"To talk about the Trump Administration's strikes, I called Todd Huntley, the director of the National Security Law program at Georgetown University Law Center. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the apparent illegality of what has been reported about this attack, the similarities and differences between this strike and the worst parts of America's drone wars, and, more broadly, what the Trump Administration wants to do to the culture of the U.S. military."
"Last week, the Washington Post reported that, in early September, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the military to kill everyone on board a boat in the Caribbean suspected of carrying drugs. In the past three months, similar strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the Pacific have killed more than eighty people; the Post report was only the most disturbing example in a campaign that many legal experts and government officials believe to be unlawful."
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth allegedly ordered the military to kill everyone aboard a boat in the Caribbean suspected of carrying drugs; a second missile was launched after two men remained alive following an initial strike. Similar strikes in the Caribbean and the Pacific have killed more than eighty people in three months. Many legal experts and government officials consider the campaign unlawful. President Trump stated that Hegseth told him he had not issued such an order. Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees called for further investigation. Legal analysis finds the strike unlawful even if an armed conflict with drug cartels is assumed.
#caribbean-and-pacific-strikes #laws-of-armed-conflict #extrajudicial-killings #congressional-oversight
Read at The New Yorker
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]