Those Ill-Fated Drug Boats: Is it Justified?

Now that the Department of War has blown up some 20 or so boats, mostly in the Caribbean, carrying drugs from Venezuela, everybody is debating the legality and the morality of what we are doing under President Trump. As a retired DEA agent, I am following this with great interest. In addition, I have discussed this with many of my fellow DEA retirees, and the opinions vary. But here are my thoughts:

First of all, what has been occurring is not part of American law enforcement protocol. It is part of military protocol in times of war. As far as I know, neither DEA nor any other law enforcement agency is involved in these operations or providing the intelligence in identifying boats transporting drugs. (I hope that is not the case). In my opinion, law enforcement should play no role in these operations, nor should they supply the intelligence for such strikes.

But since the administration has labeled these people as narco-terrorists, and terrorists are a legitimate target for the military in my humble view, does this legitimize the acts of our military of blowing up these boats in the water and killing all aboard? That, I guess, will ultimately be decided by people smarter than me. In that vein, the fentanyl epidemic, some would argue, has been a game-changer since some 200,000+ Americans have been dying from fentanyl poisoning every year. (It is reported that since our border with Mexico has been secured, deaths are down, with some other factors also playing a part.) With those considerations in mind, is it legally justified to blow these boats up to save American lives?

From a law enforcement perspective, the answer is no. Law enforcement, drug law enforcement in particular, involves arresting people, not ambushing them with deadly force. Yes, there are occasional gunfights between traffickers and police, and deaths sometimes result. (I have been there.) But up to now, US law has not exercised the death penalty for drug traffickers, even the biggest kingpins, unless they have also been convicted of murder. I can assure you that those who have been killed in these attacks are not kingpins. They are in the lower rungs of the trafficking-”mules” or couriers. Were they to be arrested and prosecuted in the US, they might get 15 years in prison, depending on their individual circumstances, but clearly not the death penalty.

In addition, from a law enforcement perspective, the preference is to interdict these boats, seize the drugs as evidence, and possibly obtain the cooperation of the couriers in identifying and arresting the recipients and the sources. That, of course, has been lost with the deaths of the people on the boats. 

So in my view, this must be justified in military terms. But herein, there is another wrinkle. Just recently, it has been disclosed that one boat required 4 missile attacks before it was sunk, and that at least a couple of suspects were in the water after the first strike.  Under the international law of warfare on the high seas, survivors in the water are supposed to be rescued if at all possible, not finished off. There is an exception to that in that if the survivors are still fighting, and/or if the boat is still operational, additional strikes are justified. Whether that was the case here, I don’t know. I expect we will know soon.

So how will the traffickers react? Will they cease using boats entirely and change their patterns, as traffickers generally do when one route or method of transportation is shut down? Or will they resort to other methods, like putting innocent hostages or children on the boats? The Venezuelan government also has a political desire to discredit the US in the eyes of the world. The Maduro regime is decidedly evil and not above resorting to such inhuman actions. Would that be the next step? I have said from the start that all Hell would break loose once we sank one innocent boat. There is a definite need to proceed with caution here.

The last factor is the question of fentanyl. The drug primarily involved here is cocaine, and most of these boats are allegedly coming out of Venezuela, whose government is definitely involved in the international traffic to the US. But have any of these boats contained fentanyl? I don’t yet have a definite answer to that question, but from what information I have been able to gather from some of my contacts, the answer, at this point, is no.

Food for thought.