Late last week, Donald Trump ordered his 10th deadly military strike against civilian targets in international waters and increased the overall death toll. Based on the Republican administration’s tally, the president and his team had killed 43 civilians over seven weeks.
A couple of days later, Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a retired Marine and Iraq war veteran, condemned the strikes as “sanctioned murder.” Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky agreed, describing the operations as “extrajudicial killings … akin to what China does and Iran does.”
The senators’ rhetoric was more than fair, though it apparently didn’t prove persuasive to the White House or Trump’s Pentagon. NBC News reported:
The U.S. military on Monday carried out three strikes on four vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean that were allegedly trafficking narcotics, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday. … Based on official estimates from the Defense Department, the U.S. military has launched 13 strikes so far, three of them occurring Monday, which in total have killed 57 people.
All of the usual caveats still apply: We don’t know who these 57 people were, who or what they were associated with, whether they were actually trying to smuggle drugs into the U.S., whether the purported evidence against them was credible, whether any innocent people were on the vessels or whether it would’ve advanced U.S. interests to detain and question them.
We also don’t know whether the official number of strikes and fatalities is accurate.
Just as importantly, there’s a long list of questions about the legality of the operations. Indeed, the incumbent American president appears to have embraced a model that allows him to order deadly military strikes against civilians, at times and locations of his choosing, without congressional approval or regard for legal limits.
At a White House event last week, Trump shrugged at the necessity of asking Congress to authorize his use of military force. “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK?” the president told reporters. “We are going to kill them, you know? They are going to be, like, dead.”
To the extent that a “Trump Doctrine” exists, “I think we’re just gonna kill people” seems like a suitable summary.
Of course, the president need not worry about being prosecuted for possible crimes — Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have effectively elevated the presidency above the law — but the same cannot be said for those who carry out his orders.
So it’s understandable that, as The Washington Post reported, “some” junior officers have been asking judge advocates general — military lawyers known as “JAGs” — “for written sign-off before taking part in strikes.” If that reporting is correct, it suggests there are troops that are understandably concerned about the possible legal liabilities of participating in Trump’s highly controversial strikes on civilians. In case that weren’t enough, Reuters reported that U.S. military officials involved with Trump’s operations in Latin America “have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements,” according to multiple U.S. officials. The report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC, added that this “step is highly unusual, given that U.S. military officials are already required to shield national security secrets from public view, and comes as lawmakers in Congress say they are being kept in the dark about key aspects of the mission.” As burgeoning Trump scandals go, this one’s just getting started. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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