U.S. guided-missile cruiser spotted crossing the Panama Canal after warships deployed to Venezuela
Source: CBS News/AFP
Updated on: August 30, 2025 / 10:27 AM
A U.S. guided-missile cruiser, USS Lake Erie, was seen crossing the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Caribbean on Friday night, after the Trump administration deployed warships near the coast of Venezuela. AFP journalists saw the naval vessel passing through one of the canal's locks at around 9:30 pm and navigating east toward the Atlantic.
The United States has said the deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean, near Venezuela's territorial waters, was an anti-drug trafficking operation. "I didn't know the ship was going to pass... I was surprised," Alfredo Cedeno, a 32-year-old health technician, who took photos of the cruiser, told AFP.
The Lake Erie had been moored for the past two days at the Port of Rodman, at the canal's Pacific entrance. Washington has accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug cartel and has doubled the bounty for his capture to $50 million. The U.S. has, however, made no public threat to invade Venezuela.
Caracas announced on Monday the deployment of 15,000 security forces to the Colombian border for anti-drug trafficking operations. A day later, Venezuela announced that it would patrol its territorial waters with drones and navy ships.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-guided-missile-cruiser-panama-canal-warships-deployed-venezuela/
= new reply since forum marked as read
All kinds of ships move through there and fortunately there is even enough water to have more ships able to use it (after a couple years of severe drought).
But the headline and article mentions - "U.S. guided-missile cruiser spotted..." and I linked above to an Atlantic Council article that mentioned this -
By Atlantic Council experts
Set a course for the Caribbean. The United States has deployed three Aegis guided-missile destroyers and several other warships to the waters near Venezuela to counter maritime narcotics trafficking. US President Donald Trump has made curbing drug flows into the United States an administration priority. At the same time, the sizable US flotilla, which carries more than four thousand US sailors and Marines, has raised speculation about the threat it poses to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. To steer us to answers on the important questions about this operation, two top Atlantic Council experts take the helm below.
(snip)
So one could put 2 + 2 together.
a stupid unwinable "war" that cost billions for nothing instead of investing it in prevention campaigns.
RFK jr should be leading it 
