The attack was announced hours after Trump threatened Iranian vessels near the Strait of Hormuz with “the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea.”

The US military on Monday attacked a vessel in the eastern Pacific accused, without evidence, of engaging in “narco-trafficking operations.” The strike killed at least two people and brought the known death toll from the Trump administration’s lawless boat-bombing spree in international waters to more than 170.

As has been its custom since the boat bombings began last September, US Southern Command posted an unclassified video clip of the attack on social media. SOUTHCOM described the bombing as “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” but did not provide any evidence against the boat’s operators.

e Trump administration is very happy to continue to post snuff films of these lawless killings but not defend the legal merits of these strikes.”

Last month, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights held a hearing during which experts testified to the illegality of the boat strikes.

“The administration’s desire to play imperial superpower in the region cannot be a reason to completely displace the foundations of international law,” Angelo Guisado, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the commission.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump threatened to expand his administration’s illegal boat-bombing spree to Iranian vessels that “come anywhere close” to the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz that the president ordered over the weekend.

Trump wrote on social media that Iranian vessels seen approaching the blockade “will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea.”

“It is quick and brutal,” the president added.

Common Dream’s work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

  boat, bombing, pacific