A surprise U.S. military strike to arrest Nicolás Maduro has ignited constitutional, geopolitical, and humanitarian concerns — with no clear endgame.
However prepared we should have been for a “large” U.S. military strike inside Venezuela, the overnight news of a widespread attack to cover the arrest and removal of Nicolás Maduro and his wife was stunning.
For all of Donald Trump’s bluster, perhaps equally stunning is the mountain-high pile of questions unearthed by the un-declared war incursion into another country in the name of a “drug enforcement” arrest.
What exactly have we accomplished besides arranging to put the Maduros on trial? What chaos have we now unleashed in a well-executed military strike that has no apparent plan for what happens next?
“We are going to run the country” with selected, unidentified Venezuelan officials until satisfactory leadership can take over, said Trump of the strikes, paid for by a renewed oil industry. Without explanation of how that will work – other than U.S. corporate takeover of oil fields. Trump said a much larger “wave” of attacks was considered. Trump suggested U.S. troops will be kept available in Venezuela or nearby for an undesignated period of time, though he was unclear.
Trump’s press conference explanation of the raid was so wandering that it was difficult to find the specific trigger for the raids. It clearly wasn’t drug smuggling allegations alone, or even “theft” of oil property, or anything about safety of Venezuelans. It was not clear what offenses were against the United States specifically. Trump claimed historical “Monroe Doctrine” needs for American dominance of the hemisphere, the righteousness of deportations and deployment of federal troops against Venezuelan gang members.
Have we once again entered conflict without a definable end goal? Will U.S. troops be committed to peacekeeping made necessary by decapitating the country’s leadership?
Do we really think we have stopped drug traffic to the U.S., or reclaimed U.S. oil interests, or somehow “liberated” Venezuelans from a government we dislike – and not triggered an outflow of Venezuelans to other countries, including our own? Are we really supposed to believe that a police action now comes with a naval armada headed by an aircraft carrier and 15,000 troops offshore? There even are questions about new drug trafficking claims against both Maduros since a 2020 conspiracy indictment listed Maduro but not his wife, though the conspiracy was a group that apparently does not exist.
Is this an end to some Venezuela chapter – or the unleashing of much wider aggression not only by this country, but by others who will see justification in the capture of Maduro as authorization to undertake incursions of their own?
Serious Questions
As an operation, the strike involved bombing multiple military bases and a stealth Delta Force assault on a fortified Maduro home. The city was darkened, there was meticulous coordination with intelligence agencies, the weather cooperated. A helicopter took fire, but there were no fatalities.
There are serious questions about Trump’s own abuse of presidential war powers and the role of a Congress that seems to be flailing to assert itself as anything close to an effective branch of our own government. There are serious questions about a president who ignores polls showing 70 percent or more of voters opposed to more wars starting a new one with reasoning no one can offer persuasively.
Trump simply dismissed criticisms about any needed authority for the strikes. “They should say great job,” he told Fox News. “They shouldn’t say ‘Oh, gee, maybe it’s not constitutional.’” That hardly answers questions that the claim to ”inherent powers” for the president solely to dispatch U.S. military, indeed is constitutional. However loathsome a character as Maduro, whose legitimacy the U.S. disputes, what exactly has Maduro done that merits invasion and capture?
There are serious questions from an attempted takeover of Venezuela, a sovereign nation, by a piqued Trump. Why not China, where fentanyl is said to originate, or Mexico, where it is processed? Why not Colombia, which has been dealing with cartels for decades?
If we care so much about foreign leaders who promote drug sales, why did this very same Trump pardon the former Honduras president who was not only arrested, but convicted and imprisoned in the U.S. for smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into this country?
Peacemaker Trump?
Why was Trump only casually mentioning to Fox News that U.S helicopter was hit? Doing so seems only to underscore that Trump sees the military as a plaything for him to use at will to satisfy some gut instinct rather than to carry out strategic planning.
Why the constant show of force, particularly from a Trump who jealously wants a Nobel Peace Prize and brags about settling various conflicts – that remain contentious? Who is granting Trump the right to run this hemisphere as a personal sandbox?
Indeed, just this week, Trump threatened Iran over any crackdown on public protests even as Trump seeks to put the U.S. military on our own city streets to stop our own protests about his presidency.
What makes this incursion different from Russia seeking the overthrow of Ukraine?
In place of a congressional declaration of war with an explanation of goals, we have a Trump Social Media post in the middle of the night. We see after the fact efforts from Secretary of State Mario Rubio — who had said we were not pursuing regime change and now insists that military conflict is over after this set of bombing — with Republican senators and international leaders to calm fears of a wider conflict. Rubio insisted it was largely a law enforcement issue and a “trigger” situation that precluded congressional notification.
A number of Republican lawmakers who represent districts in Southern Florida with large Venezuelan Americans were celebrating.
Russian and Iranian leaders immediately sided with Venezuela, Columbia put its army on alert for new migrations and called for immediate UN Security Council review, international figures were at least wary if not angered by the actions. Only Argentina’s leader, a Trump ally, was vocal in support. Diplomatic experts were concerned that the move would further embolden China to like acts in Taiwan.
The ripples are not just local to the suddenly uncertain streets of Caracas.
Apart from all else, declaring this act of war an execution of a years-old arrest warrant flies in the face of others, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who face outstanding charges. Those, of course, also had included Trump’s own allegations of law-breaking until his Justice Department forced their dismissal.
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