Allies of US President Donald Trump are increasingly using the so-called “war on terror” to justify his deadly attacks on boats around Latin America, amid mounting criticism from their Democratic adversaries and rights supporters.
Because Washington is not engaged in armed conflict in Latin America, legal experts have argued that the comparison between the bombing of alleged drug boats and the subsequent US attacks on suspected al-Qaeda fighters is untrue.
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According to Annie Shiel, US advocacy director at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, “we have to acknowledge that these strikes are expanding on those abuses of power that we saw in the “war on terror”,”
“These strikes are also breaking brand-new, extremely dangerous ground.”
Shiel argued that the US’s ongoing bombardment of the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which has caused nearly 100 fatalities since September, is also devoid of congressional authorization.
Using Obama
Legislators from Trump’s Republican Party have compared the drone assassination campaign launched by former Democratic President Barack Obama against suspected “terrorists” to fend off scrutiny.
Senator Tim Sheehy stated to reporters on Tuesday that “we used this targeting system to find and kill a lot of bad guys all over the world” during the Obama administration.
Senator Markwayne Mullin echoed that assessment by reiterating the definition of “terrorists” as drug smugglers.
What distinguishes Obama attacking these individuals when they were viewed as Middle Eastern terrorist organizations rather than the ones that are currently poisoning our streets? said Mullin.
Advocates and experts claim that Trump’s boat strikes are much more violent than his ever-criticized drone policy, despite the criticisms of human rights organizations.
According to Shiel, “experts are unanimous about the absence of armed conflict in the Caribbean and the fact that drug traffickers are civilians who are not intended to serve as legitimate military targets.”
According to analysts, the US government’s claims that suspected drug smugglers are “terrorists” are actually civilians, according to Al Jazeera.
According to the Pentagon, the strikes are legal and aim to “protect the homeland,” in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict.
Critics have argued that the strikes are not governed by the Law of Armed Conflict because neither the Caribbean nor the eastern Pacific have any armed conflicts.
Ten Senate Democrats allegedly “fabricated an armed conflict” or “falsely labeled people “combatants” to kill them in a letter to the Republican chair of the chamber’s judiciary panel on Thursday.
According to the lawmakers, “These strikes are extrajudicial killings and shocking violations of fundamental principles of due process and the right to life” and “violation of American and international law.”
These extrajudicial killings are not any less unlawful because the administration claims that those they are killing have committed crimes, been linked to a criminal or terrorist organization, or were “combatants” in an already-violent armed conflict.
Obfuscation of reality
Drug cartels lack the organization, weapons, and political motivations to be regarded as “combatants,” according to John Walsh, director for drug policy and the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
Walsh told Al Jazeera, “The definition of drug trafficking as “narcoterrorism” already serves as an obfuscation of the reality.”
“Those drug traffickers are attempting to sell a substance that can lead to addiction and profit.” They don’t want to fight governments, they want to.
However, it appears that the Trump administration is militarizing Washington’s drug policy using the terms “war on terror” from the Obama and George W. Bush era.
Trump echoes Bush’ false claim that Iraq possessed WMDs to support the US-led invasion by designating drug companies as “foreign terrorist” organizations and naming the synthetic drug fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” (WMD).
The administration’s claim that these are terrifying armies and invading forces have weapons of mass destruction is underlined by the WMD designation. Walsh continued, “I don’t believe that has any basis.”
He raised concerns that the designation might be used to “unlock authorities” so that the US government could launch strikes inside the country.
Walsh claimed that the Trump administration has the authority to impose sanctions on anyone connected to “terrorist” organizations, including alleged drug traffickers, wherever they are.
He claimed that this is a general lack of legal reasoning. There is no limiting principle for when and where President Trump could assert that authority, though. Therefore, tomorrow it might be in Caracas. The following day, it might be in Chicago.
The administration’s formal legal justification for the US Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) strikes, which remain classified, has been a top object of rights advocates’ demands.
According to experts, the OLC memo likely echoes the legal justification for drone strikes and assassinations during the “war on terror” in terms of logic.
Same procedure, exactly?
The Pentagon uses “the exact same process” it has used in targeted killings since 2021, according to Republican senator Sheehy in bombing the boats.
He told reporters that to go after the brave men and women in uniform who carry out these attacks is to indict the very system that has been abused impartially for the past 24 years.
The issue may be related to the procedure itself, according to Jessica Dorsey, assistant professor of international law at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
In an email, Dorsey wrote, “Placing too much faith in internal processes without meaningful external accountability reversed cause and effect, treating process as a constraint when it actually enabled expansion.”
In reality, “the absence of real oversight and elastic legal interpretations” resulted in the absence of real oversight and the introduction of these even more aggressive policies that the executive has adopted today.
Samuel Moyn, a professor of law and history at Yale University, criticized Obama’s use of drones to justify the current attacks, saying that “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“It is true that, at least up until now, the Obama administration killed more people on questionable legal grounds. Trump’s actions are not necessarily sanctified, though. According to Moyn, it is a pattern of US military expansion.
