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Comment by pksebben | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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'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).

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