Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 05/Sep 08:08

Why Trump’s war on drugs will fail…again

THE EDITOR: If a US destroyer blows up a pirogue near Trinidad but drugs are still being smuggled into Miami, does it really make a sound? That’s the philosophical question we must all ask ourselves given the recent turn of events in the Caribbean Sea, where US President Donald Trump has sent a convoy of warships on a stated mission to combat narco-trafficking. This drug-busting apparatus includes the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (with 4,500 sailors and Marines), the Aegis destroyers USS Gravely and USS Jason Dunham, along with a cruiser and other assets. Onlookers have expressed more than mild scepticism, noting such an array of military hardware seems suspiciously less about apprehending drug cartels and more about exerting pressure on the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela. US officials have long linked Venezuela’s government to the trade in narcotics, even indicting Maduro on “narcoterrorism” charges in 2020 and placing an initial bounty of $15 million for his capture. In August of this year, that bounty was raised to $50 million in the hopes that those around the Venezuelan strongman might be tempted to become bounty hunters. On September 3, in typical reality-television flair, President Trump announced that a fast-moving pirogue supposedly containing narcotics was blown up along with 11 alleged traffickers off the coast of Venezuela. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, this vessel was either heading to Trinidad and Tobago or other islands. Evidently, finding that out beforehand was not a prerequisite before firing a missile at them. To complete the unfolding of the real-life Netflix drama, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in her trademark style of ignoring the language of diplomacy in favour of the language of the TikTok algorithm, boldly declared “kill them all violently” while offering prayers for the US troops. While regional analysts debate the pros and cons of Trump’s actions, or whether Maduro may eventually crack under pressure, there is one group of people who are surely unbothered by it all: drug cartels. The drama unfolding in the Caribbean may be new to many, but South American drug cartels have seen this movie before. And they know how it’s going to end: with them being more emboldened than ever. What Persad-Bissessar and others have failed to acknowledge is that Trump had already sent a large deployment of military assets into the Caribbean Sea during his first term in 2020 under the same banner of combating traffickers. That excursion lasted about eight months, with Maduro still in charge in Caracas and little disruption to the cartels. Furthermore, Trump is not even the first US president to use military force against the cartels. America’s "War on Drugs" officially began back in 1971 under President Nixon, who deemed narcotics a national security threat. The result was Operation Condor, which entailed US-backed Mexican troops targeting marijuana and opium fields in Sinaloa. Despite arresting traffickers and burning fields, smugglers quickly adapted, shifting their routes and violence to other parts of Mexico. Far from destroying the cartels, Operation Condor is widely credited with sowing the seeds of the present-day Sinaloa Cartel. Having learned no lessons, the US was back at it again in 1987 with Operation Snowcap. Devised by the DEA, it involved deploying agents and local militaries to Bolivia, Peru and Colombia to target cocaine labs. The Medellín and Cali cartels eventually fell, but the massive vacuum they left only served to empower Mexican cartels, which would go on to dominate the global trade. The 1990s saw the rise of aerial surveillance programs such as Operation Coronet Nighthawk and Operation Lowrider, which relied heavily on high-tech monitoring to spot drug flights and go-fast boats. Despite spending billions on sophisticated technology, traffickers adapted with semi-submersibles, fiberglass boats, and new routes, proving once again that the drug trade bends but never breaks, and that traffickers are often better innovators than governments. Then there was Operation Anvil in Honduras. This joint DEA-Honduran raid aimed to intercept a suspected cocaine flight near the town of Ahuas. Instead, it turned into tragedy. Forces opened fire on a riverboat, killing four civilians, including a child, and injuring others. US officials initially denied wrongdoing, but investigations exposed serious transparency and accountability failures. The massacre destroyed trust between locals and anti-drug forces and became an enduring symbol of how US militarisation in combating cartels turns communities into collateral damage. In 2008 came the Mérida Initiative. This $3 billion US aid package was intended to modernise Mexican security forces to fight the cartels. It delivered training, equipment and intelligence support. But the flow of money and arms had predictably dark consequences. Some US-trained units leaked into paramilitary death squads, and cartels actively recruited ex-special forces soldiers like Guatemala’s infamous Kaibiles to run torture operations. Instead of stabilising Mexico, the Mérida Initiative militarised the drug war even further, fueling record levels of homicides and human rights abuses. Supporters of the War on Drugs often point to Operation Just Cause in 1989, which saw the US invade Panama and remove Manuel Noriega, who was facilitating trafficking, from power. Though Panama has surely benefited from Noriega’s removal, the drug trade there never stopped. As Insight Crime journalist Mimi Yagoub puts it: “The US invasion of Panama was soon blamed for worsening drug trafficking and money laundering problems, with locals commenting: ‘They took Ali Baba and left us with the 40 thieves'.” In the 54 years since the US began targeting drug cartels with military force, the results have been depressingly consistent: increased violence, civilian deaths, political corruption, the rise of death squads, and the birth of more sophisticated, more diverse and more powerful cartels. Those cheering on this latest action by the US should consider this, footage of supposed drug boats being blown up in the Caribbean Sea may make for good political TV. But the mundane reality is that as long as demand for narcotics in the United States and elsewhere continues, so will the powerful incentive to supply it. DARRYN BOODAN Via e-mail The post Why Trump’s war on drugs will fail…again appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.