All posts tagged "Caribbean"

Trump administration officials are slamming their colleagues in the Pentagon after a new report downplayed casualty counts from recent military strikes, per a new report.

The Department of Defense turned over an annual report to Congress with a tally of civilian casualties from military strikes in 2025, and one anonymous Trump administration official called it "a f------ joke," according to reporting by The Intercept.

The report addresses allegations of civilian harm during 2025 military attacks in Somalia and Yemen, as well as boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, where the Pentagon insists it's fighting drug trafficking, The Intercept reported....

The Trump administration continued its illegal bombing of small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific on Friday, killing two and leaving one survivor in its third such strike in five days.

US Southern Command announced the attack on social media, claiming that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

“Under [President Donald] Trump’s illegal orders, the US military conducted its third boat strike in five days against supposed drug smugglers, killing at least two. Each of these is a murder. Drug suspects should be arrested and prosecuted, not summarily executed,” former Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth wrote on social media Saturday in response to the news....

A pilot was fuming Monday after avoiding a near-collision midair with a military plane while President Donald Trump accelerated the pressure in the Caribbean.

A JetBlue pilot leaving the island of Curaçao for New York told air traffic controllers he had to change elevation after nearly crashing into a U.S. Air Force plane in the south Caribbean, The Washington Post reported.

“We almost had a midair collision up here,” the JetBlue pilot said in audio reviewed by The Post. ...

A top intel committee lawmaker warned Thursday that the video showing a second strike on an alleged drug boat off the coast of Venezuela appeared to confirm the U.S. committed a war crime.

The video from a Sept. 2 attack in the Caribbean Sea was shown to lawmakers during a briefing with Admiral Frank M. 'Mitch' Bradley and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper spoke with Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who said the video was one of the worst things he has seen. ...

A Democratic lawmaker said Thursday that Republican lawmakers have begun to separate themselves from President Donald Trump.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) told CNN anchors Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown that Republicans have voiced their concerns over the president's recent moves and have questions about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's most recent comments on the Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela.

Merkley, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, argued that the administration's response to the killings is not a satisfactory response for him. He described what the lawmakers have learned about the second strike, where "two helpless men clinging to debris" were killed. ...

An analyst Wednesday slammed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, describing him as a weak showman with a "need for constant coddling" that has now been exposed.

Salon's Amanda Marcotte wrote in an opinion piece about how Hegseth's "warrior ethos" has shown his cowardice and called him "the most delicate snowflake" among MAGA.

Hegseth, who has denied that he ordered a second strike on survivors in the Caribbean Sea on Sept. 2 after a first strike on an alleged drug boat off the coast of Venezuela — although a Washington Post report revealed otherwise — said during a press conference Tuesday that Adm. Mitch Bradley ordered the second attack. ...