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      Trump is turning the US military into a political prop | Jan-Werner Müller

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      Of all the reasons Americans have been losing sleep recently – hunger, canceled flights, Democrats betraying them – the most ominous has to do with an institution usually absent from discussions about the fate of our democracy: the military. No need to be starry-eyed about US imperialism and what has long been criticized as an ever-expanding “national security state”; one can still appreciate that it is a good thing if generals do not take sides in politics – just ask anyone from the many countries around the world where they do. But a pattern is becoming clear: Donald Trump is purging the higher ranks based on his prejudices and demands for loyalty; the military is being turned into a partisan instrument and a political prop; more dangerous still, the president is instilling the logic of impunity that has come to characterize his entire approach to governance.Figures deemed too close to Trump critics, such as Gen Mark Milley, have seen promotions delayed or canceled; those targeted by far-right influencers might face professional backlash. Trump used Maga-fied soldiers as background to a Fort Bragg speech, violating longstanding norms against instrumentalizing state institutions for partisan purposes. Every violation becomes a test of who will be loyal: critics – the potentially disloyal – will identify themselves.With every illegal order, such as attacking boats in the Caribbean, he manages to have those who carry them out compromise themselves morally and potentially render themselves liable for criminal prosecution, thereby generating an incentive for members of the military to make sure Trumpists stay in power. At the same time, prominent pardons – most recently of those trying to steal the 2020 election – establish the promise of impunity. As plenty of observers have pointed out, under Trump, law will protect the Maga faithful but will not bind them; those declared the president’s enemies will be bound by the law, but not be protected by it. It is not an accident that Pete Hegseth’s first 15 minutes of fame consisted of passionate pleas on Fox to let those accused of war crimes go unpunished.Hegseth has carried the primacy of the performative from TV into the Pentagon. Just think of his self-branding through dress and over-the-top speeches littered with alliterations – suggesting that words drive thinking, as opposed to thinking leading to choosing the right words (most prominently, there is “lethality” having to replace “legality”). The great 18th-century writer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft drew a surprising parallel between stereotypes about women and a certain type of soldier in standing (and largely underemployed) armies. She observed that soldiers might acquire manners before morals: “Like the fair sex, the business of their life is gallantry. They were taught to please, and they only live to please.”The point is not that Hegseth’s ideal soldiers are effeminate; rather, it is that the song and dance about a “warrior ethos” is pure made-for-TV-affectation, as if hand-to-hand combat were the essence of 21st-century warfare. Central Command becomes subject to the logic of “central casting” (Trump’s own words when looking at the officers Hegseth assembled in Virginia in September). The Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz’s memorable dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means is replaced with something like “war is the continuation of fitness and fashion by other means” (as Hegseth made it a priority to remove personnel deemed fat).Yet sending soldiers into Democratic cities should not be dismissed as purely performative. It serves to normalize the image of soldiers on the street; it blurs the distinction between military and civilian life, and, as the Israeli scholar Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis has argued, it sends a message that citizens can be treated as enemies. In the process, it is also becoming increasingly unclear which uniformed personnel belong to which unit and who is really authorized to do what, since the Pentagon and homeland security are explicitly encouraged to be in “lockstep” as part of a shared “homeland mission”. Trump is merging everyone into something the political scientist Dan Moynihan terms the “omniforce”, the kind of omnipresent army, combined with what James Madison called an “overgrown executive”, which the American founders rightly dreaded.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe effect is twofold: impunity is made more likely, since those who cannot be identified will not be held accountable, and the omniforce will feel like Trump’s personal creation and loyal guard (as one investigation revealed, at least six of Trump’s political appointees now live in military housing). The image of Trump as padrone was reinforced by his trying to grab funds appropriated by Congress for other purposes in order to pay soldiers during the shutdown – not to speak of having a pro-regime oligarch fund the military with private wealth. Other aspiring autocrats have made similar moves, though at a much smaller scale: Viktor Orbán has instituted a special counter-terror unit, headed by his former bodyguard and aide, that is widely seen as primarily loyal to the Hungarian prime minister.Many remember the great democratization wave of the 1970s and 1980s, forgetting how easily things might have turned out differently. We are often oblivious to how critical the role of the military was in transitions to democracy. Not only because juntas were willing to relinquish power but also because individuals made the right moral choice. Augusto Pinochet, after losing a plebiscite in 1988, had been ready to declare an emergency and keep himself in power by force. One general, Fernando Matthei, rejected the plan and told journalists that Pinochet had lost the plebiscite. The US is not Chile, but the question of what those in uniform will do in pivotal moments for democracy is, alas, becoming more relevant by the day.

      Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University More

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      US attacks another alleged drug boat in Pacific, killing three, as Trump signals possible talks with Maduro

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      The United States conducted another attack on an alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific on Saturday, killing three people aboard, the Pentagon said on Sunday.“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” the US Southern Command announced in a post on social media.It came as Donald Trump said the US may open talks with Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president, who faces escalating pressure from Washington amid a huge US military buildup in the Caribbean.“We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we’ll see how that turns out. They would like to talk,” the US president said on Sunday, in one of the first signs of a possible path to defusing the increasingly tense situation in the region.The US has accused Maduro of ties to the illegal drug trade, which Maduro denies.The US Southern Command’s post on Sunday said the boat was in international waters when it was struck by the Southern Spear joint taskforce. It did not give details on where the vessel was traveling from or what organization it was associated with.The latest operation was the 21st known attack on drug boats by the US military since early September in what it has called a justified effort to disrupt the flow of narcotics into the US.The strikes have killed more than 80 people, according to Pentagon figures. Lawmakers in Congress, human rights groups and US allies have raised questions about the legality of the attacks.The Trump administration has said it has the legal authority to carry out the strikes, with the justice department providing a legal opinion that justifies them and argues that US military personnel who carry out the operations are immune from prosecution. The administration also has not publicly explained the legal justification for the decision to attack the boats rather than stop them and arrest those on board.The latest deadly strike came as the US navy announced its most advanced aircraft carrier had arrived in the Caribbean Sea on Sunday in a display of power that raised questions about what the new influx of troops and weaponry could signal for the Trump administration’s intentions in South America.The arrival of the USS Gerald R Ford and other warships rounds off the largest buildup of US firepower in the region in generations. With its arrival, the “Operation Southern Spear mission includes nearly a dozen navy ships and about 12,000 sailors and marines.The carrier strike group, which includes squadrons of fighter jets and guided-missile destroyers, transited the Anegada Passage near the British Virgin Islands on Sunday morning, the navy said.Rear Adm Paul Lanzilotta, who commands the strike group, said it would bolster an already large force of American warships to “protect our nation’s security and prosperity against narco-terrorism in the western hemisphere”.Adm Alvin Holsey, the commander who oversees the Caribbean and Latin America, said in a statement that the American forces “stand ready to combat the transnational threats that seek to destabilize our region”.Holsey, who will retire next month after just a year on the job, said the strike group’s deployment was “a critical step in reinforcing our resolve to protect the security of the western hemisphere and the safety of the American homeland”.In Trinidad and Tobago, which is only 7 miles (11km) from Venezuela at its closest point, government officials said troops had begun “training exercises” with the US military that would run through much of the week.Trinidad and Tobago’s minister of foreign affairs, Sean Sobers, described the joint exercises as the second in less than a month and said they were aimed at tackling violent crime on the island nation, which has become a stopover point for drug shipments headed to Europe and North America. The prime minister has been a vocal supporter of the US military strikes.The exercises will include marines from the 22nd expeditionary unit, who have been stationed onboard the navy ships that have been looming off Venezuela’s coast for months.Venezuela’s government has described the training exercises as an act of aggression. It had no immediate comment on Sunday on the arrival of the aircraft carrier. More

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      Trans air force members sue Trump administration over denied pension

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      A group of 17 transgender US air force members has sued the Trump administration for denying them early retirement pensions and benefits.The complaint, submitted in federal court, describes the government’s move against them as “unlawful and invalid”.The legal action follows the air force’s confirmation it would deny early retirement benefits to all transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of military experience, a decision that effectively pushes them out of the military with no retirement support at all.“The Air Force’s own retirement instruction provides that retirement orders may only be rescinded under very limited circumstances, none of which were present here,” the lawsuit says.Among the named plaintiffs are Logan Ireland, Ashley Davis, Kira Brimhall and Lindell Walley.Glad Law, one of the advocacy groups behind the lawsuit who is representing the affected service members, said the revocation of early retirement support had ripped away financial support and benefits these families were counting on after long years of excellent service to their country.“These service members will lose $1-2m in lifetime benefits, jeopardizing their families’ economic security,” Glad Law said in a statement. “The action also strips the airmen and their families of access to TRICARE, the military health insurance program, which would have provided access to civilian health care providers beyond VA [Veterans Administration] facilities.”The lawsuit came amid the latest escalation by the Trump administration to prohibit transgender people from joining the military and to remove those already serving. The Pentagon has argued that transgender people are medically unfit, something civil rights activists have pushed back on and say constitutes illegal discrimination.In March, a federal judge blocked Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from military service. US district judge Ana Reyes in Washington DC ruled that the order likely violated their constitutional rights. Pentagon officials have said in the past that 4,200 service members were diagnosed with “gender dysphoria”, which they use as an identifier of being transgender.The air force, however, has stood apart in its enforcement of policies that go beyond just separating troops from military service. As well as rescinding early retirement benefits, the service rolled out a new policy in August to deny transgender members the right to argue before a board of their peers for the right to continue serving.The most recent lawsuit, the latest in a string, is challenging that.According to the court documents, the “plaintiffs’ retirement orders remain valid and effective”. Their legal team are calling for these “orders to be reinstated” and pushing for “their military records be corrected accordingly”. The lawsuit also says “interest, costs and attorney’s fees” must be accounted for and “further relief as the court deems just and proper.”Ireland, a master sergeant in the air force with 15 years of service, told the Associated Press: “The military taught me to lead and fight, not retreat.“Stripping away my retirement sends the message that those values only apply on the battlefield, not when a service member needs them most.” More

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      US army gynecologist accused of secretly filming patients during exams

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      Military officials in Texas have suspended a US army gynecologist over allegations he inappropriately touched and secretly filmed dozens of women during appointments at an on-base medical center.A civil lawsuit filed in Bell county on Monday alleges that Blaine McGraw, a doctor and army major at Fort Hood, repeatedly groped a woman during a series of seven or eight consultations, and took intimate videos and photographs of her that were later found on his phone.The 13-page lawsuit, seen by the Guardian, also alleges that senior officers allowed McGraw to continue to work despite receiving complaints of sexual misconduct against him over several years and at another army medical center in Hawaii.“By doing so, the army gave cover to a predator in uniform,” the lawsuit states.“This case exposes a shocking betrayal committed within the walls of a US army hospital. McGraw … used his position of trust to sexually exploit, manipulate, and secretly record women under his care. What should have been a place of healing became a stage for abuse.”Attorney Andrew Cobos, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiff, the wife of an active duty service member identified by the pseudonym Jane Doe, said he represented at least another 45 women who came forward with similar allegations.A military official told NBC on condition of anonymity that at least 25 women had contacted the army’s criminal investigation division after the images were found on McGraw’s phone.“Upon information and belief, investigators recovered thousands of photographs and videos from his phone, taken over the course of multiple years, depicting scores of female patients, many of whom remain unidentified,” the lawsuit said.It said the first complaints were filed against him “years earlier” when he worked at the Tripler army medical center in Honolulu, Hawaii, but army leadership “laughed off credible allegations”, which allowed his misconduct to “thrive” in his new job in Texas.McGraw was suspended from his position at Fort Hood’s Carl R Darnall army medical center on 17 October, although an army statement announcing the opening of an investigation did not identify him by name – referring to him only as a “medical provider”.In an updated statement released on Monday, the army provided more details of the timeline of its investigation and said it had identified and attempted to contact all patients the suspended doctor saw during his time at Fort Hood.Among them was the plaintiff, who received a call from investigators asking her to come in for an interview. When she did, the lawsuit states, she learned McGraw recorded “nearly the entirety of her final appointment, including both the breast and pelvic examinations, without her knowledge or consent”.She was shown several screenshots from videos recovered from McGraw’s phone from the appointment three days earlier – images the lawsuit states “unmistakably depicted” her body.After the interview with investigators, after which she said she was handed a generic pamphlet with phone numbers for various army departments, the woman sat in her car and cried.She was “disoriented and disarrayed”, the court papers said, with “her sense of safety shattered”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSeveral of McGraw’s alleged victims spoke at a press conference recently outside the gates of Fort Hood, criticizing the army’s response to complaints against him.“It wasn’t the act itself that hurt me, it was the way it was handled afterwards – the indifference, the lack of humanity,” one woman said.Cobos said he also planned to file a separate action under the federal Tort Claims Act to hold the army responsible for what he said was a “culture of silence and indifference” that allowed McGraw to operate.“This lawsuit is the first step in shining a light on this misconduct and restoring justice. The army needs accountability, and that only happens through transparency,” he said.The Guardian contacted Daniel Conway, an attorney representing McGraw, for comment.In a statement to NBC, Conway said his client had been “fully cooperative” with the investigation.“We’ve expressed to the government our concern that plaintiffs’ attorneys are holding press conferences citing inaccurate information apparently learned from government sources,” he said.“At this point it’s best to let the investigation complete before we comment.” More

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      ‘Godfather of the Trump presidency’: the direct through-line from Dick Cheney to Donald Trump

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      He spent the twilight of his career denouncing Donald Trump as a threat to the republic he loved. But Dick Cheney arguably laid the foundations of Trump’s authoritarian takeover of the United States.The former vice-president died on Monday aged 84. The White House lowered flags to half-mast in remembrance of him but without the usual announcement or proclamation praising the deceased.Cheney, who served under George W Bush for eight years, was one of the most influential and polarising vice-presidents in US history. Some critics said they would never forgive him for pushing the US to invade Iraq on a false pretext but suggested that his opposition to Trump offered a measure of redemption.Perhaps Cheney’s defining legacy, however, was the expansion of powers for a position that he never held himself: the presidency. Cheney used the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks as a pretext to assert a muscular executive authority that Trump now amplifies and exploits to challenge the system of checks and balances.Some commentators perceive a direct through-line from the Bush-Cheney administration’s policies – such as pre-emptive war, warrantless spying and the creation of novel legal categories like “enemy combatant” – to the Trump administration’s actions against immigrants, narco-traffickers and domestic political opponents.“Dick Cheney is the godfather of the Trump presidency,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “Trump is unchained because Dick Cheney had been at war for half a century against the restraints put in place after Vietnam and Watergate. He believed that action was more important than following constitutional rules.”The debate over the balance of power between the White House, Congress and courts did not start with Cheney. In 1973, the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr published The Imperial Presidency, arguing that the executive branch had begun to resemble a monarch that often acted without the consent of Congress.However, by the time of the Ronald Reagan administration, young conservatives felt the presidency had become hamstrung. This sentiment culminated in a 1989 American Enterprise Institute volume titled The Fettered Presidency, articulating a doctrine to regain what they saw as constitutionally appropriate powers.As a young chief of staff in the Gerald Ford administration, Cheney experienced the fallout of the Watergate scandal. He concluded that a sceptical Congress, reacting to the abuses of Richard Nixon, had gone too far, leaving the presidency dangerously weakened.Jacobs said: “Dick Cheney took it as his mission to tear all that down. He saw the efforts to return accountability in the 70s after Watergate and Vietnam as profoundly and dangerously limiting presidential power. He talked openly about Congress self-aggrandising and warned that the country would face ruin.”Cheney believed that new constraints such as the War Powers Act, a 1973 law that limited the president’s power to commit US forces to conflict without congressional approval, had hobbled the executive, making it nearly impossible for a president to govern effectively, particularly in national security.In a 2005 interview, he said: “I do have the view that over the years there had been an erosion of presidential power and authority, that it’s reflected in a number of developments – the War Powers Act … I am one of those who believe that was an infringement upon the authority of the president.“A lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam, both, in the 70s served to erode the authority, I think, the president needs to be effective especially in a national security area.”Cheney’s ideas were formalised as the “unitary executive theory”, which asserts that the president should possess total and personal control over the entire executive branch. This effectively eliminates the independence of a vast array of government institutions and places millions of federal employees under the president’s authority to hire and fire at will.As Bush’s No 2, Cheney was dubbed “Darth Vader”. When America was attacked on 9/11 with nearly 3,000 people killed, the trauma created a political climate in which extraordinary measures were deemed necessary. Cheney turned a crisis into an opportunity to broaden executive power in the name of national security.He was the most prominent booster of the Patriot Act, the law enacted nearly unanimously after 9/11 that granted the government sweeping surveillance powers. He championed a National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping programme aimed at intercepting international communications of suspected terrorists in the US, despite concerns over its legality.The Bush administration also authorised the US military to attack enemy combatants acting on behalf of terrorist organisations, prompting questions about the legality of killing or detaining people without prosecution at sites such as Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.This doctrine is now being used by the Trump administration to justify deadly strikes on alleged drug-running boats in Latin America. It claims the US is engaged in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and has declared them unlawful combatants.Last month the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, wrote on social media: “These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than al-Qaida, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”In 2002 a set of legal memorandums known as the “torture memos” were drafted by John Yoo, deputy assistant attorney general, advising that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the “war on terror”.Jeremy Varon, author of Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War: The Movement to Stop the War on Terror, said: “That championed the unitary executive theory and then said as an explicit argument anything ordered by the commander in chief is by definition legal because the president is the sovereign.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“In its own day it was considered a dubious if not a highly contestable legal theory, but the Trump administration is almost pretending that it’s settled law and then using expansive ‘war on terror’ powers to create a war on immigrants, a war on narco traffickers and even potentially a war on dissenting Americans as they protest in the streets.”Varon, a history professor at the New School for Social Research in New York, added: “The great irony is that Trump represents, on the one hand, the repudiation of the neoliberal neocon globalists like Cheney and Bush that entangled America in forever wars. But now America First is being weaponised, making use of ‘war on terror’ powers to capture, brutalise, dehumanise and kill people without any sense of legal constraint.”As an architect of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Cheney pushed spy agencies to find evidence to justify military action. He asserted that then Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and had ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network. Officials used that to sell the war to members of Congress and the media, though that claim was later debunked.The government’s arguments for war fuelled a distrust among many Americans that resonates today with some in the current Republican party. But it did not lead to a significant pushback from Congress aimed at preventing future presidents making a similar mistake.The trend for executive power has been fuelled by an increasingly polarised and paralysed Congress, creating a vacuum that successive administrations, including those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, have filled with executive action, unwilling to cede powers once gained.The ultimate battle for the unitary executive theory is now being waged within the chambers of the supreme court. Recent rulings from the court’s conservative majority signal a shift away from longstanding precedents that have, for nearly a century, placed limits on presidential authority.Since taking office in January, Trump has unleashed a barrage of unilateral presidential actions. He has waged a campaign to remove thousands of career government workers from their posts and shut down entire federal agencies. His deployment of national guard troops to major US cities and attacks on law firms, media organisations and universities have earned comparison with autocrats around the world.Cheney himself did not approve. He became a severe and outspoken critic of Trump, arguing that the president’s actions went “well beyond their due bounds”, particularly regarding the integrity of the US electoral system. His daughter, Liz Cheney, became one of the most prominent opponents of Trump within the Republican party but eventually lost her seat in the House.Ken Adelman, a former US diplomat who knew Cheney since working with him the 1970s, was not surprised that he took a stand. He said: “Trump stood for everything Dick did not stand for and that was foreign policy, you support your friends and you oppose the totalitarians, strong alliances, strong defence and free trade.“He was very uncomfortable and then finally turned and absolutely opposed Donald Trump with every fibre of his bone, which shows that conservatives can oppose Trump and should oppose Trump because he’s not conservative and he’s not decent and he’s not honourable.”Some commentators contend that while Cheney operated to enhance the power of the institution of the presidency for policy and national security reasons, Trump has leveraged that power for self-aggrandisement, pushing beyond boundaries that Cheney himself recognised.Robert Schmuhl, a professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, said: “Clearly in his time as vice-president, he pushed that envelope almost as far as anyone could. But the distinction is that Cheney was trying to enhance the power of the presidency for policy and security reasons, while Donald Trump seems to be pushing for greater power in the presidency that also has a personal dimension for him.”Others agree that, along with the rhymes between Cheney and Trump, there are significant differences. Jake Bernstein, co-author of Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency, said: “You can draw a line between Cheney and Trump. Trump has taken that to the max; as they say in Spın̈al Tap, he’s turned it to 11. It’s a qualitative difference.“Yes, Cheney believed that power had tilted too much towards Congress and had to go back to the executive and certainly believed that, particularly in issues of war-making, the executive should be completely unfettered. He also understood a lot of this balance between Congress and the executive was based on norms that were elastic and could be stretched in one direction or another.“But he was absolutely at heart an institutionalist and he didn’t want to break those norms. He didn’t want to destroy those institutions. He would have been appalled by the neutering of Congress that’s going on under this current Trump administration. Basically Trump is president and speaker of the House at the moment, and that would have offended Cheney.” More

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      US strikes another alleged drug boat bringing death toll from campaign in Latin America to 70

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      US forces struck another alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean, killing three people, defense secretary Pete Hegseth has said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s controversial campaign to at least 70.The US began carrying out such strikes – which some experts say amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers – in early September, taking aim at vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.The US strikes have destroyed at least 18 vessels so far – 17 boats and a semi-submersible – but Washington has yet to make public any concrete evidence that its targets were smuggling narcotics or posed a threat to the United States.Hegseth released footage on X of the latest strike, which he said took place in international waters like the previous strikes and targeted “a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization.”No US forces were harmed in the operation, he said.“To all narco-terrorists who threaten our homeland: if you want to stay alive, stop trafficking drugs. If you keep trafficking deadly drugs – we will kill you,” he wrote.Like some previous videos released by the US government, a section of the boat is obfuscated for unspecified reasons.President Donald Trump’s administration has built up significant forces in Latin America, in what it says is its campaign to stamp out drug trafficking.So far it has deployed six Navy ships in the Caribbean, sent F-35 stealth warplanes to Puerto Rico, and ordered the USS Gerald R Ford carrier strike group to the region.On Thursday, the US Senate blocked a Democratic war powers resolution that would have forced Donald Trump to seek congressional approval to launch strikes in Venezuela, allowing the president to remain unchecked in his ability to expand his military campaign against the country.The administration has developed a range of options for military action in Venezuela, according to two people familiar with the matter, and Trump’s aides have asked the justice department for additional guidance that could provide a legal basis to strike targets other than boats.The governments and families of those killed in the US strikes on alleged drug boats have said many of the dead were civilians – primarily fishers.Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly accused Trump of seeking to oust him.US bombers have also conducted shows of force near Venezuela, flying over the Caribbean Sea off the country’s coast on at least four occasions since mid-October.Maduro – who has been indicted on drug charges in the United States – insists there is no drug cultivation in his country, which he says is used as a trafficking route for Colombian cocaine against its will.The Trump administration has said in a notice to Congress that the United States is engaged in “armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels, describing them as terrorist groups as part of its justification for the strikes.With Agence France-Presse More

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      Three killed in US military strike on alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean

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      The US military has carried out another lethal strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said.Hegseth said on Saturday the vessel was operated by a US-designated terrorist organization but did not name which group was targeted. He said three people were killed in the strike.It’s at least the 15th such strike carried out by the US military in the Caribbean or eastern Pacific since early September.In a posting on X, Hegseth said the vessel “was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics.”The US military has now killed at least 64 people in the strikes.Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States. He has asserted the US is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the 11 September 2001 attacks.US lawmakers have been repeatedly rebuffed by the White House in their demand that the administration release more information about the legal justification for the strikes as well as greater details about which cartels have been targeted and the individuals killed.Hegseth said in the posting that “narco-terrorists are bringing drugs to our shores to poison Americans at home” and the Defense Department “will treat them EXACTLY how we treated Al-Qaeda.”Senate Democrats renewed their request for more information about the strikes in a letter on Friday to secretary of state Marco Rubio, director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Hegseth.“We also request that you provide all legal opinions related to these strikes and a list of the groups or other entities the President has deemed targetable,” the senators wrote.Among those signing the letter were senate minority leader Chuck Schumer as well as senators Jack Reed, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Warner, Chris Coons, Patty Murray and Brian Schatz.The letter says that thus far the administration “has selectively shared what has at times been contradictory information” with some members, “while excluding others”.Earlier Friday, the Republican chair and ranking Democrat on the senate armed services committee released a pair of letters sent to Hegseth written in late September and early October requesting the department’s legal rationale for the strikes and the list of drug cartels that the Trump administration has designated as terrorist organizations in its justification for the use of military force. More

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      Trump threatens to go into Nigeria ‘guns-a-blazing’ over attacks on Christians

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      Donald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria as he stepped up his criticism that the government was failing to rein in the persecution of Christians in the west African country.“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”The warning of possible military action came after Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, earlier on Saturday pushed back on Trump announcing the day before that he was designating the west African country “a country of particular concern” for allegedly failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.In a social media statement on Saturday, Tinubu said that the characterization of Nigeria as a religiously intolerant country does not reflect the national reality.“Religious freedom and tolerance have been a core tenet of our collective identity and shall always remain so,” Tinubu said. “Nigeria opposes religious persecution and does not encourage it. Nigeria is a country with constitutional guarantees to protect citizens of all faiths.”Trump on Friday said “Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” and “radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter”.Trump’s comment came weeks after the US senator Ted Cruz urged Congress to designate Africa’s most populous country a violater of religious freedom with claims of “Christian mass murder”.Nigeria’s population of 220 million people is split almost equally between Christians and Muslims. The country has long faced insecurity from various fronts including the Boko Haram extremist group, which seeks to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law and has also targeted Muslims it deems not Muslim enough.Attacks in Nigeria have varying motives. There are religiously motivated attacks targeting both Christians and Muslims, clashes between farmers and herders over dwindling resources, communal rivalries, secessionist groups and ethnic clashes.While Christians are among those targeted, analysts say the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in Nigeria’s Muslim-majority north, where most attacks occur.Kimiebi Ebienfa, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reiterated the commitment of Nigeria to protect citizens of all religions.“The Federal Government of Nigeria will continue to defend all citizens, irrespective of race, creed, or religion,” Ebienfa said in a statement on Saturday. “Like America, Nigeria has no option but to celebrate the diversity that is our greatest strength.”Nigeria was placed on the country-of-particular-concern list by the US for the first time in 2020 over what the state department called “systematic violations of religious freedom”. The designation, which did not single out attacks on Christians, was lifted in 2023 in what observers saw as a way to improve ties between the countries before the then-secretary of state Antony Blinken’s visit. More