>Since early September, the United States has carried out at least 14 strikes against alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing 61 people.
IIRC at least one of the targetted vessels were in Venezuelan waters.
Venezuela has F-16 and Su-30.
No matter how prepared US is, it's not necessarily a sure thing they could pull that off without death of US personnel. US personnel that had to actually go on the ground were routinely killed in Afghanistan despite absolute force and technology superiority.
The conservative argument I've seen is basically it needs to just blow them up from above because in such case US forces are not risked. While I don't agree with the mission, the strategy makes sense.
One would hope the latter is required, before going through with an execution.
In reality, most likely these are legit drug traffickers but being used as pawns for geopolitics rather than a meaningful attempt to curb drug use.
How can we have enough evidence to know these people deserve to die for drug crimes when we don't even know who they are?
The few people who survived, we just released them. No charging them with crimes, no courts, just sending them on their way. If they were really hardened drug criminals with enough evidence to murder everyone else around them, how were we not able to charge them with any crime?
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1153966324414...
They are almost always used as narco trafficking. However, we only know that is usually the case, not that this particular one was used for that purpose.
There are a handful of civilian legal use submarines of this form and submersibles used for tourist and science purposes, however if a scientist or tourist rich enough to fund recreational submarines were killed it's likely the family would have come forward by now.
Someone has pointed out gold, people smugglers, and fisherman could be explanations but I don't think such submarine is suitable for much but the gold smuggling case there.
It is suspicious, that is all. Most time these form of submarine are used, it is to transport narcotics. Coast Guard has boarded many of them, this almost always the case.
Is it proof they are guilty beyond reasonable doubt? No
Do I think they deserve to die based on evidence? No
Hell, I'm not arguing we should even do anything about it.
If my cousin Niko was spotted on one, I would have questions, because it's suspicious. I wouldn't conclude he needs executed.
How do you know that? They haven't released any evidence. I don't think they've shared any with Congress.
I'm not going to argue you're wrong. Suspicious is subjective, and possibly even semantic. However, such vessels of this form are mostly used for drug trafficking, and occasionally for tourism or science. But we've heard nothing but crickets in regards to families of scientists or tourists. I'm left suspicious it was probably a narco submarine, which as I've repeated several times, in no way is trying to justify execution or even state I know for sure what the narco-submarine appearing vessel was.
And it sounds like you mostly agree, but to me being in a kind of vehicle that often has drugs on board isn't enough reason to me to be murdered.
They're being murdered because they're likely to be perceived as an unsympathetic target and a way to escalate hostilities with Venezuela.
No one in the know could possibly think pot shots at a few vessels has any meaningful impact on the drug trade.