A Venezuelan submarine is accused of war crimes. Are they legal?

Washington – Scrutiny of the Trump Administration’s strikes on drug-trafficking boats has intensified following the revelation of the first US attack on such a vessel involving at least two strikes, according to a report by the Washington Post. That said, after the first strike left two survivors, the next strike killed them. A US official confirms a total of four missiles.

The post also reported that Hegseth had verbally offered to “kill everyone” in the September strike in the Caribbean Sea, although Hegseth did not confirm this. He told reporters on Tuesday that he did not see the survivors in the live video and was not in the room where the Navy Admi. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, second strike commander. Bradley, according to the report, was following Hegseth’s order as the two survivors stuck to the story.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavett on Monday first – limited The second strike on the boat was directed by Bradley, who, he said, “acted well within his authority and the Law … To ensure that the boat was destroyed and the terrorist threat to the United States was completely eliminated.” Hegseth authorized Bradley to carry out the strikes, Beavett said, though he denied that the defense secretary gave the order to kill them all.

President Trump he said On Sunday, He “couldn’t have found” a second strike, adding that Hegseth told him that “he did not allow the death of those two men.” Mr. Trump is Done similar ideas On Tuesday, he told reporters that he did not have all the details about the second strike.

Since the first strike on September 2, the US has taken place Another 20 attacks On November 15, the Trump administration killed more than 80 people who said they were smuggling drugs in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

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Analysis from the free machine: Killing Speedboat Survivors is a war crime

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Members of Congress – mostly Democrats – immediately raised questions about the unity of the strike and warned that the ongoing campaign against the sluggers suspected of drugs in the region could escalate into a war with Venezuela. The Post report also looked closely at the debate over whether the US is committing war crimes.

In a notification to Congress in mid-September, the Trump administration said the US is engaged in a “stateless conflict” with drug cartels designated as terrorist organizations. The drugs smuggled by these cartels kill tens of thousands of Americans each year and constitute an “armed attack” against US citizens, according to the White House.

“We have legal authority. We are allowed to do that,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Oct. 22. “They killed 300,000 Americans last year, and that’s coming in.”

But the opinion from the justice department’s office of legal advice justifying the strikes remains divided. A group of senate Democrats questioned the “tender tolerance” of the legal opinion in a letter last week to Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“Few decisions would be more democratic than the use of lethal force,” he wrote. “Therefore, we believe that the panic and the public release of this important document will promote reflection on the use of lethal force in terms of our military and it is necessary to be absolutely sure of the legal justification that supports these strikes.”

Consent from Congress

Legal experts and law-makers critics argued that the military action targeting boats suspected of drug trafficking was already too popular before the recent revelations because the President did not have the authority to carry it out.

Under the 1973 war powers amendment, the President is required to consult with Congress “at all specified times” before launching armed forces into combat, unless there is a declaration of war or other authorization.

In emergency situations, the administration must report to Congress within 48 hours and cease hostilities within 60 days, without authorization. The 60-day deadline expired last month.

The law was lifted in response to the Vietnam War as a check on the President’s ability to go to war without Congressional approval.

When asked in early November if the administration planned to seek REMOL approval, a senior administration official responded that it was applying for Harming. ”

The official suggested that the attacks are not a threat to service members, because the strikes are mostly carried out by drones sent from naval vessels “at long distances from the target vessels.” The official added that the authorities are not looking to meet with drug dealers who are suspected of being “hostile.”

Congress does not authorize the use of military force against Venezuela. The Republicans are very right that the President acts under his constitutional authority, and the Republicans in the Senate Twice it has been thwarted by bipartisan efforts It is intended to prevent Mr. Trump on the continuation of the military in the region without the consent of the DRM.

But new information about the September strike seems to have changed some opinions. The Senate Republican and House Services Committees have opened BIPARTISAN investigations into the circumstances of the first attack.

“There’s nothing magical about calling something a terrorist organization,” said the former military prosecutor

The Trump Administration’s claim of a ‘non-international armed conflict’ is also wrong, experts say, because drug cartels are not considered an armed group under the law of armed conflict.

“There are no international armed conflicts because, inter aliathere is no interstate hostility or the necessary level of federal control over alleged drug cartels operating boats. And there are no conflicts about non-armed indicators, because the Cartels involved do not qualify as organized -armed groups in [law of armed conflict] Sense, and because there are no hostilities between the United States and the Cartels on September 2, “let there be much-needed skills to cross the border of armed children,” legal expert Michael Schmitt, Ryan Goodman and Tesss Bridgeman wrote about security.

Designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations also does not give the administration the authority to use the military in the way it has, said Brian Fincucane, the State Department’s senior adviser on international affairs and a State Department attorney.

“They don’t have military hierarchies, they don’t have the ability to participate in fighting and fighting, so it makes no sense to find out that the US is about an armed conflict with them,” said Fin..

Victor Hansen, a former military prosecutor and Professor of Law at New England Law in Boston, said that drug cartels would still be subject to military law even when designated as a terrorist group.

“There is nothing magical about calling something a terrorist organization and then giving the President the authority to respond strongly,” Hansen said.

Trump “wants it both ways,” the expert said

The Trump Administration’s status of the strikes as an ‘armed conflict’ imposes additional duties and responsibilities on how the strikes are carried out, according to Hansen.

If the strikes never crossed the legal line, it is likely that the deliberate killing of the defenseless survivors of the siege could have.

The Geneva Conventions, which are at the heart of the law of armed conflict, prohibit targeting civilians or defenseless members of armed forces. International conventions, adopted in 1949, also require the wounded to be ‘collected and cared for.’

The Defense Department’s War Manual states, “It is also prohibited to engage in hostilities on the basis that there will be no survivors, or to threaten the enemy with denial of quarter.” The law applies “during negative armed conflict.”

“The President, he wants to have it both ways. He wants to call it an armed conflict, but then he doesn’t even want to follow the rules of armed conflict,” Hansen said.

However, a change was made to the Strike Protocol after the September strike to emphasize survivors, the post said.

Two men who survived the strike in the Caribbean on Oct 16 were rescued by the US Navy and returned to their countries of origin – Ecuador and Colombia. Strikes on Oct. 27 in the Pacific left a survivor, and Mexico led the search effort, but called off its search after four days, according to media reports.

The second strike and what rules may have been broken

There is a growing debate over whether the follow-up strike that is suspected of killing two survivors is a war crime.

Denctoming Democrats have it he said That if the reporting is accurate, the action constitutes a war crime. Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, a member of the House Services Committee, I said “Face the Nation” on Sunday that it would be an “unlawful act” that was “outside of anything discussed with Congress.”

“I think there is a broad consensus that it is illegal to kill people who are stuck in danger,” Gop Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told reporters Tuesday.

Lawmakers and military experts say the next question is what laws might have been broken, and that depends largely on the laws governing strikes.

“If we are not in an armed conflict to begin with, then the whole pine, the legal marker of the laws governing armed conflict, is ineffective,” said Hansen. “Now what works? Well, domestic law. After that, it’s murder under domestic law because you can’t kill someone – even if you think they’re a criminal – without conviction.”

“Controversially, there is no order to kill them legally,” said Hansen. “Because under domestic law, we don’t kill people without bringing them to court and giving them due process.”

Fincucane also believes that the strikes may fall under domestic martial law.

“Killing on the high seas is suspended, conspiracy to commit murder outside the United States, then murder is a crime under the same system of justice,” he said.

If the operation is an armed conflict, as the Trump Administration suggests, the actions could constitute a war crime.

“In orders to ‘kill everyone,’ which can rightly be considered a generous order to ‘double tap’ the target to kill the survivors, is what constitutes an illegality of war under the Law of Nations. “In short, they are war crimes.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called the second teacher a war crime in an interview with CBS News on Monday.

“The basic rules of war involved here make it very clear that you don’t care too much that you can’t hurt people in the water to kill them. And that’s a violation of the rules of war at that point.”

At a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Hegseth said the US had “just started a narco strike and put narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean.” He noted the break recently, explaining that “it’s hard to find boats to hit right now.”

“Prevention is necessary,” he said. “Not to be arrested and put on top of that do it again, a method of recovery and repetition of the previous administration.”

Eleanor Watson contributed to this report.