On January 3rd, 2026, the Armed Forces of the United States of America conducted a surprise attack on the nation of Venezuela, resulting in the abduction of president Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cecilia Flores. This was an act of war not sanctioned by the Congress of the United States and was clearly a violation of international law.
Venezuela was a colonial territory of Spain until liberated by Simon Bolivar. The Republic of Venezuela was declared on July 5th, 1811. A resulting consequence of the Bolivarian revolutions was the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) by US President James Monroe. The Monroe Doctrine carried a dual message: a warning to European colonial powers to stop colonizing or interfering in the affairs of sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere, and a notice to the world that the USA would be the dominant international influence in the Americas.
During the 19th and 20th Centuries, South and Central America(s) were overwhelmed with both traditional armed occupation-style colonialism and neocolonialism. Neocolonialism, often referred to in modern times as "nation building" or "foreign investment", does not use occupying military forces, but is instead the employment of money from a more developed country to national leaders of a less developed country in exchange for influence that leads to the extraction of wealth and/or natural resources. Textbook examples of neocolonialism are rampant in the Americas and Africa. A fruit company, for example, will offer to build a highway for a developing nation in exchange for exclusivity in growing a native fruit for export with promises from the nation's government to ignore labor rights and even violently squash workers' unions.
In 2002, Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela on a platform of anti-colonialism. Immediately there was a failed coup attempt against Chavez, orchestrated by the private media, the USA's Central Intelligence Agency, and leading Venezuelan business leaders. In 2004, the Bolivarian Alliance was formed among anticolonial governments of the Americas, all of which had been colonial territories and whose people suffered greatly through throttled development under American neocolonialism.
"The reason there is no current civil wars in the USA, is because there is no American Embassy there" - Michelle Bachalet (former president of Chile)
Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil in the world, and has had governments hostile to US business interests for nearly 25 years. The USA is by far the world's largest consumer of oil. The sitting president of the United States, Donald Trump, openly admits that the USA will be "running" Venezuela and will be the world's broker of Venezuelan oil.
The actions against Venezuela are an attack on international order, hegemonic, and fascist. These actions echo historic colonialism: a nation's domestic resources are hyperextended, so that nation attacks another nation to steal its resources to bring home.
