A new, disturbing detail in the “drug boat” controversy that has enveloped Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the past week calls the purpose of the entire operation into question.
According to an exclusive report from CNN, the alleged narco-trafficking boat that the U.S. military targeted on September 2 in a “double tap” strike, which killed 11 people, wasn’t even heading to the U.S.
Navy Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who was in charge of the operation, reported to lawmakers that the boat they struck was actually en route to link up with a larger boat that was heading to Suriname, a country east of Venezuela, two sources with direct knowledge of his remarks said.
Bradley also said that it was still possible that the alleged drug shipment could have eventually ended up in the U.S., the sources told CNN—rather dubious justification for a strike that left several people dead.
It’s a significantly stronger argument because you don’t have to forfeit reason. If your only goal is to remove any ability to justify an attack then you can make up anything you want. For example: “It was aliens driving the boat with secret cloaking technology, and they didn’t even come from Venezuela.” Is that a stronger argument? Obviously not. The stronger argument is the one that’s harder to refute, not the one that’s trivial to.
It’s not very tenuous really. There’s a common design used for this, that isn’t used for any other purpose as far as I’m aware. There’s no comfort built in, so it’s not like a consumer boat. They’re built for speed, but also with a lot of cargo space, so they aren’t like a fishing boat or anything else. We have many instances of them being boarded and drugs seized from the past, and they look almost identical. The boats also were loaded with some kind of cargo (we can’t know what, because it was destroyed, but we know there was stuff in there). Here’s a picture:
It’s much easier to argue the regime is doing something illegal starting from a place of reason. If they wanted to stop them they easily could have boarded them (though also illegal where they are). Slaughtering the is illegal and immoral, no matter the justification. You can also point out that Venezuela has huge oil reserves, which is a trend for nations we invade. It isn’t about drugs. Usually they talk about fentanyl, but that’s not coming through Venezuela, so that’s a big hole in their reasoning.
There’s a lot of ways to approach it that don’t require burying your head in the sand and arguing that there aren’t drugs being smuggled. Theres far too much evidence for that.
It’s reasonable to expect some form of evidence that the victims actually committed a crime.
In a court of law, sure. In the court of public opinion? No.
Anyway, what I’m saying has nothing to do with them committing a crime. It has to do with the US committing a crime. It doesn’t matter if it was drug smuggling or not. The actions were illegal and immoral. They should not have been done. I’m just not going to weaken that argument by couching it on them being drug boats or not, because there’s more than enough evidence to assume that’s reasonable. If you make that your argument then no one is going to listen to you (outside of a few internet communities who refuse to be reasonable because they think that makes them better).
Just watched an SNL skit in which they referred to them as fishing boats. Pretty sure you’re off base with what most people think, it’s not an unreasonable fringe stance. On average people are going to care more about the idea that “we” just killed a several dozen random fishermen off the coast of a country we’re not even at war with than the idea that um well actually narcotraficantes are people too and deserve a trial by jury. I don’t really see them anymore, but I used to regularly see ‘shoot your local heroin dealer’ bumper stickers. Talking with ex military coworkers, though, there plenty of criticism of these murders, and plenty of distrust in the brass. That’s all I’ve got to say, though, you’re just kneecapping your effectiveness by not even bothering to recognize the glaring uncertainty about who these victims were.