Maduro, like Hugo Chavez before him, has always been objectionable to sections of the US ruling class and their foreign policy establishment. Venezuelan socialism was always overstated, but that's beside the point. The US has been denied tribute since US oil firms were effectively turfed out in 2007 - unless they submitted to giving Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned national oil company, a controlling share of their operation. Exactly what Trump is insisting TikTok does as the price of doing business in "his" market. The "official" reason for Maduro and Flores's arrests and the bombing of Caracas - drug trafficking - is but a pretext, regardless of the evidence of Maduro presiding over a narco state. As this piece from November by a liberal think tank argues, regime change under American sponsorship is unlikely to stop the flow of drugs. Those of us with memories will recall that when Latin America was awash with right wing, Washington-backed caudillos they weren't much of a bulwark against the rush of cocaine to the north. Where would Trump's parties in the 1980s and 90s have been without it?
None of this needs second-guessing or hard thinking about shady motives. In Trump's press conference on Saturday morning, he said that "we", as in the US, will be selling Venezuelan oil. That "we" are going to make a lot of money, and that the US running the country won't cost anything because the cash to pay for any occupation, restructuring, and US oil interests "going in" will be met from the wealth pumped from the ground. He expects some kind of reparations as well for the "damage" Venezuela has caused the United States, and for good measure, he issued casual threats in the dircction of Cuba and Colombia.
What sundry liberals and centrists either side of the Atlantic are seeing is the US as it routinely behaved toward developing states throughout the post-war period. Trump forgoes the lip service and usual hypocrisies that attend military incursions because he's blunt about US interests, and because he knows no one is going to challenge him. The European states, which fancy themselves America's peers, have either prevaricated and avoided making a comment or fallen into line. Trump knows that when he says jump, the Europeans will do themselves a mischief trying to out-leap one another. And this is part of a pattern. The brute deployment of US firepower reflects the openness with which Trump enriches himself and the oligarchs around him. A government by and for billionaires, they don't try dressing up as anything else. And this is paralleled here too. Our own government cares little for democracy or ideas. If it collectively cares about anything, it's the future advancement of its senior members after politics. The Tories and Reform offer nothing else either, apart from more racism - which even here Labour has tried outflanking them on.
Trump's international piracy is, obviously, something he and his lackeys were agreed on. But it typifies a wider trend across the West: the assertion of authoritarianism and, with that, the open and unquestioned dictatorship of capital.
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6 comments:
A few years ago, as I recall, the US tried installing a regime in Bolivia. It lasted about a year.
I wonder how Trump and his mob are intending to deal with all the Venezuelans in Venezuela, many of whom I guess might object to the US claiming their oil. A showy, short-term charm offensive, throwing bribes about like confetti? Perhaps they expect all of Maduro's former buddies and goons to be easily bought.
I imagine that Miguel Diaz Canel, Gustavo Petro and Jens-Frederick Nielsen are all checking on their security arrangement in the wake of the kidnapping, or what the BBC calls the 'capture' in his own bed, in his own country, of Maduro. They all have something Trump wants and no doubt he can come up with something to use to justify deposing them and 'running their country'. And two of the abductions would be popular with their diasporas in Florida. Can't see a 'coalition of the willing' rushing to chase the Yankee out of Greenland.
Poor old Starmer, what a life he has given himself, trying to say nothing while appearing statesman like. All to keep Trump sweet.
And the UK and France seem to be getting in on the act in bombing rubble in Syria and claiming it was an ISIS supply base. Healey will be beside himself with pleasure - a man of action, a warrior, fearless ready to bomb more rubble at £10 million a flight.
Greenland, Colombia, Cuba. And Panama, no doubt.
The whole issue of framing by the BBC would be laughable if it were not evidence of the whole dishonesty of the enterprise.
Maduro and his wife were not captured, they were kidnapped.
The people interviewed by the BBC were at one with this: an awful ultra right wing woman based in the state, and a right wing Evangelical nutjob based in Italy.
This whole situation will not end well, because as history amply demonstres that the Yanques are great on the Shock and Awe, but total losers in the follow up.
I'm unconvinced by those going in heavy on the "it's all about the oil" explanation, that seems more like a decades old stock explanation rolled out by the generic, all-purpose, foreign policy 'experts' who seem to make a living providing left-wing criticism of international affairs. The analysts I've seen with any genuine level of expertise are more sceptical. Yes Venezuela has oil, and yes it was a basis of personal corruption under both Chavez and Maduro, and yes it was used for realpolitik reasons by the regime. However, they also ran the industry into the ground, which means it's not easy pickings for US oil companies. It will take billions to get it back up and running and even then it won't dramatically shift oil output in a way that meaningfully shapes US energy or security policy or even shifts global markets. Not saying oil is totally unimportant, just that it's probably not as important as stock explanations suggest. Also, that part that is about oil may be less about US companies benefiting and more about the previous beneficiaries of the related corruption no longer benefiting (none of which is relevant to ordinary Venezuelans).
But this is why much criticism seems to focus on the bad thing the bad orange man did, and not so much on the much worse things others were doing. After all, flouting international law is only tolerable when those doing it don't know how to be any better.
Ah. Our resident, very persistent right-wing apologist has arrived, with the usual overreaching apologetics. And a dash of flimsy whataboutery as a garnish.
But Kamo's stopped clock remains stopped, and has hit one correct point. Of course it's not JUST about the oil! It's far more about political distraction at home, jingoism, and setting a precedent for the USA violating foreign sovereign territories purely on the basis of orders from the White House. Any military operation like this carries a handy excuse for bypassing all other parts of government.
Now that they've physically got Maduro, they can cook up some way to make certain that he never goes back, and make a big show out of that. I remain skeptical that these creatures - that is, the brains of Trump's admin, such as they are - are sufficiently dumb and divorced from reality to have any real intention of "running" Venezuela or stealing its oil wholesale in the short term. What will they do instead...? Stir up the power vacuum, perhaps: set the country on fire, at arm's length, knowing that their own political base can easily have their attention turned away from it just as long as none of the most obvious consequences come home to them.
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