Day of the Mind Blizzard, 52nd of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Castor): The Stable Genius, now with his FIFA faux "peace prize" firmly fixed on its shelf, is determined to drag the United States into another pointless, costly, and fatal overseas war. Anything to divert attention from a faltering economy and, of course, the Epstein files. Today, the United States seized an oil tanker off the Venezuela coast, part of an escalating series of strikes including the unsanctioned assassinations of the crews of numerous boats in the Caribbean. 

Hands Off South and Central America (HOSCA) maintains that the Stable Genius' adventures are just a continuation of the U.S.'s long - and legally and morally questionable - history of interventions in the region. There have been dubious actions by the U.S. in the hemisphere going all the way back to 1823's Monroe Doctrine, issued when Latin American countries were first winning their independence from France and Spain. The Doctrine asserted to European countries that the U.S. considered Latin America its sphere of influence and their meddling would be considered a meddling in U.S. affairs. In the 19th Century alone, HOSCA counts the following dubious achievements:

In 1852, U.S. President Millard Fillmore had the Marines land in Buenos Aires to protect American interests during an Argentinian revolution.

In 1853, Fillmore's successor, Franklin Pierce, used the American military to protect American lives and interests during political disturbances in Nicaragua.          

In 1854, the American captain of a steamboat in Greytown, Nicaragua shot and killed a native boatman in cold blood. The U.S. minister to Nicaragua later prevented the captain’s arrest when he cocked and leveled a gun at the town's marshals. That night, an angry mob confronted the American Minister over his prevention of the murderer’s arrest and a resident threw a piece of a broken bottle at him, striking the Minister's face. In retaliation, the Navy sloop-of-war USS Cyane bombarded the town with 177 rounds of cannon fire, leveling the town before the Marines landed and burned down anything left standing. 

In 1855, President Pierce sent U.S. naval forces to Uruguay to protect American interests during an attempted revolution in Montevideo.

The Spanish-American War of 1898 led to a number of 20th Century interventions in Latin America, particularly in Cuba. The Cuban revolution against colonial Spain inspired many Americans, who saw it as a reflection of out own revolution of 1776, but led to concerns among some about a potential majority black regime ruling the island. "Two-fifths of the insurgents in the field are negroes," an 1896 article in The Saturday Review cautioned. The author, a young and eloquent English-American imperialist named Winston Churchill, argued that while Spanish rule was bad and the rebels had the support of the people, "another black republic" might be worse than continued Spanish rule. The "other black republic," of course, was Haiti.      

The U.S.S. Maine was sent to Havana in January 1998 allegedly to protect American citizens. After a mysterious explosion sank the battleship a month later, the U.S. began a naval blockade of Cuba and went to war with Spain. The Marines landed in Guantánamo Bay in June 1898 and moved swiftly through the island. 

This was the start of a long period of Marine involvement in conflicts in Central America and the Caribbean. “Before the Second World War, this is what the Marine Corps did,” The New York Times. quoted an authority on the history today. “Their bread and butter was destabilizing and overthrowing governments in Latin America.” HOSCA agrees with that sentiment, and the Times recounted several of the United States' 20th Century adventures in the region. 

In 1912, while Nicaragua was in the middle of a revolt against its right-leaning and pro-American president, U.S. President William Taft  sent in the Marines, again "to preserve U.S. interests." This quickly turned into a direct military intervention and began 21 years of U.S. occupation of Nicaragua.

In 1913, the U.S. supported the overthrow of a Mexican president in favor of another who was viewed as more pro-American, leading to a coup d’état. However, the U.S. turned around and withdraw its support for the new president, backing instead the bandit and revolutionary leader Pancho Villa to depose him, before turning around yet again, and opposing Villa. After the Mexican government refused a 21-gun salute in apology for nine American sailors arrested in April 1914, President Woodrow Wilson ordered a naval blockade of the Port of Veracruz. An arms shipment was subsequently discovered heading to Mexico in violation of an American arms embargo, so the Navy seized the Mexican port of Veracruz, occupying it for seven months.

After the president of Haiti, that "other black republic," was assassinated in 1915, Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines. The stated mission was to restore order and stabilize the civil disturbance, which had been fueled in part by U.S. actions such as the seizure of Haiti's gold reserves over debts. The Marines stayed almost 20 years, not withdrawing until 1934.

In 1983, Ronald Reagan accused the government of Grenada of building an airport that would enable the Soviet Union to land transport planes capable of carrying weapons. After a political crisis in Grenada and the execution of its prime minister, the military announced a curfew and said anyone on the streets in violation of the order would be shot on sight. Reagan sent 7,600 troops, including Army Rangers, the 82nd Airborne, the Marines, Delta commandos, and Navy SEALs, ostensibly to protect 600 American medical students on the island. Grenada’s military government was quickly overthrown, and an interim one was installed.

Gen. Manuel Noriega, the military leader of Panama, helped the U.S. sabotage the left-wing Sandinistas of Nicaragua and revolutionaries in El Salvador for decades. Noriega also worked with the DEA to restrict illegal drug shipments, and laundered drug money on the side. In 1986, news reports surfaced in the American media about Noriega's criminal activities, and American courts indicted him on drug-related charges. The general survived several attempted coups and a disputed election and in 1989, Panama declared a state of war with the United States. President George H.W. Bush ordered U.S. troops to remove him. 

In 1994, Bill Clinton sent the Marines to Haiti again to restore to power President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been democratically elected but quickly overthrown. Ten years later, Aristide was out of favor with Washington and ousted in a coup orchestrated by the United States and France.

Since September of this year, the United States has been attacking boats in the Caribbean that the Stable Genius claimed were smuggling drugs. To date, the U.S. has launched 22 known strikes, killing more than 80 people. On top of the strikes, the Stable Genius has ordered a massive buildup of U.S. forces in the region, with more than 15,000 troops and a dozen ships in the Caribbean, including the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford. Covert action has been authorized against Venezuela and the Stable Genius has warned that the United States could expand its attacks from boats off the Venezuelan coast to targets inside the country "very soon." 

And now, on top of all that, he's gone and seized a tanker full of oil, as if, as HOSCA points out, there was ever any question as to what the conflict was really all about. Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves of petroleum, and the Stable Genius has shown little interest in alternative energy or sustainable fuels.