Say Something Real
By Michelle Bryant
Michelle Bryant
The old gospel spiritual, “Wade in the Water,” is rooted in a story of healing and deliverance. It’s chorus, “God’s gonna trouble the water,” isn’t something to fear; instead, it signals a time of change—a moment where the waters churn in anticipation of transformation and hope. Like the North Star, the song was also used to help Black people escaping slavery. They were encouraged to walk in the water, to shield both their scent and footprints.
Throughout history, waterways have served as channels for progress and peril. And today, it’s the danger and risk we must address. In recent weeks, Donald Trump has turned the Caribbean Sea and the waters off the northern coast of Venezuela into a deadly reef or killing field. Perpetuated in the name of abating the inflow of illegal drugs into the United States, the Trump administration has turned members of the U.S. Navy into sea assassins or maritime hitmen.
According to multiple news reports, at least 27 people have been killed on ships, blown up by orders from Trump, in at least five separate military strikes. Under the guise of protecting Americans from fentanyl and other drugs, without any proof of his claims, Trump has acted as judge, jury, and executioner. But in America, we don’t kill suspected or convicted drug dealers. I’m telling you these waters are troubled, but in a far more unsettling way. What we are witnessing should not only raise questions about due process and international law, but also about intent and the true nature of this military escalation.
The reality is that while Venezuela is a passage for cocaine, most of the drugs fueling America’s crisis, especially deadly fentanyl, don’t float across the Caribbean Sea. They flow across land, slipping through cracks far from the ships that Trump has been targeting. His plan may be less about crossing over to deliverance and more about capsizing the truth, or the real reason for these bombings.
There is rising speculation that these aggressive attacks may not be about drugs at all. Additionally, the recent announcement that Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, the head of U.S. Southern Command that oversees military operations across Central and South America and in the Caribbean Sea, is raising eyebrows. However, it’s difficult to discern whether his departure is about the Trump administration’s apparent disdain for Black people in leadership, or perhaps his concerns about these types of military attacks. I digress.
Could the true purpose of these troubled waters, these bombings, be a pretext for conflict over oil reserves and strategic power? Is this about drugs or geopolitics, which include global energy security, regime change, or countering rival nations, like Russia and China? Some analysts argue that by manufacturing a crisis in the Caribbean, the U.S. could justify a broader military presence targeting Venezuela. Initial reports indicate that the U.S. has deployed a significant military presence to the region, which includes multiple warships, a submarine, and an estimated 10,000 sailors and Marines. And literally, as I sit penning this column, breaking news just foretold of another bombing of a vessel suspected of drug smuggling.
These attacks lend credence to a belief that many countries want access to Venezuela’s oil. With roughly 303 billion barrels, oil-dependent countries and companies would love to have control or access to these vast reserves. U.S. refineries are built to process their type of oil, making it an economically attractive supply source for American companies. The layers of what may actually be going on here are complex, shifting, and impossible to see on the surface. There is trouble in the water caused by a president who thinks he’s God.