Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
Jesus was a social activist who stood up to the Roman empire
Martin Luther King - Reflections on Jesus
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old.
Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. He didn't have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. He practiced civil disobedience; he broke the laws of the day. And so he was turned over to the people in power, and went through the mockery of trial.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today, he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All of the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of humanity on this earth as much as that one solitary life. Even today I can hear them talking about him. Every now and then somebody says, `He's King of Kings'. And again I can hear somebody saying, `He's the Prince of Peace.'
Somewhere else I can hear somebody saying, 'In Christ there is no east nor west, in him no south and north, but one community of love throughout the whole wide earth.'
He didn't have anything. He just went around serving.
Pepe Escobar joins to analyze how Russia is sending a stark message with one of its most powerful weapons and no one is talking about it except the panicked European backers of Ukraine's dying regime.
Meanwhile, Trump is escalating an oil tanker war against Venezuela and the Western hemisphere that is already backing him into a corner that won't end well for the flailing US empire.
Pepe, reporting from Sicily, also discusses on NATO expansion and Germany's plans for massive rearmament aimed at Russia.
Britain’s ruling class loves to cosplay as a titan. From the podium, it’s Churchillian thunder: prepare for war, deter Russia, stand tall, lead the free world. Back in the engine room, it’s Whitehall with a calculator, sweating through its suit because the numbers simply don’t work.
The Financial Times reports Starmer has delayed the Defence Investment Plan over “affordability,” kicking it into 2026, because the military’s wish list collided with the Treasury’s reality. Translation: the rhetoric is premium, the balance sheet is bargain-bin.
And then, because the universe has a sense of irony sharp enough to cut steel, enter Ajax; the £6-plus billion armoured vehicle program that has become the British state’s spirit animal. Trials paused again. Fresh safety concerns. Soldiers injured. Crews sickened by vibration and noise. Endless reviews. Endless “lessons learned.” Endless press lines insisting this is all somehow progress.
If you want to understand modern Britain, don’t read strategy documents. Watch a procurement program that cannot stop hurting the people it is meant to protect.
Ajax was meant to be the backbone of Britain’s future armoured forces, a next-generation reconnaissance and strike platform designed to replace ageing vehicles and restore credibility to the British Army’s manoeuvre capability. Instead, it has become a case study in institutional failure: spiraling costs, years of delay, fundamental design flaws, and a safety record so poor it forced repeated trial suspensions. Soldiers were not merely inconvenienced; they were physically harmed in testing, suffering hearing damage, sickness, and long-term health concerns.
This is not a marginal technical glitch. It is the predictable outcome of a system where industrial capacity has been hollowed out, accountability diffused, and procurement reduced to a paper exercise optimized for contracts, not combat. Ajax does not fail because Britain lacks engineers or soldiers. It fails because Britain no longer possesses a state machinery capable of translating ambition into functioning hardware at scale.
This is the farce at the heart of the Atlantic security sermon.
Britain speaks about Russia the way a fading aristocrat sneers at a rising industrial superpower... condescending, dismissive, utterly uncurious. For years we’ve heard the same insult recycled like a nervous tic: Russia is a “gas station,” a crude petro-state propped up by fumes and nostalgia. Yet here we are.
Russia the “gas station,” under the most comprehensive sanctions regime in modern history, has been forced—by Western institutions themselves, into an inconvenient admission: Russia now ranks as the fourth-largest economy in the world by purchasing-power parity.
So let’s pause and ask the question Britain’s elites refuse to face. If Russia is a glorified gas station, what exactly does that make Britain? A country that cannot publish a defence investment plan on time. A state that cannot field a functioning armoured vehicle without injuring its own troops. An economy that cannot sustain rearmament in spite of private finance gimmicks and accounting contortions. A political class that cannot reconcile its war talk with its industrial capacity.
If Russia is a gas station, Britain increasingly resembles a heritage museum complete with a gift shop, living off past glories while subcontracting its future.
Now let’s move to where the illusion truly collapses, production.
Wars are not won by hysterical speeches, theatrical bravado, summits, or moral pronouncements. They are won by output — steel, shells, access to critical minerals, drones, logistics, and the brutal arithmetic of throughput. On this front, the West has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into recognition of a reality it tried to meme out of existence.
Greta Thunberg was arrested in central London at a demonstration in support of Palestine Action.
The Prisoners for Palestine protest group confirmed Greta had been arrested at a demonstration in support of the Palestine Action members on hunger strike in prison - some of them now over 50 days without food.
Bruce Gagnon, the coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space joined me [Regis Tremblay] for an emotional discussion that ranged from Trump’s role as Captain Hook in Pirates of the Caribbean, the psychotic partner of Netanyahu in the genocide in Palestine, to the fake 28 Point Peace Plan, to Trump’s Golden Dome and the Space Race.
We analyzed the role of Witkoff and Kushner in Trump’s plans for an Atlantic City Casino, resort, and golf course on the bones of Palestinians, and the role of those two real estate shysters in the “peace plan” talks with Vladimir Putin.
We mocked Trump’s coveting of the beautiful, warm Crimea bordered by four oceans! Gotta think it’s a sign that Witkoff and Kushner are discussing how Trump could build another casino, resort, golf course, and a Mar-a-Lago mansion a few kilometers from the famous Livadia Palace here in greater Yalta when the war in Ukraine ends.
Private equity is collapsing—and now they want your retirement savings to bail them out.
President Trump’s team just leaked a potential executive order that would unlock $12.2 trillion in 401(k) assets for risky private equity investment.
These are the same firms sitting on a $3 trillion pile of toxic, unsellable debt.
Harvard and Yale, with nearly 95% of their endowments in these same funds, haven’t been able to sell off $8 billion worth of PE for eight months. And their returns? A weak 5–7% over 4 years—while the S&P 500 soared 95%.
Now they want YOU to buy in—with your retirement.
This is not about access. It’s a setup.
It’s a billionaire bailout dressed as opportunity.
Today’s leaders disconnect themselves from historical record, and rely entirely on appeals to limbic instincts and knee jerk passions.
Just observe the EU apparat’s current cast of uncharismatic minstrels, who brazenly dismiss objective historical realities in angling their cheap narratives. Coming to mind is KajaKallas’s recent affected disbelief at the idea that Russia defeated the Nazis in WWII in a lazy attempt to perpetuate the image of Russia as ancestral ‘Other’ to the West.
[KajaKallasis an Estonian politician and diplomat. She was the first female prime minister of Estonia, a role she held from 2021 until 2024, when she resigned in advance of her appointment as High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Since 2024, she has served in that role as well as Vice-President of the European Commission in the second von der Leyen Commission.]
Her mistress von der Leyen likewise weaves historical incongruities into her statements with equal impunity because the content itself no longer rules the message, rather just the presentation, the spectacle of it all carries the essence: what matters is what kind of emotional charge the leading headline can drive in a nugget-sized PR blurb.
Zelensky is grateful for Japan's $6 billion 'contribution' to Ukraine.
Will be used in the coming year for 'defense' against Russia.
Zelensky boasts Japan is a defender of the 'rules-based order'. Has anyone actually ever seen an official copy of these so-called rules?
Zelensky promises that none of Japan's funds will be wasted on golden toilets or overseas mansions for his corrupt team. (Not on cocaine either.) Some are stating these 'payments' to Ukraine from US-EU allies are a form of bribery - to buy off the Ukrainian's silence about the western level of complicity in this ill-fated war.
Ukrainians are massively fleeing directly from the Armed Forces training centers to survive
▪️Most cases of desertion in the Armed Forces occur already in training centers, stated the secretary of the Rada's [Ukraine parliament] defense committee.
▪️This stage accounts for 90% of unauthorized departures from units, which indicates a catastrophic lack of motivation among mobilized individuals even before being sent to the front.
▪️A new trend is also noted: soldiers who have already left their units sometimes agree to return, but only on the condition of being assigned to rear positions, categorically refusing to serve on the frontline. This indicates a deep crisis of discipline and morale in the army.
▪️Earlier, Ukrainian military ombudswoman Alina Reshetilova reported on similar problems. She confirmed that many Ukrainians are deliberately choosing a prison term to avoid mobilization. These admissions by officials indicate a total unwillingness of the population to fight for the interests of the Kiev regime.
▪️Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Umerov asked FBI to pressure Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies to drop investigations against him. The request came during a meeting with the FBI's Kash Patel, according to Ukrainian media. Umerov remains implicated in the Mindich corruption case.
You have spoken repeatedly of Germany’s responsibility for European security. That responsibility cannot be discharged through slogans, selective memory, or the steady normalization of war talk. Security guarantees are not one-way instruments. They go in both directions. This is not a Russian argument, nor an American one; it is a foundational principle of European security, explicitly embedded in the Helsinki Final Act, the OSCE framework, and decades of postwar diplomacy.
Germany has a duty to approach this moment with historical seriousness and honesty. On that score, recent rhetoric and policy choices fall dangerously short. Since 1990, Russia’s core security concerns have been repeatedly dismissed, diluted, or directly violated — often with Germany’s active participation or acquiescence. This record cannot be erased if the war in Ukraine is to end, and it cannot be ignored if Europe is to avoid a permanent state of confrontation.
At the end of the Cold War, Germany gave Soviet and then Russian leaders repeated and explicit assurances that NATO would not expand eastward. These assurances were given in the context of German reunification. Germany benefited enormously from them. The rapid unification of your country — within NATO — would not have occurred without Soviet consent grounded in those commitments. To later pretend these assurances never mattered, or that they were merely casual remarks, is not realism. It is historical revisionism.
In 1999, Germany participated in NATO’s bombing of Serbia, the first major war conducted by NATO without authorization from the UN Security Council. This was not a defensive action. It was a precedent-setting intervention that fundamentally altered the post–Cold War security order. For Russia, Serbia was not an abstraction. The message was unmistakable: NATO would use force beyond its territory, without UN approval, and without regard for Russian objections.
In 2002, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a cornerstone of strategic stability for three decades. Germany raised no serious objection. Yet the erosion of the arms-control architecture did not occur in a vacuum. Missile-defense systems deployed closer to Russia’s borders were rightly perceived by Russia as destabilizing. Dismissing those perceptions as paranoia was political propaganda, not sound diplomacy.
In 2008, Germany recognized Kosovo’s independence, despite explicit warnings that this would undermine the principle of territorial integrity and set a precedent that would reverberate elsewhere. Once again, Russia’s objections were brushed aside as bad faith rather than engaged as serious strategic concerns.
The steady push to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia — formally declared at the 2008 Bucharest Summit — crossed the brightest of red lines, despite vociferous, clear, consistent, and repeated objections raised by Moscow for years. When a major power identifies a core security interest and reiterates it for decades, ignoring it is not diplomacy. It is willful escalation.
Germany’s role in Ukraine since 2014 is especially troubling. Berlin, alongside Paris and Warsaw, brokered the February 21, 2014 agreement between President Yanukovych and the opposition, an agreement intended to halt violence and preserve constitutional order. Within hours, that agreement collapsed. A violent overthrow followed. A new government emerged through extra-constitutional means. Germany recognized and supported the new regime immediately. The agreement Germany had guaranteed was abandoned without consequence.
The Minsk II agreement of 2015 was supposed to be the corrective — a negotiated framework to end the war in eastern Ukraine. Germany again served as a guarantor. Yet for seven years Minsk II was not implemented by Ukraine. Kyiv openly rejected its political provisions. Germany did not enforce them. Former German and other European leaders have since acknowledged that Minsk was treated less as a peace plan than as a holding action. That admission alone should force a reckoning.
Merz and Zelensky
Against this background, calls for ever more weapons, ever harsher rhetoric, and ever greater “resolve” ring hollow. They ask Europe to forget the recent past in order to justify a future of permanent confrontation.
Enough with propaganda. Enough with the moral infantilization of the public. Europeans are fully capable of understanding that security dilemmas are real, that NATO actions have consequences, and that peace is not achieved by pretending that Russia’s security concerns do not exist.
European security is indivisible. That principle means that no country can strengthen its security at the expense of another’s without provoking instability. It also means that diplomacy is not appeasement, and that historical honesty is not betrayal. Germany once understood this. Ostpolitik was not weakness; it was strategic maturity. It recognized that Europe’s stability depends on engagement, arms control, economic ties, and respect for the legitimate security interests of Russia.
Today, Germany needs that maturity again. Stop speaking as if war is inevitable or virtuous. Stop outsourcing strategic thinking to alliance talking points. Start engaging seriously in diplomacy — not as a public-relations exercise, but as a genuine effort to rebuild a European security architecture that includes, rather than excludes, Russia. A renewed European security architecture must begin with clarity and restraint. First, it requires an unequivocal end to NATO’s eastward enlargement — to Ukraine, to Georgia, and to any other state along Russia’s borders.
NATO expansion was not an inevitable feature of the post–Cold War order; it was a political choice, taken in violation of solemn assurances given in 1990 and pursued despite repeated warnings that it would destabilize Europe. Security in Ukraine will not come from the forward deployment of German, French, or other European troops, which would only entrench division and prolong war. It will come through neutrality, backed by credible international guarantees. The historical record is unambiguous: neither the Soviet Union nor the Russian Federation violated the sovereignty of neutral states in the postwar order — not Finland, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, or others. Neutrality worked because it addressed legitimate security concerns on all sides. There is no serious reason to pretend it cannot work again.
Second, stability requires demilitarization and reciprocity. Russian forces should be kept well back from NATO borders, and NATO forces — including missile systems — must be kept well back from Russia’s borders. Security is indivisible, not one-sided. Border regions should be demilitarized through verifiable agreements, not saturated with ever more weapons. Sanctions should be lifted as part of a negotiated settlement; they have failed to bring peace and have inflicted severe damage on Europe’s own economy.
Germany, in particular, should reject the reckless confiscation of Russian state assets — a brazen violation of international law that undermines trust in the global financial system. Reviving German industry through lawful, negotiated trade with Russia is not capitulation. It is economic realism. Europe should not destroy its own productive base in the name of moral posturing.
Finally, Europe must return to the institutional foundations of its own security. The OSCE — not NATO — should once again serve as the central forum for European security, confidence-building, and arms control. Strategic autonomy for Europe means precisely this: a European security order shaped by European interests, not permanent subordination to NATO expansionism. France could rightly extend its nuclear deterrent as a European security umbrella, but only in a strictly defensive posture, without forward-deployed systems that threaten Russia. Europe should press urgently for a return to the INF framework and for comprehensive strategic nuclear arms-control negotiations involving the United States and Russia — and, in time, China.
Most importantly, Chancellor Merz, learn history, and be honest about it. Without honesty, there can be no trust. Without trust, there can be no security. And without diplomacy, Europe risks repeating the catastrophes it claims to have learned from. History will judge what Germany chooses to remember — and what it chooses to forget. This time, let Germany choose diplomacy and peace, and abide by its word.
Respectfully,
Jeffrey D. Sachs University Professor Columbia University
L.L. Bean doing renovations so we used their fence
Starting to walk thru shopping district
Walking from the other side of the street
Two sides crossing the street
Closing circle
Yesterday more than 30 folks from around Maine gathered in front of the famous L. L. Bean store in Freeport for our monthly coalition solidarity protest. Each month we go to a different part of the state and hold these vigils at busy intersections. We began them in February 2022 as the US-NATO proxy war on Russia using Ukraine as the hammer heated up. We've done them ever since in all kinds of weather.
We had folks line both sides of the street with signs, flags and banners for nearly an hour. During much of that time I walked up and down in front of the L. L. Bean store and handed out a good stack of flyers to those who would take them.
Basically we had three kinds of people pass us. First would be Trump supporters who tended to be gruff, then liberals who would say 'I agree' but often refused flyers, and finally people with their heads down avoiding eye contact. But I did succeed in handing out the flyers.
After nearly an hour we walked down both sides of the very busy sidewalks and street. As we walked we chanted about Palestine, Venezuela, the cost of wars, and what the unfulfilled needs were in our nation. After several blocks we switched sides at a crosswalk and then proceeded back to the starting point.
As we were chanting, especially about the cost of war and how the future generations were going to be stuck paying for endless war, I noticed many shoppers nodding in agreement. I can just imagine them inside the stores and being struck by the increase in prices for everything. Hopefully they connected some dots in those moments.
At the end we gathered in a circle and passed the megaphone around for introductions and comments. Palestinian Faisal Kahn made a rousing speech when it was his turn to speak. He reminded us about the suffering people in Gaza and the now beleaguered West Bank. He urged us all to keep doing the good work in order to stop the US-Israel-UK-EU-Arab monarchies bloody war on the Palestinian people.
Jamila Levasseur also told us about the eight young women and men in the UK, accused but not yet tried for Palestine solidarity actions. They are hunger striking as they demand an end to censorship, immediate bail, fair trials, that Palestine Action be removed from the terrorist list, and that Britain terminate its relationships with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapon manufacturer. Some have been hunger striking over fifty days. See more about this here
We deeply appreciate those who come from far across Maine to these regular events. It's a wonderful community we have built and even though we are not together for very long we are always buoyed by being together.
Our next statewide coalition protest will be held in Saco, Maine along the bridges between that city and Biddeford. Park at the Amtrak station. This will be held on Saturday, January 10 at 1:30 pm. (Saco is the home of the General Dynamics facility that builds the guidance systems for bombs the Pentagon sends to Israel.)
The Swedish government violated its own laws by awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Corina Machado, according to an explosive legal brief filed by Julian Assange, the Wikileaks co-founder and former political prisoner who was hounded across the globe, confined in harsh conditions, and subjected to physical and psychological torment over the course of a decade by the US and its allies.
The Nobel committee’s decision to award Machado the Peace Prize — and the 11 million Swedish Kroner ($1.18 million USD) reward which accompanies it — means that “there is a real risk that funds derived from Nobel’s endowment have been or will be… diverted from their charitable purpose to facilitate aggression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes,” Assange stated.
The Wikileaks founder pointed to the “ample public statements… showing that the U.S. government and MarÃa Corina Machado have exploited the authority of the prize to provide them with a casus moralis for war,” adding that the explicitly stated purpose of the war sought by Machado and her wealthy Latin American backers would be “installing her by force in order to plunder $1.7 trillion in Venezuelan oil and other resources.”
The Nobel Foundation stands accused of a number of violations of Swedish criminal law, including breach of trust, misappropriation and gross misappropriation, conspiracy, crimes against international law, as well as financing of aggression, facilitation of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and breaching Sweden’s stated obligations under the Rome Statute, to which Stockholm says it is “deeply committed.”
Under Swedish law, “Alfred Nobel’s endowment for peace cannot be spent on the promotion of war,” Assange noted. “Nor can it be used as a tool in foreign military intervention. Venezuela, whatever the status of its political system, is no exception.”
By granting Nobel funds to Machado, Assange argues that the Committee is effectively financing “a conspiracy to murder civilians, to violate national sovereignty using military force…” By refusing to end payments, “they flagrantly violate Nobel’s will and clearly cross the threshold into criminality,” he alleged. The Wikileaks co-founder seeks the “immediate freezing of all remaining funds and a full criminal investigation” into Committee members who awarded the prize.
The Nobel Prizes were established in 1901 according to Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament, which was later incorporated into the Swedish and Norwegian legal systems. The Peace Prize, which is meant to be bestowed on the figure who has contributed most to “fraternity between nations,” the “abolition or reduction of standing armies,” and “the holding and promotion of peace congresses,” has served as a cornerstone of Scandinavian soft power ever since.
Since its inception, however, the prize was marred by controversy due to the violent legacy of its recipients, and the political ambitions of its Norwegian sponsors. In the case of one of the Prize’s first winners, US President Theodore Roosevelt, the Norwegian Nobel Committee was criticized at the time for overlooking the American statesman’s naked warmongering in Latin America in order to curry favor with the nascent US empire. The New York Times sardonically observed that “a broad smile illuminated the face of the globe when the prize was awarded … to the most warlike citizen of these United States.”
The same dynamic is at play in the Caribbean once again, according to Assange, as the Nobel Committee crowns a Venezuelan politician best known for her unhinged appealsfor foreign military intervention and her dedication of her Nobel victory to US President Donald Trump.
As Assange explained, Trump’s massive buildup of US military forces off the coast of Venezuela “has already committed undeniable war crimes, including the lethal targeting of civilian boats and survivors at sea, which has killed at least 95 people.”
“The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights labeled these U.S. coastal strikes against civilian boats “extrajudicial executions,” the Wikileaks co-founder wrote. And the “principal architect of this aggression” was none other than Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who “nominated MarÃa Corina Machado for the peace prize.”
What the hell have they done? They'd made a friggin mess of everything!
You can't spend a trillion and a half dollars a year (once you add up all the hidden pots of gold in the military/intel/security/nuclear/CIA regime change budgets) and still have a prosperous nation.
We are now $38 trillion in debt in the US.
There's no money left for health care, education, environmental care, infrastructure repair (crumbling roads, bridges, electrical grid, sewer and water systems), housing, common welfare, and much more.
The people are not stupid. They know they can't afford escalating costs for food, medical, housing, transportation, day care and the like.
They also know that both political parties have abandoned them in order to serve their masters on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, AIPAC, Madison Avenue, and the war machine.
People are getting angry and Trump knows it. Maybe this is why he's now putting troops on so many major city streets. And he wants to hand all the troops a 'bonus' of $1,776 in order to buy their support!
The ruling elites want to pit the people against each other - white against people of color, urban against rural, young against elders, Americans against the world.
We'd be fools to fall for these head fakes coming from the political hacks who are owned by the 1%.
The 1% does not give a daman about the rest of us.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson declares that it would be a disaster to invade Venezuela.
He and Judge Napolitano also discuss the current very dangerous steps that the EU-NATO are taking toward Russia as they attempt to block any peace deal to end the war.
Zelensky has outlined new conditions for holding elections — including demands for a ceasefire and foreign security guarantees.
Stevan Gajic, professor at the Institute of European Studies in Belgrade, argues these moves are aimed at delaying elections as Ukraine’s military position deteriorates and Western support becomes increasingly uncertain.
Brian Becker is joined by Manolo De Los Santos of The People’s Forum to discuss Trump’s “total blockade” against Venezuela — an “act of war” targeting oil tankers and ports, according to members of Congress as they vote on a War Powers Resolution to prevent the president’s attacks from escalating even further.
De Los Santos also reviews Venezuela’s response to Trump’s attacks, as well as its history of foreign colonization and how it has shaped the consciousness of every generation in the country.
I heard Tucker Carlson say today that he spoke to a member of Congress who told him that Trump is going to announce war with Venezuela any minute.
I went to my acupuncturist this afternoon and he told me that he treats a couple of members of the US Coast Guard who were outraged by Trump's vicious attacks on small (most likely fishing) boats off the coast of Venezuela.
They told my doc that it is their job to interdict any suspected drug boats, to apprehend them and then move them into the court system. Even to the people whose job it is to handle such situations, it is their opinion that Trump is circumventing the normal procedures and laws of the nation.
We know that the US has a national debt of $38 trillion. Venezuela has enough oil and other resources that could essentially cover that massive debt if Trump could steal it all.
The woman in Venezuela that wrongfully won the so-called 'Nobel Peace Prize' has declared that if Trump would please take over her country then she would give the US control of all of Venezuela's resources.
Trump is indeed a Don - a mafia Don.
He should be locked up and put on trial for numerous crimes against humanity - starting with Palestine and Venezuela.
It is often said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio (Cuban gusano - worm) is calling the shots on Venezuela. I know he is a favorite of the zionists who wish to make him the next president.
On the night of today, December 16, 2025, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of International Law, free trade, and freedom of navigation, has issued a reckless and serious threat against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Through his social media, he assumes that Venezuela’s oil, lands, and mineral wealth are his property. Consequently, Venezuela must immediately hand over all its wealth to him. The President of the United States intends to impose, in an absolutely irrational manner, an alleged naval military blockade against Venezuela with the objective of stealing the riches that belong to our Homeland.
Venezuela, in the full exercise of the International Law that protects us, of our Constitution and the laws of the Republic, reaffirms its sovereignty over all its natural resources, as well as the right to free navigation and free trade in the Caribbean Sea and in the oceans of the world. Consequently, it will proceed, in strict adherence to the UN Charter, to fully exercise its freedom, jurisdiction, and sovereignty above these war-mongering threats.
Our Ambassador to the United Nations will immediately proceed to denounce this grave violation of International Law against Venezuela.
We call upon the people of the United States and the peoples of the world to reject by all means this extravagant threat, which once again reveals Donald Trump’s true intentions to steal the riches of the country that gave birth to the United Liberating Army of South America and to our Liberator, Simón BolÃvar. The people of Venezuela, in perfect popular, military, and police unity, will know how to defend their historical rights and prevail along the path of Peace.
Mr. Donald Trump, verbatim, brandishes the following interventionist and colonialist expression: “until they return to the U.S. all the oil, land, and other assets they previously stole from us.” His true intention, which has been denounced by Venezuela and by the people of the United States in massive demonstrations, has always been to appropriate the country’s oil, land, and minerals through gigantic campaigns of lies and manipulation.
Venezuela will never again be a colony of any empire or foreign power and will continue, together with its people, along the path of building prosperity and the unrestricted defense of our independence and sovereignty.
The Venezuelan people, in perfect popular, military, and police unity, remain firm in the unrestricted safeguarding of their territory, their wealth, and their freedom. With our Father Liberator we say: “fortunately, it has been seen that a handful of free men can defeat powerful empires.”
Washington continues to veto even modest Korean efforts to foster inter-Korean rapprochement. General Brunson’s recent comments on South Korea’s [ROK] joint military drills reveal an imperialist, arrogant mindset that treats allies as subordinates rather than partners.
“Whenever someone talks about… exercising less or exercising differently… they need to understand that there are two times in a year where we absolutely need some support,” Brunson said, referring to the spring and summer exercises involving roughly 28,500 American troops. Brunson’s tone and message disregard Korea’s sovereignty, asserting control over a sovereign nation’s military decisions.
In this context, on 3 December, for the first time since his inauguration, President Lee Jae Myung publicly mentioned the possibility of suspending or reducing U.S.–ROK joint military exercises. South Korean President Lee has expressed openness to reviewing joint drills if it facilitates dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a position reflecting Seoul’s commitment to diplomacy and regional stability.
He even reinforced his point by citing President Trump’s own words from 2018: “I think it’s very provocative… We will be stopping the war games… which will save us a tremendous amount of money.” A U.S. Army budget analysis later confirmed that canceling certain exercises in 2018 had saved the U.S. an estimated $14 million.
Building on this, in recent weeks, several Korean senior officials—including Unification Minister Chung Dong-young—have suggested that adjusting U.S.-led South Korea military exercises may be necessary to revive stalled inter-Korean diplomacy. Chung has consistently argued that “we cannot hold South Korea–U.S. military exercises and simultaneously expect a North Korea–U.S. summit,” criticizing what he calls “bureaucratic thinking that waits for American approval.”
Nevertheless, President Lee’s calls, along with those of his senior officials, have not only fallen on deaf ears in Washington but have also reportedly been rebuked by American diplomatic officials in Seoul. These officials expressed “concerns” about such proposals and emphasized the strategic importance of U.S. Forces Korea, reportedly noting that the Trump administration now views a strong U.S.–ROK combined defense posture as essential. Although Trump had previously criticized the joint military drills as overly costly during his first term—even suggesting suspending them—his current stance has shifted. Moreover, he has made no public statement regarding President Lee’s proposal.
Meanwhile, under apparent pressure from Washington and in an effort to appease it, Lee’s hawkish and pro-U.S. National Security Advisor Wi Sung-lac last week rejected reducing U.S.–ROK joint military drills as a means of encouraging talks with the North.
In short, even with his historic legitimacy from stopping [former President] Yoon’s martial law, an approval rating above 60 percent, and public pledges to safeguard Korea’s national sovereignty, President Lee remains unable—or unwilling—to fully exercise Korea’s sovereignty on the most important national security matters.
Occupied and Overcharged: Korea’s National Sovereignty Crisis Under the Trump Administration
Under the Trump administration, Washington’s encroachment on Korea’s national sovereignty has become more severe. The newly released National Security Strategy (NSS) reveals the U.S. confronting the reality that it can no longer sustain a globally overextended military empire, opting to avoid direct confrontation with strategic rivals like Russia and China while systematically shifting the financial costs, operational burdens, and strategic risks of its Indo-Pacific and global defense commitments onto subordinate allies—most notably South Korea, Japan, and Australia—through mechanisms such as hosting U.S. bases, purchasing U.S. weapons, and aligning economic, technological, and military policies—effectively using its allies to maintain American influence while narrowing their strategic autonomy.
South Korea, deeply tied to the U.S. economically, militarily, and ideologically, exemplifies subordination within this system.
Reaffirming the “America First” agenda, NSS 2025 explicitly demands that allies increase defense spending and contribute “far more” to collective defense:
“We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain. But the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone... Our allies must step up and spend—and more importantly, do—much more for collective defense.”
“Given President Trump’s insistence on increased burden-sharing from Japan and South Korea, we must urge these countries to increase defense spending, with a focus on the capabilities—including new capabilities—necessary to deter adversaries and protect the First Island Chain.”
In sum, under the Trump administration, Seoul is required to fund the U.S. military presence on its own territory, fund U.S. occupying forces, purchase billions in American weapons, act as a counterforce against China at Washington’s direction, and maintain the world’s largest overseas U.S. base at Camp Humphreys—all while its sovereignty remains subordinated to Washington’s strategic agenda. Korea’s sovereignty has been reduced to financing the U.S. occupation of its own territory and shouldering the costs of American militarism. Ultimately, the real danger to South Korea’s security is not North Korea; the gravest threat it faces is Washington’s encroachment on its sovereignty.
“It is the Pentagon’s assumption that they own and control South Korea no matter what", [says long-time Korea activist] Tim Shorrock.
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