Part 1 is here.
I assumed that headline was a misstatement, because the jokes write themselves (Hamas is condemning an abduction?). But I checked some Arab world sources, and indeed, all of the terrorist organizations are big mad over President Trump nabbing Maduro. From an Arabic news agency:
Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has condemned the US aggression against Venezuela as a blatant and unprecedented violation of international law…Hezbollah movement, in a statement, condemned the U.S. aggression against Venezuela and the targeting of the country’s vital facilities, civilians, and residential buildings, describing it as a blatant and unprecedented violation of international law….It added that the military aggression shows disregard for global stability and security, and aimed at entrenching the “law of the jungle” in order to dismantle the remnants of the international system and strip it of any substance that could serve as a safeguard for nations and peoples.
The Palestinian movement, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, denounced what it called an “imperialist American aggression” on Venezuela, including airstrikes and missile attacks on Caracas and civilian, residential, and military sites, casting it as a new episode of ‘organized American terrorism” against sovereign states….
Palestinian Islamic Jihad described the US assault on Venezuela as an escalating campaign, from blockade to direct strikes, aimed at domination, occupation, and plunder, and a flagrant breach of sovereignty and international law. It said Venezuela is targeted for its steadfast support for Palestine and regional resistance forces, describing the struggle as part of a shared anti-imperialist battle.
Hamas, for its part, denounced the military aggression on Caracas and the kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife, calling it a grave violation of international law and the sovereignty of an independent state. The movement cast the assault as an extension of unjust U.S. interventions driven by imperial ambition that have destabilized multiple countries and threatened international peace. Hamas urged the UN, especially the Security Council, to take measures to stop the attack immediately.
I have to say, I find this mordantly funny. Could there be a more villainous, despicable group of critics for Democrats to find common cause with? Any minute now, I’m expecting a statement from the Seven Princes of Hell, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Mammon, Belphegor,, and Satan, joined by demons Astaroth, Belial, and Azazel, declaring the U.S.’s dazzling Venezuelan operation to be a violation of international law.
Not quite in their category but still, Kamala Harris has been heard from. She didn’t say this, because it’s too coherent and has no cackling. She (or a lackey) wrote:
“Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable.That Maduro is a brutal, illegitimate dictator does not change the fact that this action was both unlawful and unwise. We’ve seen this movie before. Wars for regime change or oil that are sold as strength but turn into chaos, and American families pay the price. The American people do not want this, and they are tired of being lied to.This is not about drugs or democracy. It is about oil and Donald Trump’s desire to play the regional strongman. If he cared about either, he wouldn’t pardon a convicted drug trafficker or sideline Venezuela’s legitimate opposition while pursuing deals with Maduro’s cronies. The President is putting troops at risk, spending billions, destabilizing a region, and offering no legal authority, no exit plan, and no benefit at home. America needs leadership whose priorities are lowering costs for working families, enforcing the rule of law, strengthening alliances, and — most importantly — putting the American people first.
Wouldn’t you think smart Democrats (I don’t mean Kamala) would have the sense not to include verbatim the talking points put out by the DNC or whoever it is that blasts out these narrative? There are dozens of statements that are almost identical to Harris’s, all aping some version of “unlawful and unwise”, all repeating, absurdly, the “affordability” mantra, Trump’s alleged “desire to be a regional strongman,” putting American troops at risk (more troops died as Biden yanked troops out of Afghanistan than died when Trump went into Venezuela: none). Most mention Trump’s pardoning Juan Orlando Hernandez, President of Honduras, whom the Biden Administration had arrested and extradited to the United States for drug trafficking, without explaining why that action by a Democrat was fine and dandy as far as they were concerned. The President seems to believe that Hernandez was unfairly targeted for some strange reason, but 1) pardons are by nature controversial and 2) pardoning one bad guy foolishly has no relevance to arresting another bad guy justly. The United States at least recognized that Hernandez had been legitimately elected; not so in the case of Maduro. What are Democrats arguing here? If the question is pardoning Hernandez, swell, I might agree that Trump was wrong, but the issue isn’t his pardon of Hernandez, or abuse of the pardon power, is it? As usual, Trump’s critics are just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks whether it makes sense of not.
And Harris and any Democrat invoking “enforcing the rule of law ” is in the same category as Hamas condemning an “abduction.”
Speaking of throwing stuff at the wall, James Carville actually said that Trump invaded Venezuela to distract from the Epstein files! He really did. In the “no surprise” category, the New York Times naturally published the Axis line…
Huh! “Illegal and unwise”! I wonder who the New York Times takes its marching orders from? The same place The New Yorker [“The Brazen Illegality of Trump’s Venezuela Operation”] does, I’m sure. The Economist, as left-bissed as you would expect from a European magazine, bleated: “Donald Trump wants to run Venezuela, and dominate the western hemisphere.”
[Pssst! Actually, guys, President James Monroe wanted us to dominate the western Hemisphere: he was right, and we do.]
But the Washington Post’s editorial sided with Trump, approving of the raid. Antediluvian Trump-Deranged conservative pundit George Will did not, registering an op-ed titled, Trump goes monster-hunting, untainted by a whiff of legality. What does Will know about “legality”? He’s not a lawyer. He just knows that if Trump did it, he hates it.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, oddly, sounded a lot like Kamala Harris on “X”: “Donald Trump’s unconstitutional military action in Venezuela is putting our troops in harm’s way with no long-term strategy. The American people deserve a President focused on making their lives more affordable.”
What a coinky-dink!
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) parroted the pardon angle, saying that if Trump was concerned about the drug problem, he “wouldn’t have pardoned one of the largest narco traffickers in the world last month. It’s about oil and regime change.”
Ask any Venezualans if they think regime change is a good enough reason to take out Maduro.
Breaking ranks, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wrote , “¡Libertad! Today I celebrate with the people of Venezuela in Colorado and elsewhere. The tyrant has fallen!” What! Where’s “affordability”? Didn’t he get the memo?
Oh, just for goggles, let’s close with Axis star Rachel Maddow, whose reaction was about as predictable as they come. “Not only will [Trump] care about people saying this is illegal, he’ll see that as an asset,” Maddow said in an appearance on colleague Ali Velshi’s weekend morning show, saying that the President is a “would-be strongman” who ordered the operation to provoke a war and give himself “expanded powers” against domestic political opponents.
Hmmm… would-be strong-man. Where have I heard that before? Rachel gets $25 million a year to smirk at the MS-Now faithful; can’t she come up with her own anti-Trump rhetoric?
UPDATE: Now that you know the caliber of the hacks, communists, knee-jerk Trump-haters, terrorists and liars who are lining up with Democrats to condemn the U.S. for ending the illegal regime of a drug-running, brutal dictator who helps our enemies, can you guess what side NYC Mayor Mamdani comes down on?
Ethics Alarms 
“Rachel gets $25 million a year to smirk at the MS-Now faithful“
$25 million…seems I’ve heard that figure before…
Oh yeah, 51 weeks ago (01/10/2025): Biden administration raises Maduro Bounty to $25,000,000
To borrow a phrase: “the jokes write themselves“
PWS
What’s remarkable is that Maddow pulls down $25 mil, but I could witness the same level of talent watching “The Dukes of Hazzard” as a kid…for free.
Here is a both a new and old statement by Senator Chris Murphy (CT). Res Ipsa Loquitur.
Is dominating other countries ethical now? How? I don’t even think that was what the Monroe Doctrine stated, BTW. For myself, I may be an idealist, but I don’t think dominating weaker nations is any more ethical than dominating weaker people. It’s wrong when Putin tries to bully the Baltic states. Just because they are smaller and in his region doesn’t make it right. And even if they were doing something truly unethical, like exporting drugs to Russia, invading them would still be wrong.
verb: dominate; 3rd person present: dominates; past tense: dominated; past participle: dominated; gerund or present participle: dominating…..have a commanding influence on; exercise control over.
OR…”be the most important or conspicuous person or thing in.”
My father dominated our family, but he didn’t abuse his position, and just kept us safe, happy and happy while giving me a role model. The US accepted responsibility for that role with the Western Hemisphere and when it performs the role well, everybody benefits.
So they should just recognize their big daddy? The history of American intervention in Latin America is dark. There’s not a lot of “loving children” in these scenarios. And you do grasp, at some level, how humiliating it would be for Latin America to accept “daddy” domination from us, right? You’re not completely ignorant of how nations tend to view such things, right? You sound like Kipling, we should take up the White Man’s burden, and accept that these darkish folk don’t know how to run their own countries. Points for being open about it, I suppose. It’s Trumpian transparency, I guess.
South America just can’t seem to get over its love for the caudillo. It will never reach its potential as a continent if it’s nations keep putting these swaggering dictators into power. Granted, dictators of the right, like Chile’s Pinochet, weren’t so great either, but the alternative was not perfect democracy, it was tyranny of the left under Allende, who wanted to create another socialist Utopia, while stealing private property and bankrupting the place.
Funny how the left is perfectly all right with its people stealing private property from those who work for it to placate their own voters. However, when those same people are made to forfeit ill-gotten gain, they squawk like plucked chickens.
Go ahead, justify enticing foreign companies to invest in your country, because you don’t have the ability or the infrastructure to make use of your resources, then saying thanks, we’ll take it from here, and throwing them out, while stealing whatever they brought with them. There is no justifying that, and that’s what gets people like Maduro, like Allende, like pajama-wearing Mossadegh in Iran, thrown out of power. Rewarding thieves and swindlers is just not good policy.
it’s not the same and you know it. Stalin forced the Baltic states into the Soviet Union at gunpoint. They didn’t even get leaned on like Finland, they got made part of a nation they didn’t want to be any part of. The West did nothing because they did not want to repeat World War I. After the iron curtain rusted away in 1991, they took the first chance to take back their nation and understandably wanted no part of their conquerors. The US never did anything like that, at least not in the last two centuries, okay, maybe the Mexican-American War was a land grab (from the original caudillo , Santa Ana, who massacred Americans at the Alamo and Goliad) on a continent still in flux. Still no excuse.
” And even if they were doing something truly unethical, like exporting drugs to Russia, invading them would still be wrong.”
Where the hell are your solutions. Critique without offering an alternative is the lazy mans ways of bullying. Biden offered 25 million for someone to take him out instead of bringing him to justice as what is happening right now. He wanted someone to kill him and do his dirty work and you were woefully silent. You all scream for due process for people transporting drugs and when we arrest them and bring them to justice you scream again that that too is wrong. There was no invasion it was merely a snatch and grab operation. Where are our troops right now? At home.
Here is a solution you might like given that excuse for the drug trade is we are to blame because we demand it. Ban Narcan and let people die on the street. Leave them to rot there to serve as a message to those who might want to try drugs. Of course that is idiotic but it is a solution to the demand problem. Debating what is right and what is wrong with a decision to achieve a desired outcome cannot be I am always right because I say everything you do is wrong. You offered nothing for me to evaluate.
I am beginning to think those that oppose everything are simply puppets of the left who would love to see themselves as high ranking Party members with their dachas in Telluride.
Applicability of the Monroe Doctrine to Venezuela: Maduro’s inviting Russia, Iran and China into the Western Hemisphere is a security threat to the United States.
Ignoring all the partisan chatter, I’m hoping the newly minted President Delcy Rodriguez is able to take this opportunity to steer the country in a positive direction with Maduro out of the way.
She certainly has the connections and the experience if she prioritizes the best interests of the Venezuelan people rather than ideology.
If that happens then Trump will have done the Venezuelan people a big favor. One can hope….