This morning, the headlines were dominated by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s claims that one of the strikes against vessels of Venezuelan-based drug cartels contained a Colombian ‘fisherman.’
Colombia‘s president, Gustavo Petro, has accused Washington of “murder” after the U.S. military struck an alleged drug-trafficking vessel last month.
Petro said the White House had violated the South American country’s sovereignty and killed a Colombian fisherman, named by the president as Alejandro Carranza. Colombian media reported Carranza was onboard a boat targeted by U.S. forces on September 15.
Funcionarios del gobierno de los EEUU han cometido un asesinato y violado nuestra soberanía en aguas territoriales
El pescador Alejandro Carranza no tenía vínculos con el narco y sus actividad diaria era pescar.
La lancha colombiana estaba la deriva y con la señal de avería…
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) October 19, 2025
US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters
Fisherman Alejandro Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing.
The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure.
We await explanations from the US government.
No matter that this allegation can’t be documented, and happened over a month ago, the claim was immediately picked up online. It will undoubtedly be the topic of discussion over the next few days. As Rush Limbaugh was famous for saying, “It isn’t the nature of evidence, it is the seriousness of the charge” that matters. Here, there is literally no evidence, but the allegation of “murder’ is pretty serious, so here we go. On the basis of the facts, this story looks a lot more like a concocted story of Pavik Morozov, the USSR icon who turned his parents into the NKVD for disloyalty to the party, or the ‘Comrade Ogilvy‘ manufactured the Winston Smith in George Orwell’s “1984.”
I’m sure it is no accident that the allegation was made by a man who is as hostile to the U.S. as Nicolas Maduro. If you recall, he had to be humiliated into taking back the trash he’d flushed into the U.S.; see Priceless: Trump’s Power Move Causes Colombia to Cave on Deportation Flights – He Has Perfect Response – RedState. He also had his visa revoked by the State Department after a public diatribe in which he encouraged U.S. military personnel to mutiny; see FAFO. Colombia’s President Has Visa Revoked After Calling on US Troops to Mutiny – RedState.
While it isn’t outside the realm of reason that dear, departed Alejandro was a ‘fisherman,’ an extensive investigation by the Associated Press found that it is very common for Venezuelan-based fishermen to be https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/best-of-the-week/honorable-mention/2025/ap-team-ventures-deep-into-venezuelas-drug-fishing-frontier-after-u-s-strikes/ “driven into drug trafficking out of economic desperation.” It is hard to believe that things are better across the border in Colombia. So even if the story is true and Alejandro is no longer among us, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t on a boat employed by the drug cartels.
Trinidad got into the game on Thursday, when some people claimed, without evidence, that locals had been on a boat attacked by the U.S.; see U.S. Military Killed Venezuelan Fisherman in Suspected Drug Boat Attack, Family Says – The New York Times. Even if true, and that is a huge ‘if,’ it still doesn’t follow that those people were drug traffickers. And just because they live on an island, it doesn’t mean they don’t know that the U.S. routinely paid large sums of money for collateral fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The ultimate aim is to create public pressure on Trump to cease his pressure on Venezuela and the cartels. Colombia is not an innocent bystander. It is much more of a narco-state than Venezuela; it is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, and sits squarely on the major routes that move cocaine from the numbers two (Peru) and three (Bolivia) producers to the U.S.
Trump’s reaction to this allegation was shutting down Uncle Sugar’s cash pipeline to Colombia; see Trump Axes Colombia Aid, Brands President Gustavo Petro ‘Drug Leader’—Next Move ‘Won’t Be Done Nicely’ – RedState. He also threatened to take action against the Colombian cocaine industry.
The other issue the left is trying to manipulate relies upon you being stupid. I covered it Saturday in US Forces Destroy Drug Running Submersible and Take First Drug War Prisoners – RedState. The claim is that because the administration repatriated two drug runners from the sunken submersible and didn’t arrest or detain them, that means something shady is going on. Glenn Greenwald is the best example.
The US Govt will repatriate the two surviving crew members of the boat it blew up in international waters on Thursday: one back to Colombia, the other to Ecuador.
That’s a very strange thing to do if the US is really in an “armed conflict” and these are actual drug traffickers: https://t.co/g7OkuXtIWq
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 18, 2025
However, if Greenwald and the mother wit to read the article he’s referring to, he would have his answer.
The decision to transfer the two survivors, however, was in line with the Coast Guard’s practice of repatriating or handing off to friendly countries people who were intercepted outside the United States as suspected traffickers.
The guys picked up are low-level; otherwise, they wouldn’t be on a jury-rigged submersible hauling cocaine or fentanyl through an area where the U.S. military is whacking anything associated with drug trafficking. They undoubtedly spilled whatever information they had during the two days the Navy had them. The cost of prosecuting and imprisoning them is all out of whack relative to the deterrent value or the loss to the cartels. To prosecute them, you have to prove there were drugs on the sunken boat. You’d also have to divulge the intelligence that let you know they were carrying drugs. The best play, monetarily, operationally, and legally, is to put them ashore.
But it looks like the memo went out on the TDS grapevine to go with the same story.
if that boat had been filled with known “narco-terrorists” at war w/America, the Trump adminstration would imprison and prosecute survivors
the fact that they aren’t suggests the survivors were not narco-terrorists
which in turn suggests the administration is murdering people https://t.co/2CzkaAAXJI
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 18, 2025
Generally, narcoterrorists are not repatriated unless they aren’t who Trump and Hegseth say they are. Seems like we are just randomly killing people in boats. https://t.co/q9UnUODd3E
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) October 18, 2025
So we are either letting captured cartel members go free or bombing innocent people. Which one is it @JDVance? https://t.co/LChTUEd89K
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) October 18, 2025
Almost as if Trump administration is trying to avoid judicial review of the legality of its lethal attacks on suspected drug traffickers https://t.co/MToft19wXj
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) October 18, 2025
Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin couldn’t be bothered to read beyond the headline.
The capture of prisoners presents a major new set of legal and policy problems for the Trump administration in the US military’s escalating campaign in the Caribbean. @EricSchmittNYT https://t.co/sdStAbxBOQ
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) October 18, 2025
So here are the two lines of attack to keep an eye on: the ‘harmless fisherman’ story and the ‘suspicious actions by the military’ story.
I have no doubt that if this campaign goes on long enough, someone will get killed that we didn’t target. But Napoleon said something about making omelettes. We need to keep our eye on the strategic goal, which I’m coming to believe is interdicting the cocaine pipeline, and not get sidetracked.
As far as the ‘suspicious actions’ angle. Again, from what we saw last week (Did He Jump…Or Was He Pushed? US Top Commander for Latin America Abruptly Retires – RedState), there are senior military and senior officials who are not on board with either shutting off drugs or sending Nicolas Maduro off ot a SuperMax. They either don’t like Trump and don’t want to be a part of any success, or they are bureaucrats, averse to risk and more interested in keeping the status quo than a revolutionary shift. There will be more of these stories as this campaign progresses, particularly if we see kinetic operations on the ground in Venezuela or Colombia; see President Trump Unleashes the CIA on Venezuela and Signals Ground Operations Are Very Likely – RedState. Just because something isn’t “the way we’ve always done it,” doesn’t mean it is illegal, improper, immoral, or unethical. It just means it is new.
