WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump 's assertion of the authority to kill suspected drug smugglers sparked a dispute on social media between Vice President JD Vance and GOP Sen. Rand Paul.

The subject of the dispute was the Navy sinking a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean on Sept. 2. The military said it carried 11 members of the crime gang Tren de Aragua smuggling drugs. Trump said on social media he ordered the strike to prevent drugs from reaching the U.S.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vance wrote Sept. 6 on social media .

But when Brian Krassenstein, an online critic of the Trump administration , responded by calling the killing of civilians without due process “a war crime,” the vice president went lo

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