The Washington Post’s bombshell reporting that a September strike on a suspected Venezuelan drug-smuggling vessel was followed by a second hit — reportedly after a vocal order to “kill everybody” — has exploded into a full-blown media feeding frenzy and a congressional headache for the White House. The allegation that survivors clinging to wreckage were then targeted has rightly prompted outrage, but it’s also been magnified by anonymous sourcing and frantic virtue-signaling from outlets that have ignored similar tactics when used against genuine terrorists.
Secretary Pete Hegseth and the White House have pushed back hard, calling the Post’s framing “fake news” and insisting that the strikes are lawful counter-narcotics operations aimed at narco-terrorists who are poisoning American streets. President Trump has defended the mission while saying he wants the facts clarified, and Pentagon officials maintain commanders acted within their authority as they seek to stop a deadly flow of fentanyl and cartel violence into the homeland.
Legal scholars and liberal journalists are now fulminating about “war crimes,” conveniently forgetting that the Biden years’ permissiveness toward cartels helped create the very chaos we are now trying to stamp out. The facts on the ground — more than 20 known strikes across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific and scores of cartel operatives taken off the water — show a White House finally taking action where previous administrations only talked, and Americans who are tired of heroin and fentanyl killing our kids understand why hard decisions are being made.
What’s telling is how easily the mainstream narrative cracks when confronted with blunt, common-sense reasoning from voices the left once dismissed. A recent clip highlighted on the Rubin Report shows Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary cutting through the sanctimony and getting even CNN’s Abby Phillip to admit that aggressive action against drug-running vessels can have real, concrete benefits for American communities, a fact too many pundits refuse to face. The media’s reflexive outrage feels partisan and performative next to simple patriotism: defend Americans first, and then argue about the legal paperwork.
If Washington wants credibility it should stop with the kabuki outrage and hold a proper, transparent briefing for Congress that protects operational security while explaining legal authority and mission objectives. Conservatives know the choices are ugly in war and in the fight against narco-terrorism, but indecision and moral posturing are what cost lives; we should demand accountability without abandoning the courageous policy that seeks to choke cartel supply lines and protect our citizens.
