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Retired US Army colonel has some questions about Venezuela strikes · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The US military continues to target suspected drug.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Smuggling vessels near Venezuela.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: President Trump just released brand new video of thursday strike
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: on that alleged narcotic smuggling submersible. It marked the sixth
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: known attack on cartels by the Trump administration. It also
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: was the first time that US forces captured to survivors
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of a strike. They will now be sent to their
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: home countries, Ecuador and Colombia. Let's bring in retired US
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  Speaker 1: Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis. Colonel Davis, do you do
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: you quibble with the President's notion that this was likely
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  Speaker 1: a drug smuggling submarine.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: No, I don't quibble with that at all. If that's
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  Speaker 3: what the President said, I can't imagine any other submarine
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  Speaker 3: rolling around in the Caribbean Sea on a pleasure crew.
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  Speaker 3: So I feel pretty confident it was. And as a
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  Speaker 3: matter of fact, there's some video out there that you
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: can find if you want to Google that. We've actually
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: captured some of these in the past, the US Drug
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  Speaker 3: Enforce and agency personnel, so this is hardly unusual. That's
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: not the problem, and it's not even a quibbal per se.
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  Speaker 3: The real question that I think we need to ask
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  Speaker 3: with all of these is primarily, what is the attainable
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  Speaker 3: military objective this is supposed to accomplish, And what is
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: the political objective that you want these military actions to
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  Speaker 3: prevent or produce for the United States? And in that
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  Speaker 3: what's being said is will of course to reduce fentanyl
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  Speaker 3: and reduce drugs come into the United States. And that
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  Speaker 3: is a great goal, one which I'm highly supportive of.
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  Speaker 3: But the question is is this going to actually impact
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  Speaker 3: that operation there? And I think that the evidence when
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: you look at it is it will have almost no impact.
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  Speaker 3: We don't even know if any of those boats were
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  Speaker 3: actually coming to the United States at all. The boats
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: themselves didn't have the capacity to reach the US, and
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: we're told, well, it will be onward movement elsewhere that
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: may have come in. But when you look at the
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  Speaker 3: landscape here, John, this is important. I mean, you've got China, India, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia,
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  Speaker 3: way way way more or it is a magnitude more
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  Speaker 3: drugs coming from those places, and you'd got to wonder
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  Speaker 3: why would we be centering on Venezuela or in the
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: waters off of Venezuela. I don't think this is going
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  Speaker 3: to help the objective.
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  Speaker 1: Well, doesn't this strike though on any nations? I mean
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  Speaker 1: not that these are you know, national smuggling operations, but.
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  Speaker 2: Any nation's boat.
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  Speaker 1: Doesn't that make drug smugglers in other countries think twice
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  Speaker 1: about loading up with fentanyl and sending the submersible out.
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  Speaker 3: You know, when you're talking about the billions and billions
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  Speaker 3: of dollars that are in this illicit activity, they will
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  Speaker 3: find a way around it. I mean, look that these
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  Speaker 3: governments have been going after these anti drug situations four
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: years and so that's like built into their models. So no,
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  Speaker 3: I don't think that this will have any deterrent effect
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  Speaker 3: because they already expected. And then, as we always see
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: in any of these whether you're talking about the situations
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  Speaker 3: like when we were fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan or
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  Speaker 3: any of these other war on drugs in the past,
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  Speaker 3: as soon as you start hitting them in one place,
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  Speaker 3: they'll find in a way to go through. As long
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  Speaker 3: as there's a demand in the US, you're going to
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  Speaker 3: have people that are going to be willing to take
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  Speaker 3: the risk of life and limb to get it there.
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  Speaker 3: And these are such small, pin prick attacks they're not
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  Speaker 3: going to have any impact. I mean, that's just the
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  Speaker 3: truth of it, all right.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I want to let President Trump defend himself against
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  Speaker 1: some of what you had to say there. In a
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  Speaker 1: truth social post that he just put out not too
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  Speaker 1: long ago, he writes, it was my great honor to
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  Speaker 1: destroy a very large drug carrying submarine that was navigating
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  Speaker 1: toward the United States on a well known narco trafficking
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  Speaker 1: transit route. US intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: with mostly fentanyl and other illegal narcotics. So he goes
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  Speaker 1: on to say there were four known narco terrorists on
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  Speaker 1: board the vessel.
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  Speaker 2: Two of the terrorists were killed.
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  Speaker 1: At least twenty five thousand Americans would die if I
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: allowed this submarine to come ashore. So well, and then
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  Speaker 1: he says the two surviving terrorists are being returned to
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  Speaker 1: their countries of origin, Ecuador and Columbia for detention and prosecution.
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  Speaker 1: No US forces were harmed in this strike. If he's
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: right about that, If twenty five thousand Americans could have
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  Speaker 1: died from the fentanyl on board this.
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  Speaker 2: Boat, isn't it worth it to take it out? Well?
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  Speaker 3: Number one, that's if there's anything I would challenge it's
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  Speaker 3: the claim that twenty five thousand people would die because
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  Speaker 3: of that one boat. I'm not sure that there's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of justification or substantiation of that, but the boat
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  Speaker 3: itself by all means, if that was coming to the US,
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  Speaker 3: it's a legitimate target. But it matters how you do it.
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  Speaker 3: And like I said, there's times and there's video out
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  Speaker 3: there where we take these boats and listen, even these
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  Speaker 3: ones that we're hitting with missiles, there's no known justification,
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  Speaker 3: there's no authorization from military force. You can't just go
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  Speaker 3: and kill people even if you don't lack what they're doing.
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  Speaker 3: There are rules that allow you to seize these people,
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  Speaker 3: and that's even better because then that gives you the
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  Speaker 3: chance to have intelligence where you find out who they are,
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  Speaker 3: where they came from. You can interrogate them to find
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  Speaker 3: out where the situations are, so you can go back
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  Speaker 3: and actually stop the source of it, not just these
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  Speaker 3: pinprick one off here. So even in that, this is
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: not the most effective way to actually keep our country safe.
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  Speaker 3: And again I am all for keeping our country safe
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  Speaker 3: from all these illegal drugs. I think it's terrible.
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  Speaker 2: That's why you put on the uniform. We know We
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  Speaker 2: appreciate it.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis.
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  Speaker 3: Always my pleasure.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you soon.
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