"It was the fever dream of the revolution, a dark fantasy spun so many times each version wilder than the last until it almost became a joke: the Yankees are coming. Hugo Chavez, who ruled Venezuela from 1999 to 2013, conjured the scenario again and again, warning that the US president and his henchmen in the CIA and Pentagon were mobilising forces to strike. Spies, saboteurs, assassins, special forces, mercenaries, missiles, poison, submarines, fighter planes the empire would stop at nothing to smite Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution and overthrow its leader."
"It was, in large part, theatre. A confection of claims to justify authoritarian rule, burnish anti-imperialism credentials and delegitimise opponents. Over time, even some supporters rolled their eyes at tales of the Yankee bogeyman. Yet now, 13 years after an ailing Chavez passed power to his protege, Nicolas Maduro, the fever dream is real. On Saturday US forces bombed Caracas and seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores the empire of Chavez's rhetoric made manifest."
Hugo Chavez repeatedly warned that US forces, spies and special operations would attempt to overthrow Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution. Those warnings functioned as political theatre to justify authoritarian measures, bolster anti-imperial credentials and delegitimise opponents. Over time some supporters grew skeptical of perpetual invasion narratives. US forces bombed Caracas and seized President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, without UN mandate or congressional approval, deploying raw military power. The intervention transforms a long-invoked rhetorical threat into an actual American operation, producing a surreal inversion of past Chavista warnings.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]