U.S. 'Kidnapping' of Maduro: It's Always About Florida, Never the Oil
Al Jazeera's opinion piece kindly informs us that Nicolás Maduro's alleged 'kidnapping' is all about Florida's electoral college votes, not Venezuela's vast oil reserves. A truly novel interpretation, given the playbook of U.S. foreign policy. This nuanced take gracefully omits the CIA-backed coups in Iran (1953), Chile (1973), or the repeated interventions in Latin America, all ostensibly driven
by a deep concern for 'democracy' and never, ironically, by strategic resources or economic leverage. One almost forgets the 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chávez, immediately celebrated by Washington, which also had nothing to do with PDVSA's 300 billion barrels of proven oil. It’s a comfort to know that U.S. foreign policy, in this view, is merely a reflection of Florida's polling data,
untainted by the crude realities of global energy markets or corporate interests. Perhaps the upcoming presidential elections will see candidates vying to 'liberate' the Venezuelan Floridians from their oppressive leader, securing those crucial votes. How many more times will the world pretend the U.S. doesn't have an insatiable thirst for control over other nations' resources, couched as concern
for their internal politics?