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The Risks and Logic of Removing a Dictator: What Comes Next? · Bourbon & Rum

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You invade A sovereign nation, you take its president out in a
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helicopter, and you announce to the world that you're going to
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run that country until some, you know, you shoulder a lot of
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responsibility. That seems unnecessary to me.
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Well, you got any really good funny stories?
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And he's like, well, you know, this line of work doesn't really
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involve a lot of funny stories. You know, it's kind of offended.
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Welcome to Bourbon and Rum, the podcast dedicated to civil
0:27
conversation. I'm Kent, I like rum and I'm
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from the left side of the aisle. And I'm Kyle.
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I like bourbon. I tend to be a little more
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conservative. We're brothers talking politics
0:37
for bourbon and rum. What are you drinking?
0:51
Well, I'm drinking a bottle I picked up before the holidays.
0:57
It is a distillery called Rare Character and they source
1:01
whiskey from other places and they get exceptional stuff and
1:05
really interesting things. And they got this the the liquor
1:10
store, my local store got this before the holidays.
1:12
They did a barrel pick and it's a single barrel American light
1:16
whiskey. It's not bourbon because there's
1:20
a couple qualifications that doesn't meet one of which is it,
1:23
it was it originally was distilled at a higher proof than
1:26
160 and it's not using new American charred barrels.
1:31
It's using used American charred barrels.
1:34
But it's whisk it's bourbon juice that they source from MGP.
1:39
But the reason they put it in the used barrels as they age it
1:42
20, it's almost 21 years in a barrel and it's 140 proof.
1:50
So it is a little stout but it's amazing how 140 proof after 20
1:55
years doesn't taste that bad. So I may be may have to watch my
2:01
consumption. What are you drinking on?
2:04
Hate to be dull, I'm drinking lemonade today, just didn't get
2:10
around a pouring drink and it's the middle of the afternoon and
2:13
so. So what are you?
2:14
Trying to say it's middle. Yeah, well, I'm just drinking.
2:16
Bourbon. Throwing no shade to the to the
2:19
drinkers among us, but lemonade for me today.
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All right, Well, we are talking just a day after the invasion of
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how are we going to characterize this?
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Was this an invasion of Venezuela or was this a police
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action I heard it give me? Characterized as a law
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enforcement action a an arrest of a of a fugitive.
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But yeah, this would be a good one to dive into do.
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Do we police act law enforcement?
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I didn't realize that we had police jurisdiction over the
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entire nation of Venezuela. Well, you know, actually I got
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a, a guy I graduated with, we were at our 20 year reunion and
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I got to talking to this guy and I didn't even realize these
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folks existed because I always figured people going to other
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countries and arrest people are CIA, but they're FBI.
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And this guy worked for the FBI and he would go, I mean, he's
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been, it's some really good stories actually.
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But he'd been to some pretty precarious places where he would
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execute search warrants and he would go in with the military or
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the CIA or wherever. But the FBI is who they send to
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actually execute. In this case, FBI folks were
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part of the part of the whole raid, which is this guy.
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I mean, I don't know. Was he on the job or I?
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Wonder. I don't know, but man, he had
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some, I might have mentioned him in a previous podcast, but man,
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he had some crazy stories. A side note, I was like, so he's
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telling me about all this, you know, and we're just chit
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chatting and I was like, well, you got any really good funny
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stories? And he's like, well, you know,
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this line of work doesn't really involve a lot of funny stories.
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You know, he's kind of offended, but I digress.
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Yeah, I think they were certainly involved.
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Well, for the record, you know, I'm going to find fault and I'm
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going to pick at things. I.
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It's hard to argue that, you know, Maduro wasn't a bad guy.
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I. I do wonder.
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Yeah. 2 questions. Is it?
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What do we need to do this? Was this necessary #1 #2 if we
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did, I guess maybe that answers the second question.
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But that you invade A sovereign nation, you take its president
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out in a helicopter, and you announce to the world that
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you're going to run that country until some, you know, you, you
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shoulder a lot of responsibility.
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That seems unnecessary to me, and maybe not desirable.
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Yeah. Well, and that is really
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interested in unpacking this with you.
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Read up on it a fair amount. And I think I think it's one of
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the, to me in a nutshell, is it's going to be one of those
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things that 10 years from now is either going to be a genius move
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or a really bad idea and possibly somewhere in, in in
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between. But yeah, it's a, it's AI would
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say it's completely unprecedented.
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Same thing happened actually like 36 years ago to the day in
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Panama with Manuel Noriega. I'm saying Noriega, sure.
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But I think so. Here's my assessment.
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I see on the positive side, I see obviously I've known people
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in Venezuela and I worked with a guy whose parents came here from
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Venezuela and he had grandparents that he talked to
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every day in Venezuela. And I mean, Venezuelans
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throughout the world are pretty happy about this so far.
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So I, I certainly think he was a bad guy needed to go.
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So I, you know, I don't think, I don't think there's a lot of
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argument about that. I, I like your character.
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I like your question about did we have to do it now?
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But but there's that element of it.
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I think so. So I think you're taking out a
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bad actor. I think there's a possibility
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for, you know, peace to develop with that actor, which is a
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country has been problematic in a lot of different areas, not
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just drugs, but geopolitically. And then, you know, what does
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that mean for the greater? You know, I think one of the
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other benefits potentially is, you know, you're putting
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dictators on notice that, you know, we may go to some
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extravagant means to oust you. So I don't know that that's
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necessarily a bad thing to to put that out there.
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We certainly argue the legality of that.
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But I think having people know that they're on notice isn't a
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bad thing. I think, you know, as I look at
7:44
this, my concern is several concerns, but one is like, you
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take out this guy, well, you start reading through some
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details about that country. I mean, yeah, he's a bad dude,
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but he's got hench men in that government also that aren't
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great dudes either, or gals. And so, you know, you hope, yes,
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this you take out the Wicked Witch and everybody capitulates
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and everything goes great. But the next guy might suck
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worse than him, you know? Yeah, I don't know if you would
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agree. I think you probably wouldn't
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agree with me. I think the drugs is the most
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transparent, like fake news that I've ever heard.
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I you know, I've said this before.
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I like if we don't want drugs imported to our country, people
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ought to quit buying them. Well, I think.
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Moreover, what's that? Go ahead, let me, let me let you
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finish. Well, and then I don't know that
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Venezuela is, you know, OK. Oh, we've, we've closed down the
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Venezuela pipeline of drugs. There are lots of other avenues
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by which things come into the country.
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So I don't think drugs are the thing.
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And I, you know, I wish we would just be honest that it's about
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oil and and you could make a case to me that oil is worthy of
9:20
doing things that are of dubious legality, but at least admit
9:25
that's what it's about. I think the drugs is nonsense.
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I guess to me, the, to me, the most compelling argument isn't
9:34
drugs or oil. It's a totalitarian bad actor,
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you know, tormenting his people and, you know, destroying this
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nation. And I, I just think of again,
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more from understanding people that are there, what a total
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mess and humanitarian disaster Venezuela has been.
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So to me, that's, that is the best part of this to me is that,
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you know, you're potentially creating the pathway for this
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country that's been devastated for the last 30 years to to turn
10:16
things around. That's exciting to me.
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I think from a drug standpoint, I was thinking about this a
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little bit earlier. So if you look at the drug
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trade, I mean, cocaine being primarily is primarily
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manufactured in Colombia, but Venezuela is a major
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thoroughfare for the cocaine both to Europe and to the United
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States over the sea and through diplomatic channels.
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If you read the the indictment of Maduro, there's a lot of
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evidence in there about, you know, him utilizing government
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resources to move drugs to other countries.
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You know the. Courier pouch.
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Yeah, like, yeah, well, they made a diplomatic visit to
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Mexico and they unloaded 16 pallets from the back of the
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presidential plane. You know, so there's, from the
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the data that I saw, Venezuela is responsible for 15 to 20% of
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the global drug movement. So they're not making it, but
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they're moving it everywhere now, I think.
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I think you could make an argument.
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And I don't know if this bodes well for whoever or what, but I
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think you can make the argument. And, and I don't, I, if I set
11:34
this up, I don't, I didn't think you'll disagree with it
11:36
completely. I don't think if you look at the
11:40
targets of how to eliminate the drug trade.
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And again, your point is we should just get people to stop
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taking drugs. I really do think that funneling
11:50
cheap drugs into this country is a problem and it's a demand and
11:54
a supply problem. But if you're going to take out
11:58
the supply of drugs, you could certainly say the Maduro was
12:02
down the list of the most important targets on that list.
12:06
I mean, if you wanted to go with the top target, well, let's, you
12:09
know, launch a ground invasion of Mexico to go against the
12:13
cartel. I think what made Maduro
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attractive is he is the most accessible.
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You know, if you if you made a list of the top 25 bad actor
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people slash organizations involved in the global drug
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trade, he's an easy pick. So whether that that's
12:33
politically expedient or whether it's just like a or somebody we
12:37
could pull out and make a difference and we could get him.
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To me, it's part of the justification could be that it
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was an easy get from that standpoint.
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And that could be good or bad depending on your perspective.
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Yeah, I mean, you're going to find no, I, I, I I will give no
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like love lost to Maduro. It's it, it's fine.
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And and I've known I knew a guy too, similar situation, who, you
13:03
know, talked about the horror of the country and trying to get
13:06
his family out. And so, yeah, I mean, all of
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that's fair. I just, I don't know, like tell
13:15
the truth to say that's why we're doing it.
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You know, it. It just like, I don't know that
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the drug thing just seems like such a seems flimsy to me.
13:25
It really it really does, even if it's not that terrible an
13:28
idea to do it. Like if your ideas if if the
13:32
reason to do it is strong enough, use the real reason to
13:34
do it, not the made-up thing. We sent which regardless of your
13:41
opinion on this, it is a pretty incredible military endeavor
13:46
that you send a few helicopters and jets down there and you're
13:49
able to infiltrate a guy's compound and pull him out with 0
13:53
casualties. But I think that to me tells me
13:57
why this is because like, you know, I for as much of A of
14:05
uproar as there is of going into Venezuela and snatching Maduro,
14:09
I think sending, you know, the 82nd Airborne into Mexico to
14:13
take out the cartels would also probably create a bit of a
14:18
uproar. I agree again.
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No, no argument with that. I get again, I just like you
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look at the landscape of problems that we got to fix and
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this really. Honestly, when I woke up Friday
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morning, I wasn't thinking, oh, Lord, if only if only we could
14:38
get Maduro under control, like all of my problems in life would
14:43
be would be eased up. It just seems low on the list to
14:46
me. Yeah, not that it's wrong or
14:48
bad, but like, And so I'm skeptical, like, why?
14:51
Why are we doing this? Yeah, well, and I my skepticism
14:56
isn't so much of why we do it. Like I said, I think there's
15:01
benefit to it. I'm just more fearful of, you
15:05
know, what's what's next. I mean, I, you know, if, if you
15:09
could get that Nobel Peace Prize winner, the basically the winner
15:14
of the last election and you can get her in the government and to
15:16
take over and get rid of the bad guys, man, Awesome.
15:20
But right. Maduro is just one dude of a,
15:23
you know, we talked about that all the time about, you know,
15:27
Hitler, you know, yeah, horrible guy, but surrounded by a bunch
15:30
of a bunch of assholes, too. You know, it's like, what are we
15:35
going to do about all the assholes surrounding Maduro?
15:40
So Trump says yesterday the United States is going to run
15:44
Venezuela till we sort that out. Is this a case?
15:49
Serious question. Is this a case of take Trump
15:52
seriously or literally? I mean, I, I feel like that it's
15:57
just a shoot from the hip move. That's that's really risky
16:01
territory in my opinion. Yeah, I, I don't know what the
16:06
hell that means exactly. And I'm, I'm equally skeptical
16:10
of that. I mean, I certainly, you know, I
16:14
like the idea of Pete Hagseth, who was taught, asked about it
16:21
and he said, you know, well, then no, this is the opposite of
16:22
Iraq. And, and day one, I agree with
16:26
that. And if, hell, if we could have
16:28
eliminated Saddam Hussein and snatched him out of his
16:31
presidential palace and avoided, you know, thousands of
16:34
casualties and years of war. Hey, yeah, I'm all in.
16:38
But I don't know that it works that easily.
16:40
And, you know, short of having boots on the ground, I don't
16:45
think we're running the place. What they've said.
16:47
And well, I saw Marco Rubio on Face the Nation and or yeah, I
16:52
think it was Face the Nation, Meet the Press, whatever ABC is.
16:56
Anyways, he he was on and his characterization of running the
17:01
country is basically it's a blockade.
17:05
And we've set up, we've set up vessels to blockade the country
17:08
and we're going to, you know, use that leverage to get them to
17:11
do what we want them to do. And I'm like, well, that's a
17:13
little, it's not exactly running the country.
17:16
I mean, yeah, you could, you know, with an effective
17:21
blockade, you probably do have some leverage there.
17:24
But these jackasses that are in charge are still in charge, you
17:31
know? Right.
17:32
You know, in so far as one of the reasons for doing it was to
17:37
liberate the oppressed people of Venezuela.
17:42
I mean, I, I hope, I hope we have a bigger plan than just
17:46
blockading the place if, if this triggers a a famine or other
17:52
humanitarian crises in Venezuela.
17:56
That trains left the station. There's been a famine there for
17:58
the last 20 years because of. But yeah, I mean well.
18:02
You know what I mean? I, I again, I'm not just trying
18:05
to be pissy about this, but like, OK, OK, we took this
18:09
action. And you either by doing that,
18:13
you either leave it in the hands of whichever of his cronies is
18:19
the one able to muscle their way to the top or you follow through
18:25
on it and you do ensure that the rightful winner of the election.
18:30
But but how you going to do that without without troops?
18:33
And I mean well, and that's is America supportive of that?
18:37
That's kind of where I was at from a either this, you know, 10
18:41
years out from now, it's going to look great or it's going to
18:43
look horrible because I feel like, yeah, hopefully there's
18:47
more in the in the playbook than just a blockade.
18:50
But at the same time, I think our lessons of Iraq and
18:56
Afghanistan are if we could have done something more surgical
19:00
and, you know, less troops on the ground and even if you
19:06
hadn't achieved all your objectives, achieved some of
19:08
them, that's a better deal for the America than, you know,
19:13
boots on the ground in some foreign country.
19:16
So I, but I think it's a, it's a question of will the measures
19:21
work or does to your point, does this make it worse?
19:24
And that's the part that's I, I like the fact that we didn't
19:28
start with 100,000 troops in Caracas.
19:32
OK, great. But like, OK, what's next and
19:36
how's this going to go down? Yeah, well, you know, I'm
19:41
hopeful. I, I, I just, when you take
19:45
action like this, you do shoulder some responsibility.
19:48
And yeah, it was pretty bad there before.
19:52
And hopefully it's going to be, it's going to be better, but I
19:56
did. Laugh a Rubio's on the Face the
19:59
Nation and he's like, you know, we got it, you know, and.
20:03
You know, they've been stealing the oil and, you know, all the
20:06
money's just gone to a few individuals who are
20:08
billionaires. And I'm like, now it's going to
20:11
go to the leaders of ExxonMobil, Chevron and, you know, OK, I
20:16
don't know that, you know, the common man is going to benefit.
20:20
But but I mean, to their point, I mean, the place has enough
20:27
oil. Well, they could all be living
20:29
like Saudi Arabia if they shared it with people.
20:34
And there are people that do that.
20:35
So, I mean, it's not inconceivable, but you know.
20:39
Yeah, not to belabour this backing up a little bit, if in
20:46
10 years it looks like a genius move, what does that mean?
20:51
What, how would I, I know what a disaster in 10 years looks like.
20:57
What would what would your best case scenario be?
21:01
I think the best case scenario would be, you know, a return to
21:06
a, you know, relatively stable, relatively uncorrupt.
21:12
I, I say relatively because, you know, I don't know that any
21:15
place in South America is particularly lack, you know,
21:18
free of corruption. But you know, if the place
21:21
looked like Chile or Brazil geopolitically in the next 10
21:26
years, I think that's that's a huge win.
21:29
I think this this could be a, this could be looked back on as
21:32
1989 in East Germany. That's what I hope it turns out
21:36
to be. Not, you know, the the situation
21:43
in Iraq right now, where it's just a war-torn for the
21:47
foreseeable future. Yeah, well, let's hope.
21:52
Yeah, I don't have too much to argue with you on this one.
21:54
I, you know, I, I've got my concerns and doubts.
21:58
What's it going to do to the price of your Venezuelan rum?
22:00
Can't. Yeah, yeah.
22:04
But you know, the the beauty of that is that I'm quite capable
22:09
of pivoting to a Colombian or Panamanian product.
22:14
Yeah. So I don't know that our
22:18
listeners know. We didn't mention this, but as
22:23
we record this, I'm four days out from getting on a plane to
22:27
Grenada, which is the second nearest nation to Venezuela in
22:33
the Caribbean. So we'll our trip will be like
22:37
800 miles from, I think it's 800 miles from Caracas.
22:41
Well, if they're lacking on getting people down there, we
22:44
could volunteer you to the Trump administration.
22:46
You could be the next envoy to go down there and negotiate with
22:50
the vice president. Probably wouldn't be too welcome
22:55
to me. And and plus, you know, one of
22:57
the expenditures for the trip I've had is little Canadian flag
23:01
patches to sew on to all of my luggage.
23:08
No, I'm Canadian. Trust me.
23:12
I saw something like, I don't know, they had a phone call like
23:17
a week ago or something, and it was, you know, Maduro was like,
23:20
yeah, it was a great call or something.
23:21
He was explained in the back of a limo somewhere.
23:25
Strange deal. So I, I will admit that I'm
23:29
completely uninformed on this. You know, I all I know about
23:33
this is literally the text of notifications on my phone 'cause
23:37
I didn't even read any of the articles.
23:40
So they snatched him with a helicopter.
23:42
Where did they stage the helicopters from?
23:44
The Iwo Jima, the USSEOGA, 200 kilometers away, probably not
23:49
far from where you're going to be sailing your, your yacht.
23:54
Yeah. They, they, I guess they, they
23:58
said they went into the presidential compound and they
24:01
fired a few. You know, they brought in like a
24:05
Armada, helicopters like Chapter 47, HH 60s.
24:10
They had F-30 fives that launched from the aircraft
24:12
carrier as well. So they dropped a few, you know,
24:15
munitions, you know, to security and some of the other areas
24:19
where they're concerned about. And then they landed Delta, the
24:23
Delta Force in the compound and they ran into the where he was
24:29
staying. You know, they, they had, I
24:30
think pretty good intelligence from the CIA and the ground.
24:33
And, and they showed up and apparently he and the wife were
24:35
headed for their escape room or whatever, you know, the, the
24:40
security room and they were able to run in there and snag him.
24:42
And then they, they pulled him out, they put him on the Iwo
24:45
Jima. And then they were they, they
24:49
were arraigned. Well, I think they're getting
24:51
arraigned tomorrow morning and and New York, but they're at the
24:54
Brooklyn Detention Center as of now, so.
24:57
So did they fly him? I just curious like how do you
25:01
how does it go? Did they?
25:02
They'd land him on the deck of the ship.
25:05
Then did they fly them somehow from the ship to they must have
25:10
staged them somewhere to put them on an aircraft that would
25:12
reach New York. Yeah.
25:15
I'm just interested how that played out.
25:16
Yeah, I would be interested. Yeah.
25:18
I don't know. I mean, they probably, they
25:19
could have quite easily launched a, you know, there's passenger
25:25
planes they can launch from a carrier as well.
25:27
So they could have put them in something and moved them over to
25:30
a base someplace and put them on a jet.
25:33
Yeah, It'd be interesting to know what the what the route
25:37
was. Just out of curiosity, how would
25:38
you do that? Is that something because like,
25:43
I don't know, like the thing that leaps to mind is probably
25:45
Puerto Rico as a, or I guess Guantanamo maybe.
25:50
Hey. Yeah, maybe that might be.
25:52
Where you could get in and out of.
25:55
Yeah, the people said that they flew them into Stewart Air
25:58
National Guard base in upstate New York, but they would have.
26:00
I don't know where they would have.
26:01
Yeah, not really. Any word on how they got from
26:04
the Iwo Jima to to the base? Yeah.
26:09
How do you think this is going to resonate with the you know,
26:14
the the MAGA base has had a pretty one of the critiques that
26:19
I've read. And this isn't just me being
26:21
pissy, but like, you know, the America first isolationist wing
26:27
of the MAGA tribe is pretty significant, pretty prominent.
26:33
I saw Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, condemning it because this
26:37
isn't looking out for America. I mean, you can do the
26:40
gymnastics all you want, but do you think people are going to
26:43
buy that? I mean.
26:44
No, I think, I think you're right.
26:45
I think there's probably going to be a lot of people
26:47
questioning it. And again, I think it it comes
26:53
down to what's next. If you can extract the guy and
26:57
be on your merry way and somehow with some pressure and this,
27:01
that, but the other thing, get them doing their own thing,
27:04
great. Yeah.
27:06
If it involves deploying troops to Venezuela, I think he's going
27:10
to lose everybody. Yeah.
27:12
Nobody's up for that. You know, yeah, yeah.
27:15
Interesting. I meant to, I was going to text
27:19
you a smart aleck text of, you know, it's a bad week for
27:22
dictators because I mean, the other big news is the protest
27:27
in, in Tehran. I don't know, do you see the,
27:31
they're calling it the Tehranovan square or something
27:35
moment. There is a moment where there's
27:37
a protester and he's kind of like just sitting there
27:39
peacefully and there's a row of policemen coming after him.
27:42
So those are pretty unprecedented riots that you
27:47
haven't seen in a while. My preference would be that we
27:51
let that play out on its own. Yeah, yeah.
27:56
My recommendation, if anybody's listening, is, you know, 1
28:01
dubiously legal foreign intervention at a time.
28:04
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, we've already been to Iran
28:07
once already. Yeah, well, and you know, we
28:11
dropped some bombs. You know, it's kind of just kind
28:16
of zooming out it, it really is an interesting thing because
28:21
kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't, what are your
28:24
options? Pick generic dictatorship
28:30
hostile to the United States's interest.
28:32
What do you do? Well, we've seen the kind of
28:35
some of the spectrum. You can run the B2 runs out of
28:40
Whiteman and do do the long haul around and drop some bombs and
28:45
go home, which has a really low risk of entanglement for us.
28:52
But honestly, even with really heavy duty ordinance, a lot of
28:59
the stuff that you want to get, you're not going to get bombing
29:03
from, you know, at altitude or you go in and you pluck somebody
29:08
out. You're rolling the dice on
29:12
social unrest and humanitarian issues there or you go in.
29:18
Yeah, it, it what is the, the risk reward and the, the payoff
29:24
versus entanglement equations. Pretty interesting honestly.
29:29
Yeah. I mean, you know, what was the
29:34
kind of the the playbook was more the Reagan, what they
29:39
called the Weinberger Doctrine of and then kind of adopted as a
29:44
Cheney doctrine that, you know, you only employ military force
29:50
if there's something that substantially threatens the
29:53
sovereignty or peace of the United States.
29:56
And if you do that, you go in with overwhelming, you know,
30:02
firepower and annihilate the enemy.
30:05
And then once you meet your objectives, you leave, you know,
30:07
and that. And to me, that was the that was
30:11
Desert Storm, right? You know, textbook example.
30:16
But I don't know that, you know, part of this is like part of all
30:22
these foreign engagements are also, I think to a degree, our
30:28
leaders, our presidents, namely because basically since what
30:35
since Korean War, there hasn't been a declaration of war.
30:40
You know, they're kind of wanting to to meet their
30:44
objectives and well, can I do it?
30:47
I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to declare war.
30:49
I don't want to go that far. But I want to, you know, fix
30:53
this or fix that. And you know you can make the
30:56
argument does that. Is that really even a?
30:59
Do any of these foreign entangle buts actually make sense?
31:04
I'm going to pull a clip to give to the producer to link on the
31:08
show notes. I don't know if you ever watched
31:10
The West Wing, which was just one of the great shows of all
31:13
time, but there's a really cool scene in The West Wing when
31:20
Martin Sheen, the new president, wants to hit back at something.
31:25
I can't remember what the background is.
31:27
And he's like, he's in the situation room and and the
31:31
generals are kind of like, well, here's our option.
31:34
You know, we can do this. And he gets so mad.
31:38
He's like you, you offered me up like, they did this to us.
31:43
And we're going to go like, blow up a couple of things.
31:46
And then, you know, this is how it's going to go back and forth.
31:49
And he's like, I want to go in and I want to let, I want to
31:53
send a message that you don't mess with Americans.
31:55
And we do all this. And the generals are all like,
31:59
yeah, OK. So he comes back down and
32:03
they've got like a Plan B. It's a pretty, you know, it's a
32:08
full on invasion. And then they keep going and
32:11
then they're like, and then we will have, you know, 50,000
32:16
civilian casualties and we'll have, you know, we'll, we'll do
32:20
it if you want. But these are all the things.
32:23
And it was, it's just a really interesting, you know, from ATV
32:28
standpoint, but a portrayal of that, of that balance that that
32:33
you have to have. Yeah.
32:35
I mean, it's a, you know, if you really took that argument to the
32:44
extreme, though, you'd basically be an isolationist.
32:48
You'd say, you know, we're not going to get involved.
32:50
We're not going to send troops anywhere.
32:51
We're not going to do anything unless it's a threat.
32:55
And, you know, I think one of the arguments is if you wait to
32:59
do anything militarily until it's a substantial threat, well,
33:03
you may be too late to the party.
33:05
You know, like, you could have done some pinpricks or some
33:09
other stuff first to try to set yourself up.
33:11
So yeah, I don't know. It's I, I'm not sure any, even
33:17
Reagan didn't necessarily follow that game plan well.
33:22
And oddly, you know, we talked about what a success Desert
33:24
Storm was, but it wasn't a declared war.
33:29
You know, I never went to Congress.
33:30
I mean, and they, you know, they talked that there are certainly
33:33
notifications and such, but it's all been the president doing his
33:37
own thing essentially this whole bit about will or we're going to
33:45
declare war on somebody and we're going to debate it in
33:47
Congress. Like, I mean, is that even in a
33:51
viable plan? Because, OK, you debate in
33:55
Congress. Well, they know we're invading
33:57
them. I mean, yeah, so much for the
34:00
element of surprise. I mean, like, how does that, you
34:05
know, happened World War Two? OK, well, I don't think Korea
34:10
was an active. I think it's World War 2, right?
34:12
Right. So I mean, is this territory for
34:16
a constitutional amendment? I don't think you're worried
34:19
about it right now, but I worry about, you know, OK, so if the
34:25
yardstick is only Congress can declare war, but we don't
34:30
declare war for 100 years and yet we're fighting all over the
34:33
globe. Do we need another standard for
34:37
what this is? And to your point, no, you
34:39
probably don't have time to have like hearings on Capitol Hill
34:44
about the thing. But I believe, and maybe they
34:50
did and I don't know it, but historically when they're going
34:54
to do something like this, they bring in congressional
34:58
leadership and brief them just so that they that they know this
35:01
is going down. I think that's been done as a
35:05
courtesy and probably wasn't done this time.
35:09
Do we need a congressional, A constitutional amendment that
35:13
that codifies some sort of mechanism of consultation?
35:20
Obviously you're not going to get Congress to declare a war in
35:23
a case like this. But does Congress have no role
35:26
in that? Does the president get complete
35:28
and unfettered say right now it does because we've said Congress
35:33
only gets to well, wasn't this the whole debate of the War
35:36
Powers Act and the right Tonkin Gulf resolution and.
35:40
Yeah, they got to notify Congress within 48 hours.
35:45
Well, well, unless Congress doesn't watch television.
35:49
I mean, right, I know. I mean, just 48 hours, 48 hours
35:54
after the fact, you know a lot could happen.
36:01
Well I love the idea of an amendment, but what the hell
36:05
kind of watered down piece of crap amendment are you going to
36:08
get, you know, 2/3 of the country to agree on or what is
36:13
it 3/4 what? What do you have to have for the
36:16
amendment? There's there's at least two
36:21
paths to a congressional amendment.
36:23
One can, one can start in Congress, and I think you're
36:26
right, it's 3/4 and then it has to be ratified by the states.
36:32
But the states can also stand up an amendment on their own 2/3.
36:36
Thirds of both chambers of Congress or 2/3 of state
36:41
legislatures. Yeah, I'm not optimistic that we
36:45
can get that. But could you come up with
36:47
something that's bipartisan, that just says, hey, look, the
36:54
president has to have the power to act.
36:57
But if you had an advance consultation with congressional
37:02
leadership, all you'd have to do is say, put your case in writing
37:06
in advance. And then after the fact, if it
37:10
doesn't, if it turns out to be BS, then you committed to
37:15
Congress something that wasn't true and that's got its own set
37:18
of consequences. Do you know what I mean?
37:20
Like, yeah, he's got the right to do it.
37:23
But yeah, I'd, I'd like to to see some sort of written
37:29
justification in advance. Not me, you know, but but you
37:33
put it on record. Not that, not that Congress
37:35
going to do anything about. They can't stop it, but that
37:38
that's an obligation, I think that's reasonable.
37:42
Yeah, though it does seem reasonable, but I can't imagine
37:46
anybody ever agreed to it. It's too reasonable, kid.
37:50
I'm not sure we'll ever amend the Constitution again,
37:54
honestly, which is crazy. You know, one of those after 2/3
38:00
of both chambers of Congress, which I could see you get
38:03
potentially getting to, then you got to get 38 of 50 states to
38:09
sign off on it. Interesting.
38:13
Well, we haven't solved it all, but maybe next week we can do a
38:20
live version of the podcast and I'll report from the far
38:25
outskirts. Of that would be great.
38:27
Yeah, Yeah, no kidding. Well, why don't you just sail a
38:32
little further South? Check, check, check up on the
38:35
folks down there, see how everybody's doing.
38:37
Do a Wellness check kit. Yeah.
38:39
And and you can you, you can wave hi to me when I'm in that
38:44
infrared camera. Hold on to the remnants of our
38:49
boat. Tried to avoid being double
38:52
tapped by Yeah. The the vice president of
38:55
Venezuela asked for a Wellness Oh no proof of life on Maduro.
39:00
So I don't know if the social media posts were sufficient
39:05
proof of life for her. Yeah, it's really going to be
39:14
something I'd like to we'll continue to follow up and and
39:17
watch here to see what happens. I don't know.
39:19
It's a lot of hopeful people, but changing out the leaders,
39:25
the first step, getting the government to change.
39:27
That's that's a long road. Certainly seems, yeah.
39:31
I mean, if it was that easy, wouldn't they have done it
39:32
themselves? You know what I mean?
39:34
Like that's the thing. Yeah, you can be done with it,
39:36
right? I get the impression one of the
39:40
reasons you're able to pull off a Delta Force raid like this is
39:43
because the first line of defense, they're kind of like,
39:47
stop, no, don't. Yeah.
39:50
And, you know, come on in. You know, you've seen that in
39:54
cases where people feel under the gun and are pretty well
40:00
ready to let the guy go. And you know, when we invade A
40:03
racket Desert Storm, like, well, the elite Republican Guard here,
40:07
like, you know, they, they just all threw their weapons down and
40:10
they surrendered like they're pretty elite.
40:15
Well, hey, one thing you can't say about about the Venezuela
40:20
bit is you can't say that this is, you know, because he's
40:24
Putin's buddy. I mean, he, Putin's pissed about
40:28
this. He Maduro was Putin's buddy.
40:30
So you know you got that going for you.
40:34
Well, maybe. Well, it's been fun to break it
40:39
down with you. It is kind of interesting It
40:41
it's interesting to have a topic where, I mean, I wouldn't say
40:46
both of us are ambivalent, but neither of us is super gung ho
40:54
nor raving mad about, you know, it.
40:58
It's, I think we both see that it's kind of a fraught situation
41:02
and you know, there's, there's a lot of unsettled elements to
41:07
this. But I'm I'm glad to know you're
41:10
not telling me that you're going to go join a pro Maduro March of
41:14
some kind. Probably, probably not.
41:22
Let's go. Hey, thanks for joining us on
41:28
this episode of Bourbon and Rum Podcast.
41:30
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