The 7th Special Forces Group of the U.S. Army is conducting joint operations with Ecuadorian military forces in the coastal province of Esmeraldas, hunting narco-terrorists in a region that has become one of the most dangerous drug corridors in the Western Hemisphere. Esmeraldas Provincial Governor Juan Jaramillo confirmed the operations publicly, saying, "We are with the 7th Special Forces Group of the US Army. We are working together in the fight against narcoterrorism."
So naturally, the New York Times sent reporters to check on the livestock.
The operations are part of President Trump's Shield of the Americas coalition, a military partnership with a dozen Latin American countries formed in March to take the fight directly to the cartels fueling America's fentanyl and cocaine crisis. The broader campaign, dubbed Operation Southern Spear, has killed over 200 people, destroyed more than 60 vessels, and deployed two U.S. warships to the region. U.S. Southern Command described the effort as "a powerful example of the commitment of partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the scourge of narco-terrorism."
That's not a press release. That's a body count. And it's exactly the kind of direct military engagement against cartels that voters were promised and previous administrations refused to deliver.
Ecuadorian Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo has backed the joint operations, which represent a significant escalation in how the U.S. treats the cartel threat — not as a law enforcement problem to be managed with plea deals and harm reduction pamphlets, but as a military problem requiring military solutions. Ecuador, for its part, has been drowning in cartel violence for years. The country's murder rate exploded as Mexican and Colombian trafficking organizations turned its coastline into a transit hub. Esmeraldas province sits at the center of it.
Enter the New York Times, which reported that one military strike "appears to have destroyed a cattle and dairy farm, not a drug trafficking compound." That's the angle. Not the over 200 narco-terrorists eliminated. Not the 60-plus vessels taken off the water. Not the coalition of a dozen sovereign nations voluntarily partnering with the United States to fight a shared enemy. A farm.
A July Washington Post report cited a DEA assessment concluding that the airstrikes had no impact on cocaine volume, pricing, or purity entering the United States. Which is an interesting metric to apply to a campaign that's been running for five months against networks that have operated for decades. By that logic, D-Day was a failure because German industry was still producing tanks the following week.
The criticism follows a familiar pattern. When the previous administration let cartels operate with near-impunity — when fentanyl poured across the southern border and American overdose deaths hit record numbers year after year — there was no DEA assessment leaked to the Washington Post questioning the strategy. There were no tearful investigations into collateral damage. The acceptable policy was to do nothing, call it diplomacy, and let Americans die at home instead of cartel operatives dying abroad.
What's happening in Esmeraldas isn't a secret war. Governor Jaramillo announced it publicly. Defense Minister Loffredo has supported it. A dozen partner nations signed on. U.S. Southern Command issued statements. This is an overt, multinational military campaign against organizations that poison American communities — and the objection from Washington's legacy media is that the Pentagon might have hit a barn.
