Middleboro Review and so on

  For over two months, the United States military — as directed by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — has been blowing up small boats in international waters near the nation of Venezuela. Numerous experts in military and international law are reaching the seemingly unavoidable conclusion that these unprovoked and unauthorized attacks constitute outright murder, flagrant war crimes, or both. Trump and Hegseth have “justified” these actions by claiming they are protecting Americans from illegal drugs. That patently artificial excuse would be almost laughable if it weren’t resulting in what amounts to summary executions of dozens of potentially innocent civilians from Venezuela (and possibly other countries) and the further erosion of America’s standing in the world. A few points to make (this list could be much longer): Even if every one of these boats was loaded with illegal drugs, each incident should have been handled as a crime, not as a pretext for Trump...