Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said the first military strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean “rises to the level of a war crime,” if a Washington Post report were true.
NANCY CORDES: You’re referring to this new Washington Post report that says that Secretary Hegseth called for everyone aboard, the first suspected drug boat that was targeted, to be killed when two people survived. The military went back in, reportedly with a follow-on strike. What questions do you have for the Pentagon about that situation?
KAINE: Well, first, if that reporting is true, it’s a clear violation of the DOD’s own laws of war, as well as international laws about the way you treat people who are in that circumstance. And so this rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true. And the questions that we’ve been asking for months are give us the evidence that the folks on board were really narcotraffickers. In one instance, there were two survivors, one Colombian, one Ecuadoran in a different strike. Instead of arresting them and prosecuting them, the U.S. picked them up and returned them to their countries of origin where they were released. So if they were narcotraffickers, why would we do that? We need more evidence about that. And we definitely need the administration to finally answer the question of why strike rather than interdict. If you know where the ships are, you can interdict. And when you do, you get evidence. You get individuals. You can squeeze them to give testimony against their higher-ups. You get evidence with the drug seizures. And finally, the other question that my colleagues and I are deeply worried about is the entire legal rationale for the strikes. We had to pry with a crowbar after weeks and weeks out of the administration. The supposed legal rationale for the strikes in international waters, it was very shoddy. Because it’s classified, I can’t tell you what’s in it. But I can tell you it was not at all persuasive that these are legal actions. And so together with a whole series of things, the early retirement of the head of SOUTHCOM, the news that the SOUTHCOM’s lead attorney said the strikes were not lawful, the decision of allies like the U.K. to stop sharing intelligence with the United States in this area because they believe the strikes are illegal. It’s time for Congress to rein in a president who is deciding to wage war on his own say so, which is not what the Constitution allows.
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