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war on drugs
US Kills at Least 2 More People in Yet Another Illegal Boat Bombing
“This lawless killing for content cannot become mere background noise," said one critic.
Mar 20, 2026
The Trump administration isn't letting its unconstitutional war with Iran stop its illegal boat-bombing campaign in Latin America.
US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said on Friday that it had conducted yet another lethal boat strike on a suspected drug boat traveling in what it described as "known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific."
While SOUTHCOM initially said that three men survived the Thursday strike, a spokesperson for the US Coast Guard subsequently told CNN reporter Zachary Cohen that two of the men on the boat were killed, while a lone survivor was rescued and taken into custody by authorities in Costa Rica.
According to Cohen, at least 160 people have so far been killed by the Trump administration's boat strikes, which several legal experts have described as illegal acts of murder.
The latest strike on a suspected drug vessel came on the same day Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the commander of SOUTHCOM, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Trump administration's boat-bombing spree is "not the answer" to the drug addiction crisis in the US.
As reported by The New York Times on Thursday, Donovan told lawmakers that the strikes are "probably not the most effective" tool to combat illicit drug trafficking, and said he was developing a more comprehensive plan to stop the flow of drugs into the US.
Human rights group Amnesty International slammed Donovan for carrying out another strike even while acknowledging their negligible impact on the drug trade.
"Congress must take action against these strikes!" the group said in a social media post.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, expressed concern that the Trump administration's Iran war was distracting from the other illegal killing it is carrying out.
"This lawless killing for content cannot become mere background noise," he wrote.
A coalition of rights organizations led by the ACLU last year sued the Trump administration to demand it release documents that provide legal justification for its boat-bombing campaign.
The groups said that the Trump administration’s rationales for the strikes deserve special scrutiny because their justification hinges on claims that the US is in an “armed conflict” with international drug cartels akin to past conflicts between the US government and terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda.
The groups argued there is simply no way that drug cartels can be classified under the same umbrella as terrorist organizations, given that the law regarding war with nonstate actors says that any organizations considered to be in armed conflict with the US must be an “organized armed group” that is structured like a conventional military and engaged in “protracted armed violence” with the US government.
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After Dropping 'Made-Up' Allegation Against Maduro, DOJ Now Reportedly Probing Colombia's Petro
"This is what they did before they abducted Maduro," said one observer.
Mar 20, 2026
The US Department of Justice has reportedly launched multiple drug trafficking investigations into Colombian President Gustavo Petro—a leftist and staunch critic of President Donald Trump—just over two months after dropping a key yet fictitious allegation against Venezuela's kidnapped leader.
"Three people with knowledge of the matter" told The New York Times on Friday that the US Attorney's offices in Manhattan and Brooklyn are conducting the investigations in concert with "prosecutors who focus on international narcotics trafficking," the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Investigators are reportedly probing whether Petro met with any drug traffickers or if his presidential campaign solicited donations from them. The sources told the Times that the probes are in their early states and it is unclear whether any criminal charges would be filed.
The Times noted that "there was nothing to indicate that the White House had a role in initiating either investigation."
However, Trump has shown exceptional zeal for weaponizing the government to target his political foes and has repeatedly accused Petro—who has been a vocal critic of US imperialism, high-seas boat bombings, and support for Israel's genocidal war on Gaza—of being a drug trafficker.
Trump has offered no evidence to support his allegations against Petro. The US, on the other hand, has a centuries-long history of involvement in drug trafficking, from China to Southeast Asia to Central America—and Colombia, where the CIA allegedly worked with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a far-right paramilitary group founded by drug lords to combat leftist insurgents during the country's decadeslong civil war.
As a sitting head of state, Petro has immunity from US jurisdiction while in office. But that did not stop Trump from bombing and invading Venezuela to abduct President Nicolás Maduro to the United States. The DOJ charged Venezuela's president with narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.
The DOJ has quietly dropped its "made-up" allegation against Maduro—that he was the kingpin of the "Cartel de los Soles"—after learning that the name is a slang phrase and not an actual criminal group.
After kidnapping Maduro, Trump told Petro to "watch his ass."
Last October, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Petro and his wife, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying at the time that Colombia's leader "has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity."
This, after the US State Department revoked Petro's visa after he used his September 2025 United Nations General Assembly address to accuse Trump of complicity in the Gaza genocide and urged the UN to open a criminal case against the US leader for his extrajudicial bombing of boats allegedly transporting drugs from South America to the United States. Petro also implored US troops to "not point your rifles against humanity."
Some observers say Trump may try to leverage the probe of Petro to pressure him into greater cooperation with the failed but ongoing 55-year War on Drugs. Colombia is the world's leading cocaine producer whose previous right-wing governments were staunch US allies during and after the Cold War.
According to the Times:
At the same time, Colombian news outlets have reported that people linked to traffickers have tried to channel funds to Mr. Petro, including through his son. His son admitted that illicit money entered his father’s 2022 election campaign, Colombian prosecutors said, but they have not brought criminal charges against Mr. Petro himself. He has denied wrongdoing, describing the accusations as politically motivated.
Others speculate that Trump may be trying to put his finger on the scale of Colombia's May 31 election. As Colombia's Constitution limits presidents to a single term, Petro has urged his supporters to vote for leftist Sen. Iván Cepeda. Trump has forged close ties with right-wing governments across Latin America, recently hosting his Shield of the America's summit in Miami and meddling in elections from Honduras to Chile to Argentina.
Relations between Trump and Petro seemed to have been improving. When Petro visited the White House last month for his first face-to-face meeting with Trump, many observers braced themselves for fireworks. However, Trump emerged from the meeting calling it "terrific." He even signed a copy of his ghostwritten book, The Art of the Deal, for Petro, writing, "You are great" on the title page.
Petro, in turn, posted a photo Trump gifted him of the two men shaking hands, and a handwritten message saying, "Gustavo: A great honor—I love Colombia."
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Amnesty Condemns US 'Murder' of 6 More People After Latest Trump Boat Bombing
"Human life cannot be left to the mercy of a president’s whim."
Mar 12, 2026
Amnesty International on Wednesday denounced this week's killing of six more people as US forces bombed another boat the Trump administration said—without evidence—was operated by narco-traffickers.
"Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations," US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said Sunday on social media. "Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Six male narco-terrorists were killed during this action."
The US has bombed at least 40 vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since last September, killing at least 156 people, according to the Trump administration.
"Amnesty International strongly condemns these acts and reiterates that they constitute extrajudicial killings, a form of murder, prohibited under international law, and represent a grave affront to the most basic principles of humanity and legality," Amnesty said in a statement. "No circumstances justify the arbitrary deprivation of life."
The boat strikes were fraught from the start. In the first known attack, US forces killed nine people in an initial strike and then two men clinging to the boat's wreckage in a follow-up bombing. Legal experts have debated whether those strikes were a war crime or simply murder, and many argue that all of the boat bombings violate international law.
“The United States cannot claim the right to blow up boats with people on board based solely on suspicions of drug trafficking or other allegedly illicit activities," Amnesty International Americas director Ana Piquer said Wednesday. "The rest of the international community cannot normalize these extrajudicial killings, in which the United States military is judge and executioner."
"No president or military has the right to arbitrarily take life."
"Human life cannot be left to the mercy of a president’s whim," Piquer stressed. "No president or military has the right to arbitrarily take life. The level of dehumanization and cynicism reflected in these acts is deeply alarming and should be of global concern."
"It is urgent to demand accountability and immediately end these types of attacks," she added. "Due to the current acquiescence of the attorney general’s office, Congress must step in with its oversight power and investigate."
In addition to bombing boats—and 10 countries—President Donald Trump launched an invasion of Venezuela to abduct its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, who are jailed in the US awaiting trial for dubious narco-trafficking charges.
Earlier this month, Trump also authorized a joint campaign with Ecuador to combat "narco-terrorists" in which US ground troops have been deployed in the Andean nation.
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