Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has indicted the US of preparing a” phony war” as Washington has transferred the world’s largest warship to the Caribbean Sea.
US Defense Secretary Pat Hegseth on Friday ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, which can carry 90 aircraft, to leave the Mediterranean and head for the Caribbean.
” They’re creating a new endless war. They promised they would noway go to war again, but now they’re preparing a war,” Maduro told state media.
The US has significantly increased its military presence in the Caribbean in recent weeks. Washington has stationed warships, a nuclear submarine, and F- 35 fighter spurts. US officers say this is all to crack down on medicine merchandisers.
The United States has also carried out ten airstrikes on medicine- trafficking vessels. The rearmost strike on Friday killed “ six manly medicine- trafficking terrorists, ” according to Hegseth. The operation took place in the Caribbean Sea, and according to US officers, the vessel belonged to a felonious association called Train de Aragua.
The attacks have drawn sharp review in Latin America, with experts questioning their legitimacy.
The Trump administration says it’s fighting medicine trafficking. But experts and members of the US Congress say the real thing is to weaken Maduro’s government.
Maduro has long been an opponent of former President Donald Trump. Trump accuses him of leading a medicine trafficking network, a charge Maduro denies.
“ This is all to signal governance change. They may not attack, but the thing is to produce fear so that the Venezuelan service and Maduro’s inner circle turn against them. ”
The Pentagon blazoned Friday that the Gerald R. Ford carrier is being stationed to the Central and South American region under the US Southern Command.
Spokesman Sean Parnell said the deployment will increase the US Navy’s capability to” block medicine trafficking and disrupt transnational felonious associations.”
The aircraft carrier is also able of striking land targets. Trump said the US was now considering” land operations.” In his words,” We have taken control of the ocean, now it’s the land’s turn.”
According to CNN, Trump plans to strike medicine labs and smuggling routes in Venezuela, but a final decision has not yet been made.
The boat was last reported to be off the seacoast of Croatia three days agone.
The deployment is a sign of a major escalation in US military pressure that could escalate pressures with Venezuela, which Washington has long indicted of harbouring medicine merchandisers.
The boat can carry a variety of aircraft, including fighter spurts, transports and surveillance aircraft. Its first long- term deployment is listed for 2023.
It’s unclear which vessels will be involved in the charge, but it generally operates alongside destroyers armed with voyage dumdums.
The United States has carried out 10 strikes against medicine merchandisers since September. utmost of the strikes have been off the seacoast of South America and the Caribbean, while two strikes in October were in the Pacific.
Both Egalitarians and Republicans in Congress have questioned the legitimacy of the strikes.
On September 10, 25 Popular legislators wrote to the White House, criminating the administration of attacking a boat without substantiation that it posed no trouble to the United States.
Democratic Senator Rand Paul said similar strikes must be approved by Congress.
Trump says he has legal authority to carry out the strikes, and has designated Train de Aragua a terrorist association.
” We’ve the right to do this, if there’s a ground operation, perhaps we will go to Congress,” he said.
still, stop transferring medicines to the United States,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio,” If people do not want to see medicine vessels destroyed.
The six people killed in Friday’s attack brought the total number of deaths in US attacks to 43.
Former US State Department counsel Brian Finucane said the situation was hanging the US Constitution.” It’s the responsibility of Congress to control the use of military force, but the White House has taken that authority, and Congress is silent.”
