New details are emerging about the Trump administration’s Sept. 2 strike on a vessel they claimed was trafficking drugs to the United States, which cast serious doubt on the validity of the military target.
According to The New York Times, “Multiple people who have seen video of the attacks say the survivors climbed on the overturned hull and waved to something overhead, a gesture interpreted as an attempt to surrender, beckoning rescue or trying to signal other alleged drug traffickers. The boat strike has drawn congressional oversight, and the legality of the entire military campaign is in dispute.”
Making matters worse, according to CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, Admiral Frank Bradley, who testified to Congress about the details of the strike this week, said that the vessel that was destroyed wasn’t even headed to the United States. Rather, “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.”
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.”
He also said he believed that the survivors clinging to the hull were trying to continue their drug run.
However, this comes as a mounting chorus of legal experts say the strikes amounted to a war crime and unlawful use of military force, contradicting the longstanding policy of interdicting and arresting the crews of drug trafficking vessels.
It also comes as new reporting says the military fired on survivors of one of the shipwrecks to eliminate them, which would be open-and-shut illegal under any interpretation of the rules of war.
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