Questions on those Caribbean Strikes

President Trump has been claiming to have blown up boats and killed people in the Caribbean that he claims are carrying drugs to the US, three so far.

He puts the claims out unprofessionally on his social media, as he does with so many issues. All we have are his claims. No statements from the military, no reporters who witnessed the carnage, just Trump’s tweet.  He accompanies the announcements with snuff films of boats being blown up. I have not watched the films, but it appears that they contain little information about the boats and their cargoes.

Let’s back up a bit. People experienced in drug enforcement have pointed out that intercepting random shipments of drugs has little effect on the trade overall. One group of traffickers will be replaced by another. It is not hard to produce these drugs. The more effective way to deal with drugs would be on the demand side, in the United States, by making treatment more available.

Since the military is involved, there must be Rules of Engagement for these operations. A legal analysis should have been performed on which the ROE would be based. David Ignatius points out that Trump and Pete Hegseth have been purging judge advocate generals, the people who would be doing that analysis. Trump and Hegseth have made clear that Manly Men™ don’t need that rule of law stuff for their lethality.

Reporters should ask about and try to find the legal analysis and the ROE.

Important questions are why the operations are being conducted in this area, what the targeting criteria and attack criteria are, whether the boats are being contacted before being destroyed, what the intelligence is and what is  an actionable level of confidence in the intelligence.

Interdicting drugs and punishing drug traffickers are subject to laws and thus are a civilian law enforcement responsibility. Trump blathers about a “war against the United States” apparently consisting of bringing drugs in, and his allies in Congress are talking about authorizing the use of military force, but this is not a war in any reasonable sense of the word.

The people being killed in these operations are given no due process. They are killed for being on a boat when someone suspects that the boat is carrying drugs. The Coast Guard has been intercepting drug shipments for a long time. They stop the boats and take people into custody for law enforcement proceedings. Trafficking drugs does not carry the death penalty.

Reporters should ask why the military is being used for civilian law enforcement and why due process is not being observed.

There should be a decision chain and a command chain. Who is responsible for acquiring and analyzing the intelligence about the boats? Who checks that intelligence? How many levels of checking? Who makes the decision to attack? What other sources of intelligence do they have about relations with the country the boat is from? Who issues the order?

To whom is the order issued? What part of the Navy is responsible for these attacks? For all these questions, we need names, not just vague waves at some office or other. Who takes the video, and who decides to put it on social media? We can make some guesses on these questions, based on normal procedures, but what is happeningg is far from normal, so those expected answers may not apply.

Has anyone in the chain of command questioned the legality of these strikes? At what level were they? Did they face consequences?

Brian Finucane provides more detailed legal discussion of the issues surrounding these strikes.