A little news from Latin America (affecting the United States, as so often): Some of our diplomatic personnel in Cuba have come home, because they have been physically harmed — deafened. By what? A covert sonic device, apparently. The same thing happened to some Canadian personnel.
Did the Cuban government do this? If not, who did? Washington normalized relations with Havana about two seconds ago. If Havana can be determined to have deafened our diplomats, we should cancel normalization immediately.
Indeed, these attacks would amount to an act of war.
Turn, now, to Venezuela, one of whose bigs has apparently ordered a hit on — the assassination of — Senator Marco Rubio (one of the Venezuelan regime’s most forthright critics). That is no trivial action. It amounts to a declaration of war on America.
Doesn’t it?
Some people, on left and right, are always accusing other people of looking for trouble. The problem is, trouble often comes looking for you, whether you like it or not. And how you respond to it makes a great deal of difference. It affects how much trouble you’ll face in the future.
In other words, the event at hand is not necessarily about the event at hand — it’s about the future as well.
P.S. The Cuban government would have to be insane to attack American diplomats — and the Castro regime is not insane, but rather evil. Also, the Canadian government is exceptionally warm to the Castro regime. So who deafened these diplomats? I hope that we will know, however unwelcome the answer — that these attacks will not remain one of those mysteries, to be interpreted by John le Carré and his heirs.