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| U.S. military strike of civilian boat off Venezuelan coast, October 3, 2025 |
When he ran for president in
2020, Joe Biden described the election between he and Donald Trump as “a
struggle for the soul of America.” It was an eloquent phrase from a politician
not known for his eloquence, but the sentiment resonated with me for one simple
reason: it was true.
Men and women make history, but
they are incapable of knowing how history will turn out. This was true of the
American patriots who fought in the revolution and the men who wrote, debated,
and agreed upon the Constitution. It has been true of all the people who have
fulfilled positions of leadership throughout American history. It is why, since
its inception, the ultimate success of the American experiment has remained precarious
and uncertain, and why Abraham Lincoln asked at Gettysburg “whether any
nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”
The men who founded and molded
the early American republic were deeply human and possessed profound moral
shortcomings, yet they were the greatest collection of political minds in history.
Despite their strong disagreements, personality conflicts, regional rivalries,
and conflicting interests, they held the union together during a vulnerable and
turbulent time. The leadership they provided to a young and not yet fully
formed nation helped shape the character of the political institutions that we rely
upon to create and enforce our laws, protect our liberties, and implement the checks
and balances set forth in the Constitution. In their public statements and
proclamations, the leaders of our newly formed nation spoke with an eloquence
frequently lacking in today’s political discourse, because they knew their
reputations and legacies rested on the judgment of history.
A nation’s leaders transmit
values across generations that determine and influence its national character. David
Brooks has written that human beings “are social and spiritual creatures
whose souls are either ennobled or degraded by the systems, cultures, and
behaviors in which we are enmeshed.” In examining the policies and actions of a
government, it is fair to ask, “Does this moralize or demoralize the people it
touches? Does this induce them to behave more responsibly or less?” It is not
possible to separate policy making from moral character. It is why America’s
founders believed so strongly in the concept of public virtue.
As the historian Joseph J. Ellis
noted in Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, the
United States is “the oldest enduring republic in world history, with a set of
institutions and traditions that have stood the test of time.” That is true in
part because “the fate of the American experiment … required honest and
virtuous leaders to endure.” Honor and character still matter. Without leaders
who exemplify these traits, the American project cannot survive.
I have been thinking about honor
and character lately, particularly as we learn more about the President’s
military campaign against civilian boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
At the orders of the President and Secretary of Defense, small vessels
suspected of carrying illicit drugs are blown to bits with laser-guided
missiles and military-grade munitions. In most cases, everyone aboard the
vessels is killed immediately. In one violent drone strike on September 2 that killed nine people and split the boat apart, a second strike forty
minutes later killed two defenseless men while they desperately held onto a floating
piece of debris to keep from drowning.
In none of the approximately
twenty-two strikes to date, which have killed at least eighty-seven civilians, has there been any attempt to arrest and prosecute the
individuals on the boats or to seize the drugs allegedly being transported. Indeed,
in one strike in October, two survivors were detained and repatriated back
to their home countries (Colombia and Ecuador). Why they were not detained and
brought back for prosecution raises a host of questions. Were there no drugs on
the boat? Was there insufficient evidence that these two individuals were
connected to a drug smuggling operation? We do not know because the government
has provided no explanation or evidence.
These killings have no legal or
moral justification. Blowing up boats operated by civilians, even ones
suspected of committing a serious crime, is murder, not justice. These are
attacks against citizens of a country with which America is not at war. The individuals
on these boats are not enemy combatants, but people suspected of drug
trafficking, a crime which, even if supported by evidence (we have at present
only the President’s and Secretary Hegseth’s unsupported statements), is not a
capital offense. Because the government has disclosed no evidence, we know
nothing about the targeted individuals, what they were doing, what was on their
boats, or where they were destined.
Trump and Hegseth have claimed
that they are seeking to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States, which
has been responsible for a surge of drug overdose deaths over the past few
years. But the targeted boats, if they are indeed trafficking drugs, are almost
certainly carrying cocaine and not fentanyl, which comes mostly from labs in Mexico. Will Trump start ordering military strikes on Mexican drug mules?
He implied as much recently when he said: “And now we’re going to do
land, because the land is much easier.” Is that to be the legal and moral
justification for the undeclared war killings of non-combatants?
If Trump is so concerned about
illegal drugs entering the United States, why has he pardoned or commuted
the sentences of over one hundred convicted drug traffickers? And why did
he recently pardon the former president of Honduras, who was convicted
last year in U.S. federal court of conspiring to import more than four hundred
tons of cocaine into the United States?
The military strikes on the
civilian boats in the Caribbean are unjustified killings under domestic law,
international humanitarian law, and the U.S. Code of Military Justice. Most or all
these killings would constitute war crimes under the law of armed conflict, but
that does not apply because the people targeted in these boats were not at war
with the United States or engaged in armed conflict with us. Even if they were
members of drug cartels (or “narco-terrorists” as Trump calls them), and we
have no evidence to know either way, no drug cartel is engaged in armed
conflict with the United States. That they may be engaged in criminal activity
(again, we have seen no concrete evidence) does not justify the lethal force
inflicted. (For a thorough analysis of the clearly illegal nature of the
military strikes on the boats, see "Expert Q&A on the U.S. Boat Strikes” from Just Security).
Americans understandably have
strong feelings about drug trafficking. I served for eighteen years as a
federal prosecutor during which I prosecuted and convicted hundreds of suspected
gang members and drug dealers. I have no problem with aggressive interdiction
efforts that intercept, arrest, seize, and prosecute the individuals
responsible for smuggling drugs into the United States. But drug trafficking is
a crime to be managed pursuant to our democratically enacted laws, just like
any other crime.
The United States is supposed to
be a nation of laws, and we cannot simply kill anyone we suspect of committing
a crime, even a serious one. As stated by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY):
“There is a difference between being accused of being a bad guy and being a bad
guy. It is called the presumption of innocence. It is called due process. It is
called, basically, justice that our country was founded upon.” Respect for human
rights, the rule of law, and constitutional safeguards are what separates
democracies from the authoritarian regimes of the world.
America today is experiencing a
crisis of values. How else to explain that large numbers of Americans appear indifferent
to the President’s and Secretary Hegseth’s callous indifference to human life
and the rule of law. Trump and
Hegseth think that enough Americans will admire their toughness that they will
not ask the challenging questions. But the soul of America, the character of
our nation, demands better than that.
As former Senator Jeff Flake
(R-AZ) wrote in a recent essay in The Atlantic: “Citizens can
support firm action while still holding on to their humanity. Death inflicted
on the helpless is never an act of strength; it is what remains when strength
forgets its purpose.” If extrajudicial killings of non-combatants are allowed to proceed with no oversight from Congress and no apparent
accountability to the rule of law, we will have forfeited public virtue and
lost the battle for America’s soul.
When, in 1776, the signers of the
Declaration of Independence agreed to "mutually pledge to each other … our
sacred Honor," they knew that the fate of the new republic depended on the
honor and character of the men and women who would eventually be called upon to
lead and represent the American citizenry. They did not demand perfection. And
they understood that we cannot always expect people of impeccable moral
character to lead the country. But public virtue, public honor, and public
character have always mattered.
What message does it send to
American citizens and the world when the statements and social media posts coming
from the White House and many of the people serving in this administration,
from Pete Hegseth to Stephen Miller, consistently appeal to the worst, most
vile instincts of the body politic? These are people who routinely dehumanize
immigrants, attribute the worst in everyone they fear or oppose, mock concepts
like diversity and inclusion, despise the poor, openly discriminate against the
LGBTQ community, and show resentment to the historical achievements of women,
African Americans, and Latinos. They give little thought to how their policies
impact real human beings, the communities in which they live and work, and the
values they convey to American society. Their answer to every problem is to
shift the blame to the prior administration and to accept responsibility for
nothing.
What national values does the
president convey when he orders the military to perform extrajudicial killings
of civilians on the high seas? For that matter, what is the character of a
nation that allows masked agents to racially profile Latinos, pull men and women from their cars as they head to work, ignore pleas that they have valid work permits and are here legally, and in some cases are U.S. citizens? What is the character of a country that, on the flimsiest of
evidence and without due process, sends hundreds of immigrants to a notorious El Salvador prison known for its cruel treatment of inmates and human rights
violations? What message does a country send when the president and his family
members make billions of dollars on crypto investments and real-estate deals with foreign governments without regard for government ethics, the rules
against conflicts of interest, and the laws against bribery? These are the actions
of authoritarian governments and dictators, countries that are run by men and
not laws.
The United
States is better than this. As James Madison wrote in
1788, if our leaders lack sufficient “virtue and wisdom … we are in a
wretched situation. No theoretical checks--no form of government can
render us secure.” It is up to “We the People” to restore virtue and wisdom to
American governance.
As Noah Webster wrote in 1835, “If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted.” We have had moments in our history when principled leaders of good character were not in charge, and the nation suffered. But we are today at a crucial turning point. How much longer can we endure under the current regime? The character of the nation, the “soul of America,” demands more. It is up to Congress, the Courts, and all of us, to ensure that the rule of law, and the checks and balances embedded in our Constitution, are upheld. If not, it is doubtful “whether any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.”