I’m no expert on international politics or Venezuela – but I have been there once (Hugo Chavez was in charge then, and I was a college professor working with the departments of State and Defense – I was just as happy to be confined to the airplane as the Venezuelans were to order all people with US passports not to be allowed off the plane). At the same time, I had a student who was dual citizenship (Venezuelan father and mother re-married) whose father was trying to convince her that moving to Venezuela would be better than staying in the US. How things have changed since 2008.
My father was in Venezuela before the second World War – the US Navy had contracted with Standard Oil to provide survey work, and Dad was paid at ‘Venezuelan Exchange’. If I recall correctly, he was making $93 per month instead of the regular sailor’s pay of $21 per month. I guess I was raised knowing that there was a lot of money in Venezuelan oil, and the girl’s father confirmed it when we visited at her graduation.
As near as I can tell, we have 3 destroyers, a cruiser, and 3 amphibious assault ships cruising off Venezuela (Navy Times) and the other day they sunk an open boat – apparently loaded with drugs and 11 Tren de Aragua gang members. The deal is, the boat was in international water – so the legality of the strike may well be questionable. Ah, well, John Paul Jones was called a pirate when the Ranger raided Whitehaven.
Apparently, our President put a 50 million dollar bounty on Venezuela’s President Madero – while that’s twice what the bounty was on Osama bin Laden, the inflation calculator shows that it takes $1.83 today to buy what a single dollar bought in 2001. 82 percent inflation in those 24 years. Venezuela’s navy has 42 ships – and may not be particularly capable on blue water.
If we are getting close to qualifying as piracy it is probably a good idea to change from a department of defense to a department of war
Trego's Mountain Ear 