Interdiction - Part 2

Recently a very reasonable question came-up in a discussion within a private Face Book group.

Does the Coast Guard have the authority to fire on a vessel suspected of running drugs or engaged in some other suspected illegal activity?

The short answer is yes.  Unremarkably, the rules of engagement are similar to those of any law enforcement organization.

The US Coast Guard may fire disabling shots at a suspected drug smuggling vessel as long as specific legal rules and operational conditions are met. 

Under the Coast Guard Use of Force Policy found in the Coast Guard Maritime Law Enforcement Manual (MLEM) paraphrased as follows:

1.  Legal authority (jurisdiction).  This requires probable cause or reasonable suspicion of drug smuggling.  Including, does the USCG have the legal authority to stop the vessel - is it in US waters, is it a US vessel, or has a foreign nation given permission.

2.  Issuance of warnings. This requires the use of visual and verbal signals.  The use of lights, sirens, radio calls, and hand signals. And frequently warning shots first; typically with an M240 or .50-caliber across the bow.

3. When the suspect vessel refuses to stop.  If the crew ignores repeated commands to stop - called a “non-compliant vessel” - disabling fire is permitted as the next step before any higher level of force.

4.  Only to disable the vessel, not harm the crew.  These are called “Disabling Fire” or “Engine Disabling Rounds.”  Shots are directed at the engines, not people.  Only trained Precision Marksmen/Surface (PMS) or helicopter gunners can do this.  These shots must be reasonably expected to stop the vessel safely.

5.  When the Coast Guard cannot fire.  They may not fire simply because the boat is suspected of drug running.  If it would create an unreasonable risk to innocent people.  Without proper maritime law enforcement authority.  Without exhausting lesser means (warnings, maneuvering, etc.)

6.  Helicopter Armed Interdiction.  The MH-65 “Hitron” helicopters are utilized for this.  Using a self-stabilizing weapon they fire warning shots.  Then fire precision .50-caliber disabling rounds into outboard motors.  This is a standard technique against go-fast boats.

7.  Deadly force.  Deadly force (shooting at people) is allowed only when the suspected crew poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.  It is unlawful if solely because of drug smuggling or fleeing.

Through Operation Pacific Viper, the Coast Guard has accelerated operations against cartels across the Eastern Pacific.   

During this surge, the crew of USCG Cutter Munro only last week delivered a massive win: 20,000+ pounds of cocaine seized in a single interdiction, the largest Coast Guard drug bust at sea in more than 18 years. 

USCG crews are bringing every capability to the fight, protecting the Homeland, and combating the flow of deadly drugs long before they can impact American communities.

Quote Of The Day

This relief will provide much-needed certainty to farmers as they get this year’s harvest to market and look ahead to next year’s crops.  We’re going to make them so strong it will indeed be a golden age for farmers.

-President Donald Trump 

 

*Speaking about the latest farm bailout resulting from White House tariff policy 

More Agricultural Surrealism

President Trump announced yesterday a $12 billion bailout for struggling farmers as he looks to shore up the finances of some of his most loyal supporters whose financial fortunes have been hurt by his trade war.

During his first term, Mr. Trump directed more than $20 billion in economic support to farmers after China boycotted U.S. products in response to Mr. Trump’s tariffs.  Everything Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is enumerating are higher in price today largely as a consequence of import taxes.  You know - tariffs. 

 

This bailout is not a rescue. It is the predictable outcome of a policy cycle that begins with tariffs, produces retaliation, and ends with federal money used to shield a loyal constituency from damage the administration created.  This is absolutely exhausting. 

 

Tariffs were sold as strength. They functioned as economic self-harm. China responded exactly as every trade economist predicted, and farmers absorbed the shock. Now public money is used to steady a group valued for its political loyalty while other sectors harmed by the same policies are left to navigate the fallout alone. 

 

This selective insulation needs to be called-out. When government protects one constituency from the costs of its own decisions while allowing others to bear the full impact, accountability collapses. Policy becomes performance. Consequences become optional for some and unavoidable for others. Neither an economy or a democracy can function for long on that kind of asymmetry.

Create a problem, then drop $12 billion on the people who voted for this problem. Then blame Biden.

After all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over NYC Mayor-Elect Zorhan Mamdani; Trump and MAGA are going full on socialist. 

Surreal.

 

Of course, we've been to this rodeo before.... 

 

 

Deer Camp

Including myself we hosted six hunters here for the gun deer opener and successfully added eight whitetails (four of each sex) to the camp meat poles.  For various reasons the number of  hunters has skinnied-down recently yet the kill count stays about the same.

 

Anyway, the trail cameras continued through the entirety of the ruckus and I thought it would be fun to share some photos of their comings and goings.

 

 

Including these of one of the guys heading out to his stand before sunrise who was tailed by a fox.

 

This weekend we're hosting my business partner, some of her family and anyone else that wants to join the fun for the December antlerless hunt.

  

Interdiction - Part 1

photo USCG

As long as we're on the subject of drug interdiction I did some fact checking. 

Under the Department of Homeland Security, the US Coast Guard is the primary agency for US maritime law enforcement. They are our country's law enforcement on the high seas.  This includes drug interdiction, migrant interdiction, fisheries enforcement and more.  Like the US Navy, that agency has sophisticated intel and technology to identify and halt drug runners. 

The US Navy, under the Department of Defense, focuses on warfare, defense and maintaining freedom of the seas with its role shifting to law enforcement only during wartime or specific security crises - adhering to military rather than civilian law. 

Typically, armed USCG teams will halt a boat that there is probable cause to suspect is carrying illegal drugs. They will sequester its crew while a search is done.

If no contraband is found, the Coast Guard vacates the boat and sends the captain and crew on their merry way.

If drugs are found, the crew is arrested and the boat taken in tow by the Coast Guard. The suspects are turned over to federal authorities where they will be arraigned, assigned attorneys, and tried on drug charges. That is called due process and is no different than how any law enforcement agency or department deals with the sale or distribution of illegal drugs in our communities.

Capital punishment is not an option because under our federal law, drug delivery – even massive amounts – is punishable by prison terms, not death. At no time does the Coast Guard act as judge, jury, and executioner.

And they are very good at what they do.  In November the US Coast Guard announced it seized nearly 510,000 pounds of cocaine in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean during fiscal year 2025 (FY25), the largest amount in the Service's history. On average, the Coast Guard seizes 167,000 pounds of cocaine annually. 

Game Day Pizza

 

After feeding my sourdough starters a couple days ago it occurred to me to me to make pizza dough - four 320g balls.

Froze two (an experiment) and proofed the other two for a halftime pie and one more for snacking this week.

At 15F and falling the outdoor brick oven is a non starter.  Nevertheless, the bottom convection oven on the new GE range will get up to 550F and bake a pie on the pizza stone in 10 minutes, give or take.

From bottom up: homemade hand-tossed sourdough crust, Rao’s imported Italian pizza sauce, locally-sourced whole milk mozz, topped with Becco’s Italian sausage, fresh shrooms, black olives, fresh basil from Columbia and a drizzle of EVO.

Behold the CSMO - aka the Milwaukee Special.

Nixon for the DAGGER.

The Bears still suck...
 

Intentions

Sniff, sniff.  Do you smell what I smell?  

Yup. 

Profits.  

Venezuela is teetering at the brink and there is money to be made.

The first whiff of this has been what's going on for quite some time in the markets with Venezuelan bonds.  Prices of Venezuelan debt securities; including bonds that have been in default since 2017 have doubled in price since the start of the year.  Because they're garbage that's not saying much, yet Wall Street is betting that the Trump administration may be successful in ousting Nicolás Maduro and replacing his government with one likely headed by - drum roll please - opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Machado.  If successful, this could possibly right the Venezuelan economic ship, lead to debt restructuring and a big payout to bond speculators.

The second whiff is that this is more about oil and little to do with drug smuggling.  All of this business of targeting purported narco terrorist drug running boats like a video game is another Trumpian bright shiny object.  Both a distraction and mechanism to apply pressure on Maduro.  Evidence of this you ask?  First-off, fentanyl is made with precursors from China and having been manufactured in Mexico comes to America by land borders; namely Mexico.  Secondly, cocaine comes from Columbia, Peru and Bolivia as a consequence of coca leaves being grown in Andean nations.  Venezuela has little to do with either fentanyl or cocaine.  And if the Navy interdicted and boarded the boats, summarily executed everyone on board and then sank the boats, bodies and cargo the net result is unchanged.  The hi-tech, standoff nature of these strikes doesn't reduce the horror of the policy.  

It is wrong.

The third whiff is that Donald Trump doesn't want to be bothered by many things including affordability issues for working families and cares little about the drug trade.  Evidence of the latter is his absolute pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.  You know, the guy tried in an American court and sentenced last year to 45 years in U.S. prison for helping drug traffickers to safely move hundreds of tons of cocaine north through his country to the U.S.  Yes, that guy, the Cocaine Kingpin and wing man to the Sinaloa Cartel's leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias 'El Chapo'.  Consider what my Libertarian survivors at the Cato Institute have to say on the subject.

I'm not particularly fond of conspiracy theories but much of this isn't passing the smell test.  What I know for sure is that Donald Trump has spent a lifetime running various hustles, grifts and scams; and the position of the Office of the President is a once in a lifetime opportunity to enrich himself and his family.  Consequently, a pardon to anyone may result from millions upon tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars washed by means of untraceable Trump Meme Coin, bond profits as a result of regime change and future oil revenues as the cherry on top.  

Winning the drug war and building Latin American democracies have nothing to do with it.  Our government has a long and sordid history of failing at both.

To be fair, I also have a sketchy record of predictions; nevertheless, Latin American leaders such as Columbia's President Gustavo Petro suggest that - Oil is at the heart of the matter.  And Venezuela possesses the world's largest proven oil reserves.

Data shows estimates of proven oil reserves for 2025  

Source: Oil & Gas Journal

Moreover, Trump's candidness is usually a clear insight into his intentions.  In September of 2016 nominee Donald Trump said repeatedly the United States should take Iraq's oil as the spoils of war.  

At a 2023 political rally Donald Trump lamented in a speech that his first administration had been close to 'taking over' Venezuela for its oil reserves.  Venezuela. How about we're buying oil from Venezuela?  When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse.  We would have taken it over.  We would have gotten all that oil.  It would have been right next door.    

Trump's administration has previously used sanctions on the Venezuelan state oil company -  Petróleos de Venezuela - (PDVSA) as a tool to apply pressure, at times revoking or reissuing licenses for U.S. companies like Chevron to operate there.  Naturally, internal political instability, mismanagement, international sanctions along with the built-in inefficiencies of a state-run enterprise in a socialist country has resulted in wide-reaching problems requiring complex arrangements with foreign firms like Chevron to operate joint ventures under restrictions imposed by both Venezuela and the U.S.  

Notably, U.S. refiners are expertly-equipped to process Venezuela's heavy, sour crude and the country's location makes it a strategically valuable resource as with the passage of time our own domestic production will likely level-off.

And because I hold any number of energy producers as a direct shareholder, including Chevron, this tangent has caught my interest.  Besides, if Venezuela cannot someone has to do it. 

The Trump administration has officially framed its actions - including a military build-up that includes moving roughly fifteen percent of our Navy to the Gulf of Mexico - as an effort to stop drug trafficking and illegal migration from Venezuela.  This complex mix of national security concerns are likely superseded by the President's own comments and equally complex economic interests related to Wall Street and Venezuela's oil wealth.  

Seems to me that at first blush MAGA world seems to have embraced and endorsed regime change and the profits that will undoubtedly follow by means of military force; or at a minimum, the threat thereof.  

Who knew?

I'm willing to be wrong about all of this.  Time will tell.....