With the largest U.S. aircraft carrier now positioned in the Caribbean, President Trump has approved additional measures to pressure Venezuela and prepare for the possibility of a broader military campaign, according to multiple people briefed on the matter.
Mr. Trump has signed off on C.I.A. plans for covert measures inside Venezuela, operations that could be meant to prepare a battlefield for further action, these people said. At the same time, they said, he has authorized a new round of back-channel negotiations that at one point resulted in President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela offering to step down after a delay of a couple of years, a proposal the White House rejected.
It is not clear what the covert actions might be or when any of them might be carried out. Mr. Trump has not yet authorized combat forces on the ground in Venezuela, so the next phase of the administration’s escalating pressure campaign on the Maduro government could be sabotage or some sort of cyber, psychological or information operations.
The president has not made a decision about the broader course of action to pursue in Venezuela, nor publicly articulated his ultimate goal beyond stemming the flow of drugs from the region. And military and C.I.A. planners have prepared multiple options for different contingencies.
The Trump administration and the CIA.
Name a more competent and less terrifying American duo. I’ll wait.
Who’s to say what’s a covert psyop and what’s incompetence failing upwards?
Stop asking questions. That’s classified.
I am sure this will end well…
Well obviously, we have the historical data to let us know how it always ends, and the data never lies.
I guess it depends on who you ask about it ending well though. If you’re asking the foreign nation being invaded, it never ends well. If you’re asking about the net effect on the U.S., and the erosion of government trust and public accountability it never ends well. If you’re asking the handful of individuals who always make a shit load of money regardless of if they win or lose, these operations are always a success.
