US Southern Command strikes alleged narco-terror vessels in Pacific and Caribbean, SOUTHCOM claims 11 killed in latest salvo and 140 dead since September, Drug war quietly upgrades from interdiction to summary execution

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bnonews.com

U.S. Southern Command says it carried out three “lethal kinetic strikes” on vessels it claims were operated by “Designated Terrorist Organizations” involved in narcotrafficking, killing at least 11 people in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean. BNO News, citing SOUTHCOM statements, reports eight people were killed on two Pacific vessels and three more in a Caribbean strike, ordered by SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan as part of an operation branded “Southern Spear.”

If the numbers are correct, the campaign is no longer a maritime interdiction effort; it is a sustained kill-chain. SOUTHCOM says Southern Spear began in September and has since struck at least 43 vessels, resulting in 140 deaths—30 vessels in the Pacific and 13 in the Caribbean, according to BNO’s summary of official claims.

The Ron Paul Institute’s critique focuses on what happens after the explosions: survivors in the water, and a government that has already decided—via missile or bomb—that the targets are “narco-terrorists.” That is the core civil-liberties problem here. Once the U.S. military is authorized to kill suspects at sea based on intelligence assessments, the usual safeguards of criminal justice—probable cause, arrest, chain-of-custody evidence, adversarial testing of claims—are replaced by a press release.

“Narco” branding has long served as a permission slip for exceptional measures. Add “terrorist” to the label and the legal and moral ratchet tightens further: terrorists are not criminals to be tried but enemies to be eliminated. SOUTHCOM says intelligence confirmed the vessels were on “known narco-trafficking routes” and “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” That may be true. It also may be wrong, exaggerated, or based on informant-driven incentives that would never survive cross-examination.

The strategic hazard is that once lethal force becomes routine for trafficking allegations, the bar for what qualifies as a target can fall. A fast boat becomes a hostile vessel; a suspicious route becomes intent; a classified intercept becomes proof.

There is also a jurisdictional sleight of hand. The high seas are treated as a legal void where the executive can conduct summary enforcement. But the lack of courts does not eliminate the need for standards; it simply removes the institutions that enforce them.

If Washington wants fewer drugs, it can stop subsidizing prohibition rents at home. If it wants fewer deaths, it can stop outsourcing criminal justice to explosives. Southern Spear, as described by SOUTHCOM, is the drug war’s oldest habit—escalation—repackaged as counterterrorism and delivered by airstrike.