The US plan to ‘run’ Venezuela – a similar cast, plus threats


By AFP
\January 5, 2026


People walk past a mural depicting now ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro near the National Assembly in Caracas - Copyright AFP Juan BARRETO
Shaun TANDON

President Donald Trump says the United States is “in charge” of Venezuela. But for now, that seems to mean keeping the country’s government set up much like it was before.

Trump on Saturday ordered an audacious, deadly assault on Caracas in which US forces snatched Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro and took him to face charges in New York.

In his extensive comments since then, Trump said that the United States temporarily “is going to run the country,” which has 30 million people and an economy in tatters for years.

The preparation for such a massive undertaking appears to be little or non-existent, with the US embassy in Caracas shuttered, no US forces known to be on the ground and Trump vaguely saying that his own cabinet will call the shots.

Even the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in which the United States was widely criticized for the ensuing chaos, had far more planning, with president George W. Bush installing what he called a Coalition Provisional Authority to run the country.

Trump said Venezuelans would be “taken care of” but said little on what they can expect.

Instead, Trump said the priority was to benefit US oil companies in Venezuela, which has the world’s proven reserves and had become a crucial supplier to Cuba, a longtime US target, as well as leading US competitor China.

To achieve its ends, Trump said the United States is claiming cooperation with Delcy Rodriguez, who was Maduro’s vice president — and Trump publicly threatened another US attack if she does not do the US bidding.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, clarifying Trump’s remarks in an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” said: “It’s not running — it’s running policy.”

Rubio, a Cuban-American and sworn enemy of the hemisphere’s leftists, had long branded Maduro as illegitimate and championed the opposition, which said it won 2024 elections.

But Trump brushed aside opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, the winner of the latest Nobel Peace Prize, and Rubio said the United States was focused on “our national interest.”



– ‘Vassal state’? –



Trump said that Machado is a “very nice woman” but does not command the “respect” to run the country.

Mark Jones, a Latin America expert at Rice University, said Trump saw lower risks to working with Rodriguez.

“The only way Machado could enter the presidential palace and run the country would be with a massive US military presence, which would be very bloody, would be unlikely to be successful and would create massive domestic problems for Trump,” who ran as a non-interventionist, Jones said.

Rodriguez, who had been reported to have been in contact with the Trump administration well before Saturday’s attack, initially gave a fiery speech calling Maduro the legitimate president but quickly changed her tone and promised cooperation.

Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Relations, expected Rodriguez to struggle to find the right balance.

“On the one hand, she needs to be outraged that this happened,” Berg said.

“At the same time, she needs to be open to pushing pro-US policies that are going to be very difficult for her regime to swallow, given that they have a 27-year history of seeing the United States as the greatest enemy.”

Jones said that Rodriguez had been vice president precisely because Maduro did not see her as holding enough leverage internally to pose a threat.

To steer Venezuela, the United States therefore will also need the support of other key figures such as Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who controls the powerful military, Jones said.

Some US demands, such as controlling drug trafficking, could be easy for Rodriguez, Jones said.

But other demands, such as breaking with Cuba, would be much harder sells for elements of a government rooted in leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez’s “Bolivarian Revolution.”

“That group is going to resist with all its might, because the idea of Venezuela becoming some vassal state ot the United States is pretty much the antithesis of the Bolivarian Revolution,” Jones said.

Military remains loyal after Maduro ouster, Venezuelan exiles say


By AFP
January 5, 2026


A Venezuelan former military officer spoke to AFP in northern Colombia on condition of anonymity - Copyright AFP Annela NIAMOLO
David SALAZAR

Real change has not come to Venezuela despite Nicolas Maduro’s ouster as president and the armed forces remain loyal to the regime: that was the blunt assessment Monday of former security operatives living in exile.

Last weekend, from the Colombian-Venezuelan border, Williams Cancino watched the spectacular US snatch-and-grab of his ex-boss and president.

He hoped it could be the beginning of freedom for Venezuela, after a quarter century of repression, economic depression and one-party rule.

But if things are to really change, first “a new high command is needed” in the country’s powerful security services, he told AFP on Monday.

“The top brass are totally loyal to the regime,” said Cancino, who until his defection in 2019 was an officer in Venezuela’s police and the Special Action Forces, which are often used to crack down on dissent.

Through flawed elections and mass protests, they helped Maduro’s government to survive.

When contacted by AFP, several Venezuelan former soldiers and police officers — branded as traitors by their government — shared the view that many of the same people still control Venezuela, despite a dramatic change at the top.

Much power appears to remain in the hands of Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino — both wanted by US authorities.

The military, and even Maduro’s own son, have pledged loyalty to new interim leader Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vice president and close confidant.

“Currently, the armed forces’ leadership is nothing more than an appendage of a dictatorial regime,” said one former colonel who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.

With Maduro out of the country, he believes “the high command” should “step aside”.

Cleberth Delgado, a former detective, is also skeptical about a transition in Venezuela while commanders loyal to Rodriguez remain in their posts.

In constant contact with former comrades, many ex-officers say they are preparing to return to Venezuela, with the goal of taking over roles from the current military leadership.

“We are waiting for the right moment to support the new government,” one that is elected at the polls, Delgado said. But so far, there is little sign that it will happen.

Even US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has spent his political career campaigning for democracy in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America, said elections were not the priority in Venezuela.

US President Donald Trump has outright dismissed the idea that Nobel Peace Prize laureate and opposition figurehead Maria Corina Machado could lead the country.

While some former officers still speak of change by force, Cancino hopes his former comrades will do the right thing.

“We don’t want conflict, and much less a civil war. We don’t want to face off against brothers.”

This brutal and incoherent Trump action bodes ill for the whole world

Robert Reich
January 5, 2026 

RAW STORY

An activist during an anti-Trump rally in central Seoul, South Korea. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

The story of what’s happening in Venezuela is unfolding quickly and big questions are mounting. The immediate danger in Venezuela (and potentially in Colombia and Cuba) is chaos

Asked who’s in charge of Venezuela, Trump answered: “We’re in charge.”

What the hell does this bluster really mean?

U.S. troops are not prepared to occupy Venezuela. Trying to do so would be a disaster.

Maduro’s system of oppression is still entrenched there. It includes the national guard, the army, the national police, the intelligence service, and the Colombian guerrilla group ELN. All remain intact.


Maduro’s top lieutenants also remain, including several who were involved in his alleged crimes. Not to mention his thugs and narco-traffickers who have been controlling Venezuela through violent repression and stolen elections.


Venezuela has roughly 28 million people. There’s no way to determine the emerging balance of power between pro- and anti-Maduro camps, but it’s a safe bet that any power void is likely to be filled with violence.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke of “coercing” the Venezuelan government to make policy changes over its oil reserves, rather than “running” the country: American forces will prevent oil tankers from entering and leaving Venezuela until the government opens up the state-controlled oil industry to foreign investment — presumably giving priority to American companies.

But since August, America has had an arsenal of warships, jet fighters, and some 15,000 troops on Venezuela’s doorstep, which hasn’t stopped oil shipments. How big must the arsenal be to do the job? How long will it remain there? At what cost? Will we bomb Russian or Chinese tankers coming into or out of Venezuela?


Rubio emphasized that “the national interest of the United States … is No. 1.” But what exactly is the “national interest” of the United States here? Big Oil? Chevron has been in Venezuela for years. Do we declare victory when Exxon-Mobil is there, too? Do we insist that Venezuela not charge America oil companies any extraction fees? How profitable must Big Oil’s extractions of oil from Venezuela become before Trump is satisfied?

Rubio says Trump hasn’t ruled out troops on the ground. But does anyone remember what happened in Iraq after the U.S. invasion there? Libya? Syria? Hello? How many failed states do we need to create before we understand their danger to the stability of an entire region of the globe?

Meanwhile, the Trump regime is fanning the flames of anti-Americanism, both in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America.


Asked tonight whether the United States would conduct an operation against Colombia, Trump said, “it sounds good to me.” He also suggested Mexico could be another target, saying the Mexican cartels are “very strong,” drugs are “pouring” through the country, and “we’re gonna have to do something.” As to Cuba, it “looks like it is ready to fall.”

He didn’t even stop with Latin America. Trump made clear he also wants to take control of Greenland. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security and the European Union needs us to have it and they know that,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

This is nuts. Trump is already on his way to destroying the rule of law in America. Now he’s destroying the rules-based system of international law and diplomacy that the United States created in the wake of the horrors of World War II.


“America is respected again,” he gloated in his address to the nation on Dec. 9. For Trump, “respect” means the power to bully, regardless of law. “Our nation is strong, and America is BACK.”

Wrong. What’s back is lawless gunboat diplomacy.Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Trump's 'assault on Venezuela' is 'opening move' to take down major rival: analysis

Ewan Gleadow
January 6, 2026

RAW STORY


Donald Trump (Photo via Reuters)

An attack on Venezuela orchestrated by Donald Trump's administration is the "opening move" to a much larger rival, a political commentator has claimed.

Writing in The Guardian, Owen Jones suggested the strike on Venezuela earlier this week, and subsequent capture of President Nicolás Maduro, is part of a longer game plan which would see Trump stand off against China. The major trade rival has become a growing concern for the Trump administration, with Jones citing a growing trade industry between China and Latin America as a reason the president may be keen to take action in the Western Hemisphere.

Jones wrote, "And, crucially, China – the main US rival – has grown in power across the continent. The two-way goods trade between China and Latin America was 259 times larger in 2023 than it was in 1990."

"China is now the continent’s second largest trading partner, behind only the US. At the end of the cold war, it did not even make the top 10. Trump’s assault on Venezuela is just the opening move in an attempt to reverse all of this."

Jones would also suggest that the "domination" of the US in the last three decades has been challenged as a result of this trade agreement between major rival China and Latin America. It appears Trump is now trying to present himself as someone without "bluster" as was the case for his first term.

"The experience of Trump’s first term has led too many to conclude that the strongman in the White House was all bluster," Jones wrote. "Then, he reached an accommodation with the traditional Republican elite."

"The unwritten bargain was simple: deliver tax cuts and deregulation, and he could vent endlessly on social media. Second-term Trump is a full-fat far-right regime."

The strike on Venezuela could embolden Trump to take further action, with the president reigniting his interest in buying out or taking over Greenland as a US territory. Jones suggested that, should the US seize Greenland, it would be no different from Russia annexing parts of Ukraine.

Jones wrote, "But a US seizure of Danish sovereign territory would surely spell the end of Nato, founded on the principle of collective defence. Denmark’s land would be stolen no less blatantly than Russia’s devouring of Ukraine. Whatever muted noises have emerged from London, Paris or Berlin, the western alliance would be finished."

‘Nobody is going to run home’: Venezuelan diaspora in wait-and-see mode


By AFP

January 6, 2026


Many exiled Venezuelans wept for joy at the US ouster and capture of former president Nicolas Maduro - Copyright Agence Kampuchea Press (AKP)/AFP Handout
Clare BYRNE

“A new dawn for Venezuela” is how a top US diplomat described the future awaiting the Caribbean country after Saturday’s capture of president Nicolas Maduro by US special forces in a raid on Caracas.

But for some of the eight million Venezuelans who fled the country over the past decade of economic ruin and repression, the joy at seeing Maduro hauled before a New York court on Monday was tempered by the knowledge that his henchmen remain at the helm.

News of Maduro’s demise initially triggered scenes of jubilation among the diaspora.

Several people choked up as they recalled the hardship they fled, and the family they left behind, over the course of his increasingly despotic rule.

But while many said they dreamed about returning to their homeland, they made it clear they had no plans to pack their bags just yet.

Most cited the country’s tattered economy as a reason to keep working abroad and sending home remittances.

Some also spoke of their fear of Venezuela’s security apparatus, pointing to the paramilitaries who roamed the streets of Caracas on Saturday to crack down on anyone rejoicing over Maduro’s ouster.

“There has been no change of regime in Venezuela, there is no transition,” said Ligia Bolivar, a Venezuelan sociologist and rights activist living in Colombia since 2019.

“In these circumstances nobody is going to run home,” she told AFP.

Standing outside the Venezuelan consulate in Bogota, where he was waiting to renew his passport on Monday, Alejandro Solorzano, 35, echoed that view.

“Everything remains the same,” he said, referring to US President Donald Trump’s decision to work with Maduro’s administration rather than the democratic opposition.

Maduro’s former deputy Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as acting president on Monday, becoming the interim head of an administration that still includes hardline Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and powerful Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.

Cabello in particular is a figure of dread for many Venezuelans, after commandeering a crackdown on post-election protests in 2024 in which some 2,400 people were arrested.

Many Venezuelans were particularly shocked by Trump’s decision to sideline opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from the transition.

The European Union on Monday demanded that any transition include Machado and her replacement candidate in the 2024 elections Maduro is accused of stealing, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.

Andrea, a 47-year-old immigration advisor living in Buenos Aires, argued, however, that Machado’s hour had not yet come.

“Until Trump sees that the situation is under control, until he has all these criminals by the balls, he won’t be able to put Maria Corina in charge. Because that would be throwing her to the wolves,” she said.



– ‘No other way’ –



Luis Peche, a political analyst who survived a gun attack in Bogota last year suspected of being a political hit, also argued in favor of a negotiated transition.

“We have to see this as a process,” Peche told AFP, referring to Venezuela’s transition.

“You still need part of the state apparatus to remain,” he said.

Tamara Suju, a leading Venezuelan rights expert based in Spain, said that keeping the same tainted cast in charge was a necessary evil — in the short term.

“They are the ones with whom the Trump administration is negotiating the transition because there is no other way to do it,” she told Spain’s esRadio, predicting they would eventually be forced by Washington to fall on their swords.

Edwin Reyes, a 46-year-old window installer living in Colombia for the past eight years, said that once Venezuela was “completely free” he would consider a move back.

“We’ve waited so long, another four or five months won’t hurt.”

Clearing bomb wreckage, Venezuelan mourns aunt killed in US raid


ByAFP


PublishedJanuary 5, 2026


Several apartments in La Guaira state were damaged in the US bombings - Copyright AFP Federico PARRA
Andrea TOSTA

Wilman Gonzalez picked through the wreckage of his home as he described how a bombing killed his 78-year-old aunt Rosa during the US raids that toppled Venezuela’s president.

A jagged hole gaped in the apartment wall, through which Gonzalez said he pulled his aunt after the blast early Saturday in the port city of La Guaira.

A projectile hit the apartment building during airstrikes that led to the capture of leftist leader Nicolas Maduro by US forces in the nearby capital Caracas.

Rosa Gonzalez, a lawyer who had lived with her nephew Wilman, a retiree of 62, suffered a trauma to the chest that left her struggling to breathe and with pain in her arm.

“She didn’t die here, she died at the hospital,” said Wilman, still in shock, his right eye bruised and stitched.

He said he was looking at his cell phone when the blast hurled him through the air.

“It was so immense,” he told AFP, that “the front door flew off, the wooden door flew off, and slammed me against the wall.”

Rosa was asleep in another room.

“We took her to the little hospital and they gave her oxygen. But she couldn’t bear the pain” and died, he said.



– Mourners at coffin –



Police initially took Rosa’s body away for an autopsy. Then on Monday, family and friends came to mourn in silence in a small chapel, where her wooden coffin lay half-open.

“She was a very simple, very kind woman, with lots of friends,” said her brother Jose Luis Gonzalez, 82, the only one still alive of five siblings.

“A tragedy like this should never have happened in Venezuela, in such a quiet town.”

The faded blue facade of Wilman Gonzalez’s public housing block, named simply Building 12, was devastated by the projectile.

Doors and walls lay demolished, shattered glass everywhere.

Neighbors picked up small metal fragments of the projectile from Wilman’s living room. Authorities took away the larger pieces.

After the blast, “I thought I was dead,” Wilman recalled. “God, forgive my sins.”

He complained of having received scant help from the government.

Wilman wandered among the remnants of his home, picking up pieces of wood, staring at them and throwing them back down.

With a screwdriver in hand, he checked if a closet could be salvaged — but everything was useless.

Neighbors recovered pots, blenders, documents and window frames.

“I’ve seen this on TV. Palestine, Iraq, all those people. Not here,” he said.



– Tears and trauma –



The impact damaged eight of the 16 apartments in the building.

In the apartment of his 80-year-old mother Tibisay, Cesar Diaz gathered documents and stuffed them into a dirty woven bag.

A neighbor, 48-year-old firefighter Jesus Linares, recounted how he saved Tibisay in the chaos.

He showed the faded sheet he used to stop her head bleeding before rushing her to the hospital.

“These were her little shoes,” he said incredulously, pointing to a lone plastic sandal.

Diaz, 59, was sweating and still in shock as he spoke to AFP.

“Wow! What a huge thing to happen right here, in my mother’s house,” he said.

“It will traumatize her… It’s hard to come here and not see her sitting in her chair,” he added, on the verge of tears.

With what little composure he had left in the aftermath of the bombing, Linares helped Tibisay and got his own 85-year-old mother and 16-year-old daughter out too.

“I tried to focus as if it were an earthquake: stay calm and focus on their lives and help them.”

Three decades of service as a firefighter prepared Linares to “save lives,” he said.

“This time, what I had to do was rescue myself and my family.”

Police took away the projectile, but authorities have yet to provide help, the building residents said.

'Jesus is Palestinian' in New York's Times Square stirs debate, draws ire of pro-Israelis

An ad placed in Times Square has attempted to highlight the plight of Palestinians, but Israel supporters are furious

The New Arab Staff
26 December, 2025

The ADC described the ad as an 'act of resistance' [Getty]


A billboard in New York's Times Square shared a Christmas message declaring that "Jesus is Palestinian", drawing praise from social media users, and outrage from pro-Israelis.

The ad, along with another which displayed a Quranic verse, was funded by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), who described the campaign as an "act of resilience".

"Our two NY billboards are an act of cultural resilience: 1. 'Jesus is Palestinian. Merry Christmas.' 2. The Quranic verse (3:45) announcing the blessed birth of Jesus, with 'Merry Christmas' in English and Arabic," the ADC wrote on its Instagram page.

The post drew hundreds of messages of support, with many agreeing with the statement.

"Thank you for spreading truth! Those who truly follow and relate to the teachings of Christ do recognize this," wrote one Instagram user.

"Truly remarkable and inspiring," wrote another.

However, many supporters of Israel expressed anger with the ad.

Writing on X, ADC Director Abed Ayoub said: "Christians and Christianity are under attack in the birthplace of Jesus - doesn’t matter what you want to call it. There is no disputing that."

"This billboard upset more people than the actual attack on Christians by Israel. You may disagree with it, but it finally got you talking about Christians and Palestine. The Israel First crowd really got triggered today because they don’t want you to know Christians reside in Palestine, including in Gaza," he added, referring to the growing US political divide between those branded as "Israel First" and those seen as "America First".

"They want to push back against us so much that the Israeli Foreign Minister purchased ad space on the same billboard to counter us. At least we didn’t use American taxpayers dollars for our ads," he added, likely referring to Washington's multi-billion-dollar financial support for Israel.

The festive season has increasingly become a cultural battleground between supporters of Israel and their critics. While bombing and displacing Palestinians - including Muslims and Christians - Israel has sought to whitewash its image by claiming to be a safe haven for the Middle East's Christians.

In the occupied West Bank - home to the birthplace of Jesus - Israel's increasing checkpoints and restrictions on Palestinians have restricted access to Christianity's holiest sites in Bethlehem, including during Christmas.

For Me, a Jew, a Painful Truth: Israel Is a Perpetual Crime Against Humanity Masquerading as a Nation

Repentance and reparations — not hasbara — is the only way forward

by Phil Rockstroh / December 26th, 2025

I hold joint US/German citizenship due to the historical fact that my maternal family was stripped of their German citizenship by The Reich Citizenship act attendant to Nazi imposed Nuremberg Laws enacted in 1935. Subsequently, as the Third Reich consolidated power, by means of legalized state criminality, my family’s business interests and personal property were stolen by the Nazis. My grandfather was arrested, imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp and my mother and her sister were dispatched to the UK on a Kindertransport.

On the surface German society evinces the artifice of repentance due to its reprehensible history in regard to its anti-semitic compulsions. Yet the act is surface level, is mercenary at best — but, is, in essence, a bait and switch gambit . Withal, by means of the ruse of protecting Jews, Germans are permitted to make acceptable their seething Islamophobia. Germans do not respect Jews; they possess a bigotry-rancid regard for people of the Islamic faith. By the canard of protecting Jews, German authorities can suppress, for example, pro-Palestinian viewpoints and public displays as being anti-Semitic.

State tributes to Anne Frank can act as cover for German complicity in the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian children by the tens of thousands. The old demons of White Christian supremacy have not been banished from the Germanic psyche but have shape-shifted. The cultural architects of death camps can act as enablers of Israel’s perpetual Nakba.

Therefore, the image of Anne Frank donning a Keffiyeh resonates with a heart-shattering truth: The cultural contagions responsible for genocide shift with the winds of history yet rise from the same odious soil. The (Big) lie of the mind: the outsider others within a dominant culture present danger — not state-sanctioned xenophobia seething within any given society.

A brawl among ideological blowhards.

There is a raging, right-wing ideological family feud, in progress, between hate-rancid, Third Reich-adjacent Zionists and their Christian-Zionists enablers, a schism has opened pitting the two aforementioned groups — who simply hate people of the Islamic faith and all other ethnic and outsider groups — and Christian-nationalists i.e., on-the-nose Nazis, those who include Jewish people in their deranged mental sphere of xenophobic animus.

All of the above agree that outsider others should be rounded up by jackboots-for-brains ICE brownshirts. But the primary group believes Jews should be excluded from the dragnet and purge. Caveat: Christian Zionists believe that Lord Jesus is going to return to this sin-sullied earth and personally purge Jewish people down into subterranean lakes of eternal fire.

As amusing as it is to watch the spectacle of these two ideological scorpions grapple in a pit, inflicting each other with their soul-paralyzing toxins, history instructs, as a general rule, the more noxious, vehement haters tend to emerge victorious.

We are well past the (tanking) United States republic’s analog to the Weimar Republic; we are witnessing the Republican Party’s Night Of The Long Knives.

As an anti-Zionist Jewish person, I’m compelled to ask my Zionist brethren, how did they ever believe it was possible for Jewish people to be welcome participants in the White supremacy klavern.

Is there a place of refuge?

Perhaps there would be a refuge somewhere on earth for us Jews if we make a sincere and massive amends to the Palestinian people as well as to Israel’s perpetually under assault neighbors, then the establishment of a Right Of Return for ethnically cleansed Palestinians and their heirs, including full and generous reparations for their years of exile and suffering.

Our last, best chance as a people, is the establishment of a bigotry-free, genuinely democratic Palestine, stretching from the river to the sea.

As a Jewish person, all too often nowadays, I feel buffeted by inner torment by thoughts as to what consequences will be wrought by the abominable actions of Israel.

The Zionist state has revealed to the world — a painful to me truth — that I had apprehended long before the October 7 open-air prison breakout by members of Hamas and then Israel’s grotesquely disproportionate response by the uniformed thugs of the IDF that took the form of the war crime of massive collective punishment upon the men, women and children of Gaza: Israel has been, since its inception, a perpetual crime against humanity masquerading as a nation. To compound the tragedy, by means of collusion, all too many of my fellow Jews, lost in a wilderness of denial, by rote, parrot the hasbara lies disseminated by Israel’s army of propagandists.

Going forward… how?

Judaism as defined by Zionism is a train-wreck, morally and ethically. Going forward, how will it even be possible to regain our moral footing and reestablish a relationship with the world based on the universality of human equity and the mandate that justice must prevail…without Israeli political and military leaders facing trial before a war crimes tribunal. We Jews are too small in number to thrive in a globally connected world not ruled by an abiding moral center.

The Zionist catastrophe should serve as an object lesson on the peril — the blood-drenched folly — of insisting truth is what we say it is — even if we have to enforce our notion of it by brutal force and compulsive lying e.g., “genocide is self-defense; “we [i.e., Israelis] are not perpetrating ethnic cleansing because there are not an actual people known as the Palestinians.” (Yet, somehow, hyper-militarized Israelis are in grave and constant peril from these people they claim do not exist.)

Following Jewish mythos, allow me to put it this way: King David — (Israel) in the form of the agendas of the Zionist state — has schemed and condemned Uriah the Hittite to death a hundred thousand times over. The betrayal of our moral covenant is breached by means of hundreds of morally reprehensible acts per day — a soul-defying disfigurement of Judaism that has been contrived and twisted into the abominable form of the Zionist state. Appropriating the lexicon of the ancient book, repentance is our only path forward.

A dispatch to the Zionist trolls who swarm to my page and inflict its pixel precincts with exhausted copy and paste Hasbara misinformation and outright confabulation.

Regarding the belligerently ignorant trolls who snarl, I have betrayed Judaism for condemning genocide, I reply: If the Messiah arrived and commanded Israel and its apologists to repent they would call the Messiah a kapo.

(The term “kapo” is a vehement Jewish rebuke, an appellation referring to Jewish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps designated to act as the ears, eyes and arm of power of the SS in regard to aiding in the brutal control of the daily existence of their fellow inmates. The invective is a term designating an act of unforgivable betrayal insofar as acting as a collaborator with a mortal enemy of Jews.)

In my view, the son of a survivor of The Shoah, the dismal and deranged trajectory, via from Europe to the Zionist state, from proceeding from victims of genocide to the perpetrators of the abomination is a betrayal of Judaism.

Clearing the record for belligerently Zionist trolls and willfully obtuse Zionist true believers:

First, the rape stories on Oct 7 have been debunked (although the hasbara-contrived fictions have not, on a widespread basis, been retracted in mainstream Western media outlets).

The verifiable rapes, in reality, were perpetrated in IDF torture camps. Zionists thugs even staged a riot and prison break-in to free the accused prison guard rapists. Next, a government whistleblower, a former IDF military lawyer, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, attempting to expose the subject, was arrested for speaking to the press.



Moreover, the babies incinerated in ovens stories have also been revealed to be an utter fabrication. But what is a heart-wrenching, mortifying fact — an unforgivable war crime the world witnessed — is the wholesale slaughter of an estimated 40,000 infants, toddlers, and children by IDF launched attacks and by starvation, by design, as inflicted by the Zionist regime.

Accordingly, in no manner, is there any justification, regardless of the October 7 attacks, for massive collective punishment to be inflicted on the people of Gaza. By international law, collective punishment is a war crime — and yes, the uniformed thugs of the IDF‘s actions in Gaza, according to an overwhelming consensus of the scholars on the subject, was indeed a genocide.

To those who deny Israel’s perpetual crimes against humanity: its perpetration of genocide upon the people of Gaza; its unwarranted aggression against its neighboring countries; the existence of torture prisons; and the ethnic cleansing transpiring in the West Bank by religious zealot lunatics (with the backing and full consent of the Zionist regime) — I ask this question, do you remember the exact moment that your soul died or did it rot away slowly and was blown away and scattered by the reprehensible winds borne of your denial?

King David Confronted by the Prophet Gad, Flemish artist, unknown

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Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist, and essayist. His poems, short fiction, poetry and essays have been published in numerous print publications and anthologies; his political essays have been widely posted on the progressive/left side of the internet.  Read other articles by Phil, or visit Phil's website.

While Bethlehem Holds First Full Christmas Since Genocide Began, Little to Celebrate in Gaza

“This year’s celebrations carry a message of hope and resilience for our people and a message to the world that the Palestinian people love peace and life.”


Children participate in a Christmas Mass at the Holy Family Parish in Gaza City, Gaza on December 21, 2025.
(Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Dec 24, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


With Gaza’s Christian population decimated by Israeli attacks and forced displacement over the past two years, those who remain are taking part in muted Christmas celebrations this week as the West Bank city of Bethlehem displays its tree and holds festivities for the first time since Israel began attacking both Palestinian territories in October 2023.

Middle East Eye reported that while Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, led a Christmas Mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City on Sunday and baptized the newest young member of the exclave’s Christian community, churches in Gaza have been forced this year to keep their celebrations indoors as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have continued its attacks despite a “ceasefire” that Israel and Hamas agreed to in October.

“Churches have suspended all celebrations outside their walls because of the conditions Gaza is going through,” Youssef Tarazi, a 31-year-old Palestinian Christian, told MEE. “We are marking the birth of Jesus Christ through prayer inside the church only, but our joy remains incomplete.”

“This year, we cannot celebrate while we are still grieving for those killed, including during attacks on churches,” Tarazi said. “Nothing feels the same anymore. Many members of our community will not be with us this Christmas.”

The IDF, Israeli officials, and leaders in the US and other countries that have backed Israel’s assault on Gaza have insisted the military has targeted Hamas and its infrastructure, but Christian churches are among the places—along with schools, refugee camps, hospitals, and other civilian buildings—that have been attacked since 2023.

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At least 16 people were killed just days into the war when the IDF struck the Church of Saint Porphyrius, one of the oldest churches in the world. In July, Israel attacked the only Catholic church in Gaza, killing two women and injuring several other people.

Palestinian officials say at least 44 Christians are among more than 71,000 Palestinians who have been killed since Israel began its assault in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. Some have been killed in airstrikes and sniper attacks while others are among those who have died of illnesses and malnutrition as Israel has enforced a blockade that continues to limit food and medical supplies that are allowed into Gaza.

United Nations experts, international and Israeli human rights groups, and Holocaust experts are among those who have called Israel’s assault a genocide, and the International Criminal Court issued a warrant last year for the arrest of Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

George Anton, the director of operations for the Latin patriarchate in Gaza, estimated that the number of Christians killed so far is at least 53, with many dying “because we could not reach hospitals or provide medicine, especially elderly people with chronic illnesses.”

In the past, Muslims in Gaza have joined Christian neighbors for the annual lighting of Gaza City’s Christmas tree and other festivities, and churches have displayed elaborate lights and decorations in their courtyards for the Christmas season.

“We decorated our homes,” Anton told MEE. “Now, many homes are gone. We decorated the streets. Even the streets are gone... There is nothing to celebrate.”

“We cannot celebrate while Christians and Muslims alike are mourning devastating losses caused by the war,” he added. “For us, the war has not ended.”

Hilda Ayad, a volunteer who helped decorate Holy Family Church earlier this month, told Al Jazeera that “we don’t have the opportunity to do all the things here in the church, but something better than last year because last year, we didn’t celebrate.”

About 1,000 Christians, who were mainly Greek Orthodox or Catholic, lived in Gaza before Israel’s latest escalation in the exclave began in 2023.

Greek Orthodox Church member Elias al-Jilda and Archbishop Atallah Hanna, head of the church’s Sebastia diocese in Jerusalem, told the Washington Post that the population has been reduced by almost half. More than 400 Christians have fled Gaza in the last two years. Those who remain have often sheltered in churches, including the ones that have sustained attacks.

Al-Jilda told the Post that this year’s celebrations “will not be full of joy, but it is an attempt to renew life.”

In Bethlehem in the West Bank, officials have sought to send a message to the world this Christmas that “peace is the only path in the land of Palestine,” Mayor Hanna Hanania told Anadolu Agency.

“This year’s celebrations carry a message of hope and resilience for our people and a message to the world that the Palestinian people love peace and life,” he said.

At Al Jazeera, Palestinian pastor Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac wrote that “celebrating this season does not mean the war, the genocide, or the structures of apartheid have ended.”

“People are still being killed. We are still besieged,” he wrote. “Instead, our celebration is an act of resilience—a declaration that we are still here, that Bethlehem remains the capital of Christmas, and that the story this town tells must continue.”

“This Christmas, our invitation to the global church—and to Western Christians in particular—is to remember where the story began. To remember that Bethlehem is not a myth but a place where people still live,” Isaac continued. “If the Christian world is to honor the meaning of Christmas, it must turn its gaze to Bethlehem—not the imagined one, but the real one, a town whose people today still cry out for justice, dignity, and peace.”

Festive lights, security tight for Christmas in Damascus

By AFP
December 24, 2025


Syria's Christian community is believed to have shrunk from one million in 2011, when the war began, to around 300,000 today, with many seeking refuge abroad

 - Copyright TURKISH DEFENCE MINISTRY/AFP HANDOUT

Maher al-Mounes

Christmas lights illuminate Damascus’s Old City while government forces patrol its shadows as security fears haunt Syria’s Christian community.

They recall the shooting and suicide attack in June at the Saint Elias church in the Syrian capital that killed 25 people and wounded dozens more.

“People are going home early, and are afraid,” said Tala Shamoun, 26, a university student who was visiting a Christmas market with family and friends.

Damascus has seen crime including robberies and kidnappings, she said, but the attack on the church “was the biggest tragedy”, she told AFP.

Syria’s authorities blamed the Islamic State jihadist group, while a little-known Sunni Muslim extremist group claimed responsibility.

The Islamists that ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad last year have reaffirmed their commitment to coexistence among all of Syria’s religious groups, vowing to involve everyone in the transition.

But earlier this year, the country’s Alawite heartland saw sectarian massacres, while Druze-majority areas in the south were hit by major clashes.



– ‘Security plan’ –



Interior ministry forces searched some pedestrians or stopped people on motorbikes in the Old City.

At one of the district’s main entrances, an armed member of the government security forces was holding a walkie-talkie and a map of where his personnel were deployed.

“We’ve put a security plan in place that includes several districts and areas in the capital, in order to ensure the safety of all citizens,” he said on condition of anonymity.

“It is the state’s duty to protect all its people, Christian and Muslim, and today we are doing our duty to protect the churches and secure people’s celebrations,” he added.

Ousted ruler Assad, himself an Alawite, had long presented himself as a protector of minorities, who were the target of attacks during Syria’s war, some of which were claimed by jihadists.

Syria’s Christian community is believed to have shrunk from one million in 2011, when the war began, to around 300,000 today, with many seeking refuge abroad.

In the Old City, home to a small but vibrant Christian community and several important churches, red baubles hang from some trees, shopkeepers have put up Christmas decorations and street vendors peddle warm chestnuts.

So-called neighbourhood committees are also providing additional security, with dozens of local Christians protecting churches in coordination with government forces.



– ‘Syria deserves joy’ –



Fuad Farhat, 55, from the area’s Bab Touma district, was supervising the deployment of several unarmed, black-clad Christian men with walkie-talkies in front of the churches.

Many people fear that Christmas crowds could heighten security risks, but with the additional measures “they feel safer and are more comfortable going out”, he said.

“We have been taking steps to protect those celebrating in the Christian neighbourhoods” to avoid any problems, in coordination with the security forces, he said.

University student Loris Aasaf, 20, was soaking up the Christmas atmosphere with her friends.

“Syria deserves joy and for us to be happy, and to hope for a new future,” she said.

“All sects used to celebrate with us, and we hope to see this in the coming years, in order to rebuild Syria,” she added.

Near the Saint Elias church which saw June’s deadly attack, government security forces cordoned off entry and exit areas with metal barriers, while heavily armed personnel were searching anyone entering.

Church-goers lit up a tree decorated with stars bearing the image of those killed in June.

“Christmas this year is exceptional because of the pain and sorrow we went through,” said housewife Abeer Hanna, 44.

“The security measures are necessary because we are still afraid,” she said.

Nearby, Hanaa Masoud lit a candle for her husband Boutros Bashara and other relatives who were among those killed in the attack.

“If we go to church and get blown up, where can we find safety?” she said, choking back tears.

‘What is the Christian word in the face of genocide?’: new Kairos Palestine document calls for repudiation of Zionism

“What is happening [in Palestine] today is the true face of Zionist ideology . . . turning Palestinian existence into an unbearable hell,” declares the recently released Kairos Palestine document, "A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide."

By Jeff Wright 

 December 20, 2025 

MONDOWEISS

Displaced Palestinians continue their daily lives under difficult conditions inside displacement tents scattered amidst the destruction in the Zeitoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, on December 9, 2025. 

(Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)


Last month, 300 people—led by the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Palestine— gathered in Bethlehem to launch the second Kairos Palestine document: A Moment of Truth: Faith in a Time of Genocide. 140 Palestinians and 160 internationals spent the day unpacking the theological and political descriptions of the conditions that Palestinians face and attending to the indigenous church’s call for Palestinian resistance and Christian solidarity. The conference was hosted by Kairos Palestine, the largest Palestinian Christian ecumenical nonviolent movement for freedom and justice.

Mays Nassar, Kairos Palestine staff, introduced the 14-page document, saying, “With the beginning of the genocidal war on Gaza and the worsening reality of apartheid and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, we reached a decisive moral and theological turning point. Our hearts were compelled to reflect on the meaning of faith in such a time of horror. We asked ourselves what must we say to our people now? What is the Christian word in the face of genocide?”

In the first part of the document, “The Reality: Genocide, Colonization and Ethnic Cleansing”, the authors lament, “We raise this cry from the heart of the assault on Gaza — a war that has left behind hundreds of thousands of martyrs and wounded, and nearly two million displaced people. Many were buried beneath the rubble, burned alive, tortured to death in prisons or forcibly displaced more than once. Others endured starvation, targeted even as they ran in search of food. Tens of thousands of children were killed in the most horrific ways. Gaza’s health, education, economic, and environmental sectors—indeed, every component of life—have been destroyed.”

“Exposed today,” the document states, “is the true face of Zionist ideology: a system that over decades has entrenched an organized and sophisticated regime of apartheid supported by advanced technologies that exercise total control over every aspect of Palestinian life—fragmenting the land, dividing its people, and turning Palestinian existence into an unbearable hell.”

Genocide is both a cumulative process, according to the document, “one that began in the minds of the settler-colonial powers of Europe when they denied the image of God in others and legitimized death, domination and slavery,” and a “structural sin against God, against humanity, and against creation.”

“We consider the State of Israel, established in 1948,” Kairos II maintains, “to be a continuation of that same colonial enterprise built on racism and the ideology of ethnic or religious superiority.”

Authors of the document charge that “the genocidal war has laid bare the hypocrisy of the Western world, its hollow values and its empty boasts of commitment to human rights and international law. In truth, the Western world has sacrificed us, revealing racism and double standards toward our people.”

Palestinian Christians decorate the Latin Monastery Church in hardships Gaza City ahead of New Year celebrations, continuing their preparations despite the hardships facing the besieged enclave, on December 9, 2025.

(Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

Turning to the global reality of Christian Zionism, the document describes the ideology as a “theology of racism, colonialism and ethnic supremacy… a theology that has produced apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide of indigenous people.”

“Christian Zionism calls on a tribal, racist god of war and ethnic cleansing, teachings utterly alien to the core of Christian faith and ethics,” Kairos II continues. “Christian Zionism must therefore be named for what it is: a theological distortion and a moral corruption.”

In what some may consider the document’s most controversial call, Kairos II insists that religious conversations and interfaith dialogue with Christian Zionists must be ended.

“After all efforts to invite Christian Zionists to genuine repentance have been exhausted,” Kairos II reads, “moral, ecclesial and theological responsibility requires that they be held accountable and that their ideology be rejected and boycotted. The time has come for the churches of the world to repudiate Zionist theology and to state clearly their position on Palestine: this is a case of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing of an indigenous people.”

The document goes on to describe the increasingly violent actions of settlers: “Across the occupied West Bank… [t]hey wreak havoc upon the land, destroy crops, poison or seize water resources and attack residents—all under the protection, support and even participation of the Israeli army in acts of violence, killing, home demolitions and forced displacement.”

Regarding the Palestinians living within the state of Israel, the document states, “blatant racism and discrimination persist. Palestinian communities face intimidation, criminalization of free expression, and persecution of any effort to defend Palestinian rights, along with [Israel’s] deliberate neglect of rampant organized crime in Palestinian towns. Those displaced within Israel in 1948, whose lands were confiscated, are still denied the right to return to their villages and rebuild their homes. Bedouin communities remain victims of systematic displacement and ethnic cleansing….”

The document doesn’t hesitate to name challenging internal conditions that have been increasingly exacerbated over Israel’s 77-year-long dispossession and occupation:


Political division, rivalry and exclusion have deepened. The majority of Palestinians have lost confidence in their political leadership. As a result of the Oslo Accords and their aftermath, the Palestinian Authority has been trapped in serving the interests of the occupier….

Signs of disorder have… become part of our reality, largely due to the absence or weak enforcement of the rule of law. This has led to a rise in intimidation, land encroachment, tribalism, favoritism and corruption in its various forms at the expense of the common good, deepening people’s frustration and despair. Amid the vast destruction and genocide in Gaza, acts of violence, revenge, chaos and theft have only added to the suffering of the Palestinian people.

The document also describes a worrying external reality.


In recent years, our region—the Middle East—has undergone major political and regional transformations shaped by a deliberate plan to impose Israeli military dominance over the entire area with the support of Western powers, drawing a new political and demographic map. Backed systematically by its allies, Israel has attacked many countries of the region, violating their sovereignty and that of their peoples, flouting international law and entrenching itself as an aggressive, bullying state as if it stands above all laws and conventions—pushing the region and indeed the world to the brink of catastrophe.

The second part of Kairos II, “A Moment of Truth for Us”, is focused inwardly on Palestinian society. “In the face of this harsh reality and at this decisive moment we raise this cry—first to ourselves, to the sons and daughters of our churches and congregations, and to our entire people in the homeland and the diaspora.”

The document calls “for a comprehensive national reevaluation of our reality to draw lessons and insights leading to a unified, collective vision and a clear strategy for future action… within a legitimate representative framework” and warns “against giving our national struggle a religious character or turning it into a religious issue that pits religions against one another.”

In almost lyrical prose, Kairos II addresses:the Palestinian woman, “the unbending backbone, partner in the struggle, holding together home, land, memory and future all at once… There can be no true liberation without her full participation at every level of decision-making and nation-building.”
the Palestinian Church: “We are the sons and daughters of the first Church… those who cultivated this land, built its cities and villages and drank from its waters. We do not live on the margins of this land. We are woven into its fabric. We carry its history and heritage. Its very soil knows us as its own. Many empires have passed over this land and disappeared, buried in the dust of history, yet the bells of our churches continue to ring—bearing witness to the truth and proclaiming resurrection every day.”“our youth”: “You are the living Church…. We see your anger, your sorrow, your fear. We also see your strength…. We do not call you to naïve optimism, but to hope that is rooted in action…. Express yourselves. Write. Sing. Create. Organize. Resist through your humanity in a world that seeks to strip it from you.
“our people in the diaspora”: “You may be geographically far from Palestine, but Palestine lives within you…. Your voice has the power to shift realities. Share our suffering and our stories of steadfastness and success…. We will not lose our dream of reunification, nor will we abandon our right of return.

In the third part of the document, “A Call to Repentance and Action”, the authors make their appeal to persons around the world.

To Christians: “working together with both religious and secular coalitions… pressure [your] governments to isolate Israel, hold it accountable… press for the prosecution of war criminals whoever they may be… ensure reparations for the Palestinian people… work for the immediate return of the displaced through the reconstruction of Gaza and the strengthening of its people’s steadfastness.

To people of conscience: “believers in God from every faith and persons of conviction… join together in coalitions that safeguard humanity from further descent into the reality of injustice, tyranny and domination.”

“We call for a global theological movement built on the pillars of God’s Kingdom — a movement that arises from the contexts and struggles of peoples suffering from colonialism, racism, apartheid and the structural poverty produced by corrupt economic and political systems that serve the interests of the world’s empires.”

To the Jewish voices that oppose the war and confront Zionism from moral, faith-based and human conviction: “[W]e find [in you] partners in our shared humanity and in the struggle for freedom and human dignity—partners also in religious and political dialogue.

Rejecting the conflation of Jew and Zionist, the document draws a clear distinction. It declares, “Not every Jew is a Zionist and not every Zionist is a Jew.”

At the heart of the document’s plea to all is a clarion call to costly solidarity, the risking of one’s self for the sake of the other. “By its very nature,” the document insists, “true solidarity is costly. It has a price. It is a faith-based stance, a human commitment and a moral responsibility. True solidarity is also the embodiment of our shared humanity and fraternity. Either we live together—or we perish together. Today it is Palestine. Tomorrow it will be other marginalized and oppressed peoples.”

The final section, “Faith in a Time of Genocide”, is the briefest, and offers a reaffirmation of the Palestinian Christians’ steadfast faith and this honest assessment of the possibilities for peace:


To speak of a political solution today is futile unless we first undertake the serious work of acknowledging and rectifying past wrongs—beginning with recognition of the historic injustice done to Palestinians since the rise of the Zionist movement and the Balfour Declaration. Any genuine beginning must involve dismantling settler colonialism and the apartheid system built on Jewish supremacy…. What is required is international action and protection…. Enduring solutions will not rest on the logic of force, but on the foundations of justice, equality and the right to self-determination.

In her address at the conference, Dr. Muna Mushahwer, an ophthalmologist and member of the board of Kairos Palestine, acknowledged, “Yes, we are angry, furious even. Jesus himself got angry at the Temple as we read in Matthew 21:12-13. He got angry because the house of the LORD was to be a house of prayer, but it was turned into a den of thieves. How angry do you think he is now that the land of the LORD has been turned into a place of death and desolation? But from this anguish and pain comes this moment of truth for us. As we write in Kairos II, we raise this cry… a cry of steadfastness.”

“Faith in a Time of Genocide” will stand alongside Chrisian confessions written in other times of crisis, such as the Barmen Declaration during the rise of Nazism (1934), MLK, Jr’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement (1963), and The South Africa Kairos Document during the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa (1985).

Jeff Wright
Jeff Wright is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

63% of US Voters Oppose Attack on Venezuela as Trump’s March to War Accelerates

The new poll comes as the US president openly plots to seize Venezuela’s oil supply.


Supporters of President Nicolas Maduro and members of the Bolivarian Civil Militia participate in a protest against the US in the working-class neighborhood of Petare, Caracas, Venezuela on December 13, 2025.
(Photo by Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Dec 18, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

President Donald Trump has taken increasingly aggressive actions against Venezuela in recent weeks, but a new poll released Wednesday shows US voters are not on board with a new war.

A new poll from Quinnipiac University found that 63% of voters oppose military operations inside Venezuela, with just 25% registering support.



70% of US Public Opposes Military Attack on Venezuela as Trump Eyes ‘Deadly New Phase’



US Troops Near Venezuela Reportedly Denied Holiday Leave as Fears Grow of Unpopular and Lengthy Trump War

What’s more, a US military strike in Venezuela would draw significant opposition even from Republican voters, 33% of whom told Quinnipiac that they would oppose such an action. Eighty-nine percent of Democratic voters and 68% of independent voters said they were opposed to a US military campaign in Venezuela.

Trump’s policy of bombing suspected drug trafficking boats in international waters, which many legal experts consider to be acts of murder, drew significantly less opposition in the new survey than a prospective attack on Venezuela, but it is still unpopular, with 42% in favor and 53% opposed.

A potential war is also unpopular with Venezuelans, as a recent survey from Caracas-based pollster Datanalisis found 55% opposed to a foreign military attack on their nation, with 23% in favor.

The Trump administration’s boat strikes, which have now killed at least 99 people, have been just one aspect of its campaign of military aggression against Venezuela. The US military last week seized a Venezuelan oil tanker, and Trump has said that it’s only a matter of time before the military launches strikes against targets inside the country.

Trump on Wednesday also said that one goal of his campaign against Venezuela would be to seize the country’s oil supply.

“Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had—they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching,” Trump said while talking to reporters. “But they’re not gonna do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. They threw our companies out. And we want it back.”

Venezuela first nationalized its oil industry in 1976, and the US has no legitimate claim to the nation’s petroleum supply.

Venezuela Won’t Ever Again be a Colony: Maduro Says on Trump’s Oil Blockade

Pablo Meriguet | 18 Dec 2025

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In a controversial statement, Trump has declared that the sanctioned oil belongs to the United States. Caracas rejects the statement and considers it an “imperialist naval blockade.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro holds up "El Libro Azul", a text about the birth and development of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, and a copy of the Venezuelan Constitution. Photo: Nicolás Maduro

The US president has once again lashed out against Venezuela. Following a series of economic sanctions and the military deployment of over 15,000 soldiers and war ships in the Caribbean Sea, Donald Trump has decided to take further action to suffocate the government of Nicolás Maduro economically.

“Recover our oil”?: Trump’s controversial statements

While for weeks the White House has been justifying its sanctions and threats of invasion against Venezuela by accusing it of being a key node in an international drug trafficking scheme, the imposition of the naval blockade seems to have a different motivation. Trump has declared that the “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS” is in order to take back resources that, according to Trump, belong to the United States.

“America will not allow Criminals, Terrorists, or other Countries to rob, threaten, or harm our Nation and, likewise, will not allow a Hostile Regime to take our Oil, Land, or any other Assets, all of which must be returned to the United States, immediately,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Trump threatened: “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”

Trump declared that, “For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.”

The announcement was made a week after the US military seized a Venezuelan oil tanker bound for Cuba. The Maduro government has denounced this act before the United Nations, which it considers an “act of international piracy.”

“Interventionism and imperialism,” says Caracas

Venezuelan authorities have stated that Trump’s announcement is a “grotesque threat” and a violation of international law, free trade, and freedom of navigation. They denounced that Trump “claims on his social media that Venezuela’s oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property” and that “consequently, Venezuela must immediately hand over all its riches.”

Furthermore, the statement affirms: “The true intention [of Trump’s measure], which has been denounced by Venezuela and by the people of the United States in large demonstrations, has always been to appropriate the country’s oil, land, and minerals through gigantic campaigns of lies and manipulation.”

According to the statement, Venezuela will report the incident to the United Nations through its ambassador. It also called on the US people and the rest of the world to reject this measure, “which once again reveals Donald Trump’s true intentions to steal the wealth of the country that gave birth to the Liberating Army of South America… The people of Venezuela, in perfect unity with the military and police, will defend their historic rights and triumph through peaceful means.”

Caracas declared: “Venezuela will never again be a colony of any empire or foreign power, and it will continue with its people along the path of building prosperity and defending its independence and sovereignty.”

Opposition to war with Venezuela grows within the US

Meanwhile, condemnation of Trump’s decision has also emerged within the United States. Congressman Joaquín Castro said, “A naval blockade is unquestionably an act of war. A war that the Congress never authorized and the American people do not want.”

Castro added that himself, US Representative Jim McGovern, and Representative Thomas Massie, will bring a resolution to the House of Representatives calling on President Trump to “end hostilities with Venezuela.” “Every member of the House of Representatives will have the opportunity to decide if they support sending Americans into yet another regime change war,” he stated.

For its part, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) issued a statement rejecting the blockade and denouncing it as an act of war: “In his administration’s latest act of war, Donald Trump has ordered a naval blockade of Venezuela. Its stated goal is to cut off all oil revenue to force the illegal overthrow of an independent government. This is a siege designed to cause economic collapse and a humanitarian crisis as a precursor to all-out war by the United States. This aggression is about controlling Venezuela’s oil and reversing its political independence. It follows a pattern of US intervention in Latin America, where governments that resist US control are targeted for regime change.”

Furthermore, the PSL states: “Trump has made his colonial intentions clear by stating US plans to steal Venezuelan land, oil, and minerals. The people of the United States have overwhelmingly opposed military intervention in Venezuela. This war, like the war on Iraq, is built on false pretenses and imperial ambition. We must organize and mobilize to stop this blockade and prevent a wider war. No war on Venezuela.”

Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch

In Venezuela, We Have Not Been Invaded

Giuliano Salvatore

 December 19, 2025

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Photo by roger kuzna

I am writing these words from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on December 12, 2025, one day after María Corina Machado, the newly appointed Nobel Peace Prize winner, said at a press conference in Oslo, Norway, in response to a journalist’s question about whether she would accept a military invasion of Venezuela, that:

Venezuela has already been invaded. We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents, we have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas operating freely, in accordance with the regime. We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels that have taken control of 60 percent of our population, not only involving drug trafficking but in human trafficking, networks of prostitution. This has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas.

In a week or two, my first daughter will be born, like thousands of other Venezuelan babies inside and outside the country who are about to be born or are newborns. It seems like a detail that would not matter to anyone other than the immediate circle of all our families and friends, but the words of María Corina Machado and the actions of the US government in recent months place all Venezuelans as targets of an apparently imminent military invasion which, given the narrative imposed on us—for MCM we are “the criminal hub of the Americas”—and the current global context, in which genocide in Gaza occurs with total impunity, it is logical and even prudent to think that it will seek to destroy everything in its path, hijack our future, and make us pay for our “freedom” with thousands and thousands of lives.

Venezuelan social and political forces are, and have been all these years, diverse in their positions and in their magnitudes. The problems that Venezuelans face on a daily basis have been exacerbated by the unilateral sanctions imposed on the Venezuelan people which, according to the 2014 report of the Special Rapporteur on the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures of the United Nations, constitute a violation of international law seriously impacting the country’s population and preventing the enjoyment of human rights.

Our problems are not few, nor are they without enormous complexity, difficult to grasp in their entirety even for ourselves. We have problems, like any country; problems that have been part of our daily lives for years and have eroded in many ways the legitimacy of all political leadership in the country, whether in the government or the opposition. This diversity of political and social forces in Venezuela even includes clear and well-founded criticism of the Venezuelan government in many respects; clear and well-founded criticism from the left, from popular movements, and from Venezuelan workers of many of the paths we have taken in recent years.

Like any country, we are facing our own dilemma, a dilemma that includes, however, the fact that we are the world’s largest oil reserve and one of the largest reserves of gold, water, and coltan, at a time when the geopolitical map is being redrawn and the US empire is cynically playing its cards, Israel is seriously beginning to turn its attention to Latin America, and the major industrial and commercial powers are dividing up the world. So, while we are dealing with a circumstance common to the entire planet—the US empire in its most psychotic phase—we insist on the principle of self-determination and on our right to life, and on our conviction that we will be the ones to find the necessary channels to sustain ourselves and move forward on our own path.

The Dangerous Characterization of Venezuela for Its Possible Invasion

No, in Venezuela we are not living under invasion by China, Russia, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, or any other foreign force. There is no direct evidence of this. If we had been invaded, as MCM would have us believe, this would imply the direct intervention of specific forces from these countries in our daily lives, and that is not happening in any way. Government advisors, defense or trade agreements between nations —none of these things, which are regular for any country, imply any form of invasion. There is no evidence that any foreign armed, police, parapolice, or paramilitary force is operating in Venezuela with the authorization and/or support of the national government. Furthermore, unlike in other countries in the region, there are no armed conflicts arising from territorial disputes between drug cartels, nor even, at this point, more local or smaller-scale conflicts involving microtrafficking, so it would be impossible to claim that “drug cartels have taken control of 60 percent of our population.”

The idea that Trump and MCM are trying to construct, that Venezuela is the hub of operations for all the evils that populate the nightmares of the West, is nothing more than a global narrative that seeks to dehumanize Venezuela and the region enough so that, once again, as is currently the case with Gaza and Sudan and so many other conflicts, international public opinion does not know exactly whether, given the seriousness of our situation, the end does not justify the means in this case, that is, among other possibilities, our extermination. Let us never forget what happened in Libya or Iraq, to mention two of a long list of countries “liberated” from evil by the United States. And if we believe in the idea that it is impossible to replicate experiences in the Middle East or Africa in Latin America, let us not lose sight of the fact that, since September, the United States has killed at least 87 people in its attacks in the Caribbean under the same premise that Israel kills men, women, and children with impunity in Palestine: they are terrorists, not human beings, and they are terrorists because they say they are.

In the context of what has happened in Gaza—more than 70.000 children have been killed with impunity—and taking into account that MCM is a close ally of the Israeli government and Netanyahu, the words of the current Nobel Peace Prize winner are a direct attack on the lives of Venezuelans and a clear call for the genocide that the United States and Israel are committing in Gaza to be repeated in Venezuela.

Venezuelans both inside and outside the country deserve the opportunity to solve our problems according to our own criteria and our own capabilities. That is sovereignty. There is currently no invasion by any foreign force in our country, and there is no basis for thinking that we represent a threat to peace in the region.

The only and most likely possibility is that we will be invaded by the US government in pursuit of nothing more than the global maintenance of its hegemony at the expense of our resources, our sweat, and our blood, both ours and that of our children.

Footnote on December 17

Yesterday, Tuesday, December 16, US President Donald Trump declared on the social network Truth Social that:

Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger, and the impact on them will be like nothing they have ever seen before —Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us. The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping. For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. Therefore, today, I am ordering a TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.

It doesn’t take much analysis. It seems that between the FIFA Peace Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuela (and the region) are about to experience levels of harmony, tranquility, and concord unlike anything we have seen before.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Giuliano Salvatore is a Venezuelan documentary filmmaker, photographer, and teacher based in Caracas, Venezuela.

It’s All About the Oil,’ Says Venezuelan Defense Minister After ‘Incoherent’ Trump Claims

The minister also echoed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s declaration that the US seizing oil tankers is “piracy.”


Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López speaks during a training session on October 4, 2025 in Caracas, Venezuela.
(Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Dec 18, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

As President Donald Trump continues his march toward a US war on Venezuela, the South American country’s defense minister on Wednesday blasted his “delusional” and “completely incoherent” claims, and echoed warnings from around the world that “it’s all about the oil.”

In addition to killing nearly 100 people by bombing alleged drug smuggling boats, Trump has authorized covert Central Intelligence Agency action in Venezuela and repeatedly threatened attacks on land. Late Tuesday, Trump declared a naval blockade that he said will continue until the nation returns to the US “all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”



Colombian President Petro Says Venezuela Oil ‘At Heart’ of Trump Aggression



‘This is About Oil and Regime Change’: GOP Lawmaker Speaks Out Against Push for War in Venezuela

Trump appears to be referring to the presence that US companies had in Venezuela before the country nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s. On Wednesday, the Republican president told reporters: “Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had—they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching. But they’re not gonna do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. As you know, they threw our companies out, and we want it back.”

In a Wednesday speech, Venezuela’s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, pushed back against Trump’s blockade, threats of military action, and “delirious” claims that the country stole its own oil, land, and other assets from the United States. The minister also reiterated a declaration from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that the US seizing oil tankers is “piracy.”




As CNN reported, Maduro—whom Trump aims to oust from power—gave a similar speech about the US administration’s purported goal of combating drug trafficking in Caracas on Wednesday.

“It is simply a warmongering and colonialist pretense, and we have said so many times, and now everyone sees the truth. The truth has been revealed,” Maduro said. “The aim in Venezuela is a regime change to impose a puppet government that wouldn’t last 47 hours, that would hand over the Constitution, sovereignty, and all the wealth, turning Venezuela into a colony. It will simply never happen.”

According to Anadolu Agency, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said on social media this week: “We will continue to be free and independent in our energy relations. Together with President Nicolás Maduro, we will continue to defend the homeland.”

Although the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on Wednesday night narrowly defeated a pair of war powers resolutions aimed at reining in Trump’s actions toward Venezuela, lawmakers from both major parties have also called out the administration’s drug claims and argued against launching another US war for oil.

Responding to a clip of Trump’s comments to reporters on Wednesday, US Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who sponsored one of the resolutions, wrote on social media: “I’ve said it many times before: This is not about drugs. If the goal were stopping narcotics, this administration would not be talking about oil rights or seizing tankers. That is not a lawful basis for war.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the few Republicans who supported the resolutions, took to the House floor ahead of the votes on Wednesday to denounce Trump’s march toward an unconstitutional war and declare that “this is about oil and regime change.”

‘No War With Venezuela,’ Says Maine US

 Senate Candidate Graham Platner

“It should not be an option in our government to allow a failing presidency to just start a war because they feel like it’s politically expedient,” said the progressive running to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.


US Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at a town hall on October 22, 2025 in Ogunquit, Maine.
(Photo by Sophie Park/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Dec 18, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

The progressive running to unseat Republican US Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is speaking out forcefully against President Donald Trump’s march to war with Venezuela, warning of alarming parallels with the invasion of Iraq over two decades ago.

In a video posted to social media on Wednesday night, Graham Platner—a Marine Corps and US Army veteran who served multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan—said it is “terrifying” to witness the US government “yet again trying to lead us into an illegal war that is going to do absolutely nothing for the average American.”



Congressmen Unveil Bipartisan War Powers Resolution to Block Trump War on Venezuela



‘This is About Oil and Regime Change’: GOP Lawmaker Speaks Out Against Push for War in Venezuela

“What is happening in Venezuela should not fool you into thinking that we are under attack, that we are under threat from Venezuela,” said Platner, who accused the increasingly unpopular Trump administration of falling back on the “most tried and true method of failing governments, which is to go start a war.”

“This is why we need to claw back war powers from the executive branch,” he added. “It should not be an option in our government to allow a failing presidency to just start a war because they feel like it’s politically expedient. That shouldn’t even be possible, and the only reason it is possible is that we have allowed it to become possible.”

Watch:

Platner’s remarks came a day after Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to launch military strikes inside Venezuela, announced a “total and complete” blockade on “sanctioned oil tankers” approaching and leaving the South American nation—a move that was widely condemned as an act of war.

“No war with Venezuela,” Platner wrote on social media in response to the president’s announcement, expressing a view shared by 63% of US voters, according to one new poll.

Platner’s vocal condemnation of Trump’s military aggression toward Venezuela and warnings about regime change contrast sharply with his electoral opponents’ relative silence on the issue, which has drawn international alarm and outrage.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Platner’s establishment-backed competition in the Senate primary, told Common Dreams in a statement that “Congress should be exercising its oversight and war powers authority” to constrain Trump. The comments appeared to be Mills’ first public statement on the potential military conflict with Venezuela.

“Unsurprisingly, the president’s objectives and strategy are unclear as he drives us closer to a costly and unnecessary war,” Mills said, adding that, “unlike Susan Collins,” she would have supported a recent war powers resolution that nearly every Republican senator voted to block last month.

Collins, according to the Associated Press, gave opponents of the war powers resolution “the decisive 50th vote to defeat it” when it came up for a vote on November 6.

If passed, the measure would have required Trump to “direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”

“The power to wage war constitutionally was given to the legislative branch to make sure that this exact kind of scenario did not happen.”

Senate opponents of Trump’s military aggression toward Venezuela directly and his ongoing, deadly strikes on boats in international waters are not giving up on efforts to rein in the lawless president.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), an Iraq War veteran who has warned Trump is on the verge of launching “Iraq War 2.0,” introduced a resolution on Wednesday aimed at halting the president’s campaign of extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.

“The decision to use military force is one that requires serious debate, and the power to declare war unambiguously belongs to Congress under the Constitution,” said Gallego. “As an Iraq War veteran, I know the costs of rushing into an unnecessary war and that the American people will not stand for it.”

Platner echoed that sentiment in his video message on Wednesday.

“The power to wage war constitutionally was given to the legislative branch to make sure that this exact kind of scenario did not happen,” said the US Senate candidate. “The only way that we can keep it from happening again is to make sure that the power to wage war returns to the representatives of the people.”

‘Absolute Dereliction of Duty’: House Republicans Kill Venezuela War Powers Resolutions

Undeterred, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus vowed to “continue to fight to stop Trump’s illegal war on Venezuela.”


A mobile billboard sponsored by Win Without War urging members of Congress to pass a war powers resolution is seen outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC on December 15, 2025.
(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Win Without War)

Brett Wilkins
Dec 17, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

House Republicans on Wednesday defeated a pair of war powers resolutions aimed at reining in US President Donald Trump’s airstrikes on alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and his increasingly aggressive provocations that critics fear are leading to a war on Venezuela.

The first resolution, introduced by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), demanded that the US refrain from armed hostilities “with any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere, unless authorized by a declaration of war or a specific congressional authorization for use of military force.”

Trump dubiously designated drug cartels—including the Venezuela-based group Tren de Aragua—as foreign terrorist organizations in an executive order signed on his first day back in the White House.

The resolution was defeated 210-216, with seven lawmakers not voting. Two Republicans—Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Thomas Massie of Kentucky—voted in favor of the measure. Democratic Texas Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez joined their GOP colleagues in voting down the proposal.

The second resolution, introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), would have directed Trump to “remove the use of United States armed forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization for use of military force.”

The resolution failed by a vote of 211-213, with nine members not voting. Republicans Bacon, Massie, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia voted “yes” on the legislation, while Cuellar voted against the proposal.




“The Trump administration’s ongoing lethal US military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Western Hemisphere are legally questionable, and ineffective,” Meeks and Reps. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Jason Crow (D-Colo.), and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—all members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee—said in a statement following the vote.

“Under existing US law, these vessels could have been interdicted and their occupants subjected to judicial process,” the lawmakers noted. “Instead of pursuing prosecutions, this administration has deliberately avoided judicial scrutiny by conducting lethal strikes, repatriating survivors, and in at least one instance, carrying out a second strike on defenseless persons.”

The Democrats continued:
The president has failed to demonstrate the necessary authority under US or international law to conduct lethal military strikes on these boats. No one can credibly claim that these vessels, in some cases not even traveling to the United States and located thousands of miles from US soil, posed an imminent threat to the American people warranting the use of military force. Our war powers resolution sought to terminate these extrajudicial strikes, yet most Republicans chose loyalty to Donald Trump over their oath to the Constitution. By not reining in Trump’s gross abuse of power, they are sending a dangerous signal that any president can unilaterally commit US armed forces to hostilities without congressional authorization. We hope our Republican colleagues find their courage in the face of President Trump’s threats to expand this military operation into Venezuela. Should he be allowed to do so, he will no doubt provoke another forever war that the American people do not support and Congress has certainly not authorized.

The House votes follow two failed Senate attempts to stop Trump from continuing military action against alleged drug cartels without congressional approval. A vote on a war powers resolution introduced earlier this month by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is expected this week. Meanwhile, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) on Monday announced a separate resolution to stop US forces from launching more boat strikes.

Wednesday’s votes came after Trump escalated US aggression toward Venezuela by ordering a “total and complete blockade” on “all sanctioned oil tankers” approaching and leaving the South American country. In a social media post divorced from historical fact, Trump accused Venezuela of stealing “oil, land, and other assets” from the United States.

This, after Trump’s deployment of an armada of warships and thousands of troops to the southern Caribbean, his authorization of CIA covert action against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and his threats of a land invasion of Venezuela. Most of the at least 95 people killed in the more than two dozen US strikes on boats allegedly transporting drugs have also been Venezuelans.

Undeterred by Wednesday’s votes, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) vowed to “continue to fight to stop Trump’s illegal war on Venezuela.”

“Tonight’s razor-thin, 211-to-213 vote on the bipartisan war powers resolution to end these illegal hostilities puts Trump on notice,” Omar, the deputy CPC chair, said in a statement.

Omar continued:
Nearly a quarter-century ago, the American people were misled by a lawless president promoting lies about weapons of mass destruction, all to invade an oil-rich country that posed no threat to us. The result was a disaster that killed thousands of American service members, triggered a humanitarian crisis in Iraq, and destabilized the entire region. Trump is pursuing the same course today in Venezuela, absurdly designating fentanyl a WMD while blockading Venezuela until the country gives him “all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets.”

“Trump has no mandate to push his unconstitutional military campaign against Venezuela,” Omar added. “If Trump continues to carry out oil tanker seizures, impose a naval blockade, and put American service members in harm’s way for an illegal regime change war, he can surely expect a vote to immediately stop this disastrous conflict.”

‘This is About Oil and Regime Change’: GOP Lawmaker Speaks Out Against Push for War in Venezuela

“Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs that did not exist,” said Rep. Thomas Massie. “Now it’s the same playbook.”


US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) speaks during the press conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 18, 2025.
(Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
Dec 17, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


A Republican congressman on Wednesday pushed back against President Donald Trump’s push for war with Venezuela.

Speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) demanded that Trump not take any military action against Venezuela without approval from the US Congress.


‘Venezuela, for the American Oil Companies, Will Be a Field Day,’ Says US Lawmaker Pushing Invasion

“The framers [of the US Constitution] understood a simple truth: To the extent that war-making powers devolves to one person, liberty dissolves,” he said. “If the president believes that military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case, and Congress should vote before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America.”

Massie then made clear that he wasn’t simply making a procedural case against the president’s actions, but a substantive case against going to war with Venezuela. In particular, the Kentucky congressman pointed to past US failures in regime-change wars such as Iraq and Libya to warn against making a similar case in South America.

“Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs that did not exist,” he said, referring to weapons of mass destruction. “Now it’s the same playbook. Except we’re told that drugs are the WMDs. If it were about drugs, we’d bomb Mexico or China or Colombia.”

Massie also argued that, if Trump were really concerned about the flow of illicit drugs into the US, he wouldn’t have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras who had been convicted in 2024 of conspiring to smuggle 400 tons of cocaine into the US.

“This is about oil and regime change,” Massie said.

Massie’s points about the administration’s rationale for war with Venezuela were echoed by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who also delivered a speech in the US House Wednesday denouncing the rush for military action.

“This is not about drugs, this is about regime change,” she said. “And we also have the White House chief of staff [Susie Wiles] saying that this is about regime change. It has nothing to do with drugs.”

Like Massie, Omar also emphasized the role for Congress set out by the US Constitution when it comes to declarations of war.

“Only Congress has the power to declare war,” she said. “The Trump administration’s military escalation in the Caribbean is not only reckless, it is blatantly illegal. We cannot allow this kind of dangerous overreach to go unchecked.”

Massie and Omar delivered their speeches during a debate over two resolutions aimed at limiting Trump’s ability to wage war against Venezuela.

The first resolution demands Trump “remove United States armed forces from hostilities with any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere, unless authorized by a declaration of war or a specific congressional authorization for use of military force.”

The second resolution more explicitly “directs the president to remove the use of United States armed forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization for use of military force.”

Trump and his administration in recent weeks have been acting with increasing aggression against Venezuela, starting with the bombing of purported drug trafficking boats off the country’s coast, and escalating earlier this month to seizing an oil tanker that had docked at one of its ports.

On Tuesday night, Trump announced a “total and complete blockade” of all “sanctioned oil tankers” seeking to enter and leave the country.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before.”

While talking with reporters on Wednesday, Trump upped the ante further and said that the US wanted to take Venezuela’s oil supply.

“Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had—they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn’t watching,” Trump said. “But they’re not gonna do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. They threw our companies out. And we want it back.”

US oil blockade of Venezuela: what we know

By AFP
December 17, 2025


US President Donald Trump's administration has been piling pressure on Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro - Copyright AFP/File Juan BARRETO

US forces in the Caribbean — where Donald Trump has deployed a massive flotilla of warships — have been tasked by the president with blockading “sanctioned oil vessels” going to and from Venezuela.

Trump’s administration has been piling pressure on the country and its government for months, in an apparent bid to oust leftist leader Nicolas Maduro — whom Washington accuses of heading a drug cartel.

The US president has said that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and pointedly refused to rule out a ground invasion, but the Venezuelan leader has remained defiant so far.

Below, AFP examines the situation in the Caribbean.



– US assets in the Caribbean –



Many questions remain over how the Venezuela blockade will play out, and it is not clear how many tankers will be impacted, or to what degree the US military — which currently has thousands of personnel in the Caribbean — would be involved.

There are currently 11 US warships in the Caribbean: the world’s largest aircraft carrier, an amphibious assault ship, two amphibious transport dock ships, two cruisers and five destroyers.

There are US Coast Guard vessels deployed in the region as well, but the service declined to provide figures on those assets “for operational security reasons.”

Washington has also flown a series of military aircraft — including long-range bombers — along the coast of Venezuela, and has reached deals with some countries in the region for the use of their airports for military flights.



– Tanker seized –



The United States has already seized one tanker off Venezuela’s coast, taking control of the M/T Skipper last week in a raid that provides a potential preview of future action.

A video released by US Attorney General Pam Bondi showed US forces descending from a helicopter onto the tanker’s deck, then entering the ship’s bridge with weapons raised.

A US court later released a heavily redacted warrant authorizing the seizure of the ship, which the document said was carried out by the Coast Guard.



– Strikes on alleged drug boats –



Washington’s forces began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean in early September, later expanding those operations to the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The Trump administration has said the strikes — which have destroyed more than 25 vessels and killed at least 95 people — are aimed at curbing trafficking.

But White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair magazine that the strikes are aimed at pressuring Venezuela’s leadership, saying Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”



– ‘Quarantine’ of Cuba –



Latin American countries have been targeted with blockades in the past, most famously during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when Washington established a “quarantine” to stop the Soviet Union from bringing offensive weapons to its Caribbean ally.

Some Soviet ships decided to turn back before reaching the quarantine line, while others were stopped and searched by US forces but cleared to proceed to Cuba.

The measure — which was called a “quarantine” rather than a blockade because no state of war existed — was lifted after the United States and Moscow reached a deal to end the crisis, which is widely considered the closest the two countries came to nuclear war.