https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/03/world/trump-united-states-strikes-venezuela

As you probably have heard, the US has conducted strikes in Venezuela and have brought president Maduro and his wife to the US to stand trial.

Trump has declared that the US will (somehow) govern Venezuela and suggested US control of Venezuela's oil reserves. There is a lot of speculation of the reasons for those actions as well as concerns regarding its legality and the type of precedence it sets (and might not be limited to China or Russia).

16 minutes ago, CharonY said:

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/03/world/trump-united-states-strikes-venezuela

As you probably have heard, the US has conducted strikes in Venezuela and have brought president Maduro and his wife to the US to stand trial.

Trump has declared that the US will (somehow) govern Venezuela and suggested US control of Venezuela's oil reserves. There is a lot of speculation of the reasons for those actions as well as concerns regarding its legality and the type of precedence it sets (and might not be limited to China or Russia).

Dies this sound a bit like cloudcuckoo land to anyone?

Is there any support in America for this?

Is there any end game apparent?

“Run” Venezuela? Is there a missing “i” there?

14 minutes ago, geordief said:

Is there any end game apparent?

He has to break his promise not to start any new wars so he can break his promise about releasing the Epstein files.

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Is there any support in America for this?

Some, but far from a majority

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Is there any end game apparent?

They’re already lining up financial folks for investment opportunities, but there’s a huge gap in getting there that I don’t think they appreciate. They’re seeing “Step 4: Profit!” but steps 2 and 3 are blank.

The tepid response is disheartening. Too many people joining the “the ends justify the means” caucus in the US. Not a lot of strong condemnation outside the US, but I think they are rightly less concerned with whether proper internal protocol was followed.

(From before the attack)

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

He has to break his promise not to start any new wars so he can break his promise about releasing the Epstein files.

Yeah, the Epstein files are following him like a bad smell. There's lots of people, including politicians, intent on not letting the files lose attention.

11 hours ago, swansont said:

They’re already lining up financial folks for investment opportunities, but there’s a huge gap in getting there that I don’t think they appreciate. They’re seeing “Step 4: Profit!” but steps 2 and 3 are blank.

The same playbook as the Dutch East India Company over 400 years ago. Given the huge imbalance of forces, naked imperialism is not that hard. Basically, we seem to be seeing the launch of the Drumpf West India Company.

I Have a suspicion that in their dreams Tump would like to annex Greenland, Canada and South America. Putin would like to annex Europe and the United Kingdom and the Chinese would like to annex Taiwan, Japan and Indonesia.

Nobody can ruin Venezuela more than it already is and has been for decades.

If I remember well, around 1968, petroleum was discovered there. That is 45 years x 360 days = 16200 days x 1 million barrels per day exported petroleum x dollars per barrel = the calculator just crapped.

Where that country used such huuuge amount of wealth when they have no toilet paper to wipe their butts ? The same typical reason; their politicians ransacking all the time. It is not the removed president; it is all of them since ~1970.

Let the justice decide if jailing their master is right or wrong. If the reason is drug trafficking, let it be.

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

The same playbook as the Dutch East India Company over 400 years ago. Given the huge imbalance of forces, naked imperialism is not that hard. Basically, we seem to be seeing the launch of the Drumpf West India Company.

If I thought Turnip were capable of forming longterm geopolitical goals, or hiring people capable, I would guess it's about forming an array of MAGA satellites in Latin America and eventually expelling the wicked Commies from Cuba. (52nd state, anyone?) And us becoming the World's Biggest Most Beautiful Petro State. If I didn't know that Turnip's wank-fantasies usually shift every few weeks, and how horribly this goat rodeo is pollling, I might almost believe that could be the dominant MAGA administration theme.

Remember Greenland? A month of obsession last winter, then forgotten for six months, then a rather lame attempt to rekindle the land lust. Now again sliding out from the Teflon coated interior of Turnip's head. It's all tv, bread and circus of the week, shiny objects to dangle in front of maga-babies. Venezuela meanwhile turns into a bloodbath, as various factions rush into power vacuums. Fresh sectors of the economy also ravaged by the loss of tourism.

Somewhere in MAGAland, a few synapses may be firing and some realization that this idiocy is killing them in the November Congressional race.

ETA: the charging document hilariously wants to indict Maduro on a 1930s statute banning machine guns. Tell me this administration is anything but a clown car.

55 minutes ago, Externet said:

Let the justice decide if jailing their master is right or wrong. If the reason is drug trafficking, let it be.

Nobody has any love for Maduro, but that is not the way the US used to do things.
This just legitimizes the "rule of force" preferred by tyrants and dictators.
Trump's America is now no better than Putin's Russia in Ukraine, or Xi's China would be if they take Taiwan.

This is not how democracies act.
And they certainly don't control, and profit, from the natural resources of the decapitated country.

As for the drug trafficking, the US is the consumer.
Going after one country that supplies will only shift the source to another supplier, unless you control the demand.
That is how we control fossil fuel consumption, and for other vices, like prostitution, the 'John' is targeted to reduce demand
Why is drug use the only vice where the consumer is the victim and the supplier the bad guy ?

3 minutes ago, MigL said:

As for the drug trafficking, the US is the consumer.
Going after one country that supplies will only shift the source to another supplier, unless you control the demand.

Venezuela is a very minor player in the US illegal drug market. Mexico, Colombia and China (for the precursor chemicals of fentanyl) are the primary sources. So the drug angle is pretty bogus.

6 minutes ago, MigL said:

Why is drug use the only vice where the consumer is the victim and the supplier the bad guy ?

Don't forget the oil vice. In the sprawling cities and countryside of America, with EVs unaffordable to most of the population and mass transit unavailable or unworkable, we become hopeless petro addicts. Working people have to get to work, and often have no choice but a fossil fuel burner. The people who can make bicycles and buses work for them have already done so. It's as if, to use a drug analogy, you suffered migraines and the only remedy available at the pharmacy was oxycontin.

2 hours ago, Externet said:

Nobody can ruin Venezuela more than it already is and has been for decades.

If I remember well, around 1968, petroleum was discovered there. That is 45 years x 360 days = 16200 days x 1 million barrels per day exported petroleum x dollars per barrel = the calculator just crapped.

Where that country used such huuuge amount of wealth when they have no toilet paper to wipe their butts ? The same typical reason; their politicians ransacking all the time. It is not the removed president; it is all of them since ~1970.

Let the justice decide if jailing their master is right or wrong. If the reason is drug trafficking, let it be.

It's clear that Venezuela has been gravely mismanaged for decades.
And now, they will get "run" by a man who managed to bankrupt six casinos and thinks you can drop drug prices by 800%.

I guess the good news is that the people are used to being shafted.

It's also fair to say that, if Trump's claims about drugs are honest, the USA will no longer have a drug problem.

Is anyone taking bets on that ?

Edited January 4Jan 4 by John Cuthber

1 hour ago, John Cuthber said:

It's also fair to say that, if Trump's claims about drugs are honest, the USA will no longer have a drug problem.

Is anyone taking bets on that ?

I am taking bets that he will claim that he solved the drug crisis.

I see the latest is that there is, after all, no intention to "run the country" but instead to let the deputy president Delcy Rodriguez do it, with a pistol to her head.

No new elections, no recognition of the guy who really won the last election, nor of the banned candidate who has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. So business as usual, but with a degree of coercion by the US.

Edited January 4Jan 4 by exchemist

Speaking of Peace Prizes ...

I hear FIFA wants the 'Peace' Prize they awarded D Trump back.

Sometimes I'm torn between hating the bastard, or feeling sorry for him because he, and his followers, are too stupid to understand how much they're embarrassing themselves.

Apparently the oil companies are less than thrilled with this. Heavy crude (and with contaminants like sulphur, so it’s “sour”) is more expensive to refine. It’s used for diesel, not gasoline, but having more on the market just drives prices down. Plus there’s an investment in both time and money in the infrastructure that’s needed. I think big oil sees future demand dropping owing to EVs, so there would be a question of how profitable this might be, even before you worry about political instability rendering the investments moot.

56 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I see the latest is that there is, after all, no intention to "run the country" but instead to let the deputy president Delcy Rodriguez do it, with a pistol to her head.

No new elections, no recognition of the guy who really won the last election, nor of the banned candidate who has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. So business as usual, but with a degree of coercion by the US.

I was amused that Delcy seems to have pulled the pistol away long enough to condemn Turnip's action. (From NPR):

....speaking to Venezuelans in a televised address, Rodríguez pushed back against Trump, saying what the U.S. had done to her homeland was "a barbarity."

This was after Trump had said, "She's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again."

Heh.

44 minutes ago, TheVat said:

I was amused that Delcy seems to have pulled the pistol away long enough to condemn Turnip's action. (From NPR):

....speaking to Venezuelans in a televised address, Rodríguez pushed back against Trump, saying what the U.S. had done to her homeland was "a barbarity."

This was after Trump had said, "She's essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again."

Heh.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6384/

Her father was killed 50 years ago...She might hold out.

Can't vouch for this but I saw on another site that

"2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the torture to death of her father, socialist activist Jorge Rodríguez, by the CIA-backed security services of the US-aligned Pérez regime in Venezuela"

15 minutes ago, geordief said:

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6384/

Her father was killed 50 years ago...She might hold out.

Can't vouch for this but I saw on another site that

"2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the torture to death of her father, socialist activist Jorge Rodríguez, by the CIA-backed security services of the US-aligned Pérez regime in Venezuela"

Now that is really interesting. Have Trump's henchmen done their homework, one wonders. Actually, almost certainly not, given the low calibre of these goons. It would be funny if she rises to the occasion, tells them to get stuffed and mobilises the country to boot the Americans out. The parallel with Ukraine would be just about perfect.

Edited January 4Jan 4 by exchemist

5 hours ago, MigL said:

This is not how democracies act.
And they certainly don't control, and profit, from the natural resources of the decapitated country.

While I agree, I would add that this is how the US did act like that (directly or indirectly), especially in South America, and they have been criticized for that on grounds of legality, too. Some of the differences are the assumption (whether justified or not) that the US were ultimately the good guys (e.g. under the banner of enforcing human rights).

This time around, however, no similar justification were presented and rather than at least pretending to support self-determination, they outright said the quiet part loudly.

Trump on Fox News:

11 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I would add that this is how the US did act

If you refer to Noriega and the 1989 invasion of Panama By the US under G H Bush, I would counter that those were different circumstances, as the US had personnel already stationed in Panama ( for the Canal ) and there was an existing warrant for M Noriega related to racketeering and drug charges.
That made Panama a 'special operation', not a war/invasion.
( for clarification ask V Putin 😄)

What strikes me as evidently greed motivated ( oil revenues ) is the pretense of going after Maduro on drug charges after having pardoned the former Honduran President who was convicted of trafficking 360 tonnes of cocaine

This might have been a coup

“According to the sources, Qatari mediators presented to the U.S. two formal proposals this year, one in April and another in September. Both outlined potential governing mechanisms without Maduro in power. In those scenarios, Delcy Rodríguez would serve as the institutional continuity figure, while retired Gen. Miguel Rodríguez Torres, who is currently in exile and is not related to the Rodriguez siblings, would head a transitional government.”

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article312516272.html#storylink=cpy

IOW, Trump and Co. got played

2 hours ago, MigL said:

Speaking of Peace Prizes ...

I hear FIFA wants the 'Peace' Prize they awarded D Trump back.

Sometimes I'm torn between hating the bastard, or feeling sorry for him because he, and his followers, are too stupid to understand how much they're embarrassing themselves.

One of my brothers emailed me today with a Star Trek clip from “The Squire of Gothos” episode. Trump at times reminds one of an overgrown child, playing with adult things. There’s a bit of a “Come along now, Junior” feeling about his antics. Just wish I could wake up from the nightmare.

Apparently Trump thinks there are “Islamic radicals” in Venezuela.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/04/venezuela-trump-rubio-republicans

Really?

Edited January 4Jan 4 by exchemist