The Pentagon claims that attacks on civilian boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific have severely curtailed the import of illegal drugs to the United States. And President Donald Trump says this has saved more than 1 million American lives. Experts call these assertions laughable and reporting by The Intercept shows that claims by the White House and War Department are baseless, phony, or both.
“The administration has failed to explain the long-term objectives of this mission or provide any evidence of reduced drug flows into the United States,” Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said about the campaign on Thursday. “I would ask for a credible answer to this most fundamental question: What is the operation actually meant to accomplish?”
Experts in the laws of war, as well as members of Congress from both parties, say the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians — even suspected criminals — who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. These summary killings are a deviation from the standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs, in which law enforcement agencies generally detained suspected drug smugglers and brought them to trial on criminal charges.
It’s almost as if most illegal drugs are stashed in cargo containers at every point of access, and we can’t possibly stop even a tiny fraction without also stopping international trade dead in its tracks.
Oh well, guess we should murder some more people to stop other people from getting high off of opiates or cocaine, our hands are tied.
No worries. Surely, increasing danger from fighting this international trade won’t encourage chemical engineers from continuing to produce even more and more deadly alternatives locally! We are so smart we stopped those darn opium dens we win drug war.