Congressional Kabuki: Narco Boats, War Powers, and the Hegseth TheaterCongress clutches its pearls, calls for Hegseth’s head, and lectures on war crimes — all while the real work of war continues quietly in the Caribbean. Welcome to American kabuki.The Last WireIn American politics, there exists a spectacle both tragic and comic, a ritualistic theater in which Congress plays the moral arbiter while the Executive Branch executes reality. Few modern instances illustrate this better than the aerial bombardments of narco-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Some of these vessels have been officially designated as “terrorist” affiliates of violent cartels, others indistinguishable from humble fishing boats, yet all meet the same fate. Within forty-eight hours, the White House dutifully files a War Powers Resolution report, citing the 1973 statute in florid bureaucratic language. Congress responds with predictable fury: accusations of “extrajudicial murder,” cries of “war crimes,” and now, the crescendo of outrage, calls for the removal of Pete Hegseth, whose commentary on these strikes has become an incendiary talking point. And yet, behind the public spectacle, funding continues, authorizations quietly renew, and the operations march forward, unaffected.
It is, in the purest sense, kabuki. Congress lectures, stages hearings, and demands resignations, while the true levers of military action — targeting, ordnance deployment, operational execution — remain firmly in the Commander in Chief’s hands. The 48-hour reporting requirement, designed as a check, is treated as ceremonial. The 60-day limit on hostilities exists as a stage prop; Section 5(c), the legislative veto, is long impotent, having been struck down in INS v. Chadha.
Congress can wag its fingers, but it cannot stop the strikes. The theater of indignation persists, complete with cameras, editorials, and public hand-wringing, while the mechanics of military power hum quietly in the background.
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