Category World News

Donald Trump publicly criticised the George W. Bush administration for starting the Iraq war for many years before becoming president. And yet, in his second term as president, he finds himself presiding on a military blunder that resembles Bush’s somewhat.

Trump’s military intervention was based on a flawed defense of national security and the desire to get rid of a hostile foreign leader with the intention of obtaining their oil. In both cases, we observe a naive belief that regime change will enable the United States to accomplish its objectives. Venezuela’s US intervention recalls the same hubris that dominated the Iraq invasion ten years ago.

However, there should be other significant factors in mind. Lack of a comprehensive vision is the most distinguishing quality of the operation in Venezuela. It was unclear what the plan was for Venezuela going forward or if there was even one after Trump wrapped up an hour-long press conference with his defense and state secretaries. No clarity was provided by his threats to launch additional attacks in the coming days.

The current US commander-in-chief’s ideological visions are reflected in examples of US-led regime change. The Western Hemisphere was declared a colonial hotspot by President James Monroe in 1823. The Monroe Doctrine would support a variety of interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean as the United States consolidated its sphere of influence throughout the Americas during the 20th century. The United States’ ability to overthrow leftist governments and establish friendly governments was strengthened by the Cold War.

As the Cold War came to an end, President George H. W. Bush vowed to take over the “new world order” under the auspices of the US. In accordance with the definition of “humanitarian intervention,” Bush sent troops to Somalia in 1992 and his successor Bill Clinton retaliated in Haiti in 1994. The post-9/11 “war on terror” was the framework for George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. In 2011, President Barack Obama was guided by the “responsibility to protect” doctrine regarding civilians in danger when he stepped up his assault on Libya’s forces.

There is no ideological justification for the US attack on Venezuela, though. Trump and his team have intentionally used anti-terror, humanitarianism, and other jargon to support the attack. The Monroe Doctrine was even brought up by the president. He made fun of the idea just as it appeared as though he was assimilating a larger ideology, even one borrowed from two centuries ago.

Trump remarked on Saturday, “The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal.” However, we have significantly outperformed it. It is now known as the “Donroe Doctrine.” Trump’s threat to annex Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal was used by the New York Post a year ago to describe his aggressive foreign policy, but Trump did not make up this pun.

The president’s choice to embrace the tongue-in-cheek term highlights a perplexing aspect of his foreign policy: to think that he is advocating an ideological vision is absurd.

In his second term, Trump has discovered he can get away with it by pursuing an increasingly militaristic and aggressive foreign policy, not because he wants to impose a grand vision.

ISIL (ISIS) affiliates in Nigeria, who are “persecuting” Christians and “narcoterrorists” in Latin America, make appeals to Trump’s base, striking a number of foreign “bad guys” who have little capacity to stand up.

He went on a minute-long tangent to boast about his military interventions in US cities after making reference to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua at the news conference on Saturday. While the president’s inability to stay on topic may cause some concern for those who are concerned about his mental and physical health, at least in his case: His increasingly militarized war on drugs and crime abroad justifies an increasingly militarized war on drugs and crime at home.

Former US presidents have pursued a variety of ideologies and principles using their positions. Trump’s rhetoric seems to be merely a rehash of old ideologies that support the use of US power. The “good” intentions of previous presidents frequently opened the door to hellish outcomes for those who found themselves facing US intervention. However, those intentions at least provided some predictability and consistency for the various US administrations’ foreign policies.

Trump, in contrast, appears to be driven solely by political concerns and potential success in the near future. The ephemeral nature of interventions carried out without an overarching vision may be the only thing that can prevent such an unprincipled foreign policy from having a saving grace. The ideological commitment that has influenced other presidents to carry out long-term interventions like the Iraq occupation is not a result of an unprincipled approach to military intervention.

That means that Trump might be able to use military force to resolve any international dispute or pursue an ostensibly lucrative goal, such as assuming Danish control of Greenland.

He started imposing tariffs almost indiscriminately on allies and adversaries as a means of securing his interests last year. Trump may now start to use force more haphazardly now that he has grown comfortable with using the US military to achieve a range of objectives, including profit, gunboat diplomacy, domestic scandal dissention, etc.

Both the US and the rest of the world are in for a bad omen from that perspective. The world’s needs are last, a trigger-happy superpower without a clear strategy or day-after plan, at a time when climate, conflict, and impoverishment are all intertwined.

Belfast held a protest in support of the four Palestine Action detainees whose health is rapidly deteriorating while they are still in jail, in keeping with the hunger strikes carried out by Irish Republican Army prisoners in Northern Ireland decades ago.

In connection with the 2020 religious riots in the capital, New Delhi, India’s Supreme Court has imposed bail on five Muslim students and activists who have been imprisoned for more than five years.

But the top court denied bail to two high-profile scholars – Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam – who will remain in the high-security Tihar jail waiting for their trials to start.

Shamshad Ahmed’s son Shadab Ahmed was among those granted bail on Monday, ending an arduous wait of more than five years. Ahmad has been imprisoned since April 2020 without a trial.

The 67-year-old father, who repeated his voice with cheers in the background, said, “We are feeling very excited.” “The justice was delayed, but at least it was not denied”.

“Everyone is content,” he declares. Our son will return home after serving years in prison for a noble cause, according to the elder Ahmed. “But our hearts sink for Umar and Sharjeel, they are also our sons”.

Nationally peaceful protests were sparked by a change to India’s citizenship law in 2019, which Muslims claim is discriminatory. With a population of more than 200 million, Muslims, the largest minority in the country, demanded that faith be excluded from citizenship in a secular country like India.

But the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi cracked down on the peaceful protesters, arresting hundreds, many of them under “anti-terror” laws, and killing dozens.

According to political analysts and rights advocates, Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government’s prolonged detention of students and rights activists without a trial has become a symbol of its institutional persecution of Muslims.

We are all thinking of you, said New York City’s newly elected mayor Zohran Mamdani in a letter to Khalid on Saturday.

So what is the case about? The accused are who? And why did India and the rest of the world find the case so contentious?

What’s the issue with this case?

The Modi government expedited citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan back in the year.

Muslims across India opposed their exclusion and launched protests, with a women-led sit-in in New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh becoming the epicentre of India’s biggest protests in decades.

Hindu right-wing mobs attacked peaceful sit-ins in Delhi’s eastern district, erupting in a deadly riot, as a result of senior leaders’ anti-Muslim rhetoric spearheaded by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. The worst kind of violence in Delhi since the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people, the majority of them Muslims.

In response, the police filed 758 criminal cases for investigation and arrested more than 2, 000 people. Legal and human rights experts accuse the Delhi Police of bias against Muslims and accused peaceful protesters of planning a plot to stoke tensions and overthrow the elected government. In a case known as the “main conspiracy case,” at least 18 student leaders and activists were detained.

The students and activists were charged under an “anti-terror” law called the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which makes it virtually impossible to secure bail. This law allows for months, sometimes years, to detain individuals without conducting a trial.

India’s police are accused of using “anti-terror” laws more frequently against marginalized populations, including Muslims.

The accused are who?

Six of the 18 students and activists who were detained in the conspiracy case were eventually released on bail.

Today, the Supreme Court is deciding on the bail of seven of the defendants. Their brief profiles are shown below:

Umar Khalid, a former research fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), published a PhD thesis titled “Contesting claims and contingencies of the rule on Adivasis of Jharkhand” in 2018. He is a former leader of the student body the Democratic Students ‘ Union (DSU) and a founding member of the campaign “United Against Hate”.

Sharjeel Imam, a PhD research fellow at the Center for Historical Studies at JNU. He completed his education at one of India’s most reputable engineering schools, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, and then returned to school.

Meeran Haider: A PhD research scholar at the Centre for Management Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia.

Gulfisha Fatima, a graduate of the MBA program, actively engages in activism and community service. She was preparing to become a college lecturer at the time of the protests.

Shifa ur-Rehman: A businessman and the president of the Alumni Association of Jamia Millia Islamia. He lost in the 2024 election for the Delhi assembly, but he won.

Shadab Ahmed, a professional who holds a BCA bachelor’s degree. At the time of the protests, Ahmed was volunteering at a protest site in Delhi.

Saleem Khan, a businessman who works in the export sector. He was running his business at the time of his arrest, according to police, who claimed he organized and provided food for a protest site.

Why is India so divided over this case?

Civil society has referred to the conspiracy case and the defendants charged as a litmus test for the judiciary itself in response to Prime Minister Modi’s sharp shift away from ultra-nationalist and authoritarian policies.

Political analysts told Al Jazeera that the case, amid apparently endless hearing dates, changing benches in courts, and administrative delays, has split open the “dual nature” of Indian institutions that are biased against Muslims.

The Modi government had a reckoning, according to Asim Ali, a political commentator in New Delhi. He said, “This mobilisation cannot ever occur again.”

“That protest was a statement by India’s Muslim community that we are reclaiming our citizenship rights – and you cannot just snatch that”, Ali noted. However, the government has demonstrated that only they have the authority to impose a citizenship definition, and they did so with force.

However, Ali said that the top court’s decision to deny Khalid and Imam, the more well-known students who are detained, “is like treating them as internal enemies or suspects, treating them with another class of laws, or rather in a legal shadow,” was unfair.

Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst, noted that Indian courts have regularly granted bail to the accused, including hardcore criminals and rapists. Is the court being influenced by a political narrative, according to the “denial] of Khalid and Imam’s bail? There is no reason why these two weren’t granted bail, he said, because of this.

For more than a billion Indians to continue having faith in the judiciary, Kidwai said, there needs to be “consistency of law that is equal for all”. He noted that this is not the case with Muslim defendants.

Why will Khalid and Imam stay imprisoned?

The bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria, who delivered its decision on Monday morning in New Delhi, stated that they were not convinced that Khalid and Imam’s protracted pre-trial detention and the delay in the trial were not “trump cards.”

The court noted that the pair’s position in the alleged conspiracy hierarchy was different from that of others who received bail. The bench said it found a prima facie case under the “anti-terror” law, stating the duo held a “central and formative role” in the conspiracy and can reapply for bail after one year.

“I believe that the government has unfairly influenced these judges.” And the government was under a lot of pressure to not release [Khalid and Imam], according to Prashant Bhushan, a senior advocate for the rights movement on the Supreme Court.

Now, the student activists are “basically in a deadlock”, Bhushan said, adding, “This case shows two things: the Modi government is willing to misuse anti-terror law and the investigative agencies, secondly, that courts are also bowing down to the dictates of the government”.

According to Bhushan, who has examined the case details, “the charges are serious, but there is no real substance behind those charges.”

Under the Modi administration, he claimed, India is no longer a democracy.

What effect has the case had on India?

Political observers and leaders claim that student politics have been intentionally banned since the protests against the citizenship law and the subsequent crackdown.

Natasha Narwal, an activist and researcher who spent over a year in jail in the same case, told Al Jazeera that due to the government crackdown, “any protest that presents a challenge to the regime and its policies is easily criminalised”.

“Every little activity is being monitored more closely at the universities, from putting together a seminar, a talk, a movie screening, or any other kind of gathering,” said Narwhal.

A five-story building collapsed in central Gaza, killing at least two people. Many people who had nowhere else to stay stayed in the building after Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza returned.