President Donald Trump said Monday that unspecified U.S. forces were responsible for an explosion at a marine loading facility in Venezuela, escalating the confrontation with the South American country over alleged drug smuggling.
“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump told reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago Club on Monday while greeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “And that is no longer around.”
Trump has been raising pressure on Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, by building up naval forces in the region, seizing oil tankers and destroying 29 boats that U.S. officials said carried drugs, killing at least 105 people since September. The shoreline attack would be the first on land, which Trump has been previewing for months.
Trump declined to say if the military or the CIA carried out the strike. He previously authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations.
“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was,” he said.
Trump first referenced the shoreline attack on Friday in a radio interview with Republican donor John Catsimatidis, saying the strike occurred two nights earlier.
“We just knocked out — I don’t know if you read or you saw — they have a big plant or big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said in the interview. “Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard.”
Posted by John3262005
4 Comments
Maybe not the biggest point right now, but this is the ultimate usurpation of the power to declare war by the president as Rs won’t do anything about this.
The ~~high seas piracy~~ seizing of ‘sanctioned’ vessels is one thing but, the blatant and arbitrary use of military force will destroy America’s international credibility for perhaps decades. Even though Maduro is a dictatorial thug Trump clearly has great affinity for his ilk so I don’t think anyone is fooled by the normie repub act.
So far, I don’t know what is true.
If so, then just another step in this conflict.
Drug boats, then tankers and now this
Crazy how he revealed this during a radio interview.
“Trump claims credit for bombing Venezuela, media unsure if bombing actually occurred” is the perfect way to cap off Trump’s second first year
this is open war without any authorization, opposed by the vast majority of Americans.