Donald Trump made headlines over his attack on Venezuela, however, Rachel Maddow of MSNow has now come up with a theory. She speculated on the real reason that might have prompted Trump to order the raid. While popular theories include drugs, terrorism, and even a desire to seize Venezuela’s oil, Maddow argues that none of these explanations actually make sense when viewed through a critical lens.
She starts by debunking the drugs pretext, saying, “That was their initial explanation. Even now they acknowledge though that fentanyl doesn’t actually come from Venezuela. Then they tweaked that pretext to say, OK, it is about drugs, but it’s not fentanyl. OK, maybe that was wrong. It’s about cocaine.”
However, the cocaine pretext also does not provide solid grounds for such an attack because, as experts have claimed, most cocaine is bound for Europe, not the United States. Moreover, if Trump were truly concerned about cocaine smuggling, his pardoning of the former president of Honduras, who trafficked 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S., does not make sense. Trump had defended his decision by saying that even if someone sells drugs in a country, the president does not need to be arrested for the same.
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By that logic, arresting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro makes even less sense on the ground of cocaine smuggling. Therefore, Meadow pointed out that this pretext of attacking Venezuela also got blown up. Moreover, the Trump administration keeps pointing out that Maduro was a dictator, and so, arresting him was the right move.
Unfortunately, this logic also does not stand because Trump has not openly shown any disdain for dictators and has rather shown his respect and admiration for them. From Putin to Kim Jong Un, no one has ever received a word of criticism from Trump, and therefore, this sudden urge to arrest a leader only because he is a dictator does not seem very plausible.
Oil seemed to be one key reason that America attacked Venezuela for but Meadow dissected that as well to show how flimsy that logic was. Explaining the same, she said, “Trump administration has not consulted U.S. oil majors about Venezuela, oil execs say.” She then added, “Trump told everybody, told reporters, oh yes, I’ve been talking to the oil companies. The oil companies are like, no dude, no you didn’t.”
Moreover, the oil that Venezuela has is underground, and there needs to be proper equipment and contracts to bring that oil money to America. Therefore, a sudden attack on the country would not necessarily bring that money to the US.
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Therefore, Meadow concludes that none of these reasons are strong enough to validate the attack. She then says that the real reason that Trump might have attacked Venezuela is to show America’s power. Since Trump has now been threatening to attack other countries like Iran and Greenland, maybe this was a move to show how strong the American military is.
Meadows then added, “Maybe what this is, is a president who can barely bother with coming up with some clearly false pretext because what he really wants is totally unilateral, totally unaccountable, unquestioned ability to use the U.S. military anywhere for any purpose against anyone, even if it is inexplicable, or unpopular, or even illegal. He wants the ability to use the U.S. military with the consent of no one.”
Meadow’s logic makes sense because none of the other grounds that the Trump administration has cited as reasons do not hold when looked at critically. If Trump’s real motivation was indeed establishing America’s power then the situation is even more concerning.
