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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">US Media Promotes Military Intervention In Venezuela - PopularResistance.Org</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Francisco Dominguez and Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance.</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">January 26, 2025<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_m6f8lj9g0" alt="hands-off-vz-e1737945616617.jpg" width="394" height="225"><br><p>Above photo: Liberation News.</p>
<p>The<span> </span><em>New York Times,<span> </span></em>the so-called
US “newspaper of record,” carried an opinion piece by one of its
columnists promoting “military intervention” to promote “democracy” by
overturning the democratically elected government of Venezuela.</p>
<p>The central tenet of the<span> </span><em>NYT<span> </span></em>piece
is that the moral basis for deposing the current president is clear
because it claims that he stole the election, terrorizes his opponents,
and brutalizes his people with no sign of letting up, much less letting
go. Every other option for political change, it contends, has been
attempted. Not only that, but Venezuela maintains friendly relations
with “our enemies” such as China, Russia, and Iran.</p>
<p>We deconstruct this appeal for illegal regime change. For us
solidarity activists, Venezuela is an independent country, totally
entitled to find its own way of development to benefit its people. The
US may be the hemispheric hegemon, but it does not have the legal and
even less the moral right to determine who should rule another country.</p>
<p>The article admits that under the leadership of presidents Hugo
Chávez and then Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelans for 25 years have been
successful in defending their sovereignty and self-determination against
violent regime-change efforts by the US and its allies. Punishing
sanctions initially devastated the economy. But in a<span> </span><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/maduro-a-decade-continuing-chavez-socialist-anti-imperialist-struggle/">remarkable turnaround</a>, Venezuela is experiencing among the highest<span> </span><a href="https://orinocotribune.com/president-maduro-venezuelas-economy-grows-over-9-in-2024-inflation/">GDP increases</a><span> </span>in the hemisphere.</p>
<p>All this is anathema to the US empire and is epigones. This “threat
of a good example” emboldens other nations to be independent and serves
as an inspiration to the over a quarter of humanity currently suffering
under US unilateral coercive economic measures.</p>
<h3>Overthrowing democracy to save it</h3>
<p>The<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/14/opinion/maduro-venezuela-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pU4.5Wai.D6aD3BslyOi6&smid=url-share">article</a><span> </span>is
blatantly entitled “Depose Maduro.” It came out on January 14, four
days after Maduro was inaugurated for a third term. Basically it argues
that, because the Venezuelans elected the wrong person, democracy has to
be promoted by foreign military intervention. Such an action, it
argues, “is overdue, morally right, and in our national security
interest.”</p>
<p>Author<span> </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/news/author/bret-stephens"><span>Bret Stephens</span></a><span> had previously been deputy editor of the <em>Wall Street Journal </em>and<em> </em>later editor-in-chief of the <em>Jerusalem Post. </em>His
neoconservative views on foreign policy are integral to the US media
and political establishment. His call to oust President Maduro by force
came a few days after former extreme right-wing president of Colombia,
Álvaro Uribe, also </span><a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/el-expresidente-uribe-de-colombia-pide-una-intervenci%C3%B3n-militar-internacional-en-venezuela/88715452"><span>called</span></a><span> for an international military intervention, “preferably sponsored by the UN.”</span></p>
<p>The article laments that “coercive diplomacy” – a not so euphemistic
euphemism for the hybrid war against the Venezuelan people which has had
the collateral damage of over 100,000 mortalities – has “failed to
bring the regime down.” US imperialism achieved this level of lethality
with only four years of sanctions, whereas Pinochet took 17 years to
murder 5,000.</p>
<h3>Contested presidential election</h3>
<p>The article claims that Maduro was fraudulently elected on July 28,
2024. It cites non-existent so-called “independent surveys,” which claim
he lost by 35%.</p>
<p>The US has anointed Edmundo González Urrutia as Venezuela’s “rightful
president.” He in turn is the surrogate for María Corina Machado. She
is the US-designated “leader” of the far-right insurrectionary
opposition. Machado had been disqualified from running directly for
public office in 2015 for past constitutionally mandated offenses.</p>
<p>González’s electoral victory claims are not backed up by data in his
campaign’s possession. Rather, Machado, who was in charge the election
campaign, rejected the results on the evening of election day itself but
failed to submit evidence to the election authority about her claim.</p>
<p>González refused to hand over these data to the investigation carried
out by Venezuela’s supreme court. Regardless, Machado built a website
which posted<span> </span><a href="https://misionverdad.com/venezuela/dato-contra-dato-analisis-numerico-de-las-elecciones-presidenciales-del-28j">highly dubious election data</a><span> </span>falsely claiming that her surrogate won with 70 percent of the vote.</p>
<h3>All the falsehoods fit to print</h3>
<p>The appeal for regime change is bolstered by other falsehoods. Ten US mercenaries, the<span> </span><em>NYT<span> </span></em>article
complains, are “languishing in Venezuelan jails on dubious charges” as
“political hostages” In the real world, mercenaries in the pay of a
hostile foreign power and caught intending to carry out terrorist
actions would be immediately arrested and punished anywhere.</p>
<p>Another falsehood in the article asserts there are 1,800 “political”
prisoners held in Venezuela. Most, however, have already been released
after being initially detained for participating in the July 29 violent
riots. These resulted in the death of 27 people and were fomented by
Machado after González lost the election.</p>
<p>The article is correct that millions of Venezuelans have left the
country. But it conveniently omits that worsening conditions were
deliberately created by the US with over 900 illegal unilateral coercive
measures. Such a charge is<span> </span><a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20post%2D9%2F11,the%20Philippines%2C%20Libya%20and%20Syria)">equivalent</a><span> </span>to
blaming the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia,
Libya and Syria for the approximately 5 million deaths caused by US
military aggression.</p>
<p>The article is also correct that there was malnutrition among
substantial sections of the Venezuelan population, especially the
poorest. But typical of the corporate press, the article omits to
mention that this was inflicted deliberately.<span> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate">Asphyxiating sanctions</a><span> </span>were
imposed by the US precisely to cause pain in a policy which the Trump
administration labelled “maximum pressure.” These were continued by
Biden.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the article resorts to the fakest of fake assertions:
Venezuela is a “global hub for cocaine trafficking and money
laundering.” In fact, the US consumes almost all of the cocaine, which
is produced mainly in Colombia. And the<span> </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs">money laundering</a><span> </span>takes place primarily in the US.</p>
<p>In fact, the 2023 UN Drug and Crime Report<span> </span><a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/world-drug-report-2023.html">shows</a><span> </span>that Brazil, Bolivia, Perú and especially Colombia are the actual hubs of cocaine traffic.</p>
<p>So how is it possible that the US has been able to stop Venezuela
from trading oil and gold, while it has blocked Venezuela’s
transactions, trade, ships, planes and just about everything<span> </span><em>except</em><span> </span>cocaine?</p>
<p>This is even more peculiar because the US has at least 10 military
bases in Colombia, more in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica,
Panama, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Guantánamo, Dominican Republic, Aruba,
Curaçao, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Ecuador, Paraguay, Argentina, and
Chile. Besides the US Fourth Fleet patrols the South Atlantic.</p>
<p>The<span> </span><em>NYT</em><span> </span>falsely maintains that the
Venezuelan government encourages emigration because it is a “good way
of depleting a nation of its most discontented, energetic, and talented
citizens.”</p>
<p>In fact, Venezuela has been severely impacted by this induced “brain drain.”</p>
<p>To mitigate these losses the government has instituted a program called<span> </span><em>Misión Vuelta a la Patria,</em><span> </span>which by July 2024 had<span> </span><a href="https://csa-csi.org/2024/07/03/mas-de-un-millon-de-venezolanos-retornan-al-pais-por-medio-del-programa-mision-de-vuelta-a-la-patria/">brought back</a><span> </span>a million Venezuelans. This has been achieved despite open sabotage by Washington and rightwing governments in Latin America.</p>
<h3>Venezuela’s sovereign right to self-defense</h3>
<p>We maintain that Venezuela has the right to adopt all necessary
measures to defend itself. The quarter-century-long persistent violent
regime change efforts by the US leave no option to countries such as
Venezuela but to prepare for the very threats that the<span> </span><em>NYT<span> </span></em>article
is promoting. Trump and his key security advisors kept threatening with
the mantra “all options are on the table.” And these were seamlessly
continued by the Biden administration.</p>
<p>The<span> </span><em>NYT</em><span> </span>admits that everything the
US has tried have failed to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution Instead
of creating disunity, the armed forces have remained loyal. The US’s
objective is not just ousting the democratically-elected president but
to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution by thoroughly reversing all the
substantial social, economic, political, and cultural gains of the
people. Yet the Bolivarian armed forces, united with the people and
their political institutions, have prevailed.</p>
<p>What is now promoted by the<span> </span><em>NYT<span> </span></em>piece
is akin to the violent US-orchestrated regime change, which brought
nearly 5,000 murders in Chile (1973-1990) and 32,000 in Argentina
(1976-1983). US direct or by-proxy military intervention have brought
about in the recent past 5,000 deaths in Panama, over 50,000 in
Nicaragua, 80,000 in El Salvador, and 120,000 in Guatemala in the
1980-1990 decade alone.</p>
<p>Audaciously, the article posits the 1989 US invasion of Panama as the
military model to depose President Maduro. Without penitence, it pleads
that the destruction of the Bolivarian Revolution “is a good way to
start the new [Trump] administration.” However, given Venezuela’s
military preparedness and popular support for their government, a US
invasion will not be as easy as Panama 36 years ago.</p>
<p>In conclusion, the US does not have any legitimate moral or legal
right to interfere in the internal affairs of Venezuela, let alone carry
out a military invasion. The truth is that US imperialism intensely
craves Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the planet. And more to
the point, the empire cannot tolerate independence and sovereignty in
its backyard.</p>
<p>The only thing Venezuela is guilty of is developing and deploying
“weapons of mass instruction.” They have free education at every level,
more than a million children learning music in<span> </span><em>El Sistema</em>,
5 million social housing units, free health care, and much more,
despite all the nasty US sanctions. Rather, Venezuela’s robust economic
recovery is what US imperialism finds insufferable.</p>
<p>In short, the president of Venezuela is not chosen by the US State Department or its stenographers at<span> </span><em>New York Times.<span> </span></em>Independently
defying the US, the people of Venezuela chose to reelect Nicolás Maduro
Moros as their president for another six-year term.</p>
<p><strong>Francisco Dominguez</strong> is National Secretary of the UK-based <a href="https://www.venezuelasolidarity.co.uk/">Venezuela Solidarity Campaign.</a></p>
<p><strong>Roger D. Harris </strong>is with the <a href="https://taskforceamericas.org/">Task Force on the Americas</a>, the <a href="https://uspeacecouncil.org/">US Peace Council</a>, and the <a href="https://www.venezuelasolidaritynetwork.org/">Venezuela Solidarity Network</a>, based in North America. Both authors accompanied the January 10<sup>th</sup> Venezuelan presidential inauguration and the concurrent World Antifascist Festival.</p>
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