Venezuelan Chaos                                  #370

By Hank Silverberg 

Commentary

Venezuela has 28.4 million people. It has the largest untapped oil reserves in the world, which has not been exploited in recent years.    

Now, the United States has deposed that country's authoritarian President, Nicolas Maduro, and carried him off to New York City to face a plethora of criminal charges for his role in the international drug smuggling trade. Nobody is really feeling sorry for Maduro. Like Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein and Juan Hernandez, they deserved what they got for sending all that poison or terror to the USA.  (Oh wait, Trump recently pardoned Hernandez. What was that all about?)

But it is clear that President Trump once again violated the law when he did not inform Congressional leadership of military action in a foreign country--a move that is REQUIRED  by The War Powers Act of 1973. 

Trump's excuse: it would have leaked out. That is just not so. The law says eight key bi-partisan members of the Congressional leadership must be informed just prior to any U.S. military action in a foreign country. And no sitting U.S. congressman or senator is going to leak information that could endanger the lives of American troops. Before Trump bombed nuclear weapons targets in Iran last year, he informed just the Republican leadership--again a violation of the law. This time with Venezuela, he didn't even tell them. True, it has happened before, which is why some lawmakers like Virginia Senator Tim Kaine have been trying to strengthen the War Powers Act. 

(For historical reference, the Constitution says only Congress can authorize a war. The last time that happened was December 8th, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.)   

(Venezuela on world map)

So a violation of The War Powers Act is one problem. But more worrisome is the lack of a clear policy of what to do in Venezuela now that Maduro is gone. Trump only has one plan, to exploit that untapped oil reserve with the help of his friends in the oil business. There was nothing about who will govern Venezuela. He has even rejected the opposition party, which actually won the last election there but was shoved aside by Maduro. Trump says the U.S. will run that country. We tried that once before in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it took 20 years to get out with great loss of life and billions of dollars. And yes, we tried that in Vietnam too, costing 50,000 American lives and ruining a million more.    

There is also another message here. Trump has given Vladimir Putin more ammunition to claim parts of Ukraine or even all of it as a prize for ending that war. And Trump has told China it is okay for them to control the South China Sea and move in on Taiwan. If we can take Venezuela, why can't they have Ukraine or Taiwan? 

It's clear a year into his second term, that Trump, and likely those around him, have no clue about the role America has played in world geopolitics since the Second World War, and what turning inward  will do to the future of the United States in a world that is becoming smaller and more dangerous. The Monroe Doctrine died in the 19th Century. Nation building failed in the 20th and early in the 21st.    

I return to my often-used adage. "Those who forget the past, are condemned to relive it." 

News You May Have Missed 

The Moon Is Rising

When Apollo 17 touched down on the Moon in December of 1972, no one imagined it would be another 54 years before humans went back there. 

But all is set for 2026 to be the year we return to the Moon. And it hasn't been easy. It's been harder than even JFK could have imagined when he launched the first Moon mission in 1961.  

Politics got in the way of science with our government and probably the public too, unwilling to pay the price for manned exploration of the final frontier, especially after two deadly Space Shuttle missions in the 1980's.  

(Artemis II crew, from right to left, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen
 Courtesy NASA) 

But NASA's Artemis 2 mission with four astronauts on board, is scheduled to circle the Moon later this year as a warmup for future lunar landing missions. And those missions are a prelude to a manned trip to Mars. The ten day Moon mission will happen sometime between February and April if all goes well. It will be an Orion spacecraft on top of an Artemis Rocket with an aim to put a human back on the Moon by 2030, and like a half century ago, it will be a Space Race, this time to beat China to the lunar surface. 

It will be the first manned mission for Artemis. NASA sent up an unmanned test flight for three and a half weeks in 2022. 

The four-person crew will be American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. They completed a key launch day rehearsal last weekend. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-astronauts-fly-around-moon-artemis-ii-mission-2026-rcna250540

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2506983-nasas-artemis-ii-mission-aims-to-return-astronauts-to-moon-in-2026/

Echoes of The Insurrection

This week marks the 5th anniversary of one of the darkest moments in U.S. history, the 2021 January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol by right-wing fanatics.

 Lost in all the pardons of about 1,500 people who broke the law that day and all the conspiracy theories on what caused it, is the aftermath for the police officers who were injured during that attack. One of them was Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonnell. He had defended the central West Front entrance to the Capitol that day and was dragged by his shoulder straps as he tried to fight off people,
injuring his shoulder and foot and almost suffocating. In an interview with the Associated Press this week, he said he is still coming to terms with that. "They have tried to erase what I did. I lost my career, my health, and I've been trying to get my life back," he said. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who was near Gonnel in the tunnel of the West Front says, "a lot of things are getting worse" now. More than 140 officers were injured that day.  

(US Capitol Building) 

Several officers who fought with the rioters that day told the AP that the hardest thing to deal with has been the effort by many to play down the violence, despite all the video footage documenting it. 

Capitol Police Officer Winston Pingeon, who left the force several months later, said the pardons "erased what little justice there was."

Former Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger, who took over after January 6th but retired this past May, says changes have been made at the Capitol, and if it happens again no one will ever get inside. 

Most Republicans in Congress, even some who were there on January 6, 2021, are now calling it a "protest" instead of what it was, a violent effort to stop the electoral vote count from the election that put Joe Biden in office.     

Dumbest Quote of The Week! 

He's been in office less than a week, but NYC Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has already made this category. 

Here's one quote from him: 

"We'll replace rugged individualism with collectivism."

He may have meant government will play a bigger role in helping people, but it sounded to many observers like he was pushing "collectives" more associated with the Marxism of the old Soviet Union, than with government attempts to help the poor or middle class.  Words matter, Mr. Mayor, just like the international definition of antisemitism which you also removed from all official NYC policy on your first day.   

 

 (You suggestions and comments  are welcome)

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