We will regret the dawn of a ‘might makes right’ world
Trump’s raid on Venezuela will drive even more countries away from the Western system
It has finally happened. After months of military build-up in the Caribbean, the illegal killing of more than a hundred people on Venezuelan fishing boats – many of them civilians – and the equally illegal seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers, the Trump administration has dramatically escalated its aggression against Venezuela.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, US forces launched a large-scale military attack on several sites, including the capital Caracas, that resulted in the capture – or more accurately, the kidnapping – of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
The groundwork for this operation has been laid for months. Chief among the justifications was the claim that Venezuela is a “narco-terrorist” state at the centre of the fentanyl trade responsible for the US overdose crisis, an accusation that has been thoroughly debunked.
Other allegations were quickly added to the mix: that the country hosts “Iran-backed terrorists” (another unsubstantiated claim) and, inevitably, the assertion that regime change is about bringing “democracy” and “freedom” to the Venezuelan people.
But ultimately, once all the layers of propaganda are stripped away, this attack boils down to just one thing: a completely unprovoked and blatantly illegal act of aggression against a country that posed no real threat to the United States.
The real objectives are transparent. First, to gain control over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves – the largest in the world. Second, to topple a key ally of the non-Western geopolitical bloc aligned with China and Russia. In short, this is yet another regime-change war, from a president that campaigned precisely on putting an end to the US’s “forever wars”.