Trump blows up a third Venezuelan boat

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President Donald Trump said Saturday morning that Venezuela’s airspace should be considered “closed” as he weighs military action against the South American nation.

“To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Venezuela’s government said it “forcefully rejects” Trump’s claim about closing the airspace and that it was a “colonial threat” intended to undermine the country’s “territorial integrity, aeronautical security and full sovereignty.”

The Foreign Ministry said “such declarations constitute a hostile, unilateral and arbitrary act.”

Flight-tracking data appeared to show a handful of planes still above the country on Saturday morning.

A number of airlines began rerouting flights away from Venezuela’s airspace earlier this month, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has issued a warning of “heightened military activity” in the area.

On Wednesday, Venezuela’s civil aviation authority stripped takeoff and landing rights from six commercial carriers it accused of “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government and unilaterally suspending air commercial operations.”

The USS Gerald R. Ford, a major aircraft carrier, arrived in the Caribbean last week, rounding out a buildup of U.S. military forces in the region that has not been seen for decades.

The U.S. last week also designated the Cartel de los Soles, a group Washington alleges is run by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as a foreign terrorist organization.

Maduro has denied having any ties to the drug trade and has accused the U.S. of “fabricating” a war against him.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a directive to kill all 11 people aboard a Caribbean boat suspected of ferrying drugs, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the September operation.

The vessel was hit off the Trinidad coast, leaving only two survivors in the wreckage. It was then that the Special Operations commander ordered a second strike, according to the report, and both men were blown up.

“The order was to kill everybody,” one of the sources said.

The commander overseeing allegedly claimed the two survivors were legitimate targets because they could call on other traffickers to collect them and the cargo.

A video released by US President Donald Trump later in the day did not show a second strike.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell denied the report, claiming that the “entire narrative is completely false.”
“Ongoing operations to dismantle narcoterrorism and to protect the Homeland from deadly drugs have been a resounding success,” he said.

'Americans will be prosecuted for this', expert says
A Joint Special Operations Command report claimed the double-tap strike was designed to sink hazardous material to protect other ships, according to a source who had seen the report. Two congressional aides told the Washington Post they were given the same explanation.

“The idea that wreckage from one small boat in a vast ocean is a hazard to marine traffic is patently absurd, and killing survivors is blatantly illegal,” Rep. Seth Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran who received a classified briefing from Pentagon officials, said of another series of strikes in October.

“Mark my words: It may take some time, but Americans will be prosecuted for this, either as a war crime or outright murder.”

The new reports that Hegseth ordered the deaths of all 11 aboard the vessel added new weight to the accusations by US and international experts that the Pentagon’s strikes are not legal.

If proven unlawful, those directly involved in the action may be held culpable.

As the men posed no immediate threat to the US, and as there is no legitimate war between the two sides, former military lawyer Todd Huntley told the Washington Post the double strike “amounts to murder.”

Even if the US is at war with drug traffickers, as it has declared, “[it] would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Huntley.

After the September strikes, protocols reportedly changed to see survivors rescued and repatriated, according to the sources.

Hegseth said on Wednesday that the United States is aiming to allow further deployments of troops and aircraft to tackle drug trafficking.

The FBI has requested interviews with six Democratic members of the US Congress who, in a video message, told members of the military they can legally refuse to carry out unlawful orders, a Justice Department official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Democrats express concerns over Venezuela strikes
The video did not refer to any specific illegal order, but many Democrats have expressed concerns - echoed privately by some US military commanders - that the Trump administration is violating the law by ordering strikes on vessels purportedly carrying suspected drug traffickers in Latin American waters. The Pentagon has called the strikes justified because drug smugglers are considered terrorists.

Democrats have also questioned the legality of Trump's use of military forces in American cities.

The probe was reported earlier by Fox News.

Trump's administration has shattered democratic norms by using law enforcement to pursue his perceived enemies. The Justice Department in recent months brought criminal charges against three prominent critics of the president, though a judge on Monday dismissed two of those cases.

There is no charge of sedition under US law for civilians, though the charge of "seditious conspiracy" carries a maximum penalty of 20 years.

For troops, the Uniform Code of Military Justice includes a section on sedition, with possible penalties including death.

A top US Navy commander ordered a second round of military strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat, the White House has confirmed.

"Admiral (Frank) Bradley worked well within his authority and the law" in ordering the additional strike, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday.

Leavitt confirmed Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth authorised the strikes but did not give an order to "kill everybody", as the Washington Post reported. The second strike was reportedly done after two people survived the initial blast and were clinging to the burning vessel.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern over the report and vowed congressional reviews of the strikes.

"President (Donald) Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war," Leavitt said during the Monday press briefing.

The press secretary neither confirmed the first strike left two survivors, nor that the second attack was intended to kill them.

Media reports that Hegseth had given the directive to kill all those on board the vessel during the 2 September strike have renewed concerns about the legality of US military strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

Hegseth has pushed back against accusations in the report, calling them "fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory". On Monday, he tweeted that Admiral Bradley "is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support.

"I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pointed to what he called “the fog of war” in defending a follow-up military strike on an alleged drug boat in September that reportedly killed survivors of the initial attack.

"I didn't personally see survivors," Hegseth told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday. "The thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire and smoke. You can’t see it."

He added, “This is called the fog of war.”

In September, U.S. forces conducted a strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea suspected of smuggling drugs, then ordered a second strike after the first failed to kill all of the vessel’s occupants, one U.S. official and a source familiar with the Pentagon’s actions that day told NBC News.

The boat was carrying a total of 11 individuals, the Pentagon said at the time of the strike. Since then, the U.S. has conducted more than 20 strikes on purported drug vessels it says are carrying drugs from Venezuela, killing more than 80 people.

In response, bipartisan lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have started inquiries into the strikes, which critics have said could constitute a war crime.

Hegseth’s comments come as President Donald Trump and the White House have stepped in to defend him amid scrutiny over the attack. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said that Hegseth authorized Adm. Frank Bradley, the Special Operations commander, to order the strikes.

The Washington Post was first to report the second strike in the Sept. 2 boat attack.

Hegseth took questions about the “double tap” strikes during the meeting and offered new details.

He watched the first strike live before moving on to other meetings, he said, and did not personally see any survivors. Nor did Hegseth witness the second strike, he said, claiming he learned about it later. Still, he said he supported the decision to strike the boat and described a rigorous and deliberative process to identify what the U.S. says are drug-carrying vessels.

“Adm. Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” Hegseth said. “We have his back.”

Asked about the precise timing of the second strike, Hegseth demurred.

Trump, after reiterating that he and Hegseth were unaware of the second strike, said he would defer to his defense secretary on the details. "Pete has done an amazing job," he said. "You could probably better answer the question."

During Tuesday's Cabinet meeting, Trump warned that the U.S. would “start doing those strikes on land, too,” to stop alleged drug traffickers, echoing remarks he made last week.

"I hear Colombia is making cocaine," Trump said. "Anybody doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack.”

Even as the president has increased military pressure, Trump has said that he could still hold talks with Venezuela’s president, suggesting a possible diplomatic off-ramp. Over the weekend, he confirmed a phone call with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, though he declined to offer details of the conversation.

“I wouldn’t say it went well, or badly,” Trump said of the call aboard Air Force One. “It was a phone call.”

Adm. Frank M. Bradley saw the two survivors of a September strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat as legitimate military targets based on the rules for the operation, which may have identified them as narco-terrorists, a defense official told NBC News.

The military then launched a second strike on the same boat, generating controversy over whether the second strike was legal or could potentially constitute a war crime.

After the first strike, the two survivors were in electronic communication with another ship suspected of being involved in narcotics trafficking, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The details of that communication are unclear, but commanders at the Pentagon could cite the survivors' contact with a “mothership” as evidence that they were continuing to pursue drug smuggling efforts and therefore were legal targets, the sources said.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday night that Bradley concluded that the survivors of the first Sept. 2 strike were trying to continue a drug run, making them legitimate targets. NBC News has asked the Pentagon for comment on what Bradley plans to tell lawmakers as he briefs them Thursday.

Both the House and the Senate have launched inquiries into the second strike, which killed the two survivors, according to officials.

Bradley, who now serves as the head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, briefed the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee and will next speak with the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees on the September strikes. He is also expected to meet with the Senate Intelligence committee, according to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said, “What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”

“You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, who are killed by the United States,” the Connecticut lawmaker said.

He later said that “the admiral confirmed that there had not been a 'kill them all' order, and that there was not an order to grant no quarter.”

The House Armed Services Committee's ranking member, Adam Smith, D-Wash., said he will be at the briefing and that members would “try to get a full committee classified brief next week.”

In a subsequent October strike in the Caribbean that left two survivors, the U.S. military sent them to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador to be detained and prosecuted, the Pentagon has said.

President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on Venezuela on Tuesday by announcing that he is ordering a blockade of all “sanctioned oil tankers” entering and leaving the South American country.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before."

He then added that he is "ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela," arguing that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's government is using oil revenue to finance illicit operations, including "drug terrorism."

The U.S. has sanctioned three of Maduro’s nephews and repeatedly conducted deadly military strikes against boats from the Caribbean that it alleges are carrying drugs.

Venezuela’s government released a statement Tuesday accusing Trump of “violating international law, free trade, and the principle of free navigation” with what it called “a reckless and grave threat.”

It added: “On his social media, he assumes that Venezuela’s oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property.”

The statement said of Trump’s post: “Consequently, he demands that Venezuela immediately hand over all its riches. The President of the United States intends to impose, in an utterly irrational manner, a supposed naval blockade on Venezuela with the aim of stealing the wealth that belongs to our nation.”

Maduro’s government plans to denounce the situation before the United Nations, the statement said.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview for part of a two-part profile published Tuesday by Vanity Fair that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”

Tensions escalated further last week when U.S. forces seized an oil tanker in waters near Venezuela.

Trump’s announcement of a blockade could be the prelude to the seizure of more ships. The Skipper, the large oil tanker that the U.S. military seized Wednesday, was a sanctioned vessel that the administration has said was used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.

The Skipper, which was falsely flagged as a Guyanese vessel, was reportedly carrying about 1.8 million barrels of oil, according to Windward, a maritime intelligence company, which noted in a report on its site after the seizure last week that there are several other possible targets.

“There are at least seven other falsely flagged, sanctioned tankers similar to Skipper loitering off Venezuela, making them prime targets for further intervention as the U.S. administration intensifies pressure on the Maduro government by targeting its oil revenues,” the report said.

Trump has also said U.S. operations against alleged narco-traffickers will soon expand onto land.

"We're going to start hitting them on land, which is a lot easier to do, frankly," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

"These are a direct military threat to the United States of America. They're trying to drug out our country," he said.

Democrats have raised concerns over the military strikes, particularly after the White House confirmed that Navy Adm. Frank M. Bradley, who then led Joint Special Operations Command, ordered a second strike on a boat coming from Venezuela allegedly carrying narcotics on Sept. 2. The second strike killed survivors of an earlier strike that day, and some lawmakers have suggested it could amount to a war crime.

After a classified briefing Tuesday, some Senate Democrats said video of the strike should be released to the full chamber.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that he would share video of the second strike with select congressional committees Wednesday but that he did not plan to publicly release the video.

Oh and if he wants these "narco-terrorist" countries to stop selling "poison" to Americans, maybe Americans should STOP BUYING DRUGS?

just a thought.

Or maybe they should be made legally available? It seems to be the only practical solution.

Didn’t work too well for the Prohibition though; the organised crime it kicked off are still with us, but then, if drugs stoped being so profitable, what could they replace them with? Tryptophan? Ephedrine? Steroids? It’s the same solution, isn’t it? Make them freely available (and stuff BigPharma profits).

One thing that doesn’t seem to be happening is looking for a way to stop life being so sh***y for so many people, that they need to escape from it!

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he is leaving the possibility of a war with Venezuela on the table.

"I don’t rule it out, no," he told NBC News in a phone interview.

Trump on Tuesday ordered a "blockade" of sanctioned oil tankers coming and going from Venezuela, increasing pressure on the country's president, Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. recently seized an oil tanker captured near Venezuela, as well.

The administration’s campaign has already resulted in 28 boat strikes that have killed more than 100 people, including a “double tap” strike facing congressional scrutiny.

In his phone interview, Trump said "I don't discuss it" when he is asked whether he rules out the possibility that such actions could lead to war.

But when he was pressed, he confirmed it was a possibility and said there will be additional seizures of oil tankers. Asked for a timeline, Trump replied: "It depends. If they’re foolish enough to be sailing along, they’ll be sailing along back into one of our harbors."

Trump also declined to say whether ousting Maduro was his ultimate goal.

"He knows exactly what I want," Trump replied. "He knows better than anybody."

Trump's admission that he's not ruling out a war with Venezuela is significant. He has long tried to distinguish himself from the hawkish wing of the Republican Party, and in 2024, he campaigned on being able to keep the U.S. out of foreign conflicts.

In his speech after he won the election, Trump said he was "not going to start a war; I’m going to stop wars."

What's the REAL agenda behind Trump bullying Venezuela I wonder? We all know this has nothing to do with drugs.

To quote:

"Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, concentrated in the Orinoco Belt, making it a major oil-rich nation..."

That might be why.

All the countries that Trump attacks (either militarily or in other ways) just so happen to be adversaries of Israel.

Why are so many in the US establishment so supportive of Israel? The recreation of this state in territories already peopled, was the biggest mistake of the 20th century (with far more evil consequences than even WW2)!

They had many other options that would have created a lot less upheaval, but instead they had to displace 20 million Palestinians and give us perpetual terrorism.