Trump's other wars kill again
Killing 6 in alleged East Pacific drug boat.
I’ve lost track of how many boats have been destroyed and how many people killed extrajudicially. What catches my eye on this one is that the boat was not moving. There is only one engine you can see, maybe two. Six people on a boat that is not moving and has maybe two engines, is not running drugs. Normally, the drug boats have four or five engines and only two or three crew on board. Add it up. It doesn't make sense that this could have been a drug boat.
SOUTHCOM announced it again with the standard justifications.
Who is the Designated Terrorist Organization? If they know it, why not say it? It seems to always be a crime to travel along a route that is used by drug boats. How do they know that the crew were narco-terrorists? What exactly are narco-terrorists? It's a made-up term that allows killing with impunity. How do you know they were engaged in narco-terrorist activities when the boat is just floating and bobbing on the waves?
SOUTHCOM used to post 30-second videos, sometimes with color and much better resolution. In this one, they don't want you to see that the men in the boat are most likely standing. They were probably fishermen. Complaints have been filed by families of fishermen who disappeared, and now there is actually a wrongful death suit against the United States filed by a family whose member was a fisherman.
Now, the videos are just long enough to show the explosion, but not the aftermath. They don't want the public to see men in the water clinging to debris. A complete video was shown to members of Congress on the September 2nd, first drug boat attack, where SOUTHCOM watched them for 40 minutes and then sent another strike to kill them. That was an obvious war crime, and it has disappeared from the news because of crimes the Trump administration commits every day.
We just started another narco-terrorist war with boots on the ground in Ecuador.
This didn't get a top spot in national news coverage because of the war in Iran. Troops on the ground always mean the possibility of injuries and casualties, but Donald Trump doesn't seem to care. It would seem that kinetic strikes from the air would have been just as effective, if not more so. It was only the kidnapping of Maduro in Venezuela that needed special forces.
Trump is starting multiple wars without Congressional approval. The alleged drug boat killings are one. This action in Ecuador is another. Trump talked in the past about firing missiles and putting troops on the ground in Mexico, but he hasn't done it yet. It's only a matter of time until he becomes angry at President Sheinbaum Pardo and decides to take matters into his own hands.