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Oct 24, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford to the Caribbean as part of his ongoing war with what he calls "narco-terrorists" in the country. The bombing of unidentified boats in the waters off the coast of North and South America is entering "war crimes territory," one Pentagon reporter said on Friday. There have been 10 "known" bombings of boats killing nearly four dozen people, The New York Times reported Friday. Sending such a ship near Venezuela is an escalation, said the Times' Pentagon reporter Helene Cooper. "An aircraft carrier is a ginormous projection of American power. We have been sending aircraft carriers to the Middle East, where we had been for 20 years at war. And to turn now and deploy an aircraft carrier, sending the Gerald Ford towards Venezuela is a huge statement of intent with an aircraft carrier, American sailors, American troops, American airmen, Navy fighter pilots are better able to strike targets in Venezuela," she said. "That's sort of like parking a giant Howitzer on the doorstep of, you know, of Nicolas Maduro," Cooper described. "It's a really big deal. It's going to probably take seven days, seven to 10 days for them to get from Croatia to the Caribbean, the southern Caribbean," Cooper continued. She noted it was a "massive statement of intent for the Trump administration" without going to Congress to ask for authorization to go to war. Only Congress can declare war. Trump, however, said he has no intention of asking for authorization. “I’m not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” Trump said on Thursday. “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be like, dead.”Cooper said she spoke with a general who told her that after the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity, he may not have to ask Congress for permission. "And at some point, there is a lot of worry that, you know, that we are verging close now to what could be war crimes territory," she continued. "So, there's a lot of worry and there's almost — several officers I talked to today — two of them brought up, 'When is Congress going to step in and sort of exercise its own authority?'"Some Republicans are starting to speak out on the matter, but only two were willing to support a measure ordering a stop to the bombings.

Oct 24, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff didn't discount the idea of sending American soldiers to fight on the ground in Venezuela. Speaking to the press on Friday, Stephen Miller was asked, "Would the administration consider putting troops on the ground in any capacity in Venezuela?"His answer wasn't "no," remarked influencer Joanne Carducci, whose X handle is @JoJoFromJerz. Instead, Miller said, "These are terrorists and they're gonna be killed.""My kingdom for ANY journalist to follow up on a @stephenm comment abt terrorism w/Q about: 1) The adjudged terrorists who attacked the Capitol who Trump freed on his first day on the job, 2) The terrorists that Changpeng Zhao, whom Trump ALSO pardoned, helped launder money," remarked national security expert Marcy Wheeler. "If @StephenM believes he can just kill terrorists will no due process, will he do that to Joe Biggs? Stewart Rhodes? Donald Trump did not PARDON either of them, leaving the terrorism judgment intact," she added."They are going to start war over oil and say it is to protect the USA from 'Narco Terrorists,'" commented lawyer Alvin R. Garcia.CNN reporter Kit Maher wrote on X, "Miller doesn't say whether the administration would consider putting US troops on ground in Venezuela in any capacity, but reiterates position on 'fighting terrorists in the Western hemisphere:' 'These are terrorists and they're going to be killed.'""What Miller is advocating is state terrorism. He should be behind bars," retired diplomat Frank Cogan said on X. Author Jennifer Erin Valent wrote, "You don’t have to be a pacifist or naive about the realities of evil in this world to believe that there is something wrong with people who flippantly speak about killing people. I will say again and again, this administration is sadistic."

Oct 24, 2025 - World

The Trump administration has been blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean — and now one in the Pacific — claiming without evidence that they’re “drug boats.”These are extrajudicial executions outside any system of law. And there’s a reason we shouldn’t allow drug warriors to act as judge, jury, and executioner: because over the years, they’ve made many, many tragic mistakes and killed lots of civilians.I’ve seen countless tragedies like these in my decades studying drug policy. Two were particularly egregious.In 2001, the United States was using local air forces to shoot down alleged trafficking planes over the Peruvian Amazon. In this case, a surveillance plane flown by CIA contractors misidentified a pontoon plane and had it shot down. Instead of traffickers, they killed a missionary from Michigan named Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter.The second case was an incident in Honduras in 2012, where the Drug Enforcement Administration and local forces mistakenly opened fire on a water taxi, killing four people — including two pregnant women — and then tried to cover it up.What makes these strikes so appealing to President Donald Trump is that it gives him the godlike power to look down from above and smite anyone who displeases him, without consequence. He’s even told sick jokes about local fishermen in the Caribbean now being afraid to get in their boats.If he’s allowed to normalize this kind of international extrajudicial killing, I don’t think it’s a far leap for him to try it domestically.Imagine a cop chasing a guy down the street, getting hot and tired, and shooting the suspect in the back. The cop probably wouldn’t tell a judge, “Well your honor, I didn’t want to chase him, so I just shot him.” But here’s the president declaring on the international stage: We’re not going to do police work. We’re just going to kill people.Now imagine the shoe’s on the other foot. Most of the killings in Mexico are done by guns smuggled from the United States. They call it the “River of Iron,” and it’s responsible for literally hundreds of thousands of killings in the country in the past 20 years.So would it be okay for the Mexican military to blow up a US fishing boat because they believed it was smuggling deadly guns into Mexico, even if they offered no evidence? Would that be acceptable to this administration?Here’s what drug warriors don’t understand: The US isn’t under armed attack from drug traffickers. It’s actually the opposite.Most drugs cost pennies per dose to manufacture. But the higher the risk to the individual smuggler — like the risk of getting arrested, shut down, or blown up — the more they can charge as drugs move down the smuggling chain.By the time drugs reach users, they’ve snowballed in value. But consumers in the US have proven more than willing to pay hyper-inflated prices, and even risk arrest, for drugs — just as drinkers were once willing to pay bootleggers huge sums for booze during Prohibition.In short, our policies create tremendous value for substances that are relatively cheap. We’re making trafficking more profitable, not less.So if the US bombs a trafficker — or an alleged trafficker — we escalate the risk premium for everyone else in that industry. It’s a bad deal for you if you’re the one who’s killed, but it creates a “job opening” for others in the operation, or a rival cartel, to take over that turf — which is now more lucrative.The drug war acts as a price support for drug dealers. That’s why no one wants the drug war to continue more than the smugglers themselves. This was ultimately why the US ended alcohol prohibition.Addiction is a public health problem and requires public health solutions, not allowing someone like Trump to play judge, jury, and executioner — at home or abroad.Sanho Tree is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, a community of scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. www.ips-dc.org

Oct 24, 2025 - World

The United States has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to the Caribbean as tensions between the Trump administration and Venezuela continue to escalate, a spokesperson for the Defense Department said Friday.“The enhanced U.S. force presence in the [U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility] will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” wrote Sean Parnell, DOD spokesperson, in a statement shared on social media Friday.“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle [transnational criminal organizations].”Tensions between the United States and Venezuela under the leadership of Nicolas Maduro have ramped up in recent weeks after President Donald Trump began ordering strikes on suspected drug-carrying vessels headed toward the United States. Maduro was indicted on narco-terrorism charges by the Justice Department in 2020, and the Trump administration continues to consider outright assassinating him, according to an anonymous senior Trump official.“The dispatch of a carrier is the strongest sign yet that the Trump administration envisions expanding the airstrikes that so far have been limited to striking small vessels to other targets on land in what officials have said is an effort to destroy drug-smuggling operations and destabilize Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro’s government,” wrote journalist Shelby Holliday in a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal.“The Pentagon was already carrying out a large buildup of combat power in the region. A carrier in the region would enable commanders to carry out airstrikes at a higher tempo and shorten the distance U.S. planes would have to fly to reach targets on land.”The latest strike on suspected drug-carrying vessels came late Thursday night after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday morning that another six suspected “narco-terrorists” were killed. Critics have labeled the targeted strikes as violations of international law.

Oct 24, 2025 - World

Administration will manage basic services ‘in cooperation with Arab brothers and international institutions’, says joint statementThe main Palestinian factions have said they have agreed that an independent committee of technocrats would take over the running of Gaza after Hamas said it had received “clear guarantees” from mediators that “the war has effectively ended”.A joint statement published on the Hamas website said the groups had agreed in a meeting in Cairo to hand “over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a temporary Palestinian committee composed of independent ‘technocrats’, which will manage the affairs of life and basic services in cooperation with Arab brothers and international institutions”. Continue reading...