As US military operations against alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean intensify, a heated debate is erupting over the legality, morality, and political implications of these lethal strikes. The Trump administration, which has overseen this campaign, finds itself at the center of mounting scrutiny after at least 87 people have been killed in 23 attacks as of December 10, 2025. The controversy is not just about the strikes themselves, but also about the shifting protocols for dealing with survivors and the broader question of what America stands for in the face of such actions.
According to reporting by CNN, the campaign has seen at least five survivors emerge from the initial strikes. Their fates, however, have been anything but uniform. Two were detained by the US Navy and later returned to their home countries, one was left to drift in the ocean and is presumed dead, and two others were killed in a controversial second strike as they clung to the wreckage of their boat on September 2. This second strike—ordered by Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley—was intended, according to Bradley, to destroy the remains of the vessel, which was suspected to still contain cocaine. The logic, as reported by CNN, was that the survivors might otherwise escape with the drugs and continue their trafficking mission.
This approach has drawn sharp criticism from across the political spectrum and from legal experts. Democratic lawmakers have demanded explanations, with some suggesting that the US military may have violated international law by killing survivors who were no longer a threat. In a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, Bradley explained his decision, but concerns remain. The law of armed conflict, as noted by legal analysts, makes it clear that executing an enemy combatant who is “hors de combat”—out of the fight due to injury or surrender—is prohibited.
Sarah Harrison, a former associate general counsel at the Pentagon and now a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, told CNN, “They’re breaking the law either way. They’re killing civilians in the first place, and then if you assume they’re combatants, it’s also unlawful—under the law of armed conflict, if somebody is ‘hors de combat’ and no longer able to fight, then they have to be treated humanely.”
Yet, the Trump administration and its supporters have defended the strikes as necessary measures in the fight against narcotrafficking, which they have increasingly framed as a form of terrorism. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum, maintained that protocols for dealing with survivors have not changed. “We didn’t change our protocol, it was just a different circumstance,” Hegseth said. “A couple guys jumped off and swam, from what I understand a ways away. When we struck the submarine a second time, it sunk, and then you had two people that you had to go get, and we had the ability to go get them. We gave them back to their host countries.”
But the administration’s rationale has not satisfied critics, who point out that no convincing evidence has been provided to prove that the boat occupants were, in fact, trafficking drugs. As Sneed Collard wrote in the Missoula Current, “Supposedly, all of these people are engaged in narcotrafficking, yet the administration has offered no remotely convincing evidence who was on these boats—or that they were transporting drugs. Maybe they were, but since when do we use our military might to summarily execute people who are suspected of a crime?”
The moral and legal questions only deepen when considering the treatment of survivors. On October 16, two men rescued from a sunken submarine were repatriated to Ecuador and Colombia. According to The New York Times, there was discussion within the Defense Department about sending these survivors to a notorious “mega-prison” in El Salvador or even Guantanamo Bay, to avoid legal complications that might arise if the men entered the US justice system. Ultimately, the State Department rejected this idea, and the men were sent home. Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell told CNN, “The idea that the Department of War was seeking to keep narco-terrorists out of the U.S. judicial system as a result of surviving a strike on their drug trafficking vessels is completely false and ignores historical battlefield precedent.”
Still, the inconsistency in how survivors are treated—from repatriation to presumed abandonment at sea—has raised alarms. The most recent incident, on October 27, saw one survivor left unrescued after a strike that killed 14 people. Mexican officials were informed by the Pentagon that a survivor was adrift, sparking a search that ultimately proved fruitless. The Pentagon, which initially did not count this individual among the dead, later included him in the toll.
The legal debate is anything but settled. Andy McCarthy, former federal prosecutor and contributing editor at National Review, highlighted on a recent podcast that there are two distinct legal issues: the legality of the initial strikes and the legality of the second strike that killed survivors. McCarthy explained, “If we decide that the laws of war don’t apply, then I don’t think the second strike is all that distinguishable from the first strike. If you decide that the laws of war do apply, and therefore that the cartel members are enemy combatants… the first strike is justifiable, and the second strike gets into… a complicated area of US and international law regarding what constitutes someone being hors de combat.”
He went on to note that under the Second Geneva Convention, shipwrecked individuals are considered hors de combat and must be treated humanely. “What hors de combat means is that you’re wounded, sick, unable to fight, sometimes attempting to surrender. And those people have always been under international law, at least since the Second World War era, deemed to be illegitimate targets,” he said.
Despite these concerns, Montana’s representatives, including Ryan Zinke, have largely backed the administration, asserting faith in the military’s judgment and the existence of evidence—though none has been presented publicly. Collard, in his Missoula Current piece, called on the public to demand accountability: “Join me in contacting Ryan Zinke, Troy Downing, Steve Daines, and Tim Sheehy and demanding that they stand up for real American values—and halt these brutal, indiscriminate attacks.”
The pace of US strikes has slowed, with a 19-day gap before the most recent attack on December 4, but the controversy shows no sign of abating. Hegseth, for his part, insisted that the campaign is far from over: “We’ve only just begun striking narco boats.”
As the debate rages on, the US faces a profound reckoning—not only over the effectiveness of its anti-narcotics strategy, but also over the core values and legal principles it is willing to uphold in pursuit of its goals.
