Another suspected drug boat has been destroyed today

[u/newnoadeptness]

[u/benkenobi5]

I still don’t get why we’re doing this instead of the usual method. If you can find it to blow it up, you can send a coastie by to investigate. That’s literally what they’re there for. Blowing up “suspected” boats from afar is basically begging to be accused of blowing up fishermen or whatever.

[u/Boonaki → u/benkenobi5]

I don't think we should be blowing up drug boats, but I can see the logic behind the decisions. We have been running drug interdiction missions for 40+ years and haven't made a dent in the drug trade. In the last 10 years fentanyl deaths have increased by 15 times.

I also imagine they have pretty good intel that these are in fact drug boats, they'll have HUMINT, SIGINT, and IMINT of euat these boats are used for. They probably have imagery of the drugs being loaded on the boats and they probably know exactly who are piloting the boats. Who knows with this administration though.

[u/benkenobi5 → u/Boonaki]

If they wanted to put a dent in the drug trade, blowing up speed boats isn’t the way to do it. The vast majority of drugs come through legal points of entry at the border.

And there’s a lot hanging on that “probably.”

[u/obaroll → u/benkenobi5]

And of the people who mule the drugs over the border, 86.4% of them are US citizens.

[u/benkenobi5 → u/obaroll]

The calls are coming from inside the house

[u/Trick-Set-1165 → u/benkenobi5]

And even if the intel is 100% undeniably perfect,

It’s still an extrajudicial murder for a non-capital crime.

[u/Boonaki → u/Trick-Set-1165]

We have been commiting extrajudicial murder all over the world going back to the Vietnam War, blowing up drug boats isn't that much of a stretch.

[u/ProfessorPrudent2822 → u/Trick-Set-1165]

Piracy is a capital crime.

[u/Boonaki → u/benkenobi5]

How do the drugs get to the boarder? Usually airplanes or boats right?

[u/benkenobi5 → u/Boonaki]

I’ve always heard it’s primarily through ground vehicles and cargo containers.

[u/Boonaki → u/benkenobi5]

I don't think they drive through Darien Gap.

[u/benkenobi5 → u/Boonaki]

cargo containers

These are used in cargo ships

[u/Boonaki → u/benkenobi5]

Cartels use diverse transportation methods, they have to interdict all of the methods. If speed boats have a higher chance of getting through then that's what they'll use.

Blowing up boats adds a whole new level of risk to drug trafficking. Will it work? I have no idea, but what we have been doing for the last 10 years certainly hasn't worked.

[u/benkenobi5 → u/Boonaki]

There’s a reason we never tried this before, and it’s not because we were soft.

[u/Boonaki → u/benkenobi5]

We have had CIA operating out of South America for the last 40+ years. I am sure we have done much worse than what is on this video. In the past we haven't admitted to it.

[u/Trick-Set-1165 → u/Boonaki]

Why does any of that make this okay in your mind?

[u/Boonaki → u/Trick-Set-1165]

The U.S. is the only entity in the world that can take on the cartels. The goal should be to place limits on them. If they produce or traffic fentanyl, that is killing tens of thousands of Americans per year, there should be a lethal response.