The US bombed Venezuela this morning and Trump already admitted it’s about the oil

Who does the United States think it is? What makes them believe they can bomb a sovereign nation’s capital at 2am, kidnap its president, and announce to the world that they will now control that country’s oil? The question is rhetorical because we already know the answer: they think they are empire, and empire always strikes when, where, and how it wants.

The United States bombed Venezuela this morning. Airstrikes hit Caracas around 2am, tearing through military installations, Fuerte Tiuna military complex, La Carlota air base, cutting power across entire neighborhoods. Hours later, Donald Trump announced that American forces had captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, helicoptered them out of the country, and would prosecute them in New York on a 2020 narco-terrorism indictment. The operation violated every principle of international law the United States seemingly never claims to uphold, but Trump held a press conference anyway and said the part that usually stays buried in classified cables: “We will be strongly involved in Venezuela’s oil.”

So much for the war on drugs. Turns out it was always a war for oil, and they finally stopped bothering to lie about it.

Attorney General Pam Bondi trotted out the charges within hours: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation, possession of machine guns and destructive devices. As if anyone actually believes the world’s largest military launched airstrikes on a sovereign capital because of a drug indictment from 2020. As if this performance has anything to do with law rather than the 300 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves sitting under Venezuelan soil, the largest in the world. Trump’s own words gave the game away before his lawyers could even finish drafting the legal theater. “We’re going to allow people to have oil,” he told Fox News, as if Venezuela’s resources were his to distribute.

The legal justification is lighter than tissue paper I blow my nose with. Senator Mike Lee called Marco Rubio to ask what could “constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war.” Rubio’s answer? The strikes were “kinetic action” deployed to protect personnel executing an arrest warrant. This is what passes for legal reasoning when empire decides to kidnap a head of state. An arrest warrant does not authorize bombing a country. It does not permit military strikes on foreign soil. It does not justify violating the sovereignty of a UN member state. But the United States has never let international law interfere with access to resources it wants, so why start now?

Under the UN Charter, which the United States helped draft and repeatedly invokes when convenient, Article 2(4) prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” There are exactly two exceptions: self-defense under Article 51, and Security Council authorization under Chapter VII. Neither applies here. Venezuela did not attack the United States. The Security Council authorized nothing. This is textbook aggression under the Rome Statute, the very definition of the crime that got Nazi leaders hanged at Nuremberg. The crime of aggression is defined as the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence of another state. What happened in Caracas this morning meets every element of that definition.

But international law only matters when it can be weaponized against America’s enemies. When the United States violates it, we get press conferences about “kinetic action” and “protecting personnel,” as if bombing a capital city is a proportionate response to serving an arrest warrant, as if an American arrest warrant is even valid in the first place. The same country that lectures the world about the “rules-based international order” just violated the most fundamental rule: you cannot invade another country because you want its resources. Except apparently you can, if you are powerful enough, if you have enough bombs, if you have spent decades building a military apparatus designed to project force anywhere on earth within hours.

The historical parallels write themselves. Panama in 1989, when the United States invaded to arrest Manuel Noriega on drug charges and killed somewhere between 500 and 3,000 Panamanians in the process, depending on whose count you believe. Iraq in 2003, when weapons of mass destruction that did not exist became the justification for an invasion that killed over a million people and destroyed an entire country. Libya in 2011, when humanitarian intervention to protect civilians became regime change that left the country in chaos, slave markets operating openly, and migrants drowning in the Mediterranean. The script never changes, only the excuse. Drugs, weapons, terrorism, human rights, it does not matter what pretext they choose because the result is always the same: a country destroyed, resources extracted, and American officials congratulating themselves for spreading “freedom”.

In October 2025, I wrote about how America was already manufacturing consent for war: here, for my background.

Venezuela’s defense minister Vladimir Padrino called the morning bombings “the most criminal military aggression” and vowed that victory belongs to Venezuela because it is “accompanied by reason and dignity.” But reason and dignity do not stop bombs. International law does not stop bombs. And every country in the Global South is watching, calculating, understanding that if the United States can bomb Venezuela and kidnap its president in 2026, no amount of sovereignty will protect them if they have something America wants.

Colombia sent troops to its Venezuelan border, preparing for a “massive influx of refugees.” Brazil’s Lula condemned the strikes as crossing “an unacceptable line,” warning that attacking countries in flagrant violation of international law leads to “a world of violence, chaos, and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism.” Mexico called on the UN to act immediately. Cuba denounced it as state terrorism. Russia called it an act of armed aggression. Iran condemned the violation of sovereignty. Even France, usually more careful in its criticism of Washington, said the operation “violated international law and threatened world stability.”

But what will any of them actually do? Condemn, yes. Warn, certainly. Call for de-escalation, absolutely. But will they sanction the United States? Will they bring charges at the International Criminal Court? Will they expel American ambassadors or cut diplomatic ties? The answer is no, because America does not face consequences, much like a spoiled child. The United States sits on the UN Security Council with veto power, which means it can violate international law with impunity while blocking any attempt at accountability. This is the international order they built, a system where the most powerful can do whatever they want and the rest of the world can watch and condemn and do absolutely nothing.

And that is the lesson every country without nuclear weapons or a permanent seat on the Security Council should learn from this, your sovereignty exists only as long as America allows it.

Your resources are yours only until America decides it wants them. Your government is legitimate only until Washington decides it is not. The entire framework of international law, state sovereignty, territorial integrity, all of it is conditional, revocable, meaningless the moment it conflicts with American interests.

Trump published what he called the “Trump corollary” in early December, declaring that the western hemisphere must be controlled by the United States politically, economically, commercially, and militarily. As part of this doctrine, the US military can be used to gain access to energy and mineral resources in the region. They announced their intentions. They told Latin America explicitly that the Monroe Doctrine never died, it was just waiting for a president brazen enough to resurrect it without apology. And then they bombed Venezuela to prove they meant it.

The media will sanitize this. They will debate whether the operation was legal, as if there is any serious legal question. They will interview experts who will explain the complexities of international law and the difficulties of enforcement. They will quote officials who will insist this was about drugs, about democracy, about anything except oil. But Trump already told us what this was about. He said it in the first hours after the bombs fell. “We will be strongly involved in Venezuela’s oil.” Everything else is noise.

American intervention has never brought peace or freedom to any country. Not in Latin America, where decades of US-backed coups and interventions left a trail of corpses and shattered democracies. Not in the Middle East, where American wars killed millions and created power vacuums filled by extremism. Not in Southeast Asia, where the Vietnam War killed millions more and achieved nothing. America time and time again seems identifies a resource it wants or a government it dislikes, manufactures a justification, bombs the country into submission, installs a friendly regime, and extracts what it came for. Sometimes it is oil. Sometimes it is strategic position. Sometimes it is just the principle that no one gets to defy American power without consequences.

Venezuela had the audacity to refuse Trump’s ultimatum in November. Maduro rejected the offer of safe passage out of the country, telling supporters he did not want “a slave’s peace.” He accused the United States of wanting control of Venezuela’s oil reserves. He was right, obviously, but being right doesnt stop you from getting kidnapped. Trump had already deployed the USS Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group to Venezuelan waters in November. He had already declared a “total blockade” on Venezuelan oil tankers. He had already seized multiple vessels, killed at least 110 people in airstrikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats, and made clear that regime change was the goal. Maduro’s crime was not drug trafficking.

It’s simple really, America knows how to bomb, kill, steal, and lie. It does not know how to coexist with countries that refuse to hand over their resources. It does not know how to accept governments that reject American dominance. It does not know how to operate within the constraints of international law when that law conflicts with its interests. So it bombs. It invades. It captures presidents and calls it law enforcement. It steals oil and calls it involvement. It destroys countries and calls it liberation.

Anyone who believes in sovereignty, in the right of nations to self-determination, in the principle that military might should not determine access to another country’s resources, should condemn this attack unequivocally.

The international order is dead. It died in Iraq. It died in Afghanistan. It died in Gaza. It died again this morning in Caracas. It died when American bombs fell on a sovereign capital. It died when Trump announced he would control Venezuelan oil. It died when the international community condemned and did nothing.

We have said it over and over, Gaza was the canary in the coal mine. If they could commit genocide under the world’s watchful eye, they could do anything anywhere as long as people are okay watching from their living room couch. Venezuela is just the next victim of American imperialism. Your country’s sovereignty is an illusion. Your resources are not yours. Your government serves at America’s pleasure. This is the world we live in now, where empire does not even bother to hide behind humanitarian justifications anymore.

So, I must ask, who does the United States think it is? It thinks it is the only country that matters. And until this is proven otherwise, it will keep proving it with bombs.

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