Rand Paul rips JD Vance's assertion that executing cartel members is the 'best use of our military'

Fox ^ | 9/8/2025 | Nitzberg

[Phoenix8]

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky strongly objected after Vice President JD Vance asserted in a Saturday post on X that "Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military."

"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.’ 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??" Senator Paul wrote.

[Brian Griffin]

“Terror network headed by Osama bin Laden has tried to develop high-strength form of heroin that it planned to export to United States and Western Europe, according to United States intelligence reports; plan was supposedly in retaliation for US missile attack against terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, and provides rare link between Al Qaeda and drugs”

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/04/world/a-nation-challenged-drugs-super-heroin-was-planned-by-bin-laden-reports-say.html

Note well the date.

Wars can be fought with more than spears, bows & arrows, and guns.

In WWI, war was fought using chemicals as well as with guns.

The chemicals are different now. There are Chinese that want revenge, Mexicans that want revenge, etc.

[Brian Griffin]

“The real harm to the cartels would be to get their money. It is laundered somewhere”

I’ve wondered why it can’t be tracked down.

The Mexican government would probably be happy to confiscate it.

[Brian Griffin]

The Chinese Communists won their drug war circa 1950.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Open borders: throw open the borders completely; only a rare individual (terrorist, disease carrier etc.) can be kept from freedom of movement through “political boundaries”, eliminate the Border Patrol and INS.

Just as a matter of interest, how do they think those rare individuals would be selected and who do they think would keep them out?

That sounds like some idea that you come up with in a dorm room debate about 3 in the morning. And it gets obliterated by the quiet guy who has been only vaguely following the conversation while reading his text and working his way through a six pack of Jolt Cola.

[nathanbedford]

Yes, in 1950 Mao was the well-known stalwart defender of the Bill of Rights.

If you contend that the use of drugs as a weapon of war means that we can suspend the Bill of Rights to wage that war, in the end, you must comply with the rules of making war as set down in the Constitution.

These are safeguards, safeguarding the nation, to curb the power of the president, to prevent overreach by the executive. Our history is replete with the struggle between Congress and the president concerning the president's power to make war, just as our history is replete with struggles over the power of the executive to enforce laws.

The President may not wage war when prosecuting crimes to evade provisions of the Constitution, no matter how compelling the cause. If a Causus Belli exists, then wage war according to the law of war. The president may not do one thing while pretending to be the other.

[lodi90]

I agree with Rand. The military isn’t neccesary. Instead, President Trump should send the US Capitol Police to the border and let ankle biting U. S. Senators to fend for themselves.

[ncalburt]

I recall Tay her editor rewrote the story .Ironically, it was rumored that Harper Lee wrote Truman Capotes In Cold Blood . He was a serious alcoholic by that time and she did all the research for that novel.

[Bikkuri]

Rand Paul needs to get in his own lane.. The Libertarian Party.

[Bikkuri]

He’s not a fraud, he’s a Libertarian.

[Bikkuri]

I’m all for executions of the dealers (and above) inside the USA. The users are pretty much taking care of themselves, except for the Narcan, .. not sure they should have it. They made their choice.

[Williams]

These were not persecuted Americans. They were foreign narco terrorists on the way to invade and to kill our youth.

Hopefully, we will kill many many more of them. Like all of them.

[Bikkuri]

[BikerJoe]

I’d feel a lot better if I knew the RoE for this engagement. If we just roared up and started shooting, I might have a problem with that. If we ordered them to stop and they didn’t, them too bad for them.

[Republican Wildcat]

You are actually equating US Citizens to foreign terrorists?

[Olog-hai]

You’re talking like someone from Democratic Underground. Opus?

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Did we give the Japanese soldiers and sailors who were waging war on us trials before we shot them? There’s no difference - the drug cartels are waging war on us - and they’re targeting civilians.

[Nebr FAL owner]

The purpose of the military is to win this nations wars we have cops for arresting dope dealer & CIA paramilitaries for wet work use the proper tool for the job & use it correctly for best results .The hard part would be doing the job & not having Washington D.C.i not blab about it to any reporter in DC. Before the operations are begun.

[Nebr FAL owner]

The purpose of the military is to win this nations wars we have cops for arresting dope dealer & CIA paramilitaries for wet work use the proper tool for the job & use it correctly for best results .The hard part would be doing the job & not having Washington D.C.i not blab about it to any reporter in DC. Before the operations are begun.

[Bobbyvotes]

Randy thinks he is morally superior to everyone.

[pierrem15]

Libertarians are always confused. They have no idea what the Founders' notion of "ordered liberty" means any more than the Left does.

There's a small overlap with conservatives regarding free-markets (inside the US) and enforcing the Bill of Rights (properly construed, like the 2nd Amendment), but that's it.

They have a streak of nihilism in which they see themselves as Nietzschean super men "beyond good and evil," beyond the constraints of bourgeois morality, whose superior ability will lead them above others as long as traditional social rules apart from contracts are abolished. For that reason, they want traditional society destroyed as much as the Left does. They're "right-wing hippies", as Ayn Rand called them.