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The Trump administration<\/span> is waging a secret war against undisclosed enemies without the consent of Congress, according to a confidential notice that was sent to several congressional committees this week and obtained by The Intercept.\u00a0It marks the most detailed explanation of the legal underpinnings offered by the administration for a series of\u00a0lethal attacks\u00a0<\/a>on boats<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0Caribbean<\/a>\u00a0that began last month.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump has decided that the United States is engaged in a declared state of \u201cnon-international armed conflict\u201d with \u201cdesignated terrorist organizations<\/a>\u201d or DTOs, according to the notice. It describes three people killed by U.S. commandos on a boat in the Carribean last month as \u201cunlawful combatants,\u201d as if they were soldiers on a battlefield.\u00a0This is a significant departure from standard practice in the long-running U.S. war on drugs, in which law enforcement arrest suspected drug dealers as opposed to summarily executing them<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe President directed the Department of War to conduct operations against [DTOs] pursuant to the law of armed conflict,\u201d reads the notice. \u201cThe United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Trump has justified the strikes by asserting on social media that the United States is attacking \u201cterrorists.\u201d\u00a0But the notice from the Department of War to the Congress committees marks a fundamental change in official policy, which states that Trump has unilaterally \u201cdetermined\u201d that cartels are \u201cnonstate armed groups\u201d whose transport of drugs constitutes \u201can armed attack against the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, told The Intercept that the Trump administration \u201chas offered no credible legal justification, evidence, or intelligence for these strikes,\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDrug cartels are despicable and must be dealt with by law enforcement. But now, by the President\u2019s own words, the U.S. military is engaged in armed conflict with undefined enemies he has unilaterally labeled \u2018unlawful combatants,\u2019 and he has deployed thousands of troops, ships, and aircraft against them,\u201d Reed told The Intercept. \u201cYet he has refused to inform Congress or the public. Every American should be alarmed that their President has decided he can wage secret wars against anyone he calls an enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is a specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war, said the Trump administration was using sleight of hand to pass off its summary executions as an extension of the forever wars.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPOTUS is giving himself a license to kill based on his own determinations and designations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThe notice tries to apply the legal framework that the U.S. relied upon for the \u2018war on terror\u2019 \u2014 self-defense following an armed attack plus hostilities in non-international armed conflicts \u2014 to unspecified narco-terrorists,\u201d he told The Intercept. \u201cThe fundamental problem with that approach is that the facts do not support it. The U.S. has not suffered an armed attack. The report does not even identify which groups the U.S. is supposedly engaged in an armed conflict with. Some of them \u2014 like Tren de Aragua \u2014 almost certainly are not organized armed groups that the U.S. even could be engaged in an armed conflict with.\u201d<\/p>\n Finucane continued: \u201cTo get around these fundamental problems, the administration relies on the President making both factual and legal determinations by sheer fiat. In doing so, POTUS is giving himself a license to kill based on his own determinations and designations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration is saying that one person \u2014 the president \u2014 now decides if the United States is going to war. And also, by himself, decides the reason,\u201d said a government official familiar with the notice who spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration is saying that one person \u2014 the president \u2014 now decides if the United States is going to war.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The notice to Congress cites Section 1230 of the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (50 U.S.C. \u00a7 1543a), a\u00a0statute requiring reports to lawmakers\u00a0about hostilities involving U.S. armed forces.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president does not have the authority to declare war and in claiming to do so Trump is eviscerating another constitutional power bestowed squarely on Congress,\u201d said Sarah Harrison, who advised military leaders on legal issues related to human rights and extrajudicial killings in her former role as associate general counsel at the Pentagon\u2019s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs. \u201cThis is one of the President\u2019s most dangerous moves yet that could very well have devastating consequences abroad and at home.\u201d<\/p>\n It repeats the administration\u2019s earlier justifications for the attacks in the Caribbean but also includes new claims, including portraying the U.S. military\u2019s strikes on boats to be part of a new and ongoing conflict rather than isolated acts of supposed self-defense.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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