'Crimes Against Humanity': US Murders 2 More People in Pacific Ocean Boat Bombing

The Trump administration killed two more people in a boat bombing in the eastern Pacific Ocean Wednesday, bringing the total number of people killed in the operation human rights experts have condemned as an "extrajudicial killing" spree to at least 207.

"The Trump administration’s lawless killing spree at sea continues," said Brian Finucane, senior adviser at the US program at the International Crisis Group. "The term for premeditated killing outside of armed conflict is murder—and there is no armed conflict here."

As with previous announcements of the lethal boat strikes, at least 63 of which have now been carried out by the US military in an operation the Trump administration has insisted is stopping drugs from reaching the US, US Southern Command presented no evidence Wednesday night when it said the victims were "two male narco-terrorists" and that the boat was "engaged in narco-trafficking operations."

Finucane noted that "even if there were an armed conflict, there’s no indication these supposed 'narco-terrorists' are lawful targets."

President Donald Trump has claimed the US is in an armed conflict with drug cartels in Latin America, and that the Caribbean and eastern Pacific are a legitimate battleground where the conflict has played out. But a number of victims have been identified as fishermen, and families have filed legal complaints against the US over the killings.

After the bombings began in September, Vice President JD Vance all but publicly admitted that the operation would put innocent people at risk, joking at a rally that he "wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world."

The US in the past has treated drug trafficking as a criminal issue, in accordance with international law. A top military lawyer warned the Pentagon last August, just before the operation began, that carrying out the boat bombings could put top officials as well as rank-and-file service members at risk of being held criminally liable.

"Over 200 people killed so far, some who seem likely to have died agonizing deaths by drowning after clinging to wreckage for hours, with no trials, and without a single piece of evidence released to the public of their guilt or of any intent to smuggle drugs to the United States," said Aaron Rechlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council.

The latest boat bombing came a day after US Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) revealed a key detail about the "targeting criteria" the military has been using as it's conducted the bombings since last September.

On Tuesday at a hearing where Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified, Kaine noted that "evidence of narcotics on the boat" has not been a prerequisite for US Southern Command to conduct lethal strikes in Operation Southern Spear, despite the fact that the administration has insisted the operation is aimed at stopping drug trafficking boats from reaching the US.

"I've been briefed on Southern Spear since the first operation on September 2 and most recently within the last couple of weeks, and I've asked again and again, 'Have the targeting criteria changed?' 'No they have not,'" said Kaine. "The presence of narcotics on the boat has never been a targeting criteria."

Despite that, Kaine noted, "The administration has always announced, 'This is against narco-traffickers'" when a new strike has been carried out.

Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, pointed out that Operation Southern Spear comes two decades after human rights groups presented evidence to US military leaders that "their Colombian military partners were carrying out extrajudicial executions" in what became known as the "false positive" killings.

As Human Rights Watch has explained:

Between 2002 and 2008, army brigades across Colombia routinely executed civilians. Under pressure from superiors to show “positive” results and boost body counts in their war against guerrillas, soldiers and officers abducted victims or lured them to remote locations under false pretenses—such as with promises of work—killed them, placed weapons on their lifeless bodies, and then reported them as enemy combatants killed in action. Committed on a large scale for more than half a decade, these “false positive” killings constitute one of the worst episodes of mass atrocity in the Western Hemisphere in recent decades.

"Now," said Isacson, US officials are "carrying out their own extrajudicial executions every few days. No middleman."

Journalist Joseph Bouchard said the boat strikes could be called the United States' "own false positives scandal."

"None of these have been military targets," said Bouchard. "And even then, do we just kill drug traffickers now, without trial? Better name might be the classic 'crimes against humanity.'"