WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has decided that the United States are involved in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels that his team has classified as terrorist organizations, and that suspects of smuggling for these groups are “illegal fighters,” the administration said in a confidential statement to Congress this week.
The statement was sent to several congressional committees and obtained by The New York Times. He adds new details to the fragile legal justification of the administration to explain why three US military attacks, ordered by the president against boats in the Caribbean sea last month, who killed all 17 people on board, should be considered legal and not murders.
Trump’s decision to formally consider his campaign against drug cartels as an active armed conflict means that he is consolidating his claim of extraordinary powers in war time, legal experts said. In an armed conflict, as defined by international law, a country can legally kill enemy combatants even when they do not represent threat, stop them indefinitely without judgment and process them in military courts.
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Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired lawyer and former senior army counselor for law of war, said drug cartels were not involved in “hostilities”-the pattern for when there is a conflict armed for legal purposes-against the United States, because selling a dangerous product is different from an armed attack.
Noting that it is illegal for the deliberately civilly raise civilian military who do not participate directly in hostilities – even suspected crimes – Corn called the president’s decision of an “abuse” that exceeds an important legal line.
“This is not stretching the boundaries,” he said. “This is to tear them. This is destroying them.”
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The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump administration has classified these attacks as self-defense, stating that targets were trafficking to cartels that the administration designated as terrorists and invoking war laws to justify killing them instead of arresting them. Administration also stressed that about 100,000 Americans die annually from overdoses.
However, the focus of administration attacks has been boats of Venezuela. Increased overdose deaths in recent years have been driven by Fentanil, which drug trafficking experts say come from Mexico, not from South America. In addition to factual issues, the basic argument has been widely criticized by armed conflict rights experts.
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The announcement to Congress, classified as controlled but not confidential information, cites a law that requires reports to legislators on hostilities involving US Armed Forces. It repeats the previous arguments of the administration, but goes beyond new allegations, including the characterization of military attacks on boats as part of an active and sustained conflict, not isolated acts of self -defense.
Specifically, he says Trump “determined” that the cartels involved in drug trafficking are “non -state armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States.” And cites a term of international law – “non -international armed conflict” – which refers to a war against a non -state actor.
“Based on the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against citizens and interests of the United States and friendly nations, the president has determined that the United States are in a non -international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” says the statement.
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There are different types of wars, and the concept of “non-international armed conflict,” developed in 20th century law, means a civil war within one country, as opposed to a war between two or more nation states.
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the United States entered the war against al-Qaeda-a non-state actor who operates in several countries-some law scholars contested that the country was stretching the rules to justify the use of war powers against a group that they compares more to a criminal pirate band.
But the Supreme Court considered that the conflict with al-Qaeda was a royal war. She approved the use of Bush Administration’s power to keep members captured from Al-Qaeda in indefinite detention without judgment, while stated that the government was obliged by Geneva conventions to treat these prisoners humanly and not torture them.
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The Court’s reasoning, however, was based on the fact that al-Qaeda attacked the United States using kidnapping planes to kill people intentionally, and that Congress authorized the use of armed force against it. In fact, in a 2006 decision, the Court also rejected Bush’s first attempt to use military committees, saying that legislators had to explicitly authorize their use.
In this case, the Trump administration is confusing trafficking in an illicit and dangerous product with the use of force and an armed attack. Congress did not authorize the use of any type of military force against cartels.
The US government has routinely said that it is involved in a metaphorical “war on drugs”, meaning an aggressive application of the law. Police arrest suspected trafficking; It would be a crime to kill them summarily. But in an armed conflict, it is nice to kill fighters on the opposite side.
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The congressional statement also justified the most recent attack publicly publicized to a boat – in which US special forces killed the three people on board on September 15 – calling the crew of “illegal fighters,” as if they were soldiers on a battlefield.
“The boat was evaluated by the US intelligence community as an affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and, at the time, involved in illicit drug trafficking, which could be used to kill Americans,” says the statement. “This attack resulted in the destruction of the boat, illicit drugs and the death of approximately three illegal fighters.”
The announcement to Congress has not specifically appointed any of the drug cartels with which Trump says the United States is in armed conflict. Nor did it specify which criteria for management is using to determine if suspects have enough connections with these groups so that the army can kill them.
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