Have we abandoned the rule of law in favor of the law of the jungle?
I have been unusually upset (furious, disgusted, appalled) since January third, when the United States — acting contrary to US law, international law, and treaties to which we are party — attacked Venezuela and abducted Nicolas Maduro and his wife, lawyer and politician, Cilia Flores. Whatever you think about Maduro’s reign in Venezuela, good or bad, legitimate or illegitimate, the first question is this: What gives the United States the right to kidnap the leader of a sovereign country for allegedly violating US laws? Such as a 1934 US law prohibiting possession of a machine gun. This is one of the charges against Maduro. Ironic, right? Trump loves guns for our country, including military-style assault weapons, but No, No, No in Venezuela. Likewise, Trump claims to hate drug traffickers, but recently pardoned a convicted drug smuggler, the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez.
Make it make sense. Make it add up, or has 2 + 2 really become 5? Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu are war criminals, but the US doesn’t seem concerned enough to send in the US military.
I’m willing to bet that the Trump DOJ will botch this case in numerous amateurish ways. They may secure a conviction in the end, but some of the charges against Maduro will be dropped or lessened. The Regime will use the process for the spectacle, and rest assured, the billionaire-owned corporate media will breathlessly follow. Maduro is a thug and likely an illegitimate president, but removing him from power and holding him to account are issues for the people of Venezuela to decide. The DOJ will present him as a cross between Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot, a true villain.
I lived through the run-up to the Iraq invasion of 2003. I remember being horrified by W. Bush and Uncle Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, the cheerleaders from the New York Times Opinion pages, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer — the whole gang of fools who sunk our country into a disastrous and needless war based on fabricated intelligence and imperial arrogance. I knew in my brain and my gut that the invasion was madness, doomed to fail. There was a large anti-war demonstration in Santa Barbara, timed to coincide with worldwide protests, and I remember carrying my two-year-old daughter in one of those backpack carriers. George W. Bush sneered at the world and plunged ahead.
The vibe of imperial arrogance was pulsing on January 3.
Our country is addicted to war, we’ve waged wars every year of this century; we’re set to hand the Pentagon a trillion dollar budget.
What gives the US the right, as shadow president Stephen Miller asserted recently, is power — military, economic, and diplomatic. It’s an 18th century mentality in the twenty-first, economic coercion (sanctions, tariffs, trade barriers) and armed might (drones, cruise missiles, 2000 pound bombs) makes right. End of story. We take what we want, when we want, from whoever we want, and no country or international body can stop us. Might is right. America’s right to your natural resources is justified by your inability to prevent us from taking it.
Over the next weeks and months, when lips become loose and information leaks out, we will learn why it was so easy for US forces to execute their “law enforcement action,” as the detestable punk, Marco Rubio, termed it. Love the euphemism, little Marco. Remind us, why is the US military enforcing US law in a sovereign nation? Isn’t that more of an FBI deal? DHS maybe? Is military backup, 150 aircraft, an armada at sea, the new global law enforcement model?
While I don’t consider myself a conspiracy peddler, it’s possible that the capture of Maduro and his wife was worked out in advance, just as it’s possible that someone in Maduro’s inner circle sold him out and leaked his precise whereabouts and that of his Cuban security detail. Why was there no response from the Venezuelan army? The US began building its military presence near Venezuela in August. Snatching Maduro or coaxing him to step aside has been in the works for months, and Venezuelan officials had to be aware of the possibility. What’s the real story? When it comes to Donald Trump and his Regime, we unfortunately must consider the Golden Rule of TV: it’s about the spectacle, the narrative, the images that capture the essence of the star, the conquering strong man. Recall the oddly stage-managed attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, PA. That incident was in and out of the headlines in nothing flat and went straight down the memory hole. Recall Trump’s awful military/birthday parade.
As I say repeatedly, the Regime is capable of anything.
Some eighty people were killed in this invasion/exfiltration/spectacle of armed might. Buildings destroyed, lives upended, and terror inflicted on the entire country, the hemisphere, and beyond. But not a single American casualty, not even a scratch, and no failed equipment, just flawless execution from start-to-finish, or so claims Pete “Whisky & Jesus” Hegseth. We can’t yet square what the government has divulged with what actually happened. We only know what the US government and some Venezuelan outfits have reported. Do you trust the Regime to report the truth?
But let’s play this new world order out and see where it might take us. What if the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, who is more intelligent than Trump’s entire cabinet combined, decided that it serves Mexico’s national interests to kidnap and prosecute Donald Trump for violating a Mexican law against defamation and disparagement? Can she dispatch a commando team to Mar-A-Lago and abduct Dumb Donny and Melania, shove them in a helicopter and fly them to Mexico City? Did the US just clear the way for Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, can he abduct Mr. Zelenskyy without penalty? If China invades Taiwan must the world accept it as the right of a strong nation.
Have we abandoned the rule of law in favor of the law of the jungle? What blowback will there be this time, and who will pay the cost?
