The U.S. attack on Venezuela and abduction of its leader, Nicolas Maduro, and first lady, Cilia Flores, is drawing strong criticism from Georgia Democrats, Atlanta activists, and at least one prominent Republican as the world catches its breath following Saturday’s attack on the South American nation.
Roughly 100 anti-war demonstrators marched and rallied in downtown Atlanta hours after news broke of U.S. bombs being dropped on Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas.
Some held signs that read “No blood for oil” and “U.S. out of the Caribbean,” according to multiple sources.
Axel Vera, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, described the U.S. attack on Venezuela as an “act of terror” designed to benefit U.S. oil companies during an emergency rally in Atlanta on Saturday.
“This is not about human rights abuses. This is not about drug trafficking. This is not about a lack of democracy or an economic crisis. This is not even about Maduro,” Vera told protesters at the event, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This is about the exploitation of resources belonging to a sovereign country. This is about the exploitation of the labor of free people. How much more of our tax money is going to be spent on war?”
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, demanded “answers & accountability” for the attack on Venezuela, saying “Americans are sick and tired of endless war, regime change, and failed attempts to ‘run’ foreign nations.”
“Americans do not want U.S. troops involved in yet another endless war or their government running another government,” Warnock wrote in an emailed statement. “Yet, that is what Donald Trump who, as a candidate promised to get us out of foreign wars, has announced. … We have seen that awful movie before.”
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, called the attack “INSANITY!” Saturday on X. He said it suggests the president is “focused on oil profits and Making Venezuela Great Again.”
“He has bogged down American taxpayers with a costly foreign occupation while destabilizing global security, sending an unmistakable green light for China to invade Taiwan,” Johnson wrote. “Trump’s chaos is now world wide. This is not AMERICA FIRST, and this is not MAGA!”
Most GOP U.S. representatives from the Peach State have voiced support for Trump ahead of Maduro and Flores’ arraignment in a New York federal courtroom on Monday. But at least one has echoed Johnson and other Democrats’ view that the attack appears to contradict the seemingly anti-war, “America First” worldview Trump expressed during his 2024 White House run.
Trump administration officials have characterized Maduro as a narco terrorist and an accomplice in an operation that has flooded the U.S. with illegal drugs — a claim Maduro has denied.
Trump told reporters on Saturday that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela until the nation could rebound from the attack and removal of its leader, who is widely regarded as an illegitimate dictator for refusing to relinquish power following what global democratic observers recognize as a 2024 election loss to opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez.
Trump also said the U.S. would seize and sell Venezuela’s major oil reserves.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said on Saturday.
Outgoing U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared to be the only Republican federal lawmaker from Georgia to publicly criticize Trump’s move to oust Maduro over the weekend.
Greene was one of Trump’s most loyal supporters prior to his second term in office, but was highly critical last year of the president’s support for military action in Iran and Gaza, in addition to Trump’s initial refusal to release all the files tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She announced her resignation after Trump characterized her as a “traitor” late last year. Monday is her last day in office.
“Regime change, funding foreign wars, and American’s tax dollars being consistently funneled to foreign causes, foreigners both home and abroad, and foreign governments while Americans are consistently facing increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare, and learn about scams and fraud of their tax dollars is what has most Americans enraged,” Greene posted on X on Saturday.
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