War Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered murder on the high seas as part of his effort to implement Donald Trump’s ambition to invade Venezuela, and only Congress can stop them. Not that congressional leaders will stand up to Trump.
U.S. surveillance aircraft followed a boat, which special operations force believed carried illegal drugs in the Caribbean Sea on Sept. 2, when Hegseth, who was watching from the Pentagon, gave a spoken directive, two people with direct knowledge of the operation told the Washington Post. “The order was to kill them all,” one of them said.
A missile struck the vessel and ignited a blaze from bow to stern. Special Ops commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed for minutes, but as the smoke cleared, they were surprised that two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Ops commander, Admiral Frank Bradley, ordered a second strike to finish the job, and the two men were blown apart in the water.
It was the first salvo of the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere, who Trump considers “narco-terrorists” who are subject to lethal targeting. But experts on the laws of war have said the lethal campaign, which has killed at least 83 people in 23 attacks so far, is unlawful and may expose Americans directly involved in the attacks to prosecution.
The alleged traffickers pose no imminent threat to the United States and are not, as the Trump administration has argued, in an “armed conflict” with the U.S., experts say. Because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats “amounts to murder,” said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces for seven years at the height of the U.S. counterterrorism campaign, speaking to the Post.
Even if the U.S. were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Huntley, now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said “Ongoing operations to dismantle narcoterrorism and to protect the Homeland from deadly drugs have been a resounding success,” but that leaves a number of questions Pentagon officials won’t address, such as why a motor boat carrying perhaps a ton of cocaine needed a crew of 11 people and actually was headed to Suriname, which is southeast of Venezuela and usually is on the drug traffickers’ route to Europe. Blowing up the boats and killing the passengers also eliminates evidence and the opportunity for investigators to gain testimony on who else was involved in the trafficking. The U.S. Coast Guard manages to seize drug vessels in territorial waters without casualties.
The protocols were changed after the strike to emphasize rescuing suspected smugglers if they survived strikes, the Post reported. It is unclear who directed the change in protocol.
In an Oct. 16 strike in the Atlantic Ocean that killed two, another two men were captured and repatriated to Colombia and Ecuador without charges. In a series of strikes on four boats in the eastern Pacific on Oct. 27 that killed 14 men, one apparent survivor was left to the Mexican coast guard to retrieve. The body was never found.
Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) has formally introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for “murder” and “conspiracy to murder” in the extrajudicial execution of the two survivors in the Sept. 2 boat bombings.
“He gave direct, unlawful orders to kill every single person on a civilian boat from Venezuela, violating the Defense Department’s Law of War Manual,” Thanedar said. But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is not inclined to push the issue of impeachment, saying it’s almost impossible that articles would reach the House floor with a Republican majority.
“Republicans will never allow articles of impeachment to be brought to the floor of the House of Representatives, and we know that’s the case,” he said. “Donald Trump will order them not to do it.”
But Trump ordered Republicans not to call for release of the Epstein files — until it became inevitable. Now five Republicans could join Democrats to force an impeachment vote, and some have expressed dissatisfaction with the White House’s answers.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, which launched an investigation into the strikes, said Dec. 4 that “members are very concerned” about the accuracy of the information being shared with Congress. Turner previously said if Hegseth indeed ordered the execution of survivors, “that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act.” Turner should get a chance to vote on whether extrajudicial executions on the high seas are grounds for impeachment, and it’s worth Democrats’ time to put Republicans on the record on whether they approve summary executions.
Trump also paused immigration applications from 19 Third World countries, with a Dec. 2 tirade falsely portraying Somali Americans living in Minnesota as layabouts who sponge up welfare money.
He singled out U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a refugee from Somalia, as being “garbage,” and added that “her friends are garbage.”
In an op-ed published Dec. 4 in The New York Times, Omar defended her community against false stereotypes spouted by Trump.
“He fails to realize how deeply Somali Americans love this country,” she wrote. “We are doctors, teachers, police officers, and elected leaders working to make our country better. Over 90% of Somalis living in my home state, Minnesota, are American citizens by birth or naturalization.”
In a social media post, Omar characterized the president’s remarks about her as clear evidence that he’s unwell.
“His obsession with me is creepy,” Omar wrote. "I hope he gets the help he desperately needs."
Circulation Comes Back Home
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From the January issue of The Progressive Populist.
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