In the infamous courtroom colloquy in “A Few Good Men,” Colonel Jessup screams, “You WANT ANSWERS?” Lieutenant Kaffee, matching Jessup’s volume and intensity, yells back, “I WANT THE TRUTH!” To which Jessup returns fire: “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
At the conclusion of a closed committee briefing on December 17, 2025, Representative Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, issued a perfunctory declaration that “the Pentagon had fully met ‘his’ expectations for Congressional oversight” of what are now, since September 2, 2025, 35 attacks by United States Armed Forces of alleged Venezuelan drug boats. Those attacks, without any reported hostilities directed toward the United States by enemy combatants, have resulted in the killing of at least 123 occupants of the alleged drug boats.
Simply put, Rogers proclaimed that he was “done” and would not require further accounting from the Pentagon. Hard stop! Case closed! Senator Roger Wicker, although marginally more curious, in the end, likewise swallowed the same gibberish from the Trump Administration, thereby ignoring the constitutional duty of Congress to require legitimate and timely oversight.
But, it is elemental that it is the American people, the ultimate sovereign, who own the government of the United States of America. And, contrary to the disingenuous exclamations of two Congressional Committee chairs, they most assuredly can handle the truth, even if Congress can’t. Especially now, with another attack, this time on Venezuelan soil, amidst whisperings of regime change, the American people have the ultimate right to know all of the available evidence there is that allegedly provides facts sufficient to justify a resort to armed force on foreign shores and a potential ground war on top of the extrajudicial killings of at least 123 people who appear to have been unarmed on vessels in “international waters."
What evidence proves that dangerous drugs were on those alleged drug boats? What evidence is there that the occupants of those boats were "enemy combatants” engaged in hostilities against the United States? And, what foreign state or nation did the alleged enemy combatants represent, which must be confirmed before they can be treated as enemy combatants? What evidence is there that any of the people who were vaporized on the aforementioned boats were ever engaged in "hostilities against the United States?” And finally, what evidence was there, or is there, of any “armed conflict or resort to armed force” initiated by the occupants of the alleged drug boats?
Without "enemy combatants,” acting on behalf of another state or nation and without “resort to armed force” and “hostilities" by those enemy combatants, there cannot be legally or factually "an armed conflict” against the United States. If that’s the case, then it is inescapable that there is no lawful basis for the overpowering use of force and the unlawful killing of the occupants of the alleged drug boats by American Armed Forces..
The Secretary of Defense boasts and, without regret, describes the attacks and the taking of human lives occurring on his watch as if this misadventure is akin to a video game. Under the Law of Armed Conflict, however, it is quite the contrary. The killing of another human being, in these circumstances, can only be justified in self-defense or military necessity and there’s been no evidence revealed of either. What does appear at this moment, however, is that the Secretary of Defense is directing the tactics of vigilantes at the expense of the Rule of Law.
A servile failure of duty can occur either by commission or omission. But it matters little in this instance because the result is just the same. The majority of the members of Congress with the authority and power to require oversight have, so far, slavishly acquiesced to the Administration’s refusal to reveal the evidence justifying the use of lethal force and the killing of at least 123 people – people who were not, by legal definition or factual specification, enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States on behalf of another nation or state.
Adding insult to injury, there is not a single allegation that any of those 123 people killed in, or clinging to, the alleged drug boats had ever brandished or displayed a single weapon, fired a single shot, or taken any offensive action whatsoever against the United States before they were completely obliterated, and with them, evidence that may have revealed the truth.
Now, in addition to these inexplicable deaths at sea, the United States Armed Forces invaded Venezuela and initiated hostilities and armed warfare to enforce a New York indictment against Venezuela’s President Maduro and his wife, once again without any prior notice to, or authorization from, Congress. Such was an act of war and a clear violation of the United Nations Charter, which is, under the United States Constitution, the”Supreme Law of the Land.”The American people “want the truth” and It’s long past the time for members of Congress to faithfully honor their oath and constitutional duty to provide it.
Marc Racicot is a former U.S. Army captain who served with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He is a former Montana attorney general and governor, and former chair of the National Republican Party. Greg Wilson is a former U.S. Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary.
