Tag Archives: venezuela

Blinded by their hate for Trump, the American left torches a Venezuelan freedom fighter

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It’s a story right out of pre-woke Hollywood. Her country has been taken over by a series of corrupt socialist dictators (ah, but I repeat myself) who’ve seized the natural resources for their own personal enrichment. They’ve suspended or disregarded elections.

Not satisfied with stealing the country’s riches, the looters have also entered the drug business to support their palatial lives.

The regime operates in league with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea – not exactly upstanding citizens of the international community – whose main interests are in simply disrupting South America, along with sharing in the natural resource spoils.

All this is at the expense of the people. The country has gone from the richest in South America to one of the poorest in two generations. People are fleeing the country by the millions.

A brave, charismatic woman – a truly wise Latina – has stood up to the looting fascists. Risking her life, she demanded the ouster of the criminal dictator. She demanded fair elections. She’s been living in hiding, because the regime would surely imprison her, or worse, if they could find her.

Her name is Maria Machado. Her country is Venezuela. The Norwegian Nobel Committee this fall recognized her heroic work to free her country, and awarded her the Nobel Peace Prize.

President Trump has supported Machado and her efforts from the outset. He congratulated her for the prize, for her courage, and for her goals. She in turn said:

“This Nobel Prize is symbolic of that fight for freedom and is dedicated to the Venezuelan people and to President Trump for showing what strong leadership looks like in the moments that matter most.”

Speaking of strong leadership, the Administration assisted private American forces in extricating Machado from Venezuela for a harrowing journey to Oslo for the Nobel Prize. She arrived just hours too late to accept the prize in person, but her daughter accepted for her and read her stirring speech.

It’s an amazing story, still being spun. The Venezuelan dictator will fall – it’s just a matter of time (probably just weeks or months). Maria Machado will return to Venezuela. Socialist despotism in the Americas will be dealt a blow.

Stories in the American media (there isn’t really one in Venezuela anymore) including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have lauded Machado’s incredible efforts and harrowing journey. Give credit to the reporters and editors of both the Journal and the Times.

But the comments sections to those stories are chock full of hostility – not hostile to the Venezuelan regime, but hostile to Machado and Trump.

They’re hostile to Trump for the usual reason: Orange Man Bad! And they’re hostile to Machado for failing to scream “Orange Man Bad!”

The American left’s anger at Machado is heightened by the socialist dictator overlay to the story. They wonder, gee, what’s next? Will Trump go after our socialist friends in Cuba?  

The American left reluctantly admit that murderous terrorism is an “unfortunate accident” and narco-state kleptocracies are unseemly, but what’s really horrible are Western civilization, American capitalism and, most of all, Donald J. Trump.

How dare this woman thank and applaud Trump – in public, no less! – they grouse. In their eyes, she’s a freakin’ woman with freakin’ dark-ish skin. Doesn’t she know her place? When it comes to relations between white Yanquis and darkish Latinas, her place is to defer to us American liberals. What we say, goes. And what we say is:

“Orange Man Bad. We don’t care if you think he helps your so-called cause of fighting-for-freedom. Nothing done by Orange Man is good. Nothing. Especially when he undermines socialism.”

Ah, socialism. It invariably deteriorates quickly into corruption, graft, waste and cronyism, and then fascism, totalitarianism, torture and terrorism.

But the American left never stops trying it. They now argue that the proof it works is in the fact that Bad Orange Man thinks it doesn’t, and he’s always wrong.

But, in fact, socialism doesn’t work – even if Trump thinks it doesn’t. It never has, and it never will. In the matter of Venezuela, the left will wind up on the wrong side of history, once again.

Trump was right not to want a second strike

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The facts are still emerging through the fog of war (or is it the fog of law enforcement, or the fog of antiterrorism?). Sometimes people (including myself) draw conclusions on the basis of incomplete information, so let’s start with what’s really known.

Our military launched another missile attack on a drug-smuggling fast boat. The boat burst into flames and was dead in the water but did not immediately sink. On-scene surveillance showed that not all of the 11 crew members were killed. One or two men were seen moving in the water.

Unlike the footage of other fast boats being attacked by missiles, this footage has not been publicly released, but the facts in the preceding paragraph are undisputed.

A second missile strike was then ordered. It obliterated the wreckage of the boat and killed the two remaining survivors. That, too, is undisputed.

The mission was observed in real time by the Admiral in charge as well as his boss, the Secretary of War, in a room at the Pentagon. Both men saw the first missile strike.

The Secretary of War reports that he then left the room to attend another meeting. The second strike was then ordered by the Admiral who evidently believed he had authority from the Secretary of War.

Here’s where it gets foggy. One report says that the Secretary of War instructed the military in advance to “kill them all.” He denies saying that.

He did say afterward that he supports the Admiral’s ordering of the second strike, and went on to proclaim “the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland.”

What’s the President say? When asked about the appropriateness of the second strike, he said:

“[The Secretary of War] said he didn’t do it, so I don’t have to make that decision.”

In the hurley-burley of the impromptu press conference aboard Air Force One, it’s not clear what, exactly, the Secretary told the President he “didn’t do.” It can’t be that he told the President they “didn’t do” a second strike, because they clearly did. Maybe what the Secretary said he “didn’t do” was to be the one who ordered it, since he was no longer in the room, or maybe what he told the President he “didn’t do” was to order the military to “kill them all.”

Apart from that ambiguity – something to be hashed out between the Secretary and the President – the most important words from the President about the second strike were the following:

“I wouldn’t have wanted that – a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine.”

Personally, I’ve defended the policy of bombing the drug smuggling fast boats. It’s a close call, legally, but the drug problem in America is very serious.

In the legal profession, there’s an expression: Hard facts make for hard law. America’s drug problem is a hard fact, and dealing with it requires some hard laws.

For that reason, I reluctantly support bombing fast boats loaded with lethal drugs in order to stop the drugs from entering America. I admit, it seems they could instead be simply followed and apprehended when they reach our shores, but Presidents get a lot of latitude in these matters of foreign affairs. I’ll give him that latitude in view of the seriousness of our drug problems.

But launching a second missile after the first missile wrecked and incinerated the boat, just for the purpose of killing the helpless survivors of the first missile, is a quite different thing.

Suppose the military had boarded the boat and found the two wounded survivors, rather than firing a second missile. Does anyone seriously contend they would be justified in executing them on the spot with a gun to their heads? If not, then why are they justified in executing them with a second missile launched from a different spot?

I think the President was right. The first strike was enough to stop the boat. There was no need to launch a second missile to kill the two wounded survivors in the water. Those killings were not necessary to the mission.

There’s a word for unnecessary killings. It’s on the tip of my tongue . . .

Like the President, I have little sympathy for drug runners, and if they die in the course of their criminality we shed no tears. But the President also knows that to murder them as they flail wounded in the water, well, that would make him worse than them. No thanks.