The Venezuela Strike — And the Story Washington Always Tells Itself

The U.S. Attack on Venezuela Isn’t About “Security.” It’s About Power, Money, and Resources.

Call it what it is: a U.S. military attack on Venezuela.

Not a “precision operation.” Not a “stabilization action.” Not a “necessary intervention.” When a superpower launches strikes on another country and boasts about removing its leadership, that’s not diplomacy. It’s force—used openly, unapologetically, and with the familiar packaging of moral language meant to make the public swallow what it would otherwise reject.

The United States wants the world to believe its wars are uniquely principled. That it bombs countries for democracy, human rights, or safety. But history tells a different story—one repeated so often it has become a script: declare a threat, announce noble intentions, strike first, and deal with the wreckage later.

The Resource Story Isn’t a “Conspiracy.” It’s the Pattern.

Venezuela is not just any country. It sits on immense oil wealth and strategic leverage in the Western Hemisphere. You don’t have to invent secret meetings or shadowy cabals to understand why powerful states take interest in resource-rich nations. You only have to look at what happens—again and again—when a country has something valuable and refuses to align itself with U.S. economic and geopolitical demands.

The U.S. doesn’t need to literally ship barrels of oil home for the attack to be “about resources.” Control in the modern world is broader than that. It’s about who sets the rules: who gets contracts, whose companies are protected, whose currency dominates trade, whose allies control supply chains, and who gets punished for stepping out of line.

When Washington talks about “security,” it often means security for markets, for investors, for strategic dominance—not security for ordinary people living under the bombs.

“Liberation” Is Always Promised. Chaos Is What Arrives.

The people who sell interventions always promise clarity: remove the villain, restore order, protect civilians. But real countries are not movie plots. When you shatter a government by external force, you don’t create democracy—you create a vacuum. And vacuums fill with chaos: competing armed factions, corrupted client leaders, crony privatization, disappearances, mass migration, and decades of instability that the country—not the intervening power—pays for.

If the U.S. truly cared about Venezuelans, the primary tools would be humanitarian support without political strings, genuine negotiations led by regional partners, and an end to economic pressure that strangles ordinary life. Instead, the choice is the loudest tool in the box: military violence—because violence is the quickest way to impose control.

This Is What Empires Do.

The uncomfortable truth is that the United States behaves like an empire, and empires justify themselves with stories. Every empire insists it is the exception. Every empire claims it is bringing order. Every empire calls its violence regrettable but necessary. And every empire frames resistance as irrational, extremist, or criminal—anything but political.

Venezuela is only the latest stage where the same logic plays out: a powerful country decides it has the right to determine another country’s future. It doesn’t matter what Venezuelans want; it matters what Washington wants. That is the defining feature of imperial politics.

A Long Record of Attacking Countries Since the U.S. Began

The U.S. has used armed forces abroad across a huge range of countries and territories since the late 18th century—through invasions, occupations, bombardments, raids, and “interventions.” A well-known roll-up of these instances appears in U.S. congressional research summaries of overseas uses of force. The point isn’t that every entry is identical in scale—it’s that the habit is constant: when power is challenged, the U.S. reaches for the military.

Here is a broad list of countries/territories where U.S. armed forces have been used abroad (combat operations, strikes, raids, blockades, or armed deployments in conflicts), spanning from early U.S. history through the modern era:

• Afghanistan

• Albania

• Algeria / Barbary States

• Angola

• Argentina

• Austria

• Austria-Hungary

• Bahamas

• Bahrain

• Bermuda

• Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Brazil

• Bulgaria

• Burundi

• Cambodia

• Cameroon

• Central African Republic

• Chad

• Chile

• China

• Colombia

• Congo (Republic of) / Democratic Republic of the Congo

• Costa Rica

• Côte d’Ivoire

• Cuba

• Cyprus

• Djibouti

• Dominica

• Dominican Republic

• Ecuador

• Egypt

• El Salvador

• Eritrea

• Estonia

• Ethiopia

• Fiji

• France

• Gabon

• Germany

• Ghana

• Greece

• Greenland

• Grenada

• Guatemala

• Guinea

• Guinea-Bissau

• Haiti

• Honduras

• Hong Kong

• Hungary

• Iceland

• India

• Indonesia

• Iran

• Iraq

• Ireland

• Israel

• Italy

• Jamaica

• Japan

• Jordan

• Kenya

• Korea (North and South)

• Kosovo

• Kuwait

• Laos

• Lebanon

• Liberia

• Libya

• Lithuania

• Madagascar

• Mali

• Marshall Islands

• Mexico

• Moldova

• Morocco

• Myanmar

• Nepal

• Nicaragua

• Niger

• Nigeria

• North Korea

• North Macedonia

• Pakistan

• Panama

• Papua New Guinea

• Peru

• Philippines

• Poland

• Qatar

• Romania

• Russia / Former USSR

• Rwanda

• Saudi Arabia

• Senegal

• Serbia (former Yugoslavia)

• Sierra Leone

• Singapore

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• Somalia

• South Korea

• South Sudan

• Spain

• Sri Lanka

• Sudan

• Syria

• Taiwan

• Tanzania

• Thailand

• Timor-Leste

• Trinidad and Tobago

• Tunisia

• Turkey

• Uganda

• Ukraine

• United Kingdom

• Uruguay

• Vietnam

• Yemen

• Venezuela

This is not “ancient history.” It is a throughline: the U.S. repeatedly uses force far from its borders, and it repeatedly claims necessity and virtue as justification.

The Moral Test Is Simple

If another great power launched strikes on a capital city in the Americas and announced it had captured the head of state, the United States would call it an act of war and a threat to world order. When the U.S. does it, it calls it leadership.

That double standard is the entire story.

The attack on Venezuela is not a tragic accident. It is the predictable outcome of a worldview where dominance is treated as destiny, and where other nations’ sovereignty matters only when it serves U.S. interests.

And until that worldview is confronted—politically, publicly, relentlessly—Venezuela will not be the last country to learn what U.S. “security” really means.