🇺🇸🇻🇪 "TRUMP IS STARTING A WAR THAT WILL BACKFIRE - AGAINST AN ENEMY THE CIA HELPED CREATE"

The Grayzone’s founder Max Blumenthal has spent years covering U.S. regime changes in Latin America, and has interviewed leaders including Maduro.

Not many know the region’s history like he does.

Max explains how the “Cartel of the Suns,” now sanctioned and used to justify strikes on Venezuela, was invented in the 1980s by U.S. intelligence.

The CIA and DEA used Venezuela as a cocaine corridor, letting drugs “walk” through the U.S. in a covert effort to map trafficking networks.

That operation, launched during the Reagan years, helped seed the narco-state narrative later used against Hugo Chávez, and now, against Maduro.

What began as a secret drug route became a political weapon: branding Venezuela as a cartel state to justify sanctions, asset seizures, and military buildup.

We get into:

•⁠ ⁠⁠How the “Cartel of the Suns” narrative rebrands regime change as drug enforcement.

•⁠ ⁠Why U.S.-backed coups in 2002 and 2019 failed, and what’s changed.

•⁠ ⁠⁠Why most Venezuelans, even those against Maduro, oppose U.S. sanctions.

•⁠ ⁠How CIA-linked drug routes are connected to today’s covert operations.

•⁠ ⁠Why regime change could spark a civil war and mass migration.

•⁠ ⁠The role of Miami’s anti-socialist bloc in shaping Washington’s Latin America policy.

•⁠ ⁠Why Trump’s pressure campaign may end in a deal, not a war.

The U.S. is still using its '80s playbook.

@MaxBlumenthal believes the results will be inevitably disastrous.

00:49 - U.S. suddenly begins accusing Maduro of drug trafficking

01:29 - “Cartel of the Suns” becomes the narrative to justify escalation

02:37 - U.S. intelligence once enabled Venezuelan drug flow for covert ops

03:41 - Those ops increased, not reduced, cocaine flooding U.S. streets

04:08 - Venezuela is minor in global cocaine supply chain

11:53 - Maduro refused to arrest Guaidó - denying the U.S. a propaganda win

15:40 - Military loyalty to Chávez and Maduro crushed coup attempts

22:45 – Threats of invasion trigger “rally around the flag” effect

24:57 - Most Venezuelans - even opposition - reject sanctions

29:49 - U.S. allies like Ecuador are deeper in drug trade than Venezuela

35:54 - Full U.S. invasion would mean civil war and political blowback

36:15 - Over 70% of Americans oppose war with Venezuela

43:58 - Regime change would spike U.S. gas prices

57:36 - Foreign policy decisions bypass U.S. voters

58:37 – American public now leans toward diplomacy, not intervention