Trump's Drug Boat Strikes: 57 Dead, Rand Paul Objects - Why I Support the Missiles

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Good Thursday morning, Patriots. This is O'Connor's Right Stand and I'm your host, John O'Connor. Software programmer by day, conservative truth seeker by night. Today, let's talk about what is happening in the waters off Venezuela and Colombia. Since early September, President Trump has ordered 14 military strikes against drug-smuggling boats. 57 people are dead. Bodies are washing up on Caribbean shores. And the establishment

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from Rand Paul to the United Nations is losing their minds. Here's what nobody's asking. What would you do if you had the power to stop the boats bringing fentanyl that killed 73,000 Americans last year? Would you arrest them and watch foreign governments release them hours later? Or would you sink them? Trump chose option two. And today we're going to talk about why he's right. And

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why even some conservatives are getting this dead wrong. The right stand starts now.

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Let me start with the numbers that matter. 73,690 Americans died from drug overdoses in the 12 months ending April of this year. That's CDC data. 73,000 mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. Gone. The Coast Guard intercepts maybe 7 to 15 % of cocaine flowing through the maritime zone. That means 85 to 93 % gets through.

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Our traditional approach has been warning shots, boarding, arrest, or prosecution. Catches a rounding error. Now, let me give you the other numbers. Since September 2nd, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have ordered 14 military strikes. 57 confirmed dead. Operations started in the Caribbean, expanded to the Eastern Pacific. Just two days ago on Tuesday,

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We hit four boats in a single day. 14 people killed. One survivor pulled out from the water by the Mexican Navy. This isn't law enforcement anymore. This is war. And Trump's fighting it like a war. Here's what a strike looks like. September 1st, the first one. Trump posted the video himself on Truth Social. Black and white footage. A speedboat racing across open water at 45, maybe 50 miles per hour. Then a missile hits from above.

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The boat erupts in flames and sinks. 11 people dead. Trump said they were Tren de Agua, the Venezuelan gang he designated as a foreign terrorist organization. He posted, Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. Two weeks later, another strike, three dead, then another and another. By October, we're hitting boats almost weekly.

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Tuesday's strike was the first time we hit multiple boats in one day. All of these strikes happen in international waters. No warning, no boarding, no arrests, just missiles. Defense Secretary Hegseth keeps posting the videos on X with messages like, just as Al-Qaeda wage war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people. There will be no refuge or forgiveness, only justice.

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That's the policy. See the boat, confirm intelligence, fire the missile, done. Now here's where conservatives start fighting each other. I respect Rand Paul. He's a constitutional conservative who asks hard questions about government power. But in my opinion, on this issue, he's wrong. Paul calls these strikes extrajudicial killings. He went on

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meet the press and said the Coast Guard finds drugs only 73 % of the time when they board suspected boats. That means 27 % of time they come up empty. His argument, if we're blowing up boats without boarding them first, we might be killing innocent people. He said, about 25 % of the time the Coast Guard boards a ship, there are no drugs. So if our policy now is to blow up every ship we suspect,

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That would be a bizarre world in which 25 % of the people might be innocent. Here's my response. Senator Paul is comparing routine Coast Guard boardings to targeted military strikes. Those aren't the same thing. The Coast Guard's 27 % miss rate includes random stops. Boats that look suspicious but turn out to be fishermen. That data comes from fiscal year 2024.

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when they boarded 125 vessels total and found drugs in 90 of them. When Trump orders a strike, he's not shooting random boats. He has intelligence from J.I.A.T.F. South, the Joint Interagency Task Force South, which coordinates detection across multiple agencies and allied nations, DEA databases, satellite surveillance, pattern analysis of known trafficking routes.

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Bert said it perfectly, that people with fingers on the trigger may demand a much higher certainty rate before shooting. That's exactly right. Presidential military strikes require higher certainty than routine patrols. But let's say Paul is right about some margin of error. Even if there's a 5 % chance we hit the wrong boat, which I don't believe, we're still saving tens of thousands of American lives.

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In war, you make impossible calculations with imperfect information. That's the job. Let me tell you what happens with the old way. On October 16th, one of our strikes hit a semi-submersible vessel. Two survivors were rescued and sent back to Ecuador and Colombia. Ecuador released their guy within hours. No charges. Colombia did the same. These weren't innocent fishermen wrongly accused.

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The US military struck that vessel based on solid intelligence. But without physical evidence from a boat at the bottom of ocean and without clear jurisdiction, both governments just let them go. That's law enforcement against an enemy that doesn't follow laws. The traditional Coast Guard model works like this. Detect suspicious vessel, pursue with cutters, fire warning shots, use disabling fire, board,

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search, arrest, prosecute, and federal court. It's designed for criminals who respect the system. But cartels aren't criminals anymore. They're paramilitary forces with military weapons, encrypted comms, and networks spanning multiple countries. Arresting the crew does nothing when they're replaced the next day. We've been playing that game for decades. It hasn't worked. 73,000 Americans died last year.

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How many more need to die before we admit the old way failed? Now, the lawyers are melting down. UN human rights experts, international law professors, think tank scholars, all lining up to tell us Trump's breaking international law. Their argument, these strikes happen in international waters. The boats aren't attacking us. We're not formally at war with Venezuela or Colombia. Therefore,

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Killing people without trial violates the law of the C convention and basic human rights. Some are comparing this to Obama's drone strikes, signature strikes that killed people based on behavior patterns, not confirmed identities. They are calling it extrajudicial execution. Here's what I say to the international law crowd. I don't care. You know what's illegal? Smuggling fentanyl that kills 73,000 Americans.

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You know what's an act of war? Deliberately flooding another country with poison that destroys families. These cartels have killed more Americans than Al Qaeda, and we hunted Al Qaeda to the ends of the earth. Trump formally notified Congress on October 1st that we're in a non-international armed conflict with unlawful combatants. Drug cartels in the Caribbean. Same legal framework we used against terrorists. In armed conflict,

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you can lawfully kill enemy fighters even when they pose no immediate threat. Is it a legal stretch? Maybe. But Trump's job isn't making international lawyers happy. His job is protecting American lives. When the traditional approach fails 93 % of the time, it's time for something new. Last week, reporters asked Trump why he won't go to Congress for a declaration of war.

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His answer was pure Trump. don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, okay? We're going to kill them. They are going to be like dead. No apologies, no hedging, just Trump brutal honesty. Trump also said he'd probably go to Congress if he expands strikes to land targets. He's been hinting at that for weeks.

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Hitting cartel facilities on Venezuelan or Colombian soil. That would be a massive escalation. And honestly, I'm here for it. The administration has given seven classified briefings to Congress. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly said the briefings didn't justify the strikes legally. He said they could not give us a logical explanation on how this is legal and were tying themselves in knots. You know what I hear?

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A Democrat who wants more Americans to die while we debate legal theories. Most Republicans stand with Trump because they understand we're at war. But Paul and a few others worry about constitutional authority. J.D. Vance summed up the administration's position when someone accused him of war crimes on X. Vance responded, I don't give a blank what you call it. That's the mentality we need. Stop worrying about what international lawyers think.

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start worrying about American families. I'd be honest if I didn't address the elephant in the room. Venezuela's dictator, Nicolas Manduro, is one of the worst in the Western Hemisphere. Socialist thug who destroyed his country's economy, rigged elections, and partnered with China, Russia, and Iran. The US has a $50 million bounty on him for drug trafficking. Some analysts think these strikes aren't really about drugs.

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They're about regime change. Look at the military buildup Trump ordered. The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group just deployed to the Caribbean. That's a full aircraft carrier, destroyers, and an air wing. You don't send that firepower to stop speedboats. One Obama official said, it unprecedented overkill if all we're trying to do is attack a couple small boats. Maybe they're right. Maybe Trump's preparing to take down Maduro.

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And you know what? Good. Maduro's terrorized Venezuelans for years. He's let cartels operate from Venezuelan territory with impunity. If we can stop drug flow and liberate Venezuela from socialism simultaneously, I think that's called winning. Here's what bothers me. Trump hasn't provided public evidence that boats we struck were carrying drugs or that people killed were cartel members.

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After the second strike in September, Trump told reporters, we have proof. All you have to do is look at the cargo. It's splattered all over the ocean. Big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place. But we haven't seen photos of those bags. No drug samples, no manifests, just Trump's word. Bodies from the first strike washed up in Trinidad and Tobago, showing signs of explosion. Families in Colombia and Trinidad claimed their relatives were fishermen.

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not traffickers. Colombian President Petro has been loud about this. He says some strikes killed Colombian nationals and accuses us of murder. Trump responded by threatening to cut Colombia's aid. I want to see evidence, not because I doubt Trump. I trust him more than any president, minus maybe Reagan in my lifetime. But evidence strengthens the case. If we have proof these votes traffic drugs, just show the American people.

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Show our allies. Make the case so overwhelming even Rand Paul admits these strikes are justified. Right now, we're asking the world to trust us. That works when you're America, but transparency makes it bulletproof. Patriots, I know some of you are uncomfortable with this. Killing people without trial goes against everything we believe about due process and the Constitution. These are legitimate concerns. But here's where I land.

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We're in a war. Cartels have killed more Americans than died on 9-11, multiple times over. They've destroyed communities, torn apart families, poisoned an entire generation. Traditional law enforcement has failed catastrophically. When Coast Guard only intercepts 7 to 15 % of maritime cocaine, we're not fighting. We're watching. When we arrest cartel members and their government releases them hours later,

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We're not stopping anything. We're performing theater. Trump's approach is radical. It's aggressive. It pushes legal boundaries. But it's exactly what we need. Cartels need to know that bringing drugs to America means death. Not arrest. Not trial. Death from the sky in international waters with no warning. Will innocent people die? In war, sometimes innocent people die.

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It's tragic and unavoidable. But the alternative, continuing to lose 73,000 Americans yearly, is worse. Rand Paul's concerns about constitutional authority are valid in peacetime. But this isn't peacetime. This is war. In war, the president has broader authority to protect the nation. Should Trump seek congressional authorization? Probably.

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prefer more transparency about intelligence? Absolutely. But am I going to criticize a president finally fighting back against an enemy killing Americans by tens of thousands? No. Here's what these strikes really are. A message. To every cartel operator, every drug smuggler, every criminal organization thinking they can poison Americans with impunity. The message is simple. We see you. We're coming for you.

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and we're not playing by your rules anymore. For eight years under Obama, cartels grew stronger. For four years under Biden, we had an open border superhighway for drugs. Now, we have a president willing to use American military power to protect American lives. The establishment hates it because Trump's breaking their rules. The international community hates it because we're acting unilaterally.

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The media hates it because Trump's succeeding. And cartels? They're learning to fear us again. That's how it should be. So, 14 strikes since September, 57 dead. Operations have been expanded from the Caribbean to the Pacific. Traditional interdiction catches 7 to 15 % of drugs, fails 93 % of the time. Coast Guard boardings have 27 % false positive rate.

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But military strikes use higher certainty intelligence. When we do arrest smugglers, foreign governments release them within hours with no charges. 73,000 Americans died from overdoses last year alone. Rand Paul raises constitutional concerns about due process. International lawyers scream about extrajudicial killing. UN experts call it violations of maritime law. But none of them offer solutions that actually work.

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None of them explain why Americans should keep dying while we debate legal theories. Trump's not asking permission. He's fighting a war. He's sending a message. Bring drugs to America. Die. The establishment's melting down because he's finally treating cartels like the enemy combatants they are. Evidence transparency would strengthen the case. Congressional authorization would be proper. But the core policy? Absolutely right.

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We're at war, and wars aren't won by asking politely. Share this episode. Let people know what's really happening in the Caribbean. Let them know why Trump's doing this and why the alternatives have failed for decades. Find me at oconnorsrightstand.com and follow me on X at O'Connor podcasts. Deep dives every Tuesday and Thursday. The Quick Strike podcasts are every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Until next time, Patriots, stay strong, stay informed.

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and stay unapologetically American. This is John O'Connor, signing off.