And the second shoe drops on ‘Regeime Change’…..
And Trump’s dream to obtaining MORE Real Estate….
In this statement he putting Amwerica in charge of a whole country……
Of course ?
The REAL Reason for this?
‘Payment for this will be American control over that countries oil*….
President Trump said Saturday that the U.S. is “going to run” Venezuela until a “proper transition can take place,” following a stunning attack on Caracas to capture President Nicolás Maduro,
Why it matters: The U.S. ouster of Maduro from the oil-rich nation drew condemnation from across the globe.
The big picture: Trump’s announcement that the U.S. would be temporarily taking control of Venezuela and its oil infrastructure is arguably the most unvarnished assertion of American imperialism since the invasion of Iraq.
- It would leave the U.S. responsible for restoring stability in a country riven with political violence, well-armed gangs, a military that still at least officially answers to the Maduro regime, and a years-long economic crisis.
- As with other Trump pronouncements — such as his claim in February that the U.S. would be taking over the Gaza Strip — it’s not immediately clear to what extent his words will become reality.
- If Trump follows through, he’ll be gambling on a better outcome than many previous U.S. military interventions in Latin America…..
Note….
And just like thaT Pete Hegseth gets ANOTHER Warrior Military Op…..
Does the Republicans in Congress undrestand what Donald Just dropped thieir lap?
If your are the leadere of a country?
How do youb feel right now?
Maybe Trump will invade Ukraine and give ith to Russia?
And they can split the rewsources there ?
And NOBODY gonna STEP to the American President and his “MUSCLE’ Hegseth?
…
*On Running Venzuela’s Oil for America?
“One of the clear lessons from Iraq — and it is not unique to Iraq — is that you need to have stability and be able to assess risk before you can start production,” said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a research firm. Until then, he said, companies may not be enthusiastic about making the billions of dollars in investments required in Venezuela.
It’s unclear which firms Trump was referencing at a news conference Saturday morning, when he said: “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go and spend billions of dollars to fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure.”
Chevron, which operates there now, declined to comment on plans.
ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips exited the country and saw their assets seized after refusing to meet the terms of Venezuela’s government nearly two decades ago. ExxonMobil did not respond to requests for comment.
“It would be premature to speculate on any future business activities or investments,” ConocoPhillips spokesman Dennis Nuss said in an email.
But the appeal is clear. Venezuela has one of the biggest oil reserves in the world, estimated at 300 billion barrels.
“Every major oil company in the world and some of the smaller ones will look closely at this because there are very few places on Earth where you could increase production so much,” said Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American Energy Program at Rice University. “But first you need political stability and clarity.”….
More…
Are the Venezuelans getting everything in readiness for the Republicans who are coming to run their country ?
The streetsb there are reportily EMPTY……
The Opposition WILL lekly suck up to Trump nad give him Oil…..
Drugs will continue to make it out of thre place…
Adn Trump will surly get his $$$ cut…..
Hegseth IS smiling
“Hegseth is smiling “
You would be too if you had drank some of that stuff the street drunk had last night!
Indeed….
And his boss IS letting him do ‘his thing’…..
He ain’t MIlley
…why is it ok for America to militarily invade,bomb, and arrest a foreign leader but Russia is evil for invading Ukraine and China is bad for aggression against Taiwan?Is it only ok if we do it?
Marjorie Taylor Greene( R- Ga.)
I really can’t answer that question .James, you are well informed on such matters,perhaps you can.
I say in my post….
She IS ON to something
Trump and Maduro belong in a cell together.
There is a lot to all of this and things are not simply black and white. Maduro (and his entire regime) are illegitimate and Venezuela should hopefully be much better off without him, but one cannot look at our rambling, constant-lying, sociopathic U.S. President and have any confidence that this situation is going to work out for the best for them or for us. There is actually a duly elected leader of Venezuela but Trump seems to have no interest in that person being put into the rightful place. Gee, I wonder why.
I just know that the “America First” folks are a bunch of suckers, especially the ones who literally change their opinion from hour to hour in order to back up Trump in any circumstance.
Finally, I just want to point out how sad it is for me to realize that all the untrue attacks, mostly from the left, leveled against President George W. Bush have helped bring us to this state of the world. We did not invade Iraq “for oil.” That should be very clear. Trump has been the one for years angry that we did not take the oil. Whether you think it was a mistake or not, we invaded Iraq because we and most everyone else believed he had WMD and we were trying to prevent another 9/11. On Day 1, we were treated as liberators are the people there were beyond thrilled the dictator was gone, but clearly what came next caused a lot of difficulty, and that might be what faces our country again today in “running” a country of 30 million people.
Now, we have a Republican President, who actually invaded a country for oil and is actually using false pretenses to sell it. Like so many things, if the opposition in our country had been more honest, maybe it would have been harder to normalize. One does not have to agree with George W. Bush or the decision to have regime change in Iraq over 20 years ago, to recognize the profound differences and wish we had a President who cared more about norms and transparency.
Excellent CG….
Donald DOES NOT Care about ANYTHING except himself….
And?
Making MORE Money…
If everything that has happened in Venezuela within the past 24 hours had been done by a Democrat President, most Republicans would be beyond apoplectic and Democrats would be largely supportive.
I can’t remember much Republican criticism of the breaching of Pakistani sovereignty to assassinate Osama bin Laden.
“Like George W Bush after the invasion of Iraq,Trump enjoyed his ‘mission accomplished ‘moment on Saturday.But if there is one thing we have learned over the past quarter century,it is much easier to topple tyrants than to build stable and secure societies afterward.History’s ultimate verdict on Trump’s military operation will be based on the fate of post- Maduro Venezuela,and the U.S.,despite what Trump said about running the country,has only limited leverage to determine its fate.
Max Boot
Foreign relations columnist
New York Times
The Mac Boot comment WILL BE post here later….
Thank U Jack
Remember Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn rule “You break it, you own it.”
[Although my killjoy MS AI Copilot says that (a) this rule apparently precedes Pottery Barn (going back to a Miami Beach gift shop in 1952) and (b) Pottery Barn never had such a rule.]
To Trump, on Venezuela: You Break It, You Own It
NYTimes OPINION
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
It is far too early to have clear answers as to what will happen next in Venezuela in the wake of the Trump administration’s removal of President Nicolás Maduro to stand trial in the United States. But I have a lot of questions based on such interventions by the United States in other regions.
On March 19, 2011, a NATO-led coalition launched a military intervention — exclusively using air power — into the Libyan civil war that eventually led to the toppling of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government, followed in October of that year by his killing by opposition forces. On March 29, 2011, I wrote a column that concluded, “Dear Lord, please make President Obama lucky.” The theme of the essay was that Barack Obama had just facilitated the ouster of the leader of Libya, but we had no forces on the ground to shape events after that.
“I don’t know Libya,” I wrote at the time, “but my gut tells me that any kind of decent outcome there will require boots on the ground — either as military help for the rebels to oust Qaddafi as we want, or as post-Qaddafi peacekeepers and referees between tribes and factions to help with any transition to democracy. Those boots cannot be ours. We absolutely cannot afford it.”
So, who would referee the next phase?
It turned out to be no one. By providing only air cover for the rebels, our intervention left the situation on the ground to the local competing forces, tribes and militias, which were divided then and remain divided to this day. Nearly 15 years later, Libya is still a mess, with two governments vying for control, and it’s still a dangerous jumping-off point for refugees and migrants from Africa across the Mediterranean into Europe….
More…
And Powell was Right….
What’s this?
Forget Trump’s boast yesterday that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela,obviously implying that we would be involved in the day to day administration of the country.
That’s not what he meant at all. At least according to Sec. of State Marco Rubio.No ,what he meant was that the U.S. would continue with an oil quarantine that was already in place and use that as leverage as a means to press policy changes in Venezuela.
“ And so that’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that.”
Really?Sure didn’t sound like that yesterday.And what this sounds like is Rubio trying to explain away an obvious screw up by Trump.Who knows what was going through his addled mind?
Brings to mind the last lines of the old hit song “ Send In The Clowns…
“And where are the clowns
Quick send in the clowns
Don’t bother they’re here!”
I agree Jack….
Donald J. Trump SAID what he SAID…..
He ain’t right in the mind….
This IS a clean up by Rubio….
Although ‘Warrior’ Pete WOULD be up for a try, eh?
Trump’s mind and the recent National Security policy document are stuck somewhere in 1910: in its racial assumptions and in its belief that the world is and should be divided into Spheres of Influence where imperial nations could and should use their advanced, superior technology to extract wealth from the lands of backwards people who couldn’t be trusted (and were not entitled) to extract (or grow it or raise it) on their own.
But with THAT comes a HEAVY Load…..
Vladimer IS trying ot get back to it and it ain’t working….
It won’t work for Trump either….