Swanson: There Was a Boat. That Was the Only True Part.

This was what the President of the United States initially lied:

“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere. The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE! Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!!!!!!!”

How was this dishonest? Let me count the ways.

“Kinetic strike” is just a euphemism for murder. The above words came with a video of people in a little boat being blown up. You don’t see the blood spurting out of their bodies, as you might in an unacceptable murder objected to by Trump. You see a cool flash of light of the sort you’ve been conditioned by countless movies, television shows, and news broadcasts to ooh and aah at. But it’s just killing people.
There is no legal basis for the U.S. military to circle a giant chunk of the Earth’s surface and declare it the “responsibility” of a portion of that military named “SOUTHCOM.” This was at least 1,000 miles away from the United States, and therefore a job for a department of “defense” only with the usual hypocrisy even had there been some sort of attack on anything — it’s a good thing the department is back to being one of “war.”
Nobody has publicly identified the people or identified them as drug dealers or as members of a particular gang.
Nobody has publicly established that there exists a gang engaged in “narcoterrorism” — that is in dealing drugs and in terrorism. The most likely scenario for that happening will be city cops busting U.S. National Guard occupiers selling illegal substances to each other.
There is no way to define terrorism so as not to include the act of blowing up a boat and threatening to blow up more. Labeling the victims terrorists, even if true, cannot change that.
There is no public evidence that the president of Venezuela is in charge of the alleged gang.
There is no public evidence that the supposed gang of the president of Venezuela has done “mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.”
The boat was not “heading to the United States.” The U.S. Secretary of State said it was headed to Trinidad & Tobago and then “corrected” his statement to agree with Trump’s. His initial statement was more plausible for such a small boat. We later learned that the people on the boat had apparently become aware of the drone or drones above them and reversed course, so that at the time of their murder they were headed in the opposite direction of wherever they had been headed at first.
It is highly unlikely that “No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike.” The U.S. Air Force has long made clear that PTSD and moral injury are far more common among “drone pilots” who watch their targets on a screen than among airborne pilots.
Trump’s video did not show what we later learned were multiple strikes on the same little boat, which would have looked less wrath-of-God cool than a single bolt of MAGAnite.
Bragging about something on social media implies that it is legal, acceptable, and admirable. Reuters’ comical straight-faced “analysis” went like this: “Some experts questioned whether the decision to summarily kill people merely on suspicion of smuggling drugs violated international law. Trafficking in an illegal substance is not normally considered a capital offence.” In fact, murdering people violates international and national laws. Past U.S. presidents having done something does not legalize it. Even advocates for worldwide drone murder sprees have always maintained that it is only through the magic of being part of a war that such murders become totally admirable non-murders. If something were a “capital offense” a president would still not get to be judge, jury, and executioner with no indictment or trial — not legally.
Drug dealing is not warmaking, and immigrating is not militarily invading. When someone like Senator Chris Murphy says that who was killed on the boat may have been members of a drug cartel or may have been civilians, he is selling snake oil. Drug dealers are civilians.*
Threatening more of the same is a crime under international and national laws as well, starting with the United Nations Charter.
When someone like Senator Chris Murphy says the big damage here is the setback for the war on drugs, he is obscuring our view of the mass murder just committed by Trump.
When the same senator says that blowing up boats would be legal if Congress had authorized it, he is pushing the lie that Congress has the power to overrule international law. It does not. War — and murder apart from war — are both equally illegal with or without the approval of the United States Congress. Yes, I am listing responses to Trump’s dishonesty as part of it, but he could count on just these non-responses.
There is no world in which such a small boat contained enough drugs even for a single Republican National Convention, and there is no boat large enough that blowing it up could distract even Trump’s own followers from their obsession with Epstein.