Despite detailed photographic evidence to the contrary, many liberals continue to assert that the Venezuelan boats recently destroyed by the U.S. Navy are merely fishing, not drug, boats. The Associated Press has jumped into the fray and in a roundabout "nuanced" way admitted that the destroyed boats are indeed drug boats. The "nuance" comes in via the AP asserting that among the crews of the drug boats, some worked mostly as fishermen or other low paying jobs with drug smuggling only as a side gig to boost their income.
The AP reluctantly made the 'nuanced' admission that the destroyed boats were drug boats on Friday with this report by Reginia Garcia Cano, "Trump has accused boat crews of being narco-terrorists. The truth, AP found, is more nuanced."
One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.
The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs. President Donald Trump and top U.S. officials have alleged the craft were being operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members bound with deadly drugs for American communities.
And the rest of the article confirms that the boats were indeed operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members who have hired some people who work part time smuggling drugs in order to supplement their incomes. Oddly, AP makes the strange assertion that the boats were probably transporting only cocaine, not synthetic opioids as if being a natural drug somehow alleviates the offense.
Trump has said each sunken boat has saved 25,000 American lives, presumably from overdoses. The boats, however, appear to have been transporting cocaine, not the far more deadly synthetic opioids that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.
Among the human interest stories about a fisherman and a bus driver who were forced due to economic circumstances aboard the drug boats were also these stories:
Luis “Che” Martínez was killed in the first strike. A burly 60-year-old, Martínez was a longtime local crime boss, and he made most of his living smuggling drugs and people across borders, according to several people who knew him.
He had been jailed by Venezuelan authorities on human-trafficking charges after a boat he had operated capsized in December 2020, killing about two dozen people, law enforcement officials said at the time. Among those who died in the accident were two of his sons and a granddaughter, relatives told the AP. The AP was not able to determine the disposition of his criminal case, but Martínez was eventually released from custody and returned to smuggling people and drugs, according to acquaintances.
...Dushak Milovcic, 24, was drawn to crime by the adrenaline rush and money, so much that he dropped out of the country’s National Guard Academy, according to those who knew him. He started as a lookout for smugglers, they said. Though he had no experience at sea, he eventually won a promotion to the more lucrative and coveted jobs on drug-running boats.
It’s not clear how many trips he had undertaken before he was killed last month.
Bottom line is that AP (while attempting to somehow alleviate the situation with "nuanced" descriptions) admitted that the destroyed boats carried drugs (either natural or synthetic) crewed by both full time drug smugglers or those working part time to supplement their income. No "nuanced" about that.
