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Tag: Venezuela

  • Eleven Dead on the High Seas. Trump Is Testing the Waters For Illegal Military Rule in America

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    Original article by Mitchell Zimmerman republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    This image was posted on social media by President Donald Trump and shows a boat that was allegedly transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela when it was destroyed by US forces on September 2, 2025. (Photo: President Donald Trump/Truth Social)

    The recent massacre in the Caribbean was a step toward making America a police state under President-for-Life Trump.

    Why is Donald Trump committing murder on the high seas?

    Last week President Trump bragged that “On my Orders,” the Navy destroyed a speedboat with eleven people aboard, claiming that those slain were “Tren de Aragua Narco terrorists . . . transporting illegal narcotics, heading for the United States.”

    The legal procedure for dealing with drug traffickers on the high seas is actually for the Navy or Coast Guard to stop and board the suspect vessel, confirm it is carrying illegal drugs, then arrest and prosecute those on board.

    Instead, Trump treated what should have been an (alleged) criminal law enforcement matter as open warfare and, without any need, killed everyone aboard. Why? Because Trump wants the lethal use of military firepower on supposed foreign “bad guys” to serve as a model for militarizing American cities – in the name of stopping an imaginary crime wave.

    One week after the Caribbean Sea attack, Trump and the Defense Department have yet to provide evidence the vessel was carrying drugs to America. But even if had been, summarily killing eleven civilians is still murder.

    Killing eleven people in Venezuela was Donald Trump’s out-of-town tryout. Trump’s militarization of our cities, if not resisted, could lead to the termination of free elections in America.

    Calling a criminal gang a “foreign terrorist organization” does not make it legal to slay alleged gang members without a trial – particularly when the gang has not been linked to acts of political terrorism, as confirmed by the fact that the Justice Department’s two indictments of gang members include no charges of terrorism.

    Still less does tagging them “Narco terrorists” mean that the United States is in “armed conflict” with a gang, to which the laws of war might apply. Gangs aren’t enemy nations and they’re not fighting for a political ideology – they’re in it for the money. Suppressing them isn’t warfare. The Navy was not engaged in a naval battle with a speedboat.

    A former State Department attorney specializing in counterterrorism, Brian Finucane, put it succinctly. “Outside of armed conflict, we have a word for the premeditated killing of people. That word is murder.”

    Annie Shiel, the U.S. advocacy director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, confirmed the point. “Using lethal force in this way, outside of any recognizable armed conflict and without due process, is an extrajudicial execution, not an act of war.” Myriad legal experts confirm that obvious conclusion.

    But Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to justify the slayings by asserting “interdiction doesn’t work.” “What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them.”

    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed the sentiment. “Anyone trafficking in those waters who we know is a deadly terrorist will face the same fate.”

    But if our military is allowed to blow up people on unproven assertions of drug dealing, the same logic would justify the military engaging in summary executions of those they deem “bad guys” in the United States itself. Which is perhaps the point.

    Drug trafficking is not a capital offense in the United States. The alleged crimes would not warrant execution even if Trump’s targets were found to be cartel drug smugglers..

    In reality, there is little reason to credit Trump’s claims about who the people on board were and what they were doing.

    • The U.S. Department of Justice brought two indictments against the Tren de Aragua gang this year, in April and August. Neither indictment alleges the gang brings drugs from Venezuela to the United States.
    • The indictments actually suggest more disturbing possibilities: that most of those Trump ordered killed were victims of sex trafficking. The April indictment charged Tren de Aragua with “forcing young women trafficked from Venezuela into commercial sex work.”
    • A former senior federal law enforcement official suggested that the vessel was on a human smuggling run, carrying refugees seeking to flee Venezuela.

    Nonetheless, Trump prefers the drug smuggling story because it is part of his strategy to conflate immigration, crime and gangs to justify sending troops into American cities.

    Trump’s claim that undocumented immigrants have brought rampant crime to America is false. Few of those Trump is deporting have committed a serious crime, and immigrants as a group are actually less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans. But Trump has repeated his phony charge hundreds of times, and it has had an impact.

    Drug-running gangs enjoy little sympathy, and Trump expects few people to worry about whether the eleven individuals he ordered killed were drug traffickers or actually the gang’s victims. But if he gets away with having the Navy blow them up, he hopes Americans will come to see troops on our streets as acceptable, even desirable, since they are (purportedly) fighting the same drug dealing villains.

    Trump himself drew the direct connection between his war powers as commander in chief and his claim that military force is the solution to crime in the U.S. when he recently threatened, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

    He will not immediately order unrestrained violence against alleged criminals (or opponents) as freely as he did in the Caribbean Sea off Venezuela. But he has begun the process of legitimizing law-free military “law enforcement,” first abroad and eventually in America.

    Where will it end?

    Trump has declared emergency after emergency, many of them focusing on his deportation agenda, and all of them stretching – and breaching – the lawful limits of presidential power. Trump has correctly concluded that if he is to swiftly deport millions of immigrants without considering their possible right to be here, his targets must be deprived of the due process of law which our Constitution guarantees to everyone in America.

    But eliminating due process rights does not enjoy broad popular support, and Trump’s deportation efforts have repeatedly been stymied by the courts. Enter the concocted “Narco terrorist” boat incident. In Trump’s narrative – never mind truth or evidence – the U.S. Navy eliminates “bad guys” on the high seas without bothersome legal process.

    It’s political theater. But not just theater.

    The legal theories are those Trump’s Justice Department has asserted with little success in federal court: First, that Trump is entitled to use the military for “law enforcement” because we are being “invaded.” Second, that alleged gang members can be summarily deported and imprisoned (and now killed) because we are “at war” with cartels. Trump may not be able to persuade the courts that these outlandish legal theories are correct, but he can act on them with impunity in the waters off Venezuela, by ordering the Navy to dole out death.

    Trump’s ultimate end is plain enough: unlimited power.

    Donald Trump was the only president in the life of the Republic to refuse to surrender office after losing an election. Donald Trump was the only president to unleash an insurrection to try to hold onto office. And now, having lawfully returned to power, he has not concealed his desire to remain after his current term ends.

    During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised his followers that if he was elected, things would be “fixed so good” that “in four years, you don’t have to vote again.” And, after predicting his election to a second four-year term, Trump told another audience “we’re probably entitled to another four after that.”

    Trump has said he is “not joking.” “A lot of people want me to do it,” he told NBC News this Spring. “There are methods which you could do it.”

    What method does Trump have in mind? Here are some ways Trump could use the military to unconstitutionally retain power:

    Arrest or detain voters. Recall Trump’s baseless assertion that undocumented immigrants are voting en masse in American elections. With the military placed in key cities as a “crime fighting” force, Trump could use the soldiers and his masked ICE agents to remove Hispanics and other “suspect” voters from polling places, on the claim the soldiers are “ensuring election integrity.” Troops at polling places arresting people would certainly also frighten others away from the polls.

    Seize voting machines. In 2020 Trump explored having Homeland Security or the Defense Department take control of voting machines in swing states. Attorney General Robert Barr reportedly shot down the suggestion.

    But loyal sycophants Attorney General Pam Bondi or “War” Department Secretary Hegseth might well direct their departments to obey Trump’s orders to confiscate voting machines – and later report Trump’s amazing, landslide electoral victory.

    Cancel elections because of an “emergency.” Donald Trump is the master of emergencies. He might manufacture one to justify suspending elections.

    Trump claimed a handful of disruptive protests against ICE raids in Los Angeles constituted a “rebellion,” requiring a military response. And he falsely asserted crime was “totally out of control in the District of Columbia” to rationalize the troop takeover of the nation’s capital. Now he threatens to send troops into Chicago, Baltimore and other cities that tend to vote Democratic.

    As Trump prepares to rig the 2028 election as best he can, millions of Americans will take to the streets against his illegal candidacy. Trump has little tolerance for the constitutional right to assemble and protest. In June 2025 he warned: “For those people who want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force.” During the widespread peaceful demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Trump asked his Defense Secretary about protestors near the White House. “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

    The Defense Secretary at the time did not grant Trump’s wish. But loyalist Hegseth is not likely to oppose any Trump suggestion.

    A president who whipped up a mob to seize the Capitol in January 2021 could mobilize right-wing militias and MAGA forces for political violence before an election, and Trump might assert that elections had to be suspended until “order” was (someday) restored. Troops would enforce “calm” as the election was dismantled.

    These scenarios only seem far-fetched because we still find it difficult to contemplate an American president engaging in naked, lethal dictatorial action.

    Killing eleven people in Venezuela was Donald Trump’s out-of-town tryout. Trump’s militarization of our cities, if not resisted, could lead to the termination of free elections in America.

    Mobilizing for the next election is not enough. The danger is now and we must resist now. We must withhold our cooperation from Trump’s authoritarian moves, refuse to obey in advance, pressure the institutions we are associated with to stand up for our constitutional democracy, and peacefully take to the streets to demonstrate the scope of the resistance. It is not too late. But if democracy is to be rescued, we must be the rescuers ourselves.

    Don’t just blow your horn. Get out of the car and join the protest.

    Original article by Mitchell Zimmerman republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    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.

  • The Caribbean on a knife’s edge: Trump’s military buildup threatens Venezuela

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    Original article by Manolo De Los Santos republished from peoples dispatch under  a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    US President Donald Trump, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Photos via Presidential Press

    The war drums beating in Washington are not just a threat to a distant nation; they are a symptom of a political system that thrives on the distraction of war abroad to cover its internal crises.

    The sun glints off the gray hull of the USS Iwo Jima, a massive amphibious assault ship cutting through the Caribbean Sea. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, a key architect of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policies, stands on deck before a group of sailors and marines. His voice, amplified by the ship’s public address system, is a low, serious rumble that carries across the choppy waters. “What you’re doing right now is NOT training,” he says, in a scene reminiscent of George W. Bush’s staged landing to declare victory in Iraq. “This is a REAL-WORLD EXERCISE on behalf of the vital national interests of the United States of America, to end the POISONING of the American people.” His words hang heavy in the air, a dramatic prelude to what some suspect is an impending invasion of Venezuela.

    The history of the Caribbean is a bloody one, stained by the imperial ambitions of European powers and the United States. The region now sits on the verge of another bloody chapter. As the great writer and historian Juan Bosch once observed, this region of Latin America is a battleground where empires have fought to seize the rich lands of its peoples and to claim what other empires had already conquered.

    Today, the Caribbean is again being transformed into a stage for imperial aggression.

    In a dangerous and dramatic escalation, the government of the United States, through its aptly renamed Department of War, has amassed a formidable naval force and deployed advanced fighter jets to the waters off Venezuela. This military buildup, consisting of at least eight warships, 4,000 sailors and marines along with P-8 spy planes and at least one nuclear submarine, is a clear threat to Venezuelan sovereignty and a blatant crime against international law. Washington is hiding behind a well-worn, cynical pretext: the “war on drugs”.

    A sordid history of manufactured pretexts

    The latest act of lawlessness came on September 2, when US forces in the Caribbean allegedly interdicted a “drug trafficking” vessel. Instead of following international protocols, the US Coast Guard and DEA agents opened fire, destroying the boat and killing all 11 people on board. This extrajudicial execution at sea is a clear violation of international law, which mandates that law enforcement actions must prioritize arrest and the preservation of life. The use of lethal force is only permitted as a last resort in cases of immediate self-defense. Though the US is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the US military’s legal advisors have previously said that the US should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions”. To destroy a vessel and summarily execute its occupants without due process is not law enforcement; it is a state-sanctioned massacre, a crime that echoes other massacres in American military missions abroad. Recently, Professor Michael Becker of Trinity College in Dublin told the BBC that the US action “stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point”.

    This act of violence is not an anomaly but part of a deliberate pattern of provocation. The US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) has significantly bolstered its presence with additional destroyers and littoral combat ships. Meanwhile, the US Air Force has sent F-35 fighter jets, aircraft designed for air dominance and striking high-value targets – not for intercepting drug runners – to its base in Puerto Rico, an island under US colonial domination. This military posture has nothing to do with curbing narcotics flow and everything to do with encircling and intimidating a nation that has defiantly resisted Washington’s hegemony for over two decades.

    The historical context is inescapable. The United States has a long and sordid history of fabricating justifications for military action to achieve its political ends. The sinking of the USS Maine, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the non-existent “Weapons of Mass Destruction” used to justify the invasion of Iraq are all well-worn chapters in the same playbook. The current administration, with its bellicose rhetoric, is drafting a new one. Key architect of Trump-era maximum pressure policies, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has consistently agitated for regime change, framing the Venezuelan government as a “narco-state”.

    Exposing the “narco-state” smokescreen

    The “narco-state” narrative collapses under the weight of its own fiction. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the US State Department’s own annual reports, the vast majority of cocaine leaving South America originates from and passes through US-allied nations like Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Venezuela is not a significant producer of cocaine. The narrative is a convenient smokescreen, a lie sold to the public to manufacture consent for aggression. The hypocrisy is further exposed by Rubio’s recent tour of Ecuador, a nation with extremely high levels of collaboration with US anti-drug agencies. Despite this collaboration, Ecuador has been plunged into a devastating crisis of drug trafficking and gang violence, proving that US intervention solves nothing and only fuels instability.

    Read more: Noboa opens door to US military bases, backs Rubio’s FTO designation for Ecuadorian gangs

    The true goal of this military buildup is clearly the overthrow of Venezuela’s government and the seizure of its vast oil reserves. The threats emanating from Washington are not veiled. They range from scenarios of massive bombing campaigns to the outright kidnapping or assassination of President Maduro. Donald Trump’s past musings about a “military option” for Venezuela are now being operationalized.

    The Venezuelan people prepare for resistance

    In the face of this existential threat, the Venezuelan people are preparing to defend their homeland. President Maduro has called for a “people in arms”, and an estimated 8 million Venezuelans have joined citizen militias. Across the country, young people, students, workers, and retirees are training in basic combat, emergency response, and civil defense. Their resolve is a powerful testament to the spirit of resistance.

    Read more: Venezuela mobilizes 4.5 million militia members as US deploys troops to the Caribbean

    “We are not an army for aggression, but an army for peace, for the defense of our sacred land,” said Maria Delgado*, a 20-year-old university student and new militia member in Caracas. “They think that because we are young or because we are not professional soldiers, we will be afraid. They are wrong. We know what is at stake: our sovereignty, our future, and the project of justice that our parents built.”

    President Maduro has framed this mobilization in stark terms: “Venezuela is facing its greatest threat in 100 years. Having defeated all forms of hybrid warfare, they [United States] have opted for the worst mistake.”

    The war drums beating in Washington are not just a threat to a distant nation; they are a symptom of a political system that thrives on the distraction of war abroad to cover its internal crises. The billions spent on deploying F-35s and destroyers to the Caribbean are billions stolen from the right to healthcare, education, and housing of ordinary Americans at home.

    *Name changed

    Manolo De Los Santos is Executive Director of The People’s Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His writing appears regularly in Monthly Review, Peoples Dispatch, CounterPunch, La Jornada, and other progressive media. He coedited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord, 2020), Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord, 2021), and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez (LeftWord, 2023).

    Original article by Manolo De Los Santos republished from peoples dispatch under  a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

    Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
    Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.

  • Trump Won’t Stop With Venezuela: Rubio Indicates Broader Campaign of Lawless Executions

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

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    “There is no military solution to the overdose crisis, but there is a political solution to a president with authoritarian ambitions,” said one peace advocate. “Congress must act now to end unauthorized military action.”

    As rights groups and Democratic lawmakers condemned the Trump administration’s bombing of a boat it claims—without evidence—was carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear on Thursday that targeting vessels linked to drug smuggling in Latin America, and possibly elsewhere, will be part of the White House’s ongoing policy.

    At a news conference in Quito, Ecuador, Rubio suggested Latin American governments have a choice: Work with the Trump administration to crack down on drug trafficking or see the US kill more citizens suspected of trying to smuggle illegal substances.

    “For cooperative governments, there’s no need because those governments are going to help us,” said Rubio. “They’re going to help us find these people and blow them up, if that’s what it takes.”

    Some governments in the region have avoided criticizing this week’s bombing of a boat off the coast of Venezuela, which the US has said killed 11 people it had identified at “narco-terorrists” connected to Tren de Aragua, and which was conducted under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

    The White House has not provided evidence of the suspected drug smuggling or that the victims were connected to the gang. US intelligence agencies have also called into question President Donald Trump’s claims that Tren de Aragua is a high-level gang that terrorist organization working with the Venezuelan government.

    Ecuador’s government said Thursday it intends to revise its extradition agreement with the US, and President Daniel Noboa praised the US for its efforts to “actually eliminate any terrorist threat.” On the same day, Rubio announced $20 million in new security assistance for Ecuador.

    “Under Trump, if the president declares you a terrorist, the U.S. military will apparently execute you on his behalf, no questions asked.”

    The White House has also turned its attention to two Ecuadorian gangs, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, with Rubio announcing they have been designated as terrorist groups. The designation gives the Trump administration “all sorts of options,” Rubio claimed, for cracking down on the gangs’ activities, including potentially killing those suspected of being leaders or traffickers for the groups.

    “This time, we’re not just going to hunt for drug dealers in the little fast boats and say, ‘Let’s try to arrest them,’” Rubio said. “No, the president has said he wants to wage war on these groups because they’ve been waging war on us for 30 years and no one has responded.”

    As Rubio spoke in Quito, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at Fort Benning in Georgia on Thursday that while Trump said he ordered the strike on the boat in the Caribbean this week, low-ranking military officers will soon be empowered to make final decisions on such attacks—strikes which international law experts have decried as nothing less than extrajudicial murder.

    “The understanding is that those authorities are better made, those decisions are better made, by men and women in the professional arms,” Hegseth said.

    Despite the administration’s use of the military to attack the boat near Venezuela this week and Rubio’s rhetoric about being at “war” with groups involved in the drug trade, human rights advocates and other Latin American leaders have stressed in recent days that drug trafficking is a crime that must be confronted by law enforcement—not an entity that the US can defeat through military action.

    “We have been capturing civilians transporting drugs for decades without killing them. Those who transport drugs are not the big drug traffickers, but the very poor young people of the Caribbean and the Pacific,” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

    Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America told The Washington Post that “you don’t just simply blow boats out of the water. You follow law enforcement procedures.”

    Sara Haghdoosti, executive director of Win Without War, said that with this week’s deadly attack—and plans to conduct more strikes—Trump has brought former President George W. Bush’s “dream to full fruition.”

    “Under Trump, if the president declares you a terrorist, the U.S. military will apparently execute you on his behalf, no questions asked,” said Haghdoosti. “That should deeply alarm us all, especially at a time when the president thinks nothing of labeling anyone from a USAID worker to a college student as a terrorist.”

    The killing of 11 suspected Venezuelan gang members, added Haghdoosti, will make “no difference whatsoever in the lives of people struggling with their own or a loved one’s addiction,” particularly as the Republican Party’s budget cuts have “ravaged” funding for substance use disorder treatment and overdose prevention.

    “There is no military solution to the overdose crisis, but there is a political solution to a president with authoritarian ambitions,” said Haghdoosti. “Congress must act now to end unauthorized military action in the Caribbean, investigate these apparently lawless killings, and restore the proven health and harm reduction programs that people struggling with the scourge of fentanyl desperately need.”

    Original article by Julia Conley 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.
    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.
    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.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

  • Experts Decry US ‘Summary Execution’ of Alleged Drug Runners Off Venezuelan Coast

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

    This image was posted on social media by President Donald Trump and shows a boat that was allegedly transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela when it was destroyed by US forces on September 2, 2025. (Photo: President Donald Trump/Truth Social)

    “Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war,” noted one critic. “Traffickers must be arrested, not summarily executed.”

    Legal and human rights experts said that Tuesday’s deadly US attack on a boat the Trump administration claimed was transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela violated international law.

    “Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war,” former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth said on social media following the strike, which US President Donald Trump said killed 11 people. “Traffickers must be arrested, not summarily executed, which US forces just illegally did.”

    “Trump admits he ordered a summary execution—the crime of murder,” Roth added. “Drug traffickers are not combatants who can be shot on sight. They are criminal suspects who must be arrested and prosecuted.”

    Declassified video showing the U.S. committing a war crime when it fired on a civilian vessel near Venezuela.Being suspected of carrying drugs does not carry a death sentence and certainly not without due process.

    — Arturo Dominguez (@extremearturo.bsky.social) 2025-09-02T23:02:57.529Z

    Michael Becker, an associate professor of international law at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland, told the BBC Wednesday that the Trump administration’s designation of the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua and other drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations “stretches the meaning of the term beyond its breaking point.”

    “The fact that US officials describe the individuals killed by the US strike as narcoterrorists does not transform them into lawful military targets,” Becker said. “The US is not engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua criminal organization.”

    “Not only does the strike appear to have violated the prohibition on the use of force, it also runs afoul of the right to life under international human rights law,” Becker added.

    Although the United States is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, US military legal advisers have asserted that the country should “act in a manner consistent with its provisions.”

    Luke Moffett, a professor of international law at Queens University Belfast in Northern Ireland, told the BBC that while “force can be used to stop a boat,” this should generally be accomplished using “nonlethal measures.”

    Such action, said Moffett, must be “reasonable and necessary in self-defense where there is immediate threat of serious injury or loss of life to enforcement officials,” and the US attack was likely “unlawful under the law of the sea.”

    “It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law.”

    The peace group CodePink said Wednesday that “even if Washington’s claims are accurate, drug trafficking does not justify a death sentence delivered by missile.”

    “International law is clear: The use of force is only lawful in self-defense or with explicit UN Security Council authorization,” the group continued. “This strike had neither. It reflects the worst of US militarism—secretive, unilateral, and contemptuous of due process, human rights, and the rule of law.”

    “Under US law, it’s equally indefensible,” CodePink argued. “The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to authorize war. Unilateral action may only be used in emergencies or self-defense, and this strike meets neither.”

    CodePink continued:

    With the US Southern Command assets already deployed in the region, why blow up a vessel instead of capturing and interrogating the crew? If the goal were really to uncover evidence of [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro’s alleged involvement, this reckless approach raises only two possibilities: Either the narrative is fabricated and Washington used it as a pretext for a deadly show of force or it’s real, and the US chose extrajudicial killing over law, evidence, and humanity.

    CodePink called on Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) “to lead the fight in Congress to stop this escalation,” urging him to “introduce legislation to block unauthorized military force, hold hearings to expose the dangers of border militarization, insist on transparency of all relevant directives, and rally Congress to cut off funding for these reckless operations.”

    Tuesday’s attack came amid Trump’s deployment of an armada of naval warships off the coast of Venezuela, whose socialist government has long endured US threats of regime change—and sometimes more.

    Infused with the notion that it has the right to meddle anywhere in the hemisphere under the Monroe Doctrine, the US has attacked, invaded, occupied, and otherwise intervened in Latin American and Caribbean nations well over 100 times since the dubious declaration was issued by President James Monroe in 1823.

    Since the late 19th century, oil-rich Venezuela has seen US interventions including involvement in border disputes, help with military coups, support for dictators, and attempts to subvert the Bolivarian Revolution—including by officially recognizing opposition figures claiming to be the legitimate presidents of the country.

    Critics of US imperialism highlighted Washington’s hypocritical policies and practices toward Venezuela.

    “Venezuela produces no cocaine, but US warships patrol its coastline under the banner of a ‘drug war,’” New Hampshire Peace Action organizing director Michael “Lefty” Morrill wrote Wednesday.

    Meanwhile, neighboring Colombia and nearby Peru—the world’s two leading cocaine producers—get no such treatment. Nor does Ecuador, which has emerged as one of the world’s leading trafficking hubs.

    Morrill also briefly explored bits of the long US history of supporting narcotraffickers when strategically expedient, noting that former Panamanian President Manuel Noriega “was first a CIA asset, then branded a narco-dictator and dragged to a US prison.”

    “The Taliban was once a strategic partner in Afghanistan’s opium trade, before being cast as the world’s largest trafficker,” he added. “‘Drugs’ are not simply powders; they are pretexts, shaped to fit the contours of empire.”

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

    Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
    Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    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.

    CODEPINK Condemns Illegal U.S. Missile Strike Near Venezuelan Waters ›

  • Venezuelan youth train to “defend the Homeland and construct the future” amid US escalation

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

    Youth of the PSUV carried out a week of training, culminating in a 10k night march led by Diosdado Cabello. Photo: Con el Mazo Dando

    As the US escalates its threats against Venezuela, youth of the PSUV engaged in a week-long “Basic Revolutionary Resistance Training”

    The youth wing of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) carried out “Basic Revolutionary Resistance Training” over the past week in the Venezuelan state La Guaira. On the evening of August 28, the youth participated in a 10 kilometer night march led by Secretary General of PSUV, Diosdado Cabello.

    The training took place amid rising tensions between Washington and Caracas. The situation flared up when the administration of US President Donald Trump reiterated accusations that the Venezuelan government plays a major role in drug trafficking, increasing the bounty on the head of President Nicolás Maduro, and at the same time deploying troops to the Caribbean to support the US “war on drugs”.

    Read more: Trump’s smokescreen on Venezuela: Exposing the “narco-state” accusation

    “The socialist youth, with its morale and rebelliousness, is ready for the defense of the Homeland and the construction of the future,” said Cabello who also serves in the administration of the Bolivarian Republic. 

    The Chavista leader expressed that these trainings seek to build a combative youth in view of recent events that increased pressures on the South American country: “Chávez dreamed it and we are making it a reality, a combatant corps of the youth of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.”

    The activities are taking place after Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, called on all branches of the Armed Forces, including the militia, and the PSUV to be on high alert and prepared for a potential US attack.

    Read more: Venezuela mobilizes 4.5 million militia members as US deploys troops to the Caribbean

    Meanwhile, the military enlistment days organized by Chavismo continue to advance throughout Venezuela. According to Venezuelan authorities, “thousands of people have responded to the government’s call to join the ranks of the national defense.”

    Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said in this regard: ‘’The workers are highly conscious of what it means to defend our homeland; today we heed the call of President Nicolás Maduro to defend our nation…We are ready to defend the social happiness of our people, to defend the future, to defend Venezuela’s right to exploit and develop its productive capacities.”

    The United States continues to reinforce military and diplomatic positions.

    On August 14, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the deployment of several military vessels in the southern Caribbean Sea after declaring that Maduro is the alleged leader of the so-called Cartel de los Soles.

    This organization has already been designated as a terrorist organization by Washington, which many analysts have seen as a tactic to attack Venezuela and thus overthrow the Chavista government.

    In addition, several US allies in South America, Ecuador, Paraguay and Argentina, have also declared the Cartel de los Soles as an international terrorist organization, which can be interpreted as a form of alignment behind Washington’s geopolitical pretensions.

    However, other countries in the region such as Colombia and Mexico, led by progressive presidents Gustavo Petro and Claudia Sheinbaum respectively, have expressed that they will not support a military intervention on Latin American soil as they consider that it goes against the principle of non-intervention that characterizes the foreign policy of several countries in the region.

    “We will never be in favor of intervention by a foreign country.”

    🇲🇽In her daily morning press conference, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to a question by a journalist about a possible US military intervention in Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/XJ3DUJCmJF

    — Peoples Dispatch (@peoplesdispatch) August 27, 2025

    Washington continues to reinforce its military positions in the Caribbean, specifically in Curacao and Guyana, countries that have granted permission to the US military to dock in their coasts.

    Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has begun a tour of Latin America and the Caribbean to seek greater support for the Trump administration’s position on Venezuela and to rally more support for his regional strategy. Mexico and Ecuador will be part of Rubio’s tour. 

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

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