Capturing Maduro shows U.S. strength
It is revealing that the No Kings crowd has gone to bat for Nicolas Maduro’s “rights” under international law. They don’t see the contradiction?
Donald Trump can be erratic, but I believe he’s swinging for the fences to “fundamentally transform” (in a good way, for a change) the geopolitics of our time. His and Pete Hegseth’s Department of War has, twice, demonstrated a capacity for combined arms that must make others think twice before contemplating taking on the Big Dog. We can be a uniquely dangerous foe. And I believe that’s a good thing — “peace through strength,” deterrence meant to send a message that the Afghanistan bugout was not reflective of America’s military readiness and that we are still capable of destroying our enemies in textbook fashion.
Taking out Maduro, a socialist dictator turned drug lord, has been met in Caracas with some wild celebrations. A Venezuela doing well and being democratic would be an enormous benefit to the Western Hemisphere. We can eliminate the beachheads in Venezuela by the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, Hamas and Hezbollah. Cuba could fall from this. As I see it, somehow leftists, Marxists and the No Kings crowd seem to have cast their lot with Maduro.
Could Trump’s gamble go wrong? Oh, yeah, and if it does it might do so spectacularly. But for any Americans to profess support for Maduro, or for any distress that comes to America because it crumbles in any way, is perverse, and demonstrates how out of touch most people who call themselves “socialist” are.
Ron Berti Orlando
Where are liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
There’s a new book on the best-seller list, “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written” by Walter Isaacson about the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit or Happiness.” It’s the same sentence James Cunningham quoted in his Jan. 6 guest column, basically a smackdown of anyone who doesn’t buy the Book of Genesis creation story in toto (“Recovering the first right in the Declaration of Independence,” Jan. 6). Yes, it’s a very good sentence. It’s also, like the column, a breathtaking case of intellectual dishonesty. He goes on and on about the importance of “Life” but never gets to “Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” maybe because the Founding Fathers did not mention that being a woman or a slave were “pre-existing conditions” not covered under the Declaration. Sorry — no liberty or pursuit of happiness for them! If that sounds like something from an extended auto warranty list of exclusions, that’s because it is. At least those companies have the honesty (likely to fend off lawsuits) to list exclusions, albeit in fine print.
Greg Dawson Maitland
Fossil-fuel-driven imperialism
As governments around the world continue to rely on fossil fuels, there will be friction, hostility and further conflict. Additionally, a loss for renewable energy and clean electric vehicles would be a significant danger to an already extremely vulnerable fractured climate.
The idea that oil companies can just “go into a country, spend their own money, take back the oil, and ‘we’ will be reimbursed” is utterly so much fiction. The facts and historical truths to these types of foreign affairs situations get lost in President Trump and his present administration’s sanctimonious hyperbole.
500,000 barrels per day at a cost of $10 billion would possibly need up to two years just to tap the reserves. Also playing a role are the obstacles due to economics, the history and geological technicalities, which could take up to three years to secure. And due to past mismanagement and U.S. sanctions, there would be repairs, security, infrastructure and upgrades.
Venezuela’s extra-heavy duty crude oil reserves — better known as “dirty crude” — are called that because they hold intensive amounts of carbon and methane. The damage to the atmosphere and climate would be greater in degree than any quick-term economic benefit.
A fearfully grim future for the climate. A fearfully grim future for the environment.
Vicki Bush Lady Lake
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