Bla bla bla
It is Piracy.
Are we in agreement that killing sailors in the water after said strike is indeed a crime? Maybe not a war crime, given no war, but a crime nonetheless?
Killing survivors of a wrecked boat is explicitly cited by the Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual 18.3.2.1 as “clearly illegal”:
Why don’t they wait until the suspect boat is in US waters before taking action? Its destination country will be clear, and the Venezuelan fisherman won’t be afraid to fish with now no fear of being attacked.
Here is a good detailed article on the legality of our killing survivors:
If the reporting turns out to be 100 percent accurate, Hegseth may not have ordered killing the shipwrecked after they were shipwrecked. Instead, before the attack he said to kill them all. This of course is another clear war crimes violation – we take prisoners.
If we were to rank war crimes against combattants in terms not of how many are killed, but of moral badness, killing the shipwrecked may be number one because the attacker has almost nothing to fear from the shipwrecked due to the immense power disparity. That’s why it is given as the example of a clear-cut war crime.
Refusing to take prisoners AKA give-no-quarter may be the next one in such a ranking.
According to the Washington Post, the admiral said the shipwrecked were legitimate targets because they might call in help. This seems implausible because the men were in the water. Compare to World War II when the men in the lifeboat typically had a rescue radio. With enemy submarines about, it still was a bright line violation of the laws of war to sink a German lifeboat, but I can understand the fear of any U.S. World War II sailors who did it, if any did (I find no undisputed examples). Hegseth and the Admiral were of course in no conceivable danger from the men in the water.
The plausible destination of these small boats is nearby Trinidad and Tobago.
Ha, loophole! Those speedboats fall short of the conventional maritime-classifying lower limit of 500 tons for vessels called ships.
No ship, no shipwreck, Four Eyes! The example in the book has a tiny bit of ambiguity so our guys are assuredly in the clear! ‘Clearly illegal’, lol. Bombs’ away!
In the spirit of Factual Questions, I wish to ask whether this is currently being seriously suggested as a defense, and whether this defense has ever been used, in any country, to excuse firing on the shipwrecked.
For what it is worth, I queried both ChatGPT and Gemini on the following question, and both answered with a clear NO:
“In the laws of war rule against firing on the shipwrecked, is there a minimum size for the sunk ship in order for the law to apply?”
P.S. from Gemini:
- “Shipwreck” Defined Broadly: The term “shipwreck” itself is defined as resulting from “any cause” and “includes forced landings at sea by or from aircraft” (Article 12, GC II Commentary). This broad scope covers not just large warships or merchant vessels, but any craft—a dinghy, a military transport, a fishing boat, etc.—whose sinking or disablement leaves the occupants in a state of peril.
Are you asking why they don’t proceed legally?
Yes, this. They don’t want to wait, because these boats have no capacity to even get to US waters.
“No Quarter” in our time. And not Led Zepellin.
Do these drones have the ability to stay there and shoot survivors? If I wanted to construct a diabolical drone, it would do that, at least enough to attract sharks.
Absolutely a war crime.
They hold no quarter. They ask no quarter.
This is what I wonder about - my very limited experience with outboard motors is that they consume huge amounts of fuel, particularly at high speed. These small boats have 3 or 4 large engines. Can such a boat carry enough fuel to make it an appreciable distance, let alone all the way from Venezuela or Colombia to the USA?
The news said the reason was they might call for help and give away the US position (duh!) or the help that arrives might retreive many of the drug packages and resume the attack on the USA with those drugs.
To me, the FQ answer seems to be:
Blowing up ships: may be a war crime, but may also be allowed under US law due to the expansive post-9/11 war powers (call someone an enemy combatant and they’re fair game, even if it’s not true).
Blowing up the blown-up ships: Clearly a war crime, even under US law.
I would disagree for several reasons.
First, there is no war, so while very illegal, it cannot by definition be a war crime. That’s pretty much a full stop. Anything past this is adding fuel to an argument that does not deserve it. It’s like debating flat earth, or creationism, etc., just engaging in the debate is legitimizing something that has no business being debated. If there’s no war, then it’s murder/extra judicial killing.
And yet I’m going to do it…assuming there is a hypothetical armed conflict between the US and a drug cartel, that would make the drug traffickers combatants - but that’s just a status. While the status means they don’t have to be an immediate threat to justify lethal force, it’s also not an inherent legal right to kill anyone based on status alone. Yes they could be lawful targets, but lethal force must be necessary. Capture is preferred if feasible. At a basic level, the law still requires status based targets to:
- Be a military necessity. Is there a less than lethal option to accomplish the objective?
- Distinct. How do you know this specific person is a combatant. They are certainly unlawful combatants in the sense they are not part of a military or anything like that. They are not directly participating in hostilities (shooting at us is the usual way) to justify killing as a first option. I can think of ways but it’s a real stretch. You can’t just make up lawyered distinct reasons beforehand and say they are doing it, though.
- Proportional. Is everyone on the boat a combatant, or is there also civilians being trafficked that are also going to be killed. Need to justify killing civilians.
There’s just no way these strikes are even attempting to comply with that. I don’t see the necessity. You would at least try, or find a reason why you could not try, to use less than lethal options first and were “forced” to kill as a first option. In theory, like some terrorists, you could make a drug cartel engage in an armed conflict. But theory doesn’t make it real.
Finally, being illegal and being held accountable for illegal behavior are two different things. Just because someone is not held accountable doesn’t mean what they did was legal.
Something doesn’t have to happen during a declared war to be considered a war crime, does it?
It does not. A “war crime” is a category of crime, not a crime that occurs during war.
What is so sad is that actions that would previously demand automatic dismay and arrest now merely and meekly invite debate. Fucking yes, this is a war crime, and the killing of survivors makes it much worse. This is a statement of fact.
Then, I don’t understand @CoolHandCox’s response.
I suppose it’s mostly semantics. To be clear, by saying it’s not a war crime, I’m not suggesting it’s a lesser thing. I’m saying it’s much worse.
The Trump administration is treating this as a war (armed conflict). If that’s true, then a specific legal framework comes into play that is different than a peacetime legal framework. Basically, under the right circumstances, you can kill as a measure of first resort. I’m arguing this is not an armed conflict, and even if it was, these aren’t the right circumstances to use lethal force as a first resort.
If the situation between the cartel and the US is not an armed conflict, and it’s not, then it’s just regular peacetime murder that is happening by the Navy. You must attempt less than lethal measures as a first resort unless you are acting in self-defense. It’s ok to call a Navy drone killing criminals a “war crime” - I just get hung up on that implying there is an actual war. There is not.
Yeah, it is definitely murder. But I’m not sure you can charge anyone but the serviceman who pulled the trigger with murder. The whole chain of command, from the triggerman all the way to the Commander in Chief, can be charged with a war crime. It’s the use of the armed forces that makes this a war crime.