Privateers ahoy! Hit cartels where it hurts with this old-school tactic

Sail forth, privateers! Sharpen your cutlasses and load guns with grapeshot!Well, not exactly. Utah Sen.Mike Lee recently kicked off a conversation about the return of letters of marque and reprisal as a means of striking out against rogue states and non-state bad actors.

  In an era of asymmetric warfare, a new breed of US privateers could allow America to fight its enemies where they lurk.In old-fashioned naval warfare, a government letter of marque allowed a privately funded and operated warship to set sail and seize enemy ships, typically in international waters. Once vanquished, an enemy ship and its cargo would be taken to a friendly port and adjudicated as legitimate (or not) by a prize court. Legitimate prizes could be sold, and the privateer got to keep the money.Those bearing a letter of marque couldn’t be considered a pirate, but treated as a prisoner of war.(Letters of reprisal were similar but more limited, meant for those who had been wronged by a foreign government but couldn’t get satisfaction.) Lee proposed bringing back letters of marque in a thread on X last month, suggesting them as a tool for going after Mexican drug cartels.His posts sparked a flood of skull-and-crossbones memes and “avast, me hearties” responses — and serious ones, too.Erik Prince, for one, founder of the Blackwater private security company (it’s rude to call them “mercenaries”), weighed in to approve of Lee’s approach: “Only a private organization is going to be able to move that decisively with the flexibility required,” Prince told Breitbart News.On Feb.13, Rep.

Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) introduced legislation allowing the president to issue letters of marque and reprisal against cartels, which Trump’s State Department has since designated as foreign terror groups.The US Constitution itself authorizes Congress to approve the issuance of letters of marque.After 9/11, Rep.

Ron Paul (R-Texas) proposed them as a means of going after terrorists, and...