Trump Has a Secret List of 24 “Designated Terrorist Organizations.” We Got Some of the Names.

To justify its deadly strikes on alleged drug-smugglers at sea the Trump administration now suggests that there are designated terrorist organizations engaging in armed conflict with the United States three authorities sources stated The Intercept This new list of Latin American cartels and criminal organizations is attached to a classified opinion produced by the Justice Department s Office of Legal Counsel to sponsorship the administration s argument that attacks on suspected drug-traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean are lawful The list of groups supposedly engaged in non-international armed conflict with the United States includes the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua Ej rcito de Liberaci n Nacional a Colombian guerrilla insurgency C rtel de los Soles a Venezuelan criminal group that the U S declares is headed by Nicolas Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals and several groups affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel according to two of those cabinet sources who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose classified information The full list has not been disclosed even to all lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee Of the groups now known to be on the list there is no evidence that they are authentically participating in armed conflict with the United States The administration has established a factual and legal alternate universe for the executive branch mentioned Brian Finucane a former State Department lawyer who is a specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war This is the president purely by fiat saying that the U S is in conflict with these undisclosed groups without any congressional authorization So this is not just a secret war but a secret unauthorized war Or in reality a make-believe war because most of of these groups we likely couldn t even be in a war with The U S military has carried out known attacks on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean since September killing at least people The greater part newest attack on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea on Thursday killed three civilians Military executives admitted to lawmakers that they do not know the identities of all the people on board a vessel before they conduct a lethal strike Following the majority of the attacks War Secretary Pete Hegseth or President Donald Trump have claimed that the casualties belonged to an unspecified designated terrorist organization or DTO This is not just a secret war but a secret unauthorized war Or in reality a make-believe war because bulk of these groups we presumably couldn t even be in a war with Experts in the laws of war and members of Congress say the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians even suspected criminals who do not pose an imminent threat of violence The summary executions are a key departure from standard practice in the long-running U S war on drugs in which law enforcement arrested suspected drug traffickers Secretary of State Marco Rubio Hegseth and other administration agents held a briefing with a small bipartisan group of lawmakers who oversee national guard issues for roughly an hour in a secure facility in the Capitol on Wednesday Attendees stated the administration s legal justifications didn t hold up Related Are You on Trump s List of Domestic Terrorists There s No Way to Know The Trump administration remains unable to provide any credible explanation for its extrajudicial and unauthorized military strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific It was clear from this briefing that the administration s legal justifications are dubious and meant to circumvent Congress constitutional power on matters of war and peace reported Rep Gregory W Meeks D-N Y the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee after attending the briefing I continue to believe these strikes are illegal and an enormous overreach of executive power The Pentagon has been withholding key information about the attacks and the list of DTOs for almost two months and has still yet to share all the relevant information with all lawmakers While I am glad to have conclusively been provided the OLC opinion to review I continue to find it unconvincing and am concerned that the legal reasoning it employs could be used to justify a range of operations that like the current operations are deeply problematic Rep Jim Himes of Connecticut the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee communicated The Intercept It s unacceptable that only a handful of Members are allowed to understand the Administration s interpretation of the law The Administration requirements to without delay make the opinion and list of DTOs available for all of Congress to review so that we can conduct our constitutionally mandated oversight of the use of lethal military force Senate Republicans blocked a war powers resolution on Thursday aimed at preventing Trump from attacking Venezuela after a bipartisan group of senators warned that the undeclared war on alleged drug guides in the region could escalate The vote to advance the resolution failed with senators supporting it and opposing it Related Rand Paul Reveals Venezuela Boat Attack Was a Drone Strike The resolution led by Sen Tim Kaine D-Va would have directed the president to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities within or against Venezuela unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force The resolution had co-sponsors including Sen Rand Paul R-Ky If colleagues believe that a war against the narco-traffickers in the ocean or a war against Venezuela is a good idea then put an authorization of military force on the table and debate and vote it but don t just hand the power over to an executive Kaine commented on Thursday That runs against everything that this nation was founded on The administration has no plans to seek an authorization for the use of military force similar to the AUMF which authorized counterterrorism operations by the U S military against those responsible for Pentagon briefers communicated lawmakers last week Even if Congress authorized it this would still be illegal under U S and international law because we are not in an armed conflict with these cartels Rep Sara Jacobs D-Calif a member of the House Armed Services Committee who attended a briefing on the strikes last week notified The Intercept And so this is just murder Six regime officers among them two who authenticated the count of DTOs who spoke to The Intercept over weeks expressed high confidence that bulk if not all of the boats targeted in the strikes have been smuggling drugs Sources reported the United States has been using top secret sensitive compartmented information involving human sources and signals intelligence provided by the National Safeguard Agency and the CIA to inform the attacks Related License to Kill Trump s Extrajudicial Executions Lawmakers still expressed concern about U S targeting procedures Himes explained he wasn t confident that U S forces are using the same structure and architecture employed in past counterterrorism strikes during the war on terror to prevent the killing of innocent civilians and that sufficient safeguards within the intelligence society may not be in place If they cannot find a connection or show a connection with a DTO then it goes to the law enforcement path with an interdiction So that was their decision tree But nailing them down more on what that connection is and how they show it and what they re looking for we didn t get a lot of good information on that disclosed Jacobs They know how several people they killed but they made it seem like they were not really doing any post-strike evidence gathering The people aboard the boats are hardly drug kingpins An inspection by The Associated Press into the lives of nine of those killed in U S strikes determined that while they had been smuggling drugs they were not narco-terrorists or gang leaders but laborers a fisherman a motorcycle taxi driver two were low-level criminals and one was a local crime boss All were from a desperately poor area and most of were crewing such boats for the first or second time Military briefers have admitted to members of Congress that they cannot satisfy the evidentiary burden necessary to hold or prosecute survivors of the strikes Neither U S Southern Command the Office of the Secretary of Defense the Justice Department nor the White House would provide the list of DTOs who it indicates are engaged in secret wars with America The count of according to a single source was first disclosed by CNN on Thursday The fantasy conflicts between the United States and Tren de Aragua Ej rcito de Liberaci n Nacional C rtel de los Soles and various Sinaloa Cartel groups and other criminal organizations are a farce since America s adversaries do not even know they are considered at war with the U S nor do the American people know with whom the U S is facing in a supposed state of armed conflict Selected experts even doubt the C rtel de los Soles one the DTOs certainly exists explaining it is more a system of corruption than a group with a leadership structure It is a foreign analogue to antifa which the Trump administration proposes is a domestic terror organization but is literally a set of ideas Notably C rtel de los Soles is not even mentioned in a two-volume -page State Department overview on global anti-drug operations published earlier this year The bottom line is these strikes are illegal mentioned Finucane We need to see the full list of groups that the authorities has given itself permission to attack without congressional authorization And Congress demands to push back on this lawless killing and a prospective real illegal war with Venezuela The post Trump Has a Secret List of Designated Terrorist Organizations We Got A few of the Names appeared first on The Intercept