Is Trump Leading the US Into War With Venezuela?
A former Pentagon official on how America is wholly unprepared for this new and dangerous conflict.
In the wake of the recent deployment of US Navy warships to the coastal waters of South America, pinnacling with two airstrikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels, including one today that President Donald Trump said killed three people and an earlier attack that killed all 11 on board, Americans need to take pause. We must take a hard look at the implications of using lethal US military capabilities against drug cartels while casting aside our sacred and constitutionally born belief in the right of due process and dedication to the time-honored principles of international law. And we must hold Trump to the fire as he blindly leads America into conflicts that he is wholly unprepared to confront – and that will last far beyond his own presidency.
There are a number of extremely troubling precedents for using military force to combat drug cartels, and the dangers in rapidly expanding the utilization of the US military by the Trump administration, both at home and abroad, are plentiful. But the most prescient of these is the mounting potential for an armed conflict with Venezuela. A conflict which, quite clearly, the Trump administration has not thought through.