Oil Over Law Once Again: How the “Rules-Based Order” Died in Venezuela

For a tiny nation like Greece and its equally small diaspora, these moments call for caution. Sadly, there usually is not much caution expressed by those who comment on here.

I agree with the newspaper columnist that Maduro’s kidnapping has nothing to do with drugs or other stories—those claims about a new Yalta and the Monroe Plan, which President Trump mentioned as being revived, are nonsense.

I’m recalling from memory—since I have a friend here, a Cypriot professor involved in economic matters—who, when I was studying at CUNY in 1997, was a professor in the doctoral economics program. I happened to meet him in the same room as an assistant to Professor Cornelia Reimers, with whom I took a graduate course in Macroeconomics. The great Reimers specialized in energy issues, especially Venezuela’s oil. With a professor like that, I learned everything we had been studying for years about America’s wars and the domestic political economy, including how, in times of great need, U.S. industry can quickly convert a consumer electronics factory into a war production facility, and what a U.S. war ultimately serves.

You might ask: “So what are you trying to tell us with that?” We already knew this, and others have been shouting it, but some had interests in those wars.
Alright, but we’re not gullible or naive.

Come on, everyone, we’re all brothers: says the great Hatzis in one of his iconic songs.

Excellent analysis, Nick.

The U.S. has abandoned all pretenses of the rule of law.

Trump’s conduct brings to the forefront a basic rule of the jungle: might makes right. And in that untamed jungle, the mighty brutes of the world have a pass to do as they please, inspired by a lawless USA run like a Mafia.

For more than a century, ever since Woodrow Wilson established the failed League of Nations, the U.S. has been a leader in world affairs. We always led the world with a vision based on principles. It wasn’t perfect and we made a lot of mistakes. At times, we led the world with “cowboy diplomacy,” so we never moved completely away from the state of nature, but the treaties and world organizations we established were made in our image, always based on norms that reflected our democratic ideals and the rule of law. We designed that world order because we all knew that it was in our best interest to function under the rule of law.

We generally had a consensus that a regime of rules that regulate countries’ conduct in how they relate with each other is essential and in our best interest. And the world followed us! All but a handful of renegade pariah states have followed our lead and participated in that “regime” of international laws and world order.

So we come to today. Trump is blunt that he removed Maduro to give his American “petroleum experts” control of the oil fields. He wants to take oil that does not belong to him. He repeated that the “money flowing from the ground” will go to the U.S. as “damages” for Venezuela’s wrongdoing. And like a bully, a Mafia boss, he took it, completely unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, or international treaties and conventions. What damages has he been awarded by a court of law that warrant his taking over the oil fields? What precedents is he setting for American-owned interests in hostile lands?

I am no fan of Maduro or any other Latin American dictator and drug lord. Each of them must face justice and we should go after them. But the law gives us plenty of tools. We must not resort to crime!

This is not about drugs or justice and the rule of law. On the contrary. Trump is inaugurating a new and dangerous era. One in which America stands for naked lawlessness and the commission of raw, brutal theft of resources.

Where is Congress? Trump said that he did not seek Congress’s consent because he did not trust they could keep the operation secret. Congressmen, he said, “leak” and cannot be trusted. Really? The chairmen of the foreign affairs and intelligence committees cannot be trusted? The system worked fine for two and a half centuries. How did we fight World War II?

It’s another sad day for America. This is truly how our democracy dies.

I love your analysis Nick. Very informed,. based on facts. You are providing a great service to your readers. I would urge, all readers to support Helleniscope, not only by reading it and recommending it to friends, but also to support it financially.

What happened in Venezuela is not unusual. Bush the first did it to Panama, by arresting Noriega. Reagan did it to the tiny countries of Central America, which destabilized them ands has fed the migrant crisis, that Trump despises so much. What has changed are the “motives”. In the past, the spectre of communism was the driving force behind those interventions. All you had to do was point to the danger of the communist hordes, invading the American heartland, and you had the right to invade anywhere you wanted. Then, it was the specter of Islamic terrorism, which gave a breathing space to Central and South America, because Islam is non-existent there. It drew America’s attention to the Middle East.

Now, the boogeyman is drugs. The fact is that Americans are dying in the 10’s of thousands of drug overdoses. However, as the NYT pointed out, America does not have a drug problem. It has an addiction problem. The demand for drugs is such a profitable business, that it would not go away, no matter who is arrested or bombed. The simplest solution–if such a solution exists– would be to provide mental facilities to deal with Americans’ quest for escapism, by seeking illicit highs.

Trump grew up in the New York of the 70’s-90’s. Drugs were rampant. A crime wave was resulting from those drugs. Most of the drug arrests were for marijuana, which marked the convicted person with a criminal record for life, thus inhibiting his chances of finding honest work, which made him turn to selling and using drugs. The solution offered then, was “put them in jail and throw away the key”. Trump hasn’t moved beyond that.

But, as anything else that Trump does, you have to look at other motives. Not what he tells us. If Trump really cared to punish drug sellers, then, why did he just pardon Guatemala’s former president, who was convicted and was in prison, for exactly what Maduro is accused of. If Trump really cared for America’s well being, then why not provide health insurance with the money that it costs to deploy the naval armada for the past three months, plus the bombing campaign.

The answer is simple. The boring stuff of doing good for Americans, by doing the right thing, is not for him. He is proud of America’s military might, which is at his disposal. He is drunk on the power that military gives him. He is not restrained by advisors, congress is non existent, the opposition has become impotent, legality is for wimps. What’s to stop him? There is nothing to restrain him. Not on foreign adventures, anyway.

There is no question that Maduro was a bad president. But so are so many others. And who can say with certainty, that his replacement would be any better. America has the bad habit of installing puppets, training their paramilitary in killing, not in governing and relegating the “lucky” nation into being a “hellhole”, worse than previously.

Is U.S. hegemony over Venezuela actually a pretext, not only to preserve the U.S. dollar’s dominance, but also allowing for a U.S. war against Iran?

War with Iran, under normal circumstances, would likely decimate the U.S. economy by shutting down Middle Eastern oil trade and raising the price of oil to $200 a barrel. Perhaps the line of reasoning here is that control over Venezuela’s oil reserves would mitigate this and preserve the U.S. dollar during a war with Iran.

OK, I’m guessing that Netanyahu and Mossad are actually behind all of this.