US War Department weighs possible strikes in Venezuela

1. Find a weak but rich target

2. Bully then into submission for reasons

3. Say you'll stop hitting them if they cut some deals. Oil and deportees, in this case.

This article (or rather the NBC article) has all the tell tales of an intentional leak, which this administration has used time after time. One thing Trump does know how to do well is play the media.

This is a not so subtle "warning" to Venezuela: "Do what we want or else..."

Like so many other cases of intentional leaks from the administration, it's likely meant as a deniable bluff. If someone criticizes the fact this militry planning is ongoing and it gets heat from Trump's own supporters, the adminstration can just blame it as "fake news anonymous sources." If Venzuela actually submits, then it's a win. If nothing at all happens, nothing lost.

When we talk about failure of the media, I believe part of that failure has become their own lack of introspection to see how they are being used by the administration. While it's been discussed time after time, there is still seemingly no solution, as competion for the next hot news story by up and coming journalists makes it all too easy to ignore that you're being used.

But they sank our ship!!!

Wait, it was their ship. Sorry.

Any pretense for offense.

Next up, any nation that exports drugs. Or acetaminophen.

If these strikes really are hitting drug gangs, I would expect the gangs to strike back, just as they do when they attack each other. They already have people in the USA, and they would have no problems with attacking civilians or politicians, they already do that. Maybe that's part of the plan behind using the military, create incidents in the US in order to impose martial law? On the other hand the War On Drugs has been around for a long time and I don't know of any attacks on the US because of it (except for the drugs themselves). Maybe the use of military force was what the drug gangs were afraid of, but now that restraint has been removed. Even if the real purpose of the strikes is regime change and taking over the oil industry, there may be side affects for US citizens due to pulling the gangs into it. Difficult to tell where this goes. There must be ongoing legal debates also, this seems clearly outside of international law.

I thought Trump is supposed to be anti-war?

It’s is an enormous IF but if the information that identifies them is truthful and reliable then this is fair imo:

“The plans reportedly call for U.S. drones to strike Venezuelan traffickers’ membership, leaders and drug labs.”