Warships, fighter jets and the CIA – what is Trump’s endgame in Venezuela?
For two months, the US military has been building up a force of warships, fighter jets, bombers, marines, drones and spy planes in the Caribbean Sea. It is the largest deployment there for decades.
Long-range bomber planes, B-52s, have carried out “bomber attack demonstrations” off the coast of Venezuela. Trump has authorised the deployment of the CIA to Venezuela too, as tensions have escalated.
The US says it has killed dozens of people in strikes on small vessels from Venezuela which it alleges carry “narcotics” and “narco-terrorists”, without providing evidence or details about those on board.
The strikes have drawn condemnation in the region and experts have questioned their legality. They are being sold by the US as a war on drug trafficking but all the signs suggest this is really an intimidation campaign that seeks to remove Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro from power.
Look, I have very little time or sympathy for Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro.
I’m all for Socialist Revolution, but to then use the State to murder, torture strangle free and fair elections, create an economic collapse that sees the largest refugee exoduses in Latin American history alongside Repression of Civil Society and the Press?
That’s not my kind of Revolution comrades!
I like a consensual Revolution.
Maduro’s regime has serious questions to answer for the way he has abused his own people, of that there can be little doubt HOWEVER that doesn’t in any way shape or form justify what Trump is embarking upon here.
Trump is attacking any boat he suspects of drug trafficking and using military level violence to simply blow those boats up with zero legal evidence or process whatsoever.
Those are extrajudicial assassinations, that’s not Justice.
Trump’s build up of military is unacceptable.
Trump’s extrajudicial assassinations are unacceptable.
Trump’s use of the CIA to undermine Maduro’s regime is unacceptable.
This matters because America is now doing this in the Pacific, OUR pacific…
US strikes two more alleged drug-carrying boats, this time in the Pacific Ocean
The U.S. military on Wednesday launched its ninth strike against an alleged drug-carrying vessel, killing three people in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, expanding the Trump administration’s campaign against drug trafficking in South America.
It followed another strike Tuesday night, also in the eastern Pacific, that killed two people, Hegseth posted on social media hours earlier. The attacks were departures from the seven previous U.S. strikes that had targeted vessels in the Caribbean Sea. They bring the death toll to at least 37 from attacks that began last month.
The strikes represent an expansion of the military’s targeting area as well as a shift to the waters off South America where much of the cocaine from the world’s largest producers is smuggled. Hegseth’s social media posts also drew a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown.
…14% of the US Navy fleet is off the coast of Venezuela!
Just today they have sent the entire Ford Carrier Strike Group to the region FFS…
US deploys Ford carrier strike group to combat narco-terror in Western Hemisphere
The Trump administration has ordered the deployment of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group in the Western Hemisphere as the U.S. continues to target suspected drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean. Â
“In support of the President’s directive to dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism in defense of the Homeland, the Secretary of War has directed the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and embarked carrier air wing to the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) area of responsibility (AOR),” chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Friday. Â
…this is the sort of thing you do if you are about to start bombing Venezuela.
Maduro certainly has crimes to answer for, but that is for the Venezuelan people to decide, it is utterly inappropriate in the extreme that Trump gets involved.
He has no authority, the claim that he’s stopping terrorists from bringing drugs into America is farcical when you consider alcohol kills more people in America than all drugs combined, is farcical when you consider 20% of over doses are from legal prescriptions and is farcical when so many American’s dying from Fentanyl got their first taste on legally prescribed Oxycodone and Hydrocodone!
If Trump cared about drug over dosses he would crack down on booze, legal heroin and provide public health, instead he sends a fucking Carrier Strike Group to bomb speedboats and over throw a regime he doesn’t like!
It’s so difficult to keep up with all the crazy Trump is unleashing, that invading Venezuela gets missed.
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