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United States bombs Venezuela overnight – Caracas calls for full popular mobilisation to resist feared invasion

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/united-states-bombs-venezuela-overnight-caracas-calls-full-popular-mobilisation-resist

 A civilian runs from the sound of explosions in Caracas overnight

THE United States bombed Venezuela overnight, with explosions rocking the capital Caracas and targets in the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira.

The Venezuelan government ordered “all national defence plans to be implemented” and called for the people of the country to mobilise to fend off a “colonial war” aiming at regime change, in co-ordination with the “fascist oligarchy” that has always sought to reverse the Bolivarian revolution. Given the explicit threats of an attack from the US in recent months, Venezuela has distributed arms to popular militias around the country.

The Pentagon and White House have been tight-lipped about the attacks, with the main confirmation simply a Federal Aviation Authority warning to commercial aircraft to steer clear of the Latin American country because of “military activity.” Reports aired by some US broadcasters that US President Donald Trump has ordered a land invasion have not been confirmed.

“The whole ground shook… this is horrible,” Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling, told the Associated Press. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. “We felt like the air was hitting us.”

Mr Trump has built up a huge armada off Venezuela’s coast and carried out a lethal campaign of bombings against boats in the Caribbean, accusing them without evidence of smuggling drugs. Officially the US accuses the government of President Nicolas Maduro of being involved in drug-smuggling too, but in online rants the US leader has revealed his real aim is to restore US corporate control of the country’s oil reserves, the largest proven reserves on Earth. The US boarded and stole two oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude last month.

A recent National Security Strategy published by the White House called on the United States to reassert the Monroe Doctrine — which calls for US dominance in the western hemisphere and the exclusion of all “non-hemispheric” powers from it.

“The Bolivarian government calls upon all social and political forces of the country to activate mobilisation plans and to repudiate this imperialist attack,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement.

…

Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/united-states-bombs-venezuela-overnight-caracas-calls-full-popular-mobilisation-resist

There are reports in the last few minutes that Trump has announced on his truth social that President Maduro and his wife have been captured and removed from Venezuela.

Continue ReadingUnited States bombs Venezuela overnight – Caracas calls for full popular mobilisation to resist feared invasion

Pirates of the Caribbean: sovereignty, law and Donald Trump

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https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/pirates-caribbean-sovereignty-law-and-donald-trump

 US President Donald Trump says Venezuela must return ownership rights of its oil to US companies

WASHINGTON’S seizure of a second ship carrying Venezuelan oil continues its brazen piracy on the high seas.

It’s a further escalation in US aggression against Venezuela designed to bring about regime change.

Donald Trump’s crimes are dramatic, his motives expressed unusually openly. His secretary for war — and the revival of this title instead of defence secretary speaks for itself  — boasts about prioritising “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.” The administration is hardly making the effort to pretend its actions are legal.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t lying. It lies constantly, and the official rationale for its Venezuela blockade is a lie — there is no evidence the boats it bombs were smuggling drugs, nor that the Venezuelan oil industry has any connection to the drug trade, nor even of the existence of the so-called Cartel de los Soles that it alleges Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro heads.

But just as when, during his first term, Trump embarrassed his Nato allies by admitting Western militaries were in Syria “only for the oil,” the president’s online rants show the same is true for Venezuela.

…

Article continues at https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/pirates-caribbean-sovereignty-law-and-donald-trump

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is
enough.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Continue ReadingPirates of the Caribbean: sovereignty, law and Donald Trump

Trump Escalates in Venezuela With ‘Illegal’ US Seizure of Oil Tanker

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Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

A Venezuelan navy patrol boat escorts Panamanian flagged crude oil tanker Yoselin near the El Palito refinery in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela on November 11, 2025.
(Photo by Juan Carlos Hernandez/AFP via Getty Images)

“Millions of civilians will be at risk if the economy deteriorates and tensions rise,” warned one anti-war group.

The US military on Wednesday seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela in the latest act of aggression against a nation that President Donald Trump has been openly threatening for several weeks.

Bloomberg, which described the move as a “serious escalation” in tensions between the US and Venezuela, reported that the seizure of the tanker by US forces “may make it much harder for Venezuela to export its oil, as other shippers are now likely to be more reluctant to load its cargoes.”

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The seizure was described to Bloomberg by a Trump administration official as a “judicial enforcement action on a stateless vessel” that had been docked in Venezuela.

Shortly after the seizure occurred, Trump boasted about it during a meeting with business leaders at the White House, declaring that the tanker was the “largest one ever seized.”

Just Foreign Policy, a progressive think tank and advocacy group, condemned the seizure of the tanker, describing it as an “illegal US move to take control of Venezuela’s natural resources and strangle the economy, which is already struggling under indiscriminate US sanctions,” and warning that “millions of civilians will be at risk if the economy deteriorates and tensions rise.”

The seizure of the oil tanker is just one of many aggressive maneuvers that the Trump administration has been making around Venezuela.

Starting in September, the administration began a series of murders of people aboard boats in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela and in the Pacific Ocean.

The Trump administration has claimed those targeted for extrajudicial killing are drug smugglers and accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading an international drug trafficking organization called the Cartel de los Soles, despite many experts saying that they have seen no evidence that such an organization formally exists.

Trump late last month further escalated tensions with Venezuela when he declared that airspace over the nation was “closed in its entirety,” even though he lacks any legal authority to enforce such a decree. Trump has also hinted that strikes against purported drug traffickers on Venezuelan soil would occur in the near future.

Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.

Activists slam US act of international ‘piracy’ as Trump continues military threats

…

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the act “a blatant theft and an act of international piracy.”

“Trump’s attitude has made it clear that the policy of aggression against our country is part of a deliberate plan to plunder our energy wealth,” the statement said.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said: “Cuba expresses its full support for the Venezuelan government’s denunciation and strongly condemns the assault on an oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea.

“This constitutes an act of piracy, a violation of international law and an escalation of aggression against that sister nation.”

Geopolitical analyst Ben Norton accused the US of being “run by imperialist pirates,” while co-founder of women-led peace campaigner Codepink, Medea Benjamin, said the seizure of the tanker was an “act of 21st-century piracy.

“This isn’t about drugs. It’s about regime change and provoking a war in Latin America. Americans don’t want this. Seventy per cent oppose intervention in Venezuela.”

She said: “Cuba needs oil, not blockades. Venezuela needs peace, not warships. Hands off Venezuela. Hands off Cuba.

…

Continue ReadingTrump Escalates in Venezuela With ‘Illegal’ US Seizure of Oil Tanker

Top Dem Says Video of Military ‘Attacking Shipwrecked Sailors’ Among ‘Most Troubling Things’ He Has Ever Seen

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Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

US Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) speaks to members of the press after a briefing at the US Capitol on February 14, 2024 in Washington, DC. 
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“Two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, were killed by the United States.”

US Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, expressed horror on Thursday after watching a video of the September 2 double-tap strike on a suspected drug trafficking vessel off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.

Speaking to reporters after a briefing on the strike delivered by Adm. Frank Bradley, Himes (D-Conn.) called the video he saw of the attack “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.”

Himes proceeded to describe the video, which showed the US military firing missiles at two men who had survived an initial attack on their vessel and who were floating in the water while clinging to debris.

“You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, [who] were killed by the United States,” he said.

Himes then started to walk away before a reporter asked him to describe more of what he saw in the video. The Connecticut Democrat then said the video showed a clear “impermissible action,” according to the laws of armed conflict.

“Any American who sees the video that I saw will see its military attacking shipwrecked sailors,” he said. “Now, there’s a whole set of contextual items that the admiral explained. Yes, they were carrying drugs. They were not in position to continue their mission in any way… People will someday see this video and they will see that that video shows, if you don’t have the broader context, an attack on shipwrecked sailors.”

Himes finished his talk with reporters by saying that Bradley told lawmakers there had not been a “kill them all” or “no quarter” order given to him by higher-ups. Asked by a reporter if he thought the full video should be released to the public, Himes said, “I do.”

Himes’ reaction to the video stood in stark contrast to the reaction of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who praised the military for its actions.

According to HuffPost reporter Jen Bendery, Cotton described the strikes on the two survivors as “righteous strikes” that were “entirely lawful.”

Cotton also claimed that the video showed “two survivors trying to flip a boat, loaded with drugs, bound for the United States, back over, so they could stay in the fight.”

Reports from the US government and the United Nations have not identified Venezuela as a significant source of drugs that enter the United States, and the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the primary cause of drug overdoses in the US.

Additionally, many legal scholars have said that a strike on the two men who survived the initial attack on the boat is very likely either an act of murder or a war crime, regardless of whether they were intending to traffic illegal drugs in the US.

Original article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Continue ReadingTop Dem Says Video of Military ‘Attacking Shipwrecked Sailors’ Among ‘Most Troubling Things’ He Has Ever Seen