Free Republic

21st Century SocialismThe attempt to destroy democracy in Latin America.  The Obama administration started out on the wrong foot in world affairs. It used techniques better suited for domestic political campaigns — popularity contests — in its foreign policy. In our own hemisphere, the result was confusion for our allies and our enemies alike. The overriding objective of U.S. policy — in Latin America and elsewhere — should be to advance U.S. national interests, not to curry favor with foreign leaders. If we can be liked while advancing our interests, so much the better. But when we try to befriend...

Venezuela on Friday accused the United States of waging an “undeclared war” in the Caribbean and called for a UN investigation of American strikes that killed over a dozen alleged drug traffickers on boats in recent weeks. Washington has deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 fighters sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug operation. “It is an undeclared war, and you can already see how people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, have been executed in the Caribbean Sea. Executed without the right to a defence,” Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez...

The Royal Navy has intercepted its first-ever “narco sub” – filled with £160m ($208M) worth of cocaine. HMS Trent seized the vessel in the Caribbean Sea. In eight drugs busts in seven months, the Portsmouth-based patrol ship has stopped nearly £750m ($979M) of narcotics reaching the streets of the UK in eight months. Trent’s latest operation, alongside the US Coast Guard and a US Maritime Patrol Aircraft, was the first “narco-sub” the Royal Navy has ever intercepted. The ship’s boarding team – comprising US Coast Guard personnel, Royal Marines from 47 Commando and specialist sailors – clambered aboard the semi-submersed...

Just reported

month into a maiden voyage that has seen a trio of drug-smuggling attempts thwarted, the commander aboard the Navy’s first littoral combat ship today described the vessel’s performance to date as “exceptional.” Now floating off the coast of Colombia, the USS Freedom received high marks from Navy Cmdr. Randy Gardner, who delivered an assessment to reporters today from aboard the ship via telephone. “The performance of the ship so far has been exceptional,” he said of the Freedom, which set sail Feb. 16 from Mayport, Fla. “We are learning a lot about what Freedom can do well.” Freedom and its...

The Navy’s first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS 1) has been quick out of the slips to score some major public relations points by seizing a few tons of cocaine on its first operational deployment in the Caribbean. The new fast, maneuverable LCS will excel at such peacetime operations, often called “Phase O,” writes the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment’s Martin Murphy, in a new white paper (.pdf). Murphy has done some impressive work on the policy challenges of piracy and insurgents operating in littoral waters. In this paper, he turns his analytical focus towards one of the Navy’s highest...