Military archbishop urges respect for rule of law after follow-up strike on alleged drug boat

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — The head of the U.S. military archdiocese on Dec. 3 urged respect for the human person and the rule of law amid new questions about the legality of a deadly U.S. military attack Sept. 2 on a boat in the Caribbean.

The Trump administration has carried out multiple deadly strikes on what it alleged were suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean in order, it said, to combat drug trafficking into the U.S. One of those strikes has come under newfound scrutiny after an alleged order was given to leave no survivors and allowed a second strike to carry it out.

“In the fight against drugs, the end never justifies the means, which must be moral, in accord with the principles of the just war theory, and always respectful of the dignity of each human person,” Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services said in a statement.

“No one can ever be ordered to commit an immoral act, and even those suspected of committing a crime are entitled to due process under the law,” he said. “As the moral principle forbidding the intentional killing of noncombatants is inviolable, it would be an illegal and immoral order to kill deliberately survivors on a vessel who pose no immediate lethal threat to our armed forces.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has pointed to Adm. Frank Bradley, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, as being behind the decision to carry out the second fatal strike, but some reports suggest Hegseth gave a verbal order that there be no survivors from the strike.

Hegseth uses the moniker “secretary of war” since Trump signed an executive order on Sept. 5 adding the “Department of War” as a secondary, ceremonial title for the Department of Defense.

“Adm. Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat,” Hegseth said Dec. 2 at a Cabinet meeting at the White House. “And it was the right call. We have his back.”

Such an order may be unlawful and expose those involved to prosecution, multiple reports said.

Archbishop Broglio added, “Our Nation has a long tradition of responding to injustice, liberating the oppressed, and leading the free world. We cannot tarnish that reputation with questionable actions that fail to respect the dignity of the human person and the rule of law.”

“Efforts to end the drug trade and their illicit use must never exclude employing the rule of law,” he said. “To be the best, we must give example and do what is right. When we allow the moral law to guide our actions, we not only protect the innocent, we protect our men and women in uniform. These principles have nothing to do with partisan politics, right, left, or center.”

“I call on our Nation’s leaders, legislators, and those specifically charged to direct our Armed Forces to respect the consciences of those who raise their right hands to defend and protect the Constitution by not asking them to engage in immoral actions,” he said. “Show the world our respect for human dignity and the rule of law.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states legitimate authorities are entrusted with preserving the common good by “rendering the unjust aggressor unable to inflict harm,” and toward that end they “have the right to repel by armed force aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their charge.”

Legitimate defense by military force, it says, is only morally permissible under strict conditions that are all present at one and the same time: the “lasting, grave and certain” damage from the aggressor, the exhaustion of all other efforts to end such damage, “serious prospects of success,” and the use of arms such that graver evils and disorders are not produced.

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