Great Britain, over a month ago, bowed out of helping the United States blow up boats and kill their occupants in the Caribbean. Natasha Bertrand reported in a Tuesday article at CNN that Britain had then suspended its providing of intelligence to the US that would help the US in carrying out a series of fatal attacks on boats.
Bertrand wrote that Britain, “which controls a number of territories in the Caribbean where it bases intelligence assets,” has suspended intelligence sharing it has supplied the US for years that “has helped the US locate vessels suspected of carrying drugs so that the US Coast Guard could interdict them, the sources said. That meant the ships would be stopped, boarded, its crew detained, and drugs seized.”
Using the intelligence for this “law enforcement” style of action was one thing. Using it to facilitate a murder spree is another.
Bertrand explained in the first two paragraphs of her article:
The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The UK’s decision marks a significant break from its closest ally and intelligence sharing partner and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America.
Canada has also bowed out of providing help to the US in blowing up the boats. Wrote Bertrand:
Canada, another key US ally which has helped the US Coast Guard interdict suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean for nearly two decades, has also distanced itself from the US military strikes. The sources told CNN that Canada intends to continue its partnership with the Coast Guard, called Operation Caribbean. But the country has made clear to the US that it does not want its intelligence being used to help target boats for deadly strikes, the sources told CNN.
The US military’s boat destroying campaign in the Caribbean and Pacific has since it began in early September struck 17 boats and killed at least 70 people according to a Thursday The Hill article by Filip Timotija reporting on the latest attack.
At the beginning of this US campaign to destroy boats and kill their occupants, Jacob G. Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation described clearly how it violated legal principles intended to protect people from government run amuck. “In my opinion, that’s just murder, pure and simple,” concluded Hornberger in his September 3 article “Trump’s Drug-War Murders in the Caribbean.” Key people in the British and Canadian governments likely found this same conclusion unavoidable before those governments decided to deny support for the campaign.
