Yesterday’s “weapons of mass destruction” are today’s “narco-terrorists”
The Information Bureau of the American Party of Labor—
The U.S. invasion of Venezuela is not about “freedom” or “democracy” for Venezuelans. This is about oil, empire, and distraction. It is an act of war and terrorism that violates international law and the national sovereignty of an independent country.
This latest chapter in the U.S. war on Latin America and its children has been greatly escalated by child-trafficker and infanticide-enabler President Donald Trump, serving the oil industry interests that have directed U.S. military action for decades. The administration has invented crimes where none exist, doling out the death penalty with weapons of war, without trial, without due process, without any burden of proof, to crimes that even if guilt was established, are not death penalty offenses. The Trump administration is labeling Venezuelan leaders as “narco-terrorists” to justify this invasion, despite pardoning former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez after being convicted on similar charges.
The real narco-terrorists are profit-hungry executives at companies like Purdue Pharma, who started the opioid epidemic in America by lying to doctors and patients about their drugs’ addictive properties, and private military contractors like Vectus Global, founded and led by chronic war profiteer, war criminal, and prominent Trump supporter Erik Prince. Prince is the founder and former CEO of Blackwater, a company made infamous for its brutality and crimes in the Middle East during the 20-year occupation of Afghanistan.
While our own country faces total economic collapse – crumbling bridges, veterans and seniors freezing to death in their homes, unaffordable healthcare, parents who cannot feed their children, and families struggling to pay rent with skyrocketing housing costs forcing working people onto the streets – the White House is spending billions of our tax dollars to bomb another nation and kidnap its president. They plunder the world and ignore the needs of Americans in order to enrich war profiteers.
Yesterday’s “weapons of mass destruction” are today’s “narco-terrorists.” Just as we witnessed the lies unfold which led to the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enriching the U.S. oligarchy and their officers in Congress while working families struggled to survive, Venezuelans and Americans alike will suffer immensely.
This weekend’s attacks have resulted in the deaths of at least 80 civilians and military personnel, including 32 Cuban officers operating in Venezuela. Emboldened in the hours and days since, Trump and his administration have made threats to the sovereignty of Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland.
The subsequent refugee crises resulting from these acts of war will choke global supply routes, worsen health crises, and fuel xenophobia and state-sponsored terrorism (ICE, FBI, etc.), bolstering support for a clearly undemocratic and reactionary regime here in the United States.
The very act of this invasion will worsen carbon emissions through the production and use of every warship, missile, every bullet and bomb, and ultimately the objective for the American imperialist, as it was for Libya and Iraq, as it is for Yemen and Iran, is oil, which will exacerbate the existential crisis of climate destruction.
The wars of the bourgeoisie, which grant them multiple lavish homes while workers are lucky to have one, put them in clean, airy vistas while the slums and boonies of the workers are choked with smog. The capitalists can afford the best doctors while countless thousands die of preventable diseases, and this disparity will only escalate with the increasing concentration of obscene wealth in the pockets of the few and the abhorrent misery of workers the world over.
True working-class organizations universally condemn this aggression, and the American Party of Labor stands firmly in solidarity with our comrades of the PCMLV in Venezuela; with our fraternal comrades from Ecuador, France, the Dominican Republic, Spain, Italy, Germany; with our entire network of comrades of the ICMLPO; with our domestic comrades of Red Youth Rising and Resist U.S.-Led War; and with all other people of good conscience who rightfully denounce this act of war and terror.
We demand:
An immediate end to all hostilities against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and respect for the Venezuelan people’s right to self-determination.
The immediate release of President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores.
The lifting of all sanctions, and provisions of aid in returning all Venezuelans displaced by such sanctions back to their homeland if they so choose.
The cessation of all threats of and preparations for war and regime-change towards Colombia, Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Greenland, and all sovereign states worldwide.