Why Are We In Venezuela The Enemy

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Fentanyl as the New Terrorist WMD

“…The Trump executive order [designating Fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction] asserts that fentanyl’s lethality renders it a “chemical weapon,” and links it—without specifying any evidence—to assassinations, terrorist acts, insurgencies, and the potential for use by America’s adversaries in concentrated, large-scale terror attacks, implicitly invoking the logic of September 11. These assertions are presented as justification for elevating fentanyl from a public health and law-enforcement challenge into a top-tier national-security threat.

Notably, the order cites no evidence that the two unnamed cartels it references—almost certainly the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, both Mexican criminal organizations—have engaged in, or are planning, acts of terrorism, assassination, or mass-casualty attacks against the United States using fentanyl. Nor does it acknowledge that these groups pose a far greater violent threat to Mexico than to the United States. In reality, fentanyl has not been deployed as a weapon of terror. It has been trafficked for profit, consumed individually, and rendered lethal through misuse and adulteration—not through organized attacks designed to produce mass casualties or public spectacle.

“…That distinction matters. Terrorism, chemical warfare, and weapons of mass destruction are defined not only by lethality, but by intent and mode of use. Chemical weapons regimes were built to prohibit substances designed, produced, and deployed for the purpose of inflicting indiscriminate mass harm. Fentanyl’s legitimate medical uses, its regulation under narcotics law, and the absence of evidence of state-directed or cartel-directed weaponization all place it squarely outside that category.

“Yet by declaring fentanyl a WMD, President Trump instantaneously transforms what has long been treated as a law-enforcement and public-health problem into an existential national-security threat.

Military–Civilian Fusion

“This rhetorical transformation has sweeping consequences. It recasts drug trafficking as a matter not merely for criminal investigation and prosecution, but for sanctions, intelligence operations, homeland security measures, and military support. The order directs the Department of Homeland Security and the newly rebranded Department of War to “support the full spectrum of counter-fentanyl measures,” without defining the limits of that spectrum.

“In principle, that ambiguity opens the door to actions that extend far beyond traditional counternarcotics policy: the use of U.S. military assets in foreign operations; the portrayal of migrants as vectors or enablers of WMD threats; the expansion of detention and removal authorities; and the characterization of opposition to administration policy as interference with national security. Military and civilian authorities are thus integrated as two arms of a single campaign—the federal state mobilized against perceived enemies abroad and at home.

“The blending of law enforcement with the military has been a defining feature of the first year of Trump’s second term. This fusion operates in two directions: outward, toward foreign targets, and inward, toward domestic governance…”

You are invited to read the entire article: The Enemy Abroad, The Enemy Within published by the Washington Spectator on December 19, 2025

Jonathan M. Winer is the former Special Envoy for Libya and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Law Enforcement and a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at MEI. He is a member of The Steady State.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 360 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.