Trump must be held accountable!
Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:
If the world does not stand up to Donald Trump now, he will continue to wage military attacks on other countries, kidnap their leaders and steal their resources. History tells us appeasement of an aspiring fascist leader like Trump will only empower him. Will the world learn from history--or will they allow Trump to repeat it?!
Those words may sound over the top, but only because they are being applied to an American President. Put that fact aside for a moment and ask yourself: What would be our reaction if Putin waged a surprise military attack and kidnapped the leader of an oil rich country after he spoke of wanting to take their oil? Is there any doubt the US would be leading the charge to impose sanctions? Of course not--as we saw with our reaction to Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. And the rationale was the same: If the world did not stand up to Putin, he could very well be like Hitler in 1938 when he annexed Austria and then set his eyes on Czechoslovakia. Does anyone doubt that Trump who attempted a coup, incited the Jan. 6 terrorist attack and then pardoned his MAGA terrorists is just as dangerous as the fascist leaders and tyrants we have seen in the modern era?!
Now let’s be clear about one thing: Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro is awful. He headed a brutal and oppressive regime. As Human Rights Watch (HRC) documented, since Maduro stole the 2024 election, the Venezuelan government “has killed, tortured, detained, and forcefully disappeared people seeking democratic change.” The head of HRC said earlier this year, “Foreign governments should recommit to supporting the fight for democracy and human rights in Venezuela and press to hold the Maduro government accountable for its atrocities.” But the way to effectuate change is within the parameters of international law—sanctions, diplomatic pressure, bank freezes, etc. Instead, Trump has turned the United States into a rogue nation by openly and repeatedly violating international law—beginning with murdering people in international waters off the coast of Venezuela.
That is not just my view but also international legal experts and United Nation’s officials. Just last month, I wrote an article that focused on UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk’s statement on why the military strikes on fishing boats by Trump are illegal under international law. As the UN official noted, “Under international human rights law, the intentional use of lethal force is only permissible as a last resort against individuals who pose an imminent threat to life.”
Turk continued that based on the “very sparse” information about the ships provided by Trump, “none of the individuals on the targeted boats appeared to pose an imminent threat to the lives of others or otherwise justified the use of lethal armed force against them under international law.” This view is backed up international legal experts. Every fishing boat targeted was more than 1,500 miles from the US coastline—in other words days away. None were an imminent threat to our nation or citizens. And Trump lied that the ships carried fentanyl. Fentanyl does not come from Venezuela. Finally, Trump declared two weeks ago that his designs on Venezuela were actually about taking the oil. That is when Trump told reporters about Venezuela, “We had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back.” He backed that up with a post on social media demanding Venezuela return “to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” (As fact checkers note, the oil was owned by Venezuela as a natural resource—not by the United States.)
Given the world yawned as Trump murdered more than 100 people in fishing boats, Trump knew he could escalate the military action which led to Saturday’s surprise military attack and kidnapping of Maduro. After the attack, Trump vowed “to run the country” until we can install a leader who lines up with Trump’s views. (I hope the people of Venezuela like higher prices, higher unemployment and Trump’s name being affixed to all their big buildings!) But Trump—not being able to censor himself given his cognitive slide—also told us that he will be sending in oil companies to take the oil. Trump declared, “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
Donald Trump and his whole crooked regime should be tried in The Hague.
