Much has been made of Donald Trump's decision to blow Venezuelan drug boats out of the water with neither absolute confirmation of their intent or Congressional approval for military action; but even the most casual observer knows that the President's actions are meant to intimidate Maduro. No international law, no United Nations watchdog, no Council for World Peace can prevent Trump from blowing to smithereens anything that remotely looks suspicious.
The intent of the threat is not simply a few boatloads of Fentanyl - a drop in the bucket given the illegal supply pouring in to the United States across all its borders - but a clear message for Venezuela and its president - 'I'm coming for you'.
No one should be surprised at Trump's action. Clausewitz famously said, 'War is the continuation of politics by other means', and the American president has no qualms of applying the principle in the Caribbean. Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserves, is a dictatorship, a failed state, and an embittered enemy of the United States; and so any means to remove its President, return the country to a liberal democracy, and open its vast oil fields to American drilling is legitimate.
'This shit ain't checkers. It's chess', says the Denzel Washington character in the movie Training Day talking about the fight against the drug cartels, gangs, and Jamaican crewes in the trade - a truism every one on both sides of the law knows. President Bukele of El Salvador has turned his country from one of the most crime-ridden, gangland, murdering places in the hemisphere to the safest.
'Civil rights?' he asks critics who challenge his rounding up of MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha gangbangers and locking them up without due process. 'What about the civil rights of millions of innocent Salvadorans who could not leave their houses for fear of getting shot, abducted, or beheaded? I have given them their lives back'.
Former President Duterte of the Philippines took the very same approach and said, 'Extrajudicial action is necessary when the threat is existential'.
When he took over the presidency in 2016 The Philippines’ murder rate ranked 13th in the world. Its rape rate ranked 10th. The methamphetamine epidemic in the country was the worst in Asia and growing in scope and severity.
Duterte ran on his tough stance on crime during his tenure as mayor of Davao:
Popular with the locals due to his successful zero tolerance policies against criminals, he earned the nickname "The Punisher". Vigilante groups tied to Duterte are thought to be responsible for the execution of drug traffickers, criminals, gang members and other lawless elements. Over a period of 20 years, he turned Davao City from the "murder capital of The Philippines" to what tourism organizations now describe as "the most peaceful city in southeast Asia," and what numbeo.com ranks as the world's fourth safest place
After election he made good on his promise, rounding up the worst criminal elements of the country and returning it to a peaceful normalcy. He took the same undaunted approach to the increasing Islamist insurgencies in Mindanao.
During the period of Chechen and North Caucasian terrorism in Russia, Putin held nothing back to defeat and exterminate those who threated the nation, its polity, and civil structure. His actions were considered necessary and essential.
The idea of extrajudicial governance - a heinous, reviled idea reserved only for dictators, anti-democratic autocrats, and corrupt regimes say progressives - is gaining currency. When combined with a Machiavellian foreign policy - Clausewitz plus self-interested amorality - extrajudicial governance can be an essential political tool.
The United States lost the war in Vietnam in part because of its naive 'Hearts and Minds' campaign to engage the rural population and convince it of the rightness of American-style democracy. Meanwhile the Viet Cong won the allegiance of these same villages through intimidation and terror. The expulsion of the Americans and the reunification of the country would be assured by any and all means.
The United States defeat in Afghanistan - the Taliban are back in power, thanks in part to the US belief in restricting the conflict to military targets only and sparing the civilian population - should have been a lesson. Its precipitous withdrawal from Iraq after the toppling of the Saddam regime, allowing for the resurgence of Islamic terrorist groups, was based on the same credulous, naive principle.
Donald Trump is a political realist and unencumbered by such fanciful ideas such as American exceptionalism or 'hearts and minds'. He is a student of Clausewitz, Machiavelli, Ho Chi Minh, dynastic China, and Vladimir Putin and an admirer of Bukele and Duterte.
Blowing up drug-running cigarette boats from Venezuela, even at the expense of a fishing vessel or two, is a definitive, unequivocal statement of purpose - the Maduro government is on borrowed time, and soon it will no longer be in power. 'Your time is up', said Trump, and he means it.
The American Left is up in arms over the President's Venezuela policy. 'We just don't do things like that', they say, preaching diversity, equity, and inclusivity; the absolute right of Islamic religious expression; the unquestioned right of brown and black people to demand legitimacy, power, and wealth; and the coming New Age utopia.
Of course we do, says Trump, recalling for his opponents the firebombing of Dresden, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the destruction of Tokyo and along with it the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Not for the weak-kneed and lily-livered; but then again every country has always had its knots of dreamers, the Neville 'Peace In Our Time' Chamberlain capitulation to Nazi horror idealists. This time around the American president is serving notice both to the American people and the international community. The gloves are off, victory at any price is back.
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