Reposted from the other 98% FB group: Trump isn’t just seeking regime change in Venezuela, he’s laying the groundwork for something far more dangerous: the return of near-absolute presidential war powers. The Alien Enemies Act, is a 200-year-old statute that allows a president, during “times of war,” to detain or deport citizens of a hostile nation. It was last used to justify the mass-internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940s.
Earlier this year, Trump already tried to invoke the AEA, using it to round up and deport Venezuelan nationals he claimed were tied to the Tren de Aragua gang. The courts struck it down, ruling there was no “state of war” to justify it — but if Trump declares even a limited conflict with Venezuela, that same law could roar back to life, giving him near-unlimited power to detain, surveil, and silence under the guise of war.
Trump’s “war on narco-terrorism” has already killed civilians, fishermen from Trinidad whose boat was obliterated after being labeled “terrorists” with no public evidence. Families say the victims were returning from work; the U.S. calls them cartel operatives.
Trump then shrugged and told reporters flatly, “I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war… I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. OK? We’re going to kill them.”
Okay, so just extrajudicial murder, got it.
While he says he won’t seek a formal war, listen to the people running this plan: Stephen Miller has openly suggested the government can treat wartime measures as tools at hand — even floating the suspension of habeas corpus — saying, “The writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion, so that is an option we’re actively looking at.”
So to recap: U.S. destroyers and drones are circling what officials now call “the narco-state of Venezuela.” A fleet large enough to invade a country is being sold as a “counter-narcotics” mission. Former State Department lawyer Brian Finucane told The Guardian it’s “far beyond what you’d need to hit drug boats” — a show of force meant to topple Maduro and remind Latin America who’s boss.
The danger of Trump reviving the Alien Enemies Act isn’t just what it allows him to do abroad — it’s what it legalizes at home. Once a president declares, or even implies, that America is “at war,” that 18th-century statute gives him sweeping power to target anyone from a “hostile nation.”
No warrant. No trial. No oversight. Standard operating procedure in Trump’s America.
This is how democracies hollow out: not always through coups, but through old laws repurposed by strongmen who claim it’s about safety. Trump doesn’t need to rewrite the Constitution; he’s already found the loopholes that let him rule around it.
Earlier this year, Trump already tried to invoke the AEA, using it to round up and deport Venezuelan nationals he claimed were tied to the Tren de Aragua gang. The courts struck it down, ruling there was no “state of war” to justify it — but if Trump declares even a limited conflict with Venezuela, that same law could roar back to life, giving him near-unlimited power to detain, surveil, and silence under the guise of war.
Trump’s “war on narco-terrorism” has already killed civilians, fishermen from Trinidad whose boat was obliterated after being labeled “terrorists” with no public evidence. Families say the victims were returning from work; the U.S. calls them cartel operatives.
Trump then shrugged and told reporters flatly, “I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war… I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. OK? We’re going to kill them.”
Okay, so just extrajudicial murder, got it.
While he says he won’t seek a formal war, listen to the people running this plan: Stephen Miller has openly suggested the government can treat wartime measures as tools at hand — even floating the suspension of habeas corpus — saying, “The writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion, so that is an option we’re actively looking at.”
So to recap: U.S. destroyers and drones are circling what officials now call “the narco-state of Venezuela.” A fleet large enough to invade a country is being sold as a “counter-narcotics” mission. Former State Department lawyer Brian Finucane told The Guardian it’s “far beyond what you’d need to hit drug boats” — a show of force meant to topple Maduro and remind Latin America who’s boss.
The danger of Trump reviving the Alien Enemies Act isn’t just what it allows him to do abroad — it’s what it legalizes at home. Once a president declares, or even implies, that America is “at war,” that 18th-century statute gives him sweeping power to target anyone from a “hostile nation.”
No warrant. No trial. No oversight. Standard operating procedure in Trump’s America.
This is how democracies hollow out: not always through coups, but through old laws repurposed by strongmen who claim it’s about safety. Trump doesn’t need to rewrite the Constitution; he’s already found the loopholes that let him rule around it.
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