Bill Tallen

In a recent tweet on X a history teacher said, “In order to understand what’s going on today, you need to understand what’s gone on before.” Unfortunately, in America, Generations X, Y and Z at least have been cheated out of a working understanding of history by declining educational standards and focus.  

On Jan. 3, we woke up to the news of a five-hour American special operations raid into Venezuela that resulted in the capture and extraction of President Maduro and his wife, now facing criminal charges in New York. Let’s consider its impact and implications for the future, from a historical perspective. Books will be written; this is a one short BDA pass over the target. So to speak.

First, there’s been the usual squawking about the use of military force without prior notification and approval of the U.S. Congress. However, notification is a courtesy not a requirement, and a president can conduct a military action for at least 60 days before he is required to request authorization from Congress in order to continue. If the action is related to terrorism, it can fall under the open-ended Authorization for the Use of Military Force that has been in place since the Islamist terror attack on Sept. 11, 2001. President Obama used that as authority to assassinate over 500 individuals by drone attacks in many countries, with never a “Mother, may I?” Presidents Bush, Biden and Trump (first term) all acted under that AUMF as well. Even that is unneeded unless military action in Venezuela is both renewed and prolonged.

Next there’s the question about seizing a foreign head of state to face criminal charges in a U.S. court. Maduro and his wife were indicted on multiple charges in federal district court in New York in 2020, and law enforcement officers embedded in the Saturday raid arrested them to face those charges. U.S. law has long included the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which grants immunity from criminal prosecution for sitting heads of state. That immunity was clarified after the prosecution of Panama’s drug-trafficking, unelected military dictator Manuel Noriega by the U.S. in 1989 to be a privilege of the state, not a personal right; this means that an individual can be arrested and brought to trial over private criminal activity, though not over his public policy as head of state. Another relevant statute is 21 USC §960a, which grants extraterritorial reach over any individual involved in drug trafficking that aids a terrorist organization. Our leaders, law enforcement officers, and the military were in compliance with U.S. law in the Jan. 3 action.

Ironically, many people alleging illegality in this action are the same who routinely support the indictments and warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, an international organization that has no formal jurisdiction beyond what individual sovereign states grant it, and no enforcement arm. It has called for the arrest of, among other sitting heads of state, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu. This invites comparison to an occasion in World War II, when advisers told Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that the Pope had spoken out strongly against particular Soviet actions; Stalin replied, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” The answer of course was “none,” and that was the end of the conversation. America had the power to apprehend the Maduros, and used it, in accordance with its own law. If that offends you, perhaps you’d be happier living under the protection of a less powerful nation. I’ll help with your ticket.

This leads us to another perspective on the Jan. 3 action, which is great power geopolitics. After Hugo Chavez took power in Venezuela in 1998, he nationalized and then destroyed the Venezuelan oil industry and replaced it with socialist poverty and repression. Maduro, a drug cartel overlord and trafficker, succeeded him. China pumped $100 billion into the nation’s collapsing economy; Russia, Iran, and the international arm of Hezbollah (the Islamist terror group based in Lebanon) each established a strong presence in Venezuela, in support of the regime’s repressive policies at home, its trafficking of fentanyl and cocaine to North America and Europe, its below market value oil sales to China, its aid to Russia’s evasion of international sanctions on its own oil sales, and its weaponization of illegal immigration to the United States (remember Tren de Aragua?). 

Trump has revitalized the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which for 200 years has declared any military presence or intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by a foreign power from outside the Western Hemisphere to be a potentially hostile act against the United States. Potential is demonstrably actual in this case. No one but drug traffickers, the remaining Latin American heads of state who enable them, and America’s global adversaries are unhappy about what happened on Jan. 3, 2026.