In this episode of The Rule of Law Brief, Nate Charles breaks down what actually went wrong during the U.S. drug-boat strikes in the Caribbean — and why the legal failures weren’t subtle, debatable, or ambiguous.
Drawing on his experience as a former Navy SEAL officer assigned to JSOC, Nate explains how a lawful land-warfare tactic — the “double-tap” used against armed combatants inside a declared theater of active armed conflict — appears to have been blindly imported into a maritime interdiction context where it absolutely does not apply. The result: strikes that were illegal under the Geneva Conventions, likely constituted war crimes, and reflected a catastrophic misunderstanding of basic international humanitarian law.
He also discusses:
* How the AUMF and DTAC framework governed lawful counterterrorism strikes — and why none of those authorities existed here.
* What “hors de combat” actually means, and why Geneva draws a bright line between land warfare and naval engagements.
* Why a disabled vessel — and especially sailors in the water — are legally protected shipwreck survivors who cannot be targeted under any circumstances.
* The deeper institutional problem: senior leaders who simply didn’t understand the law they were operating under.
* Why accountability is necessary, and why incompetence — not malice — is the most plausible explanation.
This episode is blunt, legally grounded, and unsparing in its assessment: the strikes were illegal, avoidable, and the direct product of professional negligence at senior levels.
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