By Randy Alonso Falcón on November 11, 2025
B-52 bombers off of the coast of Venezuela
While B-52 Stratoforte bombers fly provocatively back and forth off the coast of Venezuela, thousands of commercial flights cannot take off from hundreds of US airports because there is no money to pay air traffic controllers.
It is the ignominious contrast of an imperial government that cares least about its citizens.
Last Friday, the United States shamelessly bombed another ship in the Pacific, killing three people, and another six were killed over the weekend in attacks on two other ships. There have now been 19 attacks since the start of the large-scale and exceptional military deployment in the Caribbean Sea in recent decades. There is talk of 76 people being killed illegally and extrajudicially in these operations.
The Trump administration has yet to present any concrete evidence linking its destroyed targets to drug trafficking or threats to the United States.
Although the Pentagon report speaks of an inglorious attack to kill three alleged drug traffickers, the reality was laid bare by Colombian President Gustavo Petro at the People’s Summit in Santa Marta: “A poor fisherman came from here. His name was Alejandro Carranza. He was the father of a girl and a boy, and yet a missile fell on him and killed him and his companions.”
US strikes off the coast of Venezuela has threatened and disrupted the lives in impoverished fishing communities.
“Liar Trump and his friends, liar Mr. Rubio. What you are killing are not drug traffickers (…) The real drug traffickers have gone through their politicians to the offices in Miami to talk to Mr. Rubio’s senators,” said the Colombian head of state.
The ostentatious imperial deployment in the Caribbean costs US taxpayers $18 million a day, enough to pay the salaries of the air traffic controllers who are currently at home.
Since its initial deployment in late August, this naval force has already cost US taxpayers more than $600 million, and that figure will continue to rise.
Meanwhile, the US government shutdown in 2025, which has now lasted more than 40 days, is having serious and widespread consequences, affecting both the economy and millions of citizens.
For those millions, the only solution is for Congress to finally agree on the budget amount, blocked by the Democratic demand against major social cuts. The Senate has just done so.
To Trump’s clique, that has mattered little. They have not lifted a finger in the negotiations, as far as we know. Trump, Rubio, and the Pentagon are too busy with their war games in the Caribbean and their direct threats against Venezuela and Colombia.
Randy Alonso Falcón is a Cuban journalist and director of the Cubadebate website and the nightly news program, Mesa Redonda
Source: Cubadebate, translation by Resumen Latinoamericano – English