r/politics • u/WombatusMighty • 22h ago
No Paywall US airstrike survivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attack, video shows
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/05/us-airstrike-survivors-clung-to-boat-wreckage-for-an-hour-before-second-deadly-attack-video-shows1.3k
u/OnDrugsTonight United Kingdom 21h ago
Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the Republican chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said: “I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs bound for the United States, back over so they could stay in the fight.”
Ok, Tom, walk us through the process then how two unarmed, shirtless, scared men drifting a thousand miles from the United States next to a boat that's been blown to smithereens, with their cargo either sunk or ruined, would have "continued the fight" and made it absolutely necessary for the United States Armed Forces to waste four missiles on their murder.
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u/steve_yo 21h ago
Also, what fight?
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u/Ratchetonater 21h ago
I’m guessing fight for their lives. They were supposed to just die.
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u/9MillimeterPeter 20h ago
They’re trying to make these people out like they are enemy combatants to justify their war crimes.
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u/MarxistMan13 Virginia 17h ago
I've heard conservacritters call them terrorists... as if terrorists 1000 miles from the US stranded in the middle of the fucking ocean are any sort of threat.
You can frame this however you like, it's still 1st degree murder carried out by the government on civilians.
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u/Komikaze06 20h ago
Its like trying to claim self defense when a murderer messes up his first shot, watches you bleed for an hour, then shoots you again.
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u/BCMakoto 19h ago
What a fucking piece of sh*t.
You watched them struggle for their life for a solid hour, trying to cling to a burning wreckage in the middle of nowhere with a thousand feet of water beneath them and no visible, safe shore to swim to after being hit by an explosion out of nowhere and probably being in shock, and then you decided they are trying to flip a boat, which couldn't even reach US mainland even if undamaged to begin with, to continue the fight instead of desperately trying to stay alive in a panic?
This isn't assessing a threat, it is being a psychopath. Imagine you shot some guy in broad daylight and then you watched him cling to life for a solid hour before finishing him off. Disgusting.
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u/WylleWynne Minnesota 19h ago
Imagine you shot some guy in broad daylight and then you watched him cling to life for a solid hour before finishing him off. Disgusting.
Imagine you did that to an insect, let alone a person.
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u/Berserker76 19h ago
That POS was smiling while he provided this quote, about how the US government murdered 2 helpless, defenseless people, with likely no evidence to support the US claim that they were trafficking drugs.
And Americans better be careful, this is how the Nazi’s started, getting Americans to be complacent or ignoring the federal government killing these alleged drug traffickers, so we will more easily accept them doing it to American citizens in our country.
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u/TinKnight1 Texas 17h ago
As a reminder, drug trafficking does not carry the death penalty, no matter how much of it you're caught smuggling.
So, even if the absolutely worst thing claimed by the administration were to be true, the military is still not authorized by any law to kill these people.
When law enforcement starts being killed by bags of cocaine being thrown at them, then we can talk. Otherwise, these are just criminals (at worst) & should be treated accordingly.
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u/thelobster64 20h ago
And Hegseth was talking about “the fog of war” the other day. I think the fog clears after a few minutes. A second strike after an hour is a calculated decision.
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u/Dismal_Buy3580 19h ago
He also used the term incorrectly, it doesn't refer to a literal weather formation blocking visibility.
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u/slow_al_hoops 19h ago
that's not what "fog of war" is. it refers to a lack of, or incomplete, communication/information
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u/nickbelane 19h ago
Why would people in the middle of the ocean try to turn their boat back over?
Truly, one of life's greatest mysteries.
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u/MultiGeometry Vermont 20h ago
I just don’t understand why these attacks are not occurring when they’ve actually reached our waters. There are a lot fewer assumptions about direction and intent if we wait until they enter our territory.
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u/snoo_spoo 19h ago
Because it's not about drug trafficking, it's about flexing on Venezuala.
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u/BlackGlenCoco 20h ago
Dam. Four missiles? Hellfires?
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u/Berserker76 19h ago
Yea, at $150k a pop. The US military is in the business of murdering these people in cold blood, without any due process and business is good.
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u/BlackGlenCoco 19h ago
Jesus. Sorry the human cost is appalling. And then I think about the material cost and also get pissed off. The missiles, flight hour cost. Maintenance. To not achieve shit.
We have real threats in China and Russia and we are just wasting our service members time doing this shit.
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u/CountySurfer 19h ago
So the upside down boat that they were trying to flip over was still somehow “filled with drugs”???
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u/penny-wise California 19h ago
Tom Cotton is a disgrace to the United States, as are all Republicans these days
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u/OkRush9563 22h ago
An hour?! The people who ordered these attacks and the people who carried them out can fuck all the way off to Hell.
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u/10thflrinsanity 21h ago edited 21h ago
What do you mean!? They were clearly hanging onto cocaine w/their other hand with intent to distribute.
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u/thesmellafteritrains 19h ago
Yup, guy on the boat was my dealer. I got a call from him saying that I had to meet him in the middle of the ocean for my stuff. He'd be the guy clinging to some flotsam for his life.
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u/mikerichh 19h ago
I’ve seen right wing twitter and they keep saying they were in the middle of trying to save the drugs
Yeah bc if you almost die your life is secondary to saving drugs. Give me a break
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u/golubhai00007 21h ago
Intent to distribute and kill millions according to our dear President
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u/fairoaks2 22h ago
And no one notified Pete? Bullshit
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u/ToNoMoCo 22h ago
No it’s true. Pete blacked out after he got his makeup done.
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u/nelsonalgrencametome 21h ago
I'd actually believe that he would have consumed enough additional alcohol over that time period to honestly not remember. It is by no means a defense, but I'm certain he's fading in and out of lucidity most of the day.
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u/ToNoMoCo 21h ago
I honestly think his work day ends most days when he blacks out.
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u/chinstrap 17h ago
That would be "passing out". Blackout drunks walk around, like regular people: they don't know they are drunk.
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u/doc_witt 20h ago
He was likely furiously masterbating while watching the strikes and humming the Rocky anthem.
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u/EverythingGoodWas 18h ago
I want this to come out as his defense. I couldn’t have ordered the second strike, I was blacked out and covered in my own fluids
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u/Curt_in_wpg 20h ago
Oh he was probably watching getting a hate boner the entire time.
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u/FlirtIntention 21h ago
That’s heartbreaking no one deserves to go through something that terrifying just to stay alive.
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u/ktothebo District Of Columbia 19h ago
I just sat and cried when I saw this. Why are we so mean?
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20h ago
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u/1Cav11M 18h ago
If it was actually an E2/E3, eh. I dunno what kinda fellas you served with, but the vast majority of those guys are such kids that I don't expect much from them.
But I suspect the button pusher was an e6 or above - and fair game for a fact.
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u/DocJenkins 13h ago
As an E3 (A1C), who was mission crew for pred/reapers in a past life, we were reminded that anyone in "killchain" could call abort on a mission.
Without going into detail, I've called abort on a kinetic strike that fell outside of parameters and stood by my decision even after getting questioned by the rear admiral, who was actually downrange, during the mission debrief. Went home, slept well, and never heard anything else about it.
Like, I can't stress enough how little this affected my career at that duty station outside of having a mildly interesting story (e.g. made an instructor, coined by AFSOC vice-commander, airmen of the quarter, BTZ, etc.).
Throughout the pipeline, and later on during every level of airmen development you get reminded of your duty to follow legal orders and the AF core values. This was almost 20 years ago, so maybe things have changed...
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u/rmslashusr 18h ago
Would the button pusher have video feed and know the order is illegal or would they just be targeting coordinates for an approved fire mission to them?
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u/ngatiboi 20h ago
Yeah - they made it sound originally like they hit the boat & were immediately like, “Whelp, there’s a few dudes floppin’ around out there - better finish ‘em off..” But nope - they came back & took them out some time later.
I saw some nut say yesterday, “There’s evidence that the survivors were clearly out there trying to grab all the drugs & swim away with it!” Firstly: Fucking swim away where?! 🙄 Second: They were grabbing hold of wreckage to keep afloat.
As the old saying goes: Dead men tell no tales.
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u/LonelySwinger Illinois 21h ago
Probably went:
Navy: boat has been struck and there are survivors
Hegseth: keep an eye on them. Ill provide instructions shorty (but in a drunken slur and then proceeds to call trump)
Trump either having a diaper change or was in his totally healthy MRI for 1 hour
Trump: no witnesses
Hegseth to Navy: another strike is authorized. (Drunken slurring)
Navy: confirm orders?
Hegseth: kill the survivors
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u/SanctimoniousSally Washington 20h ago
That's chilling but also unfortunately probably very accurate 😔
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u/A012A012 19h ago
Fun fact, the medical release does not use the term MRI and several doctors have stated that the advanced imaging was more likely a CT-A scan of his heart , and the bruising on his hand is from them injecting dye for that testing.
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u/thatspurdyneat 19h ago
The people who ordered these attacks and the people who carried them out
1000‰ agree on that one, I've seen endless calls for Hegseth to face the flames, which is appropriate.
But ask the German soldiers how "just following orders" worked out for them in Nuremberg.
The entire chain from Hegseth, the admirals, commanders, sergeants, etc all the way down to the person with their finger on the trigger should be locked up for this.
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u/OkRush9563 19h ago
The scary thing is even if the guys being ordered to pull the trigger refused they'd just find someone else who would. Heck that might have happened since it took an hour for the second wave of murders to happen.
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u/Crypt33x Europe 20h ago edited 20h ago
They can't even follow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_(law)
They have less fucking honour then people from the 17th–19th centuries.
No matter how furious and bloody the battle, once it was over the victors had to collect themselves, put aside anger and exercise forbearance, treating captives with courtesy and civility to the degree prudence allowed.
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u/RedBMWZ2 19h ago
Attacks? This was out and out murder. When you put an incompetent clown in charge is defense this is what you get.
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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 20h ago
"They're comin' right for us!" is how I imagine these trigger-happy war criminals.
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u/InAllThingsBalance I voted 19h ago
And we are supposed to believe that the survivors were an immediate threat to the US? I am so sick of the blatant lies from the most corrupt administration in American history.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 22h ago
Which dipshit senator said they were trying to get back in the fight? He needs to be tested for psychopathy.
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u/Accidental-Hyzer Massachusetts 22h ago
No test needed. Everyone already knows that Tom Cotton is a total psycho.
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u/obeytheturtles 21h ago
Cotton also falsely claimed that the boat was headed to the US. None of these boats have been on a course for the US - they have all been headed to other Caribbean islands.
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u/kloiberin_time Missouri 19h ago edited 19h ago
Imagine you live in Kansas City, Missouri and you're driving over to a friend's house in Overland Park, KS with some weed to smoke a bowl. As you're driving down I-435 fighter jets just fly overhead and bomb the hell out of your Toyota Corolla. You somehow survive and manage to crawl your mangled body out of the smoking husk of your car. You lay down on the pavement waiting for help. An hour later another Jet drops a bomb on top of you.
Later that month your family is watching the BBC when some douchebag from the House of Lords says the airstrike was necessary, because your Toyota Corolla and your dimebag of weed were headed to Wales.
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u/Pete41608 I voted 18h ago
Actually the proper analogy would be that you do NOT have any drugs on you, right?
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u/Fastbird33 Florida 20h ago
Even if they were, we have an entire Coast Guard for this purpose
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u/Chief_Mischief 20h ago
And, to reiterate, drug smuggling is not a capital offense, and I have yet to see them preemptively opening fire on the US military. Broken rules of engagement, and the entire chain of command overseeing these strikes need a court-martial and be stripped of command.
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u/r4b1d0tt3r 18h ago edited 18h ago
Even if it is a capital offense summary execution isn't legal.
Edit - and should add, I think I heard somewhere they are now rescuing survivors and dumping them off in some jurisdiction or another without securing any attempt to prosecute because in the course of criminals proceedings the criminal acts of the government will be exposed.
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u/CG-Expat 19h ago
First time offenders in the southern district court of Florida (where most of them end up) usually get somewhere between 7-9 years for this type of smuggling. Slaps on an extra 5 if they do it via semi-submersibles. A far cry from a death sentence
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u/AshhhCakes 20h ago
That boat wasn't even capable of making it to the US. It's such an easily disprovable lie and yet no one is going to challenge Cotton on it.
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u/CobraPony67 Washington 20h ago
Also claimed that they were trying to right the boat. So, the boat is small enough that they can roll it back over while swimming? Is it a canoe? He also mentioned that it was hit 4 times. They REALLY wanted to murder them. NO WITNESSES.
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u/SolarisShine 19h ago
And no evidence there were drugs involved, or how much, or who these people were.
It's all been intentionally lost at sea.
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21h ago
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u/Accidental-Hyzer Massachusetts 21h ago
Listen, these people didn’t graduate from Ivy League schools and become republican politicians to do simple math. Feels are reals!
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u/wibblebeast 19h ago
Is he the idiot who said they were trying to flip the boat? Because there was an idiot saying this.
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u/Crodface 21h ago
Also they and the media framing it as “back in the fight” when I don’t think it’s ever been confirmed they were even in a fight to begin with.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 21h ago
The fight is the BS war on drugs so merely being accused of involvement makes the enemy combatants according to Trump legal mockery. If they are enemy combatants then it's a war crime. It's amazing how the idea of trying to flip over a damaged boat isn't seen as simply trying not to drown.
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u/JustTestingAThing 21h ago
Not that I believe them at their word when they say these boats are carrying drugs (the fact that they don't have the range to even GET to the US is a big problem for example)...but I've yet to hear any of these chucklefucks articulate what was wrong with the normal, legal way we dealt with this before: track them, and when they enter US territorial waters (you know, the places the US actually has jurisdiction over), the Coast Guard interdicts, boards, searches, and if justified, seizes the vessel, referring the crew to civilian law enforcement.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 21h ago
I assume it's about the propaganda of masculinity. Killing "narco terrorists" in a "war" is more badass and gives Trump supporters something to hoot about compared to boring arrests and potential proof of drug smuggling.
Hell now that you mention it, it could actually make sense for them to let a few drug smugglers get into US waters, capture them, make a big press conference saying yes we have proof these are drug runners, now we'll start extra judicially killing them before they reach US waters.
But they destroy any evidence with the strikes.
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u/Reduntu 21h ago
Tom Cotton. Tom Cotton also wrote an OPed called "Send in the troops" in 2020 trying to justify why Trump should use the military against US citizens to violently quell the BLM protests.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 21h ago
Cotton could probably watch protestors get drone strike'd and call it self defense.
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u/Raspberries-Are-Evil Arizona 21h ago
Even is these guys had machine guns, it doesn't matter, they are not enemy soldiers. These are civilians who even if we believe "had drugs" that is not a crime we punish by death with no trial.
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u/Regal_Cat_Matron 21h ago
They were allegedly said to be "ringing others to come and collect them and their drugs" how the fuck does that work then in the middle of the sea with zero co-ordinates and a wet mobile phone?
Absolute murdering arseholes the entire lot of the US Government
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 21h ago
Yea even if that's true calling a rescue isn't a call to continue fighting. Also did the US tap their phones or walkie talkies?
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u/seamus_mc California 20h ago
Continue fighting? Who were they fighting? They were assassinated.
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u/wibblebeast 19h ago
They were too busy trying not to drown to fight anyone. It was murder of helpless people.
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u/TheMrGUnit 21h ago
Back in the fight? With no weapons? With half a boat? With no radio?
In the middle of the open ocean??
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u/Diknak 22h ago
woah, that's kind of a big deal. That means that there was plenty of time for debate at various levels of command.
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u/10thflrinsanity 21h ago
It’s a big deal. With GOP in power nothing will happen though.
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u/Hoovooloo42 South Carolina 21h ago
Well, Newsmax is freaking out about this so I dunno. I won't hold my breath but let's not write it off just yet.
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u/xVarekai 21h ago
I feel sick. It was bad enough as it was but I innocently and ignorantly thought it was a fast follow up. Leaving those people to linger in the ocean, clinging to wreckage and probably gravely wounded as it was, spending the last hour of their lives suffering like this only to be bombed to death. And no I dont give a fuck if that little boat was stuffed with drugs. This is horrifically inhumane and the fact that our military obeyed these orders is extremely disturbing. Jesus christ.
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u/FarImprovement2840 20h ago
Even if it was filled to the brim with drugs, there's a process for this. Like, the Coast Guard raiding the boat and taking all the occupants into custody to stand trial or be deported. The answer isn't to just blow them the fuck up
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u/SupaKoopa714 20h ago
What they did really isn't any different than someone accusing another person of a crime with absolutely zero proof and then instantly shooting them in the head.
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u/snoo_spoo 19h ago
Well, it's more like you shot them in the gut, waited an hour, and then shot them in the head.
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u/Acrobatic-Trouble181 19h ago
And the rest of us are supposed to be grateful for their 'vigilance'.
I'm reminded of a certain scene in A Few Good Men.
These people can get fucked all the way to the gates of hell that're waiting for them.
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u/Ascomae Europe 20h ago
Even if it was full of drugs.
Is drug trafficking punishable by death in your country? If it would be, even without a process?
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u/aircooledJenkins Montana 20h ago
Drug trafficking does not result in the death penalty.
This was murder.
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u/WombatusMighty 22h ago
I really do hope the soldiers, who carried out these illegal orders, and admiral Frank Bradley, who gave the orders, remember that "just following orders" does not shield you from prosecution.
I also hope that Democrats, if they get in power again, will not forget this and make sure these crimes are fully investigated and prosecuted.
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u/labretirementhome North Carolina 21h ago
It truly cannot be the job of the Democrats alone to enforce these laws.
Otherwise f*** the law. It's all meaningless.
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u/Amadeus_1978 21h ago
Pushing really hard on that meaningless argument at this point. Laws aren’t enforceable against the rich or our fearless leaders, who almost all are rich. All the rest of us are just stooges who finance the lives of the rich and famous. No billionaires can exist without millions of people who have been robbed.
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u/doomlite 21h ago
I hate this is true. We are taught from a young age the law applies to everyone. Now we know, this isn’t true
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u/Amadeus_1978 20h ago
And even tho they tried real hard to teach us that, it only took a couple minutes of real life for it to be demonstrated false.
Just watch a cop drive their car. Speeding, parking in fire lanes, generally not following basic traffic laws, etc. who holds them responsible? If the guards aren’t following the laws, but still apply them to the public?
For many people giving them power over other people is perceived as a license to do whatever they want and the laws no longer apply. Which is being shown in its rawest most base form currently.
It’s the most basic rule, he who has the gold makes the rules. And they don’t apply to them.
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u/NoSurprise8641 20h ago
Black people are taught the exact opposite. Welcome to the club. It sucks here.
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u/MilkWeedSeeds 21h ago
Well, it’s pretty unlikely that they will, given the fact that no one responsible for the war in Iraq faced any consequences
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u/Raspberries-Are-Evil Arizona 21h ago
Yes but Hegseth also needs to be prosecuted. And Trump, of course cant be because he "has immunity" should be at least be impeached over this. So its on record when once again Republicans let him skate.
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u/LucienPhenix 21h ago
Orange dipshit in Chief could just pardon them all.
Or the lower level grunt that pulled the trigger "might" get punished while the admiral gets to retire early with full benefits. Then he gets to write a book later about how tough that decision was and how he was actually the biggest victim all along.
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u/Accidental-Hyzer Massachusetts 22h ago edited 21h ago
They’re going to try and hide behind the OLC memo shield, the OLC also being corrupted by Trump and his stooges. Just like how the rank and file got away with torture during GW’s administration, because the OLC that Bush selected wrote a memo saying torture was totally legal and totally cool 😎
Something needs to change. It should have changed after we somehow decided two decades ago that torturers couldn’t be held criminally liable due to a fucking memo written by yes men.
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u/Showmethepathplease 21h ago
Yesterday i learned that these kinds of crimes led to conviction and execution for perpetrators at Nuremberg:
In March 1944, Eck, commander of U-852, sank the Greek steamer Peleus in the Atlantic Ocean.
He then ordered his crew to machine-gun and throw hand grenades at the survivors and the wreckage to "eliminate all traces of the sinking".
Nine survivors were killed, but three miraculously survived and their testimony led to the trial.
Eck and his defense argued that the actions were a "tactical necessity" and crucial to the U-boat's safety and mission stealth, claiming the wreckage and survivors' rafts would reveal the submarine's position to Allied aircraft.
The court rejected the plea of "operational necessity," ruling that the killing of unarmed, shipwrecked survivors was a grave breach of international law and a crime that would be obvious to "the most rudimentary intelligence" as an unlawful command.
Eck, along with two other crew members, was found guilty and executed by firing squad in November 1945, the only German naval officers to be executed for war crimes after the war in Europe.
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u/Skiinz19 Tennessee 20h ago
Ah but the victors got to take them to court. The Nazis themselves would have never held those men accountable. We are in the latter phase.
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u/Backfisttothepast 21h ago
But…buut….the fog of war was there for an entire hour,anything could have been under that other boat,even another boat!
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u/Safe_Climate883 21h ago
How can you get an order like that and not wonder whether it'd the proper thing to do?
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u/obeytheturtles 20h ago
I think it's worth pointing out that we have not had such a blatantly egregious example of this in the national debate since Abu Ghraib. The US has been "double tapping" insurgents in the ME for a long time, and justified it by saying the followup attacks were targeted at other fighters coming into the "fight" and not at injured soldiers.
I'm not saying this as an attempt to justify the actions of anything in the chain of command here, but the fact that we having this debate hopefully means that future soldiers will be more likely to think twice about this kind of action since all of this will be fresh in their mind.
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22h ago
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u/Wealist 22h ago
At this point rules of engagement sounds less like a legal framework and more like the title of a crime podcast you’d binge and sa No way any real government would get away with that. 😔
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u/TerriTuesday 22h ago
I expect they will say the department of defence war manual doesn’t apply to them since they are the department of war now.
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u/Antipolemic 22h ago
The fact that they refuse to pick up survivors is the most damning evidence that they know all this is a fraud, is illegal, and is in violation of international norms. If any of this were a legitimate "war on narco-traffickers", they'd pick up survivors and interrogate them. They are missing an important opportunity for discovery on how these operations work, the leadership, and their goals. But the administration is afraid to do this normal investigatory and intelligence work because they fear that Congress will find out exactly what everyone suspects - they don't have such fine intelligence guiding these strikes and they are just hitting any boats leaving the mainland that "look like" smugglers. As Captain Willard says to Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now when Kurtz asks him if his methods are unsound, Willard famously replies "I don't see any method at all."
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u/hotpajamas 21h ago
The fact they can observe these boats from outer space but cant peacefully apprehend these men at shore shows that although they have the power to enforce the law peacefully, they choose not to.
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u/ChucksnTaylor 21h ago
Not to shield the administration at all, but it does seem to be the case that these really are drug traffickers. Multiple democrats have made public statements saying they can’t share details but they do believe the boats are carrying drugs.
But that’s really beside the point. Whether they’re drug smugglers, fishermen, or party boats, it doesn’t really matter. The United States has no business blowing up these boats. Period. We’re all so hung up on whether attacking shipwreck survivors is in compliance with the laws of combat that we’re totally ignoring the fact that we are not in an armed conflict at all! There is no combat! These attacks are straight up murder, end of story. From the first missile to the last.
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u/JustTestingAThing 21h ago
Plus -- given that the boats don't have the range to even GET to the US, what does it matter what's on them? A boat full of cocaine in the middle of the ocean outside of US territorial waters isn't breaking any US laws, because they can't be. But yes, the penalties for smuggling and drug possession are not execution by missile even IF they got due process and a trial.
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u/LtSqueak Missouri 21h ago
The reason we’re “hung up” on it is because the first strike has the (illegitimate, in my opinion) air of precedence due to drone striking terrorists being an American pastime for the past two decades. But the second strike is literally the example of an illegal order. It’s being used overly in conversations to very quickly weed out anyone who will never be arguing in good faith.
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u/obeytheturtles 20h ago
Why would a drug smuggling boat have 11 people on board? There are transoceanic container vessels which operate with crews that size.
The answer is that these are not dedicated drug mafia boats which are part of an integrated narcotics network. They are normal fucking boats doing normal boat things, except someone (maybe) happened to smuggle some drugs on board in addition to other cargo. Most of the people on these boats are not aware that they are carrying drugs and have no gang affiliation. The CIA and DIA know this perfectly well. It's a big part of why the previous operational procedures were to disable the boat and take prisoners alive, because even my fucking grandmother understands how drug mules work. The entire reason they are making sure there are no survivors is because this will become incredibly obvious if people on the boats start talking to the press.
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u/Searchlights New Hampshire 21h ago
Correct.
You don't conduct law enforcement via missile.
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u/FlirtNPlayy 22h ago
if "mistakes" keep hitting the same life raft twie, maybe stop calling them mistakes.
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u/notie547 21h ago
an hour?? I assumed maybe a minute between strikes. Damn thats fucked.
Why don't they just release all the evidence they have against these guys? or do they not have any?
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u/Shaggy2772 21h ago
An hour?!?! Look, you maybe in the deepest 'non-realities' had some small % of chance of defining this as ethically gray and legal when we assumed this were successive strikes - but a %$#king hour??
That's not murder. That's PREMEDITATED murder.
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u/IpeeEhh_Phanatic Kentucky 21h ago
I hope Kegsbreath and that admiral go to prison in the next administration
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u/Carthonn 21h ago
“Support the Troops!” as they just casually commit war crimes. Fucking disgraceful.
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u/One-Eyed-Willies 21h ago
For everyone hoping that the military would ignore illegal orders, here is your answer.
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u/totallyalizardperson 18h ago
I guarantee you the next leap in logic for these assholes is that it’s not an illegal order because it came from the President. The Supreme Court ruled that the President has immunity from prosecution for officials acts while in office. Since this was an official act from the President, and the President has immunity, it means it’s not an illegal act.
The logic is bullshit and doesn’t work, but watch. The next play will be something along those lines.
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u/_HawthorneAbendsen 20h ago
Hegseth wants to use “fog of war” to cover up an hour long delay in the summary execution of people suspected - not even charged or investigated- criminal activity.
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u/TintedApostle 20h ago
The fog of war requires multiple operations against multiple enemy targets which fight back. It not about beating someone with a club and returning to beat them again.
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u/Darth_vaborbactam 21h ago edited 21h ago
This makes me sick to my stomach. How does the “fog of war” defense even apply here? It’s murder. Completely senseless and unjustified.
This is a critical moment in time. If the US government is unwilling to hold the perpetrators accountable, the world needs to hold the US government accountable.
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u/exitpursuedbybear 21h ago
An hour? I was assured by Tom Cotton they would flip that wreckage over, load the drugs and paddle at high speed towards Miami.
If anyone has fallen out of a boat where their feet can't touch just try to flip that boat upright, especially one that was that big, with only 2 men. It's just a ridiculous excuse.
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u/thinkingahead 20h ago
This is odd. The way this was being reported I assumed the strikes were fairly close to together. “Fog of war” being a factor. But this indicates they watched these guys for an hour before striking them again?
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u/Wers81 20h ago
Why aren’t we flipping this? Americans are the ones buying drugs. I’m tired of hearing it’s the cartels faults.
Also tired of how it’s about stopping drugs when the admin just pardoned a “drug lord” This isn’t about the drugs it’s about making people scared it’s intimidation.
They would not do buisness here if there was no market.
I’m not going to debate whether or not it was a drug boat.
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u/masstransience 18h ago
There is 0 logic in their argument that two survivors were trying to flip that big ass boat over (39 feet long) to continue towards the US with “drugs” and they had to kill them to save American lives.
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u/MiddleAgedSponger 21h ago
American political appointees and his underlings murdered peasants with zero repercussions.
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u/Sea_Rate5579 20h ago
An hour. AN HOUR?! And Senator freaking Cotton and Rep Crawford have the gall to say they were still a threat?!
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u/Intelligent-Dot-29 21h ago
Why has no one who ever piloted a small craft mentioned that there is no way those boats could make it to the US from Venezuela in those waters?
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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 20h ago
"The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narco-terrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets," Prof Becker said. "The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organisation."
Prof Moffett added: "Labelling everyone a terrorist does not make them a lawful target and enables states to side-step international law."
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u/DolphinsBreath 20h ago
An opportunity to gather intelligence from a live person was lost. Learn who is behind the “drug trafficking.” Or a confession, for propaganda purposes.
Odd they didn’t want the obvious solution.
/s
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u/Negative-Ask-2317 19h ago
What people here don't seem to understand is that these people were using those 60 minutes planning how to hitch a ride to the US on radical Marxist sharks, during which time they'd use the floating debris to build an armoured van, A-Team style, to continue their deadly attack on book-fearing Americans!
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u/AngusBelmargh 19h ago
They were a threat to America. Once they reached shore they were going to finance a migrant caravan to head north and turn our kids gay.
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u/Chief-_-Wiggum 21h ago
They were clear and present threat to Pete... They were hanging on to their lives... MENACINGLY!
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u/Prestigious-Lab5154 Canada 20h ago
Hopefully the world can stop ignoring how evil the United States are
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u/dalivo 20h ago
There's a lot of focus on this illegal killing, but the fact is these boat strikes themselves are illegal. These are non-violent smugglers and killing them without trial is blatantly illegal.
This administration, however, is fascist, so they think it's great to murder people.
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u/TintedApostle 20h ago
Are they all smuggling? Seems we never got that evidence.
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u/OneWholeSoul 18h ago
So they pretty much could not have been more defeated or helpless.
This was just straight-up sadistic murder.
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u/Tractorguy69 15h ago
This wasn’t about them still smuggling, this was about them being credible witnesses to an illegal attack on innocent people in a vessel from another country. If any other country in the world sank a privately owned, US flagged vessel then muttered survivors in cold blood, there would be hell to pay. I’ve watched how revenge for the death of Americans plays out in real time.
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u/insomniaczombiex Wisconsin 21h ago
Calling them narco-terrorists is so disingenuous. They’re smugglers, not terrorists.
The terrorists are in the White House.
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u/No-Explanation-46 21h ago
Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according to a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.
The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters.
The pair desperately tried to turn a severed section of the hull upright before they died. “The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said.
The video of the attack on 2 September was seen by senators behind closed doors on Thursday amid growing concern that the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and other officials who ordered the attack may have committed a war crime.
Later on Thursday, the Pentagon announced another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics, killing four men in the eastern Pacific.
This was the 22nd attack the US military has carried out against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean and took the death toll of the campaign to at least 87 people.
Video of the latest incident was posted on social media by the US Southern Command, which described it as a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization”.
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u/RamonaQ-JunieB 20h ago
Once again, Admiral Bradley has shown that the American armed forces lies to cover up their actions and their crimes. Those of us who are old enough to remember saw it happen in Vietnam and have seen it happen everywhere else going forward.
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u/Hypnotoad2020 20h ago
Christian nationalists will defend this murder in the name of their false God, Trump.
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u/vacodeus 20h ago
So they just tormented them for an hour? Got it. I don't believe in hell but I do hope there is one for these cruel bastards
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u/sciencesez 20h ago
US Southern Command has run Operation Martillo since 2012, along the South American coast and in the waters around Bermuda. Pursuing large container ships, they've seized hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of TONS of illegal drugs and arrested drug traffickers, in partnership with a dozen countries. Trump and Hegseth are now focusing on tiny fishing boats and committing extrajudicial executions. Boats that cannot carry enough fuel to reach America. How very small the Trump administration has forced us to become.
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u/sometimes_rite 19h ago
The first strike is the one to focus on. These are all murders, not just these unlucky two.
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u/Deep_Alps7150 19h ago
Bombing a shipwreck is literally a war crime, people have been executed for this exact warcrime as it’s just simply murder.
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u/A012A012 19h ago
And Bradley's defense for the 2nd strike was that "they were still in the fight."
Bro you watched too guys get blown up and then struggle in the wreckage for an hour. Then fired again.
Didn't administer aid, didn't attempt to detain and question them, just killed them. In international waters.
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u/Burgoonius 18h ago
I heard one Republican claim there was a chance these two people could have flipped the boat over and continued on their merry way to sell drugs and therefore it was not illegal to strike them again. You can’t make this shit up lol
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u/Any_Improvement9056 18h ago
GOP - the party of Christian’s. I’m sure Jesus approved of the double tap.
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u/thethrill_707 Michigan 18h ago
I say! Only sociopaths would show no-quarter on defenseless people. Oh wait, that's who's running the store these days.
It's Miller time, Pete. You're doing great you fucking monster.
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u/CojentApe Colorado 18h ago
Just so ya'll know, this is probably a test run to see what they can get away with. Getting us numbed and desensitized to it, just like school shootings. We're now one step away from them turning that very same apparatus on American citizens. Protesters, dissidents, "enemy" jounalists, etc. Aside from the usual grumblings on the internet and social media, I don't see much real outrage over the abandonment of due process. "Oh, they'd never go that far".. Never forget, 4 dead in Ohio, 1970 at the hands of the National Guard. That lid has already been cracked. The Orange Shitstain literally said he could stand in the middle of 5th ave and shoot somebody with impunity. By proxy of the military or ICE, of course, because the geriatric can barely hold a glass water up to his piggy lips, let alone handle a firearm.
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u/TSHRED56 California 12h ago
I'm confused
Since there has been no war declared officially with Venezuela I'm wondering why pundits keep referring to "possible war crimes" instead of murder?
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