¶ Operation Maduro: A Bold Move
The Assault force comes down into Maduro's compound. Apparently this was like the presidential compound. The Delta operators quickly entering and clearing the target structure. Maduro actually ran for the panic room, trying to seal himself inside this panic room. He was trying to get the door closed when the Delta operators rolled up on him and detained him.
Everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Jack Murphy, Mick mulroy Irish Brothers today.
Of course.
Yeah, a lot popped off over the last twenty four to thirty six hours. Nicholas Mudua was captured by a jaysuck raid. Primarily it looks like led by Delta Force with some CIA help.
Obviously.
There's been reported that ground branches on the ground since August in a safe house in carac Is shucking and jobbing, doing some covert operations, doing what they do. It also was reported that there were somebody close in the inner circle of Maduro that was, you know, handing over a ton of intelligence to the United States. You know, fifty million sounds nice. I would probably do the same thing if I lived in Venezuela and it all went down.
It looked like it went down pretty smoothly. One helicopter took some damage and there were a couple of injuries. But those those folks were brought to I think San Antonio, right because there's a Level one trauma center there at DD one to get you know, get better. Honestly, it was you know, we've been I've been doing the team House for a long time with Jack and Dave, and we've been, you know, interviewing.
Guys like this.
This is probably the best thing that the America can actually do. And I think it's all downhill after this, if I'm being completely honest. Maduro was transferred to the us SEO Jima vent to Guantanamo. Now he's in he's like three miles away from me in Brooklyn, hanging out and he's gonna be brought up on charges.
So it was an insane operation.
I can't wait for the next few years when we start, when the guys start retiring and coming on the Team House and telling us about it. Buffer Right now, let's talk about what went down yesterday.
I mean, you guys take your picks to go first.
I'd just like to go a little bit into some of the background, and if my voice gives out, I apologize. I'm getting kind of sick. So it's good we're doing this remotely.
So one of the.
Things that kind of like plays into how this unfolded was over the last four years there have been a lot of dissatisfaction in the Venezuelan military because of Manduro, you know, basically promoting his loyalists, you know, people who are incompetent, and so that's creating that created a break within the Venezuelan military. And then the other thing was
¶ The Intelligence Behind the Operation
there are a couple high level of defections. I think one of them was Venezuela's intel chief and another was one of the guys that ran state run oil companies over there. And those defections, as I understand it, were te too enabling the CIA to know who to work with on the ground, to put them in touch with resistance networks on the ground, and there was a local source network and resistance network on the ground that played
a key part of this operation. So then around September October, as I understand it, the planning process for this operation really kicked up and they went into what's known as operational preparation of the battlefield or environment, depending on the acronym you want to use. You know, we mentioned, you know, Special Activities was on the ground. Absolutely, this CIA was all over this one. The unit known as is I or is A or MSO or again whichever acronym we're
using this day. But Army Intelligence also, yeah, greatly involved in the OPE portion of this, and that involves a couple of different things. You notice that the lights got turned out in Caracas similar to how they got turned out in Abadabad before the operation took place. As I understand it, we had complete control of the Venezuelan comm system when we went in there, and then there's a few and then there's a few more things that as
we run up to the actual operation. But Mick, I'll let you take it from there.
Sure. Yeah. So I's start with absolutely well done on the part of Jaysuck and obviously my old outfit supporting them. You know, we'll get into the legalities a bit, but I think everybody can be proud of how this was executed. And I agree with you d it's one of the things that the US does the best right project power anywhere in the world, based on exquisite intelligence, which really needs to happen, or it's a risk not worth taking
if you don't have that intelligence. Right, So I don't I mean, you already repeated what was reported on what the agency did. I don't know that to be true, but I'm imagine it is, and I imagine somebody out there is talking about it. Likely. I think it's exceptional if they did insert a team on the ground that
was there for that many months. Took a lot of cuts to do that, and a lot of a lot of very skilled tradecraft, and it it apparently did lead to knowing exactly where and when Manduro would be, which is really a necessity when it comes to deploying a force like Delta. It's it's incredibly dangerous to go into a built up urban environment with that amount of force.
Uh.
It's very risky.
Uh.
And they did it, and they did it really well. Yes, there was some you can expect that. You know, there's gonna be some injuries. Unfortunately, let's all think about the guys as a get better, and then of course, the damage to the helicopter pats off one hundred percent. The question is going to be and I think Jack needs to get into some more of the details, because the Nyboy's written about this. Before we get into legality everything
that came out with the press conference. Specifically to Maduro, I think it's important to point out that he wasn't a legitimate president. He had lost the election and stayed
¶ Legal Implications and Historical Context
in power, and he has been indicted for five years. He is the head of a drug cartel, so I get the questions on the legality. Comparing it to Noriega, There's some differences there, especially when it came to the aftermath and Noriega's point, as soon as we got him, the actual elected government leader was sworn in like the day after if you go back and look at history. So we played it a little different there. But as
far as the actual apprehension, Jordane a well done. Hats off to the military, hats off to my old organization to support it, and I think that it's a good thing that he's off the streets.
One of the things that I've heard was that we had recruited a source very close to Maduro who was able to provide basically real time updates on his movements the last couple of weeks. So when the chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff stood up yesterday and he said, like we were tracking where he was going, where he was sleeping, even who you know, what his pets were, Like, that's probably pretty that's probably pretty accurate in this case.
And the you know, speaking to the legality a little bit before we get into the bigger picture, that the ope piece of this operation, as I understand it, was conducted under the two thousand and one Authorization for the Use of Military Force the aum F, which is very interesting. The AMF is being used to justify basically any sort of military action anywhere in the world. I'm not saying that's the correct legal interpretation, but that's how it's been
interpreted and how it's been used. And it's also being used to justify the strikes against the alleged drug boats off the coast, so that it's you know, a post nine to eleven legal authority that continues to haunt us for better or worse. So as far as the operation itself, there were a couple guys from the FBI Hostage Rescue
Team on board the helicopters. There were about eleven helicopters, three Little Birds, two Chinook, six Blackhawks about that crossed into Venezuelan airspace around one am local time.
Where did they launch from?
You know checked, I believe off the coast, so from.
A ship because we have let's just say, in logo inside, we have a lot of former Sale Team six and Delta guys. So if they launched from a ship, this is going to be really funny. Yes, there's going to be a lot of back and forth on that one.
For this operation, I'm told that there was a Delta squadron,
¶ Execution of the Operation
a DEV Group squadron, and a Ranger battalion all deployed for it. The assault force itself consisted of Delta and Rangers. I'm trying to make sure I'm one hundred percent on this, but I believe it was C Squadron from Delta and three seventy five third Ranger Battalion that was on the assault force. They used Terraine masking basically to hide their radar signature as they infiltrated into Venezuela. Hopped up over that last terrain feature and assessed that they had still
maintained the element of surprise at that point. During the final leg of the ingress, there's a huge strike package. It sounds like about one hundred and fifty aircraft in the air began suppressing the air defense systems air strikes. And those local source networks on the ground that I mentioned earlier were, as I understand it, huge and enabling this operation. That they emplaced a lot of technical devices
like jammers, beacons. You know, bombing beacons is a thing not too many people talk about, but that's been around since the sixties. So those local source networks were a big part of helping this operation move forward. And again, as I mentioned, the lights popped off as they were heading in, and President Trump said during the press conference, he said, we did that using a expertise. We have make of that what you will. The assault force comes
down into Maduro's compound. Apparently this was like the presidential compound. They came in, rangers helping with the isolation piece on the target, the Delta operators quickly entering and clearing the target structure, and as we were told in the press conference, Maduro actually ran for the panic room. I was trying to seal himself inside this panic room. He was trying to get the door closed when the Delta operators rolled
up on him and detained him. And at that point him and his wife surrendered themselves and they were placed under arrest by the FBI agents who were on this operation. Before we get into the exfiltration, anything you want to add their mick.
Well, I would like to add, you know, hats off to the one sixtieth right, sometimes they don't get the credit that this. Remember it has happened without the absolute skilled expertise.
And you already mentioned the hard part of the mission, right.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know, I think the chairman said yesterday they flew about one hundred feet above the water. I mean, I'm not a helicopropilot, but I know how hard that is. Hundred feet above the water at night, going into an area where you're probably guessing you're going to get shot at a lot, because you know, we try to mitigate the air threats. But you know, so super hats off to them, and hats off of
the cyber guys. Somebody did that, whatever it was to get the you know, we don't tend to give them enough credit. That is a real big advantage when we are very capable of fighting at night. That's what thing the United States does better than anybody else. And it's only effective if you could make it night, right, So you got to make it night, and that's what they did. So I just wanted to add those two you know,
¶ Post-Operation Analysis and Future Phases
had a voice to that, those two groups.
So as the aircraft came in for the extraction, there were more suppressive fires, more air strikes around the target area. They got onto the aircraft, and you know, they apparently were told that they you know, the helicopters fired back in self defense.
One of the helicopters ground fire against our ground.
Yeah, of course there was ground fire.
One helicopter was hit but remained fliable, and they took back off and I believe the time they gave was about three thirty am that they crossed back into international airspace and back to whatever the platform that they launched from. Now, what were I'm told that the DEV group guys that were there for that operation not on the assault package, but they had secondary targets that they were hitting, and quite frankly, I don't know what those targets were right now,
but they played in the action. So yeah, a lot of different folks got to play, uh during this operation in different ways.
I And then let's see what's the next.
Is it true that they did a whole compound like they did a mock compound, and.
Yeah, yeah, I was told Camp McCall they built like a scale, like a two scale, perfect replica. It may it may not have been McCall. There's another training area that Jaysack uses in that area that's not technically McCall. It's a different place, but it doesn't matter. Yeah, they did do like full mission rehearsals for all of this,
and mcduro himself. I'm told that they've been recording him basically constantly since he was first detained in order to refute any allegations of torture that come down the line that they are not they're not they are not torturing him, and I'm told that actually some of the things that have been done that they are treating him as a representative of the state of Venezuela, even though we understand
him to be an illegitimate leader. So they're they're not like walking him in the orange jumpsuit with the blindfold on. They're not going quite that route with it. But he is being watched to make sure that you know, there aren't these these allegations down the line, And as you pointed out, the he landed here in New York City, I think last night.
Yeah, yeah, And.
I'm told right now the Department of Justice is hoping that they can flip his wife.
So we didn't mention that.
But the wife, Cecilia, was detained a charge, so they have something.
Yeah, they're trying to flip her.
But I'm not a legal expert, but I believe there is some legal stuff about flipping a spouse.
It's kind of.
Something that's like in the in the court of law.
¶ Political Ramifications and Strategy Moving Forward
It's considered like something that you can't really do because a spouse is never going.
To be like a spouse. It's almost like, you know, you have like a priest and a lawyer type.
I don't know if that's I don't know if that's an admissible in reality.
I think they can either one can wait. I don't think it's not near a strong obviously as a lawyer client privilege, but there is a spousal privilege.
Yeah, yeah, there is some some legal hiccups there. But and also the the indictment itself. I read through it yesterday and the indictment is like almost laughable. It's like kind of a joke. And I've been told it's basically just a boiler plate drug conspiracy indictment, and they're probably gonna have to update it somewhere down the line because like the stuff they're charged, the stuff that's in there, it's like, yeah, good luck even proving that in a court of law.
Well, the one where he's talking about using machine guns against the that those were kind of laughable sounding charges.
Yeah, I mean there was I remember there was an indictment that came down in Gaddafi. At one point I read through that and that was equally laughable. It's like it felt like a you know, a high school kid wrote that in his mom's basement over a weekend or something.
But they're going to have to produce evidence to get I mean, this is just an indictment. That's just to get an indictment, and that's a low standard to get convictions, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt. They're going to have to declassify some intelligence and prove that he was running this drug cartel. I'm not saying they can't, but they're going to have to be ready to really disclose some information because.
They can't lose this.
If they lose this, but are they going to fly him back.
Just send them back. Yeah, like that's insane.
So the other thing that I wanted to mention was that I was told that this was phase one of the operation and that there are other phases, other stages that may or may not be executed, the triggers of which are kind of ambiguous from what I'm hearing. But you know, Trump seemed to confirm this himself during the press conference where he said, I have a second wave, a much bigger wave. Actually second wave can be launched, So there are other stages of this that can be
launched if things deteriorate inside Venezuela. We did leave all the other TEA leaders in place in Venezuela. That was very intentional. We pulled the Duro out, but we did not decimate the leadership element in the country because we're hoping that they're going to figure things out. Now, this is kind of, in my opinion, kind of a dicey strategy, like good.
Luck, bro.
Yeah, no, hope it the whole works out, but that that is why we did that. And if things deteriorate over the next you know, twenty four to forty eight hours, you could see some of those other stages of the operation launched.
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¶ The Bigger Picture: U.S. Interests in Venezuela
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That's risky because like, deteriorating situation is not generally the time you want to send in US forces. Like what are they going to do quell a nation of twenty five million people? I mean think about just do the math on that, and under coin theory, that's like six hundred thousand troops necessary to actually and we're not doing that. So I not Nick No, I mean I have to say, I mean there was differences legally Noriega, there was a
treaty to defend the canal. There was US forces that were in Panama at the time that Noriega was apprehended, So there was in some ways more of a legal justification and self defense both to the canal, which we had responsibility treaty obligation to do and defound our forces, right, But it was similar in the fact that we arrested and brought them to the United States, tried and convicted him. I think they had a strong case obviously to make
the apprehension of Maduro legally. But then when we got to the press conference, then the issue of we're going to run Venezuela, I see no legal justification for that internationally. We're going to take the oil that's clearly not allowed internationally.
Now the question is, well, there's like Excellent and Chevron, they had their infrastructure basically taken by the government of Venezuela, and I think they have an actual judgment of a billion dollar so a legal judgment, obviously, I think they should be made whole. But that doesn't mean the United States gets to take the resources of another country just because they had a bad dictator, right, But that belongs to the people of Venezuela. And then the other part
is this idea that Machado has no support. You know, Machado, the Nobel Piot Prize recipient. I am not a Venezuela expert. I know Venezuelan experts. They say that's totally not true. And the ones I know are on the right side of the political spectrum, firmly on the right, and they have told me in no uncertain terms. She did win the election. It was a stand in that won seventy percent of the vote. She wasn't allowed to run or she would have won probably more. And she has a
lot of support in Venezuela. And if she were to come back, she could then legitimize the government. The United States could then work with them as another democracy that's more pro US, less pro Iran and Russia, and then we could develop their oil infrastructure and everybody's a winner. But it sounds like what we're doing is keeping somebody in place and we think we can control and then we're gonna somehow of her and through her.
So they're hoping that VP that just became president Delta.
Corrupt, is I mean she has to be?
Yeah, right, she was.
She goes all the way back to Hugo Chavez as part of this cabal. They're all the same, so it's part of the regime. She's just as corrupt and illegitimate as Maduro was. So if we're using that argument as a reason to remove Maduro, same thing with her and the Secretary of Defense Lopez Minister of Interior apparently is even worse. So my question was like, okay, good job on that, but what are we going to do going forward? We actually think and she said she's not going to
listen to the United States. So as soon as we said we're going to control the government through her, she said, no, you're not.
Can you blame her?
Of course, if she would have said yes, she might have been ripped the shreds by the rest of the regime. There's three things that I would question. One, why announce it? You've just put her in a horrible place. And if that was the plan, not a not a good stept A puppet.
Yeah, yeah, I don't knowssarily show the strings, dude, it's supposed to be visible.
And then two, when why announce it you're actually running the show. Yeah, so you said she's gonna Yeah, it just didn't make sense to me why you would do that. And then we don't need the oil either, well, I.
Mean we don't.
We don't personally need the oil. Like we have a lot of oil reserves in the United States, we don't tap.
Yeah.
If our issue with oil here is the heavy CREWD stuff that we import mostly from Canada from and that's what Venezuela has, and we have a lot of refineries in and along like the uh, the Gulf.
But we would still have access to it if it was a friendly government.
Sure, absolutely, we don't have to.
Have a puppet government, right, that's what I mean by like, we don't need to take the oil.
I agree with that, right right, yeah.
Right, I mean what standard are we setting around the world if that becomes.
A pretty bad one, honestly, because why can't Chinea be like we're just taking Taiwan.
It's the same neo colonialism as.
Well as as well as Russia, like we're just taking Ukraine, you are trying to.
So yeah, I get that we should have access to it and then we might help develop it and for the benefit of Venezuelan's as well as Americans. Right, there's a way to do this the right way. It seems like announcing that she's a puppet, saying that we're going to control it, and saying we're going to take the oil are not the ways.
Well, there were some reports to a couple months back when the build up started that Medora was negotiating with the US about like, hey, we'll cancel our contracts with China and Russia in terms of developing our own and we'll work with you guys.
And that was a no go.
So is that a no go? That seems like a go go.
I don't know. I guess they need they wanted to win.
On the strategy. I question the strategy here, Yeah, and what do you disclose it once?
You don't?
I think I think there's a way the US can significantly benefit from the removal of Maduro economically and politically. Probably just gonna need to do something different Uncarau.
Yeah, the US will run Venezuela for now until transition with no specifics is kind of I'm getting like this is like deja vous all over again. Uh, you know, I mean, I guess we're being honest though, at least for in terms of our administration's interests of what they really want, and it sounds like they really want the oil and not just hey, we'll be partners with you guys. It's just like we want the oil. And I don't
know how that does. How that happens without like a quarter million plus US troops on the ground of Venezuela.
So we can take the take the oil to for economic benefit for guess companies. It's not gonna be for our country or be for literally US.
I'm assuming they're not going to nationalize the oil indu
¶ The Legitimacy of Leadership and International Law
she in the US, but like, yeah, it's for the oil companies.
I don't think couldn't they just do that? And also, I mean they think about it long term. You'd have to do a counterinsurgency plan forever because you're taking their natural resources. They're not going to like it. There's twenty five million of them. It's twice the size of California.
I'm with you still in a fact, it's bat yeah.
And we could just work with them. They get a benefit people. I mean, it's seventeen trillion dollars worth of UH oil reserve, right, that's a win win scenario. For everybody involved, right, and it could be the one of the wealthieth countries in the world that's bigger than Saudi Arabia. Like there's enough for US oil companies, which they need the expertise. They always need the expertise, right, but could
also benefit the people of Venezuela. If you do it the other way, they're going to want to be the biggest insurgency. Then you'll have to quail for as long as you're there. I mean, maybe we're going further than what they intend to do, to be fair, and I do think it was a very well done operation, and I'm with them on Maduro paying the piper. But my question is going forward, you know, the endgame. It's always the endgame.
Yeah, yeah, I think it was a ten out of ten operation. I mean, like there's nobody better than Jaysack and the CIA doing this. But like I said, when we started, it seems the US is really good at that. But everything else kind of starts to go downhill after that after the military operation, you know what I mean, Like we're really good at like fucking things up, like in terms of doing what the military is supposed to
do best in the world. Obviously, because you see what Russia tried to do in terms of a decapitation strike in Ukraine. It's fast forward almost four years now they're still there. We did it in one night, in two in not even two hours, right, So we're really good at that. It's just what comes after is we're not really at least our track record shows that we're not good at it.
Yeah, we need our policy folks to be as good as our special operations military. It's almost always the failure to plan after the.
I want to touch on a little bit about the international law stuff, because there will be there is a big debate going on in terms of that where you guys at in terms of you know, with that, I mean just going in and whether he's illegitimate or not. He's a dictator and he's not there. He's the president of the country and we captured him.
I think we should stop calling people who are a legitimate presence.
The term that your dea guys you sometimes is habeas grabus. The in the FBI, even before nine to eleven, was involved in renditions and that that's essentially that's essentially what this was. It was a rendition. It wasn't a traditional jasok capture kill mission like it was for Bagdaddy or
¶ Sovereignty and Military Intervention
Solamani was a kill that Daddy was probably capture kill. But with the it's it's very interesting and very odd, and I don't really know the answer as far as like what title authorities this was conducted under. It sounds to me like this was considered a Department of Justice operation enabled by the military. In this sense, the Rangers and Delta guys are like the escorts for the FBI agents to get them in there and serve an arrest warrant.
And we can serve arrest warrants internationally, although going into sovereign countries and by military forces a different matter. So yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be interesting. But the other question, though, is like, because the AUMF is used to justify anything, and it's in the age that we're in right now, I think there's a legitimate question that to ask, like does it matter? Does it really matter what the law is, because who's going to hold
anyone accountable for any of this. I'm sorry to sound cynical, but you know, we do this stuff over and over again, and there's no accountability in government at all, and it seems like we can bend and sometimes break the law to do things, and you know, we don't let it get in our way all that much.
So yeah, I mean that's that's like Congress is a take on it.
Yeah, to go down the legalsh.
¶ Checks and Balances in Government
Sorry, did you go No, I'll go ahead on.
The legal side. So I mentioned Noriega, which seems like we had more more evidence that it was lawful back then because of our true presence. But it's support to point out we were roundly condemned by the UN. They passed a referendum saying that what we did was illegal
back in nineteen nineties. Gonna happen again. So under the charter of the u N you either you can't violate a nation's sovereignty unless you get a Security Council resolution, which wasn't going to happen because you know, Brush is gonna veto the hell out of that, or you're under an imminent threat. That's where the administration, the White House is saying we were I guess from drugs, but important
to point out that drugs from Venezuela mostly cocaine. I think a majority of it actually goes to Europe, right, So they were trying to like make ft and all like a weapon of mass discresson stuff that's all Mexico, that comes.
Out of Mexico.
So yeah, the parts.
Yeah, So, I mean the drugs is such a pretext and they're not even really be asking us too much about it being a pretext. I mean they're saying it's.
About now, they're saying it's about the oil. Yeah, so that's not an eminent threat. So you're defeating your own argument, right, right. But to Jack's point, like, well, who you arguing with, because just they don't care. They generally don't care what the rest of the world's gonna if they are going to condemn them. So, but you're defeating your argument when you say it's about the oil, because that's not animate threat.
So we'll have to see. But the other point Jack made, if there's no balance of powers, there's no checks and balance, there's no congressional oversight, there's no congressional response. They just they get on talk shows, podcasts and then they're gonna do what they want. Right, that's the only place to really hold them accountable. If you think this is unlawful. I didn't think it was, but I'm not you know,
international legal efsword. But I do clearly think taking a country's natural resources because because what I mean, what's the justification you've now you've even taken the justification of Maduro was a was a terrorist leader off the table because he's he's sitting in a jail cell next to d right now, right, So there's there's no justification for taking
a nation's natural resources. It's clear under the law, it's potentially a war climb under all the Geneva Conventions that we only not only supported, but we drafted, Like most of those things in the UN's early creation after World War Two was done by the United States to put us at the pinnacle of the world order. And now we're violating the very things that we didn't want to see happen, and that kept us as the leader of the free world or created us as a layer of
free world. So big, big time. I think strategic and policy implications going forward if we if we do something like physically take the oil. If they or maybe they're just being clumsy with the way they're saying it, but I hope that's the case.
¶ Consequences of Indifference
I mean, forget even international law because like that seems to be very flexible. Uh, just like you said, we told Congress after it happened, like even the Gang of Eight, we didn't tell before. And I understand the reason you want to keep a secret and you want it to be a success.
Totally understand that.
But uh, it looked like the New York Times and Washington Post this information and they that goes to the whole point of kicking him out of the Pentagon. They still got the information and they did the right thing. They didn't they didn't spill the beans.
Horrible. Yeah, I'm with that.
I mean, likely if you're gonna put guys in Harmon's way like that's it's not there. They're doing honestly, I mean this is also a flexible term that they're doing their job and what they're ordered to do. But uh, I mean the way that this administration kind of skirts the law is pretty pretty unbelievable, and frankly, the way the opposition reacts to it is also unbelievable because they are completely and utterly toothless.
Cowards.
Gonna be honest, from my own Senator shoe Hakeen Jeffries, they are gultless, They have no balls whatsoever. We obviously know the Republicans are going to go which whoever way the administration goes, But you're the opposition party and just to go along.
Look, suld have their own agency too, right, they shouldn't just be in theory.
Yeah, you would think, you'd think.
I'm no question of why we even have that branch of government. All I do is pass the NDAA, Right, that's literally it. Well we could just have that just
rubber you know, chink. Yeah, even if you agree with it, I think you would still want even if you agree with everything the administration is doing, and I have friendly most style, mostly on the right, even if you agree with you, you'd still want a Senate that actually can put a check What if the next government like this is on the other side of the aisle and there's nobody to you know, that's the constitution that was set up for a reason.
Yeah, I completely agree with you, man.
I mean, the Senate and a House, their jobs are serious jobs and they should take them seriously, and the fact that they aren't is an absolute joke. Just saying this as an American citizen, Jack your thoughts.
¶ The Implications of Military Actions
Yeah, I mean again, I mean this is just like the unprecedented sort of times that we're in, and I mean, I often think and people rightly, you know, call things out and say, you know, that's illegal. We say, you know, that's hypocritical, that's inconsistent. But those things can be true, and we can also be in this moment where none of that matters. Like, I find that arguing about these inconsistencies, it doesn't move anyone's opinion, It doesn't change anyone's stance.
That's unfortunate. You know, I wish we could have more open conversations about these things. But for Jack Murphy to sit here and be like, you know, that's a hypocritical policy, why can you you should be doing that when you're doing this, no one cares. I mean, that's that's the that's the moment we're in right now. No one cares about that. We're not interested in policy, regulation, lawful governance, like well, like we're just not really tethered to these
things anymore as near as I can tell. And the courts seem to be, you know, hanging by a thread, maintaining some semblance of normalcy and in providing checks on power. But yeah, we're we're in some interesting waters here as a country.
Do you think that would change if you had the draft come back.
A lot of change real quick. If rich people's kids started getting drafted into the military, a lot of things would change in this country.
Very sang.
There's no consequences right now. That's why they they're kind of indifferent to it.
It's like, and that's why we went and did Maduro because there's so little consequence, Like what are the what are the Russians going to do about Venezuela? What are the Chinese going to do?
Nothing?
They're not going to do anything. And that's why we go after Venezuela. We picked these fake fights, you know, like we did with Denmark and Greenland and this kind of stuff, because this administration does understand they can't resolve our problems with Russia, they can't resolve our problems with China, they can't resolve our problems with Iran or North Korea. Like these these are quagmires that they're unable to solve. But they see something like Maduro and like, that's a
feather in your hat. You can go and do that. And there's basically no repercussion. And as we've seen, the American public doesn't consider airstrikes and special ops rates to be war that doesn't phase them at all.
Right, So you think we're going to see indictments of the leaders of Ukraine and Taiwan next. I mean, are they just going to duplicate us and say, okay, well this is a breakaway province, it's a rebel leader. He's under indictment in Beijia.
Maybe the same.
Thing with come up with some reason for Zelenski he targeted my house, which he didn't, but even if he did, that's what could happen. They just duplicate our.
¶ Future of Venezuela's Leadership
My understanding also is that Marco Rubio is one of the driving forces behind all of this, and that uh, he has Havana squarely.
In his sights.
Next he said, so yeah, yeah, that this a lot of this is about like closing that whole bay of pigs loop that's been going on for the last you know, fifty sixty years. And and they're thinking that this Venezuela op can be a template that can be used elsewhere.
So we could see indictments.
Of yeah leaders.
This Venezuela isn't done yet, right, Like, I mean, what happens next in the next days, weeks and months?
Now?
Really good question? What if nothing changes? Right? We got Dua on trial and the regime is still in place. Yeah, they're still dealing with Iran, and they're still dealing with Russia. They're still trying to run drugs.
Yes, that's what I don't get about this. The Cuba thing. I get a Cuba is like a historical black eye for the United States, I guess. But it's a fucking little baby island that like it means nothing. And I guess that's to your point, Jack, where you were mentioning like this is like relatively low hanging fruit, right, instead of like you know, brinksmanship with China and the South China Sea over Taiwan, where it's like, holy shit, we could lose tens of thousands of sailors and personnel.
And we're doing nothing about the current exercise. That's just the bade of Taiwan.
Right.
That was like kind of unprecedent too, right, Like this wasn't like our new thing. This wasn't like a plane thing that they kind of like they kind of telegraph a little bit like this seemed like it was out of nowhere.
It was because we approved like eleven billion dollars worth of sale of arms to Taiwan, which we have a law that kind of requires us to do that.
I need some speculation out of speculation time, what happens over the next weeks and months. Does Delchi Rodriguez play ball with the administration? Does she what?
What are we looking at?
I just had somebody text man thinks she fled the country. I don't know if that's true.
There was some rumor about that yesterday that she went to Russia, did a press conference.
¶ Iran's Internal Struggles and Nuclear Threats
Yeah, yeah, I don't think she'll leave.
I think, you know, it's on the ground in Caracas. So far, we haven't seen like some sort of uprising or crime spree. You haven't seen widespread chaos, which leads you to think that Maduro maybe wasn't quite as important as any people or as many of us may have thought. He was right, He didn't have a sort of importance
to the people on the ground that live there. And as long as the vital services are kept running, you know, electricity, sewer pipes, water, so on, that it's kind of business as usual for them, you know, And it's one dictator replaced with another from their point of view more than likely. So, you know, in the it seems like things are relatively stable right now. But we're still going to need some sort of a long term solution to Venezuela.
Yeah.
I'm also not convinced that, you know, you can just swear in this VP and suddenly American oil companies are going to be able to operate freely in Venezuela. I'm not sure it's that simple.
Yeah, I think the United States should use what they're doing, like the oil tanker seizure, to pressure the government to have free and fair election. Machado can come back, she wins, she wins, doesn't, she doesn't, or whoever wins, right, And then that government we work with to help build up as a partner, and I'm sure they would give us access to them. I mean they already had in the past.
And then again, the US we get the benefit of, you know, this huge reservoir of oil in our old own hemisphere, and the people of Venezuela would get a lion's share of it. I mean that's you know, maybe it's an idealistic way to look at it, but I think it's also an easier path board than trying to run the country from Washington, d C. Which is just not a possibility. And like Jack said, they're not uprising. So it's not even it's not going to happen organically.
Where they are uprising is a run and I rememb we're going to talk about that today there's there's protests with seventy different.
Yeah, to touch on that. I mean, we see what's going on. I mean, what what are you hearing about that? I mean, I know, like there, their economies in the shitter, their drought, there's a drought there.
It's a fucking absolute nightmare.
It is a nightmare. They've run it like most regimes, they've run into the ground. They basically just worry about the preservation of the regime. They're under a huge sanction, so that cost. That's also part of the problem.
Uh.
But every time these uprisings has happened, the only thing this regime is good at is quite like an uprising. So I don't know why the president is talking about, you know, direct military actions as a protest. But one thing that President Obama said back in two thousand and nine the Green Revolution is he should have said, like we should we should promote you know, because it would be overthrowing a regime very hostile to us and potentially getting a demo democracy in Tehran, and it's in a
very advanced modern culture, like very smart. It would be I think great to have as a partner going for so whatever the United States can do, and I'm not talking like air strikes or anything like, although a lot of our friends are tracking a large flow of air aircraft going into Europe right now, similar to the I want sixty if I don't understand, but like all of
the large refuelers and transport aircraft. So I don't know if there was something of an agreement between a President Trump and Prime Minister Nan Yahoo and another strike on her on Iran, I don't think that's related to the protests, probably more rel to their reported desire to get a nuclear weapon. There's been some I think credible reporting that the Supreme Leader has decided to do that, something he hasn't done in the past. If that's the case, they're
gonna it's gonna happen again. Right midnight. Hammer is gonna gotta start hammering again because we can't allow him get a nuclear weapon. It's only a couple of weeks. I think I got to change over for my next media thing, but I can hear you we got we got to really focus on the intel on that because they need to both get ninety percent enrichment. They have enough of the actual material, then they have to make the triggering device the weapon itself, and then they got to make
it small enough to fit on the missiles. But they can do that all by all. Everybody I've talked to that's expert on this, they can do it. It takes a little while. Or they could buy some of it, which would speed this up substantially, like they could buy some of it from North So two things. Protests. Hopefully they're successful because then it also gets rid of the nuclear thread. But if they don't, this is just going to enhance the regimes need to have a nuclear weapon.
It's the survivability of the regime, right. So we have two things coming into play, and Iran could be what we talk about in the next two weeks.
Yeah, Jack, what are you thinking about our I mean, I have thoughts on.
That, I'm not tracking it super closely. Yeah, I know they're having problems with inflation. The Iranians got hit by COVID pretty hard. That hit their economy too, and then of course the ongoing you know, state repression and student rights and all this other stuff. I mean, we've seen kind of these uprisings in Iran before, and every time you hope that the Iranian people are able to choose democracy, you know, you hope that it goes forward. And I
think I think Iran would I mix right. I mean, Iran would make a great partner for the United States, except for the fact that they have this extremist religious government that is very antagonistic towards the United States and the United States national interests.
Very sure.
I don't want to be snarky, guys. I don't want to be snarky today. It's Sunday. Jaysack just did a main amazing operation. I don't want to be snark snarked out. I mean, I'll be a little snarked out. I mean, so I thought we obliterate their entire nuclear program. That's what I thought happened as a layman, right, as what I'm seeing on the news and the headlines.
Obviously I know that they didn't.
We didn't, but I'm talking as like the normal Joe here, when is enough enough? I don't understand, like, are we actually going to obliterate there are their ability to create a nuclear weapon. Also, they didn't enrich as much uranium when under the JCPOA one point zero. We know that for sure, and I get it. Iran is a shitty regime, Like the regime is shitty. They're religious fundamentalists and there's no room for that, whether it's Muslim, Jewish or Christian
in terms of fundamentalism for me. So they're no bueno obviously. But at the same time, it's like, as the layman, it feels like we're doing Israel's bidding.
I'll just say that, sorry.
Well, yeah, the question, I mean, does this benefit American interests or Israeli interests? And they may be aligned in some cases, but not all the time. And every anti Iranian action is not necessarily a pro American action, and that's just something to think about.
It is so I have to jump.
To his real job, meganics as always, thanks to you could.
Jump whenever you want. I'll wrap the booth. It's like Superman.
Yeahs again, do us.
A favorite guys?
Check out mixed new podcast called The Pub and the Porch Applied Stoicism comes out every Monday morning.
It's really good.
Jack Murphy The High Side, of Course came out a great article about the Inner workings of what went down with the operation to Capture Maduro came out yesterday, so check that out.
That link is in the description side.
I'm going to write an update to that article today too with some of the additional information I've gotten. Cool and the article is called Bold Delta Force Raid reads to Capture and Arrest of Maduro.
Uh.
It's up on the high Side right now, the Highside dot substack dot com.
You can go check it out.
And there will be a link in the description for that, so just go snatch it right there.
He does it of course with Sean Naylor, legendary reporter and author. He wrote the book literally wrote the book on Jay sockerl Andless Strike. And of course you're gonna check out these interviews with the guys who did this probably in a few years from now on the team House podcast. So to support the show, both Eyes on in Eyes and the Team House where you get it for a completely ad free early You can ask us questions,
watch the show's the Teamhouse episodes live. You can go to Patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse and you can help support the show.
Jack, thanks for doing this. I know your throat is horse.
Yeah, and we have a busy week this week too, so we got to make sure we put a pitch count on your throat.
Yeah, I'll try to get better.
All right, guys, thank you, all right, take care of everyone.
Hey, guys, I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the team House podcast, the eyes On podcast, and the high Side News outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is gonna be once a week. It's gonna come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on eyes On, in the Teamhouse, and
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