Commentary of note on Venezuela

The New York Times had a very critical editorial out very quickly.  

Here's a gift link to it.

In this topsy turvy world, a long tweet Marjorie Taylor Green put out (although I feel certain she would not have written it herself) basically repeated all of the points made by the NYT!  

The best contribution of the Washington Post was an article explaining the history behind the claim that Venezuela had "stolen" American oil, land and assets.  As you might expect, there is a mountain of nuance to note about that claim.  Or to put it another way:  it's a gross exaggeration and self serving take on what happened.  Here's the gift link.

Over at CNA, I thought this part of their article "Was the US capture of Venezula's President lawful" was exactly on point:

Experts in international law said the Trump administration had muddled the legal issues by claiming the operation was both a targeted law enforcement mission and the potential prelude to long-term control of Venezuela by the US.

"You cannot say this was a law enforcement operation and then turn ‍around and say now we need to run the country," said Jeremy Paul, a professor at Northeastern University specialising in constitutional law. 

"It just doesn't make any sense." 

Meanwhile, it's been a bit weird watching the European leaders hold back from criticising Trump.   I know no one wants to praise Maduro, but I still don't see the point of holding back on criticism of Trumpian tactics, which have including killing a 100 or so people on boats on the high seas as a form of extra judicial execution.

Anyway, one of the odd things that I haven't seen anyone say yet is that if a group of Muslims managed to somehow kidnap Netanyahu for a trial at the ICJ, Trump's action could well be cited as a precedent.