From “Democracy” in Ukraine to “Oil” in Venezuela—A New Rhetoric for the Same Old Conquest

The recent gangster act by the Trump administration against Venezuela is nothing new, although critics decry this as a new low in foreign policy. In reality, it is not a deviation from the historical norm, but merely the stripping away of a decades-old façade. The United States’ gangster-style economic warfare and regime change operations in Venezuela are part of a brutal tradition that long predates the current administration.

Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has engineered or orchestrated in hundreds of regime change operations globally. The blueprint was established in 1953 with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, following his nationalization of Iranian oil. This pattern continued with coups in Guatemala (1954) and Chile (1973), and invasions in Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989). Through such actions, the U.S. transformed much of South and Central America into so-called “banana republics,” destroying the lives of millions. It stole resources, destroyed countries economically and politically and enabled the execution of thousands of innocents by installing compliant military dictatorships in what it considered its own backyard. The Monroe Doctrine explicitly framed this hemisphere as a U.S. sphere of influence, where it could operate with impunity, unchallenged by other world powers.

The crimes of the U.S. regime, however, are not confined to the American continent. In recent history, we have witnessed further regime change operations and direct invasions—from Iraq and Afghanistan to Syria, Libya, and Ukraine. These interventions have consistently targeted nations that refused to submit to the U.S. empire, destroying them as a warning to others who might dare to do the same. The overwhelming majority of global post-WWII conflicts—often cited as over 80%—stem from the direct or indirect actions of U.S. foreign policy. The targets remain consistent: sovereign nations possessing strategic resources or occupying geostrategic locations, all punished for resisting integration into a U.S.-led order.

Given this unbroken pattern, the only true novelty lies in the justification. The fundamental difference between the Trump administration and its predecessors is not in its actions, but in the wording used to justify them. Previous administrations, feeling a need to manage and gain the consent of “the herd,” covered their interventions in sweet lies such as promoting democracy, restoring human rights, and bringing freedom. They utilized black ops, CIA-funded NGOs, and sophisticated propaganda to create sellable narratives for an ignorant majority in the West.

In fact, Trump has done exactly in Venezuela what Obama did in Ukraine. Obama used the fancy words of democracy and human rights while the CIA and U.S. NGOs ousted the democratically elected president of Ukraine to install a neo-Nazi puppet regime. This regime was intended to run a proxy war against Russia, to bleed the nation so that its assets could be colonized and plundered. Trump is doing precisely the same thing in Venezuela. The only difference is that he does not hide behind fancy jargon like “democracy” and “human rights”; he simply states that he needs the oil and proceeds to take it.

The Trump administration feels no such need for narrative justification after having realized during the 2020 election cycle that approval from the “herd” is unnecessary as long as the narrative is controlled through the tech oligarchy. It therefore bypasses fancy jargon and states the colonial motive plainly: the goal is the resource. This is not an innovation in U.S. policy; it is the acceptance that there is no need to waste time seeking the herd’s approval.

While President Obama spoke of democracy and human rights to install a neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine—thereby persuading the herd of his goodwill while executing his geopolitical play—President Trump feels no such necessity for the herd’s endorsement. The end is identical; only the packaging has changed. One must, in a grim sense, respect the brutal honesty of discarding the pretense that has long been used to sanitize imperialism.

Those who try to link the Trump administration’s actions to Russia—claiming that Russia’s special military operation eroded the international order—are afflicted by a historical amnesia that absolves the West of its own far longer and deadlier record of invasion and subversion. In their view, the catastrophic wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya—each resulting in millions of deaths and societal collapse—somehow do not constitute a “breaking of the international order.”

This selective outrage reveals a specific mindset. Unfortunately, its proponents are either completely brainwashed by the mainstream media and have no understanding of history—in other words, they hold opinions on topics about which they have no knowledge—or they are agents of chaos paid by Western intelligence agencies to spread propaganda. Alternatively, they are simply the Western laptop class, also known as the herd, who believe international law and order exist solely for the “golden billion,” while the rest of the world is here to serve them, possessing no inherent right to live under a rules-based order. Otherwise, how could they simply ignore over 15,000 Russians killed by the neo-Nazi Ukrainian regime in Donbass, including more than a thousand children, or the people who were burned alive in Odessa by neo-Nazi thugs? It seems you can break any law you want as long as you work for the colonial Western empire.

A final, pointed word must be directed towards the segment of the Bitcoin community that has applauded Trump’s Venezuela policy. Bitcoin was born as a rebellion against financial tyranny, designed to serve the billions exploited by the Western colonial empire and its parasitic financial system—a system promoted as a rules-based international order. It is a rebellion against central banks, the weaponized U.S. dollar, the U.S. empire, and the very tools of modern economic colonialism. To see so-called “Bitcoiners” now cheer the outright theft of a nation’s resources, the freezing of its sovereign assets, and the crushing sanctions that strangle its people is to witness the ultimate corruption of a revolutionary ideal. These individuals champion “property rights” and “sovereignty” while zealously embracing the boot of an empire that systematically violates both. They have become the useful idiots of the very cartel they purported to oppose, trading the promise of liberation for a pat on the head from their imperial masters. They are traitors to the code, proving that even the tools of revolution can be co-opted by a desperate desire to serve power.

In conclusion, Venezuela is not an anomaly but a reflection. The Trump administration has merely held up a mirror to the unvarnished face of American empire, removing the mask of humanitarian rhetoric to reveal the relentless pursuit of resource control that has always lain beneath. The tragedy is not the honesty, but the centuries of violence and hypocrisy that make such honesty possible. The empires of old at least had the gall to call their conquests by their true names. Now, after a brief interlude of deceptive language, we have returned to that brutal clarity. The only question remaining is whether the world will continue to accept the action, now that the lie has been so plainly discarded.