Public sentiment is sharply divided regarding the US military's actions against Venezuelan drug traffickers. While there is a notable contingent supporting the strikes as necessary for combating drug-related crime and safeguarding American lives, a substantial number of comments reflect deep concerns about legality, ethics, potential harm to innocents, and motives rooted in geopolitical interests.

US Military

US Government

Venezuelan Government

They got their long overdue just reward…

BerniWrightson

baldtim92

CNN Headline

“Innocent people out fishing with their children brutally attacked.”

ChosenBrad22

Im amazed that liberals are now defending drug cartels just because "Trump bad."

largegreenvegtable

The pussies in r/combatfootage would cry if you posted this in there

Gold_Camera759

Individual-Log994

Judge declares attack was illegal and violated due process, and orders Trump to return terrorist back to life in 3 days.

Beaucoup_Fun

NiceTrySuckaz

Just the beginning… just wait. International waters are the ultimate FAFO zone.

michigannfa90

Freo_5434

[deleted]

h2ohow

blitzkriegisamust

External-Ad3608

Chance-Mix-9444

Ok-Passage8958

_-stuey-_

Liberals will still somehow say this is a bad thing

Junifer_1

That one strike saved thousands of lives from drug overdose deaths.

w1r2g3

If you like carne asada, and striking boats in the rain.

dianabowl

Sharks chomping bales of cocaine like its 1999

InTheShade007

KABOOM!!!!! GOT EM COACH...

![gif](giphy|14ceV8wMLIGO6Q)

Downtown-Price5265

Ppl on Reddit think the Mexican cartels might defeat the US military. 

The US military is watching you eat breakfast from outer space and can launch a cruise missile between your ass cheeks

Novel_Following255

phatione

AbjectFollowing1786

Purple_Salamander_25

TheOnlyFergInTown

Who knows how many "Maryland men" were on board?

Feeling-Dinner-8667

Could have done it cheaper with a 50 cal. But whatever, it's a job well done.

IndependentMonk7384

Humble-Zucchini-6237

This men have been sent to be judged by god. We can rejoice in the harm they wont be able to do, but not their death.

Ghurdill

All I see is a boat getting blown up? I usually require evidence such as actual drugs not just a blown up boat. Why aren’t we hitting Mexico where almost all South American drugs come over the border?

ForeignBarracuda8599

Maleficent-Cake1380

tomis_24

I never thought I'd live to see the day libs would openly support drug cartels and terrorists...but here we are.

Some of these comments are wild.

Crash1yz

WAHTAHMAHLONE97

Designer_Design_6019

I_am_Greer

What will the Nantucket elite do without this load?

Low-Sport2155

A nice tall serving of preserving freedom

NegotiationDry6923

SweatyDependent1440

I just creamed my pants... never came so hard... 🤣🤣

MindlessExternal4464

A boat full of drugs AKA whose boat is it??

WisePotatoChip

The Spanish government should LEARN from this. This is how the Morrocan Narcoterrorists should be dealt with. They arrive in our beaches with this shit and kill our people. Thank you, Trump.

Altruistic-Fun-9349

BonkTheConqueror

Reagan showed how tough he was by ordering an invasion of mighty powerful Grenada.  Trump showed how tough he was by hitting a speedboat.  Our enemies must be cowering.

DistrictDue1913

GonsXT

Black op designed by the Trump admin to support a military operation against  Venezuela

Legitimate-Advice-85

Since when does a drug trafficker have 11 people on a boat🤔..

Accomplished_Bus5600

The amount of people blindly trusting this administration in the comments is legitimately INSANE.

Is this really the JRE subreddit?

SpookyActionFarAway

This is insanity! Where is due process? Where is proof of drug trafficking??? Assuming that there were drugs - trafficking does not lead to capital punishment!!!

What a dark dark time

Glad_Internal_5223

trump_is_your_dad

Are we sure this isn’t just someone playing GTA and using the orbital cannon?

underwaterfrycook

You obviously have little to no knowledge of what drug addiction actually is. People regularly do horrific things to get the drugs. Sell their 4 year old daughter for the drugs, murder a stranger for 5 bucks, and even worse. It doesn’t matter how toxic or dangerous the drug is they will take it once hooked. Drugs don’t necessarily kill the person taking them. So while I understand your picture perfect world where justice is served by a court, the real world is unfortunately is quite different.

Majestic-Lifeguard29

This is way better than using our bombs on children in Gaza

GirlyFootyCoach

This was actually some subsistence fishermen who all had families. Leaker to come out today

Notsmartnotdumb2025

All these people crying that liberals want 'due process' and 'evidence' are fighting against the people who say you get no due process because you're a criminal. It's just going to suck when one day you get attacked and accused of being a criminal and you scream and cry that you're not, but oh whoops, no due process so it looks like you're a criminal with no chance to defend yourself! These could be cartel, terrorists, or fishermen, guess we'll never know!

Flawed_Individual72

This attack is terrorism. No arrest. No trial. No due process. No civil rights. Just murdering people that have never been proven guilty of anything.

dudeabiding420

So we just spent what, $2-3 million of tax payer to stop some cocaine? Cool...

Yeah, that doesn't seem worth it. How about we quit patrolling Venezuela and work on the opioid problem here.

Zephid15

what kind of evidence have you all seen that this target was legitimate? i thought we were tired of spending monies on bombs?

coochitfrita

Love nothing more than seeing cartel boats blown up, but you can bet they’ll start manning their boats with people forced to do so in the not too distant future so we’ll be likely blowing up a fair number of cartel victims.

mspe098554

Lool. Imagine sending a navy fleet, spending hundreds of millions in logistics and equipment just to take down 2-4 teenagers carrying $10 bucks worth of drugs on a $50 dollar skiff. 

What a heavy blow to the BILLION dollar cartel industry.

Can’t make this shit up

Save-Ferris-Bueller

It wasn’t moving. Was the Coast Guard LEDET boarding team not an option here?

SWO6

Not that I’m doubting our intel, but this seems wildly out of proportion and completely against like any ROEs. How are we just allowed to kill people now for drug trafficking? Ya it’s illegal and should be stopped, but these aren’t enemy combatants we’re striking here. This was just a boat not even moving.

must_think_quick

'Sir, we've spotted a small boat. They are not under power and may be in distress'.

slartbangle

Ah yes, this random ass boat was indeed full of drugs. I totally believe them at their word.

Soulkyoko

I think they were dead in the water frfr, like they weren’t going anywhere

Existing_Variation_4

The navy even has boarding teams that can conduct these operations. All small ships have these teams trained up.

Short_Location_257

Proof there were drugs? Such a waste of resources.

kakarota

So now that we've abandoned any semblance of the rule of law, due process, or morality on the high seas, what's to stop the PLAN from using the same bullshit pretext to carry out strikes on Philippine Navy ships defending their territorial waters in the SCS? They can just call "terrorist" and it's now open season.

The damage this administration is doing to our international credibility and ability to protect the rule of law is immeasurable.

BadgerMk1

Drug boats? Or random unaccompanied boats they decided to attack?


Edit- I don't see a big distinction between picking boats at random, and executing boats full of people based on an inference they *may* have drugs. 

Tricky_Topic_5714

aaronmh99

When this is behind us, I’d be interested to learn whether the courts martial are constituted before or after the order from a responsible secretary.

BriefausdemGeist

This is such theater — seriously, imagine if we got a video from Afghanistan each time three insurgents were hit by a mortar or hellfire

TheBurtReynold

TinCanSailor987

Can y’all fight a war on high op-tempo?

themooseiscool

I mean I always thought every dhow in the Persian Gulf was sus.

trythatonforsize1

Oh no, some people might get high, better commit actual murder.

Nexii801

Most of these ‘couriers’ have been threatened into doing this.

I’ll leave this here.   

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2025/september/drug-boats-where-questions-lethality-and-legality-meet  

https://www.state.gov/reports/2023-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/venezuela/ 

Edit because you don’t want to read them. The article refers to these acts as potential extrajudicial killing which is one of the first human rights complaints from the State Department against Venezuela. 

I don’t have the intel or decision making process used for these attacks, so I don’t know specifically how they align or do not align with ROE and the decision making process behind them. But it’s a concerning shift in how we do business on the high seas.

Pretend_Art5296

This honestly looks like use of excessive force. Isn't that against the escalation of force doctrine? Is it now fire and forget because we're no longer beholden to doctrine due to drone use?

CavalierIndolence

Real drug trafficking isn’t moved by small boat like this. Never ceases to amaze me how willingly delusional this nation is.

It comes over on the same boats that deliver our cars from Mexico or food and goods from South America or vessel’s that made stops in South America.

Tons, everyday, tons. Coordinated by our own citizens and government.

Scientific_Coatings

joefatmamma

Give up the crazy UAP videos, not some dudes blowing up a drug boat, I can watch that almost anywhere

Imdonenotreally

We disintegrate citizens from other countries like that? Damn.

CardiologistBulky

lerriuqS_terceS

Does anyone realize how much shit needs to be imported to supply the entire nation coast to coast, border to border 24/7?
These little insignificant stories are just to make the public believe something is being done about drugs. 🙂

bklyn221

MiniDriver

Trump doing his best to provoke a response from Venezuela.

Raven_Photography

Anyone here who has ever done boardings or stood bridge watch can spot suspicious vessels days or even weeks ahead of time thru AIS spoofing and backed up by INTEL.

While I do question the maritime legality of these strikes, and, the policies of the administration- I do have good confidence they have a positive ID on these vessels correlated by multiple sources before the strikes happen.

Guilty_Surprise_4916

AromaticEffective636

Surely there was a proper investigation into the cargo of the vessel and all hands and passengers who may have been aboard with any cargo and property being found to be illicit and people found unanimously guilty of capital crimes after a trial by jury of their peers before the commanding officer ordered the strike.

Maleficent_Law_1082

Has anyone pointed out that they are targeting boats with outboard motors?
These boats do not have the range or capacity to reach the US

cleanyour_room

“Next season on ‘The Deadliest Catch’…”

GaiusVolusenus

All cool until you shoot one with kids on it.

indifferentindium

I just want you guys to realize and take this at another point of view. These people are doing this because they need money. 

They’re not doing it because they want to. It pays very well for their country and very well for what they’re doing.

Sure they get high on it and they probably sell it to people to get high on it but they need it because they need money so let that sink in like that boat just did lol…

On one end of the spectrum, shipmates just opened up on a civilian vessel in distress murdering everyone on board.  On the other end of the spectrum there was corroborating intel indicating the vessel was a valid military target, proper procedures and authorizations were followed, and our shipmates didn’t commit a war crime under orders.  My guess it’s murky in the middle closer to valid target but not obviously so. 
Reddit shipmates- they’re all war criminals, no need to wait for more details.

leaky-raft


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Can we see the evidence of these people as drug dealers? I mean still murder but I'd like to know that he's not just taking pot shots at random people like that Nazi from Schindler's List.

CT_Phipps-Author

The US military conducted strikes against alleged Venezuelan drug vessels linked to drug trafficking cartels.

US Military Strikes Against Venezuelan Drug Traffickers

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

Parties Involved

What the people want