“The breakout of war in Venezuela could be a horror show for the entire continent.“
The Trump administration seems increasingly poised to climb a few more rungs of the escalatory ladder in its latest face-off with Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro government, perhaps even to the point of war. With the US keen to reassert its strategic dominance of its so-called “backyard” and Cuban American neo-con Marco Rubio occupying the dual roles of secretary of state and national security advisor, anything is possible.
The decision last Friday of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award its long-sullied Peace Prize to the Venezuelan far-right coup plotter Maria Corina Machado was merely the latest statement of intent. Following her nomination by Rubio and Mike Waltz, Machado’s unexpected victory has helped revive Venezuela’s “downcast” opposition movement, as the BBC helpfully explains:
When the opposition to the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela seemed once again downcast and without the possibility of provoking change, the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to its leader, María Corina Machado, revives hopes.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday chose Machado “for her tireless work in promoting the democratic rights of the people of Venezuela and for his struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Machado has tried everything in his fight against the government first of Hugo Chávez and now of Maduro.
She has participated in elections and called for abstention, has sat at negotiating tables that have failed and has made calls to take to the streets.
What the BBC fails to mention is that Machado has worked tirelessly on behalf of US interests in Venezuela since the failed US-sponsored coup of 2002. That attempted coup came just two years after Chávez passed energy reforms that sought to ensure that more of the revenues generated by the oil sector stayed in Venezuela. Also in 2002, Machado set up her NGO Sumate with funds from the US’ National Endowment for Democracy, a notorious CIA cut-out.
Also not mentioned: Machado has repeatedly asked the US and other Western countries, including Israel and Argentina, to invade her home country of Venezuela. Like Argentina’s Javier Milei, her political rise has been facilitated by organisations belonging to the Koch-financed Atlas Network.
Like Milei, Machado, if given the keys to power, would privatise Venezuela’s oil industry and open the door to US military bases. Indeed, Milei just authorised by decree the entry into the country of members of the US Armed Forces to participate in a joint military exercise without consulting Congress, in direct violation of the Argentine Constitution.
Here is Machado telling Donald Trump Jr in February how she would open up the markets and kick the government out of the oil sector:
Perhaps most controversially, Marchado completely supports the US’s deadly, criminal attacks on unidentified boats belonging to her co-patriots in the Caribbean. The US so far claims to have destroyed four alleged drug trafficking boats, killing 21 people, without presenting a single shred of evidence. Here is the fourth one (allegedly), pulverised on October 3.
A Perfect Pretext
Roughly a week ago, Trump sent Congress a memo explaining that his administration had determined that members of Latin American drug cartels are “unlawful combatants” with which the United States is engaged in “non-international armed conflict” — an interesting choice of term. As we warned over two years ago, Washington is now using the War on Drugs as a pretext for reasserting itself in its direct neighbourhood, much as it used the War on Terror to assert itself in the Middle East.
Since August, the Trump White House has deployed warships, aircraft and over 4,000 troops in the Caribbean region on a purported anti-narcotics mission. Following at least four strikes against boats that have reportedly killed over 20 people, the Trump administration is reportedly considering launching attacks against alleged drug targets inside Venezuelan territory.
The fact that the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize supports not only Israel’s genocide in Gaza but also the US’ indiscriminate murder on the high seas of her own countrymen is yet another reminder of just how worthless that prize is, and arguably always was. In the following clip of her conversation with fellow Zionist, Bari Weiss, Machado explains why she devoted her peace prize to President Trump:
So, how far is Trump willing to climb the escalatory ladder in Venezuela? According to Politico, Trump’s team doesn’t seem to be ruling anything out, including apparently sending in an invasion force (with 7,000 troops?):
[I]s Trump willing to eventually “do anything”? Send an invasion force to Venezuela or launch a missile with Maduro’s name on it, maybe? Trump’s team doesn’t seem to be ruling anything out.
Trump has many plans available to him, including ones calling for airstrikes against drug targets on Venezuelan soil, but he has issued no order to directly take out Maduro, the official said. Still, one person familiar with the discussions suggested that if Maduro is considered a drug lord and a terrorist, he could become a fair target. “Don’t we go after indicted narco traffickers and terrorists all the time?” the person said. I granted both people anonymity to talk about sensitive internal deliberations.
China’s leadership certainly seems to be taking the threats seriously:
From Venezuela Analysis:
Venezuela received strong support from geopolitical allies China and Russia during an emergency United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting focused on US military threats in the Caribbean.
The Friday afternoon session was held at Venezuela’s request, with the Nicolás Maduro government warning of the possibility of a US armed attack against the country “in the very short term.” No resolutions were proposed.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, who currently heads the UNSC, condemned Washington’s “unprecedented pressure and military threats.” The Russian diplomat warned the US against committing an “irreparable mistake” by launching a direct attack against the Caribbean nation.
“If there is an attack against Venezuela, it could affect the entire region,” he said.
Nebenzya went on to criticize recent US strikes against alleged drug-carrying boats, which have killed more than 20 civilians, as flagrant violations of international law and human rights. The Russian official likewise rebuked Washington’s “narcoterrorism” accusations against Caracas as “fit for a Hollywood script.”
Chinese Ambassador to the UN Fu Cong joined the condemnation of the lethal strikes against unarmed vessels in the Caribbean, calling them “unilateral and excessive” actions. The Trump administration has not provided evidence that the vessels carried drugs.
“We reject the threats or the use of force in international relations and repudiate the foreign meddling in Venezuela’s internal affairs,” Cong stated during the session. Beijing’s diplomat urged Washington to heed international calls for peace and stability in the region.
A New Vietnam?
At the regional level, however, Venezuela is arguably more isolated than ever. With a few notable exceptions (e.g. Colombia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia and Honduras), most countries have refused to rally round Venezuela’s cause, including the two regional powerhouses, Mexico and Brazil.
This makes the region even more susceptible to a new wave of US imperialism, warns the Mexican philosopher and political analyst Fernando Buen Abad in an interview with the veteran journalist Julio Astillero (machine translated):
As of yet there have been no forceful pronouncements on the matter from the presidents of the region. Despite the gravity of the threat to all Latin American and Caribbean nations, there doesn’t seem to be any political backbone to try to stop these despicable acts. Already an important number of people have been killed by strikes perpetrated by the US armed forces…
No country has the right to invade another to plunder its resources. If we tolerate it in Venezuela, we will soon have to tolerate it in Mexico and throughout the continent, not only for oil but for gold, silver, copper and for any other valuable natural resource that the US covets, including water.
Buen Abad notes that the gradual normalisation of the US’ strikes against unidentified boats in the Caribbean suggests that the “people who have been slaughtered in this way, without a trial, without even a formal recognition of who they were, without the slightest regard for the basic foundations of international human rights law, deserved their fate.”
But if the US does launch a large-scale attack against Venezuela (which in my view is still a big “IF”*), and are expecting a cakewalk, they are likely to be sorely disappointed, says Buen Abad:
They are going to find themselves facing a people who are organised, who are united, who are already undertaking defensive manoeuvres…who are already being forewarned by these strikes [on the boats]. What is happening in Venezuela is a warning to us all; we need to think carefully at both a political and geostrategic level.
We will be making a grave mistake if we think this is a problem only for Maduro and Venezuela, because this could create a very unpleasant situation for the entire region. Nobody thinks [the Venezuelan people] are naïve and not ready to launch a counter-offensive…
I am cautiously optimistic, like some of my colleagues, like Venezuela’s own commander of the armed forces, Vladimir Padrino, who has repeatedly said: ‘We have the capacity to defend ourselves, we can exhibit that capacity because we are an armed people…” Venezuela has a civilian militia that has clear knowledge of the territory and knows how to operate, block by block, neighbourhood by neighbourhood…
I have heard Captain Diosdello Caballo warn about Venezuela’s defence systems that are already primed, oiled and ready for action. As Caballo said, if the [US and its allies] dare to enter Venezuela some will inevitably get through but none of them will get out again. All of this sets the stage for another Vietnam war, this time in Latin America… The breakout of war in Venezuela could be a horror show for the entire continent.
Buen Abad also notes that Venezuela’s National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB) will be able to count on the support of Cuban forces, which have a long history of resisting US imperialism. How much support it will receive from Russia and China remains to be seen…
Nick Corbishley 