Ever since the first shots were fired in Massachusetts Colony in 1775 by American patriots demanding independence from England, there have been two American sides to the universal quest for freedom with undecideds in between. This time the focus is on oil-rich Venezuela.

One side of America is passive, its view limited to the border, the other active and global.

Passive view: defend the United States at the Rio Grande not Baghdad. Active view: fight in Europe, Guadalcanal, Korea, Baghdad or Kabul; not in New York or Los Angeles.

Venezuela, with the world’s largest oil reserves, by the way, first experienced American military intervention on October 7, 1892, when United States Marines landed to protect the U.S. Consulate. Venezuelan requests for American help during that era kept the U.S. directly involved in Venezuelan affairs for a decade, albeit, diplomatically helping Venezuela ward off English expansion on Venezuela’s border with British Guyana.

U.S. Marines have landed numerous times in practically every Caribbean country during revolutions that have plagued the hemisphere since the Spanish were expelled after almost 300 years of rule from far-away Madrid. The last two, the Dominican Republic in April, 1965, and Panama in 1989.

Like the pioneering freedom fighters of 1810 Mexico that revolted against Spain, native-born Simon Bolivar led Colombia and Venezuela to independence from Spain. What Bolivar could not do is reap an immediate political harvest of local home political rule experience like freed American colonies. This lack of experience is not unique to Spanish Hemispheric history.

The Arab Middle East/North Africa, South and Central Asia and most of the former Soviet Republics have not implemented democracy when given the opportunity. Generally speaking, the people of those regions are not free and/or democratic.  They struggle to survive and have little or no time for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from dictatorships or foreign domination by Russia or Iran. Maybe they don’t care.

In Venezuela, the current crisis is based on the fraudulent “reelection” of President Francisco Maduro that was not recognized by the democratically elected national legislature. It refuses to recognize his election and per its Constitution named its leader as interim president until a new national election can be held. That move is supported by over 50 countries around the world.

Venezuela has deteriorated to the point that food, water, medicine and basic necessities have disappeared. People are eating garbage; they are drinking polluted stream water; they suffer electronic blackouts; their national currency is approaching 1920s-style German inflation. Russian military mercenaries and Cuban intelligence forces keep Maduro in power. They have the guns and food.

In the U.S., on the passive side of American interest in Venezuela’s turmoil are the usual suspects of “peaceniks,” octogenarian former “hippies” and “anti-war” do-nothings. On the active side are Americans willing to stand on the traditional “Europe, keep your filthy hands off our hemisphere” 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine that warned Europe -- and specifically warns today’s Russia -- to stay on its side of the “pond.”

Then, there is a middle ground.

The American isolationist looks like Senator Rand Paul, columnist/author Pat Buchanan, television commentator Tucker Carlson, former congressman Ron Paul and the ultra-conservative minority of Republican congressmen led by Congressman Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, plus liberals and Democrats like Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. 

Joining them in thought is President Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against foreign wars by George W. Bush as wasteful in treasure and blood. The President is not, however, a 100 percent isolationist. Americans are fighting in Syria and still in Afghanistan.  Syria was not in President Barack Obama’s policy wheelhouse.

President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor, John Bolton have made clear that a forceful military option remains available.

Joining isolationists is America’s newest elected America-critic -- Minnesota Democrat Representative Ilhan Omar -- the ultra-leftist Muslim refugee from Somalia. Though Venezuela has been ruled for two decades by American-hating socialists, she blames the current problems on the U.S.A.

She doesn’t care about those American soldiers who died trying to give her former country stability nor does she care about the three thousand Americans who died on September 11, 2001. About the attack of 9/11 she states “some people did something” on that day. She is a “progressive.” 

She subscribes to the “dark” interpretation of U.S. history as conspiracy nuts and her “progressive” allies do. President Barack Obama reacted along “progressive” lines when Iranians hit the streets in 2009 to demonstrate against the mullahs’ rule that keeps millions of people in dictatorial bondage.

The basic question facing the U.S. citizen on Venezuela is: Shall the US. be the policeman of the world nor not?

The answer must be and is, yes.

The United States is the only possible policeman of the world. That is, despite some dark history, a dark history that is minimal compared to its overall history and to the history of other nations. The overwhelming evidence is that people the United States supports or protects militarily enjoy opportunities to cut poverty, to gain economically and to ultimately enjoy freedom.

When they do, The United States of America benefits immensely. That is incontestable.

Graphic credit: Pixabay

Contreras is the author of THE MEXICAN BORDER: IMMIGRATION, WAR AND A TRILLION DOLLARS IN TRADE (Floricanto Press) and WHITE ANGLO-SAXON [PROTESTANTS (WASPS) & MEXICANS (Floricanto Press); he formerly wrote for the New American News Service of the New York Times Syndicate