2025 U.S. - Venezuela conflict

[FJAG]

My point is really that Customary International Law is a bit of a joke. Everyone violates the law when and where it suits them.

There are clearly weaknesses in how and when society enforces breaches of law of armed conflict situations (especially under the newer Additional Protocols) There have been "war crimes trails" and there is a whole system set up to handle them although some of the prime actors like the US and Russia do not accept their jurisdiction. Many countries, however, do. In the end, they are standards to strive to but are ones that are inconsistently applied.

I've stayed out of the debate about the drug smuggler scenario because there are so many grey areas that its hard to say anything conclusively - not to mention that I've retired from the law business and haven't cracked a book in well over 15 years now. So this is my personal view.

There is a distinct difference as between the law of armed conflict and criminal law. The first, as the title says, deals with armed conflict - whether as between nations or internally to a nation. The later deals with individuals or private gangs conducting a business based on illegal activities. In the later the use of weapons is mostly incidental to the enterprise.

Very many countries, including many of the United States have no death penalty for any crimes including homicides. Even Russia has had a moratorium on executions for a decade or so. The vast majority of "western" countries have no death penalty. If in general you do not kill someone who has been found guilty in a judicial proceeding what makes killing them extra judicially suddenly a moral act? In fairness, I should point out that the US has had a federal law allowing the death penalty for drug trafficking in large quantities since Clinton in 1994. But again that law applies to a sentence that can be given after due judicial process. The general trend of western societies is against death penalties.

When we look at the biggest example of targeted missile usage it's been in a "war" scenario. The American's usage of it in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan was targeted against combatant. Even a mullah sitting in his house in Pakistan, if he's training armed insurrectionists for Afghanistan or providing financial aid or leadership, even if he doesn't hold a weapon in his hand, is a valid target if properly identified as he is actively engaged as part of a combatant force. Surrounding civilians killed in a strike are regretful, but there has usually been a very complex targeting analysis done before the strike to try to eliminate or at least minimize collateral damage or injuries. The Americans are (or at least were) actually quite serious about the targeting process for all their strikes although, on occasion the results were poor.

The issue here though is in taking lethal actions against individuals who are not engaged in an armed conflict with anyone. It's a criminal enterprise. Calling something a "war on drugs" does not make it an armed conflict, even if there is suspicion that the Venezuelan government is behind some of these criminal enterprises. My understanding is that only very little of the cocaine going into the US is sourced from or through Venezuela. Most of their cocaine is headed for Europe. Just as importantly, stopping boats does not stop the manufacturing of drugs, it merely interrupts the distribution routes until new ones can be established. Again, article that I've read indicate that 90% of the cocaine coming into the US comes from Mexico and through the Texas border and is sourced in Peru, Colombia and Bolivia.

I have a hard time trying to find a rational legal argument that could elevate some sod running a boat full of drugs as a legitimate combatant who can be legally targeted. They are clearly criminals subject to criminal law and perhaps even liable to a death penalty. But there is a difference between a death penalty as part of a judicial process and extra judicial killing of drug traffickers. One always has to look at the extremes of a scenario to judge its legality. There are many dozens of laws where the death penalty can apply in the US - mostly in homicide cases. We wouldn't accept an extra judicial execution of a suspected murderer or drug trafficker by the FBI in the streets of the Miami. Even if based on CIA informants, NSA intercepts and satellite imagery.

Is the viable argument here that it's just to difficult to apprehend them? I really don't think so. That's merely a question of resources. If you can hit a boat with a Maverick, then you can hit it with a less lethal round that will sink or disable the boat until a surface vessel or helicopter can reach it. That's a matter of a collateral damage estimate which any proper targeting board would be led to. Creating a less lethal round for this purpose is a very simple technological matter.

The issue here is that the Trump administration wants to make a point in a dramatic way. If anyone thinks that the removal of the prior JAGs for the armed services wasn't a calculated step in furtherance of this process, then I can't help you. My guess is that this operation was floated through the appropriate chain and folks said: "No!" They were then eased out for folks who were prepared to say: "well maybe." And in any bureaucracy at this stage of turmoil you will always find someone who is prepared to say: "well maybe."

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I've always said the two most important "advisors" to a C.O. are the JAG and the Padre:

One says: Sir, You are not permitted to do that without incurring criminal liability.

The other says: No! Please! For God's sake, don't even think of doing that, Sir!

 

[brihard]

Both the Senate and House committees have bipartisan support for examining the allegations of Hesgeth ordering the killing of survivors from the struck boat.

House and Senate committees launch inquiries into second strike on alleged drug boat

Both the House and Senate armed services committees said separately that they would conduct "oversight" into the circumstances around the strikes.

www.nbcnews.com

Interesting tidbit: the example of orders to fire on the shipwrecked is explicitly given in the DoD’s Law of War Manual as an instance of cleary unlawful orders that must be disobeyed.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1995171797084324001

There’s a picture coming together here of a potential timeline where:

1. Military lawyers said “no you shouldn’t blow up drug boats”;
2. The administration declares this an “armed conflict”, they blow up boats anyway;
3. The US SOUTHCOM commander announces his early retirement before his term is due to end, and;
4. We then have multiple insider sources leaking details of Hesgeth’s personally verbally ordering the killing of survivors in the first strike.

Note that in a subsequent strike survivors were collected and returned to their countries of citizenship.

So yeah. Bad picture painted on the front of the puzzle box here. Hopefully the Senate and House Armed Services Committees can get to the bottom of this. The U.S. may be at a point where the integrity of the military needs to be protected from a rogue actor or two within the administration.

 

[lenaitch]

Sure we do. How many poor illiterate farmers did we introduce to Allah in Afg, for simply standing near a bad guy or doing their bidding ?

If nothin else, the actions in the Middle East were in response to those places being a known exporter, trainer and harbour of terrorism and, for what it is worth, had international sanction. If not a declared on the government and people of Afghanistan, at least it was a widely declared occupation. That some poor illiterate farmer paid the price for standing beside a guy with a smoking gun is unfortunate. Maybe if their society had allowed itself to evolve beyond the 12th century they wouldn't have been in that pickle.

The involvement of countries there was the result of the policies of the governments, based on fairly reliable, perhaps imperfect, intelligence. I suspect that if Trump or the War Department had an iota of actual intelligence on the purpose and movement of these boats, they would share at least a tiny bit of it with their public to show that they are doing their homework, or even holding a press conference displaying recovered debris or something, maybe with some trace analysis done. Otherwise, it comes off as looking like blowing any faster moving boat out of the water just 'cuz. If you're going to declare unilateral war on the high seas, at least have Congress on board.

This is tantamount to the cops getting word that a guy was dealing drug out of a blue Honda Civic, or even if a male in a blue Honda Civic is suspect in a homicide, then summarily gunning down the first blue Honda Civic with a male occupant they see.

 

[FJAG]

I've always said the two most important "advisors" to a C.O. are the JAG and the Padre:

One says: Sir, You are not permitted to do that without incurring criminal liability.

The other says: No! Please! For God's sake, don't even think of doing that, Sir!

I was the DAJAG to 1 Div for about a week on the 1997 Flood in Winnipeg filling in for the AJAG who was posted and needed to go on a house hunting trip. The legal office was directly across the hall from the Div comds office. We shared our office with the public affairs advisors. Inevitably both of us were called in several times a day to advise the comd and the COS about a) the legal position on some contemplated course of action and b) the optics on how it would look to the public. That was a bit of an eye opener for me.