(ThyBlackMan.com) Mark Twain is credited with the saying, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Events do not occur over time in the same manner, but you can find patterns or similarities within them that make it appear as though you are experiencing that Yogi-ism, “…it’s deja-vu all over again.”
And so it is with the US governments kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores on Saturday, January 3, 2026. Make no mistake and do not allow yourself to be distracted or confused by the Trump administrations lies and rhetoric or the spin by US media operatives. By all evidence, the United States Delta Force engaged in a violation of international law and an unconstitutional act of war against the sovereign nation of Venezuela, by kidnapping its President.
The cornerstone of international law, the objective of maintaining peaceful relations between member states is Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. It is the foundational rule prohibiting member states from using or threatening force against another state’s territorial integrity or political independence (sovereignty). The only legal justifications for the US to go into Venezuela are if it is invited to do so by the Maduro government, engaging in self-defense (Article 51) or with Security Council authorization (Chapter VII). Neither of these options were the basis of this act of war. The US has been working toward this end for a number of years. The Trump administration decided to steal the oil assets of the Venezuelan people and is using the United States military to do so.
Again, there is no international legal basis for this act of war. Also, no matter how Rubio, Bondi, Trump, et al try to spin this crime; there is no American constitutional basis for this unwarranted act of aggression. The U.S. Congress has the sole power to declare war.
Rubio says that Maduro’s kidnapping was not an act of war. Over 150 military aircraft were launched from 20 different bases across the Western Hemisphere in this operation. President Maduro and his wife were transferred via US military helicopter to the USS Iwo Jima, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. If this was not an act of war, then there has never been one. An “act of war” means any act occurring during a declared war or armed conflict, whether or not war has officially been declared.
It is clearly understood that the U.S. cannot arrest people on foreign soil without the consent of the foreign country in question. A countries jurisdictional authority is territorial not international. This is in large part what makes a sovereign country sovereign.
Now that the Maduro’s are in US custody the Trump administration will most-likely use the Ker-Frisbie doctrine as the rational for the trials. The Ker-Frisbie doctrine states that a US federal court has jurisdiction to try a criminal defendant even if their presence was secured through illegal means, such as forcible abduction from another country, without following extradition procedures. This doctrine holds that the due process requirement is satisfied by a fair trial once the defendant is in court, regardless of how they got there.
This kidnapping demonstrates that past is prologue. History is replete with patterns or similarities within these actions that allow us to see history repeating itself or rhyming. Donald Trump claims that Venezuela “stole” U.S. oil interests in the 1970s when then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez nationalized Venezuela’s oil industry and forced foreign companies to accept minority stakes in their projects or leave Venezuela. This legal debate over the ownership of US corporate oil assets is not the seizure of US national interests and does not warrant the use of American military assets to “settle the score”.
This is the similar rational that was used in 1953 by the U.S. (CIA) and UK when they overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Operation Ajax. Many view this as the beginning of American “gangster diplomacy”. Mossadegh nationalized the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which threatened British economic interests. The British and US fomented a coup and successfully removed Mossadegh from power and reinstated Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a key U.S. ally in the region, ruling as an autocrat until the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
The US intervention in Iran in 1953 is the basis of the ongoing conflict between the US and Iran today. The U.S. and UK claimed then that they were deeply concerned about the spread of communism in the “Middle East” as today the US claims it is afraid of the spread of democratic socialism in “our hemisphere”.
Other examples of US “gangster diplomacy” are Guatemala in 1954. The CIA orchestrated Operation PBSUCCESS or the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état. It overthrew the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, primarily to protect American corporate interests, especially the interests of the United Fruit Company, from Árbenz‘s land reforms.
In Chile in 1973 the U.S. played a significant, covert role in destabilizing Chile’s democratically elected socialist government of President Salvador Allende. This paved the way for the September 11, 1973, military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. President Nixon and National Security Advisor Kissinger feared a Marxist government in Latin America and viewed Allende as a threat.
In Iraq in 2003 the U.S.-led invasion Operation Iraqi Freedom, successfully achieved regime change by toppling the government of the former American asset Saddam Hussein. The primary justifications were unsubstantiated claims of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and ties to terrorism. He died by hanging on December 30, 2006. Both claims have since been proven to be lies. Also, in 2011 in Libya the U.S. facilitated a so-called NATO-led action to overthrow Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi resulting in his brutal torture and murder.
Rubio said on Meet the Press, “…that the most immediate changes that we will see in Venezuela are those that affect the interests of the US. That’s why we’re involved here. Because of how it applies and has a direct impact on the US. We are not going to allow in our hemisphere, a country that becomes a crossroads for the activates for all of our advisories around the world…we can’t have a country whose military is cooperating with drug trafficking organizations…”
Rubio’s rhetoric and false narratives are based in a misguided and dangerous policy of imperialism. The US extending its power and control over weaker countries or regions, such as Venezuela, usually through military means. Here are a few facts. First, this is not “our” hemisphere. The US does not own or control the Western Hemisphere. It is a part of it.
Venezuela and the other South American countries are sovereign nations and are free to establish relationships with whoever they deem necessary and appropriate. The sooner Rubio and his compadres move away from this antiquated Monroe Doctrine sense of foreign policy the better off the Western Hemisphere will be. Second, this story about Venezuela being a hub for or cooperating with drug cartels is a lie. “While Venezuela is a player in cocaine manufacturing and trafficking, drug seizure data shows that it’s not as prominent a supplier of cocaine to the U.S. as other South American and Latin American countries. There is also no evidence that any significant level of illegal fentanyl — the primary killer in U.S. overdose deaths — is produced in South America, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).”
In my opinion, Rubio’s primary focus is on destabilizing Cuba. In his mind, the best way to achieve the destabilization of Cuba is regime change in Venezuela, one of Cuba’s primary supporters. Rubio said on Meet the Press, “I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now in this regard,” Rubio said. “But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro.” This while Trump said, “I don’t know if they’re going to hold out, but Cuba now has no income. They got all their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil.”
Trump said during his Saturday press conference, “…the U.S. was going to “run the country” temporarily, even if that involved troops on the ground, that American companies would soon start selling the country’s vast oil reserves, and that it was part of an overall strategy of U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere…We have tremendous energy in that country. It’s very important that we protect it. We need that for ourselves. We need that for the world…” It is important to understand, “we” do not have “tremendous energy in that country”. Venezuelans have tremendous energy in their sovereign country. Trump is explaining “colonialism”. One nation (the US) establishing political, economic, and other types of domination over another territory (Venezuela) and its people, primarily for resource exploitation.
Here is one of the West’s guiding fears in the context of oil, if the BRICS nations expand trading oil in currencies other than the dollar, that will have a dramatic impact on the power of the dollar and the US economy. If the US can gain control of access to the largest known oil reserve in the world, it puts the US back on top of the fossil fuel market and protects the power of the dollar.
Rubio and others have also said that the US has “liberated” the Venezuelan people by kidnapping their president and first-lady. This warped, self-righteous sense of self takes me to Dr. King’s 1967 speech “Time to Break Silence – “They (Vietnamese) must see Americans as strange liberators…Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them…Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.”
That is the same Western arrogance, Monroe doctrine arrogance, that imperial-colonist arrogance that will convince a nation that it is moral, legal, honorable and just to extrajudicially murder over 115 people in boats with no due-process. That is the same arrogance that allows the president of a country to stand before his people, having sanctioned another country, decimating its economy, and stolen the assets in its sovereign wealth fund and say that the democratically elected president of that sanctioned country is a dictator and has run his country’s economy into the ground. Totally ignoring the effect and the limitations that those sanctions have on his ability to govern.
America is sick. It needs a true revolution of values. Dr. King told us, “A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies… A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, “This is not just.””
American exceptionalism is not just. Manifest destiny is unjust. American internationalism is not just. America’s sense of imperial-colonialism is not just. Kidnapping the president and firs-lady of a sovereign nation is not just.
America, more specifically today, the Trump administration is making a mockery of the US Constitution and the US Congress, and the American people are allowing this to happen. America has never respected the need for international law and only cites it when it is in its interest to do so. Sovereignty matters not if, “We have tremendous energy in that country. It’s very important that we protect it. We need that for ourselves.”
As the empires dies its slow painful death it becomes the most dangerous in its last gasps for survival. When the reconning comes, and it will, what will be your answer when asked which side were you on and what did you do? Pray for rain.
Written by Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III
Official website; http://www.wilmerleon.com
