U.S. Realizes It Can Seize Boats After All

U S forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday two regime sources familiar with the matter reported The Intercept President Donald Trump called the boat the largest one ever seized The capture comes after three months of U S military attacks on boats in the region which have killed at least civilians The U S administration has not yet explained its justification for capturing the Venezuelan vessel The two governing body sources disclosed the operation was led by the U S Coast Guard We would refer you to the White House for questions Lt Krystal Wolfe a Coast Guard spokesperson described The Intercept in response to questions We don t have a comment explained a Pentagon spokeswoman who also referred questions to the White House The White House did not without delay respond to a request for comment It appears they re now aiming to further tighten the economic noose regardless of its impact on civilians in pursuit of their regime change goal While the U S once bought much of Venezuela s oil that arrangement was halted in when the first Trump administration imposed sanctions on the country s state-owned oil company While shipments to the United States resumed in the greater part of Venezuela s oil is now exported to China The U S has also imposed financial sanctions on the Venezuelan leadership Congress and the international society should consider this as an illegal act of war in the legal sense as well as for the surge in poverty and violence it could cause Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Framework an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign procedures reported The Intercept The Trump administration s indiscriminate sanctions have increased hunger across the population but have failed to topple the executive It appears they re now aiming to further tighten the economic noose regardless of its impact on civilians in pursuit of their regime change goal The capture comes as the Pentagon has built up a force of more than troops in the Caribbean since the summer the largest naval flotilla in the region since the Cold War That contingent now includes sailors aboard the USS Gerald R Ford the Navy s newest and the greater part powerful aircraft carrier which has more than attack surveillance and aid aircraft As part of a campaign of air strikes on boats the Trump administration has secretly declared that it is engaged in a non-international armed conflict with cartels gangs and armed groups including C rtel de los Soles which the U S alleges is headed by Nicol s Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan individuals despite little evidence that such a group exists Experts and insiders see this as part of a plan for regime change in Venezuela that stretches back to Trump s first term Maduro the president of Venezuela denies that he heads a cartel Since the attacks began experts in the laws of war and members of Congress from both parties have explained the strikes are illegal extrajudicial killings because the military is not permitted to deliberately target civilians even suspected criminals who do not pose an imminent threat of violence Related Boat Strike Survivors Clung to Wreckage for Specific Minutes Before U S Military Killed Them Trump has pursued an abrasive and interventionist foreign agenda in the Western Hemisphere during his second term W e will assert and enforce a Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine reads the in the last few days published U S National Safeguard Strategy It harkens back to President Theodore Roosevelt s turn-of-the- th-century Big Stick corollary to the Monroe Doctrine President James Monroe s announcement warned the nations of Europe that the United States would not permit the establishment of new colonies in the Americas Roosevelt s more muscular decree held that Washington had the right to interfere in the internal affairs of countries across the Americas In the first quarter of the th century that Roosevelt corollary would be used to justify U S occupations of Cuba the Dominican Republic Haiti Honduras and Nicaragua What s been called the Donroe Doctrine began to take shape with threats to seize the Panama Canal acquire Greenland and rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America The Trump administration also claimed the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had invaded the United States allowing the regime to use the Alien Enemies Act to fast-track deportation of people it says belong to the gang The th U S Circuit Court of Appeals eventually blocked the regime from using the war-time law We conclude that the findings do not help that an invasion or a predatory incursion has occurred wrote Judge Leslie Southwick Related How Plenty of People Has the U S Killed in Boat Strikes More in the past few days Trump even claimed that U S troops engaged in combat with members of the gang on the streets of Washington D C during the summer or early fall an apparent fiction that the White House press office refuses to address While the Trump administration indicates that Tren de Aragua is acting as a de facto arm of Maduro s leadership the Office of the Director of National Intelligence determined earlier this year that the Maduro regime seemingly does not have a program of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States The U S also maintains that Tren de Aragua is both engaging in irregular warfare against the United States and that it is in a non-international armed conflict with the United States These are however mutually unique designations which cannot occur simultaneously Trump also renewed long-running efforts which failed during his first term to topple Maduro s leadership Maduro and several close allies were indicted in a New York federal court in on federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine Earlier this year the U S doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro s arrest to million Meanwhile Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hern ndez the right-wing former president of Honduras who had been convicted of drug trafficking Trump just now narrated Politico that Maduro s days are numbered When requested if he might order an invasion of Venezuela Trump replied I wouldn t say that one way or the other before launching into a confusing ramble that devolved into insults about former President Joe Biden s IQ a tirade about Politico and in response to a follow-up question about his goals regarding Venezuela his ownership of the Doral Country Club in Miami Florida The post U S Realizes It Can Seize Boats After All appeared first on The Intercept