Three Key Lessons from the US's Venezuela Intervention

Three key lessons from the U.S.'s Venezuela intervention by Ryan McMacon.

On Saturday morning, the U.S. military attacked Venezuela.

After bombings of Venezuelan infrastructure, a small U.S. force landed in Caracas and abducted

Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro and his wife. Trump has characterized the attack as a

law enforcement action, although Secretary of State Marco Rubio has not been able to state

what legal authority has authorized the invasion or how the United States government has jurisdiction

to do so. Although the claim of law enforcement may be the official position,

the administration and its supporters have employed a wide variety of justifications

for the bombing and invasion, ranging from democratization to human rights.

This latest military operation by the U.S. regime serves as a reminder that very little has changed

in American foreign policy since 1989, when George H.W. Bush set the stage for today's policy

of endless intervention. The only change, perhaps, is that the Trump's MAGA coalition

after denouncing regime change and national building for years has now embraced the policy whole

heartedly. Regardless of who is supporting it, however, the U.S.'s bombing of Caracas reiterates

three key foundations of American foreign policy. We might say that the Venezuela operation

exposed the true nature of U.S. foreign foreign policy. But none of this is anything new for anyone

who has been paying attention. One, the U.S. Constitution means nothing. As with all military

operations since 1945, the Venezuelan bombing, a clear act of war to anyone who isn't an

apologist for the regime, occurred without any congressional declaration of war. In this case,

as with Obama's Libya war, there was not even so much as a congressional debate.

Trump now says he informed oil companies of the operation before he informed Congress.

Countless conservatives who have long pretended to care about the rule of law or

strict constructionist view of the U.S. Constitution are now splitting hairs about whether or not

the bombing of a foreign country and the kidnapping of its head of state counts as war.

And pretending to be confused as to why anyone would think a mere bombing operation constitutes warfare.

This is the same tactic employed by the left. Pretend to be confused by simple English words

that are clear to honest people, but which are repeatedly redefined to fit a political agenda.

The result of their manufactured confusion is this claim. Because we can never be sure of what the

word war actually means, bombing foreign countries at taxpayers' expense, by the way,

doesn't require even the smallest amount of congressional action, or so we are told.

So much for Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, which put the legislature in place as a

veto on military action. This veto, by the way, was not something invented by Americans, but was a

principle formed out of centuries of resistance and sacrifice to absolutism in Europe.

When the steward kings and other despots sought to foist wars upon the taxpayers without so much as

a vote in parliament, unfortunately, thanks to decades of disregard for the rule of law in modern

times, something now embraced by MAGA, this essential pillar of limiting state power has been

utterly abandoned. Two, international law applies only to other countries, but not Israel.

Just as the negation of the Constitution demonstrates that the rule of law is meaningless in domestic

American politics, we also know that law means nothing at all for American policy in the international

realm. After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. regime spent years lecturing Americans

on the so-called rules-based international order. In spite of the fact that the U.S. regime

had spent years occupying Afghanistan, Iraq, and parts of Syria, the U.S. regime then attempted

to claim that the Russians must respect the sovereignty of other states because of an alleged

rules-based order. This only applies to other countries not named the United States or Israel.

For example, the Russian state claims the right to intervene in its near abroad or sphere of

influence. Many U.S. foreign policy experts deny that any such concept exists, many even mocked the

idea of a sphere of influence. Yet the United States routinely invokes a nearly identical claim

over Latin America, the Monroe doctrine, or little more than a declaration that Latin America is

within the U.S. sphere of influence. The reality is the U.S. policy is nothing more than an exercise

in raw power, and any appeal to international law is used only to justify U.S. intervention.

The U.S. regime, and its parasite state, the state of Israel, simply do what each regime's

ruling oligarchs determine to be in the best interest of the ruling class.

International law or court orders may be used to provide some pretense for policy,

but neither the Constitution, not any principle of sovereignty, means anything in the context of American

politics. Three, democracy doesn't matter. Some defenders of U.S. foreign policy still attempt to

claim that it is U.S. policy to defend democracy. Some defenders of the Venezuela intervention

continue to claim that the U.S. action is justified because Maduro was not duly elected.

Allegedly, the abduction of Maduro means some other politician, one who is favored by the regime,

such as Maria Corina Machado or Edmundo Gonzales, will become president with the acclamation of the

majority. First, it is important to remember that U.S. policy has never prioritized the

democratization of foreign regimes. What matters is that foreign regimes act as puppet states

compliant with U.S. policy. Whether or not these regimes are democratic is immaterial.

For examples of this, we need look no further than the fact that the U.S. is a close ally with

the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a blood-soaked dictatorship where women have effectively no legal

rights and Christianity is illegal. Similarly, the U.S. regime has now allied itself with the ISIS

and al-Qaeda militants who now rule over Syria, where religious minorities are routinely targeted

and churches are bombed. And then there is the current president of Ukraine,

Vladimir Zelensky, whose term expired in 2024, and who now rules as the unelected strongman of

Ukraine with American approval. Historically, the list of dictators supported by the U.S. is very

long indeed. Similarly, it is already clear that free elections are hardly a priority for the U.S.

regime in Venezuela. For example, Donald Trump has already ruled out the idea of a Machado

presidency, even though the U.S. has for years claimed her opposition party has enjoyed immense

support in Venezuela. Similarly, Washington claims that Gonzalez won two-thirds of the vote in the

2024 Venezuela election. Yet Trump has not even hinted at the Gonzalez presidency.

Rather, he has declared that a Machado presidency is out of the question since she lacks the necessary

respect in her country. If there is so much public demand for Machado and her party,

why not let her take power? Perhaps sensing that the popularity of the opposition party in

Venezuela has been long inflated by the U.S. propaganda machine, Trump has stated that the United

States government will run Venezuela indefinitely. In other words, the de facto government of

Venezuela is in Washington, DC where, needless to say, no one has been elected by Venezuelan voters.

Moreover, the U.S.'s de facto puppet regime in Venezuela is now the same socialist party

that Maduro headed. Maduro has simply been replaced by another socialist, Delci Rodriguez,

who was sworn in on Monday. Past experience suggests why the ruling party stays in place.

The U.S. regime's problem with Maduro's regime was never its socialism. The only problem was that

the Maduro regime was anti-Washington. This is no surprise if we consider the many collectivist

despots who have been close U.S. allies throughout history. The American regime loves socialist

dictators so long as they are our socialist dictators. If Rodriguez agrees to take orders from

Washington, she may very well be kept in power in spite of years of Washington. Propaganda telling

us that the current ruling party lost the election. But if new elections do go forward and a

duly elected new president takes over, we can be 100% sure that the new president has received

the approval of Washington. No democratically elected president in Venezuela will be allowed to

take office without the approval of the American regime. In other words, the decision of the people

is subject to the decisions made in Washington. That's how it works when America spreads democracy.

If a majority of Venezuelans elect a president who is deemed unfit by Washington's vice-royes,

that candidate will be declared illegitimate, exiled, imprisoned, or assassinated.

What really matters is whether or not a democratically elected leader is willing to take orders from

Washington. Whether or not that person has fairly won an election is immaterial. This is a well-established

model in American history. And as John Mearsheimer notes, the United States has a rich history of

overthrowing democracies around the world, and we have a rich history of sighting with some of

the world's biggest dictators. So this idea that we are out there protecting freedom and democracy

doesn't mesh with reality. For more content like this visit meises.org.