A Lawless Regime

There are, of course, many interesting aspects of the Trump regime’s illegal and deadly intervention in Venezuela:

1. The mainstream press’s reaction to the operation, at least in comparison to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is interesting. After the latter invasion, all we heard was “Aggression! Aggression! Aggression! Russia is threatening the world with its aggression!”

One does not see that terminology with respect to the military attack on Venezuela. There is detailed analysis, maybe even criticism, but there is no big emotional outburst of “Aggression! Aggression! Aggression! The United States is threatening the world with its aggression!”

Yet, as illegal and deadly as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was, at least Russia had an excuse: That the U.S.-controlled NATO knowingly and deliberately provoked Russia into invading by threatening to absorb Ukraine into NATO, an action that U.S. officials had previously promised not to do. There was no such excuse with respect to the U.S. military aggression against Venezuela. It was pure, unadulterated aggression.

2. The U.S. government had no legal authority to attack Venezuela and kill people in the attempt to bring Maduro to the United States to stand trial for having allegedly violated U.S. drug laws. That’s what extradition agreements between nation-states are all about. Nations enter into such agreements as a mutual way to get suspected criminal defendants sent to a country to stand trial. If no extradition treaty exists, then under the law the suspected criminal simply remains where he is and there is nothing that the accusing nation can do about it.

There is actually an extradition treaty between the United States and Venezuela. The U.S. government chose not to pursue that route, no doubt because the person being accused of the crime was the president of the country, Nicolás Maduro. As a practical matter, there was never any chance that an extradition request would have been successful, but that still does not legally justify attacking the country as a way to bring a criminal suspect to the United States to stand trial.

3. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that President Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for crimes committed during the course and scope of his official duties as president. Thus, even though Trump’s orders to assassinate people on the high seas near South America who are suspected of violating U.S. drug laws are clearly illegal killings, there is no reasonable possibility that Trump will ever be convicted for ordering such killings, given the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.

But if the U.S. president is immune from criminal prosecution, why isn’t the president of a foreign country also immune from criminal prosecution as well? The answer: Because the U.S president is head of the U.S. Empire. Foreign presidents are heads of lower-level countries and, therefore, lack the same legal protection under the U.S. system as the head of the Empire.

4. I find it interesting that the military personnel who took Maduro and his wife into custody did not simply kill them instead, even if it meant shooting them in the back. After all, that’s what they have done with those people in those little boats. It befuddles me that they treated the Maduros differently. I’m not being critical, mind you, because they did the right thing in not summarily assassinating them or executing them after arrest. I’m just pointing this out because they should have treated those defenseless people in those little boats in the same way. Legally and morally, they should have demanded their surrender, taken them into custody, brought them to the United States, and put them on trial, as they have done with Maduro and his wife.

5. So far, this hasn’t turned out to be a full regime-change operation because Trump is permitting the Maduro regime to remain in power, albeit without Maduro. The Venezuelan socialist regime is still intact, with Maduro’s vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, now in charge, along with the Venezuelan national-security establishment, notwithstanding the fact that most everyone knows that Maduro lost the last election and was an illegitimate president. Given that he’s illegitimate, so is his vice president.

Clearly dissing the dissidents against the Maduro regime, Trump is obviously hoping to convert Rodríguez into a U.S.-controlled puppet. It is pretty obvious that if she doesn’t follow Trump’s orders, she is staring at the possibility of another military strike aimed at her, one that will bring her to the United States to stand trial for who knows what, including supposedly being labeled a “narco-terrorist.”

6. It is also clear that the drug war has been used as just a ruse to abduct Maduro and bring him to the United States, especially given Trump’s pardon of other major drug lords in the U.S. federal system. In fact, Trump has already threatened Rodríguez with another military strike if she doesn’t stop drugs from exported from Venezuela to the United States. Of course, that would just be another sham reason for another such military strike. After all, given that U.S. officials have been unable to stop the black-market transportation of drugs inside the United States or into the United States, why would anyone think that a president of a foreign country would be able to stop the black-market exportation of drugs from that country?

7. Trump continues to claim that Venezuela stole oil from U.S. oil companies, but such is simply not the case. The oil was always owned by the Venezuelan government, which leased oil-extraction rights to American oil companies long ago on terms that were very favorable to the oil companies, possibly because of some bribes being paid. Later, the Venezuelan government broke those agreements by nationalizing all the oil rights. The oil companies were later granted monetary judgements in arbitration proceedings. But given the brutal sanctions (and Maduro’s socialism) that prevented Venezuela from prospering, the Venezuelan government has been unable to pay those judgments.

8. Since this was a military attack on the sovereign and independent nation, it required a congressional declaration of war under the U.S. Constitution. I fully realize that no U.S. president has complied with that constitution requirement ever since the federal government became a national-security state. Nonetheless, it’s important that we continue to point out the manifest illegality of these types of interventions.

Martin Luther King pointed out that the U.S. government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. I don’t think that anyone really disputes that. But it’s also worth pointing out that it is also the greatest illegal purveyor of violence in the world.

This first appeared on Hornberger’s Explore Freedom blog.

The post A Lawless Regime appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Jacob G. Hornberger.