Venezuela crisis

Trump’s CIA Now Unbound and Back to Its Traditional Hijinks



Under the directorship of torture and black site maven Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s Central Intelligence Agency has returned to its traditional roots of conducting “black bag” operations and disrupting electrical grids through cyber-attacks.

The Venezuelan government has accused the Trump administration of giving the green light for a series of crippling power failures in Venezuela, which affected 22 of Venezuela’s 23 states, including the capital of Caracas. The long-duration power failures were cited by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a reason for the US withdrawing its diplomats from Caracas. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that an international commission assisted by specialists from Russia, China, Iran, and the United Nations would help his country analyze the sources of the Venezuelan electrical grid cyber-attack. Initial cyber-forensics by Venezuela traced some of the cyber warfare being waged against Venezuela to nodes in Houston and Chicago.

In addition to electricity, water service was disrupted in Venezuela. From Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Maduro tweeted on March 12: “From the Presidential Command Post, we monitored minute-by-minute the progress of the recovery of the National Electric System.”

Cyber-attacks on a country that puts its civilian population in jeopardy might, at first glance, appear to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions on warfare. However, without a Digital Geneva Convention, civilian populations are not covered by the current Geneva Conventions. However, in 2015, the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (UN GGE), which included experts from the United States, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, and other nations, agreed that current international law does apply to cyberspace. Most international legal experts agree that the Geneva Conventions require a digital annex to cover the type of cyber-disruption of the Venezuelan electrical grid carried out by the US intelligence services.

Hybrid warfare against Venezuela, which includes economic, diplomatic, and cyber, has the backing of the neo-conservatives who now call the shots for the Trump White House. They include, in addition to Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton; Iran-Contra felon Elliott Abrams, Trump’s special envoy to the US-backed opposition-led rump Venezuelan government of Juan Guaido; Cuban-American Mauricio Claver-Carone, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council; and Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, who represents the interests of South Florida’s right-wing oligarch exiles from Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

While Trump was preparing for his Hanoi summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump’s second summit with Kim, Haspel’s CIA dug into its old bag of black operations, while also engaging in the more modern form of cyber-attack in targeting North Korea.

On February 22, 2019, ten males, all wearing masks, broke into the North Korean embassy, which is located in the residential suburb of Aravaca, north of Madrid, Spain, and subjected eight embassy staff members to brutal interrogation tactics, including tying up the diplomats, throwing black bags over their heads (a specialty of Ms. Haspel), and subjecting them to beatings. One female diplomat managed to escape through a second-floor window and her screams alerted a neighbor, who promptly called the police. Two embassy employees required medical attention from their injuries.

The Spanish police and National Intelligence Center (CNI) linked two of the embassy invaders to the CIA. “El Pais,” a Spanish national newspaper, reported that the CIA issued one of its standard “denials,” however, the paper stated that Spanish authorities found the denial from Langley, Virginia to be “unconvincing.” “El Pais” reported that the invasion of the North Korean embassy by the CIA had severely harmed relations between Madrid and Washington.

The National Police Corps’ General Commissariat of Information (CGI) and CNI concluded that the attack and occupation of the North Korean embassy was not carried out by common criminals but was the work of a “military cell” that stole mobile phones and computers. Two of the embassy invaders were identified as Koreans and, based on CGI’s and CNI’s analysis of security camera video footage, they were further recognized as Koreans linked to the CIA. Spanish authorities did not rule out the possibility that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service assisted the CIA in the embassy invasion. The embassy invaders escaped from the embassy using two North Korean luxury sedans bearing diplomatic plates. The cars were later found abandoned.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/18/trump-cia-now-unbound-and-back-traditional-hijinks.html

Venezuela does not need a cab driver bureaucrat. It needs somebody like Chavez. Maduro simply does not have the mentality of
Chavez and the current situation in Venezuela can't be fobbed off onto everyone else.

What do you even know about Chavez or Maduro?

If Maduro was a dumb fuck why is he still in power despite the worlds only super power bending over backwards to try to get him kicked out and all the rich western sycophants bending over backwards to help the US and try to force Venezuela to oblige and adopt the same position they enjoy.

Really are the Venezuelan people also dumb because it seems they voted him in to power and it isn't for his first term either so they can hardly claim they don't know who the fuck he is like they do with this Guano chimp the Yanks are putting up as puppet alternative.

Maduro seems to really scare the Americans... they are not bothering to try to remove Mexicos leader, or Haitis leader, or Porto Ricos leader... do you really think if he was an idiot they would want him gone so badly?

Or maybe he is not perfect but is doing a lot of things that make other leaders in the region think they can trade with China and Russia and other countries too and get a better deal than what they get from the Yanks?

It is rather self-evident that Maduro has been
behind the ball at fighting off US dirty tricks. And he is letting American propaganda set the narrative.

What a useless prick... but then couldn't you make the exact same arguments against Putin... he hasn't nationalised western media and forced them to say nice things about him either... wow... and the links just keep coming... Putin was also elected president of his country in a free and open and fair election, that has been criticised by the US because their puppet didn't win... maybe Putin should step down and let someone better qualified carry on.... I am sure the americans can pick a suitable candidate because you clearly don't trust either the Russian people or the Venezuelan people either...

Even when these clowns appear to be sharp as a Fox they are still morons. For example the dictator of Belorus or Yanukovich.
All these f*cks do is pave for the advancement of America's empire. That is my metric and it vastly better than your apologia.

Except the US has failed in the advancement of their empire in Russia and Venezuela and Belarus, but because they succeeded in the Ukraine 5 years ago you now think they should be handed success everywhere else too?

Well it is pretty fucked up logic, because you are suggesting giving these people what they clearly don't want as medicine to realise they don't want it.

The people of the Ukraine largely didn't care.... even the pro Russian ones probably thought they would be OK in the EU and NATO and a pawn for America... but look at how that has worked out for them... I don't expect a pro Russian person to win in Ukraines next elections (if it is anything like fair of course), but they will sure as hell not be so pro America or pro EU as they were last time... is that what you want... let Venezuela stew in a pro american government for a decade or two and they will realise what they had with Chavez and reject the monsters under the bed (CIA). But they have already endured decades of mismanagement, it was Chavez that helped them see the light and Maduro is currently slowly dragging them away from their dependency on oil and big american companies... his problem is not incompetence... it is the very low oil price that limits his funds and means he has to pick and choose... he has been building schools and hospitals and housing for the poor... if the price of oil goes up he could invest in alternative money revenue sources and domestic food production... but in the past they were told by the american economists that advised them that they had oil money, they can buy food much more cheaply from neighbours than they could produce it for themselves... why waste money?

Cyber-attacks on a country that puts its civilian population in jeopardy might, at first glance, appear to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions on warfare. However, without a Digital Geneva Convention, civilian populations are not covered by the current Geneva Conventions.

Then venezuela should ask China and Russia for support in returning the favour... the electrical system in the US is well known for being rickety... take out power in a few states and kill some people in hospital and lets see how the US likes it...

@GarryB

Agree . It is upto people in venezeula to decide who they want as president . Even if they  make wrong choices , it is their choice . Where internal politics may become concern of others , is in cases where Genocide or famine  takes place. This is when populations loose capacity to maintain themselves . Or to recover  quickly . Even civil wars have to be left , to be decided internally , as long as they do not contradict this first rule. In this case , we are dealing with externally induced food shortages . And the world should be concerned , about these external factors .


Second , I like to address all the rabid anti - communists here and in the world . Communism is a valid and vibrant political and economic system . In no place more so , than the Amazon . Thousands of tribal people exist here in economic and ecologic stability and communistic relations here . These tribe will surely outlast the capitalists and social reformists and bleeding heart liberal societies in the world .

Society can move to communism . Providing the necessary social consciousness  exists . This can be quantified indirectly . By measuring certain statistics in some groups . One such indicator , is the existence of property theft . Where there is little or no theft , despite economic conditions , then society can move foreward . Can you think of other indicators ?

I am surprised how easy this was. I was expecting some kind of pressure, but this was ridiculously one-sided. I am sure Washington vassals are panicked now.

Hannibal Barca wrote:I am surprised how easy this was. I was expecting some kind of pressure, but this was ridiculously one-sided. I am sure Washington vassals are panicked now.

I don't see why you would think so.

Well recognizing an usurper immediately after he laid the claim to the throne and forcing all your vassals to do the same you should be at least convinced to put a fight,
especially if it is in what is considered your own turf, else you dig your own hole.

Hannibal Barca wrote:Well recognizing an usurper immediately after he laid the claim to the throne and forcing all your vassals to do the same you should be at least convinced to put a fight,
especially if it is in what is considered your own turf, else you dig your own hole.

His puppet is still there, the country is falling apart just as Trump has planned. I don't see him being panicked.

Vladimir79 wrote:

Hannibal Barca wrote:Well recognizing an usurper immediately after he laid the claim to the throne and forcing all your vassals to do the same you should be at least convinced to put a fight,
especially if it is in what is considered your own turf, else you dig your own hole.

His puppet is still there, the country is falling apart just as Trump has planned.  I don't see him being panicked.  

Country isn't falling apart. People on the scene are showing otherwise. Issues exist but will be fixed since China and Russia are getting a bit more active in their ability to provide aid.

Guiedo guy won't go anywhere cause no one cares. He will continue to be a pain in the ass but so many supporters were left high and dry, with ex military guys who defected now in Columbia, bitching how they now have nothing cause Guiedo abandoned him. Which will then end up working against Guiedo next time he trusts such a stunt of same Calibre

Vladimir79 wrote:

Hannibal Barca wrote:Well recognizing an usurper immediately after he laid the claim to the throne and forcing all your vassals to do the same you should be at least convinced to put a fight,
especially if it is in what is considered your own turf, else you dig your own hole.

His puppet is still there, the country is falling apart just as Trump has planned.  I don't see him being panicked.  

It's over mate. The front man became clown, they don't even bother to arrest him, the aggressors lost face.
If anything, Venezuela got extra contacts that wouldn't get otherwise. Total fiasco.

Oil production is less than 1m/b a day, the power outages have spoiled all of the refrigerated food and ruined many industries, millions are starving and they have no income. We will not be getting our money back but the real loser in all of this is China who invested tens of billions.

Isos wrote:

Russians took lot of Venezuelan gold by plane. Chinese can always take that if they haven't sold it to get dollars

Gold stocks are precious. And I doubt chinese will forget all that money and Venezuela can't get a better situation by stpping trading with China and buying only US and EU stuff.

If we are holding their gold that is going to end up as payment for their soured loans. China will just have to find some other way to collect like they ended up begging in Libya.

Millions are starving, where exactly?

LMFS wrote:Millions are starving, where exactly?

Pretty much everything outside of government enclaves aside from those that have a thriving smuggling business.

Oil production is less than 1m/b a day,

Some of the biggest oil reserves known to date... and nothing Maduro or Guano could do to destroy them overnight by error or by design, so the wealth is there... it is just a question of who helps them get it out of the ground. The grade of oil they are currently taking requires extra technology and materials like Naptha.... guess who normally supplies naptha and is not currently supplying it... when Russia replaces those supplies production should return to normal.

the power outages have spoiled all of the refrigerated food and ruined many industries, millions are starving and they have no income.

There cannot be a swift transition to a Guano government so there are no swift solutions... just the knowledge that power outages seemed to occur at a time convenient to the US wishes to replace Maduro... perhaps rather than being a saviour, Guano is the figurehead of the coup and therefore responsible for the deaths of people in hospitals and those who go hungry...

We will not be getting our money back but the real loser in all of this is China who invested tens of billions.

I suspect just like in Syria, not only will Russia be paid its money owed from Venezuela, I think Maduro will have a new found respect for Russia and China as trade partners and protector from the big bully to the north... similar to the way Assad probably now views Russia and Iran.

Not undying loyalty, but the closest you can get without being a total like the US.

Wont just be Venezuela... Russia and China and even Turkey helped stare down the US... most central and south american countries will have noticed... people and governments... remember the internet has influence...

Right back at you: what do you know about Chavez and Maduro.

What do I need to know. The Venezuelan people elected these two to a job... a job you claim they are not fit for...

A superpower northern neighbour just tried to have the democratically elected leader of the country kicked out of the country and an unelected nobody that few venezuelans even knew the name of with a total of zero votes in the last election in Venezuela should take over... I said that was enough reason on its own to leave Maduro in power.

I say that but really I have no say because I am not Venezuelan. I can hold that opinion but I get no real say in it.

You obviously know precisely zip.

Comes from a person who thinks democracy is what the US government says it is...

Your knee jerk defense of
of Maduro proves you are utterly clueless.

I believe what you should have said was my knee jerk defence of some very very basic principles of democracy makes me a genius, can you tell me what that makes you, or do you need permission from the US State Department...

I lived in Argentina during the 1970s and still have a lot of family living there. My
ties to Latin America are infinitely greater than yours.

Good for you, but clearly the fact that you don't actually live there any more means you get as much say as I do regarding who is in charge there... zero.

Maduro is no Castro.

Trump is no Putin. Micron is not Putin. May is no Putin. Trump, Micron, and May are not even Jimmy Carter...

He has no capacity to run a socialist economy
in Latin America. Chavez had a caliber closer to Castro and would have done a much better job than Maduro, the bureaucratic
hack.

So you have said, he is just a cab driver, but dead people (Chavez) can't get legal votes in any country I know of and he (Maduro) clearly won the election... there wasn't even any squealing from the US about cheating or Russian hackers...

Whatever, your obviously love Maduro so much that you can't see anything other than Yankees as responsible for all of Venzuela's
problems.

Cab driver... I am in love with him... as you said I don't really know the guy... but what I do know are some hard working men who drive cabs, the fact that this particular cab driver was freely and fairly elected in an open and free election in Venezuela by the Venezuelan people and the only people pissed about that seem to be the Americans and they are so pissed they are using all their allies, who otherwise wouldn't give a crap about Venezuela to try to change the result of a free and fair election.

Funny how you never expressed such love for any of the Soviet and Russian leaders living through US meddling.

The Russian leaders during the US meddling in the 1990s would be Guanos, not the Maduros... Yeltsin was a Clinton puppet... I love him like I love all the Clintons and Bushes and Trumps... and cancer and AIDS and VD and Syphilis...

You are like the western academics signing praises of the USSR during the 1930s.

Over a very short time Stalin took the Soviet people from a mostly agrarian society into the industrial age... it took much longer in the west and was probably as painful, but the Soviet experience was compressed by time which made it rather more brutal... which suited the man that Stalin was.

In comparison Russia losing all its former Soviet state allies and being exposed to the world markets and market forces... the job Putin has done is vastly better and vastly more humane but not without blood or sweat or tears... infinitely better than Stalins method. But you could argue Stalin was the only man for that particular job... or no job suited Stalins methods... hard to say without being able to wind back the clock and try with someone else at the wheel.

Somebody with zero investment in the
target of your admiration and pursuing your own fantasies and ideology.

Yeah... only a Nazi or a Jew can make comments about WWII I guess... no other opinion or view is allowed... still of course what you say is weird... the position you are defending is that the views of the US media and US government and the western world dominated international media get to decide on the leadership of a country no matter what the voting public of that country decide or want.

Dude... if the Venezuelan people really want Maduro out why don't they all get off their arses and get out into the street... 30 million people come out into the street and say lets waste lots of money on new elections because an orange in the white house and kvs on russiadefence.net wants to see a new president for Venezuela... and maybe if we are lucky and we accidently pick an idiot who will sell us out and rob us blind... you know... someone that would please the orange orang-utan in the white house, he might stop cutting out power and lift the trade sanctions and free up our money he confiscated to create the whole problem in the first place... we wont worry about trying to please kvs because who knows what would please him... jesus?

Millions are starving, where exactly?

Where ever there is a Fox news camera or a CNN camera or a BBC camera... the images are too horrific to show so we will blur them of course...

Vladimir79 wrote:

LMFS wrote:Millions are starving, where exactly?

Pretty much everything outside of government enclaves aside from those that have a thriving smuggling business.  

By "government enclaves" one must understand the whole Venezuela since government controls the whole territory, we don't talk about a country ravaged by war. True, there are opposition-majority neighbourhoods but there upper classes are rather having lunch at their luxury malls than starving. 6 million poorest people attended by the CLAPs and still millions starving sounds terribly off the mark sorry.

Venezuela has been acknowledged by UN as one of the countries that did most against hunger in the last decade, see even in a clearly anti-Venezuelan source:
https://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/congratulates-venezuela-reducing-hunger-widespread-food-shortages/story?id=19421963

Now look poverty and extreme poverty rates before Chavez won the elections

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.NAHC?locations=VE

This is the true face of the Venezuelan opposition we hear about in the media:



Just in case, the fat lady is barely capable of carrying the bags full with help from CLAP, besides being like 50 kg away from starving as her shirt claims, and it is sadly not an exception from what I have seen, rather a communication strategy by the opposition.

GarryB wrote:Some of the biggest oil reserves known to date... and nothing Maduro or Guano could do to destroy them overnight by error or by design, so the wealth is there... it is just a question of who helps them get it out of the ground. The grade of oil they are currently taking requires extra technology and materials like Naptha.... guess who normally supplies naptha and is not currently supplying it... when Russia replaces those supplies production should return to normal.

Russia is acting rather decisively in support of Venezuela, providing medicines, naphta and in general taking care of industrial and financial needs. So they will allow another (very important) non-aligned country to breath outside the suffocation created by the West and make business and an ally in the process. Don't see what is the great disgrace here for Russia, sometimes it feels like some people get their news and their opinions directly from their enemies.

Regarding the "Maduro is an incompetent" cliché, it is just more of the same old immoral "blame the victim" strategy so common when the West tries to crush some nation. You run over the guy and then complain how badly he takes care of his life. At least "Darth" Bolton has the honesty (or simply stupidity in this case) to acknowledge their are trying to suffocate the country "Dark Side" style

GarryB wrote:Wont just be Venezuela... Russia and China and even Turkey helped stare down the US... most central and south american countries will have noticed... people and governments... remember the internet has influence...

For a very long period of time the West has gone out of its way to harm Russia's interest. Despite such provocation, Russia has never retaliated. So the West now believes that Russia is a soft state.

I recon Russia should have retaliated by at least sending a tank regiment to the US-Mexico border. US tanks are based in Estonia.

There is a saying in English. I forgot the exact words but it goes something like this - Forgive one crime & you encourage many

Suddenly everything has changed in Venezuela. Following the 'red lines' meeting in Rome a couple of days ago, the Russian Army advanced party has arrived today, 99 in an Il-62 and goodness knows what in an An-124.

And now, according to journalist Javier I. Mayorca, Colonel General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, chief of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces - First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of Russia, arrived in Venezuela.

So we have one of the most significant Russian Generals now in Venezuela with his staff and protection teams with their equipment coming out the back of the Antonov and I think we can be certain that there is no beachware included.

This is looking more like the start up of Russian ops in Syria. This is the 'what do you need, how can we help' team.

This could be Venezuela transforming from a hedgehog into a porcupine.

JohninMK wrote:Suddenly everything has changed in Venezuela. Following the 'red lines' meeting in Rome a couple of days ago, the Russian Army advanced party has arrived today, 99 in an Il-62 and goodness knows what in an An-124

Good info thanks, will follow this

Looks like they done learning desert war so now they want to get into jungle warfare as well

Interesting how this got kicked off several days after they confirmed that Il-96 cargo aircraft production has been restarted in earnest

And this guy General Vasily Tonkoshkurov has wiki pages in just two languages: Russian and Spanish. Page in Spanish was created today.

Chinese are nowhere to be seen but let's hope they are footing the bill.

This will be much riskier than Syria, hopefully US doesn't go full retard. Internet and SJW plague in the states should help keep the crazies in relative check.

I hope they make nice little fortress on that island since this is being done anyway...