It is not a coincidence that the six congressional Democrats released a video urging active military members to “refuse illegal orders” just days before billboards saying the same thing went up outside of U.S. Southern Command in Florida and Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Nor is it a coincidence that just days after that, media outlets aligned with the Democratic Party falsely reported that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered Navy SEAL Team 6 to launch a second lethal strike on two “survivors” from a drug boat not totally demolished by an initial missile strike.
These events are not random. They are all part of a coordinated campaign by the Democratic Party and its media allies to undermine President Donald Trump, sow dissent, and divide the country. These are the same tactics we saw them deploy for the Russia collusion hoax, for the attempted destruction of Justice Brett Kavanaugh hoax, and for the Ukraine impeachment hoax.
The reality is that Trump’s military campaign against drug cartels in the Caribbean is overwhelmingly popular and is good policy. Somewhere between 60% and 70% of the public approves of Trump using military force against drug traffickers in the Caribbean, and Democrats are desperate to undermine this support. The fact that they put their political fortunes ahead of the interdiction of drugs that kill tens of thousands of their fellow citizens is telling as to their moral priorities.
Trump’s military campaign against drug cartels is a break with previous federal government policy. Under previous administrations, the Coast Guard was the lead agency for interdicting maritime drug running into the United States, and they were, and are, bound by well-established law enforcement statutes requiring warning shots and other tactics that make the use of lethal force rare.
Trump, however, began laying the groundwork for a change in strategy on his first day in office when he signed an executive order initiating a 14-day review process for designating cartels and transnational groups such as Tren de Aragua as foreign terrorist organizations. On Feb. 20, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated TdA as an FTO, thus shifting the legal paradigm for drug interdiction in the Caribbean from law enforcement to military action.
According to the Pentagon’s war manual, individuals who are functionally part of a non-state armed group engaged in hostilities may be made the object of attack following identification. That is what is happening in the Caribbean. The day after the Sept. 2 strike in question, months before the Democrats’ video or reports of the alleged double tap on the drug boat, Rubio told reporters in Mexico, “Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up. And it’ll happen again.”
The Democrats have every right to make a policy case that Trump’s militarization of drug interdiction is bad policy. But as the polling above shows, they face a skeptical public that has no sympathy for drug runners making a profit by poisoning Americans. Hence, the double-tap plot to undermine the campaign.
The Washington Post, which reported the unsubstantiated and evidently false allegations against Kavanaugh and was rewarded for its Russian collusion hoax reporting with prizes, accused Hegseth of ordering the military “to kill everybody” on the drug boat, which would have violated long-standing policy. Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley directly contradicted that reporting this week, telling lawmakers no such order was given.
THE DEMOCRATS’ RECKLESS CALL FOR MILITARY DISOBEDIENCE
Instead, Bradley and Hegseth are reported to have watched the first strike together, after which Hegseth left to perform other duties. It was not until an hour later that two drug runners were identified on the remains of the boat, and because of the presence of other enemy vessels in the area, and the possibility that the drug runners could communicate with them via radio, Bradley ordered the second strike.
One can question Trump’s decision to militarize drug interdiction just as one can question the deployment of the National Guard to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities under siege in cities. But to encourage members of the military to disobey lawful orders, and to fabricate illegal orders purportedly made by the secretary of war, is reckless and divisive and puts the men and women protecting our nation at undue risk.