It did not take long for President Trump to change the reason for sending the US military to “arrest” Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. The allegation that President Maduro ran a drug cartel was front and center in the months leading up to President Maduro’s “arrest.” Afterwards, President Trump said the invasion was about Venezuela’s oil and announced plans for the US government to send American oil companies into Venezuela.
About a week after the invasion, President Trump had a meeting with executives from American oil companies to discuss plans for Venezuela. Some of the companies’ executives at the meeting were less than enthusiastic about developing Venezuelan oil. One reason for this is that, since the Venezuelan government nationalized oil activities twenty years ago, fracking has made the US the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas. Rebuilding the oil industry in Venezuela could cost as much as a billion dollars for an uncertain payoff. Among the complications, Venezuelan oil does not easily flow though pipelines unless it is cut with solvents, making it more expensive to transport.
In his first press conference after the Venezuelan first couple was seized, President Trump said: “We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” He later stated that Maduro’s successor Vice President Delcy Rodriguez would “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” if she does not adequately fulfill the US government’s demands.
Following the invasion of Venezuela, there have been suggestions that President Trump will direct the US military to invade other countries as well. For example, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio said, “if I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned.”
To no one’ s surprise, Senator Lindsey Graham was delighted by the possibility that Venezuela was just the first of many regime change wars President Trump will wage. Senator Graham even got President Trump to autograph a Make Iran Great Again hat. Many Iranian victims of the Shah of Iran’s secret police might disagree with Senator Graham on whether having the CIA install another puppet government in Iran will make that country great.
President Trump’s newfound love of regime change wars may be one reason why he is seeking to increase the military budget to 1.5 trillion dollars. President Trump claims that tariff revenue can fund the increase, but that is simply not possible. The majority of the increase in spending would come from other taxes, including the Federal Reserve’s regressive and hidden inflation tax.
A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that there is much less support for an “activist” US foreign policy among Americans under 50 than among older Americans. This is the case among both Democrats and Republicans. In fact, the differing view on foreign policy among younger people was a major factor behind President Trump’s support from younger people in 2024. Continued betrayal by President Trump of his no more regime change wars pledge will cause the president and the Republicans to lose support among younger voters.
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
English
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
What you are afraid to say is:
Make Israhell Great Again
Worth adding that DoD is not the only defense-related account.
VA – over $430Bn budget for 2027.
Then there’s the “intelligence community”, NNSA, FMF, etc.
Overall, it is possible that the defense-related expenditures in FY2027 will top $2.2T.
Ron Paul doesn’t seem afraid to say anything. He has been a courageous voice in American politics for many years
He’s not running for re-election and isn’t on the Epstein Clients’ List. I seriously doubt that a man of his integrity can be bribed or threatened.
I have to say, threatening to invade Greenland is more than distasteful.
Cuba has been a rotting sore on the world for decades; most any change would be an improvement.
My main worry is if we will have another fiasco like Bay of Pigs or Eagles Claw.
I wonder after decades of oppressive dictatorship if there are any voices for freedom left which have not been silenced.
Note that most of the antisemitic rhetoric has stopped now that Iran has shut down the internet?
Trust me, nothing in the oil and gas industry costs merely a billion dollars. Tens of billions is more realistic.
Ron Paul is a moral universalist (to add insult to injury: of the Christian variety), in my view, it makes no sense to him to be a non-interventionist/isolationist… It seems, at best, contradictory.
Defences such:
→ “We’ve already too many problems at home”
→ “Tax payers’ money shouldn’t be spent abroad”
→ “Last times we tried it, we screwed it up”
→ etc., etc., etc.
However, these are merely practical/pragmatic considerations, they do not address the issue at hand ultimately…
The case for Colonialism is impressively strong – unless, you rebuff it in particularist/relativist grounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Biggar#Colonialism:_A_Moral_Reckoning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Gilley#%22The_Case_for_Colonialism%22
YOUR words:
“Cuba has been a rotting sore on the world for decades; most any change would be an improvement.”
How do YOU know this? From the mainstream media? Have you ever lived with the citizens of Cuba or even visited there?
What kind of “improvement” do you have in mind? Like all of the “improvements” that have taken place in Haiti over the years?
Just wondering…
Libertarians are fundamentally secular classical liberals. China does not think this way, same for Russia. Yes, most are offensive realists.
The US was realist for most of its history. It’s hard to pin this on Trump since he doesn’t do the same “rules based order” liberal moralizing going back to Wilson.
Probably more like the Dominican Republic, or Costa Rica. Cuba has been a cringey “cause celebre” on the college left for years.
‘The Trumpman Show’ was inevitable considering most people do not understand or understand but will not admit that Obama was the result of a massive anti-West, anti-White conspiracy by the ‘melanin-free elite’.
https://www.cypher-news.com/2026/01/most-of-us-still-dont-understand-the-true-darkness-of-barack-obama/
The author of the above article basically mentions ‘unseen boogiemen’ and the commentors still cackle that everything horrible with America basically began and ended with a non-descript negro who appeared from literally nowhere fully funded and established.
Cuba is only a “rotting sore” because Washington sanctioned them to death ever since 1960 when Fidel Castro came to power and liberated the island from the Mafia that ran the casinos, making billions, while the average Cuban had nothing.
As for Cuba being an “oppressive dictatorship,” I don’t know whether it is or not. The only creeping oppressive dictatorship I’m seeing these days belongs to the Trump Admin.
The “blockade” had bite before the cold war ended. It’s just not true after that. It’s a law in name only. Countries like Brazil, Russia, China, Mexico don’t care, they support Cuba. It’s a poor excuse and a common trope among “progressives.”
Mr. Paul taking time off from pushing marijuana, gay marriage, fags buying babies and transgender surgery on children to call for military restraint abroad
he truly has his priorities in order
Like many trolls, there is a grain of truth to this – it’s why I had to stop being “libertarian adjacent.”
That was never Paul’s position, it was in a federal republic, when there are legit divides, Washington delegates those issues to the states.
But in practice, libertarians have been steamrolled by liberals and social democrats, and so it is a moot point, like waving around the Constitution, or kvetching over ICE when it is not 1890 – you can’t have open immigration and a fraudulent welfare state, let alone a welfare state.