12 ms·

I may have found a way to spot U.S. at-sea strikes before they're announced

410 points by hentrep 11mo ago

davidw 11mo ago
"narco-trafficking boats" There's no public evidence of that though. No trial. It's the same as if we sent the navy to board those boats, put a gun to people's heads and execute them in cold blood.
- Waterluvian 11mo ago
  It’s not quite the same. It’s considerably more cowardly.
  - lingrush4 10mo ago
    It's not cowardly at all because the person making the decision would not be putting themselves in danger either way. It's just pragmatic.
- wetpaws 11mo ago
  [dead]
- voganmother42 11mo ago
  The US gov cartel is ruthless - military members get to be murderers, but its good preparation for when they are deployed against US cities
- somenameforme 11mo ago
  100% agreed with this and this is one of the worst issues about the development of long range weapons. 'We droned this guy.' 'We bombed this area.' 'We destroyed this boat.' All of this really sounds so much better than what it really is. It's murdering people all around the world, many of whom are 100% innocent. For instance the last person we droned in occupied Afghanistan was Zemari Ahmadi - a longtime worker for a US humanitarian aid organization. A US drone operator mistook bottles of water he was loading into his car for his family as bombs, and so they murdered him as well as 10 other civilians, including 7 children, all with the press of a button. [1] [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/asia/us-air-strike-drone-kabul-afghanistan-isis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/asia/us-air-strike-...
  - jmb99 11mo ago
    >many of whom are 100% innocent Under US law, 100% of them are 100% innocent, by definition. "Innocent until proven guilty" and whatnot; it literally means that every person is innocent in the eyes of the law until a court finds them guilty.
    - PenguinCoder 11mo ago
      Unfortunately that had been forgotten in this era.
    - anarticle 11mo ago
      Fun fact, if you're not a US citizen on US soil US law does not apply. I'm not saying this because I'm taking a side, but this was how the Patriot act had knock on effects. An interesting case of this is something like you call a foreign national in another country and this is enough to be able to tap both sides of the conversation via Patriot Act / NSA purview.
      - asdefghyk 11mo ago
        RE ".....not a US citizen on US soil US law does not apply....." Does not maKE SENSE... Why are people extradited to US from overseas locations . Like why they want Julian Assange ?
        raspasov 11mo ago
        Just some ideas: - Drone-bombing an embassy in downtown London does not look good on social media - He's too famous and has many supporters in the Western world to be publicly assassinated, regardless of location (example: Lady Gaga visited him while he was stuck in the embassy) - He's more useful as a deterrent, i.e., "see what might happen to you", to the people who might decide to go a similar route. Some will go that route regardless, but chances are at least a few have been persuaded otherwise. For all the ridicule of the government, the Intelligence Community seems to be doing a fairly intelligent job most of the time to satisfy its objectives.
- slg 11mo ago
  Murdering people for "committing" a nonviolent crime in international waters that still wouldn't qualify for capital punishment if it was committed on US soil. It wouldn't matter if they provided mountains of evidence, it would still be wrong, and yet they are providing zero evidence. We're just openly committing war crimes knowing that no one can really stop it.
  - gpm 11mo ago
    Is it war crimes when there's no war? Would actually be curious to learn if the answer is yes. Naively it seems like old fashioned murder without any special qualifier. I guess it could be both too?
    - bawolff 11mo ago
      War crimes require an armed conflict but not a "war". Note that declerations of war no longer really have meaning in international law and dont affect anything whether they are given or not. Armed conflict can be either international (e.g. between two countries) or non-international (e.g. you are atacking a non-state group. For example ISIS. However note that attacking a non-state group on the territory of a different state without permission of that state makes it be both.). War crimes apply to both types but the rules are slightly different between the two. Keep in mind also that people often colloquial use "war crimes" to mean any international crime, but technically its only one type. Crimes against humanity and genocide are technically not war crimes but a different category. They generally do not require an armed conflict (although often when they do happen its related to sone sort of armed conflict) Anyways this whole thing probably counts an armed conflict. I think at the least its a non-international armed conflict with the drug cartel. Attacking boats is usually an act of war even if they are in international waters, which might make it an international armed conflict with venuzula as well if the boats are connected to it (but the rules related to that im not really clear on and is a bit beyond my knoeledge). [IANAL]
      - nickff 11mo ago
        The possibility of this being an ‘act of war’ does seem very interesting, but I’m not sure Venezuela could claim it in this circumstance, as the vessels do not appear to be ‘flagged’. I would be interested to learn what the status of unflagged vessels is in international law, and I suspect there must be law on the subject, as pirates were typically unflagged.
- VladVladikoff 11mo ago
  There is a non zero chance one of these strikes was a mistake and instead hit an innocent fishing boat. Because humans make mistakes all the damn time.
  - harddrivereque 11mo ago
    Most of the released videos show speedboats without fishing equipment. For all intents and purposes, these speedboats might be medevac or just joyrides, but I would strongly count that they were fairly confidently related, to, uhm, the groups that were being referenced as being targeted officially. The sea allows for quite a bit more clearance regarding these things, mistakes can still happen, but are less likely than on densely populated areas on land. Anyways these strikes don't change the big picture in terms of movement of the things that they move - the things that they move comes in on airplanes, trucks, containers, through tunnels, in pockets of people arriving, even in fishing/leisure boats. For all I know they could be easily moving it using homing pigeons. And you can pass the pigeons through the gaps in the wall. Sure, not as efficient as by speedboats,but the demand will make stuff move. The solution to this problem is complex, but solving it in the society is easier than trying to stop the flow... I mean, people would just start producing locally then. Either with the groups of people that are being targeted or without.
    - nickff 11mo ago
      It seems as though part of the rationale may relate to ‘defunding’ the Venezuelan government (as the current administration seems to disfavor them), which appears to be deriving a significant amount of revenue (which may not be going to the treasury) from granting ‘license’ for these traffickers to operate from their coast.
- Stranger43 10mo ago
  Taking the moral argument aside the fact that the largest best funded navy run by the wealthiest country have to call in airstrikes against barely(if at all) armed fishing vessels, that may or may not be smugglers, rather then board arrest and at least make an attempt at tracing the cash flow back to the wealthy businessmen who is organizing/funding the smuggling reeks of weakness and desperation rather then being the signal of strength and competency it's intended to be. Sure it's a widely understood and often repeated problem with especially western naval and military doctrine that the peace time buildup favors white elephants(battleships, F35s etc) that, as was the case of the British high see fleet of WWII, end up inactive while entire new(often much cheaper and less sophisticated) classes of ships like destroyer escorts or Patrol boats have to be build as replacements. But still the US haven't quite deteriorated so badly yet that it couldn't reacquire whatever boarding capacity got lost in the relentless pursuit of military industrial complex profits quite quickly.
- b00ty4breakfast 10mo ago
  this kind of stuff lines up with the US military MO going back to at least 2008, when more than a few civilian wedding parties in Afghanistan were hit by drone strikes (not the last wedding party in the region to be blown up during the Obama administration). We can say that perhaps we are regressing but it is not really a new development.
- geoffmunn 10mo ago
  Well luckily it turned out that they were all ne'er-do-wells so it's all good. Just like when the US used drones on Iraqi convoys and amazingly they were all Al-Qaeda sympathisers.
- andrewinardeer 10mo ago
  Droning people without public evidence is nothing new for any POTUS in the last 20 years.
- symbogra 10mo ago
  > It's the same as if we sent the navy to board those boats, put a gun to people's heads and execute them in cold blood. That would work too but why risk american soldiers? This is much more efficient and the footage makes for good deterrent/propaganda.
  - mrguyorama 10mo ago
    We have millions of years of human history that emphatically prove that "Chance of death" is not a deterrent You know what is? A high chance of any, even minimal punishment. Better life conditions.
- fleroviumna 10mo ago
  [dead]
- lingrush4 10mo ago
  No having the navy board the boats would be way worse because it would put US servicemen in danger. Bombing the boats from a safe distance is by far the best way to deal with this problem.
- parsimo2010 10mo ago
  I mean, if you don't watch the evening news or look for any evidence then I guess you wouldn't think there was public evidence. CBS Evening News has showed footage of the boats [1]. While this isn't ironclad proof (would you expect the drug runners to hold up identification showing them as criminals?), it is unlikely that these four-engined speed boats loaded with something is anything other than drugs. They are not boats full of people/refugees. They aren't cargo ships operated by a shipping company with any official records claiming to have been lost, or any legitimate tour company. The characteristics of these boats match many other drug trafficking boats that the US Coast Guard has intercepted in the past full of drugs. You can debate whether the US President has authority to order strikes like this but insinuating these might just be innocent people and not drug runners isn't going to go very far. [1] https://youtu.be/a2CQbRUEeWY?si=pPS_97LqIgCdLWix https://youtu.be/a2CQbRUEeWY?si=pPS_97LqIgCdLWix
- gadders 10mo ago
  It's the same as if Obama sent a drone to kill people in a foreign country, no?
- blobbers 10mo ago
  I think its an interesting conundrum because you're right it is the same as what you said! They don't tell us the due diligence they do, but we would hope that our bureaucracy is careful about who they target and carefully thinks about how it affects the perception of americans vs. the potential benefit to our society (elimination of narco traffickers)? Ukraine / Russia aside, we no longer have much in the way of conventional wars where each team wears a certain color and they shoot at each other. Instead the weaker force tries to disguise itself as best possible and strike when possible. In this case, a drug cartel would try to be as under the radar as possible. What level of due diligence would you need to see before you would trust that a strike is justified? Or is the problem that narco trafficking doesn't justify death and therefore they should simply be imprisoning traffickers? On the subject of evidence, the problem with AI is that now video and imagery can easily be faked. You've always been able to plant a bag of weed on a teenager and arrest him, so planting a kilo of coke on a boat and arresting someone is no different. Malaysia, Philippines, China, Singapore all punish drug related crimes with death. One could argue that the societal impact of drugs is incredibly bad, thus warranting death to the traffickers. Without a doubt, helping addicts is a societally very challenging problem! Anyone who has had a loved one fall victim to addiction has dealt with the struggle of emotions that comes with it. A need for them to be better, but lacking the path forward when they regress. Simply removing the drugs from the equation would have never destroyed their lives. At some point it fundamentally needs to come down to trusting the people who defend the country ... who are entrusted to do this most difficult job.
breppp 11mo ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 10mo ago
  Please don't post snark on HN. We're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - breppp 10mo ago
    sorry for that, however it did seem a bit too much on the baity title and trivial reality side
    - tomhow 10mo ago
      Sure, and we’ve let flags and normal penalties pull it down off the front page now. Best to flag the post if it’s a low quality article, and if it’s really needing our attention, email us - hn@ycombinator.com.
valicord 11mo ago
The satellite feed removed from internet in 3, 2, ...
- irjustin 11mo ago
  From one of the comments: > Yes, FIRMS data is what most people use to monitor large strikes that create a significant heat signature. In the middle of the sea you'll usually just see oil platforms generate heat like that. > A lot of people reading this know this already, but you could see exactly where the bunker busters were being dropped in Iran months ago from FIRMS data within ~15-20min of the strikes.
  - energy123 10mo ago
    Are you sure that 15-20min latency is the fastest you can get that data?
    - jjk166 10mo ago
      The lower resolution geostationary satellites transmit every 10 to 15 minutes and the data is made available within 30 minutes of transmission. There are polar orbit satellites which can potentially make detections faster but they only overfly specific regions and are only looking at a small portion of that at a given time. The database itself is updated every 5 minutes. For Iran, 15 minute latency would mean you got lucky with the cycles of several steps lining up just right.
- somenameforme 11mo ago
  This post is relatively old information to anybody following e.g. the Ukraine War, which is where I assume the poster got the inspiration for this. It's regularly used to publicly confirm strikes.
- mrguyorama 10mo ago
  Unfortunately, why would the current admin want to stifle info about these strikes? They brag about them, because murdering random people in the ocean on flimsy pretenses is popular to their base. We have murdered at least 66 people so far. It sure is funny how republicans insist that Fentanyl is a huge problem, but decline to punish those actually responsible, the sacklers, and have abandoned their blame of China for fentanyl production. Meanwhile we continue a military build up off the coast. Can't wait for all those people who voted for Trump because he "Doesn't start wars" to be completely silent or even supportive of a war against Venezuela. Some things don't entirely make sense with the cynical view though. I would think his base would be very supportive of openly advocating for regime change in Venezuela even by force, so I don't quite understand subterfuge unless this is just early opinion driving. Republican presidents sure like how wars do for their re-election though, and the Trump admin would love a war to "excuse" something like... say.... suspended elections.
BLKNSLVR 11mo ago
Note: "before they're announced" which is quite specifically not "before the strike occurs"
- NaomiLehman 10mo ago
  that would require a time machine
  - SirFatty 10mo ago
    No, that would take an information leak.
    - giantg2 10mo ago
      That would only be a scheduled strike. That wouldn't work for ad-hoc strikes.
      - lazide 10mo ago
        Ad-hoc strikes still need approval from the chain of command (or at least would have/used to), so there would still be radio chatter.
        kulahan 10mo ago
        I assume there are scenarios where the chain is skipped? I could be wrong, but don't the people sitting at nukes just launch if they see certain things? If they have autonomy, I assume everyone with a missile launch button has some to some degree.
        deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
        aerostable_slug 10mo ago
        Nuclear release authority is pre-delegated to varying degrees, but not down to the launch control centers. They do not possess the required information to launch their missiles. Precise delegation details are classified. For combatants down in Venezuela's waters, the only time they're going to have permission to blow a boat out of the water without checking with higher authority is if that boat is actively firing on American servicemen or presenting a similar imminent threat to human life. Otherwise the strikes flow through an approval matrix. All of this is subject to change as situations develop, and command centers have military attorneys present in the room with them to counsel local leadership.
bragr 11mo ago
Neat, but not really new. People have been monitoring military activity with FIRMS for years.
- NedF 10mo ago
  [dead]
- confirmmesenpai 11mo ago
  especially in the Ukraine war
  - consumer451 10mo ago
    Not for long, after TFA.
- enjaydee 10mo ago
  Makes sense, it was launched in 2021
beefnugs 11mo ago
[flagged]
taccal 11mo ago
[dead]
martythemaniak 11mo ago
Could we change the title to the more accurate "summary executions" instead of "at-sea strikes"?
- croisillon 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - exe34 10mo ago
    [flagged]
- vkou 10mo ago
  Execution implies some sort of legal process. This is just murder.
  - eru 10mo ago
    If you want to be nitpicky: randomly killing people isn't necessarily murder. There's eg also manslaughter and a few other legal categories.
- extraduder_ire 10mo ago
  That's what the reddit thread is called, there's a rule against editorialising titles here.
aussieguy1234 11mo ago
Like alot of others on the reddit thread, I suspect this will get shut down fast, since it relies on US government imagery from NASA.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
aaronbrethorst 10mo ago
The United States seems to be using the same logic as Uncle Jimbo in South Park did when he hunted animals: "it's coming right for us!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaazFYTrQ_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaazFYTrQ_A
- vkou 10mo ago
  When you direct it at humans, it's called murder. When you do it at sea, it can be called piracy. But as long as you leave no survivors, who is going to dispute whatever story you want to spin about the people you are killing.
  - lazide 10mo ago
    When you are a world superpower, most people will hesitate to call you anything you don’t like. Because they’ll likely be next.
- dataviz1000 10mo ago
  The United States has been famous for this logic for a while now. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9WMSxV6lMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9WMSxV6lMs
hentrep 10mo ago
I submitted this link to HN with the Reddit title in quotes. Not sure why the quotes were removed, but I want to clarify that I am not the Reddit post author.
- tomhow 10mo ago
  It's never been the case that an HN title like this is assumed to be a statement by the submitter. We always match the HN title to the original post's title, unless it's misleading or linkbait, as per the guidelines. Quotation marks are generally superfluous except, I think, if the article is about a quote. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
AlecSchueler 10mo ago
How can they do this? Why is the world tolerating it? Would it be as acceptable for China to start doing this?
- terminalshort 10mo ago
  Because they are drug traffickers and nobody likes them. The argument against the strikes is based on principle alone, and matters of principle count for nothing in geopolitics. Other countries aren't complaining too loudly because they are happy that the traffickers are getting killed, and even happier that someone else is doing it for them. China does worse things daily and nobody makes much of a fuss.
  - cma 10mo ago
    Trump pardoned the operator of the largest opiates by mail operator in world history on his first or second day in office (Ross Ulbricht). I'm pretty sure they're doing this just to start war with Venezuela from some mix of Venezuela nationalizing their oil in the past and wanting to undo that, Venezuela lobby and intersection of with the rightwing Cuban lobby/Rubio's ties to that. Democracy probably as low concern, given our relation with Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The history of Rubio introducing the Venezuela Temporary Protected Status and Asylum Assistance Act of 2018 in Trump's first term, leading to large parts of the "immigration crisis" under Biden, and then Rubio going along with rescinding the status is pretty crazy. We played a big part in their economic crisis, offered asylum to many people driven to flee not just politically but largely from that crisis, then rescinded status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and began deporting to concentration camps based in some cases on tattoos, now the extrajudicial killings, and it's looking like big potential for a war of aggression.
    - terminalshort 10mo ago
      You aren't getting it. Basically every country on earth hates the cartels and wants them dead. They aren't going to complain when somebody is making that happen, and they don't much care how it's done as long as it isn't happening on their soil. And they care even less that the people doing it aren't saints themselves because nobody is. Nobody is going to stick their neck out for a cartel.
IncreasePosts 10mo ago
Does anyone know - do they give the guys on the boat a chance to surrender, and they're fleeing? Or do they just bomb them without any kind of notice?
- elAhmo 10mo ago
  This is spray and pray, they have no idea who is on the boat or what are they transporting. So offering 'surrender' makes no sense for them, it would just expose this behaviour. It is not a secret, but they act like it is.
  - lingrush4 10mo ago
    No, you have no idea who is on the boat. That's very different from the US military having no idea.
    - ses1984 10mo ago
      They know it’s fishermen, they just don’t care.
      - hunterpayne 10mo ago
        [flagged]
        hitarpetar 10mo ago
        [flagged]
        tomhow 10mo ago
        Please avoid demeaning swipes like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're aiming for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        10mo ago
qwertox 10mo ago
[flagged]
exasperaited 10mo ago
[flagged]
- hunterpayne 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - trhway 10mo ago
    >If any other "framing" was correct, they would be flying a flag of some country. sounds like your knowledge of maritime law tells that flying some country's flag would have prevented those boats from being blown up. Silly narcos not knowing that yours maritime law. >Sending them home is about making sure there isn't anyone willing to take the next run. Why it isn't done with other criminals?
  - atomicnumber3 10mo ago
    Are navies allowed to just kill people on boats for not flying a flag? Arrest them perhaps, I could see - but just kill them with no attempt to find any other recourse?
    - pksebben 10mo ago
      Define "allowed", esp. whom it is doing the allowing. Any and all current international treaties are visibly toothless these days. Russia invades Ukraine and the UN shrugs while they say "hey, cut it out!". Israel colonizes parts of Gaza that it has specifically agreed not to colonize and the response is the same. The US commits a war crime with it's morning cuppa and every time the international community sorta whistles and heel-turns hoping that they're not interesting enough to be next. The problem is that IOT have any kind of effective enforcement mechanism, you have to have the bigger stick, and we've just allowed countries to do nothing but build bigger sticks since the 40s.
      - dataflow 10mo ago
        I think the meaning of "allowed" was pretty obviously "per whatever laws are applicable", not "are the laws enforced properly".
HaZeust 10mo ago
For those who don't know, FIRMS is NASA's "Fire Information for Resource Management System". https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/tools/firms https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/tools/firms
- 650REDHAIR 10mo ago
  I wonder how long this data will be publicly available for. I just assume all federal data hoses are on borrowed time :(
basisword 10mo ago
[flagged]
- burnt-resistor 10mo ago
  Extrajudical executions without evidence, just a bunch of spurious talking points and unfounded accusations. It reeks of the stench of the "Saddam WMDs" that didn't exist. Churning the curds of casus belli to justify launching a foreign war to distract from domestic concerns like the Epstein files and the clawing back of healthcare to give more money to the billionaires.
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
maxglute 10mo ago
TFW next generation of US specop influencers are from SouthCom. Boring counter-narctoics = boring books = boring movies without explosions. At the end of the day policy bros just want to make sicario reality. That's barely a joke. Villeneuve triumph of the willed war on drugs.
heroiccocoa 10mo ago
It's frustrating how some people insist on prefixing reddit URLs with "old", requiring everybody else who opens their link to load the wrong page, edit it, and reload the modern version. 3 seconds of OPs time could have saved thousands of people from wasting their 8 seconds each.
- bathtub365 10mo ago
  I prefer the old links as they don’t put up login walls or other popups that try to get me to use an account.
- HPsquared 10mo ago
  Maybe I like the misery! https://youtu.be/dwz6vBp8MPw https://youtu.be/dwz6vBp8MPw
- ASalazarMX 10mo ago
  > requiring everybody else who opens their link to load the wrong page, edit it, and reload the modern version Don't put everyone in the bandwagon that wants the new Reddit UX. It happens because many people don't.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- gs17 10mo ago
  > requiring everybody else who opens their link to load the wrong page, edit it It's not required. You have a preference for the "new" experience, but many people see the additional time it takes to load and read the "new" experience as the actual waste of time.
- AngryData 10mo ago
  And how do you think everyone else feels about being forced to open a shitty mobile page with 30x the data requirements and extra telemetry, popups about using an app, and asking for a login and requiring people to edit the title with old.
nielsbot 10mo ago
> Over the last month the U.S. has carried out several interdiction strikes on narco-trafficking boats in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean There’s no proof that that’s actually what they’re doing. They should present some.
- foofoo12 10mo ago
  Shouldn't we just trust them? Have they ever made a false public statement?
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
  - RobotToaster 10mo ago
    You dropped this /s
    - GoatInGrey 10mo ago
      They assumed that most users here weren't homeschooled!
      - expedition32 10mo ago
        [flagged]
  - metabagel 10mo ago
    LOL https://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check/ https://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-fa...
  - dyauspitr 10mo ago
    Is this satire?
black_13 10mo ago
[dead]
black_13 10mo ago
[dead]
offmycloud 10mo ago
"Your request has been blocked due to a network policy" Is Reddit going login-required now?
- trianglesphere 10mo ago
  They’ve gotten pretty strict if they think your IP is a scraper (i.e. coming from AWS or another cloud provider even inside a full browser environment).
- MallocVoidstar 10mo ago
  They ban VPNs unless you're logged in (and randomly shadowban users using them), and probably other datacenter IPs.
- Quarrel 10mo ago
  Just a guess, but are you in the UK and is /r/osint flagged NSFW, harmful or mature? If so, they want to age-verify you.
- silisili 10mo ago
  Same. Brave on Linux, no VPN. I didn't at face value care too much, as I find the site cancerous, but it did make me realize how many times I click links into it. I can't wait until a worthy successor appears.
  - ritzaco 10mo ago
    https://lemmy.world https://lemmy.world isn't as big and it doesn't have active subgroups for as many things as Reddit, but for a bit of casual doom scrolling it's fully replaced Reddit for me.
- RunningDroid 10mo ago
  Redlib typically has less aggressive restrictions: https://farside.link/redlib/r/OSINT/comments/1opjjyv/i_may_have_found_a_way_to_spot_us_atsea_strikes/ https://farside.link/redlib/r/OSINT/comments/1opjjyv/i_may_h... (Farside.link just picks a random instance)

410 points by hentrep 11mo ago

davidw 11mo ago

"narco-trafficking boats" There's no public evidence of that though. No trial. It's the same as if we sent the navy to board those boats, put a gun to people's heads and execute them in cold blood.

Waterluvian 11mo ago
It’s not quite the same. It’s considerably more cowardly.
- lingrush4 10mo ago
  It's not cowardly at all because the person making the decision would not be putting themselves in danger either way. It's just pragmatic.
wetpaws 11mo ago
[dead]
voganmother42 11mo ago
The US gov cartel is ruthless - military members get to be murderers, but its good preparation for when they are deployed against US cities
somenameforme 11mo ago
100% agreed with this and this is one of the worst issues about the development of long range weapons. 'We droned this guy.' 'We bombed this area.' 'We destroyed this boat.' All of this really sounds so much better than what it really is. It's murdering people all around the world, many of whom are 100% innocent. For instance the last person we droned in occupied Afghanistan was Zemari Ahmadi - a longtime worker for a US humanitarian aid organization. A US drone operator mistook bottles of water he was loading into his car for his family as bombs, and so they murdered him as well as 10 other civilians, including 7 children, all with the press of a button. [1] [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/asia/us-air-strike-drone-kabul-afghanistan-isis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/asia/us-air-strike-...
- jmb99 11mo ago
  >many of whom are 100% innocent Under US law, 100% of them are 100% innocent, by definition. "Innocent until proven guilty" and whatnot; it literally means that every person is innocent in the eyes of the law until a court finds them guilty.
  - PenguinCoder 11mo ago
    Unfortunately that had been forgotten in this era.
  - anarticle 11mo ago
    Fun fact, if you're not a US citizen on US soil US law does not apply. I'm not saying this because I'm taking a side, but this was how the Patriot act had knock on effects. An interesting case of this is something like you call a foreign national in another country and this is enough to be able to tap both sides of the conversation via Patriot Act / NSA purview.
    - asdefghyk 11mo ago
      RE ".....not a US citizen on US soil US law does not apply....." Does not maKE SENSE... Why are people extradited to US from overseas locations . Like why they want Julian Assange ?
      - raspasov 11mo ago
        Just some ideas: - Drone-bombing an embassy in downtown London does not look good on social media - He's too famous and has many supporters in the Western world to be publicly assassinated, regardless of location (example: Lady Gaga visited him while he was stuck in the embassy) - He's more useful as a deterrent, i.e., "see what might happen to you", to the people who might decide to go a similar route. Some will go that route regardless, but chances are at least a few have been persuaded otherwise. For all the ridicule of the government, the Intelligence Community seems to be doing a fairly intelligent job most of the time to satisfy its objectives.
slg 11mo ago
Murdering people for "committing" a nonviolent crime in international waters that still wouldn't qualify for capital punishment if it was committed on US soil. It wouldn't matter if they provided mountains of evidence, it would still be wrong, and yet they are providing zero evidence. We're just openly committing war crimes knowing that no one can really stop it.
- gpm 11mo ago
  Is it war crimes when there's no war? Would actually be curious to learn if the answer is yes. Naively it seems like old fashioned murder without any special qualifier. I guess it could be both too?
  - bawolff 11mo ago
    War crimes require an armed conflict but not a "war". Note that declerations of war no longer really have meaning in international law and dont affect anything whether they are given or not. Armed conflict can be either international (e.g. between two countries) or non-international (e.g. you are atacking a non-state group. For example ISIS. However note that attacking a non-state group on the territory of a different state without permission of that state makes it be both.). War crimes apply to both types but the rules are slightly different between the two. Keep in mind also that people often colloquial use "war crimes" to mean any international crime, but technically its only one type. Crimes against humanity and genocide are technically not war crimes but a different category. They generally do not require an armed conflict (although often when they do happen its related to sone sort of armed conflict) Anyways this whole thing probably counts an armed conflict. I think at the least its a non-international armed conflict with the drug cartel. Attacking boats is usually an act of war even if they are in international waters, which might make it an international armed conflict with venuzula as well if the boats are connected to it (but the rules related to that im not really clear on and is a bit beyond my knoeledge). [IANAL]
    - nickff 11mo ago
      The possibility of this being an ‘act of war’ does seem very interesting, but I’m not sure Venezuela could claim it in this circumstance, as the vessels do not appear to be ‘flagged’. I would be interested to learn what the status of unflagged vessels is in international law, and I suspect there must be law on the subject, as pirates were typically unflagged.
VladVladikoff 11mo ago
There is a non zero chance one of these strikes was a mistake and instead hit an innocent fishing boat. Because humans make mistakes all the damn time.
- harddrivereque 11mo ago
  Most of the released videos show speedboats without fishing equipment. For all intents and purposes, these speedboats might be medevac or just joyrides, but I would strongly count that they were fairly confidently related, to, uhm, the groups that were being referenced as being targeted officially. The sea allows for quite a bit more clearance regarding these things, mistakes can still happen, but are less likely than on densely populated areas on land. Anyways these strikes don't change the big picture in terms of movement of the things that they move - the things that they move comes in on airplanes, trucks, containers, through tunnels, in pockets of people arriving, even in fishing/leisure boats. For all I know they could be easily moving it using homing pigeons. And you can pass the pigeons through the gaps in the wall. Sure, not as efficient as by speedboats,but the demand will make stuff move. The solution to this problem is complex, but solving it in the society is easier than trying to stop the flow... I mean, people would just start producing locally then. Either with the groups of people that are being targeted or without.
  - nickff 11mo ago
    It seems as though part of the rationale may relate to ‘defunding’ the Venezuelan government (as the current administration seems to disfavor them), which appears to be deriving a significant amount of revenue (which may not be going to the treasury) from granting ‘license’ for these traffickers to operate from their coast.
Stranger43 10mo ago
Taking the moral argument aside the fact that the largest best funded navy run by the wealthiest country have to call in airstrikes against barely(if at all) armed fishing vessels, that may or may not be smugglers, rather then board arrest and at least make an attempt at tracing the cash flow back to the wealthy businessmen who is organizing/funding the smuggling reeks of weakness and desperation rather then being the signal of strength and competency it's intended to be. Sure it's a widely understood and often repeated problem with especially western naval and military doctrine that the peace time buildup favors white elephants(battleships, F35s etc) that, as was the case of the British high see fleet of WWII, end up inactive while entire new(often much cheaper and less sophisticated) classes of ships like destroyer escorts or Patrol boats have to be build as replacements. But still the US haven't quite deteriorated so badly yet that it couldn't reacquire whatever boarding capacity got lost in the relentless pursuit of military industrial complex profits quite quickly.
b00ty4breakfast 10mo ago
this kind of stuff lines up with the US military MO going back to at least 2008, when more than a few civilian wedding parties in Afghanistan were hit by drone strikes (not the last wedding party in the region to be blown up during the Obama administration). We can say that perhaps we are regressing but it is not really a new development.
geoffmunn 10mo ago
Well luckily it turned out that they were all ne'er-do-wells so it's all good. Just like when the US used drones on Iraqi convoys and amazingly they were all Al-Qaeda sympathisers.
andrewinardeer 10mo ago
Droning people without public evidence is nothing new for any POTUS in the last 20 years.
symbogra 10mo ago
> It's the same as if we sent the navy to board those boats, put a gun to people's heads and execute them in cold blood. That would work too but why risk american soldiers? This is much more efficient and the footage makes for good deterrent/propaganda.
- mrguyorama 10mo ago
  We have millions of years of human history that emphatically prove that "Chance of death" is not a deterrent You know what is? A high chance of any, even minimal punishment. Better life conditions.
fleroviumna 10mo ago
[dead]
lingrush4 10mo ago
No having the navy board the boats would be way worse because it would put US servicemen in danger. Bombing the boats from a safe distance is by far the best way to deal with this problem.
parsimo2010 10mo ago
I mean, if you don't watch the evening news or look for any evidence then I guess you wouldn't think there was public evidence. CBS Evening News has showed footage of the boats [1]. While this isn't ironclad proof (would you expect the drug runners to hold up identification showing them as criminals?), it is unlikely that these four-engined speed boats loaded with something is anything other than drugs. They are not boats full of people/refugees. They aren't cargo ships operated by a shipping company with any official records claiming to have been lost, or any legitimate tour company. The characteristics of these boats match many other drug trafficking boats that the US Coast Guard has intercepted in the past full of drugs. You can debate whether the US President has authority to order strikes like this but insinuating these might just be innocent people and not drug runners isn't going to go very far. [1] https://youtu.be/a2CQbRUEeWY?si=pPS_97LqIgCdLWix https://youtu.be/a2CQbRUEeWY?si=pPS_97LqIgCdLWix
gadders 10mo ago
It's the same as if Obama sent a drone to kill people in a foreign country, no?
blobbers 10mo ago
I think its an interesting conundrum because you're right it is the same as what you said! They don't tell us the due diligence they do, but we would hope that our bureaucracy is careful about who they target and carefully thinks about how it affects the perception of americans vs. the potential benefit to our society (elimination of narco traffickers)? Ukraine / Russia aside, we no longer have much in the way of conventional wars where each team wears a certain color and they shoot at each other. Instead the weaker force tries to disguise itself as best possible and strike when possible. In this case, a drug cartel would try to be as under the radar as possible. What level of due diligence would you need to see before you would trust that a strike is justified? Or is the problem that narco trafficking doesn't justify death and therefore they should simply be imprisoning traffickers? On the subject of evidence, the problem with AI is that now video and imagery can easily be faked. You've always been able to plant a bag of weed on a teenager and arrest him, so planting a kilo of coke on a boat and arresting someone is no different. Malaysia, Philippines, China, Singapore all punish drug related crimes with death. One could argue that the societal impact of drugs is incredibly bad, thus warranting death to the traffickers. Without a doubt, helping addicts is a societally very challenging problem! Anyone who has had a loved one fall victim to addiction has dealt with the struggle of emotions that comes with it. A need for them to be better, but lacking the path forward when they regress. Simply removing the drugs from the equation would have never destroyed their lives. At some point it fundamentally needs to come down to trusting the people who defend the country ... who are entrusted to do this most difficult job.

breppp 11mo ago

[flagged]

tomhow 10mo ago
Please don't post snark on HN. We're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- breppp 10mo ago
  sorry for that, however it did seem a bit too much on the baity title and trivial reality side
  - tomhow 10mo ago
    Sure, and we’ve let flags and normal penalties pull it down off the front page now. Best to flag the post if it’s a low quality article, and if it’s really needing our attention, email us - hn@ycombinator.com.

valicord 11mo ago

The satellite feed removed from internet in 3, 2, ...

irjustin 11mo ago
From one of the comments: > Yes, FIRMS data is what most people use to monitor large strikes that create a significant heat signature. In the middle of the sea you'll usually just see oil platforms generate heat like that. > A lot of people reading this know this already, but you could see exactly where the bunker busters were being dropped in Iran months ago from FIRMS data within ~15-20min of the strikes.
- energy123 10mo ago
  Are you sure that 15-20min latency is the fastest you can get that data?
  - jjk166 10mo ago
    The lower resolution geostationary satellites transmit every 10 to 15 minutes and the data is made available within 30 minutes of transmission. There are polar orbit satellites which can potentially make detections faster but they only overfly specific regions and are only looking at a small portion of that at a given time. The database itself is updated every 5 minutes. For Iran, 15 minute latency would mean you got lucky with the cycles of several steps lining up just right.
somenameforme 11mo ago
This post is relatively old information to anybody following e.g. the Ukraine War, which is where I assume the poster got the inspiration for this. It's regularly used to publicly confirm strikes.
mrguyorama 10mo ago
Unfortunately, why would the current admin want to stifle info about these strikes? They brag about them, because murdering random people in the ocean on flimsy pretenses is popular to their base. We have murdered at least 66 people so far. It sure is funny how republicans insist that Fentanyl is a huge problem, but decline to punish those actually responsible, the sacklers, and have abandoned their blame of China for fentanyl production. Meanwhile we continue a military build up off the coast. Can't wait for all those people who voted for Trump because he "Doesn't start wars" to be completely silent or even supportive of a war against Venezuela. Some things don't entirely make sense with the cynical view though. I would think his base would be very supportive of openly advocating for regime change in Venezuela even by force, so I don't quite understand subterfuge unless this is just early opinion driving. Republican presidents sure like how wars do for their re-election though, and the Trump admin would love a war to "excuse" something like... say.... suspended elections.

BLKNSLVR 11mo ago

Note: "before they're announced" which is quite specifically not "before the strike occurs"

NaomiLehman 10mo ago
that would require a time machine
- SirFatty 10mo ago
  No, that would take an information leak.
  - giantg2 10mo ago
    That would only be a scheduled strike. That wouldn't work for ad-hoc strikes.
    - lazide 10mo ago
      Ad-hoc strikes still need approval from the chain of command (or at least would have/used to), so there would still be radio chatter.
      - kulahan 10mo ago
        I assume there are scenarios where the chain is skipped? I could be wrong, but don't the people sitting at nukes just launch if they see certain things? If they have autonomy, I assume everyone with a missile launch button has some to some degree.
        deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
        aerostable_slug 10mo ago
        Nuclear release authority is pre-delegated to varying degrees, but not down to the launch control centers. They do not possess the required information to launch their missiles. Precise delegation details are classified. For combatants down in Venezuela's waters, the only time they're going to have permission to blow a boat out of the water without checking with higher authority is if that boat is actively firing on American servicemen or presenting a similar imminent threat to human life. Otherwise the strikes flow through an approval matrix. All of this is subject to change as situations develop, and command centers have military attorneys present in the room with them to counsel local leadership.

bragr 11mo ago

Neat, but not really new. People have been monitoring military activity with FIRMS for years.

NedF 10mo ago
[dead]
confirmmesenpai 11mo ago
especially in the Ukraine war
- consumer451 10mo ago
  Not for long, after TFA.
enjaydee 10mo ago
Makes sense, it was launched in 2021

beefnugs 11mo ago

[flagged]

taccal 11mo ago

[dead]

martythemaniak 11mo ago

Could we change the title to the more accurate "summary executions" instead of "at-sea strikes"?

croisillon 10mo ago
[flagged]
- exe34 10mo ago
  [flagged]
vkou 10mo ago
Execution implies some sort of legal process. This is just murder.
- eru 10mo ago
  If you want to be nitpicky: randomly killing people isn't necessarily murder. There's eg also manslaughter and a few other legal categories.
extraduder_ire 10mo ago
That's what the reddit thread is called, there's a rule against editorialising titles here.

aussieguy1234 11mo ago

Like alot of others on the reddit thread, I suspect this will get shut down fast, since it relies on US government imagery from NASA.

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

aaronbrethorst 10mo ago

The United States seems to be using the same logic as Uncle Jimbo in South Park did when he hunted animals: "it's coming right for us!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaazFYTrQ_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaazFYTrQ_A

vkou 10mo ago
When you direct it at humans, it's called murder. When you do it at sea, it can be called piracy. But as long as you leave no survivors, who is going to dispute whatever story you want to spin about the people you are killing.
- lazide 10mo ago
  When you are a world superpower, most people will hesitate to call you anything you don’t like. Because they’ll likely be next.
dataviz1000 10mo ago
The United States has been famous for this logic for a while now. [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9WMSxV6lMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9WMSxV6lMs

hentrep 10mo ago

I submitted this link to HN with the Reddit title in quotes. Not sure why the quotes were removed, but I want to clarify that I am not the Reddit post author.

tomhow 10mo ago
It's never been the case that an HN title like this is assumed to be a statement by the submitter. We always match the HN title to the original post's title, unless it's misleading or linkbait, as per the guidelines. Quotation marks are generally superfluous except, I think, if the article is about a quote. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

AlecSchueler 10mo ago

How can they do this? Why is the world tolerating it? Would it be as acceptable for China to start doing this?

terminalshort 10mo ago
Because they are drug traffickers and nobody likes them. The argument against the strikes is based on principle alone, and matters of principle count for nothing in geopolitics. Other countries aren't complaining too loudly because they are happy that the traffickers are getting killed, and even happier that someone else is doing it for them. China does worse things daily and nobody makes much of a fuss.
- cma 10mo ago
  Trump pardoned the operator of the largest opiates by mail operator in world history on his first or second day in office (Ross Ulbricht). I'm pretty sure they're doing this just to start war with Venezuela from some mix of Venezuela nationalizing their oil in the past and wanting to undo that, Venezuela lobby and intersection of with the rightwing Cuban lobby/Rubio's ties to that. Democracy probably as low concern, given our relation with Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. The history of Rubio introducing the Venezuela Temporary Protected Status and Asylum Assistance Act of 2018 in Trump's first term, leading to large parts of the "immigration crisis" under Biden, and then Rubio going along with rescinding the status is pretty crazy. We played a big part in their economic crisis, offered asylum to many people driven to flee not just politically but largely from that crisis, then rescinded status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and began deporting to concentration camps based in some cases on tattoos, now the extrajudicial killings, and it's looking like big potential for a war of aggression.
  - terminalshort 10mo ago
    You aren't getting it. Basically every country on earth hates the cartels and wants them dead. They aren't going to complain when somebody is making that happen, and they don't much care how it's done as long as it isn't happening on their soil. And they care even less that the people doing it aren't saints themselves because nobody is. Nobody is going to stick their neck out for a cartel.

IncreasePosts 10mo ago

Does anyone know - do they give the guys on the boat a chance to surrender, and they're fleeing? Or do they just bomb them without any kind of notice?

elAhmo 10mo ago
This is spray and pray, they have no idea who is on the boat or what are they transporting. So offering 'surrender' makes no sense for them, it would just expose this behaviour. It is not a secret, but they act like it is.
- lingrush4 10mo ago
  No, you have no idea who is on the boat. That's very different from the US military having no idea.
  - ses1984 10mo ago
    They know it’s fishermen, they just don’t care.
    - hunterpayne 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      - hitarpetar 10mo ago
        [flagged]
        tomhow 10mo ago
        Please avoid demeaning swipes like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're aiming for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - 10mo ago

qwertox 10mo ago

[flagged]

exasperaited 10mo ago

[flagged]

hunterpayne 10mo ago
[flagged]
- trhway 10mo ago
  >If any other "framing" was correct, they would be flying a flag of some country. sounds like your knowledge of maritime law tells that flying some country's flag would have prevented those boats from being blown up. Silly narcos not knowing that yours maritime law. >Sending them home is about making sure there isn't anyone willing to take the next run. Why it isn't done with other criminals?
- atomicnumber3 10mo ago
  Are navies allowed to just kill people on boats for not flying a flag? Arrest them perhaps, I could see - but just kill them with no attempt to find any other recourse?
  - pksebben 10mo ago
    Define "allowed", esp. whom it is doing the allowing. Any and all current international treaties are visibly toothless these days. Russia invades Ukraine and the UN shrugs while they say "hey, cut it out!". Israel colonizes parts of Gaza that it has specifically agreed not to colonize and the response is the same. The US commits a war crime with it's morning cuppa and every time the international community sorta whistles and heel-turns hoping that they're not interesting enough to be next. The problem is that IOT have any kind of effective enforcement mechanism, you have to have the bigger stick, and we've just allowed countries to do nothing but build bigger sticks since the 40s.
    - dataflow 10mo ago
      I think the meaning of "allowed" was pretty obviously "per whatever laws are applicable", not "are the laws enforced properly".

HaZeust 10mo ago

For those who don't know, FIRMS is NASA's "Fire Information for Resource Management System". https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/tools/firms https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/tools/firms

650REDHAIR 10mo ago
I wonder how long this data will be publicly available for. I just assume all federal data hoses are on borrowed time :(

basisword 10mo ago

[flagged]

burnt-resistor 10mo ago
Extrajudical executions without evidence, just a bunch of spurious talking points and unfounded accusations. It reeks of the stench of the "Saddam WMDs" that didn't exist. Churning the curds of casus belli to justify launching a foreign war to distract from domestic concerns like the Epstein files and the clawing back of healthcare to give more money to the billionaires.
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]

maxglute 10mo ago

TFW next generation of US specop influencers are from SouthCom. Boring counter-narctoics = boring books = boring movies without explosions. At the end of the day policy bros just want to make sicario reality. That's barely a joke. Villeneuve triumph of the willed war on drugs.

heroiccocoa 10mo ago

It's frustrating how some people insist on prefixing reddit URLs with "old", requiring everybody else who opens their link to load the wrong page, edit it, and reload the modern version. 3 seconds of OPs time could have saved thousands of people from wasting their 8 seconds each.

bathtub365 10mo ago
I prefer the old links as they don’t put up login walls or other popups that try to get me to use an account.
HPsquared 10mo ago
Maybe I like the misery! https://youtu.be/dwz6vBp8MPw https://youtu.be/dwz6vBp8MPw
ASalazarMX 10mo ago
> requiring everybody else who opens their link to load the wrong page, edit it, and reload the modern version Don't put everyone in the bandwagon that wants the new Reddit UX. It happens because many people don't.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
gs17 10mo ago
> requiring everybody else who opens their link to load the wrong page, edit it It's not required. You have a preference for the "new" experience, but many people see the additional time it takes to load and read the "new" experience as the actual waste of time.
AngryData 10mo ago
And how do you think everyone else feels about being forced to open a shitty mobile page with 30x the data requirements and extra telemetry, popups about using an app, and asking for a login and requiring people to edit the title with old.

nielsbot 10mo ago

> Over the last month the U.S. has carried out several interdiction strikes on narco-trafficking boats in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean There’s no proof that that’s actually what they’re doing. They should present some.

foofoo12 10mo ago
Shouldn't we just trust them? Have they ever made a false public statement?
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- RobotToaster 10mo ago
  You dropped this /s
  - GoatInGrey 10mo ago
    They assumed that most users here weren't homeschooled!
    - expedition32 10mo ago
      [flagged]
- metabagel 10mo ago
  LOL https://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check/ https://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-fa...
- dyauspitr 10mo ago
  Is this satire?

black_13 10mo ago

[dead]

black_13 10mo ago

[dead]

offmycloud 10mo ago

"Your request has been blocked due to a network policy" Is Reddit going login-required now?

trianglesphere 10mo ago
They’ve gotten pretty strict if they think your IP is a scraper (i.e. coming from AWS or another cloud provider even inside a full browser environment).
MallocVoidstar 10mo ago
They ban VPNs unless you're logged in (and randomly shadowban users using them), and probably other datacenter IPs.
Quarrel 10mo ago
Just a guess, but are you in the UK and is /r/osint flagged NSFW, harmful or mature? If so, they want to age-verify you.
silisili 10mo ago
Same. Brave on Linux, no VPN. I didn't at face value care too much, as I find the site cancerous, but it did make me realize how many times I click links into it. I can't wait until a worthy successor appears.
- ritzaco 10mo ago
  https://lemmy.world https://lemmy.world isn't as big and it doesn't have active subgroups for as many things as Reddit, but for a bit of casual doom scrolling it's fully replaced Reddit for me.
RunningDroid 10mo ago
Redlib typically has less aggressive restrictions: https://farside.link/redlib/r/OSINT/comments/1opjjyv/i_may_have_found_a_way_to_spot_us_atsea_strikes/ https://farside.link/redlib/r/OSINT/comments/1opjjyv/i_may_h... (Farside.link just picks a random instance)