Maybe so, but the administration claims that these people are not just drug smugglers, but narco-terrorists.

Normally, suspected drug smugglers should be interdicted, boarded, and inspected. The Coast Guard and U.S. Navy train for this. It's standard operating procedure.

It's not normal to destroy boats which don't pose any immediate threat. It would be acceptable to fire on a boat which refuses to permit boarding and inspection, assuming the interdiction itself is legal under maritime law.

Unless there is an imminent threat, you've got to give people a course of action which they can take to avoid their vessel being fired upon: turn back, change course, submit to boarding and inspection, etc.

> Normally, suspected drug smugglers should be interdicted, boarded, and inspected.

Wouldn't any smuggler have drugs in a case weighted by stones ready to dump the second they think they're being interdicted? You wouldn't find anything and possible smugglers would have both liberty and equipment try again.

I suspect there's no easier deterence without boots on ground regime change (ie. Police yourself + develop the region economically) other than essentially shooting at suspiciously behaving craft. I also suspect all the various solutions have been game theorized to death in millitary thinktanks and war colleges and have been known for decades - they just decided to bite the bullet now.

Piracy on the east coast of Africa was a huge problem problem until countries sent navies to shoot the boats out of water if they were behaving suspiciously. I believe some countries were ready to bomb ports towns but it thankfully it didn't get that far before local strongmen got the message.

If they are indeed accused of being narco-terrorists, then they are enemy combatants, and there are no such requirements in either international or US law.

I accuse you of being a narcoterrorist. Hellfire incoming. Goodbye.

That's how war works. Narcoterrorists are no different.

Narcoterrorism isn’t a real thing in this context. Repurposing the term “terrorism” to refer to people who aren’t seeking to enact political aims by doing violence against civilians is ridiculous.