[link removed] Share ([link removed])

[link removed]: https%3A%2F%2Fmailchi.mp%2Frightsaction%2Fus-attacking-and-seeking-regime-change-in-venezuela Tweet ([link removed]: https%3A%2F%2Fmailchi.mp%2Frightsaction%2Fus-attacking-and-seeking-regime-change-in-venezuela)

[link removed] Forward ([link removed])

Rights Action
November 8, 2025
*******
U.S. attacking and seeking regime change in Venezuela
Canada waiting in the wings, quietly supporting
[link removed]

“An unprovoked US military assault on one of Latin America’s largest nations appears likely in the near future.” (The Nation)

“To any clear-eyed observer, the boat strike was an illegal slaughter of non-combatants, carried out in the context of US lies designed to justify aggression against a regional adversary. Yet the Canadian government has remained silent.” (Canadian Dimension)

Image from video shared by President Trump on Truth Social, Sept. 2, 2025, depicting a US military strike against a boat in the Caribbean.
Published in Canadian Dimension article. Image courtesy @realDonaldTrump/Truth Social.
Below
* “Trump’s Gunboat Diplomacy. A wannabe emperor goes in search of an empire”, Nov. 6, 2025, The Nation, by Peter Kornbluh and William M. LeoGrande
* “Mark Carney’s silence on Venezuela reveals complicity. The prime minister’s inaction on a US massacre in the Caribbean echoes his past role in undermining Venezuela’s sovereignty”, Sept. 15, 2025, Canadian Dimension, by Owen Schalk

Five reasons
There are five reasons why the U.S.-led West has been demonizing and try to undermine, overthrow the government of Venezuela since 2000: Oil, Oil, Gas, Minerals & Oil.

Regime changes in Guatemala and Honduras
Rights Action does not lightly denounce U.S.-led imperialist aggression against Venezuela. Anyone who follows our work knows of the U.S.-led, Canadian and Western European-backed regime change coups (Guatemala 1954, Honduras 2009) that served to entrench in power repressive, corrupt, “open-for-global-business” regimes - always referred to as “democracy allies”.

Pretty much all of the work and struggles that Rights Action supports and is involved with take place in these violent, corrupt, post-coup contexts.

*******

Trump’s Gunboat Diplomacy. A wannabe emperor goes in search of an empire
November 6, 2025, The Nation, by Peter Kornbluh ([link removed]) and William M. LeoGrande ([link removed])
[link removed] ([link removed])

Any day now, a US Navy strike force, led by the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, will join an armada of war ships already positioned off the coast of Venezuela. Described in the naval media as “the most capable, adaptable, and lethal combat platform in the world,” the USS Gerald R. Ford bristles with state-of-the-art attack aircraft on its massive deck: Super Hornet fighters, Growler electronic warfare jets, and Seahawk helicopters among them.

And the battleship carries some 5,000 seamen and Marines, adding to the phalanx of 10,000 military personnel already deployed on bases in Puerto Rico and on at least ten other war ships now aiming their artillery, cruise missiles and bomb-dropping drones at Caracas.

This show of force is unprecedented in the 21st century. Not since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis has the United States assembled such a lethal array of firepower in the Caribbean. Trump administration officials have begun leaking attack plans to media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald, which have reported that initial raids would target Venezuelan military installations and that US airstrikes “could begin within days, even hours.”

An unprovoked US military assault on one of Latin America’s largest nations appears likely in the near future.

Shock and Awe in the Caribbean
Since the Venezuelan armed forces have not attacked or even threatened to attack the United States, the Trump administration has been forced to concoct a public justification for its actions—the widely reported but spurious claim that Washington is combatting “narco-terrorists.”

The post-9/11 war on terrorism established a precedent for waging war against so-called “non-state actors;” defining low level speedboat pilots and alleged drug smugglers as “terrorists” is intended to provide a dubious legal cover for killing them.

But Al-Qaeda actually launched murderous attacks on the United States, and Congress authorized a military response. Arguing that unidentified people in boats that might be carrying drugs that might be destined for the United States are armed combatants who pose an imminent threat—and can therefore be killed with impunity—stretches common sense beyond the breaking point.

“On Trump’s orders, over the last two months
US military forces have turned the Caribbean into a killing field”

On Trump’s orders, over the last two months US military forces have turned the Caribbean into a killing field, destroying 15 small boats and taking the lives of over 60 unidentified individuals who were on them.

“Snuff films”

Proud of this accomplishment, the president and his secretary of defense have repeatedly posted what can only be described as “snuff films” of the ships and their crews bobbing in the ocean and then exploding into flames as Hellfire missiles and laser-guided bombs dropped from US drones and attack helicopters obliterate everyone on board.

Similar shock and awe operations are now targeting the Venezuelan mainland under similarly false premises. The “enhanced US force presence” in the Caribbean, according to the Pentagon ([link removed]) , “will bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities…. These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs”—transnational criminal organizations which President Trump alleges are being directed by Venezuela’s embattled and illegitimate president, Nicolás Maduro.

[…]
+ + +
Mark Carney’s silence on Venezuela reveals complicity. The prime minister’s inaction on a US massacre in the Caribbean echoes his past role in undermining Venezuela’s sovereignty
Owen Schalk ([link removed]) / September 15, 2025
[link removed]

On September 2, the US military illegally bombed a small boat in the Caribbean ([link removed]) , killing all 11 passengers. The Intercept reports that the drone strike was a criminal attack on civilians and that it involved multiple bombings. According to two US officials, survivors of the initial strike were “killed in a follow-up attack ([link removed]) .”

The Trump administration attempted to justify the massacre by claiming—without evidence—that the boat belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang and was transporting drugs to the United States.

Washington’s claim that such a small vessel could reach Florida has been widely disputed; in fact, there are indications the boat was headed for Trinidad and Tobago ([link removed]) . Regardless of its destination, reports indicate that the passengers turned back after noticing the US military presence, only to be killed while retreating.

At first, the Venezuelan government suggested the footage could be fabricated ([link removed]) . But on September 12, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello stated ([link removed]) : “A murder has been committed against a group of citizens.” He added that the US government had “openly confessed to killing 11 people,” stressing that the victims were not gang members: “We have done our investigations here in our country. There are the families of the disappeared who want their relatives, and when we asked in the towns, none were from Tren de Aragua, none were drug traffickers.”

This massacre comes amid two alarming developments earlier this year. Trump designated several drug cartels as “terrorist groups ([link removed]) ,” paving the way for military strikes against Latin American countries, and he has baselessly claimed that Venezuela’s government is itself a drug trafficking organization, a pretext for justifying military aggression.

The second claim is demonstrably false. As journalist Nick Corbishley notes ([link removed]) , Venezuela plays only a minor role in the drug trade. Over 85 percent of the world’s cocaine supply is transported via the Pacific, from ports in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. Meanwhile, Trump’s own claim that the Tren de Aragua gang is under Maduro’s control is contradicted by a declassified Department of Justice report ([link removed]) .

To any clear-eyed observer, the boat strike was an illegal slaughter of non-combatants, carried out in the context of US lies designed to justify aggression against a regional adversary. Yet the Canadian government has remained silent. One day before the killings, Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke with Trump ([link removed]) . He apparently made no comment about the US military’s encirclement of Venezuela’s coast. After the massacre, Carney still offered no condemnation.

Canada’s Department of National Defence commented ([link removed]) only that “The Canadian Armed Forces are aware of the evolving situation in the Caribbean.” The spokesperson added that the US military buildup around Venezuela would have “no impact” on joint US-Canadian operations—in other words, even as Washington prepares for an illegal strike on a major regional nation, Canada will continue business as usual.

Canada’s silence stands in sharp contrast to South America’s largest economies. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro described the drone strike ([link removed]) as “murder” that “breaks the universal principle of proportionality.” Brazil’s President Lula da Silva warned ([link removed]) that “the presence of the armed forces of the largest power [the US] in the Caribbean Sea is a factor of tension.”

Carney’s indifference is not new. His hostility toward Venezuela predates his rise to prime minister. Although he played no official role in Justin Trudeau’s foreign policy—most notorious for leading the Lima Group regime-change campaign ([link removed]) —Carney directly undermined Venezuela during his tenure as governor of the Bank of England.

In 2018 and 2019, Venezuela attempted to retrieve $1 billion in gold reserves stored at the Bank of England. Carney’s institution refused ([link removed]) , citing Britain’s refusal to recognize Nicolás Maduro as president and the possibility that the transfer might violate sanctions or facilitate “criminal activity.” Before that decision, Carney was lobbied by Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, as well as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton.

According to the Council of the Americas ([link removed]) , officials at the Carney-led Bank of England met with Venezuelan Central Bank President Calixto Ortega and other authorities in December 2018. Soon after, Carney received communication from Guaidó asking him to reject “the illegitimate transaction.” Pompeo and Bolton also reportedly lobbied the bank to deny the Maduro administration’s request.

The British Foreign Office pressured Carney as well. On January 25, 2019, Alan Duncan, then minister of state for Europe and the Americas, recorded in his diary ([link removed]) a phone call with Carney. “I tell Carney that I fully appreciate that, although it’s a decision for the Bank, he needs a measure of political air cover from us,” Duncan wrote. “I tell him I will write him the most robust letter I can get through the FCO lawyers, and it will outline the growing doubts over Maduro’s legitimacy and explain that many countries no longer consider him to be the country’s President.”

Carney obliged. By denying Venezuela access to its gold reserves—representing 15 percent of its international reserves ([link removed]) —he deprived the country of a crucial lifeline during economic collapse, almost certainly worsening the humanitarian crisis and contributing to preventable deaths.

Seen in this light, Carney’s silence on the September 2 massacre is no longer passive. His past actions show a willingness to undermine Venezuela, support Washington’s regime change agenda, and empower opposition figures. Should the Trump administration escalate toward a direct strike, one can safely assume Carney will maintain his pose of “detachment.”

But in the case of Venezuela, silence from Mark Carney is not neutrality. It is tacit approval.

Owen Schalk is the author of Targeting Libya: Canadian Dams, Canadian Bombs ([link removed]) , an exploration of Canada’s pivotal yet little-known role in Libya’s history, forthcoming from Lorimer Books.

*******

Recent background

* Nobel “Peace prize” handed to Maria Machado, Venezuelan part of global alliance between fascism, Zionism, and neoliberalism, [link removed]
* Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Machado Congratulates Netanyahu for Genocide in Gaza ([link removed]) , ORINOCO Tribune, October 19, 2025 ([link removed])

* The Nobel Prize goes to... war on Venezuela ([link removed]) , by Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone, Oct. 12, 2025
* María Corina Machado’s Lengthy Criminal Record ([link removed]) , Feb. 1, 2024, ORINOCO Tribune (Últimas Noticias), by Victor Lara
* US Muslim group slams Nobel for awarding Venezuela's Machado ([link removed]) , The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has strongly condemned the Nobel Committee's "unconscionable" decision. October 10, 2025, TRT World
* Will the US Attack Venezuela? ([link removed]) Spoiler alert: It already has, by Roger D. Harris, Black Agenda Report, 15 Oct 2025


Follow work of
* Venezuela Analysis: [link removed]
* Canadian Foreign Policy Institute: www.foreignpolicy.ca
* Common Frontiers Canada: www.commonfrontiers.ca
* Alliance for Global Justice: www.afgj.org
* CODEPINK: www.codepink.org


*******

Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support land, environment, democracy, human rights and justice defenders and projects in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
* U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
* Canada: Box 82858, RPO Cabbagetown, Toronto, ON, M5A 3Y2

Credit-card donations: [link removed]
Direct deposits, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

Change media sources
Rights Action urges everyone to diversify their news sources, as a necessary antidote to the oftentimes harmful, misleading reporting coming from much of the government and corporate media in the U.S., the E.U. and Canada. We recommend Democracy Now ([link removed]) , The Real News ([link removed]) , Al Jazeera News ([link removed]) (for coverage of Genocide in Palestine), The Gray Zone ([link removed]) , The Orinoco Tribune ([link removed]) , …

*******
[email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) / www.rightsaction.org
Please share and re-post this information
*******

13 BRAVE GIANTS
How We Won the Landmark Hudbay Minerals Lawsuits in Canada and the Mynor Padilla Criminal Trial in Guatemala, and at What Cost!
[link removed]

TESTIMONIO
Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala
[link removed]


[link removed] Facebook ([link removed])
[link removed] Twitter ([link removed])
[link removed] Website ([link removed])

[link removed] Share ([link removed])

[link removed]: https%3A%2F%2Fmailchi.mp%2Frightsaction%2Fus-attacking-and-seeking-regime-change-in-venezuela Tweet ([link removed]: https%3A%2F%2Fmailchi.mp%2Frightsaction%2Fus-attacking-and-seeking-regime-change-in-venezuela)

[link removed] Forward ([link removed])

[link removed] Facebook ([link removed])
[link removed] Twitter ([link removed])
[link removed] Website ([link removed])
[link removed] Instagram ([link removed])
[link removed] YouTube ([link removed])

============================================================
Copyright © 2025 Rights Action, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are one of our subscriptor

Our mailing address is:
Rights Action
Box 50887
20091-0887
Washington, DC 0
USA
** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
** update subscription preferences ([link removed])
Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp
[link removed]
Copyright © 2025 Rights Action, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you are one of our subscriptor

Our mailing address is:
Rights Action
Box 50887
20091-0887
Washington, DC 0
USA
** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
** update subscription preferences ([link removed])
Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp
[link removed]