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Oct 25, 2025 - World

I met with Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez just days after he was kidnapped. I’ll tell you about that, and the current President Nicolás Maduro’s visit to my New York office. But first you must know three things about Venezuela, to understand why Donald Trump has ordered a covert operation to overthrow their government.1.Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.2.Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.3.Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil on the planet.Look it up: According to OPEC’s own site, Venezuela’s 303 billion barrels in proven reserves are four times the reserves of Saudi Arabia.(By the way, Donald, when you announce a “covert” operation, it’s no longer covert. But never mind.)For years, I was BBC Television’s correspondent covering Venezuela and US attempts to overthrow their elected government. Trump invented nothing. This is at least the fourth US-backed attempt at overthrow and assassination of a Venezuelan president.The first attempt was in March 2002 when I was tipped off that Chávez would be overthrown in a military coup. Indeed, in April of that year, he was kidnapped by renegade officers who had the fantasy, shared by the US State Department, that the public hated Chavez and would celebrate his overthrow.But it turned into another Bay of Pigs after tens of thousands of angry Venezuelans surrounded Miraflores Palace while the coup leaders “inaugurated” Exxon Oil’s lawyer as “president.” George W. Bush’s Ambassador to Venezuela attended this wacky inauguration of the faux president.But then the plotters, with Exxon’s man and the US ambassador, fled the Presidential Palace after the coup leaders, fearing for their lives, returned Chávez, by helicopter, safely to his Oval Office.(Download the film of my BBC reports, The Assassination of Hugo Chávez, produced with Oscar-nominated cinematographer Richard Rowley. If you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation, we would truly appreciate it.)I met days later with Chávez, who told my BBC audience that while he was in the helicopter, he clutched his rosary because he expected to be pushed out into the sea.Instead, he was returned safely by the frightened coup leaders back to his office. Chávez then chose to let his kidnappers escape without punishment.In 2004, Maduro, the future president, was sent by Chávez to meet with me at my office in New York to review the evidence that Wackenhut Corporation (now called GEO, a major operator of ICE detention centers) had planned to assassinate Chávez.Venezuelan intelligence had secretly taped US Embassy contractors in Caracas talking in spook-speak: “That which took shape here is a disguised kind of intelligence… which is annexed to the third security ring, which is the invisible ring.” (“Invisible Ring”? Someone at the State Department has read too many John le Carré novels.)The State Department under George W. Bush also tried to purge voters from Venezuela’s election files (and those in Argentina and Mexico) using the very same company, Choicepoint, that purged voter files in Florida in 2000 to hand Bush his baloney election “victory.”Third try: During Trump I, the US attempted to bully Venezuelans into electing a white guy named Juan Guaidó (who lived in the US) whom Trump hoped would defeat Maduro in an election. But the Black and Indian population of Venezuela, after they finally elected one of their own, Chávez, were not going back to white minority rule which had crushed them for 400 years. Guaidó never even ran for president, but the US government nevertheless declared him the true president and gave this grifter all the US assets of CITGO, the Venezuelan oil company.Today, we are at the fourth attempt to overthrow Venezuela’s government by kidnap (again?!) or assassination.This time is different, because President Maduro really did lose his third re-election bid for the presidency but has simply refused to leave office. (Hey, you’d think Trump would admire that.)No question, Maduro has become a dictator. But if the US thinks it can invade Venezuela, or appoint Maduro’s replacement, you don’t know Venezuelans. They are patriots and they are all armed. How many Americans will Trump send to their deaths to get his hands on Venezuelan crude?DemocracyThe saddest thing is that Maduro has corrupted and destroyed the robust democracy that Chávez brought to Venezuela. In 2006, I joined Chávez’s opponent Julio Borges, a decent guy, on the campaign trail. Borges would get just two or three supporters in a town. Then I joined Chávez who, in the same town, would appear and draw thousands.Chávez was wildly popular because, as an opposition journalist told me, derisively, “Chavez gives them bread and bricks!” — that is, he gave the public food, housing and medical care by using the nation’s massive oil proceeds for public services. Under the old regime, the oil wealth was siphoned into the pockets of wealthy Venezuelans in Miami.I have little sympathy for Maduro, who like Trump has taken office through vote manipulation. But the invasion or assassination of either head of state should scare and horrify us all.Why not Saudi Arabia?Trump and our National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, have said that Maduro must go because he has threatened democracy in Venezuela and is trafficking fentanyl into the US.Think about it. If Trump wants to save democracy, why attack Venezuela, not the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi or the Emirates? Let’s not forget that Arabian Peninsula “royals” are merely dictators in bathrobes.Why Venezuela and not the Arabian Peninsula potentates?Let me count the ways: Qatar has bought $2 billion of Trump crypto coins that will go into Trump family pockets. And there’s that little gift from Qatar of a 747 jet for The Donald, not the US government. And there’s the $2 billion in easy squeezy from the Saudis for Jared Kushner.A 'narco terrorist'?Trump has accused Maduro of running a cartel dumping fentanyl into the US, an accusation as credible as Trump’s claim against that other alleged narco-terrorist nation, Canada.I am no fan of my once-friend Maduro, now a brutal authoritarian and vote thief, a Venezuelan Putin. But drug lord? No sane drug dealer would run drugs from Caracas to Miami. In fact, according to the latest UN World Drug Report, Venezuela is neither a major drug producer nor a key trafficking corridor to the US.Trump’s troops have slaughtered more than two dozen people who were supposedly running drugs from Caracas to Miami. While Trinidad’s president is a Trump ally, that government stated that the two dead who could be identified, Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo, were simply commuting from work, like many workers, across the seven-mile strait between the countries. Even our Secretary of State, “Little Marco,” said the boat was merely heading to Trinidad then changed his statement to “Miami” after Trump announced their supposed destination.And did you notice? Every time a US prosecutor interdicts a drug shipment, they proudly display the drugs and cash and the names of the dealers obtained in the haul. Yet after these little commuter boats were attacked, not sunk, we were never shown the drugs, the evidence.There was indeed a drug boat, a submersible, attacked by the US. But American media generally failed to mention that, unlike the fishermen and commuters killed coming from Venezuela, the one real drug haul came from Colombia and was captured in the Pacific Ocean, not the Caribbean.So where are the drugs coming from, if not Venezuela or Canada? According to a New Yorker investigation, one of the world’s largest and most violent cocaine cartels, the Kinahan Organized Crime Group, is run out of — you guessed it — Abu Dhabi.Act of warThere’s no doubt why most Venezuelans want to see Maduro go. The economy is on its deathbed. Why? Because a US blockade, basically a siege of Venezuela, has caused the near total collapse of Venezuela’s source of wealth, its oil industry. By blocking oil equipment from going in, and an embargo of oil going out, the nation is being strangled. An embargo is a globally recognized act of war which Americans (let alone Venezuelans) never authorized. Greg Palast meets Nicolás Maduro. Picture: Palast Investigative Fund 2004.The idea that Maduro wrecked the economy is b------t through and through. Imagine if America laid siege to Texas, allowing no goods in, blocking oil from going out.Nevertheless, the public, hoping the embargo would lift, voted out Maduro. He must go. But by Venezuelan ballots, not American bullets.And let me tell you as an energy economist that the embargo of Venezuelan oil, cutting the nation’s exports 74 percent from 2.4 million barrels a day to 735,000, has easily added nearly a dollar to the price paid by Americans at the gas pump.Chávez told me that he knew the limit of how far he could push the US and its oil companies. “I’m a good chess player,” he told me. Not Maduro. For example, Maduro turned down British Petroleum’s request to take over the oil fields once operated by the French national oil company. Britain later seized $10 billion in Venezuela’s gold reserves held in the British Exchequer.As you’ll see at the opening of my film The Assassination of Hugo Chávez, the whacko idea of murdering Venezuela’s president was first floated on television by none other than televangelist Pat Robertson, whom inside sources told me was furious that he was turned down in his request to the Chávez government for a diamond mining concession.To his TV audience, Robertson said, “You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if [Chávez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.”That’s true, I suppose. But why start a war at all?Oil and diamonds. How much blood are they worth?May I suggest that we return democracy to Venezuela with ballots, not bullets.Greg Palast is an investigative journalist and filmmaker, author of New York Times bestsellers including The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Sign up for his reports at https://gregpalast.substack.com/

Oct 25, 2025 - World

Doubts over whether Ankara will be part of 5,000-strong force to be deployed to prevent postwar power vacuumTurkey will probably be excluded from the 5,000-strong stabilisation force that is to be set up inside Gaza after Israel made clear it did not want Turkish troops taking part.Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said it was a requirement that Israel is comfortable with the nationality of the multinational force, set up to prevent a security vacuum when the massive task of reconstruction in Gaza starts. Turkey has said it is willing to offer troops, but Israel has let it be known that it disapproves of Turkish troops taking part in the force. Continue reading...

Oct 24, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford to the Caribbean as part of his ongoing war with what he calls "narco-terrorists" in the country. The bombing of unidentified boats in the waters off the coast of North and South America is entering "war crimes territory," one Pentagon reporter said on Friday. There have been 10 "known" bombings of boats killing nearly four dozen people, The New York Times reported Friday. Sending such a ship near Venezuela is an escalation, said the Times' Pentagon reporter Helene Cooper. "An aircraft carrier is a ginormous projection of American power. We have been sending aircraft carriers to the Middle East, where we had been for 20 years at war. And to turn now and deploy an aircraft carrier, sending the Gerald Ford towards Venezuela is a huge statement of intent with an aircraft carrier, American sailors, American troops, American airmen, Navy fighter pilots are better able to strike targets in Venezuela," she said. "That's sort of like parking a giant Howitzer on the doorstep of, you know, of Nicolas Maduro," Cooper described. "It's a really big deal. It's going to probably take seven days, seven to 10 days for them to get from Croatia to the Caribbean, the southern Caribbean," Cooper continued. She noted it was a "massive statement of intent for the Trump administration" without going to Congress to ask for authorization to go to war. Only Congress can declare war. Trump, however, said he has no intention of asking for authorization. “I’m not going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” Trump said on Thursday. “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be like, dead.”Cooper said she spoke with a general who told her that after the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity, he may not have to ask Congress for permission. "And at some point, there is a lot of worry that, you know, that we are verging close now to what could be war crimes territory," she continued. "So, there's a lot of worry and there's almost — several officers I talked to today — two of them brought up, 'When is Congress going to step in and sort of exercise its own authority?'"Some Republicans are starting to speak out on the matter, but only two were willing to support a measure ordering a stop to the bombings.

Oct 24, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff didn't discount the idea of sending American soldiers to fight on the ground in Venezuela. Speaking to the press on Friday, Stephen Miller was asked, "Would the administration consider putting troops on the ground in any capacity in Venezuela?"His answer wasn't "no," remarked influencer Joanne Carducci, whose X handle is @JoJoFromJerz. Instead, Miller said, "These are terrorists and they're gonna be killed.""My kingdom for ANY journalist to follow up on a @stephenm comment abt terrorism w/Q about: 1) The adjudged terrorists who attacked the Capitol who Trump freed on his first day on the job, 2) The terrorists that Changpeng Zhao, whom Trump ALSO pardoned, helped launder money," remarked national security expert Marcy Wheeler. "If @StephenM believes he can just kill terrorists will no due process, will he do that to Joe Biggs? Stewart Rhodes? Donald Trump did not PARDON either of them, leaving the terrorism judgment intact," she added."They are going to start war over oil and say it is to protect the USA from 'Narco Terrorists,'" commented lawyer Alvin R. Garcia.CNN reporter Kit Maher wrote on X, "Miller doesn't say whether the administration would consider putting US troops on ground in Venezuela in any capacity, but reiterates position on 'fighting terrorists in the Western hemisphere:' 'These are terrorists and they're going to be killed.'""What Miller is advocating is state terrorism. He should be behind bars," retired diplomat Frank Cogan said on X. Author Jennifer Erin Valent wrote, "You don’t have to be a pacifist or naive about the realities of evil in this world to believe that there is something wrong with people who flippantly speak about killing people. I will say again and again, this administration is sadistic."

Oct 24, 2025 - World

The Trump administration has been blowing up fishing boats in the Caribbean — and now one in the Pacific — claiming without evidence that they’re “drug boats.”These are extrajudicial executions outside any system of law. And there’s a reason we shouldn’t allow drug warriors to act as judge, jury, and executioner: because over the years, they’ve made many, many tragic mistakes and killed lots of civilians.I’ve seen countless tragedies like these in my decades studying drug policy. Two were particularly egregious.In 2001, the United States was using local air forces to shoot down alleged trafficking planes over the Peruvian Amazon. In this case, a surveillance plane flown by CIA contractors misidentified a pontoon plane and had it shot down. Instead of traffickers, they killed a missionary from Michigan named Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter.The second case was an incident in Honduras in 2012, where the Drug Enforcement Administration and local forces mistakenly opened fire on a water taxi, killing four people — including two pregnant women — and then tried to cover it up.What makes these strikes so appealing to President Donald Trump is that it gives him the godlike power to look down from above and smite anyone who displeases him, without consequence. He’s even told sick jokes about local fishermen in the Caribbean now being afraid to get in their boats.If he’s allowed to normalize this kind of international extrajudicial killing, I don’t think it’s a far leap for him to try it domestically.Imagine a cop chasing a guy down the street, getting hot and tired, and shooting the suspect in the back. The cop probably wouldn’t tell a judge, “Well your honor, I didn’t want to chase him, so I just shot him.” But here’s the president declaring on the international stage: We’re not going to do police work. We’re just going to kill people.Now imagine the shoe’s on the other foot. Most of the killings in Mexico are done by guns smuggled from the United States. They call it the “River of Iron,” and it’s responsible for literally hundreds of thousands of killings in the country in the past 20 years.So would it be okay for the Mexican military to blow up a US fishing boat because they believed it was smuggling deadly guns into Mexico, even if they offered no evidence? Would that be acceptable to this administration?Here’s what drug warriors don’t understand: The US isn’t under armed attack from drug traffickers. It’s actually the opposite.Most drugs cost pennies per dose to manufacture. But the higher the risk to the individual smuggler — like the risk of getting arrested, shut down, or blown up — the more they can charge as drugs move down the smuggling chain.By the time drugs reach users, they’ve snowballed in value. But consumers in the US have proven more than willing to pay hyper-inflated prices, and even risk arrest, for drugs — just as drinkers were once willing to pay bootleggers huge sums for booze during Prohibition.In short, our policies create tremendous value for substances that are relatively cheap. We’re making trafficking more profitable, not less.So if the US bombs a trafficker — or an alleged trafficker — we escalate the risk premium for everyone else in that industry. It’s a bad deal for you if you’re the one who’s killed, but it creates a “job opening” for others in the operation, or a rival cartel, to take over that turf — which is now more lucrative.The drug war acts as a price support for drug dealers. That’s why no one wants the drug war to continue more than the smugglers themselves. This was ultimately why the US ended alcohol prohibition.Addiction is a public health problem and requires public health solutions, not allowing someone like Trump to play judge, jury, and executioner — at home or abroad.Sanho Tree is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies, a community of scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. www.ips-dc.org