Radical Christian American Terrorists Invade a Sovereign Country and Kidnap Its President: Venezuela’s Noriega Moment

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An actual catastrophe, by Abdo Fayed

Trump announced that the United States has arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from the presidential palace, along with his wife, and transferred them to another country.

Never in history has a state attacked another state and, within an hour or less, abducted an elected president and taken him abroad — except at the hands of the United States. The exact same thing happened to Panamanian President Manuel Noriega in December 1989, when American paratroopers landed to arrest him from inside his palace, allegedly over the killing of a U.S. Marine during an ordinary altercation in the El Chorrillo neighborhood. Noriega fled to the Vatican embassy, where Archbishop José Sebastián Laboa handed him over to the Americans, after which he was tried in Washington.

Today, America is repeating the same scenario verbatim. This time it did not take two days, as in Panama, but half an hour. A complete collapse of Venezuelan defense networks — and most likely internal betrayal — since U.S. helicopters were flying at low altitude over the presidential palace area in Miraflores.

This is American democracy: you can be its friend even if you are a dictator, corrupt, and a criminal — it doesn’t matter. But the moment you think of challenging its will, your fate is arrest from your presidential palace. This is the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to a defector like Machado, who undoubtedly helped the Americans arrest the president of her own country.

This is the international community we live in: the robbery of an oil-rich country — the richest in the world — and the kidnapping of presidents from their homes. This man was the head of state just two hours ago. He survived a live, on-air assassination attempt and three military coup attempts, and today he becomes an American prisoner at the hands of Delta Force.

This should terrify the world — and it must terrify the world. Fear to the point of horror. In a single hour, a state collapsed after a sweeping air and naval blockade enforced by the largest American fleet ever assembled in the history of Latin America. This was a president whose only crime was that he refused to submit to the United States.