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venezuela
The Court Said Trump Was Above the Law — And Now 11 People Are Dead at Sea
Trump simply ordered human beings erased. This isn’t just about a boat off Venezuela. It’s about whether America will allow a president, blessed by the Court, to kill without evidence, without process, without even the pretense of law.
Sep 05, 2025
When the Court says Trump is above the law, who speaks for the eleven dead on that boat? Their lives ended not in a battlefield crossfire or a clash between nations, but at the whim of one man emboldened by six justices who declared him untouchable.
Trump simply ordered human beings erased, confident the Court had given him immunity from any consequence and the leaders of his military would obey an illegal order. Eleven souls were sacrificed not just to his cruelty, but to a judicial betrayal that transformed the presidency into a license to kill.
For most of our history, American presidents have at least gone through the motions of cloaking lethal force in some form of legal justification.
Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War but sought Congress’s approval. Franklin Roosevelt went to Congress for Lend-Lease before escalating aid to Britain, and sought a declaration of war against Japan. George W. Bush and Barack Obama leaned heavily on the post-9/11 Authorizations for Use of Military Force to justify everything from Afghanistan to drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia to killing Bin Laden.
It looks like Trump has taken Miller’s reported hypothetical and turned it into policy. What was once an outrageous musing has become a bloody precedent.
The principle has always been that the United States does not simply kill people without some kind of legal process. It may be stretched, it may be abused, but it has been invoked.
What Donald Trump has now done with the strike on a small boat off Venezuela’s coast is to break that tradition in a way that is both lawless and unprecedented. He gave the order to kill eleven human beings with no congressional approval, no international authorization, and no visible evidence justifying it.
This was simply murder on the high seas. And the world knows it.
He did it in the full knowledge that six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court have granted him immunity for crimes committed while in office, even international crimes. That ruling opened the door to precisely this sort of extrajudicial killing and stripped away one of the last guardrails protecting both our law and our global standing.
The official claim is that the boat carried members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. But eleven people on a small vessel that couldn’t possibly travel as far as America doesn’t sound like a cartel’s drug shipment (typically there’s only one or two people manning such a boar); it sounds like desperate migrants fleeing a collapsing country.
That possibility makes the strike even more chilling when paired with a story Miles Taylor has told about Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller. Taylor recounts traveling with Miller and a Coast Guard admiral after a drug war event in Key West.
On that trip Stephen Miller asked the admiral if it would be legal to use a Predator drone to obliterate a boat full of migrants in international waters. Miller’s reasoning was that migrants weren’t covered by the Constitution, so what was to stop us from blowing them out of the water?
The admiral reportedly shot back that it would violate international law, that “you cannot kill unarmed civilians just because you want to.” At the time it was an alarming glimpse into the sadistic mind of a man who saw immigrants as less than human.
Now it looks like Trump has taken Miller’s reported hypothetical and turned it into policy. What was once an outrageous musing has become a bloody precedent.
This has profound legal and moral implications.
By attacking a vessel flying the flag of a sovereign state, Trump risked triggering a direct military confrontation. Venezuela could have fired back at American forces in the region. A firefight at sea can escalate quickly into a regional war, and Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro would have every incentive to turn to Russia and China for protection.
Leaders of both of those nations are eager to deepen their presence in our hemisphere, and this gives them an opening. It’s not inconceivable that Moscow or Beijing could send ships or aircraft to Venezuela in response.
That would put foreign military forces hostile to us within thirteen hundred miles of Miami. If shots were fired between American forces and Russian or Chinese deployments in the Caribbean, the slide toward a larger war would be real, very much like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963 (except then we had a statesman as a president, instead of a corrupt buffoon).
World War I began with a simple assassination that pitted one nation against another and then the sinking of the civilian boat the Lusitania; this is how great power conflicts can begin. Trump’s reckless strike doesn’t just risk Venezuelan lives. It risks American troops, regional stability, and, in the most ominous scenario, world peace itself.
Meanwhile, at home, the timing is impossible to ignore. Authoritarians throughout history have turned to foreign crises to distract from domestic scandals.
Nixon expanded the war into Cambodia as Watergate began to close in. Reagan invaded Grenada days after hundreds of Marines were killed in Beirut. Trump has lived for decades under the shadow of allegations of sexual predation, including reports that Jeffrey Epstein recorded him with underage girls during the years he owned and ran Miss Teen USA.
If new evidence of that were to surface, Trump would need a distraction on a scale large enough to blot out the outrage. Creating a crisis with Venezuela, complete with martial language and threats of escalation while renaming the Department of Defense to Department of War, serves that purpose. It’s the oldest play in the authoritarian book: wag the dog.
Except this time the stakes are far higher. This time we’re dealing with a president who’s been told by six corrupted members of the highest court in the land that he’s above the law.
When Miles Taylor first revealed Miller’s macabre question about bombing migrant boats, some dismissed it as idle cruelty. It now looks like a glimpse into the inner workings of Trump’s policy mind. In this worldview, immigrants are vermin, human rights are optional, Democrats are “extremists,” and lethal force is just another tool of politics.
Combine that with the Supreme Court’s gift of immunity and you have a recipe for lawless violence on a scale America has never contemplated. The entire edifice of international law is designed to prevent precisely this sort of conduct.
Extrajudicial killings, violations of sovereignty, the targeting of civilians: these are the acts that international courts prosecute when they can, and that history condemns when courts cannot stop them.
And now we’re learning that Trump did something similar in 2019 when he was last president. He authorized a SEAL Team strike against North Korea, where they killed three civilians in a boat who were simply out fishing.
Extrajudicial killings, violations of sovereignty, the targeting of civilians: these are the acts that international courts prosecute when they can, and that history condemns when courts cannot stop them.
If America embraces this new Putin-like assertion of America’s power to bomb anybody, anywhere, on the whim of the president, we’ll have abandoned any claim to moral leadership.
Worse, we will have normalized the authoritarian logic that anyone the president labels an enemy can be eliminated without trial, without evidence, without process. We’ll have handed Xi a rationale to attack Taiwan; all he has to do is claim that a non-governmental gang within that nation is importing drugs into China (or something similar).
The international reaction has already been severe. America’s allies are horrified, our adversaries have been emboldened, and human rights groups are openly appalled.
But the real test is here at home. Do we still believe in the principle, famously cited by our second President John Adams, that America is a nation of laws and not of men? Do we still insist that presidents cannot kill at will? If Trump can strike a boat off Venezuela today, what is to stop him from ordering lethal force against dissidents, protesters, or political opponents tomorrow?
Do we still insist that presidents cannot kill at will? If Trump can strike a boat off Venezuela today, what is to stop him from ordering lethal force against dissidents, protesters, or political opponents tomorrow?
Keep in mind, the same Stephen Miller — who reportedly wanted to blow up boats of immigrants to kill more brown people — just in the past week claimed that the Democratic Party is a “domestic extremist organization.”
The doctrine of immunity means there is no legal backstop. The only remaining check is political will. And Trump’s fascist toadies are all in on more extrajudicial killings.
Yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete “Kegger” Hegseth said:
“We’ve got assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships, because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop with just this strike.”
Secretary of State “Little Marco” Rubio echoed the sentiment, saying during a speech in Mexico City yesterday that similar strikes “will happen again.”
This is why Democrats, independents, and every American who values the rule of law must call this out for what it is: an atrocity against eleven people, an assault on international norms, and a direct threat to American democracy.
Trump has shown us exactly how far he’s willing to go. He’s willing to risk a war in our hemisphere. He’s willing to put our troops in danger. He’s willing to risk drawing Putin and Xi into a confrontation with us that could spiral out of control. He’s willing to destroy lives to protect himself. And he’s doing it because six Republicans on the Supreme Court told him he could.
If Congress doesn’t act now to confront and contain this lawless behavior, if we don’t restore accountability to the presidency, then we’ll have surrendered not just our moral authority but our future.
The question is not whether Trump wants a distraction from his scandals; of course he does. The question is whether we’re willing to let Trump and his fascist toadies drag America and the world into catastrophe to get it.
This isn’t just about a boat off Venezuela. It’s about whether America will allow a president, blessed by the Court, to kill without evidence, without process, without even the pretense of law.
Eleven dead migrants are the proof of what immunity means in practice: impunity. If Trump can slaughter refugees today, what stops him from targeting dissidents, protesters, even political opponents tomorrow?
The answer, unless Congress and the people act, is nothing. And “nothing” is what those justices have left to protect us, our laws, and our humanity.
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Trump Won't Stop With Venezuela: Rubio Indicates Broader Campaign of Lawless Executions
"There is no military solution to the overdose crisis, but there is a political solution to a president with authoritarian ambitions," said one peace advocate. "Congress must act now to end unauthorized military action."
Sep 05, 2025
As rights groups and Democratic lawmakers condemned the Trump administration's bombing of a boat it claims—without evidence—was carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear on Thursday that targeting vessels linked to drug smuggling in Latin America, and possibly elsewhere, will be part of the White House's ongoing policy.
At a news conference in Quito, Ecuador, Rubio suggested Latin American governments have a choice: Work with the Trump administration to crack down on drug trafficking or see the US kill more citizens suspected of trying to smuggle illegal substances.
"For cooperative governments, there's no need because those governments are going to help us," said Rubio. "They're going to help us find these people and blow them up, if that's what it takes."
Some governments in the region have avoided criticizing this week's bombing of a boat off the coast of Venezuela, which the US has said killed 11 people it had identified at "narco-terorrists" connected to Tren de Aragua, and which was conducted under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force.
The White House has not provided evidence of the suspected drug smuggling or that the victims were connected to the gang. US intelligence agencies have also called into question President Donald Trump's claims that Tren de Aragua is a high-level gang that terrorist organization working with the Venezuelan government.
Ecuador's government said Thursday it intends to revise its extradition agreement with the US, and President Daniel Noboa praised the US for its efforts to "actually eliminate any terrorist threat." On the same day, Rubio announced $20 million in new security assistance for Ecuador.
"Under Trump, if the president declares you a terrorist, the U.S. military will apparently execute you on his behalf, no questions asked."
The White House has also turned its attention to two Ecuadorian gangs, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, with Rubio announcing they have been designated as terrorist groups. The designation gives the Trump administration "all sorts of options," Rubio claimed, for cracking down on the gangs' activities, including potentially killing those suspected of being leaders or traffickers for the groups.
"This time, we're not just going to hunt for drug dealers in the little fast boats and say, 'Let's try to arrest them,'" Rubio said. "No, the president has said he wants to wage war on these groups because they've been waging war on us for 30 years and no one has responded."
As Rubio spoke in Quito, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at Fort Benning in Georgia on Thursday that while Trump said he ordered the strike on the boat in the Caribbean this week, low-ranking military officers will soon be empowered to make final decisions on such attacks—strikes which international law experts have decried as nothing less than extrajudicial murder.
"The understanding is that those authorities are better made, those decisions are better made, by men and women in the professional arms," Hegseth said.
Despite the administration's use of the military to attack the boat near Venezuela this week and Rubio's rhetoric about being at "war" with groups involved in the drug trade, human rights advocates and other Latin American leaders have stressed in recent days that drug trafficking is a crime that must be confronted by law enforcement—not an entity that the US can defeat through military action.
"We have been capturing civilians transporting drugs for decades without killing them. Those who transport drugs are not the big drug traffickers, but the very poor young people of the Caribbean and the Pacific," said Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America told The Washington Post that "you don't just simply blow boats out of the water. You follow law enforcement procedures."
Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of Win Without War, said that with this week's deadly attack—and plans to conduct more strikes—Trump has brought former President George W. Bush's "dream to full fruition."
"Under Trump, if the president declares you a terrorist, the U.S. military will apparently execute you on his behalf, no questions asked," said Haghdoosti. "That should deeply alarm us all, especially at a time when the president thinks nothing of labeling anyone from a USAID worker to a college student as a terrorist."
The killing of 11 suspected Venezuelan gang members, added Haghdoosti, will make "no difference whatsoever in the lives of people struggling with their own or a loved one's addiction," particularly as the Republican Party's budget cuts have "ravaged" funding for substance use disorder treatment and overdose prevention.
"There is no military solution to the overdose crisis, but there is a political solution to a president with authoritarian ambitions," said Haghdoosti. "Congress must act now to end unauthorized military action in the Caribbean, investigate these apparently lawless killings, and restore the proven health and harm reduction programs that people struggling with the scourge of fentanyl desperately need."
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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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