Trump makes large strike on Venezuela and captures president

[Rideback]

Venezuelans are discovering that now they have a Maduro govt without Maduro since Trump has praised Maduro's VP as the successor.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/ ... out-maduro

[mister_coffee]

It's reported that for the US to repair and upgrade their aging oil infrastructure that it will take years to do that. Nice.
How much is all this costing us? Oh, that's right the tariffs. Oh wait those are going to replace the income taxes that we won't have to pay.

The other undiscussed capital expenditure is that Venezuelan oil is hard to refine, and I don't think our existing refineries in the Gulf can handle that oil. So we'll need to build a bunch of new refineries at $10 billion each, or modify existing ones at nearly that price.

Even in the very best case I doubt Venezuelan oil will be economically relevant for twenty years.

[Rideback]

Yes years, and Trump is expecting BigOil to pay for much of it with repayment through their profits from the oil. But of course that cost doesn't include having military boots on the ground which it sounds like Trump is declining to do by instead pressuring a broke Venezuela to provide protection 'to do it right'. No doubt he thinks that IOU's from a govt will be acceptable.

Then again, since Trump has cut Medicaid 15%, denied ACA subsidies and suspending childcare funding it wouldn't be a surprise if he uses those funds. He's already demonstrated that he's willing to rob a budget item to pay for one he wants to create.

But much like we saw with the DOGE boys who cut and ran, it seems Trump's plan is to start wars with the plan of taking over countries on a roll so he doesn't care about what it costs to occupy, only that his military has enough missiles to attack the next country or fishing boat.

[PAL]

It's reported that for the US to repair and upgrade their aging oil infrastructure that it will take years to do that. Nice.
How much is all this costing us? Oh, that's right the tariffs. Oh wait those are going to replace the income taxes that we won't have to pay.

[Rideback]

"THE CRIMES THAT NEVER HELD UP
How a settled oil dispute became a criminal war case
White Rose
January 5, 2026
The justification has finally hardened into something concrete. Not because the evidence improved, but because force arrived first and law followed after.
On January 5, Nicolás Maduro was brought into a U.S. federal courtroom following a U.S. military operation inside Venezuela. He pleaded not guilty. His wife was detained with him. The charges, long announced but never tested, are now active in court.
That fact changes the stage. It does not change the record.
Start with what was originally claimed.
U.S. officials argued for years that Venezuela had stolen American oil. That claim was false then and remains false now. U.S. oil companies never owned Venezuelan oil. They operated under concession and lease agreements granted by the Venezuelan state, which retained permanent ownership of subsurface resources. That principle is not controversial. It is the foundation of modern international resource law.
When Venezuela nationalized its oil industry under Hugo Chávez, it exercised a right recognized worldwide. States possess permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. Nationalization is legal. Always has been.
What international law requires is compensation. That dispute was litigated.
Foreign firms were offered a choice. Accept minority partnership terms under PDVSA or exit and pursue compensation. Several chose to leave. None claimed their oil had been stolen. They sued.
Those cases went before international arbitration bodies, most notably the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The rulings were routine. Venezuela’s right to nationalize was affirmed. Venezuela was ordered to compensate for certain assets. Companies were awarded billions, often less than they demanded. This is how such disputes are resolved everywhere, including against the United States.
No U.S. territory was seized. No U.S. oil was taken. Contracts were terminated. Assets were transferred. Compensation was litigated. The legal process concluded years ago.
That should have been the end of it.
Instead, the narrative migrated from civil law to criminal law.
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Maduro with narcoterrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, and conspiracy to use weapons in furtherance of drug trafficking. These charges were announced years ago. What matters now is what evidence has actually been produced.
Publicly, there is no physical evidence tying Maduro personally to drug trafficking. No seized shipments. No financial records showing proceeds. No intercepted communications demonstrating command or direction. No operational documents. No orders. No acts shown to occur on U.S. soil under his control.
The case rests almost entirely on testimony from cooperating witnesses. Defectors. Convicted traffickers. Former officials seeking asylum or sentence reductions. Their claims have not been publicly corroborated with independent documentary or physical evidence linking Maduro personally to narcotics operations.
That gap matters because conspiracy cases still require overt acts. Association is not enough. Political hostility is not evidence.
The centerpiece allegation involves cooperation with FARC. But even U.S. intelligence assessments have never claimed Venezuela displaced Colombia as the primary cocaine hub. FARC’s drug production, revenue, and export routes were overwhelmingly Colombian. At most, Venezuela has been described as intermittently tolerating transit.
A data driven conclusion sharpens the picture.
Venezuela is not a primary cocaine transit state. This is supported consistently by U.S. and UN drug monitoring data. The dominant cocaine corridors into the United States run through Colombia, Central America, Mexico, and Caribbean maritime routes. European bound flows move overwhelmingly through West Africa. Venezuela appears marginally and inconsistently, at volumes far below those moved through U.S. allied states.
If volume justified escalation, much of the hemisphere would be under indictment.
The weapons charges collapse even faster. Charging a sitting head of state with arms trafficking ignores a basic reality of international law. Heads of state control national militaries, defense procurement, and arms logistics by definition. You may accuse a government of violating embargoes or supporting armed groups. You do not charge a president personally as if he were a cartel broker unless the objective is to erase the distinction between sovereign authority and criminal enterprise.
That erasure is the mechanism.
Once a head of state is reframed as a criminal suspect, sanctions become seizures. Seizures become detention. Detention becomes extraction. Law stops functioning as law and begins functioning as narrative cover for regime change.
The selectivity exposes the design. Allied governments that move weapons into conflicts face no indictments. States that facilitate far larger drug flows remain untouched. Sovereignty reappears instantly when power aligns correctly.
The contradiction becomes impossible to ignore when viewed domestically. The same administration now presenting itself as the global enforcer of narcotics law previously pardoned major drug traffickers and financial criminals. Not marginal cases. Large scale operators who moved real quantities of drugs and money through real networks.
Those pardons were framed as mercy or overreach corrected. Drug trafficking ceased to be an existential threat when it involved politically useful people.
This contrast tells us what the Venezuela charges are doing.
They are not about oil. That dispute was settled in arbitration panels years ago.
They are not about drugs. The data does not support it.
They are not about weapons. Sovereignty already covers it.
They are about converting a resolved sovereignty dispute into a criminal pretext for coercion.
The January 5 courtroom appearance does not resolve this. It intensifies it. The legality of the capture itself is now part of the case. So is the question of jurisdiction. So is the question of whether criminal law is being stretched to do the work of regime change.
This is not a defense of Venezuela’s government. Corruption, repression, and mismanagement are real. But those failures do not retroactively convert lawful nationalization into theft or marginal trafficking data into a justification for war.
The most honest conclusion remains unchanged.
There is evidence Venezuela is a corrupt and dysfunctional state.
There is no public evidence that Nicolás Maduro personally ran or directed a narcotics enterprise targeting the United States.
That gap is not accidental. It is the gap between law enforcement and power dressed as law.
When leaders stop arguing facts and start arguing myths, it is usually because the facts will not take them where they want to go.
In this case, the facts remain stubborn. Even now." Bruce Fanger
Annotated sources
Reuters reporting on Maduro’s January 5, 2026 court appearance and the circumstances of his capture, used for procedural facts only.
U.S. Department of Justice indictments filed in the Southern District of New York, reviewed for charge language rather than evidentiary claims.
ICSID arbitration rulings involving Venezuela and U.S. oil companies, cited for confirmation of lawful nationalization and compensation outcomes.
UNODC and U.S. drug monitoring assessments, referenced for long term cocaine transit patterns and volume comparisons.
Historical nationalization precedents and international law doctrine on permanent sovereignty over natural resources.

[mister_coffee]

For idiots who think this is a Good Idea:

There are between eighty and ninety thousand US troops deployed in NATO countries. If we commit an act of war against Canada or Denmark those people instantly become POWS and billions of dollars worth of equipment we have deployed to Europe would be gone. And we probably wouldn't ever get it back. This would represent a substantial fraction of our active-duty military and some of our very best equipment.

It would take years to redeploy all of the people, equipment, and infrastructure out of Europe. Mostly for the infrastructure.

So any attack on a NATO ally would apparently involve sacrificing all of those people. How is that even taken seriously?

[Rideback]

Trump on AF1 today talking non stop about how the US 'needs' Greenland for national security purposes
Jim Wright asks questions:
"Trump keeps saying we need Greenland for our national security.
Trump says we need to base American forces on Greenland.
But Greenland is in the North Atlantic, between North America and Europe.
Right? So, WHO exactly is the threat?
If we need to base forces on Greenland, WHO IS THE THREAT? That's not a rhetorical question. Who's the threat? The United Kingdom isn't threatening us. Norway isn't threatening us. Iceland isn't threatening us. Who operates forces in that area who might actually be a credible military threat to us or to North Atlantic shipping lanes.
Who?
Because it sure does seem like Trump is saying Russia is that threat. Because there isn't anyone else. So it has to be Russia.
Ask Trump that.
Ask Trump THAT and don't look away or let him off the hook until he answers. Who is the threat?"

[mister_coffee]

The reality is they have nowhere near the capacity to accomplish that, not even remotely. It is doubtful they'd have the inside help they had in Venezuela in Cuba or Mexico, much less Canada or Denmark. This was all Too Easy and Too Cute and choreographed to make Trump look more powerful than he really is.

I've had conversations with retired Air Force people and their opinion was that it would reasonably take days to fully suppress the air defenses around Caracas. However we flew in helicopters, big slow vulnerable ones, after only a few hours of air attacks. My own conclusion is that someone ordered people with guns and portable SAMs not to shoot at helicopters. And had the authority to make that order stick.

Also using the large, slow, and noisy CH-47s as opposed to the ultra-quiet and stealthy UH-60s (which we used in Pakistan to grab Bin Laden) also seems to me to be another indication that this was staged.

This is also the kind of trick that likely can only work once.

[Rideback]

Trump has now made threats against 6 countries. This is sounding more like Musk/Zuckerberg's model of move fast, break things and how we saw the DOGE boys firehose destruction so fast no one could focus.

[just-jim]

.
Senator Cory Booker's statement on Trump's actions in Venezuela is spot on!

"Today, many leaders will rightly condemn President Donald Trump’s unlawful and unjust actions in Venezuela, and I join them.
But just as glaring, and far more damning, is Congress’ ongoing abdication of its constitutional duty. For almost a year now, the legislative branch has failed to check a president who repeatedly violates his oath, disregards the law, and endangers American interests at home and abroad.
Time and again, Congress, now led by Republicans, has chosen spineless complicity over its sworn responsibilities. From the reckless leaking of classified information that put American troops at risk, to the illegal use of military force destroying vessels and killing people in the Caribbean and the Pacific without congressional authorization, there has been a stunning absence of accountability.
No hearings.
No serious investigations.
No enforcement of checks and balances.
No accountability.
Again and again, the president has exceeded his authority, defied congressional intent, trampled the separation of powers, and broken the law - while Congress looked away in cowardice and submission.
Republicans in Congress own this corrosive collapse of our constitutional order. With only a handful of honorable exceptions, they have bent themselves to the will of Donald Trump, afraid to state in public the feelings they often communicate privately. That submission, this abandonment of independent judgment and constitutional courage, now stands as one of the greatest dangers to our nation and to the global order America claims to defend.
Nicolás Maduro is a brutal dictator who has committed grave abuses. The United States military remains the most capable fighting force on Earth, and our praiseworthy service members carry out their orders with professionalism and excellence.
But none of that suspends the Constitution.
The Constitution is unambiguous: Congress has the power and responsibility to authorize the use of military force and declare war. Congress has a duty of oversight. Congress must serve as a check, not a rubber stamp, to the President. On this count, Congress has failed.
We face an authoritarian-minded president who acts with dangerous growing impunity. He has shown a willingness to defy court orders, violate the law, ignore congressional intent, and shred basic norms of decency and democracy. This pattern will continue unless the Article I branch of government, especially Republican congressional leadership, finds the courage to act.
They must stop behaving as partisan puppets and start acting as patriotic constitutional stewards.
What happened today is wrong. Congressional Republicans would say so immediately if a Democratic president had done the same. Their silence is surrender. And in that surrender lie the seeds of our democratic unraveling.
There are still three years left in this administration. From the pardoning of individuals who violently attacked police officers while attempting to overturn our election to this latest extrajudicial assault on another nation’s sovereignty, the damage will continue unless it is confronted.
Enough is enough."
.

[just-jim]

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I spoke today with a friend who has travelled a few times to Venezuela on business.
This morning, he said he called a friend and business contact in Caracas - and asked him ‘So, what do you think about what tRump did last night?’.

His friend said; ‘he should have killed Maduro - you have to cut off the head of the snake’.

My friend’s contact is an educated, upper-middle class professional.

I cant support what GUILTY, FELON donnie did…but I do have to wonder if this view-point is common among Venezuelans?
.

[mister_coffee]

There are ninety million people in Venezuela. Hard to imagine that all of them will be okay with what's happened. Even if 90 percent of them are that's ten million pissed off people.

And we've learned that oil-production infrastructure is notoriously hard to secure and easy to vandalize. Their infra is also badly out of date and poorly maintained, so that makes the problem even worse. Even though at the moment Venezuela is a relatively minor player in the world oil market (less than 1 million bpd) a disruption is a disruption, and we've learned that even small production hiccups can lead to huge swings in prices.

In the meantime, Iran looks like it is collapsing and Ukraine continues to plink away at Russia's oil infrastructure.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Rideback]

Rubio seems to think Cuba is up next and Mike Huckabee predicts Iran after that

[mister_coffee]

"A clan of pedophiles wants to destroy our democracy. To keep Epstein’s list from coming out, they send warships to kill fishermen & threaten our neighbor with invasion for their oil." — Colombian President Gustavo Petro

[PAL]

While we're at it, get Putin. Then we can rule Russia and Ukraine too!
Oh, and who was that druggy guy that Trump pardoned that was in charge of a country. The list of indictments on Maduro(who is a bad dude) seems to match the guy who Trump pardoned.
From an article: Not my words.

BREAKING: Attorney General Pam Bondi unveils the "indictments" against Venezuelan President President Nicolás Maduro and they're even more insane than experts predicted.

"Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York. Nicolas Maduro has been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States," Bondi wrote on X.
"They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts," she continued. "On behalf of the entire U.S. DOJ, I would like to thank President Trump for having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American People, and a huge thank you to our brave military who conducted the incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers."
To point out the incredibly obvious: it's not illegal for Maduro to possess a machine gun. He's the president of a sovereign nation with a standing military. Him having a weapon on Venezuelan territory is not a violation of U.S. nor Venezuelan law.
And of course, the American special forces operators who captured Maduro were carrying machine guns. Apparently, that's totally fine and legal according to the upside down fascist logic of this White House. Laws only apply to political enemies of MAGA, never to enforcers of the regime.
The absurdity of the machine gun charges underlines just what a farce this entire operation is. The allegations that Maduro was running a narco-trafficking empire are equally fabricated. This is is about seizing Venezuela's oil and rare earth minerals.
America, a country awash in guns that can't seem to make it through a week without another mass shooting, just invaded another country, kidnapped their leader, and is now attempting to try and imprison him for gun charges. Imagine how knuckle-draggingly gullible you'd have to be to buy into any of this.

[Rideback]

"Fox News: "What do you think is next for the Venezuelan people now that you have removed Maduro?"
Trump (via phone): "We can't take a chance of letting someone run it and just take over where he left off...We'll be involved in it very much."

[Rideback]

and his wife and flies them out of the country.
https://apnews.com/live/trump-us-venezu ... 01-03-2026