The Trump administration’s push to label drug traffickers as “narcoterrorists” and kill them at sea has generated global outrage. But the controversy risks missing the larger story.
Experts, non-governmental organisations and the UN have condemned the strikes as unlawful assassinations and Washington’s claim that it is acting in self-defence does not appear to hold up to legal analysis.
Yet these attacks are not a dramatic break. They extend a decades-long pattern of US “targeted killings”, from Yemen to Somalia to Syria. These attacks are almost always justified through controversial legal interpretations and have often been met with muted international opposition.
