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.