The coast guard interdicts hundreds of boats off the coast. They train to take out the boat engine without causalities so they have evidence and suspects.
So far all we have is 2 fishermen returned to their own countries, 80+ dead bodies, and all physical evidence at the bottom of the sea.
War crimes to support a narrative for a conflict the majority of Americans don't want.
You voted for this America. The Latinos who turn coated on the Democratic Party so hard in 2024 are reaping what they sowed.
Americans don’t want rule of law. They don’t want norms. They want people to suffer and they take great pleasure at the concept. We must kill schadenfreude from our psyche or we will continue to celebrate this barbarism.
Not really sure why you are downvoted, but I'm inclined to agree with your sentiment. I've noticed this common thread of extracting glee in the suffering of others.
So long the suffering of "them" is greater, then the suffering I'm experiencing is justified and acceptable.
None of what the US is doing in Venezuela is new ground for the empire. Failed CIA coup plots, bribing Maduro’s pilots and allies in hopes of betrayal, even military action like bombing boats on shaky “national security” grounds— the US has been doing this sort of thing in Latin America (and much of the world) since the 50’s.
But this story has stayed in media because Trump is so brazen, declassifying CIA documents and speaking openly about these war crimes. That’s new for America. Usually these things are denied for a few decades, claims to the contrary are called “conspiracy theory”, before being admitted quietly, maybe mentioned in a back page of the NY Times.
So I’m skeptical that anyone from the US government could ever be held accountable for war crimes or violations of international law, but who knows. This does feel different.
Wasn't one private courtmartialed? Lynndie England. And googling says 7 faced courts-martial this year, while independently another court awarded $42M in damages to the prisoners (who survived).
I'm outraged about Cheney's enshittification of our nation too, but truth is important.
I mean, it would be better. The other option is to take them out of water. There is no universe where the only option to deal with shipwrecked people is to kill them.
In a war situation, which this was not, this is a war crime.
This comment is wilfully gloating over the murder of civilians. It's beneath the standards of the Hacker News community or any civil society. What has become of America?
A) Killing drug mules for being drug mules is murder.
B) Killing enemy sailors in a war after their ship has sunk (assuming you can justify the false equivalence of drugs with violence with war in your head) is a war crime. The single most common example of a war crime you'll find in textbooks, in fact. Not only international law & the UCMJ, but even statutory US law forbids this.
C) We have seen no evidence that they're smuggling drugs. In fact, the administration was sort of gloating on social media over the fact that they're going to shoot at anything which moves.
D) There is some evidence that some of these were fishing vessels, and some evidence that others were smuggling cheap Venezuelan fuel to the Caribbean islands where formal trade networks make it expensive.
E) The drug trade originating in Venezuela would be cocaine, not the supposed Fentanyl that Trump claims. It's at least as likely to be headed for eventual consumption in Europe as the US.
F) If they'd just done the Obama thing and killed a bunch of people without bragging about how they can kill anyone they want, we wouldn't be obsessing so much. Trump has already declared anyone skeptical of his administration, of America, of Christianity, and of right-wing politics, to be a "terrorist", and thus a valid target for artillery strike under this current justification.
G) The administration is very clearly pushing the regime change war that the GOP has been pushing since Hugo Chavez took over and limited the power of American oil primes. They have declared the Venezuelan President to be "head of the cartel", and are telling us that they're going to invade with ground troops any day now.
So far all we have is 2 fishermen returned to their own countries, 80+ dead bodies, and all physical evidence at the bottom of the sea.
War crimes to support a narrative for a conflict the majority of Americans don't want.