Donald Trump’s decision to allow the Pentagon to target boats in international waters for complete destruction over accusations that they are involved in the drug trade is getting push-back from a surprising source.

In an op-ed for the Washington Post on Tuesday morning, Stanford Law Professor John Yoo, who rose from obscurity under President George W. Bush after he wrote in 2003 what became known as the “Torture Memos” that justified horrific abuse of detainees after the 9/11 attacks, admonished the president.

According to Yoo, Trump's purported drug interdiction war strains the boundaries of the Constitution and places him in criminal territory.“These attacks risk crossing the line between crime and war,” Yoo wrote before conceding, “the administration is right that illicit drugs are inflicting more harm on the U.S. than most armed conflicts have.”

Having written that, he explained, “In war, nations use extraordinary powers against other nations to prevent future attacks on their citizens and territory. Our military and intelligence agents seek to prevent foreign attacks that might happen in the future, not to punish past conduct.,” and added, “Law enforcement, by contrast, punishes perpetrators for crimes that have already occurred. The U.S. has long considered drug trafficking a matter for the criminal justice system. The difference in purpose dictates different tools.”

He noted that this issue came up after the 9/11 attacks and recalled, “I advised that the U.S. could wage war against al-Qaeda without blurring the distinction between crime and war. After 9/11, the U.S. declared that it would wage war for the first time against an organization, rather than a nation. But the drug cartels alone do not present a similar challenge that rises to the level of war.”

“The use of military force against the cartels may plunge the U.S. into a war against Venezuela. But a conflict focused against the Maduro regime is not a broad, amorphous military campaign against the illegal drug trade, which would violate American law and the Constitution,” he advised.


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