Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

On September 2, President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio separately reported that a U.S. attack on a small boat off Venezuela’s coast had destroyed illegal drugs on board and killed 11 passengers. Trump showed a video on social media displaying the boat’s fiery destruction.

He alleged the victims were members of the Tren de Aragua drug-dealing and terrorist gang. Analyst Vijay Prashad characterizes the group as criminals rather than narco-traffickers.

For weeks, U.S. naval vessels with 4,500 marines aboard, a nuclear-powered submarine, and F-35 stealth aircraft had been patrolling in nearby Caribbean waters.

Commentators denounced the illegality of attack without a declaration of war. These were summary executions, they claimed. No one was captured. Criminal proceedings were lacking.

La Jornada journalist Carlos Fazio suggests the attack possibly did not happen, this on the basis of no available information on the boat’s location or home port, and confusion about its destination. Venezuelan officials attributed the video to artificial intelligence.

On September 12, troops from a U.S. destroyer boarded a Venezuelan tuna fishing vessel where they harassed nine crew members for eight hours. The action occurred in one of the country’s “exclusive economic zone[s].” Venezuela’ s defense minister on September 14 denounced U.S. reconnaissance and intelligence flights along the coast. The next day, Trump announced that three “confirmed narco-terrorists from Venezuela” were killed in a U.S. attack on another vessel.

Actualities

The military build-up and the attacks are as real as the Monroe Doctrine of 1823; European powers were told to back off from South and Central America. The Doctrine became license for U.S. intervention throughout the region, and in Venezuela now.

It’s true: the U.S. government has interests, among them: access to Venezuela’s oil deposits that are the greatest in the world, overcoming competition from China for resources and trade, and seeing the disappearance of Venezuela’s socialist government. Another area of truth concerns........

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