> This is not how to deal with The Drug War™, it's very expensive theater that does
That's unclear. We'd have to know more about what sort of deterrent it is making on the drug runners. Quite possibly this does have them shitting their pants and delaying shipments hoping to avoid the risk. At the very least that's not absolutely impossible. When someone says "it's expensive theater" in this circumstance, I think that their criticism has more to do with their objection to the person ordering the strikes and less to do with the effectiveness of them, especially considering that we might not know for months what the true impact is.
The Venezuelan cartel (well, cartel network) is the 5th biggest on the Atlantic/Caribbean side, and are known for people trafficking and gold smuggling before drug related offence. Targetting Venezuelans boats is political. US should target Mexican, Haitian, Dominican, Columbian boats way, way before Venezuela if it was about drug trafficking.
I have another comment that's a sibling to this and I'll avoid the copypasta.
tl;dr -- the current model is whack-a-mole and is a fiasco except for it's unstated but intended purpose (oppression of "others"). What you're suggesting will not work, will waste likely billions of dollars, and just create even more misery in the world.
We created the damn cartels in the first place with our insatiable demand for their products.
The current model is designed to create crime from end to end. And it was never about safety (FFS, look at how people who are busted for using drugs are treated).
Humans like having altered states and there will always be a market for that. There are risks and dangers in that but they can be mitigated. I'll trot out the classic counterpoint to the current madness: alcohol and tobacco are legal and sanctioned but we know they're dangerous and kill over half a million US citizens per year.
Again, if you think it's about safety you are mistaken: it's about oppression and control and it's ruining this country as well as our neighbors to the south.
That's unclear. We'd have to know more about what sort of deterrent it is making on the drug runners. Quite possibly this does have them shitting their pants and delaying shipments hoping to avoid the risk. At the very least that's not absolutely impossible. When someone says "it's expensive theater" in this circumstance, I think that their criticism has more to do with their objection to the person ordering the strikes and less to do with the effectiveness of them, especially considering that we might not know for months what the true impact is.