This note is a short version of a
detailed paper I am writing; I am putting out this post because US has broken
all rules of law and ethics. Instead of the US, the nation, trying to rein in their
President, the SOCTUS and Congress are being silent and complicit with the
crimes of US President as he abuses the oval office. The story line created by
US to ensure they can attack Venezuela a sovereign nation did not start now,
but was put in process years ago facilitated by earlier US Presidents, it became obvious when
President Chavez nationalised oil industry and focused on reducing disparity
within the nation and ensuring real governance of Venezuela for its people.
Unlike the governments that were admired by US, for their focus was US, its oil
companies, Venezuelan elites and at the best the middle class. To ensure US goals are met, US has been carrying out silent war with use of logical fallacies and narration building. This note focuses on the same.
Building a narrative: US
has ben building a narrative stating Venezuela government is not for its
people, but rather US is far more concerned about Venezuelans than Venezuelan
government. This is very much in line with Israel stating that it cares for
Palestinians as it bombs them to smithereens and then states it is protecting
Palestinians from Hamas for the benefit of Palestinians. The narrative building
about Venezuela has been on from the time of President Chavez and it has taken
nasty turn with President Maduro taking office.
Narrative- a String of logical
fallacies;
US has been building the
narrative to justify attacks on Venezuela government on different fronts, from
type of governance, human rights violation, drug trade and government of
Venezuela being directly involved in crime and managing crime. US nor its agencies
have nothing concrete to show about any of these allegations, expect for one
case of President’s nephew being drug traffickers and were raising money for
Venezuelan government. Even this charge has limited substance to it, which I
will focus later on.
a) Fallacy of Equivocation: US
President and his government somehow have come to believe the White privilege
is a legal and just one. US President and his government including Secretary of
State, speak with pride about US Sovereignty but somehow the concept of
sovereignty of other nations seems alien to them. They seem to have no qualms
in stating they can determine and redraw governance in other countries, till
the governance setting become conducive to US. The concept of sovereignty has
two different meanings in their arguments; one in reference to the US and
another for other countries especially those they do not see eye to eye with.
The recent post of US President
indicates how total disregard he has for law and sovereignty of another nation.
The US president justifies surrounding another nation with “largest Armada ever
assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger, and shock
to them will be like nothing before” [1] as though this shock was not enough,
he kidnapped the President of Venezuela and his wife and strangely the
so-called democratic US seems proud of its clearly insane President, for
kidnapping cannot be a sign of sanity for an ordinary person and never expected
from a World leader. The President further elaborates in his post, he asserts
that sovereign Venezuela recognize that US has the right to disregard
Venezuelan sovereignty and redraw it as President of US wishes. He states “they
return to the United States of America all of the oil, land, and other Assets
they have previously stole from us” [ibid]. US President is clearly
confused, for there is no way Venezuela can either steal oil or land or other assets
that belongs to US and is in US under President of US governance. So, he must
be referring to land, oil and assets that belong to Venezuela or some of assets
allegedly being co-ownership between Venezuela and oil companies that invested
in Venezuela based on a contractual agreement, which is always drawn to the
advantage to the oil companies, with them getting a greater share of natural
resources of Venezuela.
Mr. President you are invading
another country on behalf of US oil companies? Did the congress approve your
war strategy and kidnapping?
b) Denying the antecedent
US has been
using this fallacy across the Western Hemisphere and beyond, it being “Only
democratic governance that cooperate with US will bring peace and development
to the nation and region. Since Venezuela does not have democracy as model of
governance and there is no development in Venezuela and the region”. This is
ground under which US policy has gone all out to stifle growth in Cuba,
Venezuela and other nations in the region. With regard to Venezuela this has
been the policy stand taken by US under different US Presidents after Hugo
Chavez came to power.
Data indicate
there is a clear fallacy in the argument US is advocating regarding Venezuela
for the country and the region. For under President Hugo Chavez, especially
after nationalisation of oil resource, the annual growth of GDP was 4.3 percent
after 2003 as against 1.4 for pre-Chavez period. Even prior to nationalisation
of oil companies the annual growth was more than pre-Chavez period, at 3.2
percent [2]. The private sector also
benefitted and showed a better growth rate at 3.03 percent than pre-Chavez
period. During Chavez period inflation was not beyond control, it was down, the
highest inflation rate was the same as for the year 1988 and the lowest the
same as year 1980. Other area of improvement included unemployment came down,
extreme poverty came down by 70 percent in 2011 and poverty by 50 percent,
social spending as percentage of GDP increased from 11.3 percent in 1998 to
22.8 percent in 2011. The rate of malnutrition among children below age 5 and
below, decreased from 7.7 percent to 2.9 percent in 2011. The number of
graduates increased from 500,000 in 1999 to above 2 million in 2011. The number
of Venezuelans receiving pension increased from 300,000 to nearly 2 million in
2011 [ibid].
Venezuelan did
see turmoil in its economic reality, with its inflation rate going off the
chart in 2018 when it was 65,374.10%, it came down to 19,906.00 % in 2019, it
further dropped to 186.50 in 2022 and was at 59.60 % in 2024 [3]. Was this
result of misgovernance or result of systematic sanction by the US on Venezuela
and its only moneymaking oil industry. Sanction that began in 2005, only
increased in depth and scale be it for individuals or entities.
Economics
Observatory article focuses on Why did Venezuela’s economy collapse? The
article written last year in September, presents an interesting chart of
economic collapses in different countries, during three different situations a)
War/Civil War/ Revolution b) State Collapse/ Decolonization and c) Neither. The
article c) neither refers to peace time and Venezuela’s economic collapse is
considered within this category [4]. My question is this a correct assessment,
for all narratives, including research articles rarely focuses on the
aggression wielded out on ordinary citizen through sanction, especially when it
a planned attack on the sovereignty of another nation.
Yes, US has
carried out a planned act in plain sight with complicity of the world.
Venezuela may not be the only victim for the style aggression which is simple
yet brutal where the aggressor can always disengage without being accused and
take the role of the protector of the country it is attacking. When oil prices collapsed in 2014 from $100
to $40 per barrel, it was not misgovernance alone that destroyed the economic
situation in Venezuela but added on weight of slow calculated attack on
sovereignty of Venezuela by US through its systematic lethal sanction from
2005.
c) Creating
a mythical slippery slope fallacy
A slippery
slope fallacy occurs when a hypothetical connection is created by a person
based on an assumption one step will lead to a series of steps that would end
in disaster. This is often seen in case of overprotective parents who may
assume excessive caffeine use can led to smoking, soft drug use and eventually
hard drugs and addiction. Here what allegedly happened is a similar slippery
slope fallacy surrounding communist based governance.
America has
created a narrative that Venezuela is high in crime and that started from 2005.
But global crime data indicates that this is not true, for example according to
macrotrends.net, the crime rate in Venezuela in 2004 was 37.06 in 100,000
population [5] and for
the same year the FBI data indicates the crime rate for US was 463.2 per
100,000 population. For the same year, in US, the rate for aggravated assault
was 288.6 and for property criminality it was 3514.1 [5]. Mr. President is US the right candidate to go
accusing other of misgovernance or using bombs to govern another country?
Even when at
the highest instance of crime rate in Venezuela it was 63.3 for 2014, similar
data can be found from other sources. Yet, there are articles being written
about Venezuela being the centre of crime in globe, when you dig further one
realises, it refers to murders and assaults. But then if murder and assaults
happen at such large scale the total crime rate should be higher. Further
exploration indicates (my tentative assessment as analysis going on) these
articles are referring to research articles that have used individual
subjective assessment, often survey done, to indicate the extent of crime in
Venezuela. There is no clear indication that these studies have been carried
out in Venezuela or among Venezuelan in other countries.
Another
accusation US has used for substantiating its slipper slope fallacy is to state
that Venezuela have migrated in millions and continue to do so. Checking this
out using data from changing population trends in Venezuela from 2000.
According to population trends, there has been steady growth in Venezuela’s
population from 1960 and it began to decline after 2016, when the country’s
population was 30,765,720 and for 2017 it declined to 30,565,322 and this trend
continued and the lowest value was for year 2022 with national population of
28,213,017. But after that it continued to increased steadily it was 28,300,854
for 2023 and was 29,926,368 for 2025. [6] This data does not substantiate US
President’s claim that Venezuelans are in such misery that all of them are leaving
their country in desperation.
By the way the
steady decline in population from 2017-2022 may have more to do with collapse
of oil price in 2014 and the planned extensive sanction by US on Venezuela in
2015. US can not ensure economic collapse of country and then accuse it of
misgovernance because of lack or resource and any criminality that creeps in
thereof. Besides US rarely practices straight forward sanction, for war like
impact it ensures associational sanction to entities and individuals thereby
ensuring the country’s total isolation. This is not unique strategy of US for
Venezuela, but can be seen in other instances like in case of Iran.
US President is
also found of stating that because of misgovernance and as a result of planned
strategy the President of Venezuela is filling the streets of US with criminal,
murderers etc. Mr. President as per your country data as of 2023 there in total
770,000 Venezuelan immigrants and they make up about 2% of all US immigrants
and 0.3% of overall US population [7]. Please check your facts before you make
statements on social media from the oval office. To be fair President Trump is
not the only President who can be accused of not being factual.
Final mythical
aspect of slippery slope is the case of drug trade and President Madura being
sort of headpin who controls everything along with his other officials. There
are many issues with these assertions, there is no solid data to substantiate
any of these statements. Even when US President Donald Trump bombed boats at
will stating first the boats were carrying Cocaine and then shift to drugs
being Fentanyl.
Mr. President
there is no data to indicate large scale of cocaine is reaching US from
Venezuela, it is other countries in the region are the source and process
countries. With regard to Venezuela, it was an evolving transit route for drug
trade to US, but that too it was never the main player. In fact, UNODC report
in 2020, indicate though Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela was a major departure
point for cocaine but that is no longer true. There is a decline in drug trade
via Venezuela probably due to the volatile situation in the country.
With regards to
trade in Fentanyl with Americas, there has hardly any seizure for the drug in
most countries in the region except for US, Canada and Mexico. In Venezuela,
seizure of this drug was reported in 2024 and 2025, the quantities seized were
very small 1.88kg in 2024 and 0.05Kg in 2025 [8 unodc]. Main source of fentanyl
is from Asia beside that the drug is also being manufacture within US that is a
major concern. US manufactured Fentanyl is sold under different brand names,
Actiq, Duragesic and Sublimaze. This is based on study done in US and published
in Addiction Journal June 2022 [9].
It is
interesting to note that as per archived report for 2016, International
Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INSCR), it stated in Venezuela Air Force had
shot down private air craft suspected to be carrying report. The report added
“Both US and International law prohibit using lethal force against civil
aircraft, regardless of whether the aircraft is being used for drug trafficking”
[10].
Mr. President, given these facts how could bombing of boats from Venezuela be justified by US?
When nearing
the end of slippery slope is the allegation that President Maduro is the main
drug trafficker and manages drug trade. There is no real evidence to indicate any of
these claims other than arrest of President’s nephews for drug trade, but this
is far complex than a regular seize and arrest. To understand the there are two
different drug laws, one for local state level governance and another Federal
drug law. While the domestic US state law requires presence of drugs for arrest,
it is not necessary in case of Federal Law, even when being accused of being a
major trader. Under Federal drug law, drug charge can be under conspiracy to
commit drug trafficking, and federal conspiracy charges for drug related
offences may result in severe sentences, even if the person didn’t personally
commit the crime but played a role in the conspiracy [11].
Two nephews of
Venezuela’s first lady were sentenced to 18 years in prison in US after being
convicted for drug trafficking. They were never found with any drug on person
or in their possession in any manner. They were trapped as part of sting
operation, interesting many of drug trade arrests under federal law fall under
this category, those arrested have no crime record and they account for
majority of the cases. Here the nephews were arrested for conspiring to traffic
drugs to the US, they were caught in Haiti while finalizing the deal, they did
not have any drugs on them. The only evidence was the systematic documentation by US
informant who befriended the President’s nephew state he could provide help to
facilitate them to traffic drugs to use. The only proof is the photo provided
by the nephews, with one of them being with a bag and he acknowledged the bag in
the photo contained drugs.
There are some
puzzling questions that comes to mind, after having done research on drug
trade:
- This incident happened in 2015, and US has been
accusing President Maduro to be facilitating drug trade and being responsible
for drugs being routed via his country.
- If the President was involved in drug trade, why
would his nephew approach a total stranger and ask for facilitating the drug
trade.
- This one incident is taken by the US as clear
proof and military.com carried an article indicating that the idea was the
nephews will make lots of money through drug trade and give it to the President
Maduro for his campaign work. Seriously a President will depend on his nephews
who are so raw that they blurt everything to a stranger.
- It seems more likely a user among them wanted to
carry may a be a kilo that was in the bag to US without being caught.
- The problem with sting operation, is that the
process can find vulnerable individuals, manipulate their mind and then ensure
they are arrested as drug traders. This is my take on it.
d) Conceptual
Fallacy:
Apparently, the
US President and Secretary of State believe concept can be created and build
on, all it takes is the President of United States to declare it. US President
declared there is narco-terrorism in Venezuela and President Maduro is a
narco-terrorist. This meant term narco-terrorist is valid and the President
Maduro is one. There is a small hitch here, even the professional agencies in
US do not use this term, at least till recently, including FBI uses terms like
organized crime group or criminal groups but not narco-terrorist groups.
Need for US
to be reined in:
There is a
reason why US President needed this concept at any cost, for that is the only
way he can at least try to legitimize bombing Venezuela. For it is possible to
use force as willed in case of dealing with terrorism but that flexibility does
not exist in case of addressing drug trade. There is fundamental conceptual
discord in this concept, narcotics trade is purely a business venture that
happens to be criminal. They are only bothered about their own profit share and
safety, even other members in the group are not held on to and many
relationships may be onetime task oriented and nothing beyond. There isn’t any
specific ideology or perspective the groups share or adheres to, the
association with the group is hidden and rarely acknowledged.
In case of
terrorist groups, they have an ideology beyond the violence. Their associations
with others in the group are strong and build upon. Profit is rarely their
goal, in fact self-annihilation for the ideology may be a more common goal
among the group.
It is high time
the so-called great democracy United States controlled their President who
seems to have a different take on reality and is in total dissonance with
reality and rule of law.
Molly Charles
Reference
1.
Al Jazeera. Does US have any real claim on Venezuelan oil as Stephen Miller
says? Donald Trump
News
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/18/does-the-us-have-any-real-claim-on-venezuelan-oil-as-stephen-miller-says
2. Jake
Johnston. 2013. Venezuelan Economic and Social Performance under Hugo Chavez,
in graphs-
CEPR
https://cepr.net/publications/venezuelan-economic-and-social-performance-under-hugo-chavez-in-graphs/
3. https://www.worlddata.info/america/venezuela/inflation-rates.php
Inflation rates in Venezuela
4. https://www.economicsobservatory.com/why-did-venezuelans-economy-collapse
Why did Venezuela’s economy collapse?
Economics observatory
5. https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/ven/venezuela/crime-rate-statistics
Venezuela Crime Rate and Statistics
6. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables
Crime in the United States 2011, Criminal
Justice Information Service Division
7. Venezuela
Population (1950-2025)
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/ven/venezuela/population
8. Online UNODC
data
9. https://pmc.ncbi.nim.nih.gov/articles/PMC9543283
Rapid changes in illegal manufactured
fentanyl products and prices in the United States -PMC
10. https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2016/vol1/253323.htm
2016 International Narcotics Control
Strategy Report (INCSR)
11. https://nhcriminaldefense.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-a-state-vs-federal-drug- charge/
What is the difference between a State
vs Federal Drug Charges? Wiberg Law Office, PLLC.
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