Caribbean attacks shred rule of law (Letters to The Republican)

Of all the shameful and horrifying actions authorized by the Trump administration – and there have been too many to count – bombing small vessels in the Caribbean Sea has got to be among the ignominious worst. “Alleged” drug smuggling is a key word in these unprovoked attacks. Without offering any evidence of smuggling, the U.S. military has so far killed 83 people on small boats in the Caribbean this fall, some of them fishermen simply going about their business, their bereaved family members say.

Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated in October that the lethal U.S. bombings constitute a violation of international law and that the deaths are a form of “extrajudicial killing,” or the deliberate government killing of an individual without the legal authority of a c