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Comment by badnew | Hacker News Reader

Which innocent people are you talking about exactly?

Were they charged and convicted with a crime? Maybe they should have been...but we'll never know now.

I think that illegally crossing a country's border, especially as part of a drug cartel's narcotics operations, tends to carry some risk

What specific border are you talking about?

Any country

Presumably they're referring to stuff like this: https://www.hrw.org/report/2026/07/21/a-dangerous-partnershi...

> documents three incidents that saw ordinary people subjected to abuses, including drone strikes, torture, and arbitrary detention. In a fourth case, a fishing boat and most of its crew went missing amid signs of another attack.

That is unfortunate.

Are you going to bother to mention the millions who have been affected by imported drugs?

Is there any evidence they are not just blowing up random people?

Edit: i have zero faith that the us government is can, let alone is willing to, control the drug trade. This seems to be an excuse to exercise violent control of the americas as an end unto itself. This is in line with our intervention in venezuela, our bullying cuba, our constant abuse of the phrase "monroe doctrine".

You, knowing absolutely nothing about the inner workings of the counter-narcotics operations, assert that there is no evidence that those people are drug runners, based only on ignorance of the facts, yet you are also apparently perfectly content to not provide any evidence to the contrary (that they are indeed systematically killing "random people"), despite the fact that such a claim is completely absurd, and you don't see any contradiction?

> knowing absolutely nothing about the inner workings of the counter-narcotics operations, assert that there is no evidence that those people are drug runners

Well, he's correct that there is no evidence known to him, so there IS no evidence known to him.

To my knowledge, the administration has not released any evidence, only claims: "We know they are drug smugglers and we have evidence that we will not show you."

So there are drug smugglers, but the US isn't targeting them, they're targeting random boats, and the US is doing this for some reason which is apparently clear to OP but hasn't been made clear to us, and that somehow is the simplest explanation for what's going on, despite being entirely absurd?

Oh no drugs, good thing drug crimes come with a death sentence! Even better when it is an extrajudicial death sentence!

If you want to live somewhere suspected drug dealers get summary execution in the streets and death sentences, move to the Philippines or China. Don't try to bring that nonsense here.

If you want to live somewhere South Sudanese get about in shopping centres with machetes, car jacking, and stabbing people on the streets… Maybe don’t come to Australia.

Sooner or later, the West needs to wake up and realise that empathy for the offenders over empathy for the victims, hasn’t worked.

And that includes meth and heroin dealers.

Marijuana, meh, stupid drug anyway. But I know too many people who used weed long term and now have chronic psychosis, so yeah that ain’t great.

That's a problem with your local law enforcement failing to enforce the law. Crime has been dropping where I live almost every year I've been alive, and that's all about opportunity and jobs rather than jackbooted thugs delivering vigilante justice.

Drug smugglers.

We’ve devolved from the proverbial slap on the wrist to the practice of a pat on the back and we’ll wishes.

Anything short of that is viewed as a a crime against humanity.

I think it's a reference to the US bombing small boats in the caribbean and eastern pacific with claims that they were drug smugglers.

Legal definition reminder:

Innocent until proven guilty.

Relevance:

Legal protection in place to protect innocent people. Like you and your family.

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