#venezuela

#venezuela

Michael Durant watched through night-vision goggles as two 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs slammed on to the Panamanian airbase while he hovered off the country's south coast in a Black Hawk helicopter. A gigantic flash, followed by a boom [like] the largest lightning strike you've ever seen in your life, the retired US army pilot recalled of the opening salvo of the Battle of Rio Hato Airfield in December 1989.

"I keep getting calls about this from congressmen," Trump explained in a recent meeting with top officials.

Salvador Allende, the democratically elected Marxist president of Chile toppled in a military coup in 1973, and Rafael Trujillo, the longstanding dictator of the Dominican Republic who was assassinated in 1961 in an ambush organized by political opponents, are just two regional leaders whose fates serve as a warning to Maduro. Allende is believed to have killed himself, although some doubt that explanation, as troops stormed the presidential palace in the Chilean capital, Santiago,

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK. We're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be, like, dead. [SOUNDS OF TAPE ENDS] MARGARET BRENNAN: You don't need an aircraft carrier to hit drug boats. Are land strikes planned? SEN. GRAHAM: Yeah, I think that's a real possibility.

Driving the news: Graham said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" that he thinks Trump has decided "it's time for" Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro "to go," calling land strikes a "real possibility." Worth noting: The White House did not immediately respond to Axios' request to confirm whether such a briefing has been scheduled. Trump last week said his administration would "probably go back to Congress and explain exactly what we are doing" before launching land strikes, but added, "we don't have to do that."

The US says it is fighting drugs, but its warships off Venezuela tell another story about power, control and regime change. Ten thousand soldiers on board 10 US warships, including a nuclear submarine, several destroyers and a missile cruiser, patrol the southern Caribbean in what is the largest US military build-up in the region in decades. At least seven boats allegedly transporting drugs have been bombed, resulting in the extrajudicial killing of more than 32 people.