The Dishonorable Strikes on Venezuelan Boats

"Hegseth was responding to reporting, published earlier that day by the Washington Post, about the Trump Administration's first strike on a suspected Venezuelan drug-trafficking boat. According to the Post, Hegseth had issued a verbal order to "kill everybody." (The White House denied this allegation.) The vessel, off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, was incinerated. But, the Post reported, commanders watching the operation saw that "two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.""

"Admiral Frank M. Bradley, the Special Operations commander overseeing the operation from Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, ordered another strike to implement Hegseth's directive, and "the two men were blown apart in the water." Hegseth and the Pentagon have denounced the Post's account without being specific about what they dispute. "Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict-and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers,"

A U.S. strike off Trinidad and Tobago incinerated a suspected Venezuelan drug-trafficking vessel. Commanders observed two survivors clinging to the smoldering wreck, and a subsequent follow‑up strike killed them in the water. The Secretary of Defense used language invoking lethal force against "narco-terrorists." Since September 2, over twenty additional boats have been attacked, resulting in more than eighty deaths. The Administration frames the campaign as an armed conflict permitting lethal measures. Pentagon officials have denied or denounced some accounts, while legal experts have raised alarm about the lawfulness of the operations under U.S. and international law.

Read at The New Yorker