THE UNITED STATES IS COMMITTING TO SUMMARY Executions on the High Seas. That bare fact is obscured by talk of drug bans and war powers, and by the question of whether we are certain that the drugs on those boats were bound for the United States or elsewhere.
Let's be clear. Even if we knew for sure that the boats destroyed in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific 1) contained illegal drugs; 2) those drugs were on their way to our shores; and 3) all on board were criminals, it would still be highly illegal and immoral to shoot them out of the water, as we have now done some 14 times, killing 61 people. This is not drug enforcement. This is murder.
Drug trafficking is bad. It's a crime. But it is only very rarely a capital crime. In fact, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1988, no criminal in the United States has been sentenced to death for drug crimes that did not include murder. But the crucial thing to keep in mind is that the criminals involved were caught, charged and tried. That's what a law-abiding nation does.
The only time you can legally use lethal military force is when Congress has granted specific authority against a hostile state or entity, or when U.S. forces are under attack and are acting in self-defense. It was not illegal for American sailors to fire back at Japanese aircraft on December 7, 1941. But we are not at war with 'narco-terrorists'. That is simply not the case, even though President Donald Trump has declared that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. These words have no legal effect.
The 'war on drugs' is a metaphor. Or was. Under our laws, suspected drug boats can be interdicted and boarded by the Coast Guard. If contraband is discovered, the drugs can be seized and the drug couriers arrested, tried and punished. That is, if they are found in US territorial waters. Bans beyond our borders have been controversial, with courts expressing skepticism about the constitutionality of prosecuting (not killing!) drug traffickers caught in international waters.
The government has provided no evidence that the boats they destroyed were carrying drugs. As far as we know some were fishing vessels or pleasure boats. They didn't even suggest that the people aboard those ships were armed, let alone that they shot at American ships. As Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, noted, “We were presented with some evidence that does not support the story the White House is telling the American people.” Other senators have echoed this complaint about a lack of evidence. And Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was brutally candid: “At this point I would call it extrajudicial killings. And this is similar to what China does, to what Iran does to drug dealers. They summarily execute people without presenting evidence to the public.”
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SOME COMMENTATORS HAVE JUSTIFIED Trump's extrajudicial killings by pointing to drone strikes on suspected terrorists carried out by the Bush and Obama administrations. But these attacks were issued under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (essentially a declaration of war) passed by Congress in 2001. The AUMF specifically allowed the President to “use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or assisted in the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons.” There is reasonable debate about whether some of those attacks stretched the meaning of the AUMF, but there is no debate about whether they were part of a war against Al Qaeda, a terrorist group that had attacked the United States several times.
President Trump abuses his power to turn the military against criminals – or those he claims (without evidence) are criminals. That is not the job of the military. For now, these are foreigners. But he has long expressed his admiration for leaders who are guilty of extrajudicial killings in their own country. During his first term, he praised Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, for his “incredible work” on drugs. Duterte is now charged by the International Criminal Court with murder and crimes against humanity. His “incredible task” included unleashing police and vigilantes who rounded up and extrajudicially executed – murdered – between 12,000 and 30,000 people.
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Trump has also fantasized several times that China doesn't have a drug problem because it executes drug dealers, which is of course nonsense. China executes drug dealers, but Chinese people nevertheless enjoy heroin, ketamine, methamphetamine, marijuana and many other substances. As the Chinese Communist Party itself admits, in 2017 they had over two million registered drug users; International observers believe that the actual figure is many times higher.
But Trump has a strong desire for state violence. As for suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, the president is bloodthirsty: “I don't think we're necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just going to kill people who bring drugs into our country. We're going to kill them. They'll be pretty much dead.” As for migrants trying to cross the southern border, Trump during his first term ordered aides to shoot them in the legs but was told that would not be legal. During his 2023 campaign, he proposed that the United States should tackle shoplifting by shooting people. “We will immediately stop all looting and theft. Very simple: if you rob a store, you can be sure that you will be shot as you leave the store.” Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper told NPR that Trump was enraged by the unrest following the killing of George Floyd. “He thought the protests made the country look weak [asked] Gen. Mark Milley 'Can't you just shoot them in the legs or something?'”
Presidents are sometimes called upon to make decisions that could lead to the unintentional deaths of innocents. But if they do, it will be done after careful briefing, consideration of options and consequences, consideration of all reasonable alternatives, and with legal authority. Trump's boat attacks, on the other hand, are an almost gleeful bloodshed without any congressional consultation, evidence or legality. The people in those boats may or may not have been criminals. So are the people who order the strikes.
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