Let me freely ad­mit: Amer­i­ca fright­ens me. These days. Not on­ly in my ca­pac­i­ty as a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go, but al­so as a cit­i­zen of the world. That coun­try has made me afraid to vis­it there be­cause of the dis­tinct fear that has built up in me that I could be set up­on by mem­bers of its po­lice and mil­i­tary forces as a re­sult of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty or mis­char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion of my sta­tus as a vis­i­tor on its vi­o­lent streets.

I could be cart­ed off to jail or some oth­er god-for­sak­en evil hold­ing fa­cil­i­ty. Or my coun­try could be in­vad­ed by God’s Cho­sen One. Or my Prime Min­is­ter spir­it­ed away af­ter our cap­i­tal city is bombed in­to sub­mis­sion and pros­tra­tion. Or I could be bombed in­to shreds while fish­ing in my coastal wa­ters.

It’s hap­pen­ing un­der 45/47 these days. He is prac­tis­ing the old adage ‘Might is right’ or, as we say it in Trinidad and To­ba­go, ‘He’s wrong and strong.’ He is op­er­at­ing with­in the be­lief sys­tem where, if he wants a piece of re­al es­tate in Den­mark, he must have it; nev­er mind that Green­land is a part of Den­mark, which is a part of NA­TO. Nev­er mind ei­ther that Green­land lies with­in reach of Amer­i­ca’s dead­ly long-range mis­siles.

He is an in­sis­tent man, so Cana­da must there­fore not think that, be­cause he has eased the pres­sure on forc­ing them to be­come the 51st state, he has giv­en up on the idea. He has the might and there­fore the right.

Amer­i­ca is not a sig­na­to­ry to any in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment or body of rules that can force it in­to com­pli­ance. Its Pres­i­dent acts as if he is above the law, in­ter­na­tion­al law that is. He de­fies Con­gress and the Unit­ed Na­tions.

I was un­der the im­pres­sion that the Unit­ed Na­tions was cre­at­ing and build­ing rules for a just world where mi­nor­i­ty val­ues and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties were tak­en in­to ac­count. But Amer­i­ca was busy un­der­min­ing that ef­fort to its uni­lat­er­al ben­e­fit. And the Pres­i­dent that is the great­est cul­prit in this re­gard is 45/47.

He block­ades and in­vades Venezuela, in­vades its cap­i­tal city, seizes its Pres­i­dent, and in­dicts him be­fore an Amer­i­can fed­er­al court in the full glare of the whole world. And he does so with im­puni­ty, call­ing it a drug-bust­ing, law-en­force­ment op­er­a­tion, and not a war.

The mat­ter rais­es a num­ber of ques­tions for Rand Paul, an Amer­i­can sen­a­tor who was in­ter­ro­gat­ing Mar­co Ru­bio, the Sec­re­tary of State. One of the ques­tions he asked is, “Wouldn’t it be re­gard­ed as an act of war if some­body had done it to Amer­i­ca?” He an­swered the ques­tion him­self – in the af­fir­ma­tive. Oth­er ques­tions he asked were, “Wouldn’t it be an act of war if some­body had cap­tured Amer­i­ca’s Pres­i­dent; if a coun­try were to in­dict the Pres­i­dent for vi­o­lat­ing a for­eign law?”

Both men an­swered that it was un­ques­tion­able that they were al­ways go­ing to act in Amer­i­ca’s in­ter­est. But Paul thought that the drug bust claim was an emp­ty ar­gu­ment – a ruse – and the war ar­gu­ment “not a re­al ar­gu­ment”. And here is the clinch­er: “We do what we do be­cause we have the force and the might.” He re­in­forced it with the state­ment that they were not go­ing to let any in­ter­na­tion­al coun­cil in­dict and ar­rest their Pres­i­dent, a state­ment that they re­peat­ed.

It was okay for Amer­i­ca to cap­ture, ar­rest, and in­dict the Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent, but not the oth­er way around.

While Ru­bio de­clared that the cap­ture and in­dict­ment of Maduro were a law-en­force­ment op­er­a­tion, Paul de­clared that there was a need to de­bate the mat­ter. The founders had giv­en Con­gress the pow­er to ini­ti­ate or de­clare a con­sti­tu­tion­al war, but not oth­er kinds of war, which were for the Pres­i­dent. But that was a mat­ter for clar­i­fy­ing de­bate.

Paul felt that Amer­i­ca was in vi­o­la­tion of the spir­it and law (sic) of the con­sti­tu­tion by bomb­ing a cap­i­tal, blockad­ing a coun­try, and re­mov­ing elect­ed of­fi­cials, and he felt sure they would not tol­er­ate it hap­pen­ing to them.

The breadth-tak­ing bold­faced­ness of these men!

Win­ford James is a re­tired UWI lec­tur­er who has been analysing is­sues in ed­u­ca­tion, lan­guage, de­vel­op­ment, and pol­i­tics in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean on ra­dio and TV since the 1970s. He has al­so writ­ten thou­sands of columns for all ma­jor news­pa­pers in the coun­try. He can be reached at jay­win­ster@gmail.com