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this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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Can anyone enlighten me on how much impact it has to kidnap the leader of a country? Because the rest of the government, including the VP, is still up and running, right?
Or does the kidnapping act as proof of much of the government/military already being compromised and bought up by the US?
"This is your brain on Great Man theory." Trump and co are all ayn rand style fascists. They have convinced themselves they are uber men who make the "hard decisions," and that rules and law are made for untermench.
They think that Maduro is one of the uber men who thinks just like they do and if they bully him he'll crack like they all would. They see a strong man and think if they take him out everything around him will devolve into a feeding frenzy because that is what they would do.
What they don't understand is that they aren't special. Maduro is strong because he helps his people be strong. trump and co are weak because they are all only looking out for themselves. Maduro has only one enemy, imperialism. trump and his kind have billions of enemies because in their mind everyone is waiting to stab them in the back and use their corpse to stand a few inches higher.
You think so? I feel like that's just pushing the idea that the USA and CIA are stupid and one dimensional. I simply don't think that all those couped and invaded countries, all those countries that are getting pumped full of pro-US propaganda because of the far reaching tentacles of the USA, are getting done in by some idiots that only know how to flex and throw money around.
Maybe i am just pessimistic?
Donald Trump's greater transparency and equitable aggression towards high-income countries are evidences that the US government had changed in their type of corruption. Trump's confession that the US monopolized Venezuelan oils before Socialist president Chavez and the confession that the US planned annex Venezuela except in name did much to improve honesty.
Sure, maybe not the same exact people, but...idk has the CIA actually proven themselves to be less capable? (genuine question) - I guess the venezuelans will soon figure out how capable the agency still is.
The CIA has gone under significant changes since the church committee. Things they weren't "supposed" to do got split off into different orgs. Propaganda and soft coups to the NED. Kinetics and drug running to JSOC.
This action is screams SEAL Team 6. They probably had someone in Trumps cabinet constantly reminding Trump that they can abduct Maduro 'whenever, where ever, just give us the order!' without thinking about the consequences.
The AP reported that it was Delta Force, but eh, same difference. Military operation with a ton of Agency support.
They aren't stupid they are just ideologues. They are the richest and most powerful people on earth and they got there because of their adherence to their nihilistic anti-morality. In their mind it is the only way anyone gains power.
They thought they could topple Putin because they believed their own bullshit about him being a ruthless assassin. They never considered that he actually cared about Russians. trump thought he could bribe Kim Jong Un into giving up his nukes because they believed their own lies that he was a sadistic monarch who tortures and starves people for fun (like they do).
They do have a lot of ways the can flex and most of them kill lots of people and their ability to throw money around is waning. They don't have a third move because diplomacy requires looking at the other party as equal.
I'm starting to think they did a kidnapping precisely because they could not do anything else. If everything was on their side why do strikes on other targets instead of doing a stealth operation? Why 12 helicopters with ~36 soldiers each capacity (360 troops total just for this op)? That seems like a lot of troops on the ground if this was a pinpoint, fullproof mission. Air strikes were done to confuse and pull attention away from the actual operation. Striking the mausoleum was part of the op to divert the public eye.
It's very close to the historical US invasion of Panama in 1989. They also struck military targets to begin with naval reinforcements brought in over the past months and then flew in special forces to kidnap Noriega. Notably the invasion was much larger-scale at the time.
It doesn't have to be an inside job btw. Lots of people jumping to this but forces committed (if those helicopters were not empty of course) suggests decapitation method - going through various locations where target is expected to be found. There was absolutely scrambling and cyberwarfare to bring air defenses down, and striking at 3AM to catch army off-guard. Escalating tensions in the last few months including the strikes on civilian boats tested Venezuelan response protocols and reaction times and helped create complacency in the army.
It still remains to be seen what exactly they expect this kidnapping will do. Like I said it's possible they settled for taking Maduro because that's the only thing they could do (at this time at least), but why did they still proceed with it?
Time will tell.
Mhh interesting, thank you! Tbh i thought it wouldn't be so easy for them to just kidnap them, but maybe they are just more competent than i thought and i don't even buy into the "US/CIA got lazy and believe their own propaganda of how great they are" tale that seems to be going around.
I think you are right that only time will tell for now.
Why wouldn't it be easy? Maduro was very open about where he was, he chose to remain publicly visible and show that he was not intimidated and would not run and hide. That would have made him look like a coward. This did the opposite. He practically dared Trump to come and get him. It was the geopolitical equivalent of non-violent resistance. The point of it is how bad it makes the oppressor look in the eyes of everyone who is still on the fence.
These kind of rogue, blatantly illegal actions only further damage the US' international standing and ultimately help global anti-imperialist forces. If they had killed him they would have made him a martyr. But abducting a head of state from his own country is even worse. It is an incomprehensibly bad look. It tramples all norms of international relations going back hundreds of years. There is a reason why coups are usually done through proxies.
Even the US' most loyal vassals are struggling to find a way to unequivocally justify this. So now if they do a show trial they will further expose the farcical nature of the "rules based order" and the absurdity of the charges leveled at him. And if they let him go under international pressure it will be a public admission of defeat. No matter what this is a lose-lose for the empire. Just like Gaza was a lose-lose proposition for the Zionist entity no matter how many people they slaughtered.
I am frankly surprised at how close to ideally this whole situation was handled by Venezuela. This went in the worst possible way it could have for the empire, and the funny thing is the morons probably don't even realize that they stepped right into the trap. They think is some kind of victory for them when it is the exact opposite. The Bolivarian revolution emerged much stronger from of the coup attempt against Chavez and this is already having a similar galvanizing effect.
I don't know if I would go so far as to say this is a lose-lose for the empire. Except that everything is lose-lose in a long enough time horizon.
First off, the ability to test systems and tactics against Venezuela's defenses was valuable in its own right. Made more valuable by the fact that many of those systems are from larger adversaries of the US. That provides lots of valuable intelligence.
Second, the shock and awe factor is very valuable. A public execution of Maduro is definitely in the cards and doing so would ramp up the shock and awe. It will cause lots of reactions, lots of movement. A lot of that movement will be opportunity for the US to act again. Get one more shock and awe event out of that, and it would be very valuable.
Third, it shakes the relationship tree and reveals the ride-or-die allies versus the mere sycophants. It tightens the circle, it creates bonds of allegiance, and it allows the empire to do more terrible things faster.
Everyone already knows this. The "rules based order" has always been a facade for allowing Multinational Corporations to do whatever they want. You are huffing copium. No one is on the fence. Every Western Nation knows the game, and leaders of those countries are selected because they support it. Venezuela was never in the club, neither is Colombia or Cuba, but they literally do not matter. If Trump had spent 3 months carpet bombing Caracas to nothingness the response of the world would look exactly the same. Morality is not a part of the calculus, neither is most of latin america.
I'm sure they paid off some collaborators on the ground but probably not anyone of consequence.
B.t.w., Manuel Noriega surrendered in Panama on January 3, 1990
Demoralization and intimidation, basically. They did it once, and if they get away with it they can do it again, so everybody who sits on the presidential chair has to be extra careful while the military has to deal with such a high level of failure to their morale.
If there are no repercussions, this also opens up possibilities for more straightforward assassinations. Assassinating Maduro first would be too much, but now all lesser officials are on the table.
Before there's ever any land invasion there'll be a massive bombing campaign like in Libya and Yugoslavia to completely destroy the country's organisation and force capitulation. This is just another step in that escalation.
It can cause some confusion but as long as the rest of the government apparatus follows the ideological line that was already set out, the damage can be contained to minimum. Maduro was not the government by himself.