Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Maduro
2. Tankers
3. Drones
4. Shooting
5. Vandal
6. Kelly
7. Neuralink
1. Maduro. President Trump finally tired of the negotiation – no negotiation game played by Venezuela dictator Nicolas Maduro. A joint military operation the morning of Jan 3 penetrated Caracas, seized Maduro and his wife, took them into federal custody, ending up before a judge in NYC on federal drug trafficking charges associated with being in charge of the Cartel de Los Soles. The operation was a success, with no US forces killed, though there were a couple casualties and a few helos took some rounds on exit. Venezeuela’s days of being a land-based carrier for Russia, China, Cuba and Iran are over. While we are still in the fog of war regarding the operation, what comes next will be most interesting.
- The operation took perhaps an hour and a half with the US Army Delta Force as the pointy end of the spear. Primary penetration was via helo with backing by Navy, Marine and USAF assets. There was significant pre-strike preparation by the CIA, Cyber Command and USSPACECOM. EW suppression was sufficient to render top of the line Russian anti-aircraft missile systems irrelevant. They did the same thing to top-of-the-line CCP C3I systems. The Russian S-300VM, Buk, and Tor-M1 missile systems never even launched. No Venezuelan fighter jet launched in response. The ability to completely control the EM spectrum in a combat mission echoes what last year’s B-2 strike of the Iranian nuclear program did. At this time, we own the EM spectrum, at least for a little while.
- The raid accomplished several things. First and most importantly, it decapitated a cartel that owns a national government, putting the Mexican cartels on notice that the same thing can happen to them. Second, it cut off oil shipments to Cuba. Cuba has long provided security to Venezuela. Maduro’s bodyguards were all Cuban. Those not shot quickly cut and ran, leaving Maduro unguarded. In return for the Cuban muscle, Maduro provided all oil Cuba needs to run its country. No oil, no ability to put troops / secret police where needed should the Cuban natives get restless. Extra oil provided was sold by Cuba to provide some extra cash to fill the void left by not enough cash from China or Russia. More on tankers later.
- Venezuela turned itself into a manufacturing center for Iranian drones. That has ended. More on this later.
- China. Russia and Iran were systematically turning Venezuela into a friendly base of operation in the Western Hemisphere. Think of it as a landside aircraft carrier in the Western Hemisphere. Removing Maduro stopped that completely, marking a return to the Monroe Doctrine, immediately morphing into the Donroe Doctrine.
- Looks like the administration is leaving the rest of the Maduro government in place, led by the current VP, who is a known snake. She has been fully supportive, saying all the right things, and is apparently being used to round up all the Chaveztista thugs. Embedded Iranians and Cubans are expected to exfiltrate back to wherever they came from. There are those who recommended this approach when Saddam assumed room temperature two decades ago. We will see how it works.
- Final piece of this is that control of Venezuela also gives Trump control of everything associated with any Smartmatic / Dominion diddling international elections. General Flynn is all over this. I remain somewhat skeptical, though it sure does look like there is something there. Whether it rises to the level of Sydney Powell’s Kraken is anybody’s guess.
2. Tankers. The tanker wars also ramped up a bit over the last month. As of today, five have been seized by the US since Trump announced a blockade around Venezuela. Tanker seizure effectively isolates Cuba, which reportedly has about 20 days of oil on hand. That clock should expire sometime this month unless they are getting oil from somewhere else, which they should. One of the games played by the shadow tanker fleet is flagging. Most of these were flagged by small, third world nations like Panama or the Cook Islands. Things got interesting when they started evading the US blockade, as they started changing the flag they were sailing under while in international waters. One of the new games played the last couple weeks was to take down the flag on the empty tanker while in international waters. One continued without a flag and was eventually seized. The other, the Bella 1, went so far as to paint a Russian flag on its side. It ended up being escorted by a Russian submarine for a few days before it was seized. As I understand the relevant Maritime Law, if a flagged ship changes flag in international waters, it becomes stateless and can be seized by any other navy which is what happened to two of the tankers over the last week during their run from Venezuela. Wonder what they have onboard that encouraged them to run without a flag.
3. Drones. In addition to turning Venezuela into a Russian / CCP base in the Western Hemisphere, the Maduro regime was busily turning Venezuela into a drone powerhouse manufacturing and deploying air and sea drones based on Iranian and Russian tech. The airborne drones were licensed manufacture of Qods Aviation Industries Mohajer series UAVs. Iran also sold millions worth of drones to Venezuela. Sales and manufacturing were coordinated between the military of both nations. In addition, it appears that Russia was doing much the same thing with underwater drone tech, expanding an underwater threat to US naval and commercial traffic in the Caribbean. Writer Michael McNair a few weeks ago posits this new threat as the real rationale for the blockade and naval buildup around Venezuela, rather than to interdict drugs. Either way, that threat is now over and the US has their hands-on top-level drone equipment from both Russia and Iran along with manufacturing capability to reproduce them
4. Shooting. We are still in the fog of war regarding the ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Jan 7. Despite the best effort of the media, democrats and the NGO Industrial Complex to turn her into the next George Floyd, it appears that it was a good, though regrettable, shoot. Good and her wife decided to show up at an anti-ICE protest and obstruct officers in the performance of their official duties. The situation escalated to the point where Good (the driver) accelerated into an ICE agent in front of her, hit him, and was shot and killed for use of a deadly weapon against law enforcement. Had the street not been icy, Good wouldn’t have been the only one hurt. The wife was out of the vehicle yelling at ICE and videoing the confrontation at the time of the shoot. Unfortunately for her, she tried to run down a guy who was dragged by an illegal and hospitalized for his trouble last summer. Ironically, video from ICE officers taken during the confrontation completely exonerates the ICE officer, just as it would have Officer Chavin during the George Floyd encounter. Personal video cameras on officers demanded by the post-Floyd democrat and media world has refuted multiple media / democrat attempts to create additional events since they have been adopted. For her part, Good appeared to have been itching for a fight. She reportedly trained as an anti-ICE protester in conjunction with an after-school program at their kid’s charter school. The local newspaper doxed the ICE agent who had to move out of his home along with the family. Local politicians are not covering themselves with glory, doing their level best to create another Kent State University shooting and blame it all on Trump. Democrats have managed to prey on young women, manufacturing clinically insane people who they turn out to cosplay with law enforcement. Sometimes cosplaying with the wrong group of targets (armed law enforcement in the performance of their jobs, for instance) goes horribly wrong, which is a feature rather than a bug for the democrats, media and NGOs doing their level best to stir up this sort of foolishness to maximize body count. Good chose poorly. She chose FA and ended up with FO.
5. Vandal. Speaking of unfortunate people intentionally driven insane by the democrat media NGO complex, we have the kid who took a hammer to the home of VP JD Vance a couple weeks ago in Ohio. The kid is 26 with a pair of well-off democrat parents. He demands he be called Julia as he explores a new path in life. He also had multiple encounters with law enforcement over the last several years as his parents pandered to his insanity rather than getting him actual treatment. In previous criminal encounters, the courts usually recommended treatment rather than punishment. Treatment never improved anything as the kid spiraled down into his current level of insanity.
6. Kelly. Speaking of FAFO, we have former NASA astronaut and retired Navy Captain Mark Kelly who may end up being busted down a rank and pay grade for his involvement in former intel officer Elissa Slotkin’s (D, MI) attempt to cajole current military members into not following lawful military orders.
The video was a sly attempt to encourage current military members to start questioning lawful orders, especially those to carry out things President Trump wants to do. Four of the congress critters were former military. One (the leader) was former intel. Only Kelly retired from the military, which gives DoW a hold on him, as he is still covered under the UCMJ. SECWAR Hegseth announced last week that an investigation into Kelly’s participation found grounds for judicial punishment, with a recommendation of a reduction in rank and in turn retirement pay. While the reduction in pay is not a particularly big deal as Kelly’s retirement pay as a US Senator will dwarf that among, the reduction in rank is a big deal. Going after a retiree is a rarity these days, especially in the face of the hundreds of retired military officers who actively obstructed all things Trump while hiding behind their rank over the last 9 years. Perhaps we will see more of it, as it is long past time for a very large number of retired vermin.
7. Neuralink. Elon Musk announced last week that Neuralink was going to shift into high gear production of the brain to computer devices in 2026. They have almost completely automated the installation surgery. The interface is intended to give paralyzed customers the ability to control digital devices using only their minds. The device has been implanted in 12 patients so far with good results. The first of these was 2024. Neuralink plans to expand to other conditions including partial restoration of sight via its Blindsight project. This year marks transition from clinical trials to scalable medical device production expanding brain to computer interface (BCI) for therapeutic purposes. As this takes off, I predict it will expand far beyond the disabled population and penetrate the much larger abled population as everyone wants to take advantage of the Good Stuff (whatever that is).
More later –
- AG