Does Anyone Actually Know How We Pulled Off the Maduro Op?

the more i think about it, the crazier it becomes. like, how in the actual fuck..

any of you with military or intel experience have any idea how this may have gone down? obviously, nothing classified..

the "can you believe this" list is long, but here are a couple of improbables..

-we cut the power to Caracas;
-we moved dozens of aircraft undetected, both ways;
-no Americans got killed;
-we penetrated an airspace protected by the best tech China and Russia has to offer;
-some 60 Cuban and Venezuelan military security protecting Maduro ended up casualties;
-we knew exactly where Maduro was, and everything about his itinerary;

i could go on and on, but you get the idea..

jus, how in the actual fuck for lack of any better words..

Odds and ends...

- 150 or so aircraft...no breakdown as to fixed wing, rotary wing, drones.
- Reports of up to 100 Venezuelan/Cuban casualties.
- Reports of cyber actions that took out electricity.
- Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reposted an eyewitness account of use of a mysterious 'sonic weapon'
https://x.com/PressSec/status/2009997866425897308?s=20

Just like Congress, we don’t have the right to know. That is, nothing more than “Machine gun lips” is willing to tell us…

The USA had someone on the inside reporting Maduro's movements and locations. Maybe that someone was Delcy Rodriguez, the interim President of Venezuela?

I suspect Marco Rubio is behind this. Trump as often is the case is mouthing off in ways that aren't productive. But there's the possibility this could turn out better than we think. Did it make more sense to risk anarchy and instability by promoting the opposition immediately after Maduro's removal? Or maybe you leave Rodriguez in power, and later on push for regime change, or cross your fingers and hope she'll support sane economic policies that will greatly improve the lot of ordinary Venezuelans?

I thought something like that about Iraq too, even though I strongly believed the USA shouldn't have invaded the country.

the more i think about it, the crazier it becomes. like, how in the actual fuck..

any of you with military or intel experience have any idea how this may have gone down? obviously, nothing classified..

the "can you believe this" list is long, but here are a couple of improbables..

-we cut the power to Caracas;
-we moved dozens of aircraft undetected, both ways;
-no Americans got killed;
-we penetrated an airspace protected by the best tech China and Russia has to offer;
-some 60 Cuban and Venezuelan military security protecting Maduro ended up casualties;
-we knew exactly where Maduro was, and everything about his itinerary;

i could go on and on, but you get the idea..

jus, how in the actual fuck for lack of any better words.. Originally Posted by pxmcc

This sortie is a refreshing reminder to me that we still have people in the military who stick to the job, know the job, and constantly train to do it. These operations have been done in the past. Some successful, others not, and in between. And that range of success comes down to the troops, training, equipment and intelligence.

Just like Congress, we don’t have the right to know. That is, nothing more than “Machine gun lips” is willing to tell us… Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

...speaking of intelligence, and the lack of it. This was one of the biggest things I hated about trump. HE COULDN'T KEEP HIS FAT FUCKING MOUTH SHUT ABOUT FYO INFO!!!! Great declassifier my ass. What was the benefit of bragging silent service classified intel at a party? Lord knows how many people died from his loose pussy lips.

The USA had someone on the inside reporting Maduro's movements and locations. Maybe that someone was Delcy Rodriguez, the interim President of Venezuela?

I suspect Marco Rubio is behind this. Trump as often is the case is mouthing off in ways that aren't productive. But there's the possibility this could turn out better than we think. Did it make more sense to risk anarchy and instability by promoting the opposition immediately after Maduro's removal? Or maybe you leave Rodriguez in power, and later on push for regime change, or cross your fingers and hope she'll support sane economic policies that will greatly improve the lot of ordinary Venezuelans?

I thought something like that about Iraq too, even though I strongly believed the USA shouldn't have invaded the country. Originally Posted by Tiny

Inside intel was a boom for us. No matter how much tech you have, you can't beat eyes in the field.

And as for the long term game, we're already fucking it up. You only took at the head. You left all the other dictator pawns on the table.

Smarter move is to let the people change the power. I'm waiting to see what happens in Iran. Love seeing the women light cigarettes with the Ayatollah picture.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdred61epg4o


https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...ro-2026-01-03/

the more i think about it, the crazier it becomes. like, how in the actual fuck..

any of you with military or intel experience have any idea how this may have gone down? obviously, nothing classified..

the "can you believe this" list is long, but here are a couple of improbables..

-we cut the power to Caracas;
-we moved dozens of aircraft undetected, both ways;
-no Americans got killed;
-we penetrated an airspace protected by the best tech China and Russia has to offer;
-some 60 Cuban and Venezuelan military security protecting Maduro ended up casualties;
-we knew exactly where Maduro was, and everything about his itinerary;

i could go on and on, but you get the idea..

jus, how in the actual fuck for lack of any better words.. Originally Posted by pxmcc

It was done by design like everything else.

Confusion and uncertainty is par for the course in an operation like this.

For example, we still don't know exactly how or what happened in the Binladen raid. Check out the books and videos and the movie . . . conflicting stories . . . .a lot of different details and loose ends. . . .and it has been 15 or so yers already.

One part of that is obfuscation is that htere are capabilities we have that we would like to keep secret and weaknes we don't want to talk about ses too. For example, the power outage could have been been the result of a sophisticated Cyber-attack . . .or it might have just been bribery of one or a few key Venezuelan technicians. We wouldn't want the Chinese or Russians to know all about that.

Years ago Popular Mechanics had a cover story about an EMP bomb. Prior to the Iraq War, there were a few articles in Action Week about an experimental EMP weapon so far along in development that they were going to put it into a Tomahawk cruse missile. Now there is nothing said about that as a viable capability . . . .??? DFo we have it or not? Do we want the Chinese to figure it out?

Confusion and conflicting information . . . .thast is frustrating, but ultimately I am OK with that.

Wha I'd really like to know ow is what the story is on the Bengazi attack..

But the is a topic for another thread.

...
-we cut the power to Caracas;
-we moved dozens of aircraft undetected, both ways;
-no Americans got killed;
-we penetrated an airspace protected by the best tech China and Russia has to offer;
-some 60 Cuban and Venezuelan military security protecting Maduro ended up casualties;
-we knew exactly where Maduro was, and everything about his itinerary;
words.. Originally Posted by pxmcc

With people commenting on the details, thought i'd give what *I* know from past events like this.

-the extent of cutting power, idk. But it is easy to do locally. It can be as simple as putting some electrically conductive *danglies* on ballons and letting them tangle in power lines.
-idk the Venezula air defense system but the replacement for the Wild Weasel appears to work well. Clear domination of the battle space was achieved. This is always a goal of interdiction operations.
-I pray so. The wounded ended up in BAMC
-Again, thanks to the Wild Weasels replacement
-Solid training of our troops
-Inside intel. Always good to have an insider.

The Times has a good article about the failure of Russian anti aircraft defenses in Venezuela.
Click the link for the full article.
https://archive.ph/2DEr0

Russia’s Fearsome Arsenal Fizzled in Venezuela. Here’s Why.
The Venezuelan regime had high-powered air defense systems from its allies in the Kremlin, but failed to set much of it up.

Venezuela’s advanced, Russian-made air defense systems were not even hooked up to radar when U.S. helicopters swooped in to snatch President Nicolás Maduro, American officials say, rendering Venezuelan airspace surprisingly unprotected long before the Pentagon launched its attack.

The vaunted, Russian-made S-300 and Buk-M2 air defense systems were supposed to be a potent symbol of the close ties between Venezuela and Russia, two rivals of the United States. Their alliance appeared to give Russia a growing foothold in the Western Hemisphere.

With great fanfare, Venezuela announced it was buying the air defenses from Russia in 2009 amid tensions with Washington. Venezuela’s leftist president at the time, Hugo Chávez, heralded the weapons as a deterrent to American aggression.

But Venezuela was unable to maintain and operate the S-300 — one of the world’s most advanced antiaircraft systems — as well as the Buk defense systems, leaving its airspace vulnerable when the Pentagon launched Operation Absolute Resolve to capture Mr. Maduro, four current and former American officials said.

…

Russia's "Fearsome Arsenal" fizzled in the Midnight Hammer raid on Iran too.
Do not be mistaken in thinking that Russia's stuff doesn't work . . .it does.

My takeaway is that while any Anti-Air network of systems can be overwhelmed or saturated to the point that it becomes ineffective. . . .but it takes a lot resourcers and effort.

Another factor is lack or training or experience on the part of operators on duty n Zero-Dark whatever. The same goes for junior and senior leadership; are they on the ball? Can they be misdirected into ineffective action?

One thing that concerns me is the intensity of action and density of resources required to accomplish this sort of thing both in Venezuela and I ran.

What level of effor, what scope of action will it take to control the sealanes around the Phillipenes, Korea and Japan?

i don't buy the "asleep at the switch" theory. we had the Ford sitting on their doorstep, and Trump on the phone with Maduro asking him to step down. they were on high alert. nor do i buy the "junior officer" theory. a junior officer might make less than perfect decisions, but even an ensign is not going to do absolutely nothing to mount a counteroffensive in that scenario. to me the evidence suggests that whatever we did involved the wholesale incapacitation of whatever defenses Venezuela would have expected to muster in such a brazen, frontal assault that the US brought to bear. it looked like they lost all battlespace eyes and ears. the best they could do was shoot at what they could see in front of them. hence the Chinook damage and the few injuries. we had total situational awareness of the battlespace; they had none.

i think that a failure to fully implement a Russian defensive network an earlier poster mentioned-i think it was txdot-is entirely plausible. if the network was in fact fully operational, no one in China nor Russia is safe from an American "intervention", anytime, anywhere..

how does the same fuckery happen-failure of an entire Russian defensive network-twice, once in Iran and once in Venezuela? seems like a bit too much of a coincidence. my guess is the U.S. has a reliable workaround, but what that workaround is, i can only guess.

as to resources needed, any actual conflagration in the South China Sea, East China Sea, or Taiwan Strait is, by definition, an "all-in" affair. as Master Yoda would say, "there is no try". Alex Honnold would concur in his record-breaking free solo of El Cap..

Russia's "Fearsome Arsenal" fizzled in the Midnight Hammer raid on Iran too.
Do not be mistaken in thinking that Russia's stuff doesn't work . . .it does.

My takeaway is that while any Anti-Air network of systems can be overwhelmed or saturated to the point that it becomes ineffective. . . .but it takes a lot resourcers and effort.

Another factor is lack or training or experience on the part of operators on duty n Zero-Dark whatever. The same goes for junior and senior leadership; are they on the ball? Can they be misdirected into ineffective action?

One thing that concerns me is the intensity of action and density of resources required to accomplish this sort of thing both in Venezuela and I ran.

What level of effor, what scope of action will it take to control the sealanes around the Phillipenes, Korea and Japan? Originally Posted by ICU 812

Execute an operation on a main Venezuelan military base,and no casualties ?


Conspiracy theories of a negotiated capture still exist.

i don't buy the "asleep at the switch" theory. we had the Ford sitting on their doorstep, and Trump on the phone with Maduro asking him to step down. they were on high alert. nor do i buy the "junior officer" theory. a junior officer might make less than perfect decisions, but even an ensign is not going to do absolutely nothing to mount a counteroffensive in that scenario. to me the evidence suggests that whatever we did involved the wholesale incapacitation of whatever defenses Venezuela would have expected to muster in such a brazen, frontal assault that the US brought to bear. it looked like they lost all battlespace eyes and ears. the best they could do was shoot at what they could see in front of them. hence the Chinook damage and the few injuries. we had total situational awareness of the battlespace; they had none.

i think that a failure to fully implement a Russian defensive network an earlier poster mentioned-i think it was txdot-is entirely plausible. if the network was in fact fully operational, no one in China nor Russia is safe from an American "intervention", anytime, anywhere..

how does the same fuckery happen-failure of an entire Russian defensive network-twice, once in Iran and once in Venezuela? seems like a bit too much of a coincidence. my guess is the U.S. has a reliable workaround, but what that workaround is, i can only guess.

as to resources needed, any actual conflagration in the South China Sea, East China Sea, or Taiwan Strait is, by definition, an "all-in" affair. as Master Yoda would say, "there is no try". Alex Honnold would concur in his record-breaking free solo of El Cap.. Originally Posted by pxmcc

Whenever we have our hardward going up against of people who we see to have hostile intentions against us, we have alot of people paying close attention to how things operate, how the enemy will react, and so on. Recent events around the world have gleaned intel from countries we sell this hardware to and what they have found out in how it works. This is how we stay ahead of the game.

Unfortunately, El Crappo Pants is having our *allies* slam the door in our face about sharing such info. And the fat orange fuck is reciprocating by shutting down a key asset of ours in selling stuff. And that would be the Defense Language Institute (DLI). How the hell are we to sale people stuff if we don't let their operators learn how to use the stuff?

We might have the edge now. But with advancements in technology, that can flip on us in a microsecond.

For those who must have links:

Here is one way top look at how the Maduro raid unfolded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Ls6a5qlBc