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<title>Venezuela Locked Down As US Coup Nears</title>
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style="display:none;font-size:1px;color:#333333;line-height:1px;max-height:0px;max-width:0px;opacity:0;overflow:hidden;">The
US has locked down Venezuela.</div>
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US Coup Nears</a></h1>
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href="https://substack.com/@donotpanic" moz-do-not-send="true">Nate Bear</a></div>
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datetime="2025-11-30T10:32:21.716Z">Nov 30, 2025</time></div>
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<div class="body markup" dir="auto"
style="text-align: initial;font-size: 16px;line-height: 26px;width: 100%;word-break: break-word;margin-bottom: 16px;font-family: Spectral,sans-serif;font-weight: 400;">
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style="font-size: 16px;line-height: 26px;margin: 32px auto;margin-top: 0;">
<figure style="width: 100%;margin: 0 auto;">
<table class="image-wrapper" width="100%"
border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"
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<td style="text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="content" align="left"
width="1456" style="text-align: center;"><a
class="image-link" target="_blank"
href="https://substack.com/redirect/eca36ddc-5124-4378-95d6-7d3f9eae0174?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="position: relative;flex-direction: column;align-items: center;padding: 0;width: auto;height: auto;border: none;text-decoration: none;display: block;margin: 0;margin-top: 0;margin-bottom: 0;"
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alt="" width="550"
height="366.7925824175824"
src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!mU-m!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fafc45110-02e3-4440-8780-da182114f62e_1800x1200.jpeg"
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<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">The
US has locked down Venezuela. All flights in and
out of the country are cancelled. Twenty-nine
million people are trapped and at the mercy of the
most bloodthirsty, unrestrained and immoral
military in the history of the world.</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">Trump
tweeted late on Saturday that all airlines should
consider the airspace above Venezuela closed.
Across social media people whined that Trump had
no authority to do such a thing. You can\u2019t just
tweet the closure of an entire country\u2019s airspace!
A sovereign country! The funniest tweet I saw said
Trump was violating international law. This
received many approving retweets from, presumably,
people who have learned nothing from the last two
years. Or the last twenty. Or the last fifty. Or
the last seventy.</p>
<div class="captioned-image-container-static"
style="font-size: 16px;line-height: 26px;margin: 32px auto;">
<figure style="width: 100%;margin: 0 auto;">
<table class="image-wrapper" width="100%"
border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"
data-component-name="Image2ToDOMStatic"
style="mso-padding-alt: 1em 0 1.6em;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="content" align="left"
width="585" style="text-align: center;"><a
class="image-link" target="_blank"
href="https://substack.com/redirect/65637791-3d7f-4f68-9453-1c57ce15d870?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="position: relative;flex-direction: column;align-items: center;padding: 0;width: auto;height: auto;border: none;text-decoration: none;display: block;margin: 0;"
moz-do-not-send="true"><img
class="wide-image"
data-attrs="{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c6160741-9057-46d2-9dd7-c7afbf7d5098_585x205.png","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":205,"width":585,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":23862,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/png","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://www.donotpanic.news/i/180301740?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc6160741-9057-46d2-9dd7-c7afbf7d5098_585x205.png","isProcessing":false,"align":null,"offset":false}"
alt="" width="550"
height="192.73504273504273"
src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Iu7q!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc6160741-9057-46d2-9dd7-c7afbf7d5098_585x205.png"
style="border: none !important;vertical-align: middle;display: block;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;height: auto;margin-bottom: 0;width: auto !important;max-width: 100% !important;margin: 0 auto;"
moz-do-not-send="true"></a></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"></td>
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</tbody>
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</figure>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">THERE
IS NO SUCH THING AS INTERNATIONAL LAW.</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;"><span>There
is US empire. There is imperial impunity. There
is hard power. There are B-52 bombers. There are
eight-hundred American military bases in eighty
countries. There are strike teams. There are
death squads. There is mass child killing. There
is enforced starvation. There are genocides.
There is apartheid. There </span><em>are</em><span>
consequences for crossing the empire,
consequences which </span><em>are</em><span>
often cloaked in the language and justifications
of international law.</span><strong> But
concrete, enforceable, universalist
international law that restrains violent state
actions, regardless of the offender? Not a
chance. </strong></p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;"><span>The
US has extrajudicially murdered at least eighty
Venezuelans in the last few months, claiming
they were running drugs, some of whom were
subsequently </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/5ec187f8-22c0-4ef6-a686-158abfbc8448?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: rgb(54,55,55);text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">revealed to be
impoverished fishermen just out fishing to feed
their families. </a></p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">So
no, there is no international law. </p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;"><span>And
yes, despite supposed norms and what the letter
of the law says, despite the fact that the
leader of one country </span><em>shouldn\u2019t </em><span>be
able, arbitrarily, to close the airspace of
another, </span><strong>there\u2019s only hard
power.</strong><span> Right now there is no air
traffic over Venezuela in what appears to be a
prelude for a bombing campaign. A bombing
campaign on the fake pretext that the president
of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, is the head of a
drug trafficking narco-gang.</span></p>
<div class="captioned-image-container-static"
style="font-size: 16px;line-height: 26px;margin: 32px auto;">
<figure style="width: 100%;margin: 0 auto;">
<table class="image-wrapper" width="100%"
border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"
data-component-name="Image2ToDOMStatic"
style="mso-padding-alt: 1em 0 1.6em;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="content" align="left"
width="651" style="text-align: center;"><a
class="image-link" target="_blank"
href="https://substack.com/redirect/2d6b4f57-5652-4d4a-b538-d2566716f276?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="position: relative;flex-direction: column;align-items: center;padding: 0;width: auto;height: auto;border: none;text-decoration: none;display: block;margin: 0;"
moz-do-not-send="true"><img
class="wide-image"
data-attrs="{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f152aa47-286f-450d-900f-0a9caf21ab65_651x460.png","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":460,"width":651,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":null,"alt":"Image","title":null,"type":null,"href":null,"belowTheFold":true,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":null,"isProcessing":false,"align":null,"offset":false}"
alt="Image" title="Image"
width="550"
height="388.63287250384025"
src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!i3cN!,w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff152aa47-286f-450d-900f-0a9caf21ab65_651x460.png"
style="border: none !important;vertical-align: middle;display: block;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;height: auto;margin-bottom: 0;width: auto !important;max-width: 100% !important;margin: 0 auto;"
moz-do-not-send="true"></a></td>
<td style="text-align: center;"></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<figcaption class="image-caption"
style="box-sizing: content-box;color: #777777;font-size: 14px;line-height: 20px;font-weight: 400;letter-spacing: -.15px;margin-top: 8px;width: 70%;padding-left: 15%;padding-right: 15%;text-align: center;">FlightRadar24
image showing no air traffic over Venezuela </figcaption></figure>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">At
least for Iraq they put in some effort. This
latest fiction is straight out of a Lee Child
novel. And it is as laughable and badly written as
any Jack Reacher romp. </p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">If
you\u2019re unfamiliar with the pretext the White House
is invoking to launch attacks on Venezuela and
oust, or kill, Maduro, here\u2019s some brief
background. </p>
<h4 class="header-anchor-post"
style="position: relative;font-family: 'SF Pro Display',-apple-system-headline,system-ui,-apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,'Segoe UI',Roboto,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif,'Apple Color Emoji','Segoe UI Emoji','Segoe UI Symbol';font-weight: bold;-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;-moz-osx-font-smoothing: antialiased;-webkit-appearance: optimizelegibility;-moz-appearance: optimizelegibility;appearance: optimizelegibility;margin: 1em 0 0.625em 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 1.16em;font-size: 1.125em;">El
Cartel de los Soles</h4>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">The
US government says Maduro is the head of a drug
trafficking gang called El Cartel de los Soles or
the Cartel of the Suns. This name had largely
disappeared from the public record. But in recent
months US officials have dusted down the archives
and revived a name they\u2019re extremely familiar
with. The US government knows all about El Cartel
de los Soles, because they invented it.</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">This
is not a conspiracy. This is a public record fact.
</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">In
the late 80s and early 90s, drug traffickers were
eluding American efforts to stop cocaine coming
into the country. So the CIA and DEA came up with
a plan: they\u2019d establish their own gang to
illuminate and infiltrate drug trafficking
networks. To this end the CIA recruited the head
of Venezuela\u2019s national guard anti-drug unit,
General Ramon Guillen Davila, who set up and
operationalised the Cartel of the Suns. Under
Guillen Davila, the Cartel de los Soles shipped 22
tons of cocaine into US cities. This bait cartel
was shut down in 1993 when it lost its utility to
the US, only to be revived in 2025 as a pretext
for bombing Venezuela. </p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;"><span>In
1993, US TV news magazine programme 60 Minutes </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/d5105ade-3703-4b92-9778-2ca791cc20df?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: rgb(54,55,55);text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">ran an episode on it.</a><span>
An in recent weeks even imperially loyal </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/83b8c3fd-7b5a-4171-bdf0-686f988cfead?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: rgb(54,55,55);text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">CNN has had to admit</a><span>
that this pretext might be a little far-fetched.</span></p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;"><span>The
US then </span><em>is inventing a story within
a story. </em><span>The Trump administration</span><em>
is </em><span>reviving a bogeyman the US
created in the first place, and is placing a new
bogeyman in Maduro atop their original creation,
</span><em>all so they can kill them both. </em><span>This
is the Frankenstein\u2019s monster of regime change
operations. Lee Child meets Mary Shelley.</span></p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">And
on this fiction, Justice Department lawyers are
drafting a legal rationale for an attack on
Venezuela, a rationale that will allow Trump to
conduct military strikes (almost certainly a
decapitation operation against Maduro) without
congressional approval. Trump\u2019s tweet suggests the
rationale is drafted and the attack is imminent.</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">And
just to be clear, Venezuela isn\u2019t even a top five
drug producing country in Latin America. Colombia,
Peru and Bolivia are far and away the regional
leaders in production. And Venezuela isn\u2019t a
particular important transit point either.
Logistically it doesn\u2019t make sense. Most volume
comes overland through Mexico not thousands of
miles across the ocean.</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">So
no, this isn\u2019t about drugs. This is about two
other, related things: hemispheric dominance. And
oil. Lots and lots of delicious oil.</p>
<h4 class="header-anchor-post"
style="position: relative;font-family: 'SF Pro Display',-apple-system-headline,system-ui,-apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,'Segoe UI',Roboto,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif,'Apple Color Emoji','Segoe UI Emoji','Segoe UI Symbol';font-weight: bold;-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;-moz-osx-font-smoothing: antialiased;-webkit-appearance: optimizelegibility;-moz-appearance: optimizelegibility;appearance: optimizelegibility;margin: 1em 0 0.625em 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 1.16em;font-size: 1.125em;">US
puppet Machado</h4>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;"><span>They
have said so themselves. Just the other day
Republican congresswoman Maria Salazar (the
child of Cuban exiles and, predictably
therefore, a rabid proponent of intervention in
Latin America), said that offing Maduro \u201cwould
be a windfall for us when it comes to fossil
fuels.\u201d </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/c985237a-2f8a-417a-98df-6468596a9b6e?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: rgb(54,55,55);text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">In an interview with Fox
News</a><span> she gushed that \u201cVenezuela has
larger reserves than Saudi Arabia.\u201d</span></p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;"><span>And
the US puppet that comes to power after Maduro,
most likely Maria Corina Machado, will gladly
hand those reserves over. She also said so
herself. In an interview with Donald Trump Jr in
October (yes, you read that right), </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/0f64263a-2653-4c03-a10b-dc862b4e8838?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: rgb(54,55,55);text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">she said, with a frantic
look in her eyes</a><span>, \u201cForget Saudi
Arabia, I mean we have more oil than them, I
mean endless possibilities! We will privatize
our entire industry for you. American companies
will profit greatly!\u201d Machado is also a crazed
Zionist who </span><a
href="https://substack.com/redirect/a40d38ea-3a4c-4905-81e6-6c5c1390c415?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM"
rel=""
style="color: rgb(54,55,55);text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">has described</a><span>
Israel\u2019s struggle as Venezuela\u2019s struggle. This
is the woman who just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
It\u2019s all so wildly outrageous and transparently
evil that it would be funny if the consequences
for millions of people weren\u2019t life or death.</span></p>
<div class="captioned-image-container-static"
style="font-size: 16px;line-height: 26px;margin: 32px auto;">
<figure style="width: 100%;margin: 0 auto;">
<table class="image-wrapper" width="100%"
border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"
data-component-name="Image2ToDOMStatic"
style="mso-padding-alt: 1em 0 1.6em;">
<tbody>
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<figcaption class="image-caption"
style="box-sizing: content-box;color: #777777;font-size: 14px;line-height: 20px;font-weight: 400;letter-spacing: -.15px;margin-top: 8px;width: 70%;padding-left: 15%;padding-right: 15%;text-align: center;">Machado
on Trump Jr\u2019s podcast</figcaption></figure>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">This
new regime change episode has echoes of 1989, when
the US invaded Panama to remove Manuel Noriega,
the leader of Panama and a former CIA asset who
was paid millions by the US for spying on
left-wing groups in the country. Noriega was a
legitimate drug runner, and the CIA overlooked his
side hustle because of his value as an
anti-communist, anti-socialist agent. He also, in
the end, like all those who foolishly get in bed
with US imperial power, outlived his usefulness.</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">In
the case of Maduro, however, the claims of his
drug-running status are entirely fictional.</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">But
nothing has, or will, stop the US in its bloodlust
and oil-lust. America is a sick, twisted and
depraved structure of global imperial control. And
we should recognise why a decapitation strike is
the form of attack we\u2019re about to see. Because for
the last two years, first under Biden and then
under Trump, the US has gleefully authorised its
revolting Middle East proxy to undertake such
strikes. In Lebanon, in Iran, in Yemen and in
Qatar, Israel, with US weapons and intelligence,
has assassinated scores of political leaders. The
unadulterated manly power of missile-striking an
opponent to death just can\u2019t be matched. To men
like Trump, Netanyahu, Biden, Obama and all those
before them, the frisson, the glory, the control,
and the domination such an attack broadcasts is
the peak of power. This god-like power is, for
these men-beyond-laws, the peak of human existence
itself. </p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">The
oil is the prize. A display of American military
power in the region a bonus.</p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">So
Venezuelan airspace is closed. </p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">Over
one hundred flights a day no longer operational. </p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;">No
domestic or international flights. No freight. No
deliveries. </p>
<p
style="margin: 0 0 20px 0;color: rgb(54,55,55);line-height: 26px;font-size: 16px;"><span>A
country waiting for the benevolent bombs to fall
as US empire continues its decades long global
rampage of terror in the name of </span><s>oil
and resources</s><span> freedom.</span></p>
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