International, National & Minnesota Politics
The Snatch and Grab, early morning abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores may have come off seamlessly. It was a well-orchestrated military incursion. The communications systems were rendered ineffective and brought down, suppression bomb techniques were deployed, and the gates were stormed and the package secured.
The defense systems Maduro had obtained from the Russians and the Chinese failed and the relative comparative value shows American military superiority in this instance. As in the case of potential energy versus kinetic energy, once used it is exhausted and the deployment means its value is fully known. On our side, we know our capabilities and so do our opponents. We expect both sides will gain significant knowledge about each other’s actual capacity.
Sure Maduro is a bad actor, but here are many of those in the world, and likely was facilitating drug activities with limited impact on the United States, more likely on Europe, and clearly was adversely effecting the economy of his nation, through graft and corruption. But the question still looming out there if this were the correct approach, and does this lend credence to the idea of making this type of extraordinary action available to other or the world’s actor, specifically China, and Russia.
Is Xi Jinpin now given the green light, to invade Taiwan, is Vladimir Putin now provided justification to snatch Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. We are awaiting the international response, specifically from the United Nations.
By re-invoking the Monroe Doctrine (1822), and focusing so strongly on the Western Hemisphere, Donald J Trump (R) has stepped down into limited consideration of American interests from a Super Power to a Regional Power. The NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) approach is a very little man concept, but not a surprise from this person. He is a Chicken Hawk, a draft dodger, who was too cowardly to be subjected to the draft when he was youthful, and impose his will on other nations when he is aged and decrepit. Old men always send young men to fight their wars for them and take credit for the success, but never the failures.
The fact, only the head of the hydra has been removed but not the body, the criminal effort is still empowered. The inability for Trump to take the higher ground and state his clear justification for the raid on Venezuela as means to restore their democracy, as an attack on Communism in the Western Hemisphere or any other higher moral purpose was rendered moot, when he emphasized the true purpose, OIL.
Trump belittled something which might have been a positive result in this part of the globe and diminished it into an imperial conquest for resources, often seen as colonialism. Sure, when Hugo Chavez rose to power in 1999 as a Communist—and was not hemmed in by then President Bill Clinton (D)—later nationalized the oil industry, actions should have been taken then.
In the aftermath, the Vice President Delcy Rodriguez seemed to be defiant and then cooperative, especially when Trump in an interview with The Atlantic that if she ‘doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” His words are a threat and clearly intended to coerce the Venezuelan political class to step inline.
The existence of Cuban, Iranian, Chinese and Russian operatives in Venezuela is of great concern and may have been temporarily curtailed. Now, feeling his oats, Trump is training he is setting his sights on Greenland, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba. This could make for an interesting remaining three-years.
As these matters, manifest Canada will become a significant factor. If America obtains Greenland, Canada would be a close neighbor, and thereby impacted. If the US want to secure its safety from Russia and prevent use of the North Pole for infiltration then Canada is a strategic partner. Now, because of the US/Canada tariff disputes, caused by Trump, Canada is no longer our closest ally.
Everything Trump does is transactional and petty and in some regard beneficial to him, his family, people he associates with or people he wants to like him. One of the first things any change in government needs to repair is the Emoluments Clause in the US Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 & Article II, Section 1, Clause 7).