EP 21: License to Kill: The New War on Drugs

The Trump administration says it’s fighting cartels.
In reality, it’s conducting extrajudicial killings in international waters — a campaign that echoes some of the darkest chapters in modern history.
This episode follows the story from secret legal memos to bodies in the Caribbean, connecting the dots between America’s new war on drugs, its vanishing checks on power, and a dangerous slide toward impunity. 

Check out my substack page where I tackle some of the episode topics in depth and write about other issues our country and the world are facing today. https://substack.com/@ktdpodcast

Transcript

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I don't think we're gonna necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We're gonna kill them, you know? They're gonna be like dead. Okay. That was the president back on October 23rd, not making a hypothetical statement or speaking in hyperbole. He was making a statement of policy and he meant every word of it. Since early September, the US military has carried out at least 17 strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean. 18 boats destroyed and at least 70 people dead. Only two known survivors, and we'll get to what happened to them in a bit. This isn't a counter-narcotics operation in any traditional sense. There are no arrests, no trials, no due process. The US military identifies a boat, decides it's carrying drugs or that it's on a known drug trafficking route and destroys it. Everyone on board dies. Usually. The administration causes an armed conflict with drug cartels. According to reporting by the New York Times, they've issued a classified legal opinion treating suspected drug traffickers as enemy combatants who can be killed on sight. The strikes happen in international waters, and as the Washington Post has documented, congress has been kept largely in the dark. Here's what makes all of this even more startling. The drug crisis was already improving before any of this started. So what's really happening here? How did we get to a place where the United States is conducting extra judicial killings in the Caribbean? Is this legal? Has America ever done anything like this before? And maybe most importantly, someone else has done this before. Recently. And that person is now facing prosecution for Crimes against Humanity at the International Criminal Court. Before we get there though, let's start with what we know about the operations themselves. According to the US Navy, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest and most advanced aircraft carrier is in the Caribbean right now, along with its full strike group, over 4,000 Marines and sailors. Nuclear submarines, multiple warships and F 35 fighter jets. As CNN reported, this is the largest US military presence in Latin America in decades. And what are they hunting? Boats. Not sophisticated smuggling operations, not vessels with major cartel leadership. Based on the limited information defense Secretary Hegseth has released on social media. These look like small boats operated by low level traffickers, mules, maybe even subsistence fishermen who took the wrong job. Hegseth posts videos of the strikes, boats exploding, captions reading"narco trafficking vessels eliminated""four male narco terrorists killed". He's taken to calling these attacks"lethal kinetic strikes". Language built to sanitize what's happening. To turn killing into an administrative act. But as Reuters and NBC have noted, the administration offers no real evidence about who these people actually were. No names, no verified cartel affiliations after the fact, just boats destroyed and bodies in the water. Here's how they're justifying this. The drug traffickers are enemy combatants The US is in what they call a"non-international armed conflict with drug cartels". The same legal framing used for the war on terror after nine 11. Trump formerly notified Congress on October 1st that the US was in this armed conflict with unlawful combatants in the Caribbean. CNN reported that the classified opinion lists 24 different cartels and criminal organizations the administration claims authority to target. But this is crucial. In an early November briefing to Congress officials admitted they don't really know who's actually on those boats before attacking them. Strikes are conducted based on intelligence leaking vessels to cartels, not on knowing. Who's on board? Just think about that for a second. Our government is openly acknowledging that it's killing people without knowing who they really are. Despite the secrecy, dedicated reporters are starting to shed light on who some of these people were. According to the AP reporter, Regina Garcia Cano traveled to Venezuela's Northeastern coast to the villages where some of these boats left from. And in dozens of interviews, she identified some of the dead men. A fisherman, a bus driver down on his luck. A former military cadet, laborers, a motorcycle driver. Only one was identified as a local crime boss. Most were on their first or second trip making$500 per run. Families and neighbors confirmed, yes, they were running drugs, but they weren't narco terrorists, cartel leaders or gang commanders. They were poor men taking on a dangerous job for desperately needed money. And now their families can't even hold funerals because the Venezuelan government won't confirm the deaths and might punish them if they mourn publicly. So basically our government is killing the most vulnerable people in the drug trade. Those at the very bottom of the supply chain who are poor, desperate, and have no one to demand accountability for them. And when someone actually survives a strike, that's when the legal framework completely falls apart. On October 17th, Pentagon statements say, US forces hit a semi-submersible, what they called a"drug carrying submarine" in the Caribbean. Two people were killed, but two survived, and the administration didn't know what to do with them. As CNN reported, the military detained them aboard a Navy worship, while officials scrambled to figure out the legal authority for holding them. If these are enemy combatants in an armed conflict, can they be held as prisoners of war? Do they get trials? What are they charged with? The governments solution. Send them back. Within days, both survivors, one from Ecuador, one from Columbia, was repatriated to their home countries. Ecuador promptly released its citizens stating there was no evidence to charge'em with a crime. Think about what that means. The US blew up boat killed two people. Almost killed two more. And when one survivor got home, his own government said there's no case here. According to Reuters, military officials involved in these operations have been required to sign unusually strict non-disclosure agreements. Pentagon Judge Advocate Generals, or JAG's, told CNN they had serious legal concerns about the strikes, and then found themselves cut outta the decision making process. Meanwhile, Congress is also being frozen out. Senator Mark Warner, a member of the Gang of eight, told CBS's has faced a nation on September 7th that he'd received no briefing on the strikes, neither had the Senate Intelligence Committee. A bipartisan briefing scheduled for September 5th, had been abruptly canceled. In late September and early October, as Hill reported, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker and Jack Reed, sent two letters to the defense secretary asking basic questions about the military strikes. Both went unanswered. Then October 8th, senators Adam Schiff and Tim Kane introduced the War Powers resolution to require Congressional approval for further strikes. It failed. Mainly along party lines. 51 to 48 with one senator, absent only two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul voted in favor. A few weeks later, hegseth escalated. In mid-October. An internal memo barred most defense department staff, including commanders from talking to Congress without prior approval. He even created a specific list of topics requiring prior coordination before any engagement with lawmakers. The Caribbean and Pacific strikes are on that list. When the administration finally held a briefing on the strikes In late October, Democrats weren't invited, only Republicans. Senator Warner called this"indefensible and dangerous". Then on November 1st, the Justice Department's top lawyer told lawmakers the president doesn't need their approval to keep bombing boats because he said it doesn't legally count as war. In other words, Trump can keep killing people indefinitely and Congress has no say. But still, Congress tried one more time. On November 6th, a second War Powers resolution came to a vote. It failed 51 to 49 again with the same two Republicans, Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski breaking ranks. That's twice now that most Republicans agreed with Trump and his administration. Congress doesn't need to be involved. The killings can continue. The legal community is alarmed. In October, the A CLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a request to obtain the Justice Department's classified legal guidance on these strikes. They argue the strikes are unlawful because those on board are civilians, and no war has been declared against these alleged drug organizations. The center's legal director put it bluntly:"in a constitutional system, no president can arbitrarily choose to assassinate individuals from the sky based on his whim or say, so. The Trump administration is taking its indiscriminate pattern of lawlessness to a lethal level." According to a Pentagon announcement, admiral Alvin Holsey stepped down as commander of US Southern Command, the command that oversees these operations after less than a year. In the role. The Pentagon gave no reason, but sources speaking to CNN speculated, he was uncomfortable with the policy of killing civilians without judicial process. So even inside the military, the people task to carry out these orders know something isn't right. Trump says these strikes are about saving Americans from drug overdoses. That's the justification, the stated mission. So let's look at what was actually happening to overdose deaths before the bombing started. According to the CDCs National Center for Health Statistics, overdose deaths in the US dropped by nearly 27% in 2024. That's roughly 30,000 fewer deaths going from about 110,000 in 2023 to just over 80,000 in 2024. The lowest level since 2019. To be absolutely clear, 80,000 deaths is still horrific. That's 80,000 families shattered. 80,000 futures cut short, but for the first time since 2018, the trend line was finally moving in the right direction. Specifically opioid deaths including fentanyl, fell by more than a third in a single year from about 83,000 to around 55,000. So what was working? According to SAMHSA, the substance abuse and Mental Health Services administration. Distribution of Naloxone more than doubled between 2020 and 2023. The overdose reversal drug was getting into more hands, saving more lives. Access to treatment, expanded harm reduction programs grew. Community health organizations ramped up outreach. Public health departments built systems to track new toxins in the drug supply. These were evidence-based interventions. Funded by bipartisan legislation passed under the Biden administration and they were making a difference. Then Trump took office. In March, 2025. The administration abruptly revoked$11.4 billion in federal funding for addiction and mental health programs. Grants were canceled mid-cycle, in the middle of active work. Their justification. HHS said they would no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic. But the money wasn't only for COVID, it was for saving people from overdoses. In May, they proposed cuts to SAMHSA's Naloxone program, the very program that had doubled access to the lifesaving drug. In July as NPR reported, the administration delayed another$140 million in grants for fentanyl response efforts through a CDC program. Leaving public health departments in 49 states in limbo. States paused outreach just as deaths were declining, and experts warned these cuts would reverse progress and cost lives. Then Trump took it a step further. He went after the data itself On April 1st, not even three months into his second term, ProPublica reported that the entire team running the national survey on drug use and health were fired, all 17 people. That survey has been around in some form or another since 1971 and was a primary federal dataset tracking substance abuse and mental health in America. It is mandated by law, but the administration fired the entire team anyway. Jennifer Hoenig, the former project lead, told ProPublica,"we will lose lives to overdose. We will lose lives to suicide". A week later, the administration terminated another federal committee on mental illness, also required by statute. And when other data contradicted the administration's narrative. Same playbook. In August, Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for releasing what he called a"bad jobs report". The pattern is clear. The programs that worked were defunded. The data that proved they worked was deleted, and the experts who warned about it were fired. Then in September, the bombing campaign began. While gutting the programs that save lives and destroying the data that tracked them, the administration launched a campaign of extra judicial killings in the Caribbean. No evidence that strikes would reduce overdose deaths. No analysis on how blowing up boats in the Caribbean stops fentanyl at the Mexican border. Just explosions, body counts, and press releases declaring victory. So all of this begs the question why? Why use lethal force to go after drug smugglers when things were starting to get better back home? The answer came into focus in October when Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, won the Nobel Peace Prize. She dedicated it to the Venezuelan people and to Donald Trump, thanking him for his"decisive support" in her fight to topple Nicholas Maduro. She also called for greater US military intervention. Here's what's important to know about her. According to investigator reporting and confirmed by Public records, Machado has been funded by US linked organizations for more than two decades. When she was elected to Venezuela's National Assembly in 2010, it was with their direct financial support. Human rights watch notes, that in 2002, she participated in a coup attempt against Venezuela's democratically elected President Hugo Chavez. An effort to dissolve the country's Congress, constitution, and Supreme Court. When opposition voters finally had a chance to choose their candidate in 2012, she won less than 4%, considered two hard line, even by the right wing opposition. Now to be fair, Machado has been fighting against real authoritarians. Hugo Chavez centralized power, dismantled democratic institutions, and used oil wealth to build a patronage system that wrecked Venezuela's economy. Nicholas Maduro, his protege made it worse. Rigging elections imprisoning thousands of opponents driving millions into exile. Venezuela's humanitarian crisis is real. The dictatorship is real, and Machado has genuinely opposed it for decades. But opposition to dictatorship doesn't automatically mean you're fighting for democracy. Sometimes it just means you're fighting for a different kind of deal. Here's what I mean. Back in February, 2025 on Donald Trump jr's podcast. Triggered. She spelled out exactly what that deal meant for her and for the country. When asked about Venezuela's future, its resources, its allies, its path forward, she framed it like this. Forget about Saudi Arabia. Forget about the Saudis. I mean, we have more oil, I mean infinite potential, and we're going to open markets. We're gonna kick off the government. From the oil sector, we are going to pre privatize all our industries. Venezuela has huge resources, oil, gas, minerals, land, technology. And as you said before, we have a strategic location. You know, ours from the United States, so we're gonna do this, right? We know what we have to do, and American companies are in, you know, super strategic PO position to invest this country. Venezuela is going to be. The brightest opportunity for investment of American companies, of good people that are going to make a lot of money. That wasn't an offhand comment. It revealed her version of democracy, a Venezuela where privatization and US investment define freedom. Where sovereignty means opening the country to American exploitation. And the man driving her case in Washington is Marco Rubio, who as Senator co nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize and is now spearheading this Caribbean operation. Reuters reported that between January and April, 2025, Machado and her team met with Rubio and other Trump officials at least eight times. Those meetings discussed designating Venezuelan gangs. Particularly Tren De Aragua as terrorist organizations laying the legal framework to justify military strikes. In late October on Bloomberg's, Mishal Hussein show Machado explicitly endorsed the Caribbean strikes that had already killed dozens of people."Finally, this is happening," she told Hussein. When asked if the deaths were justified, she said, this is about saving lives. These deaths are the responsibility of Nicholas Maduro. Just days later, Trump sat down for his 60 minutes interview with Norah O’Donnell. A wide ranging interview that touched on many topics, hears a few comments that he made about Venezuela. Are we going to war against Venezuela? I doubt it. I don't think so. But they've been treating us very badly. Not only on drugs. But I just wanna talk about the scale of the military operation around Venezuela, because it has been described as 60 minutes as using a blowtorch to cook an egg. Is this about stopping? I don't think so. Look, is it about, let me ask you though. Is it about stopping narcotics or is this about getting rid of President Maduro? No, this is about. Many things on Venezuela in particular are Maduro's days as President Number, I would say. Yeah, I think so, yeah. And this issue of potential land strikes in Venezuela, is that true? I don't tell you that. I mean, uh, I'm not saying it's true or untrue, but I'd, you know, I wouldn't, why would we do it? I wouldn't be inclined to say that I would do that, but. Despite his contradictory answers, the New York Times has reported that officials have been clear in private. The end goal is to drive Maduro from power. This was never about drugs. It was about oil, power, and regime change. International law is clear on all of this. According to Amnesty International, there is no credible legal basis for these strikes. The amount to extra judicial executions. The UN charter prohibits the unilateral use of force, accept in self defense, and someone on a boat carrying drugs is not launching an armed attack against the United States. UN experts have said flatly. International law does not permit the use of force abroad to fight drug trafficking. You can't just kill people because they're suspected criminals. That's what courts are for. Arrest them, charge them, put them on trial. Now you might be thinking, hasn't America used lethal force abroad like this before? Defenders of these strikes argue exactly that, that this isn't unprecedented, that America has done this before many times. So let's examine that claim. The closest comparison is the Obama era drone program. 563 strikes roughly 3,800 people killed, including civilians. Controversial, absolutely. But technically conducted under a Congressional authorization passed after nine 11 to go after groups tied to those attacks. Trump strikes have no such authorization. They're targeting people who never attacked the U.S.. In 1989, when Bush Sr invaded Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega on drug trafficking charges, that operation was widely condemned as a violation of international law. But even then, the US didn't just kill Noriega. They captured him and put him on trial. There was at least a semblance of due process. Now there's none. That's why legal scholars and human rights groups are calling these operations, what they are, extra judicial killings. So no, America has never run a campaign quite like this before. But someone else has recently and in a very similar way. His name is Rodrigo Duterte, former president of the Philippines, and just this year he surrendered to the international Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity. Duterte came to power in 2016 on a simple promise he would eliminate the drug problem, not through treatment, not through rehabilitation, but through killing. He told the public,"if you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself". And he meant it. Within months, according to Human rights Watch, Duterte launched what he called a war on drugs. Police were given shoot to kill orders. Citizens were offered bounties. No trials, no due process, just death. Over the next six years, between 6,000 and 30,000 people were killed. The real number likely closer to 30,000. And who were the victims? Just like in Trump's campaign, they weren't cartel kingpins or major traffickers. It was mostly the poor, small time users, petty sellers, people accused by neighbors, police, or anyone with a grudge. Maria Ressa, the journalist who would later win the Nobel Peace Prize, documented it all through her news agency, Rappler. She recalled during the first year,"we would find about eight bodies every morning." Lemme say that again. Eight bodies every morning. Duterte bragged about it. Compared himself to Hitler. Said he'd be happy to slaughter millions of addicts. And when journalists exposed the killings, he went after them too. Calling Rappler, fake news, weaponizing the courts filing case after Case against Ressa, tax evasion, cyber libel, anything to shut her down. Playbook sound familiar? The connection runs even deeper. In December, 2016, between his election and inauguration, Trump called Duterte. According to transcripts obtained by the press, Trump praised the killings, told Duterte he was doing an unbelievable job on the drug problem. And Trump kept praising him publicly and privately for years. When critics called Duterte a murderer, Trump said he was doing it the right way. Maria Ressa noticed the echo. She told NPR when Trump called CNN Fake News. A week later, Duterte called Rappler, Fake News. And now in 2025, Duterte is in the Hague. He surrendered to the international criminal court to face charges of crimes against humanity. For his drug war and systematic murder of civilians. Duterte is currently awaiting trial. But Donald Trump is still following his playbook, killing, suspected drug traffickers without trial. Targeting poor people at the bottom of the trade, dismantling systems of accountability, attacking the press, firing experts, erasing data. Yes, there are some differences. Different location, international waters versus Manila streets. Different numbers, dozens so far instead of thousands. But the principle is the same and the world is watching. And the escalation continues. According to the hill, Trump has confirmed that the CIA is authorized for lethal ground operations inside Venezuela. The Pentagon is drafting options for strikes in Venezuelan ports and airfields, calling them decapitation strikes. And CNN reported on November 6th that the administration is seeking a new Justice Department opinion. This time that justify strikes on land targets in Venezuela, again without congressional approval. The current classified opinion only covers boats in international waters. They want one that covers Venezuelan soil. As one US official told CNN when asked about the policy."What is true, one day may very well not be the next". Venezuela has called this the most significant military threat in a hundred years. President Mado has requested military assistance from Russia missiles, radar, fighter jets. As reported by multiple outlets. A Russian cargo plane linked to former Wagner mercenaries landed in Caracas, possibly delivering air defense systems. Russia is reportedly open to sending hypersonic missiles, and one Putin ally has even floated the idea of nuclear capable missiles. We're watching the pieces fall into place for a much larger conflict. Legal scholars warn that if Trump is using the CAA for regime change, he's circumventing both US law and hard learned history. Tim Weiner national security historian said that the"history of CIA coups around the world, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, is not a happy one. From Guatemala to the Bay of Pigs, to the Contra Wars, to the invasion of Panama, the list is long and its successes in the long run are disasters". So let's review where we are. Overdose deaths were already falling. The fastest drop in years before any of this began. The programs that worked were defunded. The data that proved it erased. In their place a campaign of extra judicial killings, dozens dead, no trials, no proof they were cartel leaders and anyone inside the system who questioned it silenced or forced out. Has America done this before? No. But Rodrigo Duterte did. Using the same rhetoric, the same targets, the same claim of a war to save the nation while killing its most vulnerable people. And Duterte is now at The Hague. Where does this end? That's no longer clear. What began as boat strikes is quickly escalating into something far larger. Targets are being chosen, regime change is being threatened and back home, each new step strips away one more check on presidential power. This is not a war on drugs. It never was. It's something else entirely. Thank you for listening to another episode of Khannecting the Dots. If this episode helped you get a clearer picture of what's happening in Venezuela, please consider subscribing, sharing, and leaving a review. Until next time, stay curious, stay critical, and stay connected.