By James E. Jennings*
ATLANTA, USA | 7 January 2026 (IDN) — On January 3, key figures of the American government lined up in front of TV cameras at Florida’s Mar-a-Lago White House and bragged about the latest American whiz-bang overseas war—this time against Venezuela—which included violating the U.S. Constitution, breaking a host of international laws, and kidnapping the country’s unlucky president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife.
Seizing the country’s vast oil reserves, the president crowed, was just a bonus. He vowed to “run the country.” With President Trump apparently drunk on power—bombing countries across the globe and threatening others, including Cuba and Colombia—the most astonishing aspect of the high-handed operation in Venezuela is the lack of pushback from official Washington’s spineless Congress and complaisant Supreme Court.
War as Prime-Time Entertainment
The U.S. media and most Americans have remained largely silent about yet another war. It seems the football playoffs on the road to the Super Bowl occupy far more attention. So far in the first year of Trump’s second term, he has bombed seven countries: Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, and now Venezuela. He has also strongly supported Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Suppose Mafia boss Al Capone had held a press conference to announce his gang’s latest slaughter of rivals. “Gee whiz! Our guys did a hell of a job! You should have seen how it went down—pow, pow, pow! I’m proud of them.” Of course, that would not make the killings right. Efficiency in crime has never been a justification in any courtroom governed by law.
The Constitution on the Cutting-Room Floor
Never mind that the 1973 War Powers Resolution and Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grant Congress the sole authority to declare war—Trump has seized that function outright. Longstanding international law and the UN Charter also forbid such actions.
The Mar-a-Lago gang of war criminals bragged at length on television about how efficiently and flawlessly the takeover of an entire country and the theft of its oil reserves were accomplished. Congress, they said, even if required by the Constitution, did not need to be notified. The entire television production had an Orwellian feel, certifying the regime in Washington as little more than a dictatorship.
The Secretary of the Department of War (no longer of Defense), TV personality Pete Hegseth, appeared almost giddy as he compared the invasion to the U.S.–Israeli joint attack on Iran on June 22, 2025—also illegal. “No fuss, no muss—we’re really good at what we do,” was the unmistakable message. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lieutenant General Dan “Raizin’” Cain, likewise went into detail about the operation’s flawless execution. Yet a crime remains a crime, no matter how smoothly it is carried out.
When Bombs Make Good Television
What does most of the U.S. public think about acquiring new property in South America? Many appear persuaded by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s polished rhetoric. There seems to be broad agreement that Maduro “deserved it,” that U.S. troops are highly skilled, and that American military technology is superb—almost magical. The Venezuelan émigré community in the United States has been particularly enthusiastic, hopeful of returning home under a democratically elected government.
No matter how one views the assault on Venezuela—whether as a “good war” like that against Nazi Germany or as a criminal enterprise using U.S. troops to do the dirty work—it undeniably makes compelling television. When dazzling events unfold, and the bombs are not falling on us, it is hard to look away.
Even the disastrously conceived wars in Iraq in 1991 and 2003–11 at least had the fig leaf of last-minute congressional approval to cover the nakedness of neoconservative policy. Rubio claimed on *Meet the Press* on January 4 that the attack on Venezuela is not a military occupation—a statement that directly contradicts Trump’s assertion that the United States will run the country and operate its oil wells.
Sober reality will soon set in. Once it does, it will become clear that by violating the U.S. Constitution and multiple international laws designed to prevent aggression, the gang in Washington has placed itself squarely in the category of a criminal regime. Americans may love entertainment, but they should be reminded that war is not a television game.
*James E. Jennings is President of Conscience International. He has led teams responding to global emergencies, including those in Gaza, Ukraine, and at the Colombia–Venezuela border. [IDN-InDepthNews]