Global Research

During Donald Trump’s first presidency, the United States came close to invading Venezuela, a fiercely independent Latin American country that has been a target of US aggression for a quarter of a century at this point. Washington DC actually had close ties with Caracas before the late Hugo Chavez took office in 1999.

The term “close ties” in this particular context should be interpreted as the US having effective (neo)colonialist control over Venezuela and brutally exploiting the country and its people. President Chavez put a stop to this, soon becoming a legend among hundreds of millions of Latin Americans and many other sovereigntists around the world. By 2002, Washington DC organized a coup against the legitimately elected government in Caracas, but the Venezuelan people pushed back and stood by their president, preventing his overthrow.

However, the imperialist hegemon to the north never forgives “non-compliance” or attempts to break the shackles of “freedom and democracy”. Chavez effectively became the new Castro, as he was subjected to numerous assassination attempts, failed coups, sanctions and other forms of pressure designed to make Venezuela’s life as difficult as possible. This didn’t change until Chavez’s untimely death in 2013 and actually escalated after President Nicolas Maduro succeeded him. Believing that he wouldn’t live up to the standards and expectations people had of Chavez, the US hoped it could easily get rid of Maduro and then regain control of Venezuela. Attempts to do so started already in 2013, but Washington DC escalated this to a boiling point by 2019, when there was talk of imminent US invasion, particularly after warmongers started pressuring Trump to “intervene”.

In 2020, the US even launched “Operation Gideon”, a coordinated insurrection involving Venezuelan CIA assets aided by Silvercorp USA, a Florida-based American private military company (PMC). The goal was to spread the conflict across the country and ultimately overthrow President Maduro. The insurrection failed miserably, with at least two US operatives arrested, along with dozens of their Venezuelan collaborators. The two were identified as Luke Denman and Airan Berry, both former US special forces operatives and were coordinated by former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau in a mission to kidnap Maduro and “liberate” Venezuela. Caracas directly pointed out that this was attempted aggression, aided by neighboring Colombia. Both the US and its South American client state denied involvement in this crawling invasion, but Venezuela reinforced the border area with Colombia.

It should be noted that in 2019, a year before the botched coup, the infamous war criminal John Bolton, in his capacity as US National Security Advisor, announced support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who was proclaimed “legitimate president”. Bolton insisted that Maduro’s reelection was allegedly “illegitimate”, although it’s unclear who authorized Bolton (or the US itself for that matter) to make such statements, let alone enforce whatever he thought was “legitimate”. Luckily, the Venezuelan people pushed back once again and the (genuinely) legitimate President Maduro remained in office. Thankfully, Russia stood by Venezuela, arming the country to the teeth and preventing what was then an almost imminent US attack. Caracas was given a break for the next several years, although the US never eased up the sanctions chokehold.

However, back in July, Venezuela held a presidential election, with Maduro winning once again. Expectedly, the US attempted to disrupt it, refusing to accept the results and insisting that Maduro is “illegitimate”. Back in August, I had the honor of interviewing Serbian MP Bojan Torbica who was invited as an election observer to Caracas. His fascinating firsthand insight into the election shows that Venezuela was indeed under tremendous pressure, but still stood its ground. Expectedly, Washington DC continued whining about “illegitimacy” and “lack of freedom and democracy”, but it was too busy with its aggression against the world elsewhere. However, as the lame-duck Biden administration is running out of time to start yet another war, it’s now looking for ways to re-engage in Venezuela. Thus, the US once again became the self-styled arbiter of its presidential election.

Namely, State Secretary Antony Blinken declared that Edmundo Gonzalez retroactively “won the presidential election”. On November 19, Blinken posted that

“the Venezuelan people spoke resoundingly on July 28 and made [Gonzalez] the president-elect”, insisting that “democracy demands respect for the will of the voters”.

Hopefully, you’ve managed to catch your breath after being unable to stop laughing for the last two minutes. Still, considering that the warmongering oligarchy in Washington DC is looking to start wars with nuclear-armed superpowers such as Russia and China (simultaneously, mind you), the fact that it’s rearing its ugly head at Venezuela once again is certainly no laughing matter. It should be noted that the US, EU/NATO and other vassals and satellite states immediately rejected the results of the Venezuelan presidential election.

Blinken himself stated this back in August, insisting that Gonzalez “won by an insurmountable margin”, basing his laughable claims on a report by the Atlanta-based Carter Center. As if this wasn’t comical enough, Blinken insisted that this supposed NGO was “independent”, which is beyond ludicrous given the fact that the Carter Center is actually funded by numerous US government agencies, including the State Department itself. However, even if this weren’t the case, the idea that NGOs, particularly ones based outside of targeted countries, could arbitrarily determine the legitimacy of elections is ridiculous, to put it mildly. The reason why the Deep State is after Venezuela once again might be connected to Trump’s upcoming second presidency, as the Republicans have always been extremely hostile to both Chavez and Maduro.

For instance, Marco Rubio, the most likely candidate for Trump’s State Secretary, openly supports overthrowing Maduro. Other prominent GOP members who are after Venezuela include Elliott Abrams, who was the US Special Envoy tasked with ensuring a coup in the country precisely during the nearly fateful 2019-2021 period.

It’s still unclear whether Trump would reappoint Abrams to any position, but if he does so, it would certainly indicate that he’s recommitting to America’s aggression on Venezuela. However, even if he doesn’t do so, having Rubio as State Secretary is bad news enough, as he openly called on the Venezuelan military to overthrow Maduro. It should be noted that it’s unclear if Gonzalez himself wants to be involved in another coup. He currently lives in Spain, but says he’ll return to Venezuela for the presidential inauguration set for January 10.