Trump escalated his attacks from random people in boats to assaulting the President of Venezuela and kidnapping him. This is horrifying. The US has continually lost credibility around being on the right side of wars since the Iraq war. We are certainly on the wrong side of this. Even if Maduro is a horrifying and awful to his people, this is not the way to drive change in the country’s leadership. Trump unilaterally did this without consulting Congress, blaming “leaks” as the reason why. Leaks don’t matter, it’s a legal requirement to notify congress before any action. Trump blatantly broke our laws along with international law in kidnapping a world leader.

This sets an awful precedent if the US government can issue a warrant and use that as the basis for kidnapping a world leader, then other countries can and will do the same. This will create a level of escalation on the world stage that we may never get back in the bottle.

Taiwan may be at risk to China. Ukraine may be at risk to Russia. Israel may do the same to the leaders in Gaza.

The US may be at risk to other countries as well. There’s no real difference between going after Venezuela than going after North Korea. Just the fact that N.K. has the Bomb, whereas the countries in South America do not have the Bomb. Which of course, does change the math a little bit.

I’m angry about this. The US is failing in the ideals we claim to be living up to. We are a rogue state at this point. I would not be surprised if we get sanctions piled on us by the UN. We should. We would do this to other countries if they had done the same.