U.S. Criminal Attacks on ‘Drug Boats’: A Prelude to Disastrous Assault on Venezuela

Interview with Matthew Hoh, associate director Eisenhower Media Network, conducted by Scott Harris

double tap boat strike

Since September, President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. military to wage a campaign to destroy small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean that the regime claims are carrying illegal drugs to the U.S., linked with Venezuela’s government.  As of Dec. 10, the Pentagon reports that it has attacked 23 boats, killing 87 people.  The administration argues that their attacks on these boats and the resulting deaths of those on board that they label as narco-terrorists, are legal under the rules of war. But legal experts say under U.S. and international law there is no current armed conflict with alleged drug cartels, that could justify these lethal attacks that may constitute war crimes

Controversy further erupted after a Washington Post report that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had given a verbal order to kill two survivors of a Sept. 2 U.S. boat strike. Hegseth later shifted responsibility for the order to Admiral Frank Bradley, while supporting the decision to kill all survivors aboard that boat.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Matthew Hoh, associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network, a former Marine captain, Iraq war combat veteran, and Afghanistan State Department officer who resigned in protest over U.S. war policy in 2009.  Here he takes a critical look at the U.S. boat attacks and the Trump regime’s announced intention to launch covert CIA operations and airstrikes against oil-rich Venezuela.

MATTHEW HOH: What we have with this concentration or this focus on these strikes that I believe occurred on Sept. 2, where two survivors of an initial strike were then killed 45 minutes later by a second strike. The focus on that, first of all, misnaming it referring to it as a war crime when it wasn’t a war crime. We’re not at war. These are not belligerents. These are not enemy combatants. This is murder. This was just the second set of murders that occurred after the first set of murders and that’s the way it should be viewed as.

And the problem you have is by this emphasis on the second strike, the “double tap strike” as it’s called, and whether this is a war crime or not, that takes away the discussion about the larger reality that these are all just 23 experiences of organized murder. It doesn’t get into the precedent that allowed it.

And I think that’s a major issue for us that we should be discussing in this country: “Is how do we arrive at this point?” And so if you don’t have the precedent established by the gross violations of civil liberties by the George W. Bush administration. If you don’t have the expansion of the drone program by Barack Obama, including the use of double tap strikes to kill first responders, the Obama administration’s killing of American citizens by drones, right? If you don’t have, say, the holding to account for war crimes, the aiding of the United States of Israel in the last two years in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. If you allow all these various illegalities, all these federal crimes to occur without anyone being held to account, well, that sets a precedent where here we are now, where of course the Trump administration is acting with impunity because they believe the precedent has established that they have no reason to be held accountable for anything, that what they’re doing is legal. And that’s the real danger.

And by having this conversation only being about those two men who were murdered after the other nine men or so were murdered—erasing this whole larger conversation of the legality of the whole action—you’re establishing precedent for this to occur again in the future.

SCOTT HARRIS: Matthew, the White House announced last week that they were declaring a “no-fly zone” over Venezuela. Obviously, the whole attempt at regime change in Venezuela to overthrow the government of Nicholas Maduro is tied in importantly with oil. Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world. I wonder if you’d talk about what you believe would be the consequences of the U.S. either delivering airstrikes in support of a ground force, maybe made up of opposition, politicians and militias that they might control, what kind of chaos and destruction do you think would be unleashed if the U.S. were to proceed with this plan to overthrow the government of Venezuela?

MATTHEW HOH: I think Libya in 2011 is a fair model to look at. I think certainly there are differences. The United States would not invade Venezuela in the manner in which it invaded Afghanistan or Iraq. So I think the Libya model is a fair model, as you described, Scott. Airstrikes, road strikes, cyber attacks, special operations forces, the use of mercenaries, anything to keep the cost down in terms of American casualties and then utilizing opposition forces on the ground to remove Maduro from power.
And we can imagine how messy that would be, how the strength of the Maduro government is well established in terms of whether or not getting people to turn out in the streets, whether or not getting people to show up for elections. Certainly the opposition has strength, too. So you can see that neither side is weak. And so you can imagine whether it’s a clean ousting of Maduro, and then the opposition takes power and then resistance that would come from those who are usurped, right?
Or the fact that Maduro comes out of power, there’s a vacuum and then you can imagine the fighting that goes on to fill that vacuum of power. Or you can see where Maduro’s not removed from power, right? And these airstrikes continue for however long and he suppresses the opposition and it’s bloody and it’s horrible, right? I mean, so you can imagine all these different scenarios. The thing I think that’s most important is that all of these scenarios bring about instability and suffering. And not just for the 30 million people in Venezuela, but for the entire region.

For more information, visit Eisenhower Media Network at eisenhowermedianetwork.org.

Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Matthew Hoh (21:55) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For periodic updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter to get updates to our “Hey AmeriKKKa, It’s Not Normal” compilation.

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