Americans watched in stunned silence this fall as the president used the tools of the commander-in-chief to stop narco-traffickers on the high seas, ordering precision strikes against vessels identified as transporting illicit drugs and violent cartel operatives. The administration framed these operations as actions against “narco-terrorists” and argued they were necessary to defend our homeland from a poison poured into our communities.
Patriots should not flinch at hard choices when lives are at stake; these are not abstract policy debates but an existential fight against a cartel culture that turns streets into graves and neighborhoods into morgues. Former Navy JAG officer Don Brown put it bluntly on national television, calling these drugs “weapons of mass destruction” — a phrase that captures the reality of fentanyl and cartel pipelines that ruthlessly harvest American lives for profit. The hard truth is that when state-created chaos in places like Venezuela funnels poison toward our children, we cannot pretend diplomacy alone will stop the slaughter.
The blowback from coastal elites and cable pundits has been predictable and performative, with hand-wringing over Article II authority and congressional consultation while opioid deaths continue to climb. Yet senior Republican leaders and national security officials have publicly defended the strikes as lawful and necessary, insisting the president has the authority to act to prevent an imminent threat to the United States. The debate over legalese is a Washington parlor game when measured against bodies piling up in small towns across America.
Let’s be clear: this administration is doing the job previous presidents avoided. For decades the cartels enjoyed sanctuary, routes, and a near-immunity that turned children into victims and whole regions into narco-economies. Conservatives who believe in law, order, and the sanctity of American life should applaud leaders who finally match words with decisive action, not cringe at the political cost of confronting genuine evil.
Critics will scream about sovereignty and fingerprints on legal memos, but their moral equivalency between traffickers and defenders is breathtaking. The left’s reflexive defense of anyone who can posture as a victim of U.S. power ignores the victims here at home — the mothers, fathers, and toddlers destroyed by cartel poison. If Mexico, Venezuela, or any other actor is hosting or enabling the export of fentanyl and cocaine that slaughter Americans, we have a duty to disrupt and dismantle those networks by any lawful means necessary.
Some in Congress demand classified briefings and paperwork while refusing to acknowledge the scale of the crisis their policies helped enable. The American people elected leaders to protect them, not to file endless resolutions and hold hearings while bad actors busily ship death across international waters. Conservatives should press for both operational transparency and the political courage to defend the posture that keeps American families safe.
Make no mistake: this is a fight for the future of our country. Weakness invites aggression, and timidity allows criminal syndicates to metastasize into transnational threats. The president’s willingness to act is a message to cartels and to the tyrants who shelter them that the United States will not stand down while our citizens are poisoned and our rule of law is mocked.
As patriots, we should demand two things from our leaders: proof that targets are identified and prosecuted under clear legal standards, and a relentless campaign to choke off the demand at home by restoring moral order, strengthening borders, and supporting law enforcement. But we must also stop pretending that polite diplomacy alone will stop an enemy that profits from death; sometimes the nation must use the instruments of power to defend its people, and conservatives should stand with that resolve.
