The Death Came Out of the Clear Sky

The men on the boat first saw it as a small dot on the horizon. An American drone, coming closer. They understood immediately. Panicked, they swung the engine around, the boat swerved in a hard curve back toward the Venezuelan coast. Maybe they thought if they were only fast enough, if they only reached the home waters... The first missile hit them midships. Some were thrown into the water, injured but alive. They fought among the burning wreckage. Then came the second missile. Targeted. Precise. Final. Eleven probably innocent men died on that September 2, 2025, in the Caribbean. Not in battle. Not during an arrest. They died while fleeing, executed by a superpower that had appointed itself judge, jury and executioner.

Today, fourteen days later, the horror repeated itself. Again a boat, again the turn back to the coast when they noticed their pursuer. Again it did not help. Three more dead. Donald Trump boasted on Truth Social like a big game hunter with his prey: "BE WARNED - IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!"

The problem: There is not a single solid piece of evidence that there were drugs on these boats.

In the first attack, the indications even condense into the opposite. The course data, which American officials have since confirmed themselves, show a boat turning back as soon as it notices the pursuit - not typical smuggling behavior, but the desperate reaction of people in mortal fear. A high-ranking Pentagon official called it bluntly a "criminal attack on civilians." The Trump administration, he said, had paved the way for these attacks by firing the top legal advisers of Army and Air Force at the beginning of the year. Research confirms it, conversations with relatives show a completely different picture.

The Venezuelan government, as much as one may distrust it, has a point: It claims that the killed were neither members of the Tren de Aragua gang nor drug smugglers. The Pentagon itself could not present conclusive evidence in internal briefings that the victims of the first attack belonged to Tren de Aragua. The briefings before the responsible congressional committees were canceled at short notice - just as critical questions about the legal basis and the evidence were pending.

What Trump presents as proof for the second attack is hardly to be surpassed in absurdity: "Big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place," he claimed. Large sacks full of cocaine and fentanyl that allegedly floated in the ocean after the attack. No photos of them. No recovery. No independent verification. Only the word of a man who demonstrably lied more than 30,000 times during his first term. The administration’s attempts at justification are a house of cards of propaganda and distortion of law. Anna Kelly, spokeswoman for the White House, claimed that Trump had "acted in accordance with the laws of armed conflict" to protect America from those who try to "bring poison to our shores." Which laws of armed conflict? The United States is not at war with Venezuela. Congress has not authorized military action against drug cartels. There is no resolution that legitimizes such attacks.

The legal situation is crystal clear: The attacks violate Article 2 paragraph 4 of the UN Charter, which prohibits any use of force between states except for self-defense or with the approval of the Security Council. They break Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits murder of persons not directly participating in hostilities. They ignore the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which obliges the president to report military operations within 48 hours and to obtain congressional approval after 60 days. They mock the US Constitution itself, which gives Congress, not the president, the power to declare war. Even if one accepted the hair-raising premise that drug smugglers were military targets - which they definitely are not -, the fact remains that US criminal law does not provide the death penalty for drug trafficking. How then can the same act in international waters justify summary execution?

Marco Rubio made it clear in a moment of frightening honesty what it is really about. The US could have seized the boats and arrested the crews, he admitted. "But," he added, "what will really stop them is when you blow them up." When Vice President JD Vance was asked whether the killing of civilians without due process was not a war crime, he answered with a cold-bloodedness that makes the blood freeze: "I don’t give a shit what you call it." These words are not slips. They are the essence of a new American doctrine: Power defines law. Whoever has the drones makes the rules. Whoever has the strongest army does not need laws.

The drug crisis with which Trump justifies these murders is real - 100,000 Americans die annually from overdoses. But Venezuela plays only a marginal role in it. The real facts: Venezuela produces practically no fentanyl, the deadliest drug in the US. Fentanyl is almost exclusively manufactured in Mexico with precursor chemicals from China. It is hardly different with cocaine: According to DEA data, 74 percent of cocaine shipments leave South America through the Pacific, mainly from Colombia and Ecuador. Only 24 percent take the route through the Caribbean. Venezuela itself is not a significant producer of cocaine.

The military escalation speaks its own language: 4,500 US soldiers and marines have been moved into the Caribbean, together with seven warships and a nuclear-powered submarine. Ten F-35 fighter jets were relocated to Puerto Rico. This is not an anti-drug operation. This is the preparation for a war that no one has authorized. Senator Rand Paul, himself a Republican, revealed a crucial detail: The attacks were carried out with drones. "The recent drone attack on a small speedboat more than 2,000 miles from our coast, without identifying the occupants or the contents of the boat, is in no way part of a declared war," he said. He called it what it is: murder.

The international reaction - or rather its absence - is a historic disgrace. No outcry from Berlin, where people otherwise like to talk about "values-based foreign policy." No protest from Paris, the city of human rights. No resolution of the United Nations. No condemnation by the European Union. This silence is not neutral. It is complicity.

Every day that Europe remains silent sends a signal to all despots in this world: If you are only powerful enough, you can kill whoever you want. Putin in Ukraine, Xi in Taiwan, every warlord and dictator takes note: International law is dead when it becomes inconvenient for the West. And where are the former Jedi knights of human rights, Amnesty International? They have become a social media shell, a shadow of their former strength. What used to be courageous campaigns with courageous people, unpleasant truths and pressure on governments, is today often nothing more than a stream of Instagram posts, hashtags and watered-down press releases. Amnesty appears full, bureaucratic and aloof - more concerned with maintaining its own brand than uncompromisingly addressing real human rights violations. We see it ourselves when it comes to deportations or concrete individual cases: There is almost nothing, no presence, no combative support. Instead, responsibility is pushed back and forth while those affected remain defenseless.

This change is fatal. An organization that once was considered a moral authority now acts in digital self-staging, while the reality of violence, torture, disenfranchisement and state abuses continues unchecked. It is as if they had traded their sharpness for likes. But human rights cannot be saved with hashtags and likes, only with clear positions, uncomfortable truths and real engagement on the ground. By unlearning this, Amnesty opens the field to those who trample on the law - and makes itself complicit in a world where breaches of international law become normal.

The United Nations appear just as powerless in this matter as Amnesty. Instead of finding clear words and naming the breach of international law by the US, the UN loses itself in diplomatic phrases, appeals and "concern" statements. When Russia bombs in Ukraine, there are resolutions and special sessions, when Israel acts in Gaza, debates and investigations follow - but when the US strikes militarily without a legal basis, there is silence. This silence is partisanship, it encourages a terror president like Trump because it signals: Power stands above law. In doing so, the UN undermines its own reason for existence - to secure peace, to uphold law and to protect people from violence - and becomes the cloak of a world order that degenerates into a farce.

This failure of the democratic world is water on the mills of extremists. Tommy Robinson in Britain can point to the hypocrisy of the elites. The AfD in Germany can present itself as the only "honest" force. Marine Le Pen, even if she is politically restricted at the moment, in France can say: Look, the established politicians are weak puppets. And tragically they are not entirely wrong. When democratic governments betray their own core values, when they are too cowardly to call crimes by their name only because the perpetrator is an ally, then they are indeed weak. The long-term consequences are devastating. If "narcoterrorist" as a label is enough for an execution without trial, where does it end? Today it is alleged smugglers from Venezuela. Tomorrow maybe migrants from Mexico? The day after tomorrow political opponents who are simply declared "terrorists"?

Senator Jack Reed, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, warned: "No president can secretly wage war or carry out unjustified killings - that is authoritarianism, not democracy." He demanded that Congress must "demand answers, enforce transparency and hold this administration accountable before it plunges us into another senseless war."

Senator Adam Schiff announced that he would introduce a resolution under the War Powers Act to "reclaim Congress’s power to declare war." He warned: "These unlawful killings are only putting us at risk" and could lead other countries to target US forces without justification. But while Congress is debating, Trump is creating facts. Bloody, irrevocable facts. Fourteen people are dead. Killed without trial, without evidence, without even the attempt of a legal justification.

History will mark this September 2025 as a turning point. As the moment when the painstakingly built international legal order after World War II began to die. Not with a big bang, but with the silence of the decent, while the unscrupulous murder. There are no drug packages floating in the Caribbean. There float the corpses of international law. And with them the hope that humanity has learned from the catastrophes of the 20th century. Trump has not only killed fourteen people. He has killed the idea that law is stronger than power. And the world watched. Silent. Cowardly. Complicit.