On the U.S. side, the structural weaknesses are brutal. Trump has:
- No explicit congressional authorization for war, raising the gravest War Powers crisis in modern memory.
- No clear legal theory that reconciles this operation with the UN Charter's ban on aggression except in self"'defense.
- No cooperative Venezuelan government to legitimize a presence, negotiate status"'of"'forces terms, or sign resource deals.
- No articulated exit strategy beyond vague promises of eventually holding elections once the U.S. has "stabilized" the country.
Constitutional scholars argue that if this stands-- if a president can bomb a country, remove its leader by force, and occupy it indefinitely without Congress-- it effectively kills legislative war powers. Future presidents, Republican or Democrat, will cite Venezuela as precedent for unilateral action elsewhere.
Domestically, Democrats have a potent narrative heading into the next campaign starting with the 2026 midterms: Trump launched an illegal war, violated the Constitution, lied about cooperation on the ground, and created the very kind of open"'ended entanglement he once vowed to end. Every day the situation drags on is another headline about a quagmire, another casualty or dollar spent, another wedge between Trump and his "no more endless wars" base.
The phrase "Maduro's last laugh and revenge" captures the inversion now underway. Of course, Trump achieved the dramatic image-- Maduro in chains, a U.S. president boasting to the world of "historic" action. But Maduro's system, anticipating this scenario, has turned that spectacle against Washington.
The thing is that by preserving constitutional continuity, mobilizing controlled resistance, weaponizing oil politics, and opening legal and diplomatic fronts, Caracas has made occupation politically, economically, and legally unsustainable without firing a shot at U.S. troops. It has exploited the exact weaknesses-- lack of exit planning, overreliance on force, disregard for the U.S. Congress and the UN-- that have undone previous American interventions.
The larger implication is grim: Venezuela has become the latest-- and perhaps most vivid-- example of how military dominance cannot substitute for political strategy. Trump has kidnapped the president of a sovereign nation - erroneously touted by the mainstream and United States legacy media as Maduro being "captured" - but not a country; he has seized territory in the news cycle but not in governance; he has, in trying to project strength, exposed the fragility of U.S. power when it is unmoored from law and international consent. Starting from what Trump boasted is the largest military buildup since the end of the Cold War, arraigned against a small, poor, blockaded and sanctioned for decades, was not a show of strength but one of weakness.
Finally, no matter what Trump and company says, for Venezuela, the costs will be high: more sanctions, more hardship, more uncertainty. But for the United States, the cost is something harder to repair-- a precedent that shows the world its power can be resisted, its legal arguments contested, and its victories turned into liabilities the moment the occupied refuse to play along.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR: The kangaroo court that will try President Maduro may not be New York City but perhaps the case will be "transferred" to Republican-friendly Miami, Florida, where the Trump loyalists and Venezuelan community groups can flood the streets in orchestrated protests and outside of the court house to distract from the administration's many domestic challenges and to "control the narrative" to further demonize the kidnapped Venezuelan leader and dominate the United States media that is already totally censored and controlled by a small group of billionaires. Let me be clear: This is an illegal act. It is the public kidnapping of the president of a nation on the say so of another president backed up by military force.
Here's my parting shot: "Treason never prospers." If this was an inside job aided by CIA spooks it's a matter of time before this is exposed. Moreover, there are only two conclusions: One, internal treason in which case this was a catastrophic failure of Venezuelan security, especially its counter-intelligence services, and two, governmental incompetence that failed to cover all of its bases in the fact of the public statements by Trump himself about authorizing the CIA to operate in Venezuela. I believe that this and a combination of superior high-technology jamming, satellite imaging and AI capabilities temporarily blocked and neutralized Venezuelan military capabilities from reacting more decisively.
All of these speculations notwithstanding here's the wishful thinking by Trump and company apart from the euphoria of a successful kidnapping: Venezuela is three times the size of Vietnam. The idea that Messers Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth and a few other members of the Trump Kakistocracy can effectively "run Venezuela" remotely from Washington or simply install a vassal quisling in Caracas with the full support of the people is as looney as a three-legged snake.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Post Article Comment and Rate This Article
