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kenneth roth
'There Will Come a Day When He Faces Prosecution': Trump Condemned After US Murders Two More at Sea
"The summary execution of two more in an alleged drug boat brings the number of murders ordered by Trump to more than 210," noted one human rights defender.
Jun 22, 2026
Two people were killed, and six others survived, a strike on Sunday that the US military claimed—without providing evidence—targeted a boat full of "narco-terrorists," but that human rights defenders called another summary execution worthy of prosecution.
"On June 21, at the direction of the commander of US Southern Command, Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations," USSOUTHCOM said in a statement. "Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations."
"Two male narco-terrorists were killed during this action, and there were six male survivors," the statement added. "Following the engagement, USSOUTHCOM immediately notified US Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors."
More lawless killing in the Trump administration’s boat bombing campaign.Real killing in a phony armed conflict with “narco-terrorists.”This strike reportedly left 6 survivors.US record for rescuing survivors alive is…not great.
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— Brian Finucane (@bcfinucane.bsky.social) June 21, 2026 at 11:28 PM
According to The Intercept's Nick Turse, who has tracked all of the reported US boat bombings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, there have now been 66 such strikes, which have killed 215 people and left 12 survivors, based on USSOUTHCOM data.
The fate of previous boat strike survivors is not completely clear. After one April bombing, the US Coast Guard told UPI that search-and-rescue operations were called off after no signs of survivors were found. Last October, President Donald Trump said two strike survivors were repatriated to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia, where they faced prosecution.
Survivors of some of the strikes have accused US forces of torturing them.
Relatives of people killed in previous US boat bombings, as well as officials in Venezuela and Colombia, have said that numerous victims were fishers who were not involved in the illicit drug trade.
In January, relatives of two Trinidadian fishers killed in the strikes filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit in Massachusetts.
"The summary execution of two more in an alleged drug boat brings the number of murders ordered by Trump to more than 210," former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said on social media. "There will come a day when he faces prosecution for these crimes."
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Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine Team Quits Over Blocked Report on Right of Return
“I have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law,” said resigning staffer Omar Shakir.
Feb 03, 2026
Two Human Rights Watch employees—the group's entire Israel-Palestine team—resigned after senior staffers blocked a report calling Israel's denial of Palestinian refugees' right of return to their homeland a crime against humanity.
Jewish Currents' Alex Kane reported Tuesday that HRW Israel-Palestine team lead Omar Shakir and assistant researcher Milena Ansari are stepping down over leadership's decision to nix the report, which was scheduled for release on December 4. Shakir wrote in his resignation email that one senior HRW leader informed him that calling Israel's denial of Palestinian right of return would be seen as a call to “demographically extinguish the Jewishness of the Israeli state.”
“I have lost my faith in the integrity of how we do our work and our commitment to principled reporting on the facts and application of the law,” Shakir—who is also member of Jewish Currents' advisory board—wrote in his resignation letter. “As such, I am no longer able to represent or work for Human Rights Watch.”
In an interview published Tuesday by Drop Site News, Shakir—who was deported from Israel in 2019 over his advocacy of Palestinian rights—said: “I’ve given every bit of myself to the work for a decade. I’ve defended the work in very, very difficult circumstances... The refugees I interviewed deserve to know why their stories aren’t being told."
Ansari said that "whatever justification" HRW leadership "had for pausing the report is not based on the law or facts."
The resignations underscored tensions among HRW staffers over how to navigate a potential political minefield while conducting legal analysis and reporting of Israeli policies and practices in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
As Kane reported:
The resignations have roiled one of the most prominent human rights groups in the world just as HRW’s new executive director, Philippe Bolopion, begins his tenure. In a statement, HRW said that the report “raised complex and consequential issues. In our review process, we concluded that aspects of the research and the factual basis for our legal conclusions needed to be strengthened to meet Human Rights Watch’s high standards.” They said that “the publication of the report was paused pending further analysis and research,” and that the process was “ongoing.”
Kenneth Roth, a longtime former HRW executive director, defended the group's decision to block the report, asserting on social media that Bolopion "was right to suspend a report using a novel and unsupported legal theory to contend that denying the right to return to a locale is a crime against humanity."
However, Shakir countered that HRW "found in 2023 denial of a return to amount to a crime against humanity in Chagos."
"This is based on [International Criminal Court] precedent," he added. "Other reports echoed the analysis. Are you calling on HRW to retract a report for its first time ever, or it just different rules for Palestine?"
Polis Project founder Suchitra Vijayan said on X Tuesday that "the decision by Human Rights Watch’s leadership to pull a report on the right of return for Palestinian refugees, after it had cleared internal review, legal sign-off, and publication preparation, demands public reckoning."
"This was not a draft in dispute and the explanation offered so far evades the central issue of 'institutional independence' in the face of political pressure," added Vijayan, who is also a professor at Columbia and New York universities. "Why was the report stopped, and what does this decision signals for the future of its work and credibility on Palestine?"
Offering "solidarity to Omar and Milena" on social media, Medical Aid for Palestinians director of advocacy and campaigns Rohan Talbot said that "Palestinian rights are yet again exceptionalized, their suffering trivialized, and their pursuit of justice forestalled by people who care more about reputation and expediency than law and justice."
Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW's former Middle East and North Africa director and currently executive director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, told Drop Site News on Tuesday that “We have once again run into Human Rights Watch’s systemic ‘Israel Exception,’ with work critical of Israel subjected to exceptional review and arbitrary processes that no other country work faces."
The modern state of Israel was established in 1948 largely through a more than decadelong campaign of terrorism against both the British occupiers of Palestine and Palestinian Arabs and the ethnic cleansing of the latter. More than 750,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homeland, sometimes via massacres or the threat thereof, in what Arabs call the Nakba, or catastrophe.
More than 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed or abandoned, and their denizens—some of whom still hold the keys to their stolen homes—have yet to return. Today, they and their descendants number more than 7 million, all of whom have been denied the right of return affirmed in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.
Many Palestinians and experts around the world argue that the Nakba never ended—a position that has gained attention over the past 28 months, as Israel has faced mounting allegations of genocide for a war that's left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in the coastal strip and around 2 million people forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Bolopion told Kane Tuesday that the controversy over the blocked report is “a genuine and good-faith disagreement among colleagues on complex legal and advocacy questions."
“HRW remains committed to the right of return for all Palestinians, as has been our policy for many years," he added.
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Pentagon Weighed Sending Boat Strike Survivors to Salvadoran Prison to Avoid Defending Bombings in Court
One former Navy lawyer said the Trump administration "might not want to get into the messy issues involving detention and habeas corpus lawsuits.”
Dec 10, 2025
Pentagon officials asked about sending survivors of US boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador in a bid to keep them out of American courts—where the Trump administration's high seas extrajudicial killing spree would be subject to legal scrutiny.
New details published Tuesday by the New York Times revealed that attorneys at the US Department of Defense inquired about whether two survivors of an October 16 strike on a boat allegedly smuggling drugs in the southern Caribbean could be sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where the Trump administration has shipped hundreds of mostly Venezuelan victims of its mass deportation campaign.
The prison—the centerpiece of right-wing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s war on crime—has been plagued by allegations of torture and other abuse.
One Trump administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Times that State Department lawyers were "stunned" by the query. The two boat strike survivors were ultimately returned to Colombia and Ecuador, their home countries.
Other unnamed officials told the newspaper that repatriations—either to survivors' home countries or to third nations—would become the administration's default plan for dealing with anyone who lived through the US attacks.
The goal, the officials said, was to avoid trying boat strike survivors in US courts, where the discovery process would compel the Trump administration—which has offered no concrete evidence to support its claims that the targeted vessels were carrying drugs—to provide legal justification for attacks that experts say are illegal.
The Pentagon's inquiry followed a September 2 "double-tap" strike on a vessel carrying 11 passengers. Two men survived the initial bombing but were killed in a second strike. Since then, at least 76 other people have been killed in 23 boat strikes reported by the Trump administration.
In addition to the two men who initially survived the September 2 strike and the two repatriated survivors of the October 16 attack, one other person who lived through a boat bombing was left adrift at sea and is presumed dead.
Some observers have noted similarities between the Trump administration's goal of keeping boat strike survivors out of US courtrooms and War on Terror policies and practices—first implemented during the George W. Bush administration—such as extraordinary rendition, the use of Central Intelligence Agency "black sites," and imprisonment of terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba—designed to circumvent the law.
While the Trump administration previously sent migrants captured during its crackdown to Guantánamo, sending boat strike survivors to the lockup allow their lawyers to sue for habeas corpus, a right granted by the US Supreme Court in its 2008 Boumediene v. Bush decision.
The Trump administration has revived the term "unlawful enemy combatant"—which was used by the Bush administration to classify people caught up in the War on Terror in a way that skirts the law—to apply to boat strike survivors. The Pentagon has also called such survivors "distressed mariners," a term that normally applies to civilians stranded at sea.
“If we’re in a war, they should be using the term ‘shipwrecked survivors,’” Mark Nevitt, a former Navy lawyer who is now a law professor at Emory University, told the Times. “My theory is they might not want to get into the messy issues involving detention and habeas corpus lawsuits.”
Relatives of men killed in the strikes, as well as officials in Venezuela and Colombia, say that at least some of the victims were fishermen who were not linked to the illicit drug trade. One expert said last month that even in cases of vessels that were involved in drug trafficking, the bombings were "the equivalent of straight-up massacring 16-year-old drug dealers on US street corners.”
Even if the men targeted in the boat strikes were running drugs, "the appropriate response is to interdict the boats and arrest the occupants for prosecution," former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said Wednesday.
"The rules governing law enforcement prohibit lethal force except as a last resort to stop an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury," he added, "which the boats do not present."
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Second US Strike on Boat Attack Survivors Was Illegal—But Experts Stress That the Rest Were, Too
"It is blatantly illegal to order criminal suspects to be murdered rather than detained," said one human rights leader.
Dec 02, 2025
As the White House claims that President Donald Trump "has the authority" to blow up anyone he dubs a "narco-terrorist" and Adm. Frank M. "Mitch" Bradley prepares for a classified congressional briefing amid outrage over a double-tap strike that kicked off the administration's boat bombing spree, rights advocates and legal experts emphasize that all of the US attacks on alleged drug-running vessels have been illegal.
"Trump said he will look into reports that the US military (illegally) conducted a follow-up strike on a boat in the Caribbean that it believed to be ferrying drugs, killing survivors of an initial missile attack. But the initial attack was illegal too," Kenneth Roth, the former longtime director of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said on social media Monday.
Roth and various others have called out the US military's bombings of boats in the Caribbean and Pacific as unlawful since they began on September 2, when the two strikes killed 11 people. The Trump administration has confirmed its attacks on 22 vessels with a death toll of at least 83 people.
Shortly after the first bombing, the Intercept reported that some passengers initially survived but were killed in a follow-up attack. Then, the Washington Post and CNN reported Friday that Bradley ordered the second strike to comply with an alleged spoken directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to kill everyone on board.
The administration has not denied that the second strike killed survivors, but Hegseth and the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, have insisted that the Pentagon chief never gave the spoken order.
However, the reporting has sparked reminders that all of the bombings are "war crimes, murder, or both," as the Former Judge Advocates General (JAGs) Working Group put it on Saturday.
Following Leavitt's remarks about the September 2 strikes during a Monday press briefing, Roth stressed Tuesday that "it is not 'self-defense' to return and kill two survivors of a first attack on a supposed drug boat as they clung to the wreckage. It is murder. No amount of Trump spin will change that."
"Whether Hegseth ordered survivors killed after a US attack on a supposed drug boat is not the heart of the matter," Roth said. "It is blatantly illegal to order criminal suspects to be murdered rather than detained. There is no 'armed conflict' despite Trump's claim."
The Trump administration has argued to Congress that the strikes on boats supposedly smuggling narcotics are justified because the United States is in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels that the president has labeled terrorist organizations.
During a Sunday appearance on ABC News' "This Week," US Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that "I think it's very possible there was a war crime committed. Of course, for it to be a war crime, you have to accept the Trump administration's whole construct here... which is we're in armed conflict, at war... with the drug gangs."
"Of course, they've never presented the public with the information they've got here," added Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "But it could be worse than that. If that theory is wrong, then it's plain murder."
Michael Schmitt, a former Air Force lawyer and professor emeritus at the US Naval War College, rejects the Trump administration's argument that it is at war with cartels. Under international human rights law, he told the Associated Press on Monday, "you can only use lethal force in circumstances where there is an imminent threat," and with the first attack, "that wasn't the case."
"I can't imagine anyone, no matter what the circumstance, believing it is appropriate to kill people who are clinging to a boat in the water... That is clearly unlawful," Schmitt said. Even if the US were in an actual armed conflict, he explained, "it has been clear for well over a century that you may not declare what's called 'no quarter'—take no survivors, kill everyone."
According to the AP:
Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group and a former State Department lawyer, agreed that the US is not in an armed conflict with drug cartels.
"The term for a premeditated killing outside of armed conflict is murder," Finucane said, adding that US military personnel could be prosecuted in American courts.
"Murder on the high seas is a crime," he said. "Conspiracy to commit murder outside of the United States is a crime. And under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 118 makes murder an offense."
Finucane also participated in a related podcast discussion released in October by Just Security, which on Monday published an analysis by three experts who examined "the law that applies to the alleged facts of the operation and Hegseth's reported order."
Michael Schmitt, Ryan Goodman, and Tess Bridgeman emphasized in Just Security that the law of armed conflict (LOAC) did not apply to the September 2 strikes because "the United States is not in an armed conflict with any drug trafficking cartel or criminal gang anywhere in the Western Hemisphere... For the same reason, the individuals involved have not committed war crimes."
"However, the duty to refuse clearly unlawful orders—such as an order to commit a crime—is not limited to armed conflict situations to which LOAC applies," they noted. "The alleged Hegseth order and special forces' lethal operation amounted to unlawful 'extrajudicial killing' under human rights law... The federal murder statute would also apply, whether or not there is an armed conflict."
Goodman added on social media Monday that the 11 people killed on September 2 "would be civilians even if this were an armed conflict... It's not even an armed conflict. It's extrajudicial killing."
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'Infinitely More Honest': Trump DOD Rebrand Revives 'Department of War' Moniker
Many anti-war figures actually welcomed the news, with one professor calling the Department of Defense name "a euphemism for an institution that is mostly focused on wars of imperial aggression."
Sep 05, 2025
In his latest attempt to project an image of strength for an empire in a state of decline, US President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War, a move that would ultimately require congressional authorization.
"I think it's a much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now," Trump explained during a signing ceremony for the move.
When floating the name change idea last month, Trump said that "I'm sure Congress will go along if we need that."
Indeed, on Friday Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill meant to coincide with Trump's decree. The Department of War name dates back to the 18th century but hasn't been used since the National Security Act of 1947, which created the National Military Establishment (NME)—a name that was changed to Department of Defense because the acronym NME sounded too much like the word "enemy."
"The United States military is not a purely defensive force," Scott said in a statement. "We are the most lethal fighting force on the face of the planet—ready to defeat any enemy when called upon. Restoring the name to Department of War reflects our true purpose: to dominate wars, not merely respond after being provoked."
The move faces considerable opposition from lawmakers, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy combat pilot who, in a dig at Trump, quipped that "only someone who avoided the draft would want to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War," and Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), who argued that "Americans want to prevent wars, not tout them."
However, others noted that "War Department" is a moniker befitting a nation that has attacked, invaded, or occupied others in all but a handful of the Defense Department's 78-year history, and which has a global military footprint of hundreds of overseas bases.
well, it’s truth in advertising and it’s honest, which is rare for Trump
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— David Sirota (@davidsirota.com) September 4, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Many "non-interventionists and foreign policy realists" concur that the name change "is just more honest," as Jack Hunter wrote for Responsible Statecraft.
Pointing to this week's deadly US strike on an alleged drug-running boat in the Caribbean and Secretary of State Marco Rubio's threat of more such attacks to come, former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth said Friday on social media that if Trump "keeps sending US forces to blow up alleged (but unproven) drug traffickers, he should call it the Department of Summary Executions."
Keeping with that theme, photojournalist Joshua Collins said on social media that "I actually think calling it 'the Department of War' is infinitely more honest. Because that's exactly what it does."
"Maybe while they're at it though, they can rename ICE 'the Department of kidnappings, extortion, forced disappearances, and human trafficking," Collins added, referring to Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement anti-immigrant blitz.
Jason Hickel, a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona's Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, said on social media that "this is wonderful news."
"The US 'Department of Defense' has never been primarily about defense; it is a euphemism for an institution that is mostly focused on wars of imperial aggression," he wrote. "At least now there is no pretending otherwise."
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, wrote: "I'm glad Trump is changing the name of the Defense Department to the War Dept because it has never been about defense. And calling it the 'Department-to-make-the-merchants-of-death-rich' is kind of long."
Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) remarked: "Department of War? More like Department of Distraction... Epstein."
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said Friday that no matter what the president calls the Pentagon, "Trump is really good at renaming things, but bad at keeping Americans safe and prosperous."
"He ran as the supposed anti-war candidate but has proven to be just the opposite," Duss noted. "This stunt underscores that Trump is more interested in belligerent chest thumping than genuine peacemaking—with dangerous consequences for American security, global standing, and the safety of our armed services."
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Omar, Ramirez Among First in Congress to Decry 'Unconstitutional' Trump Strike on Boat
"They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law," the Minnesota progressive said of the Trump administration.
Sep 04, 2025
Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Delia Ramirez on Thursday strongly condemned the Trump administration's deadly attack on a boat allegedly trafficking cocaine off the coast of Venezuela as "lawless and reckless," while urging the White House to respect lawmakers' "clear constitutional authority on matters of war and peace."
"Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, or Tren de Aragua, and the mere designation of a group as a terrorist organization does not give any president carte blanche," said Omar (D-Minn.), referring to President Donald Trump's day one executive order designating drug cartels including the Venezuela-based group as foreign terrorist organizations.
Trump—who reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat cartels abroad—said that Tuesday's US strike in international waters killed 11 people. The attack sparked fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US interventions over the past 200 years, and against a country that has suffered US meddling since the late 19th century.
"It appears that US forces that were recently sent to the region in an escalatory and provocative manner were under no threat from the boat they attacked," Omar cotended. "There is no conceivable legal justification for this use of force. Unless compelling evidence emerges that they were acting in self-defense, that makes the strike a clear violation of international law."
Omar continued:
They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law. The US posture towards the eradication of drugs has caused immeasurable damage across our hemisphere. It has led to massive forced displacement, environmental devastation, violence, and human rights violations. What it has not done is any damage whatsoever to narcotrafficking or to the cartels. It has been a dramatic, profound failure at every level. In Latin America, even right-wing presidents acknowledge this is true.
The congresswoman's remarks came on the same day that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated a pair of Ecuadorean drug gangs as terrorist organizations while visiting the South American nation. This, after Rubio said that US attacks on suspected drug traffickers "will happen again."
"Trump and Rubio's apparent solution" to the failed drug war, said Omar, is "to make it even more militarized," an effort that "is doomed to fail."
"Worse, it risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes," she added.
Echoing critics including former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, who called Tuesday's strike a "summary execution," Ramirez (D-Ill.) said Thursday on social media that "Trump and the Pentagon executed 11 people in the Caribbean, 1,500 miles away from the United States, without a legal rationale."
"From Iran to Venezuela, to DC, LA, and Chicago, Trump continues to abuse our military power, undermine the rule of law, and erode our constitutional boundaries in political spectacles," Ramirez added, referring to the president's ordering of strikes on Iran and National Guard deployments to Los Angeles, the nation's capital, and likely beyond.
"Presidents don't bomb first and ask questions later," Ramirez added. "Wannabe dictators do that."
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Experts Decry US 'Summary Execution' of Alleged Drug Runners Off Venezuelan Coast
"Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war," noted one critic. "Traffickers must be arrested, not summarily executed."
Sep 03, 2025
Legal and human rights experts said that Tuesday's deadly US attack on a boat the Trump administration claimed was transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela violated international law.
"Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war," former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth said on social media following the strike, which US President Donald Trump said killed 11 people. "Traffickers must be arrested, not summarily executed, which US forces just illegally did."
"Trump admits he ordered a summary execution—the crime of murder," Roth added. "Drug traffickers are not combatants who can be shot on sight. They are criminal suspects who must be arrested and prosecuted."
Declassified video showing the U.S. committing a war crime when it fired on a civilian vessel near Venezuela.Being suspected of carrying drugs does not carry a death sentence and certainly not without due process.
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— Arturo Dominguez 🇨🇺🇺🇸 (@extremearturo.bsky.social) September 2, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Michael Becker, an associate professor of international law at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland, told the BBC Wednesday that the Trump administration's designation of the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua and other drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations "stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point."
"The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narcoterrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets," Becker said. "The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization."
"Not only does the strike appear to have violated the prohibition on the use of force, it also runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law," Becker added.
Although the United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, US military legal advisers have asserted that the country should "act in a manner consistent with its provisions."
Luke Moffett, a professor of international law at Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland, told the BBC that while "force can be used to stop a boat," this should generally be accomplished using "nonlethal measures."
Such action, said Moffett, must be "reasonable and necessary in self-defense where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials," and the US attack was likely "unlawful under the law of the sea."
"It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law."
The peace group CodePink said Wednesday that "even if Washington's claims are accurate, drug trafficking does not justify a death sentence delivered by missile."
"International law is clear: The use of force is only lawful in self-defense or with explicit UN Security Council authorization," the group continued. "This strike had neither. It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law."
"Under US law, it's equally indefensible," CodePink argued. "The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to authorize war. Unilateral action may only be used in emergencies or self-defense, and this strike meets neither."
CodePink continued:
With the US Southern Command assets already deployed in the region, why blow up a vessel instead of capturing and interrogating the crew? If the goal were really to uncover evidence of [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro's alleged involvement, this reckless approach raises only two possibilities: Either the narrative is fabricated and Washington used it as a pretext for a deadly show of force or it's real, and the US chose extrajudicial killing over law, evidence, and humanity.
CodePink called on Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) "to lead the fight in Congress to stop this escalation," urging him to "introduce legislation to block unauthorized military force, hold hearings to expose the dangers of border militarization, insist on transparency of all relevant directives, and rally Congress to cut off funding for these reckless operations."
Tuesday's attack came amid Trump's deployment of an armada of naval warships off the coast of Venezuela, whose socialist government has long endured US threats of regime change—and sometimes more.
Infused with the notion that it has the right to meddle anywhere in the hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine, the US has attacked, invaded, occupied, and otherwise intervened in Latin American and Caribbean nations well over 100 times since the dubious declaration was issued by President James Monroe in 1823.
Since the late 19th century, oil-rich Venezuela has seen US interventions including involvement in border disputes, help with military coups, support for dictators, and attempts to subvert the Bolivarian Revolution—including by officially recognizing opposition figures claiming to be the legitimate presidents of the country.
Critics of US imperialism highlighted Washington's hypocritical policies and practices toward Venezuela.
"Venezuela produces no cocaine, but US warships patrol its coastline under the banner of a 'drug war,'" New Hampshire Peace Action organizing director Michael "Lefty" Morrill wrote Wednesday.
Meanwhile, neighboring Colombia and nearby Peru—the world's two leading cocaine producers—get no such treatment. Nor does Ecuador, which has emerged as one of the world's leading trafficking hubs.
Morrill also briefly explored bits of the long US history of supporting narcotraffickers when strategically expedient, noting that former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega "was first a CIA asset, then branded a narco-dictator and dragged to a US prison."
"The Taliban was once a strategic partner in Afghanistan's opium trade, before being cast as the world's largest trafficker," he added. "'Drugs' are not simply powders; they are pretexts, shaped to fit the contours of empire."
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Senator Urges Contempt Motion Against Trump Officials Over Alleged Deportations to South Sudan
"A federal judge is wise to Trump's ploy of illegally deporting immigrants and then claiming there is nothing he can do to get them back," said the former executive director of Human Rights Watch.
May 21, 2025
Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on Tuesday urged a federal judge to consider holding U.S. officials in contempt of court following the Trump administration's alleged deportation of multiple immigrants from Southeast Asia to South Sudan, possibly in violation of an order handed down by that same judge earlier this spring.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the immigrants accused the Trump administration of deporting nationals from Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in violation of a court order. In court filings, the lawyers also said they received "information" that there were likely at least 10 others also on the same plane to South Sudan.
In April, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of Massachusetts directed the Trump administration to give immigrants a chance to challenge their deportations to a third country. Murphy ruled that the Trump administration must give them 15 days' notice to raise concerns about danger they may face if deported.
"If those individuals were on a plane sent to South Sudan, it seems a violation of the court order. Judge Murphy ought to be really angry, his order has been violated, and he ought to consider a contempt of court motion, and no doubt the plaintiffs are considering it now," said Blumenthal on CNN on Tuesday evening.
"Violation of court orders ought to be treated with the utmost of sanctions, because otherwise the law is dead letter," Blumenthal continued.
Murphy hastily called a hearing on Tuesday evening and issued a ruling that the Trump administration must "maintain custody and control of class members currently being removed to South Sudan or to any other third country, to ensure the practical feasibility of return if the Court finds that such removals were unlawful," according to The Associated Press.
During the hearing, Murphy warned criminal sanctions could be invoked against those involved in the deportations who were aware of his order. "Based on what I have been told," he said according to The New York Times, "this seems like it may be contempt."
In addition to not being the country of origin of the individuals feared deported, South Sudan has faced continued instability and political violence between government forces and opposition factions.
Murphy has ordered U.S. officials back to court on Wednesday so they can provide more information, such as who exactly was removed and what opportunity they were given to raise concerns about dangers they may face upon deportation, according to the AP. Officials must also give information about the whereabouts of the migrants who have apparently already been deported.
In March, the Trump administration sent Venezuelan immigrants to a megaprison in El Salvdor after invoking a little-used wartime statute. As those deportations were taking place, a federal judge ordered that any planes carrying them either not take off or turn around, but the Trump administration did not turn the planes around.
A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to facilitate the release of a Salvadoran man who was on one of the planes to El Salvador. The man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is still in El Salvador and the Trump administration has said that it is up to El Salvador whether to release him.
Commenting on reporting of the judge's order to keep the immigrants apparently sent to South Sudan in U.S. custody, human rights advocate and former executive director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth wrote: "A federal judge is wise to Trump's ploy of illegally deporting immigrants and then claiming there is nothing he can do to get them back."
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'War-Crime Starvation Strategy': Israel Blocks All Humanitarian Aid into Gaza
“There will be famine and chaos”
Mar 02, 2025
Israel has reneged on the existing ceasefire agreement they had agreed to with Hamas. The first phase of the ceasefire expired Saturday and Israel announced on Sunday it is halting all humanitarian aid and fuel deliveries to Gaza and closing the border between Israel and Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he made the decision "in full coordination with President Trump and his people."
In a statement Hamas called the suspension of aid a “war crime” and a violation of the ceasefire agreement. It said Netanyahu’s “decision to suspend humanitarian aid is cheap blackmail, a war crime and a blatant coup against the [ceasefire] agreement”.
Stephen Zunes, the director of Middle Eastern studies at the University of San Francisco, says the US’s apparent proposal favoring Israel follows a well-established pattern seen since the beginning of the war.
“This is typical,” he told Al Jazeera. “Hamas and Israel will agree to something. Then Israel will try to revise it in its favor. Then the US will put forward a new proposal that is in Israel’s favor and then the US will blame Hamas for not accepting that proposal.”
Israel’s decision to block all aid going into the Gaza Strip is a war crime under international law, a human rights expert says.
Kenneth Roth – former head of Human Rights Watch who is now a visiting professor at Princeton University – said Israel as an occupying power has an “absolute duty” to facilitate humanitarian aid under the Geneva Conventions.
“Israel’s latest threat to cut off all aid is a resumption of the war-crime starvation strategy” that led to the arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court, he said.
Doctors Without Borders said Israel's decision is “outrageous and will have devastating consequences”, said the group’s emergency coordinator Caroline Seguin.
“Humanitarian aid should never be used as a tool of war,” added the charity, known by its French acronym MSF, in a statement. “Regardless of negotiations between warring parties, people in Gaza still need an immediate and massive scale-up of humanitarian supplies.”
Jeremy Corbyn, who once led the UK Labour Party, said that Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid was a “resumption of genocide”, before adding that the current British government – led by Labour – was “complicit."
AP reports:
Fayza Nassar, a woman living in the heavily destroyed urban Jabaliya refugee camp, said the closure would exacerbate already dire living conditions.
“There will be famine and chaos,” she said. “Closing the crossings is a heinous crime.”
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 48,388 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It says more than half of those killed were women and children.
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'Thuggery From Trump and Vance': World Reacts to Oval Office Meltdown With Zelenskyy
"Donald Trump is treating the destruction of a democracy as a political show—throwing Ukraine to the wolves and doing a favor for Putin," said one Senate Democrat.
Feb 28, 2025
A televised Oval Office screaming match between U.S. and Ukrainian leaders on Friday led to politicians worldwide reaffirming support for Ukraine, congressional Democrats decrying the Trump administration, and human rights advocates expressing alarm about what lies ahead.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance took turns berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who reportedly left the White House without plans for a cease-fire or a rare minerals deal with the United States, which has put nearly $183 billion toward helping Ukraine respond to the 2022 Russian invasion.
"This is thuggery from Trump and Vance, plain and simple," Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom, said of the public spat on Friday—a day after the U.K.'s Labour prime minister, Keir Starmer, visited the White House and urged Trump to proceed cautiously on a potential peace deal for the region.
"Your dignity honors the bravery of the Ukrainian people," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
told the Ukrainian leader on social media Friday. "Be strong, be brave, be fearless. You are never alone, dear President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. We will continue working with you for a just and lasting peace."
Zelenskyy responded, "Thank you for your support." He shared that same message in response to similar comments from the presidents of the European Council and Parliament as well as leaders in Austria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden.
Despite the incident at the White House, Zelenskyy also said: "Thank you America, thank you for your support, thank you for this visit. Thank you President Donald Trump, Congress, and the American people. Ukraine needs just and lasting peace, and we are working exactly for that."
While world leaders largely focused on rallying behind Ukraine and its president, many Democrats on Capitol Hill were quick to condemn Trump and Vance's conduct.
"Trump and Vance are an EMBARRASSMENT and DISGRACE. It was absolutely shameful to watch them berate the president of another country. Let alone one of our allies!" said Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas).
Crockett also blasted Trump's ultimatum for the Ukrainian leader, saying: "That's not leadership—this is a power play with no regard for what's really happening in the world. President Zelenskyy is literally fighting for his country's survival!
Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) slammed the U.S. leaders' subservience to the Russian president, charging that "there is no clearer evidence that Trump and Vance kiss the ring of Vladimir Putin than today's meeting with President Zelenskyy."
"What the American people saw was Trump and Vance behaving in ways that are unbefitting their offices," she continued. "Trump's obsession with pleasing Putin is a betrayal of the Ukrainian people, a national security threat, and an international crisis."
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) denounced their behavior as "disgusting and damaging," while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) opted for "shameful and dangerous." She added that "Donald Trump is treating the destruction of a democracy as a political show—throwing Ukraine to the wolves and doing a favor for Putin."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) similarly said that "the United States doesn't support Ukraine as a favor, but because it serves our security. Putin is a dictator, not Zelenskyy. Putin started the war, not Zelenskyy. Yelling in the Oval Office and siding with Putin is shameful and a danger to democracy around the world."
Andrew Albertson, executive director of Foreign Policy for America—which was founded after Trump's first win and is largely aligned with the Democratic Party—said in a Friday statement that "in capitals around the world, our closest allies are expressing tonight their shock and dismay at what they witnessed from an American president in the Oval Office."
"Once again," Albertson said, "we saw two things from President Trump: his bizarre affinity for the murderous dictator Vladimir Putin and Trump's grotesque willingness to make even this—Ukraine's fight for survival in the face of Russia's unconscionable invasion—about himself, turning a White House meeting into something we would expect from a reality TV show."
Amnesty International USA said on social media that "nothing that was said today in the Oval Office changes the facts: Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was an act of aggression and a manifest violation of the U.N. Charter. Sustainable peace in Ukraine is only possible through justice and accountability for all crimes under international law committed since 2014."
Kenneth Roth, a former executive director of Human Rights Watch who's now a visiting professor at Princeton University, called out Vance over berating Zelenskyy for "daring to exercise his free speech rights before the American media," and Trump for "making life-and-death decisions based on his fragile ego."
"Because Ukraine's President Zelenskyy didn't immediately kiss the 'king's' ring, Trump threatens to abandon Ukraine's democracy to Putin's predation," he said. "Trump seems to be so accustomed to sycophants that he becomes outraged when Zelenskyy has the audacity to argue back. Zelenskyy rightly points out that Putin has already breached prior agreements. Why would this one be different without security guarantees?"
"Trump pretends to miss the point," Roth added. "Zelenskyy is perfectly 'ready for peace.' But he wants peace that will last, not a pause in the fighting that will enable Putin to rearm and reinvade. That requires a U.S. security guarantee that Trump refuses to provide."
Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress praised Trump—as did Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is now deputy chair of the country's Security Council.
"The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office," Medvedev said of Zelenskyy. "And Donald Trump is right: The Kiev regime is 'gambling with WWIII.'"
The battle in Ukraine over the past three years has elevated global fears of a world war and the potential use of nuclear weapons. Of the nine nations with nukes, Russia and the United States have the largest arsenals.
The U.S.-based peace group CodePink said in a Friday statement that "the heated exchange in the White House... is not helpful for finding an immediate solution to the conflict," but also argued that "without an end to U.S. weapons to Ukraine, the war would continue to present an increased risk of nuclear catastrophe."
"The response to this exchange in the media has been largely about the demonstrated lack of decorum from the Trump administration regarding Ukraine—but we encourage the public to focus instead on the material realities facing Ukraine and Russia," the group said. "This war continuing would cost thousands of more Ukrainian and Russian lives—and an escalation would have an impact on the entire world."
"We hope the U.S. and Ukraine come back together on a more realistic basis before the war escalates further, but that will require serious diplomacy. It will require Europe to stop encouraging Ukraine to keep fighting," CodePink added. "Now is the moment when all sides must recognize that this war must be settled at the negotiating table, no matter how hard that is."
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