Viewpoint: Normalizing murder?
Sneed Collard
The videos showing US attacks on Venezuelan boats full of people should sicken every American watching them. I don’t care what party you are from or how the current administration tries to re-brand the boats’ occupants as terrorists—and convince us that we are a nation at war.
These attacks are murder. Plain and simple. They are so far beneath what America stands for that we’ve got to ask, “What country do we really live in?”
As I write this, the Trump administration has carried out 22 attacks, killing at least 87 people. Supposedly, all of these people are engaged in narcotrafficking, yet the administration has offered no remotely convincing evidence who was on these boats—or that they were transporting drugs.
Maybe they were, but since when do we use our military might to summarily execute people who are suspected of a crime? These are not ISIS or Al Queda fanatics bent on destroying the United States. They are potential criminals suspected of trying to profit from an insatiable American demand for narcotics.
No one is suggesting that drug trafficking isn’t an abhorrent activity that leads to the deaths of thousands of Americans. My own family has lost a loved one to illegal narcotics. Yet drug trafficking is a crime, not terrorism. These “boat people” have not directly attacked Americans, and certainly a few—perhaps most—of them are likely to be innocent of transporting drugs. To find out if they are innocent or guilty, the US has ample resources to catch, detain, and investigate every boat that leaves Venezuelan shores.
So why don’t we? Perhaps it’s just too bothersome. More likely, Trump is using these indiscriminate attacks to intimidate Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Again, why? There are many reasons to dislike Maduro, but knowing Trump’s thirst for power and wealth, ask yourself: Is it any coincidence that Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world? Whatever Trump’s reasons, they do not justify the murder of Venezuelan citizens, even if they are suspected of crimes—and our service members should never be ordered to carry out these strikes.
Unfortunately, Montana’s representatives have largely fallen in step with justifying these attacks as a war, and rebranding the boat occupants as terrorists. Ryan Zinke maintains that he trusts the military has evidence to prove that the occupants of these boats were guilty (The Spokesman-Review, Dec. 4)—but again, no evidence has been offered. As for Zinke’s claims that we have no other ways to carry out drug enforcement, they are patently ridiculous—and I’m sure he knows it.
Besides being morally beneath all Americans, these attacks lay the foundation for something far more sinister—habituating Americans to the idea that it’s okay to kill people who are merely suspected of crimes or have been labeled enemies. Trump has a long history of using labels to dehumanize those who oppose him, including other Americans.
Achieving this dehumanization is an important first step in robbing other Americans of our rights and dignity. What happens when Trump, Hegseth, and others in power decide that they just can’t be “bothered” with granting the rest of us due process—especially those who disagree with them?
The administration’s other recent actions strongly suggest this is a real possibility, one that every American should contemplate no matter which side of the political spectrum we sit on. Meanwhile, join me in contacting Ryan Zinke, Troy Downing, Steve Daines, and Tim Sheehy and demanding that they stand up for real American values—and halt these brutal, indiscriminate attacks.
Sneed Collard lives in Missoula.