Acclaimed historian Greg Grandin joins Democracy Now! to discuss the Trump administration’s attack on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in international waters, which killed 11 people earlier this week. President Trump and other senior officials have claimed without evidence that the boat was carrying narcotics from Venezuela to the United States and was operated by the gang Tren de Aragua, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. “It was pure murder,” says Grandin. “In many ways, it’s bringing the logic of Gaza into the Caribbean, in terms of unaccountability, impunity and an expansive notion of national defense to justify what is, in effect, just extrajudicial killing.”
For Trump, it’s all about the photo-op. He’ll order troops to randomly gun down some Venezuelans, so that carefully selected (and possibly doctored) footage can be shown on Fox and the other fascist media outlets. And he’ll crow about it as if something was accomplished other than mass murder.