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Right now we’re not preparing to send troops there. 2200 marines isn’t enough to do much. This is probably good old gunboat diplomacy- blow some shit up around their coast and make them cave.
International Updated: Trump says he authorised CIA in Venezuela as Maduro says 'no to regime change'
- Thread starter LeonardoBjj
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Damn son. This guy is fcking up the country one blunder at a time. Its almost as if this was his plan as revenge for losing in 2020.
As an American, there goes any hopes of dumb American citizens home who do drugs in countries where it's a capital crime.
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Colombia’s president lashes out at Trump administration over drug war designation
BY MANUEL RUEDA
Updated 6:22 PM BRT, September 16, 2025
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian president Gustavo Petro on Tuesday lashed out at the U.S. government after it added Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in three decades.
In a message on his X account, the leftist leader accused the United States of seeking to “participate” in Colombian politics and looking for a “puppet president” as the country prepares for presidential elections next year.
“The Colombian people will reply if they want a puppet president…or a free and sovereign nation” Petro wrote, adding in another message that he would not let his nation “kneel” to U.S. interests and allow peasants who grow coca to get “beaten up.”
On Monday, the Trump administration designated Colombia as a country that is failing to meet its international commitments to fight drug trafficking and blamed the Colombian government for a lack of progress in the fight against the cocaine trade.
The designation, known as decertification, is a stunning rebuke for a traditional U.S. ally. It comes amid a recent surge in cocaine production and fraying ties between the White House and Colombia’s first leftist president.
The designation, known as decertification, is a stunning rebuke for a traditional U.S. ally. It comes amid a recent surge in cocaine production and fraying ties between the White House and Colombia’s first leftist president.
Petro, a former rebel himself, also has angered senior U.S. officials by denying American extradition requests as well as criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and its efforts to combat drug trafficking in neighboring Venezuela.
The Colombian president has also said that whisky kills more people than cocaine, and claimed that the reason wealthy countries like the United States want to crack down on cocaine is because its produced in Latin America.
Sandra Borda, an international relations professor at Bogota’s Los Andes University said that Colombia’s decertification is unlikely to affect efforts to take on drug traffickers in Colombia, because military cooperation is expected to continue.
However she expects tensions between the governments of the U.S. and Colombia to increase, as Petro uses Colombia’s decertification to tap into anti-American sentiment and rally his supporters ahead of next year’s elections.
“There has been a difficult relationship” between the Petro and Trump administrations, she explained. “You have statements and declarations that are not friendly and I think what you are going to see is an escalation of that.”
In the Presidential Determination submitted to Congress on Monday, the Trump administration mostly blamed Petro for the rise of cocaine production in Colombia, describing his efforts to negotiate peace deals with “narco terrorist groups” as a failure.
The report said that Colombia’s security institutions and municipal authorities have shown “skill and courage” in confronting drug traffickers, but said that “the failure of Colombia to meet its drug control obligations over the past year rests solely with its political leadership.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also commented on Colombia’s decertification on Tuesday.
“Colombia has been a great partner historically,” Rubio told reporters. “But they have a president now who in addition to being erratic has not been a very good partner when it comes to taking on drug cartels.”
https://apnews.com/article/colombia...etro-rivalry-48f8abc371f6b8d02ae8785dcf8b980e
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New sundowning phrase from our special boy in the WH
"water fishing"
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New sundowning phrase from our special boy in the WH
"water fishing"
I’m honestly not sure what he even means. Like, if you go out trying to fish you may get blown up too?
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Yup. It's wild what Trump is doing right now. He's not even really trying to hide it.
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I think it's quite simple.
Don't go within a thousand miles of the USA.
If you live within the general area, maybe try and put some distance between yourself and the USA.
From that standpoint, water fishing, sky skiing, space approaching, land hobbling, and venture bending in the general vicinity are all out.
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US military strike off the coast of Venezuela disrupts life in impoverished fishing communities
BY REGINA GARCIA CANO
Updated 1:51 PM BRT, September 19, 2025
GÜIRIA, Venezuela (AP) — On Venezuela’s Paria Peninsula, an idyllic stretch of Caribbean coast, it is an open secret that boats departing from its ports transport both drugs and fish.
Residents claim not to know who owns the illegal cargo, but they can tell when business is doing well because people eat out, get their hair and nails done and buy expensive meat. They also admit that none of this has happened since the U.S. military struck on one of those boats earlier this month.
Few details are known about the deadly Sept. 2 strike on a boat the Trump administration claims departed Venezuela carrying drugs and 11 members of the Tren de Aragua gang, fueling speculation. Fishermen in the peninsula told The Associated Press they do not entirely blame those who enter the illegal trade, as living off fishing alone in Venezuela today is to accept a life of poverty.
Fishing boats in the breathtaking peninsula have been repurposed to smuggle migrants, traffic humans, wildlife and fuel. These so-called “other businesses” have flourished since Venezuela’s economic collapse a decade ago.
“There is no revolution here,” said retiree Alberto Díaz, referring to the self-described socialist movement that the late Hugo Chávez launched in Venezuela in 1999 with the promise of improving the lives of the poor using the country’s oil. “What there is here is hunger, sacrifice, pure pain.”
Walking through the Güiria neighborhood of one of the strike’s victims, Díaz lamented the decline of the local fishing industry, which once offered jobs with living wages and a way for people “to be happy.”
Speculation abounds
Speculation over the strike is still going around Venezuela, with people wondering who died and whether their deaths are part of a plan to topple President Nicolás Maduro. Some have questioned their government’s assertions that a video of the strike released by U.S. President Donald Trump was created with artificial intelligence and that a boat of that size cannot venture into the high seas.But fishermen in the peninsula, who know their craft, immediately recognized some characteristics of the boat from the video. They said it was a 12-meter-long fishing boat known in Venezuela as “peñero” with four powerful and expensive motors. They estimated the engines were at least 200 horsepower each, a force five times more powerful than that typically used on local peñeros.
“Fishing doesn’t pay enough to buy a motor like that,” said fisherman Junior González, taking a break from repairing a boat along the shore of Guaca. Only a handful of roughly two dozen sardine processing plants still operate in this community following years of overfishing, failed restoration and the country’s overarching crisis.
González explained that the motors he uses run between $4,000 and $5,000 each, while one of those needed to reach Trinidad and Tobago — the suspected destination of the targeted boat — sell for $15,000 to $20,000.
‘Small-scale traffickers’
The Trump administration has yet to explain how the military assessed the boat’s cargo and determined the passengers’ alleged gang affiliation before the attack. National security officials told members of Congress last week that the boat was fired on multiple times after it had changed course.The strike, which followed a buildup of U.S. maritime forces in the Caribbean, marked a paradigm shift in how the U.S. is willing to combat drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. military killed three other people Monday after striking a second vessel that Trump said was carrying drugs from Venezuela.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello has said authorities are investigating the first strike but has not provided further details. He, Maduro and other government officials have repeatedly said Venezuela is not a key player in global drug trafficking.
Several fishermen and a local leader who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from Maduro’s government told AP the boat targeted on Sept. 2 departed Venezuela from San Juan de Unare, another fishing community on the northern coast of the peninsula. They said the men aboard hailed from that town as well as Güiria.
While some fishermen supplement their income with drug trafficking out of desperation, Christopher Sabatini, a research fellow at the Chatham House in London, said the Trump administration “has completely exaggerated” the scope of their illicit activities by linking them to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang and deeming them an immediate threat to the U.S.
“If you look at (the boats), these could never make the journey all the way up the Caribbean to the United States,” Sabatini said. “These are small-scale fishermen — and now small-scale drug traffickers — that don’t represent the crux of the issue.”
‘Everyone here knows what happened’
On Sunday, González, his father and siblings were the only fishermen on the shore dotted by moored boats as recent policy changes have restricted how often crews can fish for sardines. In communities like Guaca and El Morro de Puerto Santo, the new rules could drop a fisherman’s income below $100 a month, which isn’t enough to cover a week of groceries under Venezuela’s current economy.Drug running, in contrast, pays thousands at once.
“He doesn’t have food this week,” Kira Torres said, pointing to a member of her husband’s fishing crew, which had returned to El Morro de Puerto Santo last week without any sardines, so they earned no money.
Torres said the community has ruling-party leaders who coordinate the delivery of government subsidies, including food rations. Yet, they have not received them in months.
She conceded that some fishermen in the peninsula turn to drug running for “easy money,” but ultimately, they do it because they have no other choice.
“Many make the mistake because they are in dire need,” Torres said, pointing at reasons like hunger or having a sick relative. “Need forces them to do anything, and since the government doesn’t come here to help, what is one supposed to do?”
The impact of the illegal trade in parts of the peninsula is clear: businesses quickly deduce a successful drug run when people suddenly pay for goods and services with crisp U.S. dollar and euro bills. They buy more than a handful of things at convenience stores and treat themselves to a burger and fries.
Restaurant and bakery owner Jean Carlos Sucre has noticed this pattern in Güiria and is worried about the future. He said the recent U.S. strike has only worsened the “asphyxiating” conditions already facing his business due to Venezuela’s soaring inflation — leading to a significant drop in his weekly sales.
“Those who are working illegally aren’t setting sail for fear of being caught by the gringos, I imagine,” Sucre said. “Everyone here knows what happened, but very few talk. This week I sold 10 hamburgers out of the 90 I was selling (before the strike).”
https://apnews.com/article/venezuel...icking-trump-1061debe2f983ef7bc9666d3f002b3a0
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Trump also killed a bunch of innocent fishermen in North Korea in his first term
Top secret SEAL Team 6 killed North Korean civilians during failed covert mission in 2019: report
Two to three civilians on a North Korean fishing boat were believed to be unarmed and diving for shellfish, sources familiar with the mission said.
nypost.com
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Goat president
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It's a shocking place that I find myself in that other Americans find actions like this acceptable.
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Just hit another one
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- Like the Israeli brethen!
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Hegseth announces latest strike on boat near Venezuela he says was trafficking drugs
BY KONSTANTIN TOROPIN AND LISA MASCARO
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that he ordered another strike on a small boat he accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, expanding what the Trump administration has declared is an “armed conflict” with cartels.
In a post on social media, Hegseth asserted that the “vessel was trafficking narcotics” and those aboard were “narco-terrorists.” He said the strike killed four men but offered no details on who they were or what group they belonged to, following the U.S. designation of several Latin American cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
President Donald Trump said in his own social media post that the boat was “loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 TO 50 THOUSAND PEOPLE” and implied it was “entering American Territory” while off the coast of Venezuela.
It is the fourth deadly strike in the Caribbean and the latest since revelations that Trump told lawmakers he was treating drug traffickers as unlawful combatants and military force was required to combat them. That assertion of presidential war powers sets the stage for expanded action and raises questions about how far the administration will go without sign-off from Congress.
“Blowing them up without knowing who’s on the boat is a terrible policy, and it should end,” said Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a consistent and harsh critic of the U.S. strikes.
The Trump administration laid out its justification for the strikes in a memo obtained by The Associated Press this week.
“The President determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organizations,” according to the memo sent to Congress. Trump directed the Pentagon to “conduct operations against them pursuant to the law of armed conflict,” the document says.
Sen. Jim Risch, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the president had the authority to go after the cartels without further authorization from Congress under “his general powers under the Constitution as the commander in chief.”
“What could be a bigger defense of this country than keeping out this poison that’s killing thousands of Americans every year?” Risch said Friday.
Paul said only Congress has the authority to declare war and characterized the memo as “a way to pretend like” the administration is notifying lawmakers with a justification for the strikes.
“If they want to declare war, come to Congress and say they want to declare war,” he told AP. “But you can’t just say it yourself and say, Oh, well, we sent them a note and now we’re at war with unnamed people who we won’t even identify before we kill.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a leftist leader who has clashed with the Trump administration, accused the U.S. of committing “murder” and urged the victims’ families to “join forces.”
“There are no narco-terrorists on the boats,” he posted on X after the strike was announced. “Drug traffickers live in the U.S., Europe and Dubai. On that boat are poor Caribbean youth.”
Video of Friday’s strike posted online showed a small boat moving in open water when it suddenly explodes, with water splashing all around it. As the smoke from the explosion clears, the boat is visible, consumed with flames, floating motionless on the water.
With it, at least three of the strikes have now been carried out on vessels that U.S. officials said had originated from Venezuela. The strikes followed a buildup of U.S. maritime forces in the Caribbean unlike any seen in recent times.
The Navy’s presence in the region — eight warships with over 5,000 sailors and Marines — has been pretty stable for weeks, according to two defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations.
In a post about the first strike last month, Trump claimed the vessel was carrying members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Posts about all the subsequent strikes, including Friday’s, have not provided any details about what organizations have been targeted. The four strikes have killed 21 people, the administration says.
Pentagon officials who briefed senators on the strikes this week could not provide a list of the designated terrorist organizations at the center of the conflict.
Officials in the Pentagon, when asked for more details about the strike, referred The Associated Press back to Hegseth’s post. The press office for Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest strike.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-he...l-combatants-1848b02febe08acacb82979d7da47dfb
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Will this be detrimental to the Nobel chances of president heart disease? The answer will absolutely not surprise you!
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Trump says he authorised CIA in Venezuela as Maduro says 'no to regime change'
Bernd Debusmann Jr at the White House
US President Donald Trump has confirmed a report he authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela, provoking outrage from the South American nation's leader.
US forces have already conducted at least five strikes on suspected drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean in recent weeks, killing 27 people. UN-appointed human rights experts have described the raids as "extrajudicial executions".
Speaking at the White House, Trump said the US "is looking at land" as it considers further strikes on drug cartels in the region.
Nicolás Maduro, whose legitimacy as Venezuela's president is internationally contested after disputed elections last year, appealed on TV for peace with the US.
He addressed the "people of the United States", saying "no war, yes peace".
The increased US military presence in the region has raised fears in Caracas of a possible attack. There are reportedly about 10,000 US forces built up in the Caribbean, either on ships or in Puerto Rico, a US territory.
According to the New York Times, Trump's authorisation would allow the CIA to carry out operations in Venezuela unilaterally or as part of any wider US military activity.
It remains unknown whether the CIA is planning operations in Venezuela, or whether those plans are being kept as contingencies, but the spy agency has a long history of activities in South America.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump was questioned about the New York Times report.
"Why did you authorise the CIA to go into Venezuela?" a journalist asked.
"I authorised for two reasons really," Trump said in a highly unusual acknowledgement from a US commander-in-chief about an intelligence organisation whose activities are typically shrouded in secrecy.
"Number one, they [Venezuela] have emptied their prisons into the United States of America."
He added: "And the other thing are drugs. We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, so you get to see that, but we're going to stop them by land also."
Venezuela plays a relatively minor role in the region's drug trade. The president would not be drawn on whether the CIA's goal was to topple Maduro, for whom the US has offered a $50m (£37m) bounty.
"Wouldn't it be a ridiculous question for me to answer?" he said.
In the most recent US strike on Tuesday, six people were killed when a boat was targeted near Venezuela's coast.
On Truth Social, Trump said that "intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO [drug-trafficking organisation] drug-trafficking route".
As has been the case in previous strikes, US officials have not specified what drug-trafficking organisation was allegedly operating the vessel, or the identities of those aboard.
Maduro took to the airwaves on Wednesday night to warn against escalation.
"No to regime change, which reminds us so much of the endless, failed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so on," said the Socialist leader.
"No to CIA-orchestrated coups d'état."
He added: "Listen to me, no war, yes peace, the people United States."
Earlier in the day Maduro ordered military exercises in the Caracas suburb of Petare and in neighbouring Miranda state on Wednesday.
In a message on Telegram, he said he was mobilising the military, police and civilian militia to defend the oil-rich country.
Foreign Minister Yván Gil said on Telegram that Venezuela "rejects the warmongering and extravagant statements of the president of the United States".
"We view with extreme alarm the use of the CIA, as well as the military deployments announced in the Caribbean, which amount to a policy of aggression, threat, and harassment against Venezuela," he added.
Trump has deployed eight warships, a nuclear-power submarine and fighter jets to the Caribbean in what the White House says is an effort to crack down on drug smuggling.
In a leaked memo recently sent to US lawmakers, the Trump administration said it had determined it was involved in a "non-international armed conflict" with drug-trafficking organisations.
US officials have alleged that Maduro himself is part of an organisation called the Cartel of the Suns, which they say includes high-ranking Venezuelan military and security officials involved in drug trafficking. Maduro has denied the claims.
Mick Mulroy, a former CIA paramilitary officer and Assistant Undersecretary of Defense, told the BBC: "In order to conduct covert action, there needs to be a presidential finding for the CIA specially authorizing it, with specific actions identified."
Mulroy added that such a finding would mark a "substantial increase" in efforts against drug trafficking organizations.
"Perhaps a real life 'Sicario'," he said, referring to a 2015 film that depicts US operatives launching clandestine operations against drug cartels in Mexico.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0ex1jq9pdvo
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I mean, if they are narcos, oh well. But the same admin telling you the Epstein files don’t exist among many other lies is telling you they are narcos id take it with a grain of salt.
Maybe this is the only way to get jr off that dope though.
Maybe this is the only way to get jr off that dope though.
WTF does he get his numbers from? Does he say anything truthful? I thought 300,000 overdoses a year sounded stupid high, and what do you know it is.
In 2024, an estimated 80,391 Americans died from drug overdoses, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Everyday im blown away we elected this moron into office again.
