Footage seen by US senators shows two unarmed, shirtless men struggling to stay afloat before they were killed, sources say
Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.
The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters.
The pair desperately tried to turn a severed section of the hull upright before they died. “The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said.
The video of the attack on 2 September was seen by senators behind closed doors on Thursday amid growing concern that the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and other officials who ordered the attack may have committed a war crime.
So based on the news over the last few days, the folks in charge;
- Ordered an illegal strike of a fishing boat (regardless of whether it had drugs on board, the strike itself is still illegal)
- Watched two people struggle to stay alive for an hour while desperately reaching back to someone they know for SOS
- They decided that SOS call constituted two people still in a fight they had no idea they were in and murdered them for it.
America is a rogue state and has been for decades.
They didn’t even have the ability to make a SOS. That was part of the admirals original flimsy justification and a senator asked him directly if there was any evidence they had access to a radio and he said no.
Even articles condemning this attack refer to it as a “double-tap” strike, which is really misleading because that insinuates quick succession. An attack followed by a separate attack an hour later is not a double-tap
Huh, I hadn’t thought of that implication but I see what you mean. I guess it’s always been kind of misleading though, because it’s not about the delay between strikes, it’s about shooting a target that’s already been neutralized to try to kill survivors.
Seems like the specific phrase might have orginated from a 2003 order the army gave to troops in Iraq (arc), which would explain the minimizing language (while we’re on the subject - blowing someone up with a missile isn’t exactly a “tap,” either), but then groups like Amnesty International ran with it to talk about how the Bush and Obama and Trump administrations would all drone strike targets a second time to kill medical responders.
Not killing just survivors, a double tap is about killing the people who try to rescue the wounded. It is using the wounded as a trap to lure out anyone willing to help them and kill them too.
I would like a source on that.
To be crass, you double tap an enemy who is wounded as you’re advancing past them so you don’t need to waste time or resources securing or treating them.
If you’re far enough away that they’re wounded and their buddy is rushing over, well, they should’ve done the first rule of care under fire - return fire. Not my fault if they forgot to call time out. That’s not a double tap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_tap_strike
You seem to be confusing a war crime with a paintball match.
Have they even presented any evidence whatsoever that there were drugs on these boats?
The media keeps saying “suspected drug boats”, which makes it sound like they actually kind of care who they’re murdering, but I’m not convinced that’s the case. Maybe “imagined drug boats” would be more apt.
The attack began with an airburst munition exploding above the vessel and killing nine crew members. The two men who survived were then visible floating in the water.
So, there were eleven people on this small boat. Why the fuck would you have 11 people on a smuggling boat? No, this is just a random terrorist attack, perpetrated by the notorious terrorist organization know as “the US military”.
Here’s the thing, if there was drugs on the boat, killing them still isn’t ok. But no, we don’t even “know” if they are telling the truth about the drugs either. We have no idea why they want these people killed. We have to “trust” them… I don’t.
Murder.
11 counts of it.
This time.
Who was sitting there videoing them as they tried not to drown for an hour?
A fraction of the atrocities we are supporting through the IDF, but good it’s getting reported too.
Whether it takes three years or thirty the maga officials responsible for this stuff will be held accountable
I’m not holding my breath.
