00:00This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.
00:03I'm Nermeen Sheikh with Amy Goodman in Santa Fe.
00:07The Washington Post is reporting U.S. special operations helicopters and B-52 strategic bombers
00:15have been spotted flying less than 90 miles off the coast of Venezuela.
00:21Meanwhile, President Trump's authorized the CIA to carry out lethal covert operations inside Venezuela.
00:28The U.S. is also continuing to strike what they say are suspected drug boats in the Caribbean,
00:35despite growing questions over the legality of the strikes.
00:39Running development, the U.S. admiral who commands military forces in Latin America, Alvin Holsey,
00:45is stepping down early from his post as head of U.S. Southern Command,
00:49reportedly because he had concerns about the U.S. attacking boats in the Caribbean.
00:54Holsey is the first African-American commander of Southcom.
00:57Earlier this week, President Trump was questioned by a reporter about U.S. military operations in the Caribbean.
01:04Mr. President, on Venezuelan boats, I want to ask you, why not have the Coast Guard stop them,
01:10which it is empowered by a lot to do?
01:13You know, this way you can confirm who's on the boat and ensure that they're doing what they suspect.
01:18Because we've been doing that for 30 years, and it has been totally ineffective.
01:23They have faster boats.
01:25Some of these boats are seriously, I mean, they're world-class speed boats,
01:30but they're not faster than missiles.
01:32But we've been trying to do that for years, and so much of the drugs, 25, 30 percent, would come in through the seas.
01:39What's the next step in this war on cartels, and are you considering options, are you considering strikes on land?
01:46Well, I don't want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now,
01:49because we've got the sea very well under control.
01:52We're joined now by David Cole, professor in law and public policy at the Georgetown University Law Center.
01:58He's the former national legal director at the ACLU.
02:01His new piece in the New York Review of Books about Trump's bombing of boats in the Caribbean is titled Getting Away with Murder.
02:08Welcome back to the program, David Cole.
02:10If you could just start out by responding to these attacks and lay out your argument in the New York Review of Books piece, Getting Away with Murder.
02:22Sure.
02:22You know, we have the power and the authority to make drug smuggling a crime.
02:32We have the power and the authority to interdict boats that are bringing drugs into this country.
02:38We have the power and the authority to try people.
02:41If they're convicted by a jury, they can then be sentenced to a period of time in prison.
02:49What we do not have authority to do, what we do not have any legal authority to do,
02:55is to just execute people from the skies without any evidence, without any trial,
03:04without any showing that they pose some sort of imminent danger to anybody.
03:10And yet that's what President Trump is doing.
03:13He's taken a metaphor, the war on drugs, and mistook it for an actual war and is now engaged in premeditated execution of civilians.
03:26We're not at war.
03:28No one even heard of this organization in Venezuela, Tren de Aragua,
03:33until President Trump declared that they were somehow attacking us and justifying his use of military force.
03:42So we're not at war.
03:43And even if we were at war, people on these boats are civilians.
03:49They are not attacking us.
03:50And under the international rules that govern armed conflict,
03:55you cannot target civilians unless they are actually engaged in hostilities against you,
04:02unless they are actually shooting against you.
04:05That is not what's going on here.
04:06These are sitting ducks, and we are simply engaged in cold-blooded murder of individuals who may or may not be drug smugglers.
04:18So, David Cole, you have actually Republicans as well who are condemning this,
04:22like Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul.
04:26And I want to ask, what if the situation were reversed, right?
04:31What if a foreign country was targeting U.S. ships, saying, without giving evidence,
04:37that these were drug-smuggling ships,
04:40and saying that their intelligence operations are now operating covertly in the United States,
04:48and there is—you know, and at least at this point, what, some 27 people have been killed?
04:54What do you feel U.S.—those in the United States can do to enforce the law?
05:04This is about the rule of law.
05:07It looks like Trump is imminently going to attack Venezuela.
05:12I don't know if this has diverted tension from the possibility of the release of the Epstein files,
05:17but he has so upped the ante here.
05:19No, absolutely.
05:23And, you know, there is a problem of drug smuggling across the Canadian border from the United States to Canada.
05:30But does that give Canada the right to start executing Americans who it believes might be engaged in smuggling drugs?
05:38Absolutely not.
05:40And if Canada did that to Americans, we would be up in arms.
05:44We would be essentially treating that as an act of war and an unprovoked act of war.
05:54So this is—under domestic law, it's murder.
05:58Under international law, it's a war crime.
06:02So, you know, it's great that Rand Paul is standing up against it, but we should all be standing up against it.
06:08The notion that the President of the United States can order premeditated murder of individuals who do not pose any sort of threat,
06:17who are not shooting at us, are not attacking us, is completely outrageous.
06:23And, you know, what troubles me is that, by and large, it has barely caused a ripple.
06:30I mean, a lot of things that Trump has done are deeply disturbing, weaponizing the Justice Department,
06:36pardoning the folks who were involved in January 6th, cutting off aid to all kinds of needy people around the world and here at home.
06:48Those are outrageous.
06:51But there's a difference.
06:52It's when you start killing human beings without any process whatsoever.
06:58You know, we have a death penalty in this country, but the death penalty can only be imposed,
07:04first of all, after a long and rigorous procedure to make sure that you haven't gotten the wrong person.
07:12And secondly, it can only be imposed where the defendant is convicted of murder.
07:19These individuals who have now been sent to the bottom of the sea by this president,
07:27if they were tried, at most would face a sentence of some period of years.
07:33There would be no death penalty authorized under the Constitution for these individuals, even assuming they're guilty.
07:40And yet President Trump is just taking the law into his own hands, turning a metaphor into an actual war,
07:47and now suggesting that he's going to authorize the CIA to use lethal force within Venezuela.
07:56It really just a completely outrageous action.
08:00And it's very disturbing to me that there's not more outrage within the Senate, within the House and within the American people.
08:08Well, David Kohl, another issue, of course, that people have commented on extensively is that, first of all,
08:15Venezuela is neither the main producer nor exporter of drugs to the U.S.,
08:21which has raised speculation about the motives of Trump targeting Venezuela rather than the countries
08:29who are either the biggest producers or exporters.
08:33What do you think explains that?
08:35Yeah, no question.
08:38This is a political action by the president against Maduro, against a weak country that he can—he feels that he has the—you know, he's a bully.
08:50He's a bully at home.
08:51He's a bully overseas.
08:52He feels that he can do this without significant pushback from Venezuela, and so he's doing it.
08:59It is not about stopping drugs from coming into this country.
09:03Drugs continue to come into this country across the border every day in much larger amounts than come on speedboats from Venezuela.
09:12This is about his flexing muscle, acting the bully that he is.
09:19But again, it is also about him committing homicide.
09:24There is a federal felony statute that makes it a crime to engage in homicide on the high seas,
09:31and that is what is happening.
09:33The other thing I'll say about it is it's deeply concerning that the military is going along.
09:38You know, if this recent commander of Southcom stepped down because of concerns, that's good.
09:45But what about all the other military people who are engaged in this action, which violates the most basic principles of the laws of war,
09:56which they are trained in and which they are obligated not to follow orders when they're ordered to do something that is blatantly illegal?
10:05David, two quick final questions.
10:09One, isn't the former Philippine president, Duterte, before the international court, on trial for doing exactly the same thing,
10:19murdering alleged drug traffickers?
10:21Yeah, and President Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution in the United States because the Supreme Court gave it to him.
10:34He does not have immunity from international prosecution, and nor do those individuals who have participated in these murders.
10:44They can be tried in international tribunals, and they should be.
10:49And finally, you have Pam Bondi, the chief enforcer of the law in this country, the U.S. Attorney General.
10:59As we move into a segment now on No King's Day, comparing how the U.S. is dealing with these so-called alleged drug traffickers,
11:09who they haven't presented evidence of before they kill, to Antifa, and saying that they are going to deal with Antifa in exactly the same way.
11:23I mean, this is a key point, that they are going to take out Antifa as they're bombing these boats and killing people.
11:32Your final comment, as a constitutional lawyer, on what this means, especially as we move into what could be the largest protest across the country in U.S. history.
11:44Well, I think this is an opening wedge, right?
11:49You start by targeting the vulnerable.
11:52You start by acting overseas.
11:54You start by going after immigrants.
11:57And then you turn it on your own people.
11:59And we've already seen him turning the military on his own people in Los Angeles, in Washington, D.C., in Chicago, in Portland.
12:11He is turning the military on his own people.
12:14And the rationale that he offers for being permitted to kill people without any trial, without any process on allegations, does not stop at the borders.
12:28And when you have the attorney general suggesting that similar tactics are going to be used against our own people, that demonstrates the slippery slope that we are on.
12:39And I think, you know, the most important thing we can do in stopping that slippery slope is go out on No Kings Day, is show this president that we don't want a president who kills illegally in our name.
12:54Well, thanks so much, David Cole.
12:56And we're going to go to the No Kings protest after the break.
12:59David Cole, professor in law and public policy at Georgetown University Law Center and the former ACLU national legal director.
13:06We'll link to your new piece in the New York Review of Books, Getting Away with Murder.
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