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Okay. https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2025/09/15/us-attacks-alleged-venezuela-drug-boat-strike-video-map/86171749007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/gr

Okay. https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2025/09/15/us-attacks-alleged-venezuela-drug-boat-strike-video-map/86171749007/ 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.

pksebben 11mo ago
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.
- aerostable_slug 11mo ago
  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.
  - pksebben 11mo ago
    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.
    - aerostable_slug 11mo ago
      I hear you. Drug boats or not, I would not choose our present course of action.
- bluGill 11mo ago
  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.
  - RobertoG 11mo ago
    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.
    - hamhock666 11mo ago
      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?
      - op00to 11mo ago
        Yes. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/colombian-killed-us-strike-fisherman-wife-says/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/colombian-killed-us-strike-...
  - op00to 11mo ago
    No, you know the US government said there was no fishing equipment on board. The US government has no credibility.
    - bluGill 11mo ago
      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).
- gottorf 11mo ago
  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.
  - swiftcoder 11mo ago
    > Did you want Osama bin Laden to receive his day in court, as well 100% unironically, yes.
    - rkomorn 11mo ago
      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.
  - moogly 11mo ago
    Shouldn't you start by executing the people at Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family for the opioid crisis? Instead of settling with them.
  - wqaatwt 11mo ago
    > 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?
bamboozled 11mo ago
I think you’re the one being disingenuous now…you surely can’t look at that footage and say “drugs, kill everyone”?
- aerostable_slug 11mo ago
  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.
  - swiftcoder 11mo ago
    > 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).
op00to 11mo ago
Who’s to say these aren’t doctored, ai-generated images? Where’s the third party verification?

pksebben 11mo ago

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.

aerostable_slug 11mo ago
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.
- pksebben 11mo ago
  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.
  - aerostable_slug 11mo ago
    I hear you. Drug boats or not, I would not choose our present course of action.
bluGill 11mo ago
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.
- RobertoG 11mo ago
  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.
  - hamhock666 11mo ago
    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?
    - op00to 11mo ago
      Yes. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/colombian-killed-us-strike-fisherman-wife-says/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/colombian-killed-us-strike-...
- op00to 11mo ago
  No, you know the US government said there was no fishing equipment on board. The US government has no credibility.
  - bluGill 11mo ago
    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).
gottorf 11mo ago
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.
- swiftcoder 11mo ago
  > Did you want Osama bin Laden to receive his day in court, as well 100% unironically, yes.
  - rkomorn 11mo ago
    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.
- moogly 11mo ago
  Shouldn't you start by executing the people at Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family for the opioid crisis? Instead of settling with them.
- wqaatwt 11mo ago
  > 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?

bamboozled 11mo ago

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

aerostable_slug 11mo ago
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.
- swiftcoder 11mo ago
  > 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).

op00to 11mo ago

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