It's Only 3 January, And We're Already Staring At Another War

It's a lot to take in, isn't it?

As I pointed out yesterday, it's only the 3rd of January and I'm already laden with fresh anxiety.

On one hand, we have a bunch of racist neo-Nazi Afrikarens publicly expressing their hopes that Trump will do to South Africa what he's done to Venezuela, to "sort the country out" - and claiming to be "patriots" in the same breath, while totally not seeing the irony.

But then, irony is lost on the irredeemably stupid, as these people are.

So, in South Africa we have a bunch of pedo-worshiping Afrikaner nationalists (who resemble Nazis far more than they even realize or are willing to admit, although the occasional stand-out will ask if "that's a bad thing?"). 

They're too lazy or useless to just pack their goedjies and fuck off to the USA to accept Trump's special welcoming as "refugees" from being treated like everyone else, but will happily stay here so they can complain all day long and keep up the pretense that they're so oppressed and facing a "white genocide" that exists only in their wildest wet dreams.

"Trump must come here!" They say. "I really hope Trump takes over South Africa." And so it goes on. Their true motivation is exceptionalism, a deeply ingrained victim complex, and having their assholes put out of joint because they don't have that special protected and privileged status whites enjoyed under apartheid. Being treated as equal to everyone else is "persecution" to that sort of mindset.

But whether or not Trumpy-wumpy decides to "take over South Africa" - an Afrikaren hope inspired by what Trump did to Venezuela yesterday - is a little aside from the main point of my post today - the meaning and consequences of that attack on Venezuela's sovereignty itself. 

It has elicited few, varying responses from several governments over the weekend - bearing in mind that today is a Sunday.

The EU has apparently decided to just say they "never liked Maduro anyway" and left it at that. A cop-out, and an irresponsible one at that. Similarly, Canada's lame duck PM Mark Carney has essentially welcomed what Trump has done in Venezuela with a mealy-mouthed statement saying how nice it will be for Venezuelans to "start over" as an American vassal state supplying oil to the American Empire. Perhaps he's afraid Trump might send "Delta Force" to give him a 2AM wake-up call as well, and shit his underwear? The UK itself didn't say much, but seemingly withdrew it's head from Trump's orange sphincter long enough to mutter the words "We didn't know this was going to happen!"

Oh please. This has been coming for months. Everybody and his dog knew this was going to happen - and the rest of the world did nothing to discourage it.

But now that it has, the world's balance of power has changed overnight, and irrevocably.

So far, at least last time I looked - aside from Spain and Italy, the only countries actively challenging and criticizing this outrageous incident, are "third world" nations like Mexico - and of course, South Africa - who yesterday called for an urgent meeting of the UN.

I have to admire our government under the circumstances. Here we are, a small peaceful country without much of a military to speak of, and yet we still have the courage of our human rights convictions to speak out against tyranny and injustice - and genocide - on the international stage. Even when facing up to the implied threats of doing so.

This becomes even more admirable considering the real message being sent by Trump's actions against Venezuela - and I'm not just talking about the overnight attack, kidnapping of their president - and putting him and his wife on some public show-trial to answer made-up charges of "narco-terrorism" and "possession of machine guns and other destructive devices" etc.

It's also now the position of the US government and its people, that the USA can forcefully and violently abduct foreign presidents from their beds and subject them to sham trials in American courts - but cannot hold their own president accountable for his own many crimes.

But no, not just any of that.

No - I'm also talking about the several months Trump spent having his zealous minions blowing fishermen up in their boats inside Venezuelan territorial waters with total impunity - while not producing a single iota of evidence to back up claims that these were boats smuggling narcotics to the USA.

I've seen a lot of people commenting who clearly believe this nonsense to be true - "of course they were drug smugglers", they argue lamely - "you don't really believe they were fishermen, do you?"

I'm sure they do so because they naively believe every lie the Trump spin machine has fed them. The alternative is to accept the reality that your armed forces, paid for by your taxes and directed by your votes - and led and directed by the unqualified, incompetent fuckwits, pedophiles, coke-heads and alcoholics that run the show because of your choices - are actively murdering people from other countries without any real justification. Looking down to see the blood on your hands can be a sobering realization.

Aside from all that, since when is summary execution without trial an American practice?

Well, one thing is certain - it is now.

Survivors of one December boat strike, clinging to the wreckage, were bombed a second time to finish them off. The intent to commit murder revealed by that example is as clear as daylight. The failure of US military personnel to adhere to international law, the Geneva Conventions, and even the US military code of justice by refusing to commit war crimes or obey illegal orders, is rapidly becoming the stuff of legend. They're all just seemingly going along with this madness, just following orders as if that should shield them from future consequences.

Growing up, I believed the myth that the USA were "the good guys", fighting for justice and freedom and democracy. I'm sure we all did. Some people have a noticeable problem trying to shed that delusion, or to separate that fantasy from the harsh glaring reality, even when confronted with evidence, no matter how damning. The USA is living proof of the veracity of the adage: All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Just yesterday morning - before I was aware of the Maduro incident, I read an article detailing how Trump was considering dressing in military uniforms of different branches "to honor the American military". I can easily understand why - being the noob wannabe dictator can be really intimidating, especially if you shuffle and shamble about on stage wearing an ill-fitting suit and looking like you're trying to remember why you entered that room in the first place. That's not very intimidating at all - and so unlike all his more carefully sculpted, forceful-looking, inspiring, leadership-evoking AI generated PR images that flood the quiescent media. The emperor has no clothes, according to the old tale, but saber-rattling is far more intimidating when you have an actual saber, not so?

So it seems he wants to wear uniforms now, like a real dictator. Of course, I haven't really seen anyone talking about this - because in the meantime he's invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president and set the world on it's head - like it's some sort of bizarre Hollywood production. Except the reality is, the USA isn't the "good guy" - it's the villain.

My day had started out enjoying this as a joke, catching up on whatever gaffe the orange buffoon had uttered, or blunders he'd got up to during the night - and instead elicited a jarring, slamming return to exactly how I felt a year ago, when Trump and his minions gleefully flooded into the halls of power like sewerage streaming into a clean new pipe - and immediately began to make it crystal clear that human rights were the enemy of the new state. I call this feeling "anxiety for the world".

Of course, the real purpose of having a super-carrier and its escorts with more firepower than that possessed by many nations, hovering for months off Venezuela's coast - and then having them blow up boats filled with random people - without any form of due process, even if such process were to approve such a horrific and uncivilized practice - was to test the waters. Would any country intervene on Venezuela's behalf? After all, they pirated and hijacked an oil tanker in Venezuelan waters and took the oil for themselves. Did any nation intervene? Would anyone dare to oppose the might of the USA? And we have the answer. Nobody did anything to deter the USA at any stage of the build-up to this fiasco - and just like a schoolyard bully (and serial killers in training) they progressed from one milestone to another, getting more emboldened at every step forward, and moved on from blowing up boats one day, to drone-bombing shipyard docks the next - and after that, to sending aircraft to bomb Caracas - and kidnapping a sovereign nation's leader.

Now he stands there, feebly thumping his flabby chest and crowing about the might of the US armed forces - claiming that the USA is more respected now than ever before - while clearly confused between the meaning of "respect", "fear" - and sheer loathing.

I don't think the USA has been more hated and despised in its entire history than it is today. And with good reason. They are not the "good guys". Whether they ever were is another debate entirely.

Aside from that, I wonder how many of you have worked out what all this really means - and why and how this one incident has change the balance of power in the world we live in right now?

Perhaps you believe, simply, that everything is as Trump claims it is - that a South American leader, whom some describe as a "dictator" was deposed by the USA, and that this is a "good thing"? Perhaps he was a dictator - perhaps it was a "good thing" - but what about the means, manner and methodology of his removal? What about WHO did it, and why? What about what comes next? What about the message all of this sends?

Some have gleefully pointed out that "many Venezuelans" are celebrating his removal - and these same people - including Mark Carney of Canada, and the EU government, are saying "oh, so it's alright then."

There wasn't an election - the people of Venezuela were completely bypassed in the decision-making process. This decision was made for them - by a foreign power, for their own benefit. What about motives? What really lies behind it? This is an ASTONISHING failure of international law - or the keeping or enforcement thereof. For many decades now, the USA occupied the position of the world's policeman, its crusader for justice - at least on paper. The USA today has around 80 military bases in countries all around the world - which host countries accepted eagerly because that meant safety or protection from Soviet Russia during the Cold War - or since then, from modern Russia's expansionism and aggression, and hypothetical threats from China and North Korea etc. The USA took over defense and military commitments, while European nations spent less on their military budgets, to the point where now they are practically disarmed in comparison to a hostile nation with military presences in all their countries. Good luck ever getting them out again.

In the meantime, the US has used these bases as bargaining chips to consolidate its influence over said host countries - and also conducted too many "regime changes" to suit their own ends to keep track of, especially when it came to accessing other country's resources - either more cheaply, or for free, setting up puppet regimes that answered to them and did their bidding - while of course keeping up the appearances of "democracy". That, for decades, has been the illusion of the so-called "Free World" of the West. The illusion of that "Free world" has been less applicable and less pleasant for the rest of the world though, hasn't it - softened and swayed by financial and material aid in exchange for favorable trade and, and, and? All while concealing the reality of that domineering influence and control behind a mask of beneficence and humanitarian goodwill, of course.

The US has dropped that mask now, that sense of pretense. Under Trump they've blatantly owned that reputation for brutal heavy-handedness to satisfy their own greed, embracing the accusation of American imperialism as righteous, patriotic, propping it up with the Bible and wrapping it in the American flag. The USA has willingly stripped itself of that "good guy" image, allowed it to slip to the stage floor - the illusion has been shattered now, and it will never be able to reclaim it again.

It's a guarantee that if any country's leader is removed - that is, literally kidnapped at gunpoint as Maduro was by the USA - there will be at least some who celebrate it. Such as, for example actual Venezuelans - or even Afrikarens commiserating about being treated as equal to the black folk whose parents and grandparents used to call them "baas" or "medem" - whether they know or understand anything about it from firsthand experience or not, that still doesn't make it right. Or if you understand the consequences, a "good thing".

Remember when the USA used "Weapons of Mass Destruction" as an excuse to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein? Yes the man was a dictator - but his callous removal, followed by the creation of a puppet government loyal to the USA, which promptly collapsed as soon as the USA withdrew from the country, resulted in violence and way too many deaths to count. The USA knows this - but simply does not care. More brown people in another country, who don't speak English - and aren't "very fine" Christians like Donald Trump - who even signs his own version of the Christian bible to the acclaim of his followers. (Try to convince me that's not a cult, I dare you.) The US got what they wanted from Iraq - as they are sure they will get what they want from Venezuela. The end justifies the means, right?

While you're celebrating the regime change Trump said he wanted to do in Venezuela as far back as since his campaign days, specifically in order to take the country's oil and give it to US oil companies who donated over a billion USD to his election - here's the very big thing that you might have missed about all this:

What Trump did to Venezuela sends a message which says: "South America is our domain. The USA can do whatever we want here." It's the Monroe Doctrine 2.0. If you don't know what the Monroe Doctrine was, that's a gap in your education and I suggest you look it up. The message is: "If you lead a nation, you lead at our pleasure. If you displease us, we will remove you, and nobody will come to help you, because nobody would dare oppose our military might."

He might as well have said "resistance is futile". So far, he's being proven correct about that. Nobody seems likely to lift a finger - at least militarily - against the worlds largest, most well-armed insane asylum-cum-leper colony with a lunatic holding his finger over the only button that really matters.

I suppose who could blame them? Trump is actually deranged enough to launch nukes at anyone who gets in his way - and I think it's only a matter of time before his ego, ambition and confidence reach the point where he crosses that line. The USA has enough nukes to destroy the planet several times over - and most other countries that even have any at all either have too few to be a real threat - or don't have the range or means to use them against the USA anyway. Even very few of Russia's nuclear arsenal are unlikely to be in working order as they've aged past their prime and haven't been maintained in nearly 40 years.

Aside from all that, the message Donald Trump has sent to every other nation's president on the planet - especially peaceful, small third world nations without much military at all - is that if you get in our way or displease us, we can remove you just as easily as we removed Maduro. He didn't even see that coming - neither will you. And we'll spin the press so everyone sees that as a "good thing" too. And if you dare to fight back, we'll just send in a second wave - or more, and completely destroy you with our military might!"

After all, Trump doesn't give a fuck about anybody, let alone brown people who don't speak English in another country that has oil. It's only the oil that he wants. The US was once described by someone whose name eludes me, as "an oil company with an army". I'm pretty sure that any country that has oil right now is feeling at least a little nervous.

None of that is "defending America" - or freedom, or democracy - and least of all is it "opposing tyranny". It's the very opposite of all that bullshit pretense they used to invade Iraq TWICE. And now they're not even bothering with the pretense anymore. This is enforcing authoritarian rule. It's colonialism. It's fascism in its purest form. It IS tyranny.

This is going to be another hell of a year. And far worse, especially if nobody does anything to resist Trump - or send the USA scuttling back to that dystopian hellhole they've turned into. It will be interesting to see what comes of this, and what sort of year 2026 will be - in the sense of the old Chinese curse sort of interesting.