Tag: venezuela

Venezuela says US intercepted and boarded a tuna vessel in hostile manner

The Venezuelan government announced on Sept 13 that a US destroyer intercepted, boarded and occupied a Venezuelan tuna fishing vessel for eight hours in the waters of the South American country’s special economic zone on Sept 12.

In a statement read by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil, the government said tuna vessel Carmen Rosawas boarded in an illegal and hostile manner, and that it was crewed by nine “humble” fishermen and was “harmless”.

Tensions have been mounting between Washington and Caracas. On Sept 2, a US military strike in the Caribbean 

killed 11 people and sank a boat from Venezuela that US President Donald Trump’s administration claimed was transporting illegal narcotics.

The Trump administration has provided scant information about the attack on Sept 2, despite demands from US Congress members for the government to justify its actions. The Venezuelan government has said that 

none of those killed belonged to the gang Tren de Aragua, as the US has alleged.

US officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the alleged incident on Sept 12.

The Venezuelan government identified the US vessel as the USS Jason Dunham, “equipped with powerful cruise missiles and manned by highly specialised marines”.

It demanded that the US immediately cease targeting vessels, which it said puts “the security and peace of the Caribbean at risk”. 

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The Roots Of Trump’s Continued Wars On Terror Trace Back To 9/11

The U.S. military recently launched a plainly illegal strike on a small civilian Venezuelan boat that President Trump claims was a successful hit on “narcoterrorists.” Vice President JD Vance responded to allegations that the strike was a war crime by saying, “I don’t give a shit what you call it,” insisting this was the “highest and best use of the military.”

This is only the latest troubling development in the Trump administration’s attempt to repurpose “War on Terror” mechanisms to use the military against cartels and to expedite his much vaunted mass deportation campaign, which he says is necessary because of an “invasion” at the border.

Unfortunately, more than two decades of widely-accepted, bipartisan laws and norms first laid the groundwork for this to occur.

After 9/11, the Bush administration created the Specially Designated Global Terrorists list, and Congress expanded the pre-existing Foreign Terrorist Organization list. These lists allow the executive branch, at its sole discretion, to add and remove individuals and groups to standing lists of “terrorists,” a term that is defined broadly.

The Trump administration has exercised this authority to formally designate transnational cartels as “terrorists” due in part to their role in the flow of people and drugs across the southern border into the United States. They have leveraged this designation to justify a range of actions, including deploying troops to Los Angeles and deporting immigrants to a brutal Salvadorean prison without due process.

Another post-9/11 legal invention that paved the way to what the Trump administration is doing today was the USA PATRIOT Act’s updates to immigration law that allowed deportation of not just those involved in actual violent acts of terrorism, but also those loosely associated with designated “terrorist groups,” even if those associations were peaceful and law-abiding or involuntary and a result of duress. People who have previously been excluded from the United States by these provisions include Iraqi interpreters for U.S. troops, victims of forced labor by violent armed groups in El Salvador, and even Nelson Mandela. These provisions mean that not just alleged members of cartels, but also cartel victims could be denied entry into the United States or deported if already here.

These same post-9/11 immigration law amendments also allow for revoking or denying immigration benefits to foreign nationals who “endorse or espouse” “terrorist activity,” defined broadly. The Trump administration has already revoked the visas of several immigrant students and scholars solely for their nonviolent activities criticizing the U.S.-Israel genocide in Gaza, as part of what they call a “zero-tolerance” policy for terrorism. The administration has primarily leaned on an older and more obscure provision of immigration law to carry out these attacks on immigrants’ free speech rights. But if current efforts are blocked by courts, or they wish to go further, post-9/11 immigration law may give them the tools to justify doing so.

The original decision to treat the 9/11 attacks not as crime but as warfare, and to launch a literal “war on terror” in response, remains the primary post-9/11 legal innovation on which so many abuses are made possible. Under this global war paradigm, the Obama administration carried out ruthless drone killings, including one that targeted a U.S. citizen, and justified the strikes with a mish-mash of legal standards that applied rules of war outside of actual war zones, and expansively interpreted what constitutes an “imminent threat” and resulting “self-defense” powers.

Every post-9/11 president has claimed wide authority to use military force so long as it serves a vague “national interest.” We can see echoes of this in the Trump administration’s insistence that the small Venezuelan boat blown up by the U.S. military posed an “immediate threat to the United States,” that the strike complied with the laws of war, and was “in defense of vital U.S. national interests.”

Commentators are entirely correct to denounce these assertions of legal authority. But policymakers have spent more than two decades accepting a war paradigm against whomever presidents determine to be “terrorist,” making it politically and legally all the more difficult to push back against what the Trump administration is doing now.

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Taking the Constitution Seriously

Last week, the President of the United States did not take the Constitution seriously. He ordered the murders of 11 people who were riding in a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea around 1,300 miles from the U.S.

Afterward he said he did so because he believed that they were members of a “narco-terrorist gang” and were delivering illegal drugs to America. He also did so, he said, as a “message” to other drug dealers who should fear a similar fate.

The boat had no ability to reach the U.S. According to the former head of drug interdiction for the Department of Justice, this so-called boat gang is not known for trafficking in illegal drugs. The crimes that the president said these folks committed did not occur in the U.S., and if they had, do not permit the imposition of the death penalty.

He offered no evidence to support his claims and didn’t even suggest that the riders in the boat posed a threat to the American military personnel who killed them. He couldn’t say if anyone in the boat was an American.

When he was asked for the legal authority for these killings, President Donald Trump replied that these folks were waging war on the U.S., and, because he is the president of the United States, he can do as he wishes to them.

These are constitutionally ignorant, morally repugnant, profoundly erroneous responses from a person who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Here is the backstory.

When British monarchs wanted to dispose of inconvenient adversaries, they often accused them of vague crimes because they were able to define the crime however they saw fit. St. Thomas More, Henry VIII’s former Lord Chancellor, was executed for his silence. The monarch’s target was given a quick trial and then often a slow and excruciating public death – to send a message.

Mindful of the tyrannical impulses of monarchs and familiar with British history, even personally aware of folks in the colonies charged with crimes in London — where they had never been — and transported there for prosecution, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the Founding Fathers most responsible for crystallizing the American ethos of natural rights and due process, crafted founding documents that articulated condemnations and prohibitions of tyranny and tyrannical behavior here.

Thus, Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence characterize human rights as the gift of the Creator, which cannot be taken away by executive decree or legislative enactment – ut only by a jury verdict.

And Madison’s words in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment declare that “no person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The use of the word “person” makes it obvious that due process applies to all human beings.

Due process requires a fair jury trial, with counsel and the opportunity for confrontation of witnesses and evidence produced by the government. It also requires proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty to a neutral jury, not to the accuser. And it requires conviction prior to the imposition of a legislatively prescribed penalty.

This was novel and radical in 1791, when the Bill of Rights was ratified, but it is neither novel nor radical today. Today, due process is the foundation of American law. It is what lawyers call black-letter law: Those in government are expected to know it and understand it and abide by it.

Until now.

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Trump Calls His Drone Strike on an Alleged Drug Boat ‘Self-Defense.’ It Looks More Like Murder.

Last week, President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that sank a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea, killing all 11 people on board. Trump described the targets as members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua who were “at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” Although the men could have been intercepted and arrested, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters, the president decided their summary execution was appropriate as a deterrent to drug trafficking.

On Wednesday, The New York Times, citing unnamed “American officials familiar with the matter,” reported that the boat “appeared to have turned around before the attack started because the people onboard had apparently spotted a military aircraft stalking it.” That detail further complicates the already dubious legal and moral rationales for this unprecedented use of the U.S. military to kill criminal suspects.

The attack “crossed a fundamental line the Department of Defense has been resolutely committed to upholding for many decades—namely, that (except in rare and extreme circumstances not present here) the military must not use lethal force against civilians, even if they are alleged, or even known, to be violating the law,” Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman notes in a Just Security essay. Lederman adds that the September 2 drone strike “appears to have violated” the executive order prohibiting assassination and arguably qualifies as murder under federal law and the Uniform Code of Criminal Justice.

New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department lawyer, agrees. “It’s difficult to imagine how any lawyers inside the Pentagon could have arrived at a conclusion that this was legal,” he told the Times last week, “rather than the very definition of murder under international law rules that the Defense Department has long accepted.”

As Trump told it, the attack was justified because Tren de Aragua is “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.” He said the strike was meant to “serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America.”

Drug cartels have “wrought devastating consequences on American communities for decades, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of United States citizens each year and threatening our national security and foreign policy interests both at home and abroad,” Trump said in a September 4 letter to Congress. “We have now reached a critical point where we must meet this threat to our citizens and our most vital national interests with United States military force in self-defense.”

U.S. forces therefore “struck a vessel” that “was assessed to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and to be engaged in illicit drug trafficking activities,” Trump explained. “I directed these actions consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations.”

Trump says the men whose deaths he ordered were “assessed” to be affiliated with Tren de Aragua. They also were “assessed” to be engaged in drug trafficking. Without knowing the basis for those assessments, we cannot say how accurate they were. Last week, Trump joked about the potential for deadly errors: “I think anybody that saw that is going to say, ‘I’ll take a pass.’ I don’t even know about fishermen. They may say, ‘I’m not getting on the boat. I’m not going to take a chance.'” Conveniently for Trump, summary execution avoids any need to present evidence, let alone meet the requirements of due process.

“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vice President J.D. Vance declared in an X post on Saturday. When a commenter observed that “killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime,” Vance replied, “I don’t give a shit what you call it.”

That was too much for Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). “Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” Paul wondered. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”

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Trump Warns Any Venezuelan Plane Threatening US Ships Will Be Shot Down

On Friday, for the second time in just two days, a Venezuelan F-16 jet flew near a US warship in the southern Caribbean. At least eight American navel vessels have been deployed off the Latin American country which possesses the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves.

President Trump the same day warned that if Venezuelan jets fly over US naval ships and “put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down.”

CBS late Friday cited Pentagon officials who said a Venezuelan plane flew over the US destroyer “Jason Dunham” for the second time.

Some observers have begun to question the circumstances behind the prior US strike on a “drug-carrying vessel from Venezuela” operated allegedly by a drug trafficking gang, which killed all eleven people on board. Assuming they weren’t military, it could be classified as an extrajudicial killing in international waters, with no warning issued or attempt at intercept.

The Commander-in-Chief has put US forces deployed there on a war footing, it appears:

When asked by reporters in the Oval Office on Friday what would happen if Venezuelan jets flew over US vessels again, Trump said Venezuela would be in “trouble”.

Trump told his general, standing beside him, that he could do anything he wanted if the situation escalated.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has responded by rejecting the state-linked narcotrafficking allegations, and explained that current problems and differences between the nations do not justify a “military conflict”.

Maduro continued, “Venezuela has always been willing to talk, to engage in dialogue, but we demand respect.”

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Senator Tammy Duckworth: Trump Vaporizing That Drug Cartel Vessel Means He’ll Use the Military to Interfere in Elections or Something

This week, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said that the real reason Trump wants to bring National Guard troops into Chicago is so that he can ‘set the stage’ to use the U.S. Military to interfere in future elections like the 2026 midterms.

As insane as that sounds, it has apparently now become a talking point among Democrats.

While appearing on MSNBC, Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth added another crazy dimension to this, suggesting that when Trump took out that cartel vessel this week, that was proof that he is going to use the U.S. Military to interfere in future elections.

If any of this makes sense to you, you might be a Democrat.

Breitbart News has details:

While discussing speaking with federal officials about possible immigration crackdowns in Illinois, Duckworth said, “Overall, the city of North Chicago and the surrounding communities have made it clear to their law enforcement officers that they will not cooperate with DHS and ICE unless there is a federal warrant, not one of these fake ICE warrants, but a federal warrant.

And that they’re not going to participate [in] and support ICE actions in basically harassing and intimidating everyday people on the streets of our cities.”

She added that “this President is setting the conditions so that he can actually unilaterally occupy the streets of our cities and interfere in the next election, do what he wants.”

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Trump Reportedly Considering Striking Cartels Inside Venezuela

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering unleashing military strikes directly against drug cartels operating deep inside Venezuela, as part of a no-holds-barred strategy to dismantle Nicolas Maduro’s regime.

The consideration comes amid Trump’s ongoing war on narco-trafficking, which he sees as a direct threat to American security, especially with the flood of drugs pouring across our southern border under failed Biden-Harris policies.

Citing multiple unnamed sources briefed on the plans, CNN reported on Friday evening that Trump has greenlit options for targeted strikes on Venezuelan soil, building on a recent lethal operation that sank an alleged drug-smuggling boat leaving the country.

CNN reports:

The US has moved substantial military firepower into the Caribbean in recent weeks, a move meant in part to be a signal to Maduro, according to multiple White House officials.

Ships armed with Tomahawk missiles, an attack submarine, a range of aircraft and more than 4,000 US sailors and Marines are now all positioned near Venezuela. Two White House officials told CNN 10 advanced F-35 fighter jets are also being sent to Puerto Rico, where a Marine unit is currently conducting amphibious landing training exercises.

The administration has taken steps to connect Maduro to its broader anti-drug mission – labeling him as a narco-terrorist with ties to some of those recently-designated cartels – and doubling the bounty for his arrest to $50 million.

This shift will treat cartel operatives as enemy combatants, not just criminals, allowing for decisive military action.

White House officials emphasized that no final decision has been made regarding strikes inside Venezuela, but the door remains open if it serves U.S. interests.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked on Tuesday if the White House was considering strikes on Venezuelan soil against the Maduro regime, and he did not rule out the possibility.

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Obama Judge Says to Hell with Supreme Court, Blocks Trump Admin From Canceling Protected Status For 1.1 Million Venezuelans and Haitians

A San Francisco-based federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump Administration from canceling Protected Status for 1.1 million Venezuelans and Haitians.

US District Judge Edward Chen, an Obama appointee, acknowledged the Supreme Court’s ruling but claimed the high court did not bar him from adjudicating the case on the merits.

Earlier this year Judge Chen temporarily paused Trump’s plans to end Biden’s TPS program.

The DOJ argued that the parole programs were discretionary and it is up to the government to decide when it can cut the program.

In May, the Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision lifted Judge Chen’s block on Trump’s order to revoke protected status for hundreds of thousands of migrants while the policy was challenged in court.

Judge Chen said the Supreme Court didn’t bar him from issuing an order.

The Associated Press reported:

A federal judge on Friday ruled against the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire Sept. 10 have status to stay and work in the United States.

Chen said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s actions in terminating and vacating three extensions granted by the previous administration exceeded her statutory authority and were arbitrary and capricious.

CBP data found that over 1 million illegal aliens have been allowed into the US through what the Biden Regime defined as “legal” means.” The Biden-Kamala admin used the CBP One App and the CHNV program to allow illegals entry into the US.

These numbers are not included in the millions of illegals that have entered the US under Joe Biden’s watch.

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Hegseth Doesn’t Rule Out Regime Change in Venezuela, Suggests More US Strikes on Boats Are Coming

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday didn’t rule out the possibility of the US military pursuing regime change in Venezuela and suggested more US strikes on boats in the region were coming.

Hegseth made the comments in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday morning, the day after the US bombed a boat in the Southern Caribbean that it claimed without evidence was carrying drugs, marking the first US kinetic military action in the name of combating drug trafficking, though the real purpose of the attack may be part of a new push to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“We have assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop … with just this strike,” Hegseth said. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”

When asked if the goal was regime change in Venezuela, Hegseth said that was a “presidential decision” and added that “we’re prepared with every asset that the American military has.”

Brandan P. Buck, a historian and Foreign Policy Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, told Antiwar.com that it was unlikely the Trump administration would have much success trying to combat drug trafficking with military strikes.

“The US military’s strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat is a significant escalation in the long and failed war on drugs. It is unclear if the administration’s goal of deterring drug trafficking through lethal force will be achieved, but such a strike is unlikely to succeed in this way,” Buck said. “As long as the United States remains a multi-billion-dollar drug market, criminal organizations will continue to take risks for massive profits. One strike on one drug-running boat is unlikely to change that calculus.”

Buck also noted that it was unclear what the administration’s real goal is. “The strike also raises alarming questions about its true near- and long-term objectives. It is plausible that the Trump Administration is using the strike as a trial balloon for expanded military action against cartels throughout the region, or against the Maduro regime in Venezuela,” he said.

“Either would present troubling questions about executive authority to authorize military action in a post-Global War on Terror world and significantly raise the likelihood of plunging the US into another prolonged war,” Buck added.

The US has claimed that Maduro is the leader of the Cartel of the Suns, a term used to describe a network of Venezuelan government and military officials allegedly involved in drug trafficking, but it does not actually exist as an organization. Despite the lack of a structured organization, the US recently labeled the Cartel of the Suns as a terrorist group and increased the bounty on Maduro’s head to $50 million over claims of “narco-terrorism.” Maduro and other Latin American leaders have strongly denied the US claims.

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Latin American Countries Align With US as Navy Ships Arrive in the Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan Coast

The board is set, the pieces are moving.

As Latin American countries start taking sides, the US’ largest military contingent in 25 years has been sent to Latin America.

Over 4,000 Marines and sailors have been deployed to the waters of the Caribbean as part of a ‘counter-cartel mission’.

This deployment includes the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (comprising the USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale, and USS San Antonio), a nuclear-powered attack submarine, three destroyers (USS Gravely, USS Jason Duhan, and USS Sampson) a guided-missile cruiser, and additional P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft.

In the meantime, many Latin American countries are starting to position themselves regarding the upcoming operations.

  • Argentina declares the Cartel de los Soles an international terrorist organization, joining the diplomatic offensive against the criminal network linked to Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
  • Paraguay President Santiago Peña signed a decree classifying the Cartel of the Suns, allegedly led by Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, as an international terrorist organization, and urged their citizens to leave the country immediately.
  • The Republic of Guyana expressed ‘support for a collaborative and integrated approach to tackle transnational organized crime’.
  • Even unprompted, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar formally backed the deployment of US Navy Vessels against drug cartels, and even in the event of a Venezuelan invasion of Guyana over the Essequibo Region, allowing USN access.

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