The Gangster’s Brief: The Barr Doctrine, Noriega and Maduro

Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour – Public Domain

US President Donald Trump might leave an impression of violent novelty, at least for the leader of a nominal liberal democracy, soiling international relations with the gangster’s touch.  This sense of iconoclasm is misplaced.  While his conduct regarding the abduction of Nicolás Maduro certainly dumps mightily on the precepts of international law, legal advisors in the US government have been constructing, with a mixture of deviousness and disingenuousness...