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Press TV is now joined by author and commentator John Steppling, who’s with us from Inderoy, Norway. We also have Kevin Barrett, joining us from Saïdia, Morocco. Gentlemen, welcome to the program. Let’s start off with Mr. Steppling: Please just give us your perspective on how events have transpired with regards to Venezuela.

John Steppling: The targeting of ships off the coast of Venezuela seems to have entered into a new phase with the seizure of this oil tanker. The U.S. can’t invade Venezuela. They’re not capable of an actual land invasion, some kind of amphibious invasion with boots on the ground. They can’t do it. The American public has no appetite for the deaths of American military personnel either. So they’re going to avoid that at all costs.

The original justification for blowing up these fishing boats in the Caribbean was that they were transporting fentanyl. The boats couldn’t even reach the United States. They don’t have the range for that. The cartel that they accused Maduro of being the head of doesn’t exist. It’s a mythical cartel.

They—the US government—just keep inventing new stories, just keep inventing new justifications. And they’re not (plausible). They don’t even try very hard.

Now they seize an oil tanker. It looks very good, but there’s some other tankers out there delivering oil. This is meaningless. It’s a little tiny drop in the bucket. It has some symbolic resonance, I guess. But the U.S. is not going to invade. They may bomb a few places, but they’re terrified that Venezuela will shoot back.

So the US is a country that’s like a rabid dog that has been cornered. And it’s very dangerous in one sense because it’s unpredictable. Trump is trying to find things to do that will distract from Ukraine, Gaza, and Jeffrey Epstein, not necessarily in that order. So, you know, this is piracy. Is it illegal? Of course it is. Blowing up the fishing boats was illegal, too. But the U.S. doesn’t care. They’re flailing about, and they’re like a cornered dog that is snarling and yapping, but ultimately isn’t going to do much damage, I don’t think.

Kevin Barrett, I’d like you to weigh in on the situation as well. Venezuelan officials have said that whatever the U.S. is doing, it’s just along the lines of justification, specifically alluding to the attacks on the fishing boats. Venezuelans, high ranking officials, say that it’s always been about Venezuela’s natural wealth, its oil, its energy and its resources. How would you explain what the U.S. is doing with regards to Venezuela, specifically this massive military buildup in the Caribbean?

Well, I recently wrote an article posted at the Unz Review, that’s UNZ.com, pointing out that we’re living through a kind of a deja vu flashback to George W. Bush’s buildup to war with Iraq. In both cases we have preposterously false justifications for attacks on oil-rich nations. In the case of Bush Jr., they made up stories of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction that clearly didn’t exist. Now Trump’s people are making up even more ridiculous stories about a different kind of chemical weapon, fentanyl. But it’s widely known and admitted by everyone, including the U.S. government, that virtually all fentanyl consumed in the United States is manufactured in Mexico. Mexico, of course, is directly south of the United States. Venezuela is down in South America and has nothing to do with fentanyl. The fishing boats that Trump has