Trump’s assaults on alleged drug boats are unlawful acts of homicide. However too many Democrats are shying away from calling the president out.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the White Home on September 30, 2025.
(Hu Yousong / Xinhua by way of Getty Photographs)
Pity the nation the place John Yoo is the voice of purpose.
Yoo, in fact, is among the most infamous of the various nationwide safety ghouls who served within the George W. Bush administration, the place he used his authorized experience to put in writing in 2002 the so-called “torture memos” that sought to justify using waterboarding and different violations of the Geneva Conference within the title of the World Battle on Terror. This isn’t somebody usually involved about following the legislation.
But in 2025 Yoo has emerged as a critic of certainly one of Donald Trump’s most openly unlawful overseas coverage acts: his choice to explode boats in South American waters on the grounds that they’re being run by Venezuelan drug cartels.
No proof has been offered to help these claims—however even when there have been such proof, america isn’t at warfare with Venezuela, or with drug cartels, or with any of the 14 people killed in these assaults. And there’s no proof that the boats posed an imminent risk to any American. Bombing the boats and killing all these on board is an act of homicide, plain and easy.
Even somebody with Yoo’s rotted ethical compass can see that. Writing in The Washington Submit on September 23, Yoo warned that “these assaults danger crossing the road between crime-fighting and warfare.” He added that “a broad, amorphous navy marketing campaign in opposition to the unlawful drug commerce” would “would violate American legislation and the Structure.” He speculated that “using navy pressure in opposition to the cartels could plunge the U.S. right into a warfare in opposition to Venezuela” which might additionally create “troublesome issues.”
These gentle cautionary phrases hardly quantity to a ringing expression of anti-war and anti-imperialist sentiment. But they’re much extra pointed than something mentioned by congressional Republicans (who’ve predictably lined up behind Trump, with solely the mildest expression of even a want for oversight). Much more scandalously, they’re harsher than the feedback of most congressional Democrats.
Present Situation
Opposing unlawful acts of homicide may appear to be an apparent transfer for an opposition celebration. However Democrats, like they achieve this typically, have preemptively conceded defeat.
On September 18, Politico reported, “Democrats have a dilemma as they oppose President DONALD TRUMP’s assaults on alleged drug trafficking vessels from Venezuela: Maintain the navy accountable for the strikes with out wanting like they’re defending cartels.” And on September 29, journalist Aída Chávez tweeted, “A senior Dem staffer is discouraging Democrats from popping out in opposition to regime change in Venezuela, congressional sources inform me. The staffer is utilizing the Bush-era Iraq line, arguing that opposing Trump/Rubio’s regime change quantities to supporting Maduro.”
This Democratic staffer clearly hasn’t mirrored on the easy indisputable fact that the “Bush-era line” conflating opposition to warfare with help for a dictator had the damaging impact of aligning senior celebration leaders (together with Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden) with a disastrous warfare and undermining the flexibility of the celebration to be an efficient opposition—or that Democrats began recovering politically solely once they took a firmer stance in opposition to the Iraq fiasco.
The stranglehold that militarism has on the Democrats may be seen within the feedback of Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, a “former” CIA analyst who stays an ally of the nationwide safety state. Slotkin told Politico, “We now have uniformed navy asking their chain of command for letters that make sure that they don’t have private legal responsibility for any unlawful motion in these operations. I’ve no drawback going after drug traffickers.” In different phrases, Slotkin’s purpose is to not cease Trump’s bombing marketing campaign and doable rush to warfare with Venezuela however to easily be sure that it follows correct authorized protocol.
On the Pod Save the World podcast, Ben Rhodes, former adviser to Barack Obama, pointed out that this “is an insane factor for Democrats to be cautious about. Individuals don’t like warfare, they don’t like regime change wars—MAGA individuals don’t like that.… It’s flawed to go to warfare in Venezuela. It’s flawed to have insurance policies of regime change. It’s flawed to kill individuals [extrajudicially] in boats. Full cease.”
Regardless of the cowardice of most in Congress, Trump’s actions are so egregious that they could but pressure a constitutional disaster. On Thursday, The New York Instances reported, “President Trump has determined that america is engaged in a proper “armed battle” with drug cartels his workforce has labeled terrorist organizations and that suspected smugglers for such teams are “illegal combatants,” the administration mentioned in a confidential discover to Congress this week.”
Widespread
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This discover to Congress drew an unusually robust response from Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the highest Democrat on the Armed Providers Committee. Reed asserted that Trump has claimed for himself the ability to wage “secret wars in opposition to anybody he calls an enemy” whereas providing “no credible authorized justification, proof or intelligence” for his actions.
Reed additional mentioned, “Drug cartels are despicable and should be handled by legislation enforcement. However now, by the president’s personal phrases, the U.S. navy is engaged in armed battle with undefined enemies he has unilaterally labeled ‘illegal combatants,’ and he has deployed hundreds of troops, ships and plane in opposition to them. But he has refused to tell Congress or the general public.”
As the author Jake Romm noted in The Nation yesterday, the Venezuela assaults are half of a bigger flip of the American empire away from a rhetorical help for worldwide legislation since 1945 towards a extra lawless world the place the highly effective have free rein to impose their will on the world. This flip has an extended historical past that predates Trump. Certainly, the Battle on Terror and Yoo’s torture memos had been vital pivot factors on this flip. Israel’s present remorseless genocide in Gaza is one other one.
This unrestrained great-power imperialism will take a very long time to defeat, however it should be fought at each alternative. One place to attract a line is at Trump’s rush to warfare with Venezuela. Democrats ought to oppose it with every part they’ve.
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