As the Trump<\/span> administration continues to bombard Iran, a top Pentagon official revealed that U.S. wars in the Western Hemisphere are also expanding, unveiling an effort dubbed \u201cOperation Total Extermination<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Attacks on Latin American drug cartels are \u201cjust the beginning\u201d Joseph Humire, the acting assistant secretary of war for homeland defense and Americas security affairs, told members of the House Armed Services Committee last week.<\/p>\n Humire indicated that many more strikes in Latin America are on the horizon. The comments came a day after President Donald Trump again teased American annexation of Cuba. \u201cI do believe I\u2019ll be the honor of \u2014 having the honor of taking Cuba,\u201d Trump said<\/a> last week. \u201cWhether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Humire announced that the Department of War supported \u201cbilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border\u201d \u2014 Pentagon-speak for March 3 strikes on unnamed \u201cDesignated Terrorist Organizations\u201d previously reported by The Intercept<\/a>. \u201cThe joint effort, named \u2018Operation Total Extermination,\u2019 is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The U.S.\u2013Ecuadorian campaign has already strayed into Colombia<\/a> after a farm was bombed or hit by \u201cricochet effect<\/a>\u201d on March 3, leaving an unexploded 500-pound bomb<\/a> lying in Colombia\u2019s border region. In response to a request for comment, U.S. Southern Command referred The Intercept to a statement on X<\/a> by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense confirming the bomb landed in Colombia.<\/p>\n Humire referred to the attacks as \u201cjoint land strikes\u201d and said that America was providing Ecuador with \u201ccapabilities that they otherwise would not have.\u201d The U.S. has since conducted at least one more strike with Ecuador. \u201cYes \u2014 as @POTUS has said \u2014 we are bombing Narco Terrorists on land as well,\u201d self-styled War Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote<\/a> on X on March 6, announcing the new strike. Days later, in a war powers report<\/a> announcing the introduction of U.S. armed forces into \u201chostilities\u201d in that country, the White House informed Congress of \u201cmilitary action taken on March 6, 2026, against the facilities of narco-terrorists affiliated with a designated terrorist organization.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The attacks in Ecuador are also part of, and an expansion of, Operation Southern Spear<\/a>: the U.S. military\u2019s\u00a0illegal campaign of strikes on boats<\/a>\u00a0in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has conducted 46 attacks since September 2025, destroying 48 vessels<\/a> and killing almost 160 civilians<\/a>. The latest strike, on March 19 in the Pacific, killed two more people and left one survivor. The Trump administration claims its victims are members of at least one of\u00a024 or more cartels and criminal gangs\u00a0with whom it claims to be at war but refuses to name<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cRushing to war on one man\u2019s whims is the exact opposite of what the Constitution demands.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThis Administration is barely paying lip service to the constitutional or international law governing the use of force. But we have these rules for a reason,\u201d said Rebecca Ingber, a former State Department lawyer and now a law professor at Cardozo Law School in New York. \u201cRushing to war on one man\u2019s whims is the exact opposite of what the Constitution demands.\u201d<\/p>\n Gen. Francis Donovan,\u00a0the SOUTHCOM commander, told lawmakers last week that \u201cboat strikes are not the answer,\u201d but teased an even larger campaign. \u201cWhat we\u2019re moving for right now might be an extension of Southern Spear, but really a counter-cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this network,\u201d he told members<\/a> of the Senate Armed Services Committee. \u201cI believe these kinetic [boat] strikes are just one small part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Humire could not say how many land strikes were being conducted across almost 20 Latin American and Caribbean nations. \u201cI don\u2019t have an exact number,\u201d he replied to a question. But when asked by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, if the War Department would \u201cbe moving to a lot more terrestrial strikes,\u201d Humire replied, \u201cYes, ranking member.\u201d<\/p>\n The Office of the Secretary of War did not respond to a request to clarify how great that increase might be.<\/p>\n Humire said the U.S.\u2013Ecuadorian campaign was \u201csetting the pace for regional, deterrence-focused operations against cartel infrastructure throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.\u201d The word \u201cdeterrence\u201d has become a popular Pentagon euphemism for the use of lethal strikes, in contrast to previous efforts to U.S. government efforts to marshal economic, diplomatic, and military means to convince adversaries<\/a> to abandon a specific course of action. \u201cDeterrence has a signaling effect on narco-terrorists, and raises the risks with their movements,\u201d Humire claimed.<\/p>\n In January, the U.S. attacked Venezuela<\/a> and abducted<\/a> the country\u2019s president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. It now rules the country through a puppet regime. Federal prosecutors have reportedly drafted a criminal indictment<\/a> against Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, threatening her with corruption and money laundering charges if she does not continue to do the bidding of the Trump administration. Trump also recently teased<\/a> the possibility of making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state.<\/p>\n The Trump administration is reportedly undertaking a regime-change operation in Cuba, attempting to push out President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel<\/a> as a requirement for negotiations between the U.S. and that island nation. U.S. officials are said to favor\u00a0Ra\u00fal Guillermo Rodr\u00edguez Castro<\/a>, the grandson of 94-year-old Ra\u00fal Castro, the former Cuban president and brother to Fidel, the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008. D\u00edaz-Canel\u00a0referenced U.S. plans to \u201cseize the country\u201d on X<\/a>\u00a0late Tuesday and said the U.S. would be met with \u201cimpregnable resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am holding Cuba,\u201d Trump\u00a0said recently<\/a>, noting his costly<\/a> regime-change war in the Middle East takes precedence at the moment.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re going to do Iran before Cuba.\u201d Trump imposed an\u00a0oil blockade<\/a>\u00a0on Cuba in January, plunging the country into a humanitarian crisis. The island\u2019s national electrical grid has already collapsed three times<\/a> this month, with one blackout lasting more than 29 hours<\/a>. U.N. human rights experts have condemned<\/a> Trump\u2019s fuel blockade on Cuba as \u201ca serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trump, who has repeatedly spoken<\/a> of \u201ctaking<\/a>\u201d Cuba, is the latest in a long line of U.S. presidents who have attempted to overthrow the Cuban government. During the Cold War, the CIA launched the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The agency also tried to assassinate Fidel Castro at least eight times<\/a>. The U.S. also conducted a\u00a0covert\u00a0<\/a>campaign of\u00a0bombing Cuban sugar mills<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0burning cane fields<\/a>, among other\u00a0acts of sabotage<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the wake of the Bay of Pigs debacle, the Pentagon prepared top-secret plans to pave the way for an attack on the island. In the spring of 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a top-secret memorandum titled \u201cJustification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba.\u201d It described numerous false-flag operations that could be employed to justify a U.S. invasion, including a plot to \u201csink a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)<\/a>\u201d and even staging a modern \u201cRemember the Maine<\/a>\u201d incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and blaming the incident on Cuba. Other U.S. plans for covert action<\/a> on the island specifically prioritized attacking Cuba\u2019s electrical grid.<\/p>\n Asked if the Joint Chiefs of Staff were involved in analogous actions today, spokesperson Maj. Annabel Monroe referred The Intercept to Southern Command, who then referred The Intercept to the State Department, which did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Humire said that the War Department was \u201ccurrently focused on partner-led deterrence operations,\u201d but would not rule out unilateral U.S. strikes across Latin America. He said that, in addition to Ecuador, the U.S. had forged agreements with 17 partner-nations in the Western Hemisphere, as part of the so-called Americas Counter Cartel Coalition<\/a>. This international body, formally announced by Trump at his Shield of the Americas<\/a> summit earlier this month, will focus on \u201cbi-lateral and multi-lateral operations against cartels and terrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n Humire was asked if any of the 18 nations were concerned about issues of sovereignty regarding the U.S. potentially conducting attacks in their countries. \u201cMembers of the coalition specifically signed a joint security declaration mentioning that they want this support and most of them all are looking for this,\u201d he replied. But the barebones statement<\/a> they signed is astonishingly vague and offers little of substance on the subject.<\/p>\n Humire indicated that the U.S. had leveraged gunboat diplomacy in Venezuela to strong-arm Cuba and assist in \u201cgaining compliance from Nicaragua,\u201d as well as \u201cshifting the Caribbean in a favorable direction toward U.S. interests.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent official leaks<\/a> about the potential U.S. indictment of President Gustavo Petro of Colombia on drug charges \u2014 the official reason for Maduro\u2019s kidnapping, and the means reportedly used to keep his successor, Rodriguez, in line \u2014 suggest the U.S. may employ that tactic as leverage or an eventual pretext for military action.\u00a0(Petro has denied ties to drug traffickers.) <\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds as if Petro is potentially on the chopping block,\u201d a former defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to his current employment, told The Intercept. The source said leaks about the potential indictment of Petro, coupled with the U.S.\u2013Ecuadorian attack, which has stirred up tensions along the South American nations\u2019 border, increasingly look like a coordinated campaign to foment \u201cdiscord\u201d if not conflict. Asked in January about attacking Colombia, Trump responded: \u201cIt sounds good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n The U.S. attacks on the Colombia\u2013Ecuador border come as America has recently established a \u201cpermanent FBI presence in Ecuador<\/a>,\u201d joining agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.\u00a0Just before the U.S. began attacks on the Ecuador\u2013Colombia border, Donovan traveled to Quito<\/a>, Ecuador\u2019s capital, to meet with President Daniel Noboa and senior Ecuadorian defense officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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