The Venezuela attack
After months of planning and training, the pre-dawn raid Saturday by elite Army Delta Force commandos was the riskiest U.S. military operation of its kind since members of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, says The New York Times.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife were captured and are in jail in New York City, facing cocaine importation conspiracy charges.
Here are details of the operation, from NBC News.
In a news conference Saturday about the operation, President Trump referred to the Monroe Doctrine, formulated by President James Monroe in 1823 to warn Europe against meddling in the Western Hemisphere.
Here is a look at the Monroe Doctrine, how it’s been invoked over time and how it’s informed Trump’s decision making, from The Associated Press.
In January, a New York Post front page referred to it as “The Donroe Doctrine.”
Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yván Gil, said, “This attack is not only against Venezuela; it is an attack against Latin America and the Caribbean.”
The 33-nation Community of Latin American and Caribbean States — the main multilateral organization for the region — held an emergency meeting on Sunday.
And a commentary from the European Council on Foreign Relations said: “Beyond Latin America, the operation carries far-reaching implications for European security, the future of Greenland and the Arctic and the stability of the Taiwan Strait.”
In fact, later on Sunday, Trump renewed his call for a U.S. takeover of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests. And he threatened military action on Colombia for facilitating the global sale of cocaine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.” He said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela before his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” Rubio said Cuban bodyguards also were in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump had said on Saturday that the United States would “run” Venezuela. But Rubio said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, “What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward.”
U.S. oil companies long have hoped to recover assets that Venezuela’s authoritarian regime took from them decades ago, notes Politico.
Now the Trump administration is offering to help them achieve that goal but says they have to be prepared to go back into Venezuela now and invest heavily to revive the country’s petroleum industry, according to Politico.
People in the industry say they’re leery about the difficulty of rebuilding decayed oil fields in a nation where it’s not even clear who will lead the country for the foreseeable future.
The United States’ next actions in Venezuela and the Western Hemisphere more broadly will loom large as Congress returns to work this week, says Roll Call.
Congressional Republicans almost universally back Trump, and virtually all Democrats decry the action, Roll Call says.
At least one vote appears likely in the Senate in the days ahead on requiring congressional authorization for additional U.S. military actions in or against Venezuela.
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