On April 7, 1939, Italian forces under Benito Mussolini invaded Albania and claimed control of that country.2
Italian forces in Albania, April 7, 1939. Author: Kingdom of Italy. Public domain
On May 10, 1940, German troops under Adolf Hitler invaded Belgium and claimed control of that country.3
German soldiers in Belgium, May 1940. German Federal Archives. Public domain
On October 6, 1950 Chinese troops under Mao Zedong invaded Tibet and claimed control of that country.1
Chinese troops marching into the capital of Tibet in 1951, one year after the invasion. Credit:《解放军报》记者. Public domain
On January 3, 2026, US forces under Donald Trump invaded Venezuela and claimed control of that country.4
As I prepared to write this blog, Ronald Reagan's phrase, "A shining city on a hill" ran through my mind. I went back to read his farewell speech. Reagan was a proponent of military strength. He said in his speech, "Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses".
That sounds familiar, a little like the bellicose claims of our current president, minus the hyperbole. Reagan was willing to use military force, but he justified that action in terms of supporting our 'exceptionalism'. In his farewell speech he asks, "Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?"
Ronald Reagan, known as the Great Communicator, sold the country a package based on ideals, not on avarice, or materialism. Did he believe in those ideals? It's impossible to say what anyone truly believes. What is important is the moral foundation he offered people. He believed the U. S. electorate wanted him to be true to that morality and to traditional ideals.
Here are a few of the ideals offered in Reagan's farewell address:
- "...that's what it was to be an American in the 1980's. We stood, again, for freedom. I know we always have, but in the past few years the world again -- and in a way, we ourselves -- rediscovered it."
- "Are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?"
- "Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: We the People. We the People tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us."
- "We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare."
- "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still."
In 1983 Ronald Reagan ordered the invasion of a small Caribbean island, Granada. He justified the action by describing the risk to U.S. security of a growing Cuba-Soviet military presence in Granada. He also cited recent social unrest in the island and the assassination of Granada's president. Finally, Reagan asserted the need to protect 1000 American students who were studying at a medial school in Granada. Here are excerpts from that speech:
- "Last weekend, I was awakened in the early morning hours and told that six members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, joined by Jamaica and Barbados, had sent an urgent request that we join them in a military operation to restore order and democracy to Grenada. They were proposing this action under the terms of a treaty, a mutual assistance pact that existed among them."
- "We had to assume that several hundred Cubans working on the airport could be military reserves. Well, as it turned out, the number was much larger, and they were a military force. Six hundred of them have been taken prisoner, and we have discovered a complete base with weapons and communications equipment, which makes it clear a Cuban occupation of the island had been planned."
- "It's our intention to get our men out as soon as possible. Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica ...she is Chairman of OECS. She's calling for help from Commonwealth nations in giving the people their right to establish a constitutional government on Grenada."
In summary: Reagan justified his invasion of Granada by citing a direct threat to 1000 American students living on the island. He cited the growing presence of Cuban military on the island, which was perceived as a potential base for Soviet/Cuban military action. And he cited the urgency of restoring democracy and reestablishing a constitutional government in Granada. He gave at least superficial legitimacy to this goal, and to the invasion, by describing how Caribbean leaders had asked him to intervene and gave their treaty obligations as justification for this intervention.
Let's look at Trump's speech, in which he offers justification for the U.S. invasion of Venezuela and his decapitation of its leadership.
- "This action targeted a heavily fortified military fortress in the heart of Caracas to bring the outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice."
- "Along with Maduro, his wife Celia Flores was also captured, and both now face American justice."
- "Maduro and Flores have been indicted in the Southern District of New York for their campaign of deadly narco-terrorism against the United States and its citizens."
- "We are there now, and what many people do not realize – but will soon understand – is that we will remain there until the proper transition is possible. We will essentially administer the nation until that transition takes place.
- "Under my administration, we reassert American power."
- "The future will be shaped by the protection of commerce, territory, and resources central to national security. These principles have always defined global power."
- "Venezuela also seized and sold American oil assets, costing us billions."
- "We built Venezuela’s oil industry using American talent, and it was stolen. This was one of the largest property thefts in U.S. history. The United States will never again allow foreign powers to rob our people."
In the press conference following the official statement, Trump said:
- "We're going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground
..."
and - "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country, and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so..."
On the following day, on January 4, Trump warned the new leader of Venezuela of dire consequences if she doesn't "do what is right". He said: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro...” This threat was reinforced by a senate ally, Tom Cotton, who clarified, 'what is right'. Cotton said,"“What we want is a future Venezuelan government that will be pro-American..."
In summary: Trump offers as justification for the invasion:
An assertion of American power. The arrest of a criminally indicted (by the U.S.) leader. The reestablishment of U.S. oil companies in the country to extract and sell oil. The establishment of a pro-American government.
Invasion of Granada and Invasion of Venezuela, similarities and differences.
These two invasions, have at their base, essential similarities.
- The U.S. asserts that it is protecting its interests in the Western Hemisphere, specifically in the Caribbean.
2.The U.S. uses its overwhelming military force to assort control over the invaded country.
3.Both in Granada and Venezuela, the U. S. is acting in accord with the principles of the Monroe Doctrine.
There are, however, striking differences between the two invasions, and these are reflected in the statements of the two presidents, Trump and Reagan.
Reagan went out of his way to frame the Granada invasion with legitimacy, in terms that supported the ideas of international cooperation, democracy and self-determination. He apparently felt he had to sell this invasion to the U. S. electorate by appealing to its sense of right, and classic democratic principles. He appealed to the traditional values that the U.S. has always claimed for itself, as part of its national ethos--even when the country's actions contradicted those values.
Trump, on the other hand, does not appeal to U.S. ideals. His appeal is to raw power. Never does he mention democracy. The speech and responses to press questions are peppered with statements about U.S. military supremacy. He openly asserts the right to establish a friendly government in Venezuela and never refers to self-determination. He aggressively declares the U.S. intention to exploit the resources of another country...Venezuela. He declares openly that the U.S. will extract wealth from those resources. Finally, he threatens heads of state that they will suffer a worse fate than Maduro (assassination?) if they do not follow U.S. directives.
What happened to U. S. foreign policy between Granada and Venezuela? When did it become acceptable for a United States president to openly pursue a policy of territorial aggrandizement and forced appropriation of foreign resources? When did it become acceptable for the president of the United States to hint at assassinating a foreign leader who is not 'pro-American'?
The turnaround in official U. S. values was rapid. It happened with the election of Donald Trump.
Is the American electorate ready to abandon the shining city on a hill? Is the electorate ready for naked aggression, unabashed exploitation of foreign territory, and wars in support of these actions? Is it consistent with our self image that our president stands, proudly, head to head with tyrants of the past and present?
I don't know. I hope not.
Notes
I think what's changed is we've reached the point that Frank Zappa described in his famous quote. The illusion of freedom has become too expensive to maintain. Now the curtains are being pulled back, the scenery is being removed, and the brick wall at the back of the theatre is visible. The system has ceased paying lip service to liberty and transparency. We’re living in a post-law, post-morality world.
Exactly the point.
When we pretend to follow the rules, when we acknowledge that there are rules, we are acknowledging that there can be limits on our actions--a check on naked avarice and aggression. Both abroad and at home. But if we've entered an era where we say there are no rules. We can can do anything we want...well, that is different, isn't it? At least for the U.S. It implies...it says... there are no limits to government authority or action. There is no court, no third party that can adjudicate what we do. We do what we want to do.
Scary for me, living here.
And have been for much longer than Trump's ascendancy.
Exactly!
I would add that first they embargoed a country and then sold themselves as liberators. Is there any cognitive dissonance we have?! XD
!discovery
Yes. We must not ignore our part in the destabilization of any country.
This is not the first time I am appalled by the actions of my country. I am appalled because I actually believe in those principles I was taught as a child, ideals that are supposed to represent the ethos of my country: freedom, equal rights, liberty. Of course these ideals have never been achieved, but always leaders gave lip service to them, because the people mostly believed in them. Naive, like me. What horrifies me is that the lip service is gone. No one is pretending to live up to the ideals that are supposed to represent the country I grew up in. Has the culture of the country changed so much that we can be the 'bad' guys, and that's OK?
Imperial America was there, no one thought it could return, then imperialized by Trump... We can say that it will be a sad period geopolitically speaking, but surely in the next elections the damage done in these will be recovered, and I also speak for my country, which is not in a better position.
I am not the first person to see a similarity between this time in history and the 1930s. It seems the world goes through spasms, historically, through waves. There is a rise of authoritarianism and then a revolt. Why the revolutions of 1848 in Europe? Why the rise of autocracy globally in the 1930s? Why the wave of anti-liberalism now, and trend toward authoritarian leaders, globally? I don't know.
That is the scariest of all Trump's statements. How do we define robbing the American people? Very very broadly. This government robs each and every taxpayer to fund their robbing countries all around the world. How many countries have we recently bombed, always with the statement that those rulers are bad guys, and ours are good guys? Let's see: Nigeria, Syria, and now Venezuela come quickly to mind. We're actively threatening Columbia and Mexico in the Americas, and Iran in the middle east. We are bombing several other countries in the middle east by proxy and taxpayer dollars via Israel.
I disagree with this statement however:
This turnaround has been churning for a hundred years or more. Obama is said to have started eight wars. Bush #2 brought down the twin towers to usher in privacy laws and regulations - is this not a war on the American people themselves? Reagan may have used pretty language to drum up the population's support, but he was every bit as greedy and false as any of the others. Over 100 years ago, Wilson was among the first presidents to use humanitarian intervention as justification for using military force in other countries. Not a thing has changed since then.
This is not Trump's doing, it is ours. We trust our government, even though there has been a great deal of evidence over the years that it is deeply corrupt. Trump is no worse that his predecessors, he is simply more in our faces about it. We blame only him at our peril! He's not even in charge, no more than that daft Biden was before him. I believe that Trump is a patsy and a puppet for forces much larger than he, the same forces that put Wilson in the White House, and Hitler on his little throne. Trump was installed because he is so easy to hate.
I heard an interesting talk of scripture a few days ago in which the use of the word "ruler" was explained as not to mean any human ruler who rules by force or by law, but rather as a rule we can measure ourselves by. Good rulers are those who set good examples as humans.
The turnaround I address is not in policy. Our government has always used for to take what we want. That's just a fact or history. How did we get Hawaii? Texas? Puerto Rico? The list is long. The turnaround I address is in the window dressing. Sometimes, window dressing is very significant.
In the past presidents have lied to us. That have lied to us because they worried about being held accountable by the people. So they made up excuses to get what they wanted. Not anymore. This one, this president, doesn't expect anyone to hold him to account. That's the turnaround. That's the scary part for me. As @deirdyweirdy very astutely states, "The system has ceased paying lip service to liberty and transparency. We’re living in a post-law, post-morality world."
That's the turnaround. That's the scary part--at least for me.
Why should he? We haven't held any of the others to account. We are responsible for this. I agree the turnaround here should be very scary. I am very afraid that the few holds on tyranny that may have been in effect have been released. This administration, along with its collaboration with global forces, is more terrifying because the fall of something (I do not know what is coming) is imminent. Hang on! But I still contend that Trump is not the architect of this malarkey, he is but a tool.
He is definitely a tool. But so was Reagan, so were most of them. Maybe Carter didn't fit the mold, but the establishment really hated him because they couldn't control him the way they wanted.
That is exactly what I see. The blinders are off. It's full speed ahead.
Our congresspeople have completely abdicated their stations. Wimps. Tools themselves.
100% in agreement.
Reagan demaded that congress pass a law, nicknamed the Kiki Camarena Law, authorizing the US to cross borders, into any country and with force, in order to bring to justice people who had violated US law. The Kiki Camarena law was used to justify Noriega and now Maduro. Indict someone anyone anywhere, and any country they are in can be forciby invaded. Pretty interesting. Reagan.
This interview has an interesting perspective.
In short, the Global War on Terror happened. Less and less effort has been made to follow the Constitutional procedure for declaring war and justifying militarism abroad. Invasions and operations are just part of the backdrop of American foreign policy.The real difference between Trump and Obama isn't party, it's that Trump just says the quiet part out loud.
This is the difference, and it is a difference that matters.
U.S. expansion has a history longer than the War on Terror. We can go back to the blowing up of the USS Maine, in Havana Harbor (1898). Or the imprisonment of Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1893. The war with Mexico that gave us most of the southwest, in the mid 1800s. The U.S. has always been an expansionist nation that violated constitutional requirements.But in each case, as you indicate, there was a pretext offered to the American people. The presumption was that in order for the action to receive popular support, the move had to be given the patina of legitimacy. What Trump has done is tell us that we no longer need to pretend. He has told us that we don't need a pretext. We can do whatever we want. We can, essentially be a lawless nation.
That, to me, is scary--not just for U.S. expansionism, but here at home. If there is no law, where does that leave me and other U.S. citizens? A leader, a government, ca do anything, without restriction. If the people of this country are ready for that, we have indeed entered a new stage in our history.
Honestly I prefer the directly and honest Trump speech, we want oil, rather than the hypocrisy of the democracy in danger or other excuses that have been used by western countries for the last century
I'll have to admit to being self-centered when it comes to this issue. The U.S. has always done exactly what it wanted in the Western Hemisphere and has made often superficial excuses to justify its actions. I've always been appalled by that. What scares me now is more a domestic issue.
No more excuses. No more pretending. Why? Does this president feel so immune, so powerful that he can do anything he wants without moral justification? He has no concern about how this will register in U.S. opinion. Has no concern about being called to account by Congress or the courts. That is a really scary new thing for me, for my country. It implies a president with unlimited power. That may always have been true abroad, but now it's home, it's here.
That is really, really scary.
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With some of the things that I have liked, I am dismayed by some of these other actions.
I will, for the next several years, quote Catherine Fitts in that "Trump was selected because he could be the guy to get things done, quickly; Biden was too slow" (paraphrasing of course) in her discussion with Danny Jones. Essentially meaning that the presidential
selection was always going to go to the Donald. Kamala would have never been able to be effective in the way that the powers that shouldn't be want. They need speed and confusion not steady and thoughtful. (not that I think Kamala could have been thoughtful, but she was likely to be slow)We live in a world of increasingly shadow powers. Many of us learned this in the last 10 years. It started with the Clintons, and them (in my belief) giving Bernie the 3am phone call "shut up or people close to you will get hurt" because he was making too many waves. His tune changed VERY quickly when he was crushing her. Since then, it has gone downhill for me.
It is far less about the enumerated powers written in the Constitution than it has been for a long time. Granted though, the Constitution I am learning was not a golden ticket either. There was a lot of corruption and disagreement at that time as well. Robert Morris seems a lot like the Donald Trump of his day except I don't think he ended up being a president. Very rich and wanted to get his way.
At the same time, many have said that this was a way to flex the American power muscle that atrophied greatly under Biden, to potentially prevent other wars in the future where countries have thought we have grown weak. I can see both your side of that, as well as this other.
Hello @cmplxty, I read this comment before going to sleep last night. Then, when I was tired, it seemed to say one thing. This morning I see that it has nuance. It is in that nuance where an area of agreement exists between us.
You and I held different views of Donald Trump before the election, and yet I always felt we both wanted essentially the same future for our country. How to get there?
I am not a seer. For, example, I donated to John Edwards when he was running for president. Look what he turned out to be.
I only know what is before my eyes. I believe the man who was elected to the presidency one year ago has dictatorial ambitions. I believe the shadow people behind him applaud that inclination. His grab for power gives them greater access to what they want.
I love my country. I know you love this country. What is best for our country? If only we knew and if only we could make that happen.
Happy New Year, @cmplxty. Health prosperity and peace to you and your family in the coming year.