IT IS A fundamental concept of justice that someone suspected of a crime should receive due process: Knowledge of their alleged offense. The ability to plead their case. A fair trial.
Yet on Sept. 2, the U.S. military launched a lethal drone strike on a boat traveling through the Caribbean Sea. All 11 people on board were killed. No charge, no trial. Just execution. Since then, we’ve seen an escalating U.S. military campaign that has killed dozens of individuals from countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. The Trump administration alleges that the individuals are smuggling drugs, but since there was no due process, we don’t know.
These strikes are leaving mothers without their sons and creating widows and orphans in their wake. The New York Times reported that “Chad Joseph, a 26-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago who had been living in Venezuela in recent months, told his family he would soon be taking a short boat ride back home.” He never arrived. The wife of another victim said that her husband, a fisherman, had “gone to work one day and had never returned.”
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