The Secretary of War of the United States, Pete Hegseth, announced this Thursday a military operation called “Southern Spear” that is related to Washington’s fight against drug trafficking originating in Latin America and that comes at a time marked by the growing pressure of the Donald Trump Government on Venezuela.
In a message on the social network
Although it is not specified, it is understood that the name “Lanza del Sur” could encompass the large military deployment that the United States has maintained in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela, since this summer.
The United States military deployment in the Caribbean
Hegseth’s announcement comes a few days after the arrival in the southern Caribbean of the United States’ largest and most sophisticated aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, and its attack group, which join the deployment of destroyers or amphibious landing ships that Washington has maintained in the area since mid-August.
This military deployment has been paired with threats to the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, whom the White House calls “illegitimate,” and with the summary destruction carried out by the Pentagon of twenty vessels in the waters of the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific (which has killed about 70 of their occupants), which Washington claims are boats transporting fentanyl to the United States.
“President Trump ordered action, and the War Department is complying,” Hegseth says in his message, in which he states that “this mission defends our homeland, expels narcoterrorists from our hemisphere, and protects our homeland from the drugs that are killing our people.”
“The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood, and we will protect it,” the message concludes.
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