“Using covert or military measures to destabilise or overthrow regimes reminds us of some of the most notorious episodes in American foreign policy,” said a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders.

President Donald Trump’s authorisation this week of Central Intelligence Agency operations aimed at toppling Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro prompted warnings from foreign policy experts of yet another US war of choice and the introduction of a bipartisan Senate resolution aimed at blocking unauthorised military action against the South American country.

“Reports that the  Trump administration has authorised covert efforts seeking to foment regime change in Venezuela are deeply concerning,” Matt Duss, executive vice-president of the Centre for International Policy, a Washington, DC-based think tank, said in a statement on Thursday.

“These reports follow on the administration’s unlawful and unauthorised use of military force against vessels and their crews in the Caribbean – which constitute extrajudicial killings,” added Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Trump  said on Wednesday he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela “for two reasons” – at least the first of which is a lie.

“Number one, they have emptied their  prisons into the  United States of America,” he said. “And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”

There is no credible evidence that the Venezuelan Government has systematically or deliberately released prisoners and sent them to the US. The claim — which has been popularised by Trump and some Republicans — has been repeatedly debunked by experts and US officials.

As for drugs, while Venezuela is a transit point for cocaine — mostly produced in neighbouring Colombia — the amount of narcotics entering the USn via the country is relatively insignificant compared with routes via Mexico,  Central America and the Pacific coast.

Approximately 90% of US-bound cocaine enters the country via Mexico, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration and other government agencies. Venezuela is also not a significant source of fentanyl, which is the  leading cause of overdoses in the US and is also trafficked primarily through Mexico.

“Using covert or military measures to destabilise or overthrow regimes reminds us of some of the most notorious episodes in American foreign policy, which undermined the human rights and sovereignty of countries throughout  Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Duss.

According to John Coatsworth, a historian specialising in Latin America, the US has launched at least 41 interventions that successfully overthrew governments in the hemisphere since 1898. The number of US military interventions in the region is  much higher.

The US has been  meddling in Venezuelan affairs since the 19th century, going back to an 1895 boundary dispute between Venezuela and Britain, and possibly earlier. Since then, Washington has helped install and prop up brutal dictators and assisted in the subversion of democratic movements, including by training Venezuelan forces in  torture and repression at the notorious  US Army School of the Americas.

This century, successive US administrations beginning with  George W. Bush have worked to thwart the Bolivarian Revolution launched by former president Hugo Chávez and continued under Maduro. Under Trump, the US has deployed a small armada of warships and thousands of troops off the coast of Venezuela, a rattling of proverbial sabres familiar to students of US imperialism in Latin America.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have also died as a result of US economic  sanctions on Venezuela,  according to research from the Centre for Economic and Policy Research.

“The CIA has been sent to Venezuela for regime change,” Maduro  said on Thursday in Caracas. “Since its creation, no US Government has so openly ordered this agency to kill, overthrow, or destroy other countries.

“If Venezuela did not possess  oil, gas, gold, fertile land and water, the imperialists wouldn’t even look at our country,” he added.

Duss noted that the US is “still dealing with many of the harmful consequences of these disastrous interventions in today’s challenges with migration and the drug trade".

“Such interventions rarely lead to democratic or peaceful outcomes,” he stressed. “Instead, they exacerbate internal divisions, reinforce  authoritarianism, and destabilise societies for generations.”

As Tim Weiner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of multiple histories of the CIA,  said in a Friday interview with CNN senior politics writer Zachary Wolf, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro “survived  covert action under presidents from [Dwight] Eisenhower onward and outlived them all".

Weiner said that even operations considered successes created tremendous problems.

“The successes, for example, in  Guatemala, ushered in dictatorships and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people,” he said, referring to the 1954 CIA overthrow of reformist Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz —  c odenamed PBSUCCESS — which led to decades of bloody repression and a US-backed genocide against  Indigenous Mayan peoples.

Writing for Responsible Statecraft on Thursday, Joseph Addington, associate editor and Latin America columnist at The American Conservative,  asserted that any US invasion of Venezuela “comes with a number of costs and risks American policymakers should bear in mind and carefully weigh against the potential benefits of intervention".

“There is no free lunch in geopolitics,” he argued.

Addington cited an example of the US ousting a drug trafficking leader, who was an  erstwhile ally and CIA asset:

The most obvious costs are those of the initial invasion. The American invasion of Panama in 1989, to overthrow the government of Gen. Manuel Noriega, was carried out by a force of some 27,000 US troops, 23 of which were killed and hundreds more wounded. Venezuela is vastly larger than Panama, and while its military is very poorly equipped, it likewise dwarfs the forces that were available to Noriega. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimates an invasion of Venezuela would require nearly 50,000 troops, some of which will not return home. Any American government should be extremely conscientious about the causes on which it spends the lives of American soldiers.

“The real risks of such an operation, however, come after the invasion,” Addington said. “Toppling Maduro’s government is one thing; there is no real chance that the impoverished and corrupt Venezuelan armed forces can put up a serious fight against the American military. But occupying and rebuilding the country is another, as the US learned to its chagrin in the  Middle East.”

Duss noted that “Trump ran as an anti-war candidate and casts himself as a Nobel Prize-worthy peacemaker,” and that “a majority of Americans oppose US military involvement in Venezuela".

“Lawmakers must make clear that Trump does not have the American people’s support or Congress’ authorisation for the use of force against Venezuela or anywhere else in the region,” he said.

On Friday, a bipartisan group of US senators — Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — introduced a war powers resolution that would bar US military action within, or against, Venezuela.

“I’m extremely troubled that the Trump administration is considering launching illegal military strikes inside Venezuela without a specific authorisation by Congress,” Kaine said in a statement. “Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars – especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilisation and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere.

“If my colleagues disagree and think a war with Venezuela is a good idea,” he added, “they need to meet their constitutional obligations by making their case to the American people and passing an authorisation for use of military force.”

It’s the second time Kaine and Schiff have tried to introduce such a measure. Earlier this month, Democratic Sen.  John Fetterman joined his  GOP colleagues in  voting down a Venezuela war powers resolution. Paul joined Democrats independent Sens.  Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and Angus King ( Maine) in voting for the legislation.

Republished from Common Dreams, 17 October 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.