A report from the Reuters news agency on Saturday claimed that the United States is “poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days.” Four US officials, who were contacted anonymous, were named in the report. According to two of the officials, “covert operations” will likely be the first step in this “new action” against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Given that more than a month ago, US President Donald Trump himself declared that he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, which is unusual since one doesn’t typically broadcast events that are supposed to be, um, secret, one would expect this to be surprising news.
Anyway, it’s no secret that the US has been operating a massive military presence in the area, with about 15, 000 US troops stationed there under the pretense of battling “narcoterrorism.” Trump has also ordered the bombing of what he claims are drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea as a result of his prejudicial presidency in the area since early September.
The strikes have produced little other than terrifying local fishermen, which is in violation of both international and US law.
Given the numerous opportunities the entire drug-war narrative offers for wreaking havoc on the world, militarizing the Western Hemisphere, criminalizing poor Americans, and other good things, the US has never met a , “war on drugs” it didn’t love.
Never mind that US financial institutions have long enjoyed profits from the global drug trade, as a claim in an article from The New York Times website.
It should come as no surprise that the president, who fought to keep the US out of wars and promptly bombed Iran, has now found another embarrassment in the process. The justification for aggression against Venezuela is illogical, as is customary in US imperial belligerence.
For instance, the Trump administration has tried to blame Maduro for the US fentanyl crisis. However, Venezuela doesn’t even produce the synthetic opioid in question, which is a minor issue.
Venezuelan drug cartels are focused on exporting cocaine to Europe, not fentanyl to the US, as NBC News and other less radical outlets have pointed out.
However, on November 13, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth – pardon, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth – took to X to assure his audience that the massive US military construction off the coast of Venezuela is a mission that “defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people” (see pardon, by wikipedia).
Of course, this administration was the same one that threatened to starve the poor by denying them essential food assistance, which suggests that “our people’s well-being isn’t really of the utmost concern.
In a nation where mass shootings  have become a way of life, take into account the fact that Trump cut federal funding for gun violence prevention programs. Massacres in elementary schools are obviously “killing our people” in a way that is unrelated to Venezuela.
But, isn’t it much fun to blame Maduro for everything, right?
Both the domestic pharmaceutical sector and poverty itself, in America, are major culprits (forget about opioids). None of these major crises, however, have erred from the valiant defenders of the homeland in any way.
Maduro has long been a thorn in the US empire’s side, like his predecessor Hugo Chavez, and this has contributed to the current campaign to discredit him as a “narcoterrorist” and allowing for regime change. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is known for being the primary architect of Washington’s war plans in Venezuela, and he is also a favorite target. Rubio is aiming to win the presidency in three years in Florida, where there are staunchly right-leaning Venezuelan and Cuban diaspora voters.
Two of the US officials consulted told the news agency that “the options under consideration included attempting to overthrow Maduro,” according to a Reuters report on the upcoming “Venezuela-related operations.” Rubio would join the long list of US politicians who have waged deadly wars abroad in an effort to win political favors abroad if the plans are successful.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported on Saturday that Maduro had been pressured by the White House by suggesting that US military aircraft drop leaflets over Caracas in a psychological exercise.
Sounds like something from an old Israeli military playbook, or at least a leaflet.
And such hemispheric recklessness won’t protect neither the US homeland nor anyone else’s as the Trump administration continues to pursue its not-so-covert plans for Venezuela.
Source: Aljazeera
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