So, eleven Venezuelans were on a boat smuggling drugs?

[bigtree]

"The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States," Trump said in the posting. "No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America."

...I'm trying to wrap my head around drug smugglers who would load up eleven people on a boat to smuggle drugs to the U.S..

Were they all there to help smuggle drugs; all on the boat, drug smugglers?

How did the U.S. military verify that drugs were on the boat?

At any rate, it was interesting how Maduro used the 'AI' defense Trump just this week self-servingly said could be used to deflect accusations of wrongdoing:

"Based on the video provided, it is very likely that it was created using Artificial Intelligence," Maduro said on his Telegram account. He didn't say what tools could have been used to create the video, but said it showed an "almost cartoonish animation, rather than a realistic depiction of an explosion."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-venezuela-us-military-strike-on-boat-1.7623576

Clearly, Trump is using this military action and attack as justification for his opportunistic declarations that the Venezuelans who had been mostly settled and integrated into communities who he's expelling from the U.S. pose some sort of risk to Americans and represent some sort of 'invasion' that would justify the use of what's been long understood as wartime powers to act against these people peacefully residing and working in this country.

Trump openly declared during his first administration that he would not rule out military action against Maduro's rule in Caracas. If he is, in fact, waging some sort of war against Venezuela, his punitive actions against Venezuela refugees in this country is akin to the internment in concentration camps the U.S. perpetrated against Japanese residents in WW2.

Blowing up a boat outside of U.S. territory just reminds us that the false flags and invented pretexts other regimes, including our own government advantaged in waging war involved sea-going vessels; and that other U.S. covert (and often illegal) activity abroad used drug interdiction as an excuse to destabilize foreign powers the presidents who ordered them opposed - much like Trump's open threats and antipathy expressed toward Venezuela's Maduro.

I mean, that's what this is ostensibly all about; not interrupting the flow of drugs from one cartel, to the evident advantage of others still operating; but the overthrow of Maduro, which is an autocratic pursuit from this president, and not anything authorized by Congress.

Asked if Trump would carry out operations on Venezuelan soil, Rubio was opaque. "We're going to take on drug cartels wherever they are and wherever they're operating against the interests of the United States," he said.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-venezuela-us-military-strike-on-boat-1.7623576

Trump's war on drugs in the waters off of Venezuela
is just another autocratic, possibly illegal exercise of our nation's military forces under the false pretext of fighting crime.

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, so there's a solid motive, as if this madman in the WH needed one as he grows more and more comfortable in his dangerously impulsive exercise of our nation's defensive military forces.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. People killed bc easy arrest & interrogating is inconvenient, especially if facts go against Caligula. . . nt

[Johnny2X2X]

2. It's total BS

This isn't the type of boat that would be good for smuggling. And you wouldn't have 11 people on board, what's the point of having so many people? The boat didn't have engines for long travel on the ocean.

The cartels aren't poor, they have freaking subs, they aren't going to put their product on some junk boat with 11 farmers.

[Greg_In_SF]

7. Actually, there have been 19

boats like this seized by the Coast Guard this Summer alone.

[Volaris]

8. Also, if the boat is in international waters (off the coast of Venezuela),

how the hell do they 'know' it's headed for America, specifically? What, it was pointed North?!
What drugs were on board?
What group was moving alleged drugs?
Why is this a problem for the WHOLE-ASS US NAVY, instead of 12 dudes on a DEA swat team in Miami?

This was trash fiction when Tom Clancy published it when I was in high school. Even the thought experiment that an actual living, IRL sitting us president would take this seriously is FUCKING LUNACY.

[taxi]

15. Exactly. If they had enough inside information about the crew and the cargo,

then they would likely have had information about its destination. And even in the absence of specifics about where and when it would rendezvous, the question becomes, how difficult is it to follow a boat?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. trump killed these people to try to distract from Epstein

Drug runners do not normally have 11 people aboard a boat

[SoFlaBro]

4. So they just fucking have these giant fucking garbage bags filled with coke and H out in the fucking open?!? Got it.

[Greg_In_SF]

9. They do

it all the time.

[bigtree]

11. does it take 11 people to operate this speedboat?

...where did they put the drug 'shipment' claimed by officials? In those bags out in the open where any plane can see them getting splashed by the waves, allegedly, all the way to America?



A video still released by the White House of a boat U.S. officials say was carrying a drug shipment from Venezuela bound for the U.S. The video included an airstrike that appeared to destroy the vessel and kill those on it.

"Lot of drugs in that boat,” Trump told reporters.

[Greg_In_SF]

13. Well, you can just look up

photo of drug running boats. They run uncovered loads of drugs all the time.

And, this boat could have been going to another Caribbean island to offload on to a bigger boat, not all the way to the US. Also not uncommon.

[bigtree]

17. more likely it was people commuting

Venezuelans travel by sea primarily to cross to Trinidad and Tobago, where they seek basic necessities and a better quality of life. Many migrants undertake perilous journeys, often under dangerous conditions, to secure essential goods like food and medicine. The process typically involves crossing treacherous waters, and many face risks such as capsized boats and other maritime dangers. Despite the challenges, these journeys are driven by economic desperation...

Venezuelans continue to undertake dangerous boat journeys to Trinidad and Tobago, usually departing either from Tucupita or Güiria. Migrants have told me that the cost of the trip ranges between USD $100 to USD $300. Fishing boats—almost always overloaded with between 15 to 30 passengers—are used to transport migrants. While the voyage, in theory, should take only about half an hour, the actual journey takes days, since smugglers have to avoid vessels from both the Venezuelan and Trinidadian coast guards. Migrants leaving Venezuela from Tucupita normally wait for several days before departure in an area called La Barra, where the Warao—an Indigenous group that inhabits Venezuela’s Orinoco Delta region—provide refuge until the coast is clear. When they arrive in Trinidad, migrants land at different locations across the southwestern peninsula of the island of Trinidad; by the time they arrive, transportation is organized to take them to their families and friends in various parts of the country. According to a recent article in the Trinidad Guardian, “[…] 91 illegal ports were identified around [Trinidad and Tobago]. This was mapped out by the T&T Coast Guard. An eight-month human trafficking investigation in the Caribbean by Dr. Justine Pierre unearthed an expansive human trafficking and smuggling ring involving senior law enforcement officers in [Trinidad and Tobago] who assist with entry.”

https://globalamericans.org/tragedies-at-sea-venezuelan-migrants-continue-to-flock-to-trinidad-and-tobago-despite-border-closure/


Venezuelans Risk Crossing Sea to Get Basics

As Venezuela's economy crumbles, desperate people are doing all they can to get food and medicine. Here that can involve great peril. Venezuelans make trips as long as 10 hours to hawk shellfish, plastic chairs, house doors,
ceramic pots and even exotic animals like iguanas and brightly feathered macaws. They are exchanged for basic goods like rice, detergent, diapers that Caracas is increasingly unable to provide.

"It's thanks to Trinidad that we have any food here," said 49 year-old Angela Caballero, a resident of this town on a peninsula that extends toward the island. "If that didn't come, we'd be dead."

https://studylib.net/doc/25424804/venezuela

[EX500rider]

14. I have trouble getting to 11 people, I see like maybe 5? nt

[malaise]

5. Killed with no evidence

How democratic.

[Hekate]

6. I don't believe a word out of this administration any more

What I do believe is 11 people were murdered

[maxsolomon]

10. How are drug smugglers "Terrorists"?

They're applying that term like Russia would.

[pat_k]

16. Intolerable. Arbitrary label equals license to kill

How long before the 47 regime labels Newsom a terrorist?

[pat_k]

12. A new way to murder in our name

So now the 47 regime is blowing up any small vessel they label a "drug boat."

They are murdering people in the Caribbean Sea in our name.

How long before enough people hear the voice of conscience for this nation to stop tolerating the intolerable?

...
Maritime law

The US is not a signatory to United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the Department of Defense has previously said the US should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions”, external.

“Force can be used to stop a boat but generally this should be non-lethal measures,” said Luke Moffett of Queens University Belfast, and the use of aggressive tactics must be “reasonable and necessary in self-defence”.

Human rights law

Prof Moffett also says the use of force could amount to an “extrajudicial arbitrary killing” and “a fundamental violation of human rights”.

Under Article 2(4) of the UN charter, countries can resort to force when under attack and are exercising their military in self-defence.

But Prof Michael Becker of Trinity College Dublin told BBC Verify the US operation “stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point”.

“The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narco-terrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets,” he said..

.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c20700nnwz7t