What was defined at Nuremberg as the supreme international crime (one country attacking another one) is depicted by Trump and even the supposedly anti-Trump corporate media as some sort of law-enforcement. Bombing is liberating. Kidnapping is capturing. Murdering people on boats is “impeding the flow of drugs.”

Imagine if, say, Saudi Arabia or Norway or India were to impose deadly sanctions on the United States, attempt numerous comical coups, murder boaters off the U.S. coast, impose a no-fly-zone and naval blockade, bomb Washington, kidnap the U.S. president, and declare its intent to “run” the country and its most planetarily destructive resources. Unlike in Venezuela, in the United States you could poll the public and find majority support for disappearing the president. The problem is that, after our national town square was deprived of its idiot, the country wouldn’t be “run” at all. Even a coalition of 100 nations couldn’t occupy the United States without massive tumultuous resistance of the predictable violent or the more powerful but less likely nonviolent sort. And if an occupied nation were ever well run, more bombings and kidnappings by someone else could put an end to that.

Whether Trump and those bowing before his illegal orders simply pretend they are running Venezuela or attempt to militarily occupy it, Venezuela is in for worse times than ever. And so is the globe with the rule of law shredded and the pirates of the Caribbean dressed up as cops of the world. And so is Trump, as his latest war promises to drag on as long as his Epstein ordeal.

To state the obvious, the United Nations Charter makes it a crime to threaten war and a crime to wage war except in defense or by UN authorization, neither of which is the case here, and neither of which has even been alleged here.

The shortcomings of a government provide no legal basis for a foreign government to attempt to overthrow it. Trump was just threatening to attack Iran should its government engage in any of the sorts of behavior Trump would celebrate if he were making a buck off it. If you could attack governments because they were barbaric or possessed weapons or possessed oil, obviously anyone could attack the United States.

The illegal drug trade, even where real, provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder. Trump’s claims about the illegal drug trade regarding both Venezuela and over 100 people thus far murdered in boats with U.S. missiles from drones are without evidence and widely considered not even plausible. But they could be perfect truth and would still do absolutely nothing to justify mass murder. (Trump’s now pretending to search for survivors of his attacks, though it’s not clear whether that’s to rescue them or to murder them.)

Seizing a nation’s oil provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder. We can call it refreshing and exciting that Trump makes no pretense about hiding this motive. But ugly reasons for crimes don’t legalize them any more than beautiful ones.

The U.S. Congress is a collection of court jesters masquerading as legislators. Trump told them there was no need to oppose this war because it wouldn’t happen. Now that the war or murders (call it whichever of its two names you like) has lasted this long and arrived at the “Mission Accomplished” commercial break, Congress Critters who failed to pass a redundant resolution against the war are now patting themselves on the back, supporting the Monroe Doctrine, endorsing murder and kidnap, and presenting themselves as so moronic as to believe the drug lies and to believe such drug lies are able to legalize the supreme international crime. These men and women expect to be able to go on not only threatening other nations but criticizing them as lawless, and doing so with a straight face.

A Congress member who wanted respect would immediately demand of his or her colleagues that they

• End all war and hostilities toward Venezuela.
• Cut off the funding that allows such crimes.
• Free Venezuela’s kidnapped president.
• Bring all U.S. troops and equipment back to the United States from Venezuela and vicinity.
• Cancel the brutal economic sanctions, naval blockade, and no-fly-zone.
• Renounce overthrows and the Monroe Doctrine.
• Impeach, convict, and remove President Trump from office.

But what about us? We need to be protesting at every U.S. embassy the world over, at every state and local government in the United States, and in Washington D.C. in a manner to prevent the functioning of the Monrovian mafia.

And those who think the United Nations or the Nobel Committee can still be saved should be protesting at those places as well.

Original at World BEYOND War, reprint with permission of author