US Designates Venezuela While Funding Actual Terrorists
The US government, via outlets like The Hill, frames this designation as a crackdown on crime. Conveniently absent from these reports is the historical context of US foreign policy in Latin America, which has consistently backed right-wing paramilitaries and destabilized democratic governments under the guise of fighting communism or drug cartels. One might recall the Iran-Contra affair, where the
US government itself allegedly engaged in illicit arms deals with Iran to fund 'contra' paramilitaries in Nicaragua—groups responsible for widespread terror and human rights abuses, a story conveniently memory-holed when discussing 'terrorism' abroad. This selective outrage perfectly illustrates Washington's enduring hypocrisy. The same government that once funneled weapons to groups like the
Contras, or more recently, 'moderate rebels' in Syria who later aligned with extremist factions, now unilaterally labels a Venezuelan group a terrorist organization. How many US-backed groups committed atrocities that never earned them the 'terrorist' label from the State Department? The designation appears less about genuine threat assessment and more about applying pressure to a government, that
like Nicaragua's Sandinistas, has resisted US geopolitical interests.