Anatoly Kurmanaev

This is beyond Latin America.

This is about what happens when the most powerful country on earth

chooses to designate a sovereign government, yes, a repressive, illegitimate, but a government of a sovereign nation, a criminal organization, a terrorist group, and then deal with it in any manner that it sees fit.

It becomes a precedent for how the U.S.

deals with other nations around the world.

To me, there's a risk of this conflict giving rise to something larger.

And of course, you could argue that what we see in Venezuela is just a continuation of years, perhaps decades, of U.S.

interventionism.

You know, the drone strikes on presumed terrorists in the Middle East, at least since the time of Barack Obama, with very little legal oversight, because it has sent alleged terrorists to Guantanamo Bay.

But I think what we see in Venezuela is...

a massive escalation of a trend, right, where you see perhaps in broad daylight the killing of people accused of certain crime without the least amount of evidence or due process presented.

And

The risk that many legal experts see is that this becomes the new normal, that this will become the way US and perhaps other global powers treat their adversaries by designating sovereign nations as criminals and then treating them as such.

Thank you for having me as always.