OPINION:
President Trump sank a drug smuggling vessel off the coast of Venezuela last week, and the usual suspects are up in arms. The criminal cartels aren’t the ones complaining. It’s Democrats and Never Trump Republicans who insist this was an unprecedented and outrageous act.
“It was an illegal move by the Trump administration,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Illinois Democrat, said Sunday on “Face the Nation.” “There’s a thing called due process in this country, and it did not need to happen. The fact that it happened in international waters actually opens Americans to a similar action by our adversaries.”
Spy satellites and other U.S. military assets have been tracking the flow of narcotics from the Caribbean to our shores. The eyes in the sky noticed the suspicious small craft with four outboard motors designed for high-speed runs on the open water. These weren’t fishermen or innocent sightseers beginning a pleasure cruise in the dead of night.
Mr. Trump released footage from the drone that launched the missile and sent the craft and its 11 crew into the deep. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the cargo of fentanyl, cocaine or heroin was headed to Trinidad and Tobago and, eventually, to the United States.
A Justice Department report from 1998 confirms that Trinidad and Tobago is a “primary drug transshipment location.” Until now, nothing has been done to stop what the report describes: “Cocaine enters Trinidad and Tobago primarily via small shipping boats from Venezuela, and heroin transshipment is also an emerging problem.”
Had this been a law enforcement mission, our naval forces could have intercepted the boat and arrested those on board, but that wasn’t the purpose. “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America,” Mr. Trump warned.
The president’s actions are fully compatible with the Founders’ vision. Thomas Jefferson flexed the muscles of our then-fledgling nation against the state-sponsored marauders harassing commerce off the North African coast.
“Our trade to Portugal, Spain, and the Mediterranean is annihilated unless we do something decisive,” Jefferson said in a 1784 letter to Horatio Gates. “Why not begin a navy then and decide on war? We cannot begin in a better cause nor against a weaker foe.”
Congress initially preferred to pay ransom for any American ships and crew taken hostage. This scheme flopped, as lawmakers were too cheap to allocate enough money to purchase a lasting peace. When Jefferson entered the White House in 1801, things quickly changed. He dispatched an “observation squadron” of two 44-gun frigates, one 32-gun frigate and a schooner to deal with the corsairs on the Barbary Coast.
Jefferson’s Navy Department ordered the captains in the Mediterranean not to capture enemy vessels: “You will then distribute your force in such manner, as your judgment shall direct, so as best to protect our commerce and chastise their insolence by sinking, burning or destroying their ships and Vessels wherever you shall find them.”
Jefferson didn’t care about the due process rights of pirates on the open sea. He read no Miranda warnings. Without asking Congress for permission, the president’s squadron took out one ship from Tripoli early in the conflict.
It took several years to subdue the region, but the message was heard: Don’t mess with the United States. That’s a message worth repeating from time to time.
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