Trump in violent action; silence from Starmer et al

JVL Introduction

This Guardian editorial is a fair summary of the issues at stake and that it is clear that this is not about democracy (or drugs or guns).  Of course, none of this is new and this new phase of US imperialism has been announced as part of the National Security Strategy of the USA published in November 2025.  This may be the most blatant violation of international law in the interests of the USA (so far) but it is not in the interests of the people but rather the Corporations and oil prices have, predictably been rising.

You may also be interested to read today’s briefing by Lindsey German (Of Stop The War), from which we quote this: “The world situation has grown increasingly unstable in recent years with Ukraine, Gaza, Congo, Sudan involved in direct wars and countries such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela heavily sanctioned.  The UN order, established after the Second World War, is in tatters. That began with the series of wars led by the US since the end of the Cold War. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars were military and political defeats for the US and Britain, the interventions in Libya and Syria led to much greater instability in the Middle East, and support for Israel’s Gaza genocide has further increased that. Trump’s latest action has added to that instability. The Financial Times commentator Edward Luce put it like this:

‘Whatever way that pans out, Trump’s new world order is now very much a reality. It consists of no obvious rules, does not respect allies, celebrates the jungle and is almost always about money. There is a lot of wealth under Venezuela’s soil. Trump is now committed to extracting it.’

The craven responses from most European leaders, including Starmer, are shameful; they talk of International Law but will not stand up to Trump. As always it is up to us, the people to defeat tyranny.  It is perfectly possible to criticise Maduro and still find it impossible to support this invasion of sovereign territory. The method is one reason we can be clear this is not about democracy (let alone drugs) another is that Trump has clearly trumpeted that he wants control over “our oil”.

LL

This article was originally published by The Guardian on Sun 4 Jan 2026. Read the original here.