Trump Begins New Phase of Venezuela Escalations...but Is It Just a Ruse?
Buried beneath the theater of the Ukraine war’s terminal crescendos, Trump’s administration has quietly tightened the noose around Venezuela.
As standard to the neocon Uniparty, this comes only a week or two after DNI Tulsi Gabbard somewhat surreally boasted that this administration heralds the end of “regime change” operations:
How absurd can the mounting hypocrisies of the terminally-mad empire get before they runneth over?
Bloomberg reports that ‘Russian tankers’ have been forced to ‘idle’ near Venezuelan waters by American warships.
The Russian vessel, the Seahorse, was en route to Venezuela to deliver a fuel cargo on Nov. 13 when a US destroyer, the USS Stockdale, positioned itself in its path. The Russian vessel changed course, heading toward Cuba, and the warship sailed near Venezuelan territorial waters toward Puerto Rico. The Seahorse has since tried to approach Venezuela twice, but turned back both times, and remains idling in the Caribbean.
Other OSINT operators have taken it further, and believe a full naval blockade of Venezuela’s economic corridor is in effect:
No one is reporting this, but the AIS data overwhelmingly shows tankers of Chinese or Russian origin are stopped or are not transiting in and out of Venezuelan waters over the past 24 hours.
This naturally comes only days after Venezuela’s national assembly approved a 15-year extension of Russia’s PDVSA and Roszarubezhneft to operate two oil fields in the country’s south:
Upon further digging, though, one finds that the US’s actions may not be quite as severe as the above blockade rumors suggest, but the overtures are clearly being put in place for major intensification:
They are still doing business as usual, the Seahorse was not intercepted it was warned from land and stopped but it’s back on course.
This account tracks the movements in the area, and reports that the Russian ships ended up successfully offloading their oil and sailed back to Russia.
As stated, the early stages of economic pressure terror on Venezuela have begun, particularly with the news that a major oil plant in the country has suddenly gone up in flames two days ago, just as US warships had begun to hector incoming Russian and Chinese oil tankers—presented below in juxtaposition with the obviously ‘coincidental’ Trump announcement just a couple weeks prior:
Despite the obvious links to the CIA, a US congressman absurdly essayed to pin the plant explosion on Maduro himself, as part of the manifest information campaign meant to destabilize Venezuela by sabotaging the president’s public mandate:
The overall plan is clear. Trump intends to use ‘strategic ambiguity’ to put massive psychological pressure on Maduro’s administration, by weakening public support via a regime of uncertainty about the country’s economic future, general prosperity, and stability.
The reason is, as ‘rumored’ reports last week had indicated, Trump is uncertain about the success of any major military action against Venezuela; in short, Trump is afraid to walk into a giant blunder and face humiliation at the hands of one of South America’s largest military forces.
That means Trump may be leaning towards simply using the large American buildup in conjunction with various instruments of economic terror as a lever to bring down Maduro; these, of course, would also be used in conjunction with CIA and potential special forces covert ops to ‘trigger’ certain events in the country at convenient moments, particularly when the economic terror campaign has reached a certain needed culminating point.
Case in point:
Multiple airlines have cancelled their flights to Venezuela after the FAA warned of a “potentially hazardous situation” when flying over the country, according to Reuters.
Per DW, six airlines have cancelled their flights.
Cancelled flights, rerouted maritime and economic supply lines, mass-psychological and political pressure, etc. In essence, a slow strangulation campaign in conjunction with the sabotage of key energy infrastructure nodes throughout the country. That’s not to mention strikes on what are alleged to be narco-boats, which even US JAG lawyers contend to be illegal:
This entire campaign is strongly coordinated around the ‘thematic’ messaging of Maduro’s clearly specious ties to what appears to be an entirely fictitious “drug cartel”. Several journalists have now expressed that the ‘Cartel de los Soles’, comically claimed by Rubio to be led by Maduro himself, in fact does not even exist:
Enlargement of the above from CNN and The Guardian:
So, we have a fictitious cartel with Maduro as the ‘grand mafioso leader’, and for this the country must endure economic sabotage—a fairly trite script, used in various iterations in the past by the ‘Rules Based Order’; see: Libya.
Now, as of this very writing Reuters reports that the US stands poised to heavily escalate its terror campaign against Venezuela into a ‘new phase’ “in the coming days”:
WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The United States is poised to launch a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in the coming days, four U.S. officials told Reuters, as the Trump administration escalates pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government.
The “options” being weighed by the US, according to ‘anonymous officials’ who’ve spoken to Reuters, naturally include the direct overthrow of Nicolas Maduro:
Two U.S. officials told Reuters the options under consideration included attempting to overthrow Maduro.
At the same time, WaPo reports that Trump intends to drop propaganda leaflets over Caracas itself:
The Trump administration has proposed a psychological operation to demoralize the Venezuelan leader and encourage him to flee the country,according to people familiar with planning.
The leaflets are intended to rouse disorder amongst the populace in the hopes they do Trump’s dirty work for him in ousting Maduro, before the US is forced to lay a ‘heavier hand’.
According to WaPo:
The leaflets were expected to contain information on a $50 million reward for assistance leading to Maduro’s arrest and conviction, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive planning for a potential operation. In August, U.S. officials increased the reward from $25 million, citing his 2020 indictment for corruption, narcoterrorism and drug trafficking.
Maduro’s 63rd birthday is this Sunday the 23rd, so this plan—if decided upon—could be launched literally within hours.
But as always with Trump, there appears to possibly be some hidden motives beneath the Monroe-doctrine machismo and faux-Americana bravado. It seems ever-wily Trump could be angling to make some ultimate deal with Maduro, as several reports have indicated that the naval buildup is merely meant to bring leverage for just that:
Maduro privately offered the U.S. access to a large share of Venezuela’s massive oil reserves—about 300 billion barrels—to avoid a military confrontation.
Trump initially rejected the deal, but a senior official now says those talks may still be alive, and the deployment of the aircraft carrier is partly meant to pressure Maduro for more leverage in the negotiations.
Source: NYT
#BREAKING Trump said that he will soon speak with Nicolás Maduro, and that he has “something very specific to say.”
In the meantime, Maduro aptly summarizes to his people precisely the plan outlined earlier in this piece:
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