Venezuela

One of the few Trump positions that I agreed with was his campaign promise to keep us out of foreign wars. He often bragged (inaccurately) that he was the first president in decades to not start a war. I'm not a pacifist by any stretch of the imagination, but most of the wars and other uses of our military are completely unnecessary. He flirted with military intervention during his first term. He bombed an Islamic State base in Syria. He had an Iranian General assassinated. But he didn't get us out of Afghanistan during his term, although he negotiated an end to our involvement with the Taliban, freezing out the actual government of Afghanistan. The second term is another story.

There is no shortage of bad guys on the world stage. Maduro is one of them. He accomplished what Trump failed to do: he overturned an election in which he lost and remained in power among other things. But there many other terrible dictators in the world. Why aren't we kidnapping them? Why is it any of our business, especially when the current regime is emphasizing "America First"? In addition to it being none of our business, recent history should have taught us that regime change and attempting to democratize another country seldom works out the way we envisioned. We "ran" Iraq for many years after invading it under false pretenses, and the result was the Islamic State which we had to go back in and subdue because the Iraqi army was too busy collecting paychecks for soldiers who didn't exist. We spent 20 years rebuilding Afghanistan, while corrupt Afghan politicians, warlords, and regional chieftains all tried to compete for the title of most corrupt. Result? The Taliban is back. 

So now, the "President of Peace", who is pathetically trying to convince everyone that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, has invaded Venezuela. He has kidnapped their de facto president, charging him with drug trafficking, and weirdly, weapons possession, announced that he will be seizing their national resources and selling them off as he unilaterally decides where to spend the money (oil rebate checks to all! - I just made that part up). He has declared that we are "running" Venezuela, although his Secretary of State "Liddle' Marco" has said otherwise. This was after weeks of extrajudicial killings of guys in boats who may or may not have been transporting drugs. Let's not ignore that Congress was not informed of this action. Trump's spokesperson says that the requirement in the War Powers Act that Congress be informed was not relevant because this wasn't a military operation, it was a law enforcement action—Green Berets were just there to protect those serving the warrant. Contrast this with the execution of the alleged drug runners they killed: in those cases it was a military operation because Venezuela was waging war on the United States by sending us fentanyl (or cocaine to Europe—whatever). Or maybe it was terrorism. Or narcoterrorism. Apparently labeling something as terrorism justified anything. 

And now we're going to "run" Venezuela.

Let's not forget about Greenland. 

Trump has been gabbling about taking over Greenland since his first term. At first it was viewed as a joke, but it's now clear that he's completely serious. The lack of pushback from Congress has likely emboldened him to take action. As if he cared what the impotent Congress thought. He doesn't care about what the voters think. He doesn't care what our allies think. He claims that we need Greenland for national security purposes. What he doesn't tell us is that in line with the treaty that we have with Denmark (which controls Greenland) allows us to build additional military bases after consultation with their government, and that before all of this, they would have agreed without a second thought. 

What a mess.