Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
"We blew it up...on Trump's orders."
“We blew it up.†On Trump’s orders. Even Rubio wants a little distance from this.
— Joyce White Vance (@joycewhitevance.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T18:50:21.173Z
“We blew it up.” On Trump’s orders. Even Rubio wants a little distance from this.
End snip.
They blew to bits a little fishing boat, looked like a bass boat we might have out on the lake, with 11 people on board. No room for massive amounts of drugs. There might have been a beer cooler. This was a message to the cartels? We're gonna blow up little boats in international waters and tell everyone it was the cartels? We're gonna post the murder death kill porn on our social media for our magats?
The 🍊 🐔 💩 🤡 can add 💣 murderer to his list.
66 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Trump had them murdered and then he released the video of their deaths like it's a trophy.
Just appalling.
Only murderous Fascist regimes do that repeatedly. 
... is MUCH more important than it's being played. Things like the Iran attack are long-standing missions considered by recent Presidents and their teams regularly. All have taken military actions. This boat "obliteration" is something very different. It shows the current President has no problem ordering the immediate deaths of everyone on a craft, and the present military leaders WILL act - immediately.
Here is a good discussion of the legal issues in the use of lethal military force when we are NOT at war.
Legal Issues Raised by a Lethal U.S. Military Attack in the Caribbean
— Climate, Ecology, War and More by Dr. Glen Barry (@bigearthdata.bsky.social) 2025-09-03T22:56:03.506423+00:00
->Just Security | More info from EcoSearch
https://www.justsecurity.org/119982/legal-issues-military-attack-carribean/
On Sept. 2nd, the Trump administration announced what it described as a “lethal strike” against an alleged drug smuggling vessel in the Caribbean. In a post on social media accompanied with a video of the strike, President Donald Trump stated that the attack was “against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists.” Trump also noted that Tren de Aragua had previously been designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The social media post also asserted that the strike had occurred in international waters and killed “11 terrorists.”
Although the facts are still emerging, the Trump administration’s extraordinary lethal attack on this purported smuggling vessel – and its vow that the strike was a start of a campaign – raise a number of significant potential legal issues. And even apart from these legal concerns, the strike constitutes a deeply troubling gratuitous use of the military that resulted in the unnecessary killing of 11 individuals. ......
A U.S. president may direct the use of military force pursuant to either (1) a congressional authorization for the use of force/declaration of war or (2) inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution, typically as commander in chief of the U.S. military. The scope of the president’s authority to direct the use of force under Article II in the absence of congressional authorization is contested. Although there is broad agreement that the president may use force to repel “sudden attack,” the U.S. executive branch has taken a much more expansive view of the president’s unilateral war powers.
Here the Trump administration will almost certainly rely solely on Article II of the Constitution as the source of authority for the attack on this vessel. Despite labelling the targets “narcoterrorists,” there is no plausible argument under which the principle legal authority for the U.S. so-called “war on terror”—the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force—authorizes military action against the Venezuelan criminal entity Tren de Aragua.
Under the executive branch’s two-prong test for when a president may use force without congressional authorization, the contemplated operation must advance an important “national interest” and must not amount to “war in the constitutional sense,” which the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has recognized as an outer limit on the president’s unilateral warmaking authority. That said, OLC precedent marks out remarkably wide latitude, with the first prong in particular having been critiqued as being unconstraining, and it is not clear whether it would have limited the president in this instance even assuming OLC advice was sought before the strike took place.
Further, though Trump and others in his administration have emphasized the prior designation of Tren de Aragua as an FTO, such designation does not by itself convey authority to use force. Nonetheless, such FTO designations are widely and mistakenly perceived as authorizing such action within the executive branch. Thus, designation of Tren de Aragua and a number of other Latin American criminal entities as FTOs in February foreshadowed this week’s attack in the Caribbean, despite providing no actual legal authority for it.
Although the facts are still emerging, the Trump administration’s extraordinary lethal attack on this purported smuggling vessel – and its vow that the strike was a start of a campaign – raise a number of significant potential legal issues. And even apart from these legal concerns, the strike constitutes a deeply troubling gratuitous use of the military that resulted in the unnecessary killing of 11 individuals. ......
A U.S. president may direct the use of military force pursuant to either (1) a congressional authorization for the use of force/declaration of war or (2) inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution, typically as commander in chief of the U.S. military. The scope of the president’s authority to direct the use of force under Article II in the absence of congressional authorization is contested. Although there is broad agreement that the president may use force to repel “sudden attack,” the U.S. executive branch has taken a much more expansive view of the president’s unilateral war powers.
Here the Trump administration will almost certainly rely solely on Article II of the Constitution as the source of authority for the attack on this vessel. Despite labelling the targets “narcoterrorists,” there is no plausible argument under which the principle legal authority for the U.S. so-called “war on terror”—the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force—authorizes military action against the Venezuelan criminal entity Tren de Aragua.
Under the executive branch’s two-prong test for when a president may use force without congressional authorization, the contemplated operation must advance an important “national interest” and must not amount to “war in the constitutional sense,” which the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has recognized as an outer limit on the president’s unilateral warmaking authority. That said, OLC precedent marks out remarkably wide latitude, with the first prong in particular having been critiqued as being unconstraining, and it is not clear whether it would have limited the president in this instance even assuming OLC advice was sought before the strike took place.
Further, though Trump and others in his administration have emphasized the prior designation of Tren de Aragua as an FTO, such designation does not by itself convey authority to use force. Nonetheless, such FTO designations are widely and mistakenly perceived as authorizing such action within the executive branch. Thus, designation of Tren de Aragua and a number of other Latin American criminal entities as FTOs in February foreshadowed this week’s attack in the Caribbean, despite providing no actual legal authority for it.
This is a well done legal article that also goes into the use of force if we were at war
Link to tweet
I think that trump appears to have committed a crime or war crime in this attack.
put it past him.. But JHC!! MF Asshole Murderous Fucking GD Treasonous Idiot.
It wasn't the USA that did this .. it is a Russian Takeover of our Country with this Orange Despot in charge turning our Military into Traitors.. 
