This is Murder
This is murder. The killings on the high seas are just the most recent. These go along with the numerous “disappeared” immigrants kidnapped by ICE and Border Patrol agents with no due process. Don’t forget the poor children he and his perverted partner Epstein had killed. Don’t forget the thousands in Africa who died of starvation and disease because of the shutdown of USAID. Don’t forget the thousands who died needlessly due to Trumphuk’s terrible response to COVID and the hundreds more dying from insanely stupid HHS “policies” ranging from anti-vax to cutting women’s health-not just abortion. How many more deaths will Trumphuk. Hogsbreath, Gnome and RFK the Lesser rack up before we end this?
ARE TRUMP'S MISSILE ATTACKS ON BOATS ON THE HIGH SEAS AND HIS MURDERS OF THEIR OCCUPANTS A PRELUDE TO DARKER DAYS AHEAD?
WHERE IS ALL THIS TAKING US IF CONGRESS AND THE COURTS FAIL TO ACT?
PART I
[PART II: APPENDICES TO FOLLOW]
This is not just murder. It's cold-blooded murder.
Yesterday, the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the strikes on September 2 were conducted in "self defense" in international waters and "in accordance with the law of armed conflict.” She further declared that Admiral Bradley "directed the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and THE THREAT FROM NARCO TERRORISTS WAS ELIMINATED". (emphasis added).
Not only is Leavitt's claim that all of these missile strikes on boats on the high seas were committed in "self-defense" patently ludicrous, but their second claim that they were "in accordance with the law of armed conflict" is so absurd that they must think that the American people are morons to buy it
Included below is a comprehensive APPENDIX of why Trump's unilateral missile attacks on boats on the high seas and the murders of all their occupants violate International Law, the Geneva Convention, U.S. laws and judicial decisions, the U.S. Department of Defense Rules and the U.S.Military Codes. Thus far, all 80 occupants on all of the boats he ordered destroyed have been murdered, with not a single survivor to take captive. THIIS IS COLD-BLOODED MURDER.
I have also included below a second APPENDIX which defines and furnishes the laws, codes, conventions and standards that govern the Law of Armed Conflict which Leavitt relies upon to justify the murders of the occupants of the boats which Trump's War Department unilaterally attacked. This Appendix sets forth most, if not all, of the laws, conventions, decisions, and rules defining "armed conflicts", which, in essence, state that there must be two parties engaged in an armed conflict, rather than one party unilaterally attacking another. [That's why they call it a "conflict", rather than the unilateral attacks like the ones Trump ordered on boats on the high seas.]
Between yesterday and today, the White House, the War Department and the U.S. Navy have been engaged in tongue-twisting double-talk to try to explain away how our government on September 2, after an initial missile attack on a boat that killed 8 and left 2 survivors clinging to the boat wreckage in the water, launched a second attack which they knew would kill the survivors. While Admiral Frank Bradley was offered up as the fall guy claiming to have issued the actual order for the second missile strike that killed these survivors, it was well understood by the Navy Seals present at the scene that the message to leave no survivors had originally come down from former Fox News celebrity and now Trump's chief warlord, Pete Hegseth.
While all this may appear to be flailings in the night to try to cover-up their outrageous conduct and sophomoric legal claims justifying it, I believe that there is a pattern that is starting to appear and which foretells very dark, serious threats to our democracy ahead. And I believe that all of these unilateral attacks on boats on the high seas are only the beginning of a carefully designed strategy hatched by the ultra-right wing Heritage Foundation, which drafted Project 2025 for Trump to promote once they helped him to return to the WhiteHouse.
Where is this all going?
Let's start with Trump's Veterans Day campaign event at Stevens High School in Claremont, New Hampshire, on November 11, 2023, where Trump declared:
“…[W]e pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country..... “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream... THE THREAT FROM OUTSIDE FORCES IS FAR LESS SINISTER, DANGEROUS AND GRAVE THAN THE THREAT FROM WITHIN" (emphasis added).
Trump makes no bones about who is behind the threat from within. They are our migrants. Trump is obsessed with migrants and has repeatedly said that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and called them “animals,” “not people,” while repeatedly dehumanizing them.
This is exactly how Hitler denounced the Jews fomented hatred of them by the German people.
So putting this all together, Trump is making it clear that he has the absolute right to decide who to murder and how to murder people attempting come to the United States to sell narcotics, whom he classifies as "narco-terrorists".
Also, it is clearly foreseeable, given Trump's warped mentality, that Trump intends to claim that given his right as our Commender-in-chief to play cop, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner of "narco-terrorists" on the high seas who are trying to come to the United States to sell narcotics, why wouldn't he also have the right to play cop, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner within the United States of those selling these and other narcotics to our American adults and children?
So is Donald Trump laying the groundwork for establishing armed and uniformed and even undercover squads, like his gangs of ICE agents, to round up suspected drug sellers around the country and ship them off to San Salvador or Africa without complying with their due process rights?
And given his declaration that "The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within", we can expect that he intends to dispense with the same legal restrictions and safeguards domestically as he has done internationally by branding "communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country" as "terrorists". .... "They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream...."
And perhaps he intends to invoke what he may claim to be his inherent emergency power to suspend the Constitution and invoke marshal law to deal with these drug dealers whom he is classifying as "domestic narco terrorists" and call up the National Guard and U.S. military to enforce his orders.
We are already well on the road to an authoritarian government. Absent the courage of Congress and the Supreme Court to deal with him, there may still be time for the American people to make their voices and ballots known next November.
APPENDICES TO FOLLOW
APPENDIX II
[Contrary to Leavitt's claim that the murdering of the survivors was justified under the laws of armed conflict, these laws prove her wrong]
THE LAWS OF "ARMED CONFLICT"
1. Geneva Conventions (1949) – The Baseline Definition
The Geneva Conventions do not supply a single sentence definition, but Article 2 and Article 3 set the functional standard.
A. International Armed Conflict (IAC)
Common Article 2:
An international armed conflict exists in any case of declared war or any other armed conflict between two or more States, even if one of them does not recognize the state of war.
Meaning:
Any use of armed force between states triggers an IAC.
No threshold of intensity, duration, or number of casualties is required.
Even a single exchange of fire between state armed forces qualifies.
B. Non-International Armed Conflict (NIAC)
Common Article 3:
A NIAC exists in situations of protracted armed violence between
governmental armed forces and organized armed groups, or
such groups fighting each other.
The Geneva text uses “armed conflict not of an international character,” but modern law (ICRC, tribunals, DoD) interprets this to require:
Protracted (sustained) violence – more than sporadic riots or unrest; and
Organization of the armed group – identifiable command structure, ability to conduct military operations.
2. Additional Protocols of 1977 (reflecting customary international law)
Additional Protocol II (NIAC)
Reiterates that armed conflict requires organized armed groups operating under responsible command and exercising control over territory sufficient to carry out sustained operations.
Although the U.S. is not a party, the Department of Defense recognizes that many AP II rules reflect customary international law, especially the distinction between mere internal disturbances and NIACs.
3. U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual
The DoD Law of War Manual (2015, updated) gives a clear modern operational definition.
DoD Definition of Armed Conflict
“Armed conflict exists when there is a resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups.”
(Paraphrasing DoD Manual §§3.4–3.5)
Key DoD Elements:
IAC: any use of armed force between states. No intensity threshold.
NIAC: requires (1) intensity and (2) organization.
Internal disturbances (riots, isolated violence, criminality) do not rise to NIAC.
DoD adds:
The U.S. may be in an NIAC with non-state armed groups even if hostilities occur outside a single theater(e.g., operations against al-Qaeda or ISIS).
Recognition of “armed conflict” does not require both sides to acknowledge hostilities.
4. U.S. Military Law (UCMJ) & Federal Statutory Framework
The UCMJ does not define “armed conflict” directly, but uses the term in relation to:
war crimes jurisdiction (10 U.S.C. § 950t and following);
application of the Law of War; and
offenses “in the context of and associated with hostilities.”
U.S. federal courts (e.g., in Guantánamo cases) and military commissions rely on the international law definitionabove:
U.S. Acceptance:
An armed conflict exists when hostilities reach the threshold recognized under Common Article 2(between states) or Common Article 3 (non-international).
5. International Criminal Tribunals’ Clarifying Definitions (Customary Law)
Tribunals such as the ICTY provided influential, widely adopted definitions:
“Tadić Test” (ICTY 1995) – Widely Used by DoD and U.S. Courts
An armed conflict exists when:
Intensity of violence rises above internal disturbance; and
Organization of the parties allows sustained military operations.
This test is incorporated into U.S. practice via the DoD Manual and U.S. court opinions.
Unified, Legally Accurate Working Definition
Putting all authorities together, the accepted legal definition is:
An “armed conflict” exists when—
(1) there is armed force between two or more States (IAC), OR
(2) there is sustained, protracted armed violence between governmental forces and one or more organized armed groups, or between such groups (NIAC).
Riots, internal tensions, sporadic violence, or criminal acts do not constitute armed conflict.
6. Why the Definition Matters
Recognizing an armed conflict triggers:
applicability of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol rules,
the Law of War (LOAC) obligations,
war crimes jurisdiction,
POW status determinations in IAC,
protections for civilians and detainees, and
limitations on targeting, detention, and use of force under DoD directives.