By Tom Clifford
The Caribbean is in the crosshairs of the US military as Washington deploys a super carrier strike group to waters off Venezuela.
The USS Gerald Ford and a large section of its strike group will be stationed in the Caribbean in a what is a major escalation. Officially the US insists that this is a counter-narcotics operation but there are growing concerns that this is the latest development that will result in a possible strike on Venezuela.
The new task for the USS Gerald Ford carrier, with dozens of stealth fighter jets and surveillance aircraft, in addition to other warships that accompany the carrier, will be to patrol the coast off Venezuela as it completes its current deployment in the Mediterranean.
By ordering the carrier strike group to the Caribbean the clearest signal is being sent that the US administration intends to dramatically expand the scope of its lethal military campaign. To date this has involved targeting small boats alleged to be carrying drugs bound for the US to targets on land.
Dozens of F-35 fighter jets are part of the strike group that increases the firepower and ability for the US to hit air-defense systems in Venezuela, thereby clearing the way for US special operations or drones to destroy land-based targets.
The Trump administration has been eyeing escalating its campaign against the drug cartels for weeks.
It is also an effort to destabilize the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro’s government – after an initial campaign of strikes on at least nine alleged drug-trafficking boats.
However, the US administration has provided no concrete evidence to date that those killed in the boat strikes were smuggling drugs to the US. In briefings to Congress, Pentagon officials in essence said the boats were legitimate targets because Trump had designated them as assets of cartels seen to be DTOs, designated terror organizations, people familiar with the matter said.
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U.S. Military Intervention – A Historical Overview
Tensions Escalate as U.S. Deploys B-52 Bombers Over Caribbean Amid Venezuela Standoff
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