US Strikes 'Drug Boats,' Not Its Own Drug Problem
The BBC's recent piece on US strikes against 'drug boats' frames the narrative as a question of legality, gently noting 'experts have suggested several attacks launched by the US may be illegal under international law.' What they fail to scrutinize is the deeper, historical irony: the US, the world's largest consumer market for illegal drugs, consistently externalizes the 'drug problem' into a
military theater abroad. This allows the US to ignore its own domestic demand-side failures, the systemic corruption enabling drug flow into its own borders, and its historical interventions in Latin America that destabilized states and fueled cartels in the first place. Instead of addressing staggering US domestic addiction rates or the corporate financiers who launder billions, Washington
prefers performative, extraterritorial strikes. One might wonder if bombing a few fiberglass boats is simply a PR show, a distraction from the uncomfortable truth that the 'war on drugs' has always been a war on sovereign nations and their resources, primarily benefiting US security contractors and the prison-industrial complex.