What does Rover plan to do with it?

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Growing up in the small English town of Camborne, my early childhood consisted mainly of kicking a football around or playing cricket with a rubber ball on the street where we lived. None of the kids in our working-class neighbourhood had very much materially in the immediate aftermath of the World War II.

Most of our fathers had fought in the armed services, some had been injured while a few had been killed. A few dogs were always present when we were playing and frequently joined in by chasing balls, etc. They were free to roam in those days, long before leash laws came into effect. Only a few cars ever passed along the road, and, when they did, we quickly moved our temporary goalposts or wickets to the side to allow safe passage, but some of the dogs were not so friendly towards the vehicles. Those dogs would bark very loudly and chase them. That always amused us youngsters, and someone would always ask : “If he ever catches the car, what does Rover plan to do with it ?”.

Those childhood memories of eight decades ago flooded into my brain while watching the press conference from Mar-A-Lago, Florida with Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, General Dan Caine and others. They gave details of their daring mission carried out a few hours earlier to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, and transporting him to New York City to face charges of drug-smuggling, etc..

America had proven capable of such a high-risk intervention with the 2011 assassination of Osama Bin Laden at his secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, but this was even more daring in taking prisoner a foreign head of state and his wife. The world knew that some kind of action in Venezuela was imminent with such a large fleet of US warships patrolling the Caribbean coastline for several weeks, but, when this mission was described, it sounded like something from a James Bond or a Tom Cruise movie.

President Trump stated that the US would run Venezuelan affairs while American transnational corporations will assume control of the county’s crude oil production, but he was vague and uncertain about America’s future plans. With so many completely unknown political and legal potential pitfalls, it definitely seemed comparable to the dog from Memory Lane chasing and eventually catching the car all those years ago. Hence, the question from my childhood returned : “What does Rover plan to do with it?”

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada