WAR CRIMES

 

Recently the Trump administration has continued to bomb boats from Venezuela that it claims were carrying drugs on them.  The explanation given  is that  the drug dealers were enemies in our war on drugs. After the first bombing back in September happened, Geoffrey Corn, a retired uniformed lawyer who was the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues, said “I think it’s a terrible precedent.  We’ve crossed a line here.”  Sadly, the Trump administration continued the bombing, even as some Republicans in congress balked at the news that the first bombing attack  hit the boat twice, killing two survivors who were hanging onto the wreckage when  the second bombing hit, in open violation of the rules of engagement.

While Trump has been claiming that all of the attacks are legitimate and  even claimed  that “Every boat that we knock out ,we save 25,000 American lives.”  But the notion that these attacks are justified as part of our  nations's war on drugs is absurd; for one thing, even if the boats were bound for America, they would have carried cocaine and not the far more dangerous fentanyl, which comes across the Mexican border and not from Venezuela, so the notion that the bombings saved so many American lives is preposterous.  Another point could be made that ferrying illegal drugs is not a capitol offense worthy of the death penalty, and that having the US harbor patrol stop and search the boats would not only have prevented the loss of lives, it would have allowed the drug dealers to be interrogated, which could lead to more arrests.  And to make matters really quite insane, last month Trump pardoned  Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who had been convicted of smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US and was about to serve a forty five year sentence.  So much for cracking down on illegal drug deals!

It's clear that what Trump wants is not to blow up a few boats, but to force Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of power. To that end he has already mobilized the US Navy around that country and recently had a Venezuelan  oil tanker seized.

Now, it must be said that Maduro is a corrupt leader who had jailed opponents, wrecked Venezuela's  economy and caused millions to flee the country since he took power in 2013.  And, yes, it appears that he has cut deals with illegal drug traders, although he denies this.  So a case could be made that removing him may be the right thing to do, although it really appears that Trump is more interested in getting access to Venezuelan oil reserves than in taking out a dictator.  Either way,  Trump and his administration seem to have come to  the conclusion that Marduro must go.  However, as we found out in the Iraq war of 2004, it's much easier to remove a corrupt leader than it is  to replace one while also trying to  stabilize a country militarily.  It is therefore understandable for the American public to expect the Trump administration to explain to us just why we need to possibly risk American lives to force Madero out.  Even though I always opposed the Iraq war, at least George W Bush's administration attempted to make as strong a case as possible for the invasion.  The Trump administration is just gearing up for some kind of attack with little to no communication with the public.  This is especially galling given that recent polls show a whopping 70% of the American public oppose such an invasion.  

One of the many troubling things about the second Trump term is his administration's attitude that they know what's best without even bothering to inform the publics about it's motivations.  For example,  when Trump was questioned about pardoning that drug lord, he vaguely shrugged it off by saying he heard that  Hernández had been framed by Biden, as if that was a legitimate answer.  Of course, Trump is really more the cult leader of the Republican party than he is a president, and like any cult leader, he hates to be questioned about his decisions.  And so the country may soon be in another war based on an oil grab carried out by a president who couldn't care less about the consequences.  We continue to live in unprecedented and horrifying time in this country.