US Sends Warships to Venezuela, Citing 'Drug War,' Not Oil
The USS Gerald R. Ford, with its thousands of troops and Tomahawk missiles, now steams towards Venezuela, supposedly targeting 'drug-smuggling vessels.' Missing from this narrative, of course, is the U.S. history of 'democracy promotion' in countries with vast oil reserves conveniently located just south of the border. Axios skips the part where George W. Bush backed a coup attempt against Hugo
Chávez in 2002, or the numerous sanctions crippling Venezuela's economy long before any alleged 'drug war' expansion. When did fighting drug cartels require an aircraft carrier striking group? One might wonder if the U.S. military's 'focus closer to home' isn't really about cartels but rather about securing energy interests under the pretext of 'humanitarian' intervention, a playbook refined from
Iraq to Libya. Funny how 'dictators' requiring naval deployments often sit atop lucrative resources, while actual drug empires in Central America, destabilized by U.S. policy, receive considerably less hardware. Perhaps the 'friction point' of overextending ships won't be readiness, but exposing the actual motive behind this intervention.