WAR IN THE GULF OF AMERIKA
Trump’s Expanded Drug War Will Make Overdose Crisis Worse, Experts Say
An executive order declaring fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction could remove supports that keep people alive.
By Mike Ludwig ,
As President Donald Trump exploits fear about fentanyl to justify military aggression in Latin America, experts warn that his administration’s choice to slash federal support for public health programs threatens to erode progress in reducing fatal overdoses linked to synthetic opioids.
Trump issued an executive order on Monday declaring fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” that could be weaponized for “concentrated, large-scale terror attacks by organized adversaries.” Experts say fentanyl is not used as a weapon and dismissed the order as a public relations ploy as the administration struggles to explain its legal justification for waging a deadly international drug war without approval from Congress.
The order is the latest line in a series of massive escalations in Trump’s drug war. Trump and his “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth are engaged military adventurism in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, building up significant U.S. naval forces near Venezuela and blowing up boats the administration accuses of ferrying drugs in a campaign experts have classified as extrajudicial killings. Trump has ordered a naval blockade around Venezuela while threatening to oust President Nicolas Maduro.
The administration has spent months attempting to tie Maduro, and Venezuelans more broadly, to drug crimes in the U.S. while labeling such crimes as terrorism. After taking office, Trump declared the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organization” and called Maduro a “narco-terrorist” while rounding up Venezuelan immigrants and removing them to a notorious El Salvadoran prison. Most had no criminal convictions.
U.S. airstrikes have sunk at least 28 boats and killed more than 100 people since September, according to reports and to Zeteo’s strike tracker. The administration claims the boats are engaged in “narco-terrorist” activity, but the White House and Pentagon have not publicly released evidence that the victims are drug traffickers. The family of one man killed in a September 15 strike has said that the U.S. illegally murdered a law-abiding fisherman from Colombia, not a drug smuggler.
Trump Designates Fentanyl as a “Weapon of Mass Destruction”
The declaration comes as Trump has been escalating his illegal and unprovoked military campaign against Venezuela. By Sharon Zhang , Truthout December 16, 2025
If any of the boats destroyed from the sky were ferrying drugs, it would most likely be cocaine, which is primarily produced in northwestern South America. Overdoses often involve multiple substances, but the overdose crisis is generally fueled by powerful synthetic stimulants, opioids, and tranquilizers — not cocaine, which is derived from the coca plant and is used by only a fragment of the population. Cocaine is typically more expensive than synthetics.
Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, said bullying Venezuela and attacking small boats will do nothing to prevent people from using fentanyl in the U.S. and could make the overdose crisis worse.
“This administration is not thinking in terms of solutions,” Medina said in an interview. “They are clearly using people’s fear of fentanyl as a pretext for implementing the president’s agenda, which includes taking away our civil liberties and actually putting us in more danger by potentially creating conflicts in other parts of the world.”
As a prescription drug, fentanyl is an opioid painkiller typically used in surgery and emergency rooms. “Fentanyl,” “fent,” or “fetty” are also catch-all terms for a class of synthetic opioids typically produced in Mexico (not Venezuela) that replaced heroin and prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin as law enforcement intervened in the illicit drug supply. Compact and potent, synthetics are easier to produce and smuggle than plant-derived opium, cocaine, and heroin and became the go-to for cartels dodging the U.S. government’s multibillion-dollar drug interdiction systems.
A harsh crackdown on painkiller prescribing in the U.S. and the rise of fentanyl over the past 15 years is associated with a surge in fatal overdoses that peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic and has long provided fodder for political fearmongering. However, from 2023 to 2024 the Centers for Disease Control recorded a nearly 24 percent decrease in overdose deaths linked to opioids, stimulants, alcohol, and other drugs, a remarkable decline after more than a decade of crisis.
Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the University of North Carolina’s Injury Prevention Research Center and opioid data lab, told Truthout in May that years of difficult work by frontline activists and public investments in health care were finally paying dividends. Overdose deaths in mid-2024 were down 30 percent compared to peak levels in mid-2023, and Dasgupta credited easier access to addiction treatment and frontline harm reduction services, not drug policing or the Border Patrol.
“In every single community across the nation, there are people who have responded to this huge tragedy we’ve all been experiencing,” Dasgupta said in May. “And the work and the effort that is done on a day-in and day-out basis where people in communities are taking care of each other — that is at the heart of what is driving this decline.”
Medina said the Trump administration has taken the nation in the opposite direction with its assault on the federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees and funds research and public health efforts to reduce overdoses and drug addiction.
“If we really wanted to address drug use, we would start with investing in HHS, which is being decimated under Trump,” Medina said.
Along with deep cuts to Medicaid, the insurance program for lower-income people that has funded a much-need expansion in addiction treatment, Trump and Republicans in Congress have decimated budgets and staffing at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, according to STATNews. The agency is now under the purview of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a conspiracy theorist who promotes farm labor as an unproven alternative to rehab.
“I actually do think that with this executive order and the other actions we are seeing from the Trump administration, we are creating more stigma, exposing more people to criminal penalties, and we are taking away the supports that are keeping people alive,” Medina said. “And that means we are going to see overdose numbers increase again, and that is the saddest part of all of this.”
While the White House claims that its strikes on boats are stopping drugs from killing millions of Americans, Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, told Vanity Fair that the president wants to blow up boats until Maduro “cries uncle.” Maduro has reportedly agreed to meet multiple White House demands in exchange for sanctions relief and amnesty, including greater access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and a commitment to resign after a political transition. Trump has reportedly ordered spies to infiltrate the struggling country.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, was included in at least one closed-door briefing with administration officials about the boat strikes. Khanna pointed out that the Trump administration had interdicted 10 tons of cocaine, but recently pardoned former Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a lengthy prison sentence in the U.S. for facilitating the smuggling of 400 tons of cocaine into the country.
“Congress is really to blame for these endless wars. We are not willing to assert our constitutional authority,” Khanna said in an interview with Breaking Points on Thursday.
The unilateral airstrikes and provocations against Venezuela have enraged Democrats and a handful of isolationist Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. On December 17, the Republican majority in the House narrowly rejected a bipartisan war powers resolution that would have prohibited military action against Venezuela without congressional approval.
“They are provoking a war, and if there’s one incident that takes place, they can blame Maduro and use that as justification to have a regime change war,” said Khanna, who backed the resolution. “The American people have rejected this, and yet this administration is doing exactly what the American people don’t want.”
Normon Solomon, a media critic and director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, said presidents have ignored war powers resolutions passed by Congress since the War Powers Act became law in 1973. However, pressuring lawmakers is still an effective way to oppose U.S. militarism. According to Solomon, it’s crucial that constituents tell members of the House and Senate to block Trump’s aggression.
“The congressional actions on this score that really matter most in terms of actually affecting the chances of worsening warfare have to do with altering the political dynamics and media atmosphere related to impending war,” Solomon said in an email. “An outcry is needed in every way possible.”
An executive order declaring fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction could remove supports that keep people alive.
By Mike Ludwig ,
December 19, 2025
A U.S. boat strike kills five people on December 18, 2025.
Screengrab via @Southcom / X
As President Donald Trump exploits fear about fentanyl to justify military aggression in Latin America, experts warn that his administration’s choice to slash federal support for public health programs threatens to erode progress in reducing fatal overdoses linked to synthetic opioids.
Trump issued an executive order on Monday declaring fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” that could be weaponized for “concentrated, large-scale terror attacks by organized adversaries.” Experts say fentanyl is not used as a weapon and dismissed the order as a public relations ploy as the administration struggles to explain its legal justification for waging a deadly international drug war without approval from Congress.
The order is the latest line in a series of massive escalations in Trump’s drug war. Trump and his “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth are engaged military adventurism in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, building up significant U.S. naval forces near Venezuela and blowing up boats the administration accuses of ferrying drugs in a campaign experts have classified as extrajudicial killings. Trump has ordered a naval blockade around Venezuela while threatening to oust President Nicolas Maduro.
The administration has spent months attempting to tie Maduro, and Venezuelans more broadly, to drug crimes in the U.S. while labeling such crimes as terrorism. After taking office, Trump declared the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua a “foreign terrorist organization” and called Maduro a “narco-terrorist” while rounding up Venezuelan immigrants and removing them to a notorious El Salvadoran prison. Most had no criminal convictions.
U.S. airstrikes have sunk at least 28 boats and killed more than 100 people since September, according to reports and to Zeteo’s strike tracker. The administration claims the boats are engaged in “narco-terrorist” activity, but the White House and Pentagon have not publicly released evidence that the victims are drug traffickers. The family of one man killed in a September 15 strike has said that the U.S. illegally murdered a law-abiding fisherman from Colombia, not a drug smuggler.
Trump Designates Fentanyl as a “Weapon of Mass Destruction”
The declaration comes as Trump has been escalating his illegal and unprovoked military campaign against Venezuela. By Sharon Zhang , Truthout December 16, 2025
If any of the boats destroyed from the sky were ferrying drugs, it would most likely be cocaine, which is primarily produced in northwestern South America. Overdoses often involve multiple substances, but the overdose crisis is generally fueled by powerful synthetic stimulants, opioids, and tranquilizers — not cocaine, which is derived from the coca plant and is used by only a fragment of the population. Cocaine is typically more expensive than synthetics.
Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, said bullying Venezuela and attacking small boats will do nothing to prevent people from using fentanyl in the U.S. and could make the overdose crisis worse.
“This administration is not thinking in terms of solutions,” Medina said in an interview. “They are clearly using people’s fear of fentanyl as a pretext for implementing the president’s agenda, which includes taking away our civil liberties and actually putting us in more danger by potentially creating conflicts in other parts of the world.”
As a prescription drug, fentanyl is an opioid painkiller typically used in surgery and emergency rooms. “Fentanyl,” “fent,” or “fetty” are also catch-all terms for a class of synthetic opioids typically produced in Mexico (not Venezuela) that replaced heroin and prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin as law enforcement intervened in the illicit drug supply. Compact and potent, synthetics are easier to produce and smuggle than plant-derived opium, cocaine, and heroin and became the go-to for cartels dodging the U.S. government’s multibillion-dollar drug interdiction systems.
A harsh crackdown on painkiller prescribing in the U.S. and the rise of fentanyl over the past 15 years is associated with a surge in fatal overdoses that peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic and has long provided fodder for political fearmongering. However, from 2023 to 2024 the Centers for Disease Control recorded a nearly 24 percent decrease in overdose deaths linked to opioids, stimulants, alcohol, and other drugs, a remarkable decline after more than a decade of crisis.
Nabarun Dasgupta, a senior scientist at the University of North Carolina’s Injury Prevention Research Center and opioid data lab, told Truthout in May that years of difficult work by frontline activists and public investments in health care were finally paying dividends. Overdose deaths in mid-2024 were down 30 percent compared to peak levels in mid-2023, and Dasgupta credited easier access to addiction treatment and frontline harm reduction services, not drug policing or the Border Patrol.
“In every single community across the nation, there are people who have responded to this huge tragedy we’ve all been experiencing,” Dasgupta said in May. “And the work and the effort that is done on a day-in and day-out basis where people in communities are taking care of each other — that is at the heart of what is driving this decline.”
Medina said the Trump administration has taken the nation in the opposite direction with its assault on the federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees and funds research and public health efforts to reduce overdoses and drug addiction.
“If we really wanted to address drug use, we would start with investing in HHS, which is being decimated under Trump,” Medina said.
Along with deep cuts to Medicaid, the insurance program for lower-income people that has funded a much-need expansion in addiction treatment, Trump and Republicans in Congress have decimated budgets and staffing at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, according to STATNews. The agency is now under the purview of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a conspiracy theorist who promotes farm labor as an unproven alternative to rehab.
“I actually do think that with this executive order and the other actions we are seeing from the Trump administration, we are creating more stigma, exposing more people to criminal penalties, and we are taking away the supports that are keeping people alive,” Medina said. “And that means we are going to see overdose numbers increase again, and that is the saddest part of all of this.”
While the White House claims that its strikes on boats are stopping drugs from killing millions of Americans, Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, told Vanity Fair that the president wants to blow up boats until Maduro “cries uncle.” Maduro has reportedly agreed to meet multiple White House demands in exchange for sanctions relief and amnesty, including greater access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves and a commitment to resign after a political transition. Trump has reportedly ordered spies to infiltrate the struggling country.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, was included in at least one closed-door briefing with administration officials about the boat strikes. Khanna pointed out that the Trump administration had interdicted 10 tons of cocaine, but recently pardoned former Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a lengthy prison sentence in the U.S. for facilitating the smuggling of 400 tons of cocaine into the country.
“Congress is really to blame for these endless wars. We are not willing to assert our constitutional authority,” Khanna said in an interview with Breaking Points on Thursday.
The unilateral airstrikes and provocations against Venezuela have enraged Democrats and a handful of isolationist Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. On December 17, the Republican majority in the House narrowly rejected a bipartisan war powers resolution that would have prohibited military action against Venezuela without congressional approval.
“They are provoking a war, and if there’s one incident that takes place, they can blame Maduro and use that as justification to have a regime change war,” said Khanna, who backed the resolution. “The American people have rejected this, and yet this administration is doing exactly what the American people don’t want.”
Normon Solomon, a media critic and director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, said presidents have ignored war powers resolutions passed by Congress since the War Powers Act became law in 1973. However, pressuring lawmakers is still an effective way to oppose U.S. militarism. According to Solomon, it’s crucial that constituents tell members of the House and Senate to block Trump’s aggression.
“The congressional actions on this score that really matter most in terms of actually affecting the chances of worsening warfare have to do with altering the political dynamics and media atmosphere related to impending war,” Solomon said in an email. “An outcry is needed in every way possible.”
Trump’s Murder Spree Must Be Stopped
The danger is not just the body count, horrific as it is. It’s the precedent: a president asserting the power to redefine civilians as “combatants,” and pretend he has the authority to grant advance immunity to federal officials for killing people.
US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that they bombed another boat in the Caribbean on October 3, 2025.
(Photo: screenshot/Donald Trump/Truth Social)
Congress Must Demand Transparency and Accountability Now
At the same time, we’re pushing Congress to do its job: conduct real oversight, in public. We know that when the US government is implicated in horrific and criminal conduct, transparency cannot wait. For example, in 2008, after reporting revealed that the US was torturing prisoners at a US-run prison in Iraq known as “Abu Ghraib,” the Senate Armed Services Committee moved within days to hold public hearings with the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. By contrast, more than three months after the boat strikes, Congress has not held any hearings on the killings. Everything has been behind closed doors, other than the bits of video that Hegseth wants the public to see.
Transparency can’t wait while the government murders more people.
We have also made clear that oversight cannot stop with the “double-tap” strike, but must probe all the illegal strikes. As the ACLU explained in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, while killing shipwrecked survivors is undoubtedly unlawful and grotesque, so too are the other 24 strikes that have been carried out in our name. As a chorus of legal experts have repeatedly explained, the United States may not use lethal force against any of the civilians in these boats. Upholding the rule of law means stopping illegal killing in its entirety, not just addressing its most nightmarish moments.
Even members of Congress who support the strikes, like Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, agree that the full unedited videos should be released. Military officials have repeatedly told members that they could be released as well.
That’s why we’re calling on Congress to:Hold immediate public hearings on President Trump’s illegal boat strikes, with testimony from Secretary Hegseth and every official who planned, authorized, or carried them out.
Force transparency by insisting that the secret OLC opinion, unedited videos of the strikes, and the underlying orders be made public.
Make clear that killing civilians is a crime, not a policy choice and that the president does not have the authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner.
Transparency can’t wait while the government murders more people. That’s why we’re asking everyone to send a message to their representatives in Congress urging them to act now. Demanding answers, insisting on public hearings, and refusing to accept secret law as a license to kill, is how we can all help stop these unlawful strikes and defend the basic principle that no one – not even the president – is above the law.
‘Do Not Become Inured’: Death Toll From Trump Boat Strikes Tops 100 After Latest MurdersThe danger is not just the body count, horrific as it is. It’s the precedent: a president asserting the power to redefine civilians as “combatants,” and pretend he has the authority to grant advance immunity to federal officials for killing people.
US President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that they bombed another boat in the Caribbean on October 3, 2025.
(Photo: screenshot/Donald Trump/Truth Social)
Christopher Anders
Dec 19, 2025
Dec 19, 2025
Common Dreams
If a president can murder civilians at sea and keep the legal justifications secret, we should all be concerned. The harm is even worse when basic factual evidence, such as full videos and orders, are also hidden from the American people.
Since September, the Trump administration has ordered 26 lethal strikes on civilian boats in international waters, killing 99 people and upending countless lives. The administration continues to push unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims about who these people were, despite investigations showing that some of those killed were fishermen just trying to make a living for their families. The administration also refuses to release the secret memo that purports to provide a legal justification for these killings, or the full, unedited videos of the strikes themselves.
‘All of Them Constitute Murder,’ Amnesty Says of Trump Boat Bombings
The danger is not just the body count, horrific as it is. It’s the precedent: a president asserting the power to redefine civilians as “combatants,” and pretend he has the authority to grant advance immunity to federal officials for killing people. That is an egregious abuse of power with life-or-death consequences, and it will only stop if the courts, Congress, and the public make clear that this cannot continue.
Why Trump’s Boat Strikes Memo Must Be Made Public
Under both US and international law, it is flagrantly illegal to use the military to kill civilians suspected only of crimes. The United States is not in an armed conflict with anyone in Latin America. That means the people on these boats are civilians. Civilians, including those suspected of smuggling drugs, are not lawful targets. Just because The Trump administration says these strikes are firmly grounded in law doesn’t make it true.
Under both US and international law, it is flagrantly illegal to use the military to kill civilians suspected only of crimes.
The Trump administration is relying on a secret opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to justify these ongoing strikes. This memo reportedly details the Trump administration’s legal reasoning behind a couple of its totally incorrect conclusions: that the strikes are lawful because the United States is in an “armed conflict” with unspecified drug cartels, and that the officials who have authorized or carried out these strikes should not be prosecuted for murder or other crimes. Even as legal experts from across the political spectrum have debunked these claims, the administration has refused to release the OLC memo or any related records.
That’s why the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) have filed a lawsuit demanding the immediate release of the OLC opinion and related documents about these boat strikes. If the Trump administration is relying on an OLC opinion to justify killing civilians in international waters, the public has a right to read it. Our lawsuit argues that the government has violated the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to release any records, despite FOIA’s clear deadlines and the urgent public interest in understanding how the administration is attempting to legally rationalize ongoing killings. We cannot be a nation of secret laws.
The devastation wrought by the Trump administration’s secret legal reasoning is not hypothetical. On September 2, after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly gave an order to “kill everybody” on a boat in the Caribbean, according to media accounts, Admiral Frank Bradley ordered one or more additional strikes on two civilians who survived an initial strike and were ultimately killed after clinging to the boat’s wreckage for more than 40 minutes. After watching the video of this apparent “double-tap” strike, Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said to reporters, “What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.” When questioned about these heinous strikes, the White House press secretary insisted that they were carried out “in accordance with the law of armed conflict,” citing the “DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion and other related documents.”
We’re asking a court to step in. The president doesn’t have the power to create a private, secret legal universe where cold-blooded murder of civilians can be recast as lawful policy. Courts ordering disclosure of these documents is a crucial step toward transparency, accountability, and stopping the strikes.
If a president can murder civilians at sea and keep the legal justifications secret, we should all be concerned. The harm is even worse when basic factual evidence, such as full videos and orders, are also hidden from the American people.
Since September, the Trump administration has ordered 26 lethal strikes on civilian boats in international waters, killing 99 people and upending countless lives. The administration continues to push unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims about who these people were, despite investigations showing that some of those killed were fishermen just trying to make a living for their families. The administration also refuses to release the secret memo that purports to provide a legal justification for these killings, or the full, unedited videos of the strikes themselves.
‘All of Them Constitute Murder,’ Amnesty Says of Trump Boat Bombings
The danger is not just the body count, horrific as it is. It’s the precedent: a president asserting the power to redefine civilians as “combatants,” and pretend he has the authority to grant advance immunity to federal officials for killing people. That is an egregious abuse of power with life-or-death consequences, and it will only stop if the courts, Congress, and the public make clear that this cannot continue.
Why Trump’s Boat Strikes Memo Must Be Made Public
Under both US and international law, it is flagrantly illegal to use the military to kill civilians suspected only of crimes. The United States is not in an armed conflict with anyone in Latin America. That means the people on these boats are civilians. Civilians, including those suspected of smuggling drugs, are not lawful targets. Just because The Trump administration says these strikes are firmly grounded in law doesn’t make it true.
Under both US and international law, it is flagrantly illegal to use the military to kill civilians suspected only of crimes.
The Trump administration is relying on a secret opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to justify these ongoing strikes. This memo reportedly details the Trump administration’s legal reasoning behind a couple of its totally incorrect conclusions: that the strikes are lawful because the United States is in an “armed conflict” with unspecified drug cartels, and that the officials who have authorized or carried out these strikes should not be prosecuted for murder or other crimes. Even as legal experts from across the political spectrum have debunked these claims, the administration has refused to release the OLC memo or any related records.
That’s why the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) have filed a lawsuit demanding the immediate release of the OLC opinion and related documents about these boat strikes. If the Trump administration is relying on an OLC opinion to justify killing civilians in international waters, the public has a right to read it. Our lawsuit argues that the government has violated the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to release any records, despite FOIA’s clear deadlines and the urgent public interest in understanding how the administration is attempting to legally rationalize ongoing killings. We cannot be a nation of secret laws.
The devastation wrought by the Trump administration’s secret legal reasoning is not hypothetical. On September 2, after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly gave an order to “kill everybody” on a boat in the Caribbean, according to media accounts, Admiral Frank Bradley ordered one or more additional strikes on two civilians who survived an initial strike and were ultimately killed after clinging to the boat’s wreckage for more than 40 minutes. After watching the video of this apparent “double-tap” strike, Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said to reporters, “What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.” When questioned about these heinous strikes, the White House press secretary insisted that they were carried out “in accordance with the law of armed conflict,” citing the “DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion and other related documents.”
We’re asking a court to step in. The president doesn’t have the power to create a private, secret legal universe where cold-blooded murder of civilians can be recast as lawful policy. Courts ordering disclosure of these documents is a crucial step toward transparency, accountability, and stopping the strikes.
Congress Must Demand Transparency and Accountability Now
At the same time, we’re pushing Congress to do its job: conduct real oversight, in public. We know that when the US government is implicated in horrific and criminal conduct, transparency cannot wait. For example, in 2008, after reporting revealed that the US was torturing prisoners at a US-run prison in Iraq known as “Abu Ghraib,” the Senate Armed Services Committee moved within days to hold public hearings with the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. By contrast, more than three months after the boat strikes, Congress has not held any hearings on the killings. Everything has been behind closed doors, other than the bits of video that Hegseth wants the public to see.
Transparency can’t wait while the government murders more people.
We have also made clear that oversight cannot stop with the “double-tap” strike, but must probe all the illegal strikes. As the ACLU explained in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee, while killing shipwrecked survivors is undoubtedly unlawful and grotesque, so too are the other 24 strikes that have been carried out in our name. As a chorus of legal experts have repeatedly explained, the United States may not use lethal force against any of the civilians in these boats. Upholding the rule of law means stopping illegal killing in its entirety, not just addressing its most nightmarish moments.
Even members of Congress who support the strikes, like Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, agree that the full unedited videos should be released. Military officials have repeatedly told members that they could be released as well.
That’s why we’re calling on Congress to:Hold immediate public hearings on President Trump’s illegal boat strikes, with testimony from Secretary Hegseth and every official who planned, authorized, or carried them out.
Force transparency by insisting that the secret OLC opinion, unedited videos of the strikes, and the underlying orders be made public.
Make clear that killing civilians is a crime, not a policy choice and that the president does not have the authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner.
Transparency can’t wait while the government murders more people. That’s why we’re asking everyone to send a message to their representatives in Congress urging them to act now. Demanding answers, insisting on public hearings, and refusing to accept secret law as a license to kill, is how we can all help stop these unlawful strikes and defend the basic principle that no one – not even the president – is above the law.
“This is premeditated killing outside of armed conflict. We call that murder,” said one expert.
A screenshot of a video from the US Southern Command shows the targeting of a boat in the eastern Pacific on December 18, 2025.
(Photo: US Southern Command)
Jake Johnson
Dec 19, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
The US military on Thursday bombed two vessels in the eastern Pacific, killing at least five people and pushing the death toll from the Trump administration’s lawless military campaign in international waters above 100.
Thursday’s strikes marked the third time this week that the US military has bombed boats operated by people accused, without evidence, of smuggling drugs. None of the dozens of strikes that have now killed at least 105 people since early September have been authorized by Congress, and legal experts at home and abroad have said the attacks clearly constitute murder.
‘All of Them Constitute Murder,’ Amnesty Says of Trump Boat Bombings
Princeton Experts Speak Out Against Trump Boat Strikes as ‘Illegal’ and Destabilizing ‘Murders’
Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the US Program at the International Crisis Group, warned against allowing the Trump administration to normalize and escape accountability for its extrajudicial killings.
“The lawless killing spree continues. Do not become inured,” Finucane wrote on social media. “This is premeditated killing outside of armed conflict. We call that murder.”
As with previous attacks, the Trump administration attached a short video clip to its announcement of the Thursday strikes, which came amid mounting fears that President Donald Trump is dragging the US into an illegal war with Venezuela and possibly other South American countries.
But US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is refusing to release footage of at least one of the deadly strikes that he authorized with a verbal order to “kill everybody” onboard the targeted vessel.
“We’re not going to release a top secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public,” Hegseth told reporters earlier this week, referring to footage of a September 2 attack in the Caribbean that killed the survivors clinging to wreckage from an initial strike.
The ACLU’s Jeffrey Stein and Christopher Anders wrote Thursday that “if a president can murder civilians at sea and keep the legal justifications secret, we should all be concerned.”
“The harm is even worse when basic factual evidence, such as full videos and orders, is also hidden from the American people,” they continued. “Transparency can’t wait while the government murders more people. That’s why we’re asking everyone to send a message to their representatives in Congress urging them to act now. Demanding answers, insisting on public hearings, and refusing to accept secret law as a license to kill, is how we can all help stop these unlawful strikes and defend the basic principle that no one—not even the president—is above the law.”
The latest bombings came a day after House Republicans blocked a pair of resolutions aimed at stopping the Trump administration’s unauthorized boat strikes and march to war with Venezuela.
In the Senate, Ruben Gallego is pushing a new resolution that “orders the US Armed Forces to immediately cease hostilities against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean unless authorized by Congress.”
“If the president believes the use of military force is necessary, he needs to come talk to Congress first and make that case. The decision to use military force is one that requires serious debate, and the power to declare war unambiguously belongs to Congress under the Constitution,” said Gallego. “As an Iraq war veteran, I know the costs of rushing into an unnecessary war and that the American people will not stand for it.”
But Trump insisted Thursday that he doesn’t “have to” go to Congress before taking military action.
Asked if war with Venezuela is a possibility, Trump said, “I don’t rule it out.”
4 More Killed in Pacific Boat Strike as White House Ramps Up Demands for Venezuelan Oil
President Donald Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cries uncle,” said White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a recent interview.
A surveillance image shows a boat in the Pacific Ocean just before the US military bombed the vessel on December 17, 2025, killing four people.
(Photo by @Southcom/X)
Julia Conley
Dec 18, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
Hours after US House Republicans voted down a war powers resolution Wednesday aimed stopping the Trump administration from continuing its attacks on “presidentially designated” terrorist organizations, the death toll of the Pentagon’s continued boat strikes was brought to 99 with the latest bombing in the Pacific Ocean.
US Southern Command reported Wednesday night that at the direction of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the military had killed four people in a “kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization in international waters.”
UN Experts Say Those Ordering and Carrying Out US Boat Strikes Should Be ‘Prosecuted for Homicide’
As with the rest of the more than two dozen bombings that the administration has carried out in the Caribbean and Pacific since September, the Pentagon said that intelligence had confirmed the boat was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
The White House has not released evidence that the boats it’s targeted were carrying drugs. In the past, the US military has been involved in intercepting vessels suspected of drug trafficking and charging passengers with a criminal offense, but President Donald Trump has insisted the US is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere, including in Venezuela.
US and international intelligence agencies have not found Venezuela to be a significant source of drugs flowing into the US and have found the country to play virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the biggest cause of drug overdoses in the US.
The latest boat bombing came a day after Trump announced a “total and complete blockade” on oil tankers approaching and leaving Venezuela, accusing the country of stealing “Oil, Land, and other Assets” from the US.
Venezuela nationalized its petroleum sector in 1976, taking control of its own vast oil reserves. Previously, US-based companies had largely controlled the country’s oil industry. In 2007, then-President Hugo Chavez further pushed out US oil giants such as Exxon Mobil when he nationalized foreign oil projects in Venezuela.
Stephen Miller, a top adviser to Trump, accused Venezuela’s government of “theft” on Wednesday.
“American sweat, ingenuity, and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” Miller said in a social media post. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries, and drugs.”
Regarding the blockade, Trump also said Wednesday that Venezuela “illegally took” US energy rights.
While the administration has insisted for months that its deadly boat strikes are aimed at stopping drug trafficking, comments from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in an extensive Vanity Fair interview released Tuesday further confirmed that the White House aims to take control of the South American country.
Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cries uncle,” said Wiles.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, said Wednesday night’s boat strike amounted to “more premeditated killing outside of armed conflict.”
“There’s a word for that,” he said.
Legal experts have said the repeated, lethal bombings of boats have been part of a campaign of extrajudicial killings and have warned Hegseth and others involved in the attacks could be liable for murder.
President Donald Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cries uncle,” said White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a recent interview.
A surveillance image shows a boat in the Pacific Ocean just before the US military bombed the vessel on December 17, 2025, killing four people.
(Photo by @Southcom/X)
Julia Conley
Dec 18, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
Hours after US House Republicans voted down a war powers resolution Wednesday aimed stopping the Trump administration from continuing its attacks on “presidentially designated” terrorist organizations, the death toll of the Pentagon’s continued boat strikes was brought to 99 with the latest bombing in the Pacific Ocean.
US Southern Command reported Wednesday night that at the direction of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the military had killed four people in a “kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization in international waters.”
UN Experts Say Those Ordering and Carrying Out US Boat Strikes Should Be ‘Prosecuted for Homicide’
As with the rest of the more than two dozen bombings that the administration has carried out in the Caribbean and Pacific since September, the Pentagon said that intelligence had confirmed the boat was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”
The White House has not released evidence that the boats it’s targeted were carrying drugs. In the past, the US military has been involved in intercepting vessels suspected of drug trafficking and charging passengers with a criminal offense, but President Donald Trump has insisted the US is engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere, including in Venezuela.
US and international intelligence agencies have not found Venezuela to be a significant source of drugs flowing into the US and have found the country to play virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the biggest cause of drug overdoses in the US.
The latest boat bombing came a day after Trump announced a “total and complete blockade” on oil tankers approaching and leaving Venezuela, accusing the country of stealing “Oil, Land, and other Assets” from the US.
Venezuela nationalized its petroleum sector in 1976, taking control of its own vast oil reserves. Previously, US-based companies had largely controlled the country’s oil industry. In 2007, then-President Hugo Chavez further pushed out US oil giants such as Exxon Mobil when he nationalized foreign oil projects in Venezuela.
Stephen Miller, a top adviser to Trump, accused Venezuela’s government of “theft” on Wednesday.
“American sweat, ingenuity, and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” Miller said in a social media post. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries, and drugs.”
Regarding the blockade, Trump also said Wednesday that Venezuela “illegally took” US energy rights.
While the administration has insisted for months that its deadly boat strikes are aimed at stopping drug trafficking, comments from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in an extensive Vanity Fair interview released Tuesday further confirmed that the White House aims to take control of the South American country.
Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro cries uncle,” said Wiles.
Brian Finucane, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, said Wednesday night’s boat strike amounted to “more premeditated killing outside of armed conflict.”
“There’s a word for that,” he said.
Legal experts have said the repeated, lethal bombings of boats have been part of a campaign of extrajudicial killings and have warned Hegseth and others involved in the attacks could be liable for murder.
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