THE EAGLE'S SHADOW OVER VENEZUELA... AND BRAZIL

Maduro Cornered and Lula Framed: The Flush Is Near

This article is also available in Brazilian Portuguese. 👉 

"Life is but a passing shadow (...); it is a tale told by an idiot, full of noise and fury, signifying nothing." (William Shakespeare)

By Antonio Fernando Pinheiro Pedro

Nicolás Maduro is no longer just a corrupt dictator — he’s now an international narco-terrorist, with a $50 million bounty offered by the Trump administration for his capture.

As the drug lord leader of the Cartel de los Soles, Maduro has turned Venezuela into a Bolivarian latrine, propped up by starving militias, corrupt generals, and Cuban advisors.

Venezuela, sitting atop barrels of oil, lives in darkness. Everything is lacking: food, medicine, energy, and dignity. The economy has collapsed, the state-owned PDVSA is a wreck, and the country imports gasoline from the U.S. — its “ideological enemy.” In fact, the U.S. now extracts Venezuelan oil without paying royalties to the Bolivarian regime — such is the humiliation.

The misery is so acute that economic indicators show “improvement” with any influx of capital or bulk purchases of whatever product happens to be available...

The military apparatus, dominated by the “suns of the cartel,” is a farce: generals enriched by trafficking, watched by Cubans, and incapable of sustaining any real conflict. Uniformed men not worth the soles of their boots.

Maduro knows the uniformed vermin surrounding him and, fearing defections, bets on paramilitary militias — an army of armed, impoverished civilians trained to repress the population and maintain the regime through terror.

Now, with Trump authorizing military operations against cartels in Latin America, the game changes. Venezuela becomes a direct target of likely intervention.

The shadow of Panama and its then-dictator, General Noriega, looms over Venezuela... and similarly, popular support for an external operation will emerge. Only a deluded leftist believes in “patriotic defense” by a gang of thieves.

Lulopetist Brazil, whose regime maintains suspicious ties with the PCC and CV, mirrors Venezuelan Bolivarianism. Its coup-driven juristocracy models itself after the Bolivarian Court, and Lula’s government systematically seeks to bend the spine of Brazil’s armed forces — traditionally resistant to populism. For this reason, the Brazilian leftist regime also enters the American radar.

The Essequibo crisis, internal repression, and economic collapse point to an inevitable outcome for Venezuela’s dictatorship. The flush is coming — triggered from within or without. And when it comes, there will be no refuge for the Bolivarian executioners — they will slide from the latrine of history into the sewer.

As for the “Brazuela” of the lulopetist regime and its legal office of robed enforcers... there will be no other exit but the drain.

Meanwhile, American military coercion — before anyone calls it inconvenient — is a standard method for dealing with territories that threaten U.S. security, especially in matters of drug trafficking. This doctrine was developed throughout the 1980s, consolidated under Clinton, and crystallized under Bush. It was used by Obama and even by the faltering Biden.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Antonio Fernando Pinheiro Pedro is a lawyer (USP), journalist, and environmental consultant. He served as Executive Secretary for Climate Change for the Municipality of São Paulo from June 2021 to July 2023. A founding partner of Pinheiro Pedro Advogados, he is a director of AICA (Corporate and Environmental Intelligence Agency). He is a member of the Brazilian Lawyers Institute (IAB) and Vice President of the São Paulo Press Association (API). He was the first president of the Environmental Commission of the São Paulo Bar Association (OAB/SP), president of the Technical Chamber of Legislation of CEBDS (Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development), Chairman of the Environment Committee of AMCHAM (American Chamber of Commerce), and a consultant to the World Bank, the UN, and several other organizations charged with improving the state's legal and institutional framework. He is a member of the Strategic Studies Center of the Think Tank Iniciativa DEX, a member of the Superior Council for National Studies and Politics of FIESP (Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo), President of the Water University Association - UNIÁGUA, Editor-in-Chief of the Portal Ambiente Legal and responsible for the blog The Eagle View.