As US President Donald Trump’s administration continued to defend a contentious double strike on alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean, top US officials were scheduled to meet at the White House to discuss Venezuela.
The US military’s planned meeting on Monday was held as the Caribbean’s economy grew, according to Reuters news agency. Even though Trump has sent mixed messages in recent days, there are concerns about a potential land invasion that would threaten Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro’s government.
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The US president announced last week that land operations against alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers could begin “very soon,” escalating the US military’s months-long operations against alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers in international waters and the Caribbean.
The Cartel de los Soles, which officials describe as a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO), was designated by the US a day earlier as a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO). Experts disagree with the characterization, claiming that the “Cartel de los Soles” has historically referred to a shaky system of corruption within the Venezuelan government.
Trump claimed that Venezuelan airspace should be regarded as being “in its entirety,” in a post he made on Truth Social, as the final stages of military action.
Trump, however, warned reporters on Sunday against “reading anything” into the action.
No one is certain why Trump announced the airspace closure, according to Al Jazeera’s chief US correspondent Alan Fischer, who was reporting from Washington, DC on Monday. He continued, adding that rumors in US media outlets suggested the announcement had taken place without the Pentagon’s knowledge.
Trump responded, “You shouldn’t read too much into it when asked about it on Air Force One.” However, that did not stop the speculation because no-fly zones are typically established prior to any military operations, according to Fisher.
He added that many Washington-based observers saw the threats and asset growth as a means of obstructing Maduro’s frightened country before any military action is taken. Trump’s statements in the past about Venezuela’s vast oil reserves have sparked concerns that he might start a “war for oil” in the eyes of some.
“Dennis Trump has to balance his MAGA]Make America Great Again supporters because he campaigned on the grounds that he wouldn’t engage in what he described as stupid foreign wars,” Fisher said.
According to Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle, who was reporting from Puerto Rico, the US territory where the military’s Caribbean expansion has taken place, it is still difficult to tell whether any operations are imminent.
As this readiness process is underway, Lavelle said, “We have about 15, 000 or so military personnel in this region of the world.”
The USS Winston S. Churchill and the USS Bainbridge are among the sea systems that are in play, he said.
renewed investigation into boat strikes
The Trump administration has continued to grow as a result of its renewed pressure over its deadly attacks on alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers in Caribbean international waters.
Republican and Democratic members of the US House and Senate armed services committees announced over the weekend that they would increase oversight of the strikes.
Following last week’s report from the Washington Post and CNN, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth verbally ordered everyone to board a vessel suspected of smuggling drugs from Venezuela.
After two people appeared to survive the initial strike, military officials reportedly ordered a “follow-on” strike on the vessel.
The defense secretary has entered even more precarious legal grounds by explicitly ordering forces to kill all passengers on board the vessels, which is contradicted by legal experts who have long claimed that US strikes on alleged “narco-terrorists” in international waters may be against both domestic and international law.
A group of former US military attorneys wrote in a letter that the orders “if true” would “contain war crimes, murder, or both.”
Hegseth responded to the report by stating that “every military action in the Caribbean is in accordance with the law of armed conflict.”
He has since doubled down in defiance, posting a mock-of-a-children’s character Franklin with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher on social media on Sunday.
Trump claimed that Hegseth had denied issuing the kill order in a statement to reporters on Sunday.
He claimed that he did not say that, and that he had faith in him to be 100%.
A second strike did indeed occur, according to White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt, who claimed Admiral Frank Bradley had given the order for the subsequent attack.
Leavitt told reporters that Bradley “executed well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.” She described the attack as being carried out in the “self-defence” of the US.
Venezuela’s National Assembly scheduled to meet on Monday for an extraordinary session to discuss creating a commission on the strikes.
Source: Aljazeera
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