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The Trump administrationâs new National Security Strategy (NSS) not only spends significantly more space discussing and developing an approach to the Western Hemisphere than any recent administration, but it also elevates the Americas as the primary focus for the administration â a view U.S. Secretary of State and national security adviser Marco Rubio iterated shortly prior to his first international trip to Central America.
The NSS lays out a specific vision of how to approach the Americas described as âEnlist and Expandâ â by âenlisting regional champions that can help create tolerable stability ⦠(and) expand our network in the region⦠(while) (through various means) discourag(ing) their collaboration with others.âWhile finding reliable partners is crucial to promoting U.S. regional interests, the Trump administrationâs approach is short-sighted and runs the risk of creating long-term backlash that could undermine U.S. interests and cooperation across the Americas. (...)
âKill everybodyâ was what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly instructed the Special Operations commander as alleged drug smugglers were being tracked off the Trinidad coast.
A missile strike set their boat ablaze. Two survivors were seen clinging to what was left of their vessel. A second U.S. strike finished them off. These extra-judicial killings on Sept. 2 were the first in the Trump administrationâs campaign to incinerate ânarco-terrorists.â Over the past two months, at least 80 people have been killed in more than 20 attacks on the demonstrably false grounds that the Venezuelan government is a major source of drugs flowing into the United States.
Because the supposed drug runners are participating in an âarmed conflictâ against the U.S., they are not entitled to due process or other protections â such as those afforded to shipwrecked individuals â under the laws of war, the administration contends. âEvery trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,â Hegseth charged on X.
Language serves more than a strictly legal justification. The term ânarco-terroristâ is meant to dehumanize and desensitize. Their conduct â murder, terrorism, and poisoning Americansâ bodies â morally disqualifies them and, therefore, justifies extraordinary punishment. The possibility that harmless fishermen are blown to pieces must not weaken our leadersâ resolve to defend the nation.
The boat strikes may be illegal and appalling, but the Trump administrationâs conduct follows a long historical pattern, where Americaâs enemies operate outside the acceptable boundaries of civilization, and Washington's heavy-handed response can be justified by notions of national security, economic interests, racial superiority, or basic human decency â or all four simultaneously.
In his stimulating book, âChasing Bandits: Americaâs Long War on Terror,â Nichols College historian Michael E. Neagle reveals the constancy of terms âconnoting criminality, incivility, and illegitimacy of both causes and means,â such as bandits, savages, guerrillas, and terrorists. âI maintain that these pejorative descriptions have had two distinct utilities: one, to rally popular and political support in the United States by intimating cultural distinctions that suggested or reinforced a sense of American superiority, and two, to justify incursions abroad that provided the United States with more influence in places of strategic interest,â Neagle says. (...)
Really! We gave them riches for being cut-throats & head-choppers and some of them still think it's the task.
Now we still need to babyfeed them.
We've always created BAD in the world.
