A U.S. military strike on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea killed 11 people Tuesday, according to President Donald Trump, who claimed that the “Narcoterrorists” targeted in the operation were affiliated with a criminal gang that he says acts at the direction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
WaPo
People not committing any crime. In a small motor boat. In the absence of war. In international waters. People not even positively identified.
Overhead imagery that Trump posted along with his statement shows a modestly sized boat speeding through open water. Moments later, an explosion occurs, and the vessel appears engulfed in flames.
[...]
Rubio told reporters Tuesday that the Trump administration was adopting a war footing against drug cartels and wouldn’t be satisfied with incremental seizures of drugs by law enforcement officers. “We are going to wage combat against drug cartels that are flooding American streets and killing Americans,” Rubio said. “We destroyed a drug boat that left Venezuela operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization. … The days of acting with impunity and having an engine shot down or a couple drugs grabbed off a boat — those days are over.”
We'll just blow up masses of people without any attempt to detain and try them. And we'll even do it in international waters.
Washington primarily relies on the U.S. Coast Guard to intercept and board vessels suspected of carrying drugs. Typically, those forces detain suspected traffickers for follow-on prosecution, confiscate the narcotics and often sink the vessels.
[...]
“The strike today is part of a new, more militarized approach the Trump administration has embraced,” Byman said, pointing to the expanded U.S. forces in the region, drone flights over Mexico and other actions. “This is a significant shift,” he said, “but not a surprising one.”
There's a new king in town.
Trump said in his social media post that U.S. forces had “positively identified” the vessel’s crew as members of Tren de Aragua, or TdA, a group the administration has sought to connect to Maduro and violent crime and drug trafficking within the United States.
In a secret assessment in April, U.S. intelligence agencies said that Maduro’s government “probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.” Rather, the assessment said, the Venezuelan regime, while sometimes tolerating the gang’s activities inside Venezuela, largely views it as a potential security threat.
The assessment contradicted Trump’s claim that Maduro controls the group.
[...]
Phil Gunson, a senior analyst for International Crisis Group who focuses on Venezuela, said it is clear that top security officials are profiting off the drug trafficking. But, he said, “the attempt to portray this as a monolithic narco-terrorist organization that is for ideological reasons seeking to destabilize the United States … is a huge leap.”
Gunson said that Tuesday’s strike appears to be part of a “campaign of intimidation” and that Maduro will seize on the opportunity to once again accuse the United States of “imperialist intervention and war mongering.”
[...]
There are eight U.S. Navy ships, including three destroyers, currently in Latin American waters for the counternarcotics mission. The deployment also includes two landing dock ships, an amphibious assault ship, a cruiser and a littoral combat ship. The destroyers each are carrying detachments of U.S. Coast Guard personnel and law enforcement officials.
UPDATE 09/04/2025:
Same situation with snatching people off the streets and sending them to torture camps overseas. The fundamental
reason is so he doesn't have to obey any laws or provide any due process.
