{"id":45650,"date":"2025-12-17T13:03:03","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45650"},"modified":"2025-12-17T13:03:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:03:04","slug":"rights-groups-demand-stronger-congressional-action-over-trump-murder-on-high-seas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/12\/17\/rights-groups-demand-stronger-congressional-action-over-trump-murder-on-high-seas\/","title":{"rendered":"Rights Groups Demand Stronger Congressional Action Over Trump \u2018Murder\u2019 on High Seas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Rights<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other top military officials testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 18, 2025 in Washington, DC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by Kayla Bartkowski\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis ramping up of the bombing campaign despite increased pressure from Congress signals the administration\u2019s total disregard for the law.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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

Dec 16, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human rights<\/a> groups are demanding that the US Congress<\/a> intervene to bring an end to President Donald Trump\u2019s boat-bombing spree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Amnesty International<\/a> and Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday released statements condemning the Trump administration<\/a> for launching more military strikes<\/a> on purported drug trafficking boats, and they called on US lawmakers to assert their powers over American foreign policy to restrain the White House<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u2018Cold-Blooded Murder\u2019: US Rights Coalition Sues Trump Over Unlawful Boat Strikes<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"US<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rights Group Warns US Allies Against Complicity in \u2018Criminal\u2019 Trump Boat Bombings<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Daphne Eviatar, director of security and human rights for Amnesty International USA, argued<\/a> that the administration does not seem at all deterred by potential congressional probes of its policies, and urged lawmakers to take a more aggressive approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis ramping up of the bombing campaign despite increased pressure from Congress signals the administration\u2019s total disregard for the law,\u201d said Eviatar. \u201cCongress must do everything in its power to rein in this administration\u2019s lawless behavior. Congress must exercise its oversight power to ask how these decisions are made, what intelligence is being used, and what the legal justification the administration is claiming and push back forcefully on these illegal actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eviatar emphasized that the administration\u2019s killings \u201camount to extrajudicial executions, a form of murder, in clear violation of both domestic and international law<\/a>,\u201d while adding that the administration has legal methods at its disposal to intercept suspected drug boats that don\u2019t involve slaughtering everyone onboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HRW, meanwhile, released a lengthy analysis<\/a> breaking down the illegality of the Trump boat strikes, while also demanding Congress use its oversight powers to hold administration officials accountable for lawbreaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongress should intervene urgently,\u201d the group declared. \u201cThe administration\u2019s lethal boat strikes, conducted without a clear legal basis and outside any armed conflict, demand immediate congressional scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HRW also outlined actions that Congress should take, including forcing the White House to release its full legal justification for the bombing campaign, holding public hearings and demanding testimony from top officials, establishing a select committee with subpoena power to investigate the attacks, and setting aside funds to pay out as compensation to the families of the people killed by the strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Monday\u2019s attacks, the death toll from the administration\u2019s boat-bombing campaign, which began in September, now stands at at least 95 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The human rights groups\u2019 calls for great congressional intervention come as the Congressional Progressive Caucus is urging their colleagues to support resolutions aimed at blocking Trump from launching a war with Venezuela<\/a> without congressional approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first resolution would require Trump to \u201cremove United States<\/a> Armed Forces from hostilities with any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere, unless authorized by a declaration of war or a specific congressional authorization for use of military force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second resolution supported by the caucus \u201cdirects the president to remove the use of\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization for use of military force.\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 Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other top military officials testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.  (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski\/Getty Images) \u201cThis ramping up of the bombing campaign despite increased pressure from Congress signals the administration\u2019s total disregard for the 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\/45650"}],"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=45650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45651,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45650\/revisions\/45651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}