The Alleged Drug Boat Wasn’t Even Heading to the U.S.: Report | This new detail eviscerates Pete Hegseth’s argument.
https://newrepublic.com/post/204065/alleged-drug-boat-hegseth-trump
The Alleged Drug Boat Wasn’t Even Heading to the U.S.: Report | This new detail eviscerates Pete Hegseth’s argument.
https://newrepublic.com/post/204065/alleged-drug-boat-hegseth-trump
44 comments
Oh, I’m sure now repercussions will start…
Let’s remember, the white nationalist gave illegal orders at the approval of the administration.
If it were headed for the U.S., the boat would need like 3000 gallons of fuel. Even if that little boat could carry 60 barrels of fuel, there’d be no room for a crew of 11 and the explosion would be much larger than we saw.
The military does what it does best: kills people, lies about everything, then pushes the narrative about how what happened was “to protect us.”
Admiral Bradley was supposed to have a “stellar” reputation. After his bullshit story, nope, not buying anything from him or anyone else.
With 350 mile range, it couldn’t make it even if it tried.
Lol, classic Pete. Spinning tales without checking facts first. No surprise there. Love how the narrative crumbles when that lil’ detail drops. Wonder what his next ‘truth’ will be.
I don’t believe any of them are/were. This isn’t 1980’s where drug boats are running around making deliveries out in the open. And they’re just still out there using boats while all this is going down, essentially becoming sitting ducks?
It doesn’t make sense.
‘Suriname is a small country on the northeastern coast of South America.’ Heading southeast from Venezuela is kind of a roundabout way of approaching the US coastline. I guess that they were planning on heading south, rounding the tip of Tierra del Fuego and then heading north along the w*est* coast of South America, in order to avoid detection by the US navy. That’s a long trip. Wouldn’t the cocaine be kind of shitty by the time that they arrived in San Diego?
And the cash wasn’t heading to trump&friends pockets. So.. yes pete, kaboom.
Instead of figurative evisceration, why not impeach, litigate, prosecute, and imprison?
Of course it wasn’t. It was 2500km away from Florida.
Oh c’mon…facts don’t matter to this administration. We exist upon wild unfounded claims for the immediate future.
Mass murderer.
For all anyone knows they were doing a fishing trip, or a bachelor party boat trip, or going to whale watch or something. The fact is that they have no idea who these people were and what they were doing. But they wanted to have a big show so they could build a case to attack Venezuela. This is murder, plain and simple
A friendly reminder that it was a republican led congress that approved the nomination of pete , who was the first defense secretary to ever have to promise to stop drinking if he was nominated.
A history of war crimes when he was deployed along with infidelity , domestic violence and the drinking.
And Congress still said to themselves.Yes , this violent reckless alcoholic podcaster deserves to lead the most powerful defense department on the planet
“**Trump** is ordering the US military to **extrajudicially kill** boaters off the coast of **Venezuela** out of **suspicion** of **smuggling drugs** to the **US**”
What did I just do? I summarized the issue into simple sentence with all the keywords. So let’s dissect it a little bit.
Trump – Is a career criminal who just pardoned a former head of drug cartel convicted of smuggling 400 tons of cocaine.
Extrajudicially kill – self explanatory problem. Extrajudicial killing is contrary to the rule of law, due process and the values of western civilization, something that most nazis claim to care about.
Venezuela – They already blew up boats from Trinidad and Tobago and Colombia. Their intel must suck. They definitely shouldn’t rely on their intel to tell who is it OK to Extrajudicially kill. Also, only about 10% of drugs come from Venezuela. And I doubt a significant portion of that is by boats.
Suspicion – the same issue as Extrajudicial killing.
Smuggling drugs – Since when is the penalty for smuggling drugs Extrajudicial execution? Especially when under no law was smuggling drugs ever punishable by death? And where’s the evidence? If they had any, they’d show it. So far, the only piece of evidence are a pictures from a drug bust from 2017.
US – What’s even the evidence that the boats are coming to the US? To summarize. Trump is killing people located in places where he has no jurisdiction with no evidence that they’re even committing crime or even that the crime would be committed somewhere where he has a jurisdiction.
It’s easy to see the dilemma. On the one hand, you can capture these people alive, bring them to trial in the US, try to get a conviction on drug trafficking and then Trump would feel compelled to pardon them for a fee. Or, commit a war crime. The MAGA will always go with the war crime. Nazis just being Nazis.
Meanwhile, opioid deaths (including from fentanyl), which are by far the most serious drug problem, have been dropping for four years, for several reasons. Why doesn’t this admin. just take credit for that, and try to encourage the trend, instead of escalating a war on the supply side?
https://www.addictiongroup.org/resources/fentanyl-statistics/
It’s not about drugs. It’s about starting a war so they can cheat the people out of voting in the mid term
Elections.
Trump has pardoned SEVERAL convicted proved drug lords
It’s about murdering people illegally from countries that don’t stand a chance against us so they can subvert the will of the people and keep stripping the metaphorical copper wiring out of the White House
We’re getting to the “Yeah you know what? We did it. Fuck you.”
Iirc, many, if not all, of these boats were not ABLE to make it to the USA.
Stop trying to pin down the semantics of the boat.
Focus on how one can actually punish him for it. That’s what they’re doing while we’re futzing around with definitions.
excerpt from CNN report for readers paywalled by TNR [https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/05/politics/suriname-boat-strike-bradley?ICID=ref_fark](https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/05/politics/suriname-boat-strike-bradley?ICID=ref_fark)
The alleged drug traffickers killed by the US military in a strike on September 2 were heading to link up with another, larger vessel that was bound for Suriname — a small South American country east of Venezuela – the admiral who oversaw the operation told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his remarks.
*According to intelligence collected by US forces, the struck boat planned to “rendezvous” with the second vessel and transfer drugs to it, Adm. Frank Bradley said during the briefings, but the military was unable to locate the second vessel. Bradley argued there was still a possibility the drug shipment could have ultimately made its way from Suriname to the US, the sources said, telling lawmakers that justified striking the smaller boat even if it wasn’t directly heading to US shores at the time it was hit.*
*US drug enforcement officials say that trafficking routes via Suriname are primarily destined for European markets. US-bound drug trafficking routes have been concentrated on the Pacific Ocean in recent years.*
The new detail adds yet another wrinkle to the Trump administration’s argument that striking the boat multiple times, and killing survivors, was necessary in order to protect the US from an imminent threat.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told traveling press in Florida shortly after the strike that the alleged drug boat targeted was “probably headed to Trinidad or some other country in the Caribbean.” However, President Donald Trump said in a post announcing the strike on September 2 that “The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.”
*Bradley, who led Joint Special Operations Command at the time of the strike, also acknowledged that the boat had turned around before being struck, because the people on board appeared to see the American aircraft in the air,* the sources said. CNN [reported in September](https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/11/politics/senior-democrat-pentagon-strike-gang-members-evidence) that the boat turned around before being hit.
Will there be consequences for the people in power during our lifetime?
And it wouldn’t make it any less a war crime if it *was* heading to the US
We don’t think the boat was going to the US.
But even if it was we aren’t sure there were drugs on it.
But even if there were there’s no legal justification to attack and kill everyone on board.
But even if there was it’s illegal to kill people that are shipwrecked and not a threat.
Am I up to speed or is worse than this again?
It’s strange how Trump is so concerned about the illegal drug users in the country but not concerned about the health and the ability to eat and have shelter of the law abiding poor and middle class citizens. Is this his dementia at work?
Look at a map, for Christ’s sake. None of these boats are direct to the U.S. The closest U.S. territory to Venezuela is Puerto Rico & the U.S. Virgin Islands, 500 miles away.
If we (allegedly) need the full might and power of the United States military to fight the drug war…🤔
That raises alot of existential questions.
Don’t it?
You Americans are murdering people at sea.
I’m pretty far from an expert on boats or maps.
Tiny boat, 1600 miles away from the USA. 11 people on board. Doesn’t take a genius to jump to a conclusion.
And that conclusion is, Trump is in the Epstein files and let Ghislaine go to club fed to pet puppies, and he pardoned a narco terrorist
Even if it was , this is still the stupidest, least effective, least humane way to deal with the issue. You want to take down drug cartels? Start at the top. What the hell is blowing up a few poor-as-fuck grunts running hellish overnight boat rides going to do? God these people are stupid and evil.
Stopping drugs from coming in is the least important part of this equation. No one is holding me down and making me do drugs.
The reason people get hooked is because they’re desperate.
Life is only becoming more desperate and addiction will continue to rise until our government helps foster an environment where people don’t feel so fucking desperate and hopeless.
Blowing up supposed drug boats won’t do shit. People will rip out the walls for a fix. They will get hooked on household substances, liquor, and anything else available.
Nothing will improve until people have a sense of economic security and bodily safety.
And that’s assuming these bastards are acting in good faith and they clearly aren’t since they’re pardoning the biggest cocaine trafficker of the last century.
Of course it wasn’t. You can’t carry enough fuel on a boat that size to go from Venezuela to the US.
It’s like reality screaming at us saying these people really need to be removed from office.
Don’t worry, nothing will change. No one will be held accountable, and hegseth will continue to murder these people. It’s sickening how there are people cheering for war crimes
It’s literally not even possible for that little boat to cross international waters and reach the US from Venezuela. Like how is that even an argument
yeah no shit. Everyone knows that. That’s just the story they make up. Even they arent dumb enough to think you can take a fishing boat 2,000 miles over the ocean
We’re 80+ dead into “eviscerated arguments.”
He is killing civilians to please his blood thristy pig of a leader
I’m more interested in the 3rd and 4th shot I’ve heard about.
It’s crazy; we’ll probably never know for sure what was on the boat or where they were headed. How convenient for the Dept. of War.
We need a patch showing shipwrecked survivors in crosshairs so all US military involved can proudly display the part they played …
Mr Warfighting committed a war crime.
murderers
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