Burnt wreckage from US strikes on a drug boat in the Caribbean have washed up on shore and reveal contents of the vessel may not have been as deadly as President Donald Trump’s team has proclaimed.
The New York Times reports that what appears to be the first physical evidence from the operations against alleged narcoterrorism contain several empty packets with traces of substances with the look and smell of marijuana.
No evidence or traces were found of fentanyl, cocaine or other more deadly narcotics that Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth claim the Caribbean strikes are targeting, according to the report.
Marijuana is legal in 40 of 50 US states and is not the drug that Trump has said he is targeting in his Central and South American military campaign.
Additionally, earlier this month the president signed an executive order to reclassify cannabis out of the most restrictive drug category. Going from schedule I to schedule III loosens limits on research, but stops short of making it legal on a federal level.
At the Oval Office signing on December 18, Trump called the use of the drug to treat medical problems as ‘legitimate.’
‘It’s going to have a tremendously positive impact,’ Trump said of the marijuana reclassification order.
The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on whether they could confirm if the wreckage found ashore in Colombia was from the US strikes.
Last week, Trump revealed casually in a radio call-in interview that the US began land strikes in Venezuela, signaling an escalation in a campaign that began last fall.
The president then confirmed on Monday that on Christmas Eve the US hit ‘the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs’ along the shore of Venezuela.
The strikes against boats the Trump administration says are smuggling drugs – though has provided no evidence of such – began on September 2. Since then, the operation has destroyed 30 vessels and killed more than 105 people in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
On November 6, Erika Palacio Fernández heard a thundering boom recorded from the shore as she saw smoke rising from the horizon in what appears to be the only verified independent video of the aftermath of Trump administration airstrikes, according to the Times.
Two days later, charred wreckage and two bodies washed up on the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia – including what the Times reports were packets with marijuana residue.
Critics of Trump’s hawkish attacks on the vessels have already claimed that the administration is engaged in war crimes and questioned the legality of the strikes off the coast of Venezuela and in international waters.
Those voices only got louder after it was revealed the September 2 attack included two separate strikes, the second of which took out two survivors who were hanging onto the wreckage of the destroyed ships.
Now, the revelations that the only wreckage from the drug boats that have washed up on shore contain evidence of weed is fueling critics further.
Should military force ever be used against suspected drug smugglers without clear evidence?
Go to comments‘The first physical evidence in the Caribbean boat strikes has washed up and it contained—marijuana. Not cocaine. Not fentanyl. But a substance that is legal in 40 of 50 U.S. states,’ wrote X user and veteran John Jackson.
Another user, TV and film director and producer Morgan J. Freeman, declared the strikes ‘WAR CRIMES!!!’ with the new information about the contents of the vessel.
‘It’s just cold-blooded murder,’ one X user alleged.
One brought up the new drug classification for pot.
‘Didn’t he *just* downgrade the criminality of marijuana?’ they questioned. ‘So citizens face even less scrutiny for possessing, but a boat in the Caribbean possessing it will get them double tapped?’
‘Make it make sense, man.’
