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Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Jack, thanks for your very good post with lots of factual information.

Nori, I don't like all the deportations that Obama orchestrated. That doesn't take away what Trump is doing and the level of cruelty. Also Nori, you completely ignored my asking you what you think of Trump telling the states to not give out SNAP benefits...How can you sugar coat that and not face up to the fact that your guy Trump is cruel and cares nothing for people who will go hungry including 16 million children. Happy Birthday Nori. Love, Joanie

Jack Mallory

The Supreme Court ruling in Coffin v. United States that I referred to earlier:

"The presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law." Coffin v. United States, 156 US 432 (1895).

Pretty clear. Or undoubted, axiomatic, elementary, and foundational. 

Jack Mallory

". . . how do you and I, the people who pay for it with our taxes and endorse it through our democratic participation know those killed are killers, Nori? Just because the president said so? Is that justice?"

The question still stands. How do we know that those we are paying to kill, are being blown up in our names, are killers as you and Trump claim?

Robert Hall

Jack Mallory

Thank you, Robert. I hope the same, and expect we all do. Best to all our fellow veterans, Forum participants and others. 

 But clarify--Article XI? Thought there were only 6 articles in the Code of Conduct? 

Robert Hall

Jay Shackford

Editor’s Note:  Get real, Nori.  It’s 1,729 nautical miles from Venezuela to the shores of South Florida.  In small, speed boats such a trip would require five or more refueling stops — not something drug smugglers would like to do.  

Moreover, most of the fentanyl entering the U.S. comes through Mexico at official ports of entry in cars and trucks and is smuggled in by U.S. citizens, according to DEA as Joan previously noted.  

Finally, even if these boats are carrying small amounts of cocaine or other drugs, the three or four men operating the boats are small time operators who can be easily replaced. Normally, DEA and other drug enforcement agencies would stop and search the boats and try to get the smugglers to talk — providing names and evidence so they could move up the chain of the gang or drug-smuggling operation. Blowing the boats out of the water might look good for the MAGA crowd on TV but it isn’t drug enforcement — it’s murder.)   

PolitiFact Fact-Check on Trump’s Claims for Saving 25,000 Lives for Each Boat Strike

President Donald Trump said U.S. military strikes on five Venezuelan boats have saved more than 100,000 lives because the maneuvers thwarted drug smuggling.

“Every boat that we knock out we save 25,000 American lives so every time you see a boat and you feel badly you say, ‘Wow, that’s rough;’ It is rough, but if you lose three people and save 25,000 people,” Trump said in an Oct. 15 press conference, according to Politifact.

The administration did not supply PolitiFact with evidence that the boats were carrying drugs. Drug experts told PolitiFact that Venezuela plays a minor role in trafficking drugs that reach the U.S. The legality of the strikes also is unclear. After the first attack, some legal experts told PolitiFact that the military action was illegal under maritime law or human rights conventions and the attack contradicted longstanding U.S. military practices.

Trump has used the figure repeatedly and also says he would consider similar strikes on land.

“Every one of those boats is responsible for the death of 25,000 American people, and the destruction of families,” Trump said in an Oct. 5 speech to U.S. Navy sailors. “So when you think of it that way, what we’re doing is actually an act of kindness.”

“We’ve taken a very hard stand on drugs …  the water drugs — the drugs that come in through water they’re not coming — there are no boats anymore, frankly there are no fishing boats, there’s no boats out there period,” Trump told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Oct. 7. “We’ve probably saved at least 100,000 lives, American lives, Canadian lives, by taking out those boats.”

Several aspects of Trump’s statement make it wrong.

There is no way of knowing how many lives are saved as a result of drug interception efforts, drug experts have told PolitiFact.

Additionally, if Trump’s statement were accurate, the strikes on five boats in less than two months would have saved nearly double the number of U.S. lives lost to drug overdoses in an entire year.

The Trump administration hasn’t specified what type of drug or what quantity was on the boats that were struck. So it’s impossible to calculate how many deadly doses could have been destroyed.

Trump said the boats were carrying fentanyl during the Oct. 15 press conference.

“And you can see it, the boats get hit, and you see that fentanyl all over the ocean,” Trump said. “It’s like floating in bags. It’s all over the place.”

He has shared aerial videos of some of the boat strikes on Truth Social, and no bags of drugs are visible in the videos.

Additionally, most illicit fentanyl in the U.S. comes from Mexico, not Venezuela. It enters the U.S. mainly through the southern border at official ports of entry, and it’s smuggled in mostly by U.S. citizens, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

If the boats each carried 25,000 lethal doses, that doesn’t mean the strikes stopped 125,000 people from dying of a drug overdose.

“When drugs are seized, the supply chain partially replaces those lost drugs,” Jonathan Caulkins, a Carnegie Mellon University drug policy researcher, previously told PolitiFact.

Overdose drug deaths have been declining for the past couple of years, before there were any strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC reported more than 73,000 drug overdose deaths from May 2024 to April 2025. For Trump’s statement to be accurate, the drugs on five boats would have been responsible for 125,000 deaths, nearly double the number of overdose deaths in one year.

Trump isn’t the first person to equate drug enforcement with saving lives. Over the years, we’ve fact-checked other politicians when they said that a quantity of drugs seized at the U.S. border was enough to kill a specific number of people, or that those seizures saved a specific number of lives.

Generally, the politicians we have fact-checked referred to fentanyl seizures. The synthetic opioid is the leading cause of U.S. overdose deaths. Politicians’ statements about lives saved rely on the lethal dose for fentanyl — 2 milligrams. So if authorities seized 10 milligrams of fentanyl, for example, that saved five lives, politicians say.

But there are caveats to that calculation because a dose’s lethality can vary based on a person’s height, weight and tolerance from past exposure, drug experts say. And statistics about how many drugs were stopped from entering the U.S. don’t account for how many drugs make it into the country.

“We don’t have any method I’m aware of for translating drug seizure data into any measure of overdose deaths averted,” Alene Kennedy-Hendricks, a Johns Hopkins University health policy expert, told PolitiFact in May.

Regarding boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela, Trump said, “Every boat that we knock out we save 25,000 American lives.”

Trump said the five boats the U.S. military has struck off the coast of Venezuela were carrying drugs heading to the U.S. However, experts on drugs and Venezuela told PolitiFact the country plays a minor role in trafficking drugs that reach the U.S.

The administration has provided no evidence about the type or quantity of drugs it says were on the boats. This lack of information makes it impossible to know how many lethal doses of the drugs could have been destroyed.

Even if the boats were carrying 25,000 lethal drug doses each, that doesn’t mean that destroying them saved 125,000 lives. There were 73,000 U.S. drug overdose deaths from May 2024 to April 2025. That means the drugs on five boats would have been responsible for 125,000 deaths, nearly double the number of U.S. overdose deaths in one year.

The amount of drugs that are stopped from entering the U.S. doesn’t indicate how many lives were saved.

We rate Trump’s statement Pants on Fire! 

Jack Mallory

Thank you, Robert--I was afraid it was my memory losing another few megabytes! And thank you, Jay, for another contribution of reality with that Politico article. Unfortunately reality, facts, aren't really relevant to our killing of people in boats. 

Irrelevant because Trump is employing the king-like powers available to the Commander in Chief. His commands need no evidence justifying them, as long as the military is willing to obey the royal edicts. And also irrelevant because some of our fellow citizens are willing to mindlessly approve those commands, even though offered no evidence. As has so often been the case throughout our history, the distant, invisible deaths of human beings can occur without discomfort on the part of many Americans. Not just without discomfort, but with the avid encouragement of such killing. 

Some of us know that even experienced close up, seeing through the filters of "America First," "My country right or wrong," "Kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out" makes actions possible, even likely, that we might some day deeply regret. I will testify to that. And I fear that those carrying out orders to kill strangers on small boats may someday have to recover from the moral injuries their "service" has exposed them to. 

Which brings us back to that Code of Conduct. 

The Code of Conduct provides guidance for the behavior and actions of members of the Armed Forces of the United States. This guidance applies not only on the battlefield, but also in the event that the service member is captured and becomes a prisoner of war (POW). The Code is delineated in six articles.

Article I:

I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.^[5]

Article II:

I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.^[5]

Article III:

If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.^[5]

Article IV:

If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.^[5]

Article V:

When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.^[5]

Article VI:

I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.^[5]

This is intended to guide the conduct of the military in the various arenas in which they might find themselves: particularly in battle and as prisoners of war. Articles I-V address these circumstances in relatively specific language. But the Code is also meant to provide a more global framework for behavior as soldiers, sailors, marines, or air force in Article VI.

Unfortunately, although perhaps necessarily, Article VI is much more vague in its guidance. It is less specific in what it demands of our military at war: what does it mean to be "dedicated to the principles that made my country free"? Which principles, spelled out where? 

Does this instruct our troops to honor due process? Is it a command to believe in innocence until proven guilty? Does it mean that illegal orders must NOT be obeyed? I'm sure I never received any clarification of such issues. Which must have contributed to my willingness to carry out policies that were often questionable at best in a country we were never at war with. It took months of carrying out such policies in country, and months of reflecting on them after I was discharged, for me to be able to actually "see" what we were doing in Vietnam. 

This is why today, Veterans Day, I will probably have to deflect the thank yous for my service with disclaimers that I provided no service to my country until I was involved in the antiwar movement after I was discharged. 

But, it's also Deb's and my anniversary!

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Thanks Robert, Jay and Jack.  Thinking of the Veterans today.❤️

Nori, the problem is you believe everything Trump says and don't read the links that show convincingly that he is lying.  Now he continues to pardon deniers of the 2020 election. Of course he pardoned all the Jan 6 ers many of which were violent and attacked police officers.  One guy got arrested recently Trump pardoned as it came out he was a sexual assaulter . Another he pardoned threatened to kill Hakeem Jeffries.  So you never look beyond what Trump says. I'm a democrat but that doesn't mean I turn a blind eye to things wrong by a Democrat like when LBJ faked the Gulf of Tonkin crisis.  Love, Joanie  Also Nori, are you ok that Trump keeps trying to cancel snap benefits and so many including children will go hungry.  

Jack Mallory

Just talking to my buddy, fellow Santa Cruz High teacher, and Vietnam veteran Steve. Both of us expressing the cognitive dissonance that "Happy Veterans Day" creates. 
 

I think this is an apt message for Veterans Day:

Jack Mallory

Too long without a nature break. This glimmer of sunset after several days of cold, wind, and rain. 

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Beautiful Photo Jack..thank you, Joanie

Jay Shackford

Jack -- Congrats to you and Deb on your anniversary.  

Jack Mallory

Nori?

"The question still stands. How do we know that those we are paying to kill, are being blown up in our names, are killers as you and Trump claim?"

*********

Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/us/politics/trump-epstein-emails.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
 

Jack Mallory

Thanks, Jay. Living in sin, as we do, we don't have a specific day to mark the beginning. But since we met at the VA, where I came to volunteer in the fall of 2012 and Deb was director of Voluntary Services . . . Well, that is where it all began! Poor woman; 28 years at the VA, mostly as a rec therapist for vets with physical injuries and PTSD, then stuck with one of them! But lucky me.

Joan Ruggles (Young)

According to Nori, "combatants certainly can be anyone who targets & attacks Americans, including those who bring drugs as weapons in an ongoing war on drugs".  She clearly made my point for me with the help of Jay's excellent article from Politico. A combabtant attacks Americans. You have invented the idea that someone bringing drugs into America is an enemy combatant. So explain to me what drugs are being brought to the US by these "blow-em-up-ask-questions-later boats?" Is it cocaine, fentanyl, other opioids?? If they are in International waters, how do we know that they aren't headed to Trinidad, especially given that they couldn't possibly carry enough fuel to get to the US.  Are you expecting drug traffickers to be hauling giant bales of fentanyl on their boats? Fentanyl use requires tiny doses. Illegal imports are usually in quantities of less than 37 lbs. Is that what was in those huge bales seen off one of the boats? I guess we'll never know will we? 

BTW I am currently in possession of a boatload of those very drugs which we're discussing, which I've been prescribed after surgery on a displaced and broken ankle. I'm using Oxycodone but I've also got some opium based Morphine which was prescribed for me before I left France with my broken bones. Glad to have them when needed. 

Jack Mallory

I'm sorry. The idea that someone is bringing "drugs as weapons in an ongoing war on drugs" makes absolutely no sense at all. Drugs are the commodity being transported for sale in order to make money. They are not weapons--people truly engaged in a "war," even a metaphorical war, don't sell their weapons. The last thing drug dealers want is a war. They want to quietly sell as much of their drugs as possible, get away with their profits. "WAR" is dangerous, loud, messy, and unprofitable. The only reason to apply the term is to  attempt to justify unevidenced killing. 
 

Nora Skinker (Morton)

You have a boatload of drugs, Joan? Seriously, sorry you need drugs at all but they are obviously not the illegal drugs we are talking about. Scripts such as yours are controlled substances. 

Having difficulty in understanding the forum's heavy resistance to the US decision to protect us from drug cartels. It's my understanding that several known drug cartels have been designated FTO's by our government. That puts them in a category which falls under our POTUS' right to implement procedures (much like Obama's authorizing 'tween 600 to 1000 deadly drone strikes under his presidency) to protect us. Tren de Aragua, to name one, is known for extortion, human & drug trafficking. It is based in Venezuela, & with growing influence, has garnered attention the world over. I believe our Intelligence community knows well the several terrorist cartels & as intelligence does, filters classified info to Trump. But hey, if the J's choose to think Trump just wants to blow things up, feel free. (Sending a show of military might in the region suggests something on a grander scale, so we'll have to stay tuned). That said, he certainly has a way to go, to catch up with Obama's death toll. Too bad we're stuck with a leader who DOES something rather than pretend the prob isn't there. 

Jack Mallory

Nori, I see no resistance to protecting ourselves from drug cartels. I see, and feel, enormous resistance to killing people because someone says they're drug dealers without offering any evidence, making any arrests, carrying out any trials. Killing without due process is just as illegal and immoral as selling fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, or any other substance. Maybe even more dangerous to our democracy. 

Just as I see enormous resistance on your part to answering the question, asked over and over again, "How do we know that those we are paying to kill, are being blown up in our names, are killers?"

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Nori, you almost never answer anything we point out to you and ask you like Jack's question about how do you know who is being blown up on those boats? . I told you that I didn't like all Obama's deportations. That was excessive. 

You never answer what you think of Trump pushing to cut SNAP benefits for the hungry including 16million children. You have a right to be in the hard core Trump movement but many MAGA supporters are seeing that the prices are going way up (Trump said he would lower them on day one) and ICE agents are abusing people arresting mostly non criminals and throwing people to the ground and even spraying tear gas around children. They are going into churches and schools. Little children are terrified...This is not the American I want to live in.  Many MAGA supporters don't like the way Trump is trying to hide the Epstein files. They are starting to notice how he is always giving breaks to the ultra wealthy and hurting the poor. He tried to not give back pay to Federal workers...these are real things happening. By the way, your saying at least we have a leader who does something is an interesting comment. In my opinion, he has done things but so much of them are destruction to our country, cutting greenhouse emissions. (more people will die of lung cancer) scaring immigrants to the point the children are afraid to go to school, getting rid of the East Wing to build a lavish Kingly ballroom while sending 20 billion to Argentina so that he can get payback, doing deals with other overseas governments for personal gain. Yes he is the most corrupt President of our lifetime...he is doing things all right! Love, Joanie

Nora Skinker (Morton)

    Jack, how do you know they're NOT criminals bringing drugs to our shores? Do share! Did you dig to find out what evidencial intelligence previous presidents had to authorize the killing of other FTO members through the years? Do share! Please be convincing because other forum members/classmates have contacted me. One even sharing that the US should " bomb the sh*t out of the f*ckers !!" Them thar' are fightin' words, right up your alley! So, do tell!! 
    Joanie, your comments are your beliefs, as you've consistently expressed. How many deportations would have had to take place before they became excessive? Whether Trump is the most corrupt president in our lifetime or not, can't be discerned because corruption has not been measured in all our administrations & unlike Jack, we will never know. 
 

Jack Mallory

Nori, although you haven't had the common decency to answer my repeatedly asked question, I'll answer yours. 

I don't know if they're criminals or not. The way our system of justice works grants a presumption of innocence to those accused of crimes. Guilt is determined through a defined process. I am opposed to executing--killing--people who have never been tried whether in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, in international waters, or elsewhere. I've seen ignorant calls to "bomb the shit out of the fuckers" or the equivalent throughout my life, from the Phoenix Program to this week. Many/most of our presidents have participated. I don't care who the presidents have been--one doing it does not justify the others--that is not justice and I'll call it murder. 

I have no interest in arguing with classmates who use you as a mouthpiece. And until you answer my question, I'm finished talking talking to you. 

Joanie Bender (Grosfeld)

Nori, these are not just my beliefs, these are facts. You can check the record. Trump said to stop giving SNAP payments.  It's fact.  Trump pardoned ALL the Jan 6ers.  fact.  Not good to pardon violent criminals. Trump pardoned Santos and freed him of paying back money to those he screwed.  FACT. and so much more. Love, Joanie❤️❤️❤️

Jack Mallory

There are a lot of people and institutions to blame for the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by drugs in the U.S. It's an interesting perspective on the values of some folks that they focus on blaming and killing poor people outside the U.S. never shown to be guilty of such deaths. There is a plentitude of evidence that there are Americans far more demonstrably guilty.

Two places to look, for those interested in the factual responsibility for our drug deaths.

1. Corporate America,  "for its role in an opioid crisis connected to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999, including from heroin and illicit fentanyl."

https://www.npr.org/2025/11/14/g-s1-97864/purdue-pharma-sackler-family-opioid-settlement
 

2. And for decades, our narco-military involvement around the world. 

"Harp’s inquiry centers on narcotics throughout his 300-page hair-raiser. He argues that the drug trade has been central to postwar US foreign policy, specifically when it has come to teaming up with local and regional warlords doubling as drug lords (or vice versa). Afghanistan escalated this trend into a whole new register, whereby the US-backed puppet state in Kabul became the world’s preeminent heroin cartel. Even though, for years, US officials and credulous journalists painted the insurgents as “narco-terrorists,” it was in fact the coalition forces themselves and their Afghan proxies who were fueling the industry and the lawless violence growing out of it."

Harp has written for The Rolling Stone, not a usual source of mine for straightforward journalism, but this book is the only standalone account of the topic. Perhaps the most straightforward content is in Chaper 7, his history of the intertwining of our wars, strategies, and the opium trade. He does have a pretty good set of references.

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/seth-harp-fort-bragg-cartel/#
 

I'm not calling for drone attacks on the Sacklers, although consequences above and beyond civil litigation aimed at billionaires might seem more like justice. Nor should we be blowing up the government officials and military personnel also involved. But as long as all of them go free from capital punishment or even criminal charges, so too should faceless boatmen. 

Jack Mallory

The best I've seen in the media on the drug "war," causes and solutions. LONG ( too long to block and paste), detailed, informed and rational. I've given you the opening and closing. There's a lot more in between, and a lot more intelligence, than "bomb the fuck out of them."

". . . In short, prohibition has actively made drugs more dangerous. This was not a grand drama of good and evil, but a predictable result of bad policy. It won’t be easy, but we can do the same in reverse: We can adopt policies that incentivize less dangerous products, sold in ways that are less likely to lead to addiction and overdose.

"This does not mean blanket legalization. As the opioid crisis (and arguably the cannabis boom) shows, free or unregulated markets are like prohibition markets in that they are not oriented for consumer protection. We need to rethink supply-side drug policies to fill in the vast space between prohibition and free markets. Luckily, we already have a sophisticated set of effective market regulatory tools.

"This isn’t glamorous or heroic work. There is no “one weird trick.” It’s more like housework that must be constantly attended to than a once-and-for-all climactic victory. And just as there are still car accidents despite all the safety features, there will always be some harms related to opioids. But, without a doubt, we can use drug policy to deliver significantly safer drug markets.

Understandably, American politicians have long been drawn to more emotionally satisfying stories like the ones where foreign traffickers are to blame for the decline of rural and small-town America. Again, drugs are not unique: The MAGA movement has many other such morally simplifying stories, about Big Pharma’s vaccines as the cause of chronic disorders or about tariffs as a magical solution to unemployment. These stories may serve the needs of politicians, but they can’t fix the actual problems.

"To reduce the overdose crisis, we need to stop exploiting drug tragedies to serve other geopolitical agendas. It wasn’t started by villainous foreign traffickers, and there is no drug-free utopia waiting for us if we shut off one illicit supply chain.

We can save a lot of lives, and support a lot of struggling communities, by aiming for the “least worst” solutions. Fentanyl is a hard problem that has cost a lot of lives. Let’s stop being distracted by foreign boogeymen and do something about it."