The U.S. Has Now Killed Over 65 People In Strikes Against Alleged Drug Boats
The U.S. Has Now Killed Over 65 People In Strikes Against Alleged Drug Boats
This is terrorism.
*state terrorism
I would make the case that the people being directly killed here by the state, while atrocious, pale in comparison to the number of deaths that will be directly attributed to the cutting of USAid internationally and the loss of healthcare, jobs and environmental regulations in the US. And of course the gutting of the US health department and ending vaccine programs/requirements.
We will likely see a death-toll directly tied to Trump and his administration in the range of seven figures in the next decade.
the number of deaths that will be directly attributed to the cutting of USAid internationally and the loss of healthcare, jobs and environmental regulations in the US
Hey now, we didn't cut USAID. We just sent $40B to our good friends in Argentina. And now Milei's party has won the midterms, which means he can continue his War On Leftism inside the state and along the borders.
We're also helping to arm and secure Guyana, in a Kuwait-like project to drill into neighboring Venezuelan oil fields. That's not happening for free. Lots of Latin Americans and US government contractors are absolutely getting their palms greased. It's been a bonanza for NATO aligned mercenaries since the Bush Era, thanks to all the money we're spending on freelance military.
We're saving lives, man. All that money is putting food on the tables of any number of cocaine snorting, removed house frequenting, tacti-cool sunglass wearing Afghanistan washouts and their Guasano peers.
Are you just going to ignore that?
We will likely see a death-toll directly tied to Trump and his administration in the range of seven figures in the next decade
You could apply this to any US president. The US + EU murder half a million people abroad yearly just through economic sanctions and blockades, as shown in a recent study in Lancet.
Everyone involved should be extradited to those countries affected and face justice.
If they claim they know that these boats have drugs on them, they could just apprehend them when they made port.
But then they would have to actually find said drugs to use as evidence to prosecute them.
This is just extrajudicial murder, plain and simple. I hope Trump and everyone who is involved with this dies an excruciatingly painful death.
If they claim they know that these boats have drugs on them, they could just apprehend them when they made port
That would require due process, instead of a spectacle of Shock and Awe.
Also, let's say, hypothetically that these aren't drug boats. Let's say they are boats moving medical supplies or fuel or building materials between Venezuela and Cuba. Let's say they're actually military units working on behalf of the Venezuelan Coast Guard or just fisherman who got caught in an international crossfire.
It's just easier to say "Drug Gang. Killed them." knowing no major American media source is going to publish a rebuttal. Nobody in the US has access to the details of the attack. Nobody is going to interview the families or investigate the wreckage. Nobody is going to contradict this regime when it comes to butchering citizens of the Global South.
So why not call them a drug gang? Call them human traffickers. Call them roving nautical pedophiles. Call them Islamic Jihad.
American audiences won't hear anything different.
But then they would have to actually find said drugs to use as evidence to prosecute them.
It's not like those can't be planted. They're already killing civilians of another country, there's no bottom in their games.
It's murder for political optics plain and simple.
Exactly.
Yeah, but that is the case for a LOT of murder done by both states and individuals. I'm in no way saying that to lessen how bad it is, if anything it should give people pause to reflect on how bad many things they don't see as bad are.
Extrajudicial murders using the same paltry level of evidence as most ICE operations. The word MURDER is the essential word.
It pains me to give trump the benifit of doubt greatly but I'd love to see some solid evidence of it not being drug smugglers so we can nail him the fuck down for it in the future.
Besides the fact that evidence doesn't work that way, the Administration has options here if they actually believed those were drug boats. The 50BMG rifle exists to put a big hole in an engine block. There are snipers good enough to make that shot at a few hundred yards in a helicopter.
They choose to use a much more expensive missile that just so happens to obliterate any evidence.
They're just killing random fishers.
A lack of evidence of innocence isn't the same thing as evidence of guilt.
Even if they were guilty of smuggling drugs, using missiles to murder them is excessive force.
It pains me to give trump the benifit of doubt greatly
then don't?
but I'd love to see some solid evidence of it not being drug smugglers
it's pretty hard to get evidence from an exploded small boat, sunk in the ocean… not counting that proving negatives is fairly hard (which is why that's not how evidence works)… how do you "prove" to me you are not a drug smuggler?
Everyone already explained why your view on this issue is misguided, so I'll just add one thing: even if these people are guilty of drug smuggling, that is not a crime that's punishable by death in the United States.
Yeah that's not how evidence works. The onus is on him to provide evidence that they are drug boats, which should be trivial for the largest military in the world.
Why would you ever give him the benefit of the doubt here?
Completely agree. I think that they'd be waving it about if they did.
Murdered.
They can tell how many they killed, but no actual eviidence of drugs in the wreckage while counting bodies??
IR cameras are good at counting bodies.
They will keep killing fishermen until Venezuela takes action, and then its ok to invade for that sweet sweet oil. Drill baby drill! USA USA USA!
and then its ok to invade for that sweet sweet oil
Déjà vu
If it works it works
US already does all the oil in Venezuela though...
The U.S. doesn’t run Venezuelan oil — it regulates who gets to touch it. The Treasury’s OFAC sanctions don’t control production; they choke the financial and logistical pipelines around it. That’s Washington’s leverage — not ownership, but gatekeeping. Venezuela nationalized its oil industry back in the 1970s, and PDVSA still owns every barrel that comes out of the ground.
Right now, the only American company still operating there is Chevron, and even they’re basically on probation. Their projects run under a temporary OFAC license that can be pulled at any time, and they’re not allowed to pay the Maduro government directly. Everything has to go through a U.S.-approved escrow system.
Meanwhile, most of Venezuela’s actual oil exports move outside U.S. reach entirely — crude swapped through China, blended with Iranian condensate, shipped under flags of convenience on ghost fleets that never report their location. That’s not American control; that’s a global workaround to avoid it.
So yeah, the U.S. has influence — financial choke points, compliance pressure, and the ability to turn Chevron’s tap on or off. But control? No. PDVSA owns the wells, China and Iran move the barrels, and OFAC just decides who’s allowed to touch the money.
Edit: Please, I encourage you to fact-check me. Informed decision-making is the key to equitable governance.
Fishermen? I'm not defending the actions of my government, they are fucking appalling and illegal, but have you seen the boats they've killed? My friend, those are not likely innocent fishermen.
EDIT: None of you read first sentence. Not going to parse a two sentence post for you.
It's insane that they aren't, at worst, intercepting and searching these vessels. As with everything Trump does, cruelty is the point.
This man is a convicted felon that is sloppily trying to cover up the fact he sexually abused children (Epstein Files), along with the full support of the republican party. And the GOP (politicians and voters alike) are complicit with these crimes as long as they agree he should not be punished.
We, the sane people in this world, will never forget these facts.
Tell me again, lemmy, why Kamala is satanspawn and would've been worse for everyone.
Go on, you stupid fucks. Tell those murder victims in Venezuela, and their families.
Useful idiots wouldn't be upset if Kamala won because they don't care about the working class.
Literally nobody is saying Kamala would be worse. We're telling the 'stupid fucks' that 'falling in line' is a losing strategy and they should stop relying on it to combat fascism.
Instead of getting mad at the people who didn't fall in line because Kamala is an establishment candidate, you should be getting mad at those who nominated her in the first place. But you're too naive to do that, so here we are.
The two-pronged strategy works because of people like you. I don't expect you to learn, ever.
So Obama didn't drone strike weddings? Stop this partisan polar bullshit, this is a problem with the country.
No Obama drone strikes good, trump drone strikes bad. Murder good when we do it, murder bad when they do it.
It was more about prioritizing personal moral integrity over the practical consequences of their (in)action by not preventing fascist a president that announced he would turn your country into a war zone for non-white people.
And of course racism: white people don't really care much about non-white people.
Nice straw man. You mad not everyone was sucking Joe bidens balls with a big enough smile? For not staying quiet and asking for nothing in exchange for my vote like a good boy?
kamala is not worse then trump. While im sure these people exist (hit me up with your sources), this was not why people were upset with the democratic party.
We just want to not be disenfranchised. Is it so hard for the self described defenders of Democracy to allow the voters to have more then two choices in the voting booth in blue states?
How about just having a presidential primary? Is that bar low enough for the blue conservatives to waddle over? Uhoh, im asking for representation! PURITY TEST! PERFECT ENEMY OF GOOD! what a joke of a nation when the "good guys" seek to silence their own voters with rhetoric.
Democrats strangled democracy every election cycle they didn't make replacing First-past-the-post voting a priority in the states they control. The republicans just delivered the knockout blow. Good job sacrificing the nation so democrats could have safe states and easy elections against the worst of us all.
Democracy is not "vote for my preference or else". I would never seek to force you to vote how I want to vote. Yet you continue to do so, even after the most humiliating defeats the democrats have delivered us.
Time to lose your monopoly on resisting the republicans blue MAGA. Not that you ever deserved it. The worst allies anyone could hope for. More like an abusive relationship.
"Vote for me or I'll shame and guilt you" is the tactic Republicans use, and now Democrats use it too and claim to be the good guy.
Lemmy?
Do you think we all hold the same opinion or something? You're here too, you're as much under that umbrella of vitriol that you've just spat as the rest of us.
Anyone to the left on Biden is the same to them, so yes.
she endorsed much of what trump did. she would just be more polite about it.
fighting fascism takes more than just electoralism, and if someone like her is a choice then it's been a while your country has been a democracy anyway.
So when your team did drone strikes it was cool? Or is it only bad when the other guys also murder brown people?
why Kamala is satanspawn and would've been worse for everyone
Nobody said this. Kamala lost not because "Lemmy purists are dumb", but because she ran an unelectable campaign. If the Democrats had run a progressive candidate they may have had a chance, just look at the Mamdani avalanche. Besides, wasn't it Democrats themselves who pushed for this with the pied piper strategy of radicalizing the republicans towards fascism to "make them less electable"?
How dare you use facts from reality against their circle jerk!
As I understand it, the reason was she wasn't some perfect anarcho-socialist, so until the Mainstream AF Democratic Party that intentionally sidelined Bernie Sanders in 2016 fields a national candidate that is the most far-left progressive imaginable, it's not worth voting at all because it's an act of protest against one's self, which is morally superior to giving a flying fuck about other people who are 100% bound to suffer and die as the result of that action. Basically spoiled rich kid logic.
I'm not yet too old to utilize my second amendment rights, but the people that think like this are the ones that push things in that direction. They're accelerationists of the same magnitude as the hard-right Zionist MAGA fools and don't realize how easily and completely they play right into the hands of every single thing they hate by acting like this.
Now smash the down arrow, crush that report drop-down, and spam me with Marxist diatribes all you little .MLers. It doesn't absolve you of the part you joyfully played in making these crimes happen to all of us a year ago. Y'all are disgusting.
And with 0 evidence
Terrorist attacks*
This sets a really bad precedent and is just plain wrong and murderous. Like no sane people comes up with this plan and then starts murdering. Absolutely not okay. I thought the UN made a statement that this is illegal? Does that mean, like Bush, it will likely be the case that Trump (and maybe his goons?) won’t be able leave the US if they push that through the international court? I would love this for all of them.
I sure hope so. If America has a civil war over evils like this, I don't want Dogey Americans to be able to flee and set down roots in other nations. Our elite are weeds, and they will strangle the life out of Europe and others if given the chance.
Sharing a border with them might make this especially difficult. Even American culture has gotten to us North of the border... Thankfully it seems like a big part of our identity is just "we're not American" so when the nasty T word came around most people I knew were actively boycotting ( and still are) US made products. Here's hoping that if it comes down to a civil war, it's quick and painless...
My entire life has been a bad precedent.
So where the drugs?
On the streets
that's the beauty of it. there aren't any!
Davy Jones Locker
Not recognizing ICC, regime change, illegal killing of foreign civilians, supporting genocidal regimes, invading other countries, carpet bombing nations, incarcerating their own population, killing eachother in mass shootings, biggest per capita contribution to climate change.
American exceptionalism isn't doing us any good.
But ooh nooo China, please Europe, fear China... We are your 'allies'.
Why can't they just intercept the boats and arrest the people on board if they truly have evidence of smuggling? It's cheaper in the short term than wasting expensive missiles, and much cheaper in the long term when you factor in the reparations we're going to have to pay to the families of all the people that were murdered.
Trump is trying to escalate tension with Venezuela to instigate them to attack us. Then he can rule that we can't have another election during a war.
Expecting them to pay reparations is very optimistic.
Because that doesn’t make you feel like a couch badass warrior. Duh.
Updated the slogan.
Huh, it rippled backwards in time, too
The U.S is a terrorist state and now it’s a full on dictatorship. They’re not even hiding their illegal kills anymore
These boat strikes are becoming like school shootings. You gotta start numbering them. And don't bother with the hurricane or Greek Covid naming either. We're gonna pass the numbers in alphabet in no time.
“over”?
I'm guessing: 65 confirmed at the time of writing, new confirmed coming in all the time.
Over 65 people. He's killing all the retirees.
LOL
They must be drug boats because there is no more drugs in the US anymore.
Almost like a distraction from the epstein files.
Not everything is. Besides pedophiles, they're also actual fascists.
There are more than one issues going on.
They aren't rich, so it's okay.
WAR_CRIMES
The fact that the people involved went to the JAG for legal cover clearly demonstrates that they know that what they are doing is following illegal orders. Mens rea. They are going to be charged when this is all over.
The fact that the people involved went to the JAG for legal cover clearly demonstrates that they know that what they are doing is following illegal orders.
Despicable. Did they really go to JAG to ask "I'm covered if I do this right?"?
Rather than "There's no way in hell this is legal and you'll cover me if I refuse, right?"?
Evil at worst. Shamefully spineless and devoid of honor at best.
"Just following orders" is not a valid defense in carrying out increasingly heinous crimes against humanity.
Apparently they went to the JAG asking for legal cover and they have been asked to sign NDAs.
Extradite Hegseth.
Can you feel it? This is how all great democracies are born! Just a few more dead, Venezuela, and we'll bring you democracy! Prepare your parades and ribbons and floats!
The USA stooping to a new and shitty level of low.
So the rest of the West doesn't do embargos because the conquest of land is bad and not the killing, when one does special military operations?
It's like the Apocalypse Now scene, without the part when they try to search the boat.
I wonder if the sailing south of porto Rico is more than dangerous than the sailing along the Yemeni coast...
You guys seem to blissfully ignore the fact that democracies are built one bombing at a time.
You seem to ignore how democracies actually work.
Let me guess, you think democracy is "vote for my preference or else" right?
In a real democracy, voters have a choice, not a hostage situation. The democrats are a part of this problem with the republicans.
I just explained it to you. Just look at the Middle East for example after example of successful democracies built by bombs, not votes.
Some reason to believe they're not drug boats?
Presumption of innocence.
Also, a long history of the US government engaging in fraud and slander as an excuse to start wars, from the USS Maine to the Gulf of Tonkin incident to the WMDs in Iraq.
Some reason they believe that they ARE drug boats?
How do I know you're not a drug boat?
I am a drug boat.
Besides that it's from the administration that lies all the time, and no proof has been shown? I guess not, though there are good arguments that the boats couldn't have reached the US and having 11 people on a smuggling boat doesn't make sense.
Then there's the fact that the crimal punishment for smuggling isn't death and they were not even charged, had a trial and found guilty.
Even if they are drug boats...this is not a crime punishable by death without due process.
In the US, there's this lil piece of paper called the constitution. Within that is the sixth amendment which kiiiiinda gets in the way of of just killing people when the government feels like it.
Removed by Moderator — Modlog
IDK where I'm from drug smuggling isn't an automatic execution. Usually you arrest the perpetrators and give them a trial.
But it's easier to send a missle and sort it later.
It's like all the children enemy combatants we killed via drones in Iraq.
Honest question, do you think the government should have the authority to execute anyone anywhere for whatever crime they deem fit with no trial or evidence collection?
Murder
People that say he is murdering are next on the list.
He does say it might be illegal for late night show hosts to criticize him...