Some Clear Thinking About This Weekend’s Strike In Venezuela
Some Clear Thinking About This Weekend’s Strike In Venezuela
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black) January 5, 2026
It’s hard to imagine America being intimidated by a guy named “Little Turtle”. And yet, in the year 1790, he was about as terrifying as it could get.
Little Turtle was the war chief of the Miami nation, one of the Algonquian-speaking tribes in the Great Lakes region, and he had made a name for himself fighting against the United States during the Revolutionary War.
(At one point he literally butchered his captives after a lopsided battle.)
More than a century before, Little Turtle’s people had waged a long war against the Iroquois over control of the land in what is today Indiana and western Ohio. So, when the American Revolution was over, he continued fighting against settlers that he felt were encroaching on his tribe’s territory.
Roughly 1500 American settlers were killed between 1784 and 1789. And when it finally became clear to the US government in 1790 that the violence would not stop, they sent an expedition under the command of General Josiah Harmar to fight the Miami.
Little Turtle was ready. And on October 21 at the Battle of Kekionga in northeastern Indiana, Little Turtle vanquished American forces.
In terms of casualty percentages, it was one of the worst defeats in US history. More importantly, given how small America’s military was at the time, the defeat became a national security nightmare. The US essentially didn’t have an Army after the battle.
In response, Congress passed a series of laws known as the “Militia Acts”, which, among other things, federalized state militias for use by the federal government.
But the new laws also gave the President sweeping authority to take command of these forces under certain circumstances, including invasion or threat of invasion “from any foreign nation or Indian tribe”.
Fast forward more than two centuries, and these Militia Acts are among the foundational legal arguments in favor of the Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela over the weekend.
Now, tremendous amounts of ink have already been spilled over Venezuela in the past 48-hours.
What I found so interesting, however, is that most of the legacy media articles, not to mention social media commentary, devolved into typical ignorant tribalism, i.e. people are frequently for/against something based on whether or not they’re for/against the person doing it.
In this case, the Left is predictably howling that the President’s use of the military was illegal and unconstitutional-- an assertion that is being repeated and reposted by millions of people.
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