Trump's Murderous 'Message'
The only message that Trump is sending is that he will murder a boatful of civilians to make himself look tough.
The 11 people that the president murdered on Tuesday probably weren’t drug traffickers:
The former official also said it was unusual to have 11 people manning a vessel that could easily be crewed by two or three, especially since traffickers are always trying to maximize the amount of cargo space devoted to carrying drugs, not human beings.
In the former official’s opinion, it was more likely that the vessel was carrying migrants on a human smuggling run. It would be impossible to know for sure, however, given that any evidence of drug smuggling was destroyed in the attack.
According to Marco Rubio, the president chose to destroy the boat and kill everyone on board to “send a message.” This is one of the worst, least defensible reasons to use force. When our government kills people to “send a message,” the message that is most often received by others is that our government is deranged and trigger-happy. If the people on the boat were innocent migrants, that makes the decision to kill them to “send a message” even worse. The only message that Trump is sending is that he will murder a boatful of civilians to make himself look tough.