VIDEO: “We Shouldn’t Allow Drug Warriors to Act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner”
As the Trump administration escalates its attacks on alleged “drug boats” in the Caribbean, IPS drug policy expert Sanho Tree briefed congressional staffers about how extrajudicial attacks like these are part of a long history of violence that often results in civilian deaths and tragedy.
“There’s a reason we shouldn’t allow our drug warriors to act as judge, jury, and executioner,” Sanho says. “It’s because they have made many, many tragic mistakes in the past, and ended up killing lots of civilians.”
And if Trump is “allowed to normalize this kind of international extrajudicial killing,” Sanho warns, “I don’t think it’s a far leap for Trump and [Trump adviser] Stephen Miller to try to normalize this domestically.”
Sanho posed a counter-example. “Would it be okay for the Mexican military to blow up a U.S. fishing boat because they believed it was smuggling deadly guns into Mexico and offered zero evidence? Would that be acceptable to this administration? If not, why not?”
“These kinds of one-size-fits-all solutions to a complicated problem ends up amplifying the motivational feedback loops of the very people you’re trying to stop,” Sanho explains of the drug war more broadly. “Terrorists want the war on terror to end, but drug traffickers are terrified the war on drugs will end because they can no longer make easy money once the prohibition on drugs is lifted.”
“So, we need to look at the origins of these problems and attack them separately,” he concludes. “And both of those problems require precise policing solutions, not militarized solutions.”
Watch Sanho’s entire briefing on YouTube below:
