Readers write

Blowing up boats imperils safety of all Americans

I’m shocked that there’s no one in Washington, D.C., who has a little foresight.

With the U.S. blowing boats out of the water left and right, how long will it be before other countries start emulating the U.S.? And, blowing up Americans on a private boat with no evidence of wrongdoing? And, no legally required due process of the law?

This administration is setting an extremely dangerous precedent that imperils the safety of American citizens around the world.

Trump puts the safety of all American lives in jeopardy.

D.C. VARN, ATLANTA

No due process, no concern for ‘bad guys’ at sea

Is this the U.S.? I hardly recognize my country anymore. Shocking news hits in such rapid succession that my capacity for outrage is diluted by yet another outrage coming on its heels.

Recent developments include the fact that our military, which surely has the capacity to seize suspected drug-runner boats in the Caribbean and arrest and convict the “bad guys,” is ordered to just summarily kill them all. And if you don’t kill them on the first try, shoot them as they flounder in the sea. No due process, no possibility of discovering whether an error is being made, no trial, no concern that this may be “cruel and unusual punishment” that may not fit the crime.

We can’t know if these obliterated boats hold some poor deck hand making a dollar a day, or who may be on board only against his will because he was enlisted at gunpoint. We can’t trust our government sufficiently to know if all of these boats even contain drugs or if this is primarily to invoke a provocation for war with Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former Honduran president convicted of flooding the U.S. with drugs, was pardoned by our El Presidente. Congress does nada. Is this the U.S?

R. HAL MEEKS JR., ATLANTA