Warships of the United States Naval Forces Southern Command patrol in the Caribbean. Photo from Facebook.

In reading historian Marcus Rediker, one can learn a great deal about the “Golden Age of Piracy.” Far from being cruel brutes, pirates often practiced an egalitarian proto-socialism, with loot being spread more or less evenly between the captain and crew. Pirates also did not discriminate on the basis of race. Many pirates were Black victims of slavery who escaped for the short and exciting life of a buccaneer.

Despite Rediker’s impressive scholarship, the common pop culture image of pirates—violent, barbarous, cutthroat—has remained. It’s that image appearing in my mind recently, but not because I have been rereading Treasure Island or rewatching Captain Blood. Rather, it has been because of US attacks on sailors in the Caribbean. Policymakers may lack the eye patches, peg legs, or parrots, but their conduct is of the same calibre.

On day one of his term, Donald Trump signed an executive order designating drug cartels “foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated foreign terrorists.” At the time of writing, three Venezuelan vessels have been attacked via US military drone, said to have been drug smugglers. In total, seventeen people have been killed.

Legally, this is all quite dubious. Smuggling drugs is not a death penalty crime in the United States, and there has been precious little evidence that sailors on the ships are guilty of anything. Brian Finucane, a former legal expert for the State Department, told The Intercept that the attacks are “flat-out murder.” The Venezuelan government has

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