By no stretch of the law — or even the most-fevered imagination — are the targeted killings of supposed Venezuelan mariners by members of the United States military justifiable. On Sept. 2, on the White House’s orders, the U.S. struck a boat with 11 people aboard who the Trump administration said were drug smugglers. Then, a little more than a week later, the military lashed out again, sinking another small vessel, this time with three people aboard, it said. In addition, the president has said that there may have been a third sinking, but provided no more detail.
In the absence of any evidence released to the public, this looks a lot like execution without trial, otherwise known as murder.
Other than a say-so, there is no proof, as a White House spokeswoman said, the boats were on their way to “bring poison to our shores” and, therefore, that they were an act of war by members of the Tren de Aragua gang. But, at least in the case of the first boat, as The New York Times reported, it had turned around before it was attacked, undermining the official claim that it was part of an immediate threat to the continental U.S. In addition, Secretary of Defense Marco Rubio initially had said the vessel was headed toward the nation of Trinidad and Tobago; only later was its supposed destination shifted to the United States. Smuggling drugs is not punishable by death in the U.S., and the Coast Guard and Navy are fully capable of boarding boats and arresting suspects while at sea.
The White House’s claim that the dead were drug smugglers is further undermined by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Justice Department, and Congressional Research Service, all of which have determined that nearly all of the highly dangerous fentanyl that reaches the U.S. comes from Mexico and about three-quarters of all U.S. cocaine is smuggled via the Pacific, originating in Colombia and Ecuador.
President Donald J. Trump is not the first to order extra-judicial killings. President Barack Obama also signed off on killing noncombatant targets with drone attacks in the Middle East. Those killings were under the color of the congressionally authorized War on Terror, but came under heavy criticism nonetheless. Congress has not authorized a war on drug cartels. In any event, if they were indeed involved in the drug trade, the people aboard the boats would have been low-level couriers at best, fishermen at worst. We likely will never know. It would be hard to prove that the administration’s claim is true or false if the boat and bodies are not in a condition to be recovered.
If the Trump administration is willing to kill foreign citizens in this lawless way, its threats against domestic political critics must be taken even more seriously than they already are.