[WildHighlander57]

xone wrote:

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Trump Declares Drug Cartels Are ‘Unlawful Combatants’
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This is the ‘distinction’ I was talking about. Not ‘enemy combatants’ unlawful ones. So are all the sobs not in uniform fighting here.
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IIRC the Laws of War make the distinction, and different rules come into play when they are designated “unlawful combatants”.

https://sofrep.com/news/trump-calls-caribbean-cartels-unlawful-combatants-what-that-means-and-what-comes-next/

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Calling cartel fighters “unlawful combatants” is a legal signal that the U.S. views them as targetable fighters who lack prisoner-of-war protections if captured. That framing points to detention and targeting rules drawn from the laws of war rather than ordinary criminal law.
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[Publius]

That framing points to detention and targeting rules drawn from the laws of war rather than ordinary criminal law.

Which we may well see in cities such as Portland when Trump invokes the Insurrection Act.

[xone]

That’s right, they can be killed wherever found, no requirement to capture sans a truce flag. Equivalent to pirates or bandits.