Just days after invading Venezuela and kidnapping the country’s leader, US President Donald Trump announced “I don’t need international law.”
The move against President Nicolás Maduro, an unprovoked operation Trump described as “so brilliant,” left some jubilant, others horrified and many in shock.
Nonetheless, the US attack, in which 100 people were killed, signaled a significant shift towards old-school imperial tactics that are no longer prefaced with diplomatic niceties or newspeak.
And it did not occur in a vacuum.
“Venezuela cannot be understood in isolation from Gaza, which has functioned as a global litmus test for lawfulness in international politics,” wrote Kuwaiti-Palestinian Professor Sami Al-Arian in a recent opinion piece in Middle East Eye. In fact, “to understand Trump’s actions in Venezuela, one must situate them within a larger pattern of imperialism,” he argued. ….more
