Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday said he "would constitutionally declare a republic in arms" if the South American country were attacked by forces that the United States government has deployed to the Caribbean.

Maduro claimed eight U.S. military vessels "with 1,200 missiles" were targeting his country, calling them "the greatest threat that has been seen on our continent in the last 100 years," AFP reported.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maduro-venezuela-us-troops-caribbean/

He lies about everything, and so do all the sycophants and toadies in his administration. I can't think of a single reason why we should take their word for anything, much less something this big.

has oil to steal. They don't care about drugs.

but looks like it has powerful outboard motors and is going at speed. Sure, I'd suspect it was smuggling something, and drugs would be the obvious thing. But blowing it apart and killing 11 (I'm surprised it's that many - if so, then there's not a lot of space for drugs) in international waters on suspicion, without an apparent attempt to capture it? Out of control authoritarianism.

It was a fishing boat.

But no, lets' blow it up good.

But it sounds like Whiskey Pete Kegbreath is trying to impress his boss.

If dementia-rattled Trump imagines some boat is a drug vessel, then apparently all aboard are sentenced to die.

At MOST the Coast Guard or Navy would shoot out the engine and disable the boat, then it could be boarded with no loss of life. I've seen plenty of videos of them doing just that. I just find it really hard to believe that those aboard that vessel would be summarily executed. Nobody would be insane enough to start a gunfight while being overwhelmingly outnumbered by the US military.

If the cartel is telling you "If someone tries to take these drugs, and we hear you didn't die trying to defending them, we'll torture your family to death." you might consider firing at the US Navy preferrable. Just speculation, but I've heard of worse threats to those who "mule" for cartels.

We've done stuff like that before, but it's been a while. (80's Central America. mixed up with regimes and drugs)

It is weird: "We don't like your gangs." (The gangs are not sanctioned by Maduro) "Let's blow up a boat"

Trump is probably trying to strike a deal with Maduro....

This was a lethal distraction (if lil' Marco is telling us what really happened).

In addition to wanting to create a distraction. I also think Schlump is desperate to find a way to make himself look like a hero right now. His approval ratings are in the toilet, and he's being bombarded by criticiam over all kinds of things from virtually all directions, even from his base in some cases. And there was his spectacular failure to end the war in Ukraine, which everybody except him knew was doomed from the start. Making a complete fool of himself in front of the entire world like that must have been a huge blow for him.

Don't let the bragging and bluster fool you; Schlump needs approval and acclaim to survive, the way the rest of us need food and water, and he's not getting much of either these days. He's got to be running perilously low on narcissistic supply.

On top of everything else, he knows he looks weak (all the rumors swirling around his health aren't helping with this), and he desperately needs for people to see him as strong and powerful. This is just the kind of thing that he would see as a way to accomplish that.

He's been salivating for military action for quite a while.

He really wants to play war right now..
except it's not really the game he
thinks it is.

Unless this ship was literally bearing down on the US coast, the US military should not be engaging them - especially so far away from a US border. This is a law enforcement problem and not a military concern.

I know it's a tough law enforcement problem, and that it might seem easier to blow drug ships out of the water long before drugs hit the US streets. But, it sets a bad precedent and upends US military policy that has existed since WWII.

If the US feels it absolutely has to do this for some national security reason, they should be humble about it and be very transparent with the evidence they have that merited such a severe action. Photos, intelligence, Venezuelan indifference, everything. You need to get the American people on board.

All 11 aboard were killed. Here's a link to an updated Guardian story, as well as footage of the massacre if you have the stomach to watch.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/02/trump-venezuela-boat-lethal-strike

Link to tweet

Sometimes they do things to assist the opposition with a regime change, but this approach certainly does not look like it would be effective.

I think he wants Madura to take back Venezuelans from the US.

drug criminals, meeting his deportee quotas, etc.

That is straight up murder. You don't know if they really had drugs and when did we get into the murdering people for drugs business? This is a huge deal and should be the only thing we are talking about right now.

Of course thats all speculation but like many have said, I do not believe I can remember the Navy blowing a suspected drug boat out of the water like that. They usually board them for the big PR picture the next day like what just happened last week with that Coast Guard seizure of cocaine. Plus once you get the smugglers you can interrogate and infiltrate. FatFuck sent a bunch of MS-13 leaders back to Venezuela and to El Salvador. Something is fishy as fuck about this.

Extra people would slow the boat and limit the amount of drug cargo, and there's no way in hell a go fast boat NEEDS that many people aboard. Guaranteed they were paying passengers

What reliable intel would they be operating under?

By what right can we attack a ship outside of our territorial waters?

Krasnov is in his cryogenic chamber and Kegsbreath is….its late

I was a USCG contractor a decade+ ago and saw something similar. Look up DOD 3025.21 Defense Support of Law Enforcement, 2013 for the background.
Presidential legal findings (from Bush and Obama) have found it legal to put a USCG officer on a USN asset (usually a smaller vessel(s) like a destroyer). When the area of operations is reached, the Navy captain steps down and the Coastie assumes temporary command of the ship, while in communication with appropriate USCG Chain of Command.
During this period, any capability, weapon or personnel are under the control of the USCG and not USN. I expect what we read today was under similar circumstances and control, avoiding direct challenge to the Posse Comitatus act.

(PS: Don’t shoot the messenger I’m just providing a historical perspective)

Welcome to DU.

no legal dressing for this using the USCG as cover. I spent years wearing the Coast Guard uniform.

Trump wants to invade Venezuela, and he did what he always does, creates a reason to do it. All they did was blow up a fishing boat, then lie about it.

Even if it was a drug running boat, the reality is that it would represent .000000001% of the drugs being brought into the U.S...................

The massive amount of drugs being brought in are from China, as reported by the DEA, using existing U.S. Ports and shipping containers on the Western U.S. Ports, or into Mexico and brought north by the Mexican Cartels. And yet, Trump goes after a small boat supposedly coming up from south america with our military forces...........ludicrous. Why not use them screening all shipping containers coming into US ports from China and Mexico??????????????????????????????

Their logic is as Topsy-Turvy as that found in watching Alice In Wonderland on Acid...................

Venuzuella is being targeted for gaining control of the massive amount of oil they are bringing to market????????

The CG, DEA and sometimes the navy intercept boats all the time and sometimes they even shoot at them and sink them. So they did something that isn't that unusual but made it sound more violent by saying it was a kinetic strike, aren't all strikes kinetic? I mean I don't think we're using lasers yet to sink boats.

This wasn't simply an "intercept".

Outright murder

But Trump and Rubio and Hegseth just want to blow things up, apparently. Probably was just a fishing boat. If they had some kind of intelligence about this, did it come from Tulsi Gabbard?

This could also be a kind of open invitation to the Chinese and Russians to blow up "American-looking" boats in or near their waters.

act similar to a False Flag Operation to deflect attention from the Epstein story......................

disgusting

… is to carry as much of a load of drugs as possible, then why were there 11 people onboard?

besides the Dug lords are using rudimentary submarines with massive amounts of drugs on board, and manned with two or three people.....

He can attempt to distract all he wants with his little performances, but we have not forgotten about:

THE EPSTEIN FILES!!

not matter how illegal they are.