Pentagon Promises More Cartel Strikes After Deadly Boat Raid [View all]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned of further U.S. military action against cartels following a strike that killed 11 people on a boat in the Caribbean that the Pentagon claimed was transporting drugs.

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Is it legal to bomb cartels?

Ever since Trump raised the possibility of launching military strikes on drug cartels, legal experts have questioned whether there was a basis in law to do so.

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group who worked for a decade in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the State Department, said that the Trump Administration’s attempt to use drug-related deaths as a justification for using military force against cartels was illegal under international law.

“The tragic deaths of Americans from the opioid epidemic do not provide any legal basis for the use of force against Mexico in supposed self-defense,” he wrote in Just Security in February. “In the absence of such an armed attack, any use of force by the United States on Mexican territory—even if directed at the personnel and facilities of drug trafficking organizations—would violate the UN Charter.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/pentagon-promises-more-cartel-strikes-162642251.html