00:00The United States is sending three naval destroyers to Venezuela, while the country's despotic leader,
00:05Nicolas Maduro, dispatches millions of militia members throughout his country.
00:11Washington says it wants to stop the flow of drugs from Venezuela into the US.
00:16Caracas says it will defend its seas, skies, and lands to prevent any empire from touching it.
00:23The US-Venezuela relationship officially went sour in 2019,
00:31when the two countries cut off bilateral diplomatic ties during President Donald Trump's first term.
00:38The US has not recognized Maduro's government as legitimate since then and, in January,
00:45accused the Venezuelan president of being a narco-terrorist and drug trafficker
00:50with ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
00:55The militant Marxist group was actively involved in creating violence in Colombia for more than 50 years.
01:02Since then, the White House has kept the pressure up on Venezuela to do more to stop the flow of drugs,
01:08specifically fentanyl, from the South American country into the United States.
01:14The Venezuelan-based Tren de Araguas gang was designated as a foreign terrorist organization
01:20earlier this year by the US State Department, and now President Trump is ordering three
01:25US Navy warships – the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and USS Sampson – into the waters
01:33just off Venezuela's territorial water.
01:38All three vessels are Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
01:42They each carry dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles, able to hit targets on land and at sea.
01:49On the bow of each destroyer is the Mark 45 5-inch deck gun,
01:54plus several other types of machine guns adorn the ship.
01:58Now, in terms of stopping some narco boats and smaller craft that may be smuggling drugs or people,
02:04three US guided missile destroyers is a little excessive.
02:08Retired Admiral James Stavridis told the Wall Street Journal it was, quote,
02:13overkill, but he also said it sends a clear message to Maduro, stop the drugs.
02:19So obviously we're looking at a map of Venezuela's – a map of Venezuela, and the coastline right here
02:26with the Caribbean is about 1700 miles long.
02:29We don't know exactly where the three destroyers will be positioned,
02:34but a Tomahawk cruise missile has a published effective range of about 1500 miles.
02:39And that's what these three yellow lines represent on the map – 1500 miles.
02:45So, if a destroyer was placed, you know, just off the coast of the northern part of the shoreline,
02:52obviously 1500 miles, I mean, that's enough to hit South Florida.
02:55So it would definitely cover the whole of Venezuela if we had a boat in Puerto Rico.
03:01Still covers the whole of Venezuela.
03:03Even if you had a boat out in the western Atlantic, still covers the whole of Venezuela.
03:09Now, President Trump did give the military the green light to act against drug cartels,
03:16and while the cartels do use sea lanes to move a lot of their product,
03:22most of their operations are based on land.
03:25I'm not going to go into whether or not Tomahawks will be flying into Venezuela,
03:30but I will say they certainly have the range to hit anything in the country if that order is given.
03:38All of this does not mean the United States is close to launching an invasion into Venezuela though,
03:44at least not with these resources.
03:47The three destroyers are powerful and capable of shore bombardment,
03:51but they don't carry any forces capable of carrying out an amphibious assault or landing,
03:58like what we would expect to see in an amphibious ready group with a marine expeditionary unit.
04:04Which means they don't have the ability to move large numbers of troops and equipment from ship to shore.
04:10This is not the first time the US Navy was called on to help in drug interdiction,
04:15but most of the time it usually operates in a supporting role,
04:19like in early August when the Samson helped seize almost 1300 pounds of cocaine in the eastern Pacific.
04:27But Navy warships taking point in the fight against the cartels, that's definitely new.
04:33For more reporting like this, download the Straight Arrow News app today.
04:36The Straight Arrow News
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