Trump's Golden Hour: Historically Flawless Military Masterclass or Just Another Theatrical Production?
For the Sake of US Supremacy: It Doesn't Much Matter
Well, Trump has done it. He has launched the long awaited ground operation in Venezuela, culminating in the alleged capture of Maduro, pictured below on the USS Iwo Jima:
The world is aswirl with theories, takes, and chest-thumping chauvinism. America is back! The great power behind such flawless executions as Desert Storm, Libya, and many other legendary operations has returned to the world stage.
Let’s first note that on the surface the operation had echoes of the USSR’s famous Operation Storm-333, wherein Soviet special forces conducted a large-scale military raid to oust Afghan president Hafizullah Amin in his Kabul compound.
The reasoning was similar: the Soviets felt that Amin was ‘illegitimate’ and backed by the West, and imposed a much more ‘blunt hammer’ approach compared to the “flawless precision” of Trump’s much smaller-scale raid. Of course, the Soviet attack was a real one, with real fire fights and casualties, and the Trump one again has all the hallmarks of the ‘theatrical production’ of the late-stage American empire.1
First is the fact some sources claim insider info that Maduro’s exit was negotiated in advance:
But why would Maduro negotiate his own capture, where he will now presumably be sentenced to prison or worse?
It’s too early to tell: this could all be part of the ploy, and Maduro will be granted amnesty after a show trial. After all, Trump had previously pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, accused of being a major narco-boss himself.
I’m not suggesting Trump will pardon Maduro, whom he seems to hate with all his guts, but simply that we do not yet know what kind of potential “deal” might have enticed Maduro to give himself up. For all we know, the deal was simply “come alive, or we will level your compound and assassinate you.” That sort of negotiating tactic often has a way of being quite convincing, particularly when presented with real time CIA-sourced satellite and drone footage of the target’s own location from above.
Maduro may have felt the end was inevitable and decided to take a deal wherein much of his family, inner circle, etc., would be “taken care of” and given plush retirements, while he bloodlessly took the fall. His part of the deal would require him to stand down any resistance in order to give Trump the flawless ‘golden operation’ he so hankered for.
There are many other possibilities, such as Maduro simply having been sold out by corrupt inner circle officials and military heads who had been preemptively bribed and ‘turned’ by the CIA, etc.
There is even the possibility that Russia and the US traded Ukraine for Venezuela. It’s not as crazy as you might think, considering that in 2019 this was on the table, according to US Congressional transcripts:
“As the US was so concerned about the Monroe Doctrine and its own backyard, perhaps the US might also be concerned about developments in Russia’s backyard, as in Ukraine, making it very obvious that they were trying to set ip some kind of let’s just say: You stay out of Ukraine or you move out of Ukraine, and, you know, we’ll rethink where we are with Venezuela.” - Fiona Hill to Congress, October 14, 2019
Given Trump’s recent perceived abandonment of Ukraine, this backdoor arrangement for “spheres of influence” is not entirely unrealistic, and conversely is a sort of pragmatic realpolitik approach.
Or, you could believe the much loftier fantasy that the ‘invincible’ US forces again sailed effortlessly over a major country’s capital city without a single air defense system being activated, and while suffering zero casualties, just like in the Iran affair we now know with almost total certainty was a staged theatrical production, consigned in backdoor agreement between the two sides.
Sound familiar?
This is the same US force unable to effectively combat the Houthis, unable to take out ISIS in the Levant, nor extract sandal-clad ISIS leaders sitting in dusty caves with the same efficacy they extracted a major nation’s president from a deeply defended compound in the heart of the country’s leading metropolis.
Recall that Venezuela was said to have thousands of Russian manpads yet not a single one was fired at the storm of US helicopters which flew effortlessly over the capital:
Or, maybe the US military really is that good…at least at surgical special operations that rely heavily on intelligence, which is by far the US’s most powerful advantage over all other nations. US has perfected such techniques during decades of COIN-focused activity. It’s the more classic world war-era slugfest that US would struggle in, but special operations—particularly those against countries tamed into submission by economic deprivation—are a different matter.
Venezuela became the sixth country where the US conducted a military operation after Trump came to power:
— February 1, 2025, Somalia;
— June 22, 2025, Iran;
— March 15, 2025, Yemen;
— December 19, 2025, Syria;
— December 25, 2025, Nigeria;
— January 3, 2026, Venezuela.
Trump’s address on the operation was a sight to behold. Badly slurring his speech, he expressed no compunctions whatsoever about the US’s plans to occupy the nation of Venezuela, including with “boots on the ground”, which would be required to patrol the now-American-owned Venezuelan oil fields. This is Iraq and Syria redux, and the US is inveterately unabashed of this fact.
Some highlights from the peace president:
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Now let us touch on the more nuanced and important angles to this developing story.
