To be fair in this case, they gave it to him for making peace and ending a long-running conflict. A peace which didn't last evidently and was overshadowed by his later actions. Not unlike Aung San Suu Kyi.
They didn't give it to Machado hoping she would bring peace. In fact, they did it for the opposite reason. They awarded it at the height of tension and build-up of US forces outside Venezuela, while they were blowing up boats in the Carribean, to encourage Trump to go even further. Something btw which Machado wholeheartedly supported and encouraged.
It is just basic logic really. Hypothetically, If the Nobel committee was to right now announce that this year's Nobel Peace Prize was to be awarded to a Greenlandic independence/opposition activist - Some one who applauds and supports all of Trump's current rhetoric and actions wrt Greenland, someone calling for armed intervention/invasion. What would that say about the committee's opinion on the matter. What would the timing of such an announcement signal to the Trump regime and the wider world? What conclusion could one draw reasonably?
They embarrassed themselves by giving the prize to such an obvious neocon toady. It was a weak attempt at appeasing Trump and the neocons by using the prize to burnish another foreign intervention, while using the compliant press to spin it as a snub against him.
Got to hand it to Trump. He hit 3 birds with this one - He de-legitimized yet another European/International institution, while simultaneously using the same to bless his war of aggression. And he got half a nobel out of it too.
This is Trump who is the most transactional leader ever. It is obviously meant as a bribe from Machado and her backers. Venezuelan interests or people don't factor in this at all except that they are in the way. Trump couldn't make this any clearer. Nor Maria Machado, for that matter :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E7pHmYUCMk
Machado was planning to do the same as what Trump did anyway. i.e. privatize and sell all the oil to American corporations, as she explained to Trump Junior in February, 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E7pHmYUCMk
The Nobel committee were probably hoping for a more finessed approach where the cia would instigate a popular uprising in which the armed peaceful protestors would storm the government and overthrow Maduro. The Nobel-Peace-Prize winner would then liberate Venuezala's oil and head the transitional government with democratic elections planned for 2045. Instead, Trump went for a more direct approach of straight up kidnapping the president, and stealing the oil.
This is quite rich coming from the FreePress which has devoted the last 2 years denying genocide in Gaza , denying famine in Gaza, or any crimes or fault on part of Israel.
TheFreePress is an Israeli-propaganda operation that was founded in 2021 by the ultra-zionist Bari Weiss and acquired by CBS and Paramount Skydance for 150 million dollars in 2025. Paramount Digital is owned David Ellison son of Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle. He also is a ultra-zionist and the largest private donor to Friends of the IDF. Bari Weiss herself has devoted her entire adult life as a hardline Israel-first advocate starting in Columbia in 2004 - When she was involved in 'Columbia Unbecoming' and 'Columbians for Academic Freedom' . Which was basically a campaign to get Palestinian and Pro-Palestinian professors fired claiming their lectures were 'intimidating' to Jewish students including herself while simultaneously preaching academic freedom and anti-wokeness. She was made the editor-in-chief of the newly-acquired CBS.
No doubt the FreePress is seeking to manufacture consent to embroil the US in another middle-eastern war.
This being Trump and all, Is there any confirmation from someone other than Trump? Or is he pulling a prank again and going to announce how the economy is doing great like he did at last week's press conference?
On a related note: Looks like Trump reeaaallly doesn't want those Epstein Files out.
"Rules-based order" just means Washington makes up the rules and gives out the orders. The very phrase hints at its conceit. Why "Rules-based order" instead of "International law" ? Its because International law is something concrete, something you can point to and hold up as a standard. International law means UN, ICC, Geneva conventions, votes and parlimentary procedure. It means accountability and uniform application of said law. "Rules-based order" just gives a slightest hint of legitimacy while Washington and its cronies do whatever they want. "Rules-based order" means that the United States can invoke the Monroe Doctrine in Venezuela, Cuba and all over its "backyard" i.e. South America, but Russia doing the same in Ukraine or China doing it in Taiwan is an affront to civillization.
What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off. They don't even pretend to give a plausible reason anymore because noone will ever buy it so why bother. "All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force." That is what we are witnessing now.
> What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off.
The mask has been off since the ICC came into existence (at the latest). The reason why the U.S. don’t recognize the ICC is because they know they’d be defendants there one second after.
I will admit i was slow to catch on. But watching the whole abominable horror show laid out - Gaza, Ukraine, Epstein, Trump coins, resorts, and ballrooms. Seeing the Nobel prize being given to the woman literally calling for Trump to invade her country and take their oil and cheering as her countrymen get bombed. And then seeing the media and liberal elites spin it as a snub against Trump as she dedicates the prize to him. I am ashamed that i was taken in for so long.
A quick glance at his twitter - you would think he is a minister of some middle-eastern country rather than Belgium. I didn't know about this man before but your comment about "A European minister shilling for Palantir and Oracle" was enough. I am sorry to say your defence minister has a foreign paymaster and it isn't Russia or even the United States.
What a cruel joke. Trump's role in negotiations was to threaten to fully back Israel's genocide of Palestinians if Hamas were to refuse the deal. The actual 'peace plan' also doesn't have any credible roadmap to a Palestinian state or anything that ensures a life of dignity,security and self-determination for the Palestinian people. In fact, it is framed to ensure the opposite. Trump deserves a trial in the Hague, not a Nobel.
