Trump’s Venezuela Takeover: Is It Legal? Is It Right? Is It Wise?
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First, some context. I’m not writing as one who thinks he knows the answers to the questions I’m raising here. I don’t consider foreign policy opinions to rightly belong only to experts, but at the moment, I don’t have a high confidence view on this one.
I’m also coming from a place that is deeply suspicious of Donald Trump and everyone currently on his most favored people list. I’ve written a lot previously about why. Here, I’ll go with the shortest possible summary: I believe qualification for high office includes a basic level of good character, and President Trump falls well short of that standard.
I want to reject “the binary,” though. I do not believe Trump is all bad all the time. I really doubt any human made in the image of God is all bad all the time (though certainly “totally depraved” all the time). So, I’m not assuming Maduro’s removal—and whatever sort of Venezuela rule we’ve gotten ourselves into—is a bad move just because Trump did it.
Enough context. The main itch I want to scratch here is the tendency on the right to only ask one question when it comes to President Trump’s conduct.
Everything tends to get reduced to “is it legal?”
On that question, it is not obvious to me that these Venezuela activities are legal. It’s also not obvious to me that they’re not. The Dispatch has a pair of thoughtful articles debating that topic.
- From John Yoo: The Long Legal Precedent for Trump’s Venezuela Operation
- From Erwin Chemerinsky: An Illegal and Unwise Incursion
From the pair of articles:
Point
“The Constitution and the War Powers Resolution embody the basic principle that the president should not be able to unilaterally involve the United States in a war. Invading another country is a quintessential act of war.” - Erwin Chemerinsky
Counterpoint
“The framers gave the president and Congress powers with which to cooperate or fight over control over war, and they trusted in politics to resolve their disagreements. They did not require Congress to authorize military action before it begins.” - John Yoo
Also worth reading: The American Conservative (TAC), which I’d categorize as generally “isolationist America-first,” has a piece looking at perspectives on Venezuela from “conservative realists” and “conservative restrainers”: After Venezuela, Realism and Restraint Part Ways.
I haven’t checked, but I’m sure National Review has some varied perspectives also.
Asking the Right Questions
The TAC article is a good reminder in some ways that “is it legal?” is not the only question. But for Christian conservatives, it ought to be obvious that “is it legal?” is not even the primary question.
At least two other questions are upstream of “is it legal?”
- Is it right?
- Is it wise?
Law, as far as I can tell, serves as a kind of bridge between ethics (is it right?) and practicality (is it wise?). Let’s put it in historical perspective—including ancient, biblical times. For a long time in most nations, law was mostly the decree of the ruler, the king. Israel was unusual. Both the people and the leadership (eventually kings), were given the law of the Mosaic Covenant as a limit on what other law they could decree.
There was no democracy, so formal mechanisms for holding kings accountable were executed by God Himself through the prophets.
The Covenant included consequences for the conduct of all involved: the masses, the priests, the prophets, and the kings.
After feudalism, Reformation, and Enlightenment in the West, nations moved toward formalizing processes for holding leaders accountable to law. Legislatures and judiciaries of various sorts distributed power, made it more sensitive to the concerns of the general population. Law became much more of an independent ruling thing. Presidents, prime ministers, kings, and the like moved more toward being servants of law.
All that rehash to make these observations:
- Law is a really big deal.
- Law is supposed to reflect deeper values, beliefs, moral principles and prudence.
In ancient governments, the leader was supposed to figure out what was right and good and decree it–make it law. That’s always been the flow: practical and ethical concerns expressed in law.
As we all know, law doesn’t do its job perfectly. Humans make it, humans interpret it, humans enforce it. Add to that the fact that morality and practicality are much more expansive categories than law. Because it’s a bridge to practicality, and because it becomes oppressive if it tries to be too comprehensive, it can only express a subset of the good and wise. When you add up all those factors, it’s not hard to see that as important as law is, it’s usually a lower standard than morality and practical wisdom (which are themselves two sides of the same coin).
So, of course, the rule of law is messy.
The only thing better, though, would be a perfect king. So, if all the current chaos in the world discourages you, as it does me sometimes, review Revelation 11.
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” 16 And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying, “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. (Re 11:15–17)
But for now, creation groans (Rom 8:22) and the nations rage (Psalm 2:1-2). But God’s purposes and plans are not threatened (Psalm 2:4-6).
Starting in the Right Place
As Christians, and as citizens, let’s start at the right place when we’re evaluating the actions of people in powerful positions. First, let’s ask, is this right? Then let’s ask, is this wise? Then, finally, let’s ask, is this even legal?
As a society where the populace influences both law and the decisions our layers of leadership make, we should insist that Presidents behave ethically and wisely, not just legally.
Aaron Blumer 2016 Bio
Aaron Blumer is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in small-town western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored for thirteen years. In his full time job, he is content manager for a law-enforcement digital library service. (Views expressed are the author's own and not his employer's, church's, etc.)
Is it Right or Legal? I don't know. Is it Wise? Trump spent much of his campaign criticizing his predecessors for being involved in conflicts, regime change and nation building. Within the first year of his presidency he set his sights on not only doing that but starting to target other countries as well (Cuba, Iran, Greenland...). He has not articulated to the public why this is important for the American people to support. In fact, it is doubtful he cares what any of the public think. Only that, this is what he wants to do. And as he has surrounded himself with nothing but "yes men & women", he is stuck in an echo chamber that reinforces his base desires. Venezula contributed little to nothing in immigration and drug issues in the US. If he was truly worried about that, he would go after regime change in Mexico. His desire to extract the oil in Venezuala belies his lack of knowledge of the oil sector and is further buttressed by the fact that no oil companies are really that interested in going in. The more he desires to dump oil into the market increasing supply and cratering the price of oil, the less desirable it is for anyone to go into the country. No one wants to spend $50 a barrel extracting oil in a country with a lack of law, jungles and infrastructure in order to to get $35 a barrel in revenue. There is plenty of cheaper oil to get from other places, including the US. The demand for oil is dropping around the world. If Trump thinks getting involved in Afghanistan and Iraq were bad ideas, I am not sure how he processes this in his mind. With that said, I don't think much is going to change. Both Congress and the White House seem to be fine relegating all control over the situation and are content with Trump running everything.
I suspect that a major contributor to low approval ratings (some analysis at Forbes) is the lack of a coherent set of core principles and then communicating why/how decisions support that framework.
So it’s perceived to be all about Trump all of the time. Perceived correctly, as far as I can tell. In “make America great again,” the word “great” has no actual content other than “the way Trump wants it to be… at the moment,” which is—a percentage of the time—“whatever the woke/left don’t want it to be at the moment.”
But it looks to me like increasing numbers of former supporters are losing faith there is any coherent vision for the country there.
If he actually goes after Greenland, I have to think that would drive public support into a nose dive. (Some data at YouGov, but it’s pre-Venezuela.) At some point, the masses might demand that he be stopped. Whether that takes the form of large scale protests or Congressional action, or what, I don’t know.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Yeah he is a bit all over the place. Not sure why we need a tacky gold adorned 90,000 square foot ballroom that no one asked for, while the country is dealing with affordability. The renaming of the Kennedy Center with his name first, his proposal to build the Arc d'Trump. A new class of warships named after himself, a set of coins this year with his image on them, even his own Bible. It is just all over the place.
I am not saying he is the AntiChrist, but the church has railed against antichrists throughout its history, whether it is the pope or some other leader. And we have often said from the pulpit that the church will not fall for someone like this. But I think this presidency has shown that the church will be blinded by the AntiChrist.
For me, removing Maduro without removing his party from power merely kicks the can down the road. The key issue with Venezuela is that the ruling party stole the assets of international oil development companies, and as a result, those same companies are not going to be willing to go into Venezuela to have their assets stolen again--especially as the lack of Venezuelan oil on world markets raises the value of oil they're taking out of the ground elsewhere. So long and short of it is that a leadership change without repentance doesn't do anything for Venezuela, even apart from the reality that economies based on resource extraction tend to be poor. Easy money breeds laziness and corruption.
Same thing about Trump naming things after himself, and I've found that tendency of his to be rather obnoxious for at least three decades, if not four. It brings Proverbs 27:2 to mind; if indeed his leadership is so great, plenty of things will be named after him in the future. It also reminds me of the basic fallacies of informal logic they tried to teach us in middle school, especially "bandwagon effect."
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
I am not saying he is the AntiChrist, but the church has railed against antichrists throughout its history, whether it is the pope or some other leader. And we have often said from the pulpit that the church will not fall for someone like this. But I think this presidency has shown that the church will be blinded by the AntiChrist.
He may be the Antichrist, but he's better than Kamala or another progressive democrat. Look, if we had another option, I would have voted for that person. But since the Antichrist was the only viable candidate, I voted for him while holding my nose...
... or so they say.
So long and short of it is that a leadership change without repentance doesn’t do anything for Venezuela, even apart from the reality that economies based on resource extraction tend to be poor. Easy money breeds laziness and corruption.
This makes sense to me.
As for voting, an old topic, but I’m increasingly glad I voted instead for “a good man who could not possibly win,” several times now.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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