The Invasion and Occupation of Venezuela
the orange man’s regime change of Venezuela
image: Wilman Gonzalez carries the furniture he managed to save from his home in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, after it got blown up during the airstrikes. His aunt, Rosa Gonzalez, 80, who lived with him, died during the strike. via The New York Times.
Update: yesterday morning my husband read the various reports on the American invasion of Venezuela and capture of Maduro, and he told me that he thought immigration policy motivated Trump to go into Venezuela. I didn’t make the connection then.
Since yesterday morning, I’ve seen the reports about Trump’s immigration concerns and the idea that an America in conflict with Venezuela could designate Venezuelans enemy aliens and deport them from the USA.
I’ve also seen the announcement that the Trump administration will leave the remnants of the Maduro regime in place.
As far as cracking down on drug traffickers, Trump is pardoning the former president of Honduras. Not to mention that Venezuela plays a minor role in global drug trafficking.
So, it’s not about liberating Venezuela, it’s not about fighting narco terrorism, it’s maybe not even so much about oil. It’s about foreign policy serving Trumpian domestic political interests, at this time the crack down on immigration via a vis deportation of enemy aliens. Trump has, in the past, tried to use “the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to carry out mass deportations” (ACLU, March 2025). A District Court issued a TRO, which SCOTUS ordered vacated. You can read the legal sidebar from Congress here.
“Mr. Miller told officials that if the United States and Venezuela were at war, the Trump administration could again invoke the Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century law, to expedite deportations of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans the administration stripped of temporary protected status. He and Mr. Rubio had used it earlier in the year to summarily deport hundreds of Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador, only to be stopped by court rulings,” (How Oil, Drugs and Immigration Fuelled Trump’s Venezuela Campaign, New York Times, December 27, 2025)
“This model resonates domestically because it flatters a certain view of sovereignty: the sovereign as a kind of global sheriff with a badge in one hand and plausible deniability in the other. But as a template for the international system, it pushes the world away from the already fragile aspiration of a law‑governed order and toward a more brutal equilibrium: an anarchy managed not by norms but by the selective deployment of power.” — Funji Benedict, The Wicked Rabbit
So, in a move reminiscent of Kissinger manoeuvres, Trump invaded Venezuela, took out several military bases there, and kidnapped Maduro, the brutal narco terrorist dictator who has ruled by decree since 2015.
A question to ask—does the removal of one person in a brutal regime really equate to a regime change? How so? Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, a Maduro loyalist, assumes the role of acting president per the Venezuelan constitution. If you’re reasoning that Maduro wasn’t the legitimate president, then why you think allowing his VP to assume an acting role changes anything?
How, exactly did this change anything? So far, it’s quite farcical.
“Henry Kissinger did not believe in the sanctity of self-determination. He didn’t believe in the sanctity of sovereignty for Latin American nations or the smaller nations of the third world. He believed in superpower might makes right – realpolitik,” said Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive (NSA) in Washington DC, “He didn’t believe in the sanctity of human rights either, which led him to embrace repressive authoritarian regimes as strategic chess pieces in the global chessboard of the cold war,” Kornbluh added. — via The Guardian
The invading US military 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), nicknamed the Nightstalkers,1 struck the following Venezuelan targets: Fort Tiuna, La Carlota, Base Aérea El Libertador SVBL, Aeropuerto de Higuerote, Port of La Guaira, in addition to the telecommunications infrastructure at Antenas El Volcan and Cuartel de la Montaña, the site of the Chavez mausoleum.
I have seen no official reports of casualties, or even anyone questioning the existence of casualties; New York Times reports 40 casualties, as does Times of India.
Guyanese news sources reported security concerns related to the US attack, as well as concerns about migrants crossing into Guyana. It doesn’t appear as though the Americans consulted with the Guyanese prior to attacking. Guyana and Venezuela have been locked in a boundary dispute known as the Essequibo conflict. You can get an idea of the geography by looking at the map below. In March 2024, Venezuela passed a law that designates Essequibo as a new state of Venezuela. You can find the Bellingcat analysis here.
In a recent press conference, Trump seemed to toy with renaming the Monroe Doctrine the Donroe Doctrine. It seems this latest Trump antic has more to do with oil than freeing Venezuelans from an evil dictator or even bring justice to a narco terrorist responsible for bring cocaine into the USA. It’s too bad there aren’t any fabulous oil reserves in Gaza, maybe that would entice America to take out Hamas … sarcasm alert. If Trump intended to free Venezuelans, then why has he failed to mention the exiled president elect, you know the dude who actually won the election? Why no mention of transfer of power, or elections? Maybe the rogue POTUS who knows no limits DGAF about the freedom of the Venezuelan people. That’s a distinct possibility.
America arrested Maduro on charges of
narco terrorism conspiracy
cocaine importation conspiracy
possession of machine guns and destructive devices
conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
You can read the indictment for yourself below.
Anyway, the reaction to Trump’s latest stunt fall into three categories — cheering Trump as the champion of the Venezuelan people, denouncing Trump as a threat to global order, cheering the removal of Maduro whilst expressing skepticism about the approach taken. Then there’s the usual emotionally charged crocodiles on two legs who don’t have an interest in productive or meaningful discussion, and basically just trot around X and other social media platforms sh1tting on anyone who refuses to wholly endorse and cheer an American administration invading a sovereign nation and kidnapping the de facto leader with a view to a regime change and helping themselves to some oil.
image: Neighbors trying to help people affected by the strike in Catia La Mar, Venezuela, on Saturday. via The New York Times
For the usual rage baiting outrage junkies in the right wing conservatives camp, anyone who views the American invasion of Venezuela with healthy skepticism automatically receives a label of commie or some similar pejorative. For the usual useful idiots for fascists and terrorists and dictators in the left wing progressive camp, anyone who celebrates the removal of a brutal narco terrorist dictator receives the label of pro Trump, or fascist. I’ve been told I can’t have any political opinions about the Trump attack and occupation of Venezuela because I cover my hair, and therefore don’t understand freedom. That’s the level of idiocy plaguing the discourse on this topic today.
Anyway, I’ll leave readers with some declassified documents related to Kissinger’s dealings in Chile. Because some things don’t change, such as the moral compass of the American Empire. Anyone who’s old enough should know better than to celebrate anytime an American president takes out a dictator and facilitates a regime change. It’s never for a morally sound objective and rarely works out for anything but American interests. Trump reminds me of Kissinger, only he’s less intelligent and has an actual sense of humour.
screenshot: Department of State, Memorandum of Conversation, "U.S.-Chilean Relations," (Kissinger - Pinochet), June 8, 1976. via National Security Archive.
This is what Venezuelans wanted, I’ve seen a lot today. Well, Iranians have wanted a regime change for a long time, and so far the American government has turned a blind eye. And 47 years ago they seemed to want the Ayatollah and that went disastrously. Furthermore, Putin hasn’t exactly proven himself a great leader, and he remains in power, with no end in sight. Remember how Putin got into power? As the hand picked choice of Boris Yeltsin, who led Russia after the collapse of the USSR, which America cheered. Maybe we don’t always fully understand the things we think we want. Only time will tell how this all plays out.
Some reports indicated it was the Delta Force, officially known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta.