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UN Experts Say Those Ordering and Carrying Out US Boat Strikes Should Be ‘Prosecuted for Homicide’

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Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A small boat is seen near the USS Sampson, a US Navy missile destroyer, off the coast of Panama City, Panama, on September 2, 2025. 
(Photo by Daniel Gonzalez/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“US military attacks on alleged drug traffickers at sea,” said two human rights experts, “are grave violations of the right to life and the international law of the sea.”

Two United Nations rights experts warned that in numerous ways in recent weeks, the Trump administration’s escalation toward Venezuela has violated international law—most recently when President Donald Trump said he had ordered the South American country’s airspace closed following a military buildup in the Caribbean Sea.

But the two officials, independent expert on democratic and international order George Katrougalos and Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism, reserved their strongest condemnation and warning to the US for the administration’s repeated bombings of boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, which have targeted at least 22 boats and killed 83 people since September as the White House has claimed without evidence it is combating drug traffickers.

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The strikes, said Katrougalos and Saul, “are grave violations of the right to life and the international law of the sea. Those involved in ordering and carrying out these extrajudicial killings must be investigated and prosecuted for homicide.”

Human rights advocates have warned for months that the strikes are extrajudicial killings. Trump has claimed the US is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels in Venezuela—even though the country is not significantly involved in drug trafficking—but Congress has not authorized any military action in the Caribbean.

Typically, the US has approached drug trafficking in the region as a criminal issue, with the Coast Guard and other agencies intercepting boats suspected of carrying illegal substances, arresting those on board, and ensuring they receive due process in accordance with the Constitution.

The Trump administration instead has bombed the boats, with the first operation on September 2 recently the subject of particular concern due to reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued an order for military officers to “kill everybody” on board a vessel, leading a commander to direct a second “double-tap” strike to kill two survivors of the initial blast.

Hegseth and Trump have sought to shift responsibility for the second strike onto Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the commander who oversaw the attack under Hegseth’s orders. Bradley was scheduled to brief lawmakers Thursday on the incident.

The White House has maintained Bradley had the authority to kill the survivors of the strike and to carry out all the other bombings of boats, even as reporting on the identities of the victims has shown the US has killed civilians including an out-of-work bus driver and a fisherman, and the family of one Colombian man killed in a strike filed a formal complaint accusing Hegseth himself of murder.

The UN experts suggested that everyone involved in ordering the nearly two dozen boat strikes, from Trump and Hegseth to any of the service members who have helped carry out the operations, should be investigated for alleged murder.

After Hegseth defended the September 2 strike earlier this week, Saul emphasized in a social media post that contrary to the defense secretary’s rhetoric about how the boat attacks are “protecting” Americans, he is carrying out “state murder of civilians in peacetime, like executing alleged drug traffickers on the streets of New York or DC.”

As Common Dreams reported last month, a top military lawyer advised the White House against beginning the boat bombings weeks before the September 2 attack, saying they could expose service members involved in the strikes to legal challenges.

Katrougalos and Saul urged the administration to “refrain from actions that could further aggravate the situation and ensure that any measures taken fully comply with the UN Charter, the Chicago Convention, and relevant rules of customary international law.”

They also emphasized that Trump had no authority to declare that Venezuela’s airspace was closed last week—an action that many experts feared could portend imminent US strikes in the South American country.

“International law is clear: States have complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above their territory. Any measures that seek to regulate, restrict, or ‘close’ another state’s airspace are in blatant violation of the Chicago Convention,” said the experts. “Unilateral measures that interfere with a state’s territorial domain, including its airspace, risk fully undermining the stability of the region and are seriously undermining Venezuela’s economy.”

Saul and Katrougalos further called on the White House not to repeat “the long history of external interventions in Latin America.”

“Respect for sovereignty, nonintervention, and the peaceful settlement of disputes,” they said, “are essential to preserving international stability and preventing further deterioration of the situation.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.

Continue ReadingUN Experts Say Those Ordering and Carrying Out US Boat Strikes Should Be ‘Prosecuted for Homicide’

Top Dem Says Video of Military ‘Attacking Shipwrecked Sailors’ Among ‘Most Troubling Things’ He Has Ever Seen

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Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

US Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) speaks to members of the press after a briefing at the US Capitol on February 14, 2024 in Washington, DC. 
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“Two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, were killed by the United States.”

US Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed horror on Thursday after watching a video of the September 2 double-tap strike on a suspected drug trafficking vessel off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.

Speaking to reporters after a briefing on the strike delivered by Adm. Frank Bradley, Himes (D-Conn.) called the video he saw of the attack “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”

Himes proceeded to describe the video, which showed the US military firing missiles at two men who had survived an initial attack on their vessel and who were floating in the water while clinging to debris.

“You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, [who] were killed by the United States,” he said.

Himes then started to walk away before a reporter asked him to describe more of what he saw in the video. The Connecticut Democrat then said the video showed a clear “impermissible action,” according to the laws of armed conflict.

“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see its military attacking shipwrecked sailors,” he said. “Now, there’s a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in position to continue their mission in any way… People will someday see this video and they will see that that video shows, if you don’t have the broader context, an attack on shipwrecked sailors.”

Himes finished his talk with reporters by saying that Bradley told lawmakers there had not been a “kill them all” or “no quarter” order given to him by higher-ups. Asked by a reporter if he thought the full video should be released to the public, Himes said, “I do.”

Himes’ reaction to the video stood in stark contrast to the reaction of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who praised the military for its actions.

According to HuffPost reporter Jen Bendery, Cotton described the strikes on the two survivors as “righteous strikes” that were “entirely lawful.”

Cotton also claimed that the video showed “two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs, bound for the United States, back over, so they could stay in the fight.”

Reports from the US government and the United Nations have not identified Venezuela as a significant source of drugs that enter the United States, and the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the primary cause of drug overdoses in the US.

Additionally, many legal scholars have said that a strike on the two men who survived the initial attack on the boat is very likely either an act of murder or a war crime, regardless of whether they were intending to traffic illegal drugs in the US.

Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Continue ReadingTop Dem Says Video of Military ‘Attacking Shipwrecked Sailors’ Among ‘Most Troubling Things’ He Has Ever Seen

Resistance builds within the United States against Trump’s drive to war with Venezuela

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Original article by Devin B. Martinez republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Billboard up in New York City against the US threats against Venezuela. Photo: The People’s Forum

As Trump continues to lodge threats against the Bolivarian Republic, US Congress and grassroots movements mobilize to stop a new war.

The US government has continued to accelerate its drive to war with Venezuela. While rumors circulate about phone calls and possible talks between US President Donald Trump and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in tandem, the US head of state has continued to launch bizarre and illegal threats and accusations against the South American nation. On Saturday, November 29, Trump unilaterally declared that Venezuelan airspace was closed, despite international law stipulating that only Venezuela has authority over the airspace above its territory and that air traffic above Venezuela has since continued.

While Trump, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have claimed land strikes and “action” against Venezuela could begin imminently and that the country should be on alert, as of now, only the aerial attacks on vessels in the Caribbean have continued. To date, the US missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean have killed at least 83 people. Washington claims they were trafficking drugs, without providing evidence.

The unprecedented military buildup in the region now consists of aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), F-35 fighter jets, at least eight war ships, and 15,000 US troops, as well as coordinated US military activity in Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic.

Despite Trump’s brazen appetite for war, it appears that public opinion in the United States is against Trump’s escalation against Venezuela. A recent poll conducted by CBS News/YouGOV found that 70% of people in the US would oppose the US taking military action in Venezuela. At the same time, some, albeit limited, bipartisan initiatives have been taken in Congress to attempt to use congressional authority to block Trump from taking military action. From the legislature down to the grassroots movements, opposition to a US war on the Caribbean nation is growing.

Pressure mounts in Congress against Trump’s threats of war

As the Trump cabinet prepares for fresh international law violations, they are already feeling the backlash of ones already committed. Committees in US Congress have reportedly launched investigations into US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for crimes related to missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean, in which the order was reportedly to “kill everybody”.

“These are serious charges, and that’s the reason we’re going to have special oversight,” said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as reported by PBS.

The mounting scrutiny follows a Washington Post report that details Hegseth’s direction to strike a bombed boat a second time, called a “double tap” strike, even as survivors clung to the edge of the burning vessel. In addition to the investigation, several congressional democrats are calling for Hegseth’s resignation.

When questioned about the targeting of boat strike survivors in an interview with The Hill on December 2, Trump distanced himself from the order and Hegseth blamed Admiral Mitch Bradley for the second strike.

“I moved on to my next meeting. A couple hours later I learned that that commander had made the … correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” said Hegseth.

Adding to the pressure on Hegseth in particular, the Pentagon’s inspector general released a report on Thursday, December 4, concluding that the defense secretary violated department rules and put US forces at risk when he used a signal chat to share details of airstrikes on Yemen back in April.

The renewed scrutiny comes after a bipartisan coalition in both the Senate and the House attempted to check the US president’s ability to carry out deadly strikes in the Caribbean through the War Powers Act.

As opposition continues to build in the legislature, grassroots movements are also mobilizing against the US war drive on Venezuela.

As threat of war grows, so does the people’s resistance

In the same CBS/YouGov poll, 75% of people in the US said that the government needs to show evidence that the boats it is bombing are carrying drugs. Only 13% of Americans believe that Venezuela is a “major threat” to US national security.

“The Trump administration is wildly out of step with public opinion as he threatens to initiate a new forever war with the aim of looting Venezuela’s vast oil resources,” said Brian Becker, National Director of the ANSWER coalition.

After Trump declared Venezuelan airspace to be “closed”, claiming that land strikes would begin “very soon”, a coalition of organizations, including the ANSWER coalition, The Peoples Forum, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and others, announced a national day of action on December 6. According to a press release by the coalition, over 50 cities will host protest actions under the slogan “No war on Venezuela – Stop the war before it starts”.

“The Trump Administration’s repeated strikes in the Caribbean have shocked the world as brazen violations of international law,” the coalition asserts.

“Now, Trump is openly threatening to escalate his aggression to land strikes on Venezuelan territory – an unmistakable act of war. This could easily spiral into a ‘boots on the ground’ invasion, and lead to catastrophic death and destruction.”

Organizers expect the day of action to be a “powerful display of the mass opposition” to the US war drive against the Bolivarian nation.

In the wake of decades-long US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the growing resistance in Congress and the streets shows that the people of the United States refuse to be dragged into yet another imperialist disaster.

Original article by Devin B. Martinez republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Continue ReadingResistance builds within the United States against Trump’s drive to war with Venezuela

Can we boycott Richard Branson and everything Virgin?

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Can we hit Richard Branson and everything Virgin for their role in attempting to usurp democracy in Venezuela? Branson held a live-aid themed concert in Columbia in support of Trump’s project to subvert democracy, start a war and steal oil again.

Branson likely has minority shareholdings in many Virgin companies but he is their gobshite and they are widely regarded as his companies. We ought to show that it is unacceptable for Branson to be such a cnut.

Virgin Media is a UK and Ireland internet provider (IP). Is it also active in the states? Many broadband deals are on offer in UK at the moment. Leave the gobshite behind, try to hit him in his pocket.

IPs generally: It’s good to simply hit the pause button if you’ve been with an IP for a while. They take you for granted if you just carry on paying. Ask them for a discounted rate.

You could cancel if you’re going away for 4 or 5 weeks. You can then push the play button with a better deal as a new customer. You might even have an excuse to go to the pub for a while to use the free broadband.

Continue ReadingCan we boycott Richard Branson and everything Virgin?