United States of America

US Caribbean/Pacific Strikes: Two New Fatalities Bring Total to 188

Is the U.S. military's war on drug traffickers a necessary crackdown or a costly and lawless distraction?

Published 2 hours ago

US Caribbean/Pacific Strikes: Two New Fatalities Bring Total to 188

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Above: An MV-22 Osprey aircraft and an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter on the flight deck of the USS Iwo Jima in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 15. Image credit: Ricardo Arduengo/AFP/Getty Images

The Spin

Pro-Trump narrative

The U.S. military is doing exactly what needs to be done — hitting drug-trafficking vessels along known smuggling routes and making narcoterrorists pay a real price. With at least 188 kills since September, Operation Southern Spear signals that America is serious about stopping the cartels from flooding the country with deadly drugs. This is an armed conflict, and treating it like anything less has cost American lives for decades.

OSINTdefender on X

Epoch Times on X

Anti-Trump narrative

Cocaine seizures at U.S. borders have actually gone up since the boat strikes began, and fentanyl — the top killer — doesn't even travel by sea from South America. The military can't meet the evidentiary burden to prosecute survivors, meaning these are extrajudicial killings of low-level laborers, not kingpins. Meanwhile, Trump pardoned a president convicted of smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.

Benjamin Gedan on X Intercept

Prof. Paul Brown, PhD on X