Yankees out of Venezuela, out of Gaza, out of the lands not theirs!

Donald Trump bombed Venezuela, captured its president, and announced “we are going to run the country.” Within hours he added that the United States will be “strongly involved in Venezuela’s oil,” as if 300 billion barrels of proven crude reserves were sitting there waiting for American corporations to extract them, as if sovereignty was a polite suggestion, as if bombing a capital at 2am and kidnapping a head of state was law enforcement. But sure, let’s call it an arrest. Nothing says “serving a warrant” quite like airstrikes on military installations.

My mom preceeded to ask me, “is any part of what they did legal?” I respond so quickly, “No, none of this. But, the law does not seem to exist anyways, so who knows.”

“Netanyahu is a wanted war criminal. Based on the events of the last 24 hours, any country can strike Israel, go in, and “capture” Netanyahu and his wife from their bed. And the media would describe it using exactly this language. Because, apparently, that’s allowed now, right?”” – assal rad

We said Gaza was the canary in the coal mine. For over two years, Israel committed genocide on livestream while the International Court of Justice issued provisional measures that were ignored, while the UN passed resolutions the United States vetoed, while the Genocide Convention was violated in high definition on our phones. The world responded with empty condemnations, statements calling for de-escalation that placed equal responsibility on the occupied and the occupier, leaders wringing their hands about complexity while doing nothing. Very concerned. Deeply troubled. Calling for restraint on both sides, as if the side being bombed and the side doing the bombing bear equal responsibility for the bombing. America was watching. And America learned, again, that it could do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, and no international institution would stop it. Venezuela is the confirmation.

Palestine exposed the lie of international law, that’s clear, but we now see that Venezuela exposes the lie that self-determination means anything when the world’s number one superpower wants what you have. Together they reveal that the entire post-World War II international order has been gutted so completely that Trump does not even bother with pretense. He just says out loud that he is stealing Venezuela’s oil, that American corporations will rebuild what American bombs destroyed, that the United States will run another sovereign nation because he decided to.

As I wrote in my earlier piece:

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which the United States helped draft specifically to prevent this exact scenario, prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” There are exactly two exceptions: self-defense under Article 51 when a state is under armed attack, and Security Council authorization under Chapter VII. Venezuela did not attack the United States. The Security Council authorized nothing. This is aggression, the supreme international crime under the Nuremberg Principles, the crime for which Nazi leaders were hanged. Except when America does it. Then it becomes “kinetic action to protect personnel executing an arrest warrant.”

Senator Mike Lee asked Marco Rubio what could “constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war.” Rubio’s answer? The strikes protected personnel serving an arrest warrant on Maduro based on a 2020 narco-terrorism indictment. An arrest warrant does not authorize bombing a sovereign capital. It does not permit airstrikes on foreign territory. The Constitution vests the power to wage war in Congress, not a single man. But apparently if you ignore the Constitution, international law, and basic logic, dropping bombs is just aggressive process serving.

The administration is claiming “self-defense” by asserting that cocaine constitutes a “weapon of mass destruction.” Cocaine. A weapon of mass destruction? The same rhetorical framework that justified Iraq, except this time they are not even pretending the WMDs might exist, they are just calling drugs weapons and hoping no one remembers what happened last time.

Maduro predicted this days before the bombing. “Since they cannot accuse Venezuela of having weapons of mass destruction, since they cannot accuse us of having nuclear rockets, of chemical weapons, they invented an accusation that the United States knows is as false as that accusation of weapons of mass destruction, which led them to an eternal war.” He was talking about Iraq. Everyone knew what was coming. Trump had deployed the USS Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group in November, declared a “total blockade,” seized vessels, killed 110 people in airstrikes on alleged drug boats, given Maduro a deadline to step down. This was telegraphed regime change with drug charges stapled on afterward.

If Maduro is a dictator warranting removal, why did Trump welcome El Salvador’s self-described dictator Nayib Bukele to the White House? Why fund Bukele’s concentration camp CECOT while he disappears people without trial? Why does Netanyahu, a genocider with an active ICC warrant, receive billions in weapons while killing Americans in Gaza? Maduro has not killed an American. But he is suddenly subject to US jurisdiction anywhere on earth, arrestable through invasion. Meanwhile Netanyahu kills American citizens and gets rewarded. The message is unmistakable: international law applies only to leaders America dislikes, immunity is reserved for those aligned with American power. This is a protection racket with fighter jets.

Trump said it himself within hours. “We will be strongly involved in Venezuela’s oil.” He announced American corporations will return because Maduro “kicked out big corporations.” Rebuild what? The country American bombs destroyed? This is the Iraq script, where Halliburton got reconstruction contracts while Iraqis went without electricity for years. The Libya script, where NATO humanitarian intervention created a failed state with slave markets. The Gaza script, where officials discuss the “day after” while weapons enable genocide.

No one asked Venezuela if it wants rebuilding by the country that bombed it. Liberation does not come from dropping bombs at 2am then offering to fix what you broke in exchange for permanent oil control. America brings death and lies dressed as liberation, and every country promised American freedom remains destroyed decades later while oil contracts get signed quick.

Look at the pattern. In 1954, the CIA overthrew Guatemala’s democratically elected Jacobo Árbenz after land reform threatened United Fruit Company profits. United Fruit lobbied for regime change because a democratic leader wanted to give land to landless peasants. The dictatorship that replaced him killed hundreds of thousands. But United Fruit kept its plantations. Mission accomplished. In 1973, the US backed the coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende after he nationalized copper, installing Pinochet who tortured tens of thousands. Allende won an election. Pinochet threw people from helicopters. Guess which one America supported. For sixty years the US has tried destabilizing Cuba for nationalizing American sugar plantations. Cuba’s crime was deciding Cuban resources should benefit Cubans. Unforgivable.

The pattern extends beyond Latin America. In 1953, the US and Britain overthrew Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh after he nationalized Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now BP. Mossadegh was Time’s Man of the Year for democratic reforms. Two years later the CIA overthrew him because he thought Iranian oil should belong to Iran, a truly radical concept. America punished Iran for forty-five years not for nuclear weapons or terrorism, but for taking back its oil. Iraq got an invasion based on WMDs that existed only in Colin Powell’s PowerPoint, an occupation that killed over a million, created ISIS, handed oil contracts to ExxonMobil while Iraqis still lack electricity two decades after liberation. Afghanistan endured twenty years of occupation for women’s rights and democracy, left poorer with the Taliban back and hundreds of thousands dead, accomplishing nothing except enriching defense contractors. Libya was bombed for humanitarian intervention, turned into a failed state with slave markets and oil field battles.

Gaza taught that the Genocide Convention is optional for US allies, that the ICJ can issue rulings powerful states ignore, that international law is enforced selectively. Venezuela confirms it. If Israel violates the Genocide Convention on livestream with American support, why would the UN Charter constrain America when it wants Venezuela’s oil?

Trump announced boots on the ground “as it pertains to oil,” possibly the most honest thing an American president ever said about intervention. The mission always expands. Troops always stay longer. Temporary becomes permanent. Limited objectives become regime change and resource extraction. Protecting civilians becomes bombing campaigns killing hundreds of thousands. Spreading democracy becomes funding dictators. Humanitarian intervention becomes disaster capitalism, where firms get paid rebuilding what bombs destroyed, where countries never recover but remain dependent. We are not just taking Venezuela’s oil. We are charging them for the privilege of destruction.

The global implications are staggering. If Trump declares Maduro “criminal” to justify kidnapping through force, what prevents China from declaring Taiwan’s leadership “criminal” and seizing the island? What distinguishes this from Russia’s Ukraine justifications, where Putin labeled officials criminals? If any nuclear state can bomb countries after issuing indictments, international law is dead. The UN Charter becomes meaningless. The Rome Statute irrelevant. Sovereignty becomes conditional on military strength.

Gaza and Venezuela reveal the same reality that sovereignty is conditional, self-determination exists only within boundaries set by colonial power, any nation stepping outside gets destabilized or destroyed. Venezuela’s crime was not drugs. Venezuela’s crime was nationalizing oil, refusing to hand resources to American corporations, rejecting Trump’s ultimatum. Just as Palestine’s crime was existing on land Israel wanted. The justifications are pretexts. The pattern is extraction. The method is violence.

Neither Venezuela nor Palestine will be liberated by their oppressors. Liberation does not come from the people bombing you. Liberation comes from resistance, from steadfastness, from refusing might makes right. It comes from Venezuelans rejecting occupation, Palestinians refusing to disappear despite seventy-seven years of ethnic cleansing and two years of livestreamed genocide. It comes from everyone in the Global South understanding their sovereignty is an illusion, international law is theater, the post-1945 order is dead, and the only protection is resistance.

The world is not America’s colony. But Trump is proving any country with resources America wants and a government America dislikes will be bombed into submission and rebuilt for American corporate interests.

The canary died in Gaza. The death is confirmed in Caracas. And the world is still in the mine, breathing poisoned air, watching canaries fall, pretending everything is fine.

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