The author of this article, dated Aug. 25, 2025, is a Venezuelan consultant and international analyst and is the former Director of International Relations of the Presidency of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Translation: John Catalinotto

It was many years ago that I decided to neither read nor listen to the enemy’s media. During the coup against Commander Hugo Chávez in April 2002, I was outside Venezuela, and from a distance, I could see how the transnational media “reported” on the event. I realized that, far from informing, they were actually instruments of disinformation and psychological warfare aimed at sustaining imperial power and domination.

I have never consulted them since, except when I must dispute a lie or false information. To be well-informed and, above all, educated about reality, I have not needed them. I respect those who say they must read them to know “how the enemy thinks.” I believe, however, there are other ways to do this. Many of those who manage to “know how the enemy thinks” become unthinking propagandists for the enemy when they replicate that same information without making a critical analysis.

Now, I wanted to learn how the New York Times reports on the new episode of imperial psychological warfare against Venezuela. This media outlet, which exudes liberalism and, because of its proximity to the U.S. Democratic Party, has contradictions with the current administration, is nothing more than one of the main tools of disinformation of imperial despotism. It has always been a powerful instrument in the hands of the enemy when it confronts Venezuela. Its handling of information reveals its intention to use elements of the international situation to attack U.S. President Donald Trump and his performance from an in-house political perspective.

Is Trump preparing a military action?

Recently, the New York Times published two articles on the issue of the ships in the Caribbean. The first, on Aug. 22, signed by journalists Charlie Savage, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt, pontificates from Washington with an analysis of Venezuela and the situation of the ships under a headline that asks: “Is the Trump administration preparing for a military confrontation with Venezuela?”

The article begins by acknowledging that it is the U.S. government that “is intensifying tensions with Venezuela and its president, Nicolás Maduro” with the apparent aim of creating “conditions that could trigger a military confrontation.” To defend this claim, they argue that there has been a “significant buildup of U.S. naval forces,” without presenting any evidence of this.

They simply echo the British agency Reuters, which broke this news. By failing to present evidence while reporting on a terrorist military operation, they conceal the “other operation,” the psychological one, also terrorist in nature, which has been keeping Venezuela and all of Latin America in suspense for more than a week.

The journalists themselves claim that this mobilization is ordered in a secret directive from President Trump “instructing the Pentagon to use military force against certain drug cartels in Latin America that his government has designated as ‘terrorist’ organizations.”

The authors of the article acknowledge that the U.S. government “has increased its bellicose rhetoric about combating drug cartels and has labeled Maduro as the leader of a terrorist cartel,” adding that “this raises the question of whether the ultimate goal is only to counter the flow of drug-smuggling vessels or a possible war, seeking regime change.” Clearly, they put forward a hypothesis that seems to be the most likely.

Although they imply that this is not an anti-drug operation, but rather an attempt to intimidate Venezuela and, if possible, invade it, they avoid saying this definitively. However, previous actions taken by Washington over many years allow us to assert that the United States has no interest whatsoever in combating the drug trade.

Nothing to do with drug trade

There are many reasons for this:

1. The United States has never had any intention of eliminating drug trafficking into its territory. It cannot; it needs it. There are two fundamental reasons for this: The first is that it keeps young people drugged and controlled so that they do not think about or play a role in the transformation of a society that oppresses and crushes them. And secondly, because the vast resources generated by drug trafficking circulate through the U.S. financial system and support the U.S. economy.

2. Following the arms, energy and pharmaceutical industries, drugs rank fourth in sales in the U.S. economy. To regulate the narcotics trade, in 1973 the U.S. government created an institution, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), with the aim of controlling, organizing and distributing narcotics so that the “business” would not get out of hand.

When it was discovered that uncovering the connections between drug trafficking and the financial system would expose the big capitalists in their country, Washington gave up on the idea for good. That is why, in 1982, they canceled Operation Greenback, which had this objective. The person responsible for canceling it was the head of the DEA, George H.W. Bush, who, by his own accomplishments, became president of his country.

3. As Mexican journalist Jorge Esquivel has demonstrated in his numerous books, no U.S. administration has ever set out to investigate drug trafficking networks within the United States. On the contrary, the cartels operating within the country launder money, control routes and operate with total impunity, under the complicit gaze of the DEA and with the support of banks that no one investigates.

4. The world’s largest producer and exporter of chemical precursors that transform coca into cocaine is the United States (90% according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service). The government has never restricted this industry. Doing so on their own territory would be much easier than mobilizing ships and planes, waging wars and poisoning the fields, forests and rivers of producing countries with glyphosate herbicide. The CIA itself has reported that exports to Latin America of hydrochloric acid, potassium permanganate, acetone, sulfuric acid and ether, among other substances [used for producing narcotics], far exceed legal uses. Why don’t they restrict them?

5. According to the United Nations itself, Venezuela is not a producer or exporter of drugs to the United States or any other country. The figures are there for all to see.

6. Some 87% of drugs exported from South America to the United States come via the Pacific Ocean routes, with only 5% coming via the Caribbean.

7. In this case, New York Times journalists themselves state that: “Navy warships will attack ships operated by drug cartels transporting fentanyl to the United States … but they have not said how they will do so.”

What The Times implied

The New York Times’ assertions imply several things that need to be listed:

1. The creation of conditions for a military confrontation with Venezuela is something that all U.S. presidents have evaluated over the past 26 years. It should be remembered that as early as 2002, they organized a coup against President Chávez.

Since then, they have used an arsenal of instruments, namely: coup attempts, the invention of a president [Juan Guaidó, 2019] and the creation of an artificial government, invasion by sea, invasion by land, an alliance between the [Venezuelan] opposition and Colombian paramilitary groups and drug traffickers, an alliance between the opposition and organized crime groups within the country, economic sabotage, terrorist actions against electrical and oil facilities, attempts to assassinate President Maduro, attempts to fracture the armed forces, creation of an international organization (Lima Group) to overthrow a government (the only time in history that an international organization has been created for terrorist purposes), sabotage of elections, blocking the purchase of food and medicine, sanctions on the oil industry … and we could go on.

This was not invented by Trump or [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio; it is characteristic of the imperial actions of the United States since it has existed as an independent nation.

2. The New York Times echoes the accusation that the Venezuelan government functions as a drug cartel, yet they have never been able to present any evidence to support this claim.

3. The response of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to the question about naval movements and whether her government was considering sending forces to Venezuelan territory was vague. She responded by describing Maduro as illegitimate, as if Washington has authority to classify anyone as such.

4. The Pentagon, the institution responsible for the operation, declined to comment publicly on the details of the deployment.

5. Marco Rubio himself alluded to the issue, also in a vague manner, but not from his institutional position, but rather from his personal one.

In short, neither the White House nor the State Department nor the Department of Defense have said anything concrete on the subject. Is it so secret that they cannot refer to it? Or is it a giant bluff aimed at generating pressure and weakening Venezuela through sinister psychological operations just to feed Marco Rubio’s psychopathic hatred?

It turns out that the ultramodern superships of the U.S. Navy that shamelessly fled the Red Sea after the Yemeni attacks are now fleeing Hurricane Erin in the Caribbean. In order to maintain a tense atmosphere, three announcements have already been made about the arrival of the ships, the first on Aug. 14, the second on Aug. 18 and the last yesterday, Aug. 25.

It is worth clarifying that the second announcement is the “second coming” after fleeing from Erin. The evidence shows that the “invincible” U.S. Marines can only fight in optimal conditions. If they are attacked, as in the Red Sea, they retreat, and if there is a hurricane, they do the same … and it is better not to mention Vietnam and Afghanistan. When it comes to fleeing, those retreats were truly monumental.

New York Times journalists, with the obvious intention of causing panic, went wild showing off the powerful weaponry these ships possess, but they quoted a Pentagon official who said that deploying destroyers and submarines carrying surface-to-air missiles that “can conduct anti-aircraft and anti-submarine warfare and shoot down ballistic missiles” … from drug cartels would be like “bringing a cannon to a knife fight.”

The article then launches into a long legal diatribe about the legality and validity of U.S. imperialist actions, pointing out that in the event of an attack on Venezuela, they could be outside the law. As if the United States has ever been concerned about this. Are indiscriminate deportations legal? Is it legal to support genocide and supply weapons and financial and logistical support to the country that commits it?

Historical U.S. pretexts for war

The New York Times says that “it remains unclear what criteria or rules of engagement the [U.S.] government is considering for any operation using armed force,” mentioning that recent events “invite comparisons with the conditions of provocation that preceded two major U.S. military episodes in the second half of the 20th century.” They refer to the invasion of Vietnam after the false Gulf of Tonkin incident [1964] and the invasion of Panama in 1989.

I remind New York Times journalists of other cases in which the United States resorted to lies or avoided taking measures to prevent acts of war or terrorism with the clear aim of attacking other countries or having the “justification” to do so: the explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana Bay in 1898; the invasion of the Philippines that same year; the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, which they did not prevent even though they could have done so, solely in order to have the justification to enter World War II; the invasion of Grenada in 1983; the invasion of Iraq in 2003 after the “vial” [allegedly of anthrax] that General Colin Powell showed at the United Nations; and the invasion of Libya after creating a false scenario of alleged actions by leader Moammar Gaddafi against his people.

To now invent the fiction that the Venezuelan government and its president are linked to drug trafficking is not surprising; it is the natural course of action that the United States has taken throughout its 250 years of existence. Lying is ingrained in its thinking and its regime.

Thus, [2024 Syrian coup leader] Abu Mohammad Al Jolani was a terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head until he decided to subordinate himself to Washington and miraculously ceased to be a terrorist. The tens of thousands of people killed by this individual were quickly forgotten by Washington, which now portrays him as a champion of democracy. The truth is that Washington’s characterizations have little significance.

The way these journalist types write is so aberrant that they even claim that: “It is unclear how the government interprets national and international law with regard to the scope and limits of its ability to use force against alleged gang members.” They are referring to the Aragua Train, a criminal organization that has already been eliminated in Venezuela. In other words, the New York Times accepts that the law is interpreted according to the interests of the government in power.

The New York Times continues: “One question is whether it wants the military to use wartime rules even though Congress has not authorized any armed conflict, or simply to add more muscle to operations that are still governed by law enforcement rules. Soldiers on a battlefield can kill enemy combatants even if they are not a threat at that moment. But, in contrast, the police arrest criminals who pose no threat; to kill them summarily would be murder.”

At the heart of the matter, the reality is that, as the New York Times also points out, Marco Rubio’s designation of drug cartels as “terrorist” groups allows the United States to “use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever it takes, to attack these groups.” In other words, if tomorrow Marco Rubio decides that France is a terrorist because of statements considered “antisemitic” by Washington, Paris is liable to have the United States use “other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever it takes against it.”

It does not seem serious to accept that all these actions, which are not only outside international law but also U.S. domestic law, are reported with total complacency. Incredibly, the New York Times needed three people to say that. It seems that one is insufficient.

I was going to comment on the second New York Times article written by “journalist” Julie Turkewitz reporting from Bogotá, who, without having set foot in Venezuela, mentions a certain “Pedro Martínez, 52, a driver in the city of Carabobo, near the country’s northern coast.” I couldn’t go on. If that hack doesn’t even know that Carabobo is not a city but a state in the country, it’s useless to continue. It sounds false to me. If she lies about that, what can we expect from her political “analysis?”

I don’t know if this Pedro Martínez exists, but that’s the least important thing. It seems like an article written by artificial intelligence. But they are so arrogant and conceited that they assume the public is obliged to swallow their fabrications and that they are authorized to say whatever they want to justify their despicable actions. It is clear that this press acts like a modern-day [propaganda minister of Nazi Germany Josef] Goebbels.

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