On October 29, the United States struck another boat in the eastern Pacific, killing four people on board. The attack came just two days after the US military had hit four boats, killing 14 unidentified people off the coast of Colombia, in the single deadliest day since the drug-war strikes began in the Caribbean in September. The four latest extrajudicial killings bring the campaign’s total known death toll to 61.
“Earlier today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on yet another narco-trafficking vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) in the Eastern Pacific,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth posted on October 29. As usual, he offered no evidence that the boats carried drugs. The Trump administration continues to release grainy videos of the attacks resembling video games, but not the names of its victims.
Families have started to come forward, however, saying their murdered loved ones were simply fishermen trying to make a living.
“Why did they just take his life like that?” his wife demanded to know.
Alejandro Carranza, a 40-year-old Colombian, went out to sea one day in September, anticipating a bounty of tuna and snapper, his friend Cesar Henriquez told AFP. Days went by and his family didn’t hear from him. Then they learned about the September 15 strike. His wife said that he was “a good man” who loved fishing. “Why did they just take his life like that?” she demanded to know.
Chad Joseph of Trinidad, aged 26, was also out on the water to fish, his family said. “Donald Trump took a father, a brother, an uncle, a nephew from families. Donald Trump don’t care what he is doing,” his cousin told Reuters of the October 14 strike.
Joseph’s family, like those of other victims, are demanding that the Trump administration show proof he was part of a drug smuggling operation. They are unlikely to receive answers. As the Guardian reported, the CIA is playing a central role in providing intelligence for the strikes, which means the information can remain classified indefinitely.
Trump also announced on October 15 that he had authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela—fueling fears of his threatened land strikes, and suspicions that his goal there is regime change.
The Trump administration’s claims that this is all about targeting “narco-terrorists” to prevent US overdose deaths is undercut by inconvenient truths, like the fact that Venezuela is not a producer of fentanyl, the drug involved in most US overdose deaths.
“These are fisherfolk. Even if some of them are transporting drugs, they are not top level and they’re not armed and dangerous.”
“We need to acknowledge that there’s no such thing as ‘narco-terrorism,’” Sanho Tree, a drug policy expert and fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Filter. “These are fisherfolk. Even if some of them are transporting drugs, they are not top level and they’re not armed and dangerous. The cartels wouldn’t send some gunslinger on a boat. The gunslinger can’t operate the boat, and the boatmen, unless they were in the army, probably can’t operate a weapon. They are the furthest thing from ‘terrorists.’”
He sees the real motivations behind the strikes as obvious.
“It’s very much about oil. Once Donald Trump gets these stupid ideas lodged in his head he can’t shake them,” Tree said. “In 2017 at a private briefing he asked, ‘Why can’t we go to war and take their oil?’ He’s been obsessed with it. And [Venezuelan President Nicolas] Maduro is an easy target because he is not a popular leader or considered legitimate by many.”
The White House recently got creative. AP reported that a federal agent tried to bribe Maduro’s pilot to deliver the strongman to a location where he would be detained by the US government.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president in the country’s recent history, is another target. On October 24, the US imposed sanctions on him, following a war of words in which Trump described Petro as an “illegal drug leader.” Petro had accused the US of murder over the boat strikes. Like Venezuela, Colombia has substantial oil reserves.
“Trump’s having a tantrum,” Tree said. “He thinks it would be a cakewalk to get the oil.”
But land operations in either country would present serious difficulties given their terrain, he noted, while both countries have a history of insurgent fighters blowing up oil refineries. And it’s not only Trump who can rain terror from the sky. “Now they have these cheap drones developed in the war in Ukraine that can accurately hit targets from very far away.”
“They seem to have learned nothing from the last 25 years or the last century,” Tree said of the administration. “They seem to think regime change is simple. That the people will rise up, overthrow the leader. He’s driven by spite, anger and the need for immediate gratification. And he’s risking a quagmire.”
Image of October 29 strike via US government
