Video shows a Caribbean vessel erupting into a fireball as SOUTHCOM says it killed four alleged narco-terrorists in a drug trafficking strike.
Page A2From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 20 September 2026
Pentagon kills 4 more alleged 'narco-terrorists,' pushing tally to 231 dead in 69 strikes Congress hasn't voted on.
As it ran on the front
Let's start with what happened yesterday in the Caribbean, because it's simple: the United States military struck a vessel of narco-terrorists, killed four of them, and made the hemisphere a little safer. That's the mission. That's Operation Southern Spear, and it works.
It's worked since Sunday, August 26, when a strike brought the total to 227 in what was then the second bombing in as many days. It worked on September 2, the one-year anniversary of the very first strike, when two survivors clung to wreckage for forty-five minutes before a second strike — call it what SOUTHCOM's own people call it, a "double-tap" — finished the job. That video has never been released. But the first video, the one the President posted himself, showed eleven terrorists eliminated in a single operation, and that's the video America got to see, so that's the one that counts.…
…(cont) It worked on September 10, when three more were killed — the first strike, we're told, that actually killed everyone aboard, which I suppose means the other sixty-some strikes didn't, which — hold on. That same day Secretary Rubio announced the military would start hitting refueling vessels too, in Ecuador's waters now, which is either an escalation or a clarification, I'd have to check with the building on which.
And it worked yesterday, strike number sixty-nine, bringing the count to 231. Two hundred and thirty-one people. In just over a year. Without a single authorization vote. I want to be precise about that number because precision is what separates a military campcampaign from — from a body count, which is not what I meant to say, but sixty-nine strikes is sixty-nine strikes and 231 is 231 and Congress's vote total on any of it is zero, and I don't have a talking point for zero.
Look, the administration calls them narco-terrorists. Nobody in Congress has voted to call them anything, or to authorize killing them, or to even see the second video. The families in Democracy Now's report are still asking what their fathers and brothers actually did wrong before somebody decided the answer was a fireball. I was supposed to end this column reassuring you that the process is working. The process is a number that goes up every few days and a legislature that has not once weighed in on it. I'll get our numbers straight and get back to you.
“Two hundred thirty-one people, sixty-nine strikes, one year, zero votes — that's not a war, that's a kill count with a press release attached, and the guys running it get to be judge, jury, and gunner because nobody with a badge and a subpoena ever made them prove a single boat was carrying anything but fish. They double-tapped survivors clinging to wreckage and sat on the video, which tells you everything about what they're afraid you'd see. This isn't about drugs. It's about who gets to decide who dies without ever having to ask anybody's permission.”
“These are narco-terrorists, plain and simple, and every strike takes poison off the water before it reaches a single American kid — that's the mission, that's Operation Southern Spear, and it is working exactly as designed. Sure, the number's gone up to 231 now, in sixty-nine strikes, which, I'll grant you, is a lot of strikes for a operation that was supposed to be surgical — did I say sixty-nine? That does seem like a lot. Look, the point is Congress hasn't objected, and silence is basically a vote, that's — that's not actually how voting works, is it.”
The receipts
The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military in Latin America to at least 231 in 69 strikes since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls "narcoterrorists" about one year ago.
The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the US military to at least 231 in 69 strikes since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” almost a year ago.
· Three ‘narco-terrorists’ killed in the Caribbean by US military forces from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
· ‘Serial Killer Empire’: US Kills 3 in Boat Strike, Bringing Trump Murder Count in ‘Make-Believe War’ to 230 from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
· "Went to Sea and Never Came Back": Families of Fishermen Seek Answers After Deadly U.S. Boat Strikes from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· 'Where Is Congress?' US Kills 4 More Bombing Another Boat in the Caribbean from the morgue, 26 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.