by Gary Hooser
Eleven people are dead, blown to pieces because they were suspected members of a Venezuelan gang of drug traffickers.
There was no trial, no testimony, no jury, and no opportunity to deny the allegations.
Neither the names nor the ages of the 11 who were murdered have been revealed.
Whether any were drug dealers, or whether any drugs were actually on the boat that was obliterated by a “kinetic missile strike,” we will never know.
We DO know that nobody was offered a chance to surrender, to explain why they were on the boat, or to say anything at all.
They were simply blown to smithereens while President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth high-fived each other and laughed from the sidelines.
Yes, we are being ruled by murderers who care nothing about international law, the U.S. Constitution, human rights, or human life.
And you and I, who sit on the sidelines wringing our hands in despair, are also to blame.
Yes. Through our silence and inaction, we are complicit.
We sit and watch daily the slaughter and starvation of the children of Gaza.
Many of us shake our heads in disgust, and a few speak out boldly in social media, but most just sit silently, afraid to make a scene, offend, or be labeled antisemitic.
When university students began getting arrested just for speaking out, and immigrant neighbors started getting hauled away in the middle of the night by masked ICE agents, THAT was a tipping point.
Thankfully, the movement to stop the out-of-control MAGA train is now growing.
As it becomes increasingly impossible to look away, people are gathering by the thousands in towns and cities everywhere to organize and to publicly protest.
Meanwhile, the Trump authoritarian regime is moving forward, deploying troops in our cities to quell nonexistent criminal unrest.
Our U.S. Congress and federal courts seem impotent — unable or unwilling to take action.
Our President and his henchmen are now killing people without warning — people who’ve not been proven guilty of anything at all.
International law prohibits the arbitrary deprivation of life, which includes extrajudicial killing. This norm is codified in every major human rights treaty and has attained jus cogens status as a non-derogable norm in international law.
In the United States, the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) establishes civil liability for extrajudicial killing. We can and we must stop the insanity that now permeates all sectors of what we once called “civil society.”
As individuals and as a community, we must refuse to cooperate with the federal government’s actions when those actions violate the U.S. Constitution, international law, and/or our own state laws and constitutions.
And we must send a message loud and clear to the President, to our congressional delegation, our Governor, and to state and county leaders: Stop the extrajudicial killings.
Stop the ongoing slaughter of innocents in Gaza.
Join our European allies in defense of Ukraine. Stop ICE’s trampling of due process. Remove troops from our cities unless they’re requested by mayors and governors.
Follow the Constitution. Respect the balance of power between Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Judiciary.
Oh, and find RFK Jr. another job.
Government leaders at all levels must reject the temptation to “go along to get along,” hoping to be rewarded by that demented man at the top of the crazy, festering sore that is the U.S. Presidency.
And you and I?
We must make those calls, show up at those meetings, hold signs, and fill the streets.
And in 2026, we must vote out the enablers who would rather appease a tyrant than fight for our future.
GARY HOOSER is a former Hawaiʻi State Senator and Majority Leader.
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