After this, not long ago, has Trump done it again? Gone too far?
When president Obama drone-killed the terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011, there was some consternation. Not from me, but from various quarters: that he'd killed an "American citizen", overseas, "without due process". None of this from me, mind. I was just happy he'd offed a known terrorist.
Now, yesterday, we have the case of president Trump drone-killing a boatload of Venezuelan drug runners. On the high seas. With a deftly placed missile that blew the boat, the drugs and the drug runners to smithereens.
Now, I'm all in favour of getting rid of major drug runners. But was that the right way to do it? I mean, was it even legal?
I first up was kind of nodding along to the critics, all on the Left, oc, saying "He's out of control", that "they were drug dealers and even drug dealers get due process", and so on. Except they were talking about these drug runners like they were the victims. I can't go there. I can't be with the Left and their opposition to literally everything that Trump does (and I mean "literally" literally). Trump's recent successful DC crime crack down has the Left excusing crime, for goodness sake. His making the southern border secure has them pleading for open borders. He's against men playing in women's sports? They're full-on for it. It's a pathology.
Then I learn that the drug cartels in Venezuela are now designated Terrorist Organisations under American law. They aren't "just" drug runners. They're invading the United States and the drugs they deal into America kill 100,000 young Americans every year. That's twice those that died in the Vietnam war. Every year.
They are not "narco-traffickers". They are "narco-terrorists". It's war. I can buy that. Without blushing and without compunction.
So, in the end, I come down to thinking, yeah, they're terrorists. They know that. I'm fine with USAF the US Navy taking care of business. Treating them with "extreme prejudice".
Will this action capture the attention of the drug cartels in Venezuela? You bet it will! Way more than the suggested alternative on the Left of waiting for the drug-running boats to enter American waters, and then to "interdict" them. That's worked real well in the decades it's been tried. Not.
Trump has this thing: He takes bold steps. He does things that no other president in my lifetime would dare to take. And they've been successful. Consider operations:
- Like Operation Midnight Hammer, the B-2 stealth bombing of Iranian nuclear weapon facilities. Take notice, Mullahs!
- Like in DC, with the recent use of Marines and National Guard to coordinate a crime crack-down (which the Democrat Mayor has now asked him to extend "indefinitely"). Take notice Villains!
- Like with today's droning a drug running boat, turning it to matchwood, on live TV, for Venezuelan drug cartels to contemplate. Take notice, Gangstas!
