Yep, this cannot be called anything less than MURDER today, for sure.
I was literally a Naval Officer on a ship doing counter drug operations about 10-15 years ago, and it was made very clear to us at the time that we were not to use weapons unless fired upon. The only exception was trained sharpshooters from the Coast Guard who were allowed to shoot outboard motors, though they were extremely careful about not harming the people on the boats. We'd "arrest" them (the Coast Guard would) and then turn them over to one of several partner countries. Once we captured the same person twice in one deployment. Today, I am not proud of what we did back then, as I am sure we caused more harm than good and spent more resources than was worth it to capture those drugs.
To be PERFECTLY CLEAR: we RARELY found fishing boats that had drugs on them, or who were even supporting drug operations. The fact that several fishing boats have been hit now makes it CLEAR to me FROM EXPERIENCE that we've MURDERED INNOCENT FISHERMEN because I KNOW that there is ZERO POSSIBILITY that all of these guys were a threat in any way. AT MOST these fishermen would refuel a drug boat, and I don't think that's worthy of death. Furthermore, those people usually were forced to do these jobs under threat from the gangs in their towns against their families, so killing these folks makes even less sense because they aren't the actual dangerous people who are running the narco-gangs.
It's a FUCKING SHAME what this country is doing to those people now and I am ASHAMED of having "served in the military" when in reality I was obviously just a tool for a fucked up regime that has finally gone mask-off.
I was literally a Naval Officer on a ship doing counter drug operations about 10-15 years ago, and it was made very clear to us at the time that we were not to use weapons unless fired upon. The only exception was trained sharpshooters from the Coast Guard who were allowed to shoot outboard motors, though they were extremely careful about not harming the people on the boats. We'd "arrest" them (the Coast Guard would) and then turn them over to one of several partner countries. Once we captured the same person twice in one deployment. Today, I am not proud of what we did back then, as I am sure we caused more harm than good and spent more resources than was worth it to capture those drugs.
To be PERFECTLY CLEAR: we RARELY found fishing boats that had drugs on them, or who were even supporting drug operations. The fact that several fishing boats have been hit now makes it CLEAR to me FROM EXPERIENCE that we've MURDERED INNOCENT FISHERMEN because I KNOW that there is ZERO POSSIBILITY that all of these guys were a threat in any way. AT MOST these fishermen would refuel a drug boat, and I don't think that's worthy of death. Furthermore, those people usually were forced to do these jobs under threat from the gangs in their towns against their families, so killing these folks makes even less sense because they aren't the actual dangerous people who are running the narco-gangs.
It's a FUCKING SHAME what this country is doing to those people now and I am ASHAMED of having "served in the military" when in reality I was obviously just a tool for a fucked up regime that has finally gone mask-off.