{"id":311295,"date":"2026-01-05T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=311295"},"modified":"2026-01-04T06:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T06:46:16","slug":"were-going-to-run-the-country-preparing-an-illegal-occupation-in-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/01\/were-going-to-run-the-country-preparing-an-illegal-occupation-in-venezuela\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019re Going to Run the Country:\u201d Preparing an Illegal Occupation in Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

3 Jan 2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0I listened to the January 3 press conference with a knot in my stomach. As a Venezuelan American with family, memories, and a living connection to the country being spoken about as if it were a possession, what I heard was very clear. And that clarity was chilling.<\/p>\n

The president said, plainly, that the United States would \u201crun the country\u201d until a transition it deems \u201csafe\u201d and \u201cjudicious.\u201d He spoke about capturing Venezuela\u2019s head of state, about transporting him on a U.S. military vessel, about administering Venezuela temporarily, and about bringing in U.S. oil companies to rebuild the industry. He dismissed concerns about international reaction with a phrase that should alarm everyone: \u201cThey understand this is our hemisphere.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Venezuelans, those words echo a long, painful history.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be clear about the claims made. The president is asserting that the U.S. can detain a sitting foreign president and his spouse under U.S. criminal law. That the U.S. can administer another sovereign country without an international mandate. That Venezuela\u2019s political future can be decided from Washington. That control over oil and \u201crebuilding\u201d is a legitimate byproduct of intervention. That all of this can happen without congressional authorization and without evidence of imminent threat.<\/p>\n

We have heard this language before. In Iraq, the United States promised a limited intervention and a temporary administration, only to impose years of occupation, seize control of critical infrastructure, and leave behind devastation and instability. What was framed as stewardship became domination. Venezuela is now being spoken about in disturbingly similar terms. \u201cTemporary Administration\u201d ended up being a permanent disaster.<\/p>\n

Under international law, nothing described in that press conference is legal. The UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against another state and bars interference in a nation\u2019s political independence. Sanctions designed to coerce political outcomes and cause civilian suffering amount to collective punishment. Declaring the right to \u201crun\u201d another country is the language of occupation, regardless of how many times the word is avoided.<\/p>\n

Under U.S. law, the claims are just as disturbing. War powers belong to Congress. There has been no authorization, no declaration, no lawful process that allows an executive to seize a foreign head of state or administer a country. Calling this \u201claw enforcement\u201d does not make it so. Venezuela poses no threat to the United States. It has not attacked the U.S. and has issued no threat that could justify the use of force under U.S. or international law. There is no lawful basis, domestic or international, for what is being asserted.<\/p>\n

But beyond law and precedent lies the most important reality: the cost of this aggression is paid by ordinary people in Venezuela. War, sanctions, and military escalation do not fall evenly. They fall hardest on women, children, the elderly, and the poor. They mean shortages of medicine and food, disrupted healthcare systems, rising maternal and infant mortality, and the daily stress of survival in a country forced to live under siege. They also mean preventable deaths, people who die not because of natural disaster or inevitability, but because access to care, electricity, transport, or medicine has been deliberately obstructed. Every escalation compounds existing harm and increases the likelihood of loss of life, civilian deaths that will be written off as collateral, even though they were foreseeable and avoidable.<\/p>\n

What makes this even more dangerous is the assumption underlying it all: that Venezuelans will remain passive, compliant, and submissive in the face of humiliation and force. That assumption is wrong. And when it collapses, as it inevitably will, the cost will be measured in unnecessary bloodshed. This is what is erased when a country is discussed as a \u201ctransition\u201d or an \u201cadministration problem.\u201d Human beings disappear. Lives are reduced to acceptable losses. And the violence that follows is framed as unfortunate rather than the predictable outcome of arrogance and coercion.<\/p>\n

To hear a U.S. president talk about a country as something to be managed, stabilized, and handed over once it behaves properly, it hurts. It humiliates. And it enrages.<\/p>\n

And yes, Venezuela is not politically unified. It isn\u2019t. It never has been. There are deep divisions, about the government, about the economy, about leadership, about the future. There are people who identify as Chavista, people who are fiercely anti-Chavista, people who are exhausted and disengaged, and yes, there are some who are celebrating what they believe might finally bring change.<\/p>\n

But political division does not invite invasion.<\/p>\n

Latin America has seen this logic before. In Chile, internal political division was used to justify U.S. intervention, framed as a response to \u201cungovernability,\u201d instability, and threats to regional order, ending not in democracy, but in dictatorship, repression, and decades of trauma.<\/p>\n

In fact, many Venezuelans who oppose the government still reject this moment outright. They understand that bombs, sanctions, and \u201ctransitions\u201d imposed from abroad do not bring democracy, they destroy the conditions that make it possible.<\/p>\n

This moment demands political maturity, not purity tests. You can oppose Maduro and still oppose U.S. aggression. You can want change and still reject foreign control. You can be angry, desperate, or hopeful, and still say no to being governed by another country.<\/p>\n

Venezuela is a country where communal councils, worker organizations, neighborhood collectives, and social movements have been forged under pressure. Political education didn\u2019t come from think tanks; it came from survival. Right now, Venezuelans are not hiding. They are closing ranks because they recognize the pattern. They know what it means when foreign leaders start talking about \u201ctransitions\u201d and \u201ctemporary control.\u201d They know what usually follows. And they are responding the way they always have: by turning fear into collective action.<\/p>\n

This press conference wasn\u2019t just about Venezuela. It was about whether empire can say the quiet part out loud again, whether it can openly claim the right to govern other nations and expect the world to shrug.<\/p>\n

If this stands, the lesson is brutal and undeniable: sovereignty is conditional, resources are there to be taken by the U.S., and democracy exists only by imperial consent.<\/p>\n

As a Venezuelan American, I refuse that lesson.<\/p>\n

I refuse the idea that my tax dollars fund the humiliation of my homeland. I refuse the lie that war and coercion are acts of \u201ccare\u201d for the Venezuelan people. And I refuse to stay silent while a country I love is spoken about as raw material for U.S. interests, not a society of human beings deserving respect.<\/p>\n

Venezuela\u2019s future is not for U.S. officials, corporate boards, or any president who believes the hemisphere is his to command. It belongs to Venezuelans.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

Michelle Ellner is a Latin America campaign coordinator of CODEPINK. She was born in Venezuela and holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in languages and international affairs from the University La Sorbonne Paris IV, in Paris. After graduating, she worked for an international scholarship program out of offices in Caracas and Paris and was sent to Haiti, Cuba, The Gambia, and other countries for the purpose of evaluating and selecting applicants.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – scheerpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 Jan 2026\u00a0–\u00a0I listened to the Jan 3 press conference with a knot in my stomach. As a Venezuelan American with family and memories of the country being spoken as if it were a possession, what I heard was chilling. The US will \u201crun the country\u201d until a transition it deems \u201csafe\u201d and \u201cjudicious.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":311296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[867,1441,417,3614,1126,1050,950,541,559,1624,3530,86,2571,1190,329,2137,880,249,70,557],"class_list":["post-311295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight","tag-anglo-america","tag-big-oil","tag-bullying","tag-disaster-capitalism","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-invasion","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-maduro","tag-mafia","tag-military-capitalism","tag-occupation","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-regime-change","tag-resources","tag-south-america","tag-state-terrorism","tag-trump","tag-usa","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311297,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311295\/revisions\/311297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}