Shoot, ready, aim in Venezuela
- jjcarney100team
- Jan 4
- 2 min read
That’s just one of the things Heather Cox Richardson had to say in her letter yesterday.
Without consulting Congress, the UN, Venezuela’s neighbors, or even the oil companies who presumably stand to benefit, Trump launched a unilateral strike against Venezuela in the early hours of Saturday, January 3, and captured president Maduro and his wife. He then informed the American people by calling in to Fox & Friends and announcing that the U.S. will “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.”
Things don’t seem to be going well in that regard.
Although Trump told reporters that Venezuelan vice president Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as president and seemed willing to work with the U.S., Rodriguez appeared on Venezuelan TV yesterday to demand release of Maduro as the rightful president and to condemn the unprecedented U.S. attack.
The oil companies are leery of Trump’s plan that they invest billions of dollars in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industries, due to the uncertain future of the country.
The lack of pre-raid preparation is obvious. Administration officials appear to be scrambling to assemble an interim governing structure for Venezuela, a country twice the size of California with 38 million people, many of whom continue to support Maduro, including armed drug-trafficking groups and an army of more than 100,000 soldiers.
Probably the worst outcome of the invasion is what it says about the huge shift in U.S. foreign policy. After World War II, to prevent future world conflicts, the United States and its allies put in place a rules-based international order, agreed to by members of the United Nations, that member countries would not threaten or attack another country. With the help of NATO and other alliances, the order held for 80 years.
One of Vladimir Putin’s most important objectives has been to dismantle that order, and legitimize his military aggression against Ukraine and other countries. Trump’s latest ill-conceived action is cause for celebration in Moscow.
Photo credit: Matias Delacroix/Associated Press
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