US corporate oil raid on Venezuela kidnaps Maduro at midnight

[TonyGosling]

Will Cuba or Colombia be next?
Few in S America believe the US when they say Maduro is alive.
Likely big role of US/Spanish/Israeli spies in disabling Maduro's security.
https://x.com/TonyGosling/status/2007407874285138039

No need for regime change here in the UK, because Corbyn was replaced by Starmer, a US puppet.
Nor Europe, now unelected EU president Von der Leyen does Washington bidding.
Utter disdain for demoracy as the true mass-media backed fascist Anglo-Zionist empire MO is revealed this morning...

From banned RT:

'Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said that his nation “denounces and urgently demands the reaction of the international community against the criminal attack by the US on Venezuela.” He added that “our zone of peace is being brutally assaulted. State terrorism against the brave Venezuelan people and against Our America.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro adopted a more cautious tone, saying his government was observing “with deep concern the reports of explosions and unusual aerial activity recorded in recent hours in… Venezuela, as well as the consequent escalation of tension in the region.”

“The Colombian Government rejects any unilateral military action that could aggravate the situation or put the civilian population at risk,” he added.

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales said that he “strongly and unequivocally repudiates the bombing of the United States against Venezuela.” “It is a brutal imperialist aggression that violates its sovereignty. All our solidarity with the Venezuelan people in resistance. Venezuela is not alone,” the ex-president stated.

The events come amid high tensions between Washington and Caracas. US President Donald Trump has accused Venezuela’s government of involvement in large-scale drug trafficking, while Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has rejected the allegations as a pretext for foreign aggression and toppling his government.'

[TonyGosling]

Trump leads world into geopolitical Wild West where might makes right, while laws and rules fall away

Ishaan Tharoor Washington Post· 4 Jan, 2026 09:28 PM

“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” President Donald Trump declared after United States forces hit various Venezuelan targets and elite commandos carried out the capture and rendition of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife with an audacious raid in the dead of night.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/trump- ... WOQJX2W74/

“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” President Donald Trump declared Saturday, after U.S. forces hit various Venezuelan targets and elite commandos carried out the capture and rendition of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife with an audacious raid in the dead of night. “Under the Trump administration we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region.”

The world is still digesting the consequences of the U.S. intervention, which the Trump administration has tried to characterize as a “law enforcement” mission against Maduro, indicted in U.S. federal court on charges of narco-trafficking, rather than the clear military operation in a foreign nation that it appeared to be. Some Venezuelan military positions were leveled by U.S. strikes, with officials reporting an unspecified number of casualties.

Maduro is already in New York City, awaiting an appearance in court. For many Venezuelans, especially millions of people compelled to flee from the country over the past decade of economic catastrophe under Maduro’s watch, his removal is joyous news, and the first step to a happier future. On that count, the U.S. operation was a clear tactical success in its brazen precision and efficacy.

Still, the likelihood of a strategic failure looms. A dark history of failed U.S. interventions and regime-change projects haunt the current action. Boosters of the move liken it to the capture of Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega in 1989, with U.S. criminal investigations into money laundering and drug smuggling justifying the operation. But the analogy to the present collapses amid Trump’s talk of open-ended control over Venezuela and its tremendous oil wealth.

By the end of the weekend, the White House had done little to dispel the confusion about what comes next in Venezuela. Trump himself suggested the United States would somehow “run” the South American nation until a proper transition away from the current dispensation could be forged. His lieutenants were more circumspect, emphasizing U.S. interests in dismantling alleged criminal networks within the Venezuelan state apparatus and reasserting American control or influence over Venezuela’s vast oil sector.

Venezuela’s pro-democracy opposition voiced fears that they would be cut out in a Trump-brokered deal with the remnants of Maduro’s regime. Speaking to the Atlantic, Trump said that he expected Maduro’s former vice president — and hastily installed successor — Delcy Rodriguez to essentially do the White House’s bidding. “If she doesn’t do what’s right,” he said, “she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”

The rest of the world has watched with mixed emotions. Many in Latin America, especially among the ascendant, Trump-aligned political right, cheered Maduro’s ouster and what seems a grievous blow to the region’s remaining left-leaning autocracies.

Elsewhere, world leaders feared a grim precedent. “The bombing of Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president crosses an unacceptable line,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. “The action recalls the worst moments of interference in Latin American and Caribbean politics, and threatens the regional preservation as a zone of peace.”

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot shed no tears for Maduro in a statement but said the U.S. action “contravenes the principle of the nonuse of force that underpins international law.” He warned that it was part of the steady erosion of international norms, worsened by countries such as Russia that are supposedly the guarantors of the rules-based order. “The growing number of violations of this principle by nations vested with the primary responsibility of permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council will have grave consequences for global security, sparing no one,” he said.

Trump’s move into Venezuela is another nail in the coffin of the old postwar status quo. The White House reneged on commitments to receive authorization from Congress before deploying the U.S. military in Venezuela. Ahead of Monday’s emergency U.N. Security Council session on Venezuela, Trump’s U.N. ambassador, Mike Waltz, scoffed at the “hand-wringing” of his diplomatic counterparts. In a Sunday television interview, Secretary of State Marco Rubio waved away concerns about an open-ended regime change mission as a kind of “phobia.”

“Part of what’s troubling here is not just that the president has used force in clear violation of domestic law and international law but that it’s clear he couldn’t care less about the fact that he’s breaking these rules,” observed Oona Hathaway, a leading international legal scholar at Yale Law School. Speaking to the New Yorker, she concluded that Trump is “just going to do what he thinks is warranted based on his own kind of reasoning, as opposed to any kind of constraints or legal limits or having to seek advice or consent from the international community or the U.S. Congress.”

The sense of a paradigm shift is overwhelming. Oliver Stuenkel, an analyst of international affairs at Fundação Getulio Vargas, a Brazilian university, suggested that the raid on Venezuela was the first “concrete” sign of Trump putting into practice the White House’s National Security Strategy, which declares the Western Hemisphere to be a U.S. sphere of influence, rekindling the instincts of an era of gunboat diplomacy and neo-imperialism from a century ago.

“This is a completely new age,” Stuenkel told me. “Trump doesn’t say he wants to bring democracy. It’s petro-imperialism. Latin American policy elites are slowly grasping that it would be a mistake to believe that just because Maduro is a dictator, that other countries that are democratic would be safe from the United States.”

The timid responses of most European leaders betrays the deepening anxiety on the continent about the future of the alliance with the United States. “Maduro’s capture is no regional anomaly; it is a signal event,” noted Asli Aydintasbas and Chris Hermann of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “It highlights the volatility of Trump’s foreign policy, his comfort with military solutions and his apparent openness to a world governed by spheres of influence rather than rules.”

That opens the door further for a new geopolitical Wild West, where might makes right, and laws and rules fall away. In a separate context, C. Raja Mohan, a prominent Indian geopolitical analyst, saw this already in action in Israel’s recognition last month of the breakaway republic of Somaliland.

“Declarations about the inviolability of borders ring hollow when aggression goes unpunished or is tacitly accepted,” he wrote. “With major powers embracing territorial revisionism — China in Asia, Russia in Europe, and the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere — it is naïve for lesser states to depend on the presumed protective shield” of the rules-based international order.

[TonyGosling]

Doesn't what just happened in Venezuela show the gross incompetence of both Russian and Chinese intelligence services? I can understand that they are not capable to intervene militarily to aid a crucial ally and are far from having the global reach of the US. But one would think that they have the satellite, signals and human intelligence to have at least been aware that this operation was afoot and warn Maduro. says Stanley Laham
foreign influence law https://www.theguardian.com/.../georgia-foreign-agents...
Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Out Pro-Israel Push for Regime Change in Venezuela:
https://youtu.be/QiNe96kHK9M
Following is the post at X by Majorie Taylor Greene which Jimmy Dore referred to in the above YouTube:
https://x.com/repmtg/status/2003112719952621839?s=46
Here are some interesting facts about Venezuela that are easily searchable.
Venezuela is a predominantly Catholic country with very strong laws against abortion with the exception being the life of the mother. Maduro has been critical of Israel calling it a genocide in Gaza and against Zionism.
Maduro’s opposition, Maria Corina Machado is a strong supporter of Israel and wants to restore strong relations with Israel. She is more left leaning on abortion and LGBTQ issues.
Most Americans I talk to are not buying that this is really about drugs and sanctioned oil takers.
And it’s not about social issues, I just added that to highlight some differences in the two leaders.
People voted in 2024 against foreign intervention and foreign regime change as we have seen far too many times how that’s turned out, it’s not good, and people are so sick of it.
Just received a reply text from Colonel Nathan McCormick who was mentioned in the following article as he was removed from the Pentagon by the Israel first Trump administation:
Colonel, It is honor to receive your reply. Hopefully you received my emails as well. You were spot on with what you courageously conveyed about Netanyahu and the wars for ‘Greater Israel’ and Jewish supremacy in the Middle East:
US has removed Pentagon official Colonel Nathan McCormack from his position after he referred to Israel as a 'death cult' and accused the US of acting as a 'proxy' for Israel:
https://www.reddit.com/.../us_has_removed_pentagon.../
Colonel Macgregor accurately mentioned such as well in the following Redacted YouTube from yesterday!:
Following Redacted YouTube from yesterday with Colonel Macgregor mentioned how Trump and Congress are owned by the donors (referring to the Jewish Zionist donors which own both political parties in the USA) for the Maduro regime change in Venezuela with war with Iran coming next for ‘Greater Israel’/Jewish supremacism in the Middle East which could even draw in Russia, China and Turkey for World War 3:
SPECIAL REPORT! US CAPTURES VENEZUELAN LEADER MADURO, RUSSIA/CHINA FURIOUS BRICS CONDEMNS:
https://www.youtube.com/live/k0M6Ef-Ahc ... GSD2wbC1ZK
In the following YouTube Colonel Macgregor also mentioned how the Republican convention was Israel first as well when an Israeli flag was displayed:
COL. Douglas Macgregor: The Venezuela Operation Trump Won’t Explain:
https://www.youtube.com/live/kfA20zBIUG ... bteVbKgWgK
CIA’s Larry Johnson also mentioned what Trump did in Venezuela is a precursor to the coming U.S./Israeli attack on Iran for Netanyahu’s ‘Greater Israel’ neocon project in following YouTubes from earlier today:
Larry Johnson: Did Trump Cross the Line in Venezuela?::
https://www.youtube.com/live/oYviQwlR4k ... tv9DonsX8e
CIA’s Larry Johnson again mentioned that what Trump did in Venezuela was a precursor to coming US/Israel attack on Iran in following YouTube which aired earlier today as well:
Larry Johnson: U.S. War on Venezuela Has Global Ramifications:
https://youtu.be/ibOGiXczCbs
Thanks to James Morris

[TonyGosling]

James Morris
Tony Gosling Afshin Rattansi Most welcome, Tony. Thanks for sharing, Tony! Not looking good with the following either!:
Alastair Crooke: Netanyahu Lures Trump Into War with Iran:
https://www.youtube.com/live/mCIXAfin_H ... 9IecoKbmHZ
In following YouTube Larry Johnson referred to that Alastair Crooke interview above and also mentioned how Venezuelan regime change was also about getting control of Venezuela's oil before the coming Israeli/US attack on Iran:
CIA’s Larry Johnson: Mossad Cooperation Alleged in Venezuela:
https://www.youtube.com/live/47McBjptlc ... Qomov-GaoH

[TonyGosling]

Afshin Rattansi
Sndtoporesl03a4ci atg1r:l6 0iau2g0J 568gna2yuumuacgl34a7cf21 ·
A reminder
When Chavez was elected 15 families had control of 75% of farms
Only 10% could afford university
Barios collapsed after rain storms
There was no access to rural health
Big oil took all the profits and like in Australia paid no tax
Chavez held adult literacy courses in every Bario and church hall run by senior students
This meant ordinary citizens could pass the literacy test and so could vote
Universities were made free
Cuba supplied the doctors nurses in exchange for oil
Food production was focussed on food security not export
Cooperatives were set up for farming and food
US imposed a capital strike All engineers for big oil were withdrawn
Venezuela gradually regained industry with help from Vietnam China and South America
US increased sanctions froze assetts
CIA tried to get rid of Chavez
The people resisted and surrounded the President's home to protect him from the CIA insurrection
The US then claimed like Cuba that socialism has failed ignoring the 90% literacy access to health care public housing and food and university