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Strategies & Market Trends : World Outlook -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (47618)	9/12/2025 7:21:06 AM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49058

As US’ Case Against Venezuela Unravels, Trump Administration Escalates Its War Footing Anyway The Donald J Trump administration is, not for the first time, on a mission to topple the Nicolás Maduro government in Venezuela. And it’s willing to use whatever means necessary, including murder on the high seas. However, serious doubts are being raised about the legality of its actions — including, strangely, by some mainstream media outlets. On Wednesday, the New York Times published an article outlining how the Venezuelan speed boat destroyed by US missiles in the Caribbean last week “had altered its course and appeared to have turned around before the attack started”: ´[T]he people onboard had apparently spotted a military aircraft stalking it, according to American officials familiar with the matter. The military repeatedly hit the vessel before it sank, the officials added, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. President Trump has said he authorized the strike and claimed the boat was carrying drugs. The disclosures provide new details about a military operation that was a startling departure from using law enforcement means to interdict suspected drug boats. Legal specialists who have called it a crime to summarily kill suspected low-level smugglers as if they were wartime combatants said the revelations further undercut the administration’s claim that the strike was legally justified as self-defense. “A Novel Argument” So far, the Trump administration has presented no evidence to corroborate its claims that the 11 people on board the boat were transporting drugs heading to the US and were part of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. Recent revelations suggest that the boat was actually heading to Trinidad and Tobago, and could have been carrying drugs, fisherman or migrants. We will probably never know since all the physical evidence has been vaporised. Instead of providing a detailed legal rationale for its actions, the Times notes, the Trump administration has “put forward the outlines of a novel argument that using lethal military force was permissible under the laws of armed conflict to defend the country from drugs because 100,000 Americans die annually from overdoses.” This may be enough to sway some, perhaps even many, in the MAGA base, for whom the US’ opioid epidemic is, understandably, an important issue. But that does not make it legal. As Nick Turse reports for The Intercept, the lethal strike was a criminal attack on civilians, according to a high-ranking Pentagon official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. more at Naked Capitalism