MOSCOW, January 5. /TASS/. Former US Marine Corps and Florida state police officer, military correspondent John Mark Dougan told TASS that the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US special forces is a "catastrophic policy error" that destroys the foundations of the world order.
"You can like Donald Trump and still recognize this (the US operation - TASS) is a catastrophic mistake. You can despise Maduro and still understand that the protections shielding leaders you agree with have just been shredded," the expert said. According to him, "by asserting the right to seize a sitting foreign head of state and subject him to domestic prosecution, the United States has crossed into the second category."
Dougan warned that such actions lead to the destabilization of the entire international system.
"What about Iraq? Libya? Yemen? Syria? Afghanistan? Drone wars? Proxy wars? Blockades? Congressional authorizations that led to mass civilian death? Under foreign legal systems, many of those actions are already described as crimes against humanity or terrorism. The United States has now endorsed the idea that such accusations justify physical seizure, not diplomacy," the military correspondent added.
The expert noted that the US has previously justified invasions of foreign countries based on military necessity. In the situation with Venezuela, "what is new, and fatal, is the open embrace of domestic criminal law as a license to cross borders and kidnap leaders." "War has limits, however imperfect. Lawfare does not," he emphasized.
"Once sovereignty applies only to friends, law no longer exists, only power does. Empires do not fall because they are weak. They fall because they convince themselves they are exempt from consequences," Dougan concluded.