U.S. Strikes Drug Boats in Eastern Pacific

[Webster]

(The Guardian) The US military has for the first time attacked and destroyed two boats on the Pacific side of South America, as part of its controversial fight against what it says are drug-trafficking activities.

The strikes – on Tuesday night and then early on Wednesday – killed five people, according to the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth. They came on top of at least seven other strikes in the Caribbean that have killed at least 32 people and raised tensions with Colombia and Venezuela.

Hegseth released a brief video of the Tuesday night strike, showing a small boat, half-filled with brown packages, moving along at sea. Several seconds into the video, the boat explodes and is seen floating motionless in flames.

In a post on social media, Hegseth took the unusual step of equating the alleged drug traffickers to the terror group that conducted the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. “Just as al-Qaida waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people,” Hegseth said, adding that “there will be no refuge or forgiveness – only justice”.

The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, who is in the midst of a spat with Donald Trump over the boat strikes and tariffs, said: “The attack on another boat in the Pacific … killed people. It is murder. Whether in the Caribbean or Pacific, the US government strategy breaks the norms of international law.”

Venezuela is a major drug transit zone, but the eastern Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean, is the primary area for smuggling cocaine.

US military kills five people in strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in Pacific

Latest strikes were off coast of Colombia, while seven previous attacks in Caribbean killed at least 32

www.theguardian.com

 

[gwolf666]

The recent US military strikes on boats in the Pacific, allegedly involved in drug trafficking, mark a serious escalation in America’s war on drugs and raise major ethical and legal questions. While combating organized crime is important, attacking and killing suspects without trial or international coordination sets a dangerous precedent. I believe such unilateral actions risk worsening regional instability, especially in Latin America, where tensions with countries like Colombia and Venezuela are already high. Comparing drug traffickers to terrorist groups, as the US defense secretary did, seems exaggerated and politically charged, potentially justifying excessive military intervention. These operations may destroy boats and drugs, but they do little to address the root causes of trafficking such as poverty, corruption, and weak institutions. Real progress requires international cooperation, intelligence sharing, and socio-economic development, not bombs and unilateral strikes that violate sovereignty and undermine global trust.