2 w. ago All of the suspected drug boat killings are murders | Kenneth Roth

There is no rule of law if the president can deem anyone an enemy combatant and order them summarily shotThe largely supine Republicans in Congress had no apparent trouble as Donald Trump and defense secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the killing of suspected drug runners off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia. But suddenly they are up in arms because the Washington Post reported on 28 November about one incident, a double-tap strike, in which the US military finished off two survivors of an attack.Tempted as I am to accept whatever it takes to spark some minimal scrutiny of these summary executions, I hope this unexpected opening prompts broader investigation of this entire series of murders, which have now claimed 87 victims in 22 attacks. As Democrats join in, there are some indications that this expanded scrutiny may be finally beginning.Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and Internatio...

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3 w. ago Four killed in latest ‘drug boat’ strike as Hegseth faces war crimes accusations

The US military conducted another deadly strike on an alleged drug boat, killing four men on board.

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3 w. ago US airstrike survivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attack, video shows

Footage seen by US senators shows two unarmed, shirtless men struggling to stay afloat before they were killed in follow-up action, sources say Experts say Trump’s ‘drug boat’ war is legally shakyTwo men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago US military conducts strike on another suspected drug boat as probe into the first strike begins

U.S. Southern Command says it has conducted another strike against a small boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, following a pause of almost three weeks

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3 w. ago Pentagon announces it has killed four men in another boat strike in Pacific

Strike comes amid congressional turmoil over legality of US attacks on suspected drug smugglersThe Pentagon announced on Thursday that the US military’s southern command had conducted another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics, killing four men in the eastern Pacific.Video of the new strike was posted on social media by the US southern command, based in Florida, with a statement saying that, at the direction of Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization”. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago Admiral Frank ‘Mitch’ Bradley: The ‘gold standard’ Navy SEAL officer at the centre of Hegseth boat strike blame game

Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley - described as ‘a leader of courage, integrity, professionalism and unmatched skill’ - will address Congress over the deadly ‘double tap’ strike on a suspected drug boat

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3 w. ago Trump ‘wouldn’t have wanted’ second strike on Caribbean boat survivors

US president says he will look into reports US military was told to conduct follow-up attack on suspected drug vesselDonald Trump said on Sunday he would look into reports that the US military conducted a follow-up strike on a boat in the Caribbean that it believed to be ferrying drugs, killing survivors of an initial missile attack.The US president also said he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike on the vessel during the incident on 2 September – the first publicised operation in a series of attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Washington says are aimed at combatting the drug trade. Continue reading...

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