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Does anyone know - do they give the guys on the boat a chance to surrender, and they're fleeing? Or do they just bomb them without any kind of notice?
by IncreasePosts 11mo ago
Does anyone know - do they give the guys on the boat a chance to surrender, and they're fleeing? Or do they just bomb them without any kind of notice?
- elAhmo 11mo agoThis is spray and pray, they have no idea who is on the boat or what are they transporting. So offering 'surrender' makes no sense for them, it would just expose this behaviour. It is not a secret, but they act like it is.
- lingrush4 11mo agoNo, you have no idea who is on the boat. That's very different from the US military having no idea.
- kg 11mo agoIf 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-survivors.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/us/politics/boat-strike-s...
- GenerocUsername 11mo ago"...for their home countries to prosecute" Does not imply a belief of innocence.
- pempem 11mo agoIs 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.
- anigbrowl 11mo agoGMAFB. 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.
- wqaatwt 11mo agoThat’s a meaningless claim and statement unless they somehow compel their home countries to prosecute them
- pksebben 11mo ago> 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.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- swiftcoder 11mo agoGiven the several fishermen who have survived the strikes thus far, I'm pretty sure the US military has less idea
- ordinaryradical 11mo agoWhere can I read about this?
- GenerocUsername 11mo agoUnverified Bluesky posts by people with conflicting interests
- stonogo 11mo agoWho has a conflicting interest with fishermen getting blasted?
- lazyasciiart 11mo agoPeople who want to kill random people and claim they were bad drug terrorists.
- stonogo 11mo agoThat's not a conflicting interest, that's just an interest.
- poisonarena 11mo agois there any proof that they are fishermen?
- FranchuFranchu 11mo agoThe President of Colombia https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8xg1jve73o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8xg1jve73o
- 11mo ago
- vel0city 11mo agoPentagon officials have told Congress they often don't positively know who are on the boats.
- hunterpayne 11mo agoTrue, 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.
- vel0city 11mo ago> 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.
- clort 11mo agoI'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 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/21/section/5
- 11mo ago
- spunker540 11mo agoThey 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.
- bamboozled 11mo agoIt’s not dissimilar to George Bush’s weapons of mass destruction lie.
- lazyasciiart 11mo ago> with no proof That’s why arrests are not an option.
- LinXitoW 11mo agoThe proof would be the drugs on the boat. Unless they're bombing alleged drug dealers on pleasure cruises.
- lazyasciiart 11mo agoThere aren’t drugs on the boat.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- poisonarena 11mo agohow do you know?
- ses1984 11mo agoThey know it’s fishermen, they just don’t care.
- hunterpayne 11mo ago[flagged]
- hitarpetar 11mo ago[flagged]
- tomhow 11mo agoPlease avoid demeaning swipes like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're aiming for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ses1984 11mo agoLet’s say for a minute these are drug or terrorist boats. Wouldn’t it be in the US best interest to capture these, gather proof, gather further intel? I’m not making an outrageous claim. They are making outrageous claims and destroying the evidence.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- marcosdumay 11mo agoPeople that mold some fiberglass and put some engines in it do not usually put a flag on their thing. Also, plenty of planes do not fill flight plans, even in international flights.
- op00to 11mo agoNot all boats fly a flag. A national flag is not required in may cases. Not all planes file flight plans.
- burkaman 11mo agoThe 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-strikes-drug-smugglers-00630267 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.
- FuriouslyAdrift 11mo agoAt least with the narco-subs out of Mexico, etc., a lot of the times the "crew" are people forced to do the job. They fail, their families die. They have no reason to surrender.
- teachrdan 11mo agoThere's also one guy in the sub whose job it is to shoot anyone who tries to turn back or otherwise interfere with the mission.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- exasperaited 11mo agoThey do not.
- CobrastanJorji 11mo agoThey strike first, and then if there are any survivors, which there usually are not, they seem to release them to their home countries ( https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/18/politics/caribbean-boat-strike-survivors https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/18/politics/caribbean-boat-strik... ). Now, you may ask "if these are criminal drug traffickers that need to be killed, why would we release survivors instead of arresting them and charging them with a crime?"
- thunky 11mo agoTo be fair (not that this is a good excuse) the article says: The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution,”
- BLKNSLVR 11mo ago> for detention and prosecution ie. the hard bit.
- qingcharles 11mo agoThe countries said there was nothing to prosecute and they have zero evidence of any crime committed by the released persons, IIRC.
- enaaem 11mo agoBut why? If they are terrorists why would you release them?
- tjpnz 11mo agoOccam's razor.
- ajfkfkdjsfi 11mo agoStop giving monsters who continually do monstrous things the benefit of doubt.
- alistairSH 11mo agoAppears to be without notice. Which is sad because the USCG has teams (HITRON) trained to perform these ops without blowing things up as the first action. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_Interdiction_Tactical_Squadron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_Interdiction_Tactic...
- ncr100 11mo agoOne ICC former employee or prosecutor or something like that said recently on a news program that what the United States is doing is likely a human rights violation. And that it is similar to what a military junta does.