President Trump: The master of temporary misdirection
By Claire K. Rivero
Like most of you, I have watched the news reports, informing me that President Trump’s initial decap strike against Caracas has been successful, and has resulted in President Maduro’s and his wife’s arrests, and subsequent imprisonment in New York.
Various writers in the British press have dubbed the philosophical foundation on which raid was premised “The Donroe Doctrine”, a play on the words “Monroe Doctrine”.
“The Monroe Doctrine” declared the Americas off-limits to new European imperialism, but over time it also became a tool the U.S. used to assert dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
President Trump has informed the world that the US is “taking over the country”, beginning with its government, and then Venezuela’s oil infrastructure
But what does this actually mean?!? We have invaded a sovereign, foreign country, and arrested their sitting head of state and their wife.
One would imagine, with so many pressing domestic issues needing reform and resolution, that President Trump would have thought perhaps, that those were the areas needing his attention right now.
Instead, he has ordered the US’s CIA and military to do a decap strike on Venezuela, so one might reasonably ask why.
The reason is three-fold.
First: to distract attention from the Epstein file mess, something from which he cannot seem to extricate himself.
Second: to “demonstrate to the world” that the US still has the power to “knock off” any country’s leadership it doesn’t really like (save for Russia and China), and that very few countries are immune to this action.
Third: To control Venezuela’s oil, and insure that this oil, henceforward, will only be sold in US dollars. This possibly may staunch the bleeding from the de-dollarization trend we have been seeing from China and the BRICS countries.
I knew that the military/intel group tasked with the initial decap strike could pull it off successfully; but the question now is, how will the US hold the country for an extensive period of time, with Russia and China undoubtedly working very hard to undo what the Trump Administration has done here, not to mention a bunch of very ticked off Venezuelans who don’t like the idea of “regime change” which is neither domestic nor organic?
The response by both countries may very well prove asymmetric. As reported at indiatimes.com three days ago regarding China: “Jan 2, 2026 :
“2026 has begun with the Taiwan Strait closer to crisis than at any point in decades. Just hours after China concluded its largest-ever military exercise around Taiwan, President Lai Ching-te vowed the island would defend its sovereignty “with whatever force necessary.” Beijing’s reply was blunt: reunification is “unstoppable.” China’s two-day drill, Justice Mission 2025, involved nearly 130 aircraft, warships, live-fire rocket strikes, and simulations of a full blockade and invasion, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and disrupting shipping lanes across the region. The timing was no accident. Days earlier, the United States approved a record $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan, while Japan openly warned it could intervene militarily if Taiwan were attacked. U.S. intelligence believes 2027 is the year Xi Jinping wants the PLA ready to seize Taiwan. These drills were not about starting a war tomorrow—but about proving China can fight one. As pressure mounts, deterrence tightens, and red lines blur, the question is no longer if tensions rise—but whether rehearsal turns into reality.”
But with the US bogged down in Venezuela, could Xi’s time-table for the conquest of Taiwan become…. accelerated?!?! Were I a betting person, I would not bet against it.
And Russia’s response?!?
My AI, Throck, sums up the Russian position as follows: “Russia has formally denounced the U.S. military operation in Venezuela as an illegitimate act of aggression, insisting that the sovereignty of Venezuela must be respected and calling for dialogue and UN involvement to prevent further escalation. Moscow has not threatened direct military confrontation with the U.S. but has made clear it views the strike as a dangerous breach of international norms. TAS”
However, please remember that Russia is still in a “proxy war” with the US and NATO in its war with Ukraine. This decap strike against Venezuela may well cause Putin to spurn all suggestions of a cease-fire, and order his military to go “scorched earth” until an independent Ukraine is no more, and no pleadings from President Trump can convince him otherwise.
Like a magician, President Trump is a master of (temporary) misdirection. At least for the moment, he has turned domestic and international attention from the US’s internal problems, toward a focus on this alleged US military/intelligence “triumph” in Venezuela.
And I use the term, “alleged” advisedly.
We still do not know what the cost, both in American blood and a prolonged military presence in this country is going to cost us. And for every family member and friend of those US service members deployed in this operation, that is a very personal issue.
Congress does not reconvene until tomorrow, 5 January; and by the time they get back, in the immortal words of my late maternal Grandmother, “The horse is already out of the barn!”
How they can, and will, respond to Trump’s decap strike, deliberately timed for when Congress was not is session, is anyone’s guess.
But the hard reality here is, President Trump has, for all intents and purposes, unilaterally declared war on a foreign government and its sitting President through this decap strike; arrested its President and his wife; and invaded and taken over the governance of this country.
But I seem to remember from my studies of the Constitution that “…only Congress can declare war.”; I will be very curious to hear the response of the House and Senate to what President Trump has done.