President Trump has basically broken the left. Since he has returned to office, we’ve seen progressives argue that illegal immigration is a right and that crime is good solely because President Trump has acted forcefully to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” So I shouldn’t be shocked that the same bunch is now defending the people running drugs to the U.S.
On Tuesday, President Trump ordered a strike against a Venezuelan-based ship running drugs for Tren de Aragua. The strike was carried out by a Predator UAV using a Hellfire missile. The boat was destroyed, and 11 cartel members died in the attack; see Shots Fired! The US Military Sinks a Venezuelan Drug Runner (Updated) – RedState.
🚨 BREAKING: President Trump just released the video of the U.S. military STRIKING a drug boat from Venezuela heading to America carrying ELEVEN Tren de Aragua narcoterrorists, who were kiIIed in the strike
TRUMP: “Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces… pic.twitter.com/axQAWxjJhm
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 2, 2025
This has now created a boomlet about “Trump committed murder,” placing progressives squarely in favor of illegal immigration, crime, and drug running if Trump is president.
To be clear, I am not a lawyer, but sometimes you don’t have to be a lawyer to recognize when a legal case is utter horse dung. Let me grab the most sane of all the attacks on using force to combat the people killing about 100,000 Americans each year, while wreaking havoc on our society and families. You may not call that an attack on America, but a lot of people would.
This is the case for calling the killings “murder.”
2/ The author of the expert analysis worked at the State Department under several administrations with these types of use of force issues as his portfolio.https://t.co/Oqv48SMJR5
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) September 3, 2025
4/ If the law of armed conflict does not apply (and it does not), then ….
DoD has a long-standing view that assassination and murder are part of the customary international human rights law that applies to military action beyond U.S. borders.
2024 Operational Law Handbook⤵️ pic.twitter.com/08PZvmJNT1
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) September 3, 2025
5/ These statements by Secretary Rubio make the legal case against the U.S. strike even stronger.
(h/t @John_Hudson reporting) pic.twitter.com/uYP93HcRXx
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) September 3, 2025
1/ I worked at DoD. I literally cannot imagine lawyers coming up with a legal basis for lethal strike of suspected Venezuelan drug boat. Hard to see how this would not be “murder” or war crime under international law that DoD considers applicable. Read this expert analysis
2/ The author of the expert analysis worked at the State Department under several administrations with these types of use of force issues as his portfolio.
Legal Issues Raised by Lethal U.S. Military Attack in the Caribbean
3/ The best line of argument for the administration might be that the law of armed conflict somehow applies. But if so (and it doesn’t), that means the US War Crimes Act applies too, including the prohibition on murder. Finucane spells out that implication here:
4/ If the law of armed conflict does not apply (and it does not), then …. DoD has a long-standing view that assassination and murder are part of the customary international human rights law that applies to military action beyond U.S. borders. 2024 Operational Law Handbook
5/ These statements by Secretary Rubio make the legal case against the U.S. strike even stronger.
Let’s take a look at Goodman’s key reference. The most notable thing about it is there is no there there. It is a list of “how we’ve always done it” and “I don’t like it.” For his claim that declaring “this step does not by itself provide authority for the use of force,” he refers to another article on the same website.
1) It would involve an unlawful use of force against an entity, and within a state, that has not attacked the United States. It would thus likely constitute an armed attack on that state itself, which could create a self-defense justification for that state to respond with force against the United States.
2) If the president were to use force absent congressional authorization specifically enacted for these purposes, such an act would violate the Constitutional separation of powers.
3) And finally, any attack on a drug cartel as such would entail a targeted killing of civilians: this in itself is a war crime.
The same argument used to say attacking TdA was illegal is equally applicable to any other terrorist organization we’ve taken a slap at over the last 20 years. In short, there is nothing that constrains a President, acting as commander-in-chief, from treating all terrorist groups exactly the same.
He goes on to the “War Powers Resolution,” which has disavowed by all presdients of all parties since it was imposed on a hapless Richard Nixon. No sane person believes the president has to get permission from Congress to use military force. The only enforcement mechanisms are for Congress to impeach and convict the president or cut off funding for the operation as the Democrats did in 1975 to guarantee the fall of South Vietnam. Even so, in the face of a determined president, that could be ugly. When Teddy Roosevelt announced the round-the-world voyage of the Great White Fleet in 1907, Congress balked at the expense. Roosevelt said he had enough money to send the fleet across the Pacific, it was up to Congress to bring them back. No one in Congress is going to cut drug interdiction money and a majority will not vote to rule out deadly force. Needless to say, Trump is no stranger to impeachment, but I can’t imagine even a Democrat Congress trying to impeach him for whacking drug runners.
From there, he jumps to the UN Charter. Cool. What’s next, the back of a Froot Loops box?
Any use of force by the United States must also comply with the UN Charter—both as a matter of international and domestic law. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter provides that: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
The kicker here is that even the author knows the UN Charter does not apply because, TdA is not yet a member of the UN and is not a “State.” It is a terrorist organization.
It is not currently clear what states (if any) were impacted by the U.S. attack on this vessel and thus whether Article 2(4) of the Charter is implicated by this strike.
He also trots out the “assassination ban.” To make this case you have to show that we were after one particular guy on the boat. Otherwise, it’s not assassinaton. It is literally the Chris Rock Rule.
The assassination ban is based on an Executive Order 12333 signed by President Ronald Reagan. Notably a memo defining what assassination means is available to us.
Peacetime assassination, then, would seem to encompass the murder of a private individual or public figure for political purposes, and in some cases (as cited above) also require that the act constitute a covert activity, particularly when the individual is a private citizen.
By this definition, the overt killing of low level drug runners to keep drugs out of the U.S, or even to make an example of them, would not be defined as assassination.
Even so, there is evidence of a secret finding by President Trump that authorizes the used of military force against drug cartels. It is difficult to believe a finding authorizing the use of military force would not include basic rules of engagement.
The “assassination ban,” in this context is particularly disingenuous. Anyone vaguely familiar with the prelude to 9/11 knows the role this rule played in preserving Osama bin Laden. Bill Clinton’s Defense Department was so absolutely paranoid about not breaking this rule that they required all attempts to kill him be disguised as attempts to arrest him. So a cruise missile or bomb strike was never an option. It was dumbf***ery like this, imposed by lawyers because they had the power to do so, that kept bin Laden alive to pull off 9/11. Read Stephen Coll’s epic book, Ghost Wars, for how this played out on numerous occasions when bin Laden could’ve been killed. They are trying the exact same strategy here by making a military problem a law enforcement issue.
The bottom line is that it makes him feel icky.
The use of lethal force in this attack appears gratuitous and the administration has not explained why law enforcement tools were inadequate to address the situation. Of a piece with the deployment of troops to U.S. cities, the strike is an unnecessary and performative use of the U.S. military—a use that is legally fraught at best. (Indeed, Trump threatened Chicago with a troop deployment in the same Oval Office appearance in which he announced the strike.) And the use of lethal force against these supposed terrorists is ominous both because the Trump administration has vowed further such strikes in Latin America and because this administration has deployed the “terrorist” label more broadly domestically, including against migrants and political opponents.
This seems, in my opinion, to be the bottom line. President Trump has carried out a military strike against drug traffickers in international waters. He did so under his authority as commander-in-chief. This is not “the way we’ve always done it,” and the thought that elected officials, not lawyers, are now making these national security decisions is a threat to the livelihood and relevance of quite a few people. Some people may disapprove, on the other hand they weren’t asked for their opinion. The legal mumbo-jumbo surrounding this incident is just that: mumbo-jumbo. If Congress disapproves of this strategy, then Congress has the tools to, perhaps, change the president’s mind. The only “legal” issues are those drummed up by attention-seeking academics suffering from TDS.
None of this is without risk. A case of mistaken idenity could have disastrous political consequences. But if you aren’t willing to take risks to protect America from threats of all sorts, maybe you should be chilling out at Rehoboth Beach, nursing the knots on your head, rather than being president.
in short, I’d give the same advice to these guys that David Chappelle, in his “Black Bush” character, gave the UN. It remains solid advice for lawyers mewling about “international law” and “murder” when no one cares about their opinions.
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