As a Libyan who has lived through forced “regime change” scripts in my country in 2011, I recognise this pattern and the role the media played in defending the undefendable while claiming the higher moral grounds of objectivity and fairness. My suspicion was not born of hindsight; in fact, I had already predicted this trajectory during an interview with a Venezuelan podcast a month before the event, warning that the “Libyan model” of narrative-building was being dusted off for Caracas.

When the news of the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro broke, I immediately checked several major Western media outlets, starting as usual with the BBC. I was not looking for facts about the event itself, but rather to see how it was being reported. To my shock, the headline glaring in my face almost literally said something like: “Donald Trump ‘captured’ Nicolas Maduro.” It was a jarring choice of words that reduced a gross violation of international law to a personal trophy for the American president. We must not forget that Donald Trump insists on being at the center of every report; otherwise, he gets upset—and it seems the Western media is more than happy to oblige him, even if it means sacrificing the very definition of a kidnapping.

The choice of the word “capture” is a masterclass in semantic manipulation. It implies that Mr Maduro was already a fugitive on the run—a man condemned by a court of law and fleeing its reach. To the common man, the meaning is unambiguous: it suggests that Maduro is a criminal wanted for justice, not only within his own borders but by a global judicial authority with rightful jurisdiction. By adopting this vocabulary, the media does more than report; it strips a sitting head of state of his inherent right to be presumed innocent, effectively rebranding a political abduction as a long-overdue arrest.

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