American Special Military Operation in Venezuela

Red and white, in English.

If anything I-S is ossifying into a pan-western ultra-reactionary. The best cure for that is Manti.

Oh ho ho ho!

Eavesdropping infrastructure, eh? Military exercises! Military equipment!!!

We got called paranoid dinosaurs when Ukraine:

1) Tried to abrogate a long term lease for Sevastopol - home of the Black Sea Fleet

2) Sent forces to Iraq

3) Courted the Bush administration for the installation of anti-ballistic missile defenses

4) Declared an intent to join NATO

Eavesdropping infrastructure...

When can we expect your apology for backing Ukraine?

@Bobko

Don't be so predictable. I knew you were going to spout off like this. 😂😂

BTW, you'll note, I've never bashed Russia and said it has no legitimate reason for acting like a bunch of. orcs.

I mean it's all good.

Honestly, it's good to have America in the same boat.

It was getting lonely out there - in the imperialist camp.


This is true - I do remember.

What do you think about the various press reports suggesting Trump and Putin discussed some sort of Ukraine-for-Venezuela deal during his first term?

Now there's also speculation they discussed something similar in Alaska.

The muted Russian response (and even Chinese response) seems telling.

I'm skeptical, because what could Russia possibly do to stop America? Convene a Security Council meeting? Send military advisers to Caracas?

If Trump wanted to do something like this, he wouldn't need to consult Russia or China.

My understanding of how deeply Russia is involved in Ven is not much...hell, I didn't realize the extent of Chinese involvement...so, if it is as narrow as I think, then it wouldn't make any sense. Like you said, What say would Putin have in Ven? What could Putin do to punish us...send a nuke?

As I see it, if anything the relationship this op has to Russia is to simply pressure Russia to put forward a good faith resolution to end the Uke war. This seems to be mostly about China.

It's actually quite heavy, but much less so since they became dirt poor (Maduro term).

During the Chavez years they bought billions of dollars of weapons systems - shortly rivaling China and India as a top customer. They bought several dozen Sukhoi jets, dozens of helicopters, some hundreds of tanks, air defense systems, etc.

They bought a 100k Kalashnikov rifles, and then requested that we build them a whole Kalashnikov factory and ammunition plant (which we did).

Then Gazprom got rights to some exploration and production rights. Rosneft provided billions of dollars in loans to PDVSA, and in return got stakes in a bunch of upstream projects.

-//-

I read somewhere (FT I think), that China had invested approx. $100B in Venezuela. I think Russia's exposure is in the $20-30B range.

I hope the Americans will be mindful of respecting China's and Russia's property rights.

In Iraq, surprisingly enough - America did respect Russia's property rights (like the West Qurna-2 giant oil field, for example).

They can nationalize it.

The orcs are panicking about that ship they've boarded

6 flags of convenience and six names in 5 years

Very dodgy and interesting what's onboard.

@Bobko

But currently, I mean up until the Maduro extraction, how big a voice did Russia have in Ven? Doesn't seem enough to be part of a Uke-Ven deal.

@AntV

We were their number 1 supporter until China muscled us out through sheer size of investment.

Just like China, we signed a "Strategic Partnership" agreement with them in 2025.

But how big a voice? My sense is we had only minimal influence on the regime. But the same goes for China, I think.

If either of us had strong influence, I feel the Venezuelans would have listened to us more and would not have ended up being the sh*thole it currently is. In the end, they made and make their own calls.

The relationship seems to have been rather opportunistic on both sides.

Chinese commentators are writing now that "we must avoid overinvesting in regimes on faraway continents, that we poorly understand". I think the Russian view is broadly the same.

America understands Venezuela and the region in general, much better than we do.

Venezuela got into some beef with America, so it went straight to Moscow and Beijing for support. They seemed an attractive client - at the beginning - but over time became more and more of a burden (like Cuba). They don't want to take any lessons, but at the same time want tons of money. That kind of a relationship can't persist forever.

China got played harder, I believe, because they also felt an ideological affinity to the Chavistas. We're not Communist anymore, so we don't care so much about the ideological mumbo jumbo. We wanna sell weapons and get oil - that's all. If it irritates America - that's just an added bonus.

Cuba we have very long historical ties with, so they get a bit more of our attention - but same story largely. They owe us billions of dollars. They don't pay for sh*t - even the couple new planes we sent them. Recently they became more interesting, however, because they started sending soldiers to Ukraine.

North Korea is the right kinda "leftist" ally. Pumps out more artillery shells than all of Europe combined, and sends entire divisions to fight in Ukraine. They're worth investing in.

Schumer wanted Trump to act against Maduro in 2020. Now he's outraged. Hypocrisy or TDS? Hard to tell the difference.

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The USSR didn't have a big voice in Cuba in 1962, but the US was ready to go to war as a preventive move.


Give the Jew A+ for consistency...If it's from Trump, it's absolutely terrible and a threat to democracy...That includes a cure for cancer and Ozempic for a buck per pill...

The world quickly realized that America is no longer being run by men in dresses.

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...with fake tits, lipstick, and red toenails...

Victory will be ours.
--

If you want to compare your age with men, you need to add 15 years to your actual age.

That is a soap opera in the making:


bild.de/politik/ausland-und-internationales/putins-tanker-war-wohl-fuer-iranisches-militaer-unterwegs-695e987bdf37c2b4e268ce1a


There will be a movie about it....I tell you!

Makes you wonder what was in the holds of that tanker.

If it were truly empty while en-route to Venezuela, and then simply turned back following the US blockade... I doubt the Kremlin would send a nuclear submarine, a frigate, and a tug to escort it.

Maybe it was equipment, necessary to make an American operation like the one that took place more difficult?

Something important to the orcs.

Really, if you're going to smuggle stuff or break sanctions, don't do it in a ship that's had six names and five flags of convenience in a short time.

People notice.

Could it be....just loud thinking....maybe a nuke??? (Or important parts to build one)

What else needs nowadays still such a bruhaha...


...very important and needed to kept secret!!!

I don't think so.

In 2024, a Russian cargo ship was likely sunk while en route to North Korea by unknown actors - while transporting two miniaturized nuclear reactors used on submarines.

A Spanish newspaper reported, based on a report from Spanish intelligence.

Source: laverdad.es/murcia/cartagena/barco-ruso-hundido-frente-cartagena-ocultaba-dos-20251228071129-nt.html?

But that's a cargo ship. I don't think you can store such things in a tanker, unless it was specifically modified to accommodate other cargos.

...yeah.....you are probably right....

That tension is killing me! :)

There is too much going on in parallel, for this to blow up into something big (some kind of Russian-American standoff).

We need to stay friendly while we are negotiating the Ukraine settlement. Nobody is gonna risk de-railing that over some ship, no matter how valuable the cargo,

Putin will have to just swallow the insult, and continue business as usual.

In my strictly personal opinion the Mullahs in Teheran are about the next dominoe to fall, in this actual global game...

One should always have an eye on the events there!


bild.de/politik/ausland-und-internationales/weg-mit-den-mullahs-nach-diesem-koenig-rufen-jetzt-die-iraner-695d50a2e0f90a884bc5df97


The former "unholy trinity" Venezuela-Iran-Russia....each supporting each other, needing each other....the first has already fallen...Iran next? What then of Russia?


.....I'm somewhat sure he will do more than only passively swallowing some insult...he is a rare leader who is actually schooled and trained in that "game"!

Just passively sitting and reacting to anything Trump does isn't going to help him...I wonder what his next planned move will be!

One of these countries is not like the others...

I don't think Russia thinks of itself as belonging to that kind of club, though Iran and Venezuela certainly might like to think so.

Our club is more China-Russia-India-Brazil. We have roughly the same reading of world events, and we want pretty much the same things. We don't have any problems with each other (other than China and India due to border tensions), and we all practice non-intervention in each other's affairs.


What's he gonna do - stop an American shadow tanker somewhere? America doesn't use shadow tankers.

To do something, you have to find some symmetrical situation where America is doing something on the sly and doesn't want to be caught. That would be a correct signal.

Overreacting and doing something dumb, is likely to trigger a further spiraling of problems.

Thing is, "sly" is not a word I would connect Trump with...but I might be totally wrong here...maybe Venezuela was/is still a huge red herring....who knows....

Huge bag of stolen cash probably

Assad landed in North Lagos with a plane load of dollars and Euros, which Putler promptly swiped from him

.....pure gold! Maybe a treasure! :)

I dont know - maybe some kind of military tech. I heard the North Nigerians are worried that the US will be able to reverse engineer their supposedly most sophisticated tech in Syria and Vz.

Whatever tech they have is probably several decades behind so it's weird to make such a fuss.

Did you guys read the report that Khamenei has made contingency plans to flee to Moscow, if the protests get out of hand and law enforcement goes over to the side of the opposition?

Source: thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/iran-ayatollah-khamenei-escape-moscow-protests-revealed-h5f95ctb5

The guy is supposed to be worth some $95B according to Reuters.

Quote:

"A six-month investigation by Reuters has said that Khamenei controls a "financial empire" worth approximately US$95 billion that the Iranian Parliament does not oversee, a figure much larger than the estimated wealth of the late Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi."

That'll be a very nice injection for the Moscow real estate market, hehehe.

If Maduro's court case collapses and he gets sent to Moscow, that would be another good chunk.

Soon, we'll have an entire zoo of exiled head-of-state billionaires - maybe competing with London and New York in that category for once.

It's nice to have money fleeing to Moscow for once, instead of from Moscow to London.

Yup....here...*waves wildly*

The BILD reported early....at that it was still unclear where Maduro was, so people speculated that Moscow might become abit "cramped" with Assad, Maduro and later maybe also Khamenei living there, heh:)

"Dictators united!"...but on the other hand it doesn't look good for Putin's global plans...his "dominoes" at risk or already fallen....