The Brutality of the US Empire Is on Display in Venezuela

I can’t help but feel very sorry for the Venezuelan people.

Imagine living under a brutal and corrupt illegitimately-elected dictatorship, a national-security state form of government, and a full socialist economic system.

Oh, but unfortunately, that’s not all. Imagine also having to live in a country in which the most powerful military empire in world history is also waging war against the citizenry.

That’s what life is like for average Venezuelans. On one side of the vise is their brutal political regime and socialist system, and on the other side of the vise is the U.S. Empire. Both sides of the vise continue to tighten. The people who are being squeezed to death are the Venezuelan people.

As American citizens, we can sympathize with the Venezuelan citizenry in their quest to oust their president, Nicolás Maduro, from power. We can support them in our hearts, with money, and even with armaments. We can wish them well.

But what we cannot do, legitimately, is have the U.S. government go abroad in search of the Venezuelan monster to destroy. The freedom and the well-being of the Venezuelan people are not the responsibility of the U.S. government. The freedom and the well-being of the Venezuelan people are the responsibility of the Venezuelan people themselves.

Unfortunately, some Venezuelan dissidents and their American supporters do not understand this or do not agree with it. Finding it difficult to oust Maduro from power, they now want the U.S. government — specifically President Trump — to be the daddy of the Venezuelan people. They want him and the all-powerful, omnipotent U.S. national-security establishment to initiate one of the U.S. government’s patented military regime-change operations, one that inevitably will mean death to a certain number of Venezuelans, after which the new Venezuelan ruler will inevitably and necessarily be considered a new right-wing loyal puppet of the U.S. Empire, much like Gen. Pinochet was in Chile, rather than an independent leader of a sovereign country.

Martin Luther King correctly pointed out that the U.S. government is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. We are today, once again, witnessing the fact that King’s observation applies just as much today as it did back in 1967.

Six months ago, there was nothing happening in the Caribbean near Venezuela. Today, there is a massive U.S. military armada in that part of the world. Not only is the U.S. Empire engaged in extra-judicial killings of people who, U.S. officials say, are suspected of transporting drugs, the Empire, operating through President Trump, has now effectively closed the air space above Venezuela, has seized an oil-carrying ship on the high seas near Venezuela for supposedly violating U.S. “sanctions” (which apparently apply to everyone in the world), and is threatening a full-scale military attack on Venezuela — a country, we need to remind ourselves, that has never attacked the United States or even threatened to attack the United States.

Of course, the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which wreaked untold death and destruction, come to mind. So do the U.S. interventions in Korea and Vietnam. So does Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So do Germany’s and the Soviet Union’s invasions of Poland.

That’s what the U.S. Empire does. It creates crises. It produces chaos. It brings death, suffering, maiming, and destruction. It engages in assassinations, extra-judicial killings, single-tap and double-tap killings, sanctions, embargoes, torture, invasions, occupations, wars of aggression, and unconstitutional undeclared wars. As Martin Luther King correctly pointed out, it is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.

Let’s review some of the justifications that the Empire has cited for its Caribbean killing spree and latest regime-change operation: The U.S. drug war, which apparently extends to every country on the globe, the war on terrorism, which originated when the Empire took advantage of the 9/11 attacks to expand its powers, and the war on “narco-terrorism,” which seems to be a newly constructed concept.

What’s fascinating is that the Empire hasn’t cited “self-defense” as a rationale. After all, don’t forget those thousands of Venezuelan refugees who were, we were repeatedly told, “invading” America. Moreover, as we learned from the bogus attack on U.S. vessels at the Gulf of Tonkin in North Vietnam, U.S. officials love to pull the “we’re innocent and we’ve been attacked” card.

There is something else we need to remember: Even without a military attack and invasion, the greatest purveyor of violence in the world has already been waging a brutal and deadly war against the Venezuelan people. Remember: It’s not just Maduro’s socialism that has been killing them. The other side of the vise is the U.S. economic sanctions.

That’s what caused some 8 million Venezuelans to flee their country. They were trying to save their lives and the lives of their spouses and children from death by starvation. Some of them fled to Argentina and Chile, where right-wing regimes are now shamefully engaged in a brutal deportation campaign, knowing full well that death awaits these poor people back in Venezuela. It’s the same here in the United States. Declaring that the refugees were “invaders” and tattooed gang members, U.S. officials have engaged in a brutal campaign of deportation, knowing that death awaits these poor people in Venezuela from the vise of socialism and U.S. economic sanctions.

On top of that is the CIA, America’s Gestapo-like police force that has been secretly and illegally sent into Venezuela — no doubt engaged in state-sponsored assassinations and inciting more economic devastation with the aim of harming and killing Venezuelan citizens, just as it did in Chile prior to its regime-change operation there in 1973.

And then there is President Trump’s plans to continue seizing ships carrying oil from Venezuela to countries like Cuba and China, which the Empire has long labeled official enemies of the United States. Knowing that oil revenue is the only thing that is keeping Venezuelans alive in their centrally planned socialist economy, the oil seizures, if they continue, will only mean more death by starvation, impoverishment, and suffering among the Venezuelan people. But it’s all considered “worth it,” the phrase that U.S. Ambassador the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, used when asked if the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from U.S. sanctions were “worth it.”

Maduro’s illegitimate regime and socialist system are horrible. Unfortunately, however, the U.S. Empire — as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, and which itself has quite a few socialist programs here at home, is worse — and much more hypocritical. Too bad Maduro’s opponents can’t see that and instead see the Empire, especially the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, as their daddy, their savior, or, even worse, their god.

Originally published by the Future of Freedom Foundation.