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Tag: Venezuela

  • Venezuela Mobilizes Military as US Aircraft Carrier Approaches

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    Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under a 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)

    “The only reason to move it there is to use it against Venezuela,” said one policy expert of the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford.

    White House officials have sought to walk back President Donald Trump’s repeated threats against Venezuela in recent days—even as the Department of Defense has continue to strike boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific—but officials in the South American country on Tuesday took the arrival of a US aircraft carrier in the region seriously despite the administration’s claims that it won’t target Venezuela directly.

    As the USS Gerald R. Ford entered waters near Latin America, accompanied by three warships, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said Venezuela’s entire military arsenal had been placed on “full operational readiness,” with President Nicolás Maduro ordering the deployment of nearly 200,000 soldiers.

    The government also approved the “massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval, riverine, and missile forces,” López announced.

    Venezuela’s military deployment comes weeks after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Ford to relocate from Europe to Latin America following several military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the Trump administration has claimed are meant to stop drug trafficking out of Venezuela—despite the fact that US intelligence agencies and United Nations experts agree that the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the top cause of drug overdoses in the US.

    At least 76 people have been killed in the strikes so far, and the Associated Press reported last week that the victims have included an out-of-work bus driver and a struggling fisherman—people who in some cases had turned to helping drug traffickers transport cocaine across the Caribbean, but were hardly the high-level “narco-terrorists” that Hegseth and Trump have insisted they’ve killed in the region.

    With the carrier strike group entering the Caribbean region, the US now has about 15,000 troops in the area where tensions have escalated since the boat strikes began in September.

    Mark Cancian, a senior defense adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Post that Venezuelan officials had good reason to mobilize forces.

    “The only reason to move it there is to use it against Venezuela,” Cancian said of the Ford deployment. “The shot clock has started because this is not an asset they can just keep there indefinitely. They have to use it or move it.”

    Since beginning the boat bombings, Trump has signaled the US attacks could move to Venezuela directly, with the Wall Street Journal reporting late last month that the administration was preparing to target “ports and airports controlled by the military that are allegedly used to traffic drugs, including naval facilities and airstrips.”

    Trump also authorized Central Intelligence Agency operations last month, falsely claiming the country has “emptied” its prisons into the US and again asserting that “we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela.”

    Democratic senators have introduced two war powers resolutions aimed at stopping the US from striking inside Venezuela and at halting the boat-bombing campaign—but Republicans have voted them down after administration officials assured the caucus that the White House was not currently planning to attack Venezuela.

    Maduro said last month that Trump’s actions in the region in recent months amount to attempts at “regime change,” adding that “if Venezuela did not possess oil, gas, gold, fertile land, and water, the imperialists wouldn’t even look at our country.”

    Trump himself said publicly in 2023 that if he had won the 2020 presidential election, “we would have taken [Venezuela] over, we would have gotten all that oil.”

    On Tuesday, both the United Kingdom and Colombia announced that they were halting intelligence sharing with the US in the region, saying that working with the US as it attacks small vessels in the Caribbean could make the countries complicit in violations of international law.

    “All levels of law enforcement intelligence are ordered to suspend communications and other agreements with US security agencies,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said. “This measure will remain in place as long as missile attacks on boats in the Caribbean continue. The fight against drugs must be subordinate to the human rights of the Caribbean people.”

    Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under a 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.

  • UK suspends some intelligence sharing with US over boat strike concerns

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  • From Palestine to Venezuela: The US is behind the door

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    Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Massive march in Caracas, Venezuela on Saturday October 5, 2024 to commemorate the one year anniversary of Israel’s genocide. Photo: Francisco Trias

    Palestinian journalist Aseel Saleh reflects on the US attempts to destabilize nations across the world to achieve its interests, focusing on the current threats on Venezuela, a stalworth supporter of the Palestinian cause.

    From Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, to the war against Vietnam between 1955 and 1975, the war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and countless more in between, the US war machine has claimed the lives of millions of people around the globe without batting an eye, using false pretexts every time.

    This brutal machine has continued its lethal operations in subsequent periods, even if not directly, by fueling and igniting proxy wars in West Asia, during the Arab revolts, primarily in Syria and Yemen.

    Providing Israel with unwavering military support, has also been a central strategy of the bellicose empire, through which it has tightened its grip on the region, since the Zionist state was established in 1948.

    Wherever massacres and mass destruction exist, the US is definitely there. This is reminiscent of the words that Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote, decrying the US complicity in the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990).

    Despite not apparently having a direct role in the conflict then, the US supplied Israel with aircrafts and cluster bombs, which the latter used to commit horrific war crimes across Lebanon.

    Darwish said:

    “The US is atop the wall giving each child a cluster-death toy as a gift,

    Oh you, the Hiroshima of the Arab lover (Beirut), the US is the plague, and the plague is the US.

    We fell asleep, the aircrafts and the US awaken us,

    and the US is only for the US,

    while this horizon has become a cement for the aerial monster.

    We open the sardines can, it gets shelled by canons.

    We hide behind the curtains, the building shakes, the doors jump.

    The US is behind the door, behind the door is the US.”

    From Gaza to Venezuela, the US is still behind the door

    The US was, is, and will always be behind the door of any country where it has economic or geopolitical interests. US President Donald Trump has acted like a landlord during his first and second terms, feeling entitled to take over the wealth of whatever nation he chooses, or expand his real estate empire anywhere he finds adequate.

    Trump’s avarice has no limits, to an extent that has made his administration not only complicit, but a partner in Israel’s horrendous genocide in the Gaza strip and the deliberate starvation of the population. For him, the killing of over 70,000 Palestinian is insignificant as long as the genocide would make his dream of turning Gaza into “the Riviera of the Middle East” true, due to its distinctive seafront on the Mediteranean.

    Perceiving Gaza as a great potential for an illusionary real estate project, does not seem to be the only motivation for Trump to support Israel in its genocidal aggression. Media reports indicate that Gaza is rich with offshore natural gas, valued at up to USD 4 billion per year.

    Taking over Gaza and its gas reserves will not be possible with the presence of the Palestinian grassroots and resistance groups, who have confronted the Israeli occupation and its US-supported colonial project in the region. Thus, launching a merciless war against the besieged enclave was the only way for the US to achieve these goals.

    It is the same imperialist equation when it comes to the US aggression on Venezuela. Although the Trump administration claimed that it is waging a war against the Latin American country due to its alleged involvement in narcotic trafficking in the Caribbean sea, no evidence has been provided to validate the claim.

    Read More: US deploys aircraft carrier and threatens invasion of Venezuela

    Analysts suggest that the planned invasion is politically and economically motivated. The US is attempting to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, the leader of the anti-imperialist Bolivarian revolution that will never allow the US to exploit the country’s oil wealth, or become subordinate to it.

    The US has repeatedly threatened to take military action directly against Venezuela after failing to subjugate the nation, despite imposing a crushing sanctions regime on it for many years. This was followed by unsuccessful bids to ignite infighting and destabilize the country through a US-guided violent opposition led by María Corina Machado.

    Israel has implemented a similar strategy to pressure the Palestinian resistance in Gaza to lay down arms and surrender by imposing a stifling siege on the enclave since 2007, 16 years before it launched its two-year genocidal aggression on October 7, 2023. It has also enhanced the division between the two major Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, to undermine unity and spread chaos between Palestinians.

    The Palestinian cause is Bolivarian

    Both Palestinians and Venezuelans are fully aware that their struggle is the same in its confrontation with US-led Western imperialist hegemony and fascism. A concept which late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had always emphasized not only in words, but with actual continued support to the Palestinian people and their just cause.

    “The Bolivarian revolution from day one stood by the side of the Palestinian people in their memorable struggle against the genocidal state of Israel that tramples on, kills and seeks to exterminate the Palestinian people,” Chávez said as he received Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Venezuela’s capital Caracas in 2009.

    “The struggle for Palestine is a first-order struggle for the homeland of the Liberator (Simón Bolívar) and the Bolivarian revolution.” He added.

    Maduro has maintained Chavez’s legacy of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, which he considers as “the most sacred cause of humanity”. It has also been a daily concern of the Venezuelan people, who hold it deep in their heart.

    Therefore, it is time for Palestinians, alongside internationalists and all people of conscience, to unite and rally around Venezuela in defense of its independence and sovereignty, because the defeat of one nation by imperialism undermines the will of all other nations.

    Late Palestinian resistance leader Fathi Shaqaqi once said: “It is a war of genocide that has been imposed on us, during which it is a shame to fight dispersedly. It is either that we rise up together, or they will eliminate each one of us individually.”

    Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    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.

  • Trump Murder Spree Continues as Hegseth Says 14 Killed in 3 New Boat Bombings

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

    US forces have conducted over a dozen strikes on alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since early September, killing at least 57 people, according to Trump administration figures.

    Fourteen more people were killed and one survived three new US bombings of what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday claimed—again without evidence—were four boats transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

    “Eight male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessels during the first strike. Four male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the second strike. Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the third strike,” Hegseth said of the Monday attacks, which presumably occurred off the west coast of Mexico.

    “A total of 14 narco-terrorists were killed during the three strikes, with one survivor,” he continued. “All strikes were in international waters with no US forces harmed.”

    Hegseth said that US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) “immediately initiated search and rescue (SAR) standard protocols; Mexican SAR authorities accepted the case and assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue.”

    He added that the Department of Defense “has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we’re defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.”

    US forces have carried out more than a dozen strikes on alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since early September, killing at least 57 people, according to Trump administration figures.

    Earlier this month, a bipartisan US Senate war powers resolution aimed at reining in President Donald Trump’s ability to extrajudicially execute alleged drug traffickers in or near Venezuela failed to pass.

    The latest boat bombings came amid the Trump administration’s mounting provocations against Venezuela. In addition to his earlier deployment of an armada of US warships and thousands of troops to the southern Caribbean and ongoing military exercises with neighboring Trinidad and Tobago, the Pentagon said last week that the president ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group off the coast of the oil-rich South American nation—a longtime target of US meddling.

    “Somehow, the United States of America has found a way to combine two of its greatest foreign policy failures—the Iraq War and the War on Drugs—into a single regime change narrative… and sell it again to the mainstream media. Incredible,” Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler said Tuesday in response to US saber-rattling against Venezuela.

    https://twitter.com/davidrkadler/status/1983166871672418472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1983166871672418472%7Ctwgr%5Ea57e98709526aee23d7cea6bf87884a728816e75%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fanother-us-boat-bombing

    Venezuela said Sunday that it had “captured a mercenary group” aligned with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and had determined “that a false-flag attack is underway from waters bordering Trinidad and Tobago, or from Trinidad or Venezuelan territory itself.”

    The claim comes less than two weeks after Trump publicly acknowledged his authorization of covert CIA action against Venezuela.

    Latin American leaders, human rights defenders, and others have condemned the US boat strikes—which Venezuelan and Colombian officials, as well as victims’ relatives, say have killed fishers—as extrajudicial murders and war crimes.

    The 93-year-old great-uncle of Chad Joseph, a 26-year-old Trinidadian and Tobagonian killed along with compatriot Rishi Samaroo in an October 14 US strike, called the attack “perfect murder.”

    “There is nothing they could prove that they are coming across our waters with drugs,” he said earlier this month. “How could Trump prove the boat was bringing narcotics?”

    Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under a 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.
    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.

  • Venezuela Says CIA-Linked Mercenaries Caught During ‘False-Flag Attack’

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

    The USS Gravely enters the port at Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago on October 26, 2025. (Photo by Martin Bernetti/AFP via Getty Images)

    “This is a colonial operation of military aggression that seeks to turn the Caribbean into a space for lethal violence and US imperial domination.”

    The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said Sunday that his country’s security forces captured a group of mercenaries aligned with the US Central Intelligence Agency, less than two weeks after President Donald Trump confirmed his authorization of covert CIA action against the South American nation.

    Venezuela “reports that it has captured a mercenary group with direct information from the US intelligence agency, CIA, being able to determine that a false-flag attack is underway from waters bordering Trinidad and Tobago, or from Trinidad or Venezuelan territory itself,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement.

    “This planned action perfectly evokes the provocation of the Battleship Maine and the Gulf of Tonkin, which gave rise to the war against Spain to seize Cuba in 1898 and allowed the US Congress to authorize involvement in an eternal war against Vietnam in 1964, from which they emerged defeated by the Vietnamese people after facing incalculable destruction and regrettable human loss,” the statement continues.

    “The government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has renounced the sovereignty of Trinidad and Tobago to act as a military colony subordinate to US hegemonic interests, turning its territory into a US aircraft carrier for war throughout the Caribbean against Venezuela, Colombia, and all of South America,” Caracas asserted.

    The statement continues:

    By folding to Washington’s militaristic agenda, Persad-Bissessar not only intends to attack Venezuela, a country that has always maintained a policy of energy cooperation, mutual respect, and Caribbean integration, and break our historic bonds of brotherhood; she also violates the United Nations Charter, the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace approved by [the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States], and the principles of [the Caribbean Community], which protect all peoples of the Caribbean.

    These are not defensive exercises: this is a colonial operation of military aggression that seeks to turn the Caribbean into a space for lethal violence and US imperial domination.

    “Venezuela does not accept threats from any vassal government of the US. We are not intimidated by military exercises or war cries,” the statement says, adding that the country “will always defend its sovereignty, its territorial integrity, and its right to live in peace against foreign enemies and [their] vassals.”

    Venezuela’s accusation came amid joint military exercises between the US and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean Sea and follows a string of deadly US attacks on vessels the Trump administration claimed—without evidence—were transporting drugs bound for the United States. According to the Trump administration, at least 43 people have been killed in the US boat strikes in the southern Caribbean and Pacific Ocean since early last month.

    Trinidad and Tobago challenged Venezuela to provide proof of the alleged false-flag operation and said the joint military operation with the United States “aims to bolster the fight against transnational crime and build resilience through training, humanitarian activities, and security cooperation.”

    The Trump administration—which had already deployed an armada of warships and thousands of troops to the southern Caribbean—said Friday that it ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group off the coast of Venezuela, which possesses the world’s largest oil reserves.

    The US has been meddling in Venezuelan affairs since at least the late 19th century, going back to the 1895 border dispute between Venezuela and Britain. Since then, the United States has helped install and prop up brutal dictators and assisted in the subversion of democratic movements, including by training Venezuelan forces in torture and repression at the notorious US Army School of the Americas.

    In the 21st century, successive US administrations beginning with George W. Bush have tried to thwart the Bolivarian Revolution that was launched by former President Hugo Chávez and continued under Maduro. During the first Trump administration, Venezuela foiled an attempt by a group of mercenaries, including two Americans, to invade the country and topple Maduro.

    Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have also died as a result of US economic sanctions, according to research from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

    Taunting the Venezuelan president during a Sunday appearance on CBS “60 Minutes,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said, “If I was Maduro, I’d head to Russia or China right now.”

    However, senior Venezuelan officials waxed defiant in the face of the latest US threat.

    “Once again, the empire and its accomplices seek to bend the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people through a criminal economic siege that flagrantly violates the Charter of the United Nations and international humanitarian law,” Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil Pinto said Monday.

    “These actions are not only illegal,” he added, “they are an unconventional act of war that we are determined to face and defeat in all scenarios.”

    Original article by Jessica Corbett 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.
    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.

    Critics Allege White House ‘Propaganda’ After US Bombs Boat Off Venezuela Coast