That's because survivors can go on the news and show that they're not drug dealers, but innocent people.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly gave a verbal order to leave no survivors behind as Donald Trump’s administration launched the first of more than a dozen attacks on alleged drug-running boats that have killed more than 80 people over the last three months.
When two survivors emerged from the wreckage, a Special Operations commander overseeing the attack ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions to “kill everybody,” according to The Washington Post, citing officials with direct knowledge of the operation.
The two men were then “blown apart in the water,” according to the report.
News of Hegseth’s alleged command follows intense legal scrutiny from international investigators and members of Congress alleging that the Trump administration’s deadly campaign amounts to illegal extrajudicial killings, which law-of-war experts speaking to The Independent have labeled outright murder and a war crime.