Trump violated international law, but Maduro was still a dictator

Trump violated international law by abducting Maduro, but let’s not forget that the guy was a dictator.

Last week, the US military carried out a military operation in Venezuela, where they captured and extradited Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife. The entire operation took about three hours, and ended with Maduro and his wife being dragged out of their bed and stuffed into a plane back to New York City.

Naturally, the international community and the public are in an uproar over this. And they’re right to be. Trump essentially just kidnapped a world leader in the dead of night in a gross violation of international law. This sets a dangerous precedent, and serves as a threat to other world leaders that says, “Do what we say or this could be you”.

The entire justification for kidnapping Maduro was some bullshit about him working with the drug cartels. Rather than target the actual heads of these cartels, Trump instead thought it was a better idea to go after Maduro.

I get what Big Don’s doing here. He’s trying to project an image of American military strength to the cartels and the rest of the world. But black-bagging Maduro is the world stage equivalent of the big 6’5 300 lb roided-up meathead at the party who’s going around being aggressive and trying to assert his dominance by picking pointless fights. Yeah, most people aren’t going to fuck with him because they know he’s tough, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to respect him. By scooping up Maduro in the dead of the night, Trump has made us look like dicks to the rest of the world. An image of strength doesn’t mean much if people don’t actually respect you.

With that said, let’s stop pretending that Maduro didn’t deserve it.

The guy was a dictator, and I’m not sure why the left is suddenly pretending that he wasn’t. Nicolás Maduro wasn’t some innocent angel, he was a communist dictator who was fixing elections, arresting and killing dissenters, and letting his people wallow in poverty. Sure, the cartel thing was probably bogus. Sure, it’s obvious that Trump just wants Venezuela’s oil. But that doesn’t mean that Maduro was a good guy. He was pretty much the South American equivalent of Saddam Hussein, right down to his looks.

I don’t agree with what Trump did, and I don’t think it’s America’s job to play world police, but downplaying the fact that Maduro was a tyrant is delusional. The left is so concerned with hating every little thing Donald Trump does that they’ll support a communist dictator just to spite him. We all know damn well that if it was Biden or Obama that ordered this operation these crybabies would be singing a different tune. I don’t understand why people on both sides of the political spectrum need to always deal in extremes. Trump is either the God-chosen savior of all mankind or he’s the Antichrist. Trump is a shitty president with clear ulterior motives, but that doesn’t suddenly invalidate all the bad stuff Maduro has done.

So while it’s not a good idea to kidnap world leaders from their beds in the middle of the night and alienate us from our allies with needless and excessive displays of power, I’m not shedding any tears for Maduro either. The guy was a piece of shit and got what was coming to him. It would have been better if it was at the hands of his own people, but getting your shit stomped in at 2 in the morning by special forces is still fitting enough.

Now if Trump could do the same thing to Keir Starmer and the Metro Police Chief, then maybe I’d get behind it.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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