On today's Morning Joe, MSNBC analyst and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius admitted that the people on the boat that the U.S. military fired on in the Caribbean "were associated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. I'm sure they're terrible people doing despicable crimes."
And while he first said that they "appear to have been drug smugglers," he later flatly described them as "drug smugglers."
Even so, Ignatius suggested that members of the military should consider disobeying the orders of President Trump, the Commander-in-Chief, to fire on such boats:
"Our military is supposed to obey lawful orders. But that doesn't mean that they're exempt from thinking carefully, is this a lawful order that I've been given? Whoever was told to fire on this boat carrying drug smugglers needs to have asked, am I being given a lawful order by the Commander-in-Chief?"
Compare and contrast with Barack Obama ordering a lethal drone strike on a native-born US citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. Obama's AG, Eric Holder, subsequently declared the strike legal, in part because al-Awlaki was a leader of "a terrorist organization." A separate drone strike ordered by Obama killed al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, who was also a native-born US citizen.
President Trump has issued a Proclamation classifying Tren de Aragua as "a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization."
Joe Scarborough, aficionado of Trump/Nazi analogies, somehow missed out on an opportunity. You might have expected Joe to solemnly warn members of the US military that Nazi soldiers who said they were just obeying orders were nonetheless given the death penalty at the Nuremberg trials.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
9/8/25
6:13 am EDTDAVID IGNATIUS: Good for Rand Paul for calling this out directly and bluntly. What many national security lawyers are asking is whether the president has any foundation in law for this attack.
It appears to have been a drone or helicopter attack on a boat carrying what appear to have been drug smugglers who were associated with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. I'm sure they're terrible people doing despicable crimes. But that's not what our military is for. We have specific procedures for enforcing laws against smuggling drugs into the United States. We are not at war with these drug cartels, as Vice President Vance suggests. And you can't make up a legal rationale for that on the spot just because you think they're bad people. The Coast Guard is charged with this responsibility. If the president wants to begin to use lethal force against drug smugglers, he should go to Congress. He should find a way to it legally.
But there's a question deeper here, Joe, I think, which is, what's the military's responsibility to push back? Our military is supposed to obey lawful orders. But that doesn't mean that they're exempt from thinking carefully, is this a lawful order that I've been given?
Whoever was told to fire on this boat carrying drug smugglers needs to have asked, am I being given a lawful order by the Commander-in-Chief? And we're at the point where we really need to insist that as part of our country, the way our country works, the military will obey the president, Commander-in-Chief, but will ask the appropriate questions, as Rand Paul did, as the senator bravely did.
And I think we're going to have a serious debate now about what are the limits of the president's authority to use force?. You can't just say, you know, I'm going after this. You need legal authority.