What's really happening, PM?

THE Prime Minister's silence on critical matters of governance is increasingly a matter of serious concern.

The lack of clear, unequivocal communication about Trinidad and Tobago's position amid signs of an impending war is not simply troubling, it risks panicked speculation about a literally explosive situation.

Mrs Persad-Bissessar's dramatically corrected her characterisation of a US military presence at Arthur N Robinson International airport as the repair of the runway. Overnight, a fresh statement that surveillance equipment, part of the "drug interdiction" exercise, was being installed.

A Newsday investigation into the surveillance equipment at Crown Point showed advanced gear painted in military livery, identified by local experts as standard for military operations.

This "drug war" has assembled a wartime scale deployment of naval and marine assets in the Caribbean region that are circling ever closer to TT and Venezuela.

On November 25, the highest ranking military officer in the US, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a key military advisor to the US President and Secretary of War, flew to TT to spend three hours in private conference with the PM. What do we know about that visit?

General Caine signed a visitor's book with Mrs Persad-Bissessar standing proudly at his side and enjoyed a meal of doubles with our prime minister.

The PM's pointed silence would be troubling at the best of times, but when 15,000 troops and more than a dozen warships, including the largest American aircraft carrier, are evidently on high alert on our doorstep, Mrs Persad-Bissessar is being negligent in serving her public.

Every day offers more signals that the US is preparing the battlefield. Mr Trump declared the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela closed on November 29. Since only a sovereign nation can declare its own airspace off-limits, the Federal Aviation Authority was more circumspect, warning airlines of a "potentially hazardous situation" while flying over Venezuela.

Mrs Persad-Bissesar's silence on critical matters concerning a geographic neighbour just seven miles away at our closest point that's under direct threat by the US government raises the uncomfortable possibility that she does not see the TT public as her boss in these circumstances – and is answering to another entity of greater power.

Worse, she may consider the electorate incapable of responding maturely to the options she is clearly navigating, hoping that the need for disclosure that the public is entitled to will be overcome by events.

Her infamous endorsement of the extra-judicial killings of alleged drug traffickers – "Kill them all, violently" – has been underlined and echoed by recent reporting that Pete Hegseth allegedly ordered a second strike on helpless people clinging to wreckage with similar words.

Mr Trump introduced his lethal drug interdiction programme by promising, "We're going to kill them."

Given the deadly company she is keeping, the PM owes TT clearer disclosure of this country's increasingly precarious position as these elephants prepare to stampede.