Donald Trump and maga Republicans declared a war against Venezuela without evidence of war crimes!

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by W.J. Hennigan

The Trump administration told Congress that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, targeting fishermen in Venezuela. (Just curious, did Venezuelans attack Americans❓  Did I miss something❓) 

The average American knows vanishingly little about what its government seeks to accomplish in this fight. Citizens aren’t in possession of the metrics by which to judge the administration’s pursuit of those goals.

• We haven’t been told which specific drugs they seek to stop.
• We haven’t been told much about which specific groups they seek to destroy. 
• We haven’t been told much about what legal authorities they are acting on.

Withholding this information from the American public is the administration’s way to escape scrutiny. At the very least, the country deserves some evidence of whether the military operation is working.

If stopping the flow of drugs is the goal, the actions taken so far have been unpersuasive. 

American forces, at the direction of Donald Trump, executed a lethal airstrike on Friday on a boat off Venezuela, killing four people on board. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video of the attack on X, saying, “The vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics - headed to America to poison our people,” adding that it was “affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations.”

This is the sort of vague language the administration has used in its campaign over the past two months as it directs the military to sporadically launch airstrikes — now totaling four — against boats in the region that the government says are running drugs. No corresponding evidence has been provided to the public to support the actions. The operation amounts to extrajudicial executions, according to U.N. officials.

Without delving into the strikes’ questionable legality again, the bombing runs fall well short of decisive military actions. It would be hard to convince anyone that blowing up a few motorboats — and all the people aboard them — will prove conclusive in winning the half-century-old war on drugs.

For one thing, this isn’t how the Pentagon combats enemy networks. Say what you will about the many failures of America’s global war on terrorism, but it’s undeniable the U.S. military became frighteningly proficient at penetrating and taking apart organizations over the past quarter-century.

Instead of systematically killing low- and midlevel henchmen in pinprick airstrikes, U.S. forces learned that more information could be gleaned through capturing those suspects and gathering, bagging and tagging their personal electronics for intelligence analysis. A phone from a suspect’s pocket in Iraq, for instance, would often include enough information, such as phone numbers and text conversations, so that a follow-on raid on other operatives could be planned. This is how U.S. forces mapped out countless terrorist groups’ leadership ranks along with the fighters under their command.

The infrastructure for ship interdictions already exists in the Caribbean. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy have long interdicted vessels that they suspected of drug running.

Why the Trump administration has opted to blow apart potential leads and sources instead of exploiting them is anyone’s guess.

So what’s the ultimate goal? The Pentagon has amassed a wide range of firepower in the region that indicates that its ambitions extend beyond destroying drug boats: F-35 stealth fighter jets, a Marine expeditionary unit and a flotilla of warships. Perhaps, as experts have speculated, the strikes are merely the opening salvo to push Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, from power. 

In fact, the Trump administration has formally identified Maduro as a leader of Cartel de los Soles, which experts say describes networks of elites who benefit from drug smuggling and is labeled a terrorist organization. The U.S. government is offering up to $50 million for information leading to his arrest.

There are a few odd things about all this. When it comes to drugs, Mr. Trump speaks loudest about fentanyl, a synthetic drug that Venezuela doesn’t play a major role in trading, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. So then you might surmise the objective is impeding the cocaine trade. But here again, Venezuela and the Caribbean account for less of how that drug enters the United States compared with other routes.

It isn’t that Maduro is a great guy. He brutally represses political opposition and oversees an economic nightmare. The Trump administration has made no direct threat to unseat Maduro, but the buildup of more than 6,500 troops in the region raises questions about what might come next.

And it’s not as if the United States has been afraid of deploying the U.S. military for regime change in the Caribbean. U.S. troops were involved in overthrowing Panama’s Manuel Noriega’s regime during Operation Just Cause in late 1989, and early 1990. U.S. forces joined coalition armies in 1983, to oust the government in Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury. Though the U.S. military didn’t have a ground role in the disastrous 1961, operation to overthrow the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, American-trained Cuban forces were crushed in the Bay of Pigs after they invaded.

Donald Trump could have similar aims in Venezuela, opting for a more muscular action than the failed pressure campaign taken during his first term. The current deployment of U.S. forces, while sizable, still isn’t enough for a full-scale invasion. But we should know and hear more about the underpinning rationale for positioning them there.

Instead, we’re left piecing together a picture with the few shards of information that have been publicly offered. (Our US Congress are abdicating their oaths of office❗

Donald Trump has decided to inform Congress that the U.S. military is engaged in an armed conflict. But, now, Americans deserve answers on what to expect next.

W.J. Hennigan writes about national security, foreign policy and conflict for the New York Times Opinion section.

Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth gave a flopped presentatin in Quantico to Flag officers and senior enlisted: WWTT?

Hundreds of Officers. Two Long 😴🥱Hours of Political Theater.

Echo opinion by W.J. Hennigan in The New York Times

Mr. Hennigan writes about national security issues for NYT Opinion from Washington.

Maine Writer- to host this expensive wateful meeting on the day before a goverment shutdown (aka "SHITdown") loomed when American military and their families would not be paid was a very STUPID idea and wreckless timing.  #WWTT❓

Never had so many admirals and generals been summoned from Europe, Asia and the Middle East to a single military base. 

Hegseth must be fired❗ "Quantico meeting played out was largely a political-rally performance in front of service members who, by rule, aren’t allowed to engage in partisan activities."

Because such a gathering has no apparent modern precedent, you would think that the event on Tuesday in Quantico, Virginia., was for a good reason. But that wasn’t the case.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to fly in more than 800 of America’s most senior military officers to sit through two hours of banal, rambling speeches reflects how far the Pentagon has come in eight months of this administration, becoming subject to President Trump’s politics and the idea that troops should be used at home.

The military was once again used as a backdrop for Trump’s ongoing clashes in America’s culture wars. What played out was largely a political-rally performance in front of service members who, by rule, aren’t allowed to engage in partisan activities.

Instead of hearing about a key strategic military shift or department restructuring, Hegseth informed them about the administration’s plans to tighten fitness and grooming standards, before Trump delivered an hour’s worth of gripes and ruminations on political life that included taking potshots at his immediate predecessor.

Appearing in front of a large American ostentatious flag display, Patton-style, Trump was surprised when the military officers greeted him with silence rather than uproarious applause. “I never walked into a room so silent before,” he said. “Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. You’re not allowed to do that. Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything that you want. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room.

Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future. But you just feel nice and loose, OK, because we’re all on the same team.”

It was delivered as a joke — one of many the president made that drew uncomfortable laughter over the course of his address — but Trump has pressure-tested the military’s apolitical posture. He did it this year in a speech to troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and he did it repeatedly on Tuesday.

He criticized President Joe Biden, taking an unusual swipe at a former commander in chief in front of American forces. He doubled down on rancor when he claimed the United States faced “a war from within.” Cities led by “radical left Democrats,” he said, are unsafe places. “We’re going to straighten them out one by one,” he said. “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war, too.”

Trump’s inclination to use military forces in blue parts of the country has quickly become a defining characteristic of his second term. Rather than the usual practice of deploying U.S. forces into communities confronting an emergency or natural disaster, Trump sees them as a means to establish law and order. He’s already sent the National Guard into Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and on Tuesday he suggested they were going into Chicago “very soon.”

These American cities, he said, should be used as “training grounds” for the troops.

In his address, Hegseth criticized the “stupid rules of engagement,” that he claimed constrained soldiers in combat. This could mean that military lawyers are re-evaluating what actions are permissible on the battlefield, but he stopped short of detailing what changes were occurring.

It’s hard to believe, given that his speech ran nearly an hour, but outside of suggestions along these lines, there might not have been a single new piece of information that was relayed to the hundreds of officers compelled to attend the meeting, the total cost of which will probably never be publicly disclosed.

Instead, Hegseth spoke at length about the urgent  need for U.S. service members to maintain clean-shaven faces, 🙄 conduct daily workouts and execute physical fitness tests twice a year.

“Unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refused to call BS and enforce standards or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards,” he said. “Both are unacceptable. And that’s why today, at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”

He described how he was fed up with “fat troops” and “fat generals and admirals.” Equally important, he continued, was the elimination of political correctness and “woke garbage” within the ranks.  Hegseth punctuated this point by defending his decision to fire more than a dozen military leaders, many of whom happen to be women or people of color.  (OMG❗😡- this is bullshit💩 💩and disrespectful to our American military.)

While the senior officers managed to keep silent for much of this meeting, Trump is expected to continue to test the military’s nonpartisanship during future on-base appearances. 

Service members will be tested to hold true to its apolitical tradition — a responsibility that could be as consequential as any they might find while in uniform.