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Administration Of donald trump It is reportedly being remodelled”drug war“Strategy outweighs legal Discussion Previously used in the “War on Terror”.
it ApproachInitially developed after 9/11 to authorize lethal force against al-Qaeda, it is now being implemented latin american Gangs and drug cartels.
However, these criminal organizations, which often originate in Venezuelan prisons, are driven by drug trafficking and illegal enterprises, not anti-Western ideology.
Legal scholars have warned that Trump’s deployment of massive military force and authorizing covert actions in Venezuela potentially amounts to removing the president from office. Nicolas MaduroPushes the limits of international law.
It came as Trump expanded the military’s domestic role, deploying the National Guard to US cities and said he was prepared to invoke the nearly 150-year-old Insurrection Act, which allows military deployment only in the most exceptional cases of civil unrest.
So far, the military has killed at least 28 people in six attacks on boats that the White House said were carrying drugs.
The latest incident occurred on Thursday, when US forces attacked a suspected drug-carrying ship and seized the survivors, who were being held by US forces.
Thursday’s action brings to at least 28 the death toll from Trump administration military action against ships in the area.
Trump justified the attacks by saying that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration when it declared the War on Terror after the September 11 attacks. This includes the ability to use lethal force to capture and detain combatants and eliminate their leadership.
These attacks have occurred without any legal investigation or traditional declaration of war from Congress. This raises questions about the propriety of Trump’s actions and the impact they may have on diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, which remember with deep resentment repeated US military interventions during the Cold War.
The US intelligence community has also refuted Trump’s central claim that Maduro’s administration is working with the Tren de Aragua gang and promoting drug trafficking and illegal immigration to the US.
‘You can’t just call something a war’
Trump’s claim that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels is based on the same legal authority that the Bush administration used when declaring the War on Terror after the September 11 attacks. This includes the ability to use lethal force to capture and detain combatants and eliminate their leadership.
But the UN Charter specifically prohibits the use of force except in self-defense.
“You can’t call something a war just to give yourself war powers,” said Claire Finkelstein, a professor of national security law at the University of Pennsylvania. “No matter how disappointed we may be in the means and results of law enforcement efforts to combat drug flows, it is a mockery of international law to suggest that we are in a non-international armed conflict with the cartels.”
After 9/11, it was clear that al-Qaeda was actively plotting additional attacks to kill civilians. But the cartel’s main ambition is to sell drugs. And this, while detrimental to overall U.S. security, is a dubious justification for invoking war powers, said Texas Tech law professor Geoffrey Corn, who previously served as the Army’s senior adviser on law of war issues.
Corn said, “In my humble opinion, this government wants to use war powers for a number of reasons” – including political reasons.
“Even if we assume there was an armed conflict with the Tren de Aragua, how do we know that everyone on that boat was an enemy combatant?” He said. “I think Congress needs to know this.”
Trump defended the attacks
Asked at the White House on Wednesday why the U.S. doesn’t use the Coast Guard to stop Venezuelan ships and seize any drugs, Trump responded, “We’ve been doing that for 30 years and it’s been completely ineffective.”
The President also suggested that the US could attack targets inside Venezuela, a move that would significantly raise tensions and the legal stakes. So far, the attacks have occurred in international waters beyond the jurisdiction of any one country.
“We have almost completely stopped it by sea,” Trump said of the flow of drugs. “Now we will stop it from the ground.”
Trump was also asked about a New York Times report that he had authorized a covert CIA operation in Venezuela. Trump, who strongly criticized the 2003 US invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein’s government, declined to say whether he had given the CIA authority to take out Maduro, saying it would be “ridiculous” to answer.
Several US laws and executive orders since the 1970s make it illegal to assassinate foreign officials. But by declaring the Venezuelans unlawful combatants, Trump may be trying to circumvent those sanctions and return to an earlier era when the United States — in places like Guatemala, Chile and Iran — routinely carried out covert regime change missions.
“If you create a threat and are waging war against America, you are not a safe person,” Finkelstein said.
During Trump’s first term, Maduro was convicted of US federal drug charges, including narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine. This year, the Justice Department doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million, accusing him of being “one of the world’s largest narco-traffickers.”
But Trump’s focus on Venezuela ignores a fundamental fact of the drug trade: The majority of American overdose deaths are from fentanyl, which is transported by land from Mexico. And while Venezuela is a major drug transit region, about 75% of the cocaine produced in Colombia, the world leader, is trafficked through the eastern Pacific Ocean rather than the Caribbean.
Congress and ICC have been sidelined
Under the Constitution, it must be Congress that declares war. However, so far there has been little sign that Trump’s allies will push back against the president’s expansionist vision of his own power, including taking action against the cartels the White House blames for the overdose deaths of thousands of Americans each year.
The GOP-controlled Senate recently rejected a war powers resolution sponsored by Democrats that would have required the president to seek authorization from Congress before further military strikes.
Two U.S. officials familiar with the matter told The Associated Press that despite pressure from some Republicans for more complete details, the Trump administration has not yet provided lawmakers with the underlying evidence proving that the boats targeted by the U.S. military contained narcotics. Independent Senator Angus King of Maine said he and other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee were denied access to the Pentagon’s legal opinion at a classified briefing this month on whether the strikes followed US law.
The legal protest is unlikely to have any impact on the White House. The Supreme Court decision, arising from a 1973 effort by a Democratic congressman to sue the Pentagon to prevent the spread of the Vietnam War into neighboring Laos and Cambodia, set a high bar for any legal challenges to military orders, Finkelstein said.
Meanwhile, relatives of Venezuelans killed in boat attacks face their own hurdles after several high court rulings limited the scope for foreign nationals to file lawsuits in the US.
The military attacks occurred in international waters, opening the door for the International Criminal Court to launch an investigation along the lines of war crimes investigations against Russia and Israel – which, like the United States, does not recognize the court’s authority.
But the Hague-based court has been embroiled in a sexual misconduct investigation that has forced its chief prosecutor to step down. US sanctions over the conviction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have also hampered its work.