Quick update down South
As we have been hearing, the current administration is taking a MUCH harder stance on South American drug smugglers.
To date, 20 drug smuggling boats (so they say) have been sunk.
The attack brings the total number of people killed by the US military’s strikes on the alleged drug boats to 80. CNN has reported that the military is using a variety of fighter jets, drones, and gunships to carry out the strikes in the campaign officials say is meant to disrupt the flow of drugs into the US.
The Justice Department has told Congress the administration does not need its approval to carry out the strikes, which some experts have said could violate US and international law. CNN
20 boats, 80 crew – not exactly passenger-sized manifests. So far, it seems most of the boat pictures I have seen do not exactly look like fishing trawlers. I can hear it now:
“How fast is that trawler?”
“Chief, it’s making 35 knots. Three engines, many fuel cans, no nets. Some sort of square bales showing.”
“Break off, obviously innocent tourists.”
Somehow that just doesn’t quite ring true. 20 boats can a pretty good number of “square groupers”.
Another update – the USS Gerald R. Ford has taken up station off the northern coast of Venezuela. Noting that that carrier group alone probably carries more firepower than the entire Venezuelan Air Force – well, 75 aircraft including potentially F-35 fighters, against a mixed force of F-16s and Su-30s two thirds its st\trength IF all 48 they have purchased were flyable (which we know not to be the case.) Wiki Wiki II
Most likely, there would not be a mass aircraft strike – more likely this is a FAFO warning to the drug cartels and Venezuela that interfering with our Coasties and aircraft would be like stealing Jobu’s rum. “A bad idea. A VER’ BAD idea!” I’d think a few Tomahawks would begin any show.
There are those in the world who disapprove of what we are doing, The Brits have stopped officially sharing local Caribbean are intel with us, as have the Columbians.
Britain stopped passing drug-trafficking intelligence from its Caribbean territories to the Pentagon’s Joint Interagency Task Force South in September, to avoid being “complicit in U.S. military strikes” it believes “violate international law,” CNN said.
In the old days the intel sharing would have gone on sub rosa. Now, both countries have very different administrations. Who knows?
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Foreign Policy, Navy
Well then, to the Brits I say PISH, they can go French-kiss a pissed-off rattlesnake for all while they’re locked in a phone booth with an angry Honey Badger.
“…for all I care …”
A Proud Infidel®™ needs to proofread better before posting.
I am uncertain of: What international law are the Brits referring to? What government passed said law? What court will the United States Government and it’s agents be called to be tried for violations of such law should it exist?
I’m guessing they’re still signatories to the ICC, International Criminal Court.
signed it, never ratified. withdrew its signature. 2000 clinton signed, never sent to senate. Bush withdrew US participation, 2002
Yes, we are not subject to that kangaroo court. It is in the Hague. It would like to arrest and try several of our presidents as war criminals. It currently has a warrant out to arrest Netanyahu. Corrupt Lawyer Jack Smith came from the ICC.
It’s always interesting how those who squawk the loudest about “illegalities” or “unconstitutional” acts never cite the actual laws or section of the Constitution violated. Even the “C” man provides an occasional cite.
“There are those in the world who disapprove of what we are doing”
Still waiting after 250 years for that strongly worded letter.
Put up or shut up.
The Brits sure have changed since I was over there at their Portsmouth NOB and I was scared shitless when in a cab that was driving on the wrong side of the road. Happened in 1964 after OP Steel Pike 1 off of Seville Spain.
All these peeps who decry the destruction of the drug smugling boats are either drug users or getting money from the drug cartel to keep complaining to the WH.. Another thing that ran through the old noodle (brain) is Trump should say that we are not going to sink the boats and the same complaing peeps will complain that the boats should be destroyed…..Boy oh Boy, this shit can’t get any better, I love it.
Maritime law covers shipping and navigating while conducting commercial legal business. I do not think the drug smugglers fit that category, so it is game on. It is on them to provide the burden of proof, which they cannot and will never do.
You will notice many are quiet and only the guilty pig squeals.
Why waste all that expensive armament to sink a tiny
“cigarette boat”?
Just puncture the hull with a single .50 and watch it sink as
the smugglers become “concerned”.
Sometimes making dramatic examples of these drug mules / cartel members may be worth the expense.
“may”
It just makes one rethink that possible employment opportunity. “I always feel like somebody’s watching me…. “
Sometimes a little paranoia is a good thing. As the old saying goes, “Even paranoids have enemies”.
I look at it as our military getting in their gunnery and bombing practice without being in an actual war.
VERY true, why waste a perfectly good missile or rocket on a target range when it can end up dispatching a drug boat to Davy Jones’s Locker?
LOL..Wut..??
What are the ROE’s?
I’d attempt to contact them and state and attempt to dispose of the cargo and/or sinking of the boat or any resistance will forfeit any rescue. If they ignore, which they probably will, destroy the boat as we have been doing.
That should satiate the commies/druggies that “we tried to apprehend” but the choose poorly. We don’t want any of our people in harms way.
I see NO DIFFERENCE between these drug mules and ISIS terrorists. Did we warm Baghdadi or Soleimani? Yeah, nobody yelled “INCOMING!” to those scum bags. This would be giving these guys a chance…or we can just keep blowing them up. I’m fine with that.
Who sez they even have radios to communicate with?
Or are you going to have the fighter pilot slide back his canopy, lean out of the cockpit at 600 mph, and yell at the boat crew?
They are all over the HF band but it’s in Spanish and
I’m not a biologist so I just ignore the QRM.
Perfect ROE…
“See those guys over there? FUCK those guys over there!”
There is an article in the November 2025 US Naval Institute Proceedings comment and discussion section by retired Admiral James A. Winnefeld Jr which in a nutshell states,
“There is a doctrine outside International Law called “legitimacy”. When egregious acts are perpetrated, a nation may elect to use a legitimacy justification to use force to stop the egregious act.”
Stopping a genocide would be an example. See Serbia in 1999 and Syria in 2017.
We lose 100,000 people at the cost of a trillion dollars a year on account of these bastards. That’s egregious.
Yes, they are just as guilty of murder as the woman who deliberately poisons her husband. They know they are killing us with their fentanyl laced products.
I also read the article in Nov USNI Mag. and saw that he lost his son to fentanyl at the start of his comment and made his point with the “legitimacy” justification. Very Interesting.
You must have also seen my comment about the USCG getting back into the ASW arena.
Read your comment CDR D about the CG going back into the ASW business and the next CG commenter next to your comment who served from 1958-1962 says leave the ASW duty to the Navy since the CG is stretched thin. I got a kick reading about the Marines trying to separate their Gen. Z recruits from their cell phones. I’m from the silent generation and we grew up without cell phones, computers etc and utilized our time playing stick ball, punch ball chinese handball (asses up), stoop ball, flipping baseball and Davey Crocket cards, street rollerskating, Johhny rides a pony, hit the penny, simon says, red light green light 123, hide n seek, car skitching in the winter and a few more…. Looks I ran off on a tangent again, sorry about that ..
I hear ya. I’m from the silent generation too.
Wasn’t it the British who basically completely and UNILATERALLY destroyed the African slave trade through the effective and devastating use of their navy? I’m confused. They can kill to stop criminal activity the decided was immoral but we can’t to stop activity that is literally killing our people. Frack em, frack em all. If I were younger, THIS is the war I wish I could’ve fought. Protecting our people.
Headline reads:”Royal Navy ship sinks smuggler boat in Carribbean”
“Caribbean-based patrol ship HMS Medway and her embarked US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment spotted the vessel near the Dominican Republic with help from a patrol aircraft.”
“The destruction of the drugs smuggling vessel, which is normal for this type of operation, ensures it is no longer used for illegal activity while also providing valuable gunnery training.”
Hypocrisy, anyone???
“Some sort of square bales showing.”
“Easy, son. Those are just some *square grouper. Obviously just some sport fishermen.”
*A square grouper is a slang term used primarily by law enforcement to refer to compressed bales of illicit marijuana or blocks of cocaine. These bales are often found floating in the ocean,
Or maybe innocent environmentalists from Greenpeace cleaning up the ocean by picking up flotsam and floating bales. They are also a hazard to navigation, ya know.
I left my ship in Nov of 1966 and in Jan of 1967 she left from Norfolk NOB to San Diego. Former crewmember told me that after an Op while in Viet-Nam, Marines would get off the helos and throw small bricks of mary jane into the life boat racks on the edge of the flight deck and at night retrieve them. Was told that some of the crew members were smoking the pot and a few on the bridge were stoned. Before I left, beer was the thing and some hard liquer that was smuggled on board plus the deck apes had a still in the Forecastle.
Operation NarcoPop
Operation Pop Goes The Weasel