You might wonder what legal basis might have existed for the United States Navy to bomb and destroy ships in international waters off Venezuela. You might also have taken comfort in the claims that these were “narco-terrorists” bringing shipments of drugs, which somehow causes people to ignore any legalities in favor of high seas murder since “narco-terrorists” is doubly bad and who could possibly not favor stopping them with extreme prejudice.

Of course, we can’t know that these were drug smugglers, or terrorists, since they were neither captured nor searched to ascertain what, if anything, was on those ships. Instead, we took Trump’s word for it. After all, he said he was certain that they were “narco-terrorists” and it’s not as if Trump would ever tell a lie or be wrong about anything.

But even Trump understood that the Navy blowing up the ships of other countries on the high seas presented a problem, both with other countries deciding to do the same to us using their own version of the Trump excuse, and with a challenge to the United States committing random murder rather than awaiting a ship entering United States waters, seizing the ship, searching it for drugs and then prosecuting those aboard, as would be the case had they been mere drug smugglers rather than “narco-terrorists.”

What to do?

President Trump has decided that the United States is engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels his team has labeled terrorist organizations and that suspected smugglers for such groups are “unlawful combatants,” the administration said in a confidential notice to Congress this week.

Is it possible, even likely, that the ships blown up were, indeed, drug smugglers? Absolutely. Not having seized and searched the ships and finding drugs, no one will ever know for sure, but it seems unlikely that Trump would just be murdering random fishermen on random boats for kicks. As for calling them “narco-terrorists,” it’s nothing more than a rhetorical flourish to paint them as really bad drug smugglers.

In the old days, it was enough to call them drug dealers to defenestrate the law and Constitution. But by adding “terrorists” to the characterization, even though there is nothing about them that remotely fits the definition of terrorism, who wouldn’t want them summarily executed?

Mr. Trump’s move to formally deem his campaign against drug cartels as an active armed conflict means he is cementing his claim to extraordinary wartime powers, legal specialists said. In an armed conflict, as defined by international law, a country can lawfully kill enemy fighters even when they pose no threat, detain them indefinitely without trials and prosecute them in military courts.

Congress naively handed over its power to the president so that he can address emergent situations. It was anticipated that these extraordinary wartime powers would only be invoked in good faith and when the facts and circumstances warranted. But if there was an emergency, it had to be dealt with and if we couldn’t trust the president to exercise those extraordinary powers with caution and humility, who could we trust?

Noting that it is illegal for the military to deliberately target civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities — even suspected criminals — [Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer who was formerly the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues] called the president’s move an “abuse” that crossed a major legal line.

“This is not stretching the envelope,” he said. “This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.”

Unsurprisingly, the White House disagrees.

The Trump administration has called the strikes “self-defense” and asserted that the laws of war permitted it to kill, rather than arrest, the people on the boats because it said the targets were smuggling drugs for cartels it has designated as terrorists. The administration has also stressed that tens of thousands of Americans die annually from overdoses.

There is no question that tens of thousands of people died from drug overdoses in 2024, just as they did in the years preceding it. But it’s not exactly an emergency necessitating the claim of wartime powers. So what makes this different than what’s been happening all along and justifying the president’s declaration that “narco-terrorists” are “unlawful combatants” whom he can kill at will?

The notice to Congress, which was deemed controlled but unclassified information, cites a statute requiring reports to lawmakers about hostilities involving U.S. armed forces. It repeats the administration’s earlier arguments but also goes further with new claims, including portraying the U.S. military’s attacks on boats to be part of a sustained, active conflict rather than isolated acts of claimed self-defense.

Specifically, it says that Mr. Trump has “determined” that cartels engaged in smuggling drugs are “nonstate armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States.” And it cites a term from international law — a “noninternational armed conflict” — that refers to a war with a nonstate actor.

“Based upon the cumulative effects of these hostile acts against the citizens and interests of the United States and friendly foreign nations, the president determined that the United States is in a noninternational armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” the notice said.

In other words, there is no basis in fact for these actions, but merely the rhetorical gimmick of declaring drug smugglers to be “nonstate armed groups” engaged in an “armed attack against the United States.” And for many, no sleep will be lost by blowing them up because drugs are bad, overdoses happen and these are bad dudes so who cares what happens to them and we can turn a blind eye to Trump’s declaration of war against them because who doesn’t hate “narco-terrorists”? And if we hate them, who cares about law? Until they start summarily executing “narco-terrorists” in the streets of Chicago or the fields of Mexico?