Sen. Tom Cotton pushed back Sunday against Democrats questioning the Trump administration’s strategy of attacking suspected drug boats in international waters.
Mr. Cotton said a boat loaded with narcotics bound for the U.S. is a valid military target because it is crewed by associates or members of foreign terrorist organizations who are trying to kill Americans.
“Before our military conducts such a strike, they have multiple sources of intelligence. They give high confidence that everyone on that boat is a foreign drug trafficker, not an innocent civilian who is being ‘human trafficked’, for instance,” the Arkansas Republican said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Some Senate Democrats have said the Sept. 2 “double-tap” strike on a suspected drug boat amounts to a war crime.
The first strike reportedly killed nine of the 11 people on board the vessel in the Caribbean Sea. A second strike was ordered after two survivors were spotted sitting or standing on the stricken vessel.
“It was essentially murder with that ‘double-tap’ strike,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Illinois Democrat, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “If a pilot bails out and he’s in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the ocean, under all the international laws of warfare, you are supposed to help render aid to that individual.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt, Missouri Republican, said the Democrats’ outrage over the Sept. 2 strike is merely the latest skirmish in their plan to push out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“We have core national interests at stake, the homeland and the Western Hemisphere, and the rise of China. That’s what this administration is focused on,” Mr. Schmitt said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “The Democrats are just upset about that and they’re trying to create some controversy, and every week it goes nowhere.”
