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“A series of U.S. strikes against suspected drug vessels in the eastern Pacific killed 14 alleged drug traffickers and left one survivor, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday, the latest operation in President Donald Trump's counter-drug campaign. The strikes in the Pacific come against the backdrop of a U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean that includes guided-missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine, and thousands of troops.” Reuters
Here’s our previous coverage of the strikes. The Flip Side
The left is critical of the strikes, arguing that they are illegal.
“Calling these guys narco-terrorists is clearly perverting the definitions of terrorism and narco-trafficking to get around legal restrictions. These traffickers are criminals. They’re not terrorists. They’re not trying to overthrow the United States government. They have no ideology or religious purpose. They’re not enemy combatants. They’re not enemy soldiers. They’re not enemies of anything. They’re common criminals.”
Paul Glastris, Washington Monthly
“Trump speaks of 300,000 annual deaths in the United States from drug overdoses – a vast overstatement – but most US overdose deaths are due to fentanyl, which arrives via Mexico, not Venezuela… In any event, a conviction for drug trafficking under US law carries a sentence of imprisonment, not the death penalty…
“When two men survived a Trump-authorized attack on a small submarine, the Trump administration released them to their home countries rather than [prosecute] them. That is hardly how one would respond if these individuals really posed a dire threat, but detaining them would have enabled US courts to address the legality of their treatment as combatants – something the administration clearly wants to avoid.”
Kenneth Roth, The Guardian
“U.S. military interventions in Haiti (1915-1934), the Dominican Republic (1916-1924) and Nicaragua (1926-1933) led to the rise not of democracy but of brutal despots: François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier, Rafael Trujillo and Anastasio Somoza. The CIA-backed overthrow in 1954 of Guatemala’s elected leftist president Jacobo Arbenz helped lead to a bloody 36-year civil war… The CIA’s 1961 Bay of Pigs operation, designed to topple Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, was a notorious fiasco…
“Things sometimes worked out better when Washington was able to mobilize overwhelming military might against small countries for fast, in-and-out operations — e.g., Grenada, 1983, Panama, 1989. But Venezuela is far from small: It has a slightly larger population than Iraq did when U.S. troops invaded…
“Maduro is an odious dictator, but it’s hard to see his regime as a threat sufficient to warrant armed intervention. The regime-change policy is also riddled with numerous contradictions and inconsistencies that are likely to doom it. For example, if the boat strikes are supposed to deny Maduro drug-smuggling revenue, then why did the Trump administration approve a license for Chevron to pump oil in Venezuela?”
Max Boot, Washington Post
“Trump loves a villain he can bomb. And Maduro is tailor-made for that role — a socialist strongman with a lousy election record, oil reserves America wants, and the kind of face that looks good on Fox News graphics under the words ‘Threat to Freedom.’ The Pentagon insists this is about ‘disrupting narcotics trafficking’ and ‘degrading criminal organizations.’ But that’s like sending a SWAT team to chase pickpockets; it’s overkill. You don’t need a $13 billion floating airbase to intercept drug boats.”
Michael Cohen, Meidas Plus
The right is divided.
The right is divided.
“After years of inaction, drugs now kill more Americans each year than every modern war combined. Drug overdoses claimed more than 100,000 lives in 2023, a number that continues to rise despite billions spent on interdiction, prevention and policing. That is not a criminal nuisance. That is a sustained mass-casualty event inside the homeland… The cartels are not ordinary traffickers. They are transnational powers that control territory, wield military-grade arsenals and use terror as a tool of governance…
“For too long, Washington treated the cartels as criminals who could be prosecuted rather than enemies who had to be defeated. That approach failed. The cartels wage war on America for profit. They assassinate, extort and kidnap while basking in riches captured through intimidation and terror. They destabilize our neighbors and corrupt governments from Mexico to Venezuela. If America had the right to strike al Qaeda and ISIS abroad for killing Americans, it has an equal right to strike the cartels that kill Americans at home.”
John Spencer and Frank Viola, Fox News
“There is a cogent strategic rationale for executing military strikes against the anti-American regime in Venezuela… Without question, the Western Hemisphere would be a safer place if the Maduro regime — to say nothing of its sponsors in places like Havana and Moscow — was no more. And even limited strikes on regime targets have the potential to spark a domino effect that results in the collapse of the illegitimate and little-loved regime in Caracas…
“It would, however, be a colossal mistake for the president to glide listlessly into a war in South America for which he sought no public support or congressional buy-in… Sidelining an already pliant Congress on matters as constitutionally weighty as war and peace isn’t just civically contemptuous. It would provide the president’s opposition with a comprehensible and possibly quite popular cause around which to rally.”
Noah Rothman, National Review
Others argue, “Proposals for a forcible regime change in Venezuela, presumably through airpower and covert operations, have few direct precedents in the region. Operation Urgent Fury, the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada, seized an island of only 133 square miles. The 1989 ouster of Manuel Noriega in Panama was assisted by the already large U.S. military presence in the small, isthmus nation. The heyday of American Banana Wars in the Caribbean was similarly facilitated by collaboration on the ground and incremental intervention…
“Such conditions do not exist in Venezuela, as the country is more than twice the size of Iraq and is led by a regime that, at least for now, enjoys the loyalty of the military. If it changes Venezuela’s regime, the White House risks recreating the endless wars and quagmires of the Middle East, but this time in our own neighborhood. The size of the strike package suggests a campaign on the scale of President Barack Obama’s Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya. The outcome there was chaos, civil war, and open-air slave markets.”
Justin Logan and Brandan Buck, American Conservative
A libertarian's take
“The Constitution states that Congress has the power ‘to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.’ During the Cold War, that rule gave way to a new, unwritten principle: Try and stop me. Presidents jumped into foreign conflicts without any public debate, and found that Congress was unwilling to assert itself…
“It's not a bad bet that Congress will let Trump take this military campaign as far as he wants… After all, Congress also voted down a war powers resolution after Trump struck Iran without permission, something that has threatened to do again. His predecessors, Joe Biden and Barack Obama, also waged undeclared wars of their own with little input from Congress. Lawmakers neither want to vote for war nor vote against it; they have abdicated their power.”
Matthew Petti, Reason
