in his words, uh that uh his instructions were to render the United Nations utterly ineffective in any actions it might take to counter the Indonesian invasion. And he says proudly that he did this with considerable success. Uh his next sentence is uh in the next few months it seems that about 60,000 people were killed. And then he goes off to the next topic. Uh that's the first few months went on to probably hundreds of thousands. Uh uh formally the U.S. uh announced a boycott of weapons, but secretly increased the supply of weapons, including counterinsurgency equipment, so that the Indonesians could consummate the invasion. That's uh just a short period in office, but that's indictable. Seriously, in fact, that's a major war crime. Carter. Carter uh increased as the Indonesian atrocities were increasing. They peaked in 1978. Uh, Carter's flow of weapons to Indonesia increased. Uh, when Congress imposed uh human rights restrictions, but then there was a human rights movement in Congress uh to block the flow of uh uh advanced weaponry to Indonesia. Uh, Carter uh arranged through Mundale Vice's president uh to get Israel to send U.S. Skyhawks to Indonesia uh to enable Indonesia to complete what turned out to be near genus of killing maybe a quarter of the population or something. Uh in the uh in the Middle East. Uh Carter just won the Nobel Prize. Uh his great achievement was the Camp David Agreements. Uh the Camp David agreements are presented as a uh diplomatic triumph for the United States. In fact, they were a diplomatic catastrophe. Uh, at Camp David, uh, the United States and Israel accepted finally Egypt's 1971 offer, which they had then re U.S. had rejected at the time, uh, except that now it was worse from the U.S.-Israeli point of view because it included the Palestinians. Uh, in order to accept, get Israel to accept Egypt's 1971 offer after a major war and atrocities and so on, uh, Carter raised uh aid military and other aid to Israel to more than fifty percent of total aid worldwide. Israel used it at once in exactly the way they said they were gonna do, and every same person who uh has an opportunity to attack their northern neighbor first in 1978, then in 1982, and to increase uh integration of the occupied territories. Uh and that's for starters, if we can continue. Reagan? I don't think we have to talk about that one either. I mean, Reagan is the first president to have been uh uh condemned by the International Court of Justice for what they call the unlawful use of force, meaning international terrorism in the war against Nicaragua. Again, that's just for starters. They also the Security Council uh endorsed it in two resolutions, both of which were vetoed by the United States. Bush won it. Well, uh we can begin with the invasion of Panama. The invasion of Panama, which, according to the Panamanians, killed about 3,000 people since it's never investigated. I don't know if that's true or not. Uh, this was done in order to uh kidnap a uh disobedient fellow who had been supported by the United States right through his worst atrocities. Noriega. Mariega, who was brought to Florida and tried for crimes that he had committed mostly on the CIA payroll. Okay, that's aggression. Uh we could go into the details of the war in Iraq. Uh, but uh there were plainly opportunities for they might not have worked, we don't know, but there were opportunities for diplomatic settlement, which the Bush administration refused to consider. And incidentally, the pr press would not report with a single exception. And Long Island Newsday, which didn't report the whole story throughout accurately, and it's the only newspaper in the country to have done so. Uh the uh uh Bush administration then did attack, and uh the attack was uh carried out in uh in a manner which is criminal under the laws of war. Um they attacked uh uh infrastructure. I mean, if you attack New York City and you destroy the electrical system, the power system, the sewage systems, and so on, that amounts to biological warfare, and that's the nature of the attack. Uh then sanctions regime, which uh most of the Clinton began with Bush, which is by conservative estimates killed hundreds of thousands of people, while strengthening some numbers that takes us off to Clinton, which that's the beginning, but that's by no means the end. Run through a well run through that one case suffices, but there are plenty of others. Let's take what's going on with Clinton. And one of Clinton's minor es minorisk very minor, was sending a couple of cruise missiles to the Sudan to destroy what they knew to be a pharmaceutical plant. There was no intelligence. Failure. According to the only estimates we have from the German ambassador and the uh uh director of regional director of Near East Foundation, who does field work in uh Sudan, both of them estimate several tens of thousands of deaths from one cruise mess. Pretty serious. If somebody uh did that to us, we'd regard it as bad news. And again, we can continue. Uh during in the Middle East, for example, the uh uh uh Clinton began by declaring past UN resolutions, uh, in the words of his administration, obsolete and anachronistic. Okay, so we're finished with that. No more international law. Uh, then comes a polic uh a period called the peace process, except that during the peace process, uh Israeli uh U.S. uh Israeli settlement, which means settlement paid for by the U.S. taxpayer and supported by U.S. military aid and diplomacy, continually increased. Uh the most extreme year was Clinton's last year, the highest level of settlement, the highest since 1992. Uh meanwhile, the territories were cantonized, broken up into small regions with uh infrastructure projects and new settlements. Uh I don't know what you call that, but it's under military occupation. And if anyone else was doing it, we'd call it a war crime. And again, we can continue.