Shipwrecked drug runners should be arrested, not killed

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Maurer, USA (Ret.)

Former Judge Advocate General

USA Today

Dec. 9, 2025

While 'maximum lethality, not tepid legality' makes a striking sound bite, lethality without the legality has another name: murder.

Two men clinging to the fiery remains of a partially destroyed boat are not enemy combatants, they are simply surviving criminals.

And intentionally killing survivors, whether in war or a law enforcement operation, is not only dishonorable and shortsighted, it is illegal.

Such actions place U.S. military men and women in danger of becoming a caricature of the professional ideal expected by the American public. These actions demand answers and accountability.

'Kill everyone' wasn't a lawful directive

According to The Washington Post, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsethgave an order during the first boat strike on alleged narco-terrorists in September to leave no survivors.

We know it took four missiles to sink that vessel. We know, after the first missile, drone footage showed two men holding the side of the disabled and capsized hull. We know the second missile killed those men.

We don’t yet know whether Hegseth actually gave that preliminary order and, if so, whether it was interpreted by Navy Adm. Frank Bradley, directing the operation, as permission to finish off the two survivors. Bradley met with lawmakers last week, claiming the two survivors remained legitimate targets and denied receiving any “kill everyone” order.

Hegseth now dismisses the significance of the second strike but offered his support for Bradley, defended his decision-making amid the “fog of war” and stated the admiral had “complete authority” to order the second strike.

Maybe he did. But having “complete authority” from the top is not the same has having legal justification.

Laws can't be bent for political expediency

Law transcends personalities and job titles; law transcends policies and political objectives; law transcends individual preferences and gut instincts. That is what government by the rule of law, rather than by rule by force, means.The Trump administration asserted that these boat strikes, including the second follow-up missile strike on that first boat, comply with the laws of armed conflict. This is a serious error.

There is no armed conflict between the United States and any cartels, gangs or individual drug runners in this country, any other country or in international waters.

Drug trafficking is a dangerous crime with catastrophic consequences for many people who use the products the cartels are selling. Entire families and communities are impacted by those consequences. Even so, drug running isn't considered a hostile act under international law.

Dan Maurer, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, is an associate law professor at Ohio Northern University and a member of National Security Leaders for America and the Former JAG Working Group.