Air strikes in the Caribbean: Trump’s murky narco-war

“America’s quarter-century-old global war” on terror has taken a disturbing new turn, said W.J. Hennigan in The New York Times. Last week, President Trump ordered an air strike on an allegedly drug-laden speedboat travelling in international waters in the south Caribbean, killing all 11 people on board. He justified the attack by stating that officials had identified the vessel’s crew beforehand as members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the US designated a terrorist group in February. Trump claims the cartel is controlled by Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.

For decades, the US navy has detained suspected smugglers. That this practice has been replaced by extrajudicial executions “defies comprehension”. Now eight US warships and thousands of marines have been deployed to the Caribbean. “Let this serve as notice to anyone even thinking of bringing drugs into the US,” warned Trump. “There’s more where that came from.”

Assuming the boat’s crew were gangsters, the air strike was “a good move”, said The Wall Street Journal. Tren de Aragua – which though not “Maduro’s creature”, is certainly “in cahoots” with his regime – has exported its crime model around the hemisphere and poses a clear security threat to the US. Trump’s critics say his administration should stick to the usual protocol for stopping suspect boats. “But Venezuelan capos don’t follow Marquess of Queensberry Rules, and the US doesn’t have to refrain from sending them a more convincing kinetic message.”

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“Is it awesome to see bad guys getting blown up?” Sure, said Jim Geraghty in National Review. Whether this use of lethal force is constitutional, though, is a “murkier question”. I very much doubt it is, said Andrew McCarthy in the same magazine. In 1989, the US invaded Panama to depose and capture its ruler, General Manuel Noriega, who – like Maduro – had been indicted by the US for drug trafficking. But before that invasion, Noriega’s regime had declared war on the US and attacked its personnel. Trump, by contrast, claims that Maduro’s regime is full of “narco-terrorists” using cocaine as a weapon against America, and that its trafficking operations amount to an invasion – so he has the authority to take military action without consulting lawmakers. That’s “a controversial claim, to put it mildly”. Not for the first time, we’re left to ask: “Where the hell is the Republican-led Congress?”