October 24, 2025
King he may not be, but he is acting like one on the high seas.
Donald Trump's attack on seven small boats in the Caribbean, killing at least 27 people who were not interrogated or tried and who may or may not have been carrying drugs-when you blow up and sink a boat it is a little difficult to know exactly-has no support in law of any kind. Yesterday he compounded his malfeasance with the destruction of another boat in the Pacific similarly said to be carrying drugs to harm innocent Americans.
It isn't that he's pushing the envelope of legality-he's ignoring it altogether.
In justification, with an attitude that says he doesn't really have to, Trump has said that the boats were committing "hostile acts against the citizens and interests" of the United States because they had cargoes of drugs. The boats were not stopped and searched so it is difficult to prove that they had drugs, even harder to prove they were intended to go to the U.S. and not Europe or elsewhere. And to declare that the sailing of those boats in international waters were committing harmful acts somehow equivalent to "armed conflict" and therefore justified America acting in "self-defense," though no actual arms were ever evident-well, that is a stretching of the truth beyond anything that the Truth-Stretcher-in-Chief has ever come up with before.
It is difficult to know where any check on Trump's actions can come from-certainly not Congress, which long since gave up being in charge of declaring war, nor the judiciary, nor worldwide bodies like the United Nations or the International Court that this administration disdains. And when Trump uses all this to declare war on Venezuela and sends in the 10,00 troops he has assembled in the region, it looks like Americans will go bluntly and dumbly into war without significant protest.
Some peace president.
There is at least one honorable man in all this. Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of the U.S. Southern Command and the who should be in charge of such an American offensive, has stepped down. He has made no public statement, but that very act should stand as a strong rebuke to his nominal superiors.