From tony at cultureshop.org.uk Tue Jan 6 13:50:54 2026 From: tony at cultureshop.org.uk (Tony Gosling) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2026 13:50:54 +0000 Subject: [Diggers350] Chaos Over Law? Trump Leads World Into Geopolitical Wild West Where Might Makes Right Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.1.20260106134736.078753e0@pop.gn.apc.org> Trump leads world into geopolitical Wild West where might makes right, while laws and rules fall away Ishaan Tharoor - Washington Post - and New Zealand Herald - 4 Jan, 2026 “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” President Donald Trump declared after United States forces hit various Venezuelan targets and elite commandos carried out the capture and rendition of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife with an audacious raid in the dead of night. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/trump-leads-world-into-geopolitical-wild-west-where-might-makes-right-while-laws-and-rules-fall-away “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” President Donald Trump declared Saturday, after U.S. forces hit various Venezuelan targets and elite commandos carried out the capture and rendition of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife with an audacious raid in the dead of night. “Under the Trump administration we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region.” The world is still digesting the consequences of the U.S. intervention, which the Trump administration has tried to characterize as a “law enforcement” mission against Maduro, indicted in U.S. federal court on charges of narco-trafficking, rather than the clear military operation in a foreign nation that it appeared to be. Some Venezuelan military positions were leveled by U.S. strikes, with officials reporting an unspecified number of casualties. Maduro is already in New York City, awaiting an appearance in court. For many Venezuelans, especially millions of people compelled to flee from the country over the past decade of economic catastrophe under Maduro’s watch, his removal is joyous news, and the first step to a happier future. On that count, the U.S. operation was a clear tactical success in its brazen precision and efficacy. Still, the likelihood of a strategic failure looms. A dark history of failed U.S. interventions and regime-change projects haunt the current action. Boosters of the move liken it to the capture of Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega in 1989, with U.S. criminal investigations into money laundering and drug smuggling justifying the operation. But the analogy to the present collapses amid Trump’s talk of open-ended control over Venezuela and its tremendous oil wealth. By the end of the weekend, the White House had done little to dispel the confusion about what comes next in Venezuela. Trump himself suggested the United States would somehow “run” the South American nation until a proper transition away from the current dispensation could be forged. His lieutenants were more circumspect, emphasizing U.S. interests in dismantling alleged criminal networks within the Venezuelan state apparatus and reasserting American control or influence over Venezuela’s vast oil sector. Venezuela’s pro-democracy opposition voiced fears that they would be cut out in a Trump-brokered deal with the remnants of Maduro’s regime. Speaking to the Atlantic, Trump said that he expected Maduro’s former vice president — and hastily installed successor — Delcy Rodriguez to essentially do the White House’s bidding. “If she doesn’t do what’s right,” he said, “she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” The rest of the world has watched with mixed emotions. Many in Latin America, especially among the ascendant, Trump-aligned political right, cheered Maduro’s ouster and what seems a grievous blow to the region’s remaining left-leaning autocracies. Elsewhere, world leaders feared a grim precedent. “The bombing of Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president crosses an unacceptable line,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. “The action recalls the worst moments of interference in Latin American and Caribbean politics, and threatens the regional preservation as a zone of peace.” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot shed no tears for Maduro in a statement but said the U.S. action “contravenes the principle of the nonuse of force that underpins international law.” He warned that it was part of the steady erosion of international norms, worsened by countries such as Russia that are supposedly the guarantors of the rules-based order. “The growing number of violations of this principle by nations vested with the primary responsibility of permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council will have grave consequences for global security, sparing no one,” he said. Trump’s move into Venezuela is another nail in the coffin of the old postwar status quo. The White House reneged on commitments to receive authorization from Congress before deploying the U.S. military in Venezuela. Ahead of Monday’s emergency U.N. Security Council session on Venezuela, Trump’s U.N. ambassador, Mike Waltz, scoffed at the “hand-wringing” of his diplomatic counterparts. In a Sunday television interview, Secretary of State Marco Rubio waved away concerns about an open-ended regime change mission as a kind of “phobia.” “Part of what’s troubling here is not just that the president has used force in clear violation of domestic law and international law but that it’s clear he couldn’t care less about the fact that he’s breaking these rules,” observed Oona Hathaway, a leading international legal scholar at Yale Law School. Speaking to the New Yorker, she concluded that Trump is “just going to do what he thinks is warranted based on his own kind of reasoning, as opposed to any kind of constraints or legal limits or having to seek advice or consent from the international community or the U.S. Congress.” The sense of a paradigm shift is overwhelming. Oliver Stuenkel, an analyst of international affairs at Fundação Getulio Vargas, a Brazilian university, suggested that the raid on Venezuela was the first “concrete” sign of Trump putting into practice the White House’s National Security Strategy, which declares the Western Hemisphere to be a U.S. sphere of influence, rekindling the instincts of an era of gunboat diplomacy and neo-imperialism from a century ago. “This is a completely new age,” Stuenkel told me. “Trump doesn’t say he wants to bring democracy. It’s petro-imperialism. Latin American policy elites are slowly grasping that it would be a mistake to believe that just because Maduro is a dictator, that other countries that are democratic would be safe from the United States.” The timid responses of most European leaders betrays the deepening anxiety on the continent about the future of the alliance with the United States. “Maduro’s capture is no regional anomaly; it is a signal event,” noted Asli Aydintasbas and Chris Hermann of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “It highlights the volatility of Trump’s foreign policy, his comfort with military solutions and his apparent openness to a world governed by spheres of influence rather than rules.” That opens the door further for a new geopolitical Wild West, where might makes right, and laws and rules fall away. In a separate context, C. Raja Mohan, a prominent Indian geopolitical analyst, saw this already in action in Israel’s recognition last month of the breakaway republic of Somaliland. “Declarations about the inviolability of borders ring hollow when aggression goes unpunished or is tacitly accepted,” he wrote. “With major powers embracing territorial revisionism — China in Asia, Russia in Europe, and the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere — it is naïve for lesser states to depend on the presumed protective shield” of the rules-based international order. Weekly politics show page http://www.thisweek.org.uk Radio stream live 5pm Fridays and repeated 11am/pm UK time http://www.talkradio.org.uk Also on: NOT The BCfm Politics Show App https://apkpure.com/not-the-bcfm-politics-show/com.sweetsmile.bottom_navigation_flutter NB please reply with any unsubscribe request in the email body, leaving the subject line intact, if you do not wish to recieve further emails - thanks And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. http://biblehub.com/kjv/luke/24.htm 'Capitalism is institutionalised bribery' TG - Cancelled -> https://www.youtube.com/user/PublicEnquiry/videos Albert Pikes 1871 WWIII plan to cancel God Accelerationist multicrisis: my schoolfriend Nazi Nicks Dark Enlightenment death trip is designed to discredit all democracy Essentials: Michael Hudson | Blackrock/Vanguard | Tony on Brexit & The Traitors of Arnhem | Evolution | War between God & Lucifer | Plan for three World Wars | Armageddonists I have known: Nick Land (1975-8) | George Monbiot (1995-8) | Manna for the Revelation Generation: CONSPIRACY CLASSICS, longer interviews/lectures "And I think, in the end, that is the best definition of journalism I have heard; to challenge authority - all authority - especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die. " --Robert Fisk https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMn9GM4atN3t7AHJBbHMR0Q/videos http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://www.thisweek.org.uk http://www.911forum.org.uk http://www.tlio.org.uk Tony's free watermarked books www.bilderberg.org - My ebooks https://payhip.com/TonyGosling https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvPbHiqhLtpNWA_cg_1NULw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMn9GM4atN3t7AHJBbHMR0Q https://www.twitter.com/TonyGosling https://www.facebook.com/tony.gosling.16 You can donate to support Tony's work here http://www.bilderberg.org/bcfm.htm Or buy Tony's three ebooks for 10-15 here https://payhip.com/TonyGosling or paperback here https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254963338161 TG mobile +44 7786 952037 From tony at cultureshop.org.uk Tue Jan 6 14:02:06 2026 From: tony at cultureshop.org.uk (Tony Gosling) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2026 14:02:06 +0000 Subject: [Diggers350] Dow leaps: Maduro overthrow could help US oil companies recover assets nationalised by Venezuela Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.1.20260106140049.07875298@pop.gn.apc.org> Maduro overthrow could help these US oil companies recover assets seized by Venezuela Regime change in Venezuela could pave the way for the return of U.S. oil majors to the South American nation, which has the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. President Donald Trump called for U.S. oil companies to invest billions of dollars in Venezuela's energy sector, hours after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure," Trump said in a news conference Saturday from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. The oil majors have largely been silent since Maduro's overthrow as the situation on the ground in Venezuela remains uncertain. But shares of Chevron, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are rising as investors bet that the three largest U.S. oil companies will cash in after the U.S. military action. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/05/maduro-overthrow-could-pave-the-way-for-us-oil-companies-to-recover-venezuela-assets.html US oil company shares and Venezuelan bonds rally after Maduro seized, sending Dow to record high – as it happened https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2026/jan/05/gold-price-defence-shares-us-venezuela-maduro-oil-business-live-news-updates Doesn't what just happened in Venezuela show the gross incompetence of both Russian and Chinese intelligence services? I can understand that they are not capable to intervene militarily to aid a crucial ally and are far from having the global reach of the US. But one would think that they have the satellite, signals and human intelligence to have at least been aware that this operation was afoot and warn Maduro. says Stanley Laham foreign influence law https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/15/georgia-foreign-agents-bill-protest-explainer Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Out Pro-Israel Push for Regime Change in Venezuela: https://youtu.be/QiNe96kHK9M Following is the post at X by Majorie Taylor Greene which Jimmy Dore referred to in the above YouTube: https://x.com/repmtg/status/2003112719952621839 Here are some interesting facts about Venezuela that are easily searchable. Venezuela is a predominantly Catholic country with very strong laws against abortion with the exception being the life of the mother. Maduro has been critical of Israel calling it a genocide in Gaza and against Zionism. Maduro’s opposition, Maria Corina Machado is a strong supporter of Israel and wants to restore strong relations with Israel. She is more left leaning on abortion and LGBTQ issues. Most Americans I talk to are not buying that this is really about drugs and sanctioned oil takers. And it’s not about social issues, I just added that to highlight some differences in the two leaders. People voted in 2024 against foreign intervention and foreign regime change as we have seen far too many times how that’s turned out, it’s not good, and people are so sick of it. Just received a reply text from Colonel Nathan McCormick who was mentioned in the following article as he was removed from the Pentagon by the Israel first Trump administation: Colonel, It is honor to receive your reply. Hopefully you received my emails as well. You were spot on with what you courageously conveyed about Netanyahu and the wars for ‘Greater Israel’ and Jewish supremacy in the Middle East: US has removed Pentagon official Colonel Nathan McCormack from his position after he referred to Israel as a 'death cult' and accused the US of acting as a 'proxy' for Israel: https://www.reddit.com/r/Global_News_Hub/comments/1lfif5k/us_has_removed_pentagon_official_colonel_nathan/ Colonel Macgregor accurately mentioned such as well in the following Redacted YouTube from yesterday!: Following Redacted YouTube from yesterday with Colonel Macgregor mentioned how Trump and Congress are owned by the donors (referring to the Jewish Zionist donors which own both political parties in the USA) for the Maduro regime change in Venezuela with war with Iran coming next for ‘Greater Israel’/Jewish supremacism in the Middle East which could even draw in Russia, China and Turkey for World War 3: SPECIAL REPORT! US CAPTURES VENEZUELAN LEADER MADURO, RUSSIA/CHINA FURIOUS BRICS CONDEMNS: https://www.youtube.com/live/k0M6Ef-Ahcs In the following YouTube Colonel Macgregor also mentioned how the Republican convention was Israel first as well when an Israeli flag was displayed: COL. Douglas Macgregor: The Venezuela Operation Trump Won’t Explain: https://www.youtube.com/live/kfA20zBIUGs CIA’s Larry Johnson also mentioned what Trump did in Venezuela is a precursor to the coming U.S./Israeli attack on Iran for Netanyahu’s ‘Greater Israel’ neocon project in following YouTubes from earlier today: Larry Johnson: Did Trump Cross the Line in Venezuela?:: https://www.youtube.com/live/oYviQwlR4kk CIA’s Larry Johnson again mentioned that what Trump did in Venezuela was a precursor to coming US/Israel attack on Iran in following YouTube which aired earlier today as well: Larry Johnson: U.S. War on Venezuela Has Global Ramifications: https://youtu.be/ibOGiXczCbs Thanks to James Morris Weekly politics show page http://www.thisweek.org.uk Radio stream live 5pm Fridays and repeated 11am/pm UK time http://www.talkradio.org.uk Also on: NOT The BCfm Politics Show App https://apkpure.com/not-the-bcfm-politics-show/com.sweetsmile.bottom_navigation_flutter NB please reply with any unsubscribe request in the email body, leaving the subject line intact, if you do not wish to recieve further emails - thanks And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. http://biblehub.com/kjv/luke/24.htm 'Capitalism is institutionalised bribery' TG - Cancelled -> https://www.youtube.com/user/PublicEnquiry/videos Albert Pikes 1871 WWIII plan to cancel God Accelerationist multicrisis: my schoolfriend Nazi Nicks Dark Enlightenment death trip is designed to discredit all democracy Essentials: Michael Hudson | Blackrock/Vanguard | Tony on Brexit & The Traitors of Arnhem | Evolution | War between God & Lucifer | Plan for three World Wars | Armageddonists I have known: Nick Land (1975-8) | George Monbiot (1995-8) | Manna for the Revelation Generation: CONSPIRACY CLASSICS, longer interviews/lectures "And I think, in the end, that is the best definition of journalism I have heard; to challenge authority - all authority - especially so when governments and politicians take us to war, when they have decided that they will kill and others will die. " --Robert Fisk https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMn9GM4atN3t7AHJBbHMR0Q/videos http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://www.thisweek.org.uk http://www.911forum.org.uk http://www.tlio.org.uk Tony's free watermarked books www.bilderberg.org - My ebooks https://payhip.com/TonyGosling https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvPbHiqhLtpNWA_cg_1NULw https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMn9GM4atN3t7AHJBbHMR0Q https://www.twitter.com/TonyGosling https://www.facebook.com/tony.gosling.16 You can donate to support Tony's work here http://www.bilderberg.org/bcfm.htm Or buy Tony's three ebooks for 10-15 here https://payhip.com/TonyGosling or paperback here https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254963338161 TG mobile +44 7786 952037