Air Force Special Operations Command leadership said in a roundtable yesterday that its men are ready to escalate targeted operations against narcotics traffickers in South America, making it evident that the United States is ready to take on foreign enemies despite Democrats’ refusal to put America first. 

“We are prepped to go where the nation needs us. We are doing things that you’d expect out of special operations, just in the sense that we need to be ready to go,” Lt. Gen. Michael Conley said during the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space, & Cyber Conference media roundtable. 

Recommended Stories

• US evacuation group uncovers Afghan information leak from Brazil
• US can't ignore the battle of the mosques in Africa
• Gavin Newsom's pathetic preemptive election denialism

OPINION: MADURO REGRETS US WAR THREATS

Conley did not disclose the area where the operations would take place. However, given that recent attacks on narco-trafficking boats have taken place in the Southern Caribbean Sea, and AFSOC’s recent training operations in the Caribbean island of St. Croix earlier this month, there is a strong possibility that narco-traffickers in the region might receive a visit from AFSOC in the near future. 

According to third-party counter-narcotics surveillance, military bases in Puerto Rico have recently received several Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drones and Marine Corps F-35Bs. 

It’s clear that President Donald Trump will not de-escalate the situation against foreign terrorist organizations that pose an imminent threat to America’s national security. 

Unfortunately, Democrats, for some reason, do not seem to be on board with the President’s plan to put America first. 

While it is highly unlikely that a civilian boat would be traveling at high speed through a drug smuggling hot spot with unidentified cargo aboard, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) opposed the naval strikes, saying “there is no evidence” to differentiate the boat targeted as a narco-trafficking from a civilian vessel. 

Sen. Reed’s verbal opposition, however, was insufficient, so Senate Democrats took it a step further in their attempt to halt the world’s strongest military from apprehending America’s enemies.

Last week, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced a resolution that overtly states the president must stop the advances against foreign terrorist organizations against the U.S., despite the clearly presented threat. 

The resolution “directs the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities that have not been authorized by Congress.” However, what the Democrats refuse to acknowledge is that the president does not need congressional authorization for the covert operations.

To begin with, the U.S. has already been engaged in the War on Drugs since Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986. It explicitly gave the executive branch the power to punish foreign drug cartels at the president’s discretion.  

Furthermore, Trump submitted a presidential determination to Congress earlier this month, writing that the “United States will devote all necessary resources to punish criminals enabling the production, transportation, and smuggling of illicit drugs across our borders.”

Additionally, Trump issued presidential findings at the beginning of his presidency that gave him the authority to widen government intelligence’s role in its fight against foreign drug cartels. 

Lastly, another major distinction that the Democrats refuse to acknowledge is that the War on Drugs is not a direct war, such as the 2002 War in Iraq or World War II, and therefore does not need added congressional approval. By definition, a “war” is between two states. Foreign terrorist organizations like drug cartels are individual entities, not states. This is merely an armed conflict. 

The unofficial war on drugs, which began in the early 1970s, has been composed of specialized operations that have brought down some of the major cartels and drug kingpins. Those include: Pablo Escobar and his Medellin Cartel in 1970s Colombia, Félix Gallardo and his Federation Cartel in 1980s Mexico, and now Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles in the 2020s. 

BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL: AMERICA’S BOLD DEFENSE PUSH SIGNALS GLOBAL COMEBACK

All of it has been, and is, legal. 

The president’s actions to take down a drug empire are clearly authorized and justified. The Democrats just want to continue their campaign of opposing anything Trump’s administration does, disregarding the countless American lives it protects.