President Trump has just made perhaps his most dangerous assault on the rule of law. He proudly announced that he directed the U.S. military to kill 11 alleged drug smugglers in their boat on the high seas of the Caribbean, excitedly showing a video of the lethal strike.

The strike involves the unlawful use of the military for law enforcement, something Trump is also doing in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. by federalizing the National Guard for domestic law enforcement. Just on a few occasions in our nation’s history have federal troops been called out to restore order, such as enforcing federal courts’ desegregation decrees being forcibly resisted by state authorities or honoring requests from localities to help suppress riots.

Not surprisingly, therefore, District Judge Charles Breyer recently ruled that Trump had acted unlawfully in assigning Marines and federalized National Guardsmen to Los Angeles.

The DEA, Customs and Border Protection and other federal agencies working with their local counterparts have properly treated drug smuggling as a law enforcement issue, not a military challenge. Conventional law enforcement must address the drug problem aggressively — without looking for easy but unacceptable answers.

With brazen candor, Secretary of State Marco Rubio conceded that U.S. authorities could have “interdicted” the alleged smugglers’ boat, but, on Trump’s orders, “we blew it up ... And it’ll happen again.” All this “to send a message.”

Rubio later stated during a news conference in Ecuador that partner “governments will help us find these people........

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