That makes 23 boats blown up by the US military in the waters off Latin America – most near Venezuela – and nearly 100 persons killed.

To date the US government has provided no evidence to back up its claim that these boats are smuggling fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into the United States. The US Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that Venezuela neither manufactures nor transports fentanyl to the US. In fact, the DEA still concludes that Venezuela is barely a minor player in the drug game.

Is this really about drugs? Or is it about "regime change" for Venezuela?

When Adm. Alvin Holsey, the commander of US Southern Command, raised concerns about the legality of bombing boats on the high seas and extrajudicial killing, he was pushed out by Hegseth. His concerns were ignored.

When lawyers at the National Security Council, Pentagon, and Justice Department raised objections to the boat attacks they were reassigned or fired, according to press reports. Finally, President Trump's own appointed lawyers at the Justice Department came up with a justification for killings. But it's classified.

Last week the media reported on an incident from September where two survivors of the US strike were left clinging to the wreckage of their boat when the orders came to kill them too. It was clearly an illegal order, even according to the Pentagon's own Laws of War manual.