Well, the President of Peace is at it again. Donald Trump has constantly tried to present himself as the guy to end the forever wars, the deal maker who can smooth over conflicts, a very dodgy claim by itself but one he’s really pissed over today in an insane act, bombing Venezuela and kidnapping its President, Nicolás Maduro.
In the early morning US military helicopters flew into Venezuelan airspace and bombed targets in various parts of the country, especially the capital city Caracas, with footage quickly leaking out over social media. Though for the first few hours mainstream media outlets refused to name the very culprit of the bombings, with officials from Trump’s government only saying they were “aware” of the strikes, it was very obvious who was behind them and they soon admitted to it, claiming to have “captured” Maduro.
At first there was no evidence if this was true, with Venezuela’s defence minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez emerging after a bungled US attempt to assassinate him to bombing his home, declaring war and claiming to be mobilising the country’s troops on Maduro’s orders, but not mentioning what happened to Maduro himself, but it became obvious when around an hour later Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez released a statement demanding to know where Maduro and his wife were, admitting that the government had no idea.
After another hour passed by, US senator Mike Lee claimed that it was over after talking with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying that since Maduro was in custody there was no need for “further action”, arguing that the use of force by the US troops was part of the US President’s “inherent authority” to protect troops from attack, as they went to execute an arrest warrant against Maduro.
He anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in U.S. custody
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) January 3, 2026
Maduro was then hit with drug trafficking and weapons charges, with Trump later emerging to show a picture of him in custody, saying that the US would “run Venezuela” until a “transition” could happen, talking about taking money from the country’s oil industry and threatening to launch another attack if the Venezuelans didn’t comply. Rubio then threatened with very little subtlety that Cuba could be next.
As someone who has a strong stomach for fucked up stuff happening in the world, having spent years and months on research covering events like the Russia-Ukraine, including thuggish imperialism, war crimes and the like, and the mass corruption and enabling of violent extremism that came from the “War on Terror”, I was surprised by the mental state all this sent me into, I got progressively more depressive seeing this insanity turn from an act of piracy into a display of naked colonialism, with the US trying to drag back the Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine started out as basically ousting European colonial powers from the Americas, but turned into the US becoming a colonial power itself, insisting that it had a right to dictate what happens in the entire American continent, “our southern hemisphere” they call it.
Arrogant and thuggish in itself, but the other madness of it was the ridiculous arguments for it, just the absurdity of the idea that the US has a right to “arrest” someone for breaking their laws, when they live in a completely different country, and of course if anyone resists that, they have a right to kill them.
Trump and his cronies were barely even making any effort at all to hide the fact that this was just about conquest and resources, at least in the days of George Bush and Iraq they made up elaborate lies about WMDs and how occupation would usher in the values of democracy to the Middle East, while the best Trump and co could think of was drug trafficking, accusing Maduro of being the arch-narco terrorist, ridiculous given that Venezuela isn’t even close to being top of the list of drug smugglers into the US (they have a neighbour next door that’s far busier with that, though let’s not give them any ideas about a Mexican campaign as well) and literally last month Trump actually pardoned another South American president convicted of drug trafficking.
Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras was, on top of the drug charges, accused of holding onto power through election fraud like Maduro, but the difference was he was a right winger that was best mates with Uncle Sam, so who cares about all that, right? And, well, “liberating Venezuela”? Have you seen how Trump talks? Who his friends are?
The craziness was amplified by the outside reactions to it, with the BBC having some of the most genuinely god awful coverage I’ve ever seen from them in their live feed, for hours any references to Venezuelan reactions basically ignored talking about anyone not in favour of this colonial venture, only briefly mentioning supporters of the government in the context of them being confused while listing off accounts of the joy of opposition supporters, only finally breaking from this hours later to report on a Pro Maduro rally in Caracas demanding his release.
They also bafflingly took statements from Trump for granted, after he claimed that Rodriguez had agreed to basically bend over backwards for the US a commentator speculated that this could be her saving her own skin, she then came on TV hours later defiantly insisting Maduro was their legitimate president and saying she was ready to defend the country, when Trump said he would run Venezuela another comment casually took it for granted that “It seems the US now owns Venezuela’s future”, with Trump putting “any doubts […] to rest”, speculating on how they would run the aftermath and comparing things to the occupation phase of the Iraq War.
But this isn’t the Iraq War, this isn’t the end of the US storming into Baghdad, deposing Iraq’s leadership and being free to remould the country as they pleased, the US kidnapped Maduro then left, and while it seems like they tried to decapitate Venezuela’s whole leadership, they failed, and while Maduro isn’t there his government is still in power and defiant.
Now, if the US goes to war with Venezuela, it’s not a question who’s stronger, but not only does Venezuela have a massive army, it has hundreds of thousands of paramilitary soldiers too, highly loyal to the “Bolivarian Revolution”, the big program of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez.
So if the US wants to take over, they’ll be launching a massive invasion that will probably drag into it countless lives as the Bolivarian forces resist, probably leading into an intense insurgency as they don’t want to casually accept a foreign power coming in to flog off all their resources.
It’s pathetic seeing this kind of coverage especially when I know the BBC is capable of recognising aggression, they managed to do it when Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine, so it’s not about neutrality or impartiality, but if Netenyahu wants to colonise Palestine or Trump wants to colonise Venezuela, ah well, it’s a very complex situation isn’t it? We can’t be too radical with how we word this can we?
On top of all that, our own Prime Minister has been characteristically useless, vapidly vaguely referring to the importance of international law while not bothering to criticise the thug who just pissed all over it again, the centrist Lib Dems were able to call this out for what it is and even Trump’s bootlicking far right fanboy Nigel Farage could admit this was against international law, but because he really loves the taste of that boot and is scared of getting kicked by it if he grows a backbone Keir will state sweet nothings to be outspoken but say nothing, actually, it’s more like sour nothings. Other Western leaders have offered similarly empty appeals to international law while filing the colonial psychopathy under the convinient label of “its complicated”.
The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela. We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President and we shed no tears about the end of his regime.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) January 3, 2026
I reiterated my support for international law this morning. The UK government will discuss the evolving situation with…
I have spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and our Ambassador in Caracas. The EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela.
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) January 3, 2026
The EU has repeatedly stated that Mr Maduro lacks legitimacy and has defended a peaceful transition. Under all circumstances, the principles…
The legal assessment of the U.S. intervention is complex and requires careful consideration. International law remains the guiding framework. At this stage, political instability in Venezuela must be avoided. The objective is an orderly transition to an elected government.
— Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz (@bundeskanzler) January 3, 2026
I don’t feel any particular sympathy for Nicolás Maduro, he’s an authoritarian dictator, having grabbed more and more power and held elections that are less and less credible over time as the country’s crisis intensified, he’s not particularly loved by his people, his government has run the country into the ground with a currency that only has value as toilet paper and an economy demolished by its reliance on volatile petrodollars, but I don’t think a good solution to that is a foreign power coming in with naked colonial motives, salivating at the idea of selling off all of the resources.
The Bolivarian Revolution is one that at least aspires to socialism and it’s no secret that I’m a socialist myself, but on top of the fact that Maduro’s socialist project seems like a botched job I also just don’t think that how he is as a leader really matters, if he was the most successfully guy in the world, the shittiest, if he was right or left, it’s basically just about, why the fuck should we pretend that this psychotic colonial bullying is even remotely normal?
And given that this is really just about plundering and wanting a sphere of influence that’s kept in line, what rabbithole is it taking us down? Let’s say he actually takes over, kicks out the Bolivarian movement and hands power to some kind of new Venezuelan system with elections, what happens if the Venezuelans have the audacity to elect someone the US doesn’t like again? Are we going to go back to some 50s Cold War type era? This is less “art of the deal” and more “stomp of the bully”, which is why I’d really appreciate it if the mainstream would just stop licking the fucking boot.
I have my strong tolerance for the state of the world being in the shitter, and going out a lot I get to see people at their best, kind, welcoming, reasonable, giving me my usual optimistic persona, but it’s hard to hold that up when you’re reminded of the fact that all the good in most people struggles to count when we’re in a world run people who are at best useless and at worst basically demons, making me feel progressively radicalised as the establishment loses anything resembling credibility more and more, making me want to see it incinerated.
I remember when there was that big assassination attempt against Trump before the election I was genuinely disturbed, thinking of the bad precedent it sets when we start solving our problems by gunning each other down, and how killing him off would only make things 10x worse by radicalising his base to revenge.
I still don’t like that precedent, even though I totally got the massive wave of hate unleashed because of the cruelty of private “healthcare” I cringed at the simping for the assassin Luigi Mangioni, even though I think his opinions were pretty much as dogshit as they get I felt the same way seeing people genuinely praise the murder of Charlie Kirk, but in case of this wannabe dictator, turning his country into even more and more of a rabid dog, I just think…
I wish that fucking idiot had better aim.
Changelog#
- Edit 1 - 04/01/26 - Added accents to names, mentioned ex-Honduran President, examples of Western leaders’ statements, slight rewording/reordering of some lines