There is every chance that - both we and the so-called world, more us than the world - fell into collective hypnosis after the American (Trump's) interventions in Venezuela i kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro. Here, surprise & outrage at Trump's move is spreading like wildfire in the middle of summer. Only on the portal "Vremena" can you find a wide range of excuses: the violation of international law (it's not possible), the end of the international order (which, by the way, was functioning perfectly until yesterday), the threat to the security of the entire world (as if it wasn't clear to anyone who preserved some composure already on the first day of Trump's first term), and now any major or regional power can carry out such an attack in the area of its interests (as if it could not, nor did it until now), and the most dangerous precedent that re-introduces the principle of bare force into international relations (in contrast to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, which was probably a demonstration of trained force and the spread of hippy ideas) and the legitimization of the robbery of national resources of independent states, members of the United Nations (which, by the way, has never happened before, so now the pressure is unprecedentedly high), then an attack on a sovereign country (while Ukraine is not sovereign, so Putin's attack was not an attack on a sovereign country) and so on, from banality to banality, from arbitrariness to arbitrariness.
An unprecedented refreshment would be if those who have access to the public space would think a little before opening their mouths and if they would listen less to so-called public opinion and stick more to logic, for example.
Imperial logic
There is something called imperial logic and it will not go away if we turn a blind eye. That logic has been at work since ancient times until today. Behind Athens, for example, no stone was left unturned (read Thucydides Peloponnesian War), and there is nothing to say about Rome. Byzantium violated everything that stood in its way until the Ottoman Empire caught up with it, and then it started to spread to the displeasure and disgust of the small (but also the large). Not to mention the French, the English. Well, the Soviet Union, America, China...
And now we can't help being surprised that the dominant empire of today carried out an attack on its own (what happened in Iran, Syria and Sudan recently?), as if the empires ever asked someone for permission. If an empire (any) can get its intention through the United Nations - fine, it will, if not, then the United Nations will be bypassed. That, ladies and gentlemen, comrades, is the logic of the empire, and if you don't conform to that logic and if you don't understand it, you will suffer.
Nothing new, really.
In this case, the matter is more serious insofar as the Americans, in free and fair elections, voted for a narcissistic philanderer who, whenever he commits a hogwash - and so far he hasn't made anything other than a hogwash, that's his range - they say that he is the legally elected president, which in his disordered mind means: I can do what I want, and even attack the constitutional order of my own country. Although that segment of his mandate is more interesting - namely, how is it possible for eighty million people to vote for someone like Trump? - here we dwell on the imperial behavior of America (or any empire, for that matter).
So, off the top of my head and without looking for data, let's recall the American interventions in Mexico and Chile, and the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega passed off as Maduro. American interventions sometimes passed (Osama bin Laden, for example), sometimes they didn't (Jimmy Carter died together with his special forces, and John Kennedy, after the Bay of Pigs, returned home with a twisted tail), sometimes the allies knew what was going to happen, sometimes they didn't. There are also Iraq, Libya, Syria. Now to be surprised by a new imperial undertaking, and that after months of preparation and the destruction of those small boats and boats, does not say anything good about being surprised.
Motives and confusion
Trump says what first comes to his (weak) mind to such an extent that one can only speculate about the motives for the kidnapping of the Maduro couple, and the question is whether there is even a thought-out motive and a consequential explanation. It is understood that it is not about any lofty goal like, say, liberating the Venezuelan people from evildoers. It is a collateral gain, provided that civil war does not break out in Venezuela. Trump and his team, after all, are unable to produce any ideas that do not most directly concern the couple.
Again, therefore, the observers reached for oil at the first ball, primarily because of Trump's blabbering about the fact that Venezuela stole some kind of oil from America. That motive is definitely in play. The fight against drugs, that is, the decapitation of the state cartel, is not a motive that can be dismissed, but, again, there is some idea about the well-being of Americans, and Trump does not really care about Americans (as well as about anyone who is not himself). Sampling the ground for some future action in Greenland – maybe that too, but that's pretty murky.
But when we put it all together and when we realize that Trump has confused possible motives with his bluster, there remains one motive that dictators and candidates for dictators invariably resort to when the going gets tough: distracting attention from real problems and mobilizing the electorate. Trump's popularity is melting at the speed with which he is destroying the American constitutional order, and he urgently needed something to revive him a little. To that extent, Maduro has set himself up very well. Regardless of the hypnotized and ritualized outrage at the American action, no one will shed a tear for a satrap like Maduro. And how Trump intends to manage Venezuela now, as he himself announced, is an interesting problem that can hardly lead to a positive outcome.
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