Venezuela — between the devil and the deep blue sea

What prompts this post is an AP story, seen via The Dissident, about how a Homeland Security agent, Edwin Lopez, tried to get one of the pilots who flies Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to commandeer his plane and kidnap him into US hands:

The plot was hatched when a tipster showed up at the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic on April 24, 2024, when Joe Biden was president. The informant purported to have information about Maduro’s planes, according to three of the officials familiar with the matter.

There's that.

More background:

A wiry former U.S. Army Ranger from Puerto Rico, Lopez was leading the agency’s investigations into transnational criminal networks with a presence in the Caribbean, after a storied career taking down drug gangs, money launderers and fraudsters. His work dismantling an illicit money-changing operation in Miami even earned him a public rebuke in 2010 from Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor. The embassy assignment was to be his last before retirement. 

The embassy was closed, although Lopez was still at his desk. He was handed a 3x5 index card with the tipster’s name and phone number. When he called, the tipster claimed that two planes used by Maduro were in the Dominican Republic undergoing costly repairs.

And, that's that.

This clearly was not a rogue operation.

We first know that per whom the AP interviewed:

Details of the ultimately unsuccessful plan were drawn from interviews with three current and former U.S. officials, as well as one of Maduro’s opponents. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were either not authorized to discuss the effort or feared retribution for disclosing it. The Associated Press also reviewed — and authenticated — text exchanges between Lopez and the pilot.

Followed by how this idea was "cleared":

Lopez had an epiphany, according to the current and former officials familiar with the operation: What if he could persuade the pilot to fly Maduro to a place where the U.S. could arrest him? 

Maduro had been indicted in 2020 on federal narco-terrorism charges accusing him of flooding the U.S. with cocaine. 

The DHS agent secured permission from his superiors and Dominican authorities to question the pilots, overcoming the officials’ concerns about creating a diplomatic rift with Venezuela.

OK. So, with Maduro in power now for a dozen years, the foreign policy, aka Nat-Sec Nutsacks™, portion of the "deep state" has become institutionalized.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea?

First, Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, failed the Venezuelan people by not diversifying its economy more. He should have established oilfield engineering programs, or improved those that already existed, in Venezuela. This would let native workers extract and refine the "dirty" oil from the Orinoco basin.

He could have invested other oil money in coastal resorts, including gaming. He could have done all of this while keeping Cuba's Fidel Castro and Bolivia's Evo Morales propped up at 50 cents on the dollar. (My skeptical take on Morales is here. And here.) 

And didn't. And so, was already unpopular by 2002, and a coup attempt then. Indeed, part of the run-up to that coup attempt was that Chavez was basically trying to gut Petroleos de Venezuela, in part because of its workers' independence. (Side note: Non-skeptical leftists don't really like to talk about that.) While the US had advance knowledge, and swiftly recognized the coup's front man as president, there is no indication it ever gave it any assistance.

Then came the Great Recession and the plunge in oil prices. They were then kept down by the expansion of fracking in the US. 

Then Chavez died and henchman Maduro took over. I wrote my semi-takedown obit of Chavez here. (Wiki's page on Chavez has allegations that he actually died in December 2012, after re-election but before his new term started in 2013.) And, while Chavez maintained a veneer of electoral authenticity, it's arguable Maduro hasn't done that. Yes, Juan Guaidó has been a US flunky; that doesn't mean that Maduro didn't set the stage for a Guaidó to arise in the first place.

And, the 2024 election was almost certainly fraudulent. 

Hence, the devil and deep blue sea, part one.

Part two is that sanctions against Venezuela have had their bite worsened by Chavez's failure to diversify the economy, and Maduro not even trying. More on Venezuela's economy here. More on non-skeptical leftists or pseudo-leftists cutting blank checks to Maduro here.

Meanwhile, the US continues sanctions against Venezuela, except continuing to buy its oil, albeit with restrictions and surcharges, cuz Merikkka. 

Maduro is likely to live another 10 years minimum if not 20. A kidnapping rumor, along with Trump authorizing CIA covert operations which will surely fail and likely be comical, will only backfire.

As in many such cases, the US and "country X" become Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby to each other. 

As for drug-dealing allegations? Likely true. And, those drugs are being used by people in the US, including Trump supporters. See the paragraph above.