Special to USAfricaonline.com and USAfrica magazine
Dr. Chidi Amuta is Executive Editor of USAfrica, since 1993
When a village madman spends all his days loading a gun and sharpening matchetes, he is likely to kill someone sooner or later. That rural truism from my village applies to America’s current war preparations around Venezuela.
For the past couple of months, America’s Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has amassed the largest armada of war tools anywhere in the world around the Caribbean in the direct vicinity of Venezuela. Ahead of a real ground offensive, Hegseth has ordered nearly 2 dozen strikes on boats in Venezuelan waters targeting alleged narcotics traffickers. Since the strikes exterminated all the occupants of the suspect vessels, there is no way of determining the culpability of the dead for the alleged crime. Only recently did the second strike on survivors of one such strike did occur to political America that many innocent people may have been executed in this wild show of shameful and deranged strength.
Speculations as to whether the US will launch a ground attack on Venezuela are foolish. The attack will come either foreseeable outcomes. Maduro will be ousted and replaced with the leader of opposition. There will come an untidy regime change. Trump will try to do what America is incompetent at- establishing a regime to replace what it destroys. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Vietnam…
America will invade Venezuela. It won’t be because Maduro is a communist. It won’t be because Venezuela accounts for the highest quantity of narcotics coming into the US to meet a huge local demand. It won’t even be because Mr. Maduro is a drug baron himself.
America will invade Venezuela to have direct and controlling access to the country’s vast oil and gas resources with no accountability. Iraq suffered the same fate during the first Gulf war. Oil field experts and thieves were embedded with American advancing troops. The US wanted to extend the same self-help approach to Kuwait’s oil to pay itself for coming to its aid against Iraq. The Kuwaitis were wiser. They asked America for a bill for their help. It came to $18 billion . The Kuwaitis wrote the Cheque and thanked the liberators. Matters closed. Relations returned to normal diplomatic format.
In addition to the interest in free oil and gas, Trump wants to advance the frontiers of belligerent foreign relations. He wants to frighten as many weak nations as possible either through military bluster, tariff harassment or psychological intimidation. It failed flat with South Africa. It is likely to fail with Nigeria . It could work in some places but will fail in most.
The mindset that enabled Hegseth to rename Defence as the Ministry of War belongs in antiquity, the era of might is all.
The danger is that this toxic and rogue approach to foreign relations may erode American international credibility and status as a beacon of benevolent strength. That is already gone either way the withdrawal from WHO and the killing of USAID and other agencies of soft power.
A new world is here. China has slipped into the driving seat. Only a kinder, gentler and more strategic America can reclaim the shattered global pre-eminence.
