Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is amplifying an AI-generated image of President Donald Trump, who has never served in the military, wearing a U.S. Navy uniform similar to those worn by Admirals, and claiming that he is “protecting our shores!”
Noem wrote: “President Trump LOVES the American people. That is why drug traffickers and narco-trafficking boats will no longer be allowed to transport deadly drugs into American territory. Thank you, @POTUS Trump for protecting our shores!”
The AI image is accompanied by a parody video called The Drug Boat (using an altered version of The Love Boat TV show theme song), which celebrates the fatal bombing of a boat in the Caribbean which Trump ordered, claiming the people who were on the boats were drug dealers (“terrorists”) and headed to the United States.
Note: The deadly attack in September was a departure from traditional interdiction of ships suspected of smuggling drugs in international waters. In the past, U.S. authorities (from the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard) board such vessels, seize the drugs and identify suspects to build a criminal case.
BBC News reported that since the U.S. is not engaged in war with Venezuela, the strike “runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law.”
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, spoke out against the attack. He said: “We assume these people were bad people and drug dealers, but if they were caught off the coast of Miami, we would stop the boat. They don’t shoot at us, we don’t shoot at them, they’re confiscated, they’re put in jail, and they go through a trial to prove what they were doing.”
Paul added: “The reason we have trials and we don’t automatically assume guilt is, what if we make a mistake?” Paul added: “Off our coast, it isn’t our policy to just blow people up.””
