With all of the attention that ICE is getting, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Trump are getting a free pass on drug boat strikes.
Even though most Democrats and a few Republicans are against them, we have heard nary a word about the strikes for weeks.
That may change now, however, after another strike was approved, leaving three dead bodies behind.
When the boat strikes started to take place, there was no louder opposition to the strikes than Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on the right.
He tore into Sec. Hegseth when reports surfaced that a second strike took place against a boat that had apparent survivors, stating, “Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this and it did not happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen. And then the next day, from the podium of the White House, they’re saying it did happen.”
He continued, “So, either he was lying to us on Sunday, or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened.”
Paul has only dug in deeper, as well as fighting the administration on virtually every policy during Trump’s second term.
The administration has consistently justified the boat strikes by calling them narco-terrorists, as the rules are far different when dealing with terrorists than with drug dealers.
Hegseth defiantly stated, “These narco-terrorists are the al Qaeda of our hemisphere, and we are hunting them with the same sophistication and precision that we hunted al Qaeda.”
He continued, “We are tracking them, we are killing them, and we will keep killing them so long as they are poisoning our people with narcotics so lethal that they’re tantamount to chemical weapons.”
The outrage over these strikes has died down since the ICE shootings, but the strikes have continued, and the administration just added another tally to the board.
On Saturday, it was reported that another strike took place, and three more bodies have been added to the count, as well as another boat being obliterated in a missile strike.
SOUTHCOM reported, “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
It continued, “Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed.”
Quite frankly, I am stunned these drug cartels continue to try to get boats past our military, or that they are even able to find people to man these boats. So far, there have been 43 strikes, with nearly 150 reported dead. You would have thought that would be enough to make them stop, at least for the time being, but they keep trying to beat the odds.
