Maduro Kidnapped

Not surprising. Maduro lacked the fire-in-the-belly enthusiasm of Chavez, and failed to solve Venezuela’s problems (yes there were sanctions, but he could have turned to Russia and China). I’m not saying Maduro was bad, just that he was not up to the job.

I have no clue what will happen next, but certainly there will be no Western hero riding in on a horse to right the wrongs. As for Russia and China, they seem to be slow to learn to distrust the West, and at any rate they will look after their own interests.

Anything to distract from the fact that Donald Trump was involved in child sex trafficking, I guess.

Kiss international travel goodbye if you’re a yank.
And this certainly puts in perspective the warnings to US travelers in Russia.

It will work out just fine for the US. A Libya scenario is a win in their book.

And can we finally admit that:
1. Alt Media fantasies of Oresehniks or Chinese intervention are just that. Fantasies. Both would require an aggression and audacity which the Russian and Chinese leadership entirely lack.
2. Contrast American aggression with Russian dithering and indecision in Ukraine.

From my knowledge, a decapitation strike would imply eliminating relevant government and military persons.

Additionally, there is often either a direct or proxy occupation of a territory or country, or simply continuous strikes.

So, the modus operandi is to eliminate the head and start attacking the rest of the functionaries, then sieging the political base and dismantle the previous ideology.

Most of the government is still intact. I doubt a unity government appearing since , and it would be politically unreasonable to do so, not to mention the far right getting in means they could try to take revenge, or just go on their typical burgesoie white supremacist tendencies that harms the mayority.

Viewing the relatively little fighting and harm, not to mention the helicopters not getting shot down, it’s reasonable to say the military sold him out.

I find it weird the objective there because they removed the president and went away, but leaved the ideological, political and government base intact.

Yeah, there is the possibility of insurgency in Canada, but in light of what is going on I’m thinking if the US could plan on a way of using military assets to coerce or otherwise achieve political objectives in Canada while avoiding costs for itself. Like installing people and political movements in Canada for separatism or desire outcomes that are harmful for the country.

Correction: Maduro Kidnapped

Just so we’re clear, the Dems are perfectly fine with this. It’s bipartisan. Not just Maduro either, but the wife too. Classy.

Meanwhile, Bernie celebrates the inauguration of the centrist Mamdani as though it’s some kind of victory for the Little People. As if. Mamdani kissed Trump’s ring. We have the evidence. He didn’t hide it. It was in plain sight.

Probably the person who should be the most unsettled about this is Gustavo Petro. More of the US strikes have been in the Eastern Pacific than in the Caribbean and it isn’t like Venezuela has a Pacific coast…

I don’t think they could possibly template this type of coup de main onto Bogotá given the distance, altitude, and low probability of strategic surprise, but there’s a lot of other levers to pull. While most of the reporting has focused on the buildup of forces in the Caribbean, there is trade reporting of additional assets positioned in El Salvador and Honduras.

Just so we’re clear, the Dems are perfectly fine with this. It’s bipartisan.

Like & Subscribe: Confidently incorrect, I see.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/3/us-lawmakers-react-to-attack-on-venezuela-capture-of-maduro

Plenty of Democrats are quoted there who aren’t fine with this.

Whether the army sold out Maduro…
This being Latin America, I would not rule out the army simply being incompetent, possibly even unequipped to stop the kidnapping.
And after months of having to hold the fire and sit by and not escalate while the US does what it wants on the sea, getting used to it and falling into a routine, and then suddenly you are woken up by a full-on assault of 150 aircraft and somehow need to pick out from the noise and stop a specops mission to kidnap the president… Most probably all of the army was in complete panic mode and had no idea what was going on.

Chavez and then Maduro spent a lot of time bolstering civilian command structure in case of military takeover, so I imagine there’ll be some tense few days as people figure out what the hell happened and who left the back door unguarded. So the citizens will mobilize militarily into militias and once the sides are figured out, there’ll probably be fighting. They wanted for a structure that would survive decapitation strikes, so now we’ll likely see if their efforts bore fruit.

This time, it’s likely — if there’s fighting — that the fighting won’t end until all the US assets are removed from Venezuela. Chavez and Maduro allowed some presence, simply due to not having the mandate to remove all of the US-backed elite structure that was still in place but this move by Trump was probably a step too far. If the US-backed elites don’t flee now, they’ll likely get caught up in the fighting as they’ll be priority targets.

The US is the greatest enemy to democracy and sovereignty there is in the world. It’s also hands-down the greatest threat there is to Canadian democracy, sovereignty, and even territorial integrity, but most Canadians are thoroughly brainwashed by our media into believing that the threat is Russia or China. Look that-a-way!

The US and the West strive to have dictatorial control of the entire world, but, so far, Russia and China are showing that they are still sovereign and able to defend themselves. So the US has, for now, pivoted to focusing on re-establishing/reinforcing its dictatorial control over the Western Hemisphere, that it considers to be its own backyard, or, in mafia terms, its “territory”.

The US gangster state, through this overt act of thuggery, is dictating to the people of the Western Hemisphere to fall in line, to meekly hand over their “taxes” or tribute to the US mafia when they come to collect. In this context, perhaps Marco Rubio is the capo of the deep state godfather, while Trump is the figurehead that goes along. In another neighbourhood, or “territory” of the US/UK criminal syndicate, Netanyahu seems to clearly fully control Trump and Congress.

This kidnapping of Maduro and his wife is probably meant to serve as a mafia warning to Gustavo Petro and Colombia, to Claudia Sheinbaum and Mexico, to Panama, to Greenland, and to Canada. “We’ll be making some more offers you can’t refuse.” This is the West’s mafia Rules-based Order: we make up the rules, you follow them. Western establishment media will present it all obediently.

The ostensible “leaders” of Europe are already all cowed, and meek and submissive – serving the US Empire rather than the interests of their own people, accepting the bombing of their critical energy pipelines, accepting to pay 3-4 times more for US LNG, and now preparing their populations for more tax extraction for militarization, for “the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured”, and for conscription of their young people for cannon fodder extraction.

Meanwhile the comprador elites of Venezuela, especially among the diaspora, are being prepared, just as the Shah of Iran is being prepared, to take over as puppet regimes in the event that enough Iranian or Venezuelan people can be fooled into overthrowing their government.

NR

Plenty of Democrats are quoted there who aren’t fine with this.

I have at times wondered if this group like so many others “lefty” groups is infiltrated by Trumpist or R trolls whose job it not to openly support Trump (in fact they always say “I hate Trump” or something to that effect), but to decry “The Democrats are as bad or even worse!!” to try to dampen any real, effective opposition to Trump.

While these people tell us that “elections don’t matter”, movement conservatives and MAGA sure the hell think they still do.

A quick update or 2– first, responding to posts since I last posted. NR, sorry, overall I haven’t been a fan of L&S, but any DimmieCraps denouncing the “decapitation”/ kidnapping are just performatively acting out for what remains of their “base.”

To be fair, decades ago there were Dimmie pols who sided with Latin Americans. My mom was Hispanic and I lived in revolutionary Nicaragua for nearly 4 months in 1983-84 when it was under Contra attack, and met someone who’d been fighting the Contras directly a few days after as well as friends who’d had family members killed by Contras.

Specifically, JFK knew he got burned by the Bay of Pigs idiocy and when he cut a deal with Khruschev so as to avoid MAD annihilation he pissed off the Dulles brothers, and we all know what happened next, in November of 1963. Also Jimmy Carter recognized reality and returned sovereignty to Panama in the 70s and paid a price by losing to Reagan for that and other bungles (his failed Iran “Hostage” rescue mission).

Let’s look at more recent Dimmiecrap treatment of Latin America. The Biden Admin continued Trump’s designation of the Cuban government as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” with literally no evidence to support it (until the last days of Biden’s misrule, when that was revoked so DJT could start it up the next day.) They also employed the criminally convicted in Iran-Contra Elliot Abrams, for lying to Congress under Oath, pardoned by Poppy Bush. His bigger crime was lying as the Guatemalan genocide and Salvadoran death squads were killing hundreds of thousands in the mid- to late-80s. He’s back in power in the Trump admin now, btw.

But my real reason for commenting again is to say that the Grayzone stream, with Max and his wife Anya Paranpil, are very knowledgeably covering that in fact this coup already failed, the Vice-President and her brother, whose father was a freedom fighter tortured to death in the 70s are in command now, were actually bigger political players in Venezuela than Maduro himself, and are utterly committed to Chavismo.

Here is a link– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTgkGSeJfhg

Anya wrote an entire book, Corporate Coup, after spending many months in Venezuela in the late ‘teens, Max has interviewed Maduro face to face.

They cover lots of funny matters, including Clown Donny declaring a new Don-roe doctrine!! In fact, I am confident they know exactly what they’re talking about, this was just what I mentioned in the last thread, this is another massive “Win” for the Empire on the level of the “destruction” of a mountaintop with nothing under it in Iran for Israel.

The militants are out in the street, dumb provocations were made during this agreed-upon kidnapping, like bombing Chavez’s mausoleum. Oh and in his presser, Trump shares his contempt for Machado/ Massado, I’m sure he’s butt-hurt she “stole” the Nobel Piece (or territory, of ass) Prize from him, he stated openly (& correctly!) she’s “not popular” in the country and not worthy of being installed. Also he dilates on rescuing the Honduran rape-regime and drug trafficker JOH of Honduras for trafficking billions in drugs into the US with his brother.

This is a media win, some bimbo from CNN was exultant that in a country of 91 million people US will “own the oil”, bigger reserves than the Saudis have– we’re white so everyone’s assets are ours, fair enough. Trump at least knows his audience, and that is not “the reality-based community.” He got his “Win” but not much has changed at the moment in the government’s direction.

hilarious to read everywhere today about “legality”, as though there were natural laws being broken. legal is what you can get away with, as trump has proven so many times over. maduro will rot in gitmo, VZ will end up like any other failed petro-state with PMC guarding the goodies. even better, the ramp-up time for american drilling and refining will put all this in the capable hands of the next democratic president – who will of course keep the squeeze going. can’t let VZ have our oil, after all.

Here is a photograph of Venezuelan exiles celebrating this kidnapping.
” Venezuelan exiles in Florida celebrating the news of Maduro’s capture by US armed forces ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1q2tmon/venezuelan_exiles_in_florida_celebrating_the_news/
Remember the singy-dancy Cubans? ” I weel bote . . . for Donal Tronk! ”

Maybe the House Dems will attempt a Performative Impeachment for the cameras. Will they succeed? No. And here’s why.
” Republicans rejected two bills to stop Trump from attacking Venezuela”
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnderReportedNews/comments/1q34zr0/republicans_rejected_two_bills_to_stop_trump_from/

Why might Stephen Miller in particular want this and want the next invasions/kidnappings to come? Because ( to follow on from what Eric Anderson has written), Stephen Miller would like to orchestrate mass trials and mass executions of “war-opponents” for treason which clever Federalist Society shyster-lawyers will craft a way of accusing them of. And Stephen Miller would like to keep “court-shopping” till he finds a Federalist Society shyster-judge who agrees. The Leonard Leo Federalist Society Supreme Shyster Court would absolutely agree with mass treason trials and mass executions if Stephen Miller can get a mass-trial case to reach the Supreme Shyster Court.

Team-Blue people in Blue Zones could perhaps leverage the ongoing Canadian Boycott by themselves in their tens of millions boycotting as much as feasible goods and services made in or provided from the Klan Maganazi Red Zones in order to tear down, degrade, attrit, weaken their Red Zone economies and societies in preparation for the Civil Pre-War to come.

Yeah. Ok. Counting 123. When is the backlash coming? Have we reached a critical mass and juncture where the peeps join forces and say fuck this shit, we’re not gonna take it anymore? Wasn’t the movie Network made in the 70’s?
Color me skeptical, but kinda hopeful.

The security guard in Venezuela was obviously co-opted. Some big bucks and a Miami condo rather than drones taking out you and yours will shift allies muy rápido. The survival instinct is easily manipulated.

Might makes right once again until tomorrow when you’re the victim and down for the count. And that reckoning will happen in the killing fields, not the courts.

As an aside, anybody remember that Jewish dude, Jeffery something or another? Just curious.

Lest we forget …

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, rapidly overwhelming its small neighbor to seize its vast oil reserves, cancel Iraqi debt, and assert regional dominance.

Feel like I’m living in the United States of Iraq.

Instead of calling out the US regime for overthrowing and abducting the democratically-elected leader of Venezuela in the dead of night, in violation of international law, the sovereignty of Venezuela, and the human rights of the Venezuelan electorate, Canada’s PM Carney hypocritically states in Orwellian fashion: “In keeping with our long-standing commitment to upholding the rule of law, sovereignty, and human rights, Canada calls on all parties to respect international law. We stand by the Venezuelan people’s sovereign right to decide and build their own future in a peaceful and democratic society.”

From a 2019 article by John Pilger, “War On Venezuela Is Built On A Lie”:

“Of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored,” said former President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Centre is a respected monitor of elections around the world, “I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.” By way of contrast, said Carter, the US election system, with its emphasis on campaign money, “is one of the worst”.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/22/the-war-on-venezuela-is-built-on-lies/

If the US will now steal/extract more oil from Venezuela, what does that mean for oil exports from Canada?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/201844/us-petroleum-imports-by-country-since-1985

The interactive graph on the page above shows US imports of oil from 1985 to 2024. The blue line shows US imports of oil from Canada. The pink line shows US imports of oil from Venezuela.

Before the Venezuelan people democratically-elected Hugo Chavez in 1998, Venezuela was the top supplier of oil to the US. The graph clearly shows how in the ensuing quarter century, US oil imports from Venezuela fell to zero by 2022 while US oil imports from Canada grew dramatically to fill the gap.

Canadian oil and Venezuelan oil are both heavy oils in direct competition for the same US specialized refineries. If the US now extracts/steals more Venezuelan oil, what effect will that have on oil exports from Canada (principally Alberta)?

Is Carney more a servant to the US/UK empire and idiotically repeating its talking points than he cares about democracy, sovereignty, human rights, and Canada’s own interests?

One thing I was mistaken about–I should have realized every word out of Trump’s mouth is a lie. Delcy Rodriguez appears to have functionally taken the reins of power, but does NOT appear to have been sworn in as acting President. Rather, she is demanding the return of Maduro and saying emphatically that the only president of Venezuela is Nicolas Maduro.

I note ibaien missing the point about international law. People often claim to be pragmatic by revealing themselves ignorant of the pragmatic issues involved in anything with some abstraction to it. The thing about international law is, a general hot war of each against all is bad for everyone. And while powerful countries are more powerful than other countries, they are obviously not powerful enough to simply conquer the world–if they were, they would have done so. So to get things done internationally, they need other countries to go along with their ideas. Enter things like international law, the “rules-based international order” and so forth–the point, for powerful countries, is to gain legitimacy as leaders. With legitimacy, everyone will tend to be willing to go along with the powerful interpreting the rules a bit in their favour; the cumulative gain from this over time is generally a lot stronger than the result of just one-off beating people up outright while everyone else avoids dealing with you. Blatant violation of international law with no real excuse exchanges long term legitimacy and influence for one-off looting. It is likely to be a poor exchange at a pragmatic level on pure cost-benefit. And on top of that, when the strongest act like that, others will take it as a precedent, and the strongest will, again, not have the legitimacy to organize responses to damp down international conflict. So, a strong power that trades widely will lose both from the direct effects and from the broader effect that they’re helping the world overall become a crappy place to do business. Pretending abstractions like international law don’t matter is the opposite of pragmatism or even realpolitik.

Hussein didn’t act until the Bush administration gave him the green light and then betrayed him.
The slime oozes through the decades.

One last thought in this vein.

We loathe the GenX billionaires *because* we know them. They’ve made the age old mistake of being overly conspicuous with their wealth. Arrogant. Which is right up there on a stupidity scale with waging a land war in Asia.

I’ll give the silents and the boomers credit for one thing, they were a whole lot less conspicuous with their wealth — it’s how they kept it.

#TaxTheRich

When America started attacking and blowing up Venezuelan boats, Maduro tried to cut a deal with Trump. He offered the U.S. full access to all Venezuelan resources — oil, minerals, everything — and even proposed terminating contracts with China and Russia, just so he could stay in power. In other words, Maduro was willing to throw China and Russia under the bus to save himself.

Beijing and Moscow noticed. They already knew Maduro was incompetent, untrustworthy, and unreliable. A dictator, yes — but not a capable one. Unlike leaders such as Xi or Putin, who at least focus on strengthening their countries, Maduro was only interested in preserving his power and enriching himself, his family, and his cronies.

From China’s and Russia’s perspective, Maduro’s removal is not necessarily a loss. In the long run, propping up an incompetent, self-serving regime is always a losing proposition. Supporting Maduro is a strategic liability.

In fact, the best-case scenario for China and Russia looks like this:

The U.S. invades Venezuela and is forced to send in ground troops (which has not yet happened), removes Maduro (which has already happened), and then — crucially — the Venezuelan people refuse to submit. Instead, they fight back. A long, grinding guerrilla insurgency begins, slowly bleeding American resources, attention, and lives.

Whether that happens is no longer up to Trump, America, China, or Russia. It is now up to the Venezuelan people.

Venezuelans face a choice:

They can submit to an American invasion and occupation. Trump has already made America’s extractive intentions clear: to loot, pillage, and plunder Venezuelan oil and resources.

Or they can fight. They can fight for freedom, self-determination, and sovereignty. They can resist conquest, occupation, and colonization.

That will to fight — to stand up for themselves — China and Russia cannot give them. That fire must come from within.

If Venezuelans choose to fight — and I am not yet convinced they will — China and Russia will be ready. They will not act first, but if a genuine insurgency and resistance emerges, they will provide assistance to guerrilla fighters, just as they did in the Korean and Vietnam wars.

This is only the beginning. What happens next will determine whether Venezuela becomes another cautionary tale of submission — or whether the Empire will be bled once again by people it deemed beneath it.

@PLG “The thing about international law is, a general hot war of each against all is bad for everyone. And while powerful countries are more powerful than other countries, they are obviously not powerful enough to simply conquer the world–if they were, they would have done so.”

The United States is convinced that, with its puppets, catamites, and buttbois, it can do so, long as the world craves American carrot and fears American stick

First, thanks to Eric Anderson not only for the kind words but for the fediverse recommendation. I am already looking into that. It seems like something from the original NetRoots days when Bush Jr. stole the 2000 election and then 9/11ed U.S. and then started the systematic PNAC–Regime Change Wars. Excellent sites bloomed like mushrooms after a good rain, The Smirking Chimp, Eschaton, Jesus’ General, dozens more including some, Crooks & Liars, The Raw Story that within a few years became Shit Lib center-right Vote Blue No Matter Who slop.

A great follow-up this morning can be found at Katie Halper here– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vMzo0TTQE Vijay Prashad, always insightful, is the best-known but the other 2 add much from Venezuela as well. He actually goes into Maduro’s background, he’s not a “thug”, he was a former bus driver, then union leader, and his integrity and strength led Chavez to cherry pick him as a successor early on. Of course the clown Hakeem Jeffries this morning started his pretend-Carney style denunciation of Trump’s attack with no consultation for Congress/ War Powers Act by calling out the “thug” Maduro. If you’re not a proxy slave of the Empire, you’re targeted by these ghouls, it is bipartisan. He also covers Seymour Hersh disgracing his stellar reputation lately by again believing the NatSec Ghouls, as he has to a great extent on idiocy like “Russia is about to collapse,” etc. Sad to see these old Lions degenerate into neutered kitty cats.

Thanks to cc as a new (?) or infrequent commenter also, great comment yesterday and I appreciated the follow-up and charts showing US oil purchases as well. There are lots of other great comments and insights, this is why IanWelsh.net is a steady go-to for me alongside NakedCapitalism, the Grayzone, even moonofalabama (the only site I’ve ever been banned from) and several others, and now I’m looking into a fedistate site. My Facebook hasn’t been used for nearly 2 years, and I generally ignore the Shit Lib sites (will sometimes indulge in Lawyers Guns Money as a guilty pleasure; they always fall into the dumb fallacy that Trump is Different!! Excessive!! When he’s just the same old, same old with more open self-dealing and personal enrichment.)

Americans always fall for the same old Pavlovian phrase traps– “Narcoterrorism”, “Our oil,” Latin American “thugs”, blah blah. I hope Eric’s right about the change that’s coming, certainly Mamdami shutting down that racist, fascist Police Commissioner is something I was not aware of, a good sign. The Trump Crash is coming, his own base is suspect about the Epstein cover-up and waiting to have their health-care destroyed and die off (probably not quietly) or become homeless.

Vijay Prashad was speaking about the West as a “Civilization of Detritus” in the Halper piece: heat not working, civil institutions don’t work, Media lies non-stop. At some point people cannot ignore how fucked-up and broken-down we are as a “society”, there will be chickens coming home to roost at some point, better late than never.

The typical garbage response one expects of the Canadian satrapy: “Canada calls on ‘all parties’ to uphold international law after U.S. capture of Venezuelan president” https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/canada-does-not-recognize-any-legitimacy-of-the-maduro-regime-after-us-capture-says-anand/

“In keeping with our long-standing commitment to upholding the rule of law and democracy, Canada calls on all parties to respect international law and we stand by the people of Venezuela and their desire to live in a peaceful and democratic society,”

Thanks, girlboss Anita. Do we do that before or after we ignore our ‘valuable’ ally , President war criminal pedo, trampling and destroying any semblance of international law? But I guess that’s just more of the same from our zioslave government. Utterly pathetic response from “Canada’s governing party”.

Contrast that to the Bloc’s reponse: https://x.com/yfblanchet/status/2007479820343537790

Le Bloc Québécois reconnaît que le régime mis en place au Vénézuela par Nicolas Maduro défie les libertés fondamentales, l’intégrité et la démocratie, et est l’objet d’allégations de participation dans le trafic de stupéfiants. Il nous apparaît toutefois inquiétant que les États-Unis s’instituent en gendarme de ces principes au risque de faire fi du droit international, en particulier en recourant à la force militaire au péril de la vie de civils, et à la séquestration d’un chef d’État, même illégitime. Le Bloc Québécois invite les États-Unis à respecter la souveraineté des États et des peuples et à recourir aux instruments internationaux et multilatéraux, au premier chef l’Organisation des nations Unies (ONU), pour disposer de la menaces que pose le régime vénézuélien.

autotranslation:

The Bloc Québécois acknowledges that the regime established in Venezuela by Nicolás Maduro defies fundamental freedoms, integrity, and democracy, and is the subject of allegations of involvement in drug trafficking. However, it is deeply troubling to us that the United States is positioning itself as the guardian of these principles, risking the violation of international law, particularly by resorting to military force at the peril of civilian lives and by detaining a head of state, even an illegitimate one. The Bloc Québécois calls on the United States to respect the sovereignty of states and peoples and to use international and multilateral instruments, first and foremost the United Nations (UN), to address the threat posed by the Venezuelan regime.

“Looks more to me like a deal was cut, and the majority stood down. ”

If true, so what? It worked, and it’s not as if Yankee dollars have lost all their value in the last couple of days.

I wonder if this will push/encourage China to establish military bases in countries it if friends with and in doing so cause the US empire greater issues with resources.

@Ibaien,

Not every single counterMAGA wannabe has to check every single referrence on every single business all by hermself. Out of all the tens of millions of counterMAGA wannabes out here, maybe a few thousand have the time/money/patience to gather and assemble some information about that. And each one of those few thousands of piles of assembled information might be a little bit different from eachother. And some of that information might well be ordered, systematised and offered in posts or comments on blogs and other sites like this one.

And word might well ooze out laterally from the primary points of information so that some information eventually reaches tens of millions of counterMAGA wannabe people. And each one of them can do something about something, either alone or in groups.

Trump gave Canadians their Pearl Harbor Moment and millions of Canadians swung around as if by mass-telepathic co-ordination and mass vulcan mind melds and spontaneously began boycotting various American thises and thatses. Behold the power of the Slime Mold! Well . . . several tens of millions of counterMAGA wannabes could do a slower grindinger version of that here. They could. It doesn’t mean that they necessarily will. But they could.

@ Eric Anderson,

Religion . . . religion . . . religion . . . hmmmm . . . .

The God of Selection is a Callous God and Its first True Prophet was Darwin.

If Mama Corn ain’t happy, ain’t NObody happy.

I don’t think this necessarily required a lot of connivance on the part of supposed defenders. All of the imagery that I’ve seen of stuff that was hit was either short range tactical or the sort of thing one does as show of force to keep heads down. More than anything, this looks to me like another example of a hollow force not dealing well with the combination of strategic surprise and people who really know what they are doing and have time to focus on one defined tactical scenario.

If there was connivance, I’d look in two areas: localizing Maduro so they knew exactly where he was and when, and whatever happens in terms of post-snatch developments. There’s a huge disconnect between what’s being said about “running” the place and what should be reality on the ground, which reads really off to me. Either the Trumpian reality distortion force field has hit about 4 GT or there’s stuff in play in the background that has yet to shake out…