U.S. Sec. of Defense Pete Hegseth tried to justify bombing fishing boats (accused of drug smuggling) off the Columbia and Venezuela coasts by comparing the attacks to the U.S. government’s failed “War on Terror” in the Middle East.
Hegseth on cartels: "Our generation spent the better part of two decades hunting Al Qaeda, hunting ISIS. As the president said, this is the ISIS, this is the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere … our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is that we will treat you like… pic.twitter.com/213MjDAYCn
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 23, 2025
Just Security noted the attacks by the Trump admin. are likely illegal:
A striking number of former government attorneys who have served both Republican and Democratic administrations agree that a red line has been crossed and that the garbled legal justifications provided by the administration are inconsistent with the facts and the law. Based on reporting by the Wall Street Journal and CNN, there are lawyers currently serving inside DoD who also agree and have tried to push back.
Even if we take the administration’s facts and statements at face value, despite credible reporting to refute them, the only conclusion we can reach is that these strikes lack a legal basis. Although reports indicate that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued a legal opinion justifying the strikes, no such analysis has been shared with the public. This lack of transparency is a serious problem.
(Source: Twitter/X, Just Security)