Jessica Tarlov’s Non-Argument against Trump’s Use of Force Against Venezuelan Drug Boats

The government has killed 32 people in 7 strikes with no evidence they were traffickers. The admiral leading the mission quit. If we had proof, they’d face a court, not a drone. The law still applies, even to suspected drug traffickers, and right now, the Administration’s story isn’t adding up.

Jessica Tarlov, “liberal” member of Fox News’ The Five, 10/22/25

More than 200 years of practice have confirmed that the President has the responsibility to direct the Armed Forces to defend the country. The President accordingly had constitutional authority to order counterattacks by U.S. forces against terrorists who had engaged in attacks against the United States and its citizens even before 9/11/01. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have not had to rely on their constitutional authority alone. Congress gave the President broad authority “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11/01, or harboured such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or persons.” … The words “necessary and appropriate” limit the use of the military instrument to situations where police action, by the United States or the state in which the terrorist is found, is impossible. … [That is,] in states unable or unwilling to take action to prevent their territories from being used by terrorists, the legal and practical situation is different … especially when a host government withholds its cooperation.

Dr Nicholas Rostow, Yale Law School, “Targeted Killing of Terrorists,” Institute for National Strategic Studies, 3/2014

            Comrade Tarlov (Ph.D., London School of Economics or LSE, founded by the leftist Fabian Socialists) is deeply concerned with the (alleged) due process rights of illegal aliens (yes that is, despite the usual “liberal” whining, the correct legal term), drug traffickers and other assorted criminals and thugs that the Left currently finds useful.  Her cause du jour is the Venezuelan drug traffickers trying to smuggle narcotics like cocaine into the United States by speed boats from Venezuela that will kill and ruin American lives. 

The first premise in Tarlov’s “argument” is that “The Law still applies, even to suspected drug traffickers” but she does not, of course, mention which “law” she means.   In fact, as Dr Rostow points out, it has been long understood that the US president has the right to use the Armed Forces to defend the country “and its citizens”. 

Comrade Tarlov’s second premise is that “If we had proof [that they were fair targets], they’d face a court, not a drone.”  Actually, no!  First, it does not, apparently occur to Tarlov that the President of the United States, the CIA or the FBI know things about terrorists or drug traffickers that she does not.  But, then again, why should she when, as a “liberal” with a Ph.D. from the socialist-founded LSU, she believes that she already knows everything! 

Second, as Dr. Rostow points out, it has been long widely recognized that since it is impractical to give all terrorists and other enemies due process in US courts, the president has the right to take them out when “police action, by the United States or the state in which the terrorist is found, is impossible.”  Perhaps Tarlov has not noticed that Venezuela is not particularly interested in handing its various murderers and thugs over to the United States.  That is the point of Dr. Rostow’s remark that “One therefore should not expect drone attacks in London”—the point being that one can expect to get the appropriate legal cooperation from the UK that one cannot get from the Venezuelan narco-state.  One hopes, therefore, that comrade Tarlov does not mind if the president defends the United States and its citizens from elusive terrorists and drug traffickers outside its borders as it has been understood to be his right to do for 200 years.  We understand that comrade Tarlov would love to clog up the US courts by giving terrorists and drug traffickers all the best lawyers taxpayer money can buy, thereby ensuring the failure of the mission to stop the drugs and the cartel murders. 

It is not clear why comrade Jessica throws in the ad hominem fallacy that Trump’s actions are wrong because “The admiral leading the mission quit.”  If one could specify why his quitting the mission was justifiable, that might carry some weight, but that would require a quite separate argument (that is, it would require some real thinking, and real standards, as opposed to the usual leftist sophistries).

It is, by the way, worth pointing out that one does not recall comrade Jessica, or the Democrats, making the same argument when her beloved Obama slammed a Predator missile (usually understood as a AGM-114 anti-tank Hellfire Missile) into the forehead of Abdulrahman al-Awlakim, the 16 year old son of Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  Al-Awlaki, the father, had been killed by a CIA drone strike several days earlier.  Unfortunately, although Anwar al-Awlaki was al-Qaeda, one cannot assume that his 16-year-old son was al-Qaeda or had committed any actual crimes against the United States.  Wikipedia, not exactly a bunch of right-wing wackos, reports that when asked why a 16- year-old kid was droned, a member of King Obama’s administration replied,

[T]he target of the 10/14/11 airstrike [that killed the kid] was Ibrahim al-Banna, an Egyptian believed to be a senior operative in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  Another U.S. administration official speaking on condition of anonymity [stated that the 16-year-old] Abdulrahman al-Awlaki as a bystander who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” [and] that “the U.S. government did not know that Mr. Awlaki’s son was there” before the airstrike was ordered.

So, King Obama blew the 16-year-old kid to bits by mistake because His administration had not even bothered to find out who was there before slamming a Predator anti-tank missile into the assembly.  Well, all is forgiven then!   The Messiah is a Democrat after all! 

The point here is that even if the father was a terrorist, Obama had no justification for killing his 16-year-old son.   

Wikipedia (same article) also reports that

When pressed by a reporter to defend the targeted killing policy that resulted in [the son’s] death, former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs deflected blame to the [the boy’s] father, saying, “I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well-being of their children. I don’t think becoming an al-Qaeda terrorist is the best way to go about doing your business.

Ah, it was the kid’s father who was responsible for the fact that The Messiah did not bother to find out who all was at that assembly before slamming a Hellfire missile into it.  So, Obama is the real victim here if He gets blamed for Anwar al-Awlaki’s poor fathering choices.  Does that mean that if someone becomes a terrorist, we can not only justifiably kill them but justifiably kill their children too and them blame it on the father’s poor life choices?  That is convenient!   Perhaps Jay Jones and his numerous Democrat Party defenders think that way!  Welcome to the brilliant thinking of today’s American Left! 

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