The Federalist goes full-on Orwell: Intervention in Venezuela was a win for Anti-Interventionism

We had to intervene in Venezuela to preserve the policy of anti-interventionism. 

We had to destroy the village to save it.

We had to abandon free-market principles to save the free market system.

We had to attack the Confederacy in order to preserve the Union.

 

Maduro Raid a Win for America First Anti-Interventionism

John Davidson, Federalist

 

... Trump’s Venezuela policy these last three or four months — the stationing of a flotilla of U.S. warships off the coast, the systematic targeting of drug boats, the seizure of the oil tanker — was designed to hew as closely as possible to the anti-interventionist instincts and preferences of his MAGA base. We are not at war with Venezuela. We have no occupation force there. And yet Maduro is gone. ...

 

Maduro just magically disappeared!

 

 

George W. Bush crossed the Rubicon of American Imperial pre-emptive first strikes in 2003 in Iraq but it was hotly debated in 2002, now we hardly bat an eye when Trump does it

Government of the Uniparty, by the Uniparty, and for the Uniparty.

Trump fancies that he's different from George W. Bush, but he's the same guy. 

Flashback: July 1, 2002 

Striking First: President Bush's Preemptive Strike Policy

... We can't have one kind of law for the rest of the world that we impose on the rest of the world and an imperial law, if you will, a law of empire, that applies only to the United States. ... We were seeing the possibility of a new kind of law of empire where we would stand above the rest of the world, and the bottom line when we look at the question of attacking civilians, what happens when we're wrong? Like we were today in Afghanistan, where civilians died because of bad intelligence? ...

 

Story about pre-emptive first strike against North Korea is total crap, Rex Tillerson never used the term

The dishonest media put the words in his mouth, but Tillerson never used them.

It's an effort to paint the Trump administration with the stink of George W. Bush.

Foreign Policy acknowledges preemption is only hinted at, here.

Laura Ingraham tweets the Valentine's Day massacre: Trump launched preemptive first strike v GEORGE Bush in debate

Sharp cookie that Ingraham is.

It's no joke: We WARN the ISIS enemy before we attack, strafe to shoo away, and then hold press conferences bragging about it

Not only are we unserious about killing ISIS people and breaking ISIS things, flying a leisurely seven sorties a day, most of which come back with 75% of their ordnance, under the traitorous pansy Obama we actually leaflet the targets before we attack.

And notice the spokesman admits this is the first attack on oil shipments even though this war has been going on for well over a year already. The goal of warfare is to destroy the enemy's ability to make it, and until now Obama hasn't lifted a finger to deprive ISIS of its number one source of income, resulting in the deaths of thousands and thousands of Christians, millions of refugees, and terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere in the interim.

From the transcript featuring one Colonel Steve Warren, Operation Inherent Resolve Spokesman, on November 18th, here at the DOD:

In Al-Bukamal, we destroyed 116 tanker trucks, which we believe will reduce ISIL's ability to transport its stolen oil products. This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike. We did a show of force, by -- we had aircraft essentially buzz the trucks at low altitude. So, I do have copy of the leaflet, and I have got some videos, so why don't you pull the leaflet up. Let me take a look at it so I can talk about it. As you can see, it's a fairly simple leaflet, it says, "Get out of your trucks now, and run away from them." A very simple message. And then, also, "Warning: airstrikes are coming. Oil trucks will be destroyed. Get away from your oil trucks immediately. Do not risk your life."

And so, these are the leaflets that we dropped -- about 45 minutes before the airstrikes actually began. Again, we combine these leaflet drops with very low altitude passes of some of our attack aviation, which sends a very powerful message. ...

So, we spend some time developing some TTPs that I read out earlier -- the leaflets, the low pass. We did some -- I didn't mention in my open, but we did some strafe runs as well -- to kind of shoo people away without harming them. So we had to go through that whole process of one, determining whether or not we felt it was in our best interest to strike these trucks. And then once we determined that, yes, it is in our interest to strike these trucks, how do we go about ensuring that we're able to mitigate the potential of civilian casualties? ...

So these trucks were -- they were just sitting there, not moving. So, you know, we dropped the leaflets. We did a low pass. We chased any of the -- you know, the truck drivers away, and we destroyed them. So, they weren't moving. They were all, as you saw on the video, they were all stationary. Nothing was driving anywhere. So it was a pretty straightforward, you know, attack.