US Greenlights Trump-Era 'Drug Boat' Strikes, Civilians Drowned
According to The Independent, the Biden administration is executing a Trump-era memo—a secret DOJ opinion green-lighting lethal strikes on suspected “drug boats” in international waters. This policy, which has led to over 80 deaths in 20 strikes, effectively expands military-style engagement under the guise of counter-narcotics operations. Yet, the media often frames these actions as necessary
interdictions, conveniently ignoring the foundational legal and ethical slipperiness that allows one administration's hawkish legal theory to be seamlessly adopted by the next. One might conveniently forget that the U.S. has a long, documented history of using 'drug wars' or 'terrorism' as pretexts for interventionism, from Colombia to the Middle East. The real headline here isn't just a political
hand-me-down, but the quiet normalization of lethal, extrajudicial force against non-state actors (allegedly) without the inconvenient Congressional oversight usually due for acts of war. How many ‘threats to national security’ can be conjured to justify deadly force, blurring the lines of international law and accountability?