Wait? WHAT! Trump just extrajudicially executed 11 people at sea???

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
15
814

Wait? WHAT!

Trump just extrajudicially executed 11 people at sea???

US military kills 11 people in strike on alleged drug boat from Venezuela, Trump says

The U.S. military killed 11 people on Tuesday in a strike on a vessel from Venezuela allegedly carrying illegal narcotics, President Donald Trump said, in the first known operationsince his administration’s recent deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean.
“We just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
…so as Trump builds up a military force to antagonise Venezuela, he just green lights an extrajudicial assassination?
Ummmmm.
I’m pretty sure that is technically illegal…

A strike carried out by US forces on a boat in the Caribbean Sea – which the White House says killed 11 drug traffickers – may have violated international human rights and maritime law, legal experts have told BBC Verify.

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that US forces destroyed a vessel which he said had departed from Venezuela. He said the boat was operated by the Tren de Aragua cartel and was carrying drugs bound for the US.

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US defence officials have so far declined to offer details on the strike, footage of which Trump shared on Truth Social, including what legal authority they relied upon to justify it.

BBC Verify reached out to a range of experts in international and maritime law, with several saying that US may have acted illegally in attacking the vessel.

The US is not a signatory to United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the US military’s legal advisors have previously said that the US should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions”.

Under the convention, countries agree not to interfere with vessels operating in international waters. There are limited exceptions to this which allow a state to seize a ship, such as a “hot pursuit” where a vessel is chased from a country’s waters into the high seas.

“Force can be used to stop a boat but generally this should be non-lethal measures,” Prof Luke Moffett of Queens University Belfast said.

But he added that the use of aggressive tactics must be “reasonable and necessary in self-defence where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials”, noting that the US moves were likely “unlawful under the law of the sea”.

…so Trump is just killing randoms for shits and giggles?

 

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15 COMMENTS

  2. This isn’t exactly radical new policy for the US. The US routinely executes people it thinks are a threat. Here is some data for Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama doing the same thing over and over again: https://www.cfr.org/blog/obamas-final-drone-strike-data
    The US has zero scruples when it comes to murdering people, and it not new or a partisan policy, let alone a Trump specific policy.

  3. I mean this is pretty standard. The US is, like its masters in ‘israel’, murdering fishermen for a variety of reasons:
    1) Inhuman monsters like muricans or ‘israelis’ just enjoy slaughtering real humans
    2) Less food for the humans they are targeting
    3) The vain hope that this will make traitors amongst their target population blame their free government, instead of the foreigners murdering them, for the actions of the foreigners

  4. Are you really surprised? Orange Caligula has designs on being an autocrat and he’d love nothing more than to enforce his every twisted whim by force. He finds democracy inconvenient. Having to justify his brazenly illegal actions to the courts is a source of constant irritation to him. Why can’t they all just fuck off and let him do whatever he likes? He’s an idiot, but the people pulling his strings are far from stupid, and that’s where the real threat lies.

  9. Let’s remember- as long as the US keeps murdering innocent fishermen like this, it isn’t just a Trump thing. All Americans are guilty.

  10. Whataboutisms won’t wash here.

    Just watch for mission-creep.

    First they came for the criminal undocumented immigrants, then they came for all undocumented immigrants or anyone who fits the stereotype.

    Extrajudicial killings at sea, or any fucking where, is a crime.

    It’s pretty damn obvious where this could all lead. But it certainly won’t be pretty.

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