President Donald Trump has offered a baffling legal justification for his extrajudicial military strikes on vessels the government claims are transporting drugs—and it’s a disturbing escalation of efforts to declare war against his enemies.
A confidential memo obtained by The Intercept that was sent to multiple congressional committees this week asserted that the president had sweeping discretion to order the executions of alleged drug smugglers because he had declared a state of “non-international armed conflict” against boats that are part of “designated terrorist organizations.”
But if the U.S. is at war, that’s for Congress to decide—not Trump—and the administration has offered no actual evidence to back up its claims that the vessels were linked to any drug cartel at all.
The memo claimed that Trump had the authority to determine cartels were “nonstate armed groups,” and that their transport of drugs constituted “an armed attack against the United States.”
To be considered a “non-international armed conflict,” a dispute must involve an organized nonstate party, or parties, and the violence between the parties must be “sufficiently intense,” according to the United Nations. Using this justification, Trump could potentially declare war against any group—real or imagined—that he wants.
Last month, the United States launched at least three deadly strikes on vessels, two of which were from Venezuela, that the government claimed were smuggling drugs. The Trump administration offered no legal justification for the initial strike, simply claiming the president had “absolute authority” to kill anyone he claimed was a drug trafficker. But that obviously wouldn’t stand up to legal scrutiny.
Trump officials tried shifting narratives, even claiming that the initial strike was an act of “self defense,” although the boat carrying 11 people had reportedly turned around by the time it was fired upon. After another strike, Trump claimed the victims were “confirmed narcoterrorists,” though the wife of one of the dead men claimed her husband was a fisherman. Certainly none of the men on board received a trial before Trump had them summarily executed.
Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, slammed Trump’s excuses in a statement to the Intercept.
“Drug cartels are despicable and must be dealt with by law enforcement,” said Reed. “But now, by the President’s own words, the U.S. military is engaged in armed conflict with undefined enemies he has unilaterally labeled ‘unlawful combatants,’ and he has deployed thousands of troops, ships, and aircraft against them.
“Yet he has refused to inform Congress or the public. Every American should be alarmed that their President has decided he can wage secret wars against anyone he calls an enemy.”
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