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imperialism
Cuba Joins 'Lego Resistance Front' With Iran-Style Video Decrying Trump Warmongering
Content creator María Teresa Felipe Sosa hailed Cubans as "a people who refuse to submit to the true regime of horror, which the United States represents, as it goes around starting wars throughout the world."
May 12, 2026
As the team at Tehran-based Explosive Media keeps churning out viral artificial intelligence-generated Lego-style animated videos condemning the US-Israeli war on Iran, a Cuban version of the clips reacting to President Donald Trump's threats to attack the island appeared Monday on social media.
First posted by Havana art historian and digital content creator María Teresa Felipe Sosa, the video was shared by users including US investigative journalist Ryan Grim and Explosive Media, which added, "Welcome to the #LRF Cuba," or Lego Resistance Front.
"The threat that Cuba represents to the United States is the dignity and principles of a people who refuse to submit to the true regime of horror, which the United States represents, as it goes around starting wars throughout the world," Felipe said Tuesday on social media.
According to the video's lyrics:
They seek to stifle the lifeblood of this land with the talons of empire and the drums of war, from the north they unleash their poisonous breath seeking to seize what belongs to others. But this soil has roots of steel and a people who cannot be bought with money.
They raise walls of hatred and lies while the island, relying on its own strength, breathes amid 60 years of constant hostile siege—yet we continue to march forward with a firm step. There is no threat that can break our faith; the Cuban knows well how to stand tall.
Here dignity has neither price nor master; we are the guardians of our own dream. My people, stand tall, with fists held high against the invader and their dark assault.
There's no surrender beneath this burning sun, for it's known that the homeland must be defended. Resist my brother with your head held high for every victory in the battle-hardened struggle, your love is the compass of our people, for you know that the homeland must be defended.
The video comes amid more than 65 years of US-based terrorism, assassination attempts, and a tightened economic embargo targeting Cuba, as well as Trump's threats to attack or "take" the island. Despite extreme hardship caused or exacerbated by these internationally condemned policies, the Cuban people have been resolute in their resistance to US aggression.
With no victory in sight in the US-Israeli war on Iran and the American people increasingly wary of yet another war of choice waged by the self-described "president of peace" who's now attacked 10 countries over the course of his two terms in office, even some Republican lawmakers are warning Trump against attacking Cuba.
Asked if he would support such an attack, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told The Hill on Tuesday, "No, I would not."
"There’s a lot of economic pressure you can put on Cuba that makes a big difference by itself,” the hawkish senator added.
Numerous Democratic lawmakers have consistently opposed any attack on Cuba; however Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) recently helped sink a Senate war powers resolution aimed at blocking Trump from attacking the country.
More than 6 in 10 Americans surveyed by multiple pollsters in recent months said they oppose a US war on Cuba.
Responding to the renewed US menace under Trump, Felipe recently wrote that "the current threats aren't anything new, they only confirm a dangerous insistence—that of replacing international law with the law of the strongest."
"In the face of that, Cuba responds with an uncomfortable and persistent idea—its people does not give up," she continued. "Cuba is not seeking confrontation. It demands respect. And history, although some prefer to ignore it, has been clear—independence is not negotiated under threat."
"Once again," Felipe added, "and against all imperial odds, Cuba will win."
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Trump Says He's 'Seriously Considering Making Venezuela the 51st US State' as He Brags of Stealing Its Oil Wealth
"Trump's true priority, ahead of absolutely everything else, is to go down in history in big letters," said one journalist. "Remaking everything, no matter in which direction or with what consequences."
May 11, 2026
President Donald Trump said on Monday that he is considering trying to annex Venezuela and make it a US state in an imperialist effort to seize more of its oil wealth.
It's one of nearly half a dozen nations or territories Trump has threatened to use US military might to illegally conquer and add to the US during his term, including Greenland, Canada, Cuba, and Panama.
According to Fox News correspondent John Roberts, Trump said in a phone call that he was “seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st US state,” citing the Latin American nation's possession of tens of trillions of dollars worth of oil.
“They were miserable. Now they’re happy. It’s being well run,” Trump recently told Full Measure's Sharyl Attkisson. “The oil that’s coming out is enormous, the biggest in many years. And the Big Oil companies are going in with the biggest, most beautiful rigs you’ve ever seen.”
One poll from the Venezuelan firm Meganálisis in March found that while the public was initially happy to be rid of their autocratic president, Nicolás Maduro—who was abducted by US forces in January—the majority now feel that Trump's action had little to do with democracy or the well-being of the Venezuelan people and more to do with handing control of the country's nationalized oil reserves to American companies, which Trump stated as his primary objective after ousting Maduro.
Trump left Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, in place as Venezuela's interim leader with the promise that she'd act as a pliant collaborator with the US, whom she allowed to declare control over Venezuela's oil resources "indefinitely" amid market transitions.
The environmental activist group Global Witness has estimated that over the next 10 years, as much as $150 billion in oil revenue that was expected to go to the Venezuelan treasury, which could have funded projects to develop the impoverished country, instead may flow into the coffers of foreign companies.
Trump has spoken about the idea of Venezuela becoming the 51st state before, including after the country defeated Italy in the World Baseball Classic in March, when he posted on Truth Social: “STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE?”
Last month, during a discussion about his desire to "take" Iran's oil, Trump described his takeover of Venezuela as something akin to the resource-hungry imperial conquests of centuries past.
"I'm a businessman first," he told reporters during a press briefing. "We've taken hundreds of millions of barrels [of oil], hundreds of millions... and paid for that war many, many times over. You know the old days, 'to the winner belong the spoils.' And I said, 'Why don't we use that?' We haven't had that in this country probably in 100 years." He then went on to lament the US-led efforts to "rebuild" Germany after World War II.
While the US has lifted personal sanctions on Rodríguez and some sanctions on the Venezuelan oil and banking sectors, most of the sanctions that have contributed to the country's economic collapse remain in place. "Full unrestricted access to global capital markets has not been restored," explained Roger D. Harris from the Task Force on the Americas and the US Peace Council in Common Dreams last week.
Actually adding Venezuela as a US state would require approval from both Congress and Venezuela itself—and Trump does not appear to have the latter.
Issuing a rare rebuke of the US on Monday, Rodríguez responded that becoming the 51st state "would never have been considered" by Venezuela.
"If there is one thing we Venezuelan men and women have, it is that we love our independence process, we love our heroes and heroines of independence," the interim leader said.
Though wars of conquest are expressly forbidden under international law, it's not clear what leverage Rodríguez would have to resist if Trump attempted to make good on his goal of expanding US territory.
Argemino Barro, a Spanish political journalist and author, said the possibility that he's serious can't be dismissed.
"Yes, of course, we can dismiss it as provocation or delusion, say that it's impracticable for XYZ reasons, etc. But this kind of comment is a window into the mindset of a man who fabricates his own reality, and not only that, but imposes it on others," Barro said. "Trump wants to build the world's largest triumphal arch right in the middle of Washington, overshadowing the Lincoln Memorial; he wants his face on coins and passports; his name appears on institutions, one airport. Annexing Venezuela, in his mind, fits 100%."
"I think Trump's true priority, ahead of absolutely everything else, is to go down in history in big letters. To enter the league of Alexander the Great, Jesus Christ, and Genghis Khan," he added. "Remaking everything, no matter in which direction or with what consequences."
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Like the Suez Canal for the Brits, Could Strait of Hormuz Spell Doom for US Empire?
The crisis with Iran is at least as catastrophic for US imperialism as the Suez Crisis was for the British Empire.
May 11, 2026
Empires rise and fall. They do not last forever. Imperial declines follow a gradual shifting of the economic tides, but are also punctuated and defined by critical tipping points. There are many differences between the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the US war on Iran today, but similarities in the larger context suggest that the United States is facing the same kind of “end of empire” moment that the British Empire faced in that historic crisis.
In 1956, the British Empire was still resisting independence movements in many of its colonies. The horrors of British Mau Mau concentration camps in Kenya and Britain’s brutal guerrilla war in Malaya continued throughout the 1950s, and, like the United States today, Britain still had military bases all over the world.
Britain’s imperial domination of Egypt began with its purchase of Egypt’s 44% share in the French-built Suez Canal in 1875. Seven years later, the British invaded Egypt, took over the management of the Canal and controlled access to it for 70 years.
After the Egyptian Revolution overthrew the British-controlled monarchy in 1952, the British agreed to withdraw and close their bases in Egypt by 1956, and to return control of the Suez Canal to Egypt by 1968.
The only silver lining in the current crisis is that it may mark the final collapse of the neoconservative imperial project that has dominated US foreign policy since the 1990s...
But Egypt was increasingly threatened by Britain, France, and Israel. Through the 1955 Baghdad Pact, the British recruited Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan to form the Central Treaty Organization, an anti-Soviet, anti-Egyptian alliance modeled on NATO in Europe. At the same time, Israel was attacking Egyptian forces in the Gaza Strip, and France was threatening Egypt for supporting Algeria’s war of independence.
Egypt’s President Nasser responded by forging new alliances with Saudi Arabia, Syria, and other countries in the region, and, after failing to secure weapons from the US or USSR, Egypt bought large shipments of Soviet weapons from Czechoslovakia.
Upset with Egypt’s new alliances, the United States, Great Britain, and the World Bank withdrew their financing from Egypt’s Aswan Dam project on the Nile. In response, Nasser stunned the world by nationalizing the Suez Canal Company and pledging to compensate its British and French shareholders.
British leaders saw the loss of the Suez Canal as unacceptable. Chancellor Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary, “If Nasser ‘gets away with it’, we are done for. The whole Arab world will despise us… and our friends will fall. It may well be the end of British influence and strength forever. So, in the last resort, we must use force and defy opinion, here and overseas."
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden hatched a secret plan with France and Israel to invade Egypt, seize the Canal and try to overthrow Nasser. The US rejected military action against Egypt, and President Dwight Eisenhower told a press conference, on September 5, 1956, “We are committed to a peaceful settlement of this dispute, nothing else.” But the British assumed that the US would ultimately support them once combat began.
Israel invaded the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, and then Britain and France landed forces in Port Said at the north end of the Suez Canal, under the pretense of protecting the Canal from both Israel and Egypt.
But before Britain and France could fully seize control of the Canal, the US government intervened to stop them. The US began selling off its British currency reserves and blocked an emergency IMF loan to Britain, triggering a financial crisis. At the same time, the USSR threatened to send forces to defend Egypt and even hinted at the possible use of nuclear weapons against Britain, France, and Israel.
The UN Security Council used a procedural vote—which Britain and France could not veto—to convene an Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly under the “Uniting for Peace” process. Resolution 997 called for a ceasefire, a withdrawal to armistice lines and the reopening of the Canal, and was approved by a vote of 64 to 5.
Four days later, Prime Minister Eden declared a ceasefire. British and French forces withdrew six weeks later, and the Canal was cleared and reopened within five months. Egypt subsequently managed the Canal effectively, and did not block British or French ships from using it.
The Suez Crisis was the pivotal moment when the British government finally learned that it could no longer use military force to impose its will on less powerful countries. Like Americans today on Iran, the British public was way ahead of its government: opinion polls found that 44% opposed the use of force against Egypt, while only 37% approved. As Prime Minister Eden dithered over the UN’s ceasefire order, 30,000 people gathered at an anti-war rally in Trafalgar Square.
Eden was forced to resign, and was replaced by Harold Macmillan, who withdrew British forces from bases in Asia, expedited independence for British colonies around the world, and repositioned Britain as a junior partner to the United States. That new role included arming British submarines with US nuclear missiles, which is now a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But Macmillan’s successor, the Labour Party leader Harold Wilson, would later keep Britain out of Vietnam.
Britain charted a successful transition to a post-imperial future through its relationships with the United States and the British Commonwealth–an association of independent states that preserved British influence in its former colonies. On the domestic front, there was broad political support for a mixed capitalist-socialist economy that included free education and healthcare, publicly owned housing and utilities, nationalized industries, and strong trade unions.
Macmillan was reelected in 1959 with the slogan, “You’ve never had it so good.” When a cartoonist mockingly dubbed him “Supermac,” the nickname stuck.
Britain’s Tories were dyed-in-the-wool imperialists, much like Trump and his motley crew today. But they did not let their imperial world view blind them to the lessons of the Suez Crisis. They could see that the world was changing, and that Britain had to find a new role in a world it could no longer dominate by force.
Most Americans today have learned similar lessons from failed, disastrous US wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. But like the British people who opposed Eden’s invasion of Egypt, Americans have been repeatedly dragged into war by the secret scheming of leaders blinded by anachronistic, racist, imperial assumptions.
Trump is now encountering the same kind of international pressure that forced Britain and France to abandon the Suez invasion. Another Emergency Special Session of the UN General Assembly and a new “Uniting for Peace” resolution might also be helpful.
But ultimately, the resolution of this crisis, and the future of the United States in today’s emerging multipolar world, will depend on whether US politicians are capable of making the kind of historic policy shift that Macmillan and his colleagues made in 1956 and the years that followed.
Macmillan was not an opposition politician, but a senior member of Britain’s Conservative government, up to his neck in the Suez fiasco. The secret plot with the Israelis was his idea. President Eisenhower personally warned him at the White House that the US would not support a British invasion of Egypt. But unlike the British Ambassador who sat in on the same meeting, Macmillan assumed that, when the chips were down, Eisenhower would stand by his old World War II allies.
Maybe it was the shock of getting it all so wrong that persuaded Macmillan and his colleagues to take a fresh look at the world and radically rethink British foreign and colonial policy.
Americans must insist that this crisis spark the radical rethink of US politics, economics and international relations that neocons in both parties have prevented for decades.
The crisis with Iran is at least as catastrophic for US imperialism as the Suez Crisis was for the British Empire. The question is whether anyone in Washington today is capable of grasping the gravity of the crisis and making the required policy shift.
To follow Britain’s Suez example would mean closing US military bases around the world; renouncing the illegal threat and use of military force as the main tool of US foreign policy; and relying instead on multilateral diplomacy and UN action to resolve international disputes.
But where is the Macmillan in the Trump administration or the Republican Party? Or the Harold Wilson in the Democratic Party, whose leaders have never even tried to formulate a progressive foreign policy since the end of the Cold War? Obama’s belated outreach to Cuba and Iran in his second term were their only flirtation with a new way forward.
The only silver lining in the current crisis is that it may mark the final collapse of the neoconservative imperial project that has dominated US foreign policy since the 1990s and now cornered Trump into a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” choice between an unwinnable war with Iran and a historic diplomatic defeat.
Americans must insist that this crisis spark the radical rethink of US politics, economics and international relations that neocons in both parties have prevented for decades. Trump’s dead end in the Persian Gulf must also be the final end of this ugly, criminal neoconservative era, and the beginning of a transition to a more peaceful future for Americans and all our neighbors.
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