India & Global Left, 15/11/2025
Transcribed and summarized by Tlaxcala
Wilkerson explains why the U.S. is escalating against Venezuela, how close Washington is to a possible military intervention, and why he believes Israel is playing a driving role behind Trump’s Venezuela strategy. We also explore bigger geopolitical questions: • Does the U.S. have a real grand strategy after losing the tariff war to China? • Will NATO retreat from its failing venture in Ukraine? • What does Syria’s effective re-absorption into the U.S. Middle East architecture mean for the region? • Is Washington reacting to global shifts—or blindly escalating on multiple fronts? If you want a deep dive into U.S. empire, great-power competition, and the hidden actors shaping today’s conflicts, this interview with Colonel Wilkerson is essential.
The episode opens with a welcome to viewers and an
appeal to support the channel through subscriptions, membership, or donations.
The host then introduces the evening’s guest, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a
retired U.S. Army Colonel and former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin
Powell. The conversation begins with an overview of U.S. escalation against Venezuela,
including military buildups in the Caribbean, operations originating from
Puerto Rico under the banner of a so-called "war on narco-terrorism,"
and intensified propaganda efforts. Figures in the Venezuelan opposition—such
as María Corina Machado—are described as promising Venezuelan assets to U.S.
corporations, while President Trump has been explicit in seeking regime change
in Caracas. The central question posed to Wilkerson is how far Washington is
willing to go.
Wilkerson responds by recalling his experience during
the George W. Bush administration, noting that many of the practices of that
era are now being repeated with even greater depth, breadth, and illegality. He
invokes the legacy of the Nuremberg Trials, reminding viewers that their
primary purpose—articulated by Justice Jackson—was to stop wars of aggression.
This principle formed the moral foundation for the UN and the Geneva
Conventions of 1948, which sought to impose standards on the conduct of war and
establish international criminal law. According to Wilkerson, the United States
is now dismantling, "peg by peg, thread by thread," the entire
post-World War II international legal framework. He argues that the U.S. has
become the world’s chief perpetrator of wars of aggression, with Venezuela
being the most recent target.
Wilkerson explains that U.S. covert involvement in Venezuela
escalated in 2016 when Trump signed a presidential finding authorizing CIA
operations on the ground. Obama’s 2015 declaration that Venezuela was a
national security threat to the United States also paved the way for sanctions
and interventionist policies. Wilkerson stresses that both Democratic and
Republican administrations have followed the same trajectory. He highlights a
troubling trend: the creation of new legal rationales by the Department of
Justice to justify extrajudicial killings at sea—killings that have already
claimed dozens of lives, including impoverished fishermen misidentified as
smugglers. People in Colombia and Venezuela are now reportedly afraid to fish
for fear of being killed. This, Wilkerson says, represents the destruction of
international law and due process.
Turning to the possibility of a military intervention,
Wilkerson describes the situation as deeply alarming. He asserts that Israel is
heavily involved in U.S. intelligence operations related to Venezuela, having
participated since at least 2016. According to him, Trump receives misleading
or manipulated intelligence not from official U.S. agencies but from
intermediaries such as Laura Loomer and figures connected to the Israeli
intelligence apparatus, financed by actors within the Venezuelan opposition. In
Wilkerson’s view, this intelligence pipeline circumvents the established
intelligence community, enabling operations driven by external agendas.
He elaborates on the rise of U.S. Special Operations
Command (SOCOM), which has grown into a powerful, semi-autonomous military
structure closely integrated with the CIA. This arrangement allows the CIA to
conduct direct-action operations while avoiding congressional oversight, since
the military technically carries out the actions. Wilkerson provides historical
examples—from Mogadishu to Afghanistan and Iraq—where
Special Operations forces conducted unilateral missions without the knowledge
of regional commanders. He argues that similar dynamics are now visible in
Venezuela, where special operations personnel aboard a “mother ship” off the
Venezuelan coast conduct clandestine missions without the awareness or approval
of the conventional military command at Southern Command. This, he says,
represents an “unbelievable” and dangerous breakdown of civilian and military
oversight.
