Last Monday, it was revealed that the Donald Trump administration had sent the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie and the nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine USS Newport News to the"southern Caribbean," that is, the Venezuelan coast. Washington now has at least eight warships deployed in the area as part of what the president calls an offensive against narcoterrorism.
A review of the nature and capabilities of the vessels is enough to reveal the true intentions of such a warmongering display: the USS Gravely, the USS Jason Dunham and the USS Sampson are Arleigh Burque-class destroyers, built to launch land attacks, anti-aircraft warfare, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and even anti-satellite weapons, as well as anti-ballistic missiles (missiles that shoot down other missiles); meanwhile, the USS San Antonio, the USS Iwo Jima and the USS Fort Lauderdale,with a crew of 4,500, are amphibious assault ships, whose function is to transport troops with all the necessary material to undertake an invasion on any type of coast.
As for the aforementioned USS Newport News, which also has anti-surface weapons, it was used in the invasion and colonization of Iraq and Afghanistan at the beginning of the century.
For any objective observer, it seems implausible that the fight against drug trafficking is being carried out with cruisers, destroyers, landing platforms, and nuclear submarines, vessels whose firepower is not only absolutely disproportionate to the supposed mission, but also of such dimensions that they are useless and even counterproductive in this type of operation. If we add to this the history of Washington's classification of cartels as terrorist organizations and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the leader of one of them, it becomes clear that the US fleet is pursuing the overthrow of the Chavista leader, either through the betrayal of military commanders—a goal the Venezuelan far right has fantasized about since 2002—or the direct intervention of the armed forces of the superpower.
In this context, it is deplorable that Trump's regional rivals continue to play along with the politically and ideologically motivated terrorism of drug trafficking and apply the narco-terrorist label to organizations whose existence is highly questionable. Regardless of ideological and partisan affiliations, all Latin American leaders should understand that imperialist aggression against Caracas erodes the sovereignty of all other countries in the hemisphere and that rejecting interventionism is a matter of national security, dignity, well-understood patriotism, and, ultimately, survival.
