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US Officers Cannot Explain Why So Much Military Needed for Strikes in Caribbean – Reports

Sputnik – 11.11.2025

WASHINGTON – US senior Special Operations officers in a briefing last month did not provide a comprehensive explanation why the Trump administration needed a massive military presence in the Caribbean for strikes on a few small boats allegedly used by drug cartels, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing sources with the knowledge.

At the moment, there is no public information from the Pentagon on what the military is using to conduct the strikes, but the sources told CNN that MQ-9 Reaper drones are used for US attacks on alleged drug boats, as well as AC-130J gunships and fighter jets.

The sources told CNN that the Pentagon officials also could not provide an exact amount of taxpayers’ dollars spent on the counternarcotics campaign. However, administration officials have stated that each strike costs up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, the report said.

A significant part of all deployed US naval assets worldwide have been located in US Southern Command since last month, and even more US military assets are about to be placed in the Caribbean, the report added.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the United States conducted strikes on two drug trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific, killing six people.

To date, the US military has conducted 19 strikes, destroyed 20 boats, and killed 76 people as part of a counternarcotics campaign, CNN reported.

In late October, the Trump administration held a briefing in the US Congress to lay out its legal justification for the strikes on Venezuelan ships. However, only Republicans were invited to the briefing, causing negative responses and vast criticism among Democrats.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres believes that US attacks in the Caribbean contradict international law, and so does UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.

November 11, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Why Invading Venezuela Won’t Be a Walk in the Park

Neoconservative strategists aren’t talking about the day after…

José Niño Unfiltered | November 3, 2025

As American warships patrol Caribbean waters and F-35 fighters prowl Venezuelan airspace, hawkish voices in Washington paint an enticing picture: A swift military operation to topple Nicolás Maduro, similar to the easy interventions in Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989). It’s a dangerous fantasy that ignores three decades of failed Venezuelan policy and fundamentally misunderstands the catastrophic difference between those brief police actions and what a Venezuela invasion would entail.

The comparison is essentially that of a neighborhood skirmish to a regional war. Venezuela is roughly 2,650 times larger than Grenada and 12 times larger than Panama, with 243 times more people than Grenada and 12 times more than Panama. The appropriate historical parallels aren’t Grenada or Panama—they’re Iraq and Afghanistan, multi-trillion-dollar quagmires that killed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of civilians while advancing no genuine U.S. interests.

What regime change boosters consistently ignore is what happens the day after Maduro falls. They focus obsessively on knocking out Venezuela’s conventional military—no walk in the park, but an attainable feat—while studiously avoiding the nightmare that follows: A multi-factional civil war among heavily armed irregular forces, refugee flows dwarfing the current crisis, and a protracted insurgency that could justify further U.S. intervention and spiral into a broader conflict that could attract irregular leftist forces from the region.

As far as historical analogues are concerned, Grenada was a tiny 344-square-kilometer volcanic island—smaller than many American cities. Despite hilly terrain, the entire country could be secured quickly because of its minuscule size. Panama at 75,420 square kilometers was larger but still a narrow isthmus focused around the Canal Zone, where U.S. forces already had extensive military presence and insider knowledge based on decades of American influence in Panama.

Venezuela covers 912,050 square kilometers—featuring the Andes mountains in the west, vast central plains (llanos), dense Amazon jungle in the south, and 2,800 kilometers of Caribbean coastline. This geographic complexity creates countless opportunities for asymmetric warfare, with mountainous terrain favoring defensive operations, urban centers ideal for guerrilla resistance, and jungle regions providing sanctuary for irregular forces.

Unlike Panama where U.S. forces had extensive familiarity from decades of base presence, or Grenada, where the entire operational theater was one small island, Venezuela’s diverse terrain would require controlling vast territories to prevent insurgent sanctuaries. U.S. military planners have no established presence, no intimate geographic knowledge, and would face the same challenges that gave American forces fits in Afghanistan’s mountains, Iraq’s urban centers, and Vietnam’s jungles.

Venezuela hosts one of the most complex networks of armed non-state actors in the Western Hemisphere. Start with the colectivos—far-left paramilitary groups numbering 8,000 individuals operating in 16 states and controlling approximately 10 percent of Venezuelan cities. These aren’t poorly armed street gangs; they possess AK-47s, submachine guns, fragmentation grenades, and tear gas—much of it supplied directly by the Venezuelan government.

Colombian guerrilla organizations have also established a significant presence on Venezuelan territory. The National Liberation Army (ELN) maintains operations in 13 Venezuelan states. According to a report by Colombian media outlet Connectas, the ELN has armed cells in roughly 10 percent of Venezuela’s more than 300 municipalities. The group controls territory in the Venezuelan states of Zulia, Táchira, Apure, and Amazonas—the four states bordering Colombia—and also operates in Barinas, Bolívar, and Delta Amacuro, with a presence of roughly 1,000 fighters in Venezuela and 6,000 members in total.

Segunda Marquetalia, dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) who rejected Colombia’s peace accords, operates with an estimated 1,000 members. Other FARC dissident factions add approximately 2,000 more fighters. These groups maintain Marxist-Leninist, anti-imperialist ideologies and view the United States as the primary threat to revolutionary movements. Combined, these irregular forces are in the tens of thousands with substantial weapons, territorial control, and operational experience.

It should be stressed that Venezuela’s official military doctrine has been explicitly designed around asymmetric warfare against a hypothetical U.S. invasion since the Chávez era. The strategy assumes initial conventional defeat followed by sustained guerrilla resistance—making occupation costly and politically unsustainable.

Nevertheless, Venezuela won’t just roll over without a conventional fight. Venezuela is the number one purchaser of Russian weaponry in Latin America. It boasts mobile Russian S-300VM and Buk-M2E air defense systems (described as “by far the most formidable in Latin America” by Military Watch Magazine) and KH-31 anti-ship missiles. Additionally, Venezuela boasts 24 Su-30MK2V Flanker fighters (approximately 21 operational) capable of carrying anti-ship missiles and critically, components of Russia’s C4ISR system—integrated digital warfare networks previously shared only with Belarus.

Most significantly, Russia signed a comprehensive 10-year strategic partnership with Venezuela in May 2025, ratified in October 2025, covering more than 350 bilateral agreements on security, defense, and technology. Russian cargo aircraft have recently been landing in Caracas with additional military supplies. In October 2025, Maduro requested Russian assistance enhancing air defenses, restoring Su-30 aircraft, and acquiring missiles. The Iranians have also cooperated with Venezuela on the development of drone technology and sanctions evasion assistance.

This great power backing has no parallel in Grenada (where Soviet/Cuban support was minimal during the invasion) or Panama (where Manuel Noriega’s late attempts to seek Cuban/Nicaraguan support proved futile against American forces.

The ultimate challenge for the United States comes the day after when Venezuelan forces, colectivos, militias, and allied guerrilla groups retreat to mountainous regions, jungles, and southern plains. From there, armed groups would be able to conduct asymmetric attacks on U.S. forces and any post-Maduro government, creating multiple overlapping resistance movements.

A 2019 U.S. Army analysis concluded Venezuela presents a “Black Swan” hot spot significantly more complex than the 1989 Panama operation, noting Venezuela has “115,000 troops, in addition to tanks and fighter jets” and “thirty million people, about 20 percent of whom still support the Maduro government,” with leaders having “been preparing for asymmetrical warfare for more than a decade.” In contrast, the study noted that “[Manuel] Noriega’s Panama had only fifteen thousand troops—of which, only 3,500 were soldiers.” The study highlighted that “there is no chance that countries in the region would participate in an effort to topple Maduro.”

It’s also worth noting that Cuba has deep penetration of Venezuela’s security apparatus through secret agreements signed in May 2008 that “gave Cuba vast access to the Venezuelan military and wide freedom to spy on and reform it,” according to the Havana Times. Approximately 5,600 Cuban personnel work in Venezuelan security sectors, including 500 active Cuban military advisors. Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) has been described as “almost a branch of the G2—the Cuban secret service—in Venezuela.”

This integration helps explain Venezuelan military loyalty despite economic collapse and has proved key in protecting the South American nation from U.S. covert operations. The Cuban intelligence network provides early warning of dissent and mechanisms for neutralizing opposition forces and other fifth columnists. For U.S. planners, any intervention would effectively fight not just Venezuela’s military but Cuba’s sophisticated intelligence apparatus with decades of experience countering U.S. operations.

Before contemplating another Latin American adventure, Washington should review its track record. Historian John H. Coatsworth documented that from 1898-1994, the United States intervened to change Latin American governments at least 41 times across 100 years, averaging once every 28 months.

The results? The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion failed catastrophically, strengthening Fidel Castro. The 1980s Contra War in Nicaragua killed approximately 30,000 Nicaraguans, yet Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who lost the presidency in 1990, eventually returned to power in 2007. Ortega has currently ruled as an authoritarian president, exactly what the United States tried to prevent through the proxy war it facilitated during the Reagan era.

Beyond Latin America, the United States’ second invasion of Iraq cost over $2 trillion and killed 4,500 U.S. troops while creating conditions for the rise of ISIS and rival Shiite militias across the nation. The United States’ nation-building experiment in Afghanistan cost $2.3 trillion and killed 2,461 U.S. troops, only to see the Taliban return to power after 20 years.

Perhaps most striking is how overwhelmingly Venezuelans themselves reject foreign military intervention. September 2025 polling found 93 percent of Venezuelans oppose foreign military intervention, with only 5 percent supporting it. October 2025 polling showed this increased to 94 percent opposition.

This creates a paradox: Polling demonstrates 64 percent to 90 percent of Venezuelans wanting some form of democratic transition yet 93 percent to 94 percent reject foreign military intervention. When presented with peaceful alternatives, 63 percent have supported a negotiated settlement to remove Maduro, making negotiation by far the most popular option.

The Venezuelan opposition itself is deeply divided, with prominent figures like two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles—who remains in Venezuela—explicitly rejecting intervention. “Most people who want a military solution and a US invasion do not live in Venezuela. They don’t even understand the consequences of it,” Capriles said in an interview with the BBC. In an interview with The New York Times, he posed a pointed question: “Name one successful case in the last few years of a successful U.S. military intervention.”

As far as stateside is concerned, 62 percent of Americans also oppose invading Venezuela, with only 16 percent supporting such action, per YouGov polling.

Here’s what neoconservatives don’t discuss: Knocking out Venezuela’s conventional military is attainable. U.S. technological superiority would likely produce a relatively swift conventional victory. But then what?

A decapitation strike removing Maduro wouldn’t stabilize Venezuela—it would detonate it. Consider the armed actors positioned to fill the vacuum such as the colectivos with heavy weapons controlling urban neighborhoods; ELN fighters with decades of guerrilla experience; Segunda Marquetalia combatants; thousands of other FARC dissidents; and remnants of defeated military units retreating to mountains and jungles.

The result will likely be a multi-factional civil war. Various armed groups would compete over oil, gold, and minerals. Colectivos would defend urban territory. ELN and FARC dissidents would establish rural sanctuaries. Criminal organizations would exploit the ensuing chaos. The 20 percent of Venezuelans supporting Maduro ideologically would provide a substantial resistance base.

Such a conflict would trigger a massive refugee crisis. Venezuela has already had nearly 8 million people flee since 2015. Military intervention triggering civil war could produce millions more refugees, destabilizing Colombia, Brazil, Trinidad, Guyana, and the entire Caribbean basin. Moreover, many of these refugees would wash up on American shores—a prospect Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his cheap labor-addicted Republican cohorts in Florida would embrace with open arms.

Any U.S.-backed government would face prolonged insurgency, requiring sustained American military occupation, not the swift operation regime change boosters promise, but years or decades of counterinsurgency. Ironically, this could be dangerous even for María Corina Machado or whatever U.S. puppet is installed, as pro-regime forces remain heavily armed and motivated, while countless other militants will start carving out their own statelets nationwide. Not exactly an ideal climate for a prospective U.S. client regime to operate in.

Perhaps most underestimated would be backlash among Latin America’s radical Left. Since the end of the Cold War, leftist movements have been relatively pacified because the United States hasn’t taken direct, kinetic action in the regime. But when Marines enter the mix, this will galvanize nationalist sentiment throughout the region.

The ELN maintains strong ideological affinity with Venezuela’s state ideology of Chavismo and sees itself leading the struggle against American imperialism. Colombian guerrillas already recruit Venezuelans. U.S. intervention would dramatically accelerate recruitment. One could see foreign fighters form international brigades to fight American forces and the puppet government they try to prop up.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro already condemned U.S. strikes as “acts of tyranny.” Full-scale invasion would trigger denunciations across the region, breathe new life into dormant anti-American movements, and create a generation of Latin American leftists radicalized by direct confrontation with U.S. military power. External actors like Iran, Russia, and China—who all have their own set of grievances with the United States—would pounce on this chaotic environment to further inflame tensions and poke Uncle Sam in the eye.

Comparing Venezuela to Grenada or Panama is fundamentally misleading propaganda. Those were brief police actions against micro-states in political chaos with minimal armed opposition, limited territory, no great power backing, and some regional support.

After 30 years of escalating intervention—coups, sanctions, economic warfare—Maduro remains in power while Venezuela has deepened ties with Russia, China, and Iran. The humanitarian crisis has worsened. Multiple coup attempts strengthened authoritarian control.

The historical record is unambiguous: U.S. military interventions consistently fail to achieve stated objectives. Initial conventional victories give way to protracted insurgencies, state collapse, refugee crises, and strategic disasters costing trillions. Venezuela would be worse because of its size, geography, complex array of armed actors, ideological polarization, and strategic importance to U.S. adversaries such as Russia, China, and Iran, who are all itching to get back at the United States.

Neoconservative strategists are engaging in dangerous wishful thinking. They promise a swift operation followed by grateful Venezuelans welcoming democracy. Reality would be years of counterinsurgency, multi-factional civil war, massive refugee flows, regional destabilization, and a strategic quagmire.

Invading Venezuela won’t be a walk in the park. It would be a quagmire defining American foreign policy for a generation. After 30 years of failure, perhaps it’s time to try something radically different: Diplomacy, engagement, and respect for sovereignty. The alternative is catastrophe, something Donald Trump’s “America First” movement never voted for.

November 4, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US military buildup in Caribbean aimed at regime change in Cuba: FP

Al Mayadeen | November 4, 2025

With the largest US military concentration in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, a new Foreign Policy (FP) report warns that Washington’s announced campaign against narcotics trafficking in the region masks a far broader strategic objective.

The removal of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and, by extension, pressure on Cuba by cutting off Venezuelan oil supplies.

The report says roughly 10 naval vessels and some 10,000 troops, including a carrier strike group led by the USS Gerald R. Ford and elements of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, are now positioned in the region, a posture that raises the prospect of direct military action against Venezuelan government targets and carries grave implications for Havana.

It is worth mentioning that the White House has framed recent operations as an intensification of counter-narcotics efforts, with senior US officials labelling traffickers as foreign terrorists and authorizing strikes on vessels alleged to be part of the trade.

Foreign Policy argues, the campaign’s political logic extends beyond drugs; the removal of Maduro would, in this account, enable a US policy aimed at severing Caracas’s lifeline to Havana and thereby accelerating a long-standing Republican objective of overthrowing the Cuban state.

“We are going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We are going to kill them,” the report quotes President Donald Trump as saying, adding that “The land is going to be next.”

US posture and military options

Foreign Policy highlights the presence of elite US units offshore and suggests a range of possible options available to Washington.

From intensified covert activity and targeted raids to airstrikes intended to coerce elements of the Venezuelan military. The report deems a full-scale invasion unlikely, arguing that occupation and nation-building contradict current political messaging, but it emphasizes that options short of occupation, targeted strikes, special operations, or efforts to catalyze a military coup would still produce extensive human and regional costs.

Venezuelan forces, the report stresses, have adapted doctrines to contest conventional assault by dispersing and employing asymmetric strategies, measures supported by Cuban advisers and reinforced by the presence of seasoned Colombian guerrilla units operating inside Venezuela. Those forces, FP reports, may constitute a counterbalance to US plots for regime change.

The Cuban dimension: Vulnerability and resilience

Cuba has long been Caracas’s closest regional partner, receiving subsidised oil in exchange for medical and technical personnel. Foreign Policy traces that relationship back to 1998.

At its peak, Cuba received more than 100,000 barrels per day; by 2024 shipments had declined to figures as low as 32,000 bpd and even less this year, the report claims.

The article argues, however, that while the loss of Venezuelan oil would damage an already stressed Cuban economy, political collapse is not inevitable. The Cuban government, the report notes, has withstood decades of pressure and possesses internal security mechanisms that have neutralized US-backed organizations and “regime-change” programmes in the past.

As Foreign Policy cautions, economic collapse may deepen civilian suffering without producing the political opening Washington’s hawks imagine.

Regional reaction and legal concerns

Foreign Policy records significant international unease. Human rights bodies and major NGOs have criticised US strikes and tactics as legally problematic, and several Latin American leaders, including Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, have protested the escalation.

The report warns that aggressive US military action will accelerate a political and strategic shift in the region toward alternative partners, notably China, and will undermine Washington’s cooperation with governments it needs for drug interdiction and other security tasks.

The report paints a scenario in which US policymakers, driven by a combination of electoral politics and long-standing ideological goals, central among them Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s avowed ambition to rollback Cuba’s revolution, misread both the durability of the Maduro regime and the resilience of Cuba’s political order.

Cutting off Venezuelan oil, Foreign Policy argues, is unlikely to precipitate the rapid collapse of Cuba.

November 4, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Nobel Peace Prize winner calls for military attack on her own country

RT | November 2, 2025

The US military buildup off Venezuela’s coast could help bring about regime change, opposition figure Maria Corina Machado has said. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate this year signaled she would welcome US strikes on the country if they help remove President Nicolas Maduro.

Washington has accused Maduro of having ties to drug cartels, calling him a “narcoterrorist.” Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump deployed a naval armada to the western Caribbean, and since September, US forces have struck alleged drug-smuggling vessels off Venezuela’s coast.

Media reports say Washington is expanding its naval presence, with analysts suggesting that the mission could extend beyond counter-narcotics. Trump denied planning direct strikes inside Venezuela, but reportedly reviewed a list of potential targets.

Asked on Bloomberg’s ‘The Mishal Husain Show’ if she backs US military action, Machado said, “I believe the escalation that’s taking place is the only way to force Maduro to understand that it’s time to go.”

She claimed that Maduro “illegally” seized power in last year’s election, from which she was barred. Machado also claimed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the election. Ousting Maduro, she said, would not be “regime change in the conventional way,” since he is “not the legitimate president” but “the head of a narcoterrorist structure.”

“This is not regime change, this is enforcing the will of the Venezuelan people,” she stressed.

Maduro has accused Machado of channeling US funds to “fascist” anti-government groups, calling her a front for Washington’s interference in Venezuelan affairs. Machado has had close contacts with the US government for decades. In 2005, then-President George W. Bush received her at the Oval Office.

Asked if US military force is the only way to remove Maduro, Machado said the threat alone could be sufficient: “It was absolutely indispensable to have a credible threat.” She added that the Venezuelan opposition is “ready to take over government,” backed by the military and police, claiming that “more than 80% of them are joining and will be part of this orderly transition as soon as it starts.”

Maduro has denied US drug-trafficking accusations, accusing Trump of “fabricating a new war.” Caracas called the US operations a violation of sovereignty and a coup attempt, reportedly seeking help from Russia, China, and Iran to strengthen its defenses.

Russia, which ratified a strategic partnership treaty with Venezuela on Monday, has condemned the US campaign.

November 2, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Pressure against Venezuela as hybrid war against Russia and China

By Raphael Machado | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 31, 2025

A common vice found among geopolitically anti-imperialist analysts and journalists is the attempt to explain all international conflicts by the “single cause” of the imperialist quest for natural resources — almost always oil. This is how the Iraq War is classically explained, for example: “Big Oil” would have used the Bush administration to open markets, once closed, through bombing and territorial occupation.

This type of clearly materialist explanation stems from an evidently Marxian premise, insofar as it aims to treat all social, cultural, and political phenomena as epiphenomena before the preponderant and structural reality of economic transformations and interests.

Like a good part of the 19th-century pseudo-scientific efforts to reduce reality to a single principle (as was the case with Freudianism and Positivism), this economist materialism also does not hold up under the hammer of critical analysis.

Just as an example, in the Iraqi case, the generic materialist explanation does not withstand the empirical discovery that the major U.S. oil companies were, in fact, already on a path of dialogue with the counter-hegemonic countries of the Middle East and, precisely for that reason, tried unsuccessfully to pressure for non-intervention and the pacification of American-Iraqi relations.

Nonetheless, the “oil myth” persists in the study of the Middle East. So we are not surprised that it is appealed to once again to explain the U.S. pressure on Venezuela. The narrative says that Trump’s pressure on Maduro, and the threats to overthrow his government, are due to Trump’s interest in Venezuela’s 300 billion barrel reserves — the largest in the world.

The problem with this narrative, however, is that according to all indications, Maduro would have offered to close extremely advantageous partnerships with the U.S. for the exploitation of Venezuelan oil, given that the current level of extraction in Venezuela is minimal. From a material perspective, the deal would be quite interesting for the U.S. oil industry, as the country consumes a vast amount of oil and its reserves are “only” the ninth largest in the world.

Everything indicates, however, that Trump would have rejected the offer of a deal.

The U.S., apparently, wants something that is worth more than the largest oil reserve in the world.

This is where geopolitical science comes in.

Generally, geopolitics is confused with “geo-economics,” in the sense that many people believe they are seeing a “geopolitical analysis” when they see an attribution of economic causes to some international conflict. But geopolitics is, fundamentally, the science that studies the correlation between geography and power. In this sense, resources can enter into geopolitical analyses, but only as part of a general context.

And in the Venezuelan case, even the very important and abundant oil is of secondary importance in the conflict with the U.S.

More important than oil, for the U.S., is to guarantee hemispheric hegemony — especially in the Americas. It is about, as defined in an arrogant and classic manner, the U.S. “backyard,” a space in which the U.S. elite in the 19th century decided to no longer tolerate any European presence.

Let’s fast forward 200 years. How are the international relations of Ibero-American countries?

China is the main commercial partner for most countries in the region, several of which have joined the Belt & Road Initiative (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, etc.). Some countries in the region (Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba) have also joined BRICS, which works towards the de-dollarization of international trade. Specifically Russia, in turn, has developed military ties — which consist of supplying equipment and conducting exercises — especially with Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, with a military rapprochement also with Bolivia and, to a lesser extent, Peru and Brazil.

In a context where pressure on the U.S. in other regions of the world is growing, it is dangerous for U.S. hegemony to see the growth of Russian-Chinese influence in its “backyard.”

Venezuela is a significant and priority target there because it is precisely the country with the deepest strategic relations with Russia and China. Venezuela is one of the main sources of oil for China, while at the same time Caracas seems to play a relevant role in the multifaceted Russian strategy of “pushing” for multipolarity by strengthening countries around the world that try to challenge the hegemonic order.

To confirm this thesis, we would need to analyze U.S. relations with the rest of the continent to verify if there is any movement by the U.S. to try to pull countries in the region away from Russia and China.

And it seems very clear: the strategy of rapprochement with Brazil is based precisely on an effort to pull the country out of the “Chinese orbit.” The U.S. also pressured Mexico to remain outside the New Silk Road. The U.S. increased its presence in Ecuador and pressured Milei to abandon plans for a Chinese base in its territory. Examples abound to indicate that we are facing a broad continental offensive whose goal is to update the Monroe Doctrine for the 21st century.

It is not, therefore, about oil, but about hegemony.

October 31, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US planning war with Venezuela to undermine Russia and China’s presence in South America – US mercenary

By Lucas Leiroz | October 30, 2025

Tensions in South America continue to escalate. Washington is promoting a naval siege of Venezuela, sending several military vessels—including aircraft-carriers and nuclear-capable submarines—to the Caribbean Sea. Furthermore, bombings of Venezuelan boats arbitrarily classified as belonging to drug traffickers have become frequent, resulting in the death of several Venezuelan citizens whose identities are still unknown.

There are many concerns about the future of this escalation. Some experts believe there will be an all-out war in South America, with US troops invading Venezuela in amphibious and aerial assaults, leading to a large-scale armed conflict. Other analysts believe that US President Donald Trump is simply bluffing and that no war will occur—or that there will be only a moderate conflict, with small-scale bombings.

Information from sources familiar with American military affairs seems to indicate an actual American willingness to attack the South American country. Jordan Goudreau, a well-known American mercenary and founder of Silvercorp PMC, recently stated that the US is interested in overthrowing the Venezuelan government to undermine “Moscow and Beijing’s influence” in the Americas.

Goudreau disagrees with analysts who emphasize the economic issue. According to him, the US has little interest in capturing Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, with the real reason for the conflict being purely geostrategic in nature. The American mercenary asserts that the US does not want to allow its main geopolitical rivals, Russia and China, to have a strong partner country in the Americas, as this would give them an advantage in a hypothetical conflict scenario with Washington.

In this sense, for Goudreau, Washington will simply attempt to overthrow the government to gain political and territorial control of Venezuela, preventing it from continuing to engage in partnerships with Russia and China. He stated that there will be no improvement in the country if the Western-backed opposition takes power. He made it clear that the well-being of Venezuelans is not a concern for Washington, whose focus is on neutralizing Venezuela’s geostrategic potential for powers like Russia and China.

It is important to remember that Goudreau became globally known for his involvement in a previous regime change attempt in Venezuela. He revealed that in 2020 he signed a contract between his PMC and the Venezuelan opposition to launch a military operation against President Nicolás Maduro. At the time, American, Colombian, and Venezuelan expatriate mercenaries orchestrated the so-called “Operation Gideon,” launching an amphibious assault on the Macuto Bay region. The operation was a failure, with several mercenaries being killed or arrested by Venezuelan authorities, and the entire plan behind the assault—including the direct involvement of American authorities under the first Trump administration—became public.

Furthermore, Goudreau is also a prominent public figure on American military affairs in South America, particularly in Colombia—a country that, despite its current stance of solidarity with Venezuela, is historically aligned with the US and home to several American bases and PMCs. Goudreau is a military instructor in Colombia and leads a private security project for schools in the Cartagena region. This demonstrates his familiarity with American military affairs in South America. He certainly has access to strategically valuable information about Washington’s decision-making process in that region.

There’s another issue that few analysts are commenting on: the “compensatory” factor in Trump’s foreign policy. The American president was elected on a pacifist platform, promising to end the conflicts in which the US was involved, especially in Ukraine and the Middle East. Obviously, peace in Ukraine won’t be achieved so easily, as it involves factors that go far beyond the American president’s political will. However, he has been able to act as a mediator in other arenas, such as the Middle East, where Trump brokered an agreement between Hamas and Israel.

As well known, the military-industrial complex is one of the main lobbying groups in the US and exerts profound influence on Washington’s domestic and foreign policy. It is therefore normal that, given the de-escalation in some regions, domestic lobbyists are pressuring Trump to launch a new military campaign. Furthermore, Trump also claims a kind of US “right” to control political processes on the American continent, as a way to compensate for his policy of reducing the US’ global presence. Therefore, it is possible that Trump is artificially inflaming the crisis in Venezuela to “compensate” for his less aggressive stance in other regions.

However, starting a conflict in Venezuela could be a nightmare for the US. Venezuela’s geography makes it extremely difficult for military operations. The country is situated between the Caribbean and the Amazon rainforest. Ground operations would be nearly impossible in much of the Venezuelan territory. The US would have to rely almost exclusively on bombings from ships and fighter jets, as well as moderate amphibious raids. This could cause profound damage to Venezuela, but it would not be enough to neutralize local military—which include not only the armed forces and the Bolivarian Guard, but also a popular militia of millions of armed civilians.

Furthermore, Russia and China would not stop cooperating with Venezuela in all the sectors in which they already cooperate, including economic, technological, and military. Moscow and Beijing would obviously not intervene directly in the war, but they would not stop supporting Caracas—which is why the plan to neutralize Russian-Chinese “influence” would fail.

The best the US can do is de-escalate while there is still time and acknowledge that sovereign countries in the Americas have the right to cooperate with any power they choose.

Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Associations, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.

October 30, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Sinophobia | , | 1 Comment

The Russian Regret

By Israel Shamir • Unz Review • October 29, 2025

The Russians are disappointed with Trump’s policy towards Russia. They have long given up hoping to partner with the US in building a just world order, and they are now giving up the hope that they might be treated fairly. The last person in Russia (if not in the world) still hoping to get along with Mr Trump is President Putin.

One can understand him. There is a great need for geopolitical and geo-economic cooperation between the US and Russia, both in resolving the Ukrainian crisis (taking into account Russia’s interests) and in interacting throughout the Arctic, Caribbean, Africa and all the other global ‘hot spots’. That would be international cooperation, not American Hegemony, as many US politicians prefer. The US should step away from the abyss of nuclear war, while this is still possible. Last week, the Russians carried out nuclear exercises, of a magnitude never done previously. The exercises involved Russia’s full nuclear triad—land-based, sea-based, and airborne assets, according to the statement reported by Russia’s state RIA news agency on Telegram. During the exercise, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome and Tu-95MS strategic bombers conducted air-launched cruise missile strikes, the Kremlin said. A strategic submarine cruiser launched a ballistic missile from the Barents Sea. And then there was the launch of Burevestnik, a brand-new cruise missile with nuclear reactor onboard, that can fly anywhere for as long as it takes. The Pentagon has revealed that they are worried about these new developments, and have asked the Russians to show them how they make their new devices, the Burevestnik and Poseidon. It is good that President Putin prefers peace, not war.

However, President Putin is not a free agent. There is a strong demand in Russian politics for a nuclear response to Western provocations, not stopping at the Western border of the Ukraine, but going all the way west. For the present, Putin prevails, but it’s likely to change if the US continues its drift toward war and sanctions. And the US invasion of Venezuela is likely to be met with force. The Russian soldiers of Wagner PDC are supposedly already there.

Such sentiments were recently expressed by Sergey Karaganov (a prominent political scientist and honorary representative of The Council on Foreign and Defence Policy) on TVC television, quoted by a PolitNavigator correspondent:

“Europeans – we are dealing with insane morons, excuse me, these are unpleasant words. Well, brutalised morons. They really are morons – the current generation of degenerate European elites, who have also ceased to fear God… and have lost their fear of death.

This is an animal instinct that needs to be restored; they have nothing else left, because they have no intellectual function, no sense of homeland, no sense of gender or love. Of course, I am exaggerating; there are wonderful people there. But that’s how it is [those who are in the governing circle] — they are the scum of humanity.

There is no leader there yet, figuratively speaking, no ‘Hitler’. But, in principle, they are moving towards this. And they are driving their peoples to slaughter. We must stop this movement – in order to save ourselves and these peoples, by the way. Maybe something will come of them someday, although they are degrading very quickly.

They are now being targeted for a massive confrontation with Russia. By the way, we underestimate this, because total propaganda is turning masses of Europeans into potential cannon fodder.

So, we must save them, and at the same time save the world. This is our historical task, but we must realise this historical task. Moreover, we have no other option. Either we destroy ourselves, then destroy the world, or we win and save humanity.

The program’s host Dmitry Kulikov noted that historically, ‘we act best when we understand that we have no other option.’ This feeling permeates Russian political circles. They more and more often repeat Putin’s words from 2018: We shall go to heaven, and they will just croak.

This is indeed regretful, for Putin and Trump have in common real enemies, namely the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, the European Union and the ultra-liberal stateless intelligentsia. Can it be that a grown man, a US President, falls for flattery of the cheapest kind delivered by the likes of Keith Starmer, Macron, Friedrich Merz et al? Doesn’t he understand that they despise him? What do they want? Do Fritz (German Chancellor Friedrich Merz) and Ursula have good memories of the free Russian soup the Germans were fed by the Russian soldiers in 1945, and perhaps they dream of tasting it again? Does Starmer hope to distract his voters so that they might forget his support for Gaza Genocide and Israeli football hooligans? Does Macron think it better to send Frenchmen to die in the Ukraine so they won’t join the Yellow Vests? Does Swedish Ulf Kristersson think that it’s better to keep up the venerable tradition of hosting the Russian occupation force at least once in a century? Which of these plans fit into Trump’s vision?

We may ask – why would President Trump lift a finger to help Vladimir Zelensky, the man who supported the Democratic Party candidate during the US presidential election and played a role in launching the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump?

In case Trump forgot, the Russian envoy Dmitriev reminded the American public (in his interview with journalist Lara Logan) that Zelensky campaigned in support of Kamala Harris, who represented the Democratic Party in the 2024 election and was Trump’s main rival. ‘Let’s not forget that,’ he added. Dmitriev then noted that Zelensky was one of the factors that influenced the initiation of the first impeachment process against the then US president.

The investigation that preceded the impeachment of US President Donald Trump began on 24 September 2019 at the initiative of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The impeachment was sparked by a statement by an anonymous informant (probably Zelensky himself) who claimed that in July 2019, Trump pressured Vladimir Zelensky for personal political gain. According to the anonymous report, Trump demanded that Kiev investigate the activities of Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, in exchange for providing Ukraine with financial and military aid.

After these allegations surfaced, the White House was forced to publish a memorandum containing a transcript of the telephone conversation between Trump and Zelensky. The document showed that Trump did indeed ask the Ukrainian president to ‘look into’ the matter concerning the Biden family. At the same time, a week before the aforementioned conversation, Trump had ordered the suspension of military aid to Ukraine. Representatives of the Democratic Party viewed this decision as a possible attempt to put pressure on Kiev in order to achieve an investigation that would be beneficial to Trump. The president himself was forced to publicly deny these allegations.

On 31 October 2019, the US House of Representatives approved a resolution to formally begin impeachment proceedings. On the 18th of December, the final debates took place, during which two articles of impeachment against Trump were put to a vote: abuse of power and obstruction of a congressional investigation. Both articles were approved, resulting in the president’s impeachment, making him the third head of state in US history to be subject to such a decision by the House of Representatives.

On 15 January 2020, a vote was held to send the indictment to the Senate, where the articles of impeachment were sent the following day. After reviewing the case, on 5 February 2020, the Senate acquitted Donald Trump on both counts. And now Trump wants to help the man who saddled him with that mess?

Not only that, but Trump’s policy of arming Europe and providing military aid to Ukraine is against US interests. Forcing Europe’s NATO members to increase defence spending to two per cent and then to five per cent will, in the near future, turn the EU into a military monster comparable to the Third Reich. A militarily strong EU would immediately break its economic dependence on the United States, both in terms of oil and gas and technology. And then it would begin to impose its own agenda on other countries, including America itself. Trump’s course towards the militarisation of Europe is suicidal for the future of the United States; it is feeding the crocodile that the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition seemed to have destroyed forever in 1945.

One might understand Trump’s decisions if building up a Ukrainian statelet were a winning move for the West. But it is not. It’s like feeding money to a slot machine in one of the casinos belonging to Trump’s benefactor, Sheldon Adelson. You give it money, and it gives you jolly music, noise, colourful figures move across the screen; then – nothing. Drop more money, you surely will win the next round, says the croupier. A wise man would not throw good money after bad, but a gambler would, down to his last penny. NATO’s Ukrainian morass is like a Kyiv Casino – they tell you that you are about to win big, you just have to invest another hundred billion! Billions have gone down this drain with nothing to show for it except more Miami palaces for Mr Zelensky and his friends.

The Trump’s renovation of the east wing of the White House is not just a random project – the so-called ‘Trump Ballroom’ is just a cover story for the construction of a secret bomb shelter and presidential bunker. But how long would he be able to sit there under a rain of Oreshnik and other fabulous Russian missiles? They will reach the deepest bunker and burn it out.

No, the only salvation for America is an honest alliance with Russia and the transformation of the Ukraine from Europe’s military springboard into a ‘bridge of cooperation’ between the West and the East. Thank God it is still possible.

NATO expansion has never benefited Europe. It was always a way to keep US troops on the job throughout the Cold War. NATO was deliberately expanded to keep up pressure on Russia. It always put Europe at risk, and there was never any corresponding benefit for the average European. Now, with the US about to drastically reduce its troops in Europe, the nations of Europe are on the brink of running NATO by themselves. Does Europe really want to recreate the Cold War and become a testing ground for Russia’s new cruise missiles? Are they really ready to face such an implacable enemy on their doorstep? Does Europe really want to make an enemy of a European country sitting on most of Europe’s natural resources, including its natural gas, oil, coal, palladium, aluminium and iron ore? How could this enmity benefit the average European family?

And President Trump will be remembered for Gaza Genocide that was not stopped by his 3000 years peace (lasted just two days!), for submission to the European clowns and to Bibi Netanyahu; now for leading the US into final Armageddon.

October 29, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Rubio Doctrine: Neocons Are Back!

By Ron Paul | October 27, 2025

According to several recent news reports, the two major Trump foreign policy shifts last week are the handiwork of Marco Rubio, the President’s Secretary of State and (acting) National Security Advisor. As with all neocon plans, they will be big on promises and small on delivery.

First up, according to Bloomberg it was Rubio who finally convinced President Trump to take “ownership” of the US proxy war on Russia, and for the first time place sanctions on Russia. Up to this point President Trump chose to portray himself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. But with this move against Russia’s oil sector he can no longer credibly claim that this is “Joe Biden’s war.”

The Trump move followed a confusing few weeks since the Trump/Putin Alaska summit in August. After that meeting Trump dropped the neocon position that a ceasefire in the Russia/Ukraine war must occur before any peace negotiations. It was a sign that Trump was looking more realistically at the war. He also said he did not think Ukraine would win, which is pretty obvious.

A surprise call to Putin the day before Ukrainian president Zelensky was to arrive in town just over a week ago reinforced that position and Zelensky left Washington empty-handed. He was seeking Tomahawk missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.

Then out of the blue President Trump last week announced through his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the US would be sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies until Russia declares a ceasefire in the war before negotiations. That won’t happen, but what it does mean is that Rubio and the neocons have successfully gotten Trump to step on the escalation escalator. That is what they always do. It will be much harder to back down now.

At the same time the US Administration was jumping deeper into the Russia/Ukraine war, a long-time neocon dream was suddenly back in play. Although in Trump’s first term a “regime change” operation was attempted against Venezuela, it failed spectacularly. But the neocons have long dreamed of overthrowing the Venezuelan government – they almost got their way back in 2002 – and suddenly after several weeks of extrajudicial murder on the high seas in the name of fighting the drug war, President Trump announced that land strikes on Venezuela would begin soon.

He did mention that he might brief Congress on his plans for war on Venezuela, not that Congress can be bothered to care much one way or the other.

The neocon old guard that still dominates Washington foreign policy is taking a victory lap. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was on the Sunday shows beaming over the conversion of “no regime-change wars” President Trump to “regime change wars” President Trump.

The Saddam Hussein WMD factories of 2002 have become the Nicolas Maduro cocaine and fentanyl factories of 2025 and once again the neocon war lies are amplified by the US mainstream media and transmitted to the American people. A new disaster is in the making. The “global war on terror” has been rebranded the “hemispheric war on narco-terror” and the US military industrial complex is rubbing its hands in anticipation of a windfall.

After John Bolton’s disastrous stint in the first Trump Administration, promises were made that the second Trump Administration would be neocon-free. Instead, the neocons are back. Unless President Trump wakes up soon, the neocons will destroy his second term…and maybe the country.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Inside the Trump Administration’s Venezeula Disagreements

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | October 28, 2025

In the waters of the Caribbean, a surprisingly large U.S. fleet sits with Venezuela in its sights. It includes over 10,000 troops, Aegis guided-missile destroyers, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, F-35B jet fighters, MQ-9 Reaper drones, P-8 Poseidon spy planes, assault ships, and a secretive special-operations ship.

The fleet is built for war on Venezuela or its drug cartels, but it is engineered to put enough pressure on Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro to push him from power. The justification for the war is stopping the flow of drugs into the United States by Venezuelan drug cartels; the justification for the coup is that Maduro is the head of those cartels.

But U.S. officials—often those in the best place to know—have disagreed with all three aspects of the military action: the significance of Venezuela’s drug cartels in the flow of drugs, and especially fentanyl, into United States; the role of Maduro in those cartels; and the use of the military to fight them. For their disagreement, many of those officials have left or been forced from their jobs.

U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted that military force is necessary to stop “narco-terrorists” who are smuggling a “deadly weapon poisoning Americans.” He has claimed that “every boat” the U.S. military strikes off the coast of Venezuela is “stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentanyl” and “kills 25,000 on average—some people say more.”

But current and former U.S. officials disagree. While most of the boats the U.S. military has sunk have been in the passageway between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, U.S. officials say that that passage is neither used to transport fentanyl nor is it used to transport drugs to the United States. 80% of the drugs that flow through that passage is marijuana, and most of the rest is cocaine. And those drugs are headed, not to the United States, but to West Africa and Europe. Most of the fentanyl that finds its way into the U.S. comes from Mexico.

The military strikes on Venezuelan boats cannot be justified by the war on drugs and “are unlikely…to cut overdose deaths in the United States,” according to officials. “When I saw [an internal document on the strikes],” a senior U.S. national security official said, “I immediately thought, ‘This isn’t about terrorists. This is about Venezuela and regime change.’”

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 90% of the cocaine that transits into the United States enters through Mexico, not Venezuela. And Venezuela is not a source of fentanyl. The dissenting American officials are in agreement with international bodies. The  2025 UNODC World Drug Report assesses that Venezuela “has consolidated its status as a territory free from the cultivation of coca leaves, cannabis and similar crops.” The report says that “[o]nly 5% of Colombian drugs transit through Venezuela.” The European Union’s European Drug Report 2025 corroborates the United Nations report: it “does not mention Venezuela even once as a corridor for the international drug trade.”

U.S. intelligence also disagrees on the Trump administration’s claim that Maduro is at the head of the Venezuelan drug cartels. The Trump administration has insisted that “Maduro is the leader of the designated narco-terrorist organization Cartel de Los Soles.”

Again, though, U.S. officials disagree. A “sense of the community” memorandum dated April 7, 2025 that puts together the findings of the eighteen agencies in the U.S. intelligence community released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence directly contradicts the Trump administration’s claim that Maduro is the leader of Tren de Aragua (TDA) drug cartel.

The memorandum clearly states that “the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.” It states that the intelligence community “has not observed the regime directing TDA.”

Making the American case against the Maduro government even less credible, the memorandum finds that “Venezuelan intelligence, military, and police services view TDA as a security threat and operate against it in ways that make it highly unlikely the two sides would cooperate in a strategic or consistent way.” The Venezuelan National Guard has arrested TDA members and “Venezuelan security forces have periodically engaged in armed confrontations with TDA.”

The contradiction was seen as a problem. Days after the memorandum’s release, Joe Kent, then acting chief of staff for Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, told a senior intelligence analyst to do a “rethink” of the analysis and offer a new assessment. “We need to do some rewriting so this document is not used against the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] or POTUS [President of the United States],” Kent told intelligence officers.

The rewritten memo still contradicted the Trump administration’s claims about Maduro. One week later, Michael Collins, the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Maria Langan-Riekhof, his deputy, were fired by Gabbard. Gabbard claims the firings were part of a campaign to stop leaks by “deep-state criminals” who are politicizing the intelligence community.

U.S. officials have objected not just to the White House’s claims about Venezuela as a narco-state and about Maduro’s role as head of the cartels, but also to the White House’s militarized answer to the problem. And the objection has come from the highest level of the U.S. military.

On October 16, Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of the U.S. Southern Command, the group that oversees all operations in Central and South America, including the current and any future military actions taken against Venezuela, announced that he was stepping down. The New York Times has reported that there were “real policy tensions concerning Venezuela” between the admiral and Pete Hegseth, the secretary of War. Current and former U.S. officials say that Holsey “had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.”

But there are also reports that there were questions about whether Holsey would be fired in the days before he announced his resignation. “Hegseth did not believe Holsey was moving quickly or aggressively enough to combat drug traffickers in the Caribbean.” The Washington Post reports that “Hegseth had grown disenchanted with Holsey and wanted him to step aside.” The disenchantment, according to “people familiar with the matter,” started “around the time that the Trump administration began ordering deadly strikes on alleged drug boats off the coast of Venezuela.”

At every level, Venezuela as a significant source of drug deaths in America, Maduro’s role as leader of Venezuela’s drug cartels, and the United State’s militarized solution to the problem, U.S. officials have disagreed with the Trump administration. Some of those officials have paid for doing their jobs with their jobs.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Sen. Rand Paul Slams Strikes on Boats in Caribbean as ‘Extrajudicial Killings’

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 27, 2025

Senator Rand Paul blasted President Donald Trump’s strikes on alleged drug traffickers as unconstitutional and illegal.

“A briefing is not enough to overcome the Constitution. The Constitution says that when you go to war, Congress has to vote on it. … The drug war, or the crime war, has typically been dealt with through law enforcement,” Paul said on Fox News Sunday. “And so far they have alleged that these people are drug dealers … and we’ve had no evidence presented. So at this point we would call them extrajudicial killings.”

So far, the Department of War has bombed ten boats it claims are smuggling narcotics into the US. Nine of the strikes have been on vessels in the Caribbean, against alleged cartels linked to Venezuela. The White House has not provided evidence that the ships were carrying drugs.

“So far, they have alleged that these people are drug dealers. No one said their name. No one said what evidence. No one said whether they’re armed. And we’ve had no evidence presented,” Paul said.

One survivor of a strike was released by Ecuador, finding he was not engaged in wrongdoing when the boat was attacked. One family member said a victim of a US strike was a fisherman, and not working for a cartel.

Trump has discussed expanding the strikes into Venezuela and has given the CIA approval to conduct lethal operations against cartels. Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims that Venezuelan President Maduro is the leader of a cartel designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

If Trump elects to expand the war, he told reporters that he will brief Congress on the plans. He went on to say he did not have to discuss the matter with the Legislator and has not sought a Declaration of War.

The Constitution explicitly grants Congress the authority to Declare War. However, the principle of preventing the President from unilaterally declaring war has been eroded over time. Congress has not declared war since World War 2 II. The last Authorization for Use of Military Force was passed in 2002 for the Iraq War.

Senator Paul has teamed up with Democratic Senator Tim Kaine to push a War Powers Resolution that would stop Trump from launching a war with Venezuela.

October 27, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US to send world’s largest aircraft carrier to Latin America; Venezuela warns of dangerous prelude

Press TV – October 25, 2025

The United States has decided to deploy the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, and five accompanying destroyers to Latin America, prompting Venezuela to condemn the pending provocation as reckless and unlawful.

The move, which marks one of the most aggressive American naval buildups in the hemisphere in decades, was announced by a Pentagon spokesperson on Friday.

The official claimed that the expanded US regional interference aimed to “detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities.”

The decision has raised fears of an imminent attempt to destabilize or even invade Venezuela under fabricated pretexts.

Analysts and international observers have also cautioned that the scale of the deployment far exceeds anti-narcotics operations.

The Gerald Ford strike group will join some 6,000 US sailors and Marines already stationed aboard eight warships in the region, bringing total American military personnel in the area to more than 10,000.

The escalation follows Donald Trump’s recent admission that he had authorized CIA operations inside Venezuela and was “mulling land attacks.”

The US president has repeatedly made baseless accusations that President Nicolás Maduro’s government was linked to criminal groups “invading” the US through drugs and immigration, allegations repeatedly dismissed by international agencies and even US intelligence assessments.

Since September, Washington has launched several strikes against civilian and fishing vessels in the Caribbean, alleging drug links without offering evidence.

According to United Nations officials and international law experts, these attacks violate both US and international law and constitute extrajudicial executions.

Venezuelan authorities have vowed to defend national sovereignty with full resolve.

“Interpret it however you want: the Armed Forces will not allow a government here that is subservient to the interests of the United States,” said Foreign Minister Vladimir Padrino.

Calling the US deployment “the most significant military threat in the last 100 years,” Padrino reaffirmed Caracas’s commitment to peace and reiterated that Venezuela would not tolerate any aggression.

October 25, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Iran embassy censures awarding Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader

Press TV – October 11, 2025

Iran’s embassy in Caracas has blasted the Nobel Committee for awarding this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to someone who advocates for military aggression against Venezuela in yet another sign of the West’s “divisive and interventionist” mentality.

In a post on its X account on Saturday, the embassy said the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado is “nothing less than a mockery of the true meaning of ‘peace’”

“Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to someone who justifies the genocide in Gaza and advocates for military aggression against Venezuela is yet another example of the West’s divisive and interventionist mentality in the developing world,” it emphasized.

The Nobel committee on Friday awarded the 58-year-old Machado, a Venezuelan politician notorious for advocating American and Israeli military intervention in her country, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights”.

The country’s Supreme Court upheld a 15-year ban against her, citing her direct support for US sanctions, involvement in large-scale corruption, and responsibility for massive financial losses suffered by Venezuela’s foreign assets — including the US-based oil refiner CITGO and the Colombia-based chemicals firm Monómeros.

This comes as the US military escalated its operations against Venezuela in August, involving three destroyers, anti-submarine aircraft, battleships, nuclear submarines, and F-35 squadrons.

Since then, US forces have attacked several vessels, killing dozens of Venezuelan nationals while claiming they were drug traffickers transporting narcotics to the United States.

In response, the Venezuelan government has declared a national emergency, reinforced its armed forces, and mobilized its national militia to counter any potential military aggression from Washington.

October 11, 2025 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

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