It isn’t about the drugs.

Every time you hear anyone (including news networks) defending the bombing of boats, saying that this is about terrorist drug cartels and we need this “war” to prevent Americans from being killed by drugs, you are being bamboozled. If you believe them, you are a gullible patsy.

And the talking heads on TV need to stop feeling like they have to preface any criticism with the obligatory, “Of course, we need to do much more to take down these horrible drug traffickers, but…” Trump says “drugs,” and they’re afraid to look soft on drugs, so they feed into the lie. The same thing happened with the National Guard and crime in cities. (The National Guard is the absolute most insanely wrong way to address crime in cities, but people are afraid to look “soft on crime.”)

Let’s say that Trump announces drunk driving is a national problem, so he plans to save millions of lives by sending in IRS agents. You shouldn’t have to say, “Well, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am against drunk driving, and any amount of it is too much, but I’m not sure that IRS agents are the best approach to the situation.” No, the proper response is, “Stop lying to us. You don’t care about drunk driving at all. What’s the real reason you want IRS agents here?”

It’s not about the drugs.

Does Trump really want to get rid of drug traffickers? Let’s take a look (just from this year). Ross “Dread Pirate Roberts” Ulbricht (aiding and abetting major distribution of drugs through the “Silk Road”): pardoned. Garnet Gilbert Smith (The Baltimore Kingpin): sentence commuted. Kantrell Gaulden (drug charges): pardoned. Michael Harris (cocaine distribution charges): pardoned. Charles Lavar Tanner (five kilos or more of cocaine): sentence commuted. And the big one: Juan Orlando Hernández (convicted of conspiring to traffic over 400 tons of cocaine and once boasted that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses”): pardoned. Trump likes drug traffickers if they can do something for him.

So, once again, it’s not about the drugs.

The big problem with drug deaths in the U.S. is fentanyl. Fentanyl is primarily made in Mexico based on precursor ingredients mainly sourced from China. Venezuela is not a significant source of fentanyl. Venezuela does produce cocaine (though Colombia is the dominant source). Much of Venezuela’s cocaine goes to Europe. There are a relatively small number of deaths in the U.S. from cocaine, and 80% of those are when cocaine is combined with other drugs (like fentanyl). Ironically, for this piece, many more people die from drunk driving each year in the U.S. than from unadulterated cocaine. And as long as people in the U.S. like to use cocaine, they will get it from somewhere.

The boats off the coast of Venezuela are generally headed to places like Trinidad or Suriname. The distance from Venezuela to the U.S. by boat is around 1,000 nautical miles (not an easy trip, and you’d have to fill the boat with fuel rather than drugs to make it).

We have a way to stop drug traffickers on the ocean. It’s called the Coast Guard. They’re very good at it. They just had a major score this week. They stop the boat, firing into the engines to disable it if necessary, seize the drugs, and arrest the people. Now they’ve got low-level traffickers that they can try to turn to go after the cartels. Killing them gets you no information. Sometimes, the people on boats are just patsies, paid a small amount or having their families threatened by cartels. And sometimes, intelligence is wrong, and the boat has no drugs or criminals. In that case, when the Coast Guard does it, they are released with apologies, not killed.

It isn’t about the drugs.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the September 2 boat strike that killed 11 people (odd to have 11 people taking up space on a small boat when you’re supposedly trying to carry a lot of drugs…). After the first strike, there were two survivors, without weapons or radios, sitting on the overturned half of the boat, trying to be rescued, so we blew them up.

Some are saying that it was a war crime, but I disagree. It would have been a war crime if we were at war, but we’re not. Congress has to declare war, not Trump (it’s in the Constitution). And the Trump administration has given no coherent legal reasons for us to be in a war with the people on those boats. So it’s not a war crime, it’s plain old murder. And not just the second strike. Our laws do not permit government employees to kill people without proof or trial just because they think they’re carrying drugs. We have committed at least 87 murders in boat strikes so far this year.

Not about the drugs.

So what is it about? Good question, and one for which we definitely need a coherent answer from the Trump administration. Some say that Marco Rubio wants regime change in Venezuela (he has pushed it for years). Some say that Stephen Miller is agitating for a war so he can bolster the Alien Enemies Act powers to further his white supremacy focus. Some say it’s the oil (Venezuela is a major source) and that Donald Trump wants to do to Venezuela what Putin is doing to Ukraine.

Do we really want to be Russia?

Because it’s certainly not about the drugs.