It is hard to know where to start.

For a month or two, we moved a lot of war power into the southern Caribbean, using a small part of it sink fishing boats that may, or may not, have been transporting drugs, but were apparently certainly not transporting drugs to the United States. Then we began capturing large oil tankers leaving Venezuela and also not directly involving the United States and, so far, holding onto the oil. All evidence to the contrary, our president said that the drugs were heading our way and that the oil was rightfully ours, as Venezuela had stolen our oil fields, although they are in their country.

In 2022, Vladimir Putin moved a large number of Russian troops and a large amount of military equipment towards the Ukrainian border, and there was great debate in this country as to whether it was for show or if he would in fact invade. Obviously, it was not for show.

Vladimir Putin is a mentor to his less experienced BFF Donald Trump, and Donald Trump was obviously anxious to say to his mentor, as he shuffled across the world stage, “Anything you can do, I can do better”.

Putin invaded Ukraine to regain “Russian territory” and Trump invades Venezuela to regain “American oil fields”. Russian is going through a devastating land war that is now in its fourth year. Trump thinks he can do it in four hours. Russia has lost about 1,000,000 Russians, America has so far lost no one.

Of course, Trump has also made Trump a target. With few exceptions, heads of state have not been the personal targets of military invasions, for obvious reasons. Zelenskyy is still the president of Ukraine as that war drags on, for example.

Of course, we did target Saddam Hussein in Iraq and he was deposed, captured, tried and hanged. But all of this was done through Iraqi courts, not American. And the chaos that has resulted from Saddam’s being deposed, tried and killed was extensive, and we wound up occupying the country without success. We certainly can not say that the war in Iraq was an American victory.

Similarly, what is going to happen now in Venezuela? Maduro presumably lost the last presidential election in Venezuela, and the presumed winner, Maria Corina Machado, presumably won. But is she going to waltz in to Caracas and take over? There is an entire government supported, I assume by the Venezuelan military and police forces, running the country. There is a sitting vice president. There is a country with a devastated socialist economy. There are powerful drug gangs. There is a gargantuan amount of oil that Venezuela thinks is theirs.

It looks like the United States thinks the invasion is over and all will be well. Fat chance. We shall see.

The Maduros are now under American control. Somewhere. Guantanamo? Puerto Rico? We don’t know yet. Pam Bondi says he will be tried for drug crimes. This will take some time. He will be well defended. And maybe he won’t be found guilty. Then what?

Or maybe he will be found guilty. Same question. After all, the last time a former Latin American president was found guilty of drug crimes by an American court (and we waited until he was a former president), Juan Hernandez of Honduras, he was pardoned by…….Donald Trump.

I have read that we no longer have a Monroe Doctrine. We now have a Donroe Doctrine. We provide $40 billion to Argentina, we depose the leader of Venezuela through a military invasion, we tear up commercial arrangements with Mexico and Canada, we keep talking about going after cartels in Mexico and incorporating Canada into the United States, taking back the Panama Canal and taking over control of Greenland. Is all of this actually going to happen?

Well, as they say, if a gun appears  on stage in the first act, assume it will be used in the second, third, or fourth. We can modify that to fit a presidency. If a gun appears in the first year, assume…..