Another year just started with a bang
and scary fireworks
We’re having an unseasonably warm winter over here at the Ranch. For once, the entire family celebrated New Year’s eve out on the deck in the back yard. Bob took the liberty to fire some fireworks off into the sky at midnight. We horses found the soundblast a little unsettling, but if that’s what Bob wants, who are we to complain. There is still hay in the stables, so not too much will be different in 2026. At least, that is what we were all thinking. Bob underscored that at midnight, as he opened a bottle of sparkling wine. “Here’s to another year in the free West!” was his toast.
Only three days into the new year, the geopolitical scene seems to have shifted by more than a bit, though. In the wee hours of the morning of January 3, 2026, the United States military captured the Venezuelan president Maduro inside a military compound in his own country and extracted him to the US to stand trial on narco-terrorism charges. This marks the first time in history for an incumbent president to be abducted from his home country by an adversary.
The official justification of the operation amounts to Venezuela having presided over narco-terrorist cartels that, through their criminal activity, have violated the security and sovereignty of the United States. There does seem to be evidence of nefarious narco-trafficking activity by the Maduro regime. However, the US was not always as keen on stopping narco-trafficking as it purports to be today. When the US ousted the Taliban regime from Afghanistan, they also lifted the strict ban the former regime had on papaver farming, which produces the raw materials to manufacture opium and opiates. As a result, papaver farming resurged dramatically, which resulted in a massive boom in opiate exports, licit and illicit alike. Some of these opiates even ended up fueling the then-unfolding opiate crisis stateside. Suppression of production and trafficking of narcotics was apparently not important to US interests when rebuilding Afghanistan, quite the contrary. Unless the present administration acts with more integrity in its geopolitical decisions, it is questionable for drugs to have been the primary driver for Maduro’s capture.
Besides drug trafficking, we learn that through its criminal cartels, the Maduro regime violated the US’s sovereignty. Also, some will say that its oppression of the Venezuelan population merited intervention by itself. Let us at first state that before Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez turned his country into a stagnant, communist cesspool, Venezuela used to be a relatively prosperous nation. Hugo Chávez delivered the eternal communist promise of “equity” and “social justice:” he installed a petro-kleptocracy in which everybody was guaranteed of the equally poor outcome of having equally little, except for a narrow elite that directly surrounded the leader. Social “justice” in practice at its best. Given the tyrannical nature of the Chávez and ensuing Maduro regimes and the poor living standards they provided, nobody over here should weep for their demise. That still does not verify the officially provided motivations, though.
When it comes down to repressing their own population, while attempting to violate US sovereignty, a few countries other than Venezuela presently fit into that category too. Some of them are even treated as “allies,” even though there presently is little evidence that they truly are. For instance, the present British Starmer government arrests about thirty citizens per day for having made statements online it doesn’t like. All the while, its Office of Communications (Ofcom) claims to have global authority over online speech and intends to fine US-based tech companies according to UK laws for “offenses” that occurred on US territory, in some cases by companies that neither have a legal, nor a physical presence in the UK. This constitutes interference by a foreign authority into domestic US affairs detrimental to a sector of the economy and has to classify as a violation of sovereignty. If such arguments are valid to abduct Maduro, shouldn’t they then be valid to take action in this case too? Some would argue that the US and the UK have a long-standing relationship of mutual respect, which involves to refrain from interfering in each other’s domestic affairs. However, through Ofcom’s actions, Britain has opted to unilaterally violate that diplomatic principle, so it is now up to the US to hold it accountable.
The Lula regime in Brazil does not foster freedom of expression too much, either. It hosts sham trials for dissidents in which “justice” Alexandre de Moraes violates all basic principles of the course of justice by acting as police, prosecutor, victim and “justice,” all at the same time. He will even physically move back and forth between the prosecutor, victim and justice seats in the courtroom in those trials. Most of the dissidents convicted there are political candidates that would be good challengers to the ones endorsed by Lula. Thereby, the Lula government is effectively rigging any future election in its favour. Moreover, many opinions that are not as far left-of-spectrum as Lula’s own positions are actively being prosecuted. For instance, feminist and journalist Isabel Cêpa was forced to flee the country as she faced a potential 25-year incarceration sentence for “misgendering” deputy Erika Hilton by implying that he is a biological male. Which, of course, he is. Besides having eliminated free speech, the free press and an unbiased election process, the Lula government also openly and actively supports de-dollarization, and is thereby diametrically opposed to US interests. The US State Department acted correctly last year by sanctioning some Brazilian “leaders,” including de Moraes. However, they withdrew those sanctions a few weeks ago without any of the US’s demands being met. It is hard to imagine if the US could have done anything to make itself look weaker on the international stage. If acting against the US interests and suppressing the rights of the domestic population are valid to abduct Maduro, then they must be valid to take action against Lula and de Moraes as well.
Brazil and Britain both merit correction, but maybe the most salient example of an anti-American kleptocracy is found in Brussels. Over the past few years, the European commission has driven the adoption of law upon law that has effect far beyond its own borders. Its Digital Services Act requires companies to censor content under threat of huge fines, among other stipulations. Since its enactment, the European Union has had a larger revenue from fines imposed on American tech companies than from taxation of domestic tech companies. Instead of fostering creativity and ingeniousness domestically, the European Commission prefers to have over-regulation as its most significant export, which allows it to steal revenue from regions that truly foster innovation.
The EU’s overregulation does not end in the realm of tech, though. Its Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) de facto mandates foreign companies to implement the useless and meaningless bureaucratic boondoggle of “carbon accounting” and its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) institutes a tariff on countries that fail to adopt it. Moreover, its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) as much as enforces any foreign corporation of a significant size to adopt the entire counter-productive set of activities summarized as “ESG,” which notably includes implementation of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) policies that invariably create toxic workplaces in which not the most productive are promoted, but the ones who claim to be “disadvantaged” for the reason of the day, such as being “discriminated” against for not being referred to by “pronouns” that did not exist the day before.
Each of these initiatives makes the European Union less competitive on the global scene, which is why the EU is intent to impose them on others too. However, if enacted in Europe alone, they may well turn Europe into a true “consumption economy,” which consumes products from all over the world and produces close to nothing itself. The revenue feeding that machine increasingly comes from fines and tariffs on foreign companies and nations. It is fair to say that the European Union is turning into a bureau-kleptocracy that imposes endless administrative regulations domestically and abroad for the sake of self-preservation. Its attempts to impose its own nonsense on US corporations clearly constitutes an infringement upon American sovereignty. If acting against the US interests and infringing upon its sovereignty are valid reasons to abduct Maduro, then they must be valid to take action against the European Commission (and Union) as well.
The planet is not at loss for the disappearance of another petro-kleptocratic communist regime. Nor would it be if Venezuela were not the last domino to fall. However, moral superiority can only be claimed by those who have it. Being morally superior can earn a lot of respect and it can forge novel, unexpected alliances. Those will only be established naturally, though, if the dominant party acts with integrity and without hypocrisy. It has become high time that the United States reign in a set of its so-called “allies” who have lost their civic integrity, like the Australia, Brazil, Britain or the European Union. Without them returning to standards of decency, there is nothing to fight for. Good chefs make sure to run clean kitchens themselves before pointing out that other restaurants’ kitchens are dirty.
It remains to be seen what the present administration will do. But even though eliminating communism is a good objective, the present US administration should focus first on putting things straight in its own sphere of control, before its starts dealing with further “rogue” nations. Should they start saying that it is time to “counter drug trafficking from Cuba,” while no action is taken on any of the bad actors in the West who have lost their ways and values, we will know that the true objective still is to effectuate the twenty-five-year-old neo-conservative agenda. That originally consisted of invading seven countries in the middle east, but the discussions in neo-conservative circles soon included Latin American countries too. Unfortunately, that seems to be exactly where things are headed.
Eliminating communism is a laudable objective, but we have to make sure that that is the end state. Given the right change in leadership, Venezuelans will be able to believe in merit and pursue a career. However, let’s hope for them that their renewed aspirations can last for longer than half a year. They may not, though. If the US midterm elections produce a blue ocean, Venezuelans may be told once more to adjust to “equity” and “social justice.” Maybe even to state-run supermarkets. If so, they can also forget a career that benefits from their energy reserves, since in that case oil giants will be sued for “climate damages” and their country will be forced to abandon oil production and energy security in favour of importing windmills ... from China … once more.
Bob and the cowboys discussed the situation in Venezuela last night. Bob’s opinion was: “We should just let Milei run Venezuela for a while until it stabilizes.” A good idea indeed. Argentinians still seem to have some reason. They have ranches and horses there, too. In fact, it would not be a bad idea at all to also hand Brazil off to him.
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The post WWII order is crumbling and the petrodollar is dying. The three countries that produce meaningful amount of oil and sell it to China for RMB or barter for goods and services — Russia, Iran, and Venezuela — are all either overtly or covertly being attacked by the US. Simply put, giving the world pieces of paper for real stuff was a great trade for decades … but it may be in the process of ending