Read our editorial on the US imperialist deployment of troops to Latin American and Caribbean waters here.
Chief of US imperialism Donald Trump announced Tuesday that US forces destroyed a vessel leaving Venezuela, claiming the boat was operated by a drug cartel. The White House stated that the attack killed 11 “drug traffickers.” Media monopolies like the BBC have cited legal experts indicating that such an attack would be illegal, while Venezuelan Minister of Communications Freddy Nanez denounced the video of the attack as an artificial intelligence-generated fabrication.
US imperialist defense officials have failed to offer details on the so-called strike, only sharing a video on social media first released by pro-US media outlets in Colombia. Officials in the US have also failed to make legal justification for such a strike bypassing Congress and being carried out in international waters.
Investigations into the video by Venezuelan authorities indicate that the vessel depicted corresponds to artisanal fishing boats from the town of Araya, in the Venezuelan state of Sucre. Such boats are designed for nearshore fishing and are not suited for the long journey required to run drugs to the United States, lacking the fuel capacity among other logistical improbabilities.
The Venezuelan government states that the farce is part of a US imperialist plan to intensify the economic blockade, maximize confusion with disinformation, and create pretexts for military interventions.
US imperialism has a long rap sheet of fabrications and lies to justify and increase military intervention since at least the second imperialist world war and could now be using artificial intelligence to cultivate public opinion in support of another doomed war venture.
Troop movements also indicate what the US imperialists are planning, with dozens of Navy destroyers, aircraft, and more than 12,000 US troops mobilized at bases in Colombia, Aruba, and Curacao.
Following Trump’s previous patterns of striking a pose claiming big victories which are humiliating defeats—like the bombings of Iranian nuclear sites which failed in all their aims—Trump now puffs his chest up at the defiant Latin American oppressed nation, part psychological warfare and part media stunt. The reality for US imperialism is that the perspective of regime change in the oppressed nation is extremely unrealistic, a clear fantasy. The US imperialists are spread very thin, embroiled in Eastern Europe dumping money and experts into Ukraine and neck deep in the bloody genocide in the Middle East. Land invasion in Latin America would necessitate opening a third front.
Trump’s hot air and strong man posture is theatrics, as they have been domestically as well to scare away opposition and force bad deals with blackmail and threats. The administration dreams of being able to use direct force; it presents itself as a real monster when it is really a desperate little creep.
US imperialism stumbles from failure to failure. It makes trouble all around the world until its ultimate and inevitable doom. Since the second imperialist world war, the period in which the United States twice secured its role as the sole-hegemonic imperialist super-power, it has been met with non-stop resistance and lost every skirmish and war against the oppressed nations. Notable examples include Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The financial cost of these wars is also staggering, considering that the US cost for the second imperialist world war adjusted to today’s money would be $4 trillion and the wars in the Middle East since 2001 have more than doubled this number, according to a Brown University study.
Image: A still from the video of the alleged strike shared by Trump on his social media.
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