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Tag: Venezuela

  • 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.

    …

  • Trump and Fascism

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    by dizzy deep, blogger at https://onaquietday.org. May be changed, reworked.

    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.

    There are many facets or aspects to Fascism: racist ideology; disregard and disdain for justice, human rights and the rule of law; what ‘Il Duce’ Benito Mussolini termed corporatism, “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

    Xenophobe President Donald Trump often demonstrates racism and a disdain for due process, democracy, human rights and the law .

    Deporting Venezuelans to San Salvador’s CECOT prison.

    Deploying National Guard and ICE in US cities. “Everyday is Halloween.”

    Murdering fishermen

    Project 2025 pursues a huge corparist agenda, hugely extending deregulation for the benefit of unaccountable corporations. Trump pursued huge corporate support for his reelection particularly from the fossil fuel industry. Now he’s intending to invade Venezuela for “all that oil.”

    Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
    Demented assole Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn, Flood, Baby, Flood.

    When discussing Trump it is worth considering whether his obvious prejudices and limited abilities are further affected by senility. I suggest that senior officers of the wider US administration have due regard for other demands and obligations on them.

    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.

  • Trump Says Ground Attack on Venezuela Imminent—Plus Colombia, Mexico Also in US Crosshairs

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

    US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the White House in Washington, DC on December 8, 2025. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

    “It’s now taken as a given… that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization,” said one critic.

    President Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that a US land attack on Venezuela is coming and signaled that he is open to launching similar military action against Colombia and Mexico.

    “We’re gonna hit ‘em on land very soon, too,” Trump told Politico‘s Dasha Burns, citing the pretext of stopping fentanyl from entering the United States.

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    Trump repeated his baseless claim that during the administration of his predecessor, the “very stupid” former President Joe Biden, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “sent us millions of people, many from prisons, many drug dealers, drug lords,” and “people in mental institutions.”

    Burns then noted that most of the illicit fentanyl sold in the United States “is actually produced in Mexico,” which along with Colombia is “even more responsible” for trafficking the potent synthetic opioid into the US. She asked Trump if he would “consider doing something similar” to those countries.

    “I would,” Trump replied. “Sure, I would.”

    Pressed on his contradictory pardon of convicted narco-trafficking former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández while threatening war against Venezuela, Trump feigned ignorance, claiming that “I don’t know him” and asserting that “he was set up.”

    Trump’s latest threat against Venezuela comes amid his deployment of warships and thousands of troops off the coast of the oil-rich South American nation, his approval of covert CIA action against Maduro’s government, and more than 20 airstrikes on boats his administration claims without evidence were smuggling drugs in the southern Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

    The Trump administration’s targeting of Venezuela evokes the long history of US “gunboat diplomacy” in Latin America and continues more than a century of Washington’s meddling in Venezuelan affairs. It also marks a historic escalation of aggression, as the US has never attacked Venezuelan territory.

    Officials in Venezuela and Colombia, as well as relatives of men killed in the boat bombings, contend that at least some of the victims were fishermen who were not involved in drug trafficking.

    The strikes have killed at least 87 people since early September, according to administration figures—including shipwrecked survivors slain in a so-called double-tap bombing. Legal experts and some former US military officials contend that the strikes are a violation of international law, murders, war crimes, or all of these.

    Critics also assert that the boat strikes violate the War Powers Act, which requires the president to report any military action to Congress within 48 hours and mandates that lawmakers must approve troop deployments after 60 days. The Trump administration argues that it is not bound by the War Powers Resolution, citing as precedent the Obama administration’s highly questionable claim of immunity from the law when the US attacked Libya in 2011.

    A bipartisan bid to block the boat bombings on the grounds that they run afoul of the War Powers Act failed to muster enough votes in the Senate in October.

    “Note that it’s now taken as a given—as an unremarkable and baked-in fact about our politics—that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization,” New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent observed Tuesday in response to the president’s remarks to Politico.

    “What emerges from this interview,” he added, “is that Trump is pulling all of this—the substantive case for these bombings, the legal justification for them, the rationale for mulling a massive military escalation in the Western Hemisphere—out of his rear end.”

    Original article by Brett Wilkins 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.

  • UN Experts Say Those Ordering and Carrying Out US Boat Strikes Should Be ‘Prosecuted for Homicide’

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

    A small boat is seen near the USS Sampson, a US Navy missile destroyer, off the coast of Panama City, Panama, on September 2, 2025. 
    (Photo by Daniel Gonzalez/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    “US military attacks on alleged drug traffickers at sea,” said two human rights experts, “are grave violations of the right to life and the international law of the sea.”

    Two United Nations rights experts warned that in numerous ways in recent weeks, the Trump administration’s escalation toward Venezuela has violated international law—most recently when President Donald Trump said he had ordered the South American country’s airspace closed following a military buildup in the Caribbean Sea.

    But the two officials, independent expert on democratic and international order George Katrougalos and Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism, reserved their strongest condemnation and warning to the US for the administration’s repeated bombings of boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, which have targeted at least 22 boats and killed 83 people since September as the White House has claimed without evidence it is combating drug traffickers.

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    The strikes, said Katrougalos and Saul, “are grave violations of the right to life and the international law of the sea. Those involved in ordering and carrying out these extrajudicial killings must be investigated and prosecuted for homicide.”

    Human rights advocates have warned for months that the strikes are extrajudicial killings. Trump has claimed the US is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels in Venezuela—even though the country is not significantly involved in drug trafficking—but Congress has not authorized any military action in the Caribbean.

    Typically, the US has approached drug trafficking in the region as a criminal issue, with the Coast Guard and other agencies intercepting boats suspected of carrying illegal substances, arresting those on board, and ensuring they receive due process in accordance with the Constitution.

    The Trump administration instead has bombed the boats, with the first operation on September 2 recently the subject of particular concern due to reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued an order for military officers to “kill everybody” on board a vessel, leading a commander to direct a second “double-tap” strike to kill two survivors of the initial blast.

    Hegseth and Trump have sought to shift responsibility for the second strike onto Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the commander who oversaw the attack under Hegseth’s orders. Bradley was scheduled to brief lawmakers Thursday on the incident.

    The White House has maintained Bradley had the authority to kill the survivors of the strike and to carry out all the other bombings of boats, even as reporting on the identities of the victims has shown the US has killed civilians including an out-of-work bus driver and a fisherman, and the family of one Colombian man killed in a strike filed a formal complaint accusing Hegseth himself of murder.

    The UN experts suggested that everyone involved in ordering the nearly two dozen boat strikes, from Trump and Hegseth to any of the service members who have helped carry out the operations, should be investigated for alleged murder.

    After Hegseth defended the September 2 strike earlier this week, Saul emphasized in a social media post that contrary to the defense secretary’s rhetoric about how the boat attacks are “protecting” Americans, he is carrying out “state murder of civilians in peacetime, like executing alleged drug traffickers on the streets of New York or DC.”

    As Common Dreams reported last month, a top military lawyer advised the White House against beginning the boat bombings weeks before the September 2 attack, saying they could expose service members involved in the strikes to legal challenges.

    Katrougalos and Saul urged the administration to “refrain from actions that could further aggravate the situation and ensure that any measures taken fully comply with the UN Charter, the Chicago Convention, and relevant rules of customary international law.”

    They also emphasized that Trump had no authority to declare that Venezuela’s airspace was closed last week—an action that many experts feared could portend imminent US strikes in the South American country.

    “International law is clear: States have complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above their territory. Any measures that seek to regulate, restrict, or ‘close’ another state’s airspace are in blatant violation of the Chicago Convention,” said the experts. “Unilateral measures that interfere with a state’s territorial domain, including its airspace, risk fully undermining the stability of the region and are seriously undermining Venezuela’s economy.”

    Saul and Katrougalos further called on the White House not to repeat “the long history of external interventions in Latin America.”

    “Respect for sovereignty, nonintervention, and the peaceful settlement of disputes,” they said, “are essential to preserving international stability and preventing further deterioration of the situation.”

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

    Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
    Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
    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.

  • 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.