Venezuela

Venezuela

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Venezuelan Opposition Leader Tells Hannity She’d ‘Certainly Love’ to ‘Personally’ Give Trump Her Nobel Peace Prize
Venezuelan Opposition Leader Tells Hannity She’d ‘Certainly Love’ to ‘Personally’ Give Trump Her Nobel Peace Prize
This clip demonstrates the difficulty of coming to any reasonable judgement about current world affairs. A reasonable reading of Maria Machado's Nobel Prize statement could see many parallels between her struggle against President Maduro in Venezuela and the struggles against domestic policies of President Trump in the United States. In this clip, recorded just three weeks later, she explains why President Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. The confluence of motivations, objectives and goals in the statements and actions of world leaders defies any simple statement or explanation.
·mediaite.com·
Venezuelan Opposition Leader Tells Hannity She’d ‘Certainly Love’ to ‘Personally’ Give Trump Her Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize lecture of Maria Machado, 2025
Nobel Peace Prize lecture of Maria Machado, 2025

Maria Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a couple of weeks ago. She is a Venezuelan politician and prominent leader of the opposition to Nicolas Maduro.

This is her statement at the presentation of the award.

"But even the strongest democracy weakens when its citizens forget that freedom is not something we wait for, but something we become. It is a deliberate, personal choice, and the sum of those choices forms the civic ethos that must be renewed every day. "

·nobelprize.org·
Nobel Peace Prize lecture of Maria Machado, 2025
‘Blind Into Caracas’ - James Fallows
‘Blind Into Caracas’ - James Fallows
This is a sample of fierce criticism of the President and the US attack on Venezuela, written by a journalist and former speech writer for Jimmy Carter.
·fallows.substack.com·
‘Blind Into Caracas’ - James Fallows
Venezuela Statement - Washington Office Latin America
Venezuela Statement - Washington Office Latin America

Human Rights advocacy organization condemns Maduro government as well as US military operations to remove him. The statement raises serious concerns for the rule of law and US standing in the region.

WOLA is an NGO that advocates protection of human rights, democracy, and social and economic justice in Latin America and the Caribbean

·wola.org·
Venezuela Statement - Washington Office Latin America
Sealed Indictment - Nicholas Maduro, United States District Court
Sealed Indictment - Nicholas Maduro, United States District Court

Even if not read in its entirety, the indictment of Maduro is interesting to skim, if only to get a sense of how the United States is crafting the legal basis for prosecuting the president of Venezuela. It is important to note that a grand jury of US citizens indicted the President of another country.

Specific laws cited are 21 U.S. Code § 960a - Foreign terrorist organizations, terrorist persons and groups, and Title 21 , United States Code, Chapter 13, Subchapter II. (import and export of controlled substances), among others.

·justice.gov·
Sealed Indictment - Nicholas Maduro, United States District Court
Country Analysis Brief : Venezuela - US Energy Information Administration Report Feb 2024
Country Analysis Brief : Venezuela - US Energy Information Administration Report Feb 2024

Venezuela had the world's largest proven crude oil reserves in 2023 with approximately 303 billion barrels (Figure 5), accounting for approximately 17% of global reserves (Figure 6). Despite the sizeable reserves, Venezuela produced 0.8% of total global crude oil in 2023

·eia.gov·
Country Analysis Brief : Venezuela - US Energy Information Administration Report Feb 2024
Presidential War Powers, The Take Care, and Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter – Cornell Law Review
Presidential War Powers, The Take Care, and Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter – Cornell Law Review
Article II of the Constitution requires the president to "take care that the laws are faithfully executed", which includes treaties the US is party to , like the the UN Charter. Opinions about the legality or illegality of the Venezuelan invasion can be expressed without even recognizing this body of legal literature and analysis. An educated perspective of current events in Venezuela doesn't necessarily require and understanding of these legal arguments, but it absolutely requires an understanding that they exist.
·publications.lawschool.cornell.edu·
Presidential War Powers, The Take Care, and Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter – Cornell Law Review
‘We will not be anyone’s colony’: Venezuela’s government seeks to reassert control - Financial Times
‘We will not be anyone’s colony’: Venezuela’s government seeks to reassert control - Financial Times
A quick read for a sense of public opinion on the ground in Venezuela. Outside any discussion on the legality of the invasion, the geopolitical impact on the region, there are real questions of immediate importance for the people of Venezuela - and how their government will operate
Few people approached by the Financial Times in Caracas would openly criticise the government after nearly 16 months of intensified repression following the July 2024 election, in which Maduro was declared the victor by electoral authorities without providing a detailed breakdown of results.
Edmundo González, who the US recognised as the winner of the 2024 election against Maduro after the opposition’s main leader María Corina Machado was banned from participating.
·ft.com·
‘We will not be anyone’s colony’: Venezuela’s government seeks to reassert control - Financial Times
Testing the Case for Regime Change in Venezuela | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Testing the Case for Regime Change in Venezuela | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
This was recorded before the invasion. Just one or two paragraphs of this transcript can provide detailed understanding of what has been happening in Venezuela over the last twelve years. Skimming through the observations of an ambassador gives the sense of the details of managing a country
Well, they had a robust vibrant democracy for 50 years.
With Maduro coming into power in 2013, it ramped up, and the state no longer really exists as a state. These are organizations that support a criminal organization, if you will, led by Maduro and company. What has happened is that 25 percent of the Venezuelan population has fled the country. Because they don't have hope. They don't they can't access government services. This was a country that had the best educational system, the best hospitals, the best infrastructure in the region and it has been beggared by 25 years of that policy and now basically by a kleptocratic, corrupt and criminal organization that's been trying to masquerade as government.
James B. Story Former U.S. Ambassador for the Venezuela Affairs Unit
Senior Fellow and Co-Director, Technology and International Affairs Program
over 70% of the Venezuelan people voted Maduro out of power in an election that was neither free nor fair. But they still went out and they still voted against him. The second is this isn't a country riven by ethnic differences or sectarian differences
highly educated population with extraordinary resources.
I think it would be difficult because you have to re-institutionalize a country. That has been systematically dismantled, the government, over 25 years.
it's remarkable how little public discussion there is about all of the facets that you're talking about right now. This administration is not really inviting the public into discussions of what a military-facilitated transition might look like in Venezuela.
Hezbollah is definitely operating inside of Venezuela and together with the Iranians are working with. The Iranians have given armed drones and missile boats to the Venezuelans. The Russians are using Venezuela as a platform to undermine democracies across the hemisphere. This is where they use their kind of online media platforms and their bot armies. So let's keep in mind that doing nothing has a massive cost in specific human lives, as well as regional stability. Doing something will have cost as well. And those costs are potentially high, but I don't see those costs being on the order of magnitude of an Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya or Haiti, and it's because the country came out and said enough.
·carnegieendowment.org·
Testing the Case for Regime Change in Venezuela | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
A US Venezuela Victory May Help China Gain an Edge | American Enterprise Institute - AEI
A US Venezuela Victory May Help China Gain an Edge | American Enterprise Institute - AEI
Although an article like this wouldn't appear on a short list of "need to know" sources, it is helpful for a quick read of a generally positive view of the intervention, particularly with regard to China - who could use the a similar justification for operations in Taiwan.
There’s much to applaud, then, in a tactical success that will likely have real strategic benefits. There are also uncertainties ahead. The first involves the future of Venezuela. Trump has achieved leadership change, but not regime change, since many hardline figures in Maduro’s government remain.
Yet if Beijing has been watching closely, perhaps that’s because Trump’s tactics — blockading a hostile country, decapitating its leadership — could ultimately be useful against Taiwan.
·aei.org·
A US Venezuela Victory May Help China Gain an Edge | American Enterprise Institute - AEI
Timeline of Boat Strikes and Related Actions - Just Security
Timeline of Boat Strikes and Related Actions - Just Security
Although not related to the Jan 2026 Venezuelan invasion, this timeline chronicles major events in the Trump administration’s campaign of lethal strikes against suspected drug traffickers. It is important to realize that commentary, opinion and invective about the strikes may or may not be made without reference to the detail of the number of strikes and their outcomes
·justsecurity.org·
Timeline of Boat Strikes and Related Actions - Just Security
Maduro Capture Operation and the President’s Duty to Faithfully Execute U.N. Charter - Just Security
Maduro Capture Operation and the President’s Duty to Faithfully Execute U.N. Charter - Just Security
The legal basis for military invasion of Venezuela, the capture of its president and his prosecution in United States federal court comes from a 1989 memorandum written by Attorney General Bill Barr. Reading this article about that memo in detail is not necessary to come to the realization that comments and opinions about the legality of these actions made without reading these articles and the memorandum itself are fundamentally flawed
In the operation to abduct Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration reportedly relied on a highly controversial 1989 legal memorandum claiming the President does not need to abide by the U.N. Charter as a matter of domestic law. Over the decades, the opinion generated sharp criticisms, including from Congress, and the Justice Department conspicuously avoided following its conclusions when presenting the administration’s position in courts.
·justsecurity.org·
Maduro Capture Operation and the President’s Duty to Faithfully Execute U.N. Charter - Just Security
Maduro Captured: What Comes Next for Venezuela? - Center for Strategic and International Studies
Maduro Captured: What Comes Next for Venezuela? - Center for Strategic and International Studies
Short article highlights the tactical victory while raising questions about long-term strategic outcome for Venezuela. The real value of this piece is how it places this action within the framework of the National Security Strategy announced in November 2025
To underscore the connection to great power competition, Maduro met with a Chinese special envoy mere hours before U.S. forces snatched him from his home. It is likely Chinese diplomats did not make it out of the country before the U.S. operation began, sending a clear message to China about Beijing’s role in Venezuela—to which it has lent more than $60 billion in recent decades—and in the hemisphere at large.
In doing so, Trump has once again proven the staleness of the debates over isolationism and retrenchment that have dominated many analyses; at least in the Western Hemisphere, he has proven capable of a muscular foreign policy that will utilize U.S. power and even military force to reshape many geographies of the world—and now the Western Hemisphere—in the U.S. interest.
Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
This is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. Venezuela will enter a long transition with even greater U.S. involvement in shaping the government to come, as well as the bilateral relationship with Washington.
·csis.org·
Maduro Captured: What Comes Next for Venezuela? - Center for Strategic and International Studies
National Security Strategy of the United States - November 2025
National Security Strategy of the United States - November 2025
Although the NSS does not provide immediate information about Venezuelan intervention, any understanding of the intervention includes reference to the NCSS. For example, there are six references to "our hemisphere" in the NSS.
·whitehouse.gov·
National Security Strategy of the United States - November 2025
Assessing Venezuela’s Future After Nicolás Maduro’s Bold Capture | Council on Foreign Relations
Assessing Venezuela’s Future After Nicolás Maduro’s Bold Capture | Council on Foreign Relations
Four CFR experts review the capture of the Venezuelan leader and examine the challenges and uncertainty that the United States, Venezuela, and the region could face.
Venezuela is twice the size of California and home to over 28 million people.
Venezuela’s military doesn’t have a monopoly on force; it coexists alongside a repressive secret police, armed neighborhood militias called colectivos, and factions of Colombian guerrilla insurgent groups, such as the ELN.
This points to days, weeks, and months of uncertainty, fragmentation, and perhaps even chaos. It means not the end, but a beginning, to new challenges for Venezuela and those that want to see democracy restored.
Elliott Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and served as a special representative for Iran and Venezuela in the first Trump administration.
Elliott Abrams
Notice how Elliot Abrams notes the mixed possibilities of both positive and negative consequences of US intervention in Venezuela, nuances of reality absent from corporate infotainment media
The complaints about the lack of a Congressional vote for this use of force seem partisan when coming from those who offered no similar gripe about former President Barack Obama’s seven-month bombing campaign in Libya in 2011. Presidents of both parties act, and critics criticize, but most Americans seem content with allowing considerable presidential latitude—as long as interventions are brief and American lives are not lost.
His comments about “running” Venezuela through a team of U.S. Cabinet officers are incomprehensible to me.
Good going. But what comes next? If arresting Maduro brings prosperity and freedom to Venezuela, the operation will be judged a great success. But if it brings greater chaos, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya following U.S. interventions, it will once again be an example of tactical success not translating into strategic gains.
vice president, Delcy Rodriquez,
Trump declined to back its leader
María Corina Machado
Edmundo González
Without a clear democratic roadmap, the United States is beginning a new open-ended foreign occupation focused primarily on oil
Vice President Delcy Rodríguez
hardline Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López
·cfr.org·
Assessing Venezuela’s Future After Nicolás Maduro’s Bold Capture | Council on Foreign Relations