"It is widows and orphans." - you lost the argument by trying to characterize these people as innocents, because it's such an awful position it undermines your own legitimacy.

These are 'Cártel de los Soles' etc they are thugs and killers, the source of untold violence and harm.

This the hysterical rhetorical position that I'm actually hinting at - contempt for a party (in this case the US) renders people intellectually incoherent - willing to defend the most vile actions such as mass murder by Hamas, Iranian regime, mass killings, torture and imprisonment, by North Vietnam etc..

The same people that overlook Stalin's literal genocide - for example, the German Centre Left Party, the Social Democrats, who used to 'retreat' in Russia, at one of Stalin's summer homes.

This 'USA always bad / actual terrorists are victims' nonsense is the psychological affliction at work here, in almost all these discussions.

It's the flip side of the 'USA good and justified in everything' nonsense.

One posture does not justify the other.

First - The US has a reasonable moral claim against stopping these parties, even if they are going too far by not using interdiction, and killing those who were floating at sea. The basic legitimacy remains even if the methods are not justified.

Second - The situation if anything demonstrates US exceptionalism, which is the argument here. This isn't about 'moral claims' - it's about if the US is actually an exceptional military force.

The OP indicated 'the US clearly not exceptional'.

This is completely delusional. Obviously, they are. It's not a moral assessment, which is much more complicated.

Contempt for the US turns people's brains to rubbish.