I am told that if I dont like what my government is doing, I should write my representative. So I dropped Senator Adam Schiff a note about the US war on Venezuela.
By Roger D. Harris
The senators reply, with my translations of his Washington-speak (in italics) provided in brackets, is as follows:
The senator then criticized Trumps military action aggression, by any other name for lacking congressional approval, noting that it was problematic because it risks embroiling us in another war. This concern, however, does not extend to US war actions inPalestineandUkraine, which Schiff finds especially wonderful along withIran, Nigeria, Iraq,Somalia, etc.
Last year, Schiff sponsored a War Powers resolution to block US boat strikes without explicit congressional authorization. It failed. More recently, he joined Senators Tim Kaine and Rand Paul in advancing yet another War Powers resolution requiring congressional approval for future actions.
The resolution is purely symbolic. It must pass the Senate, the House, and then receive Trumps signature. This theater allows Democrats to strike a pose of disapproval toward Trump while continuing to support bipartisan regime-change aggression against Venezuela.
Schiff and company are not genuinely interested in international law. They fully support unilateral coercive measuresdesigned to strangle(pressure in Washington-speak) the Venezuelan economy. This illegal form of collective punishment, euphemistically called sanctions, has resulted in more than 100,000excess deathsin Venezuela, according to a UN special rapporteur.
But Venezuelan deaths, like Palestinian ones, remain invisible to respectable lawmakers.
Schiffs letter lauds US service members [who] conducted the operation with great skill and courage. Yet the senator does not acknowledge the bravery let alone the supreme sacrifice of the roughly100 killedin Venezuela defending against a military force orders of magnitude greater than their own.
The targeted bombingkilledcivilians along with Venezuelan and Cuban military personnel.Accordingto reports from Venezuela, the sites targeted included dialysis medication warehouses of the Venezuelan Social Security Institute, scientific facilities at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research, key power plants supplying Caracas, and residential neighborhoods.
What Schiff and his colleagues are really upset about is that Trump committed a splendid act of war and didnt let them share in the glory. Both parties demonize Nicols Maduro with moral fervor, justifying his kidnapping. Never mind that, under international law, a sitting head of state enjoys immunity regardless of how unpleasant Washington finds him.
The partisan charade boils down to a question of appearances. For Democrats, Trump is not guilty of war crimes so much as bad manners, crassly admitting that he is after the oil. Better to put lipstick on the pig and claim the empire is promoting democracy.
All the whining is about Congress being left out of the action. Democrats are apoplectic about not getting to see theunedited snuff videosof the US blowing up small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Adding insult to injury, Trump boasted that henotified oil companyexecutives but not the peoples so-called representatives in Congress before attacking Venezuela. And that makes perfect sense in a system dedicated to serving corporate interests rather than voters.
Once upon a time, there existed a species in Congress known as a liberal, who favored peace over endless wars of imperial domination. Dennis Kucinich was one of the last of that breed. Before losing his seat in 2013 for insufficient bloodlust, he challenged presidents Clinton over Serbia, Bush over Iraq, and Obama over Libya.
Kucinich deserves recognition though not commendation. He simply reflected public opinion, which opposed these imperial adventures. Today, roughly 70%oppose the US waron Venezuela. Congress does not.
His remedy is simple: cut funding for unauthorized wars and enforce the law in court. If we had an actual two-party system, this might happen. Instead, as Kucinich puts it, the US empire has set the stage for a war of all against all.
Roger D. Harrisis with theVenezuela Solidarity Networkand on the central committee of the CaliforniaPeace and Freedom Party.
Pressenza New York
