US forces have captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife during Washington’s strikes on the nation’s capital, US President Donald Trump has announced, adding that the two have been flown out of the South American country. Venezuelan authorities have long accused the US of attempting to topple the government in Caracas.
In a statement on Saturday on Truth Social, Trump confirmed that the US had “successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela.”
“Its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement,” he wrote, adding that additional details would be provided at a news conference in his Florida residence in Mar-a-Lago at 11am.
This article was sourced HERE
Venezuela deploys armed forces as government demands proof of life for Maduro
“Its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with US Law Enforcement,” he wrote, adding that additional details would be provided at a news conference in his Florida residence in Mar-a-Lago at 11am.
This article was sourced HERE
Venezuela deploys armed forces as government demands proof of life for Maduro
Venezuela has been thrown into deep political and military uncertainty after reports that President Nicolás Maduro was captured by US special forces during strikes carried out overnight.
Officials told CBS News that the operation involved Delta Force, marking the most direct US military intervention in Latin America in decades.
Key details surrounding the strikes remain unclear, including the extent of damage to Venezuelan military infrastructure and the number of casualties. Venezuela’s Defence Minister, Vladimir Padrino López said the country would resist the presence of foreign troops.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said the government does not know the whereabouts of President Maduro or First Lady Cilia Flores, and demanded immediate proof of life for both. She said officials were still seeking confirmation of their status following the reported operation.
In a televised address, Padrino López announced the immediate deployment of armed forces across the country, calling for a united front against what he described as the worst aggression Venezuela has ever faced. He said all military units were acting under Maduro’s standing orders and insisted the country would not be subdued.
The United States has not publicly confirmed the capture, but President Donald Trump earlier claimed Maduro had been forcibly removed.
Washington has accused Maduro of leading a criminal narco-trafficking organisation, allegations he has consistently denied.
Venezuela, meanwhile, has accused the United States of seeking control over its vast oil reserves, believed to be the largest in the world.
This article was sourced HERE
Rubio says no further action as Maduro faces U.S. trial
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio does not expect any additional military or political action against Venezuela following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, according to Republican Senator Mike Lee.
British state media reported Lee said Rubio confirmed Maduro’s arrest and impending prosecution in the United States during a phone call with Rubio, who indicated the operation’s objectives had been fulfilled.
He said US strikes carried out during the operation were intended solely to protect forces executing the arrest warrant.
Earlier, Lee had publicly questioned what constitutional authority justified the action in the absence of a formal declaration of war or congressional approval for the use of military force.
Daily Telegraph New Zealand (DTNZ) is an independent news website, first published in October 2021. - where this article was sourced.
27 comments:
Oil.
If Maduro stands trial in the US and gets convicted of 34 felony crimes, does that make him eligible to become US president? He has an immigrant wife already, so I think he would meet most if not all requirements.
As Bush said about Iraq in 2003: Mission Accomplished!
Can we ask Mr Trump to have a look at Tamahere (Waipareira) and Jackson (MUMA)?
Mexico and Canada next!
Dear President Trump,
After you’re done in Venezuela, please send the task force to New Zealand.
It’s probably the only thing that can save us.
So all you fairweather friends - are you suggesting that the world would be a much safer place with Iran and Maduro financing the terrorists in the Middle East and the drug trafficers on the US border.
Grow up!
I understand where Clive is coming from but he needs to disengage emotion and engage intellect for a moment. The world most certainly isn't a safer place with the big actors - mainly the US and China - thumbing their noses at international law and muscling in wherever and whenever they like. Both of those superpowers have been propelling us back into the 19th century when all that mattered was how much military clout a country had to determine what was 'right'. All the progress made towards a rules-based international order throughout the 20th century appears to being thrown out of the window.
OK Barend
In a perfect world, the main power brokers abide by international rules and everybody gets along fine.
But in the modern world the only law recognized by dictatorships like those in China and Russia is based on military strength and all Trump is doing is re establishing US benign oversight of world order
Had he not done so, we could expect China and Russia to continue pursuit of their world wide objectives unchallenged.
Go figure!
Greenlanders, sharpen your ice picks and prepare to defend your rapidly melting land - you are next on the list.
Mr Bibby clearly supports Trump's unilateral actions in attacking Venezuela and undoubtedly endorses the "Manifest Destiny" doctrine. But more rational thinkers are justified in challenging Trump's motives for attacking Venezuela as having nothing to do with manifest destiny. Nor do they have anything to do with Venezuelan drugs crossing the US border. Independent analysis shows Venezuelan drugs are largely destined for other countries. And if Trump were truly concerned about the effects of drug-trafficking on the American people (who are, by the way, willing buyers), he would not have pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández for trafficking cocaine. Hernández was almost four years into his 45-year sentence for conspiring with cartels to distribute more than 400 tons of cocaine when Trump pardoned him. Is this rational? Is this consistent? But hey - perhaps the US needed to free-up executive jail space for Maduro, so they let Hernandez out. But however you look at it, there is a smell of corruption pervading everything that Trump does, and in Venezuela's case, an additional smell of hydro-carbons. One allegation doing the rounds is that some American oil refineries are struggling to survive for the lack of heavy crude feed-stock that only Venezuela can provide. And those refineries are in Red states. Go figure. But never, never, take Trump's utterances at face value. And never assume his strong actions are justifiable just because they are strong. There's nothing new about starting a foreign war to divert attention from domestic failures. And the polls clearly show Trump is losing it at home, so why are we surprised he attacked Venezuela. Particularly if there's money to be made along the way.
Clive, essentially what you are saying is that breaking international law, violating other nations' sovereignty, etc, are OK if done by the US in their role as "benign [overseer] of world order".
The US has vacillated about being "the world's policeman" - Obama explicitly rejected the notion, although his view to this effect was stronger than that of most Presidents. But however it is windowdressed, the US acts in its own interests, and this little incursion into Venezuela is no exception.
In a bipolar world where the strongest geopolitical actor kicks butt when and where it will, it follows naturally that unlikely allies will team up against that entity. Russia and China are not natural allies - Russia's rightful place in the world is as a part of Europe. But the 'great overseer of world order' has pitted Europe against Russia through its instrument NATO.
I would like to see a move towards a multipolar world in which Russia returns to the European fold, the Chinese are left with Pyongyang as their only doting ally, and the Americans restrict their attentions to their own back yard - all subject, eventually, to an international rules-based order in which there is no overall 'overseer'.
Clive your drug rationale is false and proven as such. Are you so uninformed as to not know that Trump freed former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who had been convicted in the U.S. of helping smuggle more than 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.?
Trump has just waved the green flag for China’s invasion of Taiwan. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Tell you what though, an illegal international invasion is a helluva distraction from Trump’s long standing friendship with Epstein. Money well spent? Time will tell, but smart people won’t forget.
Barend. You deliberately misrepresent my point about the US response to Russian and Chinese unchallenged agression.
In the absence of any crediblle defence against such agression by those two or their proxy terrorist regimes, surely the US has a moral duty to the Free World to use its own military strength in an atrempt at safeguarding the freedoms of countries like ourselves.
It is simply fanciful to talk about alternative possibilities when reality suggests we must accept reality.
In that context, for us there really is only one option.
I'm getting a bit lost here, Clive. Venezuela is a proxy terrorist regime for Russia and China and thereby threatens the Free World, so the US has to go and kick their butts?
"Countries like ourselves" have nothing to fear from Venezuela or Russia for that matter. The threatening entity is Beijing. NZ foreign policy should rely less on the bipolar myopia in which the US is 'good' and the others are 'bad' and put multipolar lenses on, then steer a course free of US manipulation and develop a truly independent foreign policy that seeks to build bridges with potential allies against Beijing's hegemonistic aspirations.
China makes the drugs - the proxy terrorist Venezuela sends them to the US - either across Biden's open border or by boat
The main ingredients of drugs killing Americans are sourced from China. So don't shift the focus of the argument away from the real and present danger which is all about protecting the sovereignty of the free world.
NZ 's foreign policy will have little to do with it.
That's it from me.
Clive Bibby’s original comment may have been brief, but it was long enough to get in a snide comment at those with a different view to his own, so we ‘fair weather friends should go grow up’. The question is not if the world is a ‘much safer place with Iran and Maduro financing the terrorists’ removed, but its mirror image; ‘Is the world a more dangerous place with Trump in the White House?’ I think that it is. The U S military would be very busy if it is to invade any country with a cruel and corrupt dictator and haul him off to the U S to put on trial. But, of course, humanitarianism – Trump wouldn’t comprehend of care about such – is not the issue but the abundance of oil. Just like the minerals of Greenland; he wants it for ‘U S security’ so he’ll just march in and take it.
Clive seems to be a bit confused. Venezuela is a transit point for most of the South American (including Venezuelan) cocaine that enters the US. China doesn't enter that equation. China does produce most of the precursors from which fentanyl is made but that last production phase happens in Mexico.
And while illegal drugs may be bad news for the citizens of countries who use them, they hardly constitute a threat to "the sovereignty of the free world".
Clive has been made aware that Trump pardons convicted drug traffickers. End of.
Sorry guys...agree with Clive. Trump has saved these guys from a terrible far left dictator. Just look at the joy of the Venezuelans. The destruction the left dictators deploy on countries is horrific. Another 3 years with ardern and co would have brought us to the brink also. :)
Right - to all those defending the socialists - now go and listen to stossel's socialism vs capitalism and try and understand how Chavez and Maduro turned latin americas richest nation into the poorest in just a few short years. A country where eating is now a luxury. 130,000% inflation. You might learn something.
So Annon 4.57 thanks it’s okay to capture a brutal dictator and take him back to U S for trial to save the country. How that works out remains to be seen, but let’s hope that the U S succeeds in running a foreign country of 23 million people. Can we see this as a precedent? How about doing the same with Putin? He’s a brutal dictator that is dragging his country down. Nope. He’s untouchable as far as Trump is concerned. But talking of precedents, maybe China will be encouraged to move against Taiwan. The world has got Trump, we presume, for another three years. How exciting is that?
Seems we will have saviour if and when Rawere and/or Chloe gain control. Those inflation figures make Super Funds appear very dubious. Acheived without even an equal pay movement.
Ewan I'm anon @ 4.57.
I understand exactly what you are saying. In a perfect world, that a lot of the posters are claiming it should be, then this would not happen. The stark reality and truth is far different. I'm guessing that the far left anti Trump brigade are more than happy the millions are suffering but the corrupt few are thriving.
To robert Arthur. @ 8.06pm. My inflation figures are actually a bit light. Please do me a favor and check before ever accusing me of being in chloes camp.
I should point out that my inflation figures were from 1999 to current - when the far left took over Latin America's wealthiest country and decimated it.
Although they stopped publishing inflation figures in 2018 it was expected to exceed 1 000 000% (which is why I say my 130 000% is a bit light) - but that was the most accurate I could find before they stopped publishing.
Currently under Maduro their MONTHLY inflation rate sits at 50%.
This chap is the far lefts best of the best. I'm sure Robert Arthur is correct about one thing that the likes of swarbrick and arderns idolize these lunatics.
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