War on Drugs

Jacob Sullum | 1.2.2026 5:10 PM

On September 2, President Donald Trump gleefully announced that he had ordered a "kinetic strike" on a speedboat "transporting illegal narcotics," killing 11 men he described as "positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists." That SEAL Team Six operation became newly controversial a few months later because it included a follow-up missile strike that obliterated two defenseless survivors of the initial attack as they clung to the smoldering wreckage. But even before that revelation, it was clear that the attack marked an alarming escalation of the war on drugs.

The September 2 operation inaugurated a deadly military campaign against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific that so far has killed 115 people in 35 attacks. This new anti-drug strategy treats cocaine........

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