UK pauses intelligence-sharing with US on suspected drug vessels in Caribbean
theguardian.com

・

125 points

・

beardyw

・

25 days ago

85 comments

Andaith ・ 24 days ago

As I understand it, the old system was:

- UK, Canada, Guyana, probably more countries shared intelligence on suspected drug vessels in Caribbean

- US Coast Guard accosted said vessels, searched them, arrested everyone if anything illegal was found.

Now it's:

- UK, Canada, Guyana, have all said they're not going to share intelligence, decreasing(by whatever percentage) the chances of finding a drug smuggling boat, and increasing the chance of it making its way to the USA.

- US Navy blows up what boats it does find without checking them for drugs, increasing(by whatever percentage) the chance of killing innocents, and degrading intl law & norms.

What does the US benefit from this new policy?

(Edited for formatting)

  • sjs382 ・ 24 days ago

    > What does the US benefit from this new policy?

    This really makes me feel like a conspiracy theorist, but it doesn't seem as far from reality as it should...

    If there's no response: exhibiting total dominance of the region and being able to make up whatever unverifiable statistics they want re: domestic safety (drugs, gangs, etc).

    If there is a response: potential for armed conflict which could become a pretense for interning more citizens with hispanic heritage, similar to what was done to Japanese Americans in the 1940s.

  • beardyw ・ 24 days ago

    > What does the US benefit from this new policy?

    Theatre.

kjsingh ・ 24 days ago

When you are so blood thirsty for no reason that even UK stops aiding you

umrashrf ・ 25 days ago

Certainly a right thing to do and a good step by the UK

  • gnfargbl ・ 25 days ago

    I don't think it's being looked at by the UK government through the lens of "right" or "wrong" but simply as a matter of the rule of law. If a course of action is illegal, they have to avoid it.

    • anonymousiam ・ 24 days ago

      The concept of "law" becomes foggy when you're dealing with state-backed criminals. I'm confident that the US intelligence apparatus has properly identified the perps, what they were transporting, and the cooperation they got from their "government."

      • fatbird ・ 24 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        Just like the IC story about Iraqi uranium refining was a "slam dunk"?

        That's not actually to impugn the US IC, exactly. It's more to call out that the IC can do their job thoroughly and correctly and the powers that be will misuse or misrepresent their work product for their own purposes. Unless you know otherwise, we have to consider (among other things) that the US IC has nothing showing these boats are implicated, but the admin proceeded anyway.

        You're assuming a level of adherence to norms, best practices, and laws that the current administration has demonstrated they do not do. They're not even bothering to present weak evidence.

        • anonymousiam ・ 23 days ago
          ・ 3 more

          Remember that Saddam was not cooperating with UNMOVIC, and not denying that he was building nukes. It seems crazy that he would do this until you recognize that his power depended upon being seen as strong and defiant of "The Great Satan."

          Yeah, it turned out that he wasn't building nukes, but he provably did have WMD (chemical weapons), and had used them.

          I don't doubt that GWB wanted "to finish the job" that his father started, and may have influenced the IC into producing "evidence" to support his goals. Obama did the same thing with the "Russia Collusion" hoax.

          Most civil servants are stand up people who would never go along with anything illegal or unethical. The politicians are a different breed.

          • fatbird ・ 23 days ago
            ・ 2 more

            Most civil servants are stand up people

            I will agree with this from personal experience. I've worked with several gov'ts on various projects and found almost everyone to be simply interested in doing their job well.

            The story of the Iraq War and how faulty intelligence played into it is very different from that view. You have George Tenet, head of the CIA, telling GWB that the intel was a slam dunk for Iraqi attempts to build nukes when there was no such intel. Colin Powell, the day before his presentation to the UN on the Iraqi nuke program, went to Langley and demanded to review the evidence himself. When shown the paltry shreds they'd collected, he blew up at Tenet, saying "this is all you've got?"

            Cheney set up his own mini-intel operation in the White House, headed by Douglas Feith, to look at the "raw" intel and construct their own case because the CIA analysts were unwilling to produce a National Security Assessment saying the same. It was 100% a case of the admin claiming that the US IC supported their policies when they did not (and the IC wasn't free to publicly dispute it).

            The integrity of the IC is not a reason to believe that any admin has their work product to justify their actions... especially when they won't reveal that evidence.

            • anonymousiam ・ 23 days ago

              The problem with revealing the evidence is the risk it poses to the "methods and sources." For this reason, it's highly unusual for CIA to release "raw" intel to anybody. They always want to "process" it. This feature can be exploited by politicians, as it was by President Obama and John Brennan against their political adversaries.

              South American governments that refuse to stop the cartels are in effect supporting them. The cartels are powerful, and use any and every means to get what they want. The US recently offered to help Claudia Sheinbaum, and that offer was rejected. Nicolás Maduro is most likely supportive of the cartels because they pay him, and their actions are destructive to his enemies (namely us).

              https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-confirms-he-off...

      • deadbolt ・ 24 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        Would you like to buy a bridge?

        • anonymousiam ・ 24 days ago
          ・ 3 more

          Having spent over 40 years working with the US IC, I'm very much aware of the extent of their capabilities.

          • onlypassingthru ・ 24 days ago
            ・ 2 more

            So then you're undoubtedly aware the executed are just lowly mules and nobody of any significance was/is turned into fish food.

            • anonymousiam ・ 23 days ago

              If they have the cooperation/encouragement of their government, how is this any different from a military attack? How should we respond to a military attack? Should we try to arrest and prosecute the attackers? If we adopt that attitude, we may just as well eliminate our entire military. What do you suppose would happen then?

klipklop ・ 25 days ago

The UK historically is no stranger to supporting (and benefiting from) opium wars. They have a history of preferring drugs to flow when it benefits them. It's a sad state of affairs on both sides if you ask me.

  • watwut ・ 24 days ago

    UK just dont want to help murders aka extrajudicial executions of another country. That is healthy position to take, even if UK is not a country with history of sainthood.

    • whycome ・ 24 days ago

      I think the UK is still the highest court for a bunch of independent countries in the Caribbean. And also they still have a few colonies there (Montserrat? Etc)

      So, they still have a vested interest in the safety of its subjects who may be using the international waters in the Caribbean. Even if those persons aren’t directly affected, they may be reluctant to perform their normal activities (like fishing).

    • klipklop ・ 24 days ago

      It's easy to be seated on a moral high horse when it's politically convenient for them. The UK had no problems just a few years ago blowing up ISIS arms dealers in Syria that had nothing to do with their country. At least in this case the drugs are en route to the US to directly harm it. The harm those drugs cause to the US is massive.

      I know that saying "well they did crime X" is not a good argument, I am just pointing out how silly it all is.

metalman ・ 24 days ago

it is impossible not wonder why there are not very fast uncrewed interceptor boats that would handle these situations,great big hydrofoils that just jam in there and litteraly grab a drug boat, drop a ladder down for the poor bastards to climb up, into there surrender cell for there remote debreef and a mre, if they are part of drug smuggling, it is strait off to some prison/mine and if they are bieng trafficed or other innocent, they get a phone. the main thing is that there is no excuse for ANY drug boats getting through, and the US, trillion dollar+ military/coast guard should be perfecly capable of intecepting and inspecting anything and everything in US waters without it bieng a stretch or any big deal. but then we come full circle, and the fact is that drug demand is driven by peoples lives, sucking so bad, and that is systemic in origin, with a ready domestic industry there to manufacture all the drugs, and more

zkmon ・ 25 days ago

UK is a confused country now on many fronts. They did Brexit, and having second thoughts about it. Prisoners keep getting released by mistake. Excel sheets are shared by mistake and the coverup results in a mess.

  • BryantD ・ 25 days ago

    The Netherlands has also cut back on intelligence sharing with the US: https://intelnews.org/2025/10/20/01-3416/

    • AniseAbyss ・ 24 days ago

      The Netherlands has Caribbean islands off the coast of Venezuela. If the US blows up a bunch of fishermen by accident it would be awkward. You can actually sue the Dutch government for this kind of thing and win.

  • jacquesm ・ 25 days ago

    But what did you think of the article?

    • zkmon ・ 25 days ago

      I meant that UK is confused about it's foreign policy, allies, domestic politics etc. The decision seems technically correct, for now. But can they hold on to this direction? They just celebrated the tariff deal handed-off to them by the same man.

      • throo0000ss ・ 25 days ago

        I don't think they're confused. They support some actions, but clearly they're not going to support someone no matter what they do.

        They supported Israel's right to defend themselves. That support evaporated when Israel decided to continue a war that was doing more than just removing Hamas. In this case, they're probably okay with fighting drug traffic, but not with blowing up random boats and killing those in them without any due process and any proof of them being drug traffickers... or whatever is going on with Venezuela.

        Things like Brexit are different. Some managed to convince part of the population that the UK could be stronger alone and dictate terms to a much larger and stronger economic block. But reality doesn't care about what we believe and the UK still has to trade with the EU, be aligned in terms of laws and standards, be part of defense alliances, etc. The current government could ignore this reality and do what the previous government was doing, but clearly that wasn't working.

  • bamboozled ・ 25 days ago

    America feels very confused too, so there’s that…

    • watwut ・ 24 days ago

      America is not confused. It is super confident and its party in power is doing exactly what they worked for hard for decades.

      • mcswell ・ 24 days ago
        ・ 5 more

        I'll agree, up to the last word: s/decade/year/. The Republican party of a couple decades ago was an entirely different thing. I'd even go so far as to call the current Trumplican Party "RINO"s, because they bear little or no resemblance to the GOP.

        • antonvs ・ 24 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          Much of what we're dealing with now has been in the works since at least around 1950. The Southern Strategy is well-documented, for example. The party's position on restricting voting has been consistent over the years.

          Reagan's opposition to social programs (demonizing "welfare queens") and outright racism was a big part of why he was elected. (Reagan quote from the Nixon recordings: "To see those monkeys from those African countries. Damn them. They're still uncomfortable wearing shoes.")

          It wasn't a coincidence that Reagan began his presidential campaign where civil rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, with the cooperation of local law enforcement.

          That is what is at the heart of the Republican Party, and has been for at least 75 years. There are many other examples of this kind of thing.

          What you're describing from a couple of decades ago was essentially a facade, a mask. What's changed in recent years is that the mask has come off - as members of the party feel increasingly threatened by people who they see as unlike themselves, they can no longer afford the pretense of respectability.

          • mcswell ・ 23 days ago

            The idea that your opponents were merely masking themselves is simply a way of pillorying them. And both sides do it to each other: the right accuses the left of only pretend to care about the poor. And it's wrong, no matter whether the left or the right is doing it.

        • watwut ・ 24 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          I dont agree here. Party did not chamged last year at all. This is what the conservatives worked for a long time. They set it up so that things happen this way. The moderates would prefer someone more respectable and less hysterical to lead it, but that is just a difference of style.

          There is nothing RINO about current republican party. It is logical consequence and result of this recent history and of what its voters believe in.

          • mcswell ・ 23 days ago

            "The moderates would prefer someone more respectable and less hysterical to lead it, but that is just a difference of style." I'll just say that I disagree.

Woodi ・ 24 days ago

Maybe US have a bigger problem with drugs then drugs dilers and their minors ? Like for example: US civilians drug usage ? Maybe that should be "healed" first ?

hollerith ・ 24 days ago

The UK government might consider the faction currently in power in Washington to be a bigger enemy than any drug cartel.

cluckindan ・ 25 days ago

[flagged]

  • eastbound ・ 25 days ago

    Let’s not blame people when we have no proof and when the result is aligned with the rule of law. That discourages honest people from doing good things, which is particularly needed in the current times.

    As much as I align with USA on war with Venezuela for political reasons, pretending it’s for drugs and using the army for it remains a …new behavior?

    1. Either an illegal course of action,

    2. Or a legal course of action if we interpret international agreements (that USA didn’t sign) a certain way, but which stretch current definitions, and therefore gives an excuse for China to act the same in Asian seas.

    In either cases, humanity loses. The UK is defending the right side here, or at least tries not to dip in USA’s sauce. For once.

    • antonvs ・ 24 days ago

      > As much as I align with USA on war with Venezuela for political reasons

      Following that logic, would you also align on war with USA for political reasons, given the clear anti-democratic goals of the current administration?

      • eastbound ・ 24 days ago
        ・ 2 more

        Rhetorical question. But to answer it: The antidemocratic thing I’ve seen is creating 20 million votes out of thin air, that disappeared in the following elections when we knew what kind of cheating to monitor for. That you don’t agree with one side doesn’t make it antidemocratic. And certainly doesn’t justify rigging an election.

        • antonvs ・ 24 days ago

          You didn't answer the question. You wrote that you "align with USA on war with Venezuela for political reasons." You think it's justified to declare war on another country because of internal corruption?

          There has absolutely been enough well-documented corruption in the current US administration for someone with that mindset to say that a forcible "regime change" in the US is justified. Your position is purely a "might makes right" one with no moral basis.

          Edit: you should watch the movie "Team America: World Police". It might help you understand exactly how ridiculous this idea of a country appointing itself as a global enforcer of its own ideals[*] is.

          [*] Ideals that are invariably corrupt and/or hypocritical in the first place.

  • AniseAbyss ・ 24 days ago

    When Escobar was shot did people run out of cocaine?

    Americans just want to blow shit up and kill people- preferably with million dollar missiles.

Molitor5901 ・ 25 days ago

[flagged]

  • adriand ・ 25 days ago

    > why […] not comply with an airplane or boat that is clearly attempting to interdict?

    They aren’t trying to interdict! They’re just killing people.

  • isr ・ 25 days ago

    Just off the top of my head:

    - these boats are not in American waters. They are in their own, or neighbouring countries waters, and are being attacked by vessels whose home waters are 1000s of km's away

    - they are not being interdicted (which is illegal kidnapping anyway, see above). They are just being killed. Plain and simple.

    To put your argument back to you. Latin American countries who are combating narcotics trading armed paramilitarys, who are mostly getting their arms from US supply chains. So, for example, Mexico is entitled to go into US waters, and "interdict" American-owned boats with US citizens on board? Without any kind of warrant from even the Mexican courts, much less US courts?

    Or, scratch that. Mexico just sinks them.

    Should be ok, right?

    • energy123 ・ 25 days ago

      Your worldview is built on top of the assumptions of liberalism: international law, sovereignty determined by institutions like the UN, etc.

      The people who support this are not liberals when it comes to international affairs, even if they might be (but often are not) liberals at home. They know that they're violating international law. But they don't care because they do not value international law as it is currently constructed. They see it as an unjust imposition, made up by a bunch of lawyers and diplomats, that prevents them from securing their own interests.

      • horisbrisby ・ 24 days ago

        The trouble for these people is that politics has not been openly this way since the cold war because the position is untenable. A group that gets its power by pushing the doomsday clock is ultimately dependent on some counter force putting seconds back.

      • isr ・ 25 days ago
        ・ 4 more

        I understand what you're saying. But, I don't have any "liberal assumptions". The Gaza Holocaust has demonstrated that there really is no such thing as international law, because there's no enforcement against certain parties, because they are deemed too powerful to touch (US empire, essentially).

        Note, that's not the world I like to see. It's just the world we have.

        But pointing out the outright hypocrisy of certain parties actions, vis a vis international law, natural law, or even "what if we flipped the tables?", is always worthwhile (I hope). Even if it's just shouting into the wind

        • HeinzStuckeIt ・ 25 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          > Gaza Holocaust

          There was only one Holocaust, the Shoah. Even if the Gaza events qualified as a genocide, a label that can be applied to many such events throughout time and place, that is still not a Holocaust.

          • aziaziazi ・ 23 days ago

            Well if you're going to argue with words, there was one Holocaust but many holocausts:

            > Extensive destruction of a group of animals or (especially) people; a large-scale massacre or slaughter.

            However it's discussed if "Holocaust" is a good term to describe the Shoah:

            > This use of the term has been criticised because it appears to imply that there was a voluntary religious purpose behind the Nazi actions

            https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/holocaust

        • energy123 ・ 25 days ago

          I mean it's not nearly comparable to the Holocaust either in means or scale or intent or cause or any other dimension, and I reject these rhetorical games that try to get something labelled a certain way to achieve a persuasion outcome.

    • HeinzStuckeIt ・ 25 days ago

      It’s a frequently met claim right now that the USA killing foreigners that its president deems adversaries on their boats is something unprecedented and beyond the pale, lacking necessary authorization like criminal charges and trials or declaration of war. But one of the very first foreign actions the USA did as a nascent country, still very high on all the eighteenth-century concepts of rights that inspired the American Revolution and Constitution, was send a naval force to kill a bunch of Barbary pirates with charges filed, no trial, and no formal declaration of war by Congress.

      • isr ・ 25 days ago

        Well, we're all aware that the term "gunboat diplomacy" has been in use for centuries.

        The Barbary Wars was an interesting case of how multiple naval forces were engaging in piracy etc against each other. Barbary vessels in the Med. British against US shipping (that, and press ganging sailors, was one of the public reason for the 1812 war). And, funnily enough, American privateers doing exactly the same thing to the British colonial shipping in the Caribbean (piracy plus press ganging)

        In this current scenario, the only real connection would be that the US are the pirates.

  • dragonwriter ・ 25 days ago

    > First paragraph sums it up in a nutshell, but putting aside the violence, why would a fishing boat, or some other non-illegal-operations vessel, not comply with an airplane or boat that is clearly attempting to interdict?

    For one thing, the US forces aren't even attempting to “interdict”, so the question has a false implicit premise.

    Second, consider if it Venezuelan government vessels or aircraft attempting to “interdict” US vessels in US or international waters on the premise that they were suspected of running arms that might be used in Venezuela.

    • ahmeneeroe-v2 ・ 25 days ago

      "What if they did that to us?"

      We have a navy precisely because people have tried to do this to us and we decided we'd rather own the water.

      • jacquesm ・ 25 days ago
        ・ 6 more

        You don't. There is such a thing as Maritime Law and this completely flouts it, it is simply extrajudicial killing by an administration on a power trip. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. The USA will pay for this for decades to come.

        Just for a second consider Canada bombing a US vessel that they suspect is running drugs.

        • ahmeneeroe-v2 ・ 24 days ago
          ・ 5 more

          Who will make us pay? And is that cost less or more than the cost of hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths?

          • dragonwriter ・ 24 days ago
            ・ 2 more

            > Who will make us pay?

            No one, directly.

            Indirectly, undermining our own credibility when we try to foster a rule-based order that doesn't require constant resort to expensive (in both lives and treasure) applications of hard power, OTOH, will have a cost.

            > And is that cost less or more than the cost of hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths?

            It doesn't matter, because this campaign won't in any reasonable scenario prevent hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths, it will just add a bunch of deaths from international armed conflict on top of it.

            • ahmeneeroe-v2 ・ 24 days ago

              >credibility

              Okay this cost seems worth it.

          • jacquesm ・ 24 days ago
            ・ 2 more

            Supply follows demand. Address the demand and the supply will disappear. You can't just go and kill other people on the high seas without due process just because you believe that they are criminals. Unless they're attacking you (piracy) there isn't much you can do until they (a) enter your waters or (b) you board them, find out that they are indeed smuggling and that the product is intended for your country (not everything that is illegal in the USA is so elsewhere). This is not controversial.

            As for who will make you pay: the future. That's how it's always been.

            Remember how 9/11 was just a bunch of guys in a tent far away being pissed off at the USA and it caused you a national trauma that has pretty much set the country on a path of self destruction. Make no mistake: Bin Laden won the war, even if he got killed. And for peanuts. Right now the same is happening with Russia and the USA still has not learned its lesson: morality of action is important because otherwise there will be a reaction even if you can't image that the bill will be presented at some point.

            As for my own country: we got stupendously lucky given all of the blood and the crimes this country is built on, not unlike the USA. But at least we refrain from giving the world the finger and pretending we're too big to fail (we're not). It really pays off to realize that the USA is not larger than the rest of the world and if you make enough enemies sooner or later they join up against you.

            This is one of the reasons why people in general are well behaved, even the ones that don't have a good moral compass: they know that the future will catch up with them and that there usually is an interest component so it pays off to play nice.

            • ahmeneeroe-v2 ・ 24 days ago

              >You can't just go and kill other people on the high seas without due process

              You actually can. It's actually the standard way.

              The rest of what you say is nonsense. The world pretended it was true in the post-WWII liberal world order, but it wasn't true then or now.

      • dragonwriter ・ 25 days ago
        ・ 3 more

        Yes, my point is that there is no principled justification for the behavior, it is simply unprincipled application of power and might makes right.

        • ahmeneeroe-v2 ・ 24 days ago
          ・ 2 more

          The principle is that of self-defense. Drugs have killed more Americans in recent years than did all of our 20th century military actions. We are right to use military force (and not judicial force) to meet this threat.

      • throwawayqqq11 ・ 25 days ago

        Maybe some day you might decide to just own UK intelligence.

  • me_smith ・ 25 days ago

    Are they actually trying to stop them first?

  • zoklet-enjoyer ・ 25 days ago

    Imagine I'm off the coast of Washington and a Russian plane or ship tries to stop me. Why would I comply?

    • I_Am_Nous ・ 24 days ago

      If the threat is the Russian plane or ship will blow you to burning pieces if you don't, why wouldn't you? Proving a point that leaves you dead isn't usually the best course of action.

      • zoklet-enjoyer ・ 24 days ago

        Death might be preferable to a lifetime in a Russian prison.

    • ahmeneeroe-v2 ・ 25 days ago

      Yes! Absolutely yes! Comply and wait for friendlies to come to your aid.

  • bestouff ・ 25 days ago

    Do you mean like the Latinos who should let ICE officers do their job peacefully ?

FridayoLeary ・ 24 days ago

UK pauses intelligence-sharing with US on suspected narco terrorist vessels in Caribbean

Fixed it.

These guys are responsible for scores of thousands of deaths a year, both in the US and their own countries i have no idea why they are getting so much sympathy here.

  • tototrains ・ 24 days ago

    Typically suspects of crime are arrested, which brings them to a trial (Habeus Corpus) in which that evidence must be presented and assessed, and then a consistent punishment is meted out. What is happening is called extrajudicial murder.

    Be aware that the US is constructing casus belli for invading Venezuela, who has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. There is more at play.

    • FridayoLeary ・ 24 days ago

      I keep hearing that. I don't know law so i have some questions. Do countries/US have to respect that outside their own borders? Why in war is that dispensed with. I.E what is the underlying framework? How is it legal under US law to assassinate people/terrorists outside their borders? (i feel the answer is that in the US and most countries, they can do whatever they want to people outside their borders. I.E. There is no special constitutional protection for them. The only restrictions are aimed at not starting wars. I could be wrong about this. I'm not fluent in your constitution. The UK has no clear constitution either)

      These are obvious questions, but i feel we don't agree on fundamentals here so it's important to clarify them.

      For you: Do you think the US is facing a serious drug crisis? If they are, who is responsible for it? What do you think the correct response should be?

      Do statistics show a significant drop in drug deaths? If yes, and i don't know, why would your response have better results?

      Venezuela is too complicated, so i won't include it in my current discourse, unless you think it's the key factor without which no debate could be had. I'm not sure why that would be because there are plenty of other South America drug exporters.

  • fatbird ・ 24 days ago

    Because it's very doubtful they're actually transporting drugs at all. The US has presented no evidence of it, and they're well practiced at stopping, boarding, and searching such boats. They could do that here, perp-walk the guilty crew, and photograph them in front of barrels of illegal drugs, but instead they just blow them up and say "trust us". The boats aren't even capable of reaching the US. When they've picked up survivors, they're repatriated them rather than take them to the US for trial.

    Also, "narco-terrorist" is a nonsense designation meant to allow the US to apply GWOT methods and tactics against drug traffickers.

  • zippothrowaway ・ 24 days ago

    Because we have laws? If you don't care about laws then don't come crying when the guns are turned on you.