Washingtons escalating regime-change offensive against Venezuela uses drug interdiction conflated with combatting terrorism as a pretext for the expansion of imperial militarism.
By Roger D. Harris
Donald Trumpboastedstriking small boats off Venezuelas Caribbean coast to blow the cartel terrorists the hell out of the water. Claiming destruction of enough drugs to kill 25,000, he called theextrajudicial murdersan act of kindness. Then he ominously hinted at a US land invasion of Venezuela now that the marine route for drugs had been obliterated.
Mythical Cartel de los Soles
The Miami Heralddescribedthe precision strike as targeting the Tren de Aragua (TdA) criminal organization. Then, in the very next sentence, the newspaper lauded the strike at the heart of Venezuelas Cartel de los Soles, as if the two entities were one in the same. The rest of the article addressed the Cartel de los Soles, forgetting that it was TdA that had supposedly been blown out of the water.
The criminal network, we are told, had been embedded within [Venezuelan President] Nicols Maduros regime and accused of moving massive quantities of cocaine overseas.
Trump sees no need to back his claims. His fourth estate stenographer based its investigative reporting on unidentified sources with knowledge of the situation. The Herald revealed that their three anonymous informants knew all about the Caribbean Route long one of the busiest corridors for speedboats ferrying cocaine to Europe and the United States.
The Miami-based newspaper claimed, without presenting evidence, that inside Venezuela, authorities have turned toextortion of businesses. But who needs evidence when the US Justice Department had indicted the Venezuelan political leadership as a narco-terrorist enterprise in 2020? Further, Washington placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro this August. If that is not proof of culpability, nothing is.
Regarding the Cartel de los Soles, the Herald allowed that Maduro has denied the accusations. And so has President Gustavo Petro in neighboring Colombia. Heobservedthat it does not exist; it is a fictitious excuse used by the extreme right to overthrow governments that do not obey them.
Recently retired head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Pino Arlacchi, pronounced the cartel aproduct of Trumps imaginationuseful for justifying sanctions, blockades and threats of military intervention against a country which, incidentally, sits on one of the planets largest oil reserves. Venezuelan analyst Clodovaldo Hernndezdescribedthe cartel and its alleged connection to Maduro as nothing more than a reheated dish that was never edible.
False narrative on drugs in the Caribbean
Casting doubt on Trumps avowal that the boats were carryingfentanyl mostly, a congressionalCRS reportreported that Mexico is the main source of illicit fentanyl entering the US.PolitiFactalso found that most fentanyl comes from Mexico. And theState Departmenthad hitherto mainly described land/over-the-border routes for fentanyl.
According toreportsfrom the United Nations, the European Union, and the US Drug Enforcement Agency, Venezuela is essentially free of drug production and processing no coca, no marijuana, and certainly no fentanyl. The authoritative UN2025 World Drug Reportidentifies Colombia and secondarily Peru and Ecuador as the major coca growers and/or cocaine producers.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the cocaine traffic is from the Pacific, not from Venezuelas Caribbean coast, according to the USNational Drug Threat Assessment. The worldsleading cocaine exporteris Ecuador, using banana boats owned by the family of Trumps ally and right-wing president of the country, Daniel Naboa.
The war on terrorism
The Herald marveled how Trump dispatched an armada of warships destroyers and a nuclear submarine plus F-35 stealth jets and 4,500 troops for drug interdiction. In contrast, the knowledgeable military press, such as the US Army-fundedStars and Stripes, skeptically described the deployment as bringing a howitzer to a knife fight.
In fact, drug interdiction is a ruse for Washingtons goal of regime-change in Venezuela, according to theCouncil on Foreign Relations.
US administrations have steadily merged the war on drugs with thewar on terror, framing Latin American drug trafficking as a national security threat to justify military operations.George W. Bushrebranded Plan Colombia as counter-terrorism, andBarack Obamaincreased the military build-up.
This laid the present groundwork for Trump, who tied migration to terrorism and cast Venezuelan refugees as a criminal invasion. The president labeled Venezuelan migrants as terrorists to expand executive authority to carry out naval deployments, extrajudicial strikes, and mass deportations. And he weaponized the human rights discourse tocriminalize migrants.
Further, Trumpinvokedthe 1798 Alien Enemies Act,designateddrug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, anddirectedthe Pentagon to prepare options for military force against cartels. However, conflating organized crime/drug cartel with terrorism/wartime enemy is legally and conceptually problematic.
Such measures not only violate international norms but also amplify anarco-terror narrative. They falsely link the Venezuelan government to major drug trafficking while promoting domestic support for intervention in Venezuela.
Imperial mission not accomplished
This latest escalation of the US offensive against Venezuela is an implicit admission that previous efforts have failed to achieve regime change. And its not from lack of trying.
In arevealing interview, former US ambassador to Caracas, James Story, confessed that unilateral coercive measure, so-called sanctions, were employed to asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy. But the economy is recovering, and for the first time since 2020oil exports surpass1 million bpd. The US embassy, Story admitted, was used to nurture the astroturf opposition. Yet today, Washingtons designated leader of the far right, Mara Corina Machado, isisolated, polling a92% disapproval rating.
Thepeople have ralliedaround the Maduro political leadership, which has suffered no defections. The military-civilian union remains unbroken, while Maduro has invokedemergency powers. Literallymillionshave enrolled in the militia to defend their country.
This presents a quandary for the Western press in service of Washingtons prerogatives, because what kind of dictatorship risks handing out arms and trains the people in military combat? Coming to the rescue, the twisted minds at BBC quote a source claiming that Maduros real intent is not to employ these forces in defense but cynically to sacrifice them as ahuman shieldto increase the human cost of any potential US military action.
Behind the presss rhetoric of fentanyl and freedom lies its support of the imperial mission to extinguish a sovereign revolution unwilling to submit. Venezuelas defiance endures as an intolerable challenge to Washingtons dominion in its self-proclaimed back yard.
Roger D. Harrisis a founding member of theVenezuela Solidarity Network, is on the board of theTask Force on the Americasand on the secretariat of theUS Peace Council.
Pressenza New York
