Trump’s conflict with ‘narco-terrorists’ could be a prelude to war with Venezuela

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00:00Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis has the United States stationed so many military assets in the

00:08Caribbean, and President Donald Trump says he has given the green light for the CIA to carry out

00:15covert operations within the country. All of this while Venezuela's President,

00:20Nicolas Maduro, lambasts the military buildup, saying the US is trying to institute a regime

00:27change while also touting his country's extensive supply of Russian-made anti-aircraft weapons.

00:34So, is the US going to war with Venezuela? Maybe.

00:41First, let's set the table a little bit and talk about how we got here. A couple of months

00:46into his second term, President Trump declared several Central and South American drug cartels

00:52as foreign terrorist organizations. He later said the US is in armed conflict with the cartels

00:59and classified cartel members as unlawful combatants. Essentially, Trump is using the same authority to

01:07target the drug cartels that Presidents Bush and Obama relied on to go after Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

01:14Mark Timnitsky is a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, and explains the legal framework

01:20on which the White House is relying. There are two important documents. The first is the United

01:27Nations Charter, where in Article 2, Section 4 of the United Nations Charter more or less says that if

01:33countries feel threatened or they feel like they're being provoked, they are able to resort to using

01:39force and even call upon their military for self-defense purposes. And the second is the United States

01:45Constitution, which says that the US president is the commander in chief of the armed forces in the

01:51United States. Those individuals in the current administration believe that the interpretation

01:57of this war against the cartels, the defending of the United States from drug trafficking and these

02:05illegal activities is a way of protecting the United States. The US has several destroyers and

02:11amphibious assault ships already in the Caribbean. The forward carrier strike group is steaming toward

02:16the region as well. There are some F-35Bs on Puerto Rico, and the US recently sent a pair of bombers

02:24to fly around the area. So from a manpower and resources standpoint, it's about the same size force

02:31that was in the Red Sea defending Israel from Iranian and Houthi attacks over the summer. Up to this point

02:38in the conflict though, all of the US strikes were on targets at sea. But President Trump now says

02:45strikes on land are on the way. The Venezuelan government is not a legitimate military threat

02:52to the United States. It has not been and it is not currently. Abby Hall is an associate professor

02:58of economics at the University of Tampa. She's also an expert in US military intervention in Latin America.

03:05I think that you have a few different things going on. So it is a way for the administration to attempt

03:11to appear really tough on drugs and on illegal immigration without really burning any additional

03:19political capital. There's not friendly relations between Washington DC and Caracas. There hasn't been

03:25for a very long time. And so there's really little political cost to taking a hard stance against the

03:32Maduro regime. I think probably the bigger thing or something else that we could consider is the

03:38relationship between the Venezuelan government and China and Russia. So you have the regime that is

03:45allowing China and Russia to drill in the Oral River, which is providing a significant source of crude oil

03:52for both of those countries. And so for the perspective or from the perspective of the US,

03:57disrupting or dismantling the Venezuelan regime, having a more friendly regime to the US could

04:03certainly cause a shift in geopolitical dynamics between Russia, China and its kind of foothold in

04:11South America. J. Michael Waller is a former CIA asset and current national security expert.

04:18He agrees the actions the US are taking against Venezuela are about much more than stopping drugs.

04:25If you go back to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, President Monroe was the last of the founding

04:31fathers. And he set up this doctrine that the United States would stand by the republics,

04:36the new republics of the Western Hemisphere, to protect them and to work with them against

04:43the foreign empires coming in and taking them over. They had just won their independence. It wasn't

04:49a map for American imperialism, for American invasion. But in the case of Venezuela, it's very

04:55key because Venezuela has surrendered its sovereignty to communist China. It has brought in the Russians,

05:01it has brought in the Iranian regime, and they're not there just to do business or to assist with

05:06whatever they assist with. I mean, they brought in Hezbollah under Iranian tutelage. So these are foreign

05:12extra-hemispheric powers that have come in to cause trouble aimed at us.

05:16Like from the designation standpoint and using that classification to reclassify from criminal

05:24cartel to terrorist cartel, does that designation, I mean, in your mind, is the Trump administration

05:32trying to use that same legal argument and say the Maduro regime, since it did not win the last

05:38least one, probably two elections fairly, since it's an illegitimate government, then it, you know,

05:46the normal rules don't apply? Do you see where I'm kind of going? Like, is the Maduro regime the head

05:51of the terrorist organization and therefore the U.S. can strike the Maduro regime legally because it's a

06:00terrorist organization and not a government, like a legitimate government at that point?

06:04That's a pretty fair approximation of what the reasoning is. Secretary of State Rubio has been

06:10thinking about this for years, since he was a senator, and Trump was faced with the issue of

06:15Venezuela in his first term, where he de-recognized the Maduro government and gave recognition to the

06:22elected opposition government. So we don't have diplomatic relations with the Maduro regime, so we can

06:27recognize it for anything we wish. So since we don't recognize it as the regime, we meaning the United

06:33States government, we're looking at it as a terrorist cartel that has taken over the powers of a state.

06:42Under the law, this is allowed. So we're going after that terrorist cartel that's controlling your

06:47country. And as such, your War Powers Act and so forth may not apply. The U.S. has not yet launched

06:54any strikes on land in Venezuelan territory. For that matter, all the strikes at sea were in international

07:02waters as well. President Maduro tried to make several agreements with President Trump to end

07:07the tensions, but none of those agreements included the dismantling of the Venezuelan government,

07:13which is likely why Trump refused them. So, while it's still unclear whether the U.S. and Venezuela

07:20will ultimately go to war, the message to other nations is crystal clear. The United States is

07:27taking a renewed interest in keeping adverse actors out of the Caribbean. For more reporting like this,

07:34download the Straight Arrow News app today.

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