New Orleans When you think about cowboys, you have to be careful how you apply this to the White House. There was Ronald Reagan, riding a horse on his California ranch. We had George W. Bush cutting brush for fun and exercise on his Texas ranch. They were both one kind of wannabe cowboys with the land and accoutrements to give them some authenticity. Then there’s the other kind of “cowboy” in the White House now, reckless, devil may care, and playing with guns. Maybe foolhardy is a better word than reckless? Maybe both of them together describes the situation more accurately?
If Trump, with Defense’s Hegseth and State’s Rubio, is rebuilding the new world order in Latin America or rewriting the Monroe Doctrine, they are all out of control. First, we have these boat strikes where the US has killed more than 80 people so far, shooting ducks in the water. Maybe these boats were carrying drugs, though less likely fentanyl from reports, and maybe the pilots and crew were paid smugglers and, maybe not? Who knows, since there has been no transparency? What is clear is that this is a mismatch. The full might of the US military and arsenal, against a motor boat isn’t remotely a fair fight. Nor is it something covered under everything is right in “love and in war.” There’s no war. They may or may not be criminals, but these aren’t terrorists.
On top of that, firing repeatedly to also kill survivors of the strikes breaks every treaty on the conduct of war, even if this was a real war. When Defense tries to rationalize the second strike in the current outrage, it tries to claim that two survivors were trying to “right the boat.” Really, you’ve just been hit by a guided missile and you’re in the middle of the ocean, wouldn’t everyone in that situation try to get back in the boat as opposed to simply drowning. No one outside the Trump orbit seems to question the consensus that this is a war crime, and Hegseth is refusing to show the video.
What kind of cowboy stuff can top that? Oh, glad you asked. How about seizing a Venezuelan oil tanker in a combined Navy and Coast Guard operation? Reports are calling this “unusual,” which is an understatement, if ever there was one. The rationale is that the ship may in some iteration or another have been under sanctions years ago for carrying Iranian oil. Sports fans, there is an ocean full of ships that are under sanction and carrying oil from Russia, Iran, and other countries making this another case of a “lie in the skin of a reason.”
This is all about putting pressure on the Venezuelan government. It’s questionably elected president, Maduro, has few fans anywhere. A quick look at the opposition leader and now Nobel Prize winner hardly makes her seem much better. She’s a Trump sycophant and as far a right winger as Maduro may pretend that he is a left winger. Is this really where we want to go to war? The ship seizure is allowing Maduro and his folks to claim that the US interest is all about the oil, and not really about whether Maduro is a narco-trafficker. Trump lost all moral and political ground already on that score by pardoning the former president of Honduras who had been convicted in US courts as in fact a narco-trafficker.
Venezuela is a broken country and failed state, having lost a huge percentage of its population as the economy collapsed under sanctions and more. As a nation standing up to the United States, it’s a little bit like a speedboat being a threat to a US navy battleship.
No one can pretend this faux-war is because of some deep feeling Trump has for Venezuelans or trying to bring democracy to the country. This is about bullying, spite, and maybe hoping to distract the American people from our own economy and Trump’s falling poll numbers. If we had a real Congress and separation of powers still, there would be an uproar, so maybe this is a lost cause, but there’s no way to see a war in Venezuela as part of US national security or in our national interest.