Illustrative image. (U.S. Navy)
The Pentagon on October 24 ordered the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Caribbean Sea to support operations against drug cartels there, amid reports suggesting that President Donald Trump was nearing a decision on launching strikes against Venezuela.
“The enhanced U.S. force presence in the USSOUTHCOM AOR will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere. These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs,” spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X.
Tensions have been on the rise between Venezuela and the U.S. since August, when the Trump administration doubled the reward for the arrest of Maduro to $50 million on drug trafficking charges then deployed a naval force with thousands of marines close to the country’s shores on a so-called “counter narco-terror operation”.
The deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group marks a significant escalation by the U.S. The carrier can support some 70 aircraft, including F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets and EA-18G Growler electric warfare attack jets. The carrier’s group also includes several Tomahawk cruise-missile carrying destroyers.
The strike group docked near the harbor of Split, Croatia, on October 21. That is more than 4,300 nautical miles from the Caribbean, meaning it would take days for the group to be in position to launch any strikes.
The announcement of the carrier strike group deployment came just hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the U.S. military had struck another alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean.
Hegseth said on X that the strike killed all six men who were on board, and took place in international waters. He noted that this was the first strike to take place at night.
“The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” Hegseth wrote, linking the boat to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
This latest strike was the tenth carried out by the Trump administration against alleged drug trafficking boats over the past several weeks, which have now led to at least 43 deaths. The first several took place in the Caribbean Sea, but this week, operations expanded into the Pacific Ocean.
CNN reported amid these developments that Trump is considering plans to target cocaine facilities and drug trafficking routes inside Venezuela.
Responding to the recent escalation by the U.S., Maduro warned on October 25 that the Trump administration is “inventing a new eternal war”
“The people of the United States know it, they are inventing a new eternal war,” Maduro said. “They promised they would never get involved in another war, and now they are inventing a war that we are going to prevent. How? By mobilizing the peoples of South America.”
Maduro added that Venezuela is free from coca leaf production and accused the U.S. of targeting his country with exaggerated and unfounded allegations.
The deployment of a carrier strike group is a very costly affair. Thus, the U.S. appears to be nearing a decision on attacking Venezuela.
Even launching strikes against alleged drug-linked targets could lead to a dangerous confrontation. Venezuela has already deployed its air defenses. This would be the first step towards a regime change in Caracas. Some in the Trump administration have been reportedly pushing for this. The stance of Trump himself remains unclear.
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the real news is as george galloway just stared that england has now facilitated a nuclear strike inside russia which so by law russia now is allowed to nuke england too .that’s the law .
and they know it .course they’ve all got nuclear bunkers in the basement .
not you .
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trump’s stance remains unclear? to who? sf? you need to quit the ‘drug interdiction’ bs…like maduro said, we all know what trumps doing and what he’s after. maduro tried talking to the moron war monger-in-chief. tramp only wants more war, not negotiation. maduro should have already learned this. at least he showed it was war tramp is after, not peace at all. wait til meilei pisses tramp off, sooner or later everyone does. and why does sf approve spam?
trump and friends are thugs, mobsters. you can’t make and honest deal with them. they will promise you the world and the next day send in the bombers.
fully agree! we all know the us oligarchy pretexts are a farce: too many lies blatant crimes and that f#@! impunity ! no credibility at all. if they want a real prize of peace, they can stop their endless wars, their ruthless behaviour. genocidal greed is the worst scourge of humanity worldwide.
its strange that someone in south america are not given carrier killers to take out rabies infected killers of fishing expeditions. sink the carriers ! and free shooting contest on adolf trump ! the police in several european countrys have kill disabled persons for many years, its time to kill the murderers voted for, the real parasites and evil doers.
every country that wants independence needs effective means of defending themselves. under-repported cases in many countries and there is missing data but so far france has the most known deaths under police custody for 2020 2022 according to voxeurop dot eu
venezuela does have supersonic anti ship missiles supplied by russia. they can indeed sink this carrier. the only question is, will they have the sand to use it.
whatever problem “us” have, it have only one solution to it, to kill other nations citizens. its time the world wake up to its real problem; the existence of “us”. its a existential problem.
other countries may have some arms industry, in the us the arms industry have a country. the oligarchs profiteering vastly from the us military industrial complex dictate a forever bellicist foreign policy hellbent on crushing the world populations by carpet bombing. they invent enemies everywhere their road map is murder and plunder
venezuela’s days are numbered…heheheh…
nothing really terrible will happen to venezuela, but putler will pretend to be an ally of zio maria or an ally of juan guaido in six months. because it won’t be like it was in the case of syria, when putler first pretended to be an ally of iran, that he used syria as a training ground, but then the training ground was left to erdogan and netanyahu. in syria, without putler’s interference, the population would have grown tired of crazy religious fanatics within a year, just as the egypt
it of course depends on what “religion” they have in venezuela ! are they not snake “jews” or lizard christians, they should not hope to much of russia. russias technical progress are obvious, they payed for it with their soul. do ordinarie russians actually beliv in the official 9/11 story telling ?!
diplomacy: other nations like china bring gifts. us brings bombs. actually i doubt anyone would believe ‘official’ theory so many inconsistencies and the event was so instrumental for usil foreign agenda. probably did they hear about urban moving systems and the dancing israeli?
all of you together still think i was wrong when i wrote that after syria, america will go after iran and venezuela?
nobody thinks about you at all any more; we all know you are paid by mossad.
if russia do not tell the truth about “nine eleven”, they are payed by mossad. they avoid at all costs to attack the root causes to genocide and war. hint: its not them kidnapped on the streets.
strange movement indeed, so no iran attack for the moment
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looks like pirates of the caribbean.
at least some pirates had some kind of honor code. except the worst ones, they would not keep sinking defenceless ships from far away. instead they would board ships to check what they can find inside…
venezuelans should invite some houthis over to show them how to effectively resist the us empire.
that would be difficult cuz the empire is besieging both. actually the empire bases are scattered all around the world and they have harmed populations all around the world…
the real news are ireland has a mass migrant protest right now.
a muslim 36 years old scum raped a 10 years old irish girl.
and irish protesters tried to fire the 2000 migrants hotel.
maduro regime change is the main goal after maduro colombian president gustavo petro is next
yankee go home! no one wants your puppet compradors. tell machado to go smoke cigars in the white house oval office, monika lewinsky style. they will feel better.
i look at this this way – americans are so pathetic they cannot do anything to topple russia, china, iran and india, so now they look for weaker targets
just for the criminal audacity to sink boats killing innocent civilians, yet again, i’d love to see an american aircraft carrier lying in a convenient place filled with fish food, f35s and associated equipment created just like american zionist habitually do in africa, ukraine, asia ! just the world nations shall rejoice and pay back! what’s that say about your standing!
america has entered stage five of collapse. venezuela has anti ship missiles that can sink this stage tumbler. all they need is the will to use it. losing this civilization destroyer is just what america needs, a wake up call.
well where is the equivalent of turkey, uk and france working together to help the ukrainians to sink the moskva. where is the so called resistance the so called multi polar world. busy counting how much money they would loose if doing something would cause sanctions. help venezuela sink one us ship just one even a small one so the west realises this war is not one like all the others since world war two. where under no circumstances they can be hit.