 This hasn't been the best week for people who are non-interventionist or anti-war activists like myself Because there's been a number of really troubling developments And I think we all know that the first is that North Korea tested a missile now I don't necessarily think that this poses a threat to us However, we already know what's going to happen. The media is going to try to go Trump into being more hawkish and People within the administration John Bolton Mike Pompeo will probably try to Escalate now with that being said I actually have to give Donald Trump credit because his instinct here is actually correct him trying to pursue peace and Seeking out a diplomatic solution even if we all know that he's in over his head even if we all know that He doesn't really have the slightest idea as to how to actually achieve something comparable to the Iran deal with North Korea The fact that he's trying is important I'd rather him try even if it's a failed effort because I think that that's preferable to him threatening to bomb them on Twitter again Now as we all could have predicted the media is trying to portray Trump as weak since he's technically Allowing this to happen and since he's not really doing anything about it And of course, this is all just them pushing him to be more hawkish with regard to North Korea when Thus far at least for the better part of the last year and a half or so. He's been pursuing the correct Ideal, I don't want to say strategy because I don't think he really thinks strategically But nonetheless in not trying to provoke them. That's good But the media is trying to change that now on top of the North Korea situation the United States inexplicably sent aircraft carriers and bombers to the Middle East after Israel reportedly warned US intelligence about a quote credible threat that is posed from Iran Which gave John Bolton the opportunity to threaten them yet again saying that they'll be met with quote-unquote Unrelenting force if they attack us or one of our allies And the United States is responding in the way that we'd expect them to respond because you have a bunch of neocons in Trump's Administrations such as John Bolton who wanted to see Tehran quote liberated as early as 2019 So these are people who are psychopaths in Donald Trump's ear trying to influence him to be more hawkish towards Iran And now all of a sudden they're taking a very escalatory approach in Taking our aircraft carriers and bombers and putting them in the Middle East which essentially is them sending a message to Iran They're trying to intimidate Iran Now, what's the best method here in the event? They really are Planning something which they're not Israel has said this many times, but let's say hypothetically speaking Iran Does want to do something they want to attack US forces in Syria. What do we do? We talk to them. That's what you do rather than resorting to war rather than trying to look for reasons to overthrow their regime For a second time because we did this before Maybe tried diplomacy But see Donald Trump wants to try that with North Korea, but when it comes to Iran Which is the real goal for neocons in his administration He's just kind of letting them do what they want now another area Which is incredibly troubling with regard to foreign policy and international issues is the situation in Venezuela because as we all know The US is salivating over their oil reserves John Bolton said on Fox business on national television that wouldn't it be great if we got in there and we were able to have US oil companies take control of their oil reserves. Wouldn't that be amazing? They're saying the things that they're supposed to keep to themselves, but they're saying it out in the open So for months now, we've been trying to overthrow Maduro and install our Preferred puppet Juan Guaido who is going to play ball with us now What Guaido just did was he called for people to take to the streets in order to really show That he is a force to be reckoned with and Maduro needs to step down and really this was a message to the military Hey, I've got all of these people on my side. I've got the US government on my side So if you're going to choose sides make sure you pick the winning horse Turns out that failed So what is Trump's administration doing? Well, Mike Pence is now trying to convince the military with both a stick and carrot approach To abandon Maduro. Now, I'm gonna play the short Reuters clip for you that kind of gives you a brief rundown of the situation In a speech on Tuesday US Vice President Mike Pence will try to persuade Venezuela's military to turn on their leader That's according to a senior administration official who told Reuters that Pence's address at the State Department will offer incentives for soldiers to switch sides and Warnings to Venezuelan magistrates who don't people of Venezuela are seeking to reclaim freedom and democracy in their nation a nation impoverished by dictatorship socialism and oppression The US supported opposition leader Juan Guaidó's call last week to overthrow socialist president Nicolas Maduro But the White House watched him frustration as anti-government protests Petered out and Maduro appeared firmly in control of the armed forces The presence made clear that no option is off the table We the US administration repeatedly said it was considering different ways to achieve a peaceful transition of power But offered a few specifics Well, guess what now they're starting to get into the specifics because as Matt Laszlo of vice news explains With Venezuela still in turmoil after last week's failed military coup headed by opposition leader Juan Guaidó The Trump administration is scrambling to find a way to dislodge President Nicolas Maduro Some are talking openly about using the US military to assist Guaidó and his ragtag opposition And that has lawmakers in both parties worried on Sunday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration is preparing for the option of using American armed forces for more than merely Supporting the drive to bring humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans on the brink of starvation Now, please understand that when we talk about humanitarian aid when we talk about the suffering in Venezuela because of Maduro Media and the US government doesn't actually care about suffering and impoverished Venezuelans They're politicizing their suffering. They're also not giving you the full context They're not telling you that we're actually responsible for a large part of the instability in Venezuela currently Because back in 2014 2015 I think it was the United States government teamed up with Saudi Arabia and Israel to artificially drive down the price of oil Which undercut Venezuela which cut off Their revenue stream now in part it's idiotic that Venezuela didn't try to diversify their economy It was largely propped up on oil But nonetheless since they didn't since they were forced to compete with an international market They had to lower the cost of oil and of course that led to less revenue for their government Which led to political instability as the economy suffered because of that and then when there were mass Protests because of the political instability that we caused. Well, then what did we do? We imposed sanctions to punish the Venezuelan government for the way that they responded to the instability that we caused So we're part of the problem But yet we're saying oh we care about these suffering Venezuelans and we just want to get aid to them It's all a trick and I would love to say don't fall for it But a lot of people have already fallen for it So think about some of the broad themes here that we often see when talking about, you know, Venezuela when talking about Iran We hear about this concept of liberation and freedom and Democracy and we're also talking about taking preemptive action in order to address what is a credible threat to us That's what we're saying when it comes to Iran. Now. I want to play a clip From 2003 it's a compilation of Bush administration officials Talking about why we need to invade Iraq and this was before the Iraq war It was the lead-up to it and try to see if you notice any similarities in terms of the broad themes that they use then and If it's similar to what we're seeing now when it comes to Venezuela and Iran and the rhetoric with which we discuss these countries We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud The reed we get on the people of Iraq is there's no question But what they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that The White House hopes to call for a vote on the deadline resolution early next week If it passes then by March 17th as a senior official Saddam Hussein will finally be out of final opportunities Even if it doesn't pass the president has left no doubt that he's ready to go to war sound familiar We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud So we need to invade Iraq because they pose a threat to us Well, all of a sudden we're deploying aircraft carriers to the Middle East because Iran poses a threat to us according to Israel The people of Iraq want to get rid of Saddam Hussein What do they tell us about Venezuela? The people of Venezuela are taking to the streets. They're they're marching They want to get rid of Maduro. They want us to intervene. So do you understand all of the same themes are Always reused each time we want to invade another country and right now we're in that process where they're trying to build a case and legitimize this war effort That's what we're seeing in Venezuela We're now they're openly talking about a military option since the carrot approach hasn't worked So now we're moving on to the stick approach and we're seeing this also with Iran where we are intimidating them So understand what Donald Trump's administration is doing. This is nothing new. It's what we saw back in 2003 So I would like to tell you don't buy this I'd like to say that the US media is going to be educating people But essentially they're doing the bidding of these warmongers who want to invade these other countries now This doesn't necessarily mean that Donald Trump's administration will invade Iran or will invade Venezuela or take military action in either of these two countries, but do they want to? Yes, if they feel as if they have Legitimacy from the American people and if they can do it without taking too much backlash would they do it on? Questionably so the whole point of this video is for me to tell you watch what they're doing Because what we're seeing now is exactly what we saw in the lead up to the Iraq war and we know how that played out We know how Libya played out. We know how all of these regime change wars turned out Not great to say the least so don't let them do it again It's incumbent on us to stop them before another regime change war gets started