Marie-Rose Sheinerman writes:

The official line remains the same: The 10-month campaign of strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific has nearly stopped the flow of drugs by sea into the United States. In December, President Trump boasted about a 92 percent drop in seaborne shipments. Last month, in an apparent sign of further progress, he said the decline was up to 97.2 percent.

But government officials and agencies closest to the action, at sea and on America’s streets, tell a different story. In hearings, official reports, and interviews they have all but given up the pretense that the campaign has succeeded in reducing the flow of drugs into the U.S., even as 221 people have been killed in more than 60 strikes.

General Francis L. Donovan, the head of Southern Command, which runs the military campaign, told lawmakers earlier this year that “the boat strikes aren’t the answer,” though they remain “one of the many tools” in the long-term effort to counter narcotics. As if to prove the point, street prices for cocaine in the United States have plummeted, the opposite of what would be expected if smugglers were being deterred. [Continue reading…]