An expression in English –waiting for the other shoe to drop, Literally waiting for the other shoe to fall – he comes to say that listening to the noise generated by the neighbor from above when a shoe is removed at night is annoying; But much more unbearable is the tension generated by the waiting moments to get the other. With Venezuela: to increase the pressure, from missile in missile against alleged narcolancas in international waters, without making clear or stop rule out if it will end up taking the measures much tougher of intervention in Venezuelan territory that fears Chavismo. This Friday, Washington gave a new twist, announcing just hours after having defended against Congress that their acts are justified because it is an “armed conflict.”
This time he was the Secretary of Defense – he prefers the new denomination, approved by Trump, of Secretary of the War – who announced the news: the US forces highlighted in international waters in the Caribbean in front of the Venezuelan waters had opened fire and sunk a new boat, the fourth in a month, with four men on board. All of them, according to the head of the Pentagon, drug traffickers proven by US intelligence services.
Trump was right in one of his usual messages on his social network, Truth, and assured that the sunken boat on Friday carried enough narcotics to cause the death of 25,000 to 50,000 people. “A ship loaded with enough drugs to kill between 25,000 and 50,000 people was prevented, early this morning outside the coast of Venezuela, to enter American territory,” wrote the president, who added a video with images in which you see how a projectile reaches the boat and makes it jump through the air turned into a fireball.
As in the previous occasions, neither the President nor his Secretary of Defense were lavished in details about the incidents, beyond publishing the videos. They did not provide information about the nationalities or identities of the dead in the attack, with which criminal organization were supposedly affiliated or what type of drug was exactly what was on board that boat. Hegesh only pointed out that the boat belonged to one of the “designated terrorist organizations” by the State Department – was included in that list in February – and that navigated in the “area of responsibility of the southern command of the United States.”
The White House insists that these blows are justified and perfectly legitimate from the moral and legal point of view. “The president has directed these actions, those blows against Venezuelan drug posters and those ships, according to the responsibility of protecting the interests of the United States abroad, and to favor US interests of national security and foreign policy. This is consistent with their constitutional authority as a commander in chief (of the US armed forces) and head of the executive in charge of international relations,” said Donald spokesperson Trump, at a press conference this Friday.
As the spokeswoman, Trump recalled “has been very clear since the time of the electoral campaign … He promised that he was going to end the drug epidemic, which has charged so many US lives.” “That type of measure is what they are seeing almost every day,” Leavitt added.
The attack gives wings to the restlessness in Venezuela about the possibility that the United States ends up launching attacks on its own territory, or carrying out a limited military intervention to combat drug posters to which it accuses of being the true leaders of the Caribbean country and those who accuse President Nicolás Maduro of being one of its leaders.
Above all, after this week the White House sent to Congress a memorandum in which he communicates that he is considered “at war” with drug cartels. Something that, according to the legal opinion of the Administration, allows you to attack the members of these organizations. The laws of the United States and international law prohibit that the Armed Forces can deliberately kill civilians, even if those civilians are committing crimes at that time, if they do not participate in hostilities against this country.
The memorandum, on the other hand, considers that L, being part of an organization with which the United States is “at war” and therefore it is lawful to attack them. Something that experts and human rights defending organizations reject in a flat: it is not the same, they point out, a violent attack with weapons that the sale of a harmful product.
This Thursday, an article by columnist Tom Rogan in the Conservative newspaper The Washington Examiner He fed the fears of Caracas by maintaining that the “US military planners believe that kneaded forces” in the Caribbean are already “enough to capture and maintain key strategic facilities in Venezuelan territory.” The United States maintains a flotilla that includes navy destroyers, a submarine, 2,200 marine infants and F-35 fighters, as well as Harrier military aircraft.
President Trump himself has already pointed out that operations in the Caribbean could expand to other areas. Last week he hinted that, in addition to attacks against boats in international waters, his administration considers punishing the “by land” posters.
While the US administration increases tension, and expands the restlessness of a Caracas that still does not know if the second shoe will end up falling or not, the US Secretary of Defense announced in its message this Friday that attacks will continue against the alleged narcolanchas. “These attacks will continue until the attacks against the American people end!” Promised the head of the Pentagon.
