LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump has made the determination that the United States is in an armed conflict with unspecified drug cartels. That's according to a document obtained by NPR that the administration sent to Congress about its military strikes on boats in the Caribbean it says were carrying drugs. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is with us in studio this morning to talk about this. Good morning.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: OK. So what is this document, and what does it say?
LUCAS: So this is a notification that was sent to Congress by the administration, as required by law. NPR obtained a copy of it. And what it purports to do is lay out a bit more of a legal justification for the administration's military strikes, as you said, against suspected drug boats over the past month. It says the president is taking action under his Article II powers as commander in chief and in self-defense. That, we have heard from the administration before. What's interesting here is that it says the president has determined the cartels are non-state armed groups, that the U.S. is in a non-international armed conflict with them and that the Pentagon is conducting operations against them under the laws of armed conflict.
FADEL: OK. So before this document came out, you spoke to a lot of experts on this - legal experts, foreign policy experts - who all called these strikes illegal extrajudicial killings. So does this letter change things, give legal cover here?
LUCAS: I wouldn't go that far, no. Legal experts say there are still a lot of holes, a lot of issues with the powers the president is asserting with this. Here's Brian Finucane. He's a national security lawyer and expert with the International Crisis Group.
BRIAN FINUCANE: What this boils down to is the president of the United States asserting a prerogative to kill people based solely on his own say-so.
LUCAS: So, yes, there are more legal terms here - non-state armed groups engaged in a non-international armed conflict with the U.S. And that, Finucane says, in essence, echoes the legal framework that the U.S. worked under in the post-9/11 war on terror. But Finucane says the facts were very different then. Al-Qaida killed some 3,000 people on 9/11. Congress authorized the use of military force against an actual armed group - al-Qaida. And none of that applies in the context of the drug cartels. Finucane says the facts just do not support the idea or the legal conclusion that the U.S. is in an armed conflict with narco-trafficking groups.
FINUCANE: Outside of armed conflict, there is a word for the premeditated killing of people, and that word is murder. And just because the administration puts together this fig leaf of a legal justification does not legitimize these premeditated killings in the Caribbean.
FADEL: OK. So what has the administration said about exactly what happened in the strikes?
LUCAS: Well, they have said that they've blown up three suspected drug boats so far. In the first strike, the president said 11 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua were killed. The administration has provided no evidence that the people on the boat were indeed Tren de Aragua or that there were drugs on the boat or that the boat posed a direct threat to the United States. Trump was asked by reporters at the White House after the second strike about providing proof. Here's what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have proof. All you have to do is look at the cargo that was - like, it's spattered all over the ocean. Big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the place.
LUCAS: Now, the administration didn't provide anything for us to see those big bags of cocaine and fentanyl all over the ocean. Trump did say they have recorded evidence, but he didn't elaborate. Now, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said yesterday the president has acted in line with the law of armed conflict and is making good on his promise to take on cartels. But again, the administration hasn't provided any evidence publicly that would support these claims. And legal experts say, even then, trafficking drugs has never been considered combat or direct participation in hostilities, which means legally, these narco-traffickers are considered civilians and not people who can be lethally targeted like they have been.
FADEL: NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. Thank you for your reporting, Ryan.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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