"President Trump told reporters that the operation happened "over the last few minutes, (we) literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs in that boat." While few may mourn the alleged 11 narco-traffickers who perished in the attack, all Americans should be concerned about how our military is being cut loose from its legal moorings by what appears to be the abandonment of the rule of law from the very top of our national chain of command."
"What is equally - and perhaps even more troubling - is how an order to employ U.S. military power - arguably beyond the bounds of international and domestic law - made its way down a chain of command staffed with military commanders and legal advisors who are obligated to comply with these laws. There is nothing surprising about a military operation generating significant legal and policy criticism."
"This was a lethal strike conducted outside the context of an ongoing armed conflict (distinguishing it from attacks like those directed against high-level al Qaeda or ISIS operatives) and without the justification derived from the exercise of self-defense in response to an imminent unlawful armed attack against the United States (or any other nation). And, as Nevitt notes, this attack deviated from decades of operational practice employed in response to such narco-trafficker activity (seize, detain, and prosecute)."
U.S. forces conducted a lethal strike against a speedboat in international waters between Venezuela and Trinidad-Tobago, reportedly killing eleven alleged narco-traffickers. The operation allegedly departed from long-standing operational practice of seizing, detaining, and prosecuting suspected drug traffickers. Legal experts largely concluded the strike violated both international and domestic law because it occurred outside an ongoing armed conflict and lacked an imminent self-defense justification. The order moved down a chain of command containing military commanders and legal advisors charged with legal compliance, raising concern about erosion of rule-of-law constraints at the highest levels.
Read at The Cipher Brief
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