Tag: Trump’s Venezuela invasion

American Foreign Policy Has Always Been Gunboat Diplomacy

Buck Banks

“In some ways, it has been at the heart of American foreign policy since the beginning. A great many of our foreign military interventions were undertaken not to save lives or for humanitarian purposes, but simply to advance the economic interests of the country as a whole or just particular businesses. … I consulted a Congressional Research Service catalogue of U.S. armed interventions abroad since 1798. I saw that not only were virtually none of them authorized by Congress, but an imperial lust for territory and markets was the motive for the vast bulk. Not surprisingly, Latin America was the focal point of many such actions.”

— Bruce Bartlett

Mystery Bettor Made $400k on Maduro’s Ouster

Buck Banks

$400,000

“Less than five hours before nighttime explosions rocked the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, an unknown trader doubled down on bets that Nicolás Maduro would soon be out as the country’s leader,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The wagers on Polymarket, a popular crypto-based betting platform, netted the trader more than $400,000, a 12-fold return on investment—and fueled suspicions that someone used inside knowledge of the closely held U.S. operation to make a quick profit.”

The Profound Pettiness of Our President

Buck Banks

“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today.”

— A person close to the White House, quoted by the Washington Post, saying Trump is refusing to support Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado because she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.