Was it a traditional wooden Trini fishing boat, not even a “go-fast” boat?
So video of strike #1 used for propaganda is unclassified but video of strike #2 is classified?
According to a statement issued by the Former JAGs Working Group, if the alleged order to “kill everybody,” including incapacitated survivors, was part of a “non-international armed conflict,” as the Trump Administration claims, then it and its execution would be a war crime; if, on the other hand, the operation was not part of an armed conflict of any kind, then the order and its execution would be murder.[19]
According to multiple officials with direct knowledge, Hegseth issued a pre-operation verbal directive: “kill everybody.” This wasn’t battlefield shorthand for “take out hostile actors.” It was a blanket, preemptive instruction to treat every person on the boat as a dead man walking.
Under the law of armed conflict, that type of directive is indistinguishable from a no-quarter order — one of the clearest, oldest, and most absolute prohibitions in international law. The Hague Regulations (1907) and the Geneva Conventions (1949) make this explicit. A no-quarter order is per se illegal the moment it is uttered. Every modern military teaches that such an order must be refused.
But no one refused.
The first missile destroyed the vessel. The drone feed stabilized. Two men, wounded and shipwrecked, clung to debris. They were plainly hors de combat — out of the fight. That status gives them full legal protection regardless of whether this was war, law enforcement, or something in between.
Adm. Frank Bradley, watching the live video from Fort Bragg, ordered a second strike to kill the survivors. According to witnesses, he said openly that he was doing so to “comply with Hegseth’s directive.”
That second strike is the fulcrum of legal liability. It was not a mistake. It was not confusion. It was an execution carried out in the open, on video, in clear violation of bedrock law.
--------—
Alternatively, if the Trump administration’s claim that this is part of an armed conflict is found to be unsustainable —as most international-law experts say — then firing a missile at helpless civilians is murder under U.S. criminal law and an extrajudicial execution under international human-rights law.
michaeldsellers.substack.com/...
A Dishonorable Strike: Indulging all assumptions in favor of the administration’s boat strikes, killing helpless men is murder.
ogc.osd.mil/...
betting market for killing
x
If the Venezuelan sailors were enemy combatants, then the 2nd strike is a war crime.
If the Venezuelan sailors weren’t enemy combatants, then both strikes are criminal murder.
It’s that simple.
— Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer.com) Nov 30, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Trump Authorized “Double-Tap” Strike That Experts Say Is a Likely War CrimeTrump ordered a second strike on a busted drug boat after U.S. surveillance saw survivors fighting for their lives in the water. That “double-tap” is almost certainly illegal under international law, because there was no armed conflict* the people targeted were civilians or noncombatants, and killing the wounded or shipwrecked is one of the clearest, oldest war crimes on the books. The UK is so alarmed it halted intelligence sharing to avoid being complicit. If the reporting holds, Trump didn’t authorize a counter-narcotics operation. He authorized an unlawful killing that fits the definition of a war crime.
References[1]
CNN — “US military carried out second strike in Caribbean, killing survivors” — https://cnn.com/2025/11/28/politics/us-military-second-strike-caribbean
This must be why?
