No President Has the Right to Execute People at Sea

On September 15th the Trump White House publicly celebrated another military strike on a small boat in the Caribbean; its second in two weeks. According to the administration, three people were killed this time; on September 2nd, eleven more people riding in a small speed boat in international waters were killed the same way. The government’s own video shows U.S. forces firing again to kill survivors of the initial attack. The administration has offered no evidence that the victims were part of a Venezuelan cartel or involved in drug trafficking, and its explanations have shifted by the day. First Secretary of State Rubio claimed the boat wasn’t even headed to the U.S.; then the story changed to say it was. Either way, drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war. The president cannot simply order someone dead because he claims they committed a crime. That violates both our Constitution’s guarantees of due process and international law’s prohibition on extrajudicial killings. This is not how the United States has handled suspected drug traffickers at sea under any previous administration. Republican and Democratic presidents alike relied on the Coast Guard’s established protocols: intercept, board, and arrest. The Coast Guard’s mission is to halt suspect vessels, not kill first and ask questions later. Even at the height of the “war on drugs,” when public pressure for aggressive action was immense, presidents still sought congressional authorization for military operations and followed rules of engagement designed to preserve life. What we’re witnessing now is a dangerous break with that bipartisan tradition. The administration is carrying out lethal military action in international waters without congressional approval, without evidence, and without due process. This is not counter-narcotics policy: it’s murder in plain sight. I’m asking you to speak out even more forcefully, to investigate these strikes, and to press for legislation or hearings that will reassert Congress’s constitutional authority over the use of force. Americans and the world need to see that our elected representatives will not allow a president to rewrite the law of war by tweet. Thank you for your service and for every time you’ve already stood up for the rule of law. Please keep being bold and loud. The stakes for our country’s future, and our moral standing, could not be higher.