Congressional critics of President Donald Trump’s tactics in the war on drug cartels are badly confused. Because the War Department, instead of the Drug Enforcement Administration, is now engaging the cartels, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are demanding that the U.S. follow rules of engagement for combat with foreign armies. Those rules, which stem from the Geneva Conventions adopted in 1949 and expanded in subsequent years, are not the rules that apply to our attacks on drug-smuggling vessels off the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela.
Trump’s certification of several drug cartels as terrorist organizations means the rules of engagement that apply are distinct from those that apply in conventional warfare. They have evolved over the past 50 years for dealing specifically with terrorism.
