US Military Strike In Caribbean K!lls Three As Campaign D3ath Toll Rises To 70

The United States armed forces executed yet another deadly attack on a ship located in the Caribbean region on Thursday, resulting in the deaths of three individuals, as reported by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

This most recent operation has elevated the overall count of deaths stemming from the highly debated initiative to a minimum of 70.

“Today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization,” Secretary Hegseth announced in a post on X.

He further noted that the ship was “trafficking narcotics” within international waters and confirmed that no American personnel suffered any injuries.

This particular attack represents the 17th one carried out since the initiative commenced on September 2, which officials in Washington describe as focused on reducing the influx of illegal drugs entering the United States. Among all the people who have been targeted so far, just three are confirmed to have made it through: two of them were captured and sent back to their countries of origin, while the remaining one is believed to be deceased.

The Trump administration has intensified its anti-drug trafficking operations by informing Congress that the United States is presently involved in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. This change in classification now labels those who have been killed as “unlawful combatants” and asserts the right to perform deadly attacks without any oversight from the courts, drawing on a confidential legal assessment from the Justice Department.

The administration maintains that these cartels qualify as “nonstate armed groups” whose activities equate to an “armed attack against the United States” due to the fact that they unlawfully contribute to the deaths of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens annually via the distribution of narcotics. The entire effort is positioned within the framework of the law of armed conflict (LOAC), which permits the armed forces to regard the ships as valid military objectives, much like the manner in which the U.S. has approached Al-Qaeda historically.

Certain lawmakers in Congress along with legal scholars have raised doubts about this assessment, contending that the act of distributing a hazardous substance does not equate to an armed assault and that such activities do not fit within the scope of a non-international armed conflict.

Detractors, among them the United Nations’ top human rights official, have branded these missions as extrajudicial executions and maintain that individuals suspected of drug trafficking ought to be subjected to trial through standard law enforcement channels. Furthermore, the administration has failed to release any publicly accessible proof regarding the existence of narcotics on the vessels or their explicit connections to officially designated drug cartels.

The armed forces operation continues even as the administration pursues vigorous endeavors to associate Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro with involvement in the narcotics trade. In spite of amassing a substantial military footprint close to Caracas, officials from the administration lately informed legislators that no plans are in place at this time for conducting attacks within Venezuela itself or targeting any terrestrial sites elsewhere.

Officials have clarified that the Justice Department’s legal assessment and the initiative’s “execute order” are confined exclusively to maritime objectives and do not authorize operations inside the boundaries of Venezuela.

A Gentle Reminder: Every obstacle is a stepping stone, every morning; a chance to go again, and those little steps take you closer to your dream.

Nnamdi Okoli