Trump and Starmer at Chequers in September 2025. (Photo: Leon Neal / Alamy)
From Iran to Libya, from Panama to Venezuela, there is a history of the UK supporting illegal US military interventions
Forty years ago, US warplanes bombed Libya, attempting to assassinate its leader Muammar Gaddafi. Failing in that task, they managed to kill dozens of civilians in Tripoli, Libya’s capital.
The attacks, which were in response to the bombing of a Berlin nightclub blamed on Gaddafi, were strongly supported by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Indeed, she allowed some of the US jets to take off from bases in Britain.
In the face of widespread public opposition to the US raid, a defiant Thatcher told parliament it was “a necessary and proportionate response to a clear pattern of Libyan terrorism” and to “uphold international law”.
However, the UN General Assembly, and most world opinion, condemned the attack as a violation of international law.
But for the British prime minister: “The United States has stood by us in times of need, as we have stood by her. To refuse their request for the use of bases here would have been to abandon our responsibilities as an ally and to weaken the fight against terrorism.”
Fast forward two decades, and we find ourselves in a not dissimilar situation over US attacks on Venezuela.
UK ministers give their backing to the kidnapping of a foreign head of state amidst a military intervention, condemned in the wider world but supported in Whitehall because of the so-called “special relationship”.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
US President Donald Trump, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Photos via Presidential Press
The war drums beating in Washington are not just a threat to a distant nation; they are a symptom of a political system that thrives on the distraction of war abroad to cover its internal crises.
The sun glints off the gray hull of the USS Iwo Jima, a massive amphibious assault ship cutting through the Caribbean Sea. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, a key architect of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policies, stands on deck before a group of sailors and marines. His voice, amplified by the ship’s public address system, is a low, serious rumble that carries across the choppy waters. “What you’re doing right now is NOT training,” he says, in a scene reminiscent of George W. Bush’s staged landing to declare victory in Iraq. “This is a REAL-WORLD EXERCISE on behalf of the vital national interests of the United States of America, to end the POISONING of the American people.” His words hang heavy in the air, a dramatic prelude to what some suspect is an impending invasion of Venezuela.
The history of the Caribbean is a bloody one, stained by the imperial ambitions of European powers and the United States. The region now sits on the verge of another bloody chapter. As the great writer and historian Juan Bosch once observed, this region of Latin America is a battleground where empires have fought to seize the rich lands of its peoples and to claim what other empires had already conquered.
Today, the Caribbean is again being transformed into a stage for imperial aggression.
In a dangerous and dramatic escalation, the government of the United States, through its aptly renamed Department of War, has amassed a formidable naval force and deployed advanced fighter jets to the waters off Venezuela. This military buildup, consisting of at least eight warships, 4,000 sailors and marines along with P-8 spy planes and at least one nuclear submarine, is a clear threat to Venezuelan sovereignty and a blatant crime against international law. Washington is hiding behind a well-worn, cynical pretext: the “war on drugs”.
A sordid history of manufactured pretexts
The latest act of lawlessness came on September 2, when US forces in the Caribbean allegedly interdicted a “drug trafficking” vessel. Instead of following international protocols, the US Coast Guard and DEA agents opened fire, destroying the boat and killing all 11 people on board. This extrajudicial execution at sea is a clear violation of international law, which mandates that law enforcement actions must prioritize arrest and the preservation of life. The use of lethal force is only permitted as a last resort in cases of immediate self-defense. Though the US is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the US military’s legal advisors have previously said that the US should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions”. To destroy a vessel and summarily execute its occupants without due process is not law enforcement; it is a state-sanctioned massacre, a crime that echoes other massacres in American military missions abroad. Recently, Professor Michael Becker of Trinity College in Dublin told the BBC that the US action “stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point”.
This act of violence is not an anomaly but part of a deliberate pattern of provocation. The US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has significantly bolstered its presence with additional destroyers and littoral combat ships. Meanwhile, the US Air Force has sent F-35 fighter jets, aircraft designed for air dominance and striking high-value targets – not for intercepting drug runners – to its base in Puerto Rico, an island under US colonial domination. This military posture has nothing to do with curbing narcotics flow and everything to do with encircling and intimidating a nation that has defiantly resisted Washington’s hegemony for over two decades.
The historical context is inescapable. The United States has a long and sordid history of fabricating justifications for military action to achieve its political ends. The sinking of the USS Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the non-existent “Weapons of Mass Destruction” used to justify the invasion of Iraq are all well-worn chapters in the same playbook. The current administration, with its bellicose rhetoric, is drafting a new one. Key architect of Trump-era maximum pressure policies, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has consistently agitated for regime change, framing the Venezuelan government as a “narco-state”.
Exposing the “narco-state” smokescreen
The “narco-state” narrative collapses under the weight of its own fiction. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the US State Department’s own annual reports, the vast majority of cocaine leaving South America originates from and passes through US-allied nations like Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Venezuela is not a significant producer of cocaine. The narrative is a convenient smokescreen, a lie sold to the public to manufacture consent for aggression. The hypocrisy is further exposed by Rubio’s recent tour of Ecuador, a nation with extremely high levels of collaboration with US anti-drug agencies. Despite this collaboration, Ecuador has been plunged into a devastating crisis of drug trafficking and gang violence, proving that US intervention solves nothing and only fuels instability.
The true goal of this military buildup is clearly the overthrow of Venezuela’s government and the seizure of its vast oil reserves. The threats emanating from Washington are not veiled. They range from scenarios of massive bombing campaigns to the outright kidnapping or assassination of President Maduro. Donald Trump’s past musings about a “military option” for Venezuela are now being operationalized.
The Venezuelan people prepare for resistance
In the face of this existential threat, the Venezuelan people are preparing to defend their homeland. President Maduro has called for a “people in arms”, and an estimated 8 million Venezuelans have joined citizen militias. Across the country, young people, students, workers, and retirees are training in basic combat, emergency response, and civil defense. Their resolve is a powerful testament to the spirit of resistance.
“We are not an army for aggression, but an army for peace, for the defense of our sacred land,” said Maria Delgado*, a 20-year-old university student and new militia member in Caracas. “They think that because we are young or because we are not professional soldiers, we will be afraid. They are wrong. We know what is at stake: our sovereignty, our future, and the project of justice that our parents built.”
President Maduro has framed this mobilization in stark terms: “Venezuela is facing its greatest threat in 100 years. Having defeated all forms of hybrid warfare, they [United States] have opted for the worst mistake.”
The war drums beating in Washington are not just a threat to a distant nation; they are a symptom of a political system that thrives on the distraction of war abroad to cover its internal crises. The billions spent on deploying F-35s and destroyers to the Caribbean are billions stolen from the right to healthcare, education, and housing of ordinary Americans at home.
*Name changed
Manolo De Los Santos is Executive Director of The People’s Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His writing appears regularly in Monthly Review, Peoples Dispatch, CounterPunch, La Jornada, and other progressive media. He coedited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord, 2020), Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord, 2021), and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez (LeftWord, 2023).
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Israeli army with large number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, military bulldozers and helicopters continue to attack from air and ground in Khan Yunis, Gaza on March 7, 2024. [Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images]
Three Israeli reserve soldiers have filed a legal petition with the Supreme Court, arguing that the army’s “Operation Gideon Chariots” in Gaza may breach international law, as it appears to aim at the forced transfer and expulsion of the population of the Gaza Strip.
According to Haaretz on Monday, Supreme Court Judge Khaled Kabub has urged the Israeli army to provide a response to the petitioners in hopes of sparing the court from needing to deliberate the matter further.
In a letter sent to the soldiers by an officer from the office of the Israeli Chief of Staff, the military claimed it was “operating broadly throughout the Gaza Strip against terror targets through fire and ground incursions.” He stated that the evacuation of residents was carried out “to reduce the risk to civilians,” adding that “the Israeli army advises and permits civilians in combat zones to evacuate themselves for their protection, as long as military operations continue in the area.”
However, the petitioning soldiers stressed that the forced and permanent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza – which the Israeli government has publicly identified as one of the war’s objectives – is an illegal military act and stands in direct violation of international law and “the values and spirit of the Israeli army.”
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Israeli navy vessels and speedboats are seen off the coast of Ashdod as the Madleen ship, belonging to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) and carrying 12 human rights activists, is expected to be brought to Ashdod Port after being intercepted by Israel on June 9, 2025. [Tsafrir Abayov – Anadolu Agency]
French lawmakers today demanded the release of detained activists following Israel’s interception of the aid ship Madleen in international waters as it was making its way to break the siege on Gaza.
Leftist France Unbowed (LFI) said in a statement that detaining activists on the aid ship is a “clear violation of international law.”
The British-flagged ship Madleen aimed to break a crippling blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza, where nearly 55,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of the occupation state’s brutal onslaught since October 2023.
The ship carrying aid, including food and baby formula, was intercepted and boarded by Israeli forces in international waters in the early hours of today before reaching the Gaza shore. It was later towed to Ashdod Port in Israel. The LFI noted that this is a violation of international maritime law.
They also called on the international community to strongly condemn the interception and called on Israel to immediately and unconditionally release the activists.
Meanwhile, the Greens (EELV) slammed Israel’s actions, saying they violate international law.
The party emphasised that reactions to the detention of activists must be turned into global mobilisation, and urged the French government, the EU, and the UN to take action.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition sent the 18-metre Madleen from Catania, Sicily, Italy, to break the blockade in Gaza and deliver aid.
A total of 12 people are on board, including 11 activists and one journalist.
Among them are Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, French-Palestinian Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan, Yasemin Acar from Germany, Baptiste Andre, Pascal Maurieras, Yanis Mhamdi and Reva Viard from France, Thiago Avila from Brazil, Suayb Ordu from Turkiye, Sergio Toribio from Spain, Marco van Rennes from the Netherlands and Omar Faiad, a journalist with Al Jazeera Mubasher, also from France.
The ship is carrying urgently needed supplies for the people of Gaza, including baby formula, flour, rice, nappies, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics, according to its organisers.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
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