🚨 BREAKING: Trump’s Snuff Film May Have Killed Migrants, Not Traffickers. Trump administration keeps changing their story.

A senior law enforcement expert says the boat Trump bragged about blowing up was “more likely” carrying migrants — not drugs. Eleven lives erased on film. Executed without trial.

Family, before I go any further — let me be clear. This work only survives because of you. CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post have put Gaza and atrocities like this behind paywalls. Here, I keep everything free for all — and I depend on you to stand with me. We are at 2,684 members, just 316 away from our next big goal of 3,000. Please, right now, become a monthly, annual, or founding member today.

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Not a Drug Boat — But Migrants

What Donald Trump presented to America as a bold strike on a drug cartel is now falling apart under scrutiny. A senior former law enforcement official with years of counter-narcotics experience says the vessel Trump obliterated on film was “more likely” carrying migrants on a human smuggling run — not drugs.

That official pointed to the most glaring fact: there were 11 people on board. Drug smugglers don’t operate like that. A vessel that size can normally be crewed by just two or three. Smugglers want every inch of cargo space available for product. Filling it with people makes no sense for a drug shipment. But it does make sense for a migrant-smuggling operation.

His conclusion was blunt:

“It was more likely that the vessel was carrying migrants on a human smuggling run.”

That revelation should horrify every single one of us. Because if he’s right, Donald Trump didn’t just release a video of alleged traffickers being executed at sea. He released a snuff film of migrants — desperate people fleeing poverty and violence — being massacred by the U.S. military in international waters.

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The Stories Keep Changing

The truth is already being buried under contradictory statements from Trump’s administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio first said the boat was headed to Trinidad. Trump himself claimed it was going to the United States. Then Rubio changed his story to match Trump’s, declaring it was bound for America. But ask yourself, “why in the world would Rubio have named a country as specific as Trinidad if it wasn’t true?”

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials were scrambling behind the scenes, still trying to figure out what legal justification they could present to the public to defend the strike. One day, the boat was supposedly carrying cocaine. The next, fentanyl. The next, Rubio floated the idea of “pink cocaine” — a synthetic party drug rarely trafficked in bulk. The story kept shifting, because the story was never solid to begin with.

Again, which one is it? They aren’t all the same. But we will never know because they literally blew them all to bits.

Even more telling, a former senior law enforcement official said flatly: “In all my years of doing this, I’ve never seen the U.S. military say, ‘OK, this is a drug shipment,’ and then just blow it up.” That is not how anti-narcotics operations are conducted. That is not how law is supposed to work.

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Why It Was Always Illegal

Even before this new revelation, Trump’s strike was already illegal under international law.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. has ratified, prohibits arbitrary deprivation of life. Executing men at sea without trial, without charges, without even an attempt at arrest is the very definition of arbitrary killing.

The UN Charter allows the use of force only in self-defense or with Security Council authorization. This boat posed no imminent threat to the United States. Even Rubio admitted at first that it wasn’t bound for America. That alone makes the strike a violation of the Charter.

The Geneva Conventions forbid summary executions. Even in armed conflict — which this was not — combatants and civilians alike cannot simply be blown up without process.

The Law of the Sea makes clear: vessels in international waters are under the jurisdiction of their flag state. America cannot unilaterally bomb them, absent a direct threat.

And under the Inter-American human rights system, summary executions are banned outright. To kill people in the Caribbean without due process is a direct violation of the very human rights framework the U.S. claims to uphold.

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The Gaza Precedent

This atrocity does not exist in a vacuum. It is Gaza that made this possible.

For nearly two years, the world has watched Israel bomb hospitals, starve children, and massacre families in Gaza — all with U.S. weapons and U.S. protection. The International Criminal Court indicted Israel’s leaders, and the United States punished the Court instead of the war criminals. Congress gave Netanyahu standing ovations while Palestinian children were buried in rubble.

What does that teach a president like Trump? That law is dead. That atrocities can be livestreamed without consequence. That summary execution isn’t a crime anymore — it’s content.

When Trump released his 27-second night-vision video, it wasn’t just a strike. It was a performance. A highlight reel. Propaganda packaged as entertainment. He called it victory. Conservatives cheered. Social media lit up with applause. It was atrocity as spectacle — a snuff film in the truest sense of the word.

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Atrocity as Content

This is where we are now. A U.S. president can bomb a boat in international waters, likely filled with migrants, and then brag about it online. Not only brag — but share the video like a trophy. Not only share it — but be rewarded with cheers from his base.

Family, that is the culture of death we now live in. Violence is no longer hidden. It’s flaunted. Executions are no longer denied. They’re published. Genocide is no longer denied. It’s livestreamed.

This is the Gaza effect. Atrocity no longer shocks us. It entertains us.

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What This Moment Reveals

Trump’s snuff film, and now the revelation that the victims may have been migrants, lays bare two truths at once. First, that the United States no longer even pretends to follow international law. Second, that Gaza has fundamentally altered the moral fabric of the world.

If America can bankroll and defend genocide for 700 days, then of course a president feels emboldened to murder at sea. If Congress can cheer Netanyahu after bombing hospitals, of course conservatives can cheer a video of migrants being blown to pieces.

The collapse of restraint is complete.

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Why Membership Matters

Family, this is why my work matters. Because the leading media outlets in this country are already normalizing Trump’s snuff film, repeating his cartel story as fact, burying the possibility that those men were migrants.

But we know better. We know the truth. And we will name it.

This newsroom survives because of you. We don’t take ads. We don’t have billionaires behind us. We only have each other.

If you believe fearless journalism must call this what it is — a snuff film, an extrajudicial execution, a mass killing that may have slaughtered migrants instead of traffickers — then I need you with me. Please, right now, become a monthly, annual, or founding member today.

Together we can show the world that atrocity will not be normalized.

Join us now: https://www.thenorthstar.com/subscribe

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Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

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