Pete Hegseth’s mistake was not allowing the Democrats to rescue the two narco terrorists that he blew out of the water along with their drug boat the other day.

One leading Democrat—Rep. Tim Hines of Connecticut, called them “shipwrecked sailors.”

Hegseth could have provided a helicopter or a boat for Sens. Eddie Markey and Chris Van Hollen to make the rescue, thereby solidifying the pair’s support for terrorists who smuggle deadly drugs into the county.

Both Markey of Massachusetts and Van Hollen of Maryland called the killing of the two drug runners a war crime and Hegseth a war criminal.

“Pete Hegseth is a war criminal and should be fired immediately,” Markey said.

And both have shown more sympathy for the drug dealers than they have for the thousands of young Americans who are killed by their deadly product, as witnessed by their indignation over the strike.

Sen. Van Hollen last July grabbed headlines when he visited deported alleged gangbanger and wife beater Kilmar Abrego Garicia, the “Maryland man” who Trump deported to El Salvador. Garcia was being held in a high security El Salvador prison.

The killing of the two drug traffickers—still on board the partially wrecked drug boat–came after a second air strike was called in to blow the boat apart in the Caribbean after the first strike failed to complete the job.

While the fake story of Hegseth ordering the killing of the two has been disputed—The Washington Post said it happened while The New Yor Times and Navy brass said it did not— what is not in dispute is that Trump’s gunboat diplomacy is working.

So far, some 22 drug carrying boats out of Venezuela have been sent to the bottom of the sea along with 86 drug traffickers manning them. Drugs headed for the U.S and elsewhere are now feeding the fish.

This accomplishment, according to Trump, has just about shut down the shipment of drugs by sea out of drug kingpin President Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela.

Now Trump will seek to shut down the air land routes as well. This could include the bombing of drug holding and processing sites in Venezuela, which will no doubt lead to more attacks from Democrats on him and Hegseth.

This is not to say that all Democrats are opposed to cracking down on the drug trade that has taken so many American lives. Sensible Democrats are not. They are only opposed because it is Trump who is doing it.

Take the Democrat furor over the alleged “war crime” killing of the two surviving drug traffickers taken out on the second strike.

Markey, Van Hollen and the rest of the whining Democrats acted as though the drug traffickers were victims rather than the hundreds of thousands of young Americans who have been killed by drug poison.

Where was the indignation  from Markey, Van Hollen and other Democrats when their hero Barack Obama was president and killing innocent people, including U.S. citizens, with drones in Pakistan and Yemen during the war on terrorism?

No one, including Republicans, called Obama a war criminal or called for his impeachment after he ordered the targeted drone strike assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, in Yemen in 2009, or wiping out an innocent wedding party in Afghanistan in 2014.

Obama threw drone strikes around like confetti.

Awlaki, born in New Mexico of Yemeni parents—and a U.S. citizen– was a radical Muslim cleric with ties to Al-Qaeda when he was killed in a targeted air strike in Yemen.

Also killed in the air strike were fellow Americans Abdulrahman, Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, and Samir Khan, neither of whom were targeted. A fourth American, Jude Kenan Mohammed, was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan.

No Democrats objected.

In fact, then Attorney General Eric Holder said they deserved it. In a comment to the U.S. Senate, Holder said, “Based on generations-old legal principles and Supreme Court decisions handed down from WWII, as well as during the current conflict, it is clear and logical that United States Citizenship alone does not make such citizens immune from being targeted.”

There you have it.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter who can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com.

Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) (Photo by Allison Bailey/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
U.S. Navy Adm. Frank M. Bradley, right, accompanied by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left, walks to a meeting with senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)