On September 2, a speedboat traveling in international waters near Venezuela, about 1,000 miles from U.S. shores, was incinerated in a missile attack by the U.S. military. The U.S. says that 11 people were killed and there were no survivors. 

Pause for a minute and think about this. We don’t know who these people were: Migrants fleeing Venezuela’s deep economic and political crisis? Desperate youth who got drawn into illegal activities as the only way to survive? Ruthless criminals? Tourists enjoying a day on the wide Caribbean Sea? 

And we never will know, because their lives were snuffed out, without trial or warning, and their scorched remains strewn about the surrounding sea.

But, according to the U.S., these people were transporting illegal drugs. 

According to the U.S.’s current story, the destination of these drugs was the U.S. (At first, Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the boat was heading to Trinidad, but when contradicted by Trump, he changed his story.)

According to the U.S., these 11 people were all members of the gang Tren de Aragua (which, according to the U.S. is a “Foreign Terrorist Organization”).

There is no reason to believe any of the claims of these pathological liars. This is a regime that has already abducted well over 200,000 immigrants— most of whom have lived and worked in the U.S. for years or decades. Nearly 200,000 have already been deported. Another 60,000 are currently imprisoned under inhumane conditions in the mushrooming network of rural ICE detention centers. All this mayhem and destruction of people's lives has been justified with absurd claims that they were “rapists,” “murderers” and “gang members,” using as "evidence" things like an “Autism Awareness” tattoo or wearing Chicago Bears gear.¹

And in this latest situation, the U.S. has yet to offer up even that kind of ridiculous evidence to justify their mass murder on the high seas. We—the whole world—are supposed to “take their word for it.”

But just for a moment, let’s assume that they are telling the truth—that they genuinely believed that the people on the boat were Tren de Aragua members, that it contained illegal drugs and was headed for the U.S.

Even if that were true, the attack on this boat is a grievous crime under U.S. and international law. Drug trafficking is a crime, but it is not punishable by death, even if you are convicted in a fair trial, much less “assumed” to be guilty based on your presence on a boat. If you want to claim, as Trump does (even though his own intelligence agencies have refuted it) that Tren de Aragua is an arm of the Venezuelan government and is “at war” with the U.S… it is still a war crime under international and U.S. law to kill noncombatants such as the people in the speedboat.

Speaking of “terrorists,” listen to what Marco Rubio said about this attack: “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up—and it’ll happen again.” In other words, the U.S. could have stopped the boat, seized the drugs (if there were any) and arrested people identified as traffickers. But it preferred to execute them. Why? The purpose is terror—to send a message to anyone or any entity that the U.S. will wantonly slaughter anyone it even suspects of opposing its perceived interests.

A Very Dangerous Precedent

What the Trump regime is aiming to do is not stop drug trafficking. No, it is aiming to “legitimize” an utterly illegitimate way of operating. 

And what is that MO? First identify a target, for whatever reason. Then, demonize that target, using lies and half-truths or just relying on the ignorance and prejudice of the MAGA followers. Then designate them as a “terrorist” or “a threat to the United States.” And once you do that, you can carry out extreme violence against these targeted people/groups, up to and including mass murder, without any trial, or any judicial review of any kind before or after their sentence is carried out.

This is further opening the gates of a fascist hell, akin to what Adolf Hitler unleashed in Europe in the last century. 

Maybe you’re thinking “they can get away with this overseas, but they wouldn’t or couldn’t do it within the U.S.” Well, ask yourself this:

How big a leap is it from what happened off the coast of Venezuela to declaring groups of youth in the hood to be “dangerous gangs,” that can be “identified” by hairstyles or tattoos, and that have to be “rounded up” to make the city “safe”? 

On the day he was inaugurated, Trump signed an executive order declaring drug cartels to be “foreign terrorist organizations” that operate “both within and outside” the United States. On that basis, he declared a “national emergency.” In other words, with this order Trump alleges that the problem of drug crime, even in the U.S., is a “foreign” problem with domestic “agents,” who should be crushed with extreme measures… like summary executions.

The International Implications—MAGA Embraces Completely Lawless Aggression Against Sovereign Nations

In his social media message @BobAvakianOfficial REVOLUTION #114, “Defeating Trump/MAGA fascism: Looking to some future elections... or working now to mobilize millions around this powerful unifying demand: The Trump fascist regime must go!” Bob Avakian makes this very important point:

Fascism is a qualitatively different way that this system enforces its rule over people. 

Trump fascism is a regime that openly and aggressively strips away basic rights and blatantly declares that there is no rule of law and due process of law other than what it dictates, and that raw destructive power is what must rule in the international arena, without even the pretense of adherence to international law or concern about the sovereignty, or even the right to exist, of less powerful peoples and countries.

While this attack happened in international waters, the primary target in a very real sense was not “Tren de Aragua” but Venezuela, and particularly its president, Nicolás Maduro, who Trump claims is not the “legitimate” president. 

The U.S. has been targeting Venezuela for “regime change” ever since Hugo Chávez was elected president in 1999, and this has continued since Maduro succeeded Chávez in 2013. Chávez posed as a socialist and anti-imperialist, and to an extent Maduro has also. Neither of them is, or was, socialist. They tried to maneuver for a “better deal” within the overall imperialist system, including through supporting and forming alliances with similar countries and other imperialist powers, especially Russia.²

So U.S. rulers continue to regard Venezuela as a “thorn in the side” of U.S. imperialism, and have backed multiple coup attempts. In the first four months of 2019 alone, there were three U.S.-backed attempts to overthrow Maduro. Along with this—and as a way to weaken the government and turn the population against it—the U.S. has launched wave after wave of economic sanctions, including restricting the international sale of Venezuela’s chief product, petroleum. The result has been economic devastation—millions of people are unable to meet life’s most basic needs like water, food, fuel, and shelter. The country’s health system has collapsed. In 2019, 14 percent of all children under five suffered from acute malnutrition, and 57 percent of pregnant women were malnourished. These figures have almost certainly risen since.

All this is the background for the huge migration crisis—an estimated seven million Venezuelans have fled their country, many landing in the U.S. where Trump has demonized and attacked them as if they were all members of a “foreign terrorist organization.” The amount of suffering ordinary people have been through is indescribable.

In this context, Trump’s focus on a single Venezuelan speedboat has to be understood in part as preparation for possible major moves against Venezuela. The U.S. has moved “at least eight warships, a nuclear-powered submarine, surveillance planes and over 4,500 Marines and sailors” into the region. All this is supposedly to “crackdown” on cartels. But rather obviously, the target is Venezuela and the Maduro government, with the utterly lawless attack on the speedboat signaling that more murderous lawlessness is in store.

Trump's complete violation of international and U.S. law is illegitimate. And it brings extreme danger to the people of Venezuela, people in the U.S., and the whole world. This fascist regime must be STOPPED, NOW. 

Everyone who recognizes this life-or-death, future-in-peril danger needs to take up, and spread, the call initiated by RefuseFascism.org and open to all:

The Time has come for... THE FALL of the TRUMP FASCIST REGIME, Beginning November 5, 2025, Washington DC.

Fascism is not a looming threat. It is upon us now. Humanity’s only hope is for the decent people of this country to rise in our millions. We must drive the Trump Fascist Regime from power. Beginning November 5, the one-year anniversary of Trump’s election, flood DC in nonviolent protest.