Trump calling his unilateral aggression a “police action” is the Gleiwitz doctrine.
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Hitler made this playbook infamous. Trump is running it again. This is what Hitler said to his generals on August 22, 1939, the week before murdering Honiok:
I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn’t matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth.Then Operation Himmler (August 31, 1939) used Honiok’s body and staged fake Polish attacks on German installations, including the famous Gleiwitz radio station incident, to fake the appearance of Polish aggression. Nazi SS operatives dressed in Polish uniforms, broadcast anti-German messages, and left Konserven behind.
On September 1, 1939 Hitler broadcast pure propaganda, as he said he would:
This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our own territory. Since 5:45 a.m., we have been returning the fire… I will continue this struggle, no matter against whom, until the safety of the Reich and its rights are secured.Trump is repeating this Gleiwitz history as the true precedent for his abuse of the phrase “police action” in Venezuela. The criminal espouses the vocabulary of law enforcement and blocks police from responding, while committing the crimes.