🚤 Kill First, Release Later: Trump’s Illegal Boat War Built to Evade Court (And Destroy Evidence)

Are you seeing these horrific videos of the Trump administration blowing up all these small boats, and killing everybody on board, off of the coast of South America?

Fact punch: The Trump administration said speedboats off Venezuela were “narco-terrorists” smuggling fentanyl to kill Americans. Then two men survived a U.S. strike — and Washington sent them home instead of charging or detaining them.

Why it matters now: If this is a war with lawful targets, you don’t repatriate the only witnesses; you prosecute and present evidence.

Moral clarity: This is killing by press release — engineered to avoid judges, evidence, and accountability.

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“Dangerous enough to kill with missiles, not dangerous enough to try in court.”

Let’s name it plainly. It is illegal, unethical, and unprecedented to bomb boat after boat hundreds and even thousands of miles from U.S. shores, kill everyone aboard, and refuse to release a shred of evidence — until two people survive — and then ship the survivors back to Colombia and Ecuador where no U.S. judge can hear them.

If they were “narco-terrorists,” where are the indictments? The arraignments? The discovery? They weren’t brought to court because the administration didn’t want to go to court. A trial would force disclosure: the targeting packet, the legal memo they won’t publish, and actual proof of who these people were.

Meanwhile, the pretext is collapsing. U.S. and international officials and locals familiar with the corridor between Venezuela and Trinidad & Tobago say it’s largely marijuana and cocaine moving toward Europe and West Africa — not fentanyl headed to the United States. The fentanyl killing Americans overwhelmingly comes through Mexico and the land border, often carried by U.S. citizens. So when Trump says “every boat kills 25,000,” his map and his math don’t match his story.

They are blowing people up who aren’t coming to the United States and don’t even have the drugs Trump says they do. It’s gross.

The blowback is real. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro says a Colombian fisherman, Alejandro Carranza, was killed — a sovereignty violation likely in Colombian waters, in his telling — and called it murder.

The response from Trump wasn’t evidence; it was aid cuts and tariff threats. That’s not justice; it’s retaliation for demanding proof. At the same time, the Pentagon has massed ~10,000 U.S. troops in the Caribbean — the biggest deployment in decades — while senior officials privately concede the real aim is pressure on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Call it what it is: regime change in a drug-war costume.

Even conservative legal voices are alarmed. Former Bush OLC head Jack Goldsmith summed it up: “Dangerous enough to try to kill with military force but not dangerous enough to detain and prosecute via lawful methods.” Exactly. If this is armed conflict, show the authorization and obey the law of war. If it’s law enforcement, bring suspects to court.

This twilight zone — summary killing with no evidence, survivors repatriated to dodge habeas and discovery — is how democracies rot.

And here’s the deeper wound. Two straight years of the genocide in Gaza, piped to our phones in real time, has desensitized the world to wanton killing. Once you normalize babies starving on camera while officials call it “security,” it becomes easier to sell missiles vaporizing “suspects” at sea with no proof at all. That moral numbness is the point. It greases the gears for the next atrocity. I see soooooo many people online literally saying they simply don’t care who is or isn’t in these boats that are being blown up. Life has lost its value.

Objection & Answer (straight talk)

Some will say “Fog of war; intel can’t be shown.” Fog doesn’t explain releasing the only two people who could testify. Courts can review classified material in camera. Grand juries exist. Release is a choice to avoid court.

Others will say “They were smugglers.” Then prove it. Present evidence. Let defense speak. Let a jury decide. Bombs are not due process.

Some will say “This protects Americans from fentanyl.” Officials and route veterans say this lane isn’t even a U.S. fentanyl pipeline. Your threat model doesn’t match your map. Blowing up poor fishermen on a Trinidad corridor won’t cut overdoses in Ohio.

And some will say “Congress will handle it.” Congress is hiding behind the shutdown calendar. A few Republicans already voted to pause the strikes; most stay quiet. There is no constitutional license for war by wink and nod. Vote — or stop.

What must happen now

• Publish the legal memo. If it’s a war, cite authority. If it’s law enforcement, state the kill standards. No more secret law.

• Halt the strikes pending a public authorization vote. If you can’t win Congress, you cannot keep killing.

• Secure sworn testimony from the two survivors and preserve all evidence. Americans deserve to hear from the living witnesses.

• Independent inquiry into Carranza’s death and all fatalities — with maps, sensor data, and targeting packets reviewed by courts, not spokespeople.

• Return bodies where possible and fund reparations where killings were unlawful.

I’ll do my part. I will keep gathering receipts, publishing the documents, and putting them in plain English so you can explain this to your family, your mosque or church, your coworkers, and your conscience. But I need you with me. If this work matters to you — if you want me to keep naming the lie while it’s still being told — become a member today. Independence is how we keep truth moving faster than propaganda.

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

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