Why is the United States threatening a military invasion of Venezuela? Do you think we’re the “good guys?” The U.S. has often used military, political and economic power to support other nations’ ruling elites while suppressing grassroots movements for democracy and justice. The U.S. consistently has funded death squads, military coups and brutal dictatorships
Since the beginning of our republic, but especially since World War II, the U.S. has been bullying other nations, interfering with elections and overthrowing democracies. The CIA-led coup in Guatemala in 1954 led to decades of a genocidal, fascist dictatorship and thousands tortured and killed, all with active, constant U.S. support.
In 1973, President Richard Nixon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the CIA destabilized the economy of Chile. They supported a military coup because Chile’s people had elected a “socialist.” Kissinger said, “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”
The U.S. is currently using the same playbook against the people of Venezuela. Sanctions against Venezuela since the election of socialist Hugo Chavez are costing the Venezuelan economy $23 billion a year. In April 2002, the U.S.-supported opposition carried out a coup, barely three years into the Chavez government. But overwhelming support of the people for Chavez restored him to the presidency after just 47 hours. The current U.S.-supported coup attempt is another in a long line of U.S. military use and military threats demanding access and control of natural resources in Latin and South America.
The U.S. secretary of state recently made this clear by his statement of U.S. predatory aims across the planet. Mike Pompeo said that countries targeted by the U.S. were “using their energy for malign ends, and not to promote prosperity in the way we do here in the West. They don’t have the values of freedom and liberty, or the rule of law that we do, and they’re using their energy to destroy ours.”
Of course, the prosperity he was talking of was the prosperity of Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and other U.S.-based energy conglomerates and that of their CEOs and major Wall Street investors.
President Donald Trump has called on Venezuelan soldiers to illegally disobey orders and to join coup perpetrators headed by U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó. While Trump speaks of supporting democracy in Venezuela and Latin America, the real purpose of the U.S. assault on the Venezuelan government is to fully open the vast Venezuelan oil reserves as well as to destroy progressive governments in Latin America that put their own peoples’ needs above the profits of foreign corporations.
All members of the U.S. military should refuse illegal orders to intervene in Venezuela. It is illegal under both U.S. and international law to launch a military attack against another nation unless it is clearly in self defense and is approved by the United Nations. Illegal, immoral and irresponsible U.S. actions, including “sanctions” (economic war), have already taken a great toll on the people Venezuela. The American people need to say a loud clear “no” to this crime.
Larry Kerschner
Centralia
