I haven’t seen anything on this subject in a long time. Years ago, there was an article on how the cartels got their drugs transported by sea. The cartels didn’t have their own seamen. They used different incentives to get regular fishermen and sailors to crew the boats. Sometimes they’d kidnap their families. Sometimes they’d simply pay them a couple of thousand dollars. Sometimes they’d “impress” (enslave) them. The point of the article was, at least at that time, the cartel didn’t employ their own people to crew the subs or the boats. The crews ranged from essentially slaves to coerced men, to paid “contractors.”
My point is, the loss of the drugs may hurt the cartel, but the cost of those drugs compared to the price they bring is very low. Perhaps one dollar of cost for a thousand dollars gained at market. But the cartels are not losing cartel members when the boats are blown up. It’s hard to evaluate the morality of blowing up the boats without knowing the details, which may differ boat to boat. I’m thinking that by not knowing these details there may be a potential hidden public relations disaster when the details come out. It might be that the people we blew up were doing it to save their families from being murdered.
While most on this medium might not care, it’s not unknown for the best government intention to be undone by bad press. (Actually, there’s no other kind.)
“They used different incentives to get regular fishermen and sailors to crew the boats. Sometimes they’d kidnap their families. Sometimes they’d simply pay them a couple of thousand dollars.”
(assuming the above isn’t another DNC talking point) Since they wind up dead anyway, being a ‘loose end’ after their drug run, we’re just hastening the process and making it a bit less lucrative for the cartels. As to profit levels, exactly - we take out stuff when it’s concentrated (as in these boats) and it has a HUGE EFFECT overall on the drug supply in the US.
If a person is trying to break into my house, I don’t ask his motivations, nor do I ask if he did it on his own. I simply show him and move on.