WASHINGTON — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) mentioned Thursday he was happy with video footage he had simply seen in a labeled briefing that confirmed two survivors of a U.S. navy strike on an alleged drug boat being killed in a follow-up strike, an incident that has alarmed lawmakers in each events and sparked requires investigations of potential battle crimes or outright homicide.
These have been “righteous strikes,” Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, informed reporters on Capitol Hill. He was one in all a number of lawmakers briefed by Admiral Frank Bradley and Joint Chiefs of Employees Chair Gen. Dan Caine on the Sept. 2 boat strikes within the Caribbean, close to Venezuela.
“The first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on Sept. 2 were entirely lawful and needful and they were exactly what we would expect our military commanders to do,” he mentioned.
Requested to explain what he noticed within the footage of the second boat strike, Cotton chuckled.
“I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat ― loaded with drugs, bound for the United States ― back over, so they could stay in the fight,” he mentioned. “And potentially, given all the context we heard, of other narcoterrorist boats in the area coming to their aid to recover their cargo and recover those narcoterrorists.”
He added, “These are narcoterrorists, foreign-designated terrorist organizations, who are bringing drugs to our shores that have killed millions of Americans and thousands of Arkansans.”
The Republican senator’s justification for these assaults ― very similar to President Donald Trump’s ― seems to be primarily based on an enormous lie: that drug smugglers have been within the means of bringing the lethal artificial opioid, fentanyl, to the U.S. Pentagon officers have informed lawmakers in latest briefings that they haven’t recovered fentanyl in any of those instances, simply cocaine.
Cotton’s feedback have been a stark distinction to the solemn reactions Democrats had as they walked out of the identical briefing.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the highest Democrat on the Home Intelligence Committee, informed reporters that “what I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”
“You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who were killed by the United States,” Himes mentioned, pausing for a number of seconds after.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the highest Democrat on the Senate Armed Companies Committee, mentioned he was “deeply disturbed” by what he noticed.
“The Department of Defense has no choice but to release the complete, unedited footage of the September 2nd strike, as the President has agreed to do,” Reed mentioned in an announcement.
“This briefing confirmed my worst fears about the nature of the Trump Administration’s military activities, and demonstrates exactly why the Senate Armed Services Committee has repeatedly requested — and been denied — fundamental information, documents, and facts about this operation,” he mentioned. “This must and will be the only beginning of our investigation into this incident.”
Requested by a reporter what he manufactured from Himes being shaken by the video footage, Cotton basically shrugged.
“I didn’t see anything disturbing about it,” mentioned the Arkansas Republican. “What’s disturbing to me is that millions of Americans have died from drugs being run to America by these cartels. What’s gratifying to me is that the president has made the decision, finally, after decades of letting it happen, that we’re going to take the battle to them and we’re going to continue to strike these boats.”
