Fire Over the Caribbean Sea and the Phantom in the Mediterranean, Jordan Goudreau - While Venezuela’s Military Trains Civilians

The Trump administration has, within a few weeks, established a new pattern of power: it defines war so that it no longer looks like war and claims it is therefore not subject to legal limits.

T. Elliot Gaiser, head of the Office of Legal Counsel, who interned at the Heritage Foundation in 2013 and later received an alumni award from that think tank, told selected members of Congress that the ongoing killing operations against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America do not fall under the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The 60-day clock, which has been running since the congressional notification on September 4, should play no role because these are not “hostilities.” The rationale follows a template: if no US troops are in immediate danger, the law is not applicable. The strikes are said to be “precise,” “predominantly” carried out by unmanned systems, launched from warships in international waters, at distances that do not endanger American personnel. This way, a campaign of force can be moved into the distance until only the impact remains visible.

This is precisely where the contradiction begins, which former government lawyers speak about openly. Brian Finucane, long responsible for war-powers issues at the State Department, calls this reading a wild expansion of executive authority. If drones or long-range weapons fire at targets that cannot defend themselves, then, his sober objection goes, those are still hostilities. The practice of earlier campaigns - against Houthi positions in 2016, against Syrian military facilities in 2017 and 2018 - was treated by the governments that ordered them as “hostilities” and covered by the War Powers Resolution. Even though Democratic and Republican administrations have repeatedly interpreted the 60-day limit creatively, the line remained visible: those who send armed forces into combat need parliamentary oversight. What is new now is not only the legal contortion, but the endgame. It is not about a declared armed conflict, but about boats, people, movement patterns - about killing as routine without a declaration of war.

As the clock ticks down to Monday, November 3, 2025, the operation does not slow - it accelerates. More than a dozen attacks on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, dozens dead, ships destroyed. The Navy has eight warships in the Caribbean, around ten percent of the deployed fleet. Destroyers, two amphibious ships, a submarine, a special vessel with helicopters are already on station, an aircraft carrier that is still in the Mediterranean as part of a carrier strike group: and more destroyers en route. Helicopters and bombers have repeatedly flown near Venezuelan airspace, F-35s and other aircraft were redeployed to Puerto Rico. It is a quiet but powerful array of steel and propulsion; the official justification remains slim: counter-drug operations. Trump has repeatedly hinted that land strikes could follow from the boat attacks, “the land is next.” Later he said in response that this was not true. But the denial stands beside the visible deployment, and it is the logic of the deployment that electrifies the region.

Typical deployment pattern of a US carrier strike group: at the center the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78). Around it, in a semicircular or staggered formation, several destroyers and cruisers provide protection.

According to the analyzed satellite imagery and tracking data, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is in the Mediterranean north of Malta today. There is no indication at present of an imminent attack. After analysis of current satellite data, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) - flagship of the US Navy and the largest warship in the world - was still in the central Mediterranean on November 1, 2025, approximately 90 kilometers northeast of Malta (36.33 N, 15.32 E). Imagery from the European Space Agency (ESA/Sentinel-2) shows the carrier moving at a speed of over 30 knots, on a course toward the Atlantic. The high speed suggests unusual haste. 1. November 2025 noch immer im zentralen Mittelmeer, etwa 90 Kilometer nordöstlich von Malta (36.33 N, 15.32 E). Die Aufnahmen der Europäischen Weltraumorganisation (ESA/Sentinel-2) zeigen den Träger mit einer Geschwindigkeit von über 30 Knoten, auf Kurs Richtung Atlantik. Die hohe Fahrtgeschwindigkeit deutet auf ungewöhnliche Eile hin.

Die Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), 337 Meter lang und seit 2017 The Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), 337 meters long and in service since 2017, carries up to 75 aircraft and around 4,500 crew members. Its course indicates a transfer phase from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Even at full speed it could not reach the coasts of Venezuela before roughly mid-November.

Words are also being escalated in parallel. Internally the government claims the War Powers framework does not apply; externally it refrains from confronting the public with verifiable evidence. A classified OLC opinion, treated as binding within the executive branch, is said to hold that the strikes served an important national interest and fell below the constitutional threshold of “war” - therefore no congressional authorization is required. This legal view aligns with a presidential practice that Gaiser outlined to select parliamentarians: no extension, no authorization, keep going.

On the Hill patience is cracking. Senator Mark Warner was outraged that only Republican senators were invited to a security briefing while leading Democrats were left out. Roger Wicker, Republican chair of the Armed Services Committee, and his Democratic counterpart Jack Reed made two letters to the Pentagon public; they have been demanding legal bases, orders, target lists for weeks. The statutory deadline for submission has expired and answers are missing. Frustration in the House intensified after a separate, secret briefing: central questions about the legal basis and the intelligence justification for the strikes remained unanswered, and Pentagon lawyers were abruptly withdrawn from the session. Rear Admiral Brian Bennett, who led the hearing, rejected comparisons with “signature strikes” - the pattern in which behavioral indicators rather than definitive identity decide life and death. Yet members cited descriptions that it sufficed to trace connections up to “three hops” - you have contact with someone who has contact with someone who has contact with the listed organization. This creates a rubber zone where suspicion is enough and the threshold for violence drops.

The world outside Washington is acting because Washington will not explain. The United Nations condemns the attacks and warns against extrajudicial killings, calling for a halt and investigations. Trinidad and Tobago has put its military on high alert and restricted leave after the USS Gravely was in the Port of Spain and exercises took place off the coast. Venezuela blocked a major gas deal with the island state and threatened retaliation if Port of Spain aided Washington. The Bolivarian people’s militia trains civilians, the border region is tense. In Maracaibo daily life continues - children go to school, adults go to work - yet checkpoints, identity checks, and uniformed presence are the new background noise. And while Trump and his secretary of state Marco Rubio deny reports of imminent strikes, the visible disposition confirms the contrary: the world’s largest carrier strike group, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is heading toward the Venezuelan coast. Photos and videos show maneuvers within sight of Trinidad and Tobago. The question is not whether one can, but whether one will - and what remains then.

The USS Gravely departed port on October 30, 2025 at 10 a.m. After leaving Port of Spain the USS Gravely rejoined the US fleet, which has concentrated in international waters near La Orchila, about 200 kilometers off the Venezuelan coast. Satellite imagery and OSINT data document the consolidation of US naval forces in the sea area off La Orchila.

The cracks in the government’s argument narrow further because it is speaking past the wrong drug. In the congressional briefing, according to Sara Jacobs, it was admitted that the region is primarily about cocaine. The narrative that Americans are being protected from fentanyl fails on geography. “They are trying to build a very convoluted argument,” Jacobs said. It is an attempt to mobilize consent with images of an opioid crisis that has different routes. And while the administration invokes drug crime, media report that target lists for strikes against Venezuelan government facilities exist. Whoever bombs government infrastructure is not waging a small war against smugglers; that is war - and without a mandate.

That this escalation is being advanced with minimal safeguards is shown by the architecture of the chain of command. Weeks-old Senate requests to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth remain unanswered. Internal conflicts over whether the strikes are legally tenable surface; flag officers resign because they object. And while boats burn in the south, the mood in the US sours: in the latest YouGov poll fewer people approve of the naval presence off Venezuela than in September. Trump says he will “not necessarily get a declaration of war.” He just says, “we will kill the people who bring drugs into our country.” The sentence becomes a guideline.

All of this unfolds against the backdrop of a story that should already be well known. When the failed mercenary mission of 2020 — the "Bay of Piglets" — collapsed on Venezuelan beaches, the image that stuck was one of amateurism: an ex-Green Beret, Jordan Goudreau, contracts, training camps, arrests, dead fighters. Today, with the U.S. Navy once again off Venezuela’s coast, Goudreau returns as a cautionary detail: Jordan Goudreau plotted, together with Venezuelan deserters, an armed invasion to overthrow Nicolás Maduro. The operation was prepared in Colombia with boats, weapons and training camps — and it spectacularly fell apart in early May 2020. Two Americans were arrested and several fighters were killed. Goudreau claimed he had ties to White House advisers and was acting "in the spirit of American policy."

A federal judge in Tampa issued an arrest warrant because he failed to appear at a hearing, while allegations of threats, broken promises and the search for assault rifles swirl. In interviews he alternately insults “Deep State” actors and claims the story of the Cartel de los Soles is a “CIA invention.” The man who once thought he could spark a rebellion with deserters is again a loudspeaker in a climate of secrecy, aggression and political calculation. His failure was private, the lesson public: those who sketch regime change as a quick operation leave wreckage - first in biographies, then in states.

Jordan Goudreau:
Shut up talking to me, you damn a***hole.
Post the bail already.
C’mon, goddammit, let’s go.

Reply:
You are in Tampa, do it yourself.

Jordan Goudreau:
Teach me a lesson, you damn m***********.
F*** you, I’m not going back to prison.

Reply:
I don’t have to teach you anything, you will never learn.
You are incapable of being a human being.

Jordan Goudreau:
Learn what? How many people there are, you damn, filthy, money-grubbing m*********** like you.
Find yourself a damn job.

Reply:
Jordan, you stole from everyone …

From the court file (Case 8:24-cr-00330-VMC-CPT, Document 208-28, Filed 10/20/25)

The Trump administration claims it is about drugs. But the closer one inspects the threads of justification, the more visible the gaps become. There is no presented evidence of the individual guilt of the killed; military representatives say they do not know exactly whom they have killed so far. There are briefings some hear and briefings others are denied. There is a legal opinion behind closed doors and the decision not to ask Congress. There is a president who one day hints at an expansion to land targets and the next day denies it. And there is a fleet moving toward the coast.

n the end the Constitution stands on the front line. The War Powers Resolution is not just a set of legal provisions, it is an attempt to rein in the monopoly on violence before it takes on a life of its own. If a government now declares it is not bound by these fetters because its weapons kill from a safe distance, that is not a legal nuance but a fundamental political choice. It shifts responsibility out of the forum of popular representation into the engine room of executive interpretation. The dead on the water are real, the boats shatter, families disappear into statistical noise. And on the coast of a country where children are taken to school in the morning and adults go to work, a militia trains civilians, gas diplomacy becomes a lever of pressure, threats flicker across the maritime boundary.

Excerpt of more of our articles on the Caribbean war:

Admiral Alvin Holsey resigns - Why the top US commander could no longer support Trump’s war against Venezuela at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/admiral-alvin-holsey-tritt-zurueck-warum-der-oberste-us-befehlshaber-trumps-krieg-gegen-venezuela-nicht-mehr-mittragen-wollte/

Deaths that do not make headlines - How Trump’s Caribbean war hits innocent fishermen at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/tote-die-keine-schlagzeilen-wert-sind-wie-trumps-karibikkrieg-unschuldige-fischer-trifft/

The submarine war in the Caribbean - Trump’s new front and the Carranza case at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/der-u-boot-krieg-in-der-karibik-trumps-neue-front-und-der-fall-carranza/

The new battlefield - Our government documents show Trump’s war against Venezuela and the shadows of Colorado at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/das-neue-schlachtfeld-uns-vorliegende-regierungsunterlagen-zeigen-trumps-krieg-gegen-venezuela-und-die-schatten-von-colorado/

The United States can continue this operation without acknowledging the 60-day threshold. It can fill target lists and conduct reconnaissance, analyze satellite images and at the same time remain guilty of broken chains of evidence. It can narrow the term “hostility” until only its own finger lies outside the ring. But it cannot prevent what is happening from becoming visible: a government makes facts with bombs before it puts reasons on the table. And by doing so it challenges not only Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Nations or international law. It challenges its own order, the principle that in a republic war is not measured by the silence of its weapons but by the loudness of its legitimacy.

To be continued .....

Excerpt of more of our articles on the Caribbean war:

Secret war in the Caribbean - Trump’s bombs against boats and the lies behind it at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/geheimer-krieg-im-karibikraum-trumps-bomben-gegen-boote-und-die-luegen-dahinter/

Trump 2025: War against fantasy cartels - 17 dead, missing evidence at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/trump-2025-krieg-gegen-fantasie-kartelle-17-tote-fehlende-belege/

Death came from the clear sky at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/der-tod-kam-aus-dem-klaren-himmel/

The invisible war - How Trump unleashes the CIA against Venezuela at the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/der-unsichtbare-krieg-wie-trump-die-cia-gegen-venezuela-loslaesst/