Adam Watson (00:00)
Welcome back to “Simplifying the State,” the podcast where we break down politics so you don’t have to try to figure out why the president posted an AI video of himself wearing a crown and dumping raw sewage on protesters from a fighter jet. I’m just gonna let that sink in for a sec. All right, cool. As always, I’m Adam Watson.

Drew Garfinkel (00:20)
I’m Drew Garfinkel.

Adam Watson (00:22)
All right. Now, before we start, if you would be so kind as to rate us and follow the podcast wherever you are listening, as well as share it with anyone you think would enjoy it, such as friends, family, or a random person you see at the park. Okay, so today’s topic is basically going to be the escalation that we’ve been seeing in the Caribbean. And now it seems like… one incident in the Pacific in regards to the attacking of various drug boats. At least they’ve been called drug boats by the government. There’s no concrete evidence that the people on those boats have been smuggling drugs, but that’s what the government’s been…

Drew Garfinkel (01:04)
We’re talking about the Venezuelan drug boats coming into America, well, alleged drug boats, right?

Adam Watson (01:09)
Yeah, alleged drug boats coming in, which the Trump administration is mostly blaming on Venezuelan drug gangs and all that stuff. Okay, so Drew… huh? Yeah, the Venezuelan government as well. I think less maybe for the drug smuggling, but also maybe for the inaction to stop them. I think I saw that Trump was blaming Maduro specifically.

Drew Garfinkel (01:16)
Yeah, and the Venezuelan government. Yeah, yeah, Trump blamed the government.

Adam Watson (01:32)
What do you think about the government’s response so far in terms of what’s been going on?

Drew Garfinkel (01:39)
So I don’t want to say like they did good or they did bad because I don’t know if they were actual drug dealers, like we killed them before we could figure out. But from a logical standpoint, if I was in charge, I would arrest them and try to figure out, you know, what’s going on with this. Like if they’re actually from Venezuela, arrest them and have them… I guess it was like in international waters. So they aren’t due the rights given by America, but still, it’s like an ethical thing.

Adam Watson (02:16)
They also, I mean, they aren’t technically on American soil, so you’re right. The Constitution would not technically apply here. I know the Trump administration has also labeled these drug cartels as terrorist organizations. So they’re sort of using the leftover powers from the War on Terror, which give the executive branch and the military some sort of broad, but short in terms of time, authority…

Drew Garfinkel (02:48)
Like as a response to the drug dealers. Is that what you’re saying?

Adam Watson (02:52)
Yeah, basically. The Trump administration labeled these drug cartels as terrorist organizations. After 9/11, Congress gave the president pretty broad powers in terms of the military to use against these terrorist organizations. So that’s one reason that the president has probably labeled them terrorist organizations so that the government and the military have broader powers when it comes to dealing with them as opposed to if they were just regular criminals.

Drew Garfinkel (02:57)
Yeah, I saw that.

Adam Watson (03:19)
To deal with them rather than treat them as just regular criminals.

Drew Garfinkel (03:22)
Yeah, kind of a side tangent. Is that why there’s so much security and surveillance in America? I know a lot of it was post 9/11 as a result of counterterrorism.

Adam Watson (03:36)
I mean, yeah. After 9/11, a big part of it is a lot of what people hear about is the NSA, National Security Agency, tapping phones and checking browser history and all that stuff. But yeah, there’s been a big uptick in surveillance. I would attribute this both in part to 9/11, but also just because we’re living in an information age, and what people are doing is information, and the government wants that—whether that’s the Chinese government or the American government, they want to know often what their citizens are doing. But yeah, 9/11 is a big reason behind that.

So there have been a lot of recent developments in terms of the military when it comes to this. Recently, the defense secretary announced that the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which was previously docked in Croatia…

Drew Garfinkel (04:12)
Yeah.

Adam Watson (04:27)
…was headed to the Caribbean and would be placed under the control of Southcom. Basically, Southcom is Southern Command. The entire world is split up into different commands when it comes to the military. There’s Central Command for the Middle East, South Command for the Caribbean and South America, etc. The whole world is divided into these different command groups.

The USS Gerald R. Ford will join three destroyers, a guided-missile cruiser, a nuclear attack submarine, three amphibious ships, 4,500 Marines and sailors, and a bunch of other military equipment, which is being sent or was stationed in the Caribbean. The military also reactivated an air base in Puerto Rico, which had been sort of inactive since the early 2000s.

Drew Garfinkel (05:18)
So what you’re saying is we’re kind of showing off our power.

Adam Watson (05:22)
Yeah, basically—a big increase in military power in the Caribbean, which, paired with the fact that Trump suggested we might get involved in terms of ground attacks in Venezuela, could signal that maybe the U.S. is preparing to either launch coordinated specific strikes on Venezuela or, you know, something like that, just the sheer amount of military power that’s being deployed there.

Drew Garfinkel (05:54)
And this is all in the name of the War on Drugs, right?

Adam Watson (05:59)
I mean, yeah, that’s basically what’s going on here. But first, I want to ask: what do you think of the whole military buildup in the Caribbean?

Drew Garfinkel (06:10)
What do I think about it? I think nothing good can come from this. Everything’s kind of unstable as it is, and invading Venezuela or making a move for it could be potentially disadvantageous for us right now. And what do you think?

Adam Watson (06:27)
Right, yeah. I mean, we’re in the midst of a government shutdown, and we’re making some big military overtures toward Venezuela. Also, if we did invade—which I don’t think, at least right now, with the troops they have in the Caribbean—they’re probably not going to invade. But even if they did… Venezuela has some pretty dense jungle; it would sort of be like a South American Vietnam.

But if you, what do you think he could be playing at? Do you think this could be a show of strength? Do you think this could be a prelude to ground attacks on Venezuela? Do you think this could be a prelude to an overthrow of the Venezuelan government? What do you think?

Drew Garfinkel (07:17)
So, I will be honest: most of the time, I don’t know what Trump is playing at. I’m not gonna pretend I’m a politician or know anything about what he’s planning or if he has a plan at all. This seems kind of irrational to me, though. Why put us in another war when he campaigned on taking us out of wars, you know?

Adam Watson (07:40)
Yeah, I mean, he campaigned as a peace candidate, and so far, he has attacked Iran. He’s possibly planning an attack on Venezuela. There, he’s been conducting extrajudicial attacks and killings of people who he claims are drug smugglers, which, even if they were on U.S. territory, that’s not even a crime punishable by death in the United States. So even if they were drug smugglers, that’s not a crime that carries the death penalty.

Drew Garfinkel (08:15)
Do you think it’s ethical—like morally correct? Do you think it’s ethical to have these people killed if them taking—pretty sure it’s mostly cocaine, Venezuela’s known for it—into the U.S. could cause a lot of potential deaths of American citizens?

Adam Watson (08:33)
Right, I definitely think if they are drug boats, they should be intercepted. But again, I don’t think we should be just going around acting as judge, jury, and executioner, blowing up these drug boats.

It’s hard… obviously, we shouldn’t be letting drugs come into the U.S., obviously. But I think there are other ways to do that than blowing up these boats without any kind of trial for the people on the boats, without any hard evidence that they are, in fact, drug smugglers, you know, without anything like that.

Drew Garfinkel (08:48)
There’s nuance. Yeah.

Adam Watson (09:11)
And I mean, to see a country like the U.S. doing that is unfortunate. We’re supposed to have the moral high ground, but we’re just blowing people up without a trial.

Drew Garfinkel (09:12)
Yes, it’s definitely unfortunate. The good guys, you know?

And I was getting at this before, at the beginning, but why wouldn’t you intercept them, interrogate them, and maybe find out if Venezuela’s responsible at all, see what they know, instead of just killing them straight up? There have been, I want to say, like three Venezuelan incidents recently, and there have been 10 in the past couple of years.

Adam Watson (09:51)
Right, yeah.

Drew Garfinkel (09:53)
I have to fact-check myself on that. But it’s like this isn’t the first time this happened. I remember this happening a month or two ago, like this exact same thing, except without all the military mobilization.

Adam Watson (09:56)
Yeah, so… yeah. There have been a couple of incidents. To my knowledge, at least from the ones I’ve seen, I’ve seen at least four in the Caribbean, and then I saw one in the Pacific. I think close to 50 people have been killed so far. I know that there were two survivors from one of the boats, who were picked out of the water and then sent back to their respective countries.

But again, I agree with you. Just in terms of strategy, it would make more sense to capture them and interrogate them. I’m not sure these are, in fact, drug smugglers. There’s no hard evidence of that. If they are drug smugglers, there might be people higher up the chain. I’d assume they’re using foot soldiers. But it seems like it would at least be possibly useful to capture them and interrogate them rather than just blowing them up.

Drew Garfinkel (11:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree with that. So I fact-checked myself. It was ten total in the past couple of years, not from Venezuela, just in the Caribbean.

Adam Watson (11:03)
Just doesn’t make sense in general. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, in turn, there’s also another thing that’s interesting: the Senate. A couple of Republicans have said, in light of what Trump has said about possibly getting involved on the ground in Venezuela, also that the CIA was given permission to conduct covert ops in Venezuela, which I’m not sure why you’re announcing if you want it to be covert.

Anyway, a couple of Republicans have seemed poised to claw back some presidential power when it comes to declaring war without them. Obviously, the president cannot declare war without Congress. That’s in the Constitution. But they’re basically looking for a way to…

Drew Garfinkel (11:49)
Yeah.

Adam Watson (12:14)
…put more checks on the president’s ability to conduct military operations regarding Venezuela without congressional approval.

Drew Garfinkel (12:23)
We’ve covered the international perspective on this. What would you say the at-home view is? Like, sitting in my house right now, how does this affect me, or kids our age, high schoolers, because I don’t know many people who are doing cocaine at our age.

Adam Watson (12:43)
Right, I mean, yeah. In terms of how the drug cartel aspect of these factors in, they were also transporting heroin, fentanyl and stuff like that. I don’t think it’s exclusively cocaine. There is a heroin and fentanyl crisis in this country.

Drew Garfinkel (13:01)
Wait, I gotta interrupt you. Have you heard of… I forgot the name, but it’s like a thousand times more potent than fentanyl. It’s like super fentanyl. Have you heard of that?

Adam Watson (13:14)
I have not heard of super fentanyl. I’m not very tapped into the drug community.

Drew Garfinkel (13:21)
Yeah, it’s crazy. Like… it’s like 0.2 milligrams kills you or something.

Adam Watson (13:31)
Yeah, I have not heard of super fentanyl. I’ve heard of something like it. Not sure if it’s the same, but yeah, something much more powerful than regular fentanyl. But I think the thing that impacts us the most as high schoolers is the image and perception of the U.S. conducting extrajudicial killings in international waters without due process, trial, or anything for a crime that isn’t even punishable by death in the U.S. I think it hurts our standing abroad and also among our citizens because we’re supposed to be the shining example that every country should aspire to be, yet we’re doing things like this.

We’ve been doing similar things since the beginning of the War on Terror, and this connects to the War on Drugs. We’ve done things that are often reprehensible. The ends may not be reprehensible, but the means to get to those ends often are. It hurts our moral standing. We’re doing things we’d likely criticize another country for.

Drew Garfinkel (14:55)
So you said, and this is my opinion too, that the ends don’t always justify the means, right?

Drew Garfinkel (15:03)
And it’s a viewpoint I hold that the ends don’t always justify the means. How you do something also matters, not just the end result. So even if we complete our goal of getting rid of drugs in the U.S.—which won’t happen—a couple of drug boats won’t do anything. But even if we could, killing these people is objectively bad. Even though they’re drug dealers, we should interrogate them. Just because they’re bad people doesn’t mean we should be the bad guy. Do you agree?

Adam Watson (15:57)
Yeah, completely. I think when you do things you’d criticize other countries for, it severely hampers your moral standing. Even if the ends are good, the means still matter.

Drew Garfinkel (16:26)
You’re saying we’re being a bit hypocritical, right? Yeah, I agree. So, from what we’re thinking, although in our life this event won’t affect us, it affects how the U.S. is seen internationally because of these events.

Adam Watson (16:29)
Yeah, basically. We’re being hypocritical when it comes to this stuff.

Drew Garfinkel (16:51)
So like, although my life won’t be any different, I’m not gonna lose any sleep over this, it still affects us somehow.

Adam Watson (17:00)
Yeah, it affects our moral character. That’s basically what I’m trying to say.

Drew Garfinkel (17:05)
Yeah, that’s an interesting perspective—looking at it through our moral superiority. I’m glad we got into that.

Adam Watson (17:12)
Yeah. Sort of going back to one of your questions, how do you think this could affect high schoolers? I talked about how it could affect our moral standing, but what do you think?

Drew Garfinkel (17:27)
I think it won’t, if I’m being honest. There are so many drugs in the U.S., it’s hard to wrap your head around. Some are legal, like cigarettes and alcohol. This won’t, frankly, in my opinion—I’m not a professional—change anything.

Adam Watson (17:46)
Yeah. All right. Thanks for listening to “Simplifying the State.” We’ll be back next week with our next topic. Make sure to rate and follow the podcast. Follow us over on “Simplifying the State.” We’ll be posting stuff over there. Talk to you guys next time.

Drew Garfinkel (18:03)
See ya.