I’m glad that even a majority, I think, of liberal commentaries have correctly taken a stand against the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the US military actions against his country. This is so unlike the Iraq War, when the majority of the liberal opinionmakers, politicians and groups supported the illegal invasion. Today, these condemnations have rightly centered on the illegality of unilateral military action and regime change, which undermine what is supposed to be a global rules-based order, as opposed to a power-based or strength-based order, which, let’s be honest, has been the global order all along.

That the US, under Trump, has blatantly, brazenly, and unapologetically, and without even the pretense of justification such as “Colin Powell before the UN,” or Cheney and Rumsfeld’s spurious claims of “weapons of mass destruction” in Saddam’s Iraq, attacked a sovereign country without the approval of its own Congress, which he needed to declare war, or the international community, or the UN, is staggering.

It continues to bother me, though, that these condemnations are almost always prefaced with a caveat: we know Maduro is bad. “Brutal” and “dictator” are words usually thrown around, and that he rigged the elections, which is possible but still unproven. Other governments’ refusal to recognize his 2024 election was more a political move pushed by the US onto its allies than an objective appraisal of the Venezuelan electoral process.

We live in an age of unprecedented access to both information and disinformation. We are informed of global events such as the US invasion of Venezuela in real time, or close to real time. We are also living through the first livestreamed genocide by Israel in Gaza. And yet the concept of psy-ops long predates this digital disinformation age. History shows that powerful countries have repeatedly invented facts and events to justify unpopular, illegal, or immoral actions and acts of aggression against other countries.

One only has to look at our own experience with colonialism. US President William McKinley staged a mock “Battle of Manila Bay,” a manufactured “battle” between a burgeoning imperialist power and a weakened Spanish Empire, to legitimize US military occupation of the Philippines. There is also the farcical Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was used to justify the US troop invasion of Vietnam. Then, of course, there was the fabricated claim that “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction,” used to justify the invasion of Iraq, which led to the deaths of about half a million people, yes, half a million, mostly civilians. Look it up.

History also shows how imperial powers demonize leaders who resist their domination. Again, we need not look beyond our own history. Macario Sakay, who at one point led the remaining Filipino resistance against US colonial occupation, was branded a mere bandit and terrorist. Algerian resistance fighters who fought French colonialism were called terrorists. Even the American revolutionaries who fought against the British were labeled criminals and terrorists. History has shown time and again that it is never beyond imperialist and oppressive powers to malign or delegitimize their sworn enemies. We see this even today in the Philippine military’s penchant for red-tagging, branding activists and revolutionaries as “communist-terrorists” to delegitimize their advocacies and actions.

Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez were branded dictators and authoritarians, largely by the US government and its media and cultural institutions, through movies, news, books, magazines, and the like. Their being labeled “dictators” stemmed not so much from an objective assessment of their actual performance and behavior as leaders. Did they ram policies down their people’s throats? Did they monopolize state power? Were there no checks and balances from other branches of government? Rather, it stemmed from the fact that they resisted US domination. Both, in fact, led the expropriation of vital industries, forcing US companies to leave their countries.

I remember the beloved American author and activist Alice Walker once saying, when Castro was still alive, that the fact that Fidel continued to rule Cuba for such a long time gave her pause. This was in the 1990s, I think, and Fidel and his comrades seized power in 1959. What does it say about a revolution if it still needs an aging man to rule the country? Has no younger leader emerged who is deserving of the position? Nevertheless, Walker conceded that it was neither her decision nor anyone else’s who should lead Cuba. It was the Cubans’. If Cubans still felt they needed Fidel to lead them, then so be it.

Maduro has led Venezuela for 12 years. Is that too long? Do we really need to impose on all countries the standard of four- to six-year presidential terms? Can we not evaluate the length of time leaders remain in power while also considering other factors, such as their actual powers and responsibilities in government? There are many examples of leaders who primarily facilitate or manage government affairs while deferring to collective decision-making processes, institutional checks and balances, and other mechanisms.

Another aspect critics often raise when labeling Maduro and others as “dictators” is how they treat dissidents or political opponents. In the Philippines, progressives have long been on the receiving end of repression and clampdowns as part of opposition to ruling regimes and the status quo. This is a valid criticism, I think. Critics should be able to express dissent freely, within lawful limits and so long as such expression does not harm other citizens.

The argument made by Maduro’s defenders has always been that many dissidents, such as Machado, have engaged in actions, including coup attempts and economic sabotage, that have harmed citizens. Television stations owned by Venezuelan oligarchs that were repressed by Maduro’s government lost their licenses, purportedly because they harmed the public interest through disinformation. These actions must also be viewed within the political context of intense external pressure, from political attacks to economic embargoes, faced by countries that resist US domination, such as Venezuela and Cuba. The US has not been shy about admitting that it funds disinformation and sabotage campaigns in Venezuela through the opposition. So how do we weigh the right to dissent against the right to protect national interest?

I do think there are aspects of many progressive governments, or governments that resist US hegemony, that can arguably be described as “authoritarian,” in the sense that, under severe political and economic external pressure, they are often compelled to limit certain individual freedoms. On the other hand, there are many, many aspects of governance in Western or supposedly “democratic” countries that are authoritarian, yet these states are rarely permanently labeled as such. Most Global North countries are elite democracies. Only a tiny political and economic elite participates meaningfully in governance, policymaking, legislation, and the judiciary. Many have deeply corrupt leaders.

The world’s self-proclaimed leader of democracy, the United States, has as its president a convicted criminal, a corrupt, though failed, businessman, and a sex offender who has repeatedly flouted his own country’s laws and defied its courts. He has attacked his critics with impunity and assaulted the free press. Is that not authoritarian? And yet only figures like Mamdani, Sanders, and AOC within the US political establishment call Trump an authoritarian. The rest kowtow to him. The same can be said of many other Global North leaders.

So no, I do not think we should preface criticism of the US invasion of Venezuela with “although Maduro is a brutal dictator.” The criticism, the condemnation, should be unequivocal. We have to meet the moment. And the moment is this: US imperialism has upped the ante of its military aggression, and we are entering a new era of global conflict.