It’s tiring to wake up day after day, wondering whose blood we as americans will have on our hands next. The u.s is, in fact, not the only imperialist settler colonial state, and yet it is unique in its sheer scope of violence and destruction worldwide. Today, I woke up to the news of the kidnapping another country’s president. I cried. Not for Maduro. All presidents and leaders are illegitimate in my eyes, as are their states. [I cried] for the people murdered in the u.s.’s imperialist conquest, for the u.s.’s imperialist oil and power interests, for the u.s. to not look like a paper tiger and [to] gain credibility. The credibility in that this country’s fascist regime is ready and willing to use vast force to exert control over countries and regions. Almost like the expand or die ethos of Nazi Germany, as its economy collapsed under itself.
Trump’s rebranded Monroe Doctrine and revamped Operation Condor sets its imperialist designs on further exploiting the land, lives, and resources of Latin American people. I want to be clear, it’s not the nations, but the people that suffer. The Venezuelan government nationalized its oil industry decades ago. Venezuela had the radical idea that its country’s resources and labor should benefit its people, not the u.s. And like so many before them, that radical idea flew in the face of u.s. settler colonial, white supremacist ideology, that is, all for one and none for y’all, the one being the u.s.
To believe that a country should take care of its people is radical. To believe that countries the u.s. sees as existing its “backyard” should [take care of its people] is criminal, as we see with Maduro. Of course, you can be pardoned, should you acquiesce and bend the knee, as the recently freed ex South American leader [Juan Orlando Hernández] tried and convicted drug trafficking just was. It’s almost like Europe’s fear of Putin’s inevitable desire to not just take Ukraine, but conquer Europe, is more of a reality for the u.s. in this hemisphere. I mean, I’m no Russia praising tankie, but up to the Ukraine invasion, Russia didn’t invade its “backyard.”
Conversely, the u.s. has illegally, based on the articles of the U.N. charter, invaded Panama, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and attempted to with Cuba. Of course, they failed at the last, making them look effectively like a “paper tiger.” So they continue to carry out an illegal embargo against Cuba since. And who suffers from that? The people. The mass migration caused by the global imperialists, through climate disasters and economic ones, are the crux of Trump’s regime. Shit created by settler colonial violence. The strangling of [oil], Venezuela’s most prominent revenue source, is what caused economic strife, illegal sanctions and the like. The idea was, and is always, to make the people suffer, in hopes they’ll depose their leader, and a more pliable one can take their place. This leads inevitably to tough repression of the people, mostly out of looking to root out u.s. foreign agents attempting to ignite coup d’états.
It’s not justifiable, in anyway, the violence from any regime, least of all the u.s. So when prefacing this kidnapping, the fascists shouldn’t start with, “Maduro was such a horrible guy,” but rather, “the u.s. is a horrible rogue state acting with impunity. Again. As it has always been.” Like the iof kidnapping, murdering, raping, and occupying a land and people, [the iof] who then point to the colonized, oppressed freedom fighters, who launched a rocket back or lobbed a stone, and [the iof says], “See, that’s why we have to occupy them.” The same goes with the u.s. and its so called “backyard.” Venezuela’s stone was nationalizing its oil, electing leftists not pliable. So the same goes for other Latin American leaders that the u.s. has deposed. Believing your resources belong to the people and not the u.s. elicits violence. Of course, money is another offer. But your money or your life, while it is a choice, it’s a shitty one.
The u.s.’s mob boss mentality, the product of the extortion racket they run in Latin America, is what we see with the kidnapping of Maduro. It’s absolutely wild to see a political prisoner as a sitting president being held in the u.s. Makes one think about how the u.s. would act if its president was kidnapped. Someone like Bush Jr. whose imperialist genocidal campaign lead to half a million Iraqis lives lost, just in the violence, but toxins and unexploded ordnance that led to infertility has surely inflated that number higher. His administration is responsible for violating the Geneva Convention and giving false information to justify his illegal wars.
In fact, every president going back to Truman has violated international law a hundred times over, since the Second World War, just by the founding U.N. charter principles, of which is law, because of the u.s. being signatory to these charters, stating that countries cannot use force or threaten the use of force against a sovereign nation, unless in self defense, and must consult the U.N. Security Council to bring a resolution to the conflict. It also states the countries will not meddle in or impede another nation’s sovereignty. In a world where the international, rule based order was followed, these violators would be tried and convicted. Which makes apparent why the u.s. permanently exempted its nationals from ICC jurisdiction and threaten any country with invasion, should they seek to turn over a national to the ICC. It also makes sense why the u.s. is exempt from the genocide convention.
Trump once boasted of sending federal agents to kill a so-called ANTIFA activist, Michael Reinoehl. He assassinated General Qasem Soleimani in Iran. The sanctions he imposed on Venezuela reduced the country’s caloric intake and increased disease and mortality. In two years, his policies directly resulted in 40,000 deaths. Akin to the iof colonizer’s caloric counting of Palestinians. This violates the Geneva and Hague conventions.
Back then, Pompeo admits to economic pressure on Venezuela being used to depose Maduro and that the military option was always on the table. Today, we see that it was used, and Trump, yet again, committed violence against the people for capital and political gain. Wars distract from domestic policy and economic strife. Right now, there’s a national police force ramping up in cities nationwide, military in the streets, erosion of rights by the u.s. See increased poverty, joblessness, houselessness, and a ramp up of institutionalization [that forces said] joblessness and houselessness, rather than meeting the needs of the people because, well, why would the u.s. do that?
So here we are. History may not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. From Panama to Chile, to Vietnam to Korea, to Greenland today. The u.s. settler imperialist colonial sights are set and fixed. They have not and will not stop. Every day, it’s something new to take your breath away. This idea of scaring the shit out of people to incapacitate them seems perfected under Trump. ‘Cause I’m scared to know whose blood I’ll wake up on my hands next, as an american. Who of my people are threatened with violence next.
Lots of people thought Trump didn’t mean them when he talked about deportation. Surely, lots of protesters thought they’d be free to criticize the u.s. and settler occupiers of Palestine. Much like Nazi Germany, people thinking they didn’t mean them. Though, the world learned, no country is exempt from settler colonial expansion, no people exempt from persecution.
So if the u.s. can kidnap a president with impunity, murder generals, kidnap brown people off the basis of the color of their skin, the blood on your hands next could be yours. You could be next. From your immigrant neighbor, to the person who looks like them and matches the description, to the suburban white mother of three, anyone is subject to the brutalization of the fascist regime. Your whiteness can’t even save you now.