Monopoly Media Beats War Drums for Furthering Aggression Against Venezuela

Read our editorial on opposing war with Venezuela here, and the role of monopoly media here.

Without fail, monopoly media aligned with US imperialism has taken the most predatory approach to prepare the grounds for another unjust war, this time with its sights set on resource-rich Venezuela. Monopoly media serves the role of drumming up public support to back its ruling class while profiting off the half-truths it spreads. This is the case with the media aligned with either of the two party mafias, whether it is the more openly reactionary and dubious outlets associated with the Republican mafia, or the more treacherous ones aligned with the Democratic mafia, which dresses its parasitical class interests in “humanitarian” language.

While portraying themselves as conflicting viewpoints, this superficial contradiction between Republican vs Democrat-aligned media serves to pull in a wider audience behind the same class they both represent.

Because a significant number of people in the US oppose war with Venezuela, and the government is intensifying its war on Venezuela, monopoly media is increasingly vicious and one-sided in its treatment of the country in the hopes of shifting public opinion behind the war.

Across outlets, we see a similar and familiar framing: the talk of “tension” between the two countries, as if there is a mutual escalation taking place and the US is not the sole aggressor; using every opportunity to describe Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s as an “autocrat”, “strongman”, “dictator” to revamp the old tales of bringing “democracy” through genocide; and combining this with the constant accusation of drug trafficking, for which no evidence has yet to be provided.

After the US hijacked a Venezuelan oil tanker off the country’s coast, US monopoly media leapt to justify this blatant act of piracy. AP News published an article titled “US seizure of rogue oil tanker off Venezuela signals new crackdown on shadow fleet”, where it portrayed US piracy as a heroic act with “U.S. commandos fast-roping from helicopters” to seize the ship that had “tens of millions of dollars’ worth of illicit crude oil.”

AP News uncritically cites the assessment of US officials that the ship is “part of a shadowy fleet of rusting oil tankers that smuggle oil for countries facing stiff sanctions,” and previously had an “alleged role in a network of dark vessels smuggling crude on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.” The data they cite comes from Windward, “a maritime intelligence firm that tracks such vessels” privately held in the US and founded and run by a team of veterans of the genocidal Israeli Defense Forces.

Such commentary serves only to justify US piracy as part of the war against Venezuela, framing US sanctions as the law of the world that should be met with military force should it be violated. Meanwhile, the US government provides Chevron with an exemption to such sanctions, which produces one-fifth of the semi-colony’s oil.

While not a US media monopoly, BBC provides more astonishing commentary in justification for US aggression. In an article titled, “Venezuela says Trump wants its oil. But is that the case?”, the British media monopoly cites Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s condemnation of US aggression as an attempt to seize the country’s oil, treating this with skepticism backed by quotes from US foreign policy think tanks.

The article begins by arguing that, while Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, “the amount of oil the country actually produces today is tiny by comparison,” to imply the US is not after its oil. However, the article also cites a US congresswoman saying in an interview with Fox Business, “Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day,” and that “American companies can go in and fix all the oil pipes, the whole oil rigs and everything that has to do with… oil and the derivatives.”

Despite this blatant admission, BBC chooses to look away: “But when it comes to Venezuela, the White House has said it is concerned about drug trafficking and what it sees as Maduro’s illegitimacy”—a “legitimacy” measured by subservience to US imperialism.

The only reasoning the article provides for trusting this claim is citing an official at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who tells the BBC that “he takes such pronouncements ‘largely at face value’.”

In their About page, CSIS’s self-described aim is to “advance U.S. foreign policy goals and secure U.S. national interests”.

Similar to the lies spouted during the US’s predatory “War on Terror” that its plunder and genocide would alleviate consumer prices in the US—in fact, there was 30% inflation during this time, while heaping $8 trillion in debt onto workers—the BBC repeats this claim that full US domination of Venezuelan oil would “help bring down prices in the US”. The monopoly qualifies this claim, however, with its colonial logic that “restoring Venezuela’s oil industry to its former glory would be a heavy lift.”

What is clear here is the heavy lifting being done by monopoly media to sell another predatory war to US workers, shoveling lies into the face of the public while hounding for profits.

Photo: U.S. Navy Photo

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