03 World

Anything coming from Venezuela at this point should be treated with a grain of salt.

Venezuela’s military officials have reported that 40 people were killed after the U.S. conducted strikes on Venezuela.

President Trump, in his own press conference, revealed that no U.S. service members died during the military operation.

The New York Times reported more details on the Venezuela death toll:

At least 40 people were killed in the U.S. attack on Venezuela early Saturday, including military personnel and civilians, according to a senior Venezuelan official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe preliminary reports.

President Trump, speaking on Fox News on Saturday, said that no American troops had been killed. He suggested, however, that some service members had been injured. Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said later in the day at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago with Mr. Trump that U.S. helicopters moving to extract President Nicolás Maduro and his wife had come under fire. He said that one helicopter had been hit but “remained flyable,” and that all U.S. aircraft “came home.”

The brilliantly executed US operation to snatch Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro benefits American citizens in many different ways.

1. It took out the head of a major international organized crime cartel. The cartel, which the US has labeled the “Cartel de los Soles,” or Cartel of the Suns, is responsible for cocaine trafficking into the United States. Maduro had turned the upper levels of the Venezuelan government, military, and security services into a huge organized crime entity. The Department of Justice is prosecuting Maduro and others for running what a federal grand jury indictment calls “a corrupt and violent narco-terrorism conspiracy.” While no evidence indicates that Maduro’s cartel directly trafficked fentanyl into the U.S., the Treasury Department sanctioned the Cartel of the Suns last July for providing material support to the Sinaloa cartel of Mexico, which the DOJ described as “flooding the United States with fentanyl.”
2. It took out the leader who flooded the United States with hardened criminals, organized terrorist gangs like Tren de Aragua, and millions of refugees. Once a new leadership is established in Venezuela, the country can take back its criminals and terrorists, and its refugees can return home and rebuild.