The latest revelations about U.S. strikes on so-called “drug boats” in the Caribbean should alarm every American who believes in the rule of law. The Washington Post confirms that after an initial attack on September 2 killed nine people, a second strike was ordered to kill the two survivors who were clinging to the wreckage—an act legal scholars, including Georgetown professor David Cole, plainly call what it is: a war crime and murder.
The administration now claims the order came from Admiral Mitch Bradley rather than Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but shifting blame does not erase the crime. Killing civilians who pose no threat is illegal under U.S. and international law. Yet instead of confronting this unlawful policy, President Trump threatens to court-martial Senator Mark Kelly simply for reminding service members of their duty to refuse illegal orders.
This is how democracies decay: by normalizing extrajudicial killing, defying court orders, and punishing those who speak the truth. We must reject the dangerous fiction that the “war on drugs” authorizes the killing of unarmed people at sea. America cannot preach rule of law while practicing impunity.
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