#counter-narcotics

#counter-narcotics

At the direction of the commander of U.S. Southern Command, Marine Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted three lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations, Southern Command said in the statement, which as has become customary was accompanied by a video showing the boats exploding after being hit by a missile. Intelligence confirmed the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations, it added.

The following day, as I was reading through my cables, I looked up from my computer to find a very unkempt individual, about 20 years my senior with bushy eyebrows and a dirty, wispy looking mustache hovering over me, in essence, violating my personal space. He introduced himself as Aldrich Ames, the individual planning the conference which I had refused to sign off on the day before.

Most international legal experts reject that and say the attacks amount to murder. Even if the claim of being at war is justified, specialists in the laws of war say the use of a plane disguised to look like a civilian aircraft, so that its targets would be caught off-guard, would represent the war crime of perfidy under international and US military legal standards.

The Trump administration has not provided a credible rationale for its 21 unauthorized military strikes on vessels in the Western Hemisphere, which have resulted in the extrajudicial killings of dozens of individuals. Nor has this administration explained why it has deployed an invasion-level force of roughly 15,000 troops, a carrier strike group, and military aircraft for a mission it claims is about counter-narcotics,

A significant amount of additional firepower is being sent to support President Donald Trump's new drug war. The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, led by the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier, and its embarked carrier air wing will be diverted from the Mediterranean to the US Southern Command area of responsibility, according to a Friday Pentagon statement. The move marks a notable expansion of US military forces in the region.

Colombia has recalled its ambassador to Washington amid a furious war of words between Colombian president Gustavo Petro and Donald Trump over deadly US strikes on boats in the Caribbean. The row took a sharp turn this weekend when Petro accused the US of murdering a Colombian fisher in an attack on a vessel in its territorial waters. Petro and his administration said the mid-September strike was a direct threat to national sovereignty and that the victim was a lifelong fisherman and a humble

The U.S. Navy is surging eight warships to the Caribbean and Pacific waters near several Central and South American countries, a significant buildup for a region that has rarely seensuch a large presence of U.S. military vessels and a move that has escalated tensions with nearby Venezuela. The ships are part of an "enhanced counter narcotics operation" to carry out drug interdiction missions in Latin America, a defense official told The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity, to provide details