READ: One step closer to bombing civilians
Why Trump's military strike on a drug boat should spook America.
During the first Trump administration, I helped organize a visit for the president to a counter-drug command center in Florida. The outpost in Key West was jointly overseen by the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon, and we were tracking illicit drug flows coming up from South America.
Like most Trump trips, it was a disaster — for a lot of reasons — but most of all because it backfired. The goal of the visit was simple. We wanted to get the president focused on the fentanyl crisis and how to stop the maritime influx of drugs. Instead, Trump and his staff zeroed in on something else: how easy it would be to blow up boats. Let me explain.
On the flight home, Stephen Miller — then a senior advisor to the president — sat down across from me and the head of the U.S. Coast Guard. What followed was a conversation I’ll never forget.
“Admiral,” Miller asked, “the military has aerial drones, correct?”
“Yes,” the Admiral answered.
“And some of those drones are equipped with missiles, correct?”
“Sure,” the Admiral said, beginning to catch on.
Miller pressed further: “And when a boat full of migrants is in international waters, they aren’t protected by the U.S. Constitution, right?”
The Admiral clarified that while technically true, international law still applied.
“Then tell me why,” Miller said, “can’t we use a Predator drone to obliterate that boat?”
The Admiral, a veteran of military command, was dumbfounded. “Because it would be against international law,” he replied. You can’t kill unarmed civilians just because you want to.
Stephen Miller didn’t appear interested in the legal implications. Indeed, he seemed more interested in whether anyone could stop Trump from committing such acts.
“Admiral,” he concluded, “I don’t think you understand the limitations of international law.”
That moment should have been a warning. Although Miller denied this exchange happened, I remember it all too well. Tellingly, the Trump administration has now started doing what Miller envisioned — weaponizing wartime powers for political theater.
This week, the Trump administration announced a U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean, allegedly operated by the Tren de Aragua gang, killing 11 people. The president posted a grainy, black-and-white video of the explosion, touting the operation as a bold show of force.
There’s just one very big problem.
No one provided proof that the people on board were armed. Indeed, the White House gave no explanation for why the drug mules were hit with a missile and incinerated, rather than just arrested. And there’s no indication that these individuals posed any imminent threat to the United States.
Let me be clear: I have zero sympathy for the Tren de Aragua cartel. These are brutal thugs, and we need to be tougher on criminal networks flooding our streets with poison. However, there’s a big red line between lawful interdiction and military action. And this week, Trump crossed it.
By designating Tren de Aragua as a “foreign terrorist organization” (a label previously reserved for groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS), the administration gave itself cover to start using military force, even though these are not wartime enemies. They are criminals. Dangerous ones, yes, but criminals who should be stopped, arrested, and prosecuted, not obliterated without warning.
I’ve seen dozens of counter-drug operations. When authorities get a tip about a drug boat, usually they work with a partner country to arrest the offenders … or send the Navy to do it … or intercept the boat with the U.S. Coast Guard when it gets close to American territory. Sometimes law enforcement officers shoot out the engine so that the drug-runners can’t go anywhere. Then they board the vessel and arrest everyone.
Not this time. This time, the drug mules were hit with a missile and blown to bits.
Think about it in a domestic context. What if your local cops decided not to arrest the pot-growing neighbors down the street? Instead, let’s say, they decided to light the house on fire, burning everyone alive. You’d be horrified, right? Because it would be a psychotic, egregious overreach.
And that’s what makes this recent incident so dangerous. The logic behind Trump’s Caribbean strike — that suspected criminals in international waters can be treated like wartime enemies on a battlefield — opens the door to even more chilling abuses of power, like the kind envisioned by Stephen Miller on the plane ride home from Key West.
If a boat full of drug-runners can be blown up instead of arrested, what’s to stop the same from being done to unarmed migrants? To asylum-seekers trying to reach U.S. shores for a better life? Or perhaps to political dissidents labeled as “terrorists” by a vindictive regime?
As I warned in BLOWBACK, this is what Trump’s inner circle was always planning to do. They intended to come back into office and use America’s war powers against vulnerable populations and domestic enemies.
Thankfully, the judiciary sees what’s happening. Just this week, a federal appeals court blocked the administration’s use of a wartime law to deport Venezuelan gang members, ruling there was no evidence they were engaged in a war against the United States. The judges challenged the same type of logic the White House used days ago to blow up the Caribbean boat: bad guys aren’t terrorists just because the president says so.
But to Trump, legal distinctions don’t matter. What matters is the imagery — the explosion that makes him look tough and sends a message. He wants you to know that if you're on his enemies list, he's willing to use the military to make you disappear, whether it’s inside of an unmarked van or in the fiery aftermath of a missile strike.
So when I say we’re a step closer to bombing civilians, I’m not being hyperbolic. I’ve heard the conversations behind closed doors. I’ve watched the decision-making unfold, and now, we’re seeing Trump’s authoritarian fantasies become reality.
We have for the first time in our history a wholly unlawful presidential administration.
Always remember the words of German Pastor Martin Niemöller who wrote during the Nazi era that after they come for everyone but us and we don’t speak out, they will then come for us and there’ll be no one left to speak out.
Doesn't surprise me in the least. In addition to being a pathological liar, Mr. Trump has allowed a pathological psychotic to be his principal advisor. I'm speaking of Mr. Miller. I'm surprised I"m not seeing a communication umbilical cord between the two at cabinet meetings. Trump is physically and mentally incapable of the office. Period. Maybe the strings from Miller were transparent, eh???