'Cold-Blooded Murder': US Rights Coalition Sues Trump Over Unlawful Boat Strikes

A coalition of US rights organizations is suing the Trump administration to obtain its documentation outlining the legal justifications for its campaign of military strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

The ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the New York Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday announced they had filed a complaint under the Freedom of Information Act demanding the release of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that provided the legal framework for the strikes, which many human rights organizations have decried as acts of murder.

The groups said that the Trump administration's rationales for the strikes deserve special scrutiny because their justification hinges on claims that the US is in an "armed conflict" with international drug cartels akin to past conflicts between the US government and terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda.

The groups argued there is simply no way that drug cartels can be classified under the same umbrella as terrorist organizations, given that the law regarding war with nonstate actors says that any organizations considered to be in armed conflict with the US must be an "organized armed group" that is structured like a conventional military and engaged in "protracted armed violence" with the US government.

Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused the administration of warping the law beyond recognition in defense of its boat-bombing campaign.

"The Trump administration is displacing the fundamental mandates of international law with the phony wartime rhetoric of a basic autocrat," Azmy explained. "If the OLC opinion seeks to dress up legalese in order to provide cover for the obvious illegality of these serial homicides, the public needs to see this analysis and ultimately hold accountable all those who facilitate murder in the United States’ name."

Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, said the American public deserves to know "how our government is justifying the cold-blooded murder of civilians as lawful and why it believes it can hand out get-out-of-jail-free cards to people committing these crimes."

Ify Chikezie, staff attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the Trump administration was making a mockery of government transparency by refusing to release its OLC documentation justifying the strikes, and demanded that "the courts must step in and order the administration to release these documents immediately."

The administration's boat-bombing spree, which so far has killed at least 87 people, has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks after it was revealed that the US military had launched a second strike during an operation on September 2 to kill two men who had survived an initial strike on their vessel.

While the September 2 strike has drawn the most attention, Daphne Eviatar, director for security and human rights for Amnesty International USA, argued last week that the entire boat-bombing campaign has been “illegal under both domestic and international law.”

“All of them constitute murder because none of the victims, whether or not they were smuggling illegal narcotics, posed an imminent threat to life,” she said. “Congress must take action now to stop the US military from murdering more people in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.”