December 1, 2025 - 7:45pm
Outrage is mounting in Washington over a 1 September US drone strike on a Tren de Aragua cartel vessel. The boat, carrying 11 people, was hit by a US missile while travelling from Venezuela to Trinidad. According to a Washington Post report on Friday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the military to kill everybody aboard the boat. After a first strike left two survivors, a senior US Admiral then ordered a second strike to eliminate them.
Several prominent Democrats and Republicans in Congress now say the second strike on the two survivors may have constituted a war crime, given that it targeted apparently defenceless individuals who no longer posed a threat.
These are largely inflated concerns.
First, for most lawmakers, the driving force isn’t the laws of war but domestic politics. Democrats see an opportunity to cast the Trump administration as impulsive as the midterm campaigns intensify. Republicans, meanwhile, view their objections as leverage — pressure aimed at forcing Hegseth to engage more constructively in shaping new defence legislation, strategy, and budgets. Until now, he has resisted that collaboration.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, we have seen no evidence to suggest that Hegseth actually ordered a second strike against the boat. While the military now appears to be portraying Hegseth’s original “kill everybody” order as a command to keep striking the boat until all aboard were dead, it is entirely possible that he meant only to order the vessel’s destruction. It would be one thing if Hegseth said “kill everybody” and then left the operation to the military. It would be very different had Hegseth been told of the two survivors and then issued a second follow-up order to kill them. Civilian leaders often use broad language such as “take them” or “annihilate them” to authorise military strikes.
The Admiral who issued the second follow-up order apparently did so because he believed there was a credible risk that the two survivors and their drug cargo might be secured by fellow cartel members. It bears noting here that the boat was struck just off the Venezuelan coast and thus in a position where rescue by fellow cartel members was at least feasible. This undermines the narrative that the two survivors had effectively surrendered and no longer posed a threat.
In addition, contrary to the media narrative, the Trump administration has a very strong legal case to argue that Tren de Aragua is engaged in hostilities against the United States and thus constitutes a lawful target for military force. Alongside allies such as the vicious Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Tren de Aragua is engaged in a vast drug-smuggling effort that destroys American lives, undermines the rule of law across the Americas, and brings significant violence onto American streets.
Put simply, Tren de Aragua terrorises American society and the societies of key US allies. And with law-enforcement efforts proving wholly inadequate to contain its drug-fuelled criminality, cartels conducting major US-linked operations qualify as legitimate targets for US military action.
The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has apparently now introduced protocols to provide for the rescue of any future survivors. That is positive. Still, portraying this episode as an unspeakable atrocity pushes the boundaries of military law past any reasonable limit.
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