在三个多月的行动中，美国军方在加勒比海和太平洋对疑似毒品走私船只实施了21次确认空袭，已造成至少83人死亡，其中许多是平民走私者，而几乎没有法律监督。此前俯首听命的国会共和党多数派基本放弃了对军事行动的制衡权力，如今在两党压力下才开始追问这场行动的合法性。
争议集中在9月2日的首次打击：11名疑似贩毒者所在船只遭导弹袭击后，仍有2名幸存者紧抓残骸，但负责行动的布拉德利上将 reportedly 仍下令再次攻击，将二人炸死，被批评为对已经丧失战斗力人员实施攻击。美国《武装冲突法手册》明确认定攻击因遇险而失去行动能力者既“不光彩也不人道”，法律专家更称此举几乎是“教科书式非法命令”的定义。
白宫承认第二次打击，却把责任推给上将，而下令开展整个行动的赫格塞斯“战争部长”则强调自己的执行令要求“致命打击”却否认下达“格杀勿论”命令；他已于12月4日被传唤到国会作秘密作证，同时他削弱平民伤亡减灾办公室、撤换多名高级军事律师，导致法务军官军团士气低迷，也加剧了外界对这场针对普通犯罪集团却使用高强度军事力量行动的质疑。
Over a period of just over three months, U.S. forces have launched 21 confirmed air or missile strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing at least 83 people, many of them civilian smugglers, under minimal legal oversight and a previously compliant Congress. The campaign’s opening strike on 2 September targeted 11 alleged traffickers, and after an initial missile left 2 survivors clinging to wreckage, a follow-on strike ordered by Admiral Frank Bradley reportedly killed them, prompting allegations of a textbook war crime against persons hors de combat.
The Washington Post report on 28 November triggered bipartisan scrutiny, while the White House has acknowledged the second strike but shifted operational responsibility onto Admiral Bradley even as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth publicly “stands by” his combat decisions. Hegseth’s execute order delegated lethal authority down the chain of command through Joint Special Operations Command, and he watched the mission live before departing, leaving an operations center where commanders, intelligence staff, munitions experts, and a JAG adviser—who lacked any formal veto—approved strikes in real time.
Key dates and institutional moves underline broader trends: Hegseth testifies in private to Congress on 4 December, after having gutted the Pentagon’s Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and removed multiple senior JAGs, contributing to what insiders describe as collapsing morale in the legal corps. Legal experts question whether destroying drug boats, repeatedly justified as removing navigation hazards even when survivors are present, can be squared with treaty obligations to care for the wounded or with the claim that America is in an “armed conflict” with narcogangs rather than waging a disproportionate, norm-breaking criminal interdiction campaign.
Source: Will Congress rein in Pete Hegseth and his boatbombing campaign?
Subtitle: A deadly strike raises stark questions about America’s anti-drug war
Dateline: 12月 04, 2025 05:40 上午 | WASHINGTON, DC