Dem
47
GOP
53
It doesn't seem right to say that the U.S. is making war against Venezuela; most voters don't support what's going on, and their legally elected representatives in Congress have not been given any opportunity to weigh in. It's not even right to say the U.S. military is making war against Venezuela. Those folks usually play things close to the vest, since that is their job, but we have at least one hint that the military is not happy about what is going on: The admiral who is in charge in that part of the world, Adm. Alvin Holsey, just announced he's retiring, after less than one year leading U.S. Southern Command. This is highly unusual, to say the least.
Nope, the war against Venezuela is coming from Donald J. Trump, and those underlings he can find who are willing to carry out his orders. Earlier this week, for the fifth time, a Venezuelan boat was destroyed on Trump's orders. In this case, six people died. This is entirely illegal. The White House claimed, yet again, that the folks on the boat were running drugs. However, the administration has provided not one scintilla of evidence, and hasn't even been able to name the organization with which these people were allegedly affiliated. Further, even if they are crooks, they are entitled to due process. The U.S. government cannot execute people just because it thinks they might be criminals, or they probably are criminals, or whatever.
In addition, Trump has also confirmed that he authorized the CIA to engage in covert operations inside Venezuela. This is really something that a sitting president should not be sharing, while said operations are still underway. However, Trump is living out his James Bond fantasies, and undoubtedly loves to brag about his role in cloak and dagger stuff. We wonder who Trump's M and Q are. We do have a pretty good idea of who his Ernst Stavro Blofeld is, though. Bald, sadistic, manipulative, mostly lurks in the shadows... sound familiar?
Since it is not known exactly what the CIA is doing in Venezuela, it's hard to say if they are breaking any laws, or what laws those might be. However, readers surely know the CIA has a delightful track record when it comes to mucking around in other nations. That's doubly true when it comes to mucking around in Latin American nations.
What is Trump's motivation here? We see three possibilities. The first is that Venezuela checks a lot of Trump's "boxes." He can point at them and scream "drugs!" and "undocumented immigrants!" and "criminals!" and "brown people!" There's some amount of truth to these claims, and a LOT of chauvinism and exaggeration. Still, that nation raises MAGA hackles the way that, say, Peru or Bolivia would not. That's despite the fact that Peru and Bolivia produce considerably greater quantities of illegal drugs than Venezuela does.
The second possibility is that this is personal. Strongmen love to pal around with other strongmen when it's all shiny beads and shallow flattery. What strongmen do not like is when other strongmen challenge their authority. Trump ordered Venezuelan leader/president/dictator Nicolás Maduro to stand down way back in 2017, and Maduro laughed in Trump's face. Not helping things is that Maduro is Latino, and that he's left-wing. A left-wing authoritarian, yes, but still left-wing.
Third, and finally, Trump and his admirers blasted the Nobel Committee last week; the general notions were "Who needs 'em?" and "It's a stupid prize, anyhow." That's denial and anger, aka the first two stages of grief. In truth, Trump still wants a Nobel, and if he gets one, those same people will be dancing in the streets and talking about how it's proof he is the greatest president and/or leader or all time. Undoubtedly, Trump noticed that María Corina Machado got the Prize for merely resisting Maduro. So, the person who actually takes down Maduro should be a slam dunk, right?
We don't know which of these it is. But if we had to guess, we would guess that it's... all three. (Z)