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There’s a lot to worry any American who look at the US military buildup around Venezuela and wonder about a redux of the “forever wars” that President Donald Trump promised to end.
While on Monday Trump was talking about potential negotiations with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the US government continues to amass Navy power in the Caribbean.
The Navy’s most lethal combat platform, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, arrived in the region for exercises, raising the total number of deployed US military personnel to roughly 15,000.
The State Department plans to label a Venezuelan cartel with ties to Maduro as a terrorist organization, according to an announcement Sunday by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
But there are real questions about the intelligence by which the US is striking at drug boats. Trump likes to say that destroying drug boats directly saves American lives, but there’s not a lot of evidence that the boats were headed to the US.
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