President Donald Trump had long threatened that he could order military strikes on targets on Venezuelan territory after months of attacks on boats accused of carrying drugs from the South American country. President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela said the U.S. military operations were a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power. On Saturday, the U.S. conducted a large-scale strike against Venezuela.
Drug boats should be stopped and searched, and their operators should be arrested and tried; they should not be blown up. The penalty for transporting drugs is years in prison, not immediate death without proof or jury. When a first bomb strike doesn't kill everyone, survivors should be rescued and tried, not blasted into small bits as they sit atop a capsized boat in the middle of the ocean. As a society, what's come over us?
President Trump yesterday pretended he hadn't said, on camera, that he had no problem with releasing video of an increasingly controversial military strike he ordered on a boat in the Caribbean, yelling at yet another female reporter when she asked about his about-face. ( Washington Post) Congress appears to have tired of the will-they-or-won't-they act, preparing to dock Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's travel budget unless the administration releases videos of the 22 lethal strikes so far. ( Politico) Eighty-seven people have been killed in the attacks. ( NYT)
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers from both parties said Sunday they support congressional reviews of U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, citing a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for all crew members to be killed as part of a Sept. 2 attack. The lawmakers said they did not know whether last week's Washington Post report was true,
President Donald Trump on Saturday said that the airspace "above and surrounding" Venezuela should be considered as "closed in its entirety," an assertion that raised more questions about the U.S. pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. His government accused Trump of making a "colonial threat" and seeking to undermine the South American country's sovereignty. The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump posted on his Truth Social platform,
The Trump administration has not provided a credible rationale for its 21 unauthorized military strikes on vessels in the Western Hemisphere, which have resulted in the extrajudicial killings of dozens of individuals. Nor has this administration explained why it has deployed an invasion-level force of roughly 15,000 troops, a carrier strike group, and military aircraft for a mission it claims is about counter-narcotics,
