Service Members Flood Hotlines Over US Boat Strike Operations
U.S. service members are contacting military legal hotlines in growing numbers to express moral and operational concerns about the Trump administration’s campaign of lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific — a campaign that has killed more than 200 people since September 2025 without publicly released evidence that any of those killed were involved in drug trafficking, according to USA Today.
The Scope of the Campaign
Since September 2025, the U.S. military under President Donald Trump has conducted what has been dubbed Operation Southern Spear — a series of missile strikes on vessels suspected of transporting narcotics. More than 60 boats have been destroyed, and the death toll surpassed 200 in late May. The deadliest month was October 2025, with 45 people killed.
The Trump administration has released no evidence that any of the suspected narco-trafficking boats carried drugs or that their occupants worked for drug cartels. It has never publicly identified the people it killed. A five-month investigation by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) identified 13 previously unnamed victims, all from extremely poor communities across Latin America and the Caribbean, as The Guardian reported.
Service Members Seek Legal Guidance
Two organizations providing anonymous legal advice — Quaker House/GI Rights Hotline and the National Institute for Military Justice’s Orders Project — have received calls from service members directly involved in planning or executing the strikes, according to USA Today.
Steve Woolford, a resource counselor with Quaker House and the GI Rights Hotline, said he spoke with about four service members involved in the operation who were seeking legal and ethical guidance. One discussed helping plan a strike, and two others were ordered to execute strikes. “I think this is exactly what was described as a war crime,” Woolford said one caller told him.
Brenner Fissell, vice president of the National Institute for Military Justice, said the institute’s Orders Project receives a “steady but small number of calls,” including from service members concerned that the boat strikes are illegal. Some have expressed a “sense of being asked to do things that one is deeply conflicted with the morality of doing,” he said.
More than 100 people have contacted the Center on Conscience and War since late February 2026 seeking help filing as conscientious objectors, according to Mike Prysner, the center’s director.
The “Double-Tap” Strike and Legal Concerns
The first-ever boat strike in September 2025 left two survivors that the military killed in a second, “double-tap” strike about 40 minutes later. The Pentagon has refused to publicly release footage of that second strike. Lawmakers who viewed it in a classified setting called it deeply disturbing.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said after viewing the footage. “You have two individuals in clear distress — without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel — who were killed by the United States.”
International law prohibits killing adversaries who are wounded or have already surrendered. UN experts warned in November 2025 that the strikes may amount to international crimes, as AP News reported.
Legal Accountability Questions
Even if the strikes are unlawful, prospects for accountability appear slim. Trump could preemptively pardon service members, shielding them from future prosecution. “There’s a general perception that no one is ever going to be prosecuted for this because Trump will be able to issue pardons preemptively,” Fissell said.
Dan Maurer, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former military lawyer, said he found it “highly improbable” that a future administration would prosecute service members involved. “It’s going to be a shameful episode in the history of American military operations, and I hope it becomes a case study in what not to do,” he said.
Steven Lepper, a retired Air Force major general who organized a working group of former military lawyers after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired top lawyers across the military’s services, warned of the broader consequences. “We are desensitizing the military to the notion that the orders they’re being given may be unlawful,” he said.
Victims and Human Cost
Families of two Trinidadian men — Chad Joseph, 26, and Rishi Samaroo — killed in an October 14, 2025 boat strike, sued the U.S. government in January 2026. The lawsuit, filed with the help of the ACLU, alleges “wanton, willful, and outrageous killings.”
María Teresa Ronderos, director and co-founder of CLIP, whose investigation identified victims from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, and Saint Lucia, said: “Despite the US claim that the strikes are fighting narco-terrorism, what is actually happening is that young people living in extremely precarious conditions, doing whatever work they can to support their families, are being targeted.”
Broader Implications
Experts say the strikes have not reduced the flow of drugs to the U.S. Cocaine, not fentanyl, is transported via these maritime routes, and U.S. cocaine overdose deaths have actually been declining — approximately 22,000 in 2024 and 19,000 in 2025. The Coast Guard set a record in 2024 for cocaine seizures: 225 metric tons.
Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and a former State Department lawyer, characterized the campaign as “a military spectacle to give the illusion of the administration doing something ‘macho’ about drugs.”
U.S. Southern Command maintains that “all operations are conducted deliberately and lawfully, in full compliance with U.S. and international law, including the law of armed conflict.” At a June 2 Senate budget hearing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the strikes, saying every boat strike “has a legal officer on the deck that has to make a determination about whether the call is legal or not.”
What to Watch For
As the strikes continue, several key questions remain: Will any service member formally refuse an order to conduct a boat strike? Will Congress take legislative action to halt or constrain the operations? And will the federal lawsuit by Trinidadian families succeed or set a legal precedent? The answers could shape not only the future of this campaign but also the broader contours of U.S. military engagement in the drug war for years to come.