Click to view full size

In less than two months, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth say the U.S. mil­i­tary has killed 34 peo­ple in eight strikes against drug-smug­gling ves­sels in the Caribbean Sea and Pa­cif­ic Ocean.

Trump has jus­ti­fied the at­tacks as a nec­es­sary es­ca­la­tion to stem the flow of drugs in­to the Unit­ed States. He has as­sert­ed the U.S. is en­gaged in an “armed con­flict” with drug car­tels, re­ly­ing on the same le­gal au­thor­i­ty used by the Bush ad­min­is­tra­tion when it de­clared a war on ter­ror af­ter the Sept. 11 at­tacks.

But as the num­ber of strikes has grown, a de­bate in Con­gress has es­ca­lat­ed over the lim­its of the pres­i­dent’s pow­er. The at­tacks have oc­curred with­out any le­gal in­ves­ti­ga­tion or a tra­di­tion­al de­c­la­ra­tion of war from Con­gress, and some law­mak­ers have raised ques­tions about the lack of hard ev­i­dence to jus­ti­fy the killings.