Image by Getty and Unsplash .

After months of thinly veiled threats, disregard for international law, and the brutal murder of fishermen in the Caribbean Sea, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio have achieved what they set out to do – what many on the Left had been warning about for months. On January 3, the US bombed sites across Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro in a special operation, killing at least 40 Venezuelans in the process. As repulsive as the imperialist kidnapping of the leader of a sovereign nation is, it is not surprising.

Throughout the 20th century, the US carried out coups across Latin America, driven by an unrelenting desire to siphon off resources to feed the belly of the beast. Among the many examples of US-backed right-wing coups are the overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government in Chile, which ushered in 17 years of tyranny under the US-backed Pinochet dictatorship, during which tens of thousands were tortured and disappeared. Or the overthrow of João Goulart in Brazil in 1964, leading to 21 years of military rule. Or Argentina in 1976; El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s. In fact, throw a dart at a map of Latin America, and chances are you’ll hit a country that US-backed missiles have struck in a successful bid for regime change within the last century.

What is unique this time, though, is the openness with which the recipient of the oh-so-coveted FIFA Peace Prize has flaunted his violation of international law and overthrow of a foreign leader. There has been no serious attempt to cloak this act in the language of liberation, though stenographers in corporate media and useful idiots masquerading as political analysts have eagerly taken on that role themselves. Trump has openly stated that the invasion of Venezuela – which, depending on developments in the coming days and weeks, could see the oil-rich Bolivarian Republic succumb to US military occupation (as Trump himself implied), the illegitimate rule of the far-right Zionist María Corina Machado, or descend into civil war – is about accessing Venezuela’s vast resources. These include the largest proven oil reserves in the world, accounting for roughly 17 per cent of global reserves.

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