A Republican senator has escalated his opposition to the Trump administration’s war on alleged narcotics traffickers in the Caribbean Sea, which it is pursuing without congressional authorization.
Sen. Rand Paul was on Fox News Sunday, where he described the military campaign against vessels in the region as “extrajudicial killings”, a term which implies that he believes the entire effort to be illegal absent a mandate from Congress. He also described them as “wrong”.
"I would call them extrajudicial killings. This is akin to what China does, what Iran does with drug dealers,” the senator claimed. “They summarily execute people without presenting evidence to the public. So it's wrong."
Paul went on to point out that the Trump administration was, without constitutionally required approval from the Legislative Branch, changing the terms of engagement for narco-traffickers. What was previously a matter of law enforcement — where deadly strikes on vessels without warning would be completely prohibited — the White House was now treating the situation as a military matter, where the senator noted that people are often killed without due process of a trial and sentencing.
“The drug war, or the-- crime war, has been typically something we do through law enforcement. And so far they have alleged that these people are drug dealers, [but] no one has said their name, no one said what evidence [they have], no one said whether they’re armed,” said Paul.
The U.S. military announced its latest public strike in the continuing campaign early Friday, bringing the total acknowledged death toll to 43. Two survivors were repatriated to their respective home countries instead of being brought to the U.S. for trial after their capture by military forces. In his interview, the senator exclaimed that the Trump administration’s strategy “didn’t make sense”.
Apart from Paul, only one other Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, has come out against the strikes being carried out without congressional approval. The president, at a meeting of his advisers on Thursday, told reporters: “I don’t think we’re necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.”
“While I commend the administration’s concerted efforts to address the devastation of drug trafficking on communities across the country, I do not believe the information I have received justifies this interpretation of the President’s Article II powers,” Murkowski said this past week.
“I take very seriously my Article I responsibility when it comes to Congress’s power to declare war. I don’t think that full information on the legal and factual justification for armed attacks on suspected drug traffickers is too much to ask,” the senator continued.
Democrats are increasingly vocalizing their own resistance, though they lack the numbers to use legislative means to block the White House. The party also remains deadlocked with the administration and their Republican counterparts over a government shutdown, which is now in its 25th day.
“It’s very simple,” Sen. Ruben Gallego said Sunday on Meet the Press on NBC. “If this president feels that they’re doing something illegally, then he should be using the Coast Guard. If there’s an act of war, then you use our military, and then you come and talk to us first. But this is murder.”
Paul is the Senate’s strongest libertarian voice and was a top opponent of former President Barack Obama’s drone campaign. He led a Senate filibuster against an Obama nominee in 2013, demanding a promise from the administration that it would not authorize deadly force against an American on U.S. soil without due process. During the Obama administration, four American citizens were killed in targeted drone strikes overseas during the War on Terror, with just one being an intended target of the strikes.
At the time, Paul had many supposed allies in the Senate GOP caucus, like Ted Cruz, who did not accept a vow from Attorney General Eric Holder to use law enforcement means instead of military strikes when the former is deemed capable of handling a terrorist threat.
Now, that same justification is being used by the Trump administration to extend a military campaign in the Americas, as it has reclassified drug cartels as terrorist groups and sought to instigate regime change in Venezuela, which it alleges is controlled by a cartel. And as Paul pointed out, the identities of the 43 people killed in U.S. strikes over the past several weeks have not been released to Congress or the public, making it unclear if any Americans were among the targets.
Republicans in the House and Senate, with few exceptions, are in lockstep with the president.
“You continue to ship substances up here that are killing Americans, we're going to deal with it as a national security threat,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in September.
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