Abducting Maduro shows not the power of the United States, but its banditry

Trump once again showed the world what we all know, but prefer not to believe, through the operation he carried out against Venezuela in which he abducted its elected leader: there is no such thing as international law or international justice. There is only the law of the strong. And that strong power can name its own law however it wishes and impose it on everyone else. Storming an independent country like a pirate and abducting its leader from his bedroom along with his wife is, plainly and unmistakably, an act of terrorism and a violation of all international rules. Yet this operation was announced as “Maduro has been arrested and will pay for his crimes.”

You can label as terrorists those who defend their own country with honor, national resistance forces who refrain even from making a civilian’s nose bleed, while continuing to treat Israel— which has massacred tens of thousands of men, women, and children in the most brutal and savage ways and carried out genocide— as a legitimate ally. Who can object? Anyone who does must be prepared to be branded a terrorist themselves.

THE WORLD DOESN’T TURN WITHOUT LIES.

We actually know that the international community is subject to the law of the strong, yet there is still a lingering hope— even if it is a lie, people cling to it, even love it. The world doesn’t turn without lies. It is deeply painful that all struggles waged in the realm of legitimacy rest on ignoring this undeniable truth.

The brutal seizure of the Venezuelan president from inside his own palace and the open display of his handcuffed image as if he were being taken to trial is an insult to all governments around the world. America is effectively telling every country that none truly possesses sovereignty, that it can intervene in any country it wishes, fold it into its own legal system, and put its leaders on trial.

This is clearly the message being sent to all sovereign states. But is accepting this message an unavoidable fate?

THIS OPERATION DOES NOT PROVE U.S. POWER

Of course not, and absolutely not. Even if this is the message the U.S. wants to convey through these images, they do not in any way prove American power. What made this image possible was not U.S. strength, but the fact that the country it targeted, Venezuela, had already been occupied from within by traitors long before the U.S. and the CIA arrived. The internal security breach that allowed Maduro to be abducted in handcuffs is what made this possible. And this weakness does not belong to the Venezuelan people; it belongs first and foremost to elements within the armed forces and to collaborator opposition figures who had long since held out their hands for the bribes that a U.S. occupation would bring.

The U.S. may have wanted to send this message to the entire world through Maduro, but no one should assume that it can apply this scenario anywhere and in any way it chooses. Its recent humiliation in Afghanistan showed how helpless it can be in the face of a people’s spirit of resistance, and how it is doomed to disgrace and defeat when confronted with a people’s love of freedom, unity, solidarity, and above all their reliance on God. Despite all the destruction and massacres it caused in Iraq, it ultimately had to flee there as well in humiliation. Despite all the support it has given to Zionist Israel, what it has experienced in the face of the people of Gaza and Hamas— a resistance utterly disproportionate in numbers and weaponry— is nothing but a disgraceful defeat. The only thing it has proven there is its murderous, genocidal, ruthless, and lawless nature. Everyone already knew that much, but the whole world has now seen that in the face of a believing community, the weapons it hides behind amount to nothing.

THE U.S. FAILED IN TÜRKİYE ON JULY 15 — WHY AND HOW?

Wasn’t the same operation carried out against Maduro attempted in Türkiye on July 15 through local collaborators? Yet the Turkish people, together with the unsold, national elements of the Turkish Armed Forces, resisted this operation and demonstrated in epic fashion that the U.S. is not capable of carrying out whatever operation it wants everywhere.

So where was the Venezuelan people in this incident? Unfortunately, what proved decisive here was not so much U.S. success as Maduro’s failure to build a spirit of national defense together with his own people. Trump does not care about Maduro’s dictatorship, his democratic credentials, or even drug trafficking. The example of Afghanistan alone shows clearly enough that when the U.S. occupation ended, a country that had been the world’s most significant source of drugs saw that production drop to zero within just a few months. Everyone knows that the CIA is the world’s biggest patron and trafficker of drugs. Venezuela’s problem was not drugs; the only real issue was that Venezuela possesses some of the world’s largest oil reserves.

Had someone else been in power, the U.S. would not have hesitated to carry out the same operation, this time under the pretext of “bringing democracy” or “liberating the country from a dictator.” Trump, however, does not even hide that he did this for oil— he openly and proudly says so.

MADURO DID NOT SHARE THE COUNTRY’S WEALTH WITH HIS PEOPLE AND FAILED TO WIN THEM OVER

Here again, what made Maduro the main reason behind the apparent success of the U.S. operation was his complete lack of a policy to share the country’s vast wealth with its people and to win their support. This is a common problem among many dictators, and it is worth considering that this situation is not always entirely of their own making. True democracy would disturb both the U.S. and Europe even more. Because keeping things this way makes it easier to pull the plug whenever they want.

What they could not do in Türkiye was precisely this. Having a government that genuinely represents its people and seeks to maximize national resources for public benefit reduces the likelihood of foreign intervention.

THE PROBLEM OF AN OPPOSITION THAT OPENS THE DOOR TO THE OCCUPIER FROM WITHIN

Yet in Venezuela, as with us, the most fundamental problem has always been an opposition that opens the door to the occupier from within. Were it not the Anglophile Unionists who opened the door from inside to the British who brought down the Ottoman Empire? We also saw the opposition that watched the July 15 operation to seize Erdoğan with great anticipation. The opposition leader who complained that Türkiye had been abandoned by the British prime minister after they appealed to him now claims that Erdoğan abandoned Maduro, whom he once called his “brother.” Out of sympathy for Maduro?

And does he not know that even if Erdoğan has good relations with Trump, he fundamentally disagrees with him on many issues? Time and again, even after meetings with Trump, Erdoğan has openly expressed positions completely opposed to Trump’s stance— on Gaza, on the U.S. presence in Syria, and on support for the SDF, to name just a few.

Erdoğan has a trademark mastery over when, where, and how to speak his words.

Özgür Özel, acting on his own reasoning, is trying to provoke Erdoğan in such an incident not toward a stance that serves the country and its interests, but toward a position that would drag both himself and the country into error. Erdoğan, however, is a leader who controls his words and knows how to say the right thing at the right time. It is unthinkable that he approves of the U.S. attitude, but he must weigh every word he speaks on behalf of the country he governs.

If Özgür Özel truly sees this U.S. act of banditry as such a grave wrongdoing, nothing is stopping him. Let him condemn Trump and the U.S. in the strongest possible terms. Let him say that bandits do not rule the world, or that this action proves not America’s strength but a banditry that will ultimately lead to its own destruction. By God, we would applaud him, regardless of who he is, and agree with him wholeheartedly.