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by Julia Conley | Common Dreams
\nvia ASIA TIMES<\/p>\n
\u201cBelligerent\u201d was how one Democratic lawmaker described a diatribe given by top\u00a0White House<\/a>\u00a0adviser\u00a0Stephen Miller<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0CNN\u00a0<\/em>Monday evening regarding the Trump administration\u2019s right to take over Venezuela \u2013 or any other country \u2013 if doing so is in the interest of the US.<\/p>\n To Senator\u00a0Bernie Sanders<\/a>\u00a0(I-Vt.), however, Miller was simply providing viewers with \u201ca very good definition of\u00a0imperialism<\/a>\u201d as he described the worldview the administration is operating under as it takes control of\u00a0Venezuela<\/a>\u00a0and eyes other countries, including\u00a0Greenland<\/a>, that it believes it can and should invade.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what imperialism is all about,\u201d Sanders told\u00a0CNN<\/em>\u2018s Jake Tapper. \u201cAnd I suspect that people all over the world are saying, \u2018Wow, we\u2019re going back to where we were 100 years ago, or 50 years ago, where the big, powerful countries were exploiting poorer countries for their natural resources.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The senator spoke to Tapper shortly after Miller\u2019s interview, in which the news anchor asked whether President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0would support holding an election in Venezuela days after the\u00a0US military<\/a>\u00a0bombed the country and\u00a0abducted<\/a>\u00a0President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and his wife.<\/p>\n Miller refused to directly engage with the question, saying only that it would be \u201cabsurd and preposterous\u201d for the US to install Venezuelan opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado as the leader of the country, before asking Tapper to give him \u201cthe floor\u201d and allow him to explain the White House\u2019s view on foreign policy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere,\u201d said Miller. \u201cWe\u2019re a superpower and under President Trump we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries but not to us.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of \u201cdemanding that elections be held\u201d in Venezuela, he added, \u201cthe future of the free world depends on America to be able to assert ourselves and our interests without an apology.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0Trump administration<\/a>\u00a0has repeatedly\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0that Venezuela \u201cstole\u201d\u00a0oil<\/a>\u00a0from the United States. The country is believed to have the largest oil reserves in the world, and the government nationalized its petroleum industry in 1976, including projects that had been run by US-based\u00a0ExxonMobil<\/a>. The last privately run oil operations were nationalized in 2007 by then-President\u00a0Hugo Chavez<\/a>.<\/p>\n Miller offered one of the most explicit explanations of the White House\u2019s view yet: that \u201csovereign countries don\u2019t get sovereignty if the US wants their resources,\u201d as Representative Seth Moulton (D-Mass.)\u00a0translated<\/a>\u00a0in a\u00a0social media<\/a>\u00a0post.<\/p>\n Moulton called Miller\u2019s tirade \u201cgenuinely unhinged\u201d and \u201ca disturbing window into how this administration thinks about the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Miller\u2019s remarks followed a similarly blunt statement at a UN Security Council emergency meeting by US Ambassador Michael Waltz.<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot continue to have the largest energy reserves in the world under the control of adversaries of the United States,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Waltz.<\/p>\n Miller\u2019s description of the White House\u2019s current view on foreign policy followed\u00a0threats<\/a>\u00a0from Trump against countries including Colombia, Mexico and Greenland, and further comments suggested that the administration could soon move to take control of the latter country \u2013 even though it is part of the kingdom of\u00a0Denmark<\/a>, which along with the US is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cGreenland should be part of the United States,\u201d said Miller. \u201cThe president has been very clear about that. That is the formal position of the US government.\u201d<\/p>\n He dismissed the idea that the takeover of Greenland, home to about 56,000 people, would involve a military operation \u2013 although Trump has\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0he would not rule out using force \u2013 and said that \u201cnobody\u2019s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.\u201d<\/p>\n The vast island is strategically located in the\u00a0Arctic<\/a> Circle and has largely untapped reserves of rare-earth minerals.<\/p>\n Danish and Greenlandic officials have condemned Trump\u2019s latest threats this week, with Denmark\u2019s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, warning that, in accordance with the NATO treaty, \u201ceverything would come to an end\u201d if the US attacks another NATO country.<\/p>\n \u201cThe international community as we know it, democratic rules of the game, NATO, the world\u2019s strongest defensive alliance \u2013 all of that would collapse if one NATO country chose to attack another,\u201d she\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Danish news channel\u00a0Live News\u00a0on Monday.<\/p>\n The Danish government\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0an emergency meeting of its Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday to discuss \u201cthe kingdom\u2019s relationship with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n