Venezuela: Door #1, Door #2, or Door #3?

Following my email to my Congressional representatives (see earlier post), I received a prompt response from Senator Britt. Unsurprisingly, she supported the military incursion into Venezuela, the rationale being eliminating the head of Venezuela’s drug cartel, restoring democracy, and reducing the influence of China and Iran.

Beginning with the president’s news conference last Saturday, we’ve heard an incoherent string of rationales and intentions for what’s next, undermining the logic of Senator Britt’s response. I couldn’t resist replying to point this out:

Senator Britt,

Thank you for your response to my email opposing the U.S. intervention in Venezuela. While not surprised, I was disappointed in your full-throated justification of the administration’s talking points — which compels me to respond.

Maduro was a brutal dictator, yet his brutality primarily harmed countless Venezuelans. He did not “wage war” on Americans for decades. Maduro’s support of the drug trade didn’t justify a “necessary mission” at enormous cost and potential risk to our service men and women just to capture him for trial.

If stopping the flow of drugs into the U.S. was truly the objective — a narrowly targeted “law enforcement operation” — why did the president pardon the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of similar drug crimes and was serving a long sentence in prison? Stopping the flow of drugs is not a credible argument.

You wrote “the United States intends to oversee a peaceful transition and a return to democracy in Venezuela.” Yet, the administration has anointed Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president and now president, to lead the government. This leaves Maduro’s corrupt government and military in place and places no restraint on the drug cartels. Standing up democracy is not a credible argument.

It didn’t take long for the president to clearly state his motives: “oil, oil, oil.” He told The New York Times that the U.S. will be running Venezuela and extracting its oil for years, and he will decide how the proceeds will be divided among Venezuela and America, I suspect with a cut for himself. We’ll likely hear of a new Trump resort being planned for the Venezuelan coast, further enriching his family.

With a reality-TV demonstration of military power, the president has returned U.S. foreign policy to the colonial era where powerful countries dominate weaker nations. The U.S. has no legal right to the oil in Venezuela, yet we can threaten military force to establish a “deal” that gives us the “right” to plunder their oil. Stephen Miller affirmed that philosophy in a recent CNN interview, and the president told The New York Times that the only limits on his power are “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

I’m disappointed you didn’t join five of your Republican colleagues to support limiting further military action in Venezuela without Congressional approval. I pray you will have the courage to vote for the resolution next week. If Republicans continue to bow down, I fear the president who sees himself as God may well end the American democracy before the country reaches its 250th anniversary.