President Trump has said on several occasions that he supports the death penalty for drug dealers. His recent actions show that the death penalty he seeks is not the result of an arrest, prosecution, trial, conviction, and sentencing. He prefers the death penalty by extrajudicial murder.
Back in 2018, Trump said during a phone call with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte: “I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”
This is the Rodrigo Duterte who was just charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with “violent acts including murder to be committed against alleged criminals, including alleged drug dealers and users.” He is now being held at an ICC detention facility in the Netherlands.
On September 2, Trump ordered the U.S. military to conduct “a kinetic strike” against “terrorists” in “international waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” Eleven “terrorists” were killed, but “no U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike.” Trump declared: “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”
On September 15, Trump announced that the U.S. military destroyed a second boat in international waters “trafficking illicit narcotics.” A third lethal strike was carried out on another boat on September 19.
Regardless of how one feels about whether marijuana or other drugs should be legal for medical or recreational use, Trump’s actions are simply extrajudicial murder. There was no search, seizure, arrest, indictment, arraignment, prosecution, trial, conviction, or sentencing. There is no proof of what exactly was on the boat. Neither the boat nor its occupants posed any threat to the United States. The boat was in international waters and nowhere near American territory. Violating drug laws is not a death-penalty offense. Nevertheless, Trump took it upon himself to be judge, jury, and executioner.
Oh, but Trump didn’t kill anyone. Correct. He just ordered his personal attack force of the U.S. military to kill for him. But drug smuggling is a criminal offense, not an act of war that requires a response by the U.S. military.
If Trump can order the execution of people in international waters who are not even violating U.S. drug laws, then what is to stop him from ordering the execution of people in the United States who are actually violating U.S. drug laws?
Conservatives—including many conservative Christians—generally support Trump’s extrajudicial murder because they have the simplistic mindset of drugs: bad, military: good.
Trump’s actions are excused by the vast majority of conservatives because he labeled the people murdered by the U.S. military as “narco-terrorists.” But the war on drugs is just as bogus as the war on terrorism. They are both reasons why Americans increasingly live in a national security, police state instead of a free society. The real narco-terrorists are the military personnel who murder for Trump.
This is yet another reason why Americans—and especially American Christians—should not join the military. If you join the military, there is no guarantee that you won’t be ordered to murder for Donald Trump. Just like there was no guarantee that you wouldn’t have been ordered to murder for George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden.
If you join the military, you will be expected to unconditionally follow orders and to help carry out a reckless, belligerent, and interventionist U.S. foreign policy. You will not be defending the country, the Constitution, or American freedoms. You will be part of the president’s personal attack force and a pawn in the hands of Uncle Sam.
Yet, criticism of the military is seen by most Americans as criticism of America itself, as Jeffrey Polet, director of the Ford Leadership Forum at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation recently said:
In contemporary America, one complains about the size and status of the military to one’s own peril. We are constantly asked to defer to the militarization of our daily lives, from flyovers at ball games to military salutes at public concerts to allowing military personnel to board planes before us—throughout even our daily lives, we are slowly bent at the knee. We now find ourselves in a world where to criticize the military is to criticize America itself, and thus it goes with empires.
I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
