Nine months into the Trump administration’s deadly campaign against so-called drug boats, there is a pattern to the strikes. And a glaring anomaly.

The U.S. military has conducted more than 60 attacks, resulting in over 200 extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. In almost all the strikes, between one and four people lost their lives. In only one strike did the death toll of a single boat reach double digits: the first attack on September 2, 2025.

Since then, experts, lawmakers, and even military officials behind the scenes have been asking a simple but haunting question: Why was that boat packed with 11 people?

  • bthest@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    They were innocent boaters/fishermen. Every single one. I don’t care what this dogshit Nazi peon “admits” to.

    Seems like a trick to get people to accept that they were engaged in some sort of illegal activity. Doesn’t matter which. Human trafficking, drug trafficking, speeding, not enough life vests. They will try to pin anything on these murder victims.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      3 days ago

      Kilmar Abrego Garcia’a underlying crime is “human trafficking,” which makes him sound like a bad guy. The “crime” stems from a traffic stop, where he was driving a company van full of construction workers to the worksite, and when he was found to be undocumented, his driving responsibilities were re-characterized as “human trafficking.”

      And that has been MAGA’s rationalization for sending him to CECOT, and hounding him ever since. He was an employee valued enough to be given the responsibility of driving a company vehicle full of other employees, but that’s not enough to protect him from this kind of MAGA bullying.

      And what’s worse, is that he became the lightning rod to represent the whole situation, but there were hundreds of others who were more or less just like him. They weren’t gang members, human traffickers, etc., they were just undocumented. And for that “crime,” they are serving life sentences in a torture prison, as we debate how unfair it is for Garcia. I’m sure that will make them all feel much better about their endless MAGA nightmare.

  • sportsjorts@lemmy.zip
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    5 days ago

    Dear world, please do something about US before we eat ourselves alive and murder you. We are a dictatorship. No more democracy or fight left in America. Just disgusting Nazis and “good Nazis” that let this shit happen. We are all Nazis now and we are going to destroy the whole world.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      You have to do something about it yourselves. Your military is way too big and you have nukes.

      You, dear commenter, need to organise and fix your broken country. Only the common people can fix this.

    • Wataba@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      The most I can do is try provide a bed for a trans refugee that was betrayed by the people of their country in Nov 2024.

  • dan1101@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    You mean that blowing up suspected drug boats with no oversight or arrests or trials might have caused some innocent people to die?!?!? Wow I hope the trump administration feels bad and learns from this.

    • Iusedtobeanalien@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Blowing up speedboats with million dollar missiles made for spectacular TV, it was the spectacle that mattered.

      A few weeks earlier the same people were trying to convince the nation someone’s random knuckle tattoos were MS25 gang signs

    • Tiral@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      So, playing devil’s advocate, would you rather be killed instantly because you’re being human trafficked or let pass because it’s the middle of a “warzone” and you can’t be bothered because there are people with bigger weapons than human traffickers. So the people would make it to their destination and sold.

      Personally I’d rather die, but that’s me. I have zero love for captain dipshit, but you don’t get it both ways simply because you don’t like him. It’s not as simple to do what you’re talking about. Not that it’s justification, but it’s just not as simple as you’re acting like it is.

      • Xerxos@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        Remember that they fucking killed the survivors instead of capturing them (which is illegal btw)

        They destroyed the boats and fired again if someone survived. Trafficking victims, probably some fisherman and yes, some people who possibly deserved it.

        This can’t be justified.

      • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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        5 days ago

        I have a friend who escaped human trafficking, and whilst there were times that she came close to ending her own life to escape her situation, she is tremendously glad that she didn’t, because otherwise then her life would have been entirely defined by being a victim.

        Last year marked the point at which she had been free for longer than she had been treated as property. It’s taken a lot of work for her to heal from the trauma of being trafficked, and certainly she was extremely lucky to be able to escape from that situation, but if we give up on trying to save people like her, then we’re just papering over one tragedy with another.

        If I were being trafficked, I don’t know that I would’ve had the strength to endure as she has. However, I am certain that I would not want to be given up on.

      • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 days ago

        Not everyone trafficked in this way is a slave, they smuggle people sometimes who wouldn’t otherwise be able to leave their country. I’d rather not get blown up. And it is pretty simple, they are killing any boaters they want for the purpose of terrorism, they could simply not do that.

      • finallymadeanaccount@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        The US Navy possesses the ability to board vessels and see for themselves up close who the people on the boats are before they reach their destination.

      • Asetru@feddit.org
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        5 days ago

        Wow man, you’re one hell of a disgusting being. This isn’t 4chan, why don’t you take your ethics there and stop producing your typed diarrhea here?

        • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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          5 days ago

          Yeah. That’s the kinda rah-rah Big Damn Hero shit the U.S was allegedly supposed to be doing with all that defense funding. We’d absolutely be capable of being the heroic force from all the movies.

          …Instead of being no better than the random child-killing warlords of the week, just with better murder training and fancier bombs.

  • underthunder@thelemmy.club
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    4 days ago

    Just send out Trump to say he loves killing victims of human trafficking and everything will be fine. People who are captured by this cult will justify anything to make it work in their heads.

  • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    How many of these were intended to do that on purpose?

    Like… Oh my god. All of them, huh? He’s just killing the children he raped and helped traffic.

  • Spooge@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    If they didn’t want to get blown up, they shouldn’t have been captured and trafficked. Duh.

      • Spooge@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I don’t use those, because if you can’t read social and context clues then you shouldn’t be on the internet.

        • athatet@lemmy.zip
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          4 days ago

          You heard it here first all you autistic folk. Get the hell outta here.

          • Spooge@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Dear 1% of the global population,

            I sincerely apologize for not considering your capabilities of detecting sarcasm on this forum. I kindheartedly apologize and hope that you don’t downvote me based on my ignorant comments and forgive me for it. I assure you that this apology is neither in jest, nor sarcastic due to the fact that you couldn’t decipher that anyway.

            Thank you and have a fantastic day.

            Best, Spooge

  • oopsgodisdeadmybad@lemmy.zip
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    5 days ago

    And every single individual that had anything at all to do with this should get guillotined. For the smallest bit of involvement.

    More painful and/or humiliating deaths for everyone more directly involved.

    And not just for this, for everything involving life and death decisions, one single intentionally wrong decision should be death penalty. Bar none, no mercy, first offense.

    You cannot just decide to unilaterally kill people because they “might” have drugs. Get the chair warmed up, there’s a line forming.