https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/pirates-caribbean-sovereignty-law-and-donald-trump

WASHINGTON’S seizure of a second ship carrying Venezuelan oil continues its brazen piracy on the high seas.

It’s a further escalation in US aggression against Venezuela designed to bring about regime change.

Donald Trump’s crimes are dramatic, his motives expressed unusually openly. His secretary for war — and the revival of this title instead of defence secretary speaks for itself  — boasts about prioritising “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.” The administration is hardly making the effort to pretend its actions are legal.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t lying. It lies constantly, and the official rationale for its Venezuela blockade is a lie — there is no evidence the boats it bombs were smuggling drugs, nor that the Venezuelan oil industry has any connection to the drug trade, nor even of the existence of the so-called Cartel de los Soles that it alleges Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro heads.

But just as when, during his first term, Trump embarrassed his Nato allies by admitting Western militaries were in Syria “only for the oil,” the president’s online rants show the same is true for Venezuela.

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Article continues at https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/pirates-caribbean-sovereignty-law-and-donald-trump