Three New Zealanders are being illegally held hostage by the Israeli military after security forces boarded more than 50 boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid bound for the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

They have been named by the flotilla Aotearoa delegation as Mousa Taher, turning 39 next week; Hāhona Ormsby, 56; and Julien Blondel, 47.

All three were among the 428 humanitarian aid activists from 40 countries detained by the Israeli forces when they illegally intercepted the flotilla in international waters near Cyprus over the past two days.

Mousa Taher was aboard the Kasri Sadabat, one of the final 10 boats to be intercepted. A father of seven, Mousa left his children a message before being illegally abducted, writing on a sign for the livestream camera, “I love you”, and “Salaam Baby!”

His 11-year-old son has written a plea to the New Zealand government to intervene:

“To Mr Government: I want to ask you to please help my Dad, Mousa Taher, so his boat doesn’t get intercepted by Israelis. I miss him very much and I hope to see him untouched, not hurt, and in good conditions.

The people in Gaza deserve support, especially all the kids like me. Help my Baba to help Palestinians please.”

— From: Shay Yusuf. Age 11

Taher, who was previously illegally intercepted by the IOF on April 29 alongside Julien Blondel, returned to the flotilla for a second time.

Taher, who was previously illegally intercepted by the IOF on April 29 alongside Julien Blondel, returned to the flotilla for a second time.

Message to ‘fellow Kiwis’
Yesterday, before his illegal interception, Taher sent the Aotearoa delegation a message announcing, “I have a message to my fellow Kiwis and the New Zealand government.

“I’m on my boat which has humanitarian aid, on the way to Gaza to break the illegal siege of the israeli occupation forces.

“What I would like to say is that, for three years, I watched the uncontested demolition and obliteration of a people. It was on the TV for all of us to watch.

“Our government chose time and time again to do nothing. To be complicit, and to allow this to happen.

“There has been war crime after war crime, and yet the New Zealand government has been investing and shaking hands with these war criminals who are committing war crimes.”

“Our government has a choice. Are you going to uphold international law? Are you going to uphold humanitarian values? Are you going to be the New Zealand that we know and love?

“Or are you going to allow these oppressors to continue?… Please just be humans. And stop the killing of babies… this is my request and my plea. Kia Kaha, and we will see you in Gaza hopefully.”

Blondel abducted second time
Also abducted is New Zealander Julien Blondel, a dual citizen to Switzerland, who was beaten in the face in Israeli military custody after the first interception on April 29.

Despite the beatings, sexual harassment, and abuse that flotilla participants experienced during this abduction, both Blondel and Taher have returned to the flotilla to try and break the siege once more, the Aotearoa delegation said in a statement.

“They returned because they remain steadfast in their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their belief in a liberated world,” the statement said.

Hāhona Chris Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto), father of five children, is the third New Zealander to be illegally abducted.

Before the illegal interception, he said, “we are now only days away from Gaza… we need your eyes on us. Your eyes then become the government’s eyes on us.

“It keeps us safe. It keeps us out of harm’s way by the IOF… My freedom is not real if yours is denied. Free Gaza.”

The Aotearoa delegation said: “To echo Hahona’s words, we implore New Zealand to keep its eyes on the abducted flotilla participants to keep our whānau safe. We demand that the New Zealand government does everything in its power to protect them.”

Flotilla organisers demand release
The abducted participants are being taken to a port in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

The Global Sumud Flotilla organisers have demanded the immediate, unconditional release of all the  participants, alongside the more than 9000 “unjustly detained Palestinian political prisoners facing a codified regime of state-sanctioned terror”.

GSF has also called on world leaders to demand the release of the flotilla participants, the release of the Palestinian political prisoners and hostages and an end to the genocide and blockade on Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Global Humanitarian Convoy has been blocked on the outskirts of Sirte in Libya while attempting to reach Gaza. This is despite the unambiguity of the Fourth Geneva Convention: all parties are obligated to allow the free passage of humanitarian aid and personnel.

“The international community must act now and protect the lives of the vulnerable,” said the GSF. “Blocking humanitarian aid is a violation of international law both at sea and on land.

“Our governments must speak up.”

10 countries condemn Israel
Al Jazeera reports that several countries have condemned the Israeli attacks on the aid flotilla.

The foreign ministers of Turkïye, Spain, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Libya, and the Maldives released a joint statement, describing Israeli forces’ actions as “blatant violations of international law and international humanitarian law”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A New Zealander who took part in the global flotilla trying to break the illegal Gaza siege and who was abducted by Israel returned home this week and gave a searing speech in Auckland today condemning the abuses he and others suffered.

“They abducted us at gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we resisted,” said Sean Janssen.

“Dozens of people were packed into shipping containers and kept in conditions most would deem unfit for animals.”

Janssen was one of more than 170 people who were illegally abducted by Israeli military forces on board Global Sumud Flotilla boats in international waters for 48 hours and given restricted access to food and water.

He said flotilla participants were beaten and 34 people needed immediate medical attention when they were dumped ashore in Greece.

Three other abducted New Zealanders — Jay O’Connor, Mousa Taher and Julien Blondel — were taken ashore as well while at least two others are continuing on with the flotilla that has now reached Turkïye.

Two high-profile flotilla leaders who were kidnapped and taken illegally to Israel were set to be released after more than a week of torture allegations and diplomatic efforts to seek their freedom.

Abukeshek, Ávila being freed
Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish-Palestinian, and Brazilian Thiago Ávila were being freed, according to a statement from the rights group Adalah, which was representing the two men.

“I believe in a Free Palestine and that this isn’t a radical belief,” Sean Janssen told the cheering crowd. “Yet for almost 80 years, this belief and having the conviction to say it publicly has been met with harassment, suppression and violence.

“Leaders who preach of freedom, justice and equality have done nothing or actively contributed to the destruction of those things for Palestinians.

“For almost 80 years the world has watched as Israel has strengthened its capacity to inflict suffering and death against the people of Palestine, yet done nothing because it was only inflicted on Palestininians.”

Janssen said that for 20 years Israel had restricted the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, blocked by a military siege.

“They impose this blockade on Gaza because starvation is one of their tools of extermination,” he said.

“In the last 3 years, Israel has attacked more than 200 schools in Gaza. They have murdered more than 300 journalists.”

36 hospitals destroyed
Since October 2023, the occupation forces had destroyed 36 hospitals.

“They have bombed the sick and slaughtered new born babies in their incubators.”

Janssen said that there was no course too extreme and no action too radical that Israel would not take to ensure the genocide was completed.

“When Palestinians did what all people have a right to do — defend themselves — they were condemned,” he said.

“Palestinians have been condemned for demanding the most basic of rights and for following the most fundamental of human instincts — to survive.

“They were condemned for refusing to accept violence and barbarism forced upon them.

“They refused to do nothing as their culture, their history and their people were erased.”

Brutal Israeli treatment
Moving on to the brutal treatment by Israeli forces against the Gaza flotilla humanitarian activists on April 30, Janssen said:

“The Israeli occupation forces abducted myself, 4 other citizens of New Zealand, and in total almost 200 people from nations around the world.

“They abducted us at gunpoint and threatened to kill us if we resisted.

“Dozens of people were packed into shipping containers and kept in conditions most would deem unfit for animals.

“As people slept outside in freezing temperatures they had cold water poured onto them.

“We were denied access to life saving medicine. For refusing to stand when ordered I was held by the neck face down on concrete and bashed across the head.

“My treatment was far from the worst. My friend and fellow New Zealander, Julien Blondel, the man who taught me to tie a bowline knot  — with incredible patience — and is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met, was beaten bloody and shot with crowd suppressing rounds at point blank range.

“This still is far from all of the violence and cruelty done to us by these [Israeli state] terrorists.”

Appeal for protest letters
Janssen appealed to the protesters to call and write to their MPs and ministers — “remember that for 2 of our comrades that violence and cruelty is not over.”

He was referring to Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila, who have since his speech been freed by the Israeli authorities under global pressure and “deported”.

Saif Abukeshek was a man who had dedicated his life to supporting his people to freedom, Janssen said.

“He spoke of his love for his family every single time I heard him speak.”

“Thiago Ávila, who after being beaten by the Israelis, stood for hours by the entrance to the prison yard and greeted all of us, to make sure that a smile was the first thing all of his comrades saw, so we knew we were still in this together.

“Thiago Ávila, whose mother died with her son in Israeli custody.”

Janssen said these men were “as I speak held hostage by Israel, subject to torture and indefinite detention, and for Saif being Palestinian, potentially execution as well“.

‘Not radical’ to be humanitarian
“The President of the United States called us terrorists. The Israeli press labeled us as
radicals and extremists for what we aimed to do.

“But is it radical for starving people to be able to eat? Is it radical that people who are sick be able to access healthcare?

“Is it radical for children to have school books and colouring pencils so they can grow into full, creative and intelligent people?

“These things are what the flotilla aims deliver to Gaza. Are these things radical or are they what is needed for people to live?

“What is radical, what is extreme, are the lengths that Zionism and its allies will go to refuse these things to Palestinians.”

The violence of Israel was not just happening to Palestinians anymore, Janssen said.

“The violence of Zionism is growing bolder and it is spreading across the world with the backing of the United States.

“It is a disgrace that our [New Zealand] leaders did nothing for Palestinians, but for anyone who believed they would keep you safe when violence came to our shores, I have seen first hand that they will not.

NZ ‘silent, no sanctions’
“They have imposed no sanctions. They have not expelled the Israeli ambassador. They have not even publicly denounced this blatant act of terrorism.

“Their value for your lives and your safety only exists so long as it works for their benefit.”

Janssen saud that until New Zealand had leaders that would take action to uphold international law, “we are all of us — like I was — all 5 million of us hostages of Israel.”

He added that even if Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, and Foreign Minister Winston Peters were “scared of Israel, I am not afraid”.

“Even if they are backed by the United States, I am not afraid of these terrorists.”

Devonport naval base protest
The protest crowd warmly applauded Janssen for his courage and conviction throughout the speech. Then they marched across Te Komititanga Square and caught the ferry to Devonport.

The protesters marched peacefully to the Devonport Naval Base, chanting “No money for bombs and occupation, money for books and education” and other calls in support for Palestinian freedom and against war on Iran and Lebanon.

Stop Wars Aotearoa organiser Joe Carolan addressed the crowd beside the naval base, saying “Christopher Luxon wants to send these sailors, and our soldiers, to die for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. No!”

“The people of New Zealand are quite clearly against this war. Seventy percent of them are against this war. And the people of United States are against this war, and the people of Britain are against this war.

“But all of this is happening because of Netanyahu’s desire for a Greater Israel.”

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. Israel is also on trial for genocide in a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa supported by other countries.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Israeli soldiers beat and tortured flotilla organisers Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila after abducting them in international waters near Greece in the early hours of Thursday morning, allege lawyers and diplomats.

After illegally intercepting 22 boats and kidnapping around 200 activists hundreds of miles from Gaza, Israel transferred the majority to Greek authorities, but refused to release Abukeshek and Avila.

Instead, it transported them back to an Israeli desert prison, where Palestinians are routinely tortured.

Brazilian activist Ávila was dragged face down across the floor and beaten so badly he passed out twice, lawyers said, after they were finally able to visit him on Saturday.

His wife, Lara Souza, said in a video that a Brazilian embassy official told her he had been temporarily blinded by his injuries, with his left eye remaining swollen shut, but he was being denied medical treatment.

Why Israel’s interception of the Gaza flotilla is illegal          Video: TRT News

In a brief visit, where he was separated from the consul by a glass screen and not able to speak freely, he reported pain all over his body, especially in his hand and shoulder. He said soldiers had threatened to throw him overboard and target his wife and two-year-old daughter.

Abukeshek, who had been sailing on an observer boat and did not intend to go to Gaza, was “in shock”, his wife Sally Issa said. He was forced to lie face-down on the floor of an Israeli warship for two days, lawyers said, blindfolded and with his hands bound behind his back.

Spain demands Abukeshek release
Spain has demanded Israel release Abukeshek, who is Palestinian but has Spanish and Swedish citizenship.

On Friday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he had been “illegally abducted by the Netanyahu government”.

Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares later told a radio station the arrest was made “outside the jurisdiction of Israel”.

“Of course, it is a kidnapping,” he said.

Hannah Smith, who runs the Global Sumud Flotilla’s media operation, said in a video that Abukeshek had Palestinian identity documents, “putting him in a legal context that we’ve never seen with participants before”.

“We do not know how the Israeli regime will handle his case,” she said. “They can try him just as they would any Palestinian.”

Adalah, the law firm supporting the two men, said they had reported being interrogated by Israel’s Shin Bet security service.

Interrogation by Mossad
Ávila said he had been told he would also be interrogated by Mossad, on suspicion of “affiliation with a terrorist organisation”.

On Sunday, both activists appeared in Ashkelon Magistrates’ Court, where a judge extended their detention by a further two days.

Adalah said the Israeli state attorney presented a list of suspected offences, including “assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership in and providing services to a terrorist organisation, and the transfer of property for a terrorist organisation”.

No formal charges have yet been filed against either Ávila or Abukeshek, and Adalah said Israeli authorities had refused to provide details of any of the offences they are being interrogated over.

Lawyers demanded both men be immediately and unconditionally released, telling the court the entire process was “fundamentally flawed and illegal”, and describing Israel’s actions as a “retaliatory measure against humanitarian activist leaders”.

They challenged the state’s jurisdiction, arguing that there is “no legal basis for the extraterritorial application of offences to the actions of foreign nationals in international waters”.

In a statement, Adalah said: “The treatment of the two activists, including the use of isolation, prolonged blindfolding, and physical beatings, constitutes a grave violation of international law.”

Call for mobilisation
Meanwhile, Smith, who was on one of the boats that was intercepted on Wednesday night, urged people to “mobilise” for Ávila and Abukeshek.

“As someone who was thrown around, who was threatened to be killed, as someone who has seen two of my best friends taken, I ask the world: what kind of world do you want to live in?” she said.

“And if you want to live in a better one than this one, you need to act, you need to mobilise.”

Ávila and Abukeshek have now been transferred back to solitary confinement in Shikma prison, where they are being held in windowless cells.

Both are on hunger strike, with Avila saying he will not accept release without Abukeshek.

Republished from Novara Media. Charlotte England is a journalist and director of Novara Media.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. Israel is also on trial for genocide in a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by South Africa supported by other countries.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Global Sumud Flotilla is demanding the New Zealand government intervene to uphold international law, after being intercepted by Israel.

It said 22 boats carrying aid for Gaza were illegally intercepted in international waters near the Greek island of Crete.

New Zealanders Jerome (Jay) O’Connor, Mousa Taher, Julien Blondel, and Sean Janssen were among the 175 people detained.

O’Connor had received a concussion and a possible broken rib, while Blondel was hit in the face, the Global Sumud Flotilla said.

“These citizens are part of a completely legal action onboard vessels that are lawfully exercising navigation rights under article 87 of UNCLOS – to deliver essential aid, open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza, and break the illegal siege on Gaza by the Israeli regime,” it said.

Israel’s foreign ministry had called organisers “professional provocateurs” and said it would not allow “the breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza”.

Global Sumud Flotilla said that Blondel had assured the team he was “up to be continuing this going forward,” as the rest of the Flotilla continues to sail.

Hāhona Ormsby and Samuel Leason are currently regrouping with the others in Greece.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it understood up to six New Zealandershad been caught up in the interception.

It told RNZ on Saturday that it was aware of allegations made about the treatment New Zealanders had faced while in custody.

“Consular officials in Wellington, New Zealand’s embassies in Rome and Ankara, and New Zealand’s honorary consul in Greece have been working throughout the night and over the past few days to gather information, provide advice to families, and support New Zealanders involved,” it said.

“Immediately following the interception of the flotillas on Thursday, the New Zealand government made it clear to Israel that the safety of New Zealanders involved was paramount and that international law must be upheld. These and other views were made clear to Israel’s ambassador to New Zealand and by New Zealand’s ambassador to Israel, stationed in Ankara.”

The ministry added that New Zealand had a long-standing ‘do not travel’ advisory in place for Gaza, explicitly warning against any attempt to enter by sea.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is much to understand from the dramatic kidnapping — abduction is perhaps a better word — of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores last weekend by the United States armed forces, combined with the military attack on the country’s capital Caracas.

This understanding is greatly helped by the comments of the US’s first elected insurrectionist and convicted felon (fraud and sexual assault) President, Donald Trump, at and following his inauguration for his second term nearly 12 months ago.

Trump singled out the 25th US president, William McKinley, who was first elected 1896 but assassinated early into his second term, for praise. Some of this praise was because of his promotion of tariffs.

But it was also because McKinley is regarded as the first imperialist American president. He went to war with Spain and China to claim colonial spoils. Annexations included Puerto Rico and the Philippines (where more than 200,000 Filipinos were killed).

Far and hard right politics, fascism and narcissism
For context, the current US government under Trump’s leadership is a mix of far and hard right politics.

I have discussed this in a previous article (November 3) describing how the far right is successfully cannibalising the mainstream rightwing internationally (including its implications for Aotearoa New Zealand).

Residing within the far right is fascism. Considering Trump and some of his cabinet members and key staff to be fascists is a very reasonable conclusion to draw.

One of the characteristics of many fascists is narcissism; a personality disorder recognised as a mental health condition; an excessive preoccupation with oneself and one’s own needs, often at the expense of others.

Blend narcissism and fascism (or even wider far right beliefs) together and you have an absence of empathy and indifference to harmful consequences of their actions on others.

Even intelligent people within this subset find their narrow paradigms shut out to consideration of the tactical and strategic errors (“own goals”) that might arise out of their decision-making.

Recommended reading and watching
There has been much public commentary on the violent assault on Venezuela and the kidnapping/abduction of its president and First Lady. Three have stood out for me.

One is British leftwing journalist, commentator, author and activist Owen Jones. He speaks with lively empirically based passion. In his Battlelines publication (Substack, January 4) he didn’t pull his punches about global anarchy.

The second commentary digs deep. It is a 31-minute interview by Venezuelanalysis (January 4) with Caracas based analysts Steve Ellner and Ricardo Vaz: Venezuela: Trump’s war for oil and domination is a war crime.

I strongly recommend watching it. In addition to the military violence and abduction, they address Trump’s declaration that Washington will take control of Venezuela’s oil and effectively run the country, warning that the operation constitutes an unlawful use of force.

Venezuela: Trump’s war for oil.

They also refer to the extrajudicial killings on Venezuelan fishing boats at sea as violations of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty.

The third is a recommended read of an online article (January 6) by Helen Yaffe, professor of Latin American political economy (Glasgow University): What is the US doing in Venezuela.

As well as describing the dramatic events, Dr Yaffe puts them in both their historical and current political contexts.

The absurd: Maduro’s machine gun
Trump’s justifications range from the absurd to the manufactured to the overstated. But one justification is absolutely on the mark. His narcissism is ironically beneficial at least from the perspective of analysis.

In openly exposing that that this is all about naked power Trump and his coterie don’t care that he can be easily caught out over fabrication and inconsistencies. If one believes that they are all-powerful, why should they care.

The absurd justification for the legal case against Nicolás Maduro is that he had a machine gun in his possession.

Putting aside the fact that the risk of what might happen (foreign military abduction) did actually occur, arguing this in a country where machine guns are easily and lawfully accessible — really.

The manufactured: narcotrafficking
The biggest fabrication, arguably exceeded the US government’s false “weapons of mass destruction” claim used to justify the disastrous invasion of Iraq over two decades ago, was to blame Venezuela, Maduro in particular, for the US fentanyl epidemic.

It even called it a “weapon of mass destruction”.

Consider the following facts that completely discredit Trump’s fabrication:

• In its March 2025 report the US State Department identified Mexico as the sole source of fentanyl entering the United States. United Nations investigations into fentanyl distribution also don’t identify Venezuela as a producer, let alone a supplier.
• Trump claims that Maduro leads a so-called Venezuelan “Cartel of the Suns” that traffics narcotics, including fentanyl, into the US. In fact, this is a politically manufactured fantasy. There is no such organisation as has just been acknowledged in the last few days by the US Department of Justice.
• In 2024, Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted in a US court and sentenced to 45 years for conspiring to smuggle over 400 tons of cocaine into the US. Last November, Trump pardoned this narcotrafficker.

The overstated: oil
Many believe that the US invasion is all or primarily about oil. Certainly Trump’s own words and actions encourage this belief. After all, Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

However, since Trump’s sanctions targeting its oil sector back in 2017, Venezuela’s exports to the US have plummeted. Instead, China has become its biggest importer.

Last November, Trump released a US National Security Strategy for Latin America. It declared that “Restoring American energy dominance (in oil, gas, coal, and nuclear) and reshoring the necessary key energy components is a top strategic priority”.

However, while important, oil profiteering is not the prime driver of the US assault on Venezuelan sovereignty. Although Venezuela has huge oil reserves, it is heavy oil which is more difficult to fully process.

Instead, its oil reserves are a consequence of a wider geopolitical agenda sometimes called “spheres of influence”. While intricately linked, US oil sanctions are more a weapon than a driver of the imperialist assault on Venezuela.

The on the mark justification
Where the United States’  justification was on the mark comes from Donald Trump’s above-mentioned praise for the first “American imperialist president” William McKinley.

Consistent with this praise, through misrepresentation, Trump has drawn upon what is known as the “Munroe Doctrine”.

This Doctrine was named after President James Monroe who was the fifth US president (1817-1825). Munroe was both an original Founding Father of US independence and the last Founding Father to serve as president.

The Munroe Doctrine was issued in 1823, less than 50 years after US independence was declared and 34 years before its constitution was approved. It was a young developing country; not that long ago itself comprising 13 different British colonies.

The Doctrine was a policy of limiting European colonialism in the Americas but not to replace it with American colonialisation because it lacked both the inclination and means to achieve this. It was more aligned in principle with non-colonial states in the region.

However, Trump is reinventing the Doctrine to extend US colonial power throughout the Americas. This is what the National Security Strategy is all about.

The attack on Venezuela is an endeavour — among other things —  to:

• impose US hegemony in Latin America;
• exploit Venezuela’s natural resources (oil, gas, critical minerals, and rare earth elements) as part of an attempt to build a new supply chain in the Western Hemisphere;
• cut off Latin America’s ties with other countries, particularly its biggest competitor China;
• threaten other leftwing or progressive governments in the continent;
• destroy the project of regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean; and
• sabotage “Global South” unity over supporting Palestine and other liberation struggles.

Where to next?
I have deliberately not discussed related issues such as the nature of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela along with the longstanding United States hostility towards it beginning in the latter part of Bill Clinton’s presidency, and the entrenched and violent far right opposition to it.

I have also not discussed the impact of the sudden drop in oil prices in 2014, the impact of accelerating US economic warfare (sanctions) since 2015, and the controversy over last year’s presidential elections.

As an aside these elections in my view were imperfect but legitimate. Further, Trump has been explicit — he isn’t interested in “restoring democracy” or “democratic transition”; nor does he rate the alternative Venezuelan far right led by Maria Corina Machado stating that she didn’t have the support to run the country.

These exclusions are because I don’t want to distract from the greater priority being regional and global seriousness of the US’s military aggression (including abductions) towards the sovereignty of Venezuela and its people.

The US aggression is part of a wider plan to extend US domination across the Americas and beyond, consistent with its above-mentioned National Security Strategy which, in turn, is based on a misrepresentation of the anti-colonial 1823 Munroe Doctrine.

Trump has explicitly signalled Cuba, Mexico, and Columbia as the next likely targets. Brazil and Uruguay can’t be ignored either. Even Greenland is expressly on his list.

Quite simply, the sovereignty of most Latin American and other more vulnerable countries that don’t comply with the US’s narcissistic far right — including fascist — leadership’s agenda are at risk.

What about New Zealand?
New Zealand is in a difficult position. The government’s public response has been underwhelming although not as bad as the sycophantic United Kingdom government.

Luxon’s government, with Winston Peters as foreign minister, has been slowly weaning New Zealand away from its international neutrality position to one increasingly closer to that of the United States.

The extensive exposure of this blatant and violent US display of power-grabbing makes public justifying this policy shift much more difficult.

Robert Patman, professor of international relations at Otago University discusses this in The Conversation (January 5): NZ faces a foreign policy reckoning.

Much more direct is Bryce Edwards’ piece published by the Democracy Project  and Asia Pacific Report (January 7): NZ’s craven stance on the US invasion of Venezuela.

As the narcissism of fascism and the far right continues to push the parameters of their power, an already unsafe world is becoming increasingly more dangerous and our government’s response suggests increasing sycophantic timidity.

Ian Powell is a progressive health, labour market and political “no-frills” forensic commentator in New Zealand. A former senior doctors union leader for more than 30 years, he blogs at Second Opinion and Political Bytes, where this article was first published. Republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

US President Donald Trump has claimed that Venezuela’s interim leadership will turn over to the United States as many as 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to be sold at market price, part of a broader, unlawful administration effort to seize the South American nation’s natural resources.

Trump, who authorised the illegal US bombing of Venezuela and abduction of its president this past weekend, said he would control the proceeds of the sale — which could amount to $3 billion.

“Just straight-up piracy and extortion from the US president,” Zeteo journalist and publisher Mehdi Hasan wrote in response.

Consistent with his administration’s conduct since the weekend attack that killed at least 75 people in Venezuela, Trump provided few details on how his scheme would work or how it would comply with domestic and international law, both of which the president has repeatedly disregarded and treated with contempt.

Where are our humane profiles of the families of these murder victims?

Where are the calls being amplified in the media to “Free the Hostages”?

As we all know by now, not all lives matter.

“State funeral in Venezuela to bury the 80 people murdered by American troops who… https://t.co/FXSyujFdcx

— Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) January 7, 2026

It is also not clear that Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting president and an ally of Nicolás Maduro, has agreed to Trump’s plan, which he announced on social media as his administration worked to entice US oil giants to take part in its effort to exploit the South American nation’s vast reserves.

Ahead of the US attack on Venezuela, the Trump administration imposed a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers approaching or leaving Venezuela, pushing the country closer to economic collapse.

The New York Times noted yesterday that Trump’s decision to “begin targeting tankers carrying Venezuelan crude to Asian markets had paralysed the state oil company’s exports.”

Floating storage facilities
“To keep the wells pumping, the state oil company, known as PDVSA, had been redirecting crude oil into storage tanks and turning tankers idling in ports into floating storage facilities,” the Times reported. During Trump’s first White House term, he banned US companies from working with PDVSA.

Trump wrote in his social media post yesterday that the tens of millions of barrels of oil “will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”

“I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately,” Trump wrote.

The Trump administration is also pushing Venezuela’s interim leadership to meet a series of US demands before it can pump more oil, ABC News reported.

Trump has illegally threatened to launch another attack on Venezuela, and target more of its politicians, if the country’s leadership does not follow his administration’s orders.

According to ABC, the Trump administration has instructed Venezuela to “kick out China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba and sever economic ties.”

“Second, Venezuela must agree to partner exclusively with the US on oil production and favour America when selling heavy crude oil,” ABC added, citing unnamed sources.

“According to one person, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in a private briefing on Monday that he believed the US can force Venezuela’s hand because its existing oil tankers are full.

Rubio also told lawmakers that the US estimated that Caracas has only a couple of weeks before it would become financially insolvent without the sale of its oil reserves.”

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams. Republished from Common Dreams.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, New Zealand responded with unusual speed. Sanctions followed. Condemnations were issued. The language was unambiguous.

We were told this was about defending the “rules-based international order” — a phrase our politicians have grown remarkably fond of. Winston Peters has deployed it frequently in his time as Foreign Minister.

So where is that principled clarity now?

On Saturday, the United States attacked the Venezuelan capital Caracas, seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and spirited them away to face charges in New York.

President Donald Trump then declared that America would “run” Venezuela — including, he made abundantly clear, its oil reserves. He threatened the acting president with a fate “probably worse than Maduro” if she failed to cooperate.

This is, by any reasonable definition, an invasion. An act of aggression against a sovereign state. A violation of Article Two of the UN Charter. The kind of thing New Zealand normally objects to, or used to.

Peters’ response? After about 24 hours, he made a brief statement on social media: “New Zealand is concerned by and actively monitoring developments in Venezuela and expects all parties to act in accordance with international law.”

That’s it. “Concerned”. “Monitoring”. Expecting all parties to behave. One party has just bombed a capital city, kidnapped a head of state, and announced it will control the country’s resources. But sure, let’s urge “all parties” to play by the rules.

The Prime Minister’s Office, when asked for a response at the highest level, simply referred journalists back to Peters’ tweet. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon himself has said nothing.

As Geoffrey Miller, the independent geopolitical analyst, observed: “Luxon will probably be grateful to escape the media spotlight by virtue of the weekend’s events falling in the depths of New Zealand’s typically elongated summer holidays.”

The language tells you everything
Pay attention to the words politicians choose and the words they avoid. Peters didn’t name the United States. He didn’t describe what happened as an invasion, an attack, or even an intervention. The carefully crafted statement avoids assigning responsibility to anyone. It’s diplomatic jelly.

Compare this to how other countries have responded. Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Uruguay issued a joint statement expressing “deep concern and rejection of the military actions carried out unilaterally in the territory of Venezuela, which contravene fundamental principles of international law.”

They warned that “such actions set an extremely dangerous precedent for regional peace and security and for the rules-based international order.”

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was equally direct: “Spain did not recognise the Maduro regime. But neither will it recognise an intervention that violates international law and pushes the region toward a horizon of uncertainty and belligerence.”

Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide put it simply: “International law is universal and binding for all states. The American intervention in Venezuela is not in accordance with international law.”

Even Singapore, which is hardly known for picking diplomatic fights, issued a statement saying it was “gravely concerned” and “strongly condemned any unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country under any pretext.” That echoes the language Singapore used after Russia invaded Ukraine.

New Zealand? “Concerned” and “monitoring”.

The vested interests behind timidity
Maduro is no martyr; he is a dictator who ran his country into the ground. He lost the 2024 election by an enormous margin and then stole it. His regime was corrupt, authoritarian, and responsible for the flight of eight million Venezuelans from their own country. No tears should be shed for him personally.

But that’s not the point. The question isn’t whether Maduro deserved power. He didn’t. The question is whether the United States can bomb sovereign nations, kidnap their leaders, and declare control of their natural resources whenever it feels like it.

The answer, if you believe in national sovereignty or the rules-based order our government claims to defend, should be an emphatic no.

Why can’t New Zealand say so? The answer lies in vested interests: both American and our own.

Start with Washington. Trump’s intervention is not primarily about narcotics or democracy.

As Professor Robert Patman of Otago University has noted, Venezuela is not at the centre of America’s drug problems. Fentanyl and other drugs mainly come from places like China and Mexico. Trump’s announcement that America would “run” Venezuela and take its oil reserves revealed the true motivation.

At his news conference, Trump made clear his major objective was securing Venezuela’s oil resources, which he claims the United States “owns”. This from the man who once said America made a mistake in not grabbing Iraq’s oil reserves after the 2003 invasion.

The vested interests of American corporations are driving this policy, dressed up in the language of law enforcement and regional security. The military is simply being used to secure assets for private corporations.

And what about New Zealand’s own vested interests in staying quiet? Here the picture becomes clearer. Our farming and export sectors have already been hit by Trump’s tariff regime. An initial 10 percent rate in April was raised to 15 percent.

A November decision to roll back tariffs on food imports provided some relief, but American trade policy remains a constant threat. India has been hit with 50 percent tariffs for buying Russian oil. Brazil was targeted because of its prosecution of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro.

Our agricultural and export lobby groups watch these retaliatory tariffs nervously. Any government criticism of Trump risks placing New Zealand next on the punishment list. This explains why Peters has been so careful not to name the United States in his statement.

The economic interests of New Zealand’s export sector — farmers, meat processors, dairy companies — are being prioritised over principles. It’s the politics of fear, wrapped in the language of diplomacy.

Stephen Nagy, a professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo, put it bluntly when explaining why America’s Asian allies have been so reluctant to criticise Trump: “You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” This is what happens when a country’s foreign policy becomes subordinate to its immediate economic interests.

The double standard is breathtaking
Consider how this would play out if the roles were reversed. Imagine China had just bombed Taipei, sent special forces to capture Taiwan’s leader, and declared it would “run” the island.

Would Winston Peters be tweeting about how New Zealand “expects all parties” to respect international law? Would Chris Luxon be hiding behind his summer holiday?

Of course not. The response would be immediate, forceful, and unambiguous. We would be told that Chinese aggression cannot be tolerated. Gordon Campbell made this point sharply: “If the Chinese military were blowing up merchant shipping in the South China Sea, bombing Taipei and sending in special forces to kidnap Taiwan’s leader . . .  New Zealand wouldn’t be meekly asking both sides to show restrained respect for international law. We would be outraged.”

The same double standard has been on display over Gaza. Peters’ line about expecting “all parties” to respect international law has been the government’s exact position there too, as if both sides in that conflict have been equally responsible for bombing hospitals and blocking humanitarian aid.

Only last week, New Zealand opted not to join a joint statement by foreign ministers from Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom calling for Israel to abide by ceasefire terms. Peters sat that one out.

Opposition voices show what’s possible
Not everyone in New Zealand politics has been so timid. Phil Twyford of the Labour Party issued a stronger statement, actually naming the United States and describing the action as a violation of international law.

It’s not revolutionary language (more like stating the obvious) but in the context of the government’s mealy-mouthed response, it stands out. Opposition Leader Chris Hipkins should be speaking out likewise.

Helen Clark has been characteristically direct, telling RNZ that the US attack was “clearly illegal under the UN Charter.” When former prime ministers speak more clearly than current foreign ministers, something has gone badly wrong.

Professor Patman told RNZ that New Zealand’s response should be “firm and robust” and noted that the days of “softly, softly diplomacy” with Trump are over. Patman says: “New Zealand has persisted for the last 12 months in what I call softly, softly diplomacy towards Trump. The idea is if we keep our heads beneath the radar, we say nice things, we have photo opportunities with the great men at international meetings, he will soften and we’ll be able to nudge him in a more moderate direction. I’m afraid that’s over.”

He labelled Peters’ statement as “limp”.

The credibility at stake
The consequences of this craven approach go beyond the immediate crisis. Geoffrey Miller warned that the inconsistency between how Western allies responded to Russia and how they’re responding to America “may come back to haunt them, particularly when it comes to their credibility with the Global South.”

He’s right. Countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are watching. They’ve heard endless lectures from Western nations about the importance of the rules-based order, about sovereignty, about international law.

Now they’re watching those same nations stay quiet — or worse, make excuses — when the violator is the United States. Beijing and Moscow will exploit this at every opportunity. They’ll point to Venezuela whenever anyone raises Ukraine or Taiwan. And they’ll have a point.

As Nathalie Tocci wrote in The Guardian, the European failure to condemn Trump’s action “embodies the law of the jungle so dear to dictators such as Putin. For Europeans to silently condone such a vision is not just unethical. It is plain stupid.”

After all, Trump is now speaking out loud about annexing Greenland too. And increasingly, the concept of “Spheres of Influence” seems to be rising, whereby military superpowers such as the US, Russia, China, etc can operate on a “might is right” basis to intervene however they want in their own regions.

If the world reverts to such “Spheres of Influence”, New Zealand is left exposed. If the US can claim the Americas, what is to stop a superpower from claiming the Pacific?

New Zealand has spent years positioning itself as “a good international citizen”. It has sought seats on the UN Security Council. It has championed multilateralism. It has talked endlessly about the importance of small states having a voice in international affairs.

How does that square with staying silent when a great power simply ignores international law because it can?

The integrity test New Zealand is failing
This is ultimately a question of integrity — the kind of integrity New Zealand claims to stand for on the world stage. Either international law applies to everyone, or it doesn’t. Either sovereignty matters, or it’s just a convenient talking point when it suits politicians.

Either New Zealand is willing to call out violations regardless of who commits them, or else the politicians are just selective critics who only speak up when the target is someone they already dislike.

Winston Peters once prided himself on being willing to speak uncomfortable truths. New Zealand First has long positioned itself as independent-minded, unwilling to simply follow the crowd. Where is that independence now?

What we’re seeing instead is a government so afraid of offending Trump, and so captured by the economic interests of our export sector, that it can’t even name the United States in a statement about an American military attack.

As Professor Patman observed: “Foreign policy in this country has been traditionally bipartisan. We have stood up for the rule of law internationally.” If that’s true, then it’s certainly time to show some element of independence from the US and Five Eyes.

But doing so requires the New Zealand government to put principles ahead of the vested interests of farmers and exporters, and ahead of the political calculation that offending Trump carries too high a price.

Murray McCully, not exactly a darling of the left, showed more backbone when he championed UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on Israeli settlements in 2016. As Gordon Campbell observed, the current situation almost makes you yearn for the days when McCully was foreign minister.

That’s a damning indictment of how far New Zealand has fallen.

So, as we head towards an election year, foreign policy needs to be made a major issue. Voters now deserve to know whether New Zealand will continue to subordinate its principles to its perceived economic interests.

Dr Bruce Edwards is a political commentator and analyst. He is director of the Integrity Institute, a campaigning and research organisation dedicated to strengthening New Zealand democratic institutions through transparency, accountability, and robust policy reform. Republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

If you were wondering why the US establishment was so much more chill about Trump becoming president this term than they were the first time around, you’re watching the reason now.

The powers that be were assured that he’d carry out longstanding imperial agendas like kidnapping Nicolás Maduro, bombing Iran and overseeing a final solution to the Palestinian problem, and they trusted him to carry out those plans.

The MAGA narrative that the establishment hates Trump because he’s fighting the Deep State has never been true; there were certain factions within the US imperial power structure which disliked Trump, but that was only because he was not a proven commodity like Hillary Clinton and they didn’t trust him to be a reliable steward of the empire.

Trump proved that he could be trusted with his advancement of longtime swamp monster agendas throughout his first term, and he plainly did enough during his time out of office to assure his fellow empire managers that he would do even more if re-elected.

The empire needs its skillful orators and apologists like Obama, but it also needs its iron-fisted overt tyrants like Trump.

It needs good cop presidents to manufacture global consensus and expand US soft power, and it also needs bad cop presidents to inflict the hard power abuses the good cops can’t get away with. Both are essential components to the operation of the imperial machine.

Marco Rubio:

If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned — at least a little bit. pic.twitter.com/6ZBmwykfH1

— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 3, 2026

Cuba for example has been a socialist island nation off the coast of the United States for generations, because the US hasn’t been able topple its government by its usual means. All the standard CIA assassination ops, proxy warfare and economic blockades were unsuccessful, and there’s been no national or international support for sending US boots on the ground to regime change a small country that poses no military threat.

But a last-term bad cop president like Trump has options at his disposal that would be off the table for good cop presidents.

US empire managers are discussing this openly.

“If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned, at least a little bit,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio after Maduro’s capture.

“Cuba is ready to fall,” Trump told the press on Sunday next to a delighted Lindsey Graham. “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know if they’re going to hold out. But Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from their Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They’re not getting any of it. And Cuba is literally ready to fall.”

This is OUR Hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened. pic.twitter.com/SXvI868d4Z

— Department of State (@StateDept) January 5, 2026

“You just wait for Cuba,” Graham added. “Cuba is a Communist dictatorship that’s killed priests and nuns, they preyed on their own people. Their days are numbered. We’re gonna wake up one day, I hope in ’26, in our backyard we’re gonna have allies in these countries doing business with America, not narcoterrorist dictators killing Americans.

“Donald Trump will have done something that’s eluded America since the fifties: deal with the Communist dictatorship 90 miles off the coast of Florida,” Graham said on Fox News. “I can’t wait till that day comes. To our Cuban friends in Florida and throughout America, the liberation of your homeland is close.”

The Beltway swamp was saying this well before Trump’s Venezuela assault. In October, Senator Rick Scott told 60 Minutes that if Maduro was removed “it’ll be the end of Cuba,” saying “America is gonna take care of the Southern Hemisphere and make sure there’s freedom and democracy.”

Trump’s blatant smash-and-grab violation of international law in Venezuela wouldn’t have worked for a president who’s trying to put a nice guy face on the US empire, but for a wealthy reality TV star who’s comfortable playing the WWE heel, it’s opened up potential power grabs that have been eluding the imperialists for decades.

JUST IN – Lindsey Graham and Trump pose together with a “Make Iran Great Again” hat, signed by Trump. pic.twitter.com/656ctZp52M

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 5, 2026

When the news broke that Trump had attacked Caracas I was working on an article about his warmongering with Iran which I had to abandon to focus on the new development. The president had announced on Truth Social that if any of the people protesting in Iran are killed, “the United States of America will come to their rescue,” adding, “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Prior to that Trump had confirmed to the press that the US would attack Iran if it tried to rebuild its missile program, saying in a joint news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu that “I hope they’re not trying to build up again because if they are, we’re going have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.”

To be clear, the president is not talking about attacking Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear facilities or construct a nuclear weapon. He’s talking about Iran’s conventional ballistic missile programme. The United States is saying that Iran simply is not allowed to defend itself in any way, shape or form, and that if it tries to rebuild its ability to do so it will be attacked again.

So they’re clearly just making up excuses to bomb Iran and waiting for something to stick.

Senator Graham recently tweeted a photo of himself grinning with the president, who was holding a hat which said “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN”. You can pretty much determine how warlike the US empire is from day to day by looking at the expression on Lindsey Graham’s face, and lately he’s been looking positively ecstatic.

Trump used to slam warmongers like Graham, building a huge part of his presidential 2016 campaign around contrasting himself with their disastrous foreign policy platforms.

Now that he doesn’t have a re-election to posture for they’re best friends, with Graham proclaiming that “Trump is my favourite president” because “we’re killing all the right people and lowering your taxes”.

January 2029 is still a long way off, and we’re seeing every indication that Trump is going to be making Lindsey Graham smile for years to come.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Amid widespread condemnation of the United States over its brazen weekend attack on Venezuela around the world and in the UN Security Council today, Senator Bernie Sanders has posted on social media six reasons why the operation to kidnap President Nicolás Maduro on Venezuela was very wrong.

Abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told a packed New York City courtroom that he was “innocent”, a “decent man”, and that he had been “kidnapped”, in his first public comments since the US attack, reports Al Jazeera.

Members of the 15-strong UN Security Council (UNSC), including key US allies, condemned Washington and warned that the kidnapping of Maduro and his wife by US special forces could be a precedent-setting event for international law.

The reasons Senator Sanders (Democrat-Vermont) has given why Trump’s actions were wrong are:

1. It is illegal and unconstitutional. Congress did not authorise or even know about this military action.
2. It will make the world less safe. If international law is ignored, any nation or terrorist organisation can justify violent attack by pointing to Trump’s actions in Venezuela. This was Putin’s logic in Ukraine.
3. It is blatant imperialism. Powerful nations do not have the legal or moral right to invade smaller countries to steal their natural resources. Venezuela’s oil belongs to the people of Venezuela, not US corporations.
4. At a time when the entire world is moving away from fossil fuels for cheaper and non-polluting sustainable energies, protecting the interests of Big Oil is bad for the climate and bad economics.
5. Maduro is corrupt and anti-democratic. So is MBS of Saudi Arabia. So are many other leaders around the world. Just because we do not like a country’s leader does not mean we have the right to overthrow their government.
6. Trump ran for president as a “peace candidate” who believed in “America First”, not someone who was going to “run” another country. At a time when 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, maybe he should try doing a better job running this country [United States], not taking over Venezuela.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

US President Donald Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has taught me a lesson: that if you think you have a scoop, you file it immediately, not only to get the story out first but to warn the world if it’s about something bad that might be coming.

Shortly after Trump bombed Nigeria on Christmas day, I wrote an article that said his real aim was to send a message to Maduro and that among the options he was entertaining was a SEAL-type operation to capture or kill Maduro.

How did I come to this conclusion? I have no assets in the US intelligence community. I was completely running on instinct, and my instincts told me that the egomaniac Trump wanted to eclipse Obama’s feat in sending in the SEALS to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011, just as he wanted badly to get the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama got.

But it was the holidays and, out of consideration for the folks that run my stories, who deserved a New Year’s break to be with their families, I sat on it after I finished it on December 27 and only sent it to Foreign Policy in Focus on January 2, eight hours before the Caracas operation that kidnapped Maduro, in violation of all the norms of civilised conduct among states.

But though out-scooped by Trump, I still think that there are elements in the unfiled article that could be useful in helping us anticipate what could unfold in the days and weeks ahead. So here’s the scoop that wasn’t.

Trump strikes Nigeria but real target is Venezuela
The Trump regime’s air strikes on Islamic State targets in Nigeria on Christmas Day may have had symbolic significance but no strategic value. There will likely be no impact on the efforts of the militant group called Lakurawa, allied to ISIS, to establish a base in Sokoto state.

Many have been puzzled by the attacks that involved the use of Tomahawk missiles, especially given the relatively minuscule space given to Africa in the recently released National Security Strategy (NSS) 2025. That brief section focuses on transforming the US relationship with Africa from one based on aid to trade, though it does say, “we must remain wary of resurgent Islamist terrorist activity in parts of Africa while avoiding any long-term American presence or commitments.”

It is likely that the attacks were carried out for reasons unrelated to Africa. One is to appease Trump’s Christian evangelical base. As Joshua Keating, an expert in crisis areas, has noted, “Trump’s sudden interest in Africa’s most populous country was likely motivated less by any particular event there — these are all longstanding issues — than by developments in Washington. Though it doesn’t get a ton of mainstream media attention, the plight of Christians in Nigeria has been a galvanising issue for evangelical Christians in the US in recent years.”

On his internet platform Truth Social, Trump has cited figures from the international Christian rights NGO Open Doors, claiming that of the 4476 Christians killed for their faith globally in 2024, 3100 were in Nigeria.

In her recent book on the key groups that make up the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Furious Minds, Laura Field says that non-establishment Christian groups have an outsized influence in the Trump administration.

With the Republicans struggling in the lead-up to the mid-term elections in 2026, these groups’ muscle on the ground can determine whether the Republicans will continue to control the House of Representatives.

The main target: Venezuela
However, the main goal of the strikes, in my view, had to do mainly with developments thousands of kilometres away. It was to signal to the government of Nicolás Maduro that it will face not just attacks on Venezuelan boats at sea but also air attacks on ground targets. This interpretation would be consistent with NSS 2025.

NSS 2025 is an iconoclastic document. It literally dumps the 80-year-old strategy of liberal containment that guided the United States from the post-Second World War years through the Cold War years to the post-Cold War years, which was to meet challenges to global capital wherever and whenever the US state saw its interests threatened or challenged.

Next to its overthrowing the 80-year-old American “Grand Strategy,” the most significant departure in NSS 2025 is its break with the key assumption of US security policy since the presidency of George W. Bush (2001-2008), including the first Trump administration (2017-2021): that Washington must focus its resources on containing China, which was defined as the principal US strategic competitor.

Replacing China and the Asia Pacific as the main US concern in the Western Hemisphere, the document comes out with a reiteration of the Monroe Doctrine, but one fortified with what it calls the “Trump corollary.”

It states that Washington “will deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.” There is no more stark expression of the rude replacement of the liberal containment doctrine by a “spheres of influence” approach.

Meantime, the debate goes on in Trump administration on whether a ground invasion of Venezuela is the best way to implement the Western-Hemisphere-first strategy. Air strikes are one thing, boots on the ground are another, and one opposed by much of the MAGA base that is tired of the “forever wars”.

The “Molotov Cocktail” throwers in that base have made known their opposition or disquiet regarding a Venezuelan adventure.

Laura Loomer, an influential firebrand, has challenged Trump’s rationale for the attacks on Venezuelan boats, which is to prevent the opioid fentanyl and other drugs from being shipped to the United States.

“Fentanyl isn’t being manufactured in Venezuela,” she said, urging that the Pentagon target the Mexican drug cartels responsible for most shipments instead. She has also criticised María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize awardee for 2025 and the leader of the opposition in Venezuela, for “actively stoking and promoting violent regime change”.

Steve Bannon, a key official in the first Trump administration, said “neoconservative neoliberals” like Secretary of State Marco Rubio are pushing for a Venezuelan intervention that would derail the administration from its domestic priorities. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the volatile Georgia congresswoman, has posted on X that “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.”

My fearless forecast
Trump will limit attacks on his perceived adversaries globally to air strikes or naval bombardments to keep them off balance and not risk triggering another forever war with a ground invasion.

Of course, Trump’s people are probably weighing a SEAL-type special op — like then-President Obama’s killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad in 2011 — to murder or capture Maduro, but Maduro is likely to be already very well prepared for such a contingency. He’s not stupid.

Frankly, if you ask me, Washington has dug itself into a hole with its focus on Venezuela, one from which there is no easy exit.

If one gives a broad interpretation to Che Guevara’s dictum that the best way to defeat the United States was to create “two, three many Vietnams,” then Venezuela has the potential for becoming the third phase of the death rattle of the empire, Vietnam being the first and bin Laden’s dragging Washington to eventual defeat in the Middle East the second.

Dr Walden Bello is co-chair of the board of the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South and senior research fellow at the sociology department of the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is also author of Global Battlefields: My close encounters with dictatorship, capital, empire, and love (2025). This article was first published by Foreign Policy in Focus and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

There is no doubt that Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela was illegal, former prime minister and UN leader Helen Clark says.

Over the weekend, the US attacked the Venezuelan capital Caracas and captured the South American nation’s president and his wife, citing alleged drug offences.

Nicolás Maduro is now being held in a federal jail in New York City, and is expected to appear in court this week.

Speaking to RNZ’s Morning Report, Clark said there was no argument for the steps the US had taken.

“Article 24 of the UN Charter says states must refrain from using military force against each other and respect their sovereignty.

“There is a case for Maduro appearing before a court — that should be the International Criminal Court — on charges for crimes against humanity and there’s quite a long list of those that have been documented by various UN bodies over the years but this operation by the US . . .  is illegal.”

There was not an argument to be made that removing Maduro was in the security interests on the US, she said.

‘Not self-defence’
“There’s no evidence that the US was able to act in self-defence because it was not about to be attacked by Venezuela. So the self-defence argument does not apply at all.”

Hard not to conclude that 🇺🇸 intervention in #Venezuela is a breach of international law. Maduro was a dictatorial ruler presiding over arbitrary detention & torture of opponents. Iraq 2003 intervention, however, suggests unpredictable path ahead: https://t.co/4qjeENjpAH

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) January 3, 2026

While some people in Venezuela were celebrating Maduro’s capture in the hopes it would create more stability, Clark said this might not be the case.

“The worry with the president of other such interventions, when you take out a leader of an apparatus and then if you try to dismantle that apparatus by external forces, as was the case with Iraq — and I suppose, to some extent, with Libya — is that you create more instability and chaos,” Clark said.

“We don’t really know at this point what the US’s even short-term, let alone medium-term plans are. There’s been, effectively a warning by President Trump this morning that if the acting president, Ms Rodriguez, doesn’t play ball, she will ‘pay a price even bigger than Maduro’.

“What does this mean? Will she be literally, physically taken out? Killed? So this is a very unstable, unpredictable, uncertain situation at the moment.”

On Sunday, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters made the first public statement from New Zealand on the situation.

“New Zealand is concerned by and actively monitoring developments in Venezuela and expects all parties to act in accordance with international law,” Peters said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), using the official Minister of Foreign Affairs account.

NZ ‘stands with Venezuelan people’
“New Zealand stands with the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of a fair, democratic and prosperous future.

Clark said the statement was a “good start”.

RT @WhiteHouse: Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima. pic.twitter.com/Y4wzZM5qde

— Donald J Trump Posts TruthSocial (@TruthTrumpPost) January 3, 2026

New Zealand was known for following and upholding international law and Peters’ statement was consistent with the country’s long-held position, she said.

On Sunday, international relations Professor Robert Patman of the University of Otago described the US’ military actions against Venezuela as an “audacious move”.

“It’s a direct challenge for countries like New Zealand, which support the view that international relations should be based on rules, procedures and laws,” he told RNZ’s Worldwatch.

Patman said while many would be pleased to see Maduro gone, that did not mean they would be happy the US “violated Venezuela’s sovereignty”.

He believed New Zealand’s response to the US action in Venezuela should be firm and robust.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz