Recently the US Military has been bombing boats in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela. This marks a major escalation, and a new development in the US Empire's hybrid war on Venezuela that has been waged over the last 20 years. In this episode we speak with Joe Emersberger who along with Justin Podur authored the book Extraordinary Threat: The US Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela for Monthly Review Press.

"All Elements in Place for a US Strike on Venezuela" by Joe Emersberger and Richard Harris on Venezuelanalysis

We talk about the origins of this tactic of aerial assassinations, its deployment in international waters, and whether we could see the US expand its assassination program to target government leaders like Nicolas Maduro as we have seen the so-called state of Israel do - with full US backing - across West Asia. We also discuss the merging of war on drugs policies with the policies of the war on terror, and contextualize these so-called wars.

Finally, we talk about some of the dynamics that hem in progressive and socialistic projects in Latin America, using Joe's long engagement with Ecuador as an example.

Joe Emersberger is based in Canada. He is co-author of Extraordinary Threat: The US Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela. His work can be found on Substack "Unedited Anti-Imperialism". Older articles of his can be found on VenezuelAnalysis, Counterpunch, Fair.org, Znet and Mint Press News

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