Trump’s Targeting of Venezuela Is Necessary to Protect Americans: Naval Officer

President Trump announcing the airspace around Venezuela should be considered closed. Joining us to discuss is Jonathan Hulahan. He's a commander in the US Navy's Judge Advocate General's Cors Reserves. He's a veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan combat theaters and a designated expert in international national security and operational law. So Jonathan, always great to have you join us. Um I just have to ask you this. Does the United States have the legal authority to declare another sovereign nation's airspace closed? >> Well, I think it's uh first of all uh any anything I say on the program doesn't reflect the DoD or uh it's in my personal capacity. So, based on my previous experience, but yeah, to declare that airspace closed, it's really more of a deconliction matter. And there's increased operations obviously in the airspace. there may be more intelligence gathering activities, more military planes. So, it's really a deconlicting of the airspace. So, it it's normal whenever uh countries are deconlicting airspace for increased operations. >> And you know, Jonathan, um FBI director Cash Patel also talked about this this topic. I actually have a clip from an interview that we did, our sister media did, the Epoch Times. Uh can you take a look at this? the drug trafficking organizations say down in Mexico and Colombia and Venezuela and elsewhere are dealing the guys that are making the fentinel. We know where they are. We know who they are. We know how they do it. >> So it seems like the US knows a lot about the drug operations in Venezuela. Um can you just talk about in your perspective how do you see potential strikes playing out? >> Well, I think they've laid the road map publicly, right? You have the FTO designation, foreign terrorist organization designation through the state department. So that allows you to not only sanction and for financial issues and sanction individuals but also to conduct military strikes on those uh designated narot terrorists. So for that specific designation it's going to be more based on status based on those individuals based on the intelligence they have that link those individuals uh to that FTO designation and the naroterrorism activities. And of course, Trump said there could be land action in Venezuela, right? What is the legal criteria for conducting military operations inside another sovereign country? >> Well, certainly uh there's going to be that would be more in the classified space. You're going to have the president dealing um with probably would be other agencies that would would deal with that. There would be a presidential finding, whatnot. Um, and that would be very operations that wouldn't be so public. So, in that context, if there were ground operations, it'd be very surgical. It would be very succinct. Uh, but I would I would assume a lot of it would be um, you know, targets with air strikes uh, with maybe a very small contingent force. Again, I don't know if that's actually going to occur, if that would occur. I don't have any intelligence to suggest that. It could be just posturing as well to let them know, the Venezuelans know, hey, we're serious about this cartel threat, this FTO threat, the narot terrorists that are that reside in your country that are conducting operations that are affecting the American public. Uh, and it's coming across our border. Fentanyl, as you said, I mean, it's killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. It's a very deadly uh synthetic opioid that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in an open border. So, they've closed the border. Now, there's the maritime threat. They're addressing that maritime threat. And if if if they're not able to address the maritime threat, they're going to seek to strike targets their infrastructure, their command and control nodes within Venezuela. >> I mean, Jonathan, are we in un uncharted territory here? Has there been a president for US actions such as this? whether we're talking about, you know, drug boat strikes, uh, military buildup, or potential land action. Well, I mean, if you look at the Obama years, uh, you had strikes all all over, you know, you you had them all over the Middle East, drone strikes that were, uh, in sovereign nations based on statusbased targets, whether the al-Qaeda or other ISIS affiliated terrorist organizations. Yeah, there's certainly precedent for this. You know, they called them the drone wars back in the day. It was when the strikes started getting approved in third countries. It was outside of the traditional battle space. And look, let's look at this realistically. This is not traditional warfare. This is not um armed conflict with uniform nations. This is non- international armed conflict uh with belligerents that have taken up arms or otherwise conducted military activity, naroterrorist activity against the United States. So there is a precedent for this. It's just uh not what people need your listeners need to understand is that the the same lines of effort that go with the terrorist activities are also with the drug trade, the naroterrorist activities, human smuggling, human trafficking, all of these lines of effort are similar. So just because it's not an al-Qaeda affiliated group taking up arms against the United States doesn't mean it's not a a clear and present danger or threat to the United States, our our population, our citizens or our property. So President Trump has a duty and responsibility as commander-in-chief under article 2 to conduct military operations to protect the American people. Now I understand Congress has a role that can congress is going to do what Congress does. they're going to provide oversight, but at the end of the day, uh, you know, the president has to strike when American lives are at risk. So, so it's it's it's the burden of command, the burden of being the president, the burden of being commander-in-chief is to to take these things serious and and strike and make sure American lives are protected. So, yes, it there's precedent in the Middle East and now there's precedent uh in the Caribbean. And if they take that step further and strike within designated FTO targets within Venezuela, I'm sure there's going to be demarsh actions. There's going to be all sorts of diplomatic uh issues that go up to the UN. But at the end of the day, the United States has inherent right right of self-defense and that includes uh persons property and our citizens. >> Okay, Jonathan. Um, I just have one more thing I'm wondering here. And you brought up al Qaeda, which is a terrorist organization, and the Trump administration last week formally designated Maduro and his allies of his government as members of a foreign terrorist organization. So, I I'm I'm wondering what tools does this open up? Uh, could this move give the US expanded military options for striking inside Venezuela, for example? >> Well, it opens up several tools. Uh like I said, a lot of the tools are designed for sanctions uh to sanction that activity. We've done that in Russia. We've done it across the Middle East. We've done it in Iran. We've sanctioned banks. Uh we've sanctioned financial institutions that have done business. You you've heard about these snapback sanctions. Uh where anybody that does third party sanctions, anybody that does business with them. So, it could open up a whole toolkit of financial um incentives for those that do business in Venezuela not to do business in Venezuela. It also makes them targetable. Uh it makes them statusbased targets uh if if the president or the chain of command authorizes those strikes. So, it opens up that toolkit. It also opens up u something that I haven't heard a lot of people talk about but if they're designated as FTO's uh and you're smuggling drugs now you can be prosecuted under the material support statute if you're uh providing support to these networks you can now be prosecuted under uh 18 USC section 223b I think it is the the bravo section so it opens up also a way to prosecute people so it opens opens up multiple tools uh through diplomacy, financial means, through sanctions, through the Department of Treasury, through the military, and also through the Department of Justice. So, it really is a whole of government approach to stop this narotist activity. >> Well, all right. Great insight, Jonathan, today. Always great to speak with you. Thank you. >> Thanks, Don. Appreciate it.