Trump's Pretext for War With Venezuela
Today, the US designated Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) as a foreign terrorist organization. They plan to use this designation to delegitimize the government of Nicolás Maduro, and force a regime change. Much like Trump's Antifa designation, experts argue that the cartel doesn't have a leadership hierarchy, and is ideologically driven. This terrorism designation is clearly just a pretext for another never-ending war.
Covert CIA operations in Venezuela have been going on for many years, and with limited success. The US was able to accomplish small goals like disrupting their computer networks, but nothing they've done has resulted in regime change. They now plan to drop flyers over the country reminding people of the $50M reward leading to the arrest of Maduro. There are likely special forces being tasked with a mission to capture or kill Maduro.
The military has already given Trump a list of options to strike targets in Venezuela, mostly facilities that they believe are being used for drug trafficking. Their country has been assembling a large militia to help carry out guerrilla warfare against any of our troops that enter their country. Russia has given them lots of weapons which we can overpower, but not without risks.
War (except in special circumstances) is supposed to only be declared by Congress, and so far there haven't been any briefings to Congress that give a legitimate legal justification for these extrajudicial murders that the US has been carrying out on a regular basis. Trump has even made the troops deployed to the region sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA), so he knows what he is doing is illegal under US and international law.
There have been talks of exiling Maduro to Russia or another country where he won't face jail. He seems open to talks, but as far as I know, nothing has been done on the diplomatic front to solve the situation. Because of our huge military industrial complex generating millions of dollars for our politicians, our government seems to think the solution to every conflict is spending lots of blood and treasure.
Here's the Wikipedia page on Cartel de los Soles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel_of_the_Suns
