We take a look below at the ‘Why’ President Trump and his Defence Sec. have decided to turn to Venezuela as a target for military action…
It IS about drugs on the surface…
But looking under the hood?
We have a effort to challenge and kick China and Russia out of the Western Hemisphere and blunt Cuba’s influence also under the guise of illegal drug enforcement….
United States History AGAIN?
Repeating itself in the America’s….
Amid signs that President Trump is mulling sending U.S. troops into Venezuela to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power, the Trump administration has supercharged its public messaging by describing him as the leader of a drug cartel called Cartel de los Soles.
That refrain comes from a range of critics including Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser and secretary of state, who has accused Mr. Maduro of being “the leader of the designated narcoterrorist organization Cartel de los Soles” and responsible for “trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe.”
In July, the Trump Treasury Department officially labeled Cartel de los Soles a global terrorist entity. On Sunday, Mr. Rubio announced that the State Department would essentially do the same under its own procedures.
But there’s a big catch with the impression created by the Trump administration’s narrative: Cartel de los Soles is not a literal organization, according to a range of specialists in Latin American criminal and narcotics issues, from think-tank analysts to former Drug Enforcement Administration officials.
It is instead a figure of speech in Venezuela, dating back to the 1990s, for Venezuelan military officials corrupted by drug money, they say. The term, which means “Cartel of the Suns,” is a mocking invocation of the suns Venezuelan generals wear to denote their rank, like American ones wear stars.
It is for that reason that the D.E.A.’s annual National Drug Threat Assessment, which describes major trafficking organizations in detail, has never mentioned Cartel de los Soles. Nor has the annual “World Drug Report” by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
“‘Cartel de los Soles’ is a label that was invented by Venezuelan journalists,” said Phil Gunson, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group who lives in Venezuela. “There is no such thing as a board meeting of the ‘Cartel de los Soles.’ There is no such animal. The organization doesn’t exist as such.”
But that doesn’t mean, he added, that Venezuelan officials “are not up to their eyeballs in drugs.”
There is no legal definition of a drug cartel, but the term is generally understood to refer to a large, centrally controlled, unscrupulous business organization that seeks profits through the production, distribution and sale of illegal drugs, operating across borders and using violence to dominate black markets.
One might think of a drug cartel as a shadowy, mafia-like organization that, among other things, uses bribery to corrupt government officials — as indeed is routine in countries where narcotics shipments transit.
But to the extent Cartel de los Soles is a thing, it is a pejorative way of talking about the Venezuelan government itself as unusually corrupt.
Indeed, Mr. Rubio often talks about it with greater nuance, like saying Cartel de los Soles “is a criminal organization that happens to masquerade as a government.”…
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By late July, however, as the Trump administration was ramping up pressure on Mr. Maduro, the Treasury Department announcedit was designating Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist entity. That statement largely echoed language from the 2020 indictment.
It soon became apparent that the focus on Mr. Maduro was part of a larger planned operation of targeting boats suspected of smuggling drugs for cartels from South America. Since Sept. 2, the U.S. military, on Mr. Trump’s orders, has hit 21 such boats, killing 83 people, in operations that initially appeared to be centered on Venezuelan suspects but expanded to Colombians.
After the Treasury Department’s announcement, Ecuador, Paraguay, Argentina, the Dominican Republican and Peru followed the Trump administration by putting Cartel de los Soles on lists of terrorist groups, too.
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A critical look at the security and military situation Trump would be dealing with sending American Military in harms way at Venezuela, which unlike drug boats…
Would fight back with Chinese and Russian military weapons……
Cuban bodyguards, Chinese radars, Iranian gunboats and Russian missiles.
Venezuela’s government has spent billions of dollars over the years on weapons and security services from America’s adversaries as it deepened its standoff with the United States.
Now, President Trump’s threats to escalate the standoff are putting these alliances to the test.
The United States has amassed about 15,000 troops and some of its most modern warships in the Caribbean, called President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela illegitimate, and declared him the head of a drug-trafficking terrorist organization. On Monday, Mr. Trump made the most explicit connection yet between the military buildup and Mr. Maduro’s tenure, telling reporters he was “not in love” with Venezuela’s leadership.
“We just have to take care of Venezuela,” he added. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has vacillated between suggesting imminent strikes on Venezuela and engaging Mr. Maduro through diplomacy.
Few in Washington or in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, expect the Venezuelan military to withstand a concerted assault by America’s military might, if that’s what Mr. Trump chooses….
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The governments in Havana, Moscow and Tehran have been weakened or distracted by economic crisis or wars at home, reducing the amount of resources that they can spare to project power abroad, analysts said.
Many of Mr. Maduro’s allies are pursuing their own high-stakes diplomacy with Mr. Trump and are unlikely to jeopardize domestic objectives to support an ally facing long odds, the analysts said.
That has been particularly apparent in Mr. Maduro’s relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. The Kremlin responded to growing pressure on Venezuela by ratifying a vague “strategic partnership and cooperation treaty” last month, but it has refrained from publicly committing any new resources to its main South American partner….
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American firepower, however, could struggle to neutralize Igla portable surface-to-air missiles, which are considered some of the most potent in their class.
Mr. Maduro claims that his government has 5,000 Igla missiles and that they have been distributed to military units and allied militias throughout the country.
But humid storage conditions and general wear-and-tear means that the number of operational missiles could actually be in the hundreds, according to Mr. Pukhov, the Russian military expert. That number, however, is still enough to pose significant threats to any low-flying aircraft or helicopters that would likely participate in a special forces operation.
“It’s going to be difficult for Americans to just swoop in there without spilling their blood,” Mr. Pukhov said….
image…President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela speaking with the country’s defense minister and a general in the Army. The name “Cartel de los Soles” is a mocking invocation of the suns Venezuelan generals wear to denote their rank.Credit…Venezuelan Presidency, via Agence France-Presse — Getty
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