The US invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro for trial in America read like bad pulp fiction—except it actually happened.
Washington slapped Maduro with four charges: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess those weapons targeting the United States. At his court appearance, Maduro stated plainly: "I was kidnapped, I am innocent". He denied every allegation and reminded the court he remains Venezuela's president—now branded a war criminal by American prosecutors.
When Self-Protection Becomes a Crime
Two of the four charges, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, belong in a satire, not a courtroom. What crime did Maduro commit by possessing weapons in his own country's capital to protect himself? If these charges hold water, US law and justice have become truly farcical.
The narco-terrorism and cocaine importation charges are, naturally, fabricated accusations. The US has produced zero concrete evidence proving Maduro organized any drug trafficking operation.
This US operation—abducting another country's president for trial in America—allegedly violates international law in three distinct ways.
Violation One: Banned Use of Force
According to Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, using force or threatening force in international relations is prohibited. This US military operation received no UN Security Council authorization and doesn't constitute "self-defense" under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Washington claims the operation was self-defense against drug-related crimes, but international law experts broadly agree that combating drug trafficking fails to meet the strict conditions for self-defense or humanitarian intervention under international law—it cannot justify using force against another country.
Violation Two: Sovereignty and Non-Interference
According to Article 2(1) of the United Nations Charter, the US deployment of troops to invade Venezuela violated Venezuela's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence.
Washington used domestic law as justification to conduct cross-border law enforcement through military means, attempting to engineer regime change in Venezuela—a textbook case of interference in another country's internal affairs.
Violation Three: Head of State Immunity
According to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and customary international law, a head of state enjoys immunity during their term of office, even when in other countries.
The US crossed borders to arrest Maduro and drag him to America for trial—an act of kidnapping that completely disregards head of state immunity and brazenly destroys international conventions and legal principles.
No UN Mandate, No Legitimacy
To summarize: this US operation lacked UN Security Council authorization and doesn't comply with the collective security mechanism for lawful use of force under international law. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated, such US behavior sets a dangerous precedent.
The US openly trampled international law, yet its Western allies stayed silent as winter cicadas—Britain, France, and Germany all responded with vague statements or outright support. Take Britain: Prime Minister Keir Starmer dodged questions with the excuse that "it is not straightforward. It is complicated," and danced around every question.
Even senior Labour MPs found his evasiveness unsatisfactory. Dame Emily Thornberry, Chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that the US action has no basis in international law whatsoever, and Britain needs to clearly state the US violated international law. She argued that if the West cannot mount a coherent and forceful response, international law norms will collapse.
However, she also suffers from the common affliction of Western politicians: bringing up China unprompted. She claimed that if the West doesn't condemn US military intervention in Venezuela, it might set an extremely bad precedent for countries like China and Russia. She speculated that countries like China and Russia might think, “that they should all have their spheres of influence and that other countries should not get involved and they should be able to essentially do what they think is the right thing to do, what they want to do in the interests of their country, in the countries in the surrounding area…
She went further, stating that “President Putin will presumably say, well, Ukraine is in my sphere of influence - what are you complaining about? And Xi may well say that about Taiwan. It sets a terrible precedent and [is] really worrying."
While I largely agree with British MP Thornberry's criticism of the US trampling international law, when she mentions Taiwan, she reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about international law. The People's Republic of China restored its seat at the United Nations in October 1971 and is China's only legitimate government and a permanent member of the Security Council. Taiwan was expelled from the UN in 1971, and the international community—including the United States—has long recognized Taiwan as part of China. Therefore, Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibiting use of force in international relations, Article 2(1) prohibiting violation of other countries' sovereignty, and the Vienna Convention's provisions on head of state immunity all target states as subjects and are completely inapplicable to China's handling of the Taiwan issue, because Taiwan is not a country but merely a province of China.
Though Thornberry displays ignorance about international law, her remarks still contain a kernel of logic: since the US did this to Venezuela and its Western allies stayed silent as winter cicadas, they've forfeited any right to comment on how China treats Taiwan.
Lo Wing-hung
Bastille Commentary
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
"When meat rots, maggots appear; when fish dries, worms breed; when one grows complacent and forgets oneself, disaster follows." These words from Xunzi's chapter "Encouraging Learning" could not be more apt as a description of America's Epstein scandal. No one could have imagined that the American system had decayed to such a degree.
During the recent Winter Olympics, Western reporters pressed Eileen Gu – who competed for China – for her views on the Jimmy Lai case and the so-called Xinjiang genocide. When she declined to comment, she was savaged by American television hosts. The irony is glaring: Americans fixate on an alleged Xinjiang genocide that exists only in fiction, yet turn a blind eye to the Epstein scandal erupting right before their eyes. Why did no reporter press Eileen Gu for her views on the Epstein case?
Former Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom has finally been arrested. The British royal family had long known of Andrew's criminal involvement in the Epstein affairs, yet only distanced themselves from him in October last year – and the government has only now taken action. How remarkably swift. Had they acted with the same urgency they showed over the Jimmy Lai case, Prince Andrew would surely be behind bars already. The ancient saying – "the law does not reach the privileged; propriety does not extend to the common folk" – finds yet another confirmation in the West.
America has partially declassified over three million pages of documents related to the Epstein case. While the files appear to give the Trump administration some leeway, the contents are already horrifying. The documents implicate sitting and former American presidents, European royalty, business titans, religious leaders, and leading academics – the filth on display is truly beyond description.
We see that Thorbjørn Jagland – former Prime Minister of Norway and former chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee – continued to maintain close ties with Epstein even after his 2008 conviction, to the point where Epstein could effectively influence who received the Nobel Prize. We also see how Larry Summers – former US Treasury Secretary and former president of Harvard University – discussed with Epstein the art of womanising.
Even more shocking is that among those closely associated with Epstein was Noam Chomsky, widely regarded as the father of American linguistics. Long considered a public intellectual – a philosopher who spent his entire life teaching people how to challenge the powerful – Chomsky himself turns out to be one of the very corrupt elites he claimed to oppose. The Dalai Lama is also part of this picture. Given that Western journalists show such keen interest in Xinjiang, one wonders why they show no similar zeal for Tibet – or for relentlessly pursuing the scandal surrounding the Dalai Lama's connections to Epstein.
The shocking secrets unearthed by the Epstein case go far beyond the mere operation of a prostitution ring.
First – Even Worse Crimes
The public's greatest suspicion surrounding the Epstein case is this: while the scandal exposed that Epstein used underage girls for prostitution on his private island – known as "Lolita Island" – those powerful men involved could have easily arranged their own channels had they simply wanted to pay for sex. There was no need for such elaborate orchestration.
According to a source who was incarcerated alongside Epstein in the United States, what truly drew America's powerful elites to Epstein was not his sex operation, but his promise of eternal youth. While stem cell therapies have long been banned in America, academic research had apparently shown that injections of stem cell extracts could restore youthful vitality. The rumour goes that Epstein arranged for these elites to father children with the girls on the island, then extract stem cells from their own biological offspring and inject them into themselves – since the children shared their DNA, there would be no immune rejection.
This same source also claimed that just days before Epstein's so-called "suicide," he had spoken with Epstein, who was in high spirits with absolutely no signs of suicidal intent – lending weight to the suspicion that Epstein “was suicided."
With this explosive secret now in the open, and with Epstein dead and vast quantities of evidence suppressed by US authorities, the matter has become an unsolvable case.
However, emails released by the US Department of Justice show that Epstein generously funded Harvard University, much of it directed at biological research – including work by renowned genomics pioneer George Church. Church had outlined to Epstein a research programme totalling US$10 million, to be implemented across 10 phases. Among the projects was one called "Supercentenarianstudy.com" (a centenarian research project), alongside research into creating virus-resistant animals through gene editing, reversing the ageing process, and producing "cold-resistant elephants." It is clear that Epstein had an intense interest in age reversal.
If this scheme – harvesting stem cells from the elites' own biological offspring – were true, every powerful individual who participated would have committed murder and numerous other grave crimes. With evidence of their crimes firmly in the hands of Epstein and the network behind him, manipulating these elites would have been effortless.
Second – Who Is Behind It All?
The same source noted that Epstein was no ordinary figure. His girlfriend came from a foreign intelligence family, and the entire Epstein operation was funded by that country. The whole affair was a deliberate setup – a carefully orchestrated operation built around an island offering sex and the promise of eternal youth, designed to lure the Western elite – primarily Americans – into participating, then using evidence of their crimes to control their political behaviour. This explains why in the United States, regardless of whether it is the Democratic or Republican Party, there is invariably a unified and unconditional stance whenever issues relating to that country arise.
Third – The Collapse of a System
In American Hollywood films, we are always presented with a principled hero who risks his life to fight the powerful and ultimately triumphs – a happy ending. Reality, however, is precisely the opposite: the West tells you to stand on principle while having none of its own.
Britain has now arrested former Prince Andrew on a charge of mere "misconduct in public office" – suspected of leaking British trade documents to Epstein. Even for that offence, he could have been charged under the Official Secrets Act, which would have been far more serious. Of course, Virginia Giuffre – the woman who accused the former prince of sexual assault – reached an out-of-court settlement with him in 2020, collecting US$12 million. Although she never took the case to trial, she continued to allege that the former prince had engaged in sexual relations with eight underage girls who could not speak English – a far graver criminal allegation. Last April, 41-year-old Giuffre "died by suicide" in Australia. This brings to mind the case of Princess Diana, who met her end in a car crash amid royal scandal – a death that many still believe was no ordinary accident.
Britain devotes so much energy to meddling in the Jimmy Lai case and Hong Kong's democratic development, when it should really put its own house in order – abolishing its feudal and rotten monarchy before it can claim to be a truly modern state.
As for America's continuing effort to export its own model of democracy worldwide – that is even more laughable. America need not lecture us on how to prevent the next Epstein scandal, because it appears genuinely impossible to prevent under the American system. What America needs to answer is how to prevent the forces behind the Epstein affair from being exploited to manipulate American politicians – and I cannot think of any satisfactory answer it could give. In a system this rotten, no one is ever held accountable.
As the Gospel of Matthew so aptly puts it: "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
Lo Wing-hung
