Trump’s Venezuela Mistakes
The extraction of President Maduro and his wife flawlessly from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, by the U.S. military is receiving plaudits from many Americans. On the other hand, many other Americans were against this foreign adventure by Trump in the first place, when there are domestic problems that are urgent and he needs to address. He ran for president on an America First platform, saying that America should not be engaged in foreign wars or nation building. But thus far, his attention appears to be directed more to foreign policy than domestic issues. He’s been trying to settle foreign wars all over the globe with varying degrees of success to win a Nobel peace prize. But he’s also pushed American military action in Iran, Syria, and Nigeria, as well as Venezuela.
Whether or not going into Venezuela with our military was a mistake, it was conducted wrong. If we were going in we should have removed Maduro’s mafia at the same time we took El Presidente and his wife. The same band of hardened criminals is still running Venezuela sans Maduro, the interior and defense ministers both indicted drug traffickers. They still control narcotics and criminal activity without Maduro and still need to be removed. Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s vice-president is now running Venezuela, a criminal like Maduro. The overwhelming majority of political prisoners are still behind bars. And the drug gangs remain on the loose. If we’re going to do a job, we have to do it right and complete it.
The second big mistake Trump made was to announce that we were after Venezuelan oil and that American companies were going to take over the Venezuelan oil business. (Right now, it seems like our oil companies are not too interested in Venezuelan oil.) But Trump’s announcement that we wanted to control Venezuelan oil made it seem that American imperialism was at work again and we were just after another nation’s natural resources. Instead of oil, we should have made our actions all about returning Venezuela to democracy and getting rid of a criminal dictatorship. That would have put American actions in a completely different light. We would have been looked upon as saviors of the Venezuelan people instead of as American imperialists after oil. The Venezuelan people still lack adequate food and medical care while the drug lords flourish.
It still might not be too late to change the picture. We should place Maria Machado’s party in charge of the government since they won the last election 70 percent to 30 percent over Maduro and his cronies. Our forces can supervise a transition from the current government to one controlled by Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez, the winner of the 2024 election after Maduro disqualified Machado. We should imprison the members of the current Maduro government and let the new Machado judiciary deal with them. That would be aside from those already indicted by American prosecutors, who should be tried with Maduro in America. It ain’t all about the oil. We want a free and democratic Venezuela and for us to be seen as liberators and not imperialists.
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