Venezuela President Maduro Denounces US, Threatens Action Against Alleged Coups

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro lambasted what he termed "coups d'etat orchestrated by the CIA" during a Wednesday address to a newly formed national defense committee, directly responding to US President Donald Trump's explicit considerations of ground assaults on alleged Venezuelan cartels following a series of lethal naval strikes that have claimed at least 27 lives and sunk multiple vessels accused by Washington of ferrying narcotics through Caribbean waters, framing the operations as a robust anti-drug enforcement while Maduro mobilizes forces to safeguard the nation's sovereignty across urban slums, coastal regions, and critical infrastructure like schools, hospitals, factories, and markets.

Maduro's rallying cry—"No to war in the Caribbean... No to regime change... No to coups d'etat orchestrated by the CIA"—came amid orders for extensive military drills in Venezuela's sprawling shantytowns, encompassing the deployment of armed forces, police units, and civilian militias to fortify defenses against perceived imperial aggression, as Trump, in his latest pronouncements, weighed expanding the campaign from sea-based interdictions to terrestrial targets after claiming the destruction of boats linked to "narcoterrorists," accusations leveled without substantiated evidence and extending to personal indictments portraying Maduro himself as the helm of a sprawling drug syndicate, a narrative vehemently rejected by Caracas.

This volatile standoff traces back to Washington's August escalation, when it inflated the bounty on Maduro's head to a staggering $50 million for tips facilitating his arrest on drug trafficking charges, compounded by international condemnation of his disputed reelection victory last year amid widespread allegations of electoral fraud that have isolated the socialist stronghold diplomatically and economically, prompting the recent US naval buildup under the guise of counter-narcotics while critics decry it as a veiled pretext for intervention in a resource-rich nation long at odds with American hegemony.

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As tensions spiral with no de-escalation in sight, Maduro's invocation of historical CIA meddling in Latin American affairs underscores Venezuela's preparedness for broader conflict, potentially drawing in regional allies and complicating Trump's domestic anti-crime agenda that pivots on portraying foreign leaders as cartel kingpins, all while the human toll mounts from the ongoing maritime assaults and the specter of land invasions looms large over the Caribbean basin's fragile stability.

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