{"id":44543,"date":"2025-10-15T12:58:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T19:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=44543"},"modified":"2025-10-15T12:58:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T19:58:45","slug":"these-are-murders-trump-condemned-after-bombing-yet-another-boat-off-venezuelan-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/10\/15\/these-are-murders-trump-condemned-after-bombing-yet-another-boat-off-venezuelan-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018These Are Murders\u2019: Trump Condemned After Bombing Yet Another Boat Off Venezuelan Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"President<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looks on as US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo by Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s 27 lives taken without even a semblance of a legal justification under domestic or international law,\u201d said one critic of the boat strikes.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oct 14, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump<\/a>, who in recent days has been lobbying to receive a Nobel Peace Prize<\/a>, announced on Tuesday afternoon that he had ordered a lethal US military strike against yet another boat off the coast of Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump said<\/a> that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday morning \u201cordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) conducting narcotrafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bombed<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018This Is Murder\u2019: Trump Bombs Another Boat in Caribbean<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"grainy<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wife of Man Aboard Venezuelan Ship Bombed by Trump Says Husband Was a Fisher<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Trump then claimed that \u201cintelligence\u201d had \u201cconfirmed\u201d that the boat was engaged in illegal drug trafficking, although he provided no evidence to back up this claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six passengers aboard the boat were killed in the attack, the president claimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has now repeatedly<\/a> ordered<\/a> the American military to use deadly force against boats in international waters that are allegedly engaged in drug smuggling. Many legal scholars, including some right-wing experts who in the past have embraced expansive views of presidential powers, consider such strikes<\/a> illegal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Pramila Jayapal<\/a> (D-Wash.) condemned Trump\u2019s attack, which she noted was the fifth time the president had ordered a strike on a purported drug-trafficking vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsing the military to execute alleged criminals with no due process or input from Congress is brazenly unconstitutional and damaging to our democracy,\u201d she wrote<\/a> in a social media post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorney George Conway, a former Republican who broke with the party over its support of Trump, said there was absolutely zero doubt that Trump\u2019s strikes on the boats were acts of murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s 27 flat-out murders,\u201d he wrote<\/a> in a post on X, referring to the total body count resulting from the president\u2019s boat strikes. \u201cThat\u2019s 27 lives taken without even a semblance of a legal justification under domestic or international law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch, said that Trump could face criminal prosecution for attacking the boats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrump keeps ordering the summary killing of people in boats off the coast of Venezuela,\u201d Roth wrote<\/a>. \u201cWhether drug traffickers or not (we have no idea), these are murders. If on Venezuelan territory, the International Criminal Court could prosecute.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Painter, who was an ethics lawyer in former President George W. Bush\u2019s White House, similarly described<\/a> the strikes as \u201cmurder\u201d and \u201ca violation of US as well as international law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According<\/a> to The Associated Press<\/em>, the strikes against boats have unnerved the Venezuelan government, which believes the US is preparing to launch a regime-change war against it. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino last week even went so far as to tell his citizens to be prepared for a potential invasion during a televised appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to warn the population: We have to prepare ourselves because the irrationality with which the US empire operates is not normal,\u201d he said, according to the\u00a0AP<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s anti-political, anti-human, warmongering, rude, and vulgar.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looks on as US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. \u00a0(Photo by Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images) \u201cThat\u2019s 27 lives taken without even a semblance of a legal justification under domestic or international law,\u201d… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44544,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44543\/revisions\/44544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}