Vox Populi
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Brett Wilkins: Trump Murder Spree Continues as Hegseth Says 14 Killed in 3 New Boat Bombings
US forces have conducted over a dozen strikes on alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since early September, killing at least 57 people, according to Trump administration figures.
Fourteen more people were killed and one survived three new US bombings of what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday claimed—again without evidence—were four boats transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
“Eight male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessels during the first strike. Four male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the second strike. Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the third strike,” Hegseth said of the Monday attacks, which presumably occurred off the west coast of Mexico.
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Hegseth said that US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) “immediately initiated search and rescue (SAR) standard protocols; Mexican SAR authorities accepted the case and assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue.”
He added that the Department of Defense “has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we’re defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”
US forces have carried out more than a dozen strikes on alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since early September, killing at least 57 people, according to Trump administrationfigures.
Earlier this month, a bipartisan US Senate war powers resolution aimed at reining in President Donald Trump’s ability to extrajudicially execute alleged drug traffickers in or near Venezuela failed to pass.
The latest boat bombings came amid the Trump administration’s mounting provocations against Venezuela. In addition to his earlier deployment of an armada of US warships and thousands of troops to the southern Caribbean and ongoing military exercises with neighboring Trinidad and Tobago, the Pentagon said last week that the president ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group off the coast of the oil-rich South American nation—a longtime target of US meddling.
“Somehow, the United States of America has found a way to combine two of its greatest foreign policy failures—the Iraq War and the War on Drugs—into a single regime change narrative… and sell it again to the mainstream media. Incredible,” Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler said Tuesday in response to US saber-rattling against Venezuela.
Venezuela said Sunday that it had “captured a mercenary group” aligned with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and had determined “that a false-flag attack is underway from waters bordering Trinidad and Tobago, or from Trinidad or Venezuelan territory itself.”
The claim comes less than two weeks after Trump publicly acknowledged his authorization of covert CIA action against Venezuela.
Latin American leaders, human rights defenders, and others have condemned the US boat strikes—which Venezuelan and Colombianofficials, as well as victims’ relatives, say have killed fishers—as extrajudicial murders and war crimes.
The 93-year-old great-uncle of Chad Joseph, a 26-year-old Trinidadian and Tobagonian killed along with compatriot Rishi Samaroo in an October 14 US strike, called the attack “perfect murder.”
“There is nothing they could prove that they are coming across our waters with drugs,” he said earlier this month. “How could Trump prove the boat was bringing narcotics?”
First published in Common Dreams. Licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
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I ask myself how they can get away with this. And I answer myself: they have the permission of the Republicans in Congress. Do you think they might be indicted when/if they are no longer in office?
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We seem to be in unknown territory. I imagine that anything can happen.
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Why doesn’t anyone from the international community speak up? Or did I just miss those? The UN declaring the US of A murderers?
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I’m not sure why the UN doesn’t denounce the US for these murders or for supporting the Gaza genocide. Are they afraid to speak out because the US may attack them?
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Everyone seems to appease this insane bully with the little mutts able to push the nuclear button. I don’t know. There is just this deafening silence, in the legacy media too.
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I have never felt more helpless (and I remember the Nixon era and the wars from Vietnam on) that I am part of something evil, that I have some responsibility, but cannot stop the monster. Is this how a child sucked into a gang feels when the pride of membership wears off ? How does it feel to be a parent of a school shooter? Is this why soldiers often can’t talk about their wars? How does it feel to have the representative of your country murdering people who might be drug smugglers or might be fisherman, knowing that even if they are smugglers they deserve a hearing. My dad in his role as a newspaper reporter knew mob bosses and one asked him to be there when he went to the electric chair. The mob boss was an evil man but killing him made us killers, too. I am a vegetarian in my old age because I don’t want to kill animals yet the head of our country and those who forget their duty is to country, not king, are murdering human beings.
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Well said, Barbara. I am right there with you.
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This strikes too, too close to home for me. Back in the late 80s I was sailing on a charter yacht as chef. A lot of yachts flew Panamanian flags because of taxes, though the owner of the boat was American. Skipper was a Kiwi. Only the skipper and I were on board, heading to St. Vincent to pick up charter guests. A black helicopter decided we looked suspicious and spent the day buzzing us, flying around looking us over carefully. The chopper had no markings. They never contacted us on the radio. Just spent the day harassing us. I never forgot that. I’m so sorry it’s gone all the way to the point where they can just blow boats up with no evidence.
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In 1974, I was living in Dallas. Going home late at night I was buzzed by a helicopter, presumably the police. They followed me all the way home. Very scary. Probably even worse for you in a boat in the open water.
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Those are small boats they’re blowing up. Humble folks… It’s very possible they really were just fishermen. There’s no way to prove differently now.
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Murder is murder.
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