Amid growing outrage and accusations that it had committed a war crime, the Trump administration spent the weekend denying reports that the U.S. military struck an alleged drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean in September and, upon seeing survivors, immediately conducted a second strike that killed them.
But on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the second deadly strike did occur. She said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had authorized an admiral to conduct multiple strikes on the suspected drug vessel — and she said that second strike was conducted in “self-defense to protect Americans in vital United States interests.”
If the Trump administration’s argument that this is a legitimate armed conflict doesn’t hold water in the long run, things could look even worse.
Even before Leavitt’s admission that the second strike happened, some legal experts and U.S. lawmakers had already expressed alarm. They argued that even if one accepts the flimsy legal pretext the administration says justifies its belligerence in the seas of the Western hemisphere, that the second deadly strike constituted either a war crime or murder.
The Washington Post, citing two people with direct knowledge of the operation, reported Friday that a Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ordered a second strike against two survivors who were “clinging to the smoldering wreck” of a boat the U.S. military struck. That second strike, the sources said, was meant to fulfill a spoken directive from Hegseth. One of the sources told the Post, “The order was to kill everybody.” The Post’s reporting builds upon previous reporting from The Intercept and was partially corroborated by CNN.
Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor and former top Justice Department lawyer under President George W. Bush, wrote Friday that there is “no conceivable legal justification” for the order described in the Post report. As he pointed out, the Department of Defense Law of War Manual says, “It is forbidden to declare that no quarter will be given.” Denial of quarter means “refusing to spare the life of anybody, even of persons manifestly unable to defend themselves or who clearly express their intention to surrender,” according to the international humanitarian law casebook published by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
A group of unnamed former U.S. military lawyers, identified as “The Former JAGs Working Group,” said in a statement published by Just Security, “If the U.S. military operation to interdict and destroy suspected narcotrafficking vessels is a ‘non-international armed conflict,’ as the Trump Administration suggests, orders to ‘kill everybody,’ which can reasonably be regarded as an order to give ‘no quarter,’ and to ‘double-tap’ a target in order to kill survivors, are clearly illegal under international law. In short, they are war crimes.”
The statement also suggested that if the Trump administration’s argument that this is a legitimate armed conflict doesn’t hold water in the long run, things could look even worse: “If the U.S. military operation is not an armed conflict of any kind, these orders to kill helpless civilians clinging to the wreckage of a vessel our military destroyed would subject everyone from SECDEF down to the individual who pulled the trigger to prosecution under U.S. law for murder.”
The Trump administration says it has killed more than 80 people in more than 20 strikes on vessels it says were transporting drugs from Venezuela (without providing evidence) and justified those strikes by describing them as targeting terrorist groups. As the former JAGS indicate, the administration is framing the strikes as part of a “non-international armed conflict” — “non-international” because the attacks target an organized non-state actor.
According to the Post’s Friday story, Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell “declined to address questions about Hegseth’s order and other details of the operation,” and said “This entire narrative is completely false.” Also on Friday, Hegseth wrote in a post on X, “The fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland” and that “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law.”
The Trump administration says it has killed more than 80 people in more than 20 strikes on vessels it says were transporting drugs from Venezuela (without providing evidence) and justified those strikes by describing them as targeting terrorist groups.
But on Monday, the Trump administration switched from denying a second strike to justifying it with an incredible claim that the military was acting in self defense. The Trump administration’s argument that a second strike was “self defense” is absurd. How could survivors of a military strike from the most powerful country in the world, reportedly clinging to wreckage in the sea, pose a threat to the United States? “Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” Leavitt said.
Even before Monday’s admission from Leavitt, Trump was already facing heat from Democrats and even some scrutiny from his own party over the reported strike. The bipartisan leadership of the Armed Services Committees had already promised to investigate the matter, according to Politico, which had also reported that Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Tim Kaine D-Va., who serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that if true, the facts laid out in The Washington Post report rose to the level of war crimes.
“It’s a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance,” Kaine said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said that “if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that would be an illegal act.” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said Sunday, “If it was as if the article said, that is a violation of the law of war,” but also said he was “suspicious” about whether it could be true because it would be so obviously illegal. Again, this was the day before Leavitt confirmed that the second strike occurred.
Of course, the problems here go well beyond one follow-up strike. Congress shouldn’t be allowing Trump to characterize alleged drug traffickers as terrorists and treating the “war on drugs” as a basis for brutal use of force and possibly going to war with a sovereign nation. The entire enterprise is a faux solution to the U.S.’ real drug problems and a cloak for yet another frontier in American imperialism.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Politico, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter by clicking the link at the top of this bio.