Oil, Outrage, and the Architecture of Hypocrisy: Why Venezuela Was Targeted—and Why the “Narco-State” Narrative Serves Power, Not Justice

The Story We’re Told vs. the Story That Repeats

The official story is simple: Venezuela is punished because it is corrupt, authoritarian, and allegedly intertwined with narcotics trafficking. The United States, we are told, is merely enforcing law and order—defending democracy, human rights, and the global fight against drugs.

But history does not work in soundbites. And power does not operate on moral absolutes.

When we move past headlines, press conferences, and selective indictments, a more familiar pattern emerges. The countries most aggressively sanctioned, destabilized, or labeled “criminal states” tend to sit atop strategic resources—oil, gas, minerals, ports, or trade corridors. Venezuela, holding the largest proven oil reserves on Earth, fits that pattern precisely.

This is not to deny corruption or criminality inside Venezuela. It is to ask a more dangerous question:

Why are similar crimes tolerated—or quietly managed—when committed by U.S. allies, but weaponized when committed by resource-rich adversaries?

That question sits at the heart of this analysis.

Oil as the Constant Variable in U.S. Foreign Policy

Venezuela’s oil is not incidental. It is central.

For decades, Venezuelan crude—particularly heavy crude—has been structurally important to U.S. refineries along the Gulf Coast. Even as public hostilities escalated, U.S. energy infrastructure remained quietly tethered to Venezuelan supply chains. That contradiction alone exposes the myth of sanctions driven purely by morality.

Historically, when nations attempt to nationalize resources, set independent pricing, or redirect energy partnerships away from Western control, the response is rarely diplomatic patience. It is pressure. Economic suffocation. Narrative warfare.

We have seen this pattern repeat across modern history: Iran after nationalizing oil, Libya after asserting resource sovereignty, Iraq after threatening to move oil sales away from dollar settlement, and the Congo, where mineral wealth fuels endless instability rather than development.

Venezuela is not an exception. It is a continuation.

What is distinctive is how openly the “narco-state” label is deployed—often without proportional scrutiny of other trafficking corridors that move vastly more drugs with far less political theater.

The Drug War Contradiction

This is where the narrative fractures.

The United States has a long, documented history of working with drug traffickers when it suits strategic objectives, offering protection or leniency in exchange for intelligence, and prosecuting selectively—targeting enemies while managing allies.

This is not theory. It is precedent.

From Cold War Latin America to Central Asia and the Middle East, narcotics have repeatedly been tolerated as a tool—used to fund militias, destabilize rivals, or lubricate political systems. When those actors outlive their usefulness, the language shifts. Yesterday’s “asset” becomes today’s “criminal enterprise.”

In Venezuela’s case, the contradiction sharpens further. Drug trafficking exists throughout the region, yet Venezuela alone is treated as a total pariah. Indictments are rolled out alongside sanctions that collapse legal economies, paradoxically expanding black-market activity. Meanwhile, opposition figures accused of similar crimes are often reframed as “partners,” “reformers,” or “democratic alternatives.”

This selective enforcement undermines the premise of the War on Drugs itself. If the war were real, it would be systemic and consistent. Instead, it is strategic and political.

At Red Sea Round Table, we call this what it is: lawfare—the weaponization of legal language to legitimize economic and political domination.

Resource Control and the Modern Playbook

The deeper accusation raised by critics is not that the United States invented criminality in Venezuela, but that it leveraged existing fractures to justify long-term control objectives.

This playbook is familiar.

Intelligence penetration is framed as counter-narcotics or democracy promotion. Corruption is highlighted—often accurately—but stripped of context, while identical behavior elsewhere is ignored. Sanctions target the state rather than individuals, crippling civilian life while empowering black markets. Once the system is sufficiently weakened, external intervention—direct or indirect—is reframed as “necessary.”

This is not conspiracy. It is colonial continuity, updated for the twenty-first century.

Where gunboats and missionaries once operated, NGOs, sanctions regimes, indictments, and media framing now take their place. The objective remains unchanged: control over resources and decision-making.

The Question That Cannot Be Avoided

Venezuela’s crisis is real. Its governance failures are real. Its criminal networks are real.

But so is the hypocrisy.

If justice were the goal, allies would face the same scrutiny as adversaries. Sanctions would target criminals rather than populations. Resource sovereignty would not be treated as rebellion.

Instead, a familiar truth reveals itself once again:

The issue was never drugs.

It was never democracy.

It was never human rights.

It was always oil—and who controls it.

At Red Sea Round Table, we do not romanticize governments. We interrogate systems. And the system on display in Venezuela is one the Global South recognizes all too well.

The crime is not corruption alone.

The crime is selective morality—used to justify extraction, domination, and silence.