The U.S. military on Tuesday struck a drug boat from Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, as tensions spike between the Trump administration and the Venezuelan government.
Yes. These are normally handled by the Coast Guard. There’s a reason the Coast Guard vessels are armed. They can more than handle anything a cartel drug boat is carrying. They’re heavily armed enough that most intercepted vessels surrender without a fight. Actually taking fire is extraordinarily rare.
There is absolutely zero reason to waste US Navy vessels on this. It appears Trump just blew up a random boat that could have easily been intercepted. Even assuming it is a drug boat, this attack is completely detrimental to fighting the drug trade. If you intercept the vessel, you can interrogate the crew, gather evidence from the vessel, and help crack the cartel network they are a part of. But you can’t do any of that with a corpse-filled wreck on the bottom of the ocean.
Yes. These are normally handled by the Coast Guard. There’s a reason the Coast Guard vessels are armed. They can more than handle anything a cartel drug boat is carrying. They’re heavily armed enough that most intercepted vessels surrender without a fight. Actually taking fire is extraordinarily rare.
There is absolutely zero reason to waste US Navy vessels on this. It appears Trump just blew up a random boat that could have easily been intercepted. Even assuming it is a drug boat, this attack is completely detrimental to fighting the drug trade. If you intercept the vessel, you can interrogate the crew, gather evidence from the vessel, and help crack the cartel network they are a part of. But you can’t do any of that with a corpse-filled wreck on the bottom of the ocean.
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To be more detailed, The firearms serve another purpose than just returning fire in a gunfight. The coast gaurd often disable the engines of boats they’re pursuing by shooting the engine.
Course, these are more just guidelines. How the coast gaurd actually conducts itself is likely adapted to the situation.