LOS ANGELES (OC).–Striking the 10th suspected drug boat in the Caribbean, the Pentagon announced that it killed six members of the Tren de Aragua gang without supplying any proof. No one knows what the boat was carrying, maybe illicit drugs but maybe not. Whatever the Pentagon’s excuse for attacking shipping or commercial boats in the Caribbean or Eastern Pacific, it violates freedom of travel on the open seas in international waters. Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth confirmed that a narco-trafficking boat was struck in what the Pentagon calls its war on drugs. Whatever the cargo carried by any vessel in international waters, the Pentagon is on shaky legal ground attacking vessels for alleged narco-trafficking. No court at the Hague’s International Court of Justice would agree that the U.S.—or any sovereign state—has the legal right to attack vessels in international waters.
Hegseth doesn’t know the law, only follows President Trump’s literal policy concerning the war on drugs. No one in U.S. history has taken the war on drugs literally, using it as a metaphor to say the U.S. government fights to stop to import and sale of narcotics for U.S. consumption. “If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs into our hemisphere, we will treat you like were like Al-Qaeda,” Hegseth said in a post. “Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you,” Hegseth said, admitting to any court that the U.S. engages in extrajudicial assassinations, regardless of the justification. Hegseth has equated narco-trafficking with terrorism but it doesn’t fit the definition requiring innocent civilians killed or maimed. When did transporting goods, illegal or otherwise, trigger a U.S. military response?
When it comes to terrorism, there have been many attempts to lump everyone in the same category, when it’s not terrorism at all. Terrorism involves killing or maiming innocent civilians to advance a political agenda. How does shipping illicit drugs by land-or-sea qualify in the Pentagon’s definition of terrorism? Most folks recognize that illicit drugs are not good for individuals or society. But to stop the public’s insatiable need for drugs, the government must do a better job educating the public, just like they have with alcohol and tobacco. Would the Pentagon target bootleggers or illegal tobacco products by killing anyone involved in the transport or sale of illegal substances? White House and Pentagon officials are on shaky ground when it comes to targeted military attacks on vessels in international waters, regardless of what they’re carrying onboard.
Hegseth is in no position to make a legal case of what constitutes terrorism to justify murder on the high seas. Whatever’s involved in the war on drugs, it’s not using the Pentagon to attack small vessels in open waters, regardless of what they’re carrying. When Trump talks about the war on drugs, he’s taken it literally, not realizing that it’s a society disease much the same as alcohol, tobacco or even caffeine addition, maybe the widest abuse drug in America. But when White House lawyers give the Pentagon to attack ships in international waters they’ve crossed a dangerous line. Not only could the U.S. start a wasteful war, there are legal consequences that for the U.S. Treaury. Any victim on the Pentagon’s actions could sue the U.S. government for wrongful death, claiming that whatever they did on the boat did not warrant a military attack.
Venezuelan authorities think that President Donald Trump is trying to provoke a war to topple President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino thinks that recent U.S. actions are an attempt to “force regime change” in the South American country. Trump has so many high priority foreign policy issues than to get into a useless war in Venezuela. When you look at the shaky Gaza ceasefire and war raging in Ukraine, spreading the Pentagon thin is not a good use of U.S. resources. Whatever drugs are trafficked over sea-or-air, it doesn’t threaten U.S. national security, except in the most indirect way. Trump makes statements like the drug cartels are “killing off American youth.” Well, if people lean toward drug abuse, then the government can combat the bad judgment with education programs that counter the availability of drugs.
Declaring drug cartels “unlawful combatants,” Trump makes his case for his war on drugs, but has no legal grounds to use the Pentagon. “Explaining the geography simply expand the lawlessness and the recklessness in the use of the American military without seeming legal or practical justification,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a fierce critic of all of Trump’s policies. When it comes to the war on drugs, Blumenthal makes sense that the White House is on shaky legal ground targeting vessels in open waters. Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have required Trump to get Congressional approval before he orders the Pentagon to take military action. Whether trafficking drugs or bananas, no vessel on the high seas should be subject to military strikes unless they pose a dangerous national security threat to the U.S.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
