Canadian oligarchs go “Elbows Down” as U.S. invades sovereign nation

In the early hours of Friday morning, the United States launched a criminal attack on Venezuelan soil, kidnapping its president Nicolas Maduro Moros and his wife Cilia Flores. In his statement, Trump declared in no ambiguous terms that the U.S. is going to “run the country” and is expecting to have access to Venezuela’s oil fields, confirming that this was never about drugs. 

In reaction to one of the most spectacular violations of international law by our southern neighbour, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, published a statement which reads: 

“In keeping with our long-standing commitment to uphold the rule of law and to democracy, Canada stands by the people of Venezuela and their desire to live in a peaceful and democratic society. Canada also calls on all parties to exercise restraint and uphold international law.

It’s remarkable that the Canadian government managed to come up with such an embarrassing and lukewarm statement about one of the most disgusting displays of imperialist aggression we’ve witnessed in the western hemisphere in decades. To make a statement calling parties to “uphold international law” while not even mentioning the United States as the principal instigators of this crisis is an embarrassing display of spinelessness, even for the Liberals. 

This is coming, by the way, from the same government which has been touting “elbows up” as its rallying cry against U.S. bullying through Trump’s unilateral trade war against Canada. Somehow, when it comes to another country suffering  at the hands of the same bully, the violation of national sovereignty is no longer that big a deal. 

Regardless of one’s opinion on Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution, the deeper issue here lies in the fact that the world’s superpowers are increasingly comfortable dictating the internal affairs of sovereign countries across the world, by brute force if necessary. We are rapidly returning to the naked jingoist imperialism which characterized much of the superpower’s behavior against much of the world in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

An incredibly dangerous precedent is being set by the United States’ thuggish and illegal behaviour. The illusion of a “rules-based international order” is being ripped apart before our eyes. The United States is acting with total impunity, violating virtually every fundamental rule of international law and its own Constitution, which prohibits its military from taking any aggressive action without Congress’s approval. 

The next hours and days are going to be decisive as top Venezuelan leaders seem to be closing ranks in support of Maduro as the legitimate president. Meanwhile, the U.S. is not discarding the possibility of having “boots on the ground,” threatening to deploy its military to effectively occupy the country. 

Will Venezuela fold to the empire’s demands? Will it become another Libya or Syria and descend into civil war? Or will it attempt to resist foreign occupation and become, as Venezuela’s armed forces have warned, the U.S.’s “Latin American Vietnam.” All scenarios are still on the table. Which one plays out depends on the Venezuelan people, whose fate lies, as it always has, in its own hands.

Meanwhile, our responsibility as a peace-loving people is to loudly and clearly condemn all imperialist aggression wherever it may happen, whether in Palestine, Haiti or Venezuela.