Since September, President Donald Trump has ordered 21 strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific oceans, killing 83 people. He says the boats were carrying dangerous narcotics to the United States (a claim that has been disproved). Now, the president appears to be ramping up his military escalation against Venezuela's socialist regime, which, like the drug boat strikes, he's doing without congressional authorization. Republicans in Congress have thus far been silent about Trump's use of force, except for Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), who delivered a fiery rebuke of the president's strikes on the Senate floor last month.
During a recent interview with Reason's Nick Gillespie, Paul pointed out that "when the coast guard boards vessels off of Miami or off of San Diego, one in four vessels they board does not have drugs on board, so their error rate is about 25 percent." The moral and strategic implications of this hit rate are enormous; if the president can incinerate unknown civilians at sea without evidence of wrongdoing, due process, or congressional approval, what's to stop the president from using the military to sanction other murders abroad under the guise of national security?
