Are we the baddies?

In 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR got on the radio and asked the American people to declare war on Japan (and by extension, Germany et al). He then received congressional approval to enter into WWII. The rest is history.

But this morning, like all of you, I woke up to the news that Trump just straight up kidnapped another country’s leader in the dead of night. In essence, he declared war on Venezuela illegally.

Although if we’re being fair, war with Venezuela has been already happening since the moment the U.S. blockaded their oil ships. But obviously, striking a country’s capital and kidnapping their leader is a marked escalation, and it’s a move no one saw coming.

And yet… upon reflection of America’s past, it also seems clumsily inevitable.

My country is world renowned for storming into other countries and forcing regime change in order to serve the interests of the unimaginably wealthy.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, and with the world being what it is, oil is still an incredibly valuable resource.

But in the past, these sort of moves occurred in the background of the American consciousness (if America was even conscious of the events at all). That started to change in the 90s and early 2000s when the wars in the middle east were broadcast to every home in America.

Now, with the internet, we experienced in real time an illegal act of war.

Looking back on those events of WWII, I think Americans felt fully justified in casting themselves in the role of the good guy. But today, I can’t say that I feel like my country is doing any sort of good. Collectively, Americans are experiencing the meme from That Mitchell and Webb Look where a couple of Nazis look around and ask themselves…

The sketch itself is still very funny

What happens next? Well, Trump said the U.S. and a bunch of oil companies/billionaires will “run” Venezuela until a “judicious transition” can occur, because being judicious is “what we’re all about” (and he somehow said that with a straight face). However, something in my gut tells me that there probably isn’t is any real plan for the Venezuelan people to govern themselves. And the cynical truth is that Trump will use Venezuela and her resources in order to enrich himself and his mentally unstable billionaire buddies.

But ain’t that just the American way?