Donald Trump continues to order strikes on boats carrying supposed drug traffickers in the Carribean and the Pacific, killing an estimated 43 people so far. I have previously written about why these attacks are both illegal and unjust. See also insightful analyses by Brian Finucane at Just Security (here and here). Drug smuggling is, at most, a criminal law issue, not an act of war. And, in many cases, the people targeted either were not actually smuggling drugs or were not on their way to the US (US law cannot and does not forbid mere possession of drugs in international waters).
The most common answer to such critiques is that the strikes are justified because the supposed smugglers are transporting fentanyl, and fentanyl overdoses kill thousands of Americans each year. Thus, it is claimed, fentanyl smuggling represents a threat akin to terrorism (labeled "narco-terrorism" by the administration), and Trump is justified in using military force to forestall it.
