Friends, please don’t let yourselves get too distracted by all the rhetoric about deposing a narco-dictatorship in Venezuela. It’s smoke and mirrors, once again.
The White House has been fabricating this case against Maduro since Day 1, providing utterly no evidence of fentanyl production or traffic. They’ve cynically wielded the banner of “restoring democracy.” It’s all been an elaborate ruse to distract from the real prize: Venezuelan oil. And an elaborate flex of military power to obtain it.
It’s time to realize that this is just the first phase of an aggressive expansion of the American imperial project. Other stops include Greenland, Canada, and possibly Mexico. This comes at a time when the Trump regime needs a big distraction from the Epstein case and its disastrous economic and social policies. Nothing like the specter of foreign despotism to gin up the patriotic base.
We’ve seen this playbook before, especially in Latin America and the Middle East*; it just hasn’t been quite so brazen and thinly disguised. After all, Trump spoke openly about America’s “right” to Venezuelan land and oil. And as early as 2016 he was making the case for “taking the oil” from several countries on the wrong side of Trump’s trade ledger.
We must get out into the streets again, call our representatives, and resist energetically any further expansion of military force in Latin America.
The contradiction in all this should be obvious: Trump’s neo-fascist regime doesn’t give a hoot about democracy. If they did, they would be following the rule of law within the U.S.; they would be trying to topple far more despotic regimes than Venezuela’s; and they’d be placing far more pressure on Russia, perhaps the world’s most dangerous dictatorship.
Witness, too, the abject hypocrisy of Trump recently having pardoned the real narco-criminal ex-President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, convicted by a federal jury after an extensive trial. Hernandez is part of the global conservative movement, and Honduras has no great mineral or petroleum value, so his drug trafficking was excused. Maduro, on the other hand, represents the anti-imperialist Left.
Just as progressive antisemitism (read: criticism of the current Israeli state) is now exaggerated by MAGA and its allies, so too will the extent of Left authoritarianism be exaggerated on the global stage. Again, these are similar distractions from a resurgent Jew-hating right wing movement and a growing assemblage of authoritarian leaders on the Right.
Let’s be clear, this is no apology for the likes of Maduro. Yes, Venezuelans deserve democracy, and yes, Maduro is now an illegitimate President after ignoring the latest electoral results and maintaining power. The Venezuelan people deserve freedom and justice. And he deserves to go.
However, the circumstances of his removal matter. Instead of investing further in multi-lateral institutions like the U.N. or the Organization of American States; instead of leadership in diplomatic efforts to isolate Maduro and his regime; instead of leveraging democratic resources and traditions within the region—this regime has pursued unlawful displacement and domination. And the governments of Latin America are unlikely to let it go easily.
Nor should we. Never mind all the bluster about saving American lives from the scourge of fentanyl. Never mind the cynical “bipartisanship” of restoring democracy to the long-suffering people of Venezuela. These facts are well-known: Trump’s vulnerability on the economy and as a potential pedophile, and the oversized influence of the petroleum industry in the halls of the Trump regime. So if you seek the true story about why Venezuela, and why now, just think inflation and Epstein tapes, and then follow the oil.
*In Latin America the mold was set, especially, by the anti-communist justification for the CIA-backed coup in 1954 Guatemala; and of course, the second Gulf War over Iraq presumably was driven by angst about Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and the supposed presence of ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ which never materialized. When will we learn!?
Source: Substack
Author: Sebas Lee
About the author: Sebas Lee is a Latin Americanist and spokesperson for Indivisible QC. He conducted research in Mexico for more than 30 years and led Indiana University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies for 4 years. He writes about democracy and civil liberties, antisemitism and the far right, and U.S. power in the Americas.
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