Military attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea might just be murder, or the start of a war

Some analysts have speculated that the military campaign is more about forcing a regime change in Venezuela and asserting U.S. influence over the world’s largest oil reserves than combating drugs.

Since September 2, the Trump Administration has conducted military strikes on 16 boats in the Caribbean Sea near Venezuela and the east Pacific Ocean near Columbia, killing at least 66 people that the Trump Administration claimed were smuggling drugs.

Little is known about the targets of these attacks, and public announcements by Venezuelans were addressed and deleted quickly by the Venezuelan government, cutting electricity to one town where sympathetic posts were circulating after the first strike. Interviews with Venezuelans in coastal villages have produced reports that some of the people killed were fishermen, laborers, and bus drivers in addition to low-level criminals and one local crime boss.Two people survived one of the attacks in the Pacific and were detained and deported back to their home countries, Ecuador and Columbia. Mexico is conducting a search and rescue operation for a third survivor in the Pacific.