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Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman
You want to use a Los Angelese class attack submarine to hunt little narco subs? That's not just a waste of resources, but it's also stupid.
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Got a better idea?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman
the drug traffickers are criminals so you can't just "blow them to hell" and not expect some serious political fall-out. An attempt to arrest and seize the cargo has to be made, otherwise it's state-sanctioned murder and that opens a whole can of worms.
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The US already employs state-sanctioned murder in Pakistan (and other places around the world) with drone missile strikes. Narco criminals are classified as terrorists. And we all know that the US is "at war" with anything the US labels as a terrorist group. Narco subs are fair game under those rules. I don't see how applying the same "logic" being used against Al-Qaeda can't be applied to the drug cartels.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman
So you want the USN to task up to 3 of it's best anti-ship sumarines to destroy narco subs with torpedos that cost nearly 4 million per unit? factor in the cost of keeping these ships on station, the political fall-out and mess a state-sanctioned execution (because that's what your sugesting) will cause.
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Quarter of a
billion dollars (or more) per drug cargo load. Do the math. Torp is cheap in perspective, especially when you consider the economic damage inflicted on the nation by each shipment. Wouldn't need to use many torps before the drug cartels got the message that using subs is a bad investment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman
The PR would not be great, it would be an international bloody disaster. Imagine the PR coup nations like China and Iran will make of it. Hell you'll get folks claiming these where "research" or "recreation" subs and because a mark48 torpedo won't leave much evidence to prove otherwise there will be no way of really proving the kill was carrying narcotics, sewater does bad things to cocaine so getting evidence will be next to impossible.
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Any target that refuses to surface when challenged is by definition not a legit vessel. So, if the US blew up a narco sub, who's going to claim it was a bunch of tourists on a joyride? If you think the drug cartels are going to, you're astonishingly naive. Plus there would be wreckage on the sea floor that could (and would) be photographed that would be impossible for the drug cartels to claim was something other than a drug sub. You're assuming that the US would announce the killing immediately, instead of taking the time to gather all the proof the media would demand to see before going public with an announcement.