Hegseth's 'Drug War' on Venezuela: Collateral Damage or Geopolitical Game?
The article notes that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Trump appointee, allegedly ordered a second strike to kill survivors on a 'drug vessel.' This occurred after the US dramatically increased its military presence and bounties on Venezuelan President Maduro. Conveniently absent from Axios' 'big picture' is the uncanny resemblance to Cold War-era interventions, where 'narco-terrorism' served as
a convenient pretext for destabilizing governments unfriendly to Washington. One might ponder how many times 'drug interdiction' has mysteriously coincided with oil interests or attempts to install more compliant regimes in resource-rich nations in the region – a pattern documented from Chile to Panama. So, while Axios focuses on the legality of Hegseth's grim alleged orders—a valid concern,
certainly—they gloss over the foundational query: why a full-scale naval deployment to 'stop drugs' now, and why that boat? Perhaps the 'illegal' aspect isn't just killing survivors, but the entire unacknowledged history of US foreign policy in Latin America. After all, how many 'drug boats' does it take to secure a regime change? (Spoiler: A lot, apparently.)