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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We turn now to Venezuela, as the Trump administration continues to ramp up pressure on Nicolás Maduro, the president of the oil-rich nation of Venezuela.
On Monday, the U.S. top military officer visited Puerto Rico. General Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with troops in Puerto Rico toward a Navy warship. In recent months, the U.S. has amassed over 15,000 troops in the Caribbean. The U.S. has also bombed over 20 boats, killing at least 83 people, claiming, without proof, the attacks have targeted drug traffickers.
Meanwhile, Monday, the Trump administration formally designated Venezuela — the Venezuelan entity known as the Cártel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, as a foreign terrorist organization, the Pentagon claiming President Maduro is the head of the group. Venezuela called the move, quote, “ridiculous,” saying the group doesn’t actually exist. Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the terrorist designation gives the Trump administration, quote, “a whole bunch of new options,” end-quote, to deal with Venezuela.
On Monday, Venezuela’s Oil Minister Delcy Rodríguez accused the Trump administration of targeting Venezuela because of its vast crude reserves, the largest in the world.
We’re joined now by two guests. Alexander Aviña is associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University, extensively researched and written about capitalism, the U.S.-backed war on drugs, so-called, and state violence. He’s the author of the award-winning book, Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside. He’s joining us from Phoenix, Arizona. And in Caracas, where we’ll start, is Phil Gunson, senior analyst for the Andes region with the International Crisis Group. Yes, he is based in Caracas.
Can you tell us, Phil, how are people responding right now in Caracas and throughout Venezuela as the U.S. takes yet another step, killing over 80 people, claiming that they’re involved with drugs, though presenting no evidence, but amassing this massive military presence and designating the president of Venezuela the head of a foreign terrorist organization? What’s happening in Venezuela right now?
PHIL GUNSON: How are people reacting? Yes. Hello. I think there’s a range of reactions, obviously, but I think I would sum it up by saying that those people who want to see the back of Maduro — and, of course, there are quite a lot of those — are just anxious for the U.S. to get on and do it, if that’s what they’re going to do. And those people who are nervous about what might happen, whether they’re government supporters or not, would like them to just go away and leave us in peace.
We’re now in a situation where there are very few international airlines flying in and out of Venezuela. We’re becoming, once again, isolated from the world. And, of course, this is making life even more difficult in a country that’s been suffering a humanitarian emergency for the last decade.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Professor Alexander Aviña, if you can talk about — I mean, your specialty in Latin American history at Arizona State is looking at U.S. military interventions — what this could mean? Although the latest news, according to Axios, is President Trump is willing to speak with Maduro. It’s not clear exactly what’s happening at this point, a conversation or an invasion or a bombing of another country.
ALEXANDER AVIÑA: Good morning, Amy.
No, this is this — hopefully, the news coming out recently are accurate. I think, you know, the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America is one full of carnage and mass human suffering. Recently, in the last couple months, since the U.S. started these extrajudicial executions, some analysts and journalists have made the comparison to the U.S. invasion of Panama in December of 1989 as part of Operation Just Cause as some sort of potential counterexample, as a successful instance of U.S. military intervention in a Latin American country. And I would just say that as of right before the pandemic hit, people were still digging up and looking for clandestine graves of Panamanian civilians who were killed by the U.S. military intervention, particularly when the U.S. bombed the working-class neighborhood of El Chorrillo, that then becomes known as like Guernica or Panama’s Guernica.
So, this is a potentially really frightening moment, particularly, I think, the fabrication that the U.S. is advancing to justify what is quite openly a regime change operation. I mean the drug trafficking charges, we can get into those if you’d like, but this is quite open — this is an open regime change operation with a very thinly veiled justification.
AMY GOODMAN: And if you can talk about the significance of General Dan Caine — he’s the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — going to Puerto Rico, what this means, and how Puerto Rico has been used as a hub for the military as they launch more attacks on the Caribbean?
ALEXANDER AVIÑA: Yeah, Puerto Rico is often referred to as the world’s oldest colony. So, it’s a really — it’s a tragic situation for the people of Puerto Rico that their land, that their island, is being used, potentially, as a military gathering and operation site against a potential intervention against Venezuela. So, I mean, this general’s visit to Puerto Rico is one of the warning signs, one of the potentially warning signs that we see in terms of a potential U.S. intervention against Venezuela in whatever form it may take. But there is an irony there that it’s the oldest colony being used to exercise and project U.S. imperialist power against a sovereign nation in South America.
AMY GOODMAN: Phil Gunson, in Caracas, what is this Cártel de los Soles, the Cartel of the Suns, that the Trump administration has targeted and said Maduro is the head of, this, quote, “foreign terrorist organization,” which is, of course, the next step to legitimizing an attack?
PHIL GUNSON: You know, the first thing to say is that the Cártel de los Soles is the Cartel of the Suns because the reference to the suns that Venezuelan military officers, high-ranking officers, wear on their epaulets, like stars in the U.S. It’s not an organization at all. It’s a term. It’s a label that was applied, has been applied over the last few decades, even from before Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999, applied to corrupt military officers who were taking money from drug traffickers. But it’s not an organization. It’s a state of mind, if you like, and maybe, in the most extreme case, maybe networks of military officers who collaborate. But it’s certainly not a cartel. It’s not a drug trafficking organization. It’s a reference to the fact that over time, I mean, particularly in the last 20 years, the corruption in the military has become a real issue in Venezuela.
And, of course, you know, Venezuela lies right next to Colombia, where most of the world’s cocaine comes from. Some of that cocaine comes through Venezuela. The military, as a whole, are charged with controlling that, that traffic, and therefore, they’re in the frontline, therefore they’re more exposed to being paid off so that the traffickers can move the drugs through Venezuela safely. But to call this a narcoterrorist cartel is, frankly, ridiculous. I mean, it certainly has nothing to do with terrorism. I mean, these people are in it for the money. They’re not aiming to send drugs to the United States to undermine Western civilization.
And, in fact, most of the cocaine that’s heading through Venezuela is going to Europe and not to the United States. Most of the cocaine going to the States heads north up the eastern Pacific, up Central America, which is not to say that drug trafficking isn’t a problem here. It is. But if you want to address it, you have to start with a real appreciation of how it works. And calling this, you know, the Cártel — suggesting that there’s something called the Cártel de los Soles and that it’s a narcoterrorist organization is a really bad start.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Aviña, if you can talk about Venezuela as a first-stop attack, moving on to other Latin American countries, of course, going after, for example, Colombia and President Petro next?
ALEXANDER AVIÑA: Yeah, I think there is a broader plan within the Trump administration for the entire region, not for Venezuela. I think when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth went to the Panama Canal Zone last April, he said, quote, “To put America first, we have to put the Americas first.” And that’s a long historical pattern of anytime we have a U.S. politician or movement that defines itself as isolationist, that’s always bad news for Latin America. What that means is that you’re going to have a renewed U.S. imperialist attention to the region and a more overt projection of U.S. imperial power in the region.
So, we’ve seen the U.S. already get involved in, at least discursively and monetarily, with election meddling, election meddling in Argentina. There’s elections coming up in Honduras, and we have U.S. officials on the ground, particularly an under secretary of state, causing problems over there. There’s also efforts to influence Guatemala’s judicial elections that are scheduled for next year. So I think there’s a broader program or idea.
And unfortunately, it’s being led by a particular group within the Trump administration in Congress, all from — mostly from South Florida, right? Marco Rubio is a representation of — is a leader, so to speak, of this movement. It’s a particular political movement that is extremely right-wing, revanchist, anti-communist. And they’ve been waging this war to push back the left in Latin America, to go against social movements in Latin America for decades now. And now they see their opportunity, and they’re trying to take advantage of it — Marco Rubio, Representatives Carlos Giménez, Mario Díaz-Balart and María —
AMY GOODMAN: Salazar.
ALEXANDER AVIÑA: — Salazar. They’re really pushing some of this — some of this movement. And so, what we see is Venezuela is just one potential site. I think we’re starting to see this emerge more and more against Colombia. We’ve seen, obviously, saber-rattling against Mexico. So, this is something to watch. It’s not just about Venezuela.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Marco Rubio, Cuban American — Cuba. Do you see that as the ultimate target?
ALEXANDER AVIÑA: I think that’s what they want. I mean, we’ve seen reporting from Axios talking about really ridiculous things, right? That Maduro can’t leave power in Venezuela, because the only way he would leave is the Cubans would put him in a body bag, right? So, for this movement in South Florida, Cuba is the nexus of everything that’s wrong in Latin America, and they’ve been trying to undermine Cuba for decades now. And that’s the real prize in their eyes.
AMY GOODMAN: Alexander Aviña, I want to thank you very much for being with us and ask you this final question: Do you see an attack on Venezuela succeeding?
ALEXANDER AVIÑA: No. What I do see happening — it depends on how we define “success,” and from whose perspective. But I think what we can be assured of is any sort of attack on Venezuela, it will be illegal. It will be a violation of Venezuelan national self-determination and sovereignty. And it will create mass human suffering. And whether it’s successful or not, I think it remains to be seen. I think the people of Venezuela will defend their country. But we can be assured that this will create mass human suffering. It might create more displacement. And it will generate mass human movement, potentially some of it to the United States, and we’ll see.
What I see is a coming together of three wars that the Trump administration is waging. The war on drugs, the war on terror and the war on migrants are coming together in this particular way that they’re trying to manage and initiate a conflict with Venezuela.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Alexandra Aviña, I want to thank you so much for being with us, associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University, and Phil Gunson, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, based in Caracas, Venezuela.
