IF PRESIDENT Donald Trump drags the United States into yet another foreign war — this time against Venezuela as looks increasingly likely — it will be due to the incompetence of those directing his foreign policy, alleges a US veteran of four foreign wars.

Anthony Aguilar, a retired green beret, warned last week of incompetence inside the White House and that “our challenge as a nation is that we take action soon enough before they drag us into a world war.” Aguilar’s remarks came at a November 11 event to mark Veterans Day in the US.

Aguilar was responding to the present US military build-up in Caribbean waters near Venezuela where the Trump administration has been ordering lethal attacks on small marine craft it claims are smuggling drugs to the US.

So far at least 83 people have been killed. The US government admits it cannot identify the individuals on the boats it has blown up. Trump blames Venezuela’s left-wing President Nicolas Maduro for the drug-trafficking, someone he has long sought to depose.

Aguilar first gained notoriety this summer after working for a US contractor hired to do security at the US-run, Israeli-directed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. While distributing only meagre amounts of aid, Aguilar discovered that the GHF was also a brutal shooting gallery for Israeli soldiers who callously picked off starving Palestinians as if it was a game.

Since returning, Aguilar has become an outspoken whistleblower against the atrocities committed by the Israeli forces in Gaza and blames the US for its complicity in enabling the war crimes.

Speaking with a group of other veterans opposed to US involvement in the Gaza genocide, Aguilar called those in the White House making decisions on foreign policy “CliffsNotes fascists. They do all the cool things fascists do but don’t actually study.”

CliffsNotes are a series of study guides that provide summaries to students to help them through exams on subjects such as literature, maths and science. “We’ve got leaders that don’t understand national security,” Aguilar said.

The US has now moved the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, capable of carrying 90 planes, into Caribbean waters. It is joining at least 12 warships, placing close to 15,000 US troops in the region.

“This is a dangerous time and [with] the people at the helm, this is not a JFK moment,” Aguilar said, referring to former US president John F Kennedy and his handling of the Cuban missile crisis.

“This is like we gave our keys to a drunk driver who doesn’t have a driver’s licence.”

The attacks on small boats may also have prompted Britain to withhold some intelligence sharing from the US, according to a CNN story that first broke on November 11 but has since been picked up by numerous media outlets.

“The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal,” CNN reported.

The British government has refused to confirm or deny the story. “It is our longstanding policy to not comment on intelligence matters,” the Starmer government said in an official statement.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio repudiated the CNN report altogether, calling it, “a false story, it’s a fake story and what’s happening now is that people who have a business card with a government email on it, they become sources, but they’re not even in the know, so it’s because they have an agenda or they want to make themselves important.”

Colombia has also stopped sharing intelligence with the US, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has expressed her country’s opposition to the bombing of civilian boats. Mexico argues that the boats can just as easily be intercepted and boarded and the perpetrators identified and apprehended without causing loss of life.  

The US has moved to qualify its attacks as legally justifiable by reclassifying its actions as part of an “armed conflict.” International legal scholars instead argue that the boats are engaged in a purely commercial endeavour and their activities, while illegal, do not constitute a threat to US national security.

“These groups are businesses,” Adam Isacson with the Washington Office on Latin America told the Washington Post, referring to the drug-traffickers. “If they are carrying out violence in the United States, they are doing it for profit, not for the purpose of sowing terror.”

Nevertheless, the US Justice Department has moved to indemnify US troops by declaring in a memo that any taking part in attacks on drug-trafficking boats would not later be prosecuted for criminal offences.

The attacks on the boats are widely believed to be a precursor to air strikes or even a ground war in Venezuela to effect a regime change. A White House spokesperson told the Washington Post that “we view this regime as illegitimate, and it’s not serving the western hemisphere well.”

But Venezuela is scarcely seen as a geopolitical threat in the region and isn’t even a major player in the illegal drugs trade. The US government’s own data show that, in the case of cocaine entering the US for example, less than 10 per cent of it comes via Venezuela, with the bulk of it entering the country from Mexico.

In early November, a war powers resolution introduced by Virginia Democrat Tim Kaine, that sought to prohibit the use of US military force in or against Venezuela unless authorised by Congress, narrowly failed to pass the US Senate.

Venezuela has appealed to Russia, with which it has a strategic partnership, for military support, prompting more fears of a wider war. But while Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last Friday that Moscow will “respond appropriately to the requests” from Venezuela, she also urged against escalation from either side.

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland.