President Donald Trump’s “getting-tough” turn to the U.S. military to summarily kill suspected drug smugglers, now at more than 60 -– almost always with a quick, grainy photo for the evening news -- isn’t just reaching beyond his grasp of reality. The killings, combined with a pardon spree, make a cheap mockery of the more than $1 trillion spent on the 50-year-old “War on Drugs.”

Venezuela’s coastline is now crowded with firepower while, less dramatically, the president has pardoned a growing number of convicted criminals at the center of drug trafficking.

Last January, Trump gave a full pardon to San Francisco’s Ross Ulbricht, who played a central role in the digitalization of the international drug trade. He had been serving two life sentences plus 40 years. According to news acc

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