So, Truth Social is now the newest branch of our military and, at the same time, a replacement for the entire U.S. Congress.
President Trump has now used the social media platform to declare a “total blockade” of Venezuela. That is an act of war. It is also illegal under international law, absent an “armed attack” on the United States.
Never mind that only Congress has the power to declare war. Never mind that there has been no attack on the U.S. Truth Social has decreed it! It has also been decreed that we have Venezuela surrounded. This must be news to Brazil, Colombia and Guyana, which all have land borders with Venezuela—and which, as far as we know, they still control.
Truth Social (no peeking behind the curtain, lest it turn out to be Stephen Miller at the levers inside that giant, hollowed-out Trumpbot) has declared Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government is a “FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.” It has been posted. It must be so. It has also declared that the reason we are embarking on this war is to reclaim “Oil, Land and other Assets” that have been “stolen” from “us.” This is likely referring to the Venezuelan seizure (years ago, under a prior regime) of U.S. corporate assets, including those of companies like Exxon, Conoco Phillips, GM and AES. Certainly, Venezuela has not ever seized any land controlled by the U.S. government. Are we going to war to fight for these corporate assets? Will we seize oil fields? Will their value be returned to the companies? What will be the Trump Share that has become commonplace during this rogue presidency?
Questions aside, this illegal (and unhinged) war with Venezuela is, as many have suspected, all about oil after all. And why not? All of America’s oil wars have gone so well for us.
Well, one question: Wasn’t one of the reasons Trump’s base elected him was so there would be no more American wars? Do you think they’ll notice?
The made-up threat of “narco-terrorism” is the reason we have killed nearly a hundred people at sea in small boats that may or may not have been trafficking drugs. Because we use the word terrorism we can, by the transitive process of Dick Cheney, do whatever we want—anything people we designate as terrorists do is an existential threat. Never mind that there has been no due process for these victims. Never mind that if we actually captured these boats’ operators and convicted them of a crime, the worst punishment they could get might be 10 years in prison.
While we’re at it, we might also note that the White House has announced that fentanyl is now a weapon of mass destruction. It’s not. But part of the process behind waging insane U.S. wars in the 21st century is that we see weapons of mass destruction where they are not.
This might all seem disturbing but not so relevant to Americans who are more concerned with paying for groceries, losing their jobs or going bankrupt trying to pay for their healthcare, amid widely-spreading epidemics, because a heroin addict with a brain worm and no grasp of science is now in charge of medicine in the U.S. And of course, that makes good sense. Those are all really important things to be concerned by. It should also go without saying that trying to distract the country from the disastrous consequences of these disastrous Trump policies is the whole reason we’re wagging this dog south of the border anyway.
But let’s not be so quick to shrug and rationalize this all away. There are a bunch of reasons we should be deeply concerned by what is happening in and around Venezuela, not to mention what may happen soon in the name of Trump’s new colonialism.
We should be concerned that fighting a war—whether enforcing a blockade or seizing Venezuelan oilfields or taking out the Maduro regime—will put the lives of U.S. servicepeople at risk. American blood can be spilled. Indeed, it seems likely.
We should be concerned that U.S. military leaders are going along with this series of illegal orders, each of increasing consequence. It does not reflect well on them—and it will send a message to Trump that he can do whatever he wants, the law be damned. Congress be damned. Consequences be damned.
That is not a small thing when you consider Trump has the sole authority to launch the weapons in America’s nuclear arsenal—and that at any moment we are four minutes away from such an order.
The foreign policy consequences of the U.S. embarking on a new period of expansionism in our own hemisphere are grim. Trump has already threatened Panama, Canada and Mexico. Who is next? What will this do to our relations with other countries? What message does it send to other aggressors like Russia? Are we entering an era like that suggested in Trump’s recent National Security Strategy that we are abandoning the pillars of 80 years of law and alliance-based foreign policy for a new world of big global bullies having at it? And what does this creeping authoritarianism mean for the rule of law in the U.S., the Constitution, and the separation of powers? Nothing good. Nothing good at all.
What Trump is trying to engineer in Venezuela is shockingly dangerous. Its consequences could be severe and touch every one of us. It’s time to stand up and demand that Congress assume the role assigned to them by the founders. It’s time to acknowledge the fundamentally sound impulse of those on both the right and the left that unchecked presidential power to wage war and playing fast and loose with the definition of what and who are and are not threats can only lead to disaster.
The post Opinion: Is Troll-in-Chief Trump Really Sending America to War With a Truth Social Rant? appeared first on The Daily Beast.
