Editor,

The last U.S. regime change endeavor came at a high price. Brown University project, The Costs of War, concluded the Bush military response to the 9/11 attacks contributed to the deaths of approximately 940,000 people across Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria. Additionally, U.S. taxpayers wrote a check for about $5.8 trillion, $17,000 for every individual living in the U.S.

Over the years, presidents have bantered about promoting freedom, security and the American way of life as justifications for imperial military interventions. Additionally, communism was touted as a godless institution hell bent on the destruction of the religious foundations of the world in general and America in particular. The real threat was to capitalism; any form of government that nationalized resources incumbered imperial exploitation.

The deposing of Venezuelan President Maduro is a replication of a failed simplistic foreign policy formula that aspires to gain preferential U.S. access to resources and markets overseas by destabilizing, delegitimizing, or deposing governments resistant to U.S. exploitation, replacing them with illegitimate compliant puppets. Essentially these governments needed to be run by dictatorial thugs willing to suppress the democratic will of the population. They were expected to deal with any domestic organization that posed a threat to unfettered access to resources, most often oil. The U.S. ensured they were well equipped with access to military intelligence and hardware essential to stifle attempts to develop democratic opposition to the regime or U.S. imperial exploitation.

In spite of a horrific spectrum of personality and character defects, you must respect Trump’s brutish and blunt proclivity towards the unabashed truth when he banters in front of the media. He is feigned to adhere to scripted talking points and would rather bathe in the spotlight he so desperately covets. In the process he reveals truthful hints of what is actually transpiring in his government to the chagrin of his advisers.

Initially, Trump claimed his military campaign against Venezuela was to protect the American people from the scourge of dangerous drugs from Venezuela. In the absence of a modicum of evidence to support this claim, Trump pivoted to the truth, military expropriation of Venezuelan oil. He plans to govern with a proxy president who will dance to his tune. Sidling democracy champion Venezuelan Noble Recipient Machado whom world leaders claim won the most recent Venezuelan elections, Trump plans to work with remnants of the Maduro regime. Oil trumps freedom, democracy and American Ideals.

Jack Gribble

Oak Harbor