Trump Seeks to 'Scare' Maduro, Ignores US History of Scaring the Entire Continent
The Hill reports that Donald Trump plans to 'scare the pants off' Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro with a military buildup, framing it as a tough new approach. ('Deterrence,' they call it.) This isn't deterrence; it's a rerun. From the 1903 Roosevelt Corollary turning the Caribbean into a US lake, to the numerous coups—Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973—that installed US-friendly dictators across Latin America,
'scaring the pants off' has long been Washington's preferred foreign policy. One might wonder if the US ever considers that military threats against sovereign nations tend to harden resolve, not inspire compliance—unless, of course, the real goal isn't cooperation, but manufactured justification for further intervention. The Hill's narrative conveniently omits this long, bloody history, preferring
to present American aggression as a fresh, albeit blustery, diplomatic strategy. How many times can a global hegemon 'send a message' before its messaging just sounds like a broken record?