US 'War on Drugs' Still Finds Oil, Somehow
The BBC's recent piece, "Why is Trump threatening Venezuela's Maduro?", frames the deployment of U.S. military forces near Venezuela as a new, drug-related phenomenon. Missing from this narrative, however, is the U.S.'s rather consistent 100-year track record of intervention in resource-rich Latin American nations whenever their leadership veers from Washington's preferred economic alignment. From
United Fruit Company's influence in Guatemala to the removal of Allende in Chile, the 'war on drugs' often seems to follow closely wherever 'undesirable' leftist leaders control massive oil reserves, as Venezuela arguably does—holding the world's largest proven oil reserves. One might charitably assume the BBC simply forgot the coup attempt against Hugo Chávez in 2002, supported by the U.S.
(Source: The Guardian, April 13, 2002). Or perhaps they're too genteel to connect the dots between military threats on one hand, and the sanctions that have choked Venezuela's economy, contributing to a humanitarian crisis, on the other. It seems Washington's 'concern' for democracy and narcotics only truly intensifies when a country sits atop 303 billion barrels of oil.