WAKE UP, AMERICA

Let's not sleep on what's happening in Venezuela

Not everyone in Venezuela likes us. Photo by Federico Parra

Marjorie Taylor Greene made a shrewd move when she resigned her Congressional seat last week, and it’s having an interesting effect in Washington. It looks like her resignation might have injected a bit of spine into Congressional Republicans, even prompting rumors that others are considering doing the same.

It’s been an open secret that many Republicans in Congress have great disdain for the President. Yet until this move by MTG, none had the nerve to do much of anything that might displease him. Now it seems possible that there might have been a shift. On Thursday, Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced an investigation into Pete Hegseth’s possible war crimes in Venezuela. If ever there was a get-your-popcorn-and-settle-in-to-watch type of moment, this is it. If Republicans in Congress become patriots first, loyal sycophants of the President second, then this administration of thugs is on its way down.

It doesn’t seem to be any one thing at this point. It’s the Epstein files and the corruption and the ICE raids and the economy and Ukraine and the death threats against government officials and the rude, disgusting language in regards to almost anyone. He seems to be losing his grip in front of everyone’s eyes. But the days and weeks ahead could be very dangerous for just that reason. People at the White House surely understand the possibility of mutiny among their ranks, and we can assume they’ll go to any lengths to shore up support for the President. No thinking person would put anything past them.

President Trump has many options at his disposal should things not be going his way. He can do more than blow his lid on Truth Social. He has the power to blow up the world. Clearly he is mentally unwell, and articles of impeachment should already be on the table. But while there are profound displays of bravery on the part of individuals - from federal judges, to select elected leaders, to government employees retiring rather than be associated with the illegality of the administration, to citizens protesting ICE raids around the country - the normal operations of government have been essentially turned into instruments for carrying out the President’s will.

This is not an administration that considers itself legally required to obey the law. It is governed not by laws, but by men - and the women who enable them. Karoline Leavitt, for instance, decries the ability of those pesky little things called judges to stymie the President’s plans. “There is a troubling and dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision-making process,” she says, as though the separation of powers doesn’t even exist. (If ever there was an argument for the mandatory teaching of Civics in Middle School, she is it) The administration does what it wants to do and doesn’t do what it doesn’t want to do, regardless what law or tradition or power of government would otherwise stop them. They flout the law with extraordinary abandon. They call this a “strong Executive.” Adherents of democracy call it an encroaching dictatorship.

This is why Senator Wicker’s use of his power to investigate the actions of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is so potentially important. We can only imagine the administration’s response behind the scenes to what they surely consider Wicker’s “disloyalty.” How dare Congress assert its constitutionally given authority and investigate alleged illegality within the Executive Branch? Don’t they know we don’t do that anymore…?

But the cancer is already deep in the bones, and Congressional investigations can have a way of dissolving into little more than performance for the cameras. If there is a shift in Congress - if Republicans lose control of the House, for instance - Trump will still be President until 2028. In his psychological universe, any threat to his power is clearly a threat to his personhood - and by extension, he would have his followers believe, a threat to the country. It doesn’t matter that that’s a deranged perspective, because the power of the Presidency is still vested in his hands. He is willing to use that power and then some. That’s what makes our country vulnerable now in a way it hasn’t been since the Civil War. The days of “Oh, I’m sure somebody will handle it” are long behind us now.

Again, there are people within the government, including the military, doing everything they can to counter all this madness. But none of it will matter if average citizens of the United States don’t do our part. All over the country, it’s obvious that people are willing to do what they can, and it’s heartening to see. But the President holds one particular card more disturbing than any other right now, and everyone needs to recognize the danger. Alongside all the other chaos President Trump has created, he has built up a U.S. military presence around Venezuela. Our largest aircraft carrier is now stationed off its coast. President Trump has assumed the power - which he doesn’t have, by the way - to close the airspace around that country, warning commercial or military planes that they had best stay away.

The President is a buffoon, but he’s a dangerous buffoon. For he usually tries to make good on his threats. None of us should kid ourselves. We might be going to war on Venezuela.

Why Venezuela, you might ask? And you should be asking, by the way.

One thing we can know for sure is that this has nothing to with drugs. The narco-terrorism to which the President refers, while real, is not generated in Venezuela. Venezuela is primarily a transit stop for drugs coming from other Latin American countries, nor does it produce fentanyl. And get this. The President plans to grant a full pardon to Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras who had been given a 45 year prison sentence for moving tons of cocaine into the United States. Such a pardon is hardly the action of someone wanting to punish drug traffickers. Pardoning a convicted drug kingpin, while bombing small boats of people you only suspect of moving drugs, is the kind of illogic we’ve come to expect from this President.

As I’ve been saying for a while, there is a lot more going on here.

The Trump administration doesn’t just have its eyes on Venezuela. It has its eyes on Latin America. It now plans to do in that region what the neocons in an earlier administration tried to do in the Mideast: recreate it in our image, turning its vast resources of oil - and, in this case, rare earth minerals - into an exploitation zone for American corporations. The United States has a long history of economic imperialism in that part of the world, with covert CIA operations obsessively focused on fighting communism and holding countries economically hostage. From assassinating democratically elected leaders such as Salvador Allende in Chile; then propping up monstrous regimes such as that of Augusto Pinochet; to releasing economic hit men to destroy governments that refused to do America’s bidding, our history in Latin America was for a long time a history of shame and covert malfeasance. The migration of millions of refugees seeking escape from poverty and drug-related violence by making it to America over the last few years can in many ways be attributed to our own policies over a period of decades.

Now - in large part in response to China’s increasing influence in Latin America - we are watching a dangerous plan unfold. Trump is the latest in a long line of American Presidents who have exerted America’s dominance, and by extension the dominance of US corporate interests, in whatever area they damn well chose. Our political establishment has very little capacity to think beyond brute force as a problem-solving option. They always say, “We’ll be in and out within weeks,” when initiating what becomes a quagmire in which we are stuck for years. And they always have an excuse for going in. Venezuela’s Maduro is not a good man, in fact he’s an awful dictator. But so was Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Gaddafi in Libya. That doesn’t mean the U.S. invading someplace will necessarily solve the problem. Our foreign interventions over the last few decades have created many more problems than they’ve solved. One of the most dangerous aspects of modern American governance is its complete unwillingness to think ahead.

The U.S. government is also good at throwing fairy dust in the eyes of its citizens. They used to say our military misadventures were about “saving democracy,” but no one buys that anymore. With Venezuela they’re saying it’s about “fighting drugs,” but we shouldn’t buy that one either. Our military imperialism is a gold mine for the military-industrial complex, and increasingly these days for the tech-industrial complex as well. But Americans shouldn’t kid ourselves. Our addiction to military madness is deadly, not only for others but also for us. During the run up to the Iraq War, many of us kept shouting “It’s Vietnam all over again!” Boy, were we shouted down at the time. It’s almost dark humor to me at this point, how nothing gets you mocked and derided in America more quickly than pointing out the obvious.

Let’s point out the obvious anyway: if we strike Venezuela, it will not be without consequences. If there’s even the slightest chance that this could be a powderkeg rather than a cakewalk, should we not at least be discussing it? Maduro after all has very powerful friends, some of whom would love nothing more than to help him stick it to America. And this time, the fighting would be in our hemisphere. We the People should have no illusions, and we had best start making some loud noise. (202) 224 3121 is the Congressional switchboard, a number that should be in everyone’s phone by now. Call and tell your Congressmen and Senators how you feel. If a Republican Senator from Mississippi can stand up to the President, then so can you and I.

Americans slept as they led us into Vietnam. Americans slept as they led us into Iraq. When will we learn that liars lie? Americans slept and then the nightmares came. My God, America. Be awake this time.