Trump Promises 'Land Strikes' on Other People's Land
Bloomberg reports Donald Trump's promise of 'soon' executing U.S. land strikes against drug traffickers, potentially in Venezuela. This isn't groundbreaking policy; it's a familiar script. For decades, the U.S. narrative on 'drug wars' has served as a convenient pretext for intervention and militarization in Latin America, transforming sovereign nations into battlegrounds for American-defined
problems. The 'war on drugs' has less to do with actual drug eradication and more to do with maintaining influence, destabilizing uncooperative governments, and creating new markets for the military-industrial complex. We saw this with Plan Colombia in the 90s (remember those billions in 'aid' that often ended up militarizing local forces?), and the ever-expanding drone wars in the Middle
East—always for 'national security.' The shift from 'maritime interdiction' to 'land strikes' is merely an escalation, not a solution. How many times have we been told that bombing a country 'solves' a problem originating from systemic issues back home? One might wonder how many 'drug cartels' operate in Venezuela, a country long targeted for regime change by the U.S., compared to, say, areas far
more accessible to U.S. law enforcement domestically.