In an ironic turn of events, US President Donald Trump, who has been claiming to have stopped around eight wars and seeking the Nobel Peace Prize, is now facing heat for his administration’s commission of a war crime in the Caribbean. A row has erupted in the US as Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is likely to face criminal liability for giving a “kill everybody” order, which led to a second airstrike on a boat and the killing of the survivors of the first strike on 2nd September.

The US airstrikes on a suspected ‘drugs-smuggling’ boat and the Trump administration’s alleged war crime

The strikes carried out by the US forces on the order of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on a vessel in international waters off Venezuela’s coast were claimed to be a part of the Trump administration’s campaign against “narcoterrorists”. The US authorities claimed that the attacked boat was suspected of ferrying drugs on behalf of the Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO).

However, the Venezuelan foreign minister lodged a complaint days after the strike, alleging that the American authorities are “seeking an incident that would justify a military escalation in the Caribbean”. Foreign Minister Yván Gil cited an incident of US forces occupying a Venezuelan fishing boat for eight hours.

The initial strike on 2nd September 2025 had severely wrecked the boat, leaving many survivors clinging to its debris in the water. However, only minutes later, a second strike followed and targeted the boat’s wreckage. The second strike killed all the survivors on board. It is estimated that around 8 to 12 people were killed.

Reportedly, drone footage and radio communications captured the moments of the final blow, with survivors visible and wounded.

Trump pardoned convicted drug facilitator but accuses Biden of going soft on Drug cartels

The Democrat and Republican leaders are indulging in a war of words, with the former accusing the latter of committing ‘war crimes’ in the name of aggressive policy against drug smugglers. Trump administration officials, including Pete Hegseth, are claiming that while the previous Biden administration “coddled terrorists, “we kill them.”

In an X post published on 29th November, Pete Hegseth dismissed the media report, particularly the Washington Post report, which claimed that Hegseth gave “kill everybody” orders to Admiral Frank M. Bradley, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.

“…As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be “lethal, kinetic strikes.” The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization. The Biden administration preferred the kid gloves approach, allowing millions of people — including dangerous cartels and unvetted Afghans — to flood our communities with drugs and violence. The Trump administration has sealed the border and gone on offense against narco-terrorists. Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them…” Hegseth wrote.

President Donald Trump had also expressed confidence in Hegseth, saying that he believed the Defence Secretary “100%”.

Interestingly, while Pete Hegseth accused the Biden administration of coddling terrorists, be it narcoterrorists in the Caribbean and East Pacific or Afghans, and claimed that the Trump administration kills terrorists. The reality is quite different.

It is arguably true that the Biden administration was comparatively soft on drug cartels smuggling narcotics into the US. The Trump administration has also been mollycoddling terrorists and their enablers.

In May 2025, Trump held a meeting with Ahmed Hussain al-Sharaa, the interim president of Syria, who just months back had a $10 million bounty on his head by the US government. Trump heaped praises on the former terrorist, who once admitted to having celebrated the 9/11 Islamic terror attack that killed thousands. Trump called Sharaa a “Young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”

In Afghanistan, former US President Joe Biden received all the global condemnation and domestic backlash for withdrawing US forces in 2021. However, it was Trump’s 2020 Doha Agreement that laid the ground for the eventual historic visuals of the US literally fleeing Afghanistan and leaving it in the hands of Taliban terrorists.

After elevating a former ISIS terrorist to power in Syria and leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban, Trump has declared ‘friendship’ with the Pakistan Army, the biggest Islamic terrorist group in the region. It is not a secret that Pakistan Army funds, fosters and shields Islamic terrorists and uses them as its proxies to carry out attacks against India.

In fact, the Trump administration is also going soft on convicted drug trafficking facilitators. While US forces acting on Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders are regularly striking vessels in the Caribbean over suspicion of drug smuggling, President Trump, on 29th November, pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is convicted of facilitating huge drug trafficking, including cocaine smuggling into the US.

Hernández was sentenced to a 45-year jail term in July 2024. He was convicted of colluding with drug traffickers for over a decade to smuggle cocaine into the US.

Trump not only granted clemency to Hernández but also justified it by saying that the people of Honduras “basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country. And they said it was a Biden administration setup. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.”

Calling out Trump’s hypocrisy, Democrat leader Chuck Schumer dubbed the American President’s decision to pardon Hernandez as “egregious, dangerous and shameful.”

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s admission and justification of the second strike that allegedly amounts to a war crime

The controversy over the September 2 airstrike began after a Washington Post report said that the verbal order was to kill “everybody” on the boat. “In an effort to comply with that order, the commanding officer of the operation directed a second strike targeting two survivors of an initial attack, who were “clinging to the smouldering wreck,” according to the Post.

Admiral Frank M. Bradley, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, had directed a second strike on the boat’s survivors to comply with Pete Hegseth’s verbal order to “kill everybody”.

On Monday, US Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt justified the second strike that killed survivors on the boat. Leavitt defended Admiral Frank M. Bradley, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, saying that he had acted “within his authority and the law” when he ordered a second strike after the first strike left survivors.

“Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was totally destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” Leavitt said.

US lawmakers raise concerns over the rules of engagement of the airstrikes on the suspected drug-carrying boat

The operation carried out on 2nd September was a part of the Trump administration’s aggressive policy to interdict drug boats without prior warning. Over 83 people have been killed in 21 such operations by the US forces since September. After a series of attacks near the Venezuelan coast, the US forces have carried out multiple airstrikes along the Pacific coasts of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.

The rules of engagement (ROE) of the 2nd September airstrikes have been questioned by US lawmakers. The admission by Karoline Leavitt has further added fuel to the fire as many legal experts opine that Admiral Bradley’s action amounted to a war crime and murder, and thus, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who ordered the strike, could be held legally culpable.

While the Trump administration faced criticism within the US for its harsh measures against alleged Venezuelan drug cartels, after Karoline Leavitt’s statement defending the second strike, US lawmakers have intensified attacks on Pete Hegseth.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine said, “This rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true.”

Republican lawmaker Mike Turner said, “Obviously if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that that would be an illegal act.”

These remarks came after the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee announced that it will conduct a “vigorous oversight” on the strikes.

“The Committee is aware of recent news reports – and the Department of Defence’s initial response – regarding alleged follow-on strikes on suspected narcotics vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” the committee’s Republican chair, Senator Roger Wicker, and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Jack Reed, said.

In a joint statement Republican-led House Armed Services Committee also called for an investigation into the follow-on strike that allegedly amounted to a war crime.

“We take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question,” Republican leaders Mike Rogers, and Adam Smith wrote.

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi said that he expects the Committee to have full access to the audio and video of the strikes. Over 80 people have been killed in these strikes since September.

Appearing on CNN, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, said that if the reports about the second strike are true, then “it seems to” constitute a war crime.

“If what has been reported is accurate, I’ve got serious concerns about anybody in that, you know, chain of command stepping over a line that they should never step over. We are not Russia. We’re not Iraq. We hold ourselves to a very high standard of professionalism,” Kelly said.

Former Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, who served in the Obama administration, appeared on a CBS show and deemed the second airstrike in question a violation of the rules of war and a criminal act.

“The basic rules of war that are involved here make very clear that you do not strike wounded people in the water in order to kill them. You basically then are responsible to try to make sure you do everything to try protect their lives at that point. And that the concern right now whether or not this really violated the rules of war and constituted a criminal act,” Panetta said.

Meanwhile, the Former JAGs Working Group, a group of ex-military lawyers, have released a memo assessing the second strike and argued that it amounts to a violation of both American and international laws.

“…not only does international law prohibit targeting these survivors, but it also requires the attacking force to protect, rescue, and, if applicable, treat them as prisoners of war. Violations of these obligations are war crimes, murder, or both. There are no other options,” the memo reads.

Excerpt taken from the document released by the Former JAGs Working Group

Trump administration trying to throw Admiral Bradley under the bus?

While Pete Hegseth claims to be backing Admiral Bradley, a decorated SEAL commander who oversaw the operation on 2nd September, it seems that, amidst backlash and the possibility of legal trouble, the Trump administration is scapegoating Admiral Bradley.

These speculations are fuelled by Karoline Leavitt’s remarks that Frank Bradley “directed the engagement” and that he acted “within his authority and the law”. On one hand, Leavitt justified the alleged war crime as a ‘lawful action’, on the other, she absolved Hegseth of any role in the carrying out of the second strike.

It seems that singling out Admiral Bradley by the White House was a shrewd blame-shifting strategy. Democrat leaders like Jason Crow are alleging that the Trump administration has a history of getting reckless things done by others and then throwing them under the bus to shift blame.

The family of a Colombian fisherman killed in one of the airstrikes carried out by US forces files a complaint

The controversy around the Trump administration’s aggressive and allegedly in violation of international laws actions shows no signs of fading. Amidst pressure to provide full transparency and accountability over civilian deaths in the Caribbean caused due to US strikes, the family of a Colombian fisherman named Alejandro Carranza Medina, killed in a US airstrike carried out on 15th September, has filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The complainants alleged that the deceased man was denied his rights to due process and a fair trial. The family directly accused Pete Hegseth of ordering extra-judicial killings in the name of fighting against drug smugglers.

“From numerous news reports, we know that Pete Hegseth, US Secretary of Defense, was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza Medina and the murder of all those on such boats, Secretary Hegseth has admitted that he gave such orders despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra-judicial killings,” the complainant family said in its statement.

Venezuela’s political instability, oil reserves and Trump’s reassertion of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’

For many months, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been alleging that Trump is attempting to orchestrate regime change in Venezuela. While the drug menace stemming from Venezuela is real and massive, it is being said that the anti-drugs smuggling crackdown is a part of Trump’s wider strategy to gain control over politically unstable but oil-rich Venezuela.

It is notable that Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves, more than five times that of the United States; however, political instability and numerous sanctions prevent the Latin American nation from fully unlocking its oil potential. What further concerns the US is Venezuela’s strengthening ties with Russia and China, both of which are seen by Washington as its rivals. Having a country tilted towards Russia and China in the neighbourhood is not something America would like or allow.

There is a history of America deploying its infamous ‘plane of democracy’ to countries rich in natural resources for its own benefits, either by stirring political instability or by taking advantage of a prevailing disturbance.

The Trump administration has been using the Venezuelan opposition’s “criminal regime” description of the Maduro government as an excuse to not only meddle in the Latin American country’s internal affairs but also to justify the intensified military actions.

While a direct invasion is unlikely, given how such an adventure played out against the US in Iraq, the crackdown against drug cartels in the Caribbean seems to be a pressure and intimidation tactic to either compel Maduro into resigning and fleeing or becoming subservient to Trump, while CIA covert action is also said to be on the cards.

Apparently, Trump’s hawkish approach to the drug menace originating from the Caribbean stems from his desperation to seize direct or indirect control over the Venezuelan oil reserves, ensure strategic security, and lucrative markets. It remains to be seen how successful the Trump administration’s revitalisation of the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine would be, in a world rapidly moving towards multipolarity.

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