While Whidbey Island’s EA-18G squadrons and Everett’s hundreds of Navy families stand by with bated breath, the Trump administration is ordering the military to blow suspected narco-boats out of the water in international waters; no declaration of war, no congressional authorization, no rules of engagement that survive basic constitutional scrutiny.
Over 75 people have been killed. Survivors allegedly finished off on the water. Secretary of Defense Hegseth likely committing war crimes in the name of a chief executive gone numb or mad.
Yet most of Washington’s congressional delegation — the people we vote for to literally check the President — have said little in response. Rep. Adam Smith has come out swinging, but is no one else going to stand up for the servicemembers who will be the first deployed if Trump’s Russian roulette of a foreign policy goes wrong? And if they won’t stand up for servicemembers, what about the Constitution?
I’m in the Coast Guard and I swore the same oath to protect and uphold the Constitution that our elected representatives did. If we let this kind of unconstitutional, flagrantly illegal, un-American behavior continue without a word of protest, we normalize it for generations of Americans to come. That is unacceptable.
To our members of Congress: Your constituents wear the uniform. Stand up, speak out, and demand oversight before another whistle gets blown across Puget Sound because someone was told to commit a war crime.
Ilani Nurick
Seattle
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