Can we handle the truth of what's in the best interests of global security?
The world is surely a better place when things do not go the way of the likes of Maduro, Putin and Khamenei
It’s turned out to have been quite the year for seismic geopolitical events, and we’re only halfway through January. US President Donald Trump came out of the blocks with a bold special forces operation in Caracas to seize Nicolas Maduro, putative president of Venezuela, and bring him to New York to face charges of narco-terrorism and international drug dealing.
Few ordinary Venezuelans, either at home or among the millions forced into exile, are sorry to see the back of the autocrat who, along with predecessor Hugo Chavez, turned the country from the most prosperous in South America into a socialist dictatorship hellscape.
Venezuela sits on the largest oil reserves in the world. By re-establishing American interests, Trump will bring oil prices down further and turbo-charge the US economy.
A blow to ‘Tehran’s murderous agenda’
Taking control of Venezuela’s oil industry will also have far-reaching consequences for countries whose interests do not align with those of the West, such as China, whose ambitions to overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy have been dealt a major blow.
Maduro and Chavez were close allies of the despotic regime in Tehran, where they helped the Iranian Revolutionary Guard fund international terrorist organisations such as Hezbollah and Hamas by enabling their transatlantic drugs trade.
As former Tory security minister Tom Tugendhat observes: “In changing the leadership of Venezuela, the US is supporting the Iranian people to overthrow their leadership and warning others, very clearly, of the consequences of supporting Tehran’s murderous agenda.”
Lower oil prices will also harm Russia’s oil-dependent economy and, by extension, Vladimir Putin’s campaign in Ukraine and other warmongering plans he may harbour.
Who should control Greenland?
Meanwhile, Trump has ramped up his rhetoric over Greenland, to the dismay of European leaders. The US already has bases in the Danish territory but, in the face of Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, would a heavier presence be such a bad thing?
Trump will not be around forever. Ten years from now, who would we rather have in control of the strategically important Arctic region? Russia, China or the US?
Sidelined European countries are seeing the consequences of years of military underinvestment. Putin was emboldened to enter Ukraine after witnessing former US president Joe Biden abandon Afghanistan to the barbaric predations of the Taliban. The Russian leader may also have assessed the capabilities of countries such as Germany, with its handful of tanks, before concluding the upside of sending in troops far outweighed the risk.
Damaging or removing the likes of Maduro, Putin and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei is surely a good thing, however many have criticised Trump for failing to seek international approval before carrying out actions such as that taken in Caracas earlier this month.
But the notion that the United Nations, with more than 190 members, can agree on global security matters is a fantasy. Many members do not believe in democracy and have appalling human rights records.
UK’s Chagos Islands shame
Trump certainly did not run the capture of Maduro past Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. And no wonder. This week, MPs and peers are working on legislation that will pave the way for the Chagos Islands to be handed over to Mauritius.
This remote vestige of Empire between India and Madagascar was ceded from France to Britain in 1814. The largest island, Diego Garcia, proved its worth as a military port during the Second World War. Britain stopped administering the Chagos Islands from 1,200 miles away in Mauritius, when Mauritius became independent in 1968.
When the US asked in the 1960s to build an airstrip on Diego Garcia, Britain shamefully removed Chagossians from their homes and sent them to the Maldives, the Seychelles and Mauritius. In Mauritius, they were housed in slums and persecuted. This led to hundreds fleeing to the UK as homeless British citizens.
Despite their treatment by Britain in the 1960s, many of the estimated 8-10,000 Chagossians are strongly opposed to the islands being handed over to Mauritius, an ally of China and India.
Under the deal going through parliament, the UK will not only lose sovereignty over the islands but will lease back Diego Garcia from Mauritius at a cost of at least £13 billion over the next 99 years. Critics claim the figure will be closer to £35bn.
That’s a hefty price tag for selling out the people of Chagos (again) while losing sovereignty over a strategically important refuelling defence base to a corrupt ally of China and India.
Channel-hopping terrestrial TV the other night, I was pleasantly surprised to find something worth watching – the late Rob Reiner’s 1992 film A Few Good Men.
The movie sees Jack Nicholson’s battle-hardened colonel Nathan Jessep, commander of the US’s Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba, clash in court with idealistic young military lawyer Daniel Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise.
Kaffee demands the truth from Jessep, who replies: “You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? ... I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.”
He adds: “My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don’t want the truth, because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall ... I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it!”
The capture of Maduro may offend our progressive sensibilities but perhaps these should sometimes be weighed against global security benefits.
In a big bad world inhabited by tyrannical dictators who do not play by the rules and wish us ill, who do we want on that wall in the North Atlantic or in the Indian Ocean? Starmer and his lawyer chums, or allies who are willing and able to defend us from our enemies?
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.