They're not enemy combatants, at worst they're drug runners. Just because Trump declares something to be true doesn't make it true (although his lackeys will act as if it is).
This is not how to deal with The Drug War™, it's very expensive theater that does nothing to address the problem. In fact that very war is the reason why it's a problem in the first place. Remember that an earlier batch of dangerous drug dealers were Americans working out of doctors' offices.
> They're not enemy combatants, at worst they're drug runners.
And even at worst, if the Navy boarded those boats, found drugs, summarily executing everyone on board would still be murder. Rule of law is what separates us from animals, and the people ordering and carrying out these killings fall squarely in the latter.
Carrying water for this is beyond the pale, but is, of course, fully in alignment with a cornerstone of a political philosophy - that there are rules that protect some people, but do not bind them, and that there are rules that bind other people, but do not protect them.
The idea here is that they are declared enemy combatants in a war (very plausible for Al-Qaeda, quite less here).
In a war bombing a boat filled with combatants or members of an armed force is legal and does not amount to murder. While in the same war capturing the same boat filled with enemy combatants and executing them is illegal.
So I don't think your example holds, and that distinction is probably the basis for drone assassinations
In what universe are (alleged, no proof provided) smugglers enemy combatants? In one where anyone is?
You can squint and claim that a wedding that has one person who spends his Saturdays and Sundays playing partisan in the hills is full of enemy combatants (obviously all men and boys above the age of 12, don't think too hard about what that means for your kid's next track meet), but justifying this is utterly beyond the pale. This is a war crime if there's a war, and murder if there isn't.
This government corrupts anyone it touches, so this is fully in its playbook - make it's subordinates choose between following their conscience and resigning, or being complicit in its crimes.
There's no war in this situation. The War on Terror™ and the War on Drugs™ are jingoistic phrases that are not actionable declarations of war.
These attacks are theater to distract us from other failures, like the ability to the federal government running again. And the Epstein Files too, it's likely that is the driver for this.
> This is not how to deal with The Drug War™, it's very expensive theater that does
That's unclear. We'd have to know more about what sort of deterrent it is making on the drug runners. Quite possibly this does have them shitting their pants and delaying shipments hoping to avoid the risk. At the very least that's not absolutely impossible. When someone says "it's expensive theater" in this circumstance, I think that their criticism has more to do with their objection to the person ordering the strikes and less to do with the effectiveness of them, especially considering that we might not know for months what the true impact is.
The Venezuelan cartel (well, cartel network) is the 5th biggest on the Atlantic/Caribbean side, and are known for people trafficking and gold smuggling before drug related offence. Targetting Venezuelans boats is political. US should target Mexican, Haitian, Dominican, Columbian boats way, way before Venezuela if it was about drug trafficking.
I have another comment that's a sibling to this and I'll avoid the copypasta.
tl;dr -- the current model is whack-a-mole and is a fiasco except for it's unstated but intended purpose (oppression of "others"). What you're suggesting will not work, will waste likely billions of dollars, and just create even more misery in the world.
We created the damn cartels in the first place with our insatiable demand for their products.
The current model is designed to create crime from end to end. And it was never about safety (FFS, look at how people who are busted for using drugs are treated).
Humans like having altered states and there will always be a market for that. There are risks and dangers in that but they can be mitigated. I'll trot out the classic counterpoint to the current madness: alcohol and tobacco are legal and sanctioned but we know they're dangerous and kill over half a million US citizens per year.
Again, if you think it's about safety you are mistaken: it's about oppression and control and it's ruining this country as well as our neighbors to the south.
I assume the pretext is actually the war on terror because of the heavy involvement of Venezuela and its drug cartels with financing and supporting of Hezbollah and the IRGC
This is not how to deal with The Drug War™, it's very expensive theater that does nothing to address the problem. In fact that very war is the reason why it's a problem in the first place. Remember that an earlier batch of dangerous drug dealers were Americans working out of doctors' offices.