{"id":50014,"date":"2026-09-04T13:05:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T20:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=50014"},"modified":"2026-09-04T13:05:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T20:05:46","slug":"trump-condemned-for-200-extrajudicial-killings-after-yearlong-murder-spree-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/04\/trump-condemned-for-200-extrajudicial-killings-after-yearlong-murder-spree-at-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Condemned for 200+ Extrajudicial Killings After Yearlong Murder Spree at Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Four<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Four victims of the Trump administration\u2019s boat bombings, Eduard Hidalgo, Dushak Milovcic, Ricky Joseph, and Chad Joseph, are seen in a composite image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo courtesy of CLIP)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings,\u201d said one legal expert.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Corbett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sep 02, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday marked one year since President Donald Trump<\/a> began bombing boats allegedly smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean\u2014a grim anniversary that sparked a fresh wave of condemnation from rights advocates across the United States<\/a> and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor a year now, the Trump administration<\/a> has engaged in a terrifying, lawless killing campaign at sea and has yet to provide the public with anything beyond the most threadbare justifications,\u201d said<\/a> Jeff Stein, staff attorney with ACLU\u2019s National Security Project, in a statement late Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

As Trump Resumes Boat Strikes, Amnesty Says \u2018Congress Must Stop Murderous Yearlong Campaign\u2019<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Bombed<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Lawless Killing Spree at Sea Resumes\u2019 as US Announces Fresh Boat Bombings<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights are suing<\/a> over the administration\u2019s refusal to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request for a legal opinion authored by the US Department of Justice\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) attempting to justify the strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese strikes have devastated countless families, terrified communities, and, by the administration\u2019s own admission, failed to achieve their purported goal of stopping drugs from entering into the United States,\u201d Stein said. \u201cWe urge leaders in both Congress and the executive branch to put an immediate end to these strikes before anyone else is killed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite mounting outrage over the bombings, which have killed at least 227 people<\/a> and, as Amnesty International<\/a> USA\u2019s national director for government relations, Amanda Klasing, highlighted<\/a> Monday, \u201care illegal under both international and US law,\u201d the Republican-controlled Congress has failed to pass any war powers resolutions intended to stop the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Trump administration has summarily killed more than 200 people over the course of the past year, bragging about these killings online and facing no accountability,\u201d Ida Sawyer, crisis, conflict, and arms director at Human Rights<\/a> Watch, said<\/a> Wednesday. \u201cThe victims and their loved ones deserve a full accounting of these operations, and justice for the grave harm they have suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a two-month pause in the bombings, the administration revived<\/a> them last week, launching a pair<\/a> of attacks that killed at least six people, according to social media<\/a> posts and aerial footage from US Southern Command. The strikes followed SOUTHCOM\u2019s early August announcement<\/a> of an expanded operation across Latin America<\/a> called Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As MS NOW noted<\/a> Wednesday:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In September and October 2025, when the strikes began, US Southern Command, known as SOUTHCOM, linked three of the strikes to the Tren de Aragua and Ej\u00e9rcito de Liberaci\u00f3n Nacional criminal organizations. Most later strikes were described as targeting \u201ca vessel operated by designated terrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the military\u2019s most recent two announcements of strikes simply stated that \u201cconfirmed intelligence revealed the vessel\u2019s active involvement in narco-trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser who now advises the US Program at the International Crisis Group, told the outlet that \u201cthey are engaging in conduct that is widely regarded to be flagrantly illegal, criminal even, and have not offered anything approaching plausible legal rationale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The OLC memo may be the administration\u2019s \u201cpermission slip,\u201d Finucane said, but it hasn\u2019t actually substantiated claims that the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with cartels that traffic drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis war framing on the part of the administration is really bogus,\u201d he added. \u201cThis is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BlueSky: https:\/\/embed.bsky.app\/embed\/did:plc:e62gb2ushvtvjvqcbrxeaw2n\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3mujyjy5hn22j?id=8122526907882054&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Fboat-strikes&colorMode=system<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several Democrats<\/a> in Congress, from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> (NY) to Senate Minority Whip and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin<\/a> (Ill.), renewed their criticism of the boat bombings on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ruben Gallego<\/a> (D-Ariz.) said<\/a> that \u201cthe most recent strike was four days ago. A year of killing, and this administration has never once come to Congress to justify any of it. This cannot become the way our country goes to war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe American people are already paying for one war they didn\u2019t want in the first place,\u201d he continued, nodding to the illegal six-month assault on Iran. \u201cI fought in Iraq. I know what these wars cost, and I know who pays them. I will use every tool I have as a United States senator to stop this and to defend the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) noted<\/a> that \u201cit remains unclear whether these operations have made any real difference in stopping illegal drugs from reaching the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is especially true for fentanyl,\u201d he noted, which Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth \u201chave repeatedly claimed is the reason for these extrajudicial killings even though we know that it is cocaine\u2014not fentanyl\u2014that is typically shipped via small boats from South America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith also called out the Department of Defense for failing \u201cto publicly provide the costs of these operations, both in terms of dollars and readiness,\u201d and declared that \u201cnever before in my over 20 years on this committee have I seen such a staggering lack of transparency on behalf of an administration and DOD to meaningfully inform Congress of the use of lethal military force.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/RepJayapal\/status\/2095191566268702768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2095191566268702768%7Ctwgr%5E13912870d0c83012fb85b342a09205d782726e9e%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fboat-strikes<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, with Republicans<\/a> holding narrow majorities in Congress and mostly still refusing to truly challenge the administration on the boat strikes\u2014and various other violent actions around the world\u2014some campaigners are also stepping up pressure on other governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Trump administration has had complete impunity for this campaign of unlawful killings for a year, and has stated openly that it has no intention of stopping,\u201d said Sawyer. \u201cOther countries should refrain from any cooperation on these strikes, and Congress should urgently work to rein in the deadly actions of an administration bent on violating international law<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamil Dakwar, director of ACLU\u2019s Human Rights Program, said that \u201cthe international community must do everything in its power to hold the Trump administration responsible for these extrajudicial killings that are blatant violations of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo other country should provide any assistance that could contribute to these unlawful US government killings,\u201d Dakwar added, calling for an \u201cindependent international investigation into this lawless campaign.\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

Jessica Corbett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Four victims of the Trump administration\u2019s boat bombings, Eduard Hidalgo, Dushak Milovcic, Ricky Joseph, and Chad Joseph, are seen in a composite image. \u00a0(Photo courtesy of CLIP) \u201cThis is a make-believe armed conflict, but these are very real killings,\u201d said one legal expert. Jessica Corbett Sep 02, 2026 (CommonDreams.org) Wednesday… 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":[2225,1880],"tags":[2466],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50014"}],"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=50014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50015,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50014\/revisions\/50015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}