U.S. Is Setting Ground For Military Intervention In Venezuela
The Venezuelan government seems to be openly preparing to face a US military invasion.
On February 10, the country’s military kicked off large-scale military drills, which will run until February 15. According to President Nicolas Maduro, the drills are set to become the biggest ones the country has held in its 200-year history.
On the same day, multiple air defense systems, including Pechora-2M launchers, were spotted maneuvering in the area of San Cristobal, near the border with Columbia, an expected member of the US-led coalition in the event of invasion in Venezuela.
On February 7, Israel’s satellite company ImageSat International released a satellite image, allegedly showing that the Venezuelan military was releasing its S-300VN air defense system from mothballs in Captain Manuel Rios Airbase on February 4.
Separately, President Maduro announced the setting up of 50,000 “popular defence units” and promised that the US will get a South American “Vietnam War” if it decides to invade.
The military preparations came amid several important security developments. In January, authorities detained fugitive Colonel Oswaldo Garcia Palomo after he had crossed back into the country from Colombia. On February 7, he appeared on a video confessing to his ties with the CIA and Colombian officials to overthrow the Maduro government. According to Venezuelan Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez, Palomo was involved in an effort to rally soldiers to mutiny, close off the capital and overtake the presidential palace.
On February 5, authorities seized a shipment of US-made weapons, which was discovered at a storage yard of Arturo Michelena International Airport in the city of Valencia. The stash included at least 19 rifles and 118 magazines, high-caliber ammunition, as well as 90 radios and six mobile phones – and was likely sent from Miami, Florida on February 3.
At the same time, Washington is reportedly engaged in so-called direct contacts with representatives of the Venezuelan military and government to convince them to support the coup and help to bring US-proclaimed Interim President Juan Guaido into power. These efforts achieved at least a partial success.
On February 2, Air Force General Yanez, reportedly defected to the opposition’s side,. He called for others to follow him in supporting “the right side.” On February 9, Colonel Ruben Paz Jimenez declared his support to the opposition. Separately, two more service members, Captain Hector Luis Guevara Figueroa and Army pilot Carlos Vásquez defected and called for others to do so.
Another, but also important front is the media sphere. US President Donald Trump has openly states stated that he does not rule out a military option for Venezuela. Nonetheless, Washington still needs some formal pretext. Therefore, State Secretary Mike Pompeo declared in an interview with FOX Business that there is a growing Hezbollah and Iranian influence in Venezuela.
“People don’t recognize that Hezbollah has active cells — the Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela and throughout South America. We have an obligation to take down that risk for America and how we do that in South America and all across the globe,” Pompeo said.
Washington says that Hezbollah, which it is considers to be a terrorist group, has been using Latin America as a base of fund-gathering for years. If it accidentally appears that the Maduro government has “deep ties” with Hezbollah, this could become a sufficient and necessary condition to propel a military intervention.
One more point of pressure is the delivery of the US humanitarian aid, which the Venezuelan government rejects.
President Maduro called this effort a “fake humanitarian assistance” designed to “humiliate” the country and “justify a military aggression”. On February 9, Guaido stressed that he would not rule out authorizing a US military intervention, whenever the term “authorizing” means in the case of the nation leader appointed from Washington.
With all these public statements and accusations, the White House cannot afford to tolerate the Maduro victory in the ongoing standoff. So, the US will continue to ramp up the pressure in political, economic and clandestine spheres. However, if these measures appear to be not enough to overthrow the government, a more direct action, including a military invasion, may be implemented.
As shown in this article, American intervention to protect its economic interests in South America is not unprecedented:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/01/john-bolton-venezuela-and-how.html
Unfortunately, Washington is incapable of seeing the unintended consequences of its global agenda.
So a Trump war of aggression against a Latin American country will do precisely what for his re-election chances?
I just cannot see them making it work politically. And what would happen to the price of oil? Structurally, the empire seems too far gone to me. If they are mad enough to push their power mania to that limit it would do more great damage to the empire. But like the Saker says the Neo-Cons are mad.
The tactic should be if the Reich attacks make them pay a very heavy price,the American public won’t like hundreds of body bags arriving home at the airport,and if it comes to it wage an insurgency for as long as it takes,the Vietnamese wrote the book of how to fight Imperialists and Colonialists.
Totally agree, Snow Leopard.
The other interesting thing to watch is the open anti war campaign of Tulsi Gabbard. As you know, she is a respected military veteran, still serving in the National Guard. Quite obviously, and whatever your political opinion of her, she does represent a strong segment of military service members, she projects a point of view undoubtedly shared by many of them. She has spoken squarely against military action against Venezuela.
Remember those photos by U.S. military members saying things like ‘I did not join the Navy to go fight for AlQaeda in a Syrian Civil War’?
Some of them have woken up to the real nature of their work and at least some of them do not want to easily go to get killed by invading countries that represent absolutely no threat to U.S.
How do you sell them this invasion? If in Syria you could argue the need to protect ‘Israel’, what will your argument be for invading Venezuela? How is Venezuela a military threat to the U.S.?
You cannot win a battle with unwilling soldiers.
These developents are astonishing but not surprising, given the thugs at the controls.
(I posted a link to a Voltaire (Thierry) article with important excerpts over at Open Cafe earlier today; it jives completely with this report. If the mods deem it appropriate, the link/excerpts could be allowed here as well -or maybe not necessary for the redundant character).
A US military intervention is theoretically possible, but at the same time extremely risky, due to political and military factors. Yes, the US could launch a strike and grab the capital, but at what cost ? And then what ? When you invade a territory, you have to hold it. Again, at what price ? Venezuela is not Grenada.
I see that Pompeo has stated that there is a growing Hezbollah and Iranian influence in the country. Well now, since both Iran and Venezuela are sovereign countries, it’s none of Pompeo’s business with whom Venezuela conducts business. However, for Pompeo to state that Hezbollah is also present is laughable, since nobody mentioned this so far, nor have there been any Hezbollah activities. What we have here are pathetic excuses to attack Venezuela. Now I am waiting to see if Pompeo will accuse Maduro of “gassing” his own people, since this little trick has on several occasions been used in Syria.
We have an interesting situation here. We shall now see how desperate Washington is for Venezuela’s oil and how far it will go. However, Washington better think twice. The world is sick of Americas wars, fought under flimsy excuses.
So the first half of the article lists some of the defensive preparations Venezuela is undertaking which are the same types of preparations Russia, Iran and China do constantly aware that the US is dangerous and which constitute vital safeguards.
The second part of the article however which I presume is the justification for the title
“U.S. Is Setting Ground For Military Intervention In Venezuela” doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
So whatcha got Uncle Sam?
1) Shipment of 19 rifles and ammo promptly seized by the Venezuelans.
2) “Washington is reportedly engaged in so-called direct contacts with representatives of the Venezuelan military and government to convince them to support the coup and help to bring US-proclaimed Interim President Juan Guaido into power. These efforts achieved at least a partial success.”
Reported by whom exactly and what does “so called” mean? And even at that – so what?
3) The article alleges 5 people have defected. Five?
The article then falls into the fatal trap pf relying on the western lying media machine as if bold enough lies printed in the US and the Europuppet states could somehow, by magic bring down the Venezuelan government. Dream on.
Lacking any pretext and more importantly the military ability to topple the Venezuelans Bolton then goes into paranoid fantasy land with his amusing delusion believed by nobody that Hezbollah are in Venezuela. This man needs psychiatric care. But then so does Trump who announced in December that US troops were going to quit Syria. Two months later US troop levels in that country are increasing.
Bur back to Bolton. Not so long ago he was telling a bunch of terrorists that Iran would not see it’s 40th birthday and that instead he and the terrorists would be standing, celebrating victory in Teheran. Iran celebrated the 40th birthday of their revolution this week no doubt amongst much laughter at sad, mad Bolton. What will he hallucinate next?
The article, now devoid of any evidence of US military threat to Venezuela, tells us that a “point of pressure” is “humanitarian aid” but then is forced to add that the Venezuelans have totally seen through this ruse and have rejected it.
Not even “pressure” then.
.
There are no tens of thousands of US troops massing on the border, nor endless squadrons of bombers and carrier battle groups.
Nor do the US have tens of thousands of captogon addicted headchopping terrorists ready to unleash as they did in the middle east.
The US has nothing and no, Colombia will not attack Venezuela either. Nor will any other country.
So where is the evidence of the US preparing an invasion of Venezuela? It does not exist.
I said two weeks ago – there is no coup and there is no famine and no humanitarian problem in Venezuela. There may be attempts at US funded small acts of terrorism leading nowhere. Meanwhile the whole and united country is working flat out to defend itself as a precaution as well as get free of US financial interference – and they will succeed.
There is no point in those of us who oppose American aggression around the world then falling into the trap of believing the rubbish that comes out of the mouths of their leaders or the garbage printed and broadcast on their controlled media.
We need to avoid their media, think critically and examine the hard evidence for what is being said by any western regime.
We surely have had enough years of their lies by now.
I agree with you Tomsk. I don’t see any clear evidence of any US military intervention of significance.
Could it be that the alternative media is exaggerating things in order to rally as much people against any US interventions ?
Possible but I don’t think the US pays any attention to what the alternative media says. Pleas against war on legal grounds are always ignored and pleas on humanitarian grounds simply jeered at by the death cult in Washington.
I think the US intelligence agencies got it wrong once again and exaggerated Guaido’s power within the country as probably did he.
“VA’s on-the-ground journalist Paul Dobson explains why Guaido’s attempted coup has had next to no impact within Venezuela.”
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14317
The media din was all par of the psychological war against Venezuela designed to destroy morale and convince them they had no choice but surrender in the face of the “new reality” which wasn’t real at all.
Now, though the US and the 20 odd countries that parroted the line that Guaido was president as instructed are looking ridiculous whilst the rest of the world continues having relations with Maduro as normal.
Total egg on the face for the west but at least the level of awareness and readiness for anything has been heightened in Venezuela which must be a good thing.
Tomsk,
I have gone around the waves trying to explain things to people. Kinda easier for me being a Latin American to talk about this geographical area than, say, Middle East. Because I see a LOT of geopolitical analysts saying a lot of things that amount to… a good analytical structure, a good command of basic guidelines, for sure, but also devoid of the juicy details that would… turn around any superficial analysis such as the ones I have been seeing and that I see on this crappy southfront report.
Your view as expressed above is like an oasis of reality in an information desert. I congratulate you on your analytical skill.
Fact is Latin Americans are not afraid of bad gringos (the accursed ones, not the good people of the U.S. who are lied and brainwashed since birth to hide the monstrosity of crimes their government does around the world).
We have have them closer for at least three hellish centuries. We have suffered all their wars, coups, destruction and assassinations. The whole continent of America has been subjected to underdevelopment by them. We know their thinking. Always thinking they are smart when in fact everyone laughs at them at their backs.
What they may create in Venezuela is a melting pot of fearlessness and resistance greater than the one that defeated them in, I was going to say Vietnam, but I cannot remember any proper victory since WWII, which was owed to Soviet Union anyways.
Cheers.
When most people talk about war, they mean conventional invasions (like the 2003 American aggression against Iraq) or major bombing attacks (like the 2011 American aggression against Libya).
However, the United States favors waging Low-Intensity Warfare using special forces, proxy troops, or mercenary organizations; economic seige warfare (like sanctions); Colored Coup D’etats and destabilization campaigns–with a healthy side order of disinformation and psyops peddled by the embedded Free Press.
The model that the USA employs is the dirty wars that it waged against Latin America during the Cold War or more recently, the terrorist war against Syria.
By this measure, America is *already* waging war against Venezuela and has been doing so for years.
What is happening now is America escalating its war to possibly include bombing or more admitted use of proxy troops and special forces.
“Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America’s favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as ‘low intensity conflict’. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.”
from: Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize for Literature speech
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2005/pinter/25621-harold-pinter-nobel-lecture-2005/
‘If it accidentally appears that the Maduro government has “deep ties” with Hezbollah, this could become a sufficient and necessary condition to propel a military intervention’.
Only for criminals with no morals and absolutely no interest in any laws.
Interference in the internal or external affairs of another state is explicitly forbidden by the UN Charter. The only two exceptions are if the other nation has already waged war – which Venezuela has not – or if the UN Security Council orders the use of force – which it will not, if only because Russia would veto any such measure.
Therefore any interference in the affairs of Venezuela by the US government would not only be illegal, but would show utter contempt for the UN and its Charter.
Should the US government attack Venezuela with armed force, it would also be waging unprovoked aggressive war, declared by the Nuremberg Tribunal to be the supreme international crime.
Problem is those Gangsters don’t care whats illegal,they have been breaking international law for years,what we are dealing with here is the biggest threat to world peace since Hitlers Third Reich went on the rampage,it should have been confronted a long time ago.
Nonetheless, it would still be a War of Aggression and at some point it will go under a tribunal according to international law. U.S. is seeking to destroy international law but it will fail. Trump and generals will not want that on their record. And they do not need to. U.S. will not attack upfront. They will use terrorism, as per usual.
The Venezuelan plot is the kind of stupid things an Empire does in it’s dying days.
Can someone explain why the Venezuela government hasn’t arrested that moron guiado and put him on trial for treason? He is conspiring with foreign powers to overthrow the government.
China Rejects US Media Reports About Talks With Venezuelan Opposition as False
https://sputniknews.com/latam/201902131072368061-usa-venezuela-china-opposition-meetings/
“The Wall Street Journal published this material yesterday at 2 p.m. [Eastern Time, 19:00 GMT], while we were preparing a response [to their request]. It is not very constructive and [actually] unprofessional. In fact, this is a false message, it’s fake,” Hua Chunying said.
On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal newspaper claimed, citing sources, that China had been holding talks with the Venezuelan opposition in a bid to hedge risks for its investments in the Latin American country as pressure was mounting on President Nicolas Maduro. Chinese diplomats have also reportedly held several negotiations with representatives of Juan Guaido, the self-proclaimed president, about nearly $20 billion that Caracas owes Beijing. The newspaper claimed that the Chinese Foreign Ministry had not responded to its request for a comment.
According to Hua, some media outlets have been literally chasing after false news.
“I don’t know what their purpose is. We hope that the relevant media will prepare their publications based on the principles of objectivity and justice,” she added.”
There is no level low enough that the zionazi-gays wont stoop to. Their media literally makes goebbels and the nazi propaganda machine look like paragons of truth in comparison.
.Well spotted. Reminds me of the saying ” a lie is half way round the world before the truth has got i’s boots on”.
Sad part is much of this rubbish about China is parroted in the so called alternative media and is designed to generate criticism of China.
There is a supposedly pro Russian, pro multipolarity site called the Duran run by an American.
Today their banner headline is that Maduro’s government is “faltering” and it lists places he might flee to.
Who made this up?
The article is just a cut and paste from the xenophobic Zero Hedge which never has a good word to say about any country but it certainly leaves one wondering if anybody at the Duran ever reads anything about Venezuela that the CIA haven’t written and also whether they have a conscience.. And can they be trusted on anything?.
Keep up the sleuthing.
T
I wrote off the duran at the beginning of last year when they picked a zionazi hasbarat to replace Garrie.