On Thursday, I wrote about the United States military’s continuing campaign of blowing up small boats, and killing their occupants in the process, in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The so-called justification for this killing spree is to win, or at least make headway in, the war on drugs. But, it turns out the evidence indicates that the violence and destruction has contributed nothing to impeding the flow of verboten drugs in America.
Suppose a Latin American nation’s military kept blowing up private American small boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing nearly all the United States citizens on them in the process. The Donald Trump administration and a horde of US Congress members would be shouting about terrorism and supporting major responsive military actions. However, the actual perpetrator of the blowing up of small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since early September has been the US government and the victims have been mainly residents of Latin American nations, so the destruction and killing just keeps going on with little pushback from politicians in Washington, DC.
The US military has, since early September, been blowing up small boats and killing their occupants in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. This killing spree has been undertaken based on evidence-free “trust me bro” claims that the boats were being used by “narco-terrorists” to transport drugs to America.
The absurdities keep piling up to justify increasing United States aggression against Venezuela in the name of fighting the war on drugs.
You may have heard President Donald Trump declare once or more his often repeated claim that the United States government has saved the lives of 25,000 Americans each time its military has blown up a purported drug trafficking boat over the last few months in the Caribbean and Pacific. That sounds impressive. But, as Jacob Sullum explained in a Tuesday Reason article, Trump’s numbers don’t make sense.
Since September, the presidential administration of Donald Trump has been directing the United States military to blow up boats and kill their occupants in the Caribbean and Pacific, claiming to be thus countering Venezuela government supported “narco-terrorism.” At the same time, it has been building up a large US military force off the Venezuela shore. And the Trump administration has made clear that these actions go hand in hand with seeking to achieve its goal of removing Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro from office.
Great Britain, over a month ago, bowed out of helping the United States blow up boats and kill their occupants in the Caribbean. Natasha Bertrand reported in a Tuesday article at CNN that Britain had then suspended its providing of intelligence to the US that would help the US in carrying out a series of fatal attacks on boats.