• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Merged Peace President invades Venezuela,/U.S. Forces Capture Maduro

Axxman300 said:
I've been quietly researching material for a book about the 7th Infantry Division (Light) covering the Lightfighter era of 1983 through 1993. The 7thID(L) was the principle force behind Operation: Just Cause (OJC) in 1989, although pop culture tells you it was all Delta, SEALs, and Rangers. They conducted operations in Panama from 1988, through 1989's Operation Nimrod, OJC, and then operations Restore Liberty and Condor in 1990. The division redeployed to Fort Ord, CA in February 1990.

Here's the thing, there's a right and wrong was to do things. Noriega was problem. Yes, he was our problem, and someone we had propped up because we were lazy in how we dealt with Central American leadership, i.e. "Is he pro-communist? No? Alright, he's in." Anyway, the game had always when one of our dictators crossed the line they'd be "forced out in a coup", and would "flee to a non-extradition country" (of our choice) where they'd live out their lives playing golf or whatever. But Noriega actually thought he was in charge, and thus became a problem we had to fix.

In 1988, the US Marshall Service devised an operation to grab Noriega just like we saw with Maduro. The Bush NSC's lawyers killed the plan because kidnapping a foreign leader will set a dangerous precedent for the future. The smarter and legal move was to invade Panama, and we knew eventually Noriega would give us an excuse to do this. And he did. You have to hand it to the Panamanians, during Operation NIMROD we spent all year trying to antagonize them to provoke an armed response (we'd block their main highway to conduct a P.T. run, which is like blocking the New Jersey turnpike during rush hour, conduct training exercises with no advanced warning, etc.), and to the PDF's credit they never took the bait. But eventually American service members were killed and it was game-on.

But IMO the biggest oversite of military and political historians is that OJC was quickly forgotten, overshadowed by Desert Storm, and this gap in historical knowledge has directly led to the missteps of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF & OIF). We spent a lot of time writing libraries about the Vietnam War and the long list of reasons it ended the way it did, but it is just as important to understand OJC and why we won it. Panama remains the United States sole total military and political victory. Desert Storm will always have an Asterix by it as it left Saddam in power, and a No-Fly-Zone which gave a rising Al Qaeda a rallying cry, and UNSCOM which all directly put us in our current internal and international political nightmare.
We were lucky in Panama. Yes, we went in with a 3 to 1 advantage over the PDF, but Noriega was not loved by his soldiers, and most of the time we could use bullhorns to talk them into surrendering without a fight (none of them wanted to die for Noriega at Christmas). Yet had the PDF, and the civilian Dignity Battalions (Dig-Bats) decided to fight us, and drag us into the jungles OJC becomes a multi-year operation. OJC worked because, unlike Iraq where we removed the Baath Party, we stood up the duly elected government, and put the PDF back to work minus a few Noriega loyalists. This allowed US forces to focus on hunting down weapons caches, Noriega cronies, Cuban operatives, and conducting anti-drug missions along the Colombian border. And yes, we had two military bases in Panama, and the Canal Zone was under US control, so we also had that going for us.

Point is that we did our homework before we got Noriega. Panama is a lone bright spot in Central America. They still like us, and they use the dollar as their currency. The problems with Venezuela are many. Maduro is a scumbag, nobody is arguing he shouldn't end up on the end of a rope, but the US has never tried to make a case against him beyond terse speeches at the UN and DoS every once in a while, and that has caught us flat-footed now because our current President's administration has zero credibility at any level with anyone with more than a fourth-grade education. At least with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Grenada, and Diablo Canyon when we bombed Libya there were immediate Pentagon briefings with various pieces of evidence, usually aerial reconnaissance photos to justify our actions. We haven't got anything of substance from this White House. Worse still is that nobody in this administration understands, let alone cares about the long-term consequences of this raid.

I have to hope we've spun up a Venezuelan insurgency to take control, or are working with an established rebel group to shape the next government in our image. And yes that's jingoism, but at this point it's about putting out the fire instead of lighting our crotch on fire like we did in Iraq, because Iraq is far away, Venezuela is in our backyard. If we screw the next part up we will have bigger fish to fry in the future, and this current White House has gutted just about every department that can deal with it. This is not some kind of One & Done operation. There are serious problems in Venezuela, and they're about to become our problems under a US government run by a mix of idiots, dolt, party-wonks, crooks, and cowards.

Or as Hunter S. Thompson called it, The New Dumb.
Click to expand...
Almost as if they had read the British Empire play book. You intimidate. you bribe, but mainly you make deals with the powers that be. You may insist on things they don't want (officially) like the US committing to end slavery as part of the peace treaty from the 1812 war, but it is local power structures that enforce the changes (e.g. no more burning widows).
 
Andy_Ross said:
Gutfeld: When he says we are taking the oil, we say wow… but it's honest. And is it good for America? Well, yeah. It was our oil.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2008679189587870181
Click to expand...
Nope, no it wasn't. When the Venezuelan oil fields were nationalised, the US owners closed down their businesses there and shut down all operations. Nothing was "stolen", it was never theirs to start with.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Nope, no it wasn't. When the Venezuelan oil fields were nationalised, the US owners closed down their businesses there and shut down all operations. Nothing was "stolen", it was never theirs to start with.
Click to expand...
Specifically, the nationalization plan required then-resident foreign oil companies to be taxed at a certain exorbitant rate, something like 40%. Only Chevron stayed. The rest pulled out voluntarily. Nobody was categorically forced out.
 
50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela.
Suddenly it’s not going to the oil companies it's going to Donald.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonald Trump
I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America. This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States! I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately. It will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

DONALD J. TRUMP

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Andy_Ross said:
50 million barrels of oil from Venezuela.
Suddenly it’s not going to the oil companies it's going to Donald.
Click to expand...
Per Google AI, this is enough to power the world for 12 hours.

ETA: This is going with Trump's high-end estimate. 30 million, a little over 7 hours. In 2023 it was about a 1.5 day supply for the U.S. While it's not nothing, it seems to me the messaging here is suffering. Is this a gift from Venezuela? Have they even bothered filing civil forfeiture proceedings against Maduro? That gives them legal cover to confiscate his personal property, which I doubt the oil is. It sounds a lot like extortion. I'm not naive, I know this is one of the ways power works. I know Trump doesn't care if people think he's a gangster but a few around him might be wanting to soften that just a little.
 
Last edited:
Andy_Ross said:
Donald is appointing Stephen Miller as Gauleiter for Venezuela

"I serve the President, I implement his agenda, and I do whatever he asks me to do"
Click to expand...
Wrong.

G9wPJRCasAkPivR
 
Andy_Ross said:
Donald is appointing Stephen Miller as Gauleiter for Venezuela

"I serve the President, I implement his agenda, and I do whatever he asks me to do"
Click to expand...
It will be good for him to meet some people of color. Assuming the job requires that, but maybe it doesn't. He can use subcontractors to keep the extortion money flowing, which is all that seems to matter.

What could possibly go wrong?
 
8enotto said:
Venezuela still has a functional government with a near direct successor to the rule of Maduro. China, Iran and Russia were all front and center at the party where the new leader basically declared that the US intervention is not welcome at all.

The UN meeting didn't go well for the US either as everyone else was quite disgusted with trimps dumbass stunt. The EU has met about taking up a decision on this too.

Meanwhile Maduro is using trimps own sovereign national leader impunity rule as his defense strategy and the DOJ kinda forgot to put the drug cartel that really doesn't exist into the charges.
This Reich really doesn't like it when they are forced to put thier claims in legal papers writing.

Unless Maduro "accidentally" dies in his cell accompanied by several minutes of missing video at a key moment or something it really looks like this is all a major problem for the orange Reich.

Meanwhile every sovereign nation with a shore on the Gulf of Mexico has taken a hard stance and is preparing for more dementia induced military decisions.

Americans, just wtf were you thinking with when you voted this moron leader? He ruined your lifestyles too. Unless you happen to be a billionaire donor.
Click to expand...
Main problem might be that the drug charges against Maduro look pretty weak when it comes to evidence.
Maduro was scum. no doubt, a tinpot El Presidente type dictator, and I have no sympathy for him. but Trump's action was both wrong and stupid.
 
Minoosh said:
Per Google AI, this is enough to power the world for 12 hours.

ETA: This is going with Trump's high-end estimate. 30 million, a little over 7 hours. In 2023 it was about a 1.5 day supply for the U.S. While it's not nothing, it seems to me the messaging here is suffering. Is this a gift from Venezuela? Have they even bothered filing civil forfeiture proceedings against Maduro? That gives them legal cover to confiscate his personal property, which I doubt the oil is. It sounds a lot like extortion. I'm not naive, I know this is one of the ways power works. I know Trump doesn't care if people think he's a gangster but a few around him might be wanting to soften that just a little.
Click to expand...
And what part of Trump has gone totally bonkers don;t you get?
You are trying to find rationality where none exists. THere are no Grown ups in the Trump adminsitration. It is not like last time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom