(Adnkronos) – Donald Trump’s plan for regime change in Venezuela “risks degenerating into a strategic, political, and legal quagmire.” This is how CNN summarizes the situation in which the American president last night convened his national security team in the Oval Office “to define the next steps in the showdown that seems to be slipping out of his control, both in the impoverished oil-rich Latin American nation and in Washington.”
“We do not want a peace of slaves, nor do we want the peace of colonies,” thundered Nicolas Maduro yesterday from Caracas, even before the White House meeting. He convened a Trump-style rally of his supporters to completely silence rumors of his flight from the country. According to American media reports, Trump had given an ultimatum to the strongman of Caracas, ordering him to leave the country immediately in exchange for safe passage and exile.
An offer that Maduro seems to have rejected, despite the imposing US military deployment off the Venezuelan coast and Trump’s new threats, who declared the country’s airspace closed. But the front that is currently most concerning the White House is actually the internal one, with growing controversy and requests for clarification from Congress regarding the order Pete Hegseth allegedly gave, as revealed in recent days, to strike a second time a boat of alleged drug traffickers already hit, to kill the only two survivors out of a crew of 13.
The first clarification came yesterday from spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who admitted that the Pentagon chief authorized Admiral Frank Bradley, the commander of operations in the Caribbean, to conduct the September 2 raids, adding that Bradley “acted within his authority and the law, ordering an action to ensure the destruction of the boat.”
A phrasing that appeared to members of Congress and Pentagon officials as a way for the Trump administration to shift responsibility for the second raid onto the admiral, which according to legal experts and members of Congress, who are initiating bipartisan inquiries, could be a war crime, given that the targets were in distress, perhaps wounded.
“This is absurd to protect Pete,” military sources tell the Washington Post, emphasizing how Leavitt’s statement “leaves open to interpretation” who is actually responsible for the second deadly raid. “They are dumping everything on us military personnel,” another military official states, while other sources heard by the Post reveal that some of Hegseth’s highest civilian advisors are very concerned about the matter and are considering leaving the administration.”
Hegseth, for his part, posted a message last night defending Admiral Bradley and “the combat decisions he made on September 2 and all others.” These words further infuriated the military, increasing suspicion that the Pentagon chief is trying to shield himself from investigations and legal appeals, shifting all responsibility onto the commander of US Special Operations, a position he reached after a long career in the Navy SEALs, with whom he was among the first military personnel to be deployed to Afghanistan after 9/11.”
