Let's acknowledge that your blog is about defense issues - mostly maritime - not drug policy.
Let's acknowledge that you are writing and publishing and putting it out there unlike the majority of us.
Against all of that - or in accordance with all of that - none of this would be an issue if there wasn't a lucrative market for the product. As long as the market remains, and remains stupidly profitable, we will continue to have these sorts of discussions.
Lemme guess... you have a toddler who wants to eat potato chips all day for breakfast, lunch, dinner... you put it on the low shelf and make it easy, right? Forget that it also attracts bugs and rodents into your environment. There is a lucrative market for porn, child sex slaves, grown women sex slaves, nuclear weapons, and all sorts of other unsavory things. Do we just not fight those either? None of this would be an issue if people weren't broken, sinful or criminal, but that's the world we live in and adults do what they can to mitigate the evil so that the innocent are not harmed right and left. Surrendering to evil because there is a market for it is the wimp's way out.
Well, it's certainly not a binary world, right? And it's also a world where we have limited money, time, and calories to spend on anything. And many things are competing for that money, time, and those calories.
The US prohibition taught us that people are indeed broken and sinful and often choose poorly, but it also taught us that ignoring the supply-side created its own set of problems. So, allowing for alcohol consumption with guard rails that both tried to save people from the worst of themselves while also making it silly to try and bootleg competitively, ended up being the imperfect way ahead. Kill the incentive for illegal behavior, mitigate the worst effects on society.
I would hazard a guess that our ROI for each "war on drugs" dollar would be more effective in controlling the market than it is in trying to strangle supply. Money will always talk; people will always find a way, which gets at your point about human nature and fallibility.
In any event, it is not a matter of surrendering, it is a matter of which is the most effective way to fight...or in this case, which way(s) are the most effective in combination.
Look, I was a teen during the "JUST SAY NO" era. I've never smoked a cigarette even. Not my thing. But I know people whose lives were screwed up because they chose poorly. And entire cities became no go zones. Now it's not smuggling weed or cocaine. It's poison that will kill, no second chances, no do-overs. I raised children who avoided addiction and all that brings with it. But they lost friends. Now I have grandchildren. I don't want them growing up with this garbage flooding their schools and their world. Your alternative is to what? Make our own here to undercut the competition like some pharmaceutical brewery or distillery? How about not encouraging stuff that fries the brains of our future? To control the market your way is to control stupidity and free will, none of which is even possible, judging by the comments here today. But you can make the peddlers of death think twice about loading that fast boat. And you can have an instant death penalty for drug dealers in this country. Load the risk on the other end of the financial equation for once.
We must be close to the same age since I was a 1980s high school student, a college student, and a Marine Corps enlistee.
I am not arguing anything so much as I'm trying to lay out the policy realities based on the way we deal with other things, such as alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, and pornography. None of these are particularly healthy (some are actual killers), many exploit people's weaknesses, they are not really "victimless," and our society has chosen to legalize them with guardrails of varying effectiveness.
Some of those guardrails significantly involve controlling how they are made, marketed, and available on the front end, as well as where they can be consumed, used, and to what legal extent on the backend.
None of them cede the battlespace to the creators and makers; all of them put boundaries on users and consumers.
So if I have a proposal at all, it starts with my first post where I acknowledged Cdr Salamander being entirely correct AND that we had to do something with the market too. Not either in isolation.
This phase of the forever drug war receives significant attention because it has become a scourge on the white population versus the crack epidemic that was largely killing the black population at significant rates and destroying their communities.
Beyond the obvious failure of a decades long effort to control supply, no concerns seem to address about why so many Americans indulge in dangerous drug use and what might be done about it. In the end, drug use in America is our problem. not some boat guy riding point to draw fire so the rest can skate through. Interception of supply should be pursued but sinking a few boats does nothing to inhibit the continued use of dangerous street drugs.
I see it as a good start, eventually we will get good enough to sink even more and kill crews. It also gives the Military live fire training and Intel and makes the drug smugglers nervous.
We have to hit the fabrication sites for these Non specific Drug smuggling water craft That means SEAL, SF and Marine raids and actual war where these are emplaced.
Not working the demand side very much negates the moral authority of a military dimension regardless of any other factor like due process. Not that due process doesn't count. Are we going to sink box ships that have lead tainted kids toys aboard?
Base animal need: To protect the young and stupid so they can become old and wise. Check. Failing at being human by wanting to blast boats with enough poison to kill every man, woman and child in the USA to smithereens? Sadistic? Who is sadistic? The people who carefully wrap that vile cargo in plastic and load it and send it to our shores? Or me for not wanting to make such vile crime pay? Phib, where did all the real men go who used to hang around the Porch? You enjoy being "human" but I see you as the kind of monster who looks the other way while lives are ruined and families are destroyed and criminals take over entire regions. That you compare pills hiding fentanyl with lead toys shows a lot. None of it good.
Adding: Those who enjoy their position on the moral "high ground" can enjoy the view.... which includes the cemeteries surrounding them down in the trenches full of people who chose poorly, or were bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time, or any number of other circumstances that silenced them. Sometimes the battle is really all down in the trenches. Because that's where the enemy is. He's not on the high ground and never has been. Sometimes you have to take it to the enemy. Eventually the enemy makes its way up to the high ground, and there you are sitting all alone with nothing but your smug moral superiority to protect you.
Problem is you can't even keep dope out of prisons, so how do you think you can keep it out of the entire free country? Or are you willing to sacrifice all of our freedoms to save some of us from their own stupidity?
Longer, harsher drug users prison time. Change the attitude of lenient Judges and politicians who want Americans to be free to kill themselves with drugs.
Pot smokers are drop outs, it retards competitiveness, makes the user somnolent and dumb, caused more people to drop out of achievement and end up in nowhere jobs with the ultimate goal of simply obtaining more pot and sitting around smoking their troubles away, teaching their children the same lifestyle so you could say dopers are in self made prison all their lives.
As for Texas those locked up for long prison sentences did stopped smoking pot didn't they Cheech?
I've watch smokers graduate to acid, Black beauties, meth, heroin, and now fentanyl, and drunks crawl into bottles and simply drink themselves to death.
Longer harsher prison sentence s does stop pot smoking while the dopers are in prison that's for sure.
You do know that this is killing Americans? If not the unnamed American population, how about Prince? Tom Petty? Lots of people have been killed by the illegal drugs smuggled in by the cartels. China is the main beneficiary. Do some homework.
No, it could be a 7th grader who took a pill that their buddy gave them that had fentanyl in it. Stupid starts early. But I guess it's okay if it's another person's kid, huh?
It's almost like baiting a field and then shooting a target rich environment. You get a two-fer. Training for our guys and elimination of unsavory actors in other countries. Win-win!
The only objection I have is the complete absence of Little Crappy Ships from this operation. Isn’t this the kind of thing they were built for? Or just to clutter the piers in Mayport?
Umm, do a search of fuel capacity of both LCS class with nominal fuel capacity and consumption. Then take a look using OSINT if fleet refueling capability and current operational tempo. Finally, look at US ports and location of possible fuel supply and replenishment.
Or read the other Sal’s recent comments about the requirement to refuel the current operational tempo.
Thanks for the info. I did what I could for digging into it and I can't find anything that tells me it's a problem.
Freedom Class has a range of 3500nm @18kt
Independence is 4300nm @ 18kt
Burke is 4400nm @20kt
Yeah Freedom is lacking a bit in endurance but it's not that huge a difference.
I did see that unrepping is apparently tricky for the LCS, so more time alongside could be an issue. But I think that a pair of AOs for a CVBG is probably standard so don't see this effort as much tougher. And distance to ports isn't that far in the AO. If need be the LCSes could hit Gitmo or Rosey Roads to top off.
USS Minneapolis Saint Paul LCS 21 just returned a week ago Monday from a six month deployment to the area with LCS 13 there now.
I can agree that there should be 2-3 freedom variants there with CG detachments covering the area and helo units too.
LCS 21 had their CG detachment leave 3 months (ish) halfway through their deployment which confused me. Big drug captures when they were on board, but no press releases after they left. I assumed the coasties were there for the entire deployment.
Now, my daughter’s DDG might deploy soon with a CG detachment versus hanging with a CVN.
That said the organization’s bringing bad stuff into our country from the south are absolutely at war with us.
I applaud the Trump admin for taking it to them. I wonder though how or if they are going after the bank accounts of the cartels. More than one way to go about this.
Given other Bad Actors(tm) where there has at least been efforts to roll up their funding, I wouldn't be surprised to find that there are people looking at that angle as well. It's just not as "sexy" as breaking things and killing a-holes.
CDR Sal, appreciate your framing of the discussion. You and I see it the same way, so you must be right! That said, to get at root causes, yes, demand for drugs drives the trade.
However, I'll quote your closing argument: "A government that does nothing against a foreign scourge that has made money off of the deaths of over a million citizens over a decade is an immoral, corrupt, and unworthy government." Yes, yes it is. One need only look at our major cities (Chicago, anyone?) where the drug gangs AND the politicians are so closely aligned as to almost be indistinguishable. Now that's next world corruption...and all too often "winked and nudged" away because "polite" people don't speak of such things. Please note that alcohol use (remember prohibition?) is on a steep decline because people apparently don't think slowly poisoning themselves is a great idea anymore. Perhaps if we can work on the demand side for drugs in a similar way, we can quit treating the symptom and get at a root cause. OBTW, anyone think any of our adversaries are involved in this? Asking for a friend...
We've had generations of kids go through the DARE program in middle school. And I have heard them laugh about wearing their DARE t-shirts while they do drugs. The boomer drug fest that started back in the late '60s has ridden its course to the situation we are in now. It galls me to see them now up in arms in horror at a government trying to stop the zombie landscape that has taken over Philadelphia and other places. How dare Trump try to stop this! Maybe making drugs scarcer and more expensive will help pull some back from the brink before it is too late. Doing nothing asks for more of the same.
It was those elected officials and the movers & shakers of my generation's antecedents: The Greatest Generation. But I wouldn't tar any generation for the faults of the few. The inattentive many of all generations can all accept some blame. That my mea culpa, Billy.
You can blame antecedents for creating the framework, but I doubt the greatest generation had any idea how this framework would be exploited for self enrichment. It's no coincidence that while the Boomers constituted the largest political class, debt to GDP has skyrocketed to over 100%. This can't go on forever, but by the time the bill comes due, most Boomers would have passed on.
Some of us served in Vietnam and were never hippies, nor do we consider ourselves Boomers. Personally I was a war baby, born during Korean war game exercises, and I consider myself a step up from the average Tune in, turn on, drop out Boomer hippies.
Agree 100% but also agree with Aviation Sceptic. We were unable to stop weapons and ammunition from entering Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. The demand for it was there and they got it. And as a result, we lost all three wars. If the suppliers are the only ones we’re going after, this war too will be lost in the long run. The demand has to be hit harder if a difference will be made.
I'd add that I'd like to see us acknowledge that the drug scourge is something "we" asked for. It is supply meeting demand. "We" bear some of the fault. I don't want to say we have it coming, but too many have been sort of asking for it. But for all that, it is a scourge. I want equal treatment meted out to U.S. citizens, customers and dealers alike, similar in severity to what we are doing to the foreign narcos involved in the drug trade. You'll never stop stupid people from making stupid decisions, but you can lock them up for a long time, where you can monitor what they ingest and perhaps be poster boys & girls in a new DARE program. "Don't you DARE do drugs, you slack-witted moron". Might work, if there is a big enough flyswatter.
I think POTUS started reading Clear and Present Danger, but had not enough patience to read to the end...
He can blast anything going faster than 30 knots for all I care, but...
It is likely he will send some spec ops feet dry, sooner or later.
And it ends at Ninja Hill , or some favelas version of Mogadishu.
Goddamn, Clancy has already his share of prophecies, from jetliners turned kamikazes, to spec ops sending guided munitions downtown Tehran, to Russia invading Ukraine.
Your average commie insurgency lasts about 17 years unless it is drug funded. Then it lasts about 40 years. See: FARC. The other choice is to turn our heads while countries that do not wish us well continue to profit by poisoning our youth and our future. And we have let a million possibly productive Americans die in our cities and towns and then cynical politicians have used that as an excuse to "import more workers" because dead and drug addled do not work very dependably. Until the day comes we find out we're just another turd-world shithole. The people who do not want us to pull back from that brink really hate our nation, don't they?
Yeah, and prohibition would just work out if US would only go gloves-off for smugglers...
Complicated problems, like substance abuse, usually dont let themselves be solved by silver bullets.
Firstly, there are multiple sources of multiple kinds of substances, some of which are prescription drugs from your local, corrupted apothecary.
Second, how about combating the very source of problems, the REASONS why people pick up the habit in the first place?
Lack of perspectives, job insecurity, you know the list of modern life maladies.
And then how about treating the people before they overdose? It is hard job, difficult, not always works out, but let me share something personal. My very own sister got addicted, but through herculean efforts of the family she went eventually clean. Cancer years later got her, but she had more than few years of happy and productive life.
And our state-funded healthcare played crucial role in the recovery.
May I kindly invite you to sit with me, in Officers Country. We need to address some of your negative (your Regrets) issues, starting with the Dominican Republic (DR) and Haiti. Recall, CDR Salamander, my boots were on the ground in the DR with my little boy, about April 2007!
Allow me to praise your first slide of the Drug Use in America.
CDR Salamander, you recall, I am a “Working/Active” Registered Nurse, licensed in Maryland.
I was employed by Johns Hopkins Hospital, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD, specializing in Psych - Neuroscience from about 1990 - 2008!
I was the Charge Nurse Evening twelve (12) hour shift in the Intensive Care Unit - First Floor, a lock down Psyc Unit for Drug Users, not otherwise diagnosed with Medical or Psychotic issues. Five private in-patient beds. Other patients using our community area, were escorted to their assigned beds on Meyer 3, a 21 bed lock down In-Patient Psychiatric Ward.
CDR Salamander, we are “Human Beings”, some of us … we believe… created in the Image and Likeness of Our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.
I’m sharing with you, what I’ve just read, Iraq, no regrets!
Focusing you, CDR Salamander, on Today’s News, POTUS said, “We are at War with Narco Drug Traffickers”!
CDR Salamander, again I give you praise at your explanation of the Venezuelan Gang. Please recall, I was the papered Citizen Attache to Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, about c. 2007 - 2011.
During my tenure, I had no knowledge that Maduro either authorized nor, paid for any drug Cartel.
Sir, the “History is in our Rear View Mirror”. We may be Retired Naval Officers, but we are still “Commissioned” and can be recalled to Active Duty at the Direction of POTUS.
CDR Salamander, I praise this Post on the Legal Aspects of WAR!
As I continue to teach my precious son, age twenty-seven (27), now Captain, 03, Pilot USAF, “No one wins at war; everyone suffers; much collateral damage!”
CDR, how do you feel? Would you like me to ask our Ship’s Steward for some Ice Cream and a Topping of your choice?
Would like some time to be alone!
I’ll check back with you in fifteen (15) minutes. With your permission, Nurse Jane.
I’ll read the rest of this post. It’s well done! Thank you!
The drug crisis is real, and TdA is brutal. None of that is in dispute. But you're defending a framework that undermines the rule of law you claim is worth protecting.
You write that "at this point, none of this has been challenged as illegal," but that's just not true. Just Security, Lawfare, and Opinio Juris have all published detailed analyses explaining why the legal theory doesn't work. Lederman at Georgetown calls the NIAC claim "groundless." Schmitt (Naval War College LOAC expert) thinks there's neither a self-defense basis nor an armed conflict with TdA. FTO designation doesn't authorize military force, there's no non-international armed conflict here under the accepted tests. And don’t act like these are “radical left democrats" or something. They're the people who write the textbooks on this stuff.
If the executive can unilaterally declare criminal organizations to be armed conflict participants and order lethal strikes based on "we know what these boats look like," where exactly does that authority stop? You're comfortable with this precedent because you trust the current targeting process and believe the cause is just. What happens when the next administration uses the same logic for different ends?
The practical question you never answer: Why is this necessary? The Coast Guard has interdicted drug boats for decades. You did it yourself. Boarding and seizure works. It produces evidence, enables prosecution, and doesn't require treating the Caribbean as a free-fire zone. You acknowledge the risk of striking fishing boats or making mistakes but shrug it off as "part of the business." Why accept that risk when there's a proven alternative?
Your closing argument is that a government that does nothing is immoral. Fine. But there's a vast middle ground between "do nothing" and "declare a NIAC and start sinking boats on sight without law-enforcement standards." The Coast Guard isn't "doing nothing", they're doing their job. You're arguing for replacing a working law-enforcement model with military strikes because it feels more decisive, not because it's legally sound or operationally necessary.
If you think we need new legal authority to use military force against cartels, argue for Congress to authorize it. Don't pretend the law already allows it when most LOAC scholars say it doesn't.
Of course there is no armed conflict with TdA until we start opposing them! THEN it becomes an armed conflict. Your kind just lets the world walk all over us and ignore a million people being poisoned to death. All for some liberal judge's flimsy version of their "rule of law" which also coincides with a view that says you can invent fake crimes and bug people under false pretenses and arrest innocent people for walking on the Capitol grounds. The law is an ass and you and your kind are riding high on it. When cartels are undeclared armies (like pirates) we have longstanding juridical tradition that says you can smite them. Those cartels come with increasingly high powered and sophisticated weapons and technology. Not sure your threshold of what makes them an army, but they have the police and their own governments cowering in fear. I guess you think we should too.
I'm very comfortable with sinking boats that are bringing poison to my country before my fellow citizens can get hurt by it. Apparently your mileage varies. We already had an administration or two that droned innocent people and I didn't hear too much upset from the left. The Coast Guard may have interdicted drug boats within a certain area of operations, but it hasn't been enough. Our Coast Guard is not big enough to play catch and release with all those fastboats. It is dangerous and inefficient and look how many hundreds of thousands have already died. People ferrying poison from another country to kill our citizens for profit have not earned the benefits of our laws that they de facto are violating with full intent. Speeding in the dark toward our shores in camouflage boats ... does not sound like someone who respects our laws. But your kind always forces us to obey laws that no one else obeys. There's a word for that: CHUMP.
Your proven alternative is a proven failure. I suggest those boats are being identified in ways smart people don't put in the press because why would smart people advertise that. I suggest we know exactly who is on those boats and where they are headed. Killing someone before they kill you or yours is called self defense. Those guys going 60 knots are not chasing deep sea bass. BE REAL. And waiting for Congress to authorize it? BWAHAHAHAHA! Congress can't even agree to pay that military you want to tie their hands with one-sided laws.
While I think the strikes are justified, morally and ethically, the Trump Admin continues to take shortcuts when it comes to legally justifying its actions. Many legal scholars that are no friends of terrorists like John Yoo and Andrew McCarthy agree that the Admin hasn't met the bar required for action.
I think Trump might do better to restrain from press conferences with high 5's, a victory lap and his ballyhoo/BS rhetoric. Keep it clinical, something we were forced to do, that we take no joy in it. Heck, if it were done with true sincerity, who could call it "spin"?
I suspect that this is a tactic, hesitant to say it, but they as they take out fast boats they will watch as it moves or squeezes to another network. I suspect they are preparing for this.
Trump is always two steps ahead of anyone else.
His blather is maddening at times but his chess is way ahead of his opponents.
Blowing up drug boats, especially on live TV in real time, provides at least some deterrence incentive. There may be a few drug boat captains that will decide to look for a less hazardous line of work.
Hear, hear, Mr Bishop. As a former marine division police officer who was engaged in drug interdiction operations I heartily concur that ‘Boarding and seizure works. It produces evidence, enables prosecution, and doesn't require treating the Caribbean [or anywhere else] as a free-fire zone.’
The rest of your comment is also eminently supportable. Thank you.
My Gunny told us Grunts once, "You don't kill anything unless I tell you too, and if I tell you too you kill everything in the immediate AOE" this was back in the Old Corps.
I won't argue with Sal's points, but he ignores one major issue. Most OD deaths are caused by fentanyl, and very little if any fentanyl comes into the US from the Caribbean. I have no sympathy for the drug runners, but something else needs to be done if we want to reduce fentanyl deaths. China makes many of the precursor chemicals for fentanyl. Perhaps a few TLAMs to those Chinese factories? Of course that's not going to happen.
Jim's point about Fentanyl seems to ring true to me, Sal. The graph and the NiH page you linked too doesn't seem to have a detailed breakdown on deaths by drug category, but my back-of-the-envelope math off of that chart points to the death total from Fent being at least as high as all other drug categories added together. Perhaps it would be more temperate to say "Fentanyl causes as many OD deaths as all other drugs combined" instead of "Most OD deaths are caused by fentanyl."
My reading of the news says that many dealers are lacing other illicit drugs with Fentanyl. The buyer may be unaware and get a lethal dose when all he or she was doing was some weekend recreational drug use that heretofore had been "harmless".
And still there is the demand for the supply by people foolish enough to take the last tuna salad sandwich late in the summer afternoon at a picnic or buy recreational pharmaceuticals from a street vendor with sores on his face and an overpowering body odor. Go figure, huh?
Exactly. Based on the geography of these routes, most of this seems to be marijuana, cocaine, and maybe heroin that's bound for Europe. Good to go after? Sure, but not a direct threat to the US.
If you want to go after the drugs that are killing most Americans, you have to go after the Chinese/Mexican fentanyl connection. Which is not in the Caribbean and would require getting tougher on China.
Do you not understand that as the border has been tightened, they are having to get more imaginative with the fentanyl smuggling and have taken to the water routes?
We know China is using drug routes through Latin America to get the fentanyl in. Let's not pretend otherwise. Those guys will bring in anything for a price.
Excellent summary. I am in violent agreement with you. These smugglers are unlawful combatants and are not entitled to the protections of the law of armed combat.
While I disagree with ADM Holsey, I do respect his decision to retire rather than follow orders which he believes are unlawful. It is much more ethical than to remain in place and subvert NCA's decisions. Looking at you, lard ass Milley.
Sal, this illustrates why, when I first read your posts many years ago, I have followed you since then. Intelligent, honest, concise, clear, nothing held back, with the reasons outlined. The same as when I stumbled across Captain LeFon, of Neptunus Lex. You would be a heck of a dinner guest.
"Operation Uphold Democracy: The Clinton Embargo on Haiti (1993-94):
- It felt dirty at the time, and it feels even dirtier today. I won’t expend more time on it. All it did was make already poor and miserable people more poor and miserable. It was legal. We followed all the ethical guidelines, but was it moral? For me, no, but I did it anyway. Does that make me a coward? Perhaps. Complicit? Yes. Would I follow those orders again? Probably. Am I at peace with that? No."
I do know this is not the first time we have blown up drug boats. It's just the first time our government has given transparency to us and to the guys who might be tempted to pilot the next one for some cash. Terrorists are like pirates: Enemies of all humankind. "They may be killed where they are found." Long-standing international policy throughout history. Anyone who has mealy-mouthed excuses for letting foreigners (I'm looking at YOU, China, Venezuela, and a bunch of other State Actors who are NOT our friends!) actively kill what amounts to a million of our military-age young people can stand down. If someone was shooting them in the street, that would be an act of war. Poisoning them in back rooms is also an act of war for the non-mentally challenged.
Those who want to endanger our USCG and Navy personnel in armed boarding operations in the Gulf of Blown Up Drug Runners really must hate our military and want to leave widows and orphans. I have no time for you either. The never-Trumpers who would curse anything he does just because he does it... go away. This is not High Tea on the High Seas. While it may be easy to catch a snake with another man's hand, thank God we have a President who cares about that hand and cares about our dying young people, the orphans they leave behind, the ruined lives and the hollowed out small towns. Your ilk never really wanted to get its hands dirty doing the dirty work of keeping the nation safe. So continue looking down your nose at those who are finally achieving results from your "chair in the corner." The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, or continue to do what has never ever worked before.
I will add one caveat DB. If a vessel is found to have women or children being trafficked, or maybe even hostages at some point, then putting our Coasties and Marines in harms way through a hostile boarding action is appropriate. Such a scenario is probably inevitable since these organizations also engage in the flesh trade for which there is an equally high demand in our country. In the case of drugs or weapons - sink'em where you find them.
Interesting post, Sal, and its about the best "steel manning" of the arguments in favor of these strikes I've seen (if only there was someone in the Administration that was communicating about this as clearly). As such, I see it as a nice companion piece to Bryan McGrath's post on his Substack from yesterday. I also appreciate you taking on the "tHey'Re fISherMeN!!!" sillyness.
Anyone with an ounce of commonsense can figure that one out. Amazing how many people think a fishing boat leaves a wake the size of Oahu behind it in the dark.
The leftists are complaining about this because Trump is doing it. Their hatred of Trump is so bad that if Trump were to cure cancer, the leftists would try to impeach him for putting doctors out of work.
I get what CDR Salamander is saying on this--more forceful action should have been brought to bear in the drug war a long time ago.
But the risks of accidental innocent civilian deaths here by adopting this "shoot first, ask questions later" approach seem quite high. This will have serious diplomatic consequences as countries will withdraw cooperation with the US. That makes it more difficult to successfully conduct operations within these countries and achieve the overall drug eradication goal.
Increased interdictions, to the extent possible, make a lot of sense. If some cases call for firing on these vessels, so be it, but that needs more support. If the US is so confident that all of these attacks so far are, in fact, likely drug runners, it makes sense to release more info to support that.
Yeah folks are losing their head over the lack of presented supporting evidence (which is surely there, from shore to strike) but you know how they get.
NO it does not! Remember back in the day when some nimrod announced how we were monitoring cell phones of the terrorists and they all went dark? Is everyone here a dimwit? This SecWar is NOT going to blab methods and details to suit YOUR idle curiosity. I suggest any country that does not welcome our help and assist us in targeting these drug cartels is in league with them and is in a state of undeclared war on us as well. The rest will not miss a few unsavory actors going missing in the middle of the water at night. Those same cartels assassinate politicians in their countries, kidnap and kill their law enforcement and citizens and make life on those countries a living hell. Unless you are the president of Mexico, you are fine with Trump helping get rid of your criminal class. Innocent civilians are not speeding across the dark waters in expensive boats on radio silence. To release info on how we know whom we are shooting at would be stupid and irresponsible.
Let's just accept everything you say is true.
Let's acknowledge that your blog is about defense issues - mostly maritime - not drug policy.
Let's acknowledge that you are writing and publishing and putting it out there unlike the majority of us.
Against all of that - or in accordance with all of that - none of this would be an issue if there wasn't a lucrative market for the product. As long as the market remains, and remains stupidly profitable, we will continue to have these sorts of discussions.
Just saying.
Lemme guess... you have a toddler who wants to eat potato chips all day for breakfast, lunch, dinner... you put it on the low shelf and make it easy, right? Forget that it also attracts bugs and rodents into your environment. There is a lucrative market for porn, child sex slaves, grown women sex slaves, nuclear weapons, and all sorts of other unsavory things. Do we just not fight those either? None of this would be an issue if people weren't broken, sinful or criminal, but that's the world we live in and adults do what they can to mitigate the evil so that the innocent are not harmed right and left. Surrendering to evil because there is a market for it is the wimp's way out.
Well, it's certainly not a binary world, right? And it's also a world where we have limited money, time, and calories to spend on anything. And many things are competing for that money, time, and those calories.
The US prohibition taught us that people are indeed broken and sinful and often choose poorly, but it also taught us that ignoring the supply-side created its own set of problems. So, allowing for alcohol consumption with guard rails that both tried to save people from the worst of themselves while also making it silly to try and bootleg competitively, ended up being the imperfect way ahead. Kill the incentive for illegal behavior, mitigate the worst effects on society.
I would hazard a guess that our ROI for each "war on drugs" dollar would be more effective in controlling the market than it is in trying to strangle supply. Money will always talk; people will always find a way, which gets at your point about human nature and fallibility.
In any event, it is not a matter of surrendering, it is a matter of which is the most effective way to fight...or in this case, which way(s) are the most effective in combination.
Look, I was a teen during the "JUST SAY NO" era. I've never smoked a cigarette even. Not my thing. But I know people whose lives were screwed up because they chose poorly. And entire cities became no go zones. Now it's not smuggling weed or cocaine. It's poison that will kill, no second chances, no do-overs. I raised children who avoided addiction and all that brings with it. But they lost friends. Now I have grandchildren. I don't want them growing up with this garbage flooding their schools and their world. Your alternative is to what? Make our own here to undercut the competition like some pharmaceutical brewery or distillery? How about not encouraging stuff that fries the brains of our future? To control the market your way is to control stupidity and free will, none of which is even possible, judging by the comments here today. But you can make the peddlers of death think twice about loading that fast boat. And you can have an instant death penalty for drug dealers in this country. Load the risk on the other end of the financial equation for once.
We must be close to the same age since I was a 1980s high school student, a college student, and a Marine Corps enlistee.
I am not arguing anything so much as I'm trying to lay out the policy realities based on the way we deal with other things, such as alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, and pornography. None of these are particularly healthy (some are actual killers), many exploit people's weaknesses, they are not really "victimless," and our society has chosen to legalize them with guardrails of varying effectiveness.
Some of those guardrails significantly involve controlling how they are made, marketed, and available on the front end, as well as where they can be consumed, used, and to what legal extent on the backend.
None of them cede the battlespace to the creators and makers; all of them put boundaries on users and consumers.
So if I have a proposal at all, it starts with my first post where I acknowledged Cdr Salamander being entirely correct AND that we had to do something with the market too. Not either in isolation.
This phase of the forever drug war receives significant attention because it has become a scourge on the white population versus the crack epidemic that was largely killing the black population at significant rates and destroying their communities.
Beyond the obvious failure of a decades long effort to control supply, no concerns seem to address about why so many Americans indulge in dangerous drug use and what might be done about it. In the end, drug use in America is our problem. not some boat guy riding point to draw fire so the rest can skate through. Interception of supply should be pursued but sinking a few boats does nothing to inhibit the continued use of dangerous street drugs.
I see it as a good start, eventually we will get good enough to sink even more and kill crews. It also gives the Military live fire training and Intel and makes the drug smugglers nervous.
We have to hit the fabrication sites for these Non specific Drug smuggling water craft That means SEAL, SF and Marine raids and actual war where these are emplaced.
Jibber Jabber
Blah blah blah
If you can't attack the root cause due to laws and stubborn dopers then you must attack the material inbound.
Blow up and sink as many boats as you like. Americans want to buy drugs, there will always be more than enough people working to satisfy that demand.
Not working the demand side very much negates the moral authority of a military dimension regardless of any other factor like due process. Not that due process doesn't count. Are we going to sink box ships that have lead tainted kids toys aboard?
Are you retarded? Just asking.
No, you are satisfying your base animal needs and failing at being human. Let’s not play who can be most sadistic in a oublic forum.
Base animal need: To protect the young and stupid so they can become old and wise. Check. Failing at being human by wanting to blast boats with enough poison to kill every man, woman and child in the USA to smithereens? Sadistic? Who is sadistic? The people who carefully wrap that vile cargo in plastic and load it and send it to our shores? Or me for not wanting to make such vile crime pay? Phib, where did all the real men go who used to hang around the Porch? You enjoy being "human" but I see you as the kind of monster who looks the other way while lives are ruined and families are destroyed and criminals take over entire regions. That you compare pills hiding fentanyl with lead toys shows a lot. None of it good.
Adding: Those who enjoy their position on the moral "high ground" can enjoy the view.... which includes the cemeteries surrounding them down in the trenches full of people who chose poorly, or were bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time, or any number of other circumstances that silenced them. Sometimes the battle is really all down in the trenches. Because that's where the enemy is. He's not on the high ground and never has been. Sometimes you have to take it to the enemy. Eventually the enemy makes its way up to the high ground, and there you are sitting all alone with nothing but your smug moral superiority to protect you.
Well said
Problem is you can't even keep dope out of prisons, so how do you think you can keep it out of the entire free country? Or are you willing to sacrifice all of our freedoms to save some of us from their own stupidity?
True that. You can't kill them all but you can kill the ones you can kill.
What counts as "working the demand side enough" in your book?
Let’s start with an ad from the ad council and go from there.
You can't be serious.
Longer, harsher drug users prison time. Change the attitude of lenient Judges and politicians who want Americans to be free to kill themselves with drugs.
Wasn't Texas famous for the harshness of their law on marijuana possession back in the day? Did that stop all Texans from smoking dope?
Pot smokers are drop outs, it retards competitiveness, makes the user somnolent and dumb, caused more people to drop out of achievement and end up in nowhere jobs with the ultimate goal of simply obtaining more pot and sitting around smoking their troubles away, teaching their children the same lifestyle so you could say dopers are in self made prison all their lives.
As for Texas those locked up for long prison sentences did stopped smoking pot didn't they Cheech?
I've watch smokers graduate to acid, Black beauties, meth, heroin, and now fentanyl, and drunks crawl into bottles and simply drink themselves to death.
Longer harsher prison sentence s does stop pot smoking while the dopers are in prison that's for sure.
You do know that this is killing Americans? If not the unnamed American population, how about Prince? Tom Petty? Lots of people have been killed by the illegal drugs smuggled in by the cartels. China is the main beneficiary. Do some homework.
But people don't want to admit it isn't 2009 anymore, and if you're dying of an OD it isn't because "GREEDY DOCTORS GOT ME HOOKED".
No, it could be a 7th grader who took a pill that their buddy gave them that had fentanyl in it. Stupid starts early. But I guess it's okay if it's another person's kid, huh?
It's almost like baiting a field and then shooting a target rich environment. You get a two-fer. Training for our guys and elimination of unsavory actors in other countries. Win-win!
Delta Bravo is Badger Approved.
These people are called "criminals".
The only objection I have is the complete absence of Little Crappy Ships from this operation. Isn’t this the kind of thing they were built for? Or just to clutter the piers in Mayport?
Just saw a WHOLE LOT of them at Mayport.
One has to wonder why the litoral ships are welded to the pier at our farthest south major naval base.
Oh. Wait...
We don’t have the refueling capability necessary to sustain the LCS fleet let alone 1 or 2.
I've missed that issue.
Could you educate me, please?
Umm, do a search of fuel capacity of both LCS class with nominal fuel capacity and consumption. Then take a look using OSINT if fleet refueling capability and current operational tempo. Finally, look at US ports and location of possible fuel supply and replenishment.
Or read the other Sal’s recent comments about the requirement to refuel the current operational tempo.
https://x.com/mercoglianos/status/1980109281275138342?s=46
Thanks for the info. I did what I could for digging into it and I can't find anything that tells me it's a problem.
Freedom Class has a range of 3500nm @18kt
Independence is 4300nm @ 18kt
Burke is 4400nm @20kt
Yeah Freedom is lacking a bit in endurance but it's not that huge a difference.
I did see that unrepping is apparently tricky for the LCS, so more time alongside could be an issue. But I think that a pair of AOs for a CVBG is probably standard so don't see this effort as much tougher. And distance to ports isn't that far in the AO. If need be the LCSes could hit Gitmo or Rosey Roads to top off.
Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom-class_littoral_combat_ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-class_littoral_combat_ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer
This one didn't do much for me as it give fuel in gallons, liters, barrels, and pounds, but the other refs just give NM @ kts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Kanawha
Actually, they get ‘gas’ in GITMO so there’s some options.
USS Minneapolis Saint Paul LCS 21 just returned a week ago Monday from a six month deployment to the area with LCS 13 there now.
I can agree that there should be 2-3 freedom variants there with CG detachments covering the area and helo units too.
LCS 21 had their CG detachment leave 3 months (ish) halfway through their deployment which confused me. Big drug captures when they were on board, but no press releases after they left. I assumed the coasties were there for the entire deployment.
Now, my daughter’s DDG might deploy soon with a CG detachment versus hanging with a CVN.
That said the organization’s bringing bad stuff into our country from the south are absolutely at war with us.
I applaud the Trump admin for taking it to them. I wonder though how or if they are going after the bank accounts of the cartels. More than one way to go about this.
Given other Bad Actors(tm) where there has at least been efforts to roll up their funding, I wouldn't be surprised to find that there are people looking at that angle as well. It's just not as "sexy" as breaking things and killing a-holes.
CDR Sal, appreciate your framing of the discussion. You and I see it the same way, so you must be right! That said, to get at root causes, yes, demand for drugs drives the trade.
However, I'll quote your closing argument: "A government that does nothing against a foreign scourge that has made money off of the deaths of over a million citizens over a decade is an immoral, corrupt, and unworthy government." Yes, yes it is. One need only look at our major cities (Chicago, anyone?) where the drug gangs AND the politicians are so closely aligned as to almost be indistinguishable. Now that's next world corruption...and all too often "winked and nudged" away because "polite" people don't speak of such things. Please note that alcohol use (remember prohibition?) is on a steep decline because people apparently don't think slowly poisoning themselves is a great idea anymore. Perhaps if we can work on the demand side for drugs in a similar way, we can quit treating the symptom and get at a root cause. OBTW, anyone think any of our adversaries are involved in this? Asking for a friend...
We've had generations of kids go through the DARE program in middle school. And I have heard them laugh about wearing their DARE t-shirts while they do drugs. The boomer drug fest that started back in the late '60s has ridden its course to the situation we are in now. It galls me to see them now up in arms in horror at a government trying to stop the zombie landscape that has taken over Philadelphia and other places. How dare Trump try to stop this! Maybe making drugs scarcer and more expensive will help pull some back from the brink before it is too late. Doing nothing asks for more of the same.
Boomers, worst generation ever.
1948 here. Ever? Ever in the whole wide world? Maybe in the last 100 years, here in the US. But I can't throw stones. I do hyperbole too.
Can you name the last generation that indebted future generations at the rate Boomers have indebted following generations?
It was those elected officials and the movers & shakers of my generation's antecedents: The Greatest Generation. But I wouldn't tar any generation for the faults of the few. The inattentive many of all generations can all accept some blame. That my mea culpa, Billy.
You can blame antecedents for creating the framework, but I doubt the greatest generation had any idea how this framework would be exploited for self enrichment. It's no coincidence that while the Boomers constituted the largest political class, debt to GDP has skyrocketed to over 100%. This can't go on forever, but by the time the bill comes due, most Boomers would have passed on.
Some of us served in Vietnam and were never hippies, nor do we consider ourselves Boomers. Personally I was a war baby, born during Korean war game exercises, and I consider myself a step up from the average Tune in, turn on, drop out Boomer hippies.
ditto. Semper Fi, Bear
I’m a boomer. I believe the worst is the free love generation from the sixties.
No consequences in life yet many ended up in wealthy locations.
I can explain. We caught a wealthy woman who hid her identity for 30+ years. Was on a bombing crew in the 70’s that killed somebody.
Caught living on the most expensive boulevard in MN in a mansion whose husband was a wealthy doctor.
Voting left, never took responsibility, typical leftist
That’s the worst generation.
Do you know why they stopped bombing?
They won.
Agree 100% but also agree with Aviation Sceptic. We were unable to stop weapons and ammunition from entering Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. The demand for it was there and they got it. And as a result, we lost all three wars. If the suppliers are the only ones we’re going after, this war too will be lost in the long run. The demand has to be hit harder if a difference will be made.
Amen, Thomas. You beat me too it too.
You beat me to it and said it better, Sceptic.
I'd add that I'd like to see us acknowledge that the drug scourge is something "we" asked for. It is supply meeting demand. "We" bear some of the fault. I don't want to say we have it coming, but too many have been sort of asking for it. But for all that, it is a scourge. I want equal treatment meted out to U.S. citizens, customers and dealers alike, similar in severity to what we are doing to the foreign narcos involved in the drug trade. You'll never stop stupid people from making stupid decisions, but you can lock them up for a long time, where you can monitor what they ingest and perhaps be poster boys & girls in a new DARE program. "Don't you DARE do drugs, you slack-witted moron". Might work, if there is a big enough flyswatter.
Excellent summation in every way. Thank you.
I think POTUS started reading Clear and Present Danger, but had not enough patience to read to the end...
He can blast anything going faster than 30 knots for all I care, but...
It is likely he will send some spec ops feet dry, sooner or later.
And it ends at Ninja Hill , or some favelas version of Mogadishu.
Goddamn, Clancy has already his share of prophecies, from jetliners turned kamikazes, to spec ops sending guided munitions downtown Tehran, to Russia invading Ukraine.
This is one I dont want to see happening IRL.
Your average commie insurgency lasts about 17 years unless it is drug funded. Then it lasts about 40 years. See: FARC. The other choice is to turn our heads while countries that do not wish us well continue to profit by poisoning our youth and our future. And we have let a million possibly productive Americans die in our cities and towns and then cynical politicians have used that as an excuse to "import more workers" because dead and drug addled do not work very dependably. Until the day comes we find out we're just another turd-world shithole. The people who do not want us to pull back from that brink really hate our nation, don't they?
Yeah, and prohibition would just work out if US would only go gloves-off for smugglers...
Complicated problems, like substance abuse, usually dont let themselves be solved by silver bullets.
Firstly, there are multiple sources of multiple kinds of substances, some of which are prescription drugs from your local, corrupted apothecary.
Second, how about combating the very source of problems, the REASONS why people pick up the habit in the first place?
Lack of perspectives, job insecurity, you know the list of modern life maladies.
And then how about treating the people before they overdose? It is hard job, difficult, not always works out, but let me share something personal. My very own sister got addicted, but through herculean efforts of the family she went eventually clean. Cancer years later got her, but she had more than few years of happy and productive life.
And our state-funded healthcare played crucial role in the recovery.
But thats communist , I know... (rolls eyes).
It will eventually end with boots on the ground, temporary SEAL/SF and Marine operations to root out the sites and fabrication factories.
Mission creep.
CDR Salamander, thank you!
I’ve read about 25% of this post. Well done!
May I kindly invite you to sit with me, in Officers Country. We need to address some of your negative (your Regrets) issues, starting with the Dominican Republic (DR) and Haiti. Recall, CDR Salamander, my boots were on the ground in the DR with my little boy, about April 2007!
Allow me to praise your first slide of the Drug Use in America.
CDR Salamander, you recall, I am a “Working/Active” Registered Nurse, licensed in Maryland.
I was employed by Johns Hopkins Hospital, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD, specializing in Psych - Neuroscience from about 1990 - 2008!
I was the Charge Nurse Evening twelve (12) hour shift in the Intensive Care Unit - First Floor, a lock down Psyc Unit for Drug Users, not otherwise diagnosed with Medical or Psychotic issues. Five private in-patient beds. Other patients using our community area, were escorted to their assigned beds on Meyer 3, a 21 bed lock down In-Patient Psychiatric Ward.
CDR Salamander, we are “Human Beings”, some of us … we believe… created in the Image and Likeness of Our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.
I’m sharing with you, what I’ve just read, Iraq, no regrets!
Focusing you, CDR Salamander, on Today’s News, POTUS said, “We are at War with Narco Drug Traffickers”!
CDR Salamander, again I give you praise at your explanation of the Venezuelan Gang. Please recall, I was the papered Citizen Attache to Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, about c. 2007 - 2011.
During my tenure, I had no knowledge that Maduro either authorized nor, paid for any drug Cartel.
Sir, the “History is in our Rear View Mirror”. We may be Retired Naval Officers, but we are still “Commissioned” and can be recalled to Active Duty at the Direction of POTUS.
CDR Salamander, I praise this Post on the Legal Aspects of WAR!
As I continue to teach my precious son, age twenty-seven (27), now Captain, 03, Pilot USAF, “No one wins at war; everyone suffers; much collateral damage!”
CDR, how do you feel? Would you like me to ask our Ship’s Steward for some Ice Cream and a Topping of your choice?
Would like some time to be alone!
I’ll check back with you in fifteen (15) minutes. With your permission, Nurse Jane.
I’ll read the rest of this post. It’s well done! Thank you!
The drug crisis is real, and TdA is brutal. None of that is in dispute. But you're defending a framework that undermines the rule of law you claim is worth protecting.
You write that "at this point, none of this has been challenged as illegal," but that's just not true. Just Security, Lawfare, and Opinio Juris have all published detailed analyses explaining why the legal theory doesn't work. Lederman at Georgetown calls the NIAC claim "groundless." Schmitt (Naval War College LOAC expert) thinks there's neither a self-defense basis nor an armed conflict with TdA. FTO designation doesn't authorize military force, there's no non-international armed conflict here under the accepted tests. And don’t act like these are “radical left democrats" or something. They're the people who write the textbooks on this stuff.
If the executive can unilaterally declare criminal organizations to be armed conflict participants and order lethal strikes based on "we know what these boats look like," where exactly does that authority stop? You're comfortable with this precedent because you trust the current targeting process and believe the cause is just. What happens when the next administration uses the same logic for different ends?
The practical question you never answer: Why is this necessary? The Coast Guard has interdicted drug boats for decades. You did it yourself. Boarding and seizure works. It produces evidence, enables prosecution, and doesn't require treating the Caribbean as a free-fire zone. You acknowledge the risk of striking fishing boats or making mistakes but shrug it off as "part of the business." Why accept that risk when there's a proven alternative?
Your closing argument is that a government that does nothing is immoral. Fine. But there's a vast middle ground between "do nothing" and "declare a NIAC and start sinking boats on sight without law-enforcement standards." The Coast Guard isn't "doing nothing", they're doing their job. You're arguing for replacing a working law-enforcement model with military strikes because it feels more decisive, not because it's legally sound or operationally necessary.
If you think we need new legal authority to use military force against cartels, argue for Congress to authorize it. Don't pretend the law already allows it when most LOAC scholars say it doesn't.
Quick question, with respect, are you of the opinion that what we were doing previously "was working" and we should return to that?
Of course there is no armed conflict with TdA until we start opposing them! THEN it becomes an armed conflict. Your kind just lets the world walk all over us and ignore a million people being poisoned to death. All for some liberal judge's flimsy version of their "rule of law" which also coincides with a view that says you can invent fake crimes and bug people under false pretenses and arrest innocent people for walking on the Capitol grounds. The law is an ass and you and your kind are riding high on it. When cartels are undeclared armies (like pirates) we have longstanding juridical tradition that says you can smite them. Those cartels come with increasingly high powered and sophisticated weapons and technology. Not sure your threshold of what makes them an army, but they have the police and their own governments cowering in fear. I guess you think we should too.
I'm very comfortable with sinking boats that are bringing poison to my country before my fellow citizens can get hurt by it. Apparently your mileage varies. We already had an administration or two that droned innocent people and I didn't hear too much upset from the left. The Coast Guard may have interdicted drug boats within a certain area of operations, but it hasn't been enough. Our Coast Guard is not big enough to play catch and release with all those fastboats. It is dangerous and inefficient and look how many hundreds of thousands have already died. People ferrying poison from another country to kill our citizens for profit have not earned the benefits of our laws that they de facto are violating with full intent. Speeding in the dark toward our shores in camouflage boats ... does not sound like someone who respects our laws. But your kind always forces us to obey laws that no one else obeys. There's a word for that: CHUMP.
Your proven alternative is a proven failure. I suggest those boats are being identified in ways smart people don't put in the press because why would smart people advertise that. I suggest we know exactly who is on those boats and where they are headed. Killing someone before they kill you or yours is called self defense. Those guys going 60 knots are not chasing deep sea bass. BE REAL. And waiting for Congress to authorize it? BWAHAHAHAHA! Congress can't even agree to pay that military you want to tie their hands with one-sided laws.
While I think the strikes are justified, morally and ethically, the Trump Admin continues to take shortcuts when it comes to legally justifying its actions. Many legal scholars that are no friends of terrorists like John Yoo and Andrew McCarthy agree that the Admin hasn't met the bar required for action.
I think Trump might do better to restrain from press conferences with high 5's, a victory lap and his ballyhoo/BS rhetoric. Keep it clinical, something we were forced to do, that we take no joy in it. Heck, if it were done with true sincerity, who could call it "spin"?
Nah, take joy in it.
I suspect that this is a tactic, hesitant to say it, but they as they take out fast boats they will watch as it moves or squeezes to another network. I suspect they are preparing for this.
Trump is always two steps ahead of anyone else.
His blather is maddening at times but his chess is way ahead of his opponents.
Blowing up drug boats, especially on live TV in real time, provides at least some deterrence incentive. There may be a few drug boat captains that will decide to look for a less hazardous line of work.
Hear, hear, Mr Bishop. As a former marine division police officer who was engaged in drug interdiction operations I heartily concur that ‘Boarding and seizure works. It produces evidence, enables prosecution, and doesn't require treating the Caribbean [or anywhere else] as a free-fire zone.’
The rest of your comment is also eminently supportable. Thank you.
My Gunny told us Grunts once, "You don't kill anything unless I tell you too, and if I tell you too you kill everything in the immediate AOE" this was back in the Old Corps.
I won't argue with Sal's points, but he ignores one major issue. Most OD deaths are caused by fentanyl, and very little if any fentanyl comes into the US from the Caribbean. I have no sympathy for the drug runners, but something else needs to be done if we want to reduce fentanyl deaths. China makes many of the precursor chemicals for fentanyl. Perhaps a few TLAMs to those Chinese factories? Of course that's not going to happen.
Jim, you need to reread the post and follow the links. Look at the pictures. I know they’re not scratching sniff, but you’ll get there.
Jim's point about Fentanyl seems to ring true to me, Sal. The graph and the NiH page you linked too doesn't seem to have a detailed breakdown on deaths by drug category, but my back-of-the-envelope math off of that chart points to the death total from Fent being at least as high as all other drug categories added together. Perhaps it would be more temperate to say "Fentanyl causes as many OD deaths as all other drugs combined" instead of "Most OD deaths are caused by fentanyl."
Help me understand. Are you saying that because there are worse drugs, we shouldn't try something new to lessen the supply of the others?
My reading of the news says that many dealers are lacing other illicit drugs with Fentanyl. The buyer may be unaware and get a lethal dose when all he or she was doing was some weekend recreational drug use that heretofore had been "harmless".
Here about in the deep south they busted a Marijuana smuggler and the Pot was laced with fentanyl.
And still there is the demand for the supply by people foolish enough to take the last tuna salad sandwich late in the summer afternoon at a picnic or buy recreational pharmaceuticals from a street vendor with sores on his face and an overpowering body odor. Go figure, huh?
It’s been reported that raw goods from China are shipped to South American ports and then ‘assembled’ in the area.
I’d welcome a blockade to identify and turn back ships with the products.
Plenty of ships in the 32nd street base who train in the area who can provide the presence needed.
China is intentionally doing this so why not play tough.
Exactly. Based on the geography of these routes, most of this seems to be marijuana, cocaine, and maybe heroin that's bound for Europe. Good to go after? Sure, but not a direct threat to the US.
If you want to go after the drugs that are killing most Americans, you have to go after the Chinese/Mexican fentanyl connection. Which is not in the Caribbean and would require getting tougher on China.
Do you not understand that as the border has been tightened, they are having to get more imaginative with the fentanyl smuggling and have taken to the water routes?
Sal notes that most marijuana is locally grown, in the terrorist drug state of Cacafornia.
We know China is using drug routes through Latin America to get the fentanyl in. Let's not pretend otherwise. Those guys will bring in anything for a price.
Yes. One guy with a knapsack crossing the Rio Grande. 2 kilograms of fentanyl, is reputedly enough to cause 931,000 overdose deaths.
Wrong. Very wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZmmGg51TfU
See where the pacific drug routes come from.
See how the drug trade routes go to EU.
Excellent summary. I am in violent agreement with you. These smugglers are unlawful combatants and are not entitled to the protections of the law of armed combat.
While I disagree with ADM Holsey, I do respect his decision to retire rather than follow orders which he believes are unlawful. It is much more ethical than to remain in place and subvert NCA's decisions. Looking at you, lard ass Milley.
Sal, this illustrates why, when I first read your posts many years ago, I have followed you since then. Intelligent, honest, concise, clear, nothing held back, with the reasons outlined. The same as when I stumbled across Captain LeFon, of Neptunus Lex. You would be a heck of a dinner guest.
"Operation Uphold Democracy: The Clinton Embargo on Haiti (1993-94):
- It felt dirty at the time, and it feels even dirtier today. I won’t expend more time on it. All it did was make already poor and miserable people more poor and miserable. It was legal. We followed all the ethical guidelines, but was it moral? For me, no, but I did it anyway. Does that make me a coward? Perhaps. Complicit? Yes. Would I follow those orders again? Probably. Am I at peace with that? No."
Awww Neptunus Rex. He was a grand writer. I would love to have read his opinions on current times.
As would many of us, DB.
As would I!
I do know this is not the first time we have blown up drug boats. It's just the first time our government has given transparency to us and to the guys who might be tempted to pilot the next one for some cash. Terrorists are like pirates: Enemies of all humankind. "They may be killed where they are found." Long-standing international policy throughout history. Anyone who has mealy-mouthed excuses for letting foreigners (I'm looking at YOU, China, Venezuela, and a bunch of other State Actors who are NOT our friends!) actively kill what amounts to a million of our military-age young people can stand down. If someone was shooting them in the street, that would be an act of war. Poisoning them in back rooms is also an act of war for the non-mentally challenged.
Those who want to endanger our USCG and Navy personnel in armed boarding operations in the Gulf of Blown Up Drug Runners really must hate our military and want to leave widows and orphans. I have no time for you either. The never-Trumpers who would curse anything he does just because he does it... go away. This is not High Tea on the High Seas. While it may be easy to catch a snake with another man's hand, thank God we have a President who cares about that hand and cares about our dying young people, the orphans they leave behind, the ruined lives and the hollowed out small towns. Your ilk never really wanted to get its hands dirty doing the dirty work of keeping the nation safe. So continue looking down your nose at those who are finally achieving results from your "chair in the corner." The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, or continue to do what has never ever worked before.
I will add one caveat DB. If a vessel is found to have women or children being trafficked, or maybe even hostages at some point, then putting our Coasties and Marines in harms way through a hostile boarding action is appropriate. Such a scenario is probably inevitable since these organizations also engage in the flesh trade for which there is an equally high demand in our country. In the case of drugs or weapons - sink'em where you find them.
That has happened. I have seen it.
As a woman and former child, if I was being trafficked, I'd pray to God for a Navy pilot to just blow me to smithereens. "twould be a mercy.
Agree.
There it is!
Interesting post, Sal, and its about the best "steel manning" of the arguments in favor of these strikes I've seen (if only there was someone in the Administration that was communicating about this as clearly). As such, I see it as a nice companion piece to Bryan McGrath's post on his Substack from yesterday. I also appreciate you taking on the "tHey'Re fISherMeN!!!" sillyness.
I didn't see any fish on those boats in those photos. Bryan covered the moron's side of this issue nicely. Glad we have Phib to take the smart view.
They ain’t fishing sister.
Anyone with an ounce of commonsense can figure that one out. Amazing how many people think a fishing boat leaves a wake the size of Oahu behind it in the dark.
People are stupid. It’s gotten worse these last few decades.
Unlike during the Obama years
...with the drone strikes cloaked in Hope and Change...this time the American people know of the scrap in progress.
Because the only parties who have been aware of our stupid "Secret Wars" have been We The People.
The leftists are complaining about this because Trump is doing it. Their hatred of Trump is so bad that if Trump were to cure cancer, the leftists would try to impeach him for putting doctors out of work.
And pharmaceutical companies out of business
I get what CDR Salamander is saying on this--more forceful action should have been brought to bear in the drug war a long time ago.
But the risks of accidental innocent civilian deaths here by adopting this "shoot first, ask questions later" approach seem quite high. This will have serious diplomatic consequences as countries will withdraw cooperation with the US. That makes it more difficult to successfully conduct operations within these countries and achieve the overall drug eradication goal.
Increased interdictions, to the extent possible, make a lot of sense. If some cases call for firing on these vessels, so be it, but that needs more support. If the US is so confident that all of these attacks so far are, in fact, likely drug runners, it makes sense to release more info to support that.
Yeah folks are losing their head over the lack of presented supporting evidence (which is surely there, from shore to strike) but you know how they get.
NO it does not! Remember back in the day when some nimrod announced how we were monitoring cell phones of the terrorists and they all went dark? Is everyone here a dimwit? This SecWar is NOT going to blab methods and details to suit YOUR idle curiosity. I suggest any country that does not welcome our help and assist us in targeting these drug cartels is in league with them and is in a state of undeclared war on us as well. The rest will not miss a few unsavory actors going missing in the middle of the water at night. Those same cartels assassinate politicians in their countries, kidnap and kill their law enforcement and citizens and make life on those countries a living hell. Unless you are the president of Mexico, you are fine with Trump helping get rid of your criminal class. Innocent civilians are not speeding across the dark waters in expensive boats on radio silence. To release info on how we know whom we are shooting at would be stupid and irresponsible.
And hence the reason for the press to understand that unfettered access to the military base of all bases the Pentagon.