Venezuelan war

 Here I am looking at blogs, a few emails, and just dealing with learning this that and another...when someone in an email says we're at war with Venezuela. 

NPR has  an article published at around 6 am.

I have another aural migraine now...stress anyone?

Here's what Jay Kuo said "Waking up to News of War."

We’re all waking up to the same sobering, disturbing yet somehow unsurprising news out of Venezuela. I posted some of the below on social media but wanted to share and expand on it briefly here, too.

Some things to keep in mind as we process news of the war in Venezuela:

1) This act of war is unauthorized, unjustified and unconstitutional, no matter what the near term “success” the White House claims in toppling a foreign government or capturing its president.

2) Regime change is always unpredictable and could lead to greater instability.

3) With such acts, we lose all moral authority to condemn other nations that similarly attack their neighbors or carry out illegal renditions of foreign leaders.

4) Trump wants Venezuela’s oil reserves for his friends and a war to distract the public. This was never about interdicting drugs.

5) We still don’t know how many people the U.S. may have killed or injured so far, and we must demand all hostilities cease immediately to prevent further loss of life.

6) Two things can be true. It’s possible both to despise Maduro for what he has done to Venezuela AND to oppose this war as an illegal invasion of another country to seize control of its oil reserves.

7) Expect the GOP in Congress to lay down again and surrender their constitutional authority. Some already have fallen in line.

8) It is unclear what the plan is should Maduro’s people not give up. Their government is illegitimate, so a lot will depend on what the opposition and the Venezuelan people do from here.

This is not how any of us wanted to begin the new year. Now that the U.S. has committed unauthorized acts of war, we can only hope that they are short-lived and that chaos and further violence does not ensue.

Stay tuned, more to follow.

Jay