A deadly force, intensifying as it goes, claiming lives and destabilizing nations. Hurricane Melissa’s assault on the Caribbean was devastating. So is President Donald Trump's extrajudicial bombing campaign.

When Melissa hit Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, we saw heartrending pictures of homes underwater, families wading through muck, and hospitals with their roofs blown off. The compassion we felt was real, the urgency high, and for a news cycle or two, the media made the world pay attention.

But not too far from Melissa’s flood zone, another kind of disaster has been unfolding in comparative media quiet. This one is caused not by climate, but by our autocratic president, who gave us two month’s warning.

On September 23, in a thuggish address to the United Nations, Donald Trump explicitly threatened to blow “Venezuelan terrorist drug smugglers” “out of existence” in blatant disregard of international law or due process. Sure enough, as of the end of October, US forces had conducted 15 air strikes on multiple vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.

Politicians, pundits, and the press still have time to get the American people activated enough to stop this country’s next catastrophic war.

The White House thumps on about stopping narcotics flow, but we’ve seen no interceptions, no arrests, no narcotics cargo—only executions.

Melissa took, by an early count, 32 lives. Trump’s warships and drones have officially killed at least 61 people. The survivors and victims include nationals from Colombia,

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