"US Talks with Hardline Venezuelan Minister Cabello Began Months Before Raid"
Venezuela "intelligence services, police and the armed forces, remains largely intact after the January 3 U.S. raid"
A couple of weeks ago, in my post headlined What Would Smedley Butler Say about Venezuela?, I expressed my intuition that the Trump administration had probably figured out a way to persuade or incentivize the Venezuelan military and security forces to stand down when the U.S. launched its raid to abduct President Maduro. Apart from Maduro’s largely Cuban praetorian guard, little resistance was mounted against the Delta Force team and supporting U.S. forces during their mission.
As I speculated in my piece:
The notion that Maduro’s abduction was not an act of war is silly. The CIA handsomely paid off his security apparatus to stand down so that a Delta Force team could waltz into his palace and grab him without suffering a single casualty.
I wasn’t surprised to see a just released Reuters report that the Trump administration had already established contact with Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, months before the operation.
NEW YORK/MIAMI/WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Trump administration officials had been in discussions with Venezuela’s hardline interior minister Diosdado Cabello months before the U.S. operation to seize President Nicolas Maduro, and have been in communication with him since then, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
The officials warned Cabello, 62, against using the security services or militant ruling-party supporters he oversees to target the country’s opposition, four sources said. That security apparatus, which includes the intelligence services, police and the armed forces, remains largely intact after the January 3 U.S. raid.
In other words, Washington did not change the regime of Venezuela, but incentivized (with a carrot and a stick) a powerful member of the existing establishment to do Washington’s bidding. This reminds me of Sulla’s conquering of Athens 86 BC, after which he executed the tyrant Aristion and backed local Athenians who were amendable to Rome.
At first glance I would say that this was a skilled move. However, I wonder if Cabello will now be viewed in Venezuela as a Judas figure, which will undermine his ability to serve as a U.S. puppet. I have a hunch it would have been better to have kept the U.S. pre operation talks with him a secret.
Always got wonder about those "multiple sources familiar with the matter."
It is The NY Times afterall. They are known to just make shit up!
Transparency, John Leake, is important to the people in Venezuela as well as us. Admitting the collaboration of Cabello with America now, rather than having it discovered later, is a wise move, especially since folks are now benefitting from the regime change, and Trump cannot be accused of the HRC type of regime changes that cause chaos and ensuing terrorism against the West and even worse abuses of the citizens of Venezuela, had Maduro stayed in power. I would stay with the opinion of "a skilled move", my friend, and rest assured.