Photo by Nathaniel St. Clair

The United States is descending into a state of general lawlessness, both at home and abroad. From deploying domestic paramilitary units like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to snatch people off American streets and send them abroad, the government has now sent secret military special operations forces, including Delta Force, to abduct foreign heads of state from their homes and imprison them on US soil. Political human trafficking has become the law of the land under the Trump administration.

Before 2025, the two major parties engaged in a crescendo of lawfare against each other, employing the FBI, courts, and even the CIA behind the scenes to destroy opponents. Both routinely abused the rule of law, pardoning family members, wealthy friends, and business associates to protect themselves and personal connections. This rendered a travesty of the fiction that no one in America is above the law. Senior politicians enriched themselves, often becoming multi-millionaires after leaving office through special deals arranged while in power.

The recent invasion of Venezuela represents a gross violation of international law—a hypocritical disregard for sovereign boundaries that neoconservative ideologues and the echo chamber of captured US media have relentlessly levelled at Russia in Ukraine over the past four years.

Trump himself has publicly admitted that the operation was intended to secure American control over Venezuela’s natural resources, particularly its oil reserves. In other words: naked, old-fashioned imperialism aimed at plundering another nation’s wealth.

The pretext was the usual nonsense—charges of narco drug trafficking. This is the neocons’ substitute for “weapons of mass destruction,” previously used in Iraq, Syria, and Libya to justify military intervention. This accusation would not have worked against Venezuela, nor would older pretexts like Remember the Maine, the Tonkin Gulf incident, or “killing incubator babies.” The hawks needed a fresh false excuse, and from their magic bag of false flags and fake rationales, they pulled out “narco drug trafficking.” It fits Latin American interventions better, as Panama’s former President Manuel Noriega discovered in 1989.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who defended Venezuela’s sovereignty and criticized Trump’s aggression, should take note. And Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, beware: you could be next. Ditto Cuba.

Does Greenland have a president Trump can threaten? Perhaps........

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