Granted, it is a few dozen bungled policies ago, but remember when we were blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean as part of the administration’s Operation Dude Bro antidrug strategy? Well, the results are in, and they are sadly predictable. From The Washington Post:

In a recent assessment reviewed by The Washington Post, DEA analysts found the strikes had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire. In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told lawmakers the strikes in international waters off South and Central America had not reduced its purity.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    2 hours ago

    It wasn’t for nothing. It was to make low IQ mouth breathers think they were doing something. Aggression is always a positive for conservative voters. And the Republican party always needs ways to make it look like they’re doing something of value for the American people while robbing them blind.

  • burgermeister@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 hours ago

    “We” did not do anything. The US federal government’s actions are so far removed from the will of the people that we might as well considered separate entities at this point.

  • BouteilleBrune@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 hours ago

    Americans snort way more coke weekly than what could fit on those boats combined anyway.

    But was there ever any proof these weren’t just actual fishing boats?

    And did they even bother to say they found drugs on the venezuelan oil tanker they seized at that time?

    What they did though is proceed to attack Venezuela for its oil.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      4 hours ago

      But was there ever any proof these weren’t just actual fishing boats?

      The proof would have been capturing a boat full of cocaine. Hard to do that when it’s blown to bits and scattered across the bottom of the ocean.

      Even if we knew the boats were full of cocaine, the penalty for smuggling drugs into the US is not death. And even if the penalty was death, it would (or rather, should) not be a summary execution without a trial.

      These are clearly illegal orders, and everyone participating in these strikes needs to be removed and tried for their crimes, starting with Hegseth, and going all the way down to the man who pushed the button to fire the missile.

  • P1k1e@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    4 hours ago

    I mean the whole thing was optics anyway right?

    “Trump’s so tough on crime he launches missiles at it” kinda stuff. It’s stupid but his supporters think it makes their side strong. They’re even more about it if the “criminal” is brown.

  • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    edit-2
    7 hours ago

    The problem is that to most Republican voters, the fact that this didn’t actually impact drug supply isn’t really all that important. What matters to them is that - theoretically - “bad people” got killed. They’re more interested in punishing people they see as evil than they are in actually improving the world. Even the ones who won’t openly admit - or even admit to themselves - that they just like seeing brown people get killed will still defend this as an ultimately good action because it satisfies their twisted notion of justice. The meting out of punishment is what matters to them, far more than whatever social good that punishment is actually supposed to achieve.

    It’s the same reason why they have so little interest in welfare policies even when those policies are demonstrably cheaper than the alternative. They won’t give shelter and money to homeless people even when it’s shown to reduce crime, for example, because the most important thing to them is that no one should ever be given something that they “don’t deserve.” They’re less interested in reducing crime than they are in seeing the poor suffer for whatever imagined sins made them poor.

    • DragonAce@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      4 hours ago

      What matters to them is that “BROWN people” got killed

      FTFY

      Its always been about racism. Same thing with all the bullshit with ICE, all of it is nothing but unfettered racism.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 hours ago

        I literally addressed this exact argument in the comment you replied to, but you just skipped right past that part.

        • DragonAce@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          4 hours ago

          Yes, but you stated it like it was a secondary motive or just a bonus from killing the “bad people”. When I’m saying that the only reason for any and all action done by this administration has been to hurt people of color, plain and simple. Well that and enrich themselves in the process.

    • Bluescluestoothpaste@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      7 hours ago

      Exactly, the problem isn’t how bad trump is, there’s always going to be insanely evil people – the problem is the hundreds of millions who gave him power. There would be nothing wrong with a world where trump is the same amount of insane evil but ends up in prison where he belongs. He’s not the problem, the rest of us are.

  • grue@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    edit-2
    8 hours ago

    Turns Out We Blew Up All Those Boats MURDERED ALL THOSE PEOPLE in the Caribbean for Nothing

    FTFY, Esquire!

    This regime is so far beyond the pale monstrous that it’s hard even for people trying to criticize it to avoid accidentally carrying water for it though understatement. Hell, even “beyond the pale monstrous” isn’t as emphatic as I should’ve been!

  • MrTomS@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    84
    ·
    10 hours ago

    Oh they achieved their goal.
    They killed brown people. That’s the goal of most of the policies this administration has undertaken.

  • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 hours ago

    As a non expert, I would assume disrupting supply routes would decrease purity. If what you did made them use slower boats and take different routes there would have been less supply and same demand right? Aka more reasons for people to cut it until supply got back up.

    So really this tells me it’s more likely that they didn’t disrupt any supply of cocaine, and may have hit normal civilians or someone with marijuana as I remember someone reported bags of weed washing up on a beach…

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      10 hours ago

      You dont cram double digit people on a speedboat to smuggle drugs.

      Because the weight of all those people could instead be more drugs, and that’s a bunch of people to keep their mouths closed and take a payment.

      They were just blowing up anything that was coming to America, because they don’t want anyone from south America coming up north for any reason.

      The “theyre drug smugglers” was likely never believed by anyone. It was about showing everyone that they’ll claim you’re a smuggler and kill you.

    • Kirp123@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      10 hours ago

      Those weren’t drug boats. The cartels aren’t stupid, they know boats are one of the easiest ways to get intercepted. They build fucking submarines for smuggling drugs, if boats were enough you think they would go to all that effort?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine

      Also as the other guy said you don’t cram 6 people on a boat full of drugs. Why would you need the extra people? Are the sharks gonna rob you so you need extra guards? If you’re afraid some rival cartel is gonna intercept you probably want the boat to be lighter so it goes faster and escapes them so less people are better in that case too.

      All this means is that most likely those boats were just fishermen or civilians on recreational rides. Oh, and another thing. You don’t get the death penalty in the US for drug smuggling so why would those people be killed even if they were drug smugglers?