I’ve been waiting for a “hook” before expressing my opinions about the bombing of boats setting off from Venezuela, allegedly smuggling narcotics to the United States. Since so little opinion has been expressed on the subject by major outlets and no real news “hook”, just the occasional announcement of the boat’s destruction or speculation about President Trump’s intentions, I’ve decided just to go ahead and give my opinion.
Yes, boats from Venezuela have been ferrying illegal drugs to the United States. Have the boats that have been destroyed been doing so? We’ll probably never know. Occasionally, the families of men killed in the boats’ destruction have admitted that, yes, the boat was smuggling drugs, also asserting that they weren’t “narco-terrorists”, they were just poor guys trying to make a buck smuggling drugs. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
Yes, Maduro is a bad guy and is bad for Venezuela. He’s a crook and an authoritarian just like his mentor, Hugo Chavez.
No, destroying the boats isn’t legal. It’s not an emergency by the normal non-federal government standard. The smuggling has been going on for years. Yes, destroying the boats is an act of war and the president is not empowered to make war on other countries except in an emergency or when authorized by Congress. To its discredit, Congress has been abrogating that responsibility for the last 65 years. This would be a splendid opportunity for Congress to reassert its prerogatives but I don’t expect that to happen with this president and this Congress.
Furthermore, destroying smuggling boats in the international waters of the Caribbean without specific Congressional authorization is worse than a crime, it is a mistake. Monitoring boats setting off from, say, Venezuela would be a splendid opportunity to use drone aircraft to monitor the boats until they’ve entered the U .S. EEZ at which point the Coast Guard could be deployed to apprehend the craft once they’d entered U. S. territorial waters. Or the drones themselves could destroy the boats at that point—the act of war would be Venezuela’s at that point. That’s the way of war that’s emerging since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Some of the reports I’ve read have claimed that the boats are being destroyed using MQ-9 Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles. As I understand it those missiles cost from $150,000-$200,000. A back-of-the-envelope estimation of the cost of each boat strike is about $1 million. While it would be using drone technology, using Hellfire missiles is a pretty expensive way to sink a smuggling boat. It also raises the question of why the attacks are being carried out in international or even Venezuelan waters. And why we’ve deployed the flotilla pictured above to the Caribbean.
We absolutely, positively should not be preparing to overthrow the Maduro government in Venezuela. We are unpopular enough with our Central and South American neighbors for such unilateral interventions as it is. Hardly the material for a Nobel Peace Prize.
I should add that I do not think most of those fleeing Venezuela are political refugees so there’s no emergency there, either. There’s hardly a better example in the world today of self-inflicted harm than Venezuela. Why we should provide a haven for people who’ve harmed themselves through their own fecklessness eludes me. “One man, one vote, one time” is a completely foreseeable consequence of electing a figure like Chavez. It reminds me of that scene in Blazing Saddles when Cleavon Little has a gun pointed at this own head.
How is this different from droning Muslims we do not like? I thought it was wrong when President Obama was doing it, and I think it is wrong when President Trump is doing it.
I will note that droning Muslims included anybody in the immediate area including family and friends, too close. Even more egregious, an American citizen was executed by drone, and if I recall correctly, he was afforded no trial.
al-Awlaki had been named an al Qaeda terrorist by multiple countries and multiple entities within the US. He was named as playing a part in multiple attacks in the US and elsewhere. However, he lived in Yemen and we had no way to capture him and bring him to trial. So he was an actual terrorist, named so by many organizations and not just on the whim of one person. He was crafting the deaths of Americans and could not be brought to trial. The Venezuelans are only named terrorists by Trump, we are capable of catching them and bringing them to trial. The only alternative I can see to killing al-Awlaki I can see was to let him keep planning killings. We have an alternative for the boats.
That said, the use of drones by both Bush and Obama lead to the killings of many innocent people. Family were killed along with neighbors. We know that in some cases completely incorrect sites were bombed. We know that when US police raid homes they go to the wrong address about 10% of the time. We are wrong often enough that we shouldn’t be killing people unless there is a good reason and there is no other good option. (In the case of the drone killings you do need to weigh the costs of an alternative, likely a ground force action which would also have risk of collateral killings.)
Steve
From Google, “ Several US citizens have been killed in drone strikes, most prominently Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric who was a targeted al-Qaeda leader killed in 2011. His 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was also killed in a separate strike a few weeks later, which officials stated was an accidental strike. Another US citizen, Samir Khan, was killed in the same strike as Anwar al-Awlaki.”
Essentially every strike on civilians by the US since 1991 is a criminal act, and the participants doing the killings from the President down to the aircraft/missile maintainers are murderers.
Of course, this is the same government that did the killings at Wounded Knee, Ruby Ridge, and Waco, and almost certainly the murders of JFK, MLK, and RFK, so why are we surprised? If we kill our own, what do Muslims and Hispanics have to complain about?
Now that the Ford is on station, we can ecpect to see some real killing, not this penny-ante stuff.
Talk about it ? Talk about it ?what can you do ?
@steve
I am confused, is killing innocent people right or wrong? You seem to want it both ways. I have a lot of questions, but I suspect that Trump is the actual problem.
Most of your reasoning would apply to Venezuela, except Trump.
BTW: I have an issue with most of today’s police practices, including no-knock raids.
Not only is it illegal and expensive, it also targets the wrong drugs (not fentanyl) and makes those drugs more expensive and profitable.
Just what I expect from and respect in this administration.
TastyBits: How is this different from droning Muslims we do not like?
The United States was directly attacked by al Qaeda with similar threats from associated groups of extremists. Nor has it always been plausible to capture them. Furthermore, the United States Congress granted broad authority to the President to conduct military actions against those who “authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” International law also supports the right of a nation to self-defense.
Contrariwise, attacks against suspected drug smugglers violates both US and international law, who, being within reach of the law, should be interdicted and arrested, not summarily executed.
bob sykes: Essentially every strike on civilians by the US since 1991 is a criminal act
If someone wages war on the United States and is beyond the reach of the law, then they are legitimate military targets. Citizenship is irrelevant. This has always been true.
TastyBits: I am confused, is killing innocent people right or wrong?
In war, innocent people may be hurt. The balance is called proportionality, that is, the military force and collateral damage must be balanced against the military goal. While what you may consider right and wrong is subjective, most ethicists and religious scholars agree that war may sometimes be justified.
Killing innocent people is wrong, but in war unavoidable. People concentrate on drone killings for some reason but take the Battles of Fallujah. Estimates are that 600-700 civilians were killed. Also note that in the 3rd battle run by Iraq its estimated many more civilians were killed. So even though the US makes a good effort you still end up with dead civilians.
History of war is interesting. For the longest time killing civilians was par for the course. They might be spared so you would have a viable tax base/functional country left, or they might not. The conduct of some wars where armies met on battlegrounds outside of cities in theory would lend itself to not killing civilians but even then wars still filtered into cities. It was until about 1900 some effort was made to agree we wouldn’t deliberately kill civilians but WW1 and 2 blew that up. So we came up with the Geneva Conventions.
Steve
The attacks on the drug boats have nothing to do with drugs. It has everything to do with oil. Venezuela’s neighbor Guyana has discovered vast quantities of oil off their coast. This field is being developed by Exxon Mobil and Guyana is receiving a significant income from it. Production should explode to over 1 million barrels per day in a couple of years.
Venezuela’s Socialist leader is now claiming that half of Guyana is actually Venezuelan territory (the half with oil). He has been threatening an invasion. As Margaret Thatcher said, “The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Now that he is out of money, he is trying to get someone else’s money. The boat strikes are there to either send Maduro a message or provoke an overthrow of his government.
Maduro is not the rightful leader of Venezuela. The last election was an absolute fraud. Trump wants him gone. That message is what all of this is about.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Guyana
@steve
Droning a guy loading water cans into his trunk and killing family members is not war.
Your original excuse for killing al-Awlaki was the same as how we invaded Iraq: A lot of people and countries said Saddam was a meanie, and he had WMD’s that he was going to give to terrorists to attack the US.
If we had declared war on Iraq or Venezuela, I might agree with you,but we did not. The US was no different than Russia, and I do not recall you justifying their actions.
A properly conducted war is violent and bloody. Most Americans do not have the stomach for it. Hence, we hide the gruesome reality. I am a warmonger, but I expect war to be properly conducted. Killing civilians is a necessity. In the US, the first step is to declare war, and if that cannot be achieved, the following steps should not be taken.
In any case, you seem to acknowledge it is wrong, but you want to be especially offended because the present wrong is being done by Trump. I am bewildered that a grown man is contorting himself over President Trump.
Now, @BrutusWannabe is another story.
Thank you, Charlie M. This has been my understanding as well, and explains all the high octane warships.
But it was interesting to see the back and forth, including, dare I say it, Steve’s cult responses.
Has EVERYTHING to do with Maduro and his tilt towards China, his dealings with Russia and even a factory building drones with Iran.
If Maduro resigns, and leaves taking his loot to Moscow, then Venezuela could resume drug smuggling in alliance with Washington.
Droning someone by accident is very much part of war. Drones sometimes miss intended targets and sometimes intel is wrong. It works the same way when someone shoots at a combatant and misses and the bullet travels half a mile and kills some kid walking down street.
1) I see the situation with Trump as much different for several reasons. First, no other country has called these people terrorists. No prior president or US intel agency has considered them as such. They dont meet any standard definition of terrorist. Heck, the Sacklers probably contributed to more drug deaths than Venezuelans. Second, accidental/collateral deaths are completely avoidable. This is not just theoretical as we have been stopping and apprehending drug boats for many years. We could stop and apprehend them, confirm they are narcoterrorists if you want to believe there is such a thing, then condemn to death. No need to accidentally kill a boatload of missionaries.
2) The US was not the only entity that believed al-Awlaki was recruiting, effectively, and planning attacks on the US. Multiple countries had come to the same conclusion and multiple agencies in the US. Yemen had tried him in absentia, found him guilty and condemned him to death. In the ideal, we capture him and try him, but there was no practical way to do that. You need to offer an alternative if you want to criticize the actions taken. Taking no action had just lead to his aiding inn more attacks killing more US citizens.
Steve
steve: The US was not the only entity that believed al-Awlaki was recruiting, effectively, and planning attacks on the US.
Al-Awlaki explicitly declared war on the United States, including justifying attacks on civilians. Action against him was reasonably considered granted by Congress under the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).
It was even worse than that in Afghanistan and the Middle East. We offered bounties for information about terrorists. Predictably, some of the information we received was correct but a lot was wrong. Informants took the bounties for informing on people they didn’t like as well as actual terrorists. Win-win! We couldn’t tell the difference.
It was estimated that at least 1/4 of the people in Gitmo were there not because they were terrorists but because someone was trying to get revenge by making false claims against them. However, I am sure Venezuela is different and no one there would falsely accuse someone else.
Steve
@steve
Your Trump hatred has clouded your mind and thinking. I never stated I endorsed either policy. In fact, I stated they are both wrong. I am not against indiscriminately killing people, but I am against jumping through hoops to justify it.
The Iraq invasion took place because experts and multiple countries said he was a meanie who hated the US, and they assured us that he would recruit and help terrorists attack the US. You can ask ChatAI about the claims of WMD’s.
If your objection to killing Venezuelans is experts and multiple countries, I have no doubt that President Trump could provide that for you, but it does not make it right.
Since 9/11, many people have been accused and convicted of being terrorists, but many of them were idiots not terrorists. I am very of any government, expert, or other authorities claims, and I am even more leary of ChatAI.
Much like terrorists, it is easier to bomb drug runners rather than capture and convict them. If we can bomb them, we can track and catch them.