Posted on by rjonakait

Again, Whither Venezuela?

By now we all have a basic knowledge of what has happened in Venezuela. Circumstances are quickly changing, though, and what might have been said yesterday would be different today. Much about the future of that country is now unknowable. I don’t plan to concentrate on all those possibilities, but instead, to give background about what is known so there will be some context as events in Venezuela unfold.

We do know that Maduro and his wife were dragged out of their country and brought to NYC where Maduro had been under indictment since 2020. New indictments of Maduro, his wife, his son, and several Venezuelan government officials have now been filed. Maduro pleaded not guilty today at his arraignment.

This is similar to the 1989 invasion of Panama to capture the de facto ruler who was under drug indictment in Miami. Manuel Noriega fled to the Vatican mission in Panama City seeking sanctuary. The U.S. used various tactics to get him out including weaponizing the heavy metal music of Van Halen by blasting it at the mission. After ten days of Van Halen, Noriega surrendered and was brought to Florida where he was put on trial, convicted, and sentenced to forty years.

The first question might be, If Maduro was brought here illegally, can he be tried? A basic principle of our criminal law, affirmed by the Supreme Court several times, is if a defendant is within the court’s jurisdiction, it does not matter how the person got before the court. Maduro can be tried.

A second question arises since international law gives immunity from criminal indictments for heads of state. Noriega raised this defense, but it was easily denied because he was not the legal head of Panama. Maduro may also raise this defense, but it should lose. The president has the sole authority to recognize foreign governments, and we have not recognized Maduro as the valid head of the Venezuelan state. Maria Corina Machado won primaries to be the opposition candidate to Maduro in 2024 elections, but she was barred from running. She was replaced by Edmundo Gonzalez, who, neutral observers said, won in a landslide. Without presenting evidence, the National Electoral Council declared victory for Maduro. However, the U.S., European countries, and others refused to accept Maduro as legitimate.

With Maduro gone Trump has stated we are going to run the country until there is an acceptable transition. That transition, however, does not seem to include the leaders chosen by the Venezuelan people—Gonzalez and Machado—but the non-legitimate vice-president Delcy Rodriguz.

Although the Trump administration is trying to avoid that term, we are now in the world of regime change, a place we have been many times before. We can hope that this one goes better than many of our other attempts.

Our most recent effort at regime change was Iraq in 2003. Our failure there shows the difficult tactical and moral issues that such change can bring. We wanted to eliminate the brutal ruling party, a sensible seeming goal, and undertook what was called de-Baathification. As a result, there was no one else who had experience running the country, and something like anarchy broke out. This helped bring about the creation and rise of Isis as well as increased power to Iran, for which we continue to suffer. There can be, there will be, collateral consequences for regime change.

When I wrote about Venezuela in October, I suggested that the administration’s actions might be more about oil than drugs. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and Trump is concerned about American oil he claims was stolen. The right-wing strongman Juan Vicente Gómez, the military dictator who ruled Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935, granted concessions that left three foreign oil companies, two of them American, in control of 98 percent of the Venezuelan market. Venezuela became the world’s second-largest oil producer. Oil accounted for over 90 percent of the country’s total exports. Gómez’s successors tried to seize greater control over the country’s economy, and in 1943 approved a law that required foreign oil companies to relinquish half their profits

Venezuela nationalized the oil industry in 1975. In January 1976, the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDSVA) took over the exploration, production, refining and export of oil. American oil companies Exxon, Mobil, and Gulf were hard hit as was the Dutch giant Shell. The companies, which by then were accounting for more than 70 percent of crude oil production in Venezuela, lost roughly $5 billion in assets but were compensated just $1 billion.

While Venezuela formally nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s, beginning in the early 2000s under Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor, Venezuela moved beyond its earlier state ownership model and launched another wave of expropriation. Foreign operators were forced into minority positions alongside Venezuela’s national oil company, PDSVA, or saw assets seized outright. Major U.S. firms, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, ultimately left the country and pursued international arbitration over uncompensated takings. They are still waiting for their money.

The consequences for Venezuela’s oil industry were severe. The state oil company lost access to foreign capital and technical support. Skilled engineers left the country. This was especially damaging to Venezuela because its crude is ultra-heavy, which is harder to refine than light, sweet crude found elsewhere. When foreign partners exited Venezuela, PDVSA lost the ability to sustain the complex system required to deal with the heavy crude. Production declined steadily, falling from more than 3 million barrels per day before the expropriation to under 1 million bpd in recent years.

By the time Maduro assumed office in 2013, the industry was already in structural decline. Corruption, mismanagement, and U.S. sanctions under his tenure further constrained output and exports.

Venezuela’s oil industry cannot be simply, magically brought back. Not only must the oil infrastructure be brought back, refining heavy crude takes a lot of energy, and the power grid has also been deteriorating. The necessary improvements require both time and plenty of money.

Where will that money come from? Oil companies are unlikely to invest until Venezuela is a stable country and perceived as one. And first there has to be a successful regime change. Until then, perhaps the only source of investment would be our tax dollars, which would move us further away from free enterprise and a market economy, and towards a form of state capitalism, a road Trump has been traveling. But that is for another day.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

After the New Orleans New Year attack, Trump wrote that this confirmed that our country was unsafe because criminals were crossing the border. A Fox News host said that the country would soon be safer after Trump closed the border. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested the same. This was said even though the terrorist, an Army veteran, was an American citizen born and raised and living in Texas. Perhaps what Trump and the others were really suggesting is that we close the border between Texas and the rest of the country. This might not make the United States safer, but it would make me feel better.

I was surprised that the New Orleans terrorist was flying an ISIS flag. Trump destroyed that organization in 2019. Or at least that is what he said.

The Washington, D.C., homicide rate, which increased while Trump was president, has been decreasing.

His death brings to mind some Jimmy Carter trivia as well as a story about his mother. This is drawn from Jonathan Alter, His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life (2020). Because he was a veteran, Carter qualified for and lived in a new government housing complex shortly after leaving the Navy. He thus became the only president to have lived in public housing.

Carter is the last president not to have golfed while in office.

It was loudly proclaimed that the Carters did not lie. A reporter asked Jimmy’s mother about this, and Lillian Carter conceded that the family told white lies. When the reporter asked for an example, Miss Lillian replied, “Remember how when you walked in here, I told you how sweet and pretty you were?”

“Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.” Walter Lippman.

I had a dream I was in hell; I was trapped in a corner at an endless cocktail party by a birder.

Given our divided country, I like to recall the words of some political and historical observers: “Conservatives are but people who learned to love the new order forced upon them by radicals.” And: “Radicals: Those who advance and consolidate a position for the conservatives to advance a little later.”

Posted on by rjonakait

The Humanitarian War: An Oxymoron?

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          A few postings back, I asked readers to compare and contrast the Russian invasion of Ukraine with America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. Some who responded saw nothing to compare. For them, Russia was evil and the U.S. good. Others took a diametrically different stance and saw the two events as fundamentally the same since both were based on lies, or–as those more generous towards America put it–on premises that should have been known to be false.           From a smart, learned, and thought-provoking friend, however, I got a more detailed and nuanced response about the two invasions in which he listed more than a few similarities and differences that I had not thought about.

More of his comments may be explored over the coming weeks, but one of them made me think about how extraordinary our Iraq invasion was. He wrote that while Russia invaded a bordering state for purposes of territorial expansion (or, at least, for creating a “neutral” buffer), the U.S. invasion did not contemplate a territorial expansion. However, my friend continued, protections of oil supplies may have been one (unstated) consideration for our actions.

          This is a difference between the two, and I have been grappling with whether this is an important distinction. In invading a neighboring state, Russia’s action is similar to many previous conflicts. Most wars I could think of started out at least as a border conflict. The boundary is in dispute or, as my friend suggests for Russia, one country wishes to increase its size by taking land next door or sometimes is acting to remove what it sees as an unfriendly neighboring government.

          On the other hand, the examples of one country leapfrogging thousands of miles to invade another nation were comparatively few. The World Wars started out with conflicts among neighboring countries. Others, such as the Falklands/Malvinas war was over disputed sovereignty of distant lands. Other long-distance conflicts were justified as defense of colonies. Some sought to spread religion—often Christianity, the religion of peace—while extracting riches, such as Spain in the Americas. Our Iraqi invasion, unless its goal really was just to control oil, was different.

          The stated reason was a humanitarian one. Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction—biological, chemical, and soon, we said, nuclear; history indicated that he was willing to use such weapons; and so he needed to be stopped, even though he was not a threat to the invaders, i.e., us. (Not even faintly credible evidence was presented that Iraq threatened the United States.) Instead, Hussein needed to be stopped because he was a danger to peoples and lands other than the United States. Our action was not in self-defense; we were only seeking good for others. Let’s all sing: What a comfort to be sure, that our motives were so pure.* We were going to war, we said, only with the most magnanimous of motives.** Oh, and besides, we were going to bring Jeffersonian democracy to what had been a dictatorial regime.

          However, the words of Francis Bacon come to mind: “A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.” Although Russia claims that Ukraine is a threat to itself and to the Russian minority in Ukraine, only deluded people can believe that Russia has a just fear of those possibilities. Those “reasons” are only pretexts.

          Although we supposedly had “humanitarian” reasons for attacking Iraq, a country thousands of miles away posing no threat to us, they could only be good grounds, Bacon might say, if the United States had just fears that Iraq posed an imminent threat to its neighbors. However, we know that this was not true; Iraq did not pose such a threat. Unfortunately, U.S. leaders were acting something like Putin has: They first decided to invade Iraq and subsequently looked for justifications for that decision. If the Iraq war was not based on bald-faced lies as Putin’s invasion has been, it was based on the conjectures of fools who could not acknowledge the lack of evidence for the military action.***

          My friend has concluded that it is hard to justify an invasion of a sovereign state for any purpose other than self-defense or, perhaps, an internationally recognized humanitarian threat. That said, he continues, bad as the invasion of Iraq was understood to be at the time (and understood now to be even worse), the Russian invasion of Ukraine reflects a far greater violation of accepted norms and poses far greater dangers to world safety than our Iraqi actions.

          I agree that the Russian invasion of Ukraine poses a greater global danger than our invasion of Iraq, but that is because of the fear that Putin might use nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. If, however, Russia continues to use only conventional weapons, is the Russian action a greater danger to the world than our Iraq invasion was? We are seeing death, destruction, and millions of frightened refugees resulting from the Ukrainian invasion, but of course, that was also true of our action. The number of deaths resulting from our invasion and occupation vary widely. Nevertheless, Iraq Body Count, an organization that carefully sought confirmation of reported deaths, concluded that over 160,000 people died from the Iraq invasion with over two-thirds of them civilians. Other sources report much higher numbers: 600,000, 460,000, and 1,033,000 deaths. Refugee numbers also vary, but many sources have concluded that 2 to 3 million Iraqis became refugees because of the war.

          Moreover, the Iraqi invasion helped foster terrorism in places outside of Iraq. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, I had occasion to meet with officials who had been in Israeli intelligence services. They were mystified by our action. They said that Iraq was not a state sponsor of terrorism in the Mideast. But Iran was. They said that an invasion of Iraq was sure to increase the influence of Iran in the Mideast, and this would be detrimental to Christians and certain Muslims in the region as well as a threat to Israel. They were right. Furthermore, while ISIS was formed before 2003, it came to prominence and gained strength soon after our invasion of Iraq, and it continued to flourish in the chaotic milieu that our military adventure helped to create. The Ukraine invasion has caused deaths and an extraordinary number of refugees, but I doubt that it will spawn international terrorism anywhere near the extent that our Iraq invasion has.

          What is happening in Ukraine is both a tragedy and frightening because the conflict could spread and/or escalate. Our Iraq invasion may not have produced the same fear of escalation, nuclear or otherwise, but it was also a tragedy.

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*In Man of La Mancha two women who will benefit if Don Quixote is locked up in a nuthouse, sing that they desire that result only because they are after his best interests. The Padre sings:

They’re only thinking of him.

They’re only thinking of him.

How saintly is their plaintive plea.

They’re only thinking of him.

What a comfort to be sure,

that their motives are so pure.

As they go thinking and worrying about him.

** Margaret MacMillan notes in War: How Conflict Shaped Us (2020) that humanitarian interventions such as our Iraq invasion “raise questions about who decides what is just and suspicions about the motives and goals of the intervening powers. Critics have argued that Western powers are simply cloaking their deeply-rooted imperialistic attitudes to the rest of the world in the fashionable new language. ‘Hypocrisy,’ as the Duc de La Rochefoucauld remarked, ‘is a tribute vice pays to virtue.’”

*** Before we launched our invasion of Iraq, I saw a TV interview of a congressional leader who had just emerged from an intelligence briefing. The congressman said that the briefing had given him an “intuition” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. He had just met with intelligence officials and had nothing more than an “intuition”?! That told me that the intelligence agencies did not have solid information showing Iraq had those weapons. Nevertheless, that congressman voted for the war. He had made up his mind to support the invasion and was only looking for grounds to justify it. I am sure that he was viewed as a “good” man, but he voted for death because he had an intuition.