US strike against narco vessel claimed to be fake.

[Bruce M]

This story is everywhere at the moment. Take your pick of sites providing footage and news.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donal...aring-bogus-video-of-deadly-drug-boat-strike/

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/JSOCarchive/comments/1n6zaqk/southcom_conducts_first_official_kinetic_strike/


I cant think why they would offer a fake video, other than they wanted something more news worthy to go with the narative. Hard to imagine why you would want to own up to potential crimes, other than the 4D chess version that allows you to claim credit for something, and then plausibly deny it later.

I dont think its AI, but I do think its CGI generated. I cant comment on the 'AI effects' of water, splah and smoke, but I can comment on the MX overlay. Its not right. The positioning of the parts of the overlay isnt scaled correctly.

You would never get this ratio and spacing:

They have taken part of a typical youtube video and patched it together, so all the parts are correct, but their location on the screen is not.

The transitions between scenes look odd too, but given the footage has been spliced together from different times, I couldnt say that a definite sign of fake imagery.

This would have only been an observing asset too - the system is not set up to be a target designator. Something else was aiming the missile, if thats what actually caused the explosion.

So, repurposed video? Fully fake? Over to others to debunk that.

 

[jarlrmai]

Disclaimer: it's hard to look at the extrajudicial murder of people.

But it does not look fake to me, you are going to have provide some evidence for your spacing and YouTube issue I am not sure I understand what you mean.

I assume if the US military wanted to create a video of them blowing up a boat they could do it with a real boat and missiles and cameras from military assets, rather than have to use AI or CGI.

This video also seems to contain another example of the a cross pattern diffraction pattern caused by camera support vanes as in this thread

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/the-chandelier-ufo.13307/

 

[Bruce M]

Disclaimer: it's hard to look at the extrajudicial murder of people.

But it does not look fake to me, you are going to have provide some evidence for your spacing and YouTube issue I am not sure I understand what you mean.

I assume if the US military wanted to create a video of them blowing up a boat they could do it with a real boat and missiles and cameras from military assets, rather than have to use AI or CGI.

.
spacing and YouTube issue I am not sure I understand what you mean.
There are plenty of youtube videos showing recent TB2 strikes in Ukraine, which also use an MX system for their targetting. The overlays are both from MX systems, and look the same.
They blur out the latitude/logitiude readings, the time, etc in the edges of the screen. They leave the scale bar(the big line in the middle) as bluring it would block the desired image.
But the location of the LOS reticle(the cross) would never be there. It should be exactly in line with the number on the scale bar, and shouldnt be so low on the overlay that its almost level with the top of the aircraft lat/long information(bottom left).
So the individual parts of the overlay all look correct, and look exactly like youtube video examples of these systems. But their combination in this way is not. If your only knowledge of these videos was youtube, you wouldnt know the errors I have pointed out.

seems to contain another example of the a cross pattern diffraction pattern

Yes, that is typical of saturated IR, such as when something explodes.
So the content of the video seems real, or at least, its not CGI, but combining it all in this way does not seem possible without manipulation.

 

[Giddierone]

Is the 480p video posted on Truth Social the only source?
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115136798909755892

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

One thing I'd make a note about since people kinda, got got by it before. Do not take Venezuela's word about anything, at all. They are one of our top foreign adversaries.
Freddy Nanez, the guy who originated this claim as far as I can tell, is basically their propaganda chief. He oversees most of their public comm functions. Venezuela's MCI (one thing he's minister of) operates like a modern day version of a WW1-WW2 era propaganda ministry. He himself, alongside the MCI, also frequently participates in joint influence operations against the US with other adversaries (eg Russia, China) alongside being responsible for a lot of their own actions - this includes activities targeting their own domestic populace. Nanez has also been sanctioned because the functions he oversees have participated in electoral repression efforts.

This was the same issue with people taking Diosados word way before about TdA (issues aside). Diosados is one of the very guys responsible for Venezuela's actual state interactions w/ criminal organizations, funds narcoterrorism & is a leader in Cartel de Los Soles. Not only that but he also actively participates in disappearing people, electoral suppression, propaganda that negatively target opposition groups, etc.

This is one of the times I'd stop to think about who mentioned it first. If it's the above context, we have to be really careful. These videos don't always look 1-1 (Bruce gave a bit of an example), nor are they always finely presented the same. If it's an X case and we're not considering that, there's a good chance we'll confirm what he says rather than recognizing it may just be one of the X presentation videos rather than something else.

 

[Ann K]

Disclaimer: it's hard to look at the extrajudicial murder of people.

I have no evidence as to whether it's genuine or not. But I think we can agree that if it's real, it certainly is "extrajudicial". That has not stopped the Trump administration before, of course, as his exportation of individuals to various countries without a trial (and in defiance of court orders) has amply demonstrated.

 

[MapperGuy]

What I find curious is that they used a missile.
In general interceptions are done by helicopters or fixed wing aircraft. USN has no vessels fast enough to catch one of these boats.
In the past they might fire machine gun warning shots from a helicopter in front of the boat to get it to stop, but if it did not they wouldn't fire into the boat specifically to avoid killing someone. US Coast Guard anyway.
If they decided that taking life was acceptable they could have just fired a machine gun into the boat, to disable engines or crew.

Perhaps the boat was nearing someone's territorial waters and they had to engage quickly while it was still in international waters?
Or there was no friendly vessel nearby to board the boat if it was disabled?
Kind of matters what type of missile was used, helicopter launched, fixed wing, ship board? That would determine their options.

Unless of course the determination was made that taking prisoners would be a bad idea, for political reasons.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

I have no evidence as to whether it's genuine or not. But I think we can agree that if it's real, it certainly is "extrajudicial". That has not stopped the Trump administration before, of course, as his exportation of individuals to various countries without a trial (and in defiance of court orders) has amply demonstrated.

I'd hold on the "extrajudicial" bit, good/bad descriptive tags aside. How the public uses that term is not how it's actually used by anyone in a more affective professional sense (outside journalists and etc who use the social form).

Just as an example, "extrajudicial" requires A) the act to be illegal under your nations law, B) lacks legal authorization and/or C) was decided outside judiciary system. B and C can be intertwined but depends on the the nations laws (eg some nations legislature gives the judiciary less power, thus "legal authorization" may not always be judiciary) - that is important, there is a contextual factor to it.

Usually the disagreements we see are in fact with the decision, not really the process. The President does in fact have codified legal ability to make decisions like such in certain cases, without the direct involvement of the judiciary. Since this is a legally codified process that frames the legal authorization (outside the judiciary), that excludes it from being extrajudicial.
Now, what can and does happen sometimes on occasion, is it is declared illegal after-the-fact - the codified legal process still allows judiciary input in those X cases but usually in reverse (legislature or judiciary aren't involved in the originating decision but still have room to react to it).
That is why we don't see people punished in those cases and it's usually reported on and socially shared as if the post-declaration retroactively declares the pre-actions as being illegal themselves but that's not really how it's held in practicality.

This likely isn't a case of this 'authority' but just as an example of how those X cases work. Under Title 50, the President can authorize lethal action in pursuit of national security interests that are not "routine" to other functions. The judiciary has 0 say in this at all, it is solely in the hands of the President.
Now, Congress can take issue with it and pass an act, or recommend charges to DOJ, if they take disagreement with any specific case of such. Because of how the legislature formed this process though, the judiciary doesn't really have a say unless it is brought to them ala through DOJ pressing a prosecution based off Congress recommendation. This is also not a unilateral creation by or through the executive, but rather was created by and through the legislature - which our legislature and judiciary both recognize as legally viable forms of lawmaking in context. Then further adding the specific context (eg creation of federal Titles) is something the system places, including legally, in the hands of the legislature rather than the judiciary.
So in those cases our system itself does allow it and would not be acting extrajudicially. We could, on the other hand, make the debate the judiciary and public have failed to advocate for the legislature and executive to grant the judiciary more say in that specific process.

 

[Bruce M]

This is one of the times I'd stop to think about who mentioned it first. If it's the above context, we have to be really careful. These videos don't always look 1-1 (Bruce gave a bit of an example), nor are they always finely presented the same. If it's an X case and we're not considering that, there's a good chance we'll confirm what he says rather than recognizing it may just be one of the X presentation videos rather than something else.

I only ever really analyse the video, specifically MX series videos, for their content. Whether is UFO or... this.... I have the background to be able to look at the video and determine a lot about it without knowing any other context.
So, the political aspect of it makes it a conspiracy, but the technical aspect of it is just... an odd choice. I'm more convinced that the video is an edited composite of some sort, and not just snips of raw footage. But I cant work out why they would bother. They're proud of doing it - there is nothing to hide here.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

I only ever really analyse the video, specifically MX series videos, for their content. Whether is UFO or... this.... I have the background to be able to look at the video and determine a lot about it without knowing any other context.
So, the political aspect of it makes it a conspiracy, but the technical aspect of it is just... an odd choice. I'm more convinced that the video is an edited composite of some sort, and not just snips of raw footage. But I cant work out why they would bother. They're proud of doing it - there is nothing to hide here.

Occams Razor does not apply to DoD PA past the simplest explanation being they made a complexly poor decision in most cases. So there is that

 

[Mendel]

I have no evidence as to whether it's genuine or not. But I think we can agree that if it's real, it certainly is "extrajudicial". That has not stopped the Trump administration before, of course, as his exportation of individuals to various countries without a trial (and in defiance of court orders) has amply demonstrated.

Trump isn't the only US president who has done that. The US government has engaged in extrajudicial killing for a long time, although rarely against their own citizens.

I'd hold on the "extrajudicial" bit, good/bad descriptive tags aside. How the public uses that term is not how it's actually used by anyone in a more affective professional sense (outside journalists and etc who use the social form).

Its obvious that people engaged in these killings define things differently, but for most of us, condemning people to death without honoring their human right to due process is good enough to call it "extrajudicial".

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Trump isn't the only US president who has done that. The US government has engaged in extrajudicial killing for a long time, although rarely against their own citizens.


Its obvious that people engaged in these killings define things differently, but for most of us, condemning people to death without honoring their human right to due process is good enough to call it "extrajudicial".

I somewhat agree here but I'd note most court cases do not seek to honor human rights either. I get what you're getting at there but that's more of a social extrapolation. There are things that "honor human rights" baked into the process, whether or not any judge specifically conducts a court case in a way that seeks to honor those is very different. Nor are the ones baked into the process absolute, rather, we are conditioned to that form of them. If explicitly brought up I'm sure we could all find things we think should be set in stone but are not/not yet that are critical to "honoring human rights" and without it, in our personal considerations, the lack of may be considered as dishonoring or just being ignorant too.

These other cases it just depends since there's a few carve-out areas. The T50 example though is one where there is actually "due process", it's just not how we've been conditioned to understand the word based upon our perception of domestic court cases and social extrapolations of legalese rather than professional extrapolations. How we are conditioned to understand due process does not mean it's the only form of due process. This is a risky belief because it can enable ethnocentric beliefs about legality in other cultures if you develop the angle that there is only one absolute form that works and it is the US current form.
This is also why I said good/bad descriptive tag aside, everyone has their own respective opinion with the generic concept of these processes and none are inherently correct or not. Most people also have a carve out somewhere - I'm sure a lot could find agreeableness eg say Bin Laden. Similarly I'm sure we could all find cases where the decision at hand was horrid or badly misaligned even if acceptable.
This is even true politically, some of the most vocally anti- these activity Presidents have actually been the same Presidents to have made the most quantified use of it, the best case probably being JFK.

Extrajudicial has a definition though that is placed within the context of legalities and related processes and procedures in their nation. If we socially call something extrajudicial that is not legally or procedurally, and we recognize this, that would be disinformation. If we go down some path of trying to create a carve-out here for ourselves that allows its use, we're not doing anything different than right wingers when they spew disinformation and respond with the same exact points.
Obviously not that it's a major issue here but this is very important because this is why the counter- fields are failing and becoming intrinsically divisive efforts. The right, same as cases like here, will resist accuracy and debate semantics as such. They'll then use emotions, attitudes, and/or ideological points to try and neutralize the accurate categorization of their act. Then some confirmatory point is put in like "I'm just being emotional, you don't need to do that" or "it's good enough though". When it comes to discussing the way more common occurrence of cases like this though, that contribute to the environments wholescale enablement of that as a cognitive and sociological feature of our society (and its degradement), we stuff this into polarizing silos that make the problem worse.

 

[Mendel]

I somewhat agree here but I'd note most court cases do not seek to honor human rights either.

1) a court case means that the right to a fair trial is at least paid lip service
2) that's a US-centric view, the ECHR or in most countries the Supreme Court regularly rule on human rights, if they're part of a country's legal system

Sometimes there's this weird view that the human rights granted in the US constitution don't apply to foreigners.

If you condemn someone to death without a fair trial, people call that "extrajudicially" because that'd what it means. That's not a "carve-out".

This is a risky belief because it can enable ethnocentric beliefs about legality in other cultures if you develop the angle that there is only one absolute form that works and it is the US current form.

Yeah, but we're covered by the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights here, so I think it's going to be fine.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

1) a court case means that the right to a fair trial is at least paid lip service
2) that's a US-centric view, the ECHR or in most countries the Supreme Court regularly rule on human rights, if they're part of a country's legal system

Sometimes there's this weird view that the human rights granted in the US constitution don't apply to foreigners.

If you condemn someone to death without a fair trial, people call that "extrajudicially" because that'd what it means. That's not a "carve-out".


Yeah, but we're covered by the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights here, so I think it's going to be fine.

1) is true no debate there
2) I think you confused a bit on what I wrote. This is correct but I was making that related point more in regards to how the processes differ everywhere. No ones is absolutely correct as-is and all have different bits. Rulings are made on human rights directly yes, that would be within what I mentioned of the court seeking too. If we talk the majority of court cases though, eg random stuff in appeals or the average criminal case - the judge likely isn't thinking about some holistic rosey idea about human rights. Some of those ideas may be baked into their ideals which dictate their decisions, but is still very different from them explicitly thinking about that.
Building robust and accountable systems is important for that reason, because it "sets the stage" so those points are integrated into the systems process - rather than resting on Bob or Jane explicitly granting it a direct primary focus during their conduct (wont happen with every individual, and there's only so much you can scale in quantity while trying to hone in on those traits + throw in political appointments and etc.)

It is a carve-out to call something "extrajudicial" that happens within legally codified processes, thus, acting within the legal process, not outside of it. We may socially disfavor this, and just as a side point I actually do agree that we have poor formulations for some of this that need to be made more robust. Especially with some newer concepts ala DOD has some newer authorities that, since they were created from scratch in practical implementation, don't have much law or legal procedures around it (nor do the standing laws cover it). Some movement gets made on those but it's slow and not very common. Like a few years ago Congress pushed (successfully) to expand oversight on the use of 127e funds, although what that "is" had already been happening for quite a few years w/o much backing it.
Part of this issue though is there's no actual interest in it. The public largely either doesn't care, or doesn't want it at all. The politicians who recognize its need, most aren't big nerds or passionate about it so developing things on a super conceptual level doesn't get much care. The people who are implementing it get no say in the rest they just follow what the President directs and the laws and policies others set for it. If we want that to change, we as the public have to advocate for specifics beyond "end it" (it wont), otherwise the politicians won't care too until some crisis event happens. In that case they'll only do just enough to "fix" the crisis rather than actually prevent it from occurring again. This at root though requires us to recognize the reality of it and speak to it correctly.

As for the UDHR, this may be hard to digest but that only gets lip service with these authorities. They may get exploited outside this context, and participates may abuse its existence for their own interests. Although they exist to protect (in this context) American citizens from threats that will be realized without action against them. The world would be a much darker and dangerous place without these activities. Every nation across the globe has comparatives for this where all that gets thrown out because your nations continued existence and preventing harm to its people will rule out in cases where not acting can systemically push for things like the UDHR being irrelevant.
I think it's very relevant to highlight here even openly anti- Presidents in this regard have made some of the most frequent use of these authorities. For a very interesting reason their anti- stance may actually be a major contributor to why they used it so much. These sorts of absolutist debates only get made within the public and never end up holding when the same folks become decision makers even. It's also part of why the UN doesn't actually touch on this much unless someone is gaming the committees to project their own influence (eg China using it to act disruptively towards the US rather than truly seeking human rights), no one wants to burn their own capability and/or make themselves look like a hypocrite over something they originated and implemented first. Easier to just leave it for them cause the same problems present just with way less issues and negative impact surrounding it (mostly things us in the public, don't really consider or hold relevancy towards, eg the China example right above).

 

[Gary C]

The regime in the US wants to treat the regime in Venezuela as an enemy militarily and is trying to turn the dismally ineffective War on Drugs into an actual war to conflate the two issues and generate support from its political base.

Zealots like to brand their projects as "a war" of some stripe in order to justify and excuse the extrajudicial death and destruction they cause.

Given 47's habit of making up whatever story suits his purposes, and his demonstrated lack of compassion for the human race in general, and his coterie of "Yes" men, he is equally capable of ordering the strike depicted in the video or having his sycophants fabricate it. The end result for him politically is the same which is all he really cares about.

tl;dr - establishing the legality of the actions depicted in the video will have no bearing on determining its provenance or accuracy.

 

[MapperGuy]

Back on topic...

The more I watch that video the more curious I get about that boat. It does not look right to me.
Look at the prow, how elongated and up tilted it is. When I see that I think Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf, not Caribbean.
That elongate bow, almost a bow-sprit, is common in boats there, do an image search for Iranian Fishing Boats.
And lots of fast boats in that part of the world have been hit by anti-ship missiles, should be footage available.

 

[Edward Current]

A question I have is, exactly how much drugs did they intercept by murdering these people? How much cocaine could fit in that little boat? Where I live in the Squirrel-Meat Belt, there are bigger drug busts on the I-40 every weekend.

 

[Giddierone]

Sorry to ask this again, is the only evidence for this claimed strike the low res video shared by the President on his social media platform? Have they shared any other data?

 

[Mick West]

Sorry to ask this again, is the only evidence for this claimed strike the low res video shared by the President on his social media platform? Have they shared any other data?

No, just the video and the various claims by officials like Hegseth.

 

[NorCal Dave]

The more I watch that video the more curious I get about that boat. It does not look right to me.
Look at the prow, how elongated and up tilted it is. When I see that I think Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf, not Caribbean.

Agreed. It's a strange looking boat to get anywhere near the US with. What's the full story on where this happened? I'm not saying it's AI, but it does have that weird combination of elements that we see in some AI images. It appears to have 4 Merc outboards across the stern like a lot of center counsel off shore boats common in Florida and surrounding areas:

But where's the helm? Where are the people? This thing would stick out getting anywhere near the US. It looks like a combination of a traditional Lenj fishing boat as you noted and some smaller Houthi/Iranian versions:

None of which are using multiple outboards.

However, it appears traditional Venezuelan fishing boats can be similar:

These guys seem to run 1 bigger outboard, likely to get to where they're going, then a smaller kicker outboard to slowly troll or maneuver at the fishing area. Still, one isn't going to smuggle people or drugs anywhere near the US without calling a lot of attention to themselves with one of these. Strange.

 

[Tezcatlipoca]

Agreed. It's a strange looking boat to get anywhere near the US with. What's the full story on where this happened? I'm not saying it's AI, but it does have that weird combination of elements that we see in some AI images. It appears to have 4 Merc outboards across the stern like a lot of center counsel off shore boats common in Florida and surrounding areas:

View attachment 83709

View attachment 83710

But where's the helm? Where are the people? This thing would stick out getting anywhere near the US. It looks like a combination of a traditional Lenj fishing boat as you noted and some smaller Houthi/Iranian versions:

View attachment 83711
View attachment 83712

None of which are using multiple outboards.

However, it appears traditional Venezuelan fishing boats can be similar:

View attachment 83713View attachment 83714

These guys seem to run 1 bigger outboard, likely to get to where they're going, then a smaller kicker outboard to slowly troll or maneuver at the fishing area. Still, one isn't going to smuggle people or drugs anywhere near the US without calling a lot of attention to themselves with one of these. Strange.

They've not released this much detail but tinier boats like this get used for skipping up to Jamaica, Haiti, DR, PR and etc - not coming fully to the US. They get forwarded from there. Past then a lot of the times it may not even be say X ship coming into the US, they'll either drop it off shore and have US contacts pick it up and/or they wiggle through coverage gaps and offload at drop points in Southern Florida.

 

[Mick West]

Here's similar drug running boat:

 

[John J.]

However, it appears traditional Venezuelan fishing boats can be similar:

Here's similar drug running boat

This one has a bit of a family resemblance too; "Royal Navy deals major blow to drug cartels in the Caribbean after seizing a 200kg haul of cocaine and other narcotics worth almost £17m", Daily Mail 06 April 2024

 

[Giddierone]

Here's similar drug running boat:

The drugs to people ratio is notably different. Also they don't appear to be going as fast as the boat in that video, which they appear to have been able to stop and deal with without the use of lethal force.

 

[Gary C]

The drugs to people ratio is notably different. Also they don't appear to be going as fast as the boat in that video, which they appear to have been able to stop and deal with without the use of lethal force.

So far we have no verifiable information at all, however the point of releasing the video was the use of lethal force.

Elements of the American Right have been advocating for the militarization of the War on Drugs for decades. The book and film "Clear and Present Danger" were premised on rogue elements in the administration acting without Congressional approval to do just that.

For those not into techno-thrillers or too young to remember it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_Present_Danger

In the fictional account, revelation of the illegal activity brings down key members of the administration. Times, as they say, have changed.

[edited for grammar]

 

[Giddierone]

It's easy to see how people doubt the authenticity of this event because of performative made-for-TV approach this administration is taking, always seeming to have the next thing teed up to dominate the media's attention and distract from other concerns - we saw this in how Trump announced release of the video in his first public remarks, on 2 Sept, after a week of being away from the media for possible health reasons, saying:
"Over the last few minutes, [we] literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat... A lot of drugs in that boat. And you'll be seeing that, and you'll be reading about that. It just happened moments ago."

Reuters and the BBC haven't seen evidence that it's AI generated according to Google SynthID. [Edit: does anyone know how good these AI detection tools actually are? Can you link to studies?]

It also seems to be a blow against the notion that the USG has reverse-engineered alien technology from the 1950s capable of vehicle interference...

 

[boguesuser]

It also seems to be a blow against the notion that the USG has reverse-engineered alien technology from the 1950s capable of vehicle interference...

I don't this this event tells us anything about reverse engineered alien craft. This admin would happily blow up small speed boats with hundred thousand dollar missles whether or not we had advanced alien tech.

I think the recently revealed botched seal mission is much better example of us not having advanced alien tech.

 

[Ann K]

In the fictional account, revelation of the illegal activity brings down key members of the administration. Times, as they say, have changed.

All the President's Men has a different subject but the same premise.

 

[jarlrmai]

I don't this this event tells us anything about reverse engineered alien craft. This admin would happily blow up small speed boats with hundred thousand dollar missles whether or not we had advanced alien tech.

I think the recently revealed botched seal mission is much better example of us not having advanced alien tech.

Yeah if the US had some sort of alien tech they'd use it in undetectable ways less blowing up drug boats with tictacs and more infiltrating / recovering seal teams on deep missions

 

[Giddierone]

Without further info or better video who knows if that video is real or CGI. Apparently AI detection tools are not perfect at distinguishing real from simulated. I'm old enough to remember when a video (at least 1080p rather than the 480p provided above) of helicopters being shot down over Ukraine was mistaken for real by a retired police officer and "trained observer" [
Source: https://x.com/LtTimMcMillan/status/1507258952878280706
]. It was actually footage from Digital Combat Simulator - a video game.

 

[MapperGuy]

Eventually someone is going to ask for further information about the incident.
How did they know it was drugs? Answer is communications interceptions (all classified of course)...
But what happened after the blast?
Did anyone find the boat and take sea-level pictures? Did they just ignore it and let it drift around? Search for debris?
The story from the White House ends with the blast.
But from the militaries point of view there SHOULD have been follow up. Rescue/body recover operations, debris collection, etc.
If only to keep another nations navy from finding the results (and claim women and childrens bodies recovered...etc)

 

[Ann K]

The drugs to people ratio is notably different.

I think that's a major point. Drug smugglers want fewer people, more cargo. The fewer who know about a shipment, the safer they all are, and having that many individuals on a small boat speaks to an entirely different purpose for the trip.

My speculation: it was an attempt of the administration to stop illegal immigration, but the excuse of the "drug runner" story was invented because killing that many people generates a lot of bad press ...at a time when they have all the bad press they can handle.

 

[FatPhil]

Legal Eagle has done a video about the potential justifications for and implications of said action:

Source: https://youtu.be/watch?v=7t-_m16y25o

(TL;DW: none/BS and good-luck-with-that-nowadays)

 

[Giddierone]

There don't appear to be any further details. I don't know much about internantional waters but I don't think there are any between Venezuela and Trinidad & Tobago. So where did this mythical event occur? Perhaps the administration will one day release a map with a sign saying "Here be narcobeasties" scrawled in Sharpie on it...

I think that's a major point. Drug smugglers want fewer people, more cargo.

This article also makes the same point (bold added).

FEW DETAILS

The sketchy details about the killing of the alleged cartel members contrasted with how the Trump administration has handled other military actions, even since the start of his second term in January.

After the June bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, the administration held briefings for members of Congress and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff met with the press to explain the operation.
Experts noted that drug interdictions normally would involve the U.S. Coast Guard disabling a boat, which would then be seized and its crew arrested and tried.
"We don't even know what drugs are on this boat, what evidence there is," said David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University.

Smilde said the "go-fast" boats typically used in the drugs trade normally would carry far fewer than 11 people, making it possible that at least some of those on board were refugees.
Tensions between Venezuela and the U.S. have escalated in the wake of the Republican president's new approach to what he says is a war on illegal narcotics.
Trump has ordered the deployment of 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico to conduct operations against drug cartels, and has sent at least seven warships to the Caribbean, carrying more than 4,500 sailors and Marines.
Marines and sailors from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit have also been carrying out amphibious training and flight operations in southern Puerto Rico.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ei...inger-about-venezuela-boat-strike-2025-09-10/

 

[Giddierone]

New strike. Announced in the same way, on social media with no further details.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/15/politics/trump-strike-international-waters

 

[Matt33]

"This time let's shoot a boat with less people and visibly some stuff on board".

 

[Giddierone]

Why isn't the administration taking the opportunity to seize the boats (clearly within their capabilities) and photograph themselves with all the bad drugs they've prevented from entering the US, and parade the traffickers in front of the cameras? Wouldn't that be better marketing?

 

[boguesuser]

View attachment 84032

That is an incredible combo of images right there.

Why isn't the administration taking the opportunity to seize the boats (clearly within their capabilities) and photograph themselves with all the bad drugs they've prevented from entering the US, and parade the traffickers in front of the cameras? Wouldn't that be better marketing?

They are striking ships instead of doing what we've always done since 300 million people died from drug overdoses last year.

Given that the population of the use is around 375 million, that means we are dropping like flies from drug overdoses and nearly all the citizens of the US have died. I don't think we know that yet so someone needs to tell us we've died.

 

[Mendel]

since 300 million people died from drug overdoses last year.

Given that the population of the use is around 375 million, that means we are dropping like flies from drug overdoses and nearly all the citizens of the US have died. I don't think we know that yet so someone needs to tell us we've died.

slightly off topic, but the actual quote is, "300 million people died last year from drugs". Since vaccines are drugs, this must be the vaccine death wave the anti-vaxxers kept predicting.

Article:

Worldwide, in 2019 about 600 000 deaths were attributable to drug use. Close to 80% of these deaths are related to opioids, with about 25% of those deaths caused by opioid overdose.

Source: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/opioid-overdose

Article:

A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) highlights that 2.6 million deaths per year were attributable to alcohol consumption, accounting for 4.7% of all deaths, and 0.6 million deaths to psychoactive drug use. Notably, 2 million of alcohol and 0.4 million of drug-attributable deaths were among men.

Source: https://www.who.int/news/item/25-06-2024-over-3-million-annual-deaths-due-to-alcohol-and-drug-use-majority-among-men

tl;dr you're 4 times as likely to get hit by a drunk driver than to be stabbed by a junkie

I don't know any other country that calls entrepreneurs who import controlled substances without the requisite paperwork "terrorists", and I know few other countries that set out to kill actual terrorists without a trial (let alone nonviolent entrepreneurs), and no other country that does that on the high seas where that activity is not even illegal.

 

[MonkeeSage]

Trump speaking about the second boat:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K82qrQVfksQ

Well, we have proof. What you have to do is look at the cargo. There was, like, it's spattered all over the ocean. Big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place. And it was. Plus, we have recorded evidence that they were leaving. We've recorded them. It's very careful because we know you people would be after us. We're very careful. The military has been amazing. And General Cain showed me a little while ago the clip. But you can actually see it. But you don't have to see it because we have recorded proof and evidence. We know what time they were leaving, when they were leaving, what they had, and all of the other things that you'd like to have.

But we have noticed that there are no ships in the ocean anymore. We're seeing that there's, like, no ships. No, you know, when the first one we went, there were hundreds of boats. Now there are no boats. I wonder why. Meaning no drugs are coming across. Probably stopping some fishermen, too. I mean, to be honest, if I were a fisherman, I wouldn't want to go fishing. Just a nice, let's take a little trip. Because I'd say, man, if they, maybe they think I have drugs downstairs. I don't want that. I think the fishing business probably been hurt. But no, there are literally no boats. This was a boat. And we were surprised to see it.

Now, what does that mean? That means there's no drugs coming by sea. But they do come by land. And you know what? We're telling the cartels right now we're going to be stopping them, too.

I hope they actually do have valid intel and not just killing fisherman and guessing about the debris...yikes.