In 1569, Gerardus Mercator created a cylinder-shaped map of the world. Naturally, this distorted the size of countries, with those in Europe appearing larger and thus more important. Distorted by Mercator to look larger, Greenland is one-fifth the size of the U.S. This autonomous region of Denmark is a place of vast untapped mineral wealth. Behind threat to use military force against NATO partner Denmark to make Greenland a U.S.colony is greedy Donald Trump’s desire to possess that wealth. At a recent interview, he casually remarked “I like owning things.”
After killing scores in small boats, charged, absent any verification, with hauling drugs from Venezuela to the U.S., Trump’s assembled armada in the Caribbean launched an invasion at Caracas to capture President Maduro. Unmentioned was that the assault killed 55 Venezuelan and Cuban guards. Trump will not “own” the action, along with quarantine of oil tankers, is an act of war. Here was a violation of both U.S. and international law.
Veiled threat of similar actions against Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico raise alarms there. Compare this posture with JFK’s 1961 Alliance for Progress positively binding the U.S. with Latin America.
Knowing Cuba depends on Venezuelan oil, pressure was added to the now 62-year embargo on that socialist country. It is U.S hostility that deliberately prevents Cuba from becoming prosperous. Recall that Fidel Castro said in a 1963 interview with French journalist Jean Daniel, “Kennedy could still be this man. He still has the possibility of becoming, in the eyes of history, the greatest president of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists, even in the Americas.”
Opportunistically, dealing harm to Iran is again Trump’s aim. Hostility of that government to Israel and the U.S. noted, we must keep in mind Iran’s reasons for anger. Forcefully occupying Iran during World War II to control oil, the British continued that practice until Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh demanded a fairer share of the revenue. Britain and the CIA carried out a coup for oil and installed as Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Using his secret police, Pahlavi reigned brutally until the 1979 revolution. When the U.S. gave him shelter.
Iranian youth responded by taking the U.S. Embassy staff hostage. A militant Muslim force, overtly aggressive toward Israel, has since ruled for 47 years.
There was our active support of Iraq in its 1980 invasion of Iran, and 1988 Vincennes shooting down of an Iranian airliner that killed 290. Israel was unimpeded in constructing over 200 nuclear weapons, while Iran was pressed to stop enrichment, claimed to be for peaceful purposes. Democrats developed a working inspection. Soon after, Trump cancelled the agreement.
What no one here has ever contemplated is a conference in which we first apologize for our 73-year history of aggressive acts, ask them to do the same, and start a positive political, economic, and artistic exchange. It’s called diplomacy. Instead the U.S. remains militarist.
That militance grew out of the arms industry profits and military leverage habits of World War II. President Eisenhower warned against this. Kennedy embraced peace. Conspirators killed him and others who sought to stop their Vietnam War. That wasn’t a coup, just a shift to business-militarist posture, with now 700 bases designed to control the world and its resources. Trump employed the military in Venezuela for oil.
Seeking interest rate cuts is his measure to please his base. Deportation of immigrants, falsely accused of being criminals, is another. The public is restive, displeased with a Justice Department gone gestapo and with his massive, masked Nazi-habited ICE police force that is normalizing violence.
Responding to protests of murder by one of the 2,800 ICE agents in Minnesota, Trump approaches weaponization of government, martial law, and again threatens use of the 1807 Insurrection Act. Under this law endangered citizens are protected from “domestic terrorists” like Renee Good by the army in the streets with power of arrest.
Encouraged by recent voting and polling, mainstream media voices suggest November elections yielding a Congress that restores constitutional control and brings impeachment. Why would any dictator or Maga member of Congress allow an election outcome that threatens his rule or removes him from office? More powerful than local police, ICE agents could be diverted to collecting ballot boxes. Elections might simply be cancelled — just one more unconstitutional act that our politicized Supreme Court would find was necessary.
Charlemont resident Carl Doerner is an investigative journalist and historian, currently preparing his latest book, “Breaking the Silence,” for publication.