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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Trump’s trained dogs of war have murdered Venezuelans – and a few Colombians, and a man from Trinidad – on the high seas in glorified battles allegedly against interdicted drugs.
There have been at least seven incidents of U.S. vigilante-style strikes on boats in Venezuelan waters since the beginning of September killing some 32 people, with unproven allegations that they were carrying narcotics bound for the United States, or that any on board were members of the Tren de Aragua gang accused by the administration of terrorism and drug trafficking.
September 2: the American military killed 11 people in a strike on a vessel from Venezuela allegedly carrying illegal narcotics, the first known incident since the United States deployed warships to the north coast of South America.
September 15: Trump confirmed three people dead in a US military strike on another Venezuelan vessel, posting a video of a boat exploding on the water.
September 19: Trump released on social media that another strike had killed three people affiliated with a “designated terrorist organization.”
October 3: U.S. Forces killed four when it destroyed a boat allegedly involved in drug trafficking on the high seas not far from Venezuela.
October 14: the U.S. government confirmed six people on board a boat had been killed in international waters near the Venezuelan coast.
October 15: Trump verified he had authorized the CIA to carry out secret operations in Venezuela.
October 16: some survivors were reported following a U.S. airstrike on a subsurface vessel; at least two were taken into custody; one each from Colombia and Ecuador and were repatriated.
October 18: Trump announced a seventh strike, murdering three people off the coast of Venezuela, calling them Colombia drug smugglers, again without one iota of documentation being released
Asked on September 5 about the legality of the first strike, Trump responded: “We don't want drugs killing our people. I believe we lost 300,000 ... last year” then raved to reporters on September 14: “What’s illegal are the drugs that were on the boat, and the drugs that are being sent into our country, and the fact that 300 million people died last year from drugs.”
Mmm. According to factcheck.org, U.S. drug overdose deaths in in 2024 amounted to about 80,000. Shocking but...
American attacks on vessels Trump claims without proof to be terrorist drug traffickers are making fishermen everywhere in the southern Caribbean fear for their lives and livelihoods.
And what amounts to be “extrajudicial killings” is putting the United States in gross violation of its international human rights obligations. And in the crosshairs of peace activists here at home.
Furthermore, naval buildup by the United States off the coast of South America is stoking fears of a possible ground attack on Venezuela, ratcheting up pressure on its president, Nicolás Maduro.
All this spewed and spouted on social media, not kept confidential as most military operations are, or as vetted news releases through normal channels. Already senior members of the Armed Forces are resigning.
In an exchange on X, Vice President JD Vance stated, “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military” to which anti-hate social media journalist Brian Krassenstein replied: “Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime” initiating vociferous online pushback by the MAGA mob.
When Vance responded, “I don't give a shit what you call it,” Republican Senator Rand Paul stepped in saying: “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
Alt-right Senator Bernie Moreno then jumped on Paul posting “What’s really despicable is defending foreign terrorist drug traffickers who are *directly* responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in Kentucky and Ohio.”
Yup, there’s that gross exaggeration of numbers again.
This would be info-war by internet if there weren’t dead bodies in the Caribbean Sea, and now the Pacific, and grieving families at home.
Colombian president Gustavo Petro opined that killing boat occupants in drug interdictions rather than capturing them amounted to murder.
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he was on the side of peace, favored negotiations and, in addressing the United Nations, compared “using lethal force in situations that do not constitute armed conflict” amounted to “executing people without trial.”
The Iranian ambassador to the UN in Geneva condemned the attack as illegal under international law.
Then, just this Wednesday, Trumpty Dumpty and Henny Penny Hegseth deliberately dissed Petro – a close American ally until Petro complained about the murder of a Colombian fisherman – by blowing up a small boat off his country’s Pacific Coast bringing the number of foreign vessels destroyed to eight and known deaths to 34.
All acts of war, all without Congressional approval.
Heg-sick claimed the vessel was “known by our intelligence” to be carrying narcotics but, again, produced absolutely no evidence.
The president confirmed that he had secretly authorized the CIA to conduct covert action inside the country, part of a U.S. campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the authoritarian leader, remarkable in that presidents don’t generally acknowledge directives that enable spies to perform secret missions, torpedoing the idea of a CIA was conducting “deniable” operations.
Warships massing off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, 10,000 troops nearby, bombing of boats allegedly America-bound with “narco-terrorists” – are these clumsy efforts to scare Maduro into exile?
Is an invasion imminent? Trump has threatened to do so.
Something Congress would probably deny him but when has he ever listened to them? In his mind, he orders and they obey, at least the Republican majority.
But what Trump has never talked about is what he is trying to accomplish. What interests are being served here?
If it’s to stop narcotics trafficking, until this week the Navy was operating on the wrong coast since the greatest influx of dangerous drugs tends to be a west coast enterprise.
Venezuela is not a source of fentanyl, the most damaging narco-import. Its ingredients come from China and are brewed in Mexico, and Trump is not advocating regime change in either of those nations.
If it’s access to oil, there are ways of negotiating over oil short of military or covert action, and Trump walked away from talks weeks ago.
And promoting democracy has never been a priority for a president who openly admires the crassly authoritarian leaders of Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Brazil and Argentina.
Trump’s pretexts for action keep falling apart, and intelligence analysts who disproved the idea that the Maduro government is sending criminals to sabotage the United States have been shut down or fired.
American engineering of regime-change is full of operations gone wrong and global embarrassment. Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Iraq, Vietnam, millions of unnecessary deaths, billions of taxpayer dollars wasted, disastrous and unintended consequences.
And this is not anything new.
Shakespeare laid in on the calamitous overreach of ego in his interpretation of Marc Antony left alone with the body of Julius Caesar swearing revenge on the murderers, invoking a war the likes of which no one has ever seen.
“And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,With Ate by his side come hot from hell,Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voiceCry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war”
‘Ate’ is the personification of moral blindness and error and of delusion from Greek mythology, blinding the minds of gods and of men, leading them astray. And havoc?
'Havoc' is a combination of chaos and confusion, disorder and devastation, turmoil and turbulence. In bygone days, once soldiers had achieved victory through disciplined behavior, their general would cry “havoc” and loose the animal nature of testosterone-charged troops to “enjoy” the spoils of war: to indiscriminately plunder, rape and pillage a defeated people with impunity.
Is that Trump’s goal? To play the petty general and reward the MAGA dogs with a license to kill?
Is this really what a majority of Americans want in a leader in 2025?
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
