The US hasn’t invaded Venezuela but crowed about destroying a fast boat that may or may not have been carrying drugs, that may or may not have been affiliated with Tren de Aragua and now we’ll never know.
We do know that there were eleven people on board. The federal courts teach us that “a prudent drug smuggler does not tolerate the presence of innocent bystanders.” Which means they were all in on it, but wait: you only need one or two to drive the boat, why carry an additional nine people and so greatly reduce your product-carrying capacity?
Ben Kramer, Don Aranow, Sal Magluta and Willie Falcon might have turned away from fast boats in the 1980’s and 1990’s if the US military was brought in for interdiction by cannon. Back then, the US took the Posse Comitatus Act seriously, but no longer. Trump has his own reading of the statute as he often does when he comes across language that wasn’t necessary for someone who grew up in the real estate business in New York. Judicial precedent means little.
Couldn’t we have convinced the eleven to defend themselves, maybe fire on a US ship? That would have given the US justification for war. The problem is that the ships were too far away. No one ever got close enough to see what flag the purported drug fast boat was flying. The protocol was to ask the country of registry if they objected to the US boarding the vessel. And guess what? Drugs are not always found.
I can’t think of a single case where the US simply rained hellfire on a ship in the open seas on the mere suspicion that trafficking was afoot. Next: we’ll shoot down airplanes.
We’ve done it before. The captain of the USS Vincennes authorized a missile strike against approaching fighter planes which turned out to be a civilian Iranian airliner.
The DEA has an air wing. Maybe fighter planes should be added to their arsenal.
Except…the destruction of the Venezuelan fast boat had nothing to do with the drug war. The drug war ended long ago.