By Tommy Acosta —
Sedona, AZ — The art of war has taken a quantum leap into the future— a leap signaled by President Donald Trump’s abduction of President Maduro from his heavily guarded compound in Venezuela.
This was not an act of war between opposing forces representing different ideologies or competing for land or resources. This was war elevated to an art form, where heads of states simply remove one another while armies watch from the sidelines.
Taking a page from the Israeli playbook, Trump went in and claimed his prize. In doing so, he demonstrated to the world that nothing can stop a targeted abduction—or even a targeted killing—when the will and capability exist.
This was precision warfare. One second the leader of a country was sleeping soundly with his wife by his side, and the next they are plucked away with a one-way ticket to New York.
And now the world wonders what comes next. What leader is the leader who would kill or kidnap another leader next?
The immediate question is whether the current Venezuelan government under Delcy Rodríguez is going to play ball with Trump—or set itself up for liquidation.
Trump’s message, blunt as ever, is unmistakable:
Play ball, or you’re dead. There’s nowhere on this planet you can hide. We know where you work, play, where you live, where you go, what you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We know everything about you—and we can kill you at any time. Do what you are told, or else.
That is the message sent to Venezuela’s temporary government. Profound. To the point. Trumpian.
Then, what happens next? Trump says the U.S. will “run the country for a while.” Does that mean the Venezuelan military has capitulated? That the drug gangs have folded? That the entire government has surrendered?
The coming war in Venezuela—if it comes—could be fought from the air, with drones systematically eliminating members of the government until they cry uncle and agree to play by Trump’s rules. Or it could devolve into something far uglier: bombing buildings, claiming narco-terrorists are hiding behind civilians, or even a protracted war reminiscent of Vietnam—with American soldiers dying on foot in fetid jungles.
The best-case scenario—for everyone—is that the Venezuelan government opens the doors and says, Come in. Take over. Do what you want.
If this turns into a prolonged conflict, the suffering endured by the Venezuelan people will be immense. And one might ask: why not simply kill Maduro outright?
The answer is simple. Maduro will first be pressured—nicely at first—to reveal everything he knows: narco-connections, financial networks, international partners. If that fails, the pressure escalates. Torture. Drugs. Coercion. Whatever it takes to extract who did what, with whom, where the money flows, and which countries are involved.
What people didn’t expect was the spectacle. This wasn’t a conventional war: no blockades, no airfields knocked out. The U.S. military went in, dismantled Venezuela’s defenses, and plucked its leader straight from power.
But now come the complications.
Maduro is slated for trial in New York City. Where, in that city of Democrats, does one find a jury there that would favor Trump’s case? And suppose—after all this—we end up with a hung jury. Then what?
Does Maduro walk free? Disappear into island exile like Noriega? Return to power?
Proving guilt won’t be easy. Witnesses would need to testify—other narco-terrorists, drug dealers, insiders. But what happens when those witnesses are warned that their families will be tortured or killed if they speak? Do we offer protection to every criminal just to secure a conviction?
Now imagine the chaos of a hung jury—or worse, an acquittal. All that money. All that risk. For naught.
And then there’s the larger, scarier picture.
Half our navy is on the other side of the world. China is bristling missiles like a porcupine on Viagra, poised to move on Taiwan. We’re focused here, on the other side of the world, in the Caribbean—while they’re watching, waiting. What happens if China decides now is the moment?
And consider this: do oil companies even want more oil flooding the market? Rebuilding Venezuela’s infrastructure and pumping more oil would lower global prices—meaning less profit.
Do you really think they’ll allow that?
I don’t.
Maduro, no doubt, has hired a plethora of elite attorneys. Witnesses will be discredited. Families of potential informants may be silenced. Oil will flow freely. Drugs will become slightly more expensive as supply tightens—but demand will never disappear. Those who want them will always find a way.
Will Vice President Rodríguez bend under the threat of death and hand Trump the keys—or does she resist, dragging us into another, genocidal Vietnam-style jungle war with young American casualties?
A bit of good news though. It appears in this moment Rodriguez is ready to play ball. Let’s pray it’s true.
8 Comments
grim
Thankfully so far we’ve not pulled another Operation Just Cause as in Panama. We lost 23 US troops invading a country we already heavily occupied. My Platoon Sergeant was shot by PDF Anti Aircraft Machine-gun Fire in his tucas/tuchus as he awaited the Green Light and Jump Masters commands to commence our sticks way out the door. As in Grenada our jump altitude was dropped from the then standard 800’ jump down to 400’ (barely enough time for your canopy to deploy and no need for a reserve because there’s no time to deploy one). Another friend and his 12 man Delta Team were hit by PDF mortars, grenades and artillery as he and members of his Delta Team made their way to “La Comandancia“ to free an American CIA operative within its heavily guarded walls. My friend had to Radio Operators with him one an Army FO the other an Air Force J-TAC operator. When they were hit the Army FO’s head was sliced clean off by 155mm Artillery shrapnel, the J-TAC operator had his right index finger blown clean off and that finger impacted into and through my friends left facial cheek. All three were struck dozens of times with shrapnel and small arms fire. These are things Trump Inc. have never and will never experience because of privilege’s and false patriotism over true patriotism!
Sometimes the US is fortunate that when it strikes other countries that more of them do not put up the fight they’re predicted to possibly have in them. Many times we’re not so lucky and Murphy’s laws of combat set in against us. Boots on the ground will not be tolerated by this country and that includes many in MAGA. The failed Delta Rescue of our Iranian Embassy hostages and Somalia showed the world we have no appetite for Boots on the Ground casualties. The wars upon Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria all just proving grounds for new hi tech multi billion/trillion dollar mostly unmanned weapons systems launched and operated from thousands of miles away from the battlefield cemented casualty intolerance in politics for decades. While manned stealth aircraft have been used effectively even as recent as the US Strikes upon Irans alleged Nuclear Enrichment Facilities, the government knows manned aircraft are rapidly becoming unreliable, useless and easily targeted and successfully destroyed by our enemies as in the case of the Serbian anti aircraft missile battery that shot down an F-117 Lockheed Nighthawk-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown
Someone made light of the fact that military recruitment is at an all time high? Well historically recruiting goes up as the economy tanks!
https://www.npr.org/2012/08/18/158505630/in-weak-economy-college-grads-surge-into-military
King Trump brags about recruitment being at record highs while denying and lying about the state of our rapidly tanking economy thanks bigly to him! What’s encouraging is that white male enlistment is down while female and ethnic minority enlistments are at record highs at least until ICE rounds them and or their family members up for some irrelevant bullshit. What is discouraging is that current DoD leadership is doing anything and everything to drive women and minorities out of Combat Arms and SOF MOS’s. Guess we never do learn from history, especially the part about women who have bravely and heroically fought not only for our country but for the freedom of other countries. Some of the fiercest and best fighters of WWII Russia were Russian and Ukrainian women. Their top sniper was Ukrainian Lyudmila Pavlichenko-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko
With 309 confirmed kills she is considered the world’s deadliest sniper to this day. She was so impressive that Eleanor Roosevelt had her flown to the US and went on a national tour with her telling of her exploits of ridding the world of criminal fascist Nazi’s. And yet here we are being led by one.
As for drugs flowing into the US being even remotely damaged by US Military action against Venezuela which Trump Inc. claim his unlawful military strike to have been all about as he conceded that he’s already made plans for Venezuela’s rightful property-it’s oil and minerals!
Bush Senior made alliances with criminal fascist narco terrorist such as Noriega and a few others he used while head of the CIA during the Iran/Contra crimes of the criminal Ronnie Raygun administration. He also befriended Osama Bin Laden as the US armed Afghanistan to fight their Russian aggressors and befriended Saddam and heavily armed Iraq as he also befriended the Iranian regime and heavily armed the Iranian military in the illogical hopes that one would not conquer the other? He later tried to kill Saddam during his “shock and awe vidia game war” during operation Desert Shield. Probably because Saddam Welch’d on a drug or arms deal and refused to pay up.
“W” and his criminal administration fabricated evidence of Saddam having a massive stockpile of chemical weapons and concocted intelligence showing Saddam having been loosely behind 9/11 as an excuse to use Iraq as a live fire proving ground for the second time in a decade. He attempted regime changes in both Iraq and Afghanistan and both failed miserably to put it politely. Oh and W and his family were bestie’s with Bin Laden’s wealthy Saudi Family and hosted them at his ranch in Crawford Texass on several occasions.
Now we have a self anointed King who thinks he is smarter than everyone else on the planet but can’t chew gum and walk at the same time, throwing the weight of our Armed Forces around (as if he personally owns them) to make his 5 Draft Deferment self look tough while distracting from what matters to Joe citizen such as the economy, the Epstein coverup, and all the resort and bitcoin deals our King made with foreign investors and leaders to self enrich while holding the office of the supreme SERVANT of the American people.
If solid safeguards/checks and balances are not put into place, dark money removed from politics and Presidential immunity never again granted for any POTUS who commits a crime while in office, we will never have any semblance of a democracy again. Every so called Republican since Reagan has made it abundantly clear that they prefer a dictatorship of a democracy.
It’s not so much the monster we create as the monsters who created them that the world should be most alarmed about.
Another lyrical and musical genius tells it like it is, especially these days under MAGA oppression-
Misery Is the River of the World
Song by Tom Waits
The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy ’till he dies
There’s no milk at the bottom of the pail
God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
‘Round the trunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there’s one thing you can say about mankind
There’s nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
Misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy ’till he dies
There’s no milk at the bottom of the pail
God tempers all the ruins for the new shorn lands
The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me
If there’s one thing you can say about mankind
There’s nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again
For want of a bird
The sky was lost
For want of a nail
A shoe was lost
For want of a life
A knife was lost
For want of a toy
A child was lost
And misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
Misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
Misery’s the river of the world
Everybody row! Everybody row!
Everybody row!
Our Royal Heinous creates a fictitious narrative about the “Menacing Domestic Terrorist” in the St Paul Shooting. He and his entire administration came up with this narrative within minutes of the fatal shooting where an un armed American lost their life in yet another senseless shooting. They applauded the Officers involved and preemptively declared their complete innocence without a single investigation having been conducted.
And now King Looney Tunes is threatening Iran with more military strikes should their government do what ours does under Trump and shoot unarmed protesters.
No hypocrisy there now is there? Such a ridiculous Tyrannical clown running our country into the ground!
Oh, and did you hear his BFF pallies of Big Oil talking about the trillions in US taxpayer dollars it will take to get Venezuela’s oil facilities fully functional before we can start pumping that Venezuelan property into the hulls of their Exon Valdez’s on steroids and ship and sell them to the clientele of our Felonious King’s choosing. You know, those who give him the best $ gifts and kiss his ass the most right? I mean that’s all plain for the eyes and ears to see and hear until America’s first self anointed King tells his faithful to once again forget about what they see or hear but believe solely what he tells them to believe.
JB- Love the Tom Waits ref. Monkey indeed!
Anti-Trump US reporter says she was offered job at ICE after ‘minimal vetting’
Slate journalist Laura Jedeed documented hiring process and said she got offer despite not completing paperwork
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/slate-reporter-ice-job-offer
All you need is the desire to be a dick to people apparently?
Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act (again). What is it?
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/15/nx-s1-5678612/minneapolis-insurrection-act-trump-threats
Nothing like an INSURRECTIONIST invoking the Insurrection Act against his constituents and fellow citizens! It’s like John Gotti declaring RICO statutes against his criminal rivals. ICE has zero control over its rogue law breaking agents, and where they normally would have control over them they selectively choose not to enforce it because they want these masked criminals to use maximum intimidation and violence against their targets and anyone who video tapes them with their cell phones (which is what the root cause of their aggression stems from- they don’t like being caught breaking laws and Constitutional rights which is why they mask like the cops on the Watchmen series). Never in my lifetime have I seen such hate filled and violent rhetoric against Americans exercising their right to protest by our own government! We’re now no different then China during the Tiananmen Square Massacre, North Korea with their crackdowns on descent or Trumps best buddy Vladimir and his silencing of anyone and anything Vladimir decides is forbotten. And MAGA/Tea Party psychopaths insisted that the Democrats were the ones who would break laws and ignore the Constitution! Doesn’t surprise as they love to claim that others do what they do while denying they have done so in order to sew chaos and disinformation.
“ICE broke into Minnesota home, dragged barely clothed man into snow”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ice-broke-into-minnesota-home-dragged-barely-clothed-man-into-snow-2026-01-20/
Everything Trump does is shameful! But going after the Hmong community is a new low! Wonder what the Vietnam Veterans of MAGA think of this shameful act? What an I thinking? No actual COMBAT Veteran would support anything a draft dodging spoiled rich kid who paid to avoid service says unless they were war criminals. I’ve met many a REMF who has never heard a shot fired in anger praise the draft dodger but I’ve never met a legit combat veteran who wasn’t a war criminal who did.
“ICE broke into Minnesota home, dragged barely clothed man into snow”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ice-broke-into-minnesota-home-dragged-barely-clothed-man-into-snow-2026-01-20/
Everything Trump does is shameful! But going after the Hmong community is a new low! Wonder what the Vietnam Veterans of MAGA think of this shameful act? What am I thinking? Silly me! No actual COMBAT Veteran would support anything a draft dodging spoiled rich kid who paid to avoid service says unless they were war criminals. I’ve met many a REMF who has never heard a shot fired in anger praise the draft dodger but I’ve never met a legit combat veteran who wasn’t a war criminal who did.