Having deployed a naval flotilla to the Caribbean on the pretext of “stopping the drugs trade” (a global business overwhelmingly run by and in the interests of themselves), the US imperialists once again revealed their true face by assassinating at least 11 Venezuelan workers in international waters on 2 September and three more on 15 September – with no mandate or authority and without even the pretence of a trial or legal proceeding.
Regarding the 2 September attack, secretary of state Marco Rubio admitted, in his best mafioso style, that instead of interdicting the boat, “on the president’s orders, we blew it up” to “send a message”. After the 15 September attack, US president Donald Trump alleged that the targeted boat had contained “big bags of cocaine and fentanyl”, which were left floating in the ocean after the vessel was destroyed.
No verifiable evidence has been presented to back up this claim, or to support the assertion that these were “drug traffickers” and “members of the Tren de Aragua narcoterrorist group” as President Trump described the assassinated mariners on his social media accounts. Nor would such evidence have given US forces the right to use lethal force against them – as even their own legal experts have acknowledged.
According to interior and justice minister Diosdado Cabello, the Venezuelan government has conducted its own investigation “and the families of the missing persons are there, seeking their next of kin. When we asked in the towns, none of them were members of the Aragua Train, nor were they drug traffickers or carrying drugs.
“A murder has been committed against a group of citizens,” he told a plenary session of the Chavista movement broadcast on state-run Venezuelan television (VTV). He also described the US authorities’ assertions that the vessel was loaded with drugs as a “tremendous falsehood, a tremendous lie”.
“Imperialism confessed to murdering 11 people without a trial, saying they had killed those people because they were from the Aragua Train. And how did they identify them as being from the Aragua Train? Did they have a chip, a QR code, and read it from above, in the dark?” (Venezuela denies that those on the boat destroyed by the US were drug traffickers, Swissinfo.ch, 11 September 2025)
No ‘war’ justification, just a series of premeditated murders
Meanwhile, within the establishment itself, unease at such cavalier gangsterism is also being voiced.
“Sarah Harrison, a former Pentagon advisor and current analyst for the International Crisis Group, categorically questioned Trump’s narrative of the war. ‘A war framing confuses the issue. This is not a war,’ she explained. ‘US forces went out and committed murder,’ she stated.
“For Harrison, there is no justification that allows the use of force:
“‘There was no armed attack on the United States that would allow for the USA to use force in self-defence. There is no armed conflict between the United States and any cartel group or any Latin-American country. A foreign terrorist designation of any of these groups does not change that. It does not authorise force against those groups.’”
“The jurist also emphasised the illegal nature of the events:
“‘The killing of all 11 of these men was illegal. This was a premeditated murder of suspected criminals – by definition, civilians – based on the facts [assertions] provided by the administration themselves.” (Although the US is not at war, it commits murders in the Caribbean by Misión Verdad, Orinoco Tribune, 20 September 2025)
Once again, the imperialists have appointed themselves as judge, jury and executioner – a self-appointed ‘global policeman’ whom no other country has the ability to call to account.
This isn’t about drugs – it’s about crushing any nation that dares to resist US imperialism. Ever since the days of the Opium wars waged by British merchants to force drugs onto the Chinese people, the drugs trade has always been a tool of imperialist domination and a pretext for imperialist violence.
In today’s world, the hypocrisy is blatant: the same imperialists who endlessly condemn their opponents for (usually imaginary) “human rights violations” are openly gloating about their ability to murder fishermen with impunity.
The only way the imperialists will be stopped from pursuing such criminal methods is by the resistance of their own working people – these are the ones who can truly hold their exploiters to account and end their bloodthirsty tyranny at home and abroad.
Solidarity with the Venezuelan people defending their sovereignty against imperialist aggression!
Death to Anglo-American imperialism!
