Fox’s Andy McCarthy Issues Ominous Warning About Trump’s War on the Drug Cartels
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Fox News’ Andy McCarthy lamented President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to go to war with South American drug cartels on Thursday, issuing an ominous warning about the inversion of the constitutional method of entering armed conflict.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Trump had notified Congress that the United States is in an “armed conflict” with the cartels after his administration launched several missile strikes on boats it claimed were carrying narcotics.
In a column for National Review, McCarthy objected to both the strikes and the declaration.
“Congress has made narcotics importation a serious felony crime fit for prosecution in the civilian courts. It has not authorized the executive branch to treat it as an armed attack to be countered by American military power. Obviously, narcotics trafficking is a significant crime problem, but American users obtain illegal narcotics voluntarily and, usually, nonviolently. The importation and distribution of illegal drugs is simply not analogous to a missile strike or other violent mass-murder attack,” he wrote. “Furthermore, Congress’s power to declare war has been marginalized by the trend of redefining war as a continuing commitment of military power, especially ground troops, over an extensive period of time. Anything less than that (e.g., President Obama’s bombing of Libya in furtherance of promoting a hoped-for democratic transformation in the Middle East, and now, President Trump’s intermittently blowing up vessels suspected of transporting drugs) is a subset of hostilities that falls short of war and therefore needs no congressional approval.”
“I believe this is wrong. The more distant we are from an actual military threat to the United States, the more imperative it should be to obtain authorization from the people’s representatives,” he continued. “The Framers did not intend to endow in the president the power that President Trump is claiming. We have reached a point at which the president believes he can use force whenever he sees fit for whatever serves the national interest as he sees it; Congress, rather than being asked for authorization, is reduced to using its powers to curtail military operations if it objects.”
“That is not the system we were bequeathed, but it is the system we now have. It’s a dangerous system — and I say that as one who has long held that the president must have robust authority to use military force without congressional assent if our nation and its vital interests are truly threatened,” McCarthy concluded.
