Every time you hear anyone (including news networks) defending the bombing of boats, saying that this is about terrorist drug cartels and we need this “war” to prevent Americans from being killed by drugs, you are being bamboozled. If you believe them, you are a gullible patsy.
And the talking heads on TV need to stop feeling like they have to preface any criticism with the obligatory, “Of course, we need to do much more to take down these horrible drug traffickers, but…” Trump says “drugs,” and they’re afraid to look soft on drugs, so they feed into the lie. The same thing happened with the National Guard and crime in cities. (The National Guard is the absolute most insanely wrong way to address crime in cities, but people are afraid to look “soft on crime.”)
Let’s say that Trump announces drunk driving is a national problem, so he plans to save millions of lives by sending in IRS agents. You shouldn’t have to say, “Well, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am against drunk driving, and any amount of it is too much, but I’m not sure that IRS agents are the best approach to the situation.” No, the proper response is, “Stop lying to us. You don’t care about drunk driving at all. What’s the real reason you want IRS agents here?”
It’s not about the drugs.
Does Trump really want to get rid of drug traffickers? Let’s take a look (just from this year). Ross “Dread Pirate Roberts” Ulbricht (aiding and abetting major distribution of drugs through the “Silk Road”): pardoned. Garnet Gilbert Smith (The Baltimore Kingpin): sentence commuted. Kantrell Gaulden (drug charges): pardoned. Michael Harris (cocaine distribution charges): pardoned. Charles Lavar Tanner (five kilos or more of cocaine): sentence commuted. And the big one: Juan Orlando Hernández (convicted of conspiring to traffic over 400 tons of cocaine and once boasted that he would “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses”): pardoned. Trump likes drug traffickers if they can do something for him.
So, once again, it’s not about the drugs.
The big problem with drug deaths in the U.S. is fentanyl. Fentanyl is primarily made in Mexico based on precursor ingredients mainly sourced from China. Venezuela is not a significant source of fentanyl. Venezuela does produce cocaine (though Colombia is the dominant source). Much of Venezuela’s cocaine goes to Europe. There are a relatively small number of deaths in the U.S. from cocaine, and 80% of those are when cocaine is combined with other drugs (like fentanyl). Ironically, for this piece, many more people die from drunk driving each year in the U.S. than from unadulterated cocaine. And as long as people in the U.S. like to use cocaine, they will get it from somewhere.
The boats off the coast of Venezuela are generally headed to places like Trinidad or Suriname. The distance from Venezuela to the U.S. by boat is around 1,000 nautical miles (not an easy trip, and you’d have to fill the boat with fuel rather than drugs to make it).
We have a way to stop drug traffickers on the ocean. It’s called the Coast Guard. They’re very good at it. They just had a major score this week. They stop the boat, firing into the engines to disable it if necessary, seize the drugs, and arrest the people. Now they’ve got low-level traffickers that they can try to turn to go after the cartels. Killing them gets you no information. Sometimes, the people on boats are just patsies, paid a small amount or having their families threatened by cartels. And sometimes, intelligence is wrong, and the boat has no drugs or criminals. In that case, when the Coast Guard does it, they are released with apologies, not killed.
It isn’t about the drugs.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the September 2 boat strike that killed 11 people (odd to have 11 people taking up space on a small boat when you’re supposedly trying to carry a lot of drugs…). After the first strike, there were two survivors, without weapons or radios, sitting on the overturned half of the boat, trying to be rescued, so we blew them up.
Some are saying that it was a war crime, but I disagree. It would have been a war crime if we were at war, but we’re not. Congress has to declare war, not Trump (it’s in the Constitution). And the Trump administration has given no coherent legal reasons for us to be in a war with the people on those boats. So it’s not a war crime, it’s plain old murder. And not just the second strike. Our laws do not permit government employees to kill people without proof or trial just because they think they’re carrying drugs. We have committed at least 87 murders in boat strikes so far this year.
Not about the drugs.
So what is it about? Good question, and one for which we definitely need a coherent answer from the Trump administration. Some say that Marco Rubio wants regime change in Venezuela (he has pushed it for years). Some say that Stephen Miller is agitating for a war so he can bolster the Alien Enemies Act powers to further his white supremacy focus. Some say it’s the oil (Venezuela is a major source) and that Donald Trump wants to do to Venezuela what Putin is doing to Ukraine.
Do we really want to be Russia?
Because it’s certainly not about the drugs.
It’s about the sadism. It’s always been about the sadism. It’s 100% about hurting and/or killing people just to watch them suffer.
Pete, I would certainly agree it’s not about the drugs. Trump is very much about creating news cycles. Could very well be that this is a means of pleasing his base, and more importantly, distraction from the Epstein files. As President, his ability to create distractions is seemingly endless. A local Humboldt County website comment section in a 2-to-1 blue county is filled with MAGA enthusiasts basically saying – fuck the rule of law, we want murder entertainment. If we’re going to execute suspected drug smugglers we’re becoming like China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
If I were to guess I would say it’s about the oil. Venezuela’s oil reserves aren’t just large. Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world with about 303 billion barrels, followed by Saudi Arabia (267 billion), Iran (209 billion), Canada (168 billion), and Iraq (145 billion). These reserves are concentrated in regions like Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt, Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar Field, and Canada’s Alberta oil sands. Russia has about 80 billion barrels, and the U.S. has 68.8 billion barrels. If the U.S. takes political control of Venezuela’s oil exports then its control would enable it to corner the world’s oil markets.
Control of the world’s largest supply of oil can be weaponized. A country that dominates the world’s oil supply can make a big dent in the economies of certain countries it dislikes simply by flooding the market with really cheap oil. Oil exporters such as Russia would see their oil income decline if that were to happen. The Russian ruble is tightly linked to oil exports because oil and gas revenues are a big slice of Russia’s federal budget. The ruble’s value depends heavily on the foreign currency inflows from those exports. When oil revenues fall, the ruble weakens, when they rise, the ruble stabilizes or strengthens.
The Venezuelan drug smuggling excuse is clearly a decoy. There is no way blowing up a few open speedboats on the high seas is going to stop drug smuggling. It merely murders impoverished people possibly caught up in the drug war in order to get a good photo-op. Smuggling routes will go elsewhere. The decoy in this case is one in which accusations of drug smuggling are used to topple leaders in governments.
An example is former CIA director and later the 41st President (1989 – 1993), George Herbert Walker Bush, who used drug smuggling and profiteering accusations starting on December 20, 1989, to topple Panama’s leader and former CIA asset, Manuel Noriega. The U.S. thereby wrested control of the Panama Canal from Panama in an invasion after the U.S. lease on the Canal Zone ended.
George HW Bush had just previously used a drug war scam in his September 5, 1989, Oval Office address after he had set up a staged drug bust in a park near the White House to provide a visual prop so he could declare a drug war on crack cocaine.