Seventh Strike Against Drug Trafficking Boats

Video for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAChEqW0np4

Pete Hegseth has announced the seventh strike on suspected drug boats coming for American shores.

While I think this is a bit aggressive towards this issue, and do have a few criticisms of it, I do think it goes towards the narrative of them attempting to clean up issues we face here in America, like the illicit flow of highly deadly drugs, and I would imagine other things as well.

The criticisms I have is, if we know where these are going, why can't we intercept them near the shores of America instead?

I want to be clear when I say I support the moves they are making (albeit a little aggressive IMO), it shows America is serious about this issue and will stop at seemingly almost nothing to fix this problem we face.

I'm pretty sure it's already been said by an official (can't recall who while writing this, no notes, completely off the cuff here.) That we are attempting to settle the ground trafficking issues as well.

Columbia's president has also posted, according to Fox News on a YouTube video (will be posted below) that this was a fishing boat that was shot down.

This, right here is where I think the issues come from.  It's a little too aggressive, but it also serves a point to showcae what we are capable of, with extreme precision.  However, if the information we have is somehow flawed (not at all a diss of those in charge of relaying or gathering information whatsoever, although I do believe people have ill intents at sometimes), this could cause more issues than we are already facing.

I hope we can move towards an approach where we wait until they are in "American Waters", although America does not own waterspace as it's considered global commons (according to google AI quick search.) We do have jurisdiction over up to 12 nautical miles from the coast considered the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) which extends up to 200 nautical miles from its coast.  If this google AI search query is correct, this means we have a lot of space to wait until it's in American jurisdiction to intercept and try not to blow them out of international waters outside of our jurisdiction, potentially causing issues with other countries.

It has been said that these are speed boats of the highest caliber, with which may be hard to surround on water, but if once in American's EEZ zone we could I'm sure use aerial support to surround and get more information.  Yes they will state what you want to hear and try to hide things, but I don't think that means we can't detain, ask questions, seize any illicit items once in our territory.

I support any move they may make when it comes to this, because once they (being those trafficking drugs) get away with this stuff, they only increase operations and potentially move on to worse things, such as human trafficking and more.  It needs to be stopped, but I think we can do it in a better way that's within our jurisdiction in the waters, to not "muddy" the waters internationally so to speak.

Disclaimer: I don't follow all of this stuff consistently, and my take can easily be debated and my viewpoints can easily be changed.  If these strikes are within the territory America controls, that changes a lot of things.

TL;DR

I'm glad we are doing something about the drug trafficking from other countries as we don't know exactly what they put in these drugs that our citizens consume.

I do, however, think we can come up with a less lethal and internationally trying ways.

Again, I support these strikes 100% to send messages, fix the issues we have, and keep our citizens safe.  I just think we have other options, which also would train our personnel to be ready for these with real world situations should we ever have issues at our shores.

Video for reference is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAChEqW0np4