Rand Paul Nukes Pentagon’s Defense For Killing Unarmed Survivors: Would You Also ‘Shoot Them In the Head?’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) joined Fox News on Tuesday to discuss President Donald Trump’s latest saber-rattling with Venezuela and the military’s deadly strikes on drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea.

Roberts began by showing Paul a recent clip of Trump discussing the highly controversial second strike on survivors. “The President had said earlier, about a week earlier, that he would have no problem with that second video coming out. Do you believe it should be released, Senator?” Roberts then asked.

“Yes, without question. I think if people were to see the images of people clinging to the wreckage, there would not be much sympathy for Secretary Hegseth to order the killing of people who are shipwrecked. It’s clearly illegal according to military justice, according to our own military laws,” Paul replied, adding:

And you know, I have members of my staff who were high-ranking in the military, and they tell me this is done for the protection of our soldiers. If our pilots have to eject from a plane, we show that we don’t shoot people. We don’t shoot pilots that are descending by parachute. If we blow up a boat and there are survivors, we don’t shoot those people. We don’t sidle up in a boat and take a nine-millimeter pistol out, put it to their head and shoot them. Nobody would do that. But just because the missiles come from a long distance doesn’t make it any more right. But it’s clearly against our laws of war. And even deeper than that, there is a question of: are unarmed people that are smugglers part of a war?

Are we in the middle of a war with unarmed people? Why don’t they present evidence that they’re armed? Why don’t they present evidence that these boats are even coming to the United States? These are small motorboats, often 2,000 miles from our shore. If they have drugs, which hasn’t been proven, if they have drugs, they’re probably taking it to neighboring islands.

So this is a crazy thing that we’ve never done before. And to make a crime into war is to stretch credulity to the point that I think a lot of common sense people don’t buy it.

“Well, President Trump seems to be aiming at the supply chain of drugs that come to this country and kill an awful lot of people every year,” Roberts replied, adding:

As you know, Admiral Bradley gave a briefing to members of Congress last week. Here’s what the Wall Street Journal said after that briefing. This is the editorial board: “Congress is investigating whether the Trump administration fired on defenseless survivors on a drug boat. And the emerging details suggest this story is less than it initially appeared.”

I think Bradley told members of Congress that there were members of the Judge Advocate General’s office, lawyers, who were following along every step of the strike against this boat on September the second. And they said that he was within his legal bounds, according to Admiral Bradley, to take it out.

“I guess my question would be: if the Admiral were there on the scene and he came up in a follow-up boat, would he take his nine-millimeter pistol out and put it up against the head of the survivors and shoot them in the head?” Paul replied, adding:

See, it’s easy to sit and say, “Oh, I just push a button, I’m in an air-conditioned room 10,000 miles away, and I antiseptically blow these people up.” But you know, a month later, they didn’t do it. Because I think somebody finally said, “Oh my God, you know what? We just read the military justice law of justice, and we’re not supposed to kill survivors.”

And you know what they did a month later? They picked up two people who weren’t from Venezuela. They didn’t prosecute them for drugs, they collected no drugs, they collected no weapons, they just said, “Oh, go back home,” and they sent them back to Colombia and to Ecuador. They’re not even Venezuelans. And so no, when you allege that someone’s on a drug boat, you should prove it.

One out of four boats that the Coast Guard boarded before we came up with this “blow them to smithereens” policy, one out of four didn’t have any drugs. So are we willing to accept an error rate of one in four and kill people on these boats when we might be wrong one in four times? I think this is a tragedy.

“Well, hopefully we’ll see that second video soon and we’ll be able to figure it out for ourselves. Senator, good of you to spend time with us today. Appreciate it,” Roberts concluded.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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