Trump's deadly Venezuela boat attack takes us into dangerous waters

Trump’s deadly Venezuela boat attack takes us into dangerous waters
POTUS believes he has unlimited power — all over the world

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published September 7, 2025 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) America has never been even close to perfect, a fact the Trump administration is going to great lengths to obscure. They insist that any mention of the country’s flawed history demeans and ignores what it has done right, and therefore any failures must not be mentioned at all. In truth, President Donald Trump probably believes the simplified fables he learned as a boy in the 1950s — like George Washington and the cherry tree — are all anyone needs to know about American history. The consequences of this ignorance are putting the country, and the entire world, in grave danger.

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On Tuesday, the Trump administration decided that such norms and measures were a waste of time. A U.S. naval ship blew up a vessel in the Caribbean that the president claimed belonged to a drug cartel and was being used to smuggle illegal narcotics. Its crew of 11 were killed. Trump proudly released the video of what can only be called a murder by the U.S. government, posting on Truth Social that it was done “against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists.”

This president has made it clear: He believes he has unlimited power, is answerable to no one and is not required to even pretend that he needs any authority other than his own to do anything. That odious power grab has now escalated to military action, and is the latest of the administration’s moves in the Caribbean.

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Experts in international law are hard pressed to find any legal justification for the administration’s action. Despite Trump’s omnipotent view of himself, simply designating the Tren de Aragua gang a foreign terrorist organization doesn’t do it just because the administration says so. Invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 wouldn’t work either, especially since the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just blocked its use for deportations, holding there is no “predatory incursion” or “invasion” by members of the gang. If the issue is just about drug dealers, then it’s a criminal matter and the U.S. has decided it has the right to summarily execute them without any due process, something that got former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte arrested by the country’s national police and Interpol in March after the International Criminal Court charged him with crimes against humanity and issued a warrant for his capture. ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/09/07/trumps-deadly-venezuela-boat-attack-takes-us-into-dangerous-waters/