In the face of growing criticism from Democratic rivals and rights advocates, 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.
But legal experts stress that Washington is not involved in any armed conflicts in Latin America, so any parallels between the bombing of the alleged drug ship and U.S. attacks on suspected al-Qaeda fighters after 9/11 are unfounded.
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Annie Seale, director of U.S. advocacy at the Civilian Center on Conflict, told Al Jazeera: “We must acknowledge that these attacks extend the abuses of power seen in the War on Terror.”
“These strikes are breaking completely new and very dangerous ground.”
Seal also highlighted the lack of Congressional approval for ongoing U.S. shelling in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, which has killed nearly 100 people since September.
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In an effort to fend off scrutiny, Trump’s Republican colleagues have drawn similarities between the ship bombing and former Democratic President Barack Obama’s drone assassination mission against suspected “terrorists.”
“Throughout the Obama administration, we’ve used this targeting system to find and kill many bad guys around the world,” Sen. Tim Sheehy told reporters Tuesday.
Senator Markwayne Mullin echoed that assessment, emphasizing that drug smugglers are “terrorists.”
“What’s the difference between Obama attacking these people when they were considered terrorist organizations in the Middle East and the people who are here now polluting the streets?” Marin said.
Human rights groups have long criticized President Obama’s drone policy, but advocates and experts say Trump’s boat attacks are far more brazen in their defiance of laws and norms.
“Experts agree that there is no armed conflict in the Caribbean and drug traffickers are civilians and not legitimate military targets,” Seal said.
Analysts told Al Jazeera that the suspected drug smugglers were civilians, despite claims by US officials that they were “terrorists”.
The Pentagon said the attack was lawful and targeted a “designated terrorist organization” to “defend the homeland” under the law of armed conflict.
But critics have stressed that the law of armed conflict does not apply to this attack because there is no armed conflict in the Caribbean or the Eastern Pacific.
On Thursday, 10 Senate Democrats warned in a letter to the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that they would “manufacture armed conflicts and falsely label people as ‘combatants’ and then kill them.”
“These strikes constitute extrajudicial killings and shocking violations of fundamental principles of due process and the right to life under U.S. and international law,” the lawmakers wrote.
“The regime’s assertion that those it is killing are perpetrators of crimes, members of criminal or terrorist organizations, or ‘combatants’ in a non-existent armed conflict does not in any way make these extrajudicial killings any less illegal.”
“Obfuscation of reality”
John Walsh, director of drug policy and the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), said drug cartels lack the organization, weapons and political motivation to be considered “combatants.”
“The framing of drug trafficking as ‘narcoterrorism’ is already obscuring reality,” Walsh told Al Jazeera.
“Drug traffickers are trying to sell products that can cause addiction and generate profits. They have no interest in going to war with the government.”
But the Trump administration appears to be applying the Obama- and George W. Bush-era term “war on terror” to the militarization of Washington’s drug policy.
President Trump designated drug cartels as “foreign terrorist” organizations, classified the synthetic drug fentanyl as “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), and echoed President Bush’s false claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to justify the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
“The weapons of mass destruction designation is intended to emphasize the administration’s narrative that these are a formidable force and an invading force with weapons of mass destruction at their disposal. But again, I don’t think there’s any basis for that,” Walsh said.
He expressed concern that the designation could be used by the regime to “unlock authorities” to carry out attacks inside the United States.
Walsh said the Trump administration has declared authority to attack anyone associated with designated “terrorist” groups or, in the case of the boat attack, alleged drug traffickers anywhere.
“This is flawed legal reasoning across the board,” he said. “But what I’m saying here is there’s no limit to when and where President Trump can use that power. So it could be Caracas tomorrow, it could be Chicago the next day.”
Advocates have called for the administration to release formal legal justification for the Office of the General Counsel (OLC) strike, which remains classified.
Experts say the OLC memo likely reflects the legal basis behind assassinations and drone attacks during the “war on terror.”
“Same process”
Republican Sen. Sheehy said the Pentagon is using “the exact same process” in the boat bombings it has used for targeted killings since 2021.
“Going after the brave men and women in uniform who carry out these attacks is an indictment of the very system that has been bipartisan for the past 24 years,” he told reporters.
Jessica Dorsey, assistant professor of international law at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, suggested the problem lies in the process itself.
“Over-reliance on internal processes without meaningful external accountability reversed cause and effect, treating the process as a constraint when in fact it enabled expansion,” Dorsey told Al Jazeera in an email.
“In reality, due to flexible legal interpretation and a lack of actual oversight, these safeguards did little to deter the administration’s use of deadly force and set the stage for the more aggressive policies we see today.”
Meanwhile, Samuel Moyn, a professor of law and history at Yale University, criticized President Obama’s reliance on his drone legacy to justify the current attacks, saying, “Two wrongs do not make a right.”
“It’s true that, at least so far, the Obama administration has killed more people in more places and done so on dubious legal authority. That doesn’t mean what Trump is doing is sanctified. This is a pattern of escalation in US war conduct,” Moyn told Al Jazeera.
“This is US management giving themselves more and more licenses to do more and more things over time. And those expansions are never checked or revoked.”
