October 21, 2025

October 19. During the past week Washington escalated its attack on Venezuela.

Trump publicly authorized the CIA to intervene inside Venezuela.

Admiral Alvin Holsey, a 37-year Black U.S. Navy officer and commander of the eight warships Trump ordered to the Caribbean, resigned his command. It was after only one year of his three-year appointment, with no public explanation. The corporate media speculated that Adm. Holsey either disagreed with his orders or that the racist War Secretary worked around him.

U.S. warships sank six small boats since August in the waters around Venezuela, murdering 27 crew members. After the sixth attack the U.S. sailors rescued and seized two survivors. Neither was Venezuelan; one was handed over to Ecuador and one to Colombia, with no U.S. charges filed.

Besides the warships, the U.S. now has deployed 10,000 troops to the region, most based in Puerto Rico, a U.S. colonial possession since 1898.

Two Democratic senators and one Republican demanded a vote in the Senate under the War Powers Act. While the Senate has rarely even delayed U.S. aggression, a vote would force all senators to take a position on authorizing a U.S. military action against Venezuela. This would make pro-war senators, Republican or Democrat, openly responsible for war crimes.

These events bare U.S. preparation for military aggression against Venezuela. Let’s be clear: Every word Trump or his lackeys Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio utter to create a pretext for intervention is a lie. None of the pro-imperialist corporate media and few Democrat Party leaders, even those who criticize Trump, expose these lies.

Most regular International Action Center readers understand this already. But a look at some discussions opened in the corporate media −− for example, reactions to a New York Times article regarding the rescued Ecuadorean and Colombian crew members −− demonstrate confusion. The overwhelming weight of pro-imperialist propaganda has an impact on people’s beliefs. It demands a response.

The working class movement in the U.S., those who are anti-imperialist and anti-war must lead the way in clarifying the roots of Trump’s war moves. We must reach out to everyone active in solidarity with Gaza, defending migrants and protesting the MAGA criminals, to win them to oppose aggression on Venezuela.

The most important lesson is that the assault on Venezuela has nothing to do with protecting people in the U.S. from fentanyl or other dangerous drugs. The “war on drugs” is a pretext for war, not a reason. It is today’s equivalent of the lie about “weapons of mass destruction” that President George W. Bush used as a pretext for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Trump’s war threat is aimed solely at using the Pentagon’s potential for sowing terror to bully a nation of nearly 30 million people into submission. The goal is to replace President Nicolás Maduro’s government with a puppet regime. One led, for example, by ultrarightist María Corina Machado who has called for murderous U.S. military intervention against Venezuela’s people. The loot in this giant robbery is Venezuela’s energy reserves, the largest proven oil reserves in the world.

Remember, U.S. imperialism waged bombing raids on Iraq and Libya, two countries with enormous energy reserves, destroying both nations, killing hundreds of thousands of people including their leaders, and occupying Iraq for nearly a decade. It is no accident that Venezuela is a sovereign state whose people possess the world’s largest oil proven reserves. That the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Machado the Peace Prize makes this committee once again complicit with war crimes.

While the Venezuelan government has been open to negotiations with the U.S., it has also taken steps to defend itself. These have mainly been steps to mobilize five million volunteers into local popular militias, which can carry out a defensive people’s war if U.S. aggression makes this necessary.

The Landless Movement in Brazil, a country with a long border with Venezuela to the south, has pledged to organize international brigades to support the right of the Venezuelans to defend their sovereignty.

Let the movement in the United States that has developed in the past two years protesting genocide in Gaza and protesting the MAGA police state join with this international movement to confront U.S. imperialism on every front of its aggressive wars, from the neighborhoods of U.S. cities to the Resistance movements in West Asia to South America.

Keep the U.S. out of Venezuela!