All posts tagged "Drug Cartels"

Stephen Miller shifted the Trump administration's attack on Mexican drug cartels to its "unorthodox lethal campaign" on Venezuela, according to a new report.

The White House Deputy Chief of Staff and architect of Trump's aggressive immigration policy reportedly took a leading role through the Homeland Security Committee in September, according to a new Washington Post report Thursday.

The strategy change stemmed from Miller's original plan to target drug cartels — and apparently "Miller, and other senior officials were looking for a fight."...

An analyst warned Tuesday that President Donald Trump's war on drug cartels in the Caribbean and blowing up alleged drug boats is "clownishly crude" and will end in "human misery."

America has a history of meddling in South America, and if that indicates anything, the current Navy attacks could be destined for disaster, Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton writes Tuesday.

"Reporting over the last week has made it clear: The danger of this situation going sideways becomes greater every day. And considering America’s history in the region, such an outcome almost seems pre-ordained," Digby Parton writes.
...

A legal expert says that President Donald Trump's promise "should be a wake-up call" as the combined death toll on alleged drug cartel boats has now reached 27 people, and questions are swirling over the "morally abominable acts."

Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel at the The American Civil Liberties Union, wrote an opinion piece on Wednesday for MSNBC detailing how the Trump administration could be killing potentially innocent people — not necessarily drug cartels — and that "there is no credible factual or legal argument that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with any drug cartel under international law."

This is problematic for a number of reasons, Kaufman argues. ...

President Donald Trump Tuesday boasted that another six people are dead after an alleged drug boat strike in the Caribbean Sea.

Trump announced the news on his Truth Social platform:

"Under my Standing Authorities as Commander-in-Chief, this morning, the Secretary of War, ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility — just off the Coast of Venezuela. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route. The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!!"...

The US Drug Enforcement Agency has five commando-style squads it has been quietly deploying for the past several years to various countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean, the New York Times reported Monday.

LOS ANGELES -- Speaking to the annual Drug Policy Alliance conference on Friday, Mexican poet and social justice leader Javier Sicilia blamed "the 1 percent" for the brutal cartel violence that has gripped his country, and urged drug reform activists to stand with "Occupy Wall Street" in criticizing America's economic model.