\n<\/p>\n
The Pentagon claims<\/span> that attacks on civilian boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific have severely curtailed the import of illegal drugs to the United States. And President Donald Trump says this has saved more than 1 million American lives. Experts call these assertions laughable and reporting by The Intercept shows that claims by the White House and War Department are baseless, phony, or both.<\/p>\n \u201cThe administration has failed to explain the long-term objectives of this mission or provide any evidence of reduced drug flows into the United States,\u201d Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said about the campaign on Thursday. \u201cI would ask for a credible answer to this most fundamental question: What is the operation actually meant to accomplish?\u201d<\/p>\n Under Operation Southern Spear,\u00a0the U.S. military has conducted<\/a> attacks on 54 so-called drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean, killing<\/a> more than 185 civilians, since September. The latest strike, on April 26 in the Pacific, killed three people. The Trump administration claims its victims are members of at least one of\u00a024 or more cartels and criminal gangs\u00a0with whom it claims to be at war but\u00a0refuses to name<\/a>.<\/p>\n Experts in the laws of war, as well as members of Congress\u00a0from both parties<\/a>, say the strikes are illegal,\u00a0extrajudicial killings<\/a>\u00a0because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians \u2014 even suspected criminals \u2014 who do not pose an imminent threat of violence. These summary killings are a deviation from the standard practice in the\u00a0long-running U.S. war on drugs<\/a>, in which law enforcement agencies generally detained\u00a0suspected drug smugglers<\/a>\u00a0and brought them to trial on criminal charges.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are extrajudicial executions, or even just murders \u2014 something similar to a cop shooting a fleeing suspect in the back when there is no self-defense justification,\u201d said Adam Isacson, the director for defense oversight at Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group. He called the growing death toll \u201ca gross human rights violation.\u201d<\/p>\n While Trump consistently lies about various aspects of the boat strikes, including the illicit narcotics allegedly on the boats and the number of lives supposedly saved by the attacks, the Pentagon has followed suit, using rhetorical sleight of hand and seemingly disingenuous statistics to bolster the claims of their commander-in-chief.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t imagine how you could come to some of these conclusions regarding illegal smuggling and drug overdose deaths based on the facts as we know them,\u201d said retired Rear Adm. William Baumgartner, the former commander of the Seventh Coast Guard District, who oversaw drug-interdiction operations in the Southeast U.S. and the Caribbean Basin.<\/p>\n The Pentagon and White House for months failed to respond to detailed questions from The Intercept on the boat strike campaign.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trump has repeatedly<\/span> claimed that the vessels attacked by the U.S. are trafficking fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. \u201cThe boats get hit and you see that fentanyl all over the ocean, it\u2019s like floating in bags, it\u2019s all over the place,\u201d he said<\/a> in October of boats leaving from Venezuela.<\/p>\n Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and five other government officials briefed on boat strikes told The Intercept that top officials admitted in close-door briefings that the vessels are not transporting fentanyl. \u201cThey had some convoluted reason why it was still impacting fentanyl that was hard to follow and I did not buy,\u201d said Jacobs, who serves the San Diego area. \u201cRepresenting a border community, I know that 99 percent of the fentanyl that comes into the United States comes through legal ports of entry by U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.\u201d<\/p>\n Fentanyl is generally produced in the United States or Mexico, Baumgartner said. \u201cI have not seen any evidence that fentanyl has ever been smuggled from South America to the United States,\u201d he told The Intercept. \u201cCartels would not smuggle fentanyl down to South America just to smuggle it back by boat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have not seen any evidence that fentanyl has ever been smuggled from South America to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n While bales of cocaine float in water, Baumgartner said, fentanyl is shipped in dramatically smaller quantities and would not be seen floating in the aftermath of an airstrike.<\/p>\n Fentanyl or not, Trump has also touted astounding decreases in drug smuggling due to the boat strikes. \u201cDrugs entering our country by sea are down 97 percent,\u201d Trump said at a January 29\u00a0White House<\/a> briefing.\u00a0Experts said that Trump\u2019s claim is ridiculous, invented, or involves disingenuous numbers meant to deceive the American people. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be the first time this administration just made up something out of whole cloth,\u201d said Sanho Tree, the director of the Drug Policy Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.<\/p>\n Baumgartner noted that even the Pentagon figures put the lie to Trump\u2019s claim. \u201cHe\u2019s trying to imply that 97 percent of the cocaine that left South America by boat headed to the United States has been stopped,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not true and is contradicted by the administration\u2019s own statements.\u201d Acting Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs Joseph Humire, for example, offered completely different numbers<\/a> to Congress, telling the House Armed Services Committee in March that there \u201chas been a 20 percent reduction of movements of drug vessels in the Caribbean and an additional 25 percent reduction in the Eastern Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n The word \u201cdeterrence\u201d has become a popular Pentagon euphemism for the use of lethal strikes, in contrast to previous U.S. government efforts to marshal economic, diplomatic, and military means to\u00a0convince adversaries<\/a>\u00a0to change their ways. \u201cDeterrence has a signaling effect on narco-terrorists, and raises the risks with their movements,\u201d Humire claimed. But last month, for example, there were eight strikes in the span of 16 days<\/a>, including five in five days. \u201cThat shows that traffickers, even along that high seas route, are not being deterred,\u201d said Isacson.<\/p>\n The amount of cocaine seized by U.S. authorities suggests the strikes have had little impact on the trade. \u201cReally absurdly, there\u2019s been no impact on flows of drugs toward the United States,\u201d said Isacson.\u00a0While data is limited, figures from Customs and Border Protection show that seizures at U.S. borders and along coasts have increased amid the Trump administration\u2019s airstrikes in the Caribbean and Pacific. \u201cCBP\u2019s cocaine seizures have actually gone slightly up since the boat strikes began. Cocaine seized at all U.S. borders in the seven months before the strikes began was 38,000 pounds. In the seven months since, it\u2019s 44,000 pounds \u2014 6,000 pounds more,\u201d Isacson explained.<\/p>\n The Coast Guard recently announced \u201crecord-setting interdictions<\/a>\u201d of cocaine in the Eastern Pacific under Operation Pacific Viper, indicating that large quantities of the narcotic are still transiting through that maritime corridor. Since last August, that service has seized more than 215,000 pounds of cocaine as part of this operation, Coast Guard spokesperson Brandon Hillard told The Intercept. \u201cNarco-terrorists continue to go to great lengths to traffic illicit narcotics within and out of the Western hemisphere,\u201d he said, highlighting \u201cthe seizure of hundreds of tons of cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n The general stability of the drug\u2019s wholesale price also suggests it remains widely available. \u201cThe Coast Guard recently seized 1.2 tons of cocaine and reported a wholesale value of $19.3 million. This works out to be about a $16,500 per kilogram wholesale price. It doesn\u2019t reflect the major jump in price that you would expect if you really had 97 percent reduction in flow,\u201d Baumgartner explained of a seizure announced this month<\/a>. \u201cThis report may be using old pricing information, but I would expect a significant spike in prices with even a 20 percent reduction in the cocaine flow.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n