The Donald is a threat to world peace
Opinion
US President Donald Trump did not seek congressional approval prior to his military attack on Venezuela.
Image: Jim Watson / AFP
AMID a week of great turmoil in geopolitics, the US Senate voted 52-47 to advance a war powers resolution aimed at limiting the use of armed forces against Venezuela.
The vote followed concerns that US President Donald Trump did not seek congressional approval prior to his military attack on Venezuela. Trump had ramped up his discomforting rhetoric with repeats of deploying “boots on the ground” as part of his control of Venezuela indefinitely.
Trump reacted to the Senate’s vote limiting the use of armed forces against Venezuela in typical fashion. Writing on his social media platform, Trump said: “Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our powers to fight and defend the United States.” He named and shamed the Senators, and said they should never be elected to office again, accusing them of “stupidity”.
Americans on the political opposite of Trump’s Republican Party have expressed deep concern over the apparent lack of a plan for the US involvement in the administration of Venezuela.
Trump has vowed to redirect 30 to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil to the US to sell at market value and decide how much to give to Venezuela from the profits. It has been such a cantankerous scenario that it left not only Americans, but the entire international community with more questions than answers.
At a time when the international community could do with peaceful coexistence, united in diversity, Trump is proving to be a wrecking ball.
This, in my humble opinion, is a great shame. Given the stature of the US in world affairs, where the US economy is the biggest and its military unmatched, the US could be playing a more meaningful role in providing exemplary leadership.
However, events of the past week have moved international peace and cooperation to the brink of a spectacular collapse. First, Washington’s brazen military attack on the Venezuelan capital Caracas, kidnapping the country’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, has killed the traditional predictability of diplomacy and caused uncertainty of significant proportions.
Initially, some embedded Western media outlets shamelessly described the kidnapping and abduction of President Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, as an “extraction”. The subsequent news coverage also focused on the seemingly concocted charges of narcoterrorism against the pair, ignoring the blatant contravention of international law.
The sovereignty of Venezuela was flatly undermined, and by extension, the UN Charter found itself in the dustbin of the White House.
I have previously cited the menacing unilateralism of the US, with Europe in tow, as the singular most causal factor behind global instability. In the aftermath of the US military attack on Caracas, during which one hundred members of the protection services were mowed down by the heavy firepower of the US Delta Force operators, the absence of condemnation across the West was telling.
The silence was a loud confirmation that Europe, in particular, has become totally incapable of exercising their independence of thought. Apart from the puppet regime of Argentina, the entire Latin America and the Caribbean expressed unfettered outrage at Washington’s disregard for the territorial integrity of Venezuela.
The African Union, too, condemned the unacceptable behaviour of the US. So did Russia and China, who both called for the immediate release of Maduro and his wife, who are languishing in a New York penitentiary awaiting their next court appearance in early March.
The Trump administration’s penchant to set and follow its own international rules was also on display when, days after Maduro’s kidnapping together with his wife, the US seized a Russian-flagged vessel, Marinera, and a second “stateless” accused of transporting Venezuelan oil.
In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry said: “Unilateral restrictive measures imposed by the US and other Western countries are illegitimate and cannot justify attempts to assert jurisdiction or, even less, to seize vessels on the high seas.”
Ever since the fatal military attack on Caracas, Venezuelan streets have been occupied by scores of angry citizens calling for the return of their president and his wife. Collectively, they swear that Venezuela will never be a colony again.
The deposing of President Maduro has left Latin America in the grip of fear. There is no knowledge of who could be next among the leaders in Trump’s sight. However, the Trump administration has a dim view of Mexico, Colombia and Cuba, and anyone of those nations could have been next in line for regime change had the US Senate not clipped Trump’s wings.
Luckily, despite the many powers bestowed on the US presidency by the Constitution, the checks and balances have nonetheless halted the runaway reign of terror that loomed large.
Europe, muted in its response to Trump’s contravention of international law when attacking Venezuela, were quick to speak up when Trump reiterated his threats to forcefully take over Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Some fear that should the US stage a military takeover of Greenland, it would be the first time that a NATO country attacks another NATO country. “That would spell the end of NATO,” a Danish legislator said.
The hypocrisy of the West and the EU is mind-boggling. Not so long ago, they bitterly complained that Russia has undermined the territorial integrity of Ukraine, yet they see no wrong when the US attacks Venezuela so they could annex the oil reserves and stop the supply of the oil to China and Russia.
This is part of a new security strategy to control the Western hemisphere, according to the Trump administration.
Examples of Washington’s unilateralism also manifested themselves in the withdrawal from 66 international organisations by the Trump administration. The announcement was also made a few days ago. Half of the organisations are UN-aligned.
It is increasingly clear that the UN Charter is dead. The principles of consensus seeking mechanism and multilateralism are all but dead. The US is rewriting international relations. They are creating a law of the jungle to replace international law as we know it. Had the USW Senate not intervened, I was going to be certain that WWIII is imminent.
Trump campaigned on a MAGA ticket of ending wars. But on the available evidence, he is causing global instability never seen in recent memory.
* Abbey Makoe is Founder and Editor-in-Chief: Global South Media Network (gsmn.co.za). Views expressed are wholly personal.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, Independent Media, or IOL.