Inside the Secret War: Senate Concern Over U.S. Military Strikes in the Caribbean

OPINION — “Currently, the administration is waging a secret war against a secret list of unnamed groups that they will not tell us about. There have been four lethal strikes against [alleged Venezuelan narco-trafficking] boats in the Caribbean. The administration wrote us [the U.S. Senate] a letter…about what they were doing in September. They said they considered themselves to be in a ‘non-international armed conflict’ — that means a war — against a secret list of ‘designated terrorist organizations.’ I received a briefing last week on the administration’s strikes in the Caribbean. During that briefing, Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, from both sides of the aisle, asked a Senate-confirmed official whether the Department of Defense could produce a list of the organizations that are now considered terrorists by the United States. They said they could not provide that list.”

That was Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), speaking on the Senate floor last Wednesday during the debate on a War Powers resolution that would have blocked U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean. It lost 48-to-51.

Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who also served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, gave a clear analysis of the several steps the Trump administration has taken that could eventually lead this country to a situation which, as Slotkin put it, “creates an excuse [for President Trump] to unilaterally use the military inside our cities, similar to the way he used them in the Caribbean.”

Other Senators provided additional information about today’s current extraordinary situation, which I will discuss below, but it was Sen. Slotkin who put it in the clearest context.

First, she established her own credentials, saying, “I am a CIA officer. I am a former Pentagon official. I did three tours in Iraq – armed — alongside the military. I participated in the targeting of terrorist groups. I actually have no real problem going against [drug] cartels, given what they have done in their inserting drugs in our community and with the death of so many Americans. But as a nation, I think we should have as a basic principle that you can’t have a secret list of terrorist organizations that the American public and, certainly, the U.S. Congress don’t get to even know the names of.”

She referred back to the 2001 Global War on Terror saying it was, “kind of my era,” and spoke about how new foreign terrorist organizations were declared to Congress and then “our intelligence community, the military, and law enforcement would spin up to go after information about that group and prosecute — you know, target against that group.”

Slotkin went on to explain how the Trump administration had late last month expanded the terrorist threat to include individuals and groups in this country.

Speaking about Trump’s September 22, Executive Order, “Designating Antifa As A Domestic Terrorist Organization,” Slotkin said the administration was “going to, again, make secret lists of ‘terrorist groups’ inside the United States and send the full force of the U.S. Government against those terrorist organizations. They are not telling anyone the name of these organizations, but they are authorizing law enforcement and the intelligence community to double down and come up with that list.”

This is a problem, Sen. Slotkin said, “because the Trump administration in that document [the Executive Order] defined ‘terrorist organization’ or ‘domestic terrorism’ incredibly broadly. It suggests that any group that talks about anti-Christian values, views they don’t like on migration or race, differing views on the role of the family, religion, or morality could all be grounds for labeling an organization ‘domestic terrorists.’’’

In fact, the reference to anti-Christian values appeared in a little-publicized follow-up to the September 22 Executive Order — a September 25, National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7. An NSPM is a presidential directive that specifies and communicates national security policy to executive departments and agencies.

Citing “the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America,” and signed by Donald J. Trump, NSPM-7 gives directions to the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Homeland Security as well as the Attorney General on “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.”

Building on the assassination of Charlie Kirk and attempts against Trump and others, NSPM-7 unites “this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described ‘anti-fascism,’” or Antifa. NSPM-7 goes on to say, “Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

NSPM-7 gives responsibility to the National Joint Terrorism Task Force and its local offices (JTTFs) to “coordinate and supervise a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.” In addition, JTTFs are to investigate “institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in” the above criminal conduct.

In addition, NSPM-7 says that the Attorney General “may recommend that any group or entity whose members are engaged in activities meeting the definition of ‘domestic terrorism’…merits designation as a ‘domestic terrorist organization.’ The Attorney General shall submit a list of any such groups or entities to the President through the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor [Stephen Miller].”

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In her Senate speech, Sen. Slotkin continued, “If this administration is not telling us who is on their secret designated terrorist list for groups in the Caribbean, they are definitely not going to tell us who is on their list of domestic terrorist organizations.”

Finally, Sen. Slotkin spoke out about her future fear — that President Trump may claim in some American city “if the violence has gotten to a level of an insurrection, it means that the U.S. military can now be used [under the Insurrection Act] as law enforcement in our cities. It means the U.S. military can raid; they can arrest; they can detain. You can easily see a world where the President of the United States labels protest groups ‘terrorists,’ doesn’t tell anyone, and creates an excuse to unilaterally use the military inside our cities, similar to the way he used them in the Caribbean.”

I agree Trump is headed in that direction, and past and present members of the military must also be aware of what’s going on.

Meanwhile other Senators during last Wednesday’s debate raised other issues needing public consideration.

For example, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said, “There is no question that drug traffickers, criminal gangs, and other criminal enterprises engage in horrific and violent acts. Murder is murder, whether committed by a human trafficker, a drug trafficker, or a member of al Qaeda. But there are fundamental differences in their motivation, which legally distinguishes a drug trafficker from a terrorist. It is common knowledge that a drug trafficker’s purpose is financial enrichment, while the definition of a ‘terrorist’ is a person who uses violence or the threat of violence to instill widespread fear to achieve a political or ideological goal.’’

Schiff raised another point related to the current situation. He said, “Other governments are using the label ‘terrorist’ to defame and criminalize social activists, political opponents, and journalists who engage in peaceful dissent. This is common practice in Iran, Russia, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, where dissidents are imprisoned and even executed for being so-called ‘terrorists.’’’

In a challenge to Republicans, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said, “If my [GOP] colleagues, as they have stated, believe we should be at war in the Caribbean or at war with nations in the Americas or with the narco-traffickers, they have had the ability the entire time to bring a resolution before us and have that debate in front of the American public. I have a feeling that debate would produce some positive votes if it were limited enough, but to allow a President to do it by secret, without Congress having the guts to have the debate and vote about whether the war is worthwhile, is contrary to everything this country stands for.”

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Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) raised a broader issue. “The notion that we can bomb our way out of a drug trafficking crisis is not a strategy,” Reed said, “it is wishful thinking. Using the U.S. military to conduct unchecked strikes in the Caribbean risks destabilizing the region, provoking confrontation with neighboring governments, and drawing our forces into yet another open-ended conflict without a clear mission or exit strategy.”

Reed continued, “Conflict in the Caribbean or with Venezuela is entirely avoidable, but the risk that we stumble into war because of one man’s impulsive decision-making has never been higher. Our troops deserve better—much better.”

President Trump has been after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro since 2018, including a failed, White House-driven, 2019 regime-change attempt to restore democracy in that country by replacing Maduro with opposition leader Juan Guaidó. John Bolton, National Security Advisor at the time, said in his book, The Room Where It Happened, that Trump assured Guaidó that he (Trump) would, in Bolton’s words, “pull off Maduro’s overthrow.”

Who knows what Trump is saying privately today about Maduro and planning for Venezuela?

But the Caribbean activities are but a sideshow to what the Trump administration has quietly underway in this country.

Again I refer to Sen. Slotkin’s words on the Senate floor last Wednesday: “The President is looking for an excuse to send the U.S. military into our streets, to deploy the U.S. military against his own people, to prompt confrontation, and to hope that confrontation justifies even more military force and military control. This is a well-worn authoritarian playbook. It is one that quite literally the United States of America was founded on rejecting — the idea that British soldiers, when they occupied American cities, abused American citizens to the point where Americans turned against them.”

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