Trump Casually Admits He Was Going to Attack Venezuela Again |
Venezuela has apparently saved itself from another U.S. invasion by readily handing over political prisoners to the Trump administration.
Donald Trump revealed Friday that there was a preplanned arrangement to attack Venezuela a second time, though he noted that the offensive maneuver had since been called off in light of Venezuela’s capitulation with regard to releasing prisoners.
“Venezuela is releasing large numbers of political prisoners as a sign of ‘Seeking Peace.’ This is a very important and smart gesture,” Trump posted on Truth Social early Friday morning.
“The U.S.A. and Venezuela are working well together, especially as it pertains to rebuilding, in a much bigger, better, and more modern form, their oil and gas infrastructure,” Trump continued. “Because of this cooperation, I have cancelled the previously expected second Wave of Attacks, which looks like it will not be needed, however, all ships will stay in place for safety and security purposes.
“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” he added.
The move comes just hours after five Senate Republicans joined Democrats to advance the War Powers Resolution, which would force Trump to seek congressional approval before conducting any further military offensives in Venezuela. The Senate will carry out a final vote on the bill next week, after which the measure would need to pass the House and then get signed by Trump.
U.S. forces invaded Venezuela early Saturday, bombing its capital, Caracas, as nearly 200 American troops infiltrated the city to capture its 13-year ruler, Nicolás Maduro.
The narrative surrounding Trump’s attack on Venezuela has been wildly different from America’s other foreign intervention efforts. Whereas the George W. Bush administration insisted that its invasion of Iraq was to quell terrorism and suppress the nation’s nuclear capabilities—a claim that was dubiously received by the American public, considering the country was one of the world’s largest suppliers of oil at the time—Trump has been practically eager to fess to reporters that the primary rationale for his own military incursion against Venezuela was, truly, for oil.
On Tuesday, Trump announced that the U.S. would oversee the sale of some 50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan oil, a sale that could be worth as much as $2.5 billion. The following day, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that America would continue to oversee and sell Venezuelan oil “indefinitely,” even after the government finishes chewing through the Latin American country’s stockpiled oil reserves.
In an interview with The New York Times published Thursday, Trump claimed that the U.S. will likely run Venezuela for years.
“Only time will tell,” Trump said. “We will rebuild it in a very profitable way.”
A Minneapolis pastor who joined protests Wednesday after an ICE officer fatally shot a woman in her car said that federal agents handcuffed him and threw him in the back of an SUV—before letting him free because he was white and “it wouldn’t be any fun.”
Pastor Kenny Callaghan, who initially shared his story on Facebook, told MS NOW Thursday that as he went to church the previous morning, he noticed protests were happening about a block away, so he grabbed his whistles to join them. As he was protesting, he said that they heard news of the fatal shooting nearby.
“Before I knew it, I saw ICE agents circling a young woman who appeared to be Hispanic, and so I approached her, and we were at that point chanting, ‘We are not afraid, we are not afraid.’”
Callaghan then said he told ICE officers to take him instead of harassing her. An agent then “came, got in my face, pointed a gun at me, and said, ‘Are you afraid now?’” Callaghan recalled.
After he said he still wasn’t afraid, the officer handcuffed him before putting him into the back of an SUV. “They came back three times and they asked me if I was afraid yet, to which I replied, ‘Hell no, I’m not afraid of you, and I’m never going to be afraid of you.’”
Callaghan said that he asked if he was under arrest after officers asked for him to hand over his identification and his cellphone.
“And then they said to me, ‘Well, you’re white, you won’t be any fun anyway. You can get out of the car.’”
ICE hasn’t confirmed the details of this confrontation. However, under the Trump administration, the Department of Homeland Security has been sharing increasingly white nationalist content, and ICE has skipped over proper vetting procedures in an aggressive push to ramp up its numbers.
Callaghan said he was stunned by the interaction, but takes hope in the mass crowd of protesters who are showing up.
“I was grateful to be there and grateful to stand in solidarity with anyone who is marginalized within our society, and will continue to advocate for the rights of my immigrant siblings here in Minneapolis and around the world,” he said.
“I don’t know what happened to me. In my world, I say God empowered me to speak up in that moment.”
President Trump thinks that any Republican who dares to push back on his senseless incursion into Venezuela should “never be elected to office again.”
“Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, and Todd Young should never be elected to office again,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social.........