garllickbread

You must have all heard the news. Today the US executed a direct military operation against Venezuela, striking key targets, capturing president Maduro and his wife, and announcing their transfer to the US to face criminal charges, including alleged narco-terrorism and drug trafficking offenses. The rapidly unfolding events mark the most significant US military intervention in Latin America since Panama in 1989. The US government has framed this action as a response to alleged criminality and illegitimacy, but global reactions underline deep concerns about violations of sovereignty and international law. Overwhelming condemnation has come from the UN, China, Russia, and numerous Latin American governments, with calls for respect for the UN Charter and regional stability:
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/world/971543/trump-says-venezuela-s-maduro-deposed-captured-after-us-strikes/story/

To understand these developments, it is useful to recall John Perkins's Economic Hit Man framework, which posits that US foreign policy often disguises economic and geopolitical objectives - access to resources, debt leverage, and strategic realignment - as benevolent interventions. Perkins describes a range of methods: economic pressure via loans and conditional aid, covert manipulation of political elites, engineered crises to justify external influence, and, in extreme cases, overt regime change. Whether or not one accepts every detail in Perkins narrative, its core thesis - that the US systematically prioritizes its corporate and strategic interests, often at the expense of local sovereignty - provides a lens through which to view the US behavior across decades.

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