Imagine you are a country faced with drug smuggling by a nearby neighbour. As a government, what might you do about this?

More than 20 years ago, a group of people met and deliberated in Australia. Next, they began executing a plan to smuggle over eight kilograms of heroin from Indonesia into Australia (some of the members had been involved in earlier heroin smuggling). They later became known as the “Bali Nine".

The Australian Federal Police co-operated with the Indonesian police who arrested the group in Indonesia in April 2005. The accused were tried in the Denpasar Criminal Court later that year. Under Indonesian law, all the defendants faced a maximum possible sentence of death by firing squad. All were ultimately found guilty.

A complex series of appeals followed, lodged by both the defendants and the prosecution (seeking higher penalties). After this extended, multi-year process, the death penalty for two defendants, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, was ultimately confirmed. They were executed by firing squad in 2015. All the other defendants received long prison sentences.

There was strong, at times fierce, criticism in Australia about what unfolded. Some said the AFP had co-operated too readily with the Indonesian police and that the AFP should have arrested and charged the accused in Australia as they returned from Indonesia. Others squarely questioned the adequacy of the Indonesian criminal justice system and raised accusations of bribery within that system. Many were appalled by the two death sentences.

Now let us consider a more recent, alleged drug smuggling operation, from Venezuela to the US.

In early September, President Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the US military had conducted a “kinetic” strike on a small high-speed boat allegedly engaged in drug-running from Venezuela across the Gulf of Mexico to the US. He shared aerial footage of the instantly destructive bombing while observing that: “The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No US forces were harmed in this strike.”

Consider what is really happening here: the US has convened a sparkling new maritime kangaroo court that has delivered an instantaneous, mass homicidal outcome. The Guardian noted that the US had offered no evidence (only assertions) that the boat contained illegal drugs and drug-gang members. But this is such a good thing, the White House has told us that “there is more to come” with Secretary of State Marco Rubio noting that: “What will stop them is when you blow them up”.

The US Navy (and Coast Guard) have increased their military presence in the southern Caribbean, close to Venezuela, with ships and aircraft, including more than 4500 sailors and marines.

So, here is another thing to get straight: the US Navy has eagerly — and disgracefully — deployed its hyper-lethal resources to enforce an immediate, sham-legal judgment, where the result was a foregone conclusion.

Plainly, there were better, less barbaric options. Assuming the allegations were sound, interception and arrest would have allowed collection of direct evidence and punishment – and the collection of wider evidence about elevated levels of cartel operations.

This, however, would not have delivered another extravagant instalment of Washington’s bread and circuses approach to continuous political management.

An anonymous Pentagon official soon after said the strike was “a criminal attack on civilians”.

Responding to accusations that the killing of civilians without due process was a war crime, Vice-President J.D. Vance (a graduate of Yale Law School) said: “I don’t give a s— what you call it,” adding that, “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” Republican Senator Rand Paul, attacking Vance, said: “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial”.

Apt qualifications notwithstanding, the decade-long legal process of trying and punishing the Bali Nine is a model of how to secure a rules-based, legal resolution of a criminal drug-smuggling operation compared to the deadly, unhinged, mock-legal manoeuvre we have just witnessed in the southern Caribbean.

At about the same time that this American elimination of alleged Venezuelan drug-runners was boldly publicised, Trump announced, by executive order, that he was changing the name of the Department of Defence back to the Department of War. Congress will ultimately have to agree but that is likely to happen.

Trump and the soon-to-be Secretary for War Pete Hegseth argued that this change to the current woke name was more than a formality; it signals a change of attitude and a restoration of the “warrior ethos”.

Surely, though, they could do better than this? The Department of Attack – now there is a name that really delivers some serious attitude.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.