The U.S. Killed 8 People on the Pacific Ocean Yesterday. That’s Literally All Our Government Told Us.

EDIT: Speaking after classified briefing from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. Chris Murphy (CT) posted on Twitter that the Trump administration had “no legal justification for these strikes, and had no national security justification for these strikes. What they did admit is that there’s no fentanyl coming to the United States from Venezuela.”

Yesterday, the United States military killed eight people in small boats on the Pacific Ocean. According to the U.S. Southern Command, which gleefully posted its snuff footage on Twitter by way of announcing the news, the eight men involved were “narco-terrorists,” members of “designated terrorist organizations” who were fair targets under the ongoing Southern Spear campaign, which has struck at least 25 boats, killing at least 95 people since the autumn. By way of evidence in support of its claims, the U.S. Southern Command offered … nothing. Which “designated terrorist organization” was involved? We don’t know. Where did these boats come from? We don’t know. Where were they going? We don’t know. What drugs were they alleged to be carrying? We don’t know. It was one of the deadliest single days of the campaign to date, and the people carrying out the killing don’t think that the American people have any right to know how, why, or to whom literally any of this is happening. The boat strikes and deaths continue, and we’re simply left in the dark, told to trust blindly in an administration headed by one of the most well-documented liars in human history.

Were these strikes related to the U.S. pressure campaign on Venezuela, and its attempt to depose autocratic leader Nicolás Maduro, which has put the country on the brink of war with the U.S.? Sure, maybe, but again, we don’t even know that. Notably, these boat strikes were in the Pacific Ocean rather than the Caribbean, where the majority of the deadly strikes in Southern Spear have occurred. In the Caribbean strikes, the U.S. announcements have typically contained at least some shred of a narrative, with the minions of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at least claiming that a boat had departed from Venezuela carrying drugs, etc. But the nation of Venezuela doesn’t have a Pacific border, so what exactly is the DOD and U.S. Southern Command even claiming was happening here? That tiny Venezuelan ships sailed all the way around Cape Horn with their drug cargo? That they passed through the Panama Canal? That they portaged all the way across Colombia? Or are these boats that were headed eastward, coming in from Oceania or China? Were they Colombian boats? Ecuadorian? Why not tell us these things? Back in October, when Hegseth first proudly announced that the U.S. was blowing people up in the Pacific Ocean, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said it was a Colombian vessel belonging to a “humble family.” On another strike, Petro said “The attack on another boat in the Pacific, we don’t know if it’s Ecuadorean or Colombian, killed people. It is murder. Whether in the Caribbean or Pacific, the U.S. government strategy breaks the norms of international law.”

Said “strategy” was reportedly summed up, providing justification for deadly U.S. action, in a secret Justice Department memo, which to date the U.S. public has not been allowed to peruse, although organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights are currently attempting to sue, asking a judge to order the memo’s release. “The public deserves to know how the Trump administration has justified the outright murder of civilians as lawful, and the grounds on which it purports to provide immunity from prosecution for personnel who carried out these crimes,” reads the testily phrased suit.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner: “There is very grave concern in Congress about these strikes in general. These individuals are not being subject to criminal prosecution, and if we they were subject to criminal prosecution, there’s no capital punishment.”

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) Dec 14, 2025 at 9:51 AM

U.S. lawmakers, on the other hand, have been far less curious about all of these missing details, especially when said lawmakers are members of the Republican party. The likes of Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas have been all too happy to provide justification for murder even when they haven’t had actual evidence presented to them to support basic claims of the U.S. government and military, such as proof that there are actually drugs on the vessels. Cotton, referring to the Sept. 2 “double tap” boat strike that critics have called a war crime perpetrated by Hegseth’s military, said that the country had been carrying out “righteous strikes,” and that the 41 minutes he watched of survivors bobbing in the water did indeed call for two more missiles, because “I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs bound for the United States, back over so they could stay in the fight.” It was alright, he went on to say, because the men–who had just survived multiple missile strikes–“were clearly not incapacitated,” and “they were not distressed.” For as we all know, there’s nothing inherently distressing about having the boat underneath you blown up.

In the case of Monday’s newest deadly strikes, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will apparently be participating in classified briefings for Senators and members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, so perhaps some more details will find their way to reporters after those meetings have concluded. Then again, perhaps we’ll be told absolutely nothing else, and then told to like it. Yeah, that sounds somehow more likely.

I just came out of the briefing with Sec. Rubio and Sec. Hegseth on the military strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. Here's what I learned.

Bottom line: there is no legal or national security justification for what they're doing. Not even close. pic.twitter.com/8gUU0sHKwu

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 16, 2025