“These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said of the organizations accused of controlling the boats being targeted by United States strikes.
President Donald Trump and his administration informed Congress last month that the United States is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels that are smuggling narcotics into the country, using it as justification for the strike campaign that began last month.
Since the strikes began, U.S. forces have killed more than two dozen people but have not shown evidence to prove there were drugs aboard the targeted vessels. The two survivors of a recent strike last week raised questions the administration hadn’t yet faced, mainly what they would do with them.
Trump ultimately announced the two would be repatriated to their home countries of Ecuador and Colombia, but it is unclear whether they will face charges there.
“Can you imagine an administration that, having engaged in kinetic action against al Qaeda terrorists and captured some of them alive, would suddenly let them go?” Christopher Hernandez-Roy, the deputy director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Examiner.
He speculated that the decision to repatriate them instead of going through the court system could mean the administration is anticipating it “might be on shaky legal ground” about the justification for “basically kinetic action with no forewarning.”
In previous armed conflicts, like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. troops would take enemy fighters prisoner if the situation arose, while historically, drug smugglers who were caught in Central America prior to this campaign would be detained by U.S. law enforcement and often charged.
“We’ve been told that these attacks have been directed against people that the administration is absolutely certain are what they call unlawful combatants,” Professor Geoffrey Corn, Director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University, told the Washington Examiner. “Well, if they were so certain about that, then why would you let these people go?”
“Normally, if you’re engaged in a conflict and you capture enemy combatants, you detain them,” he added. “But of course, if you detain them, the question then becomes where you’re going to bring them to Guantanamo? I guess theoretically, you could bring them to Guantanamo and subject them to the same detention rationale and review proceeding that you’ve used for the al Qaeda and Taliban fighters there. But that means that ultimately, the individuals are going to be able to contest the designation.”
The administration has not provided any evidence to prove that these vessels were carrying drugs.
The military has surged personnel and capabilities into the region over the last couple of months as a part of the administration’s broader effort to cut down on drug smuggling, while Trump told the Washington Examiner last month that his administration is going to “look very seriously at cartels coming by land.”
Trump announced last week that he authorized the CIA to conduct clandestine operations within Venezuela to undermine Nicolas Maduro’s regime. In the U.S., Maduro is indicted on narco-terrorism and drug-trafficking charges, and he’s been labeled the head of the Cartel of the Suns.
The administration doubled its reward for information, leading to his arrest, from $25 million to $50 million. At the same time, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that in August, the U.S. had seized up to $700 million of assets allegedly linked to him.
There has been little public congressional oversight while lawmakers seek additional information from the administration.
Trump vows to stop Venezuelan drug traffickers by land, approves CIA operations
TRUMP VOWS TO STOP VENEZUELAN DRUG TRAFFICKERS BY LAND
“There really is pretty widespread bipartisan skepticism [and] concern about the operation thus far. I think the reasons for the skepticism differ on a party line,” a Senate aide told the Washington Examiner. “I think that has really just become more and more clear, it’s about regime change in Venezuela and applying maximum pressure on the regime there.”
Trump is also taking further action against Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whom he called an “illegal drug leader” on Sunday, by cutting U.S. subsidies to the South American country. Petro accused the U.S. of killing an innocent Colombian fisherman in a strike last month.
Hegseth announced over the weekend that the U.S. killed three people last Friday on a vessel that he said had ties to a Colombian terrorist organization, Ejército de Liberación Nacional.
