Blowing Up Boats Using Disguised Aircraft?
The NYT reports about likely war crimes by US forces.
The NYT reports: U.S. Attacked Boat With Aircraft That Looked Like a Civilian Plane.
The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.
The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump “determined” the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.
But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called “perfidy.”
This is far more James Joyner’s balliwick than mine, but I wanted to note it before it got lost in the ongoing onslaught of news about this administration.
Retired Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, a former deputy judge advocate general for the United States Air Force, said that if the aircraft had been painted in a way that disguised its military nature and got close enough for the people on the boat to see it — tricking them into failing to realize they should take evasive action or surrender to survive — that was a war crime under armed-conflict standards.
“Shielding your identity is an element of perfidy,” he said. “If the aircraft flying above is not identifiable as a combatant aircraft, it should not be engaged in combatant activity.”
I have been opposed to these attacks from the start, as I see them as unjustified summary executions, if not simply murder on the high seas. Using disguised aircraft just makes it all worse and is, I would note, now the second distinct allegation of war crimes being committed in this operation. The first was the credible allegation that helpless survivors from one of the attacks were blown out of the water as they clung to wreckage.
All of this matters for a variety of reasons.
First, I must confess that I do not want our military to commit war crimes.
Second, despite a number of absurd claims to the contrary, these strikes are not going to have any real effect on the drug trade.
Third, this is all just part of the overall authoritarian enterprise that is the Trump administration. It is faux displays of supposed strength and power to try and convince the willing and the gullible that the Mighty Trump is using his military to slay threats to the US. It is all the childish, simplistic displays of might that authoritarians use to paint a picture of strength, and a lot of people fall for it.
All of this does bring concern raised about illegal orders by Senator Kelly and comrades into increasingly clearer focus, does it not?
U.S. military manuals about the law of war discuss perfidy at length, saying it includes when a combatant feigns civilian status so the adversary “neglects to take precautions which are otherwise necessary.” A U.S. Navy handbook says lawful combatants at sea use offensive force “within the bounds of military honor, particularly without resort to perfidy,” and stresses that commanders have a “duty” to “distinguish their own forces from the civilian population.”
BTW:
The U.S. military has killed at least 123 people in 35 attacks on boats, including the Sept. 2 strike.
I think it is important to note that attacking these boats is a crime regardless of how it’s done. There is, properly speaking, no war or other armed conflict going on. What means that this is murder regardless. Like a rogue cop executing criminal suspects in the streets. In such a case, it doesn’t make much difference whether said cop is wearing a uniform or not.
What is very important though, is that even relatively junior military personnel are apparently being asked to disregard their training regarding the laws of war. And, moreover, that they are actually doing so.
Which means that criminal culpability isn’t limited to civilian policy makers, but rather that it goes all the way down to the people pulling the triggers.
This is a program of extrajudicial killing. It isn’t a one-off. It isn’t a “oops this went too far”. This had to be planned. This is the primary offense of Maduro, not the charges he is facing. This was the primary issue that we typically see with dictators.
This is what happened to Renee Good. What we are finding out is that Ross was following a program that ICE got in trouble for two decades ago a “kill box” tactic. Again, not a case of “things went too far” but rather a strategic decision to create a situation where killing is enabled.
This is a problem. A big, big problem. Every single Republican who doesn’t vote for impeachment and removal is condoning these extrajudicial killings.
War Crimes on top of War Crimes on top of an illegal military operation. Awesome.
Why does our military even have a Perfidy Plane? When was it commissioned? Are there valid, non-war-crime uses for it?
A reconnaissance plane would not need weapons, so that isn’t an explanation.
@Jay L. Gischer:
This is absolutely true. Republicans groused about Trump shaking down Zelensky in 2019, but wouldn’t pull the impeachment trigger, and then took the same dive after he incited the January 6th riot. Trump does this shit because Republican pols and Republican appointed Sup Ct justices have told him it’s OK.
@Gustopher:
Reconnaissance aircraft can carry weapons for self defense. But that’s rare.
What I find surprising is no one’s been branded a traitor and threatened with summary execution for stating what the law says.
@Gustopher: I wouldn’t be too surprised if we developed that capability for the purpose of carrying out some black ops.
Mostly surveillance, but with some hitting capability.
Black ops. Those are the things you don’t talk about at all and deny happening. Not things you brag about on social media.
My read is that Trump wants people to know that he can and will kill people. It makes him feel powerful.
RAF maritime reconnaisance/patrol aircraft are routinely armed.
Their armaments are carried internally, not externally.
They are also generally painted in “low observability” fashion.
So all things considered, they don’t look especially “military” to an untrained eye.
I really don’t think the aircaft configuration is the issue here.
It’s whether the attacks were or were not legal in the first place.
And that, surely, is where Congress should be stepping in.
@JohnSF:
Not the central issue, but it is a big deal.
The attacks, whether legal or not*, have been carried out openly. Footage of them has been released, responsibility has been trumpeted more than claimed, etc. Moreover the US has a crazy large air force, combat naval aviation larger than the air forces of most countries, and lots of armed drones that are not mere guided bombs. On top of all this, they decide to use a disguised plane that is illegal and considered a war crime by their own standards.
Why?
Speaking of people who can’t keep their mouths shut: Did Trump Accidently Reveal a Top Secret US Kill Switch?
This is the sort of trivia that right-wingers love to use to deflect the conversation from the core issues. See for example https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/01/13/nyt-is-right-about-perfidy-but-they-are-the-ones-committing-it-n3810788 Not only is it a deflection, but they are experts in turning the trivia into a counter-attack, along the lines of “OMG if they lie about the AR-15 being a military-grade assault rifle they’re obviously lying about everything!”
America is not at war with “the cartels”, therefore any discussion about “war crimes” is simply distracting attention from the core reality, namely the US is murdering people on the high seas and is proud of it.
@Kathy: @JohnSF: I stand corrected. I have a reconnaissance aircraft would stand basically no chance on any battle, and would just save the weight.
I guess I would have sent reconnaissance planes to their sad deaths or something.