Dictator Donald Trump continues his maritime murder spree:
US forces have killed four people in an attack on a boat off the coast of Venezuela that was allegedly trafficking drugs, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says.
“The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth wrote in a post on X.
It is the latest in a number of recent deadly strikes that the US has carried out on boats in international waters it says are involved in “narco-trafficking”.
The strikes have attracted condemnation in countries including Venezuela and Colombia, with some international lawyers describing the strikes as a breach of international law.
…US President Trump also confirmed the strike on his Truth Social platform, saying that the boat was carrying enough drugs “to kill 25 to 50 thousand people”.
However, the US has not provided evidence for its claims or any information about the identities of those on board.
[Ione Wells, “Four Killed in Latest US Strike on Alleged Drug Vessel Near Venezuela,” BBC, 2025.10.03].
Trump fallaciously and illegally deems these murders military action against terrorist organizations engaged in “non-international armed conflict” with the United States:
“The United States is taking a much more dramatic step — one that I think is a very, very far stretch of international law and a dangerous one,” said Matthew Waxman, who was a national security official in the George W. Bush administration. It “means the United States can target members of those cartels with lethal force. It means the United States can capture and detain them without trial” [Aamer Madhani and Lisa Mascaro, “Trump Says US Is in ‘Armed Conflict’ with Drug Cartels After Ordering Strikes in the Caribbean,” AP, 2025.10.02].
Trump’s extrajudicial exercise of lethal force, without evidence or due process for his victims, is flatly illegal, immoral, and impeachable:
This redefinition is problematic not just because most overdose deaths in the U.S. come from fentanyl from Mexico, not drugs from Venezuela, the home base of the boats the administration struck. Legal experts say that trafficking an illicit consumer product is not the same as armed conflict. It is problematic also because the administration did not identify any of the drug cartels it claims it is engaging in armed conflict, who must be engaged in organized armed combat to be part of an armed conflict.
Even more problematic, as retired judge advocate general (JAG) lawyer Geoffrey S. Corn, who was the Army’s senior advisor for interpreting the laws of war, told Savage and Schmitt, the administration’s declaration is an “abuse” that crosses a major legal line. “This is not stretching the envelope,” he said. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, posted: “Every American should be alarmed that Pres[ident] Trump has decided he can wage secret wars against anyone he labels an enemy. Drug cartels must be stopped, but declaring war & ordering lethal military force without Congress or public knowledge—nor legal justification—is unacceptable” [Heather Cox Richardson, “October 2, 2025,” Letters from an American, 2025.10.03].
Trump’s high crime was clear from his first murderous attack at sea in September:
Sarah Harrison, senior analyst at the U.S. Program for the International Crisis Group, was even more blunt.
“The only conclusion that can be drawn is that under all relevant laws, this was an extrajudicial killing,” she said. “This was a murder.”
Trump administration officials claimed the boat, with 11 people aboard, was carrying drugs and that its occupants were members of the Venezuelan criminal network Tren de Aragua. But Harrison argued that even if those claims were true, the action violated both domestic and international law.
“There was no armed attack on the United States that would justify the use of force in self-defense. Even [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio said the boat could have been interdicted and the individuals arrested. The Coast Guard has done this for decades—but they didn’t do that,” she said.
Harrison warned the strike sets a precedent for unchecked military power.
“This was a premeditated murder of suspected criminals—based on the facts provided by the administration itself,” she said. “The U.S. military is prohibited by law, by statute, from executing civilians…. Under human rights law, there is an absolute prohibition on the arbitrary denial of life—and that’s what this was.”
Harrison urged Congress to act swiftly.
“Operators within the Department of Defense need to know that this was an unlawful order—and they need to know that the consequences of executing a blatantly unlawful order include criminal investigations and prosecutions,” she said [Antonio María Delgado, “Experts Condemn U.S. Attack on Caribbean Boat as ‘Premeditated Murder’,” Miami Herald, 2025.09.12].
Trump is violating international human rights law, Department of Defense rules, and United States law:
4. International Human Rights Law (IHRL): The United States is a signatory to human rights treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Article 6 of the covenant establishes that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of their life, and Article 4 specifies that states cannot make derogations (that is, formal exemptions) related to this right, even in times of public emergency. As noted by former US State Department Attorney-Adviser Brian Finucane, the US Department of Defense Operational Law Handbook views the prohibition of murder under IHRL as a peremptory rule under customary international law, meaning a rule “so fundamental and universally accepted that [it does] not permit any derogation, even by treaty.” Assessed according to these criteria, this strike appears to have been an extrajudicial killing in violation of IHRL and Department of Defense provisions.
5. Domestic law: Finucane also notes that Executive Order 12333 prohibits assassinations by anyone employed by the US government or working on its behalf. Finucane cites executive branch legal doctrine as defining assassination as including “the targeted killing of individuals,” and notes potential exceptions for self-defense or for lethal force consistent with IHL. Rubio’s statement that Trump chose to destroy rather than interdict the ships, and the ship’s reported course reversal, imply that US military personnel could have safely interdicted the ship. Assuming that was the case, lethal force was not necessary for self-defense. The attack therefore appears to violate the US prohibition on assassinations, as well as other US laws [Celeste Kmiotek, “Was Trump’s Strike on an Alleged Venezuelan Drug Boat Legal?” Atlantic Council: New Atlantacist, 2025.09.12].
If Congress will not act to impeach and convict a President who kills people on the high seas without evidence or due process, then his shooting someone on Fifth Avenue with no consequences is right around the corner.