Last night the U.S. bombed several places in Venezuela. The bomb attacks were likely planned to hit air-defense systems. But several targets were purely administrative government buildings and one was a mausoleum with Hugo Chavez’s body.
With the air defenses defeated, U.S. special forces landed by helicopter near a place that housed President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Both were abducted and flown out of the country. Maduro was known to often change the place were he was living. The NY Times claims (archive) that a CIA source was involved:
“A C.I.A. source within the Venezuelan government monitored the location of Nicolás Maduro in both the days and moments before his capture by American special operation forces, according to people briefed on the operation.
The American spy agency, the people said, produced the intelligence that led to the capture of Mr. Maduro, monitoring his position and movements with a fleet of stealth drones that provided near constant monitoring over Venezuela, in addition to the information provided by its Venezuelan sources.”
The human source claim sounds plausible, not so much the stealth drones.
So much for the body guards that were looking after Maduro 24/7. None of the U.S. helicopters were shot down either. It could have been a massive failure or even more likely, a betrayal. Given the amount of enemies the man has in his own country, the military withholding their firepower isn’t surprising.
Maduro has been sent to the states and is incarcerated. His reign is over.
But Chavistas still rule in Venezuela. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is acting as president and Defense Minister Diosdado Cabello is also in place. The government issued a a pretty tough statement:
“The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, in an attempt to forcibly break the nation’s political independence. They will not succeed. After more than 200 years of independence, the people and their legitimate government remain steadfast in defending their sovereignty and their inalienable right to decide their own destiny. The attempt to impose a colonial war to destroy the republican form of government and force a “regime change,” in alliance with the fascist oligarchy, will fail like all previous attempts.”
It called on its people to defend the country.
Although, given the situation that just happened, their words mean very little. Clearly, the people in Venezuela are either too weak or too uncaring to do anything meaningful.
The next question is what steps we plan to take. Our military does not have enough forces to invade Venezuela. A blockade of the country also wouldn’t lead to a change of its government. An internal revolution is unlikely to succeed.
Obviously, we will attempt to seize their oil and establish a friendlier regime that is willing to trade with us instead of our enemies.
The problem with this plan is that the U.S. has a long history of attempted regime change resulting in failure. Cuba, Iraq, Libya, and Somalia were all pretty damn unsuccessful. Even the extradition of El Chapo from Mexico in 2017 lead to a massive gang war that still hasn’t fully settled to this day.
So we have to ask ourselves. Will the next Venezuelan leader be even worse for America?
It’s highly likely that history will repeat itself. This is the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is that the ruling socialist party becomes more resilient than ever, leaning even heavier in to the hands of Putin and the CCP.
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