VENEZUELA UNDER SIEGE
FROM ‘WORLD POLICEMAN’ TO GLOBAL PIRACY
Saro Thiruppathy describes how the US has gone from calling itself the ‘world’s policeman’ to indulging in international piracy – viewpoints
The US attacked the sovereign state of Venezuela and abducted its elected President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on 3 January. Since President Donald Trump assumed office for a second term over a year ago, he has been at war with the world.
He began by launching trade wars with practically every country on Earth – even an island that was inhabited only by penguins.
TRUMPIAN WARS Initially, Trump accused Mexico, Canada, India and China of flooding the US with Fentanyl, although he didn’t offer any proof. He never needs proof to back his wild accusations because Trump’s voter base is apparently willing to believe whatever pronouncements he makes – many are poorly educated and unable to discern fact from fiction, it would seem.
Trump jacked up trade tariffs for various countries, claimed that he would send the Palestinians packing so he could establish a riviera on the Gaza Strip and bombed Iran.
At the time of writing, it is widely believed that he is backing protests in Iran so that Reza Pahlavi (the son of the former Shah of Iran) can be installed through regime change. And he recently bombed Nigeria, reportedly to destroy ISIS, which was nowhere in sight.
Trump and his administration have also been threatening Greenland by claiming that the Danish island is of strategic importance to the US. He has also threatened Iran, Columbia, Mexico and Cuba. Meanwhile, the US State Department claims that the Western hemisphere belongs to the United States.
Though Trump was desperate to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegians awarded it to Venezuelan opposition leader María Machado, who is backed by the US and Israel.
In October, Trump bombed Venezuelan fishing boats, subsequently declared a no-fly zone over Caribbean airspace and hijacked two oil tankers belonging to the Venezuelan people.
Both Trump administrations and even that of former president Joe Biden have accused Maduro of exporting drugs to the US. But this claim flies in the face of Trump pardoning the former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández last year. Hernández was jailed after being found guilty of trafficking over 400 tonnes of cocaine to the US.
Piracy on the high seas, the bombing of Venezuela and Maduro’s abduction have taken place according to the whims and fancies of the White House – they haven’t been approved by the US Congress or UN. Apparently, congress hasn’t approved any of the attacks on other sovereign nations either. So it seems that Trump’s actions are enabled by a voiceless cabinet.
When the United States attacked Iraq in August 1990, in apparent solidarity with Kuwait, it called itself the ‘world’s policeman.’ Since then however, it has degenerated from policing to piracy, illegal bombing of sovereign states, abduction of heads of state, and effecting regime change in various countries, which are enriched with fossil fuels, gold and rare earth minerals.
THRONE CLAIMS The CIA has been actively championing regime change in Venezuela for many years. And in October last year, Trump authorised covert Central Intelligence Agency operations with the ultimate aim of capturing Maduro.
In 2019, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president, and was recognised by the US and some other countries until January 2023 when the opposition voted to dissolve his nonfunctioning interim government.
America was involved in his political journey, and his activities were conducted in consultation with US officials in the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
In 2024, Edmundo González Urrutia claimed that he had won the presidential election but this was disputed by the election authority – and Maduro was sworn in again. Urrutia even attended Trump’s inauguration in January last year.
MARIA MACHADO Though Maduro was critical of the destruction of the Palestinian people, Machado is a firm supporter of the Zionist regime. And she has been urging Israel and the US to invade Venezuela.
Machado even promised that she would move the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem upon assuming office. Later, she publicly thanked Trump for his ‘liberation’ of Venezuelans.
But Trump is miffed over the Nobel prize embarrassment and apparently doesn’t believe that Machado commands the respect of her country to govern it. So he plans to govern it himself and reinstate American oil companies in Venezuela. That country’s petroleum industry was nationalised in 1976 however, and breaking into it may prove to be far more complicated than attacking Caracas in violation of international law.
Meanwhile,the Venezuelan supreme court prevented a constitutional crisis by appointing former vice president Delcy Eloína Rodríguez Gómez as the interim president of Venezuela. It was also reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin had sent his elite guard to protect her and the country’s oil installations in the face of American aggression.
Even as Trump claims that Venezuela will hand over between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil to the US, the process of governance continues in Venezuela as sovereignty lies firmly with its people.
