Maduro may be guilty as charged, but Trump's latest gambit is simply wrong

When Nelson Mandela was captured and hauled before a “white man’s court” in 1962, he questioned the legitimacy of the hearing and the entire apartheid justice system.

I was expecting something similar from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro who pleaded not guilty and said he was a “decent man”, innocent and had been “kidnapped” from his home. His wife said she was “completely innocent”.

Of course, Maduro is no Madiba and there are very few parallels that can be drawn between the two leaders. The point is that the New York City court in which Maduro was paraded completely lacked legitimacy, just like the apartheid court that tried South Africa’s founding democracy president.

There is clearly an argument to be made that Maduro had long passed his sell-by date as president. No honest observer can vouch that he has no bad bone in his body. Indeed, he may even be “completely" guilty of the drugs and weapons charges he faces. And if not guilty as charged, he is at least guilty of failing to deal with the drugs and criminality scourge that Trump is now using against him.

However, two wrongs do not make a right. The bigger problem for those of us who value peace more than worldly possessions is that the one president acting as the world’s police chief is a compromised man with no respect for any laws or norms.

Trump’s latest unprecedented and preposterous gambit may not be a kidnapping, but is more like an extraordinary rendition – “the apprehension and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one nation to another“, as Wikipedia puts it. However, whatever label one attaches to this, the truth is that Trump has once again recklessly and unscrupulously abused American power and pushed the globe deep into uncharted waters.

The world and its high seas may be overdue for cleaning up, but that ambitious undertaking requires the international community of nations working together.

This raises a number of questions. If Trump is allowed to continue acting as king of the world, ruling by decree everywhere, where will this all end? And after Venezuela, who – or which country is next? Greenland?