Venezuela's opposition leader Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize

[Cirsium]

123. But that isn't the issue

Regardless of how bad Maduro supposedly is, there is no excuse for supporting fascism. We are talking about Machado. But even if the discussion were not about Machado, our focus still should not be on Madoro, but rather on the global right wing movement which is by far the greater threat to us than the regime in Venezuela.

Since the end of the Second World War, U.S. foreign policy has displayed a predictable pattern. Progressive states unwilling to submit to U.S. dictates are branded as “dictatorships,” “terrorist sponsors,” or, in Venezuela’s case, a “narcotic state.”

Through sanctions, blockades, and financial strangulation, Washington seeks to suffocate economies until populations turn against their governments. Africa has experienced this repeatedly, with sanctions weaponised against countries that dared to assert independence.

From Iraq to Libya, Afghanistan to Grenada, U.S. wars have toppled governments, destroyed infrastructure, and left millions dead. Africa, too, bears scars of this adventurism from NATO’s destruction of Libya to covert destabilisation across the Sahel.

At the core lies the desire to seize oil, minerals, and strategic territories for Western corporations. This same resource plunder defined the colonial experience of Africa and now defines Washington’s aggression against Venezuela.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/venezuela-imperialism-and-global-struggle-sovereignty

On September 2, President Trump publicly announced a lethal attack on a boat allegedly carrying drugs and tied to the Tren de Aragua, an extinct Venezuelan criminal gang that the US government claims is still active and operating on US soil. The US Intelligence Community reportedly denied ties between President Nicolas Maduro and these claims. Nonetheless, these allegations have been used to justify the invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for the third time in history – the first during the War of 1812 and the second during World War II – now targeting Venezuelans living in the US during peacetime. This led to the deportation of 252 Venezuelans, without due process, and to their imprisonment and torture in a concentration camp in El Salvador. Some were even separated from their children.

Trump’s rhetoric has also linked Venezuelan immigrants to criminality and mental illness, aligning with the nativist agenda in his own base. Driven by his policy of immigrant expulsion, the US migrant population dropped by 1.4 million between January and June of 2025, according to the Pew Research Center, causing the immigrant share of the population to decrease from 15.8 to 15.4 percent. After breaking diplomatic and consular ties in 2019 over the recognition of a self-proclaimed President, direct deportations were halted until February 2025, when the US allowed Venezuelan planes to repatriate migrants. Venezuela had already been implementing its Return to the Homeland (Vuelta a la Patria) program since the pandemic, but its airline was banned from the US by sanctions. The Trump Administration also increased its internal persecution of Venezuelans by ending temporary migratory measures set under the Biden Administration.

In the weeks leading up to the UN address, Trump claimed that at least two more lethal attacks on boats were carried out, posting videos that only showed people being killed by aerial bombardment, with no independent verification of the drug trafficking claims or the victims’ nationality. The Venezuelan government has also denounced the harassment of Venezuelan fishermen by US military officers. During his UN speech, Trump boasted that “there aren’t too many boats that are traveling on the seas by Venezuela,” suggesting that all sea vessels are now under threat. Furthermore, he also openly claimed that President Maduro was leading “terrorist and trafficking networks”, without presenting any evidence. In August, the bounty for Maduro’s capture was raised to USD 50 million, despite earlier intelligence community reports reportedly disregarding the claim.

Venezuela, its government, and its citizens are currently under threat from the most powerful military power in the world. Yet Venezuela has continued to seek a peaceful resolution. President Maduro sent a letter to Trump in the first week of September via an intermediary, calling for dialogue and refuting the drug-trafficking claims. The historical precedent of Operation Brother Sam in 1964 — where the deployment of US warships near Brazil catalyzed the military overthrow of democratically-elected president João Goulart is a parallel that hints at a regime change operation. The difference is that this time, there have been no anti-government defections.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/we-will-blow-you-out-existence-trumps-caribbean-spectacle