"The more I puzzle over the great wars of history, the more I am inclined to the view that the causes attributed to them—territory, markets, resources, the defense or perpetuation of great principles—were not the root causes at all, but rather explanations or excuses for certain unfathomable drives of human nature."
#Trump #Venezuela #Maduro #Congress #narcissism #megalomania #InternationalRelations #Fulbright
/19
"Only Trump would have the audacity to launch such a daring, unilateral joint-force strike to capture a sitting president of Venezuela—with its questionable legality under both U.S. and international law, its dangerous precedents that Russia and China might later claim, and its damaging consequences for the liberal international order."
"Yet only Donald Trump would so brazenly squander this historic opportunity for true change on the altar of a chimeric windfall—oil, which a 1960s Venezuelan oil minister labeled 'the devil’s excrement.'”
#Trump #Venezuela #Maduro #Machado #NobelPeacePrize #oil #FossilFuels #BigOil #EconomicElites
/13
"Trump sold himself as the president who would end Forever Wars. I’ve seen this movie before, and I have a pretty good idea of how it ends.
Now he’s launched one of his own, without involving Congress, to reward the billionaires who funded his campaign and line his own pockets. If 'America First' is now 'Oil First,' you’d better believe I’m going to take him at his word when he shows us exactly who comes last."
~ Brian Tyler Cohen
#Trump #Venezuela #Maduro #oil
/14
"Trump told the oil companies about the Venezuela plan, but neglected to tell Congress. This invasion isn’t about protecting Americans, it’s military assistance for big oil and his billionaire friends."
~ Lincoln Project
#Trump #Venezuela #Maduro #oil #FossilFuels #BigOil #EconomicElites
/15
Mehdi Hasan notes that law professor Barb McQuade and others have asked if it's coincidental that Trump bombed Venezuela on January 3. "It was the date that the DOJ was supposed to respond and didn't. And the Epstein Transparency Law that was passed in December by Congress, reluctantly signed by Donald Trump."
