Attacking Unarmed Boats and Leaving Them and Their Occupants to Wash Ashore…..

United States Defense Sec. Hegseth IS on a ‘Warrors’ Crusade….

Easy….

No Regreats….

But?

Left Behind IS carnage and bodies……

Something Some have to deal with….

A thunderous boom rang out through the windless late-afternoon air. Seconds later, smoke began rising out of the sea as if the horizon were on fire.

Watching from the shore on Nov. 6, Erika Palacio Fernández whipped out her phone, she said, unwittingly recording the only verified and independent video known to date of the aftermath of an airstrike in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it calls “narco-terrorists.”

Two days later, on that same shore, a scorched 30-foot-long boat itself would wash up. Then, two mangled bodies. Then charred jerrycans, life jackets and dozens of packets that were observed by The New York Times and were similar to others that have been found after anti-narcotics operations in the region. Most packets were empty, though traces of a substance that looked and smelled like marijuana were found in the lining of a few.

The assortment of singed flotsam appears to be the first physical evidence of the U.S. campaign, which has destroyed 29 vessels and killed more than 100 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. Every other struck boat is presumed to have sunk along with its crew and cargo. The U.S. military has offered no evidence that the boats it has destroyed were transporting illicit substances or belong to criminal networks.

A Times analysis matched the wreckage of the boat to the one in a video posted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the night of Nov. 6, hours after Ms. Palacio took her video. Mr. Hegseth described the strike as having targeted a vessel in the Caribbean operated by an unnamed “designated terrorist organization.” He said the strike killed three people and took place in international waters….

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The U.S. military’s campaign against boats that the Trump administration claims are smuggling drugs has shifted largely to the Pacific since November. The Nov. 6 strike off the Guajira Peninsula took place during an earlier phase, when the campaign seemed to be aimed at Venezuelan, rather than Colombian, vessels.

A wide range of legal experts say the U.S. strikes are illegal because the military is prohibited from deliberately targeting civilians, even if they are believed to have committed a crime, unless they pose an immediate threat. Venezuela plays a smaller role in the global drug trade than other countries in the region. In private, Trump administration officials say their main goal is to drive Venezuela’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, from power….

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