With each pass­ing day, the size of the US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the Caribbean and its ac­tions be­lie its stat­ed ob­jec­tive of com­bat­ing drug traf­fick­ing and dis­man­tling transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions, with a spe­cif­ic fo­cus on coun­ter­ing “nar­co-ter­ror­ism” in the re­gion.

While Venezuela may serve as a con­duit for co­caine com­ing from Colom­bia and Pe­ru, it is not a source of co­caine and has no pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty. Al­though mar­itime routes are im­por­tant for drugs like co­caine, Con­gres­sion­al Re­search es­ti­mates that 95 per cent of all co­caine en­ter­ing the US comes through Mex­i­co or its ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters on the Pa­cif­ic side. The ves­sels de­stroyed in the Caribbean Sea are pri­mar­i­ly small fish­ing boats that can­not reach the US.

On Fri­day, the New York Times re­port­ed that satel­lite im­agery shows the US has been rou­tine­ly po­si­tion­ing war­ships near Venezuela’s coast, far from the main drug-smug­gling routes. This sug­gests that the mil­i­tary buildup is more about ap­ply­ing pres­sure on Venezuela than fight­ing the drug trade, and that the de­struc­tion of al­leged drug traf­fick­ers’ ves­sels is a cal­cu­lat­ed show of strength aimed at in­tim­i­dat­ing Venezuela. This, in turn, rais­es risks for Trinidad and To­ba­go, as Venezuela has suc­cess­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed al­liances with US ad­ver­saries.

De­stroy­ing the foot sol­diers who crew these ves­sels amounts to a mere short-term dis­rup­tion—a tem­po­rary glitch in the sup­ply chain that will like­ly cause a spike in co­caine street prices and in­creased com­pe­ti­tion for lim­it­ed sup­plies. The more sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion cen­tres in South Amer­i­ca re­main undis­turbed. The cam­paign, as cur­rent­ly struc­tured, is in­ca­pable of ful­fill­ing its stat­ed ob­jec­tives of com­bat­ing drug traf­fick­ing or nar­co-ter­ror­ism, and traf­fick­ers will adapt if there is a lu­cra­tive US mar­ket.

Our Prime Min­is­ter has pub­licly en­dorsed US mil­i­tary ac­tions in the Caribbean as an im­por­tant step in the an­ti-crime fight on land and at sea. This ap­proach is com­ple­ment­ed by the pro­mo­tion of the Home In­va­sion (Self De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill as ev­i­dence that the gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the de­fence of in­di­vid­ual rights. How­ev­er, these mea­sures do not ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

We are in a State of Emer­gency of ques­tion­able ef­fi­ca­cy. While it may have tem­porar­i­ly re­duced the mur­der rate, the spate of killings this month sug­gests that any re­duc­tion was on­ly a tem­po­rary lull, not a per­ma­nent fix. The dar­ing day­light rob­bery on a maxi taxi in Arou­ca last week demon­strates that such crimes are rou­tine. The dri­ver re­mained un­flap­pable, keep­ing calm and car­ry­ing on, high­light­ing the per­sis­tence of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Our crime sta­tis­tics sug­gest that crim­i­nals face a low prob­a­bil­i­ty of ap­pre­hen­sion, with a de­tec­tion rate of just 33 per cent, an even low­er con­vic­tion rate, and pro­longed de­lays in the court sys­tem.

The Gov­ern­ment can­not hide be­hind US qua­si-drug en­force­ment ac­tions. The UK, the US’s clos­est al­ly, has dis­tanced it­self from mil­i­tary ac­tion in the Caribbean, sus­pend­ing spe­cif­ic in­tel­li­gence-shar­ing arrange­ments re­lat­ed to sus­pect­ed drug traf­fick­ing, un­will­ing to be com­plic­it in op­er­a­tions it con­sid­ers il­le­gal. France, through its For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, has ex­plic­it­ly crit­i­cised the US strikes on al­leged drug boats, as­sert­ing that these ac­tions breed in­sta­bil­i­ty and vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al law.

The US has no ju­ris­dic­tion in solv­ing our crime sit­u­a­tion or ad­dress­ing the drug tran­ship­ment prob­lem. We can­not mere­ly cling to the prover­bial US coat­tails. It is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­form our in­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments if they are fail­ing to ful­fil their mis­sion.