THE SET-UP: “We want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive, too, if we have to be.”
That was President Trump explaining his rationale for rechristening the Department of Defense as the Department of War. At the time, the renaming seemed like another way for Trump to leave his mark on history. Now we know it was a portent of things to come.
To wit, the Department of War finally briefed the House on Trump’s war on suspicious speedboats. According to Politico, the information they provided was both incomplete and ominous:
Defense Department officials do not know precisely who they have killed in multiple military strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean that have claimed the lives of at least 57 people, according to Democratic lawmakers who attended a classified House briefing on the issue Thursday.
Let’s be clear … the official story is not that they cannot reveal the identities because of the need to protect “sources and methods.“ That’s just one of a half-dozen well-worn national security clichés available to briefers who’ve been directed to maintain secrecy. But isn’t what they did. Instead, they told the truth and admitted they “don’t know precisely who they have killed.”
That’s a chilling admission to make. But it’s even worse than that:
“[The department officials] said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on these vessels to do the strikes, they just need to prove a connection to smuggling,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.). “When we tried to get more information, we did not get satisfactory answers.”
Ok, so they don’t know precisely who they have killed because they “do not need to positively identify” the people they kill before they kill them. Just so we are clear … the Trump Regime is summarily executing people at sea and they are doing so without bothering to identify the people they are killing. And, the justification they did offer—the deadly impact of fentanyl—isn’t the drug they claim was being smuggled by the alleged smugglers they haven’t identified.
Instead, the officials claimed most of the boats targeted were likely carrying cocaine. Rep. Jacobs told Politico that explanation fell flat:
They argued that cocaine is a facilitating drug of fentanyl, but that was not a satisfactory answer for most of us.
It is a relief to hear that the answer wasn’t satisfactory to most of the assembled Representatives. It shouldn’t be. And it may not have been for Admiral Alvin Holsey. We still don’t know why he suddenly retired as head of US Southern Command (SOCOM). I suspect he, too, was not satisfied with specious justifications for turning the US Military into a dystopian execution force. He may have also seen the logical conclusion of Trump’s offensive use of military power at sea … which appears to be the extension of the war to land-based targets like Venezuela’s government.
Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) hope to stop that with a war powers resolution that blocks military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization. But, in keeping with his long-standing opposition to the capricious use of military force, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) addressed the moral cost of collaboration during a recent appearance on Glenn Greenwald’s podcast:
I guess what gets me about my colleagues is they seem to think that these people are less than human. They’re not even deserving of the respect of animals. Just kill them. And it’s sort of this laughing, sort of ha ha ha, you know, these were really bad people. What gets to me is that, well, what if you’re wrong? Or what if it turns out this fisherman’s, you know, sister or wife has been kidnapped and they’re being tortured at the hands of the cartel or whatever and he’s told to make a drug run or they’re gonna kill his sister. That is a very possible scenario. Or what if he’s just dirt poor, down on his luck, has failed making his rent for five months, he’s getting ready to be homeless, or he takes his last-ditch job, which pays very well but has some danger to it, is that deserving of death?
It’s a fundamental question. That the regime is not the least bit interested in asking it nor concerned with the answer … should be a warning to us all. - jp
Assessing the Facts and Legal Questions About the U.S. Strikes on Alleged Drug Boats
https://www.factcheck.org/2025/10/assessing-the-facts-and-legal-questions-about-the-u-s-strikes-on-alleged-drug-boats/
U.S. airstrikes in Latin America and the Caribbean are murder. Congress must stop them now
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/10/u-s-airstrikes-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean-are-murder-congress-must-stop-them-now/
Trump and Rubio Are Masking a Military Regime-Change Campaign in South America as a ‘Drug War’
https://sfl.media/trump-and-rubio-are-masking-a-military-regime-change-campaign-in-south-america-as-a-drug-war/
Marco Rubio’s war: How he ditched a Venezuela pact and opened the door to toppling Maduro
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/30/trump-marco-rubio-maduro-venezuela-war/86930242007/
Don’t Do It, Mr. President
https://www.cato.org/commentary/dont-do-it-mr-president