Trump brags that US troops carried out an execution

What is the legal justification for killing a suspected criminal in Venezuela?

President Trump announced at 9:03 p.m. on Friday night: “At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua.”

Since when are U.S. forces allowed to “execute” criminal suspects without trial? Trump makes no pretense that the military tried to arrest Guerrero (real name: Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores), who was indicted by a federal court in New York, and that he died resisting arrest. Nor did he claim that Venezuelan forces killed him with intelligence support from the U.S. The president is proudly presenting this as an execution carried out by the U.S. military. He claims it’s revenge for murders committed in the U.S. by undocumented immigrants even though there is no proof that Guerrero was responsible for any these crimes.

The killing would presumably be proper if Guerrero were actually an enemy leader, like Osama bin Laden, waging war on the United States. But that’s not true, and this raid shows why.

Tren de Aragua is a criminal cartel whose business is smuggling drugs. It has not declared war on the U.S. like Al Qaeda or ISIS did. The designation of Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization was made by the Trump administration on the spurious grounds that it was being used by Venezuela under the Nicolas Maduro regime to wage war on the U.S.

This was cited as an excuse to deport undocumented Venezuelan immigrants without due process under the Alien Enemies Act, even though the U.S. intelligence community said there was no evidence to show that Tren de Aragua was being directed by Maduro. There was also no evidence that the Venezuelans the administration deported to El Salvador were actually Tren de Aragua members.

The argument that Tren de Aragua is waging war on the US on behalf of the Venezuela government is also part of the justification for the administration to blow up suspected drug boats. The administration claims that they are full of “narco-terrorists” who are affiliated with Tren de Aragua and other drug cartels. That campaign has claimed more than 200 lives—all lost in what legal experts say are extrajudicial killings (i.e. murder) carried out by US forces.

Yet now the new government of Venezuela, installed by Trump, has cooperated with US forces to kill Guerrero. Clearly the justification that Tren de Aragua is part of a Venezuelan attack on the US (false to begin with) no longer applies. It’s good to see Caracas and Washington cooperating on a law enforcement operation, even if many members of the Maduro regime complicit in drug smuggling remain in place, raising the possibility that the killing of Guerrero may be a move by other cartel leaders to eliminate a rival.

But what, then, is the legal justification for this killing? If the government of Venezuela is cooperating with the U.S. to battle Tren de Aragua, it’s nonsensical to claim that Tren de Aragua is waging war on the U.S. at the best of the government of Venezuela. I’m sure the administration will eventually produce some kind of legal rationale, but it will be as unconvincing as past efforts to justify its boat strikes or its deportations without due process.

This seems like another extrajudicial killing carried out by U.S. Special Operations Command on Trump and Hegseth’s orders. Nobody will mourn for a gangster like Guerrero, but I do mourn the rule of law, which is being flouted by Trump. The U.S. military has long seen itself as a force that abides by the laws of war. That is, sadly, no longer the case, given all the killings of noncombatants that U.S. military personnel are carrying out.