Trump's war on drugs is fraught with danger for him

Back in the dim, distant mists of September, Donald Trump decreed that the US Department of Defense, sitting under the purview of the Pentagon, should be rebadged as the Department of War – ideally said with a deep, macho roar like in those action movie trailers.

- JON SOPEL

But something else happened in September that has led some to say that perhaps it should be re-rebadged. This time, as the Department of War Crimes.

Three months ago, the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered a dramatic change in policy to tackle the flow of drugs coming from Venezuela. The US military would be deployed to blow any vessel suspected of carrying narcotics out of the water. A high-speed motor boat was off the Caribbean coast when it was blown to smithereens by a US missile. Hegseth asserted these were drug runners - or narco-terrorists - and this was sending a strong message. Of that there is no doubt.

No evidence has yet been provided that they were drug traffickers, or that they were part of a cartel, or that there were drugs on board, or that the boat was on its way to the US. There has been no oversight of this legally contentious operation. Donald Trump delightedly reposted on his Truth Social platform the video of the vessel meeting its high explosives end as the missile struck its target. The assumption was that all the sailors/narco-baddies aboard went down with the boat.

But last Friday, The Washington Post had its own explosive (sorry) version of events. According to the paper, two of the crew had survived the first missile strike. The allegation is that Hegseth had decreed there should be no survivors, and so a second missile was fired to kill the two sailors left clinging to the wreckage. In the most ghastly military euphemism for making sure that everyone is dead, the operation is being described as a “double tap”.