Trump’s Brazen Capture of Maduro: A “Dress Rehearsal” for an Assault on Cuba

Vantage Point
Articles and Essays by Dr. Ron Daniels

The Institute of the Black World 21st Century joins the overwhelming chorus of voices of heads of state, elected officials and civil society organizations around the world in condemning the military assault on the sovereign nation of Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro. These acts are indisputable violations of international law.  Venezuela posed no imminent danger of attacking the United States or imminent danger to its national interest. The assault was a hypocritical, reckless and dangerous criminal act perpetrated by a convicted felon and rogue regime which poses an imminent danger to nations, leaders and organizations around the world.  Donald J. Trump must be checked by any and all legal and legitimate means necessary!

The reckless actions of Trump and his pathetic enablers are marked by the height of hypocrisy, deception and criminality.  It began with the illegal and highly publicized attacks on boats that were said to be cocaine trafficking vessels without any proof. Over 100 human beings have been publicly executed by these attacks. While all these attacks are illegal, the secondary attack in September of last year on the remnants of a ship where two survivors waving their hands in hopes of rescue were murdered, was clearly a war crime as defined by international law.

Adding to the hypocrisy was the pardon of Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former President of Honduras, who was convicted of trafficking 400 hundred tons of cocaine into the United States. In addition, gangs in Venezuela are not a major trafficker of drugs on the global scene, but the cocaine that is produced there is overwhelmingly shipped to European nations, not the United States.

Moreover, to the degree that there were issues related to drug trafficking or any other matters of concern to Trump, President Lula of Brazil offered to mediate these matters to avoid a military confrontation. This offer was rejected because the rogue regime in Washington was hellbent on pursuing Trump’s real objective: regime change and control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Hence, the rationale provided by Trump and his henchman, Secretary of “War” Pete Hegseth, was a hoax and a distraction. This became abundantly clear when Trump ordered the seizure of the first Venezuelan oil tanker. The real deal was about Venezuela’s oil!

Yes, the build-up of military forces in the Caribbean was always about oil and the dangerous reassertion of the “Monroe Doctrine” which some are calling the Trump or “Donroe Doctrine.” Whatever it is called, it is reckless and dangerous, characterized by bellowing loud and wielding a sledgehammer to bludgeon nations and leaders into submission or compliance with the whims, wishes and self-aggrandizing interests of MAGAISM as defined by the wannabe “King” of America, Donald J. Trump.

To carry out this bellicose doctrine, Trump is using his criminal assault on Venezuela, the capture of Maduro and seizure of oil as a warning to other nations in the region, including Mexico, Colombia, Cuba and any other nation that dares to defy his deranged imperial ambitions. But, make no mistake about it, while other nations may be mentioned, the real target is Cuba. As Lawrence O’Donnelldeclared recently on The 11th Hour on MSNOW, the assault on Venezuela is a “dress rehearsal” for a pending strike against Cuba.

The fragile Cuban economy which has suffered from decades of an illegal U.S. blockade, is sustained in part by generous supplies of discounted oil from Venezuela. Haiti and Grenada are among other nations from the Caribbean who also benefit from discounted Venezuelan oil. With the political chameleon and hyper-hypocrite Marco Rubio egging him on, Trump may well decide to launch an assault on Cuba in the near future. At a minimum his calculation is that without the oil from Venezuela, the Cuban economy will collapse and mass discontent will spark regime change.  These machinations were confirmed by another political chameleon and hyper-hypocrite, Lindsay Graham, who openly fantasized about Cuba returning to the good old days of being a flourishing playground for the rich and the famous.

Cuba is the real prize, a small rebellious nation despised by reactionary forces in the U.S. as the linchpin of anti-Capitalist ideology and opposition to the imperialist ambitions of transnational corporations; an unrepentant nation guilty of the spreading dangerous ideas about socialism and people-based economies that have captured the imaginations of millions around the world. Cuba is the prize!

As it relates to the interests and aspirations of people of African descent, Cuba has been a stanch and unrepentant ally. In fact, Afro-Cubans were an indispensable base for the Cuba Revolution that ousted the ruthless, corrupt, mob-infested, U.S. backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.  To his credit Fidel Castro declared Cuba an Afro-Hispanic Nation and the prohibition of discrimination against Afro-Cubans was an explicit, if imperfect policy of Communist Party. Fidel’s embrace of Afro-Cubans may well have influenced President Hugo Chavis of Venezuela to publicly reveal his African lineage and advance policies to celebrate the culture and improve the quality of life of Afro-descendants as an integral component of the Bolivarian Revolution — which his successor, Nicolas Maduro continued. And we must never forget that Cuba was the safe haven for our beloved revolutionary sister Assata Shakur. Cuba absolutely refused to extradite her back to the U.S. as concession to lift the criminal embargo.

To the disdain of the U.S., this annoying small nation, unapologetically engaged in “good trouble” throughout the developing world, including Africa and the Caribbean, by sending legions of doctors and technicians to support the social and economic aspirations of nations in the global south.  And, we must never forget the contribution that Cuba made to the anti-colonial struggles in Africa by its support for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA and fighting side by side with the liberation forces of Angola and Namibia in the decisive defeat of the South African Defense Forces in the battle of Cuito Cuanavale;  a turning point which marked the death knell of apartheid in southern Africa; a feat which the Spanish writer Jorge Tamames calls: “One of history’s greatest acts of internationalism.”

Now people of African descent, Black people lodged in the “belly of the beast,’’ must assume a central role in confronting one of the greatest challenges of the 21st Century: ridding the U.S. and the world of a criminal menace to international society. Cleansing the body politic and systems of society in the U.S. of the racist, white supremacist, orange plague, the malignancy of MAGAISM and Donald J. Trump aka the Orange man aka Agent Orange, the masta of the cult, is the order of the day.

Regime change in the U.S. is imperative, and African Americans must lead the way: Regime change to finally end the quasi-protectorate status of Venezuela; end the illegal   blockade of Cuba; end the perverse “Donroe Doctrine,” and end the scourge of Neo-Liberalism as propagated by the U.S.

Africans in America, Black people have the power to be the burning spear of opposition and transformation to achieve regime change. We can and must raise our voices to protest the criminal behavior of the convicted felon in the White House and his rogue regime as reflected in recent events and more with marches, rallies, demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience.  The Congressional Black Caucus, Civil Rights Legacy Organizations, faith and labor leaders must continue to vociferously condemn the actions of the rogue regime in the White House.

However, ultimately, to achieve regime change, we must forge a broad-based united front with the mission of educating, mobilizing and organizing millions upon millions of voters and non-voters to march on ballot boxes in 2026 and 2028 to oust the retrograde MAGA Republicans and their cowardly, hypocritical enablers from the House, the Senate and the White House. No excuses, no apologies after the fact for being accomplices to the plague of MAGAISM.  History demands a clean sweep! Africans in America, Black people, have the power to impact and change U.S. policy toward Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America and the world. And the world is counting on us to exercise our power, Black Power!

For the progressive forces, regime change as outlined above is simply an essential pre-condition for the continuation of the struggle for transformative change in the USA; the quest to define and achieve genuine political and economic democracy; the essential struggle to transform the “beast” into a beacon of promise and hope for humankind. A luta continua!