Attached link is from an interview conducted several days before we executed the operation. Provides an excellent perspective from a Venezuelan refugee with insights into the western perspective as well. Have to observe our opsec on this was...very good at the moment of impact. Not notifying congress might, just might, possibly have had something to do with that. The interview helps with the why. Stating the obvious, the "what now" is key, as it will be a case study on whether or not we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Given the administration's efforts to re-orient the IC and State departments, partial though it may be, perhaps we have moved out of the "extracting profit from our managed decline for our personal gain and our buddies" and into some sort of planned future for the nation and hemisphere. As always, "We'll see".
CDR Salamander, your wife is an Attorney, this should be very interesting!
I’ve read TASS. International Law is cited.
What is the legal basis?
1989 Noriega?
President Biden pardon Celia’s nephews.
Criminal Defendant, is Maduro now.
Joseph Moreno, former Prosecutor, currently with Justice Department, National Security Division, speaks very well about the “Issues”.
Legal Guys like getting into the “Weeds”.
Nurse Jane, that’s me, lives waterfront!
I have three (3) sea grasses growing at my bulkhead. I’ve had to walk fast and hide behind trees on my property from aggressive former Colonels of USArmy.
Ricky Stringer Vaped riding a lawn mower on my disputed land. Governor Wes Moore didn’t care! Neither did AA County Executive. I love studying “The Law”! Thank you shipmates for your comments and likes and hearts!
We've been wondering for some time what President Trump's hemispheric defense strategy actually looks like. Important details are beginning to emerge.
OK ..... The takedown of Maduro & Company has a solid legal foundation, one which will stand up to the inevitable challenges filed in the courts. However, the practical reality is that the US has invaded Venezuela and will be occupying that country until new elections can be held. It's a done deal at this point. Clutch as many pearls as anyone wants to, there is no going back.
An insurgency led by the big losers of the US invasion/occupation is sure to emerge.
When it does, President Trump and his defacto interim president of Venezuela, Marco Rubio, must take a lesson from past history in Iraq -- i.e., Bush 43's abject failure post invasion to properly manage the occupation -- and to quickly and ruthlessly suppress any insurgency which might develop.
A key thing is not attempting to dismantle their existing institutions. Bureaucrats are the same everywhere, they’ll burn an orphanage or build a new one depending on what the people above tell them to do as long as it results in stable income and a pension.
Have some anti-corruption task force come in and clean it up a bit later, but don’t lead with disruption and chaos.
Key mistake in Iraq was dismantling everything and trying to build it from the ground up.
That's was the key mistake made in Iraq. The only practical means of limiting and controlling the size and scope of the inevitable insurgency was to buy out Saddam Hussein's contract with the first and second-tier bureaucrats who ran Iraq and to reorient those people in a new direction which better served American and regional interests.
What was especially stupid was the Bush decision post invasion to dissolve Iraq's army. Thousands of military trained personnel were left unemployed with nothing better to do than fight the occupation forces.
You are absolutely right about retaining as much of the existing system as possible. However, speaking as a former bureaucrat (albeit not an American one), I think you underestimate the structural issue with bureaucracies. It’s certainly true that bureaucrats are broadly the same everywhere - and it’s true that the bad ones will do whatever they’re told. Any authoritarian state demonstrates that.
But the good ones (and there are good ones) will fight hard for viable and effective policies… the problem is that when they do they almost always lose because the politicians and the bad bureaucrats don’t want to hear their “inconvenient truths”. It forces them to consider the possibility they may be wrong, and creates hard, challenging work, which bad bureaucrats and politicians hate like poison. The end result is that bureaucrats who actually care about outcomes and achieving strategic goals are usually sidelined or removed by politicians for being negative and unhelpful. So the problem is worse than you think, because it ensures that the quality of a national bureaucracy is repeatedly degraded and you end up with yes men, fools and makeweights in key roles. I wonder if that is why the US navy is in its current state?
The U.S. Navy is in its current state because congress and the Navy have repeatedly kicked the can down the road when it comes to holding senior procurement officers and defense contractors accountable. In the case of the Navy, the shipbuilders haven't been the problem as much as the designers and the Navy have been. Basically, the Navy tells the shipbuilder to start building before the design is absolutely finalized, and then the Navy keeps introducing new requirements in the middle of construction that cause every expensive delays and usually involve incorporating new technology that probably isn't ready yet.
Congress also wants components to be built all over the place, spreading the defense jobs between as many districts as possible.
At this point in time, I don't recall any Title 10 forces are on the ground in VZ occupying dirt and setting up a hard defensive perimeter.
Maduro's cronies still control the country, full-stop. At this point it's up to Delcy Rodriquez and those closest to her, to figure if they play the game and turn-over who USDOJ wants or, does she and the rest of the team dig-in and 'continue the revolution'.
Talk among my military friends has broken down into an argument of the proper name of this operation. Is it "Operation Just Because II" or "Operations What Epstein Files."
ball-zie move for sure, hope he doesnt blow it with the follow on leadership stuff. this could go south real easy if the majority Venezuelan people are not behind this action.....and this looks anything like a kangaroo court..
The results of the last Venezuelan election, which Maduro did not acknowledge, was 70 to 30 against him. What matters here is how far that 30% will go to keep the anti-Maduro 70% from taking power.
As noted above, how well the post invasion occupation is managed will determine the final outcome, either a relatively stable post-invasion country or a descent into chaos as happened in Iraq.
Best to buy them off, make sure they're given direction and not have a repeat of Bremmer's fateful decision. The top guys will need to get rounded up and let VZ courts prosecute them.
We will be thinking about Taiwan, the Caribbean, including “Cuba”.
Let’s not forget Switzerland.
Switzerland has declared 9 January “Remembrance Day”.
At the West Wall in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, I was assigned to welcome all Foreign Naval Vessels permitted by Military District Washington. It was called “collateral duty”, 1990-1994.
Sure, we loved “International parties” aboard ship. Recently, December 2025, another “Party” was underway aboard a “Sub-Continent” Ship berthed not too far from NEX Annapolis, “Merryland”.
Let’s all be very conscious of Fire hazards in our homes and aboard our ships, yes?
Very respectfully, Nurse Jane
“Sparklers on bottles being carried too close to the ceiling are the likely cause of the fire during New Year's celebrations at the bar, a preliminary investigation has found.
The devastating fire killed at least 40 people and injured 119 others.”
All the USA needs to do is take beneficial custodianship of Venezuela's oil and revenues derived from its sale. Holding the funds in trust in the USA pending a normalized and proven successor government in Venezuela, with quarterly public reports posted on the internet, would do much to tamp down local and nationalist tensions in the country. Day-to-day and micro- management of the country should be devolved onto the UN or local entities, Uncle Sam has bigger fish to fry. Who's up for de-nuking the UK while we still can...?
Late this evening, I'm listening to much speculation that American troops will not be occupying Venezuela per se. Venezuelan proxies will be paid to do that under contract, possibly including contracts with Venezuela's pre-invasion military forces. Hey, whatever works to prevent an Iraq-style outcome.
At what cost? The whole business probably already blew 2 frigates out of the fiscal year's Navy budget for 1 guy. We have been here before and all we got was the other guy's t-shirt.
No sign that OFAC trade sanctions will be lifted despite the complete victory. So, no investment by business, no infrastructure reboot, no societal change projected. If this is what victory is, I would hate to see what losing looks like.
During the Peloponnesian War Athens' response to Melos was a stark demonstration of power politics. Athens demanded the island's surrender and rejected pleas for justice, declaring "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,"
Perhaps this is addressed or, will be at a different time but, one thing kinda sticking out for me is...did the USMC have any role in this OP?
We know Iwo Jima was where Maduro was brought to initially but, is the USMC too cumbersome and not agile enough to do rapid operations? In a different generation it wasn't uncommon to 'send in the Marines', now that JSOC/SOCOM handles most extremis embassy and diplomatic situations as we've seen in the last handful of embassy evacs, is the USMC's role limited to being a general purpose force?
We spent a good part of a year doing a reservoir reanalysis of Lake Maracaibo. At the time output was dropping, and historically all one had to do was poke holes "and up from the ground came a bubblin' pool", so PDVSA had no real idea of the reserves in the basin.
We used a system called Ocean Bottom Cable...
(our "gun" boat. in this pic she was still configured as a "streamer" boat. note the correctly lashed boarding ladder)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqP6MkCmqgs
Attached link is from an interview conducted several days before we executed the operation. Provides an excellent perspective from a Venezuelan refugee with insights into the western perspective as well. Have to observe our opsec on this was...very good at the moment of impact. Not notifying congress might, just might, possibly have had something to do with that. The interview helps with the why. Stating the obvious, the "what now" is key, as it will be a case study on whether or not we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Given the administration's efforts to re-orient the IC and State departments, partial though it may be, perhaps we have moved out of the "extracting profit from our managed decline for our personal gain and our buddies" and into some sort of planned future for the nation and hemisphere. As always, "We'll see".
Your points and cautious wait-and-see are well-taken. Also, I heard they took Hegseth's phone away for the op's duration.
Loose lips are a concern, especially with MSM reporters who want to score a break.
https://therevdavidrgraham.substack.com/p/the-prolegomena-project.
Apparently, Maduro's son is also being sought on narco-trafficking charges.
CDR Salamander, your wife is an Attorney, this should be very interesting!
I’ve read TASS. International Law is cited.
What is the legal basis?
1989 Noriega?
President Biden pardon Celia’s nephews.
Criminal Defendant, is Maduro now.
Joseph Moreno, former Prosecutor, currently with Justice Department, National Security Division, speaks very well about the “Issues”.
Legal Guys like getting into the “Weeds”.
Nurse Jane, that’s me, lives waterfront!
I have three (3) sea grasses growing at my bulkhead. I’ve had to walk fast and hide behind trees on my property from aggressive former Colonels of USArmy.
Ricky Stringer Vaped riding a lawn mower on my disputed land. Governor Wes Moore didn’t care! Neither did AA County Executive. I love studying “The Law”! Thank you shipmates for your comments and likes and hearts!
We've been wondering for some time what President Trump's hemispheric defense strategy actually looks like. Important details are beginning to emerge.
OK ..... The takedown of Maduro & Company has a solid legal foundation, one which will stand up to the inevitable challenges filed in the courts. However, the practical reality is that the US has invaded Venezuela and will be occupying that country until new elections can be held. It's a done deal at this point. Clutch as many pearls as anyone wants to, there is no going back.
An insurgency led by the big losers of the US invasion/occupation is sure to emerge.
When it does, President Trump and his defacto interim president of Venezuela, Marco Rubio, must take a lesson from past history in Iraq -- i.e., Bush 43's abject failure post invasion to properly manage the occupation -- and to quickly and ruthlessly suppress any insurgency which might develop.
A key thing is not attempting to dismantle their existing institutions. Bureaucrats are the same everywhere, they’ll burn an orphanage or build a new one depending on what the people above tell them to do as long as it results in stable income and a pension.
Have some anti-corruption task force come in and clean it up a bit later, but don’t lead with disruption and chaos.
Key mistake in Iraq was dismantling everything and trying to build it from the ground up.
That's was the key mistake made in Iraq. The only practical means of limiting and controlling the size and scope of the inevitable insurgency was to buy out Saddam Hussein's contract with the first and second-tier bureaucrats who ran Iraq and to reorient those people in a new direction which better served American and regional interests.
What was especially stupid was the Bush decision post invasion to dissolve Iraq's army. Thousands of military trained personnel were left unemployed with nothing better to do than fight the occupation forces.
Yep, it was an illuminating display of neoconservative idealism divorced from reality.
Indeed. Additionally, there'll never be a totally "clean" Venezuelan government, in the past, now, and into the future.
Don't swat some small gnats. Instead, do some big take-downs as examples.
More worrying is the drug cartels. How are we going to handle these folks?
Filling them up in jail cells won't do much good.
Getting the oil industry and infrastructure building going is important.
Not sure that Nobel Prize-winning Machado idealist is up to the job to deal with the economy and cartels.
Philippine President Corazon Aquino's legacy can be a glimpse into the challenges that Machado will face if she is chosen to run for President.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corazon_Aquino
You are absolutely right about retaining as much of the existing system as possible. However, speaking as a former bureaucrat (albeit not an American one), I think you underestimate the structural issue with bureaucracies. It’s certainly true that bureaucrats are broadly the same everywhere - and it’s true that the bad ones will do whatever they’re told. Any authoritarian state demonstrates that.
But the good ones (and there are good ones) will fight hard for viable and effective policies… the problem is that when they do they almost always lose because the politicians and the bad bureaucrats don’t want to hear their “inconvenient truths”. It forces them to consider the possibility they may be wrong, and creates hard, challenging work, which bad bureaucrats and politicians hate like poison. The end result is that bureaucrats who actually care about outcomes and achieving strategic goals are usually sidelined or removed by politicians for being negative and unhelpful. So the problem is worse than you think, because it ensures that the quality of a national bureaucracy is repeatedly degraded and you end up with yes men, fools and makeweights in key roles. I wonder if that is why the US navy is in its current state?
Solid info.
The U.S. Navy is in its current state because congress and the Navy have repeatedly kicked the can down the road when it comes to holding senior procurement officers and defense contractors accountable. In the case of the Navy, the shipbuilders haven't been the problem as much as the designers and the Navy have been. Basically, the Navy tells the shipbuilder to start building before the design is absolutely finalized, and then the Navy keeps introducing new requirements in the middle of construction that cause every expensive delays and usually involve incorporating new technology that probably isn't ready yet.
Congress also wants components to be built all over the place, spreading the defense jobs between as many districts as possible.
Who's occupying what?
At this point in time, I don't recall any Title 10 forces are on the ground in VZ occupying dirt and setting up a hard defensive perimeter.
Maduro's cronies still control the country, full-stop. At this point it's up to Delcy Rodriquez and those closest to her, to figure if they play the game and turn-over who USDOJ wants or, does she and the rest of the team dig-in and 'continue the revolution'.
It's hard to believe this kind of outcome would be allowed to happen. But then, history demonstrates that nothing can be taken for granted.
The New Year’s Eve Party at Mar a Lago may have been part of the plan. Who would launch an attack while having such a good time?
Talk among my military friends has broken down into an argument of the proper name of this operation. Is it "Operation Just Because II" or "Operations What Epstein Files."
Perhaps: Operation Tactical Success Bereft Of Strategic Benefit
ball-zie move for sure, hope he doesnt blow it with the follow on leadership stuff. this could go south real easy if the majority Venezuelan people are not behind this action.....and this looks anything like a kangaroo court..
The results of the last Venezuelan election, which Maduro did not acknowledge, was 70 to 30 against him. What matters here is how far that 30% will go to keep the anti-Maduro 70% from taking power.
As noted above, how well the post invasion occupation is managed will determine the final outcome, either a relatively stable post-invasion country or a descent into chaos as happened in Iraq.
That 30% could represent the "Ba'ath Party" of Venezuela, figuratively speaking.
They could pose a threat and potentially ally with the cartels.
Best to buy them off, make sure they're given direction and not have a repeat of Bremmer's fateful decision. The top guys will need to get rounded up and let VZ courts prosecute them.
Perhaps the apparatus in Cuba will be able to walk to their new residence at GITMO
Shipmates,
We will be thinking about Taiwan, the Caribbean, including “Cuba”.
Let’s not forget Switzerland.
Switzerland has declared 9 January “Remembrance Day”.
At the West Wall in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, I was assigned to welcome all Foreign Naval Vessels permitted by Military District Washington. It was called “collateral duty”, 1990-1994.
Sure, we loved “International parties” aboard ship. Recently, December 2025, another “Party” was underway aboard a “Sub-Continent” Ship berthed not too far from NEX Annapolis, “Merryland”.
Let’s all be very conscious of Fire hazards in our homes and aboard our ships, yes?
Very respectfully, Nurse Jane
“Sparklers on bottles being carried too close to the ceiling are the likely cause of the fire during New Year's celebrations at the bar, a preliminary investigation has found.
The devastating fire killed at least 40 people and injured 119 others.”
The kinda obvious lesson is: don't annoy the large and powerful neighbor, if you aren't willing to actually support your stance.
All the USA needs to do is take beneficial custodianship of Venezuela's oil and revenues derived from its sale. Holding the funds in trust in the USA pending a normalized and proven successor government in Venezuela, with quarterly public reports posted on the internet, would do much to tamp down local and nationalist tensions in the country. Day-to-day and micro- management of the country should be devolved onto the UN or local entities, Uncle Sam has bigger fish to fry. Who's up for de-nuking the UK while we still can...?
Late this evening, I'm listening to much speculation that American troops will not be occupying Venezuela per se. Venezuelan proxies will be paid to do that under contract, possibly including contracts with Venezuela's pre-invasion military forces. Hey, whatever works to prevent an Iraq-style outcome.
Some Blackwater personnel will likely be hired to guard oil and infrastructure facilities.
At what cost? The whole business probably already blew 2 frigates out of the fiscal year's Navy budget for 1 guy. We have been here before and all we got was the other guy's t-shirt.
No sign that OFAC trade sanctions will be lifted despite the complete victory. So, no investment by business, no infrastructure reboot, no societal change projected. If this is what victory is, I would hate to see what losing looks like.
A little late to do the British East India thing.
During the Peloponnesian War Athens' response to Melos was a stark demonstration of power politics. Athens demanded the island's surrender and rejected pleas for justice, declaring "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must,"
Very true. Certainly seems to work that way in US Gov agencies.
Perhaps this is addressed or, will be at a different time but, one thing kinda sticking out for me is...did the USMC have any role in this OP?
We know Iwo Jima was where Maduro was brought to initially but, is the USMC too cumbersome and not agile enough to do rapid operations? In a different generation it wasn't uncommon to 'send in the Marines', now that JSOC/SOCOM handles most extremis embassy and diplomatic situations as we've seen in the last handful of embassy evacs, is the USMC's role limited to being a general purpose force?
My guess is the SEALS and the DEA.
Its been reported it was Delta and "Civilian Law Enforcement"...
I've seen the latter reported as the FBI but who knows at this point.
I was checking up on the units involved after my comment and discovered what you have sent me to be true.
Thanks for the intel Buddy!
In one of the pictures taken of Maduro being led away, DEA is written on the armor jacket of one of his captors.
I saw that! Delta probably made the breach and entry then DEA stepped in to formally arrest them.
Delta is a tough professional unit!
Marines generally just blow shit up and slay enemies LOL steal their crayons.
I know I was one of them.
"The U.S. military’s capabilities are unmatched globally." [Homeric laughter . . .]
The U.S. military’s tactical capabilities are unmatched on the American Continent.
My first post USN job was as a navigator on Seismic Ships...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/252935911740430/
We spent a good part of a year doing a reservoir reanalysis of Lake Maracaibo. At the time output was dropping, and historically all one had to do was poke holes "and up from the ground came a bubblin' pool", so PDVSA had no real idea of the reserves in the basin.
We used a system called Ocean Bottom Cable...
(our "gun" boat. in this pic she was still configured as a "streamer" boat. note the correctly lashed boarding ladder)
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10162585957803471&set=gm.2587457728288225&idorvanity=252935911740430
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Ocean-Bottom-Cable-seismic-method-15_fig7_349921328
(pic of the recording boat...)
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10162535727468471&set=gm.2577119665988698&idorvanity=252935911740430
(pic of a logo from a later survey...)
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10223446224196493&set=g.252935911740430
We also surveyed the Trinidad side of the Gulf of Paria.
FWIW, when I saw the LCS and its dummmazzz ADS, I knew it was an epic boondoggle.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/budget/fy2005/dot-e/navy/2005ads.pdf