The New SSS Blog

Murder

Posted Thursday August 20, 2026; Revised Saturday, August 30, 2026

Let’s say I have an adult daughter who is a heroin addict. I’ve spent years unsuccessfully trying to wean her off her addiction. One day I overhear her on the phone, arranging a delivery from her dealer at 12 noon in a nearby park.

I’ve seen how addiction has ravaged my daughter, and decide to take action.

At 11:30 I take my handgun out of its safe and load it with bullets. I walk to the park and wait. My daughter arrives, then her dealer. They walk to a secluded spot. I follow. My daughter takes 200 dollars from her purse, and the dealer pulls a small bag out of his pocket.

When my daughter takes the bag, I close the distance to the dealer, raise my handgun, and blow his brains out.

This is murder. First degree, premeditated murder.

That I was acting to protect my daughter is no defense. I could have alerted the police to arrest the dealer. I chose to kill him instead.

The Trump Administration has killed 221 people (so far) in the same way. They use drones, missiles, and attack planes to kill people on small boats thought to be carrying drugs.

This is murder. First degree, premeditated murder.

No law allowed me to kill my daughter’s dealer. No law allows the U.S. military to kill people - even people living outside the US – thought to be drug suppliers. I could have had the police arrest the dealer. The U.S. Navy could have intercepted the boats and arrested the crew if drugs were found.

Drug smuggling is a crime, but not a capital crime. Convicted drug smugglers can’t be put to death under US law. Killing a drug smuggler is murder. Trump and his collaborators are guilty of 221 counts.^[1]

These 221 murders will do nothing to stop the drug problem in the US. The killing of my daughter's dealer won't stop her from using; she’ll simply find another dealer. The murder of these 221 people won't stop US residents from using; other suppliers will step in. If the interminable “war on drugs” has shown anything, it’s that the problem isn’t the supply of drugs, it’s the demand for drugs. As long as that demand exists, it will be satisfied, no matter how many in the supply chain we arrest, imprison, or, if you're a murderer, kill.

I hope the next administration, or the governments whose citizens were murdered, prosecutes each and every individual responsible for these 221 deaths, from Trump and Hegseth at the top, through commanding officers who passed down the orders, to the men and women who pulled the triggers. They are murderers – "I was just following orders" is no defense – and ought to be punished.

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For those wanting more detail about the legality of these strikes, see the excellent analysis here.

^[1] The Trump administration attempts to justify these attacks by claiming that the United States is "at war" or "in an armed conflict" with these (alleged) drug suppliers. But the suppliers aren't a foreign state, and, more importantly, Congress has not declared war against them. If a US President had complete discretion to order deadly attacks on anyone illegally importing harmful products into the US, would killing cigarette smugglers be legal? Since illegal drug smuggling using ordinary commercial ships accounts for more illegal drugs entering the US than these small boats do, could the President bomb large commercial vessels? As noted in "The Boat Strikes Aren’t Part of a War. They’re Murder." (emphasis mine):

Within a wide range of injurious actions a rogue government might take, at the pinnacle sits the arbitrary taking of life, a devastating and irreversible act. That is why human rights law and U.S. domestic law assert strong protections over life and prohibitions on the arbitrary use of lethal force.

Trump’s boat strikes are a fitting example of a tyrannical government’s actions. The power he claims has no limiting principles. He is declaring groups - including fake ones - as enemies and adding them to a classified kill list; he has commanded the summary execution of hundreds of people; and the U.S. military has acted at his direction.

Shameful. Illegal. Murder.