US Empire Flexes: Venezuela Pays the Price

After the felonious onslaught unleashed upon Bangladesh on 5 August 2024, the world now witnesses Trump’s criminal assault on Venezuela—another flagrant violation that lays waste to international law and exposes a continuing pattern of imperial lawlessness.

In the early hours of 3 January 2026 morning, the world awoke to a chilling announcement: the United States, under President Donald Trump, had launched large-scale military strikes on Venezuela, a sovereign nation of South America, and claimed to have captured and forcibly removed its sitting president, Nicolás Maduro. Explosions reportedly rocked Caracas; elite U.S. forces were deployed; aircraft carriers loomed in the Caribbean. What was presented by Washington as a feat of power was, in truth, a heinous crime—an unprovoked act of aggression that trampled international law, mocked the United Nations Charter, and revived the ugliest traditions of imperial intervention.

This was not law enforcement. It was not justice. It was war—waged without a declaration, without international mandate, and without moral legitimacy. As Abraham Lincoln once warned, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Power, in Trump’s hands, has once again revealed its most reckless and destructive form.

To strike another country, seize its head of state, and boast of it on social media is to drag the world back to a lawless age where might masquerades as right. Venezuela, whatever one’s view of its internal politics or leadership, is an independent and sovereign state. Its fate cannot be dictated by foreign missiles, nor can its president be kidnapped under the guise of justice. The accusations leveled against Nicolás Maduro—serious or otherwise—do not grant Washington the authority to bomb Caracas or turn Delta Force into a global police squad.

International law is unambiguous. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” No amount of rhetoric about narcotics, gangs, or “bad actors” can erase this fundamental principle. Even voices within the United States have recognized this truth. When a U.S. senator calls the war “illegal,” and others question its constitutional basis, the indictment of Trump’s action is not merely moral—it is legal and internal.

The echoes of history are deafening. Exactly thirty-five years ago, the United States invaded Panama and abducted Manuel Noriega, justifying that operation with similar language of criminality and order. The result was devastation, civilian suffering, and a precedent that still haunts Latin America. That Trump would reenact this grim theater—on the anniversary no less—is either grotesque irony or deliberate contempt for historical memory.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general who understood war better than most, once cautioned the world: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies… a theft from those who hunger and are not fed.” In Venezuela, a country already strained by sanctions, economic hardship, and social tension, U.S. bombs do not deliver justice; they deliver chaos. They inflame instability, endanger civilians, and risk plunging an entire region into conflict.

The Trump administration’s months-long military buildup—the aircraft carriers, the seizures of oil tankers, the deadly strikes on boats, the blockade-like posturing—reveals that this assault was not a momentary decision but a premeditated campaign of coercion. Regime change, thinly veiled as counter-narcotics enforcement, has once again become Washington’s preferred instrument. As Martin Luther King Jr. warned, “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.” His words, spoken decades ago, ring with terrifying relevance today.

The international reaction has been swift and damning. Russia and Iran have condemned the strikes as acts of armed aggression. The European Union, while critical of Maduro’s legitimacy, has nonetheless called for restraint and respect for international law—an implicit rebuke to Trump’s unilateralism. When even allies urge adherence to the UN Charter, it is clear that the United States has crossed a line that separates order from anarchy.

Most alarming is the precedent this sets. If the world accepts that a powerful state may bomb another, abduct its leader, and declare the matter closed, then no nation is safe. Sovereignty becomes conditional, legality optional, and peace hostage to the whims of the powerful.  On 5 August 2024, it was Bangladesh, today it is Venezuela; tomorrow it could be any country that displeases Washington.

Trump’s defenders will argue necessity, security, or expedience. But necessity is the tyrant’s plea. Justice delivered by cruise missiles is no justice at all. True accountability is achieved through international courts, multilateral pressure, and lawful diplomacy—not through shock-and-awe theatrics and televised triumphalism. This assault on Venezuela is not merely an attack on one nation; it is an attack on the fragile architecture of global order painstakingly built after World War II. It disgraces the ideals the United States claims to champion and stains its moral standing before the world.

History will judge this moment harshly. Empires that confuse force with legitimacy eventually confront the wreckage of their own arrogance. Venezuela may bleed today, Bangladesh has been bleeding since 5 August 2024, but the deeper wound is to international law itself. And that wound, if left unhealed, threatens us all.

As the dust settles over Caracas and Dhaka, one truth stands undeniable: this was not a defense of freedom—it was an act of imperial hubris. And no amount of power can redeem a crime committed against sovereignty, peace, and the conscience of humanity.

The Reckoning That Never Came
Despite public revelations and scattered apologies, there has been no real reckoning for the CIA’s global coup-mongering. The architects of these interventions have largely escaped justice. Instead, their successors continue to operate under the same veil of secrecy. From Libya to Syria, Bangladesh, Venezuela to Ukraine, the CIA’s methods—economic destabilization, disinformation, proxy warfare, and clandestine support—remain chillingly familiar. The ideological foe may have shifted from communism to “authoritarianism,” but the machinery of regime changes hums with the same ruthless efficiency.

Concluding Point: A Call for Transparency and Restraint
The time has come to shine a relentless light on this dark chapter of modern history—not as an exercise in nostalgia, but as a moral imperative. The international community must demand transparency, accountability, and adherence to international law. Democracy cannot be exported at gunpoint or imposed through the backdoor of subversion.

As the philosopher George Santayana cautioned: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

To prevent future generations from paying the bloody price of empire, we must confront the truths our governments prefer to bury—and ensure that the CIA’s cloak no longer hides the dagger.


Anwar A. Khan is a freedom
fighter who writes on politics 
and contemporary issues.