US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. File photo.
By T. Bunke – Oct 3, 2025
The Washington Examiner is an ultraconservative media outlet owned by Philip Anschutz, a prominent donor to Republican Party campaigns, whose money goes directly into Marco Rubio’s pockets to fund his political career.
On October 2, Tom Rogan, a writer and foreign policy editor focusing on China, the Middle East, and Russia, published an opinion piece in the aforementioned newspaper titled: “US Military Deployments Near Venezuela Portend Seizure Operations.”
Rogan uses the word “portend,” which means to foreshadow, a sign that something is going to happen in the future.
Considering the media outlet’s editorial board, its editorial line, Marco Rubio’s need to stay in the headlines, and the use of the word “portend”—this analysis could end here, if it were not, of course, for the deliberate amplification of the message.
Echo chamber
In a coordinated effort, Venezuelan far-right opposition figures in Florida created a social media echo chamber to make the opinion piece trend in Venezuela, changing keywords to disseminate it as fact.
From the stubborn FlightRadar24 and MarineTraffic screenshot-takers swarming on X to the now-unreadable media outlets like UHN Plus, in addition to the classic Emmanuel Rincón and Orlando Avendaño, the article was cut off at the convenient parts.
It is worth recalling the controversy over a New York Times investigative report that sparked widespread contempt among Venezuelan opposition extremists. As for the Washington Examiner article, the parts where the author resorts to rhetorical outbursts to suggest without actually stating, citing anonymous sources and experts, are skipped over.
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Confirmation bias and psychological operation
The opinion piece is, by all accounts, a lie commissioned by Marco Rubio and carefully crafted by Tom Rogan to feed the cognitive bias that keeps opposition extremists trapped in their prison of meanings.
However, these kinds of articles must be treated as what they are: part of a psychological operation device designed to keep media tension at its highest point, justifying threats and aggression against Venezuela.
The operation once again misses its target, because that message resonates in the pools of Doral and the sands of South Beach, but not with the Venezuelan people.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/DZ
