Latest Breaking News

would be to go after the larger vessels. For instance, boarding and capturing the smaller vessel to get hold of the pinger frequency, lure the larger boat in, and then attack that ship. Or likewise board and capture that vessel with the idea of getting intelligence from the prisoners. More risky than a drone attack, for sure, but if the idea is to put a major dent into this traffic what's being done now seems like a losing game of whack-a-mole than an effective way to deal with the problem.

Then again I think an even better idea would be to decriminalize drug use and then treat it as a medical, not a policing problem. Provide addicts with affordable and timely treatment options, provide maintenance drugs during treatment, and thus eliminate much of the market. No great demand, no profit for the smugglers. It's been done before. We don't, for instance, often send out the Coast Guard to intercept shipments of liquor coming across the Great Lakes, not since the 1920s anyway.

Blowing up these small boats, and killing what are most likely very low level members of the operation doesn't seem all that effective a strategy to me, but I could be wrong. With all the money at stake, it seems to me there will always be people desperate enough to sign on, especially in areas like Columbia and Venezuela.

Then too, giving a presidential pardon to the person who has been identified as responsible for the largest shipment of cocaine ever brought into the country hardly seems to make sense.

This all sounds so ass-backwards, but then again so very typical of how the GOP handles the many issues we face.

Best wishes to you and yours--