The real reason the US is invading Venezuela goes back to a deal Henry Kissinger made with Saudi Arabia in 1974. This is actually about the SURVIVAL of the US dollar itself. Not drugs. Not terrorism. Not "democracy." This is about the petrodollar system that has kept America the dominant economic power for 50 years.  the entire American financial system is built on one thing: The petrodollar. In 1974, Henry Kissinger made a deal with Saudi Arabia:  All oil sold globally must be priced in US dollars. In exchange, America provides military protection. This single agreement created artificial demand for dollars worldwide. Every country on Earth needs dollars to buy oil. This lets America print unlimited money while other countries work for it. It funds the military. The welfare state. The deficit spending. The petrodollar is more important to US hegemony than aircraft carriers.

And Venezuela just threatened to end it.

Venezuela has 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. The largest on Earth. More than Saudi Arabia. 20% of the entire world's oil. Venezuela was actively selling that oil in Chinese yuan. Not dollars. In 2018, Venezuela announced it would "free itself from the dollar." They started accepting yuan, euros, rubles, anything BUT dollars for oil. They were petitioning to join BRICS. They were building direct payment channels with China that bypass SWIFT entirely. 

 what happens to leaders who challenge THE Petro dollar!:

2000: Saddam Hussein announces Iraq will sell oil in euros instead of dollars. 2003: Invaded. Regime change. Iraq's oil immediately switched back to dollars. Saddam lynched. The WMDs were never found because they never existed.

2009: Gaddafi proposes a gold-backed African currency called the "gold dinar" for oil trade. Hillary Clinton's own leaked emails confirm this was the PRIMARY reason for intervention. Email quote: "This gold was intended to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar." 2011: NATO bombs Libya. Gaddafi sodomized and murdered. Libya now has open slave markets. "We came, we saw, he died!" Clinton laughed on camera. The gold dinar died with him.

And now Maduro. With FIVE TIMES more oil than Saddam and Gaddafi combined. Actively selling in yuan. Building payment systems outside dollar control. Petitioning to join BRICS. Partnered with China, Russia, and Iran. The three countries leading global de-dollarization. This isn't coincidence. 

Challenge the petrodollar. Get regime changed. Every. Single. Time. Stephen Miller (US homeland security advisor) literally said it out loud two weeks ago: "American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property." He's not hiding it.

They're claiming Venezuelan oil BELONGS to America because US companies developed it 100 years ago. By this logic, every nationalized resource in history was "theft."

But here's the DEEPER problem: The petrodollar is already dying. Russia sells oil in rubles and yuan since Ukraine. Saudi Arabia is openly discussing yuan settlements. Iran has been trading in non-dollar currencies for years. China built CIPS, their own alternative to SWIFT with 4,800 banks in 185 countries. BRICS is actively building payment systems that bypass the dollar entirely. The mBridge project lets central banks settle trades instantly in local currencies.

Venezuela joining BRICS with 303 billion barrels of oil would accelerate this exponentially. That's what this invasion is really about. Not stopping drugs. Venezuela accounts for less than 1% of US cocaine. Not terrorism. There's zero evidence Maduro runs a "terror organization."

Not democracy. The US supports Saudi Arabia, which has zero elections. This is about maintaining a 50-year-old agreement that lets America print money while the world works for it.

And the consequences are terrifying: Russia, China, and Iran are already denouncing this as "armed aggression." China is Venezuela's biggest oil customer. They're losing billions. BRICS nations are watching a country get invaded for trading outside the dollar. Every nation considering de-dollarization just got the message: Challenge the dollar and we will bomb you.

But here's the problem... That message might accelerate de-dollarization, not stop it. Because now every country in the Global South knows what happens if you threaten dollar hegemony. And they're realizing the only protection is to move FASTER.

The timing is insane too:

January 3rd, 2026. Venezuela invaded. Maduro captured. January 3rd, 1990. Panama invaded. Noriega captured. 36 years apart. Almost to the day. Same playbook. Same "drug trafficking" excuse. Same real reason: control of strategic resources and trade routes. History doesn't repeat. But it rhymes.

What happens next:

Trump's press conference at Mar-a-Lago sets the narrative. US oil companies are already lined up. Politico reported they've been approached about "returning to Venezuela." The opposition will be installed. Oil will flow in dollars again. Venezuela becomes another Iraq. Another Libya.

But here's what nobody's asking: What happens when you can no longer bomb your way to dollar dominance? When China has enough economic leverage to retaliate? When BRICS controls 40% of global GDP and says "no more dollars"? When the world realizes the petrodollar is maintained by violence?

America just showed its hand. The question is whether the rest of the world folds or calls the bluff. Because this invasion is an admission that the dollar can no longer compete on its own merits. When you have to bomb countries to keep them using your currency, the currency is already dying.

Venezuela isn't the beginning. It's the desperate end.

When Donald Trump ordered United States troops to invade Venezuela in South America and capture its president Nicolas Maduro on January 3, 2026, he was merely going down a well-trodden path. https://www.rediff.com/news/special/history-in-minutes-when-us-invaded-countries-in-the-americas/20260105.htm 

Ever since the fifth president of the US, James Monroe, declared in 1823 that the Americas was off limits to the European powers (later called the Monroe Doctrine), the US has tended to treat the American continent as its backyard, targeting nations therein to enforce its will.

That a country thinks it has the right to randomly invade another country has repercussions that will for sure be played on the global arena in the years to come.

By HARISHCHANDRA

05/01/2026

The Government of India has launched the fifth National Marine Fisheries Census 2025, set to conclude in December 2025. The marine census, along with the port-led development programme of Sagarmala, are both key components of India’s ‘Blue Revolution’ push to exploit oceanic and coastal resources.

As the census notification states, it is officially aimed at digitising the census process moving away from manual data collection, and collecting information by using mobile applications and drones at fishers infrastructures: harbours, jetties and fish landing centres.

While census goals and programmes were intended to improve fisher welfare, they systematically complemented efforts to promote aquaculture (fish farming in a controlled environment as opposed to simply fishing in natural settings) and capital-intensive mechanisation instead.

The marine fishing communities largely practice small-scale fishing. Due to the competition introduced in fish production by aquaculture and displacement by infrastructure projects such as port-led development, they have become migrant labourers working part-time in various industries as workers. They fish in the season when the fish are abundant, staying in their villages. In other seasons they travel to other states for fishing. Most such small-scale fishers lack support from the local government and recognition under any formal organisations. India's New Fisheries Census Risks Erasing Traditional Fishing Communities - The Wire

The annual fishing ban imposed by the government between April and June (ostensibly to ensure fish breeding) itself shows there is no continuity of fishing throughout the year. And there is no clear definition of fish workers and how they will be identified.

The current Marine Fisheries Census 2025 collected data through trained instructors from fisheries infrastructures while prioritising registered farmer’s organisations and self-help groups, and by using digital headcounts and drone-mapped crafts at harbours and jetties from the total production. This process sidesteps the very communities it claims to represent.

In the past 20 years, the government has taken many steps to invest in and utilise marine resources for infrastructure development. Since 2015, this focus has increased and has become a core centre for India’s coastal infrastructure development under ‘Sagarmala’, with around Rs 8 lakh crore expected investment in infrastructure. Since then, marine fishers have been facing the threat of displacement and dispossession while losing access to the sea. Now, with the 2025 census, there is yet another attempt to cement the erasure of their traditional identity and belongingness.

by Ramu Avala

29/12/2025