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mappa mundi trumpus.....

Are Russia and China, the BRICS, willing to continue to let Trump redraw the ‘mappa mundi’ according to his own exclusive interests? Or is it time to see a real alternative to US hegemony take shape?

 

No alternative to US hegemony?

Ricardo Nuno Costa

 

Trump fulfilled his promise to remove Maduro from power in Caracas without even consulting Congress, attacking Venezuela and thus signing the self-proclaimed ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.

The kidnapping of a foreign president in violation of international law on the spurious charge of drug trafficking is as credible as the episode of the ‘weapons of mass destruction in Iraq’, given that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, most of which, due to its density and characteristics, can only be refined, curiously enough, in the US.

The supposed fight against drug trafficking can only fool the distracted or uninformed. Just a month ago, Donald Trump himself granted a presidential pardon to drug trafficker and former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year sentence for smuggling 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US. The elections in the Central American country and support for candidate Nasry Asfura, from the same National Party as Orlando Hernández, were part of the agreement that brought the right wing back to Tegucigalpa. An important regional ally for Trump.

The expansion of the BRICS terrifies the American elite, and it was known that the US would not give up exercising force to ensure dominance in ‘its backyard’ 

Venezuela is a giant in terms of natural resources, one of the richest countries in the world. It is not just oil. Agriculture, fisheries, coffee, and meat in abundance can all be commoditised. Like Argentina, already in the North American sphere, the US needs to insert all this wealth into the highly speculative global financial system controlled by the dollar, in the face of the growing threat of alternatives within the BRICS.

Although the future of Venezuela, which for now keeps the Chavistas and the military in power, is unclear, this adventure, entirely led by the War Department, could spark tensions and even civil confrontation in the Caribbean country. The precedents of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, all countries illegally attacked by the US, have resulted in terrible developments, with consequences in Europe, not to mention the Middle East and Central Asia, which are still being felt. Latin America must prepare for very difficult times.

It is clear that the Delta Force operation had internal saboteurs, as this was the only way Trump could have managed to kidnap Maduro. Otherwise, he would have had to leave through the back door of the large military apparatus he kept in Caribbean waters for more than two months without achieving the regime change he promised. Now we must pay attention to the extent to which the current Venezuelan leaders are willing to cooperate.

We must also question what future this renewed Monroe Doctrine – whose ideologue is in fact Secretary of State Marco Rubio, guided by an almost messianic fixation – holds for Caribbean countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and Colombia, which are hostile, and even for the two largest countries in Latin America, both of which are not aligned with Washington’s current guidelines: the giants Brazil and Mexico, long under US watch.

We are entering uncharted territory. How will the governments and populations of the region react to this blatant violation of the sovereignty of one of their most relevant countries? Will there be a left-right social divide in different nations, including Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador, which are currently allies, in a region that is already immensely polarised? How should Europe respond, particularly Spain, with its immense historical and cultural ties and responsibilities to the region? Venezuela is much closer to Spain than Ukraine, for example.

Germany, one of the main targets of the original Monroe Doctrine and still with important interests in the region, responded timidly and in English (why not Spanish?) via a tweet from its Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who accused Maduro of having “led his country into ruin. The most recent election was rigged. Like many other countries, we have therefore not recognized his presidency. Maduro has played a problematic role in the region. His country to ruin […] has played a problematic role in the region”, instead of condemning the illegal action of the US. How long is Germany willing to play this role on the international stage and remain under US domination as a geopolitical dwarf, pretending that its interests are the same as those of Washington?

Trump is betting everything on the Western Hemisphere, where he sees his influence threatened. Obviously, China’s expansion, with a series of infrastructure projects and investments in South America, has been the main reason for recent events. The Russian military presence is another. The expansion of the BRICS terrifies the American elite, and it was known that the US would not give up exercising force to ensure dominance in ‘its backyard.’

Now, Trumpism, with so many ramifications around the world, is already calling for the heads of Ortega, Petro, Lula, and Sheinbaum. Senator Lindsey Graham even wished that Trump would do the same to Cuba: “I hope that by 2026, we will [only] have allies in our backyard.”

Washington clearly does not calculate all the variables of this act, because it still feels exceptional and immune to the consequences of its actions. If the wind changes, what prevents any other power with the means to do so from doing the same in any other scenario? This is what all those who rejoice in this serious precedent should ask themselves.

Trump then said he needs Greenland, another promise already known but now reaffirmed with more seriousness. The Danes can continue to claim that they are ‘allies’ of the US, but that will not change anything in the White House’s plans. ‘For national security reasons,’ Trump argued. The Russians and Chinese are taking over the Arctic waterways, and once again the US feels threatened. Now the US’s problem is no longer just with the ‘third world.’ Uncle Sam bluntly admits that the alliance with Europe has always been instrumental until the day he needed its resources. That day has come. If Europe wants to insist on imagining Russia as an enemy, it can no longer continue to consider the US as an ally given the gravity of the situation.

As we have already seen in the shameful episode in Gaza and with Israel’s frivolous attacks on Iran and Qatar, international law is a chimera. It is only there to adorn and give an air of seriousness that no one takes seriously anymore, or to justify sanctions or restrictions on free trade when the interests of the US or its allies are at stake. In other words, it is useless to the vast majority of the world. But there is also no counterweight to the US capable of establishing a global alternative.

Another line of thought would take us to the arena of geopolitical intrigue and behind-the-scenes negotiations, about which we know very little. Are Russia and China, the BRICS, willing to continue to let Trump redraw the mappa mundi according to his own exclusive interests? Or is it time to see a real alternative to US hegemony take shape?

 

Ricardo Nuno Costa—geopolitical expert, writer, columnist, and editor-in-chief of geopol.pt

https://journal-neo.su/2026/01/08/no-alternative-to-us-hegemony/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

atrocities.....

 

CIA/MI6 Lawfare Op Assists Ukrainian Atrocities

By Kit Klarenberg

 

On December 28th, The Grayzone exposed how the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) concocted a malign scheme to blackmail and intimidate the EU’s European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the European Commission.

Established in close coordination with CIA and MI6 officials to prosecute Syrian officials for alleged war crimes, CIJA was repeatedly found by EU regulators to be criminally corrupt.

Now, leaked documents reveal CIJA has taken on a secret role in the Ukraine proxy war since 2022, designating the country as one of its “key areas of operation.”

According to internal files reviewed by CovertAction Magazine, CIJA has been, in its own words, “imbedded [sic] with Ukrainian authorities” from the conflict’s earliest stages.” This covert alliance has extremely sinister implications.

For one, it is inconceivable CIJA will have collected evidence of Kyiv’s own rampant war crimes. Moreover, the Commission has been irrefutably implicated in evidence-tampering and inducement of false testimony to secure wrongful arrests and prosecutions related to its work in Damascus.

It would be unsurprising if CIJA has engaged in similar deplorable activities in Ukraine, with its dubious findings fed to the media, as in Syria. Even more disquieting, individuals and organizations intimately tied to the Commission are implicated in clandestine British intelligence efforts to assist Kyiv in perpetrating atrocities.

A key irregularity in CIJA’s operations identified by OLAF was that the Commission was indistinguishable from a legally separate company founded by CIJA founder William H. Wiley named Tsamota. Wiley is chief executive of both entities, which share offices and key staff.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2026/01/08/cia-mi6-lawfare-op-assists-ukrainian-atrocities/

READ THE REST BEHIND PAYWALL....

 

[GUSNOTE: SORRY COVERT ACTION MAGAZINE... GUS LEONISKY BEING A FICTITIOUS CHARACTER, HE CANNOT WILLINGLY ACCESS INFORMATION BEHIND SOME PAYWALLS...]

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

 

second rate.....

 

Genocide Was Trump’s Gateway Crime. Why the Surprise Over His Vanquishing of Venezuela?

Trump is a second-rate gangster and he hates it. He wants to be Bibi.

by ILANA MERCER

 

The fuss and feathers over Trump’s foreign policy is silly, childish. It attests to what happens to the minds of men when they view the very public mass murder of The Other—committed by their Leader —as unrelated to their own moral integrity and future welfare: the brain goes to mush. Or perhaps it was the size of a lentil to begin with.

In the mind of the minimally moral, minimally compos mentis American—”America First” and genocide ought to be two mutually exclusive categories.

Here’s a useful clue: If your politician of choice, going into an election, supports genocide or is silent about genocide; he’s not your friend. You ought to be smart enough, in possession of the very basic moral faculties—having reached a rudimentary development of conscience—to make that minuscule determination.

Has mommy not taught you that murder is wrong and that no mass murderer and congenital thief is your friend? Alas, the decay of the American Mind is such that Trump’s fans are apoplectic—and one or two has texted me in tears: “America First, Ilana; what-oh-what has happened to it?”

How the fuck should I know? Did I vote for Trump in 2024? No! For the reasons cited, I registered a protest vote for Jill Stein, whose foreign policy—from Israel to Latin America—is perfection.

I was hardly being a crusty cynic when, in a January 3, 2018 column, “How President Trump Normalized Neoconservatism,” I foresaw the coming vanquishing of Venezuela:

Neoconservatives are pleased with President Trump’s foreign policy.

A couple of months back, Bloomberg’s Eli Lake let it be known that he was in neoconservative nirvana: ‘… for Venezuela, [Donald Trump] came very close to calling for regime change. ‘The United States has taken important steps to hold the regime accountable,’ Trump said. ‘We are prepared to take further action if the government of Venezuela persists on its path to impose authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people.’

‘For a moment,” swooned Lake, ‘I closed my eyes and thought I was listening to a Weekly Standard editorial meeting.’ (“How President Trump Normalized Neoconservatism,” Ilana Mercer, January 3, 2018)

“Onward to Venezuela!” I wearily wrote. It was not a mysterious sense of foreboding; I was just following facts. Then, I watched the lies with fascination. By now, I knew all the tricks. What’s the excuse of Trump’s base?

That his phlegmatic followers now whinge and whine over Trump’s lackluster America-First focus is really quite puzzling, if not contemptible. It’s like complaining—not that serial killer Ted Bundy killed a lot; but that he was unpatriotic for driving around in a Volkswagen Beetle.

“Ever heard of a Chevy Tahoe, Ted? Boohoo, Bundy, why did you go to work in a Volkswagen, you traitor? Buy America, not German.

Bundy and Trump, Joe Biden and Bibi Netanyahu, and their minions, are murderers all. Murder is what defines them; it’s their defining feature. Except that the last three delegated mass murder to the mercenaries of a military. Bundy did the deeds himself.

Surely, you don’t need mommy to tell you that murder is more than a secondary personality trait? It defines who a person is. It tends to crowd out all other positive attributes. If that’s not obvious, think of Oscar Wilde’s simple guidelines for cretins: “Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner.”

Still, for some reason, his fans and voters speak of Trump’s genocide as though it were a minor item of foreign-policy, albeit—small mercies—an unwelcome foreign policy event. Absurd—as the commission of genocide puts the perpetrators and co-perpetrators outside the human species. And genocide and mass murder are the defining features of this man’s foreign policy in Western Asia; in Gaza and beyond.

“Genocide for Israel” is Trump’s de facto Middle East foreign policy.

Impoverished heroic Houthis of Yemen Trump has murdered beginning in 2018: The House of Trump in partnership with the House of Saud. Iranians Trump has helped murder. Somalis and Nigerians Trump has been murdering. Sailors in vessels, on the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, no due process required: them, too, Trump has murdered. All this with nary a meaningful check on executive power from the dullards serving in the world’s “greatest” deliberative bodies, the US Congress and Senate.

And now Venezuelans, ordinary men and women, scan the skies nervously for the telltale metallic shimmer, wondering whether they are being simply surveilled from above, or targeted by Hellfire missiles.

Genocide, the crime of all crimes, was Trump’s gateway crime. Once you’ve crossed over to genocide, the world (and its people) is your oyster.

Indeed, like Joe Biden before him, Trump doubled down on the eradication of the international law and its redeeming natural-law features. Like Biden, Trump ensured that no international prosecutor or prominent UN chronicler of Israel’s crimes against humanity went unpunished. Trump has sanctioned and persecuted countries and individuals who sought to cuff the criminal Netanyahu and levy the law of God and nature against Israel’s sexually perverse serial killers, loosed upon the world. Also thanks to Trump. Yes, thousands of these sexually deviant Israeli serial killers roam among us, when they could be, should be, in the dock, at the Hague.

Enmeshed, the American and Israeli cabal, two self-appointed world powers—Pax Americana ceding to “Pax Judaica”—are presently and shamelessly still engaged in genocide. Israel acts to “disappear” the Palestinians as individuals, as a people and as a polity. Trump, who respects Israel’s wishes to the letter, appoints people who do the same. He pursues and imposes policies that dovetail with what Israel demands.

Trump, corporate media and the political ring leaders sashaying up and down both aisles may call the “new” dispensation under which Palestinians live a “ceasefire.” In point of fact, the so-called ceasefire is just Trump’s “engineered new normal: a slow-paced genocide.” All for the love of Israel.

The future of Gaza, Trump has made clear, would “be pretty much up to Israel.” Although he is there with Israel to help in the dismembering and looting of Gaza. When Israel declared its intention to take over Gaza, Donald Trump had shrugged and egged them on. “Ramp it up,” he whooped. Having long since slipped between the sheets with soulmate Bibi Netanyahu, Trump gave the Israeli prime minister the go-ahead to “fight and finish the job.”

Under Gaza’s weeping winter skies, massacres continue with Trump’s imprimatur. Drones, killer quadcopters and other Israeli shelling implements come scudding at Gaza from the north all the time. The “destruction of remaining homes, property and land, and the prevention of the entry of food, humanitarian aid and basic infrastructure materials” had never ceased, only let-up slightly. Genocide hums along now at the rate of more than eight human beings murdered a day, and at more than 20 injured, also each day.

By no unfortunate coincidence, Trump has normalized genocide for Israel, albeit at a slower pace. Any depravity Israel thinks up; Trump has fulfilled in kind and in kindly blessings. Pictured here is the president of the United States, partying, on December 31, 2025, with the butcher of Tel Aviv.

And his fans expected Trump to compartmentalize the killer-within and keep to his America-First promise? Are they dense?

As to Venezuela: Trump knows nothing about the anti-imperial spirit of the Bolívar Revolution still animating Latin America. Successfully, Venezuela native “Simón Bolívar led the people of South America to rebel against Spanish colonial rule.” However, the independence movement’s victories, won between 1775 and 1850, live on in the wishes of a preponderance of the people of Latin America to retain national sovereignty, to decide about the political dispensation under which they’ll live—including Chavismo populism—and control the bounty of their lands.

Trump’s handlers, only marginally smarter than he, tell him to say stuff that makes him seem in-the-know. So, Trump stammers about The Monroe Doctrine and the imperative to make errant Latin America submit to America (much like Arabia bows to Bibi).

Trump’s Other Handlers have yet to hand Trump his marching orders. But they’re happy. On Israel’s ILTV, four minutes into a segment titled “Maduro Arrest: Venezuela Blames Israel, U.S. Warns Iran,” one of Israel’s many pig-ignorant panelists weighs in—the country is utterly bereft of high-minded intellectuals. The Hasbara comes courtesy of Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs.

Diker describes Venezuela as part of an evil axis of resistance, “a rear base for the Iranian regime.” Hezbollah and Hamas are also all over that poor benighted and blighted country. Likewise Iranians: leaders who refuse to die by Israel (which in itself is utterly antisemitic); they too, accuses Diker, will often seek shelter in Venezuela. Altogether, Israel is pleased with Trump’s decapitating moves in Latin America.

Although Israelis have expressed themselves about the American invasion of Venezuela at the speed at which they commented on the assassination of Charlie Kirk—they, in the person of Dr. Diker, want you to know that Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez is an … antisemite. She accused Israel “of orchestrating the U.S. military operation that led to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, branding it ‘Zionist aggression.’”

Psychologizing about people is a form of ad hominem argument, in my opinion. It’s bad. I don’t like it one bit. But Trump is the kind of single-celled organism, an amoeba in mentation and affect, to which psychologizing is suited.

The simple, atavistic truth is that, Trump, a second-rate gangster, wants to be Bibi, a rank butcher.

Trump has been fellating Bibi Netanyahu without let. He has been made to feel politically impotent, lacking in agency in the face of the master magician, Bibi, who is leading Trump around by the nose. The bully-cum-tyrant Trump, a stupid man of cold violence, needs to regain manly potency by any means at all other than neutering Israel.

So he “bombs the Venezuelan capital, and kidnaps President Maduro.” Let’s hope Trump’s acolytes understand by now, that folly, ignorance, bluff and blind conceit will continue to typify his actions, stateside and abroad.

****

Ilana Mercer, paleolibertarian author, essayist and theorist, has been writing up an anti-war, anti-woke storm since 1998, starting in Canada. On arriving in the US, in 2002, her weekly column was right away syndicated. Mercer’s national syndication fell through shortly after due to writing in strident opposition to the war in Iraq. ILANA is described as “a system-builder. Distilled, her modus operandi has been to methodically apply first principles to the day’s events.” She’s Jewish, grew up in Israel ages five to nineteen, and left, at 19, never to return. She had refused to serve in the IDF, Israel’s compulsory military. Ilana’s focus since October of 2023 has been the genocide. A war against civilians is a war on civilization

https://www.unz.com/imercer/genocide-was-trumps-gateway-crime-why-the-surprise-over-his-vanquishing-of-venezuela/

 

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.