Standback and Standby:
Trump's War in the Caribbean.
By Richard W. Wise
Copyright: 2025
Washington, October 9th — Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked an effort aimed at preventing continued U.S. strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats off the coast of Venezuela.
The Trump administration says it has conducted four strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats near Venezuela since Sept. 2, killing at least 21 people.
A couple of weeks ago, I ran into a recently retired "Coastie". That is how one Coast Guard veteran refers to another. While I compared dates and duty stations with him, I discovered that his last duty station was as second-in-command, the executive officer of a Coast Guard cutter interdicting drug smugglers in the Caribbean. The USCG has been patrolling the area for years.
"What do you think about Trump's destroying potential smuggler-boats off Venezuela?", I asked.
"They were definitely drug smugglers and we'd catch them", he responded.
"How did you know they were smugglers?"
"We caught a lot of them. Our intelligence was never wrong. We couldn't catch them by sea. Those boats were much faster than ours. So, we'd dispatch a chopper and blow up their engines. That slowed them right down. Every boat our intelligence targeted was carrying drugs. The cartels don't care. A few are captured. It's just a part of doing business."
Capture or kill? There is obviously another way, one that has been used for years. Reminds me of Trump's approach to laid-off federal workers: refuse them back pay.