National Day of Agitation: Saturday, January 31st

Nearly as soon as it was born, the United States claimed the whole of the western hemisphere as its sphere of influence. This was first promulgated in the form of the Monroe Doctrine; the premise being that the United States has the sole right to dominate Latin America and Canada. US interest in Latin America has waxed and waned throughout history, but periodically the Monroe Doctrine rears its ugly head – first it was resuscitated by Teddy Roosevelt in 1903 as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, before the doctrine was once again shelved (although it hasn’t stopped the US from invading and meddling in Latin America). But now, Donald Trump seeks to reconfigure US imperialism. We have seen the manifestations of this reconfiguration over the last several months; it began with strikes on fishing boats in the Caribbean – which are still ongoing, and have now killed 125 people – and ascended to a bloody crescendo with the abduction of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, at the beginning of January. Now, we are witness to a frenzy of threats against Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Panama, and Greenland. All of this is part-and-parcel with the horrific campaign of murder and kidnapping of immigrants, and those who would defy the empire to defend immigrants, conducted within the US by ICE. The repression of immigrants, justified by the supposed universal criminality of those immigrants, provides justification for US intervention in Latin America; The supposed criminality and disobedience of Latin American countries provides justification for the repression of immigrants. This is the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.

Why the western hemisphere?

Although the US isn’t the sole imperialist power in the world, it is still the strongest militarily. It has been increasingly difficult for the US empire to compete with China and Russian imperialism in Africa, West and East Asia, and even in Europe. The US empire’s share of global trade and its influence on the domestic policies of foreign nations all over the world – even those of traditional US client states – has declined. It has become apparent to factions within the US ruling class that a strategic refocusing of US imperialism is necessary; thus, the US has decreed that it shall build the western hemisphere into a mighty fortress of imperialist domination. Resources will be seized, sea lanes will be controlled, air space will be dominated, and people will be killed – the blood of Latin Americans will lubricate the flow of US capital.

Blood already flows in Latin America

We see this most obviously in the United States’ aggression towards Venezuela, but we also see this in Trump’s demands that Mexico allow the US military to conduct strikes and deploy troops within Mexican territory. We saw this when Trump warned the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, to “watch his ass” and floated the possibility of military strikes within Colombia; Colombia is a traditional US ally in the region, and though Gustavo Petro is no threat to the United States, he is also no ally to the US – and thus it is logical that Trump wants to bring the country back into the fold. We saw this when Trump decreed that the flow of oil from Venezuela, to Cuba (Venezuelan oil exported 30-35,000 barrels of oil to Cuba per day, prior to the US operation to kidnap Maduro) will cease. Cuba is totally dependent on oil imported from Venezuela – without it, the island nation will be without power, shrouded in darkness. We see in the recent National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy documents released by the Trump administration that the United States intends to seize the Panama canal. Most surreally, we have seen Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, at various points even going so far as to threaten to invade the island – which would drag the US into a war with Greenland’s colonial overlord, Denmark, which is a member of the United States’ own international imperialist alliance – NATO.

It is our duty to resist!

You live inside the bowels of the most powerful, most blood-drenched empire in human history. Ever do the gears of the US war machine grind, crushing the lives of innocent people in any country upon which it sets its gaze; the insatiable lust for resources, cheap labor, and capital of the US ruling class has long since bled them of even the most basic human morality. As a person who resides within this despicable mechanism, you are better placed than anyone in the world to do something about it. We do not ask you to do this alone, for this historic task requires the whole of the masses to rise against the imperialists – and mobilizing the masses requires exacting organization. So we ask you to become organized – join Behind Enemy Lines! Join us to fight for a future without war, without exploitation, without the senseless slaughter of innocents – the future is ours to make.