It Takes a Pillage …. to Raze a Criminal Cartel

There is rising sentiment for Trump to unleash pirates on Central American drug cartels.

A couple of weeks ago I noted that when the United States was founded, the idea was that the people would protect themselves and the government, instead of the government taking over that fundamental right. That changed in the twentieth century and has been entirely overturned in this one.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has taken the premise of citizen leadership in crime prevention and fashioned a proposal to return to it in a big way. Writing at Blaze Media, Lee suggests that Congress “consider hiring a few pirates. Or, more precisely, privateers,” to help fight Central American criminal cartels that are trafficking drugs, slave-prostitutes, and criminal immigrants while committing countless other violent and often brutal crimes.

The use of privateers is not a radical innovation. It is part of a long tradition of citizen defense and is specifically established in the U.S. Constitution. Britain deployed privateers extensively during the 1600s and 1700s, and the United States used them to great effect in the War of 1812. Establishing privateers merely frees them from government prosecution for undertaking otherwise-illegal actions that serve the nation’s purposes. Lee writes,

Letters of marque and reprisal are government-issued commissions that authorize private citizens (privateers) to perform acts that would otherwise be considered piracy, like attacking and looting ships, as long as they belong to a certain enemy. Privateers are typically rewarded with a cut of the loot they “bring home.”

The U.S. Constitution authorizes these commissions in Article I, Section 8, giving Congress the power “to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” This was especially useful when the United States was newly born and lacked a large standing army and navy. In fact, the Continental Congress authorized privateering against British ships during our War of Independence.

In addition to the Central American cartels being notoriously slippery and often difficult to locate, some have close relationships with government officials and corrupt police in their home nations. The use of privateers against the cartels would enable the U.S. government to act without deploying our military, which should help defuse any ensuing international tension, and the private sector moves much more rapidly and efficiently than government, Lee notes:

There are some advantages to this course of action. Private entities operate with more agility than the government, adapting quickly to the tactics of cartels. It would also reduce the financial burden on taxpayers and indeed could add to the public coffers, as privateers receive only a cut of the resources that they recover and return the rest to the United States.

Using private security firms to wipe up non-state actors like the cartels—something we did to great effect against terrorist groups in the Middle East, including ISIS—also avoids putting the U.S. military in direct conflict with the Mexican government. If we can eliminate this violent criminal scourge upon the continent without invading our neighbor, so much the better.

Defenders of the status quo will undoubtedly deride Lee’s proposal, but further inaction is irresponsible and in fact callous toward the victims of these criminal organizations, while deploying the military would be an expensive, controversial approach. That is probably a big reason the Biden administration did nothing about these problems.

Deploying privateers, by contrast, could rapidly make criminal cartels’ activities much more dangerous and expensive, and it requires nothing more from the federal government than to get out of the way. Lee writes,

Congress could issue letters of marque and reprisal authorizing private security firms or specially trained civilians to intercept cartel operations, particularly those involving drug shipments or human trafficking across borders. They could focus on disrupting supply lines, capturing high-value targets, or seizing assets like boats, vehicles, cash, gold, or equipment used in criminal activities.

Lee’s idea has a recent precedent as well, columnist Don Surber notes:

Then there is Dr. Ron Paul, the kooky ex-congressman who has a bad habit of being proven right decades later. And by kooky, I mean someone who has actually wants to apply the Constitution to governance.

On October 10, 2001—29 days after 9/11—he introduced H.R.3076:

“September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 — Authorizes and requests the President to issue letters of marque and reprisal to commission privately armed and equipped persons and entities to seize outside of the United States the person and property of Osama bin Laden, of any al Qaeda co-conspirator, and any conspirator with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda who are responsible for the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, including any similar planned acts against the United States in the future. Authorizes the President to place a bounty, from amounts appropriated on September 14, 2001, in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Recovery from and Response to Terrorists Attacks on the United States or from private sources, for the capture, dead or alive, of Osama bin Laden or any other al Qaeda conspirator responsible for the act of air piracy upon the United States on September 11, 2001.”

The Washington elite dismissed Paul’s idea, as was inevitable, and Surber accurately summarizes the result as follows: “The politicians had the military blow Afghanistan to smithereens only to discover, after a decade of searching, that [Osama bin Laden] was living in Pakistan with his subscription to Penthouse.”

Surber’s conclusion is all but incontestable in light of the U.S. loss of $2.3 trillion (or more), the lives of several thousand U.S. military personnel and U.S. contractors, and more than 20,000 wounded, all leading to an ignominious withdrawal from the country in 2021: “We would have been better off sending druglords, gangbangers and Mafiosos after him. We have the best criminals in the world. Unleash their potential.”

Congress and the president should seriously consider Lee’s approach to the problem. It is not just constitutional. On the most fundamental level, it’s the American way.