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Venezuela boat strikes: Kill first, justify never?
The parallels with former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s methods are striking.
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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth with US President Donald Trump during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, on Dec 2.
PHOTO: DOUG MILLS/NYTIMES
Cory Alpert
Over the last four months, the Trump administration has been ramping up its belligerence in the Caribbean. In September, news broke that the US military had begun lethal operations against alleged drug traffickers in international waters, sinking small vessels used by both cartels and ordinary fishermen, with 20 such strikes since.
What is emerging is not a conventional counternarcotics mission, but a pattern of extrajudicial killings carried out far from public scrutiny.
