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Comment by lingrush4 | Hacker News Reader

No, you have no idea who is on the boat. That's very different from the US military having no idea.

They may have some idea, but they definitely don’t know for sure— there could very well be innocent people on the boat. I’m not sure why arrests are not an option in these cases. It would be great press to announce “x kilos of cocaine captured”, “6 drug smugglers apprehended”

Instead it’s just “boat bombed, terrorists killed, drugs destroyed” with no proof that they’re terrorists or that there are drugs.

> with no proof

That’s why arrests are not an option.

The proof would be the drugs on the boat. Unless they're bombing alleged drug dealers on pleasure cruises.

There aren’t drugs on the boat.

how do you know?

It’s not dissimilar to George Bush’s weapons of mass destruction lie.

Given the several fishermen who have survived the strikes thus far, I'm pretty sure the US military has less idea

Where can I read about this?

Unverified Bluesky posts by people with conflicting interests

Who has a conflicting interest with fishermen getting blasted?

People who want to kill random people and claim they were bad drug terrorists.

That's not a conflicting interest, that's just an interest.

is there any proof that they are fishermen?

The President of Colombia https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8xg1jve73o

I would expect anyone with something to hide would ensure their boat is setup for fishing. It isn't hard to do and makes a great cover. There are a few other legal activities you can use as cover, fishing is just the most obvious.

I have no idea if they really were doing anything but it is the obvious cover if they were.

Footage of the boats to date show they aren't trying to spoof legitimate fishing vessels. They are IMHO very clearly dope haulers and anyone saying otherwise is either extremely credulous or not being honest with everyone. Fishermen don't use boats that are painted to camouflage themselves and have a bank of powerful performance engines.

The dopers probably have realized that the deception angle doesn't work and just wastes payload space, so you're better off trying not to be seen at all. I suspect what happens IRL is that boats are boarded with men with dogs and the ruse falls apart, so the doper leadership decided to stop bothering with all the subterfuge and just try to (sometimes literally) run under the radar, maximizing cargo space so the runs that get through realize the most revenue.

The probably are dope haulers, that does not make murdering them OK.

Killing all drug haulers/dealers is ok, I fully support what they do in China and most of East Asia. The amount of society damage from drugs warrants it.

That's a different discussion, because this is the killing of foreign nationals in international waters without judicial supervision.

If you are OK with that, then, you are, basically, OK with everything.

Aren't they waters near our coast? Do we not kill pirates on the other side of the world?

The waters are not near our coasts, no. Venezuela is the opposite side of the Caribbean Sea...

Even if we accept all are guilty based on nothing killing 66 smugglers isn't going to meaningfully reduce harm or even the drug supply. You are arguing for abandoning the rule of law and inevitable unjustifiable murder when mistakes are made for... nothing

It is almost certainly deterring many more than the 66 who were aggressively deterred.

Would you extend this to all other crimes that cause a lot of societal damage?

> Footage of the boats to date show they aren't trying to spoof legitimate fishing vessels.

This is a great moment to share a link or some other source of verisimilitude.

Also no one uses "dope" anymore - don't forget to migrate, we're on Reagan v3.0 now.

Okay.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2025/09/15/us-attack...

If you think those are fishing boats you don't know very much about fishing. Those are dope haulers. The question of whether dope haulers deserve a .mil missile is separate from establishing exactly what those boats are and exactly what they are doing — something I think anyone with half a brain inwardly knows even if they maintain otherwise in public forums like this one.

Couple of points;

What you think is going on in other people's brains, partial or not, is inaccurate. This is generally true for pretty much everyone, but especially in a case like yours where you seem utterly convinced that you know.

I do not know what is on those boats, and neither do you. Neither of us will ever find out, because they were sunk before any actual facts could be verified. This is precisely why we have due process.

In the scheme of things, I am much more worried about a well-armed force committing extrajudicial killings than I am "some dudes who might have drugs". The fact that you seem very concerned about the latter and are totes cool with the former is... concerning, to say the least.

I do appreciate you posting your sources, so thanks for that.

I'm responding directly to a post on using subterfuge to pretend to be fishermen, and further addressing the oft-stated opinion that fishing boats are being targeted.

They aren't bothering pretending to be fishermen, and also stating my personal opinion that most people saying they are fishing boats know they're not (and thus are being dishonest). Those are separate points than fighting drug trafficking with missile strikes.

You know what? Fair point. I can't necessarily talk for anyone else, but I will say that I have a tendency to be extra critical where state power is being abused. I served, and in my Army, we knew to our bones that our mandate was to protect the American people from foreign threat of violence, not as a police force. Not then and not ever. Posse comitatus wasn't the law of the land - it was a commandment from the highest authority.

So I suppose I jumped on with a little more haste than a sharing of opinions warrants. Sorry about that - this stuff gets me very hot under the collar.

If I step back and take another look at it, well - I'm still not ready to make a judgement as to what those boats were doing. There's not enough information - even taking the profiling argument into account. There are people who live as digital nomads on the sea just because they like to. Those boats might have been smuggling something other than drugs, like people (who might have any number of reasons to be on it - from human trafficking to refugees). There may be reasons that people have for taking a boat of that shape out that I am unaware of. Irrespective of the use of force, there is simply not enough data to come to a reasonably certain conclusion.

My time in service was spent as part of an IO unit - we would never have advised action on the data that's available here. The Risk factors are simply too broad and too deep.

I hear you. Drug boats or not, I would not choose our present course of action.

I don't know much about those boats, but I know they did not have fishing gear on board. Nor were they a luxury yacht. By process of elimination we can assume they are hauling cargo. Most cargo is concerned about fuel efficiency and so would not have that much power for the size of boat (most cargo is on large ships so much bigger engines, but for the size smaller and slower).

I don't know what they were doing, but they didn't match the typical profile of legal things people do. No sign of fishing, no sign of luxury, no sign of water skies...

Due process would still be good, but we know a lot already without that.

I suspect that if Venezuela, or any other country, started killing Americans in international waters because they suspected they were committing a crime you guys will be singing another song. Due process would be absolutely necessary.

I don't know much about these cases but is anyone from that country coming forward to media and saying their spouse was killed on the ship? Is there anyone who is claiming it was a mistake from that country?

Yes.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/colombian-killed-us-strike-...

No, you know the US government said there was no fishing equipment on board. The US government has no credibility.

I looked at the video, there was no fishing equipment on board. You are not going to drop a line over the side of the board when you are ocean fishing. You either have a large rod that wasn't on the boat, or you have a net with winches and other equipment needed to handle a large net. Nobody's boat looks like that if they are planning on fishing. (they also didn't have any evidence of space to stow some of the equipment).

I hope you have half as much care and concern for the victims of the drugs smuggled into this country as you do for drug smugglers, alleged or not.

> This is precisely why we have due process

> a well-armed force committing extrajudicial killings

What process is due foreign drug smugglers operating outside of U.S. jurisdiction? It's a military operation. Did you want Osama bin Laden to receive his day in court, as well, instead of being shot in his sleep by a well-armed force?

"Due process" has been perverted in recent years in the Anglosphere to mean "infinite process, with no end result". Process for process's sake, because a lot of people's livelihoods depend on participating in and perpetuating that process; and zero recourse for taxpayers who want some semblance of results for their tax dollars.

> Did you want Osama bin Laden to receive his day in court, as well

100% unironically, yes.

What kind of gotcha was that question supposed to be anyway?

Seems like some people assume anyone who cares about human rights has some sort of line where we stop caring and think summary executions are okay.

Shouldn't you start by executing the people at Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family for the opioid crisis? Instead of settling with them.

> Due process" has been perverted in recent years in the Anglosphere to mean "infinite process, with no end result

Seems preferable to fascist thugs illegally assaulting or arresting random people on the streets. Extrajudicial killing inside U.S. soil are probably not far off either. Unfortunately people like you will be cheering that as well..

Or you truly see no issue with governments having the right to arbitrarily execute people with no oversight whatsoever?

> victims of the drugs

Think about that statement. How are you defining 'victim' in this case? From what I can see, 'victim' here roughly equates to 'willing purchaser of goods'.

I believe in Freedom as a fundamental right - 'freedom' in this context being 'whatever you want to do that doesn't unduly impact anyone else'. If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, well, it's your foot - have fun with that. This concept that the 'Drug War' is something that we've ever done for the benefit of our people is laughable.

Even running on the assumption that 'drugs're bad, mmkay?', there are still holes big enough to drive a truckload of opioids and vodka through (both legal substances that have each put more folks in the ground than all controlled substances combined [0][1]). So if we are protecting the poor helpless confused masses from themselves, why is it that we have decided to let them kill themselves with those particular things? What makes the legal stuff special? The concept is ridiculous at it's face.

> It's a military operation.

I must have missed the declaration of war congress approved on 'unknown and unaffiliated watercraft'.

> Anglosphere

wut.

> taxpayers who want some semblance of results for their tax dollars

As a taxpayer, I am unhappy with these results. I would like to return them, please.

0 - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db457-tables.pdf

1 - https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/facts-stats/index.html

I think you’re the one being disingenuous now…you surely can’t look at that footage and say “drugs, kill everyone”?

Who said kill everyone? I was responding to a post about using subterfuge to pretend to be a fisherman. Deception is a personal and professional interest of mine so I responded.

Determining what the boats are and what they are doing is a separate (but related) topic than determining whether or not they deserve being blown up. Some people who are reading these words hold that these are fishermen, not traffickers, and I feel that is either a dishonest statement or those people aren't very clueful.

> hold that these are fishermen, not traffickers

The problem is that Venn diagram of those two categories is very much overlapping.

Fish aren't biting and the mortgage payment is due? Many fisherman in that scenario will move a little cargo without asking too many questions (here in the US and Europe too). And narcotraffickers aren't exactly known for being experienced seamen. For the most part they hire and/or coerce civilian captains to move their cargo.

I'm not necessarily disputing that the boats could have been moving drugs, I'm disputing that the crew would be hardened criminals, and not mostly down-on-their-luck civilians with few other options to make a living (in the midst of Venezuela's economic collapse).

Who’s to say these aren’t doctored, ai-generated images? Where’s the third party verification?

The issue most people have is not about the murder of drug smugglers, it’s the lack of a trial. It’s the lack of real evidence being shown to the public. It’s the fact there actually might be innocents on those boats. It’s completely normal for people in 2025 to expect we arrest and not just kill people randomly.

The USA was respected because it believed in those ethos…because it was better then a bunch of angry murderers.

Amnesia is a powerful drug.

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/oba...

> The issue most people have is not about the murder of drug smugglers

I'm definitely anti-murder, regardless of whether or not there is a trial. Over 70% of countries have abolished the death penalty...

I'm not against the death penalty if the person is really guilty. Problem is no all-powerful God is in the courts and so there is always doubt - a few people have been proven innocent after many years and we have no way of knowing if there are more or not at any given time.

the narco subs meanwhile, are barely above water. they arent gonna look like boats at all, and also dont have a bank of powerful performance engines.

instead, they have low powered engines to avoid detection. low and slow

Let's say they look like dope haulers. Then just go in and arrest them like every civilised country in the world.

It does not fucking matter. Even if there are drugs on the boat.

You can't kill people who present no immediate threat to anyone without due process. It's a human rights travesty.

What stops them from declaring you or me from being drug smugglers and drone striking us? You won't be able to dispute the accusation after, that's for sure.

Fishermen fly flags of the country in which their boat is registered.

There are different kinds of boats. Most of them I'd say don't fly any flags.

Far offshore? Ideally yes. But on the 30km voyage from San Juan de Unare to Trinidad? I hardly expect a small fishing boat to be flying an ensign in that scenario

If they're known drug traffickers worthy of execution without due process, why are the survivors being sent home instead of tried for their supposed crimes?

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/us/politics/boat-strike-s...

"...for their home countries to prosecute"

Does not imply a belief of innocence.

Is vague enough to mean either thing which in and of itself is a red flag. "To face justice" is both a phrase this administration would use and is more concrete.

GMAFB. The US is famous for using 'extraordinary rendition' to take custody of people it deems terrorists and either try them or hold them in isolation at military camps. Do you really buy the line that they're being 'sent home to be prosecuted' by the same countries that are condemning these strikes? It seems far more likely that they're being sent home because they don't want to put them in front of a judge.

That’s a meaningless claim and statement unless they somehow compel their home countries to prosecute them

> worthy of execution without due process

Quite the fascist take you got there, buddy.

edit: My bad. On closer reading I believe you might have said that tongue-in-cheek. Reading intent in text is hard.

The military has told Congress they don't know either.

> [The department officials] said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on these vessels to do the strikes, they just need to prove a connection to a designated terrorist organization or affiliate

- https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/30/dod-military-strike...

The most generous possible interpretation is that they have no idea who is on the boat, but they have evidence that somebody associated with the boat has some connection to an organization that they have designated as "terrorists".

When Pete Hegseth leaked a military strike on Signal, the specific strike they were discussing was blowing up a residential apartment building because the target was visiting his girlfriend there. “The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed”. So in this case ~100% of the victims, besides one guy, were unidentified civilians. I think this is an instructive example to see how these people (don't) think about killing civilians.

Pentagon officials have told Congress they often don't positively know who are on the boats.

True, but they do know what the boats are doing and it isn't fishing. If they were fishing, they would be flying a flag of a specific country. Operating a boat without a flag is the same as flying a plane without filing a flight plan. You can object to the rules of engagement but they are in line with hundreds of years of maritime law.

> Operating a boat without a flag is the same as flying a plane without filing a flight plan

You seem to really equate this with the idea of planes flying without filing a flight plan. Are you OK with the US military shooting down any plane that doesn't file a flight plan, without even trying to communicate with the vessel or intervene in any other way previously, even if that vessel doesn't appear to be heading towards any specific US territory or vessel? Is that also allowable under international law?

No. You're not supposed to be bombing any boat you find in international waters that doesn't have a flag on it for whatever reason you can come up with.

I've never seen a fishing boat fly a flag, and I've been sailing in many countries for >20 years. Generally, fishermen don't care for such things.

So, since I am British and have a UK registered boat and know a bit about this. The law that applies (The Merchant Shipping Act 1995 section 5) requires that we should fly the flag when entering or leaving a foreign port or upon a signal by one of Her Majestys ships [1]. Flying a flag routinely in international waters is very much not required, and very few vessels fly a flag out there, because there is not much there to look at it and it just flaps itself to bits.

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/21/section/5

That sounds very much like a cultural thing. Here in the Sound (the strait between Denmark and Sweden), the norm is definitively to fly a flag with so many different nationalities sailing here. In Sweden it is also required (through not punishable) to carry a flag if you are around the port, when in visible range of the coast guard, when in foreign waters, and when in visible range of other ships in international waters. The only exceptions to those requirements is participation during sports events.

With the trouble brewing with the Russian shadow fleet in the Baltics, flying a flag seem quite important unless you want the coast guard to stop you (they have also increased their presence significant the last 5-10 years and do a lot of random checks).

Are shady Russian private military organizations or whatever just completely unable to get their hands on a Norwegian or Finnish or Estonian flag or something?

Who needs stealth when a cheap piece of fabric provides cover.

They seem to be able to more easily acquire flags of convenience from further away, and optionally some kind of nominal insurance from different providers likely to pass muster at a first glance (I have zero maritime expertise and just wanted to add some supplementary context to the parent of your post).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_shadow_fleet

https://eutoday.net/eu-sanction-issuers-of-fake-flags-to-rus...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/30/world/asia/ru...

https://www.nrk.no/vestland/xl/over-100-ships-have-sailed-wi...

I've definitely been on a fishing boat of tourists in the Caribbean that wasn't flying a flag.

I wouldn't do that with the current US administration's actions and level of attention to detail.

They know it’s fishermen, they just don’t care.

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