I use the term “arrest” deliberately. It’s precisely the right term to describe the taking into custody of an indicted criminal. The arrest of Maduro represents a stunning achievement for the U.S. military, particularly, but not exclusively, the members of Delta Force. Once again, we’re reminded that no one does this as well as our military, indeed, no one — save perhaps the Israelis — is even capable of executing such a mission. (RELATED: Yes, Trump’s Action Against Maduro Was Legal)
So a salute to our soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and also a salute to their Commander-in-Chief, who had the guts to order a mission fraught with monumental political risk. The 1980 disaster at Desert One in Iran set the seal on Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Given the fact that the knives always stay sharpened for Trump, even the slightest hiccup would have seen him hammered, and anything more than that — the loss of a helicopter, the death of Delta operators in a failed shootout at the Maduro compound — would likely have set the seal on Trump’s presidency. (RELATED: The Experts Were Wrong About Pete Hegseth)
Instead, fair-minded people recognize the good that has been achieved, a crushing blow to a narco-dictatorship, but above all, an opportunity created for the people of Venezuela to reclaim a once-prosperous country gutted by socialism. It’s no accident that wherever they are free to assemble, members of the Venezuelan diaspora have taken to the streets to cheer what promises to be the dawn of a new era.
Of course, it could all go terribly wrong. Much will need to be resolved in the days and weeks ahead, many potential minefields avoided, not only by the U.S. but also by those in Venezuela who wish to lead the country back to health, safety, and prosperity. Even in this moment of hope, nothing is guaranteed — it never is. But people of goodwill everywhere should wish that Maduro’s extradition marks a genuine new beginning.
Sadly, “goodwill” appears to be lacking across the “progressive” landscape. Much will be made in the coming days about “constitutionality,” much will be argued about “Trump this,” or “Trump that.” The arguments have already begun, and will likely rise to a crescendo in the coming days. Already, we hear that the UN will take this up “with urgency,” signaling yet another renewal of America-bashing from the world’s bad actors and their many clients. Depressingly, some of our so-called “allies” will likely join in.
One criticism, however, can and should be dismissed very quickly, namely, the suggestion that the raid to arrest Maduro will embolden China’s Xi or Russia’s Putin, or the Ayatollah, or Kim, or (name your bad actor) to greater heights of aggressive behavior. The phrase that populates much commentary is the “green light,” the suggestion that Trump’s action somehow gives these dictators permission to invade their neighbors, either prospectively, in the case of Xi and Taiwan, or retrospectively, in the case of Putin’s Ukraine invasion.
The Guardian, always ready to combine pious platitudes with Trump-bashing, labelled the Maduro raid “The Putinization of U.S. foreign policy.” The argument runs that, by violating the precepts of the “rules-based international order,” Trump has, in effect, written a permission slip for Xi to invade Taiwan or Putin to invade the Baltics. At the very least, he’s given them political cover for future bad behavior, writing the “but Trump ™” notices that would accompany such behavior.
The kindest word for this kind of argument is “nonsense.” First of all, it assumes that Xi, Putin, or any of a dozen other bad actors require anything resembling such “permission.” But Xi has long made it clear that he means to see the Taiwan “situation” resolved by 2027, and has made it equally clear that he seeks no one’s permission to do so. When China invades Taiwan — and we should regard this as a “when” rather than an “if,” it will do so, in Xi’s formulation, because it is within its rights to do so. (RELATED: Xi Jinping: ‘The Reunification of Our Motherland Is Unstoppable’)
The Putin argument is even more ludicrous. Putin required no such permission before invading the Crimea in 2014, or waging a subversive war in the eastern provinces of Ukraine in the years that followed. And he certainly asked for no permission, no suspension of the diplomatic niceties, before launching an all-out war against Ukraine in 2022. He just did it without regard for the so-called “rules.”
It’s telling that insistence on a “rules-based international order” only seems to apply when the object is limiting America’s ability to act in its own best interests. The only other country expected to play by the rules is Israel. Sometimes, in justifying their own fecklessness, a country will insist that it has to play by the rules. The unwillingness of successive U.K. governments to take meaningful action against illegal immigration, for example, is frequently covered by insistence that Britain must follow the dictates of the European Court of Human Rights.
It’s also telling that, as Democrat party politicians line up today to condemn Trump, they wrap themselves in a tendentious misreading of the Constitution. They also demonstrate their utter hypocrisy. After all, neither the Constitution nor the “rules-based international order” prevented Barack Obama from sending a SEAL team across the borders of Pakistan, a nominally friendly country, to kill Osama bin Laden. One should applaud the killing of bin Laden and the arrest of Maduro — but it’s ridiculous to assert a moral or Constitutional distinction between the two actions. Double standards, anyone?
One can regret the absence of an international code of conduct, but that is akin to believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Nations make nice with each other when it’s in their interest to do so. If Putin received a “green light” to invade Crimea in 2014 or to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it came above all from the fecklessness of Obama or Biden on the world stage.
More likely, the mission to arrest Maduro will take its place alongside the recent cruise missile strikes against ISIS in Nigeria, or the bombing of the Iranian nuclear facilities, suggesting the very opposite of any kind of “green light” when it comes to Trump’s assertion of U.S. interests through the exertion of power. One doesn’t have to agree with every foreign policy decision Trump has made to recognize that he’s no one to be trifled with.
This is important, vitally so, indeed, existentially so. After Bill Clinton’s hasty withdrawal from Somalia after the “Black Hawk Down” battle of Mogadishu, Osama bin Laden famously drew the conclusion that the U.S. had no stomach for loss and tragedy and would retreat if such were inflicted. Again and again, our vulnerability as a nation has been most acute whenever hostile foreign actors assume that we would rather hide behind the fictions of international law rather than act decisively on our own behalf.
The raid on Maduro reminds us — and should remind the world’s bad actors — that when it comes to Trump, no such assumption is valid. Instead of a “green light,” the raid should instead constitute a flashing red light — and that is a good thing that transcends the immediate benefits of taking a narco-dictator out of circulation.
READ MORE from James H. McGee:
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James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. He’s just published his new novel, The Zebras from Minsk, the sequel to his well-received 2022 thriller, Letter of Reprisal. The Zebras from Minsk find the Reprisal Team fighting against an alliance of Chinese and Russian-backed Venezuelan terrorists, brutal child traffickers, and a corrupt anti-American billionaire, racing against time to take down a conspiracy that ranges from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.
