In a stunning revelation, two senior Pentagon officials have come forward with a stark accusation: President Donald Trump’s recent military strike on a small boat in the Caribbean was not a legitimate act of defense — it was, in their words, “a criminal attack on civilians.”
This wasn’t a strike on an armed threat. This wasn’t wartime. This was a small vessel, flying across the water with four engines, before it was blown apart in a military operation that the White House took days to explain.
According to Trump, the target was “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists.” He made that claim on Truth Social, doubling down with characteristic bravado. But behind closed doors, Pentagon officials are painting a very different picture—one that raises serious questions about legality, justification, and the role of the military in domestic drug enforcement.
“The U.S. is now directly targeting civilians,” one high-ranking official told The Intercept. “Drug traffickers may be criminals but they aren’t combatants. When Trump fired the military’s top lawyers the rest saw the writing on the wall, and instead of being a critical firebreak they are now a rubber stamp complicit in this crime.”
That’s not a comment from some fringe source—it’s coming from inside the building. And it echoes what legal experts and even members of Congress are now saying openly: this wasn’t just a bad call. It may have been flat-out illegal.
According to Todd Huntley, a legal advisor for Special Operations forces with over 23 years in uniform, the strike has no legal grounding whatsoever. “Tren de Aragua being designated as a foreign terrorist organization is a purely domestic law enforcement designation. It offers no authority for the military to use deadly force,” he explained. “Under international law, there’s no way this even gets close to being a legitimate use of force.”
This isn’t just splitting hairs. The distinction matters because the U.S. military is not authorized to carry out extrajudicial killings of civilians, even if they’re suspected of criminal activity—especially not in waters where the U.S. isn’t at war. No combat zone. No clear and present danger. Just an explosion—and now, a scramble for justification.
What’s more alarming is the implication that the legal reasoning was crafted after the strike happened. “The reasoning for it was created only after the attack,” the Pentagon sources told The Intercept—a chilling admission that suggests Trump acted first and asked for legal cover later.
And now, the man backing the move publicly—Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth—says this isn’t the end. “It won’t stop with just this strike,” he warned on-air Wednesday. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”
If this wasn’t just a one-off stunt, and more strikes are coming, then we’re looking at a potential pattern: U.S. military power being used outside of legal frameworks, justified by shaky post-facto explanations, with civilian targets in the crosshairs.
Experts interviewed by The Intercept didn’t hold back. They called Hegseth’s legal reasoning “flimsy, if not farcical.” And they’re not wrong. This isn’t how law, military force, or the Constitution are supposed to work.
