• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

Trump dispenses with trials, orders military strike on alleged Venezuelan drug-trafficking boat

Perpetual Student

Fighting ignorance, one textbook at the time
Jan 28, 2025
194
172
54
Mechelen
✟24,726.00
Country
Belgium
Gender
Male
Faith
Humanist
Marital Status
Private
Here's a question. If America is so great why can't they win within the bounds of the law?
But Rambot, America isn't great. Not anymore and not yet.
It wasn't great in 2016. Then, since January 2017 Donald Trump worked hard to make it great again. It was great from the 21st of January 2017 until 20th of January 2021. Then Biden became president and the same day America collapsed into mediocrity again.
Since the 20th of January 2025 America is climbing to greatness again; with import tariffs, sacking climate scientists, abolishing vaccin mandates, threatening Greenland and Canada with annexation (we don't hear much about that anymore); AI generated clips of a future Trump-Gaza resort, and so on.
 
Upvote 0

Pommer

CoPacEtiC SkEpTic
Sep 13, 2008
22,847
14,100
Earth
✟248,928.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Deist
Marital Status
In Relationship
Politics
US-Democrat
My head is perfectly clear and I hope that the US military destroys more drug trafficking boats in international waters.
Will the crews be given sufficient notice to vacate their ships?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Nithavela
Upvote 0

iluvatar5150

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Aug 3, 2012
29,705
29,427
Baltimore
✟779,301.00
Country
United States
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Democrat
Amazing you guys feel THAT scared that you're willing to abandon principles.
It's possible that folks didn't really have principles in the first place.
 
Upvote 0

DaisyDay

I Did Nothing Wrong!! ~~Team Deep State
Jan 7, 2003
42,269
20,162
Finger Lakes
✟316,644.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Unitarian
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
No it isn't. Only in the leftist mind are drug dealers and suppliers people who need to be protected.
Murdering people who have only been accused of being drug dealers and suppliers used to be anti-American. Execution before establishing guilt is unjust.
Maybe Americans should stop defending cartels and crying when they get their just deserts.
Maybe you should stop falsely accusing people of defending cartels. Extrajudicial killings of people merely accused of drug dealing - which in America is not a capital offense - is contrary to international laws and national laws.

Maybe Americans should stop supplying the cartels with money and guns?

We need an independent investigation into this atrocity.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

ralliann

christian
Jun 27, 2007
8,238
2,596
✟276,137.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Widowed

US military strikes alleged drug boat, Trump says

President Donald Trump announced on his social media platform Tuesday that he ordered U.S. military forces to conduct a strike against an alleged drug boat that he claimed was connected to a South American gang.

The president said the "kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility."

The attack took place while the boat was "at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States," according to Trump.

Trump also posted a video of the strike on his social media platform.

Reuters:

The U.S. military killed 11 people on Tuesday in a strike on a vessel from Venezuela allegedly carrying illegal narcotics, President Donald Trump said, in the first known operation since his administration's recent deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean.

The decision to blow up a suspected drug vessel passing through the Caribbean, instead of seizing the vessel and apprehending its crew, is highly unusual and evokes memories of the U.S. fight against militant groups like al Qaeda.

Speaking to reporters, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: "These particular drugs were probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean."
Well yes, it was like they did with Al Qaeda. Nobody took ever susepcted Al qaeda into custody and brought to trial before they attacked and killed them.
 
Upvote 0

durangodawood

re Member
Aug 28, 2007
27,813
19,474
Colorado
✟543,547.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Seeker
Marital Status
Single
Well yes, it was like they did with Al Qaeda. Nobody took ever susepcted Al qaeda into custody and brought to trial before they attacked and killed them.
One could argue that Al Q initiated it with an act of war on their part. Some might disagree I suppose.
 
Upvote 0

essentialsaltes

Fact-Based Lifeform
Oct 17, 2011
42,983
46,105
Los Angeles Area
✟1,023,564.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Legal Union (Other)
Well yes, it was like they did with Al Qaeda. Nobody took ever susepcted Al qaeda into custody and brought to trial before they attacked and killed them.

The Authorization of the Use of Military Force allowed actions against those who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the September 11 attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups.

These alleged drug dealers were not involved in 9/11.
 
  • Useful
Reactions: JosephZ
Upvote 0

ralliann

christian
Jun 27, 2007
8,238
2,596
✟276,137.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Widowed
If anything, they were doing both.

It wouldn't be lucrative enough for coyotes to sail a boat all the way from Venezuela to the US (or any intermediate destination with US as the ultimate destination) with just 11 passengers. They'd have people hanging by their fingertips from the scuppers.

The fact is, the US has gotten pretty loose about attacking various folk since the 1980s.
I wonder. Should they have taken the ship is People, including Children were being trafficked? Or would they say ah, they are being taken to Venezuela.
 
Upvote 0

ralliann

christian
Jun 27, 2007
8,238
2,596
✟276,137.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Widowed
Upvote 0

Vambram

Born-again Christian; Constitutional conservative
Site Supporter
Dec 3, 2006
8,029
5,788
60
Saint James, Missouri
✟385,467.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Republican
Murdering people who have only been accused of being drug dealers and suppliers used to be anti-American. Execution before establishing guilt is unjust.

Maybe you should stop falsely accusing people of defending cartels. Extrajudicial killings of people merely accused of drug dealing - which in America is not a capital offense - is contrary to international laws and national laws.

Maybe Americans should stop supplying the cartels with money and guns?

We need an independent investigation into this atrocity.
 
Upvote 0

ralliann

christian
Jun 27, 2007
8,238
2,596
✟276,137.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Widowed
  • Agree
Reactions: Vambram
Upvote 0

DaisyDay

I Did Nothing Wrong!! ~~Team Deep State
Jan 7, 2003
42,269
20,162
Finger Lakes
✟316,644.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Unitarian
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
Op-Ed from Trump's Pravda. How convincing!
Yes, they are a para military Organization of traffickers. Whether drugs or people...How low can people sink to try to put resistance to this.
Make the label awful enough and any atrocity is justified. Slap the label on your target and no proof is necessary before executing them in cold blood.

Perhaps there should be a post mortem investigation to determine who exactly who was killed and why they were killed.
 
Upvote 0

wing2000

E pluribus unum
Site Supporter
Aug 18, 2012
25,273
21,355
✟1,764,474.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
They dont if they are seeking to invade this country with things that are going to kill Americans.

And who decides that? POTUS? Sec. of War?

They've killed more Americans than Al Qaeda.

They....every drug trafficker, every drug user, every ....

Congress doesn't have to authorize those attacks. Thats already been decided. What makes you think they do?

There was not "imiminent" threat to our national security. There's no justification for using the US military to engage civilian boats or aircraft based on suspiscion.

I challenge you to find a military lawyer who can argue otherwise. The Pentagon has yet to issue under what legal authority they carry out this mission.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Vambram
Upvote 0

wing2000

E pluribus unum
Site Supporter
Aug 18, 2012
25,273
21,355
✟1,764,474.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
An opinion written by Glee Violette and posted on facebook is interesting.

Glee Violette

17h ·
The more I think about the boat full of people that was blown up by military officers of the United States of America under Donald Trump, the more things don't add up......​
So, a small boat goes speeding past the Navy, and what? The captain picks up the phone and calls the White House? ....​
Because Trump and Marco Rubio have made it clear that Trump PERSONALLY gave that order.​
But Trump - AND the captain of that Navy ship - had NO idea who was on that speedboat.​
They did not have TIME.​
They did not board the boat. They did not collect evidence. They did not even have an accurate head count. Not one of them has been identified. Do they have ANY of the names ? Even now? No.​
So how could they possibly know if they were gang members?​
Or if, as some have suggested, the boat was full of refugees fleeing Venezuela, like hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have done already. Maybe speeding TOWARDS the US Navy ships hoping to find refuge and safety under our protection.​
After all, there were 11 to 13 people aboard that boat. The number differs, because the boat was not close enough to tell. Nor could the gender of the people be determined. Or if there were children on board.​
One thing is for sure. If there were so many people on board such a small vessel, there was not much room for a drug shipment. Was there?​
They were off the coast of Venezuela, in international waters, nowhere near America. They were NOT threatening our borders. They were not threatening any Americans. They were not even threatening our ships. There were no weapons in the pictures. There is not even any EVIDENCE that a crime was being committed.​
The Navy officers aboard our ship may have SUSPECTED the boat was carrying drugs, but that is not a violent crime like piracy, or kidnapping that warrants immediate intervention.​

This administration is incompetent and untrustworthy.

Exactly. We'll probably never know who was actually on the boat....those bodies are lying on the bottom of the ocean.

USN assets, under Coast Guard command, could have interdicted the boat....just as they have for decades.

Here's one such operation this year:
 
Upvote 0

Oompa Loompa

Well-Known Member
Jun 4, 2020
9,523
5,025
Louisiana
✟297,900.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
I'm not sure what you're trying to prove by this whataboutism exercise. If he explicitly ordered the SEALs to kill him rather than capture him, then yes that could be considered murder. Pretty sure that's not what their orders were though.
Nope. I think his order were ro take him dead or alive. Which is extremely endorsed.
 
Upvote 0

RDKirk

Alien, Pilgrim, and Sojourner
Site Supporter
Mar 3, 2013
42,264
22,842
US
✟1,744,241.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
I wonder. Should they have taken the ship is People, including Children were being trafficked? Or would they say ah, they are being taken to Venezuela.
I don't know what that means.
 
Upvote 0

essentialsaltes

Fact-Based Lifeform
Oct 17, 2011
42,983
46,105
Los Angeles Area
✟1,023,564.00
Country
United States
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Legal Union (Other)
So too the Cartels. Groups involved terrorism are not confined to 9/11. How sad this is...
But the authorization of military force is confined to 9/11. This use of military force may have been extrajudicial.
 
Upvote 0

rjs330

Well-Known Member
May 22, 2015
28,506
9,162
65
✟435,985.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Pentecostal
Amazing you guys feel THAT scared that you're willing to abandon principles.
Lol. Its always been our principle to destroy murdering narco terrorists who are killing Americans. So not sure what you are referring to.
 
Upvote 0

rjs330

Well-Known Member
May 22, 2015
28,506
9,162
65
✟435,985.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Pentecostal
Murdering
It wasnt murder.
Execution before establishing guilt is unjust.
How do you know guilt wasn't established?
Maybe you should stop falsely accusing people of defending cartels.
Maybe people should stop defending narco terrorist cartels.
Extrajudicial killings of people merely accused of drug dealing - which in America is not a capital offense - is contrary to international laws and national laws.
In international waters you have a right to kill terrorists. Heck you've got that right to do it in US waters.
Maybe Americans should stop supplying the cartels with money and guns?
You are absolutely correct. If we are doing that, we need to stop. I wouldnt agree with that at
We need an independent investigation into this atrocity.
Why, youve already made up your mind to defend rhe rights of narco terrorists who kill millions of Americans. Defend their right to exist.
 
Upvote 0