XPost: sci.military.naval, alt.politics.republicans, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   From: noreply@mixmin.net   
      
   The Pentagon announced on Thursday that the US military had conducted   
   another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics,   
   killing four men in the eastern Pacific, as questions mount over the   
   legality of the attacks.   
      
   Video of the new strike was posted on social media by the US southern   
   command, based in Florida, with a statement saying that, at the   
   direction of Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, “Joint Task Force   
   Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in   
   international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization”.   
      
   “Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics   
   and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern   
   Pacific. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” the   
   statement added.   
      
   The footage showed a large explosion suddenly overtaking a small boat as   
   it moved through the water, followed by an image of a vessel in flames   
   and dark smoke streaming overhead.   
      
   It is the 22nd strike the US military has carried out against boats in   
   the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, bringing the death toll of   
   the campaign to at least 87 people since September when the strikes   
   began.   
      
   The first publicly announced strike in nearly three weeks, it comes as   
   the Pentagon and the White House have struggled to answer questions   
   about the legal basis for the campaign to kill suspected drug smugglers.   
   US lawmakers have promised to investigate the first such attack, in   
   September, in which two survivors clinging to wreckage were killed in a   
   follow-on strike.   
      
   Hegseth has faced increasing scrutiny over the 2 September strike   
   following a report from the Washington Post that the defense secretary   
   had verbally directed the military to “kill them all”. On Thursday, a   
   Democratic lawmaker introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth,   
   pointing to the boat strike and a report that found he broke rules by   
   sharing information about an attack on Signal, but such an effort is   
   unlikely to succeed.   
      
   The US admiral who commanded the attack told lawmakers on Thursday that   
   there was no such order to kill everyone aboard. Still, Jim Himes, a   
   Democratic congressman from Connecticut, described the footage of the   
   September strike, which reportedly showed two survivors clinging to the   
   wreckage, as “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in   
   public service”.   
      
   “You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of   
   locomotion, with a destroyed vessel,” Himes said.   
      
   Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, disagreed, saying the   
   footage showed “two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs,   
   bound for the United States, back over so they could stay in the fight”   
   and that nearby “narco terrorists” may have been coming to rescue them.   
      
   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/04/pentagon-boat-strike-paci   
   fic   
      
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