Fact-check: What to know about US military boat strikes as death toll passes 200

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AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now! , democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report . I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

U.S. Southern Command says it’s killed more than 200 people in over 60 strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. The Pentagon has claimed, without evidence, the boats are “engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” unquote. Human rights groups including Amnesty International have called the attacks extrajudicial killings and a form of murder.

Earlier this year, in March, the ACLU , the Center for Constitutional Rights and other legal experts testified at a hearing on the legality of U.S. boat strikes at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. This is Angelo Guisado, senior staff attorney at CCR .

ANGELO GUISADO : The United States’s unprecedented military campaign, Operation Southern Spear, came without any plausible legal justifications. The world has failed to challenge these assassinations in any meaningful way. … The invocation of narcoterrorism has empowered President Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to publicize the boat strike videos on social media. They are seen boasting and celebrating the wanton infliction of suffering and death, and lampooning the lives of those caught in their crosshairs. We ask that the commission look through this thinly veiled cover and recognize the inhumanity that these actions reflect and the pain they have caused.

AMY GOODMAN : In April, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia grilled Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Caine over the legality of the boat strikes during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

SEN . TIM KAINE : What legal justification could there possibly be that would allow the U.S. military to strike boats in international waters and kill the occupants of those boats without a showing of evidence that there’s narcotics on those boats?

GEN . DAN CAINE : I don’t have a copy of the order issued to SOUTHCOM with me today. It’s classified in its own right, which clearly articulates, based on a variety of criteria, what constitutes a valid military and legally valid target in that theater. And I know — I just want to say I know and trust that our commanders at echelon are rigorously following that legal opinion and those legal boundaries upon which we’ve been issued those orders.

SEN . TIM KAINE : And, General Caine, I would encourage again my colleagues — I am at a disadvantage. I’ve seen the legal opinion, but I can’t talk about it, because it’s classified. I’ve seen the targeting criteria, but I can’t talk about them, because they’re classified. I’ve seen the secret list of DTOs against whom we have declared war, that even they haven’t been informed of, but I can’t talk about it, because it’s classified. But I would urge all of my colleagues to go to the SCIF and read the targeting criteria and get briefed about it, and then also look at all of the files of all the strikes that have taken place. I’ve done that with the first 46 strikes or so, and I think there’s a profound mismatch between what is occurring and the underlying assumptions in the legal opinion.

AMY GOODMAN : That was Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia questioning Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Dan Caine in April.

We’re joined now by Amanda Klasing, national director of government relations and advocacy at Amnesty International USA .

Amanda, you say these actions committed against people who pose no imminent threat to life are extrajudicial killings, a form of murder, and amount to crimes under international law. Explain what’s happening, as the number passes 200, of deaths caused by U.S. bombing of boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

AMANDA KLASING : Yeah. Thank you so much, Amy, for having me on.

So, let me start by kind of clearing away the different types of justifications that are coming from the administration, and look at the facts. So, the first thing that we need to understand is that the U.S. is not in active conflict with any of these groups. The eastern Pacific and the Caribbean, they aren’t war zones. And drug smuggling is a crime; it is not a military attack. And so the laws of war do not apply in this situation.

So, if the laws of war don’t apply, what does? So, these are law enforcement operations. So, under human rights law, we apply standards like policing. So, the individuals on these boats have a right to life and a right to due process, and a government cannot use lethal force unless there’s an imminent threat or — and there’s no less extreme measure to stop that imminent threat. What we know is that these boats can be interdicted. We know that, because boats have in the past been interdicted. They continue to be, by the Coast Guard, in some situations. And Secretary Rubio himself, in fact, said that the boats could be interdicted, but instead they’ve decided to bomb them.

So, under all of these circumstances, there’s no lawf…