This week, Erik Prince, the founder of the private military company Blackwater, posted a condemnation of the Venezuelan ruler on Twitter. Prince has connections to the inner circle of Donald Trump, so his opinions about such things could reflect Trump’s opinion or may influence Trump’s opinion. He also linked to this New York Times puff piece on Venezuelan “opposition leader” María Corina Machado, which paints her as the Margaret Thatcher of South America.

The quotes around the term “opposition leader” are because there is nothing authentic about María Corina Machado. Like Juan Guaidó, who preceded her as the official opposition leader, Machado is largely a product of the American foreign policy machinery, which produces these figures on demand. The United States intelligence community runs a complex program to select, filter and groom opposition candidates for just about every country on the globe.

That is not to say Machado is not a real Venezuelan, but that like most of these American made opposition leaders, she is more comfortable in an American faculty lounge than on the streets of Caracas. This was the problem with Juan Guaidó, who is now driving an Uber in Miami. The people who select and groom these people select and groom people who are compelling to them, rather than the target audience, which is why they tend not to do so well in their home country.

It speaks to the insularity of the American managerial elite, as well as to the poverty of human intelligence. They never think about why Nicolás Maduro remains popular, despite the conditions in the country. He may not have majority support, it is impossible to know, but he has a strong base of support. The same was true of Hugo Chavez, who preceded Maduro. The American elites just see a thug and assume everyone sees the same thing, so he must be illegitimate.

That is not to say Maduro is a good ruler. By objective measures, he is a terrible ruler, outside of his ability to survive American regime change efforts. Otherwise, his policies have been terrible, and they have helped plunge his country into economic collapse, resulting in a flood of people out of the country. It is a disgrace that the American government has not been able to do anything to address this problem. After all, this is the backyard of the American Empire.

Since President Monroe first articulated it in his State of the Union address, it has been the official policy of the United States to protect and safeguard the countries of the Western hemisphere. At first it was intended to defend them against the colonial powers of the Old World. In the 20th century, it evolved to include protecting the people of the New World from their own rulers. Controlling guys like Maduro used to be a primary mission of American foreign policy.

It is not as if America has not tried to regime change Venezuela. It just so happens that Maduro is better at being gangster than the gangsters in Washington. This gets to another problem with American foreign policy. In the old days, when the people making policy traced their family line to the Mayflower, dollar diplomacy and clever statecraft were used to manage these problems. These days, the people making policy can only think of using force to get their way.

That is where you see other problems turning up in South America. China just opened a massive new port in Peru, which will allow it to service the South American market and buy lots of new friends in the region. Chinese companies have acquired concessions for two of the five ports adjacent to the Panama Canal. China is investing billions into infrastructure projects in and around the canal. Of course, China and Brazil are partners in BRICS and the Belt and Road Initiative.

While The Lobby demands the Levant get all the attention of the American empire, the neocons demand Russia get all the attention and the China hawks demand Taiwan get all the attention, the backyard of the American Empire is ignored. This is in spite of the fact that the two major problems facing the United States have their source south of the Rio Grande. The flow of drugs and migrants into the country is entirely due to neglecting American duties in the hemisphere.

Donald Trump’s focus on immigration suggests he will make the Western Hemisphere a priority again, but it remains to be seen if the foreign policy establishment will go along with it or rethink its tactics. Thirty years of thuggery not working should cause some rethinking, but these are people who struggle to learn from failure. The tone of that tweet from Erik Prince is not encouraging. Perhaps it will take another failed regime change effort to change some minds.

What is happening in South America is a microcosm for what has been happening with the American Empire since the Cold War. Everything close to home is ignored in favor of distant ventures on the periphery of the empire. Policy makers in Washington think more about infrastructure in Ukraine than in the United States. The lack of a response to the hurricane in North Carolina is a great example. If that happened in Armenia, the empire would have swung into action immediately.

In the area of foreign policy, the empire has been doing what it has done with regards to domestic policy. The focus is always on what is furthest away and has the least impact on the citizens. Buckets of tears are shed over “refugees” entering illegally while the millions of Americans poisoned by drugs are ignored. Millions are spent on “securing the safety” of imaginary online communities rather than on the actual safety of the food supply or the physical health of the American people.

The same hollowing out of American culture and the physical homeland has been happening with foreign policy. Trillions are spent trying to change ancient cultures around the globe, while the problems in our backyard are neglected. The Panama Canal matters far more to Americans than Gaza, yet the former is neglected, while the latter is an obsession. As with domestic neglect, there will be a cost to ignoring our backyard in favor of the other side of the world.

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