There is no legitimate justification for U.S. aggression against Venezuela. But there is a powerful symbolism. The ideological currents driving this aggression are the same ones that drive Israel’s actions in Palestine.
The U.S. is acting with complete disregard for any notion of international law. That was tacitly recognized by Marco Rubio when he said, after the G7 meeting in Canada: “I don’t think that the European Union gets to determine what international law is, and what they certainly don’t get to determine is how the United States defends its national security.”
Rubio was responding to a question raised by a Kaja Kallas, vice president of the European Commission, who had expressed doubts that U.S. attacks in the Caribbean were either self-defense or based on a U.N. mandate. Rubio added: “The United States is under attack from organized criminal narco-terrorists in our hemisphere, and the President is responding in the defense of our country.”
I do think that Trump and parts of his administration genuinely believe they are at war with drug cartels. Thomas Neuburger, commenting on a Michael Wolff post on how Trump arrives at his “facts,” which are often distorted if not outright wrong, describes it like this:
“A man wakes up, maniacally searches the news for what involves him — which is just about everything now — then maniacally seeks from his staff how to digest all that in a way that makes him look good, or at least makes his foes look bad. When he gets what he wants, stories that make him feel good — it’s all about feelings, it seems — he stores their spin and later repeats what he hears, happy to show he’s right.”
Some variation of that seems probable. The information loop feeds on itself and reinforces the same discourse. However, it is naive to believe that the entire foreign policy of the country, and specifically in Latin America, hinges on the president’s personal ideas. That is highly improbable. In Rubio’s answer, we have a clue as to where the real foundations lie.
Rubio says “our hemisphere” — almost certainly not a slip of the tongue, but an expression of what he really believes. He is part of a U.S. political class that operates under the ideological assumption that the United States has a right — almost a divine right — over what it considers its sphere of influence, “our hemisphere.” That is why “Europe does not determine what international law is.” How could they — those whom we basically rule — tell us what to do?
That is also why the U.S. claims a right to topple governments and meddle in the internal affairs of other countries, especially in the Americas, to promote its own interests. Rubio represents the bipartisan consensus that emerged from the hegemonic era of U.S. primacy.
However hawkish, he still dresses his position in the language of democracy promotion and freedom, which serves to mask the appropriation of resources. His agenda against Venezuela is dominated by ideological anti-communism. For him, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are “enemies of humanity.”
But to think that U.S. foreign policy is still primarily driven by anti-communist propaganda is to cling to a paradigm that is already over. Other powerful currents are now moving the surface waters — currents that do not seek to build a bipartisan consensus but to do away with the need for one altogether. As Katherine Stewart puts it, this movement “isn’t looking for a seat at the noisy table of American democracy; it wants to burn down the house.”
This is the ideological current that Vice President J.D. Vance represents: the National Conservatism movement, which seeks to reshape the U.S. according to Yoram Hazony’s idea of Israel. Hazony is the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, whose stated aim is to promote the ideology of national conservatism and which organizes the NatCon conferences. Vance has attended and delivered key speeches at NatCon and declares himself an admirer of Hazony.
Hazony rejects liberalism as a rationalist “system of dogmas” and instead grounds political legitimacy in “God, the Hebrew Bible, family, and the independent nation state.” In his view, nations are not based on liberal principles of consent and universal equality, but on divine covenant and inherited obligations within a particular group. This provides the justification for an ethnostate such as the one he defends in Israel, in which the idea of the nation is tied to a specific people whose interests stand above all others, unconstrained by international law or minority protections.
The bridge between Hazony’s Israel and Trump’s America runs through Christian nationalism and the National Conservatism movement. He cofunded the Edmund Burke Foundation with David Brog, former executive director of Christians United for Israel. J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice president, openly cites Hazony as a key intellectual influence and describes Israel as an “island of shared values,” presenting it as a moral model rather than merely a strategic ally.
Christian nationalists — 80 percent of white evangelicals Christians voted for Trump — share the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and believe that legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but on adherence to a particular definition of a religious and cultural heritage. This mirrors Hazony’s logic: if Israel is the God-given home of the Jews, America can be imagined as the God-given home of white Christians.
Peter Thiel emerges as a central figure here: financier of National Conservatism, mentor and patron of Vance, investor in surveillance and defense technologies, and architect of an alliance between neo-nationalists, tech oligarchs, and the military-industrial complex. Through this network, ideas first articulated in the Israeli context — biblical nationalism, siege mentality, the fusion of religion and force — are translated into a U.S. setting.
Thiel uses Hazony’s ideological biblical framework and the showcase of National Conservatism as a political vehicle for his own vision: an alliance between “Judeo-Christian” nationalism and a technocratic-oligarchic power capable of redesigning the Western political order in a more authoritarian, illiberal, and security-oriented way. He has famously stated that he does not believe that democracy and freedom are compatible.
The American “experiment” as an Enlightenment, secular, rights-based republic is being reinterpreted and hollowed out in favor of a Hazony-style model: a state defined by “Judeo-Christian” identity, suspicious of universal rights, hostile to international constraints, and increasingly comfortable with oligarchic, techno-authoritarian power.
Israel, as Hazony imagines it and as its most illiberal practices are admired abroad, becomes both mirror and blueprint for the direction in which Vance, Thiel, and their allies wish to push the United States. This is the symbolic function that aggression against Venezuela serves.
For Israel, the war that began in Gaza has been a way of signaling to the world that it no longer cares to abide by any kind of international law. In pursuing its ideological and strategic interests — however they are defined — and in promoting a Jewish ethnostate, it presents itself as unconstrained by any definition of law other than its own.
Those who support Israel because they think it represents a Western liberal democracy in the Middle East have completely misunderstood the meaning of this “eight-front war.” “Greater Israel” is not just a geographical concept; it is the epitome of Hazony’s ethnostate. That is what Netanyahu meant by “changing the face of the Middle East.” It’s the end of the liberal state and the real expression of “Israel first.”
U.S. aggression against Venezuela should be read in the same light. The complete absence of any legitimate justification is itself a signal to the world of the ideological shift the U.S. is undergoing. It is announcing that it will no longer be constrained by the nuances of liberal principles such as democracy or universal human rights, or by the international system built on them. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, put it succinctly: “This kind of behavior is more typical of those who consider themselves above the law.”
Imagine a world where States that have, seek to boost those States that do not, instead of exploiting or outright crushing them. Further, where States themselves give way to humanity, and life on earth at large. I can, but I dream a lot.
Judaeo-Christian is code for Christian Zionist imho.
I bet that the term “Judaeo-Christian” does not appear in English before 1948.
More than you know mate …
“1. The “Judeo-Christian” Label: A Modern Invention
The phrase “Judeo-Christian” isn’t an ancient theological concept agreed upon by Jews and Christians. It appeared in the 19th century, with German theologian Ferdinand Christian Baur using it around the 1830s in a supersessionist argument for Protestantism.1 Its widespread use, particularly in the United States, began in the 1930s and 1940s, helping to forge a common American identity against fascism and, later, communism during the Cold War.2 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example, often uses the term to frame geopolitical conflicts, speaking of defending “Judeo-Christian civilization”.1
However, many scholars and theologians criticize the term. Jewish thinkers, in particular, argue it can imply that Christianity superseded Judaism and glosses over fundamental theological differences.2 Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits famously stated, “Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism”.2 Many Christians also find the term problematic, as their faith historically defined itself by distinguishing its core beliefs from Judaism. Critics also point out that the term can be exclusionary, particularly towards Islam, leading some to advocate for more inclusive terms like “Abrahamic”.2”
https://medium.com/@022024ad/deconstructing-judeo-christianity-a-shorter-take-on-a-complex-history-59a541d0c850
Chris Hedges–onetime seminarian–says that Judeo-Christian is more Hasbara than anything to do with theology. We non experts have to agree.
And thanks for the above piece. I had assumed that Vance was the more rational member of our dynamic duo but obviously not. Or perhaps he’s the even more cynical and protecting his rice bowl.
I do think though that persistent fears about Christian Nationalism can be overdone. The elites want Venezuela for the oil more than national destiny. Many of them aren’t Christians at all.
Having gone too pains in biblical original root words meanings, broad concise summaries [Fav is Thomas Goodwin the readable Puritan] and wrangling greased pigs like NC Beardo back in the day …. you would be surprised mate [sharpening the steel – sigh] .
It matters not if elites are true believers or not, when all that matters is power/control over others via ***any social narrative***, add in some flexian tendencies/heraldic path dependency [where did the Von go in the Mises Institute lmmao thingy]. Using logic or so called rational thought here is a mugs game mate. When critical realism is more the observation even if it is painful. Elites are no different than other human group dynamics except they have the money too shape reality for others.
Sure Venezuela has huge oil reserves but, drama is its not aligned with the anglophone agenda, chink in the armor of the neoliberal ideology, hell bent on personal profit/property over all other social things and geographically close. Notice how the West can’t budge China or Russia save some PR/Marketing hand waving and jaw boning due to distance and economic/social resilience.
What part about the U.S. having one economic system and two party’s with different value systems is lost on some. And that currently its the home base of Christendom on the planet, especially with this administration.
For a really good time = https://thebridgelifeinthemix.info/history/pilgrims/
I would be concerned about Christian Nationalism.
I hope i am wrong.
Nothing that J D Vance should be taken at face value.
He has had his name changed 2 or three times (kind of like some of the European Israelis.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/09/30/jd-vance-name-changes/75363663007/
Some seem to totally forget the Bush Jr era and Fox news agenda to make America a Christian[tm] nation with a side of free markets determining the winnars and loosers … Ron Pual, Gary North, Glen Beck, et al …
Thing is people like this a weeds and if you pluck one out another will only take their place with some new twist like Kirk. Just don’t stray to far from the agenda of your betters thingy.
Of course, Ibrahimic becomes problematic because it includes Islam (and the “wrong” kinds of Christians…)
Chortle … yes … not that they refuse Jesus albeit he was just a prophet and not the real deal. That notion is evidenced on their side of the post collapse of Sumeria/others mythology and evolution – original boom and bust of civilization and not markets thingy?
Yet as I posted way way back in the day on NC there was a meeting of all the dominate religions in America some 25+ yrs ago in Chicago. The grist of it was even though they had major theological divisions the one thing that brought them all together was the nascent – fear – that so many were abandoning the Creator. So many levels too this, social control, support for elites as picked/rewarded by Creator aka Natural Order, et al, and after all that they all agreed that the most important thing was society had to be forced[tm] in embracing the notion of a creator or the evil one wins or we all go poof.
Then again Religion under the influence of neoliberalism is just nuts … market place of souls … market share of souls … mega churches … performance art … back filling the soulless social backdrop of consumerist neoliberalism … I digress …
Religion united with PMC ideology AND neoliberalism (Most GOP sub-elites, as well as decent chunk of the actual elites, are as PMC as the Dems. We shouldn’t forget that, with the likes of Vance and his pals being prototypical example.). Incidentally, that’s what South Korea became even before US (Southern Methodists did a lot to shape the idea of what “modernity” should look like there in the first half of 20th century–well, that was in all of Korea, but all the religious people wound up feeling to the South by 1953.)
Many Protestants did not consider Catholics to be Christians in the ancient days when I was growing up. Not the Anglicans or Episcopalians, who were generally chummy with US Catholics, but the more fire-breathing Methodists and Baptists and such thought of Catholicism as a pagan heresy that had distorted the “true Christianity” from its pristine form. So nobody I encountered ever talked about Judeo-Christian anything. Jews were definitely outside the Christian family circle, and Roman Catholics, Greek or Russian Orthodox, and Quakers were all on the borderline and suspect.
I would take issue with “It is announcing that it will no longer be constrained by the nuances of liberal principles such as democracy or universal human rights”.
The US has only payed lip service to “liberal principles”, throughout its history – from genocide of native Americans, to slavery and kinetic interference across the world. Recall Smedley Butler. Recall Chile, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Iraq . . .
And then there is the non-kinetic financial colonialism.
The US has never been a good actor, so we should drop the idea that Trump has besmirched the shining city on the hill. Surely it never has been?
“Imagine a world where States that have, seek to boost those States that do not”
The Tao te Ching claims that the Tao–not the State–works in this way:
The Way of heaven
is like a bow bent to shoot:
its top end brought down,
its lower end lifted up.
It brings the high down
lifts the low,
takes from those who have,
gives to those who have not…
Not so the Human way:
it takes from those who have not
to fill up those who have.
Tao te Ching #77 (Le Guin rendition)
So, in the long run…
Something for the holidays, Sir?
(Google translated excerpt)
Looks like it’s starting to come true.
In addition to the Ford, which has arrived, the Bush has been on exercises off the coast of Florida for several days now. Theoretically, the Truman could also be deployed (it returned from naval exercises a month and a half ago).
The Nimitz is also heading west across the Pacific Ocean. Officially, it’s returning from a deployment in the Arabian Sea. However, the Roosevelt, currently off the coast of California and capable of joining the Nimitz, departed San Diego for exercises.
The last two (Nimitz and Roosevelt) could form a second carrier force off the coast of Colombia, whose air groups would have the opportunity to fly over Colombia. Nine out of 10 American bases in Colombia are air bases.
It could turn out like against Iraq in 2003. 4-5 aircraft carriers: two in the Pacific and two or three in the Atlantic. Two carrier task forces.
These combined forces could be assembled as early as the end of November. In total, with a long-range war—air and naval strikes, supported by sabotage and reconnaissance groups—the following force structure could be formed (for the US):
– up to 150,000 military personnel, up to 1,000 aircraft (half sea-based), and several dozen ships. Of these, 50,000-60,000 are on the ships, 30,000 in Colombia, and the rest are from bases north of Venezuela.
https://schneider-krieg.livejournal.com/86432.html
Wowsers!
seems like this would be a really good time for China to get rid of all those narco-terrorists on Taiwan
https://x.com/SecWar/status/1989094923497316430
Hegseth on Twitter just now:
President Trump ordered action — and the Department of War is delivering.
Today, I’m announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR.
Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and
@SOUTHCOM
, this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood – and we will protect it.
Mr. Jimenez points out that anti-communism is a dated paradigm, and he is absolutely right, but bloviators of the Republican Airwaves still think it salient. I heard two minutes of a man calling himself Jesse Kelly on the AM radio in my ancient Honda Civic this evening and he dropped the word “commies” evidently in all earnestness three times. I believe he takes the word to mean anyone who opposes Mr. Trump. Doubtless Mr Rubio has Fidel and Che occupying–squatting, I suppose–in his cranial vacancies. (As the article correctly implies.)
Marauders masquerading as neo-crusaders…Psychopathic Criminals with appropriated power to inflict death and destruction with the use of public coffers, unconstrained by any laws, morality nor ethics…WTF?
How can “The complete absence of any legitimate justification” be acceptable?
Meh. Sure, the drug-boat excuse is hi-octane BS, but the real reason for any current and looming US attacks on Venezuela is the same basic force that has driven US LatAm policy since Monroe begat the Doctrine: US commercial interests, or, more specifically, people rich enough to bribe US politicians into helping them get even richer.
Trump has quietly allied himself with the Big Oil/Gas/Coal faction which provides most of the money for the network of Think Tanks which are the backbone of the GOP. As a New York RE guy, he has little in common with them – politically, socially, ideologically, or theologically – but he also has no financial conflict with them, making it an easy alliance. Big Oil wants control of Venezuela’s resources, and Trump is glad to have a ‘good little war’ to boost his flagging Approval Ratings.
In the 1800’s, US missionaries really thought they could save the world by ‘Christianizing’ all those brown savages, but that has little in common with Zionist intent in the Middle East. Judaism is a neolithic Tribal religion; the entire point of the religion is to ensure the survival – and expansion – of the Tribe. Their Holy Book is filled with stories about the places they are now fighting over; their God explicitly told them to go there and kill [almost] all the prior inhabitants.
USAmericans have no equivalent Story about South America. Few of us could name all the countries on that Continent, much less their capital cities. White Christian Nationalists in US will gleefully cheer when Trump bombs fishing boats, but they have no deep-rooted dream of moving to Venezuela and making it over in their image.
OTOH, sure, Hazony and his ilk are constantly working to convince Americans to support Israel. They appeared to have succeeded spectacularly among the Christian Right (once a bastion of true anti-Semitism), by wooing a critical mass of Evangelical preachers (whose followers, well, followed). But events – in Israel, the US, and the World – have started to erode that. TikTok allowed [young] people to see the rubble from Israel dropping bombs (Made in USA!) on Gaza. As Right-wing ‘influencers’ drift toward more overt ‘Nationalism’ (‘racism’…), it gets harder to maintain any kind of solidarity between them and Israel, as they come to view Jews as inherently ‘Other’.
More generally, the multi-decadal project to influence American attitudes has become impossible to hide. Maybe Trump is Toto – barking, and pulling back the curtain…