If we call a cocaine smuggler an "unlawful combatant" in an "armed struggle" against the United States, the Trump administration says, it is OK to kill him, even if he is unarmed and poses no immediate threat. And according to Adm. Frank M. Bradley, who commanded the newly controversial September 2 operation that inaugurated President Donald Trump's deadly anti-drug campaign in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, it is still OK to kill that cocaine smuggler if he ends up in the water after a missile strike on his boat, clinging to the smoking wreckage, provided you determine that he is still "in the fight."
Bradley, who answered lawmakers' questions about that attack during closed-door briefings on Thursday that also included Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine, knew that the initial missile strike, which killed nine people, left two survivors. But because the survivors had radioed for help from their fellow drug traffickers, The New York Times reports, Bradley ordered a second missile strike, which blew apart both men. That second strike was deemed necessary, according to unnamed "U.S. officials" interviewed by the Times, to prevent recovery of any cocaine that might have remained after the first strike.
