The Guardian newspaper explains the cold hard truth in ‘Naked imperialism’: how Trump intervention in Venezuela is a return to form for the U.S.

Today’s headline: “Most of the Americas have suffered from interference from their powerful northern neighbour – and are usually the worse off for it.”

South America correspondent Tiago Rogero writes:

The US bombardment of Venezuela and the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro, follow a long history of interventions in South and Central America and the Caribbean over the past two centuries. But they also mark an unprecedented moment as the first direct US military attack on a South American country.

…since the mid-19th century, the US has intervened in its continental neighbours not only through economic pressure but also militarily, with a long list of invasions, occupations and, in the case most closely resembling the current situation, the capture of Panama’s dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989.

Covert actions helped topple democratically elected governments and usher in military dictatorships in countries such as Brazil, Chile and Argentina, but overt US military operations have historically been confined to closer neighbours in Central America and the Caribbean.

Almost every country in the region has experienced some form of US intervention, overt or covert, in the past decades.

Examples include Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil, Panama, etc.

Dan Gardner wrote When Good Neighbors Go Bad:

Without offering so much as a coherent explanation for his actions, Trump bombed Venezuela, had its president and his wife kidnapped, and declared the United States would “run” Venezuela until a government to Trump’s liking is installed.

Nicolas Maduro and his wife will also be tried for trafficking cocaine, which wouldn’t qualify as a legal pretext for the invasion even if the courtroom were run by Judge Pam Bondi — but it looks even sillier given that a mere month ago Trump bestowed a full pardon on the wealthy and connected Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras convicted of industrial-scale cocaine trafficking.

No, the war on drugs is not Donald Trump’s thing. Money and power are.

Few things deliver money and power like oil, which is why, on many occasions, Donald Trump publicly insisted that the dumbest thing the US did in Iraq — this is no small claim — was “not taking the oil.”