In the early hours of January
3, 2026, the sitting president of Venezuela was captured by the U.S. military
and sent to New York, where he would face a federal indictment involving the trafficking
of narcotics to the United States. President Trump’s decision to go forward
with the military plan no doubt had to do with the South American state’s
tremendous oil reserves, just as President George W. Bush’s decision to invade
Iraq surely had something to do with that Middle Eastern state’s oil fields. Elected
representatives at the federal level of the U.S. have known since 1974 that skyrocketing
gas prices could easily result in voter-resentment. Whether the capture of
Maduro was motivated by his drug activity reaching the U.S. or Venezuela’s oil,
the invasion and capture by U.S. forces is in line with the Hobbesian notion that
might makes right, and even that 90% of ownership of property lies in possession.
Lest it be thought that President Trump broke with precedent internationally in
capturing the sitting president of another country, his strategy can be
understood as being along the trend that had been gaining traction because the
post-World War II international order had become hamstrung in the impotence of international
bodies including the International Criminal Court and the United Nations.
The full essay is at "President Nicolás Maduro."
