A boat in international waters off the coast of Venezuela was blown up by the U.S. military, on President Donald Trump’s proud authorization.
It was not universally praised.
“The controversy erupted on Saturday when Vance wrote on the social platform X,” Sabina Eaton reports, quoting the vice president: “’Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,’ referencing the September 2 military strike.”
The idea that the “best use” of our armed forces is to destroy — without arrest or declaration of war or even a serious legal case set before world opinion or, for that matter, U.S. opinion — sounds all too modern but not very American.
Does it matter that they were, or merely might have been, “narco-terrorists,” as the president called the eleven people wiped out on the fast-moving boat? Or that Mr. Trump asserted their service to Venezuela’s strongman Maduro — against whom the U.S. has not declared war?
“Sen. Rand Paul all but accused the vice president of celebrating war crimes,” Eli Stokols and Dasha Burns wrote yesterday at Politico. “The Kentucky Republican ripped Vance over the weekend in a social media fight that could offer a preview of future skirmishes between President Donald Trump’s heir apparent and another Republican with 2028 ambitions.”
The Kentucky senator asked, rhetorically, if the vice president had “ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?
“Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation??
“What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
Rand is right. The use of unlawful or unaccountable power can never advance American interests. Because one of our interests is holding power to account, to the rule of law.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Krea and Firefly
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5 replies on “Gunboat Anti-Diplomacy”
This would be the only drug-smuggling boat in history that had 11 people on board! A real drug-smuggling boat would need only one or two people for the operation.
It is a crime!
The drug cartels need another way to get their goods to market. Now that the US southern border is under control, we might see more of this in the future. Those who cross the border today are either arrested or sent back. Private boats and planes are more likely going forward. We’ll have to guard the coastlines. The US may not have declared war on Venezuela but it did launch a global war on terror after 9/11. It appears that war is ongoing. Tren de Aragua has been designated as a terrorist group.
We had another problem with foreign people going towards our country. If we had been more in watching maybe we would not have lost those that died in Pearl Harbor.
Point of fact: We, the US, knew about Pearl Harbor in time to meet the attack or even stop it. We had broken the Japanese military code a while before it happened.
True that. Roosevelt needed an excuse to enter the war after winning an election promising to keep us out. He needed an ironclad excuse. His dilemma was how to warn Pearl Harbor without alerting Japan and having them cancel. He compromised by sending an alert by regular mail. Would have been adequate had the courier not been out sick that day.