Trump Orders Drone Killings of Drug Suspects, Expanding Bush-Era 9/11 Impunity
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 11
Trump Orders Drone Killings of Drug Suspects, Expanding Bush-Era 9/11 Impunity
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 11
Summary
Donald Trump is using drones to kill suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, according to the report, after labeling them “narcoterrorists” in a purported war with cartels.
That legal theory mirrors George W. Bush’s post-9/11 “enemy combatant” framework, which the article says normalized detention without trial and opened the door to treating suspects as wartime targets rather than criminal defendants.
Barack Obama’s decision in 2009 not to prosecute senior Bush officials for torture is cited as a key missed break with that approach, leaving what the author calls a legacy of impunity later administrations did not fully reverse.
The report argues Trump’s rationale is even weaker than earlier targeted killings in Yemen and Pakistan because US authorities have long been able to intercept drug suspects at sea and prosecute them.
Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, the article frames the drone killings as the latest consequence of failing to enforce accountability for past counterterrorism abuses.