Who Runs Venezuela?
Jim Kavanagh
First and most important thing: The abduction of the head of
state of Venezuela and his wife by U.S. armed forces is a crime in every sense.
It flouts black-letter international law and universally held principles of
international relations. It is a blatant act of imperialist arrogance, with no credible
pretense of justification other than “might makes right.” It is the ethical
imperative of every citizen of the world—and especially of every citizen and
politician of the United States—to denounce this act and demand the immediate,
unconditional release and return to their homeland of Nicolas Maduro and Cilia
Flores.
Anyone—especially any politician—who claims to oppose this abduction
by the Trump administration but refuses to demand the immediate, unconditional
release of the two abductees is just
a virtue-signalling American imperialist, complicit in the crime
https://x.com/JeffSchuhrke/status/2007648246030839878?s=20
Ditto for any politician who claims to oppose this crime, or
who makes a show of proclaiming that U.S. soldiers must disobey illegal
orders, but does not use all the power of his/her office to impeach and bring
charges against the president and every executive officer who issued, and every
service member who carried out, this illegal order.
Not gonna happen, of course, because no Republican or
Democrat objects to the substantive crime, which is SOP for U.S. imperialism. (See
Noriega, Aristide, etc.) Democratic Senator Jack Reed says
we “have to commend” our armed forces
for conducting an operation that was "well conceived and courageously
executed." They object, at most, to the procedural misdemeanor—OMG, you
shot that guy without getting a permit for the gun!—and to the rhetorical transgression
of not adorning the blatant, cop-of-the-world, might-makes-right thuggery in sufficient
“freedom, democracy, and human rights” bling.
Peter Bagge
It’s not hard to recognize the crime that's already been
committed. More difficult, at this point, Is trying to determine what the
ongoing fruits of that crime are going to be for the Trump administration. What
the hell have they accomplished with this abduction? What the hell do
they think they've accomplished with this abduction? What the hell do
they think they will accomplish with this abduction?
It's not hard to see what Donald Trump thinks he has accomplished. He thinks he has taken control of the Venezuelan oil industry and of the Venezuelan polity tout court. He thinks “we”—he, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and their minions—now “run” the country of Venezuela. He thinks operation “Absolute Resolve,” at his direction, was “one of the most stunning, effective, and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history…an assault like people have not seen since World War II.” He thinks it thoroughly intimidated the government of Venezuela and left it and the whole of Latin America in his thrall. He thinks the world has learned the lesson that the Monroe Doctrine with Trump Corollary—per Hegseth, ridiculously renamed the Donroe Doctrine—is in force, with the United States now having final control over the resources, wealth, trade partners, and paths of development of every country in the Western Hemisphere.
