High-ranking officials at the Pentagon told The Intercept that President Donald Trump’s recent military attack on a small Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean was a criminal act:
“The U.S. is now directly targeting civilians. Drug traffickers may be criminals but they aren’t combatants,” one official said. “When Trump fired the military’s top lawyers the rest saw the writing on the wall, and instead of being a critical firebreak they are now a rubber stamp complicit in this crime.”
“Tren de Aragua being designated as a foreign terrorist organization is a purely domestic law enforcement designation. It offers no authority for the military to use deadly force,” Todd Huntley told the site. He’s spent more than 23 years as an active-duty judge advocate and legal advisor for Special Operations forces. “Under international law, there’s no way this even gets close to being a legitimate use of force.”
…Two U.S. government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that (Defense Secretary Pete) Hegseth’s justification – which one called “completely unserious” – took shape after the attack.
…Diosdado Cabello, the Venezuelan Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace called the Tuesday attack “an illegal massacre in international waters” and said the United States had “violated international law.”
…Several experts and government officials speculated that the boat the U.S. struck on Tuesday may not even have been smuggling drugs due to what they said was an unusually large number of people on board the vessel.
Trump claimed — without any evidence — on Truth Social that the strike was “against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists.” After days of silence, the White House issued a statement late Thursday claiming the attack was lawful, but failed to provide any evidence.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promise more illegal strikes on Fox News: “It won’t stop with just this strike. Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”
(Sources: The Intercept, Truth Social, Fox News)