DORAL, Fla. — To understand what the president described as a “kinetic strike” against an alleged drug-carrying boat leaving Venezuela, look back to an executive order signed on his first day of office, designating cartels as terrorist organizations.
That created a pathway for U.S. actions against terror groups Americans may be more familiar with seeing in the middle east now potentially playing out in the Caribbean Sea.
5 p.m. report:
“What is the truth about this?” asked Venezuelan-American Activist Adelys Ferro.
“Usually, the Coast Guard detains the boat, takes the drugs and detains the people in the boat, and then they can interrogate them, and they can have some answers, but nothing of this is going to happen in this case, so we really don’t know,” she said.
“Again, they call them members of Tren de Aragua, coincidentally, as they call some people that were deported, and now we know they were not members of Tren de Aragua. So it is really hard not to doubt of what they are saying,” Ferro added.
Said Aaron Rosen, President of World Affairs Council Miami: “The president is basically saying I’m taking the war on drugs to the next level. We’re used to seeing that in the Middle East, and U.S. actions in the Middle East also have violated the territory of other countries like Iran or Syria.”
“I think what we’re going to do with this is the type of actions that we used to see in the Middle East where the US is comfortable under this administration violating national sovereignty to go after terrorist groups in countries like Iraq or Iran or Yemen or Syria, where the administration is going to go after the narco traffickers in areas where we previously might have been a bit more hesitant because it’s a little closer,” Rosen added.
Rosen said the Trump administration is “much more comfortable trying to apply economic and military pressure and targeted strikes than committing U.S. military to new occupation of wars.”
“I think it is a signal to those drug cartels that we are not playing around anymore,” said U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez. “This is part of a strategy to put pressure on the Maduro regime. It is illegitimate, it is an illegitimate government. They named him head of an international drug cartel and that drug cartel is a terrorist organization which has killed thousands of Americans.
There has been outrage so far from the president of Colombia, who posted on social media that the boat strike was murder.
“No one should be surprised If there were (more boat strikes),” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “That’s why they’re there on a counter drug mission, and they’re going to continue to operate.”
He added: “Interdiction doesn’t work, they bake it into their business model, what will stop them is when you blow them up, you get rid of them. There is a double discourse, and it is really hard to understand what is really going on with all of this situation. And it is really hard not to think that in huge part, this is a political start.”
Ferro finds the administration’s policy on Venezuela confusing, even chaotic, after it re-authorized Chevron to import Venezuelan oil and working to end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans on Temporary Protected Status who have permission to live and work in the United States, claiming without evidence that Caracas is safer than some U.S. cities for nationals to return.
“Is Venezuela different right now? It’s actually getting worse every day,” he said. “More and more political prisoners have been detained. Disappear, actually.”
Ferro described Nicolas Maduro as the head of a narco-terror criminal organization.
“Unfathomable that you are sending people residing in the United States in a legal way to a country that you are calling a narco tyranny,” he said. “So while everything is happening, why are you still deporting people to a country that you are calling a terrorist? I think they have to show results, interdiction, numbers, prosecutions, legal justification, otherwise, this is a political stunt, and everything else that they say is part of this propaganda.”
Added Rosen: “So the Trump administration is essentially trying to deliver on multiple promises at once. One promise is reducing migration. Even if there is sometimes a logical insistence in trying to comprehensively piece that so from the administration perspective, it may make sense to say that Venezuela is safe enough now for people that previously were shielded here in the United States for them to go home.”
At the same time, they also want to show their voters in their base that they are making sure they’re good on their word to go after drug traffickers.”
Rosen also spoke about Maduro’s claim the United States is engaged in a “regime change.”
“It is a political ideology of the state,” he said. “Much of the Venezuelan and Cuban state is steeped in 20th century anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism. Any perception that the United States is violating their sovereignty or trying to end the revolution is something they can spin to redirect attention from political and economic tensions and try to rally the people. Whether that will work remains to be seen.”
Regarding Russia and other U.S. adversaries who are friends with Venezuela possibly closing ranks and creating a regional conflict involving multiple nations, Rosen did not seem overly concerned.
“Ultimately, this is very far away for the Russians and Chinese,” he added. “It’s helpful for them to put out statements that also are kind of criticized the United States. But this is not a super high-quality item for them.”
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