After news broke in 2015 that an Obama administration drone strike on al Qaeda had inadvertently killed multiple Americans, the former president found himself an unlikely defender: Republican presidential candidate and senator Rand Paul, one of the most outspoken drone critics in the country.
“I do think that there is a valuable use for drones,” Paul said at the time, in comments that drove the news cycle. “And as much as I’m seen as an opponent of drones, I think in military and warfare, they do have some value.”
Flash forward ten years, and Paul isn’t giving the Trump administration the same courtesy. In response to a U.S. military strike that took out a Venezuelan drug-running boat operated by the terrorist organization Tren de Aragua, the libertarian senator is laying into Vice President JD Vance for his defense of the strike.
After leftist activist Brian Krassenstein said that the strike on the drug smugglers was a “war crime,” Vance replied by saying that he didn’t “give a s***” what Krassenstein called it. The comment set off Paul, who said that the suspected terrorist drug dealers didn’t get due process and called the vice president “despicable and thoughtless.”
READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Give A S***’: Vance Goes Viral With Defense Of Cartel Strike
“JD ‘I don’t give a s***’ Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military,’” Paul wrote on X. “Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird? Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” centers on the story of a black man falsely accused of rape.
Vance hasn’t been swayed by Paul’s tirade, with a source close to the vice president calling out Paul for his selective criticism when it comes to drone strikes.
“The Vice President believes in the Trump doctrine and using overwhelming force to protect core American interests and save American lives,” the source close to Vance told The Daily Wire. “That pisses off hypocrites like Rand Paul, who during his failed run for president defended Obama droning American citizens without due process, but now is sticking up for foreign terrorists thanks to his debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Back in April 2015, Paul said regarding the Obama drone strikes that “you really don’t get due process or anything like that if you are in a war zone.” The Obama strikes took out two American operatives of al-Qaeda and an American and a French aid worker who were being held hostage. Obama took responsibility for the deaths, saying that it was the result of an intelligence failure.
“I tend not to want to blame the president for the loss of life here. I think he was trying to do the right thing,” Paul said regarding the strike, in the same interview in which he praised the “valuable use for drones.”
Prior to his defense of Obama, Paul made a name for himself opposing drone attacks. In 2013, he did a 13-hour filibuster in opposition to John Brennan’s nomination to be CIA director, where he attacked the Obama administration for not ruling out drone attacks on American citizens. Paul pointed to that filibuster in his response to The Daily Wire, saying that he has been the “foremost critic of drones being used on civilians, especially Americans” during his time in the Senate.
Paul told The Daily Wire that the recent strike by the Trump administration did not meet his standards. He said that the strike was not part of a “declared war” and was conducted in opposition to Coast Guard rules. He also criticized the fact that the Trump administration has not yet identified the occupants of the boat.
“The recent drone attack on a small speedboat over 2,000 miles from our shore without identification of the occupants or the content of the boat is in no way part of a declared war and defies our longstanding Coast Guard rules of engagement which include: warnings to halt, non-lethal force to capture, and ultimately lethal force in self-defense or in cases of resistance,” he said.
The recent strike criticized by Paul was announced last week by President Donald Trump, who said Tuesday that 11 narcoterrorist members of Tren de Aragua had been killed in international waters as they left Venezuela for the United States.
“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vance said on Saturday, in the comments that set off Paul.
The Trump administration has taken increasingly strong action to target Tren de Aragua.
In February, the violent gang was designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The State Department said that the group “has conducted kidnappings, extorted businesses, bribed public officials, authorized its members to attack and kill U.S. law enforcement, and assassinated a Venezuelan opposition figure.”
Later, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to speed up the deportation process for Tren de Aragua members apprehended in the United States. The White House said that the gang had “infiltrated” the country and was conducting “irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions” against America. Trump said that the gang was using narcotics as a weapon to weaken and destabilize the country.
After the strike last week, taking out the drug boat, Venezuela flew two armed F-16 fighter jets over the USS Jason Dunham, an Aegis guided-missile destroyer. The Pentagon said the action was a “highly provocative move” that was “designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations.”
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