All week long, I have tried to cry for the narco-terrorists who survived a U.S. military strike on their drug-laden boat, only to be snuffed in a second attack.
Somehow, my eyes have stayed totally dry.
The only thing wrong with the Venezuelan Two-Step is that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did not hold a press conference and take full credit for this operation.
Critics from left to right have clutched their pearls so hard over this episode that their hands are smothered in pearl dust.
The sane and thoughtful Chris Whiton is among the detractors. Writing in Tuesday’s Substack, the Trump 45 foreign-affairs advisor complained: “It is a federal crime for a U.S. national or servicemember to willfully kill wounded, sick, or shipwrecked combatants who are protected by the Geneva Conventions.”
Whiton would be correct, if an overhead MS-9 Reaper drone detonated a Venezuelan Navy vessel and then circled back to slam a second Hellfire missile onto the surviving sailors who bobbed beside their flaming ship. Caracas’ sailors are combatants, subject to the Geneva Convention, which Venezuela signed in 1956.
However, the bad hombres in those narcotics-stuffed boats are not Venezuelan sailors. They are private-sector criminals, namely drug cartel thugs. President Trump designated the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua a terrorist group. Thus, these vessels carry terrorists or, at least, terror-linked criminals. Tren de Aragua and their lawless associates did not sign the Geneva Convention. As non-state actors, they are not entitled to its protections.
The one-two punch on this criminal/terrorist boat was no less legal than bombing an ISIS safehouse and then hitting it again, if survivors of the first blast crawled from the wreckage, to fight another day. The right thing to do: Hammer them anew, so they no longer menace society.
If the U.S. armed forces no longer may kill narco-terrorists who survive single-tap strikes, then these individuals suddenly have grown a right to life that must be respected. If so, leaving them clinging to flaming flotsam on the high seas is a de facto death penalty. Those lucky enough to escape death from above might get scooped up by a yacht sailing toward the Dutch Antilles. More likely, however, any such survivors would succumb to exposure, sharks, or their injuries.
Since neglect probably would kill these survivors, one could argue that the U.S. military has a moral obligation to deploy an expeditionary force to fish these cartelistos from the water and whisk them to the nearest hospital. If Hegseth’s foes are to be believed, anything less would be the ethical equivalent of a Santa Monica lifeguard spotting a beachgoer floundering in the water and then leaving his tower for lunch.
So, imagine that Navy Seals aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford swoop in to save these survivors. Surprise! An enraged narco-terrorists opens fire on the incoming Gringos. Three Seals tumble into the Caribbean, dead.
What would those bashing Hegseth say then?
Meanwhile, a Trump-hostile news agency reports that those who were blown apart by that second bomb were not model citizens.
“According to a source familiar with the incident, the two survivors climbed back onto the boat after the initial strike,” ABC’s Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz said on Wednesday’s “World News Tonight.” “They were believed to be potentially in communication with others and salvaging some of the drugs. Because of that, it was determined they were still in the fight and valid targets. A JAG officer was also giving legal advice.”
There is a simple solution to all of this: Those who prefer not to get obliterated in narcotics boats or wind up clutching the wreckage after military assaults should spend their days in more worthwhile ways. In short, if you want to stay alive and well, do not smuggle fentanyl and other deadly drugs into the United States of America.
Secretary Pete Hegseth’s response to this entire controversy should be two words:
“You’re welcome.”
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