Democrats rushed to cameras this week to smear a successful military operation against narco-terrorists as a possible “war crime,” and the loudest critics in Congress are leaning on emotion and politics rather than the actual law of armed conflict. The people who understand that law best, including a top naval defense attorney who once served President Trump, say the attacks on Adm. Frank Bradley and Operation Southern Spear are flat-out dishonest.
Tim Parlatore, a prominent military defense lawyer and former Trump Navy attorney, spelled out the core issue in an exclusive interview with our sister site RedState. “You have a boat full of cocaine and terrorists heading to this country to poison and kill Americans. That’s a legitimate target.”
That is the basic framework of Southern Spear: a designated terrorist organization using narco-trafficking routes to move drugs toward the U.S., which makes their vessels lawful military objectives under both U.S. and international law.
Parlatore explained that after the initial engagement, commanders conduct a battle damage assessment, and the vessel and its cargo remain legitimate targets to destroy, so they cannot be salvaged and returned to service against the United States. When drug traffickers die in a lawful follow-on strike whose purpose is sinking the ship and eliminating the threat, Parlatore describes those deaths as “collateral damage” under long-standing rules of engagement at sea.
Meanwhile, the operational facts look very different from the narrative Democrats are selling. SOUTHCOM announced that on Dec. 4, Joint Task Force Southern Spear executed another lethal kinetic strike in international waters, under orders from Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, against a narco-trafficking vessel operated by a designated terrorist organization.
On Dec. 4, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization. Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and… pic.twitter.com/pqksvxM3HP
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) December 4, 2025
Intelligence confirmed the boat carried illicit narcotics, and was moving along a known drug route, and the strike destroyed the vessel and killed four male narco-terrorists. This mission is part of a broader campaign that has seized or destroyed hundreds of tons of narcotics since September, disrupting cartel networks that flood American communities with poison. For some reason, that kind of success terrifies Democrats. It makes you wonder if they would have opposed the raid that ended with the killing of Osama bin Laden had it taken place under Trump.
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Parlatore drew a very clear historical line for those pretending this is some radical new doctrine. He pointed to the Battle of Midway, where one Japanese aircraft carrier lay dead in the water, on fire, unable to launch planes and packed with wounded.
“You know what we did? We kept throwing torpedoes into it until it went to the bottom of the ocean,” he explained. “And that was lawful.” The goal in those situations is the same: put the ship down so it cannot be towed back, repaired, and returned to fight American forces. The law of armed conflict at sea has recognized for generations that sinking a disabled enemy vessel, even when wounded remain aboard, is lawful when the target itself remains a legitimate military objective.
That is the standard Adm. Bradley applied, and that is the standard Democrats now pretend does not exist. Military legal experts say the scrutiny he faces has more to do with partisan warfare than the law. Operation Southern Spear targets terrorist-operated drug boats that threaten American lives, and the strikes have been reviewed and approved up the legal chain every step of the way.
Let's face it, the left’s problem is not with the rules; the problem is that, under President Trump, those rules are finally being used to hit the cartels where it hurts.
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