There are surely Venezuelan drug smugglers today who are much more anxious about their next run by sea to Miami.

This week, Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that the United States military attacked and destroyed a boat in the Caribbean “transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” The strike, according to the president, resulted in “11 terrorists killed in action.” He further declared that they were “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” who were “operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro.”

The operation had the hallmarks of a Trump military operation — low-risk, but carrying an unmistakable deterrent message. In this respect, it was the drug-smuggler equivalent of the Soleimani strike in the first term.

Still, setting aside the president’s claims of certainty regarding the destination of the boat, its purpose, and its passenger manifest (when there are often mistakes in such real-time determinations), there are legitimate questions about this operation.

Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela is malign and illegitimate, and the United States has designated Tren de Aragua (TdA) a foreign terrorist organization. But neither of those facts automatically suggests that the president has the authority to order the U.S. military to target and kill TdA drug smugglers on the high seas, as opposed to apprehending them for law enforcement action. (The administrative designation of TdA as a foreign terrorist organization authorizes the U.S. government to apply sanctions and other measures against it; it is not a declaration of war.)

There is no doubt that Tren de Aragua and its activities have harmed the United States. Its peddling of drugs and its violent, thuggish conduct should be unacceptable. A heavy hand is warranted in interdicting this group and suppressing its activities.

But the problem of Tren de Aragua is, as it stands, a law enforcement problem; it is not undertaking an armed attack on the United States of America by any conventional definition. There is a difference constitutionally, legally, and morally in drawing the sword to kill one’s enemies on the field of battle and using force, when necessary, to apprehend criminals or put a stop to their activities.

If the president believes that Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela is attacking the United States indirectly via a narco-terrorist proxy, he should ask Congress to authorize the use of military force to put an end to this danger.

Is the Trump administration’s operation akin to George H. W. Bush’s 1989 actions in Panama? While there are similarities — Manuel Noriega had been indicted in the U.S. for drug trafficking and racketeering, and he interfered with a free election; Nicolás Maduro has been indicted by American authorities, and he stole the 2018 presidential election — the two situations are not very much alike. The United States had a special relationship with Panama (in some ways, it had created it) and the Canal Zone, which had a distinct status in U.S. law. Noriega’s thugs had directly threatened Americans in Panama and killed a U.S. Marine. Before the U.S. invasion, the Panamanian general assembly passed a resolution declaring war on the United States.

A model that worked, at least for a time, against powerful and dangerous Latin American drug cartels was “Plan Colombia,” the 15-year American effort beginning in 2000 that helped that country’s government fight left-wing paramilitaries and drug cartels. Indeed, there is little reason to believe that the United States can defeat the cartels that are so powerful across Mexico and South America if we do not have the help, support, and cooperation of those countries’ sovereign governments. It’s also worth recalling that a deployment of 100,000 Americans to Afghanistan never seriously impeded the traffic in drugs emanating from that country.

Again, these are matters that deserve — and require, under our constitutional system — congressional input. Meanwhile, no one should be upset that Nicolás Maduro, contemplating the U.S. naval forces now in the Caribbean, may be asking his doctor for a stronger prescription of Xanax.