Following Illegal Orders

One more aspect of the Venezuela attack has been nagging at me—one that few people in the mainstream media have addressed.

As I watched an almost giddy US Airforce General Dan Caine describe the military mission in Venezuela at the press conference, I started feeling extremely uneasy. That feeling kept coming back over the next 24 hours as I listened to commentary after commentary talk about how flawless and perfectly executed the mission was. It's only now that I'm hearing there were some American casualties (not fatal), which virtually no one has reported for some reason. 

My feeling of unease stemmed from what I immediately perceived as an unjustified use of the military. Trump did not consult Congress, despite the constitutional requirement to do so. And the action appears to be a clear violation of international law. If trump’s action in Venezuela was illegal—under both international law and U.S. law—didn’t the military just follow illegal orders?

Isn’t this precisely what Democrats in Congress were warning about in early December, when they issued social media statements in response to trump’s deployment of the National Guard in American cities and the bombing of fishing boats in the Caribbean?

So what’s the connection?

There are several pieces that must fall into place for an authoritarian takeover. One is the capitulation of the legislative branch. Another is control—or effective neutralization—of the media. The third, and perhaps most important, is the acquiescence of the military.

I don’t know whether conditioning the military to follow unlawful orders was a motivating factor behind trump’s action in Venezuela, which reportedly involved drones, 150 aircraft, and Delta Force in an operation ostensibly to “arrest” a fugitive—an explanation that is patently false. But it's an undeniable effect.

The principle of disobeying unlawful orders is dicey under the best of circumstances. It is taught to every service member in the U.S. military under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the U.S. Manual for Courts-Martial.

The reason is straightforward: in a constitutional democracy, the ultimate authority is not the Commander-in-Chief, but the Constitution itself—the document to which all service members swear an oath of loyalty.

In theory, this makes sense. In practice, it is deeply problematic. Service members are not trained in the nuances of constitutional or international law. Soldiers are not lawyers (unless they serve in the JAG Corps). They are trained to follow orders through the chain of command.

So how does one determine whether an order is unlawful? Is that determination left to individual judgment or moral conscience? If not, on what authority does such a determination rest? Wouldn’t a personal refusal expose a service member to charges of insubordination and possible prosecution?

These questions are becoming increasingly urgent given the undeniable frequency and escalatory pattern of trump’s military actions.

Since taking office in January 2025, trump has overseen at least 626 airstrikes, according to data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. By comparison, Joe Biden launched a total of 555 airstrikes during his entire four-year term. Trump has taken military action in the Middle East (Iran, Yemen), Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

Classic examples of unlawful military orders involve internationally recognized war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, such as deliberately attacking unarmed civilians. According to the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual, “attacking a shipwreck” is frequently cited as a primary example of a “clearly illegal” order. Sound familiar?

I don’t know whether conditioning the military to comply with unlawful orders was the reason behind trump’s actions in Venezuela. What I do know is this: Each such action makes future ones easier. Each unchallenged operation lowers the threshold for the next. And each instance of unquestioning compliance makes it less likely that the military will resist when the stakes are even higher next time.

The Don-roe Doctrine

The Don-roe Doctrine.

When I heard trump say it, I almost fell off my chair.

I don’t believe for a second that trump knew what the Monroe Doctrine was when he struggled to pronounce it at his press conference. But the moment he rebranded it “the Don-roe Doctrine,” it clicked. That’s what this is really about.

Don—as in mafia don.

This isn’t foreign policy. It’s a shakedown.

Trump thinks like a mafioso, and business for him is no different than organized crime. He’s done it before. He did it with Ukraine during his first term, on the now-infamous 2019 call with President Zelensky: dirt on Joe Biden in exchange for Congressionally approved Javelin missiles. It was textbook extortion, the basis of his first impeachment. He got away with it.

Now he’s emboldened enough to announce his rackets to the world in public.

Another moment from the same press conference offered an important clue. Trump casually sidelined Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, claiming she lacked the support or respect of her people.

This was a blatant lie.

Machado is widely admired in Venezuela. She just won the Nobel Peace Prize. When Maduro barred her from running in the last election, the opposition candidate she backed won an estimated 70 percent of the vote. Trump knew this.

Why dismiss her?

Because Machado represents something trump cannot work with: an incorruptible actor. Someone driven by democratic values and moral principle. Corrupt people can’t make deals with uncorrupt ones. Organized crime requires criminal allies.

Step back from conventional political analysis for a moment and the picture sharpens. The most accurate lens for understanding what’s happening in Venezuela right now isn’t politics at all. It’s organized crime.

That’s what the Don-roe Doctrine is in a nutshell.

Think of how a classic protection racket works. A criminal organization claims territory. It enforces that claim through intimidation and violence. It flexes its muscle—not because it has to, but because it must be seen to.

That’s why trump was blowing up fishing boats and seizing oil tankers. Every criminal enterprise needs a show of force.

But you’ve also got to show you’re ready to make deals. That’s what pardoning the drug dealing former president of Honduras was all about. If you think trump did that to correct an injustice, or out of the goodness of his heart, I have a bridge to sell you.

Trump’s so-called war on illegal drugs—against cartels and gangs like Tren de Aragua—isn’t law enforcement. It’s extralegal. It's less like policing and more like a turf war between rival criminal organizations.

Even trump’s import tariffs fit the pattern. If you want to do business in our territory, you pay the gatekeeper.

At the centre of the current protection racket is oil.

Trump idolizes Putin, partly because Putin’s unprecedented fortune was built by skimming off the top of Russia’s oil exports after consolidating control over the energy sector. Trump wants to replicate that model in Venezuela.

But there’s a problem.

Unlike Putin, trump can’t directly control Venezuela’s oil industry. He can’t nationalize it, and he can’t force American companies to funnel profits into his pocket. What he needs is a corrupt regime willing to make a deal—a cut, quietly delivered.

That’s why democracy is an obstacle. That’s why Machado had to be dismissed.

And that’s why trump let something slip when he said, “We’re going to run the country...”

He didn’t mean it politically. He didn’t mean boots on the ground.

He meant it the way a mafia don means it.

Smoke screens and subplots

I believe January 3rd, 2026 will be remembered in much the same way as September 11th, 2001: not simply as a dramatic event, but as a moment that revealed a fundamental shift in the world order.

The emerging order is defined by spheres of influence, in which great powers dominate their respective regions—China in East Asia, Russia in Europe, and the United States in the Western Hemisphere. This represents a decisive break from the global system that emerged after World War II, which sought to promote international security through economic integration, multilateral institutions, and a commitment—however imperfect—to universal human rights.

What is replacing it is something older and more brutal. The new order is grounded in the principle that might makes right: increased militarization, economic de‑integration, and chronic political instability. If we want to understand what this world looks like, we need only look to the nineteenth century—a period of competing empires and shifting alliances that ultimately culminated in two world wars at the dawn of the twentieth.

Transitions between world orders are never smooth. It will take time for dominant powers to establish control within their regions, and that process will be met with resistance. In Europe, clashes between Russian forces and European Union–aligned militaries are likely to intensify. Ukraine, far from being an endpoint, may only be the beginning. In East Asia, it is difficult to imagine China not challenging Taiwan in the near term. The United States, for its part, will seek to reinforce its own sphere of influence through increasingly overt military and strategic moves.

This is the larger narrative that will shape the world our children and grandchildren inherit—a world far more dangerous and unstable than the one we were born into. Other explanations, however emotionally satisfying or politically convenient, are either subplots or deliberate distractions.

People are easily seduced by simple answers. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with an uncle about the U.S. bombing of alleged drug‑smuggling boats. I argued that the strikes constituted a violation of international law. He replied that he supported them because the targets were “very bad people” engaged in drug trafficking.

How do we know who they were? I asked. They were obliterated without trial, without evidence presented, without any possibility of defense. He responded that the Americans possess the most advanced intelligence capabilities in the world and knew exactly who they were. He said he trusted the Americans.

So now we are comfortable killing people without due process? Acting as judge, jury, and executioner for those we deem undesirable? He was unconvinced. Finally, I pointed out that if the United States had the technological capacity to identify and precisely target these individuals, it also had the capacity to intercept the boats, arrest the suspects, and seize the evidence. At that point, the argument would not even be necessary. He seemed to concede the point.

The story matters not because of drugs or boats, but because it illustrates the seduction of expediency—the willingness to abandon the rule of law in exchange for fast, decisive outcomes. My uncle is an educated, reasonable, intelligent person. Yet for him, as for many others, the ends justified the means.

We hear the same logic today in arguments justifying the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. He is a bad man. His election was illegitimate. Therefore, the reasoning goes, abducting him and subjecting him to American justice was justified.

Whether Maduro is a villain is beside the point. The international system that emerged after World War II was built on processes rooted in law and respect for national sovereignty—mechanisms designed to resolve disputes between states without resorting to unilateral force. What the United States did in Venezuela was not merely a violation of international law; it was another nail—perhaps the final one—in the coffin of the liberal, rules‑based international order.

The rule of law is not simply a tool for maintaining order. Dictatorships maintain order too. Law is an expression of values—liberal values grounded in individual rights, due process, and restraint on power. When the United States, which for eight decades styled itself as the guardian of those values, decides that they no longer apply, we all lose.

This moment is unprecedented in my lifetime. When the United States intervened militarily in the Western Hemisphere during the Cold War, it at least claimed—sometimes cynically, sometimes sincerely—to be defending liberal democracy against communism. There is no such pretence here. Donald Trump said as much openly.

Some have argued that the closest historical precedent is the 1989 abduction and prosecution of Panama’s Manuel Noriega. The comparison does not withstand scrutiny. Panama functioned as a de facto client state of the United States. American intelligence agencies were deeply embedded there, tens of thousands of U.S. troops were stationed on Panamanian soil, and Noriega himself rose to power with American consent. He never even served as Panama’s president. When his criminal activities—drug trafficking, arms dealing, and money laundering—began to outweigh his usefulness, the United States removed him with the cooperation of domestic political forces.

Venezuela is not Panama. And in the days and months ahead, that difference will become evident.

So let us return to the central point and discard the distractions. This is not about drugs. It is not about oil. It is not about a single man. It is about the collapse of a system that sought—however imperfectly—to restrain power through law rather than force.

What is emerging in its place is not a new world order, but an old one: a world organized around spheres of influence, enforced by military power, and legitimized by success rather than principle. History offers little comfort about where such arrangements lead.

We are now entering the most dangerous phase of this transformation—the moment when rules still exist on paper but no longer bind those strong enough to ignore them. This is the phase marked by miscalculation, escalation, and violence justified by moral certainty rather than law.

January 3rd, 2026 may not be remembered for a single act, but for what it revealed: that the liberal international order did not collapse in a dramatic instant, but was finally abandoned by the power that once claimed to defend it.

Disintegration rarely announces itself clearly. It is always unmistakable in retrospect.

Nothing Is For Free

CLICK HERE TO HEAR SONG

It’s cold outside,

And only getting colder.

I’m old inside,

and only getting older.

Sometimes I ask myself, 

Who am I protecting?

Who are these folks,

Whose feelings need defending?

I’m surrounded by people, 

You know I want to please. 

My hand extends across the fence,

And like animals they feed.

Time to get serious,

Cause time is running out.

Don’t say you know what’s best for us,

Cause we all live with doubts.

I had another life, 

Before I met you.

I had other loves, 

That still live inside me too.

Sometimes at night, 

I close my eyes.

And imagine myself, 

In another time.

Didn’t worry about the next bill, 

That I had to pay.

And every new experience, 

Was just another day.

As the years went by, 

The load got heavy.

The legs that used to carry me,

Got shaky and unsteady.

I never asked for much, 

Just room to be me.

It’s not a matter of trust,

I’m just trying to get free.

It’s cold outside,

And only getting colder.

I’m old inside,

and only getting older.

I never asked for much, 

Just room to be me,

It’s not a matter of trust,

I’m just trying to get free

Nothing is for free.

The Maduro Episode

Well that didn’t take very long.

On December 30th I wrote “ One can only hope he doesn’t drag America into a war with Venezuela, a plotline twist for his flailing show.”

The US has attacked Venezuela and kidnapped its president and his wife. 

This morning I’m hearing all kinds of commentary to explain why trump did it. They say, it’s to bring a narco-terrorist to justice. That would be plausible if he hadn’t just pardoned the narco-terrorist of Honduras. 

It’s his pursuit of the Monroe Doctrine, as if trump even knows what the Monroe Doctrine is.

It’s about oil. If that was true the Americans would have to control the Venezuelan government and that’s a risky and at this point doubtful result.

No, he just wanted Maduro. 

I haven’t heard the only explanation that I believe is correct. The simplest one. The only explanation that actual describes how trump thinks. The one that I tried to describe in my December 30th post. It’s a plot line twist of his failing TV show. It’s about ratings.

The only thing trump truly understands is media, and the only thing he is actually competent at is manipulating the attention economy.

The last few months have been disastrous for the trump show. Epstein. His poll numbers (ratings) are tanking. Republicans are turning on him. And every distraction he’s tried has fallen flat. 

A trial in New York worked for him during the election. Now he figures another high profile trial in New York will provide the plot line twist he needs to keep the media and the public engaged.

That’s it. Not more complicated.

Unfortunately, when you have a simpleminded leader interested only in how things affect his standing, and doesn’t considered the wider consequences of his actions, things tend to spin out of control. 

Watch for China to make a move on Taiwan.

Watch Greenland.