EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGThe President Should Not Have a License to Kill
The administration claims that the “war” on drugs justifies extrajudicial killing. But redefining civilian drug criminals as “combatants” gives away the reality: the government just militarized what was a low-level criminal law enforcement incident outside the United States. Once we consider the victims’ alleged illegal actions, we can see that the government committed the most egregious crime here.
Editor’s note: We published this article nearly three months ago, on 10 September 2025. The recent revelations about the killing, on 2 September, of two survivors who were clinging to a sinking shipwreck after their boat had been destroyed in the initial attack by U.S. forces, highlight the deeper problems with the Trump administration’s approach of using military force to deal with what is essentially a law-enforcement issue. Most legal experts who commented on the case said that killing survivors in the water may well amount to a war crime. Not that this would bother Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth. As the Economist notes today, “In many ways the campaign is indicative of Mr. Hegseth’s broader contempt for the laws of war. Since taking office he has gutted the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and fired a multitude of senior JAGs.”
President Trump once quipped, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” Well, he wasn’t standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue, but he nonetheless tested the limits of his ability to get away with extrajudicial execution on September 2 by ordering the deaths of eleven people in an alleged drug-smuggling boat off the coast of Venezuela. Trump’s action was criminal and impeachable.
The administration claims that this is a “war” on drugs, which supposedly justifies extrajudicial killing. But redefining civilian drug criminals as “combatants” gives away the reality: the government just militarized what was a low-level criminal law enforcement incident outside the United States.
Once we consider the victims’ alleged illegal actions, we can see that the government committed the most egregious crime here.
1.Drug smuggling is not a capital crime. Even if we suppose the victims were guilty, they did not deserve fiery incineration. That’s not just the moral view. That’s the view of US law. People—citizens or noncitizens—who possess illegal drugs cannot legally be executed even after being convicted after a trial. People who possess drugs cannot be shot by law enforcement because drug possession is a nonviolent offense for which the penalty is incarceration for a period determined by a judge.
