patrick.net

Democrats in Congress have filed a motion to appoint Maduro as a Federal Judge. He fits the ideal profile.

Energy is the lifeblood of the modern world

about 1.6 trillion barrels in proven oil reserves

Cuba confirms that during Nicolás Maduro’s capture, special forces eliminated all 32 of his Cuban guards.

America has seized control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, the largest in the world, and at a stroke applies crippling pressure to the economies of China, Iran, and Cuba (who were Venezuela’s best grey-market customers), as well as to the economies of its adversary Russia and its wayward sibling Canada (both of which depend for their prosperity upon high oil prices). Both China and Russia have been deprived of a key New World ally, and thus the Monroe Doctrine is reasserted, and foreign powers pushed out of Washington’s sphere of influence. A hostile communist government has been decapitated, opening the way for the millions of Venezuelans displaced by Bolivarian tyranny, refugees whose presence has destabilized Venezuela’s neighbours for many years now, to return home.




To be sure, there is still great uncertainty. Hugo Chavez’ tomb may have been destroyed, but his Bolivarian regime is still largely intact, his apparatchicks remain in control of Venezuela’s state apparatus and military, and his terrorist colectivos still control the streets of Caracas.

Trump’s declaration that America now owns Venezuela’s oil feels a bit premature. Can one really claim control, without boots on the ground? I confess that it is not at all clear to me exactly how this is all supposed to work. Perhaps it is meant to function through pure intimidation: whoever ends up assuming power in Venezuela, they will know that if they don’t do as they’re told, they might be next, and perhaps will not be given the grace of an arrest and a show trial but simply executed without warning by drone; meanwhile, America offers itself as the sole legitimate customer for Venezuela’s sole marketable product, while providing its oil industry engineers to rebuild (and assume control of) infrastructure fallen into disrepair following Chavez’ nationalization and subsequent decades of neglect and mismanagement. Trump holds out one hand in an offer of assistance and mutual benefit, while holding back his other curled in a mailed fist, a threat made plausible by the fact that he just punched them hard in the mouth. ...

The message to Washington’s European vassals is that America is playing hardball, again. The rules-based international order is a thing of the past. America will do what it is in America’s interests to do, because America has the power to do it. To start with, Greenland is on the table again. The US probably won’t take it from Denmark at gunpoint, although it easily could, and if it has to it will, which the Danes are now acutely aware of. Acquiring Greenland is a matter of national security: virtually every flight path from Eurasia to North America passes over the island. Much more likely than annexation, however, is that the US will woo Greenland’s Inuit population, offering them cash money and citizenship in exchange for recognition of American sovereignty ... which America already de facto has, given that the infrastructure and military installations on the island are all American in any case. As for the Danes – who have done nothing whatsoever with the land mass since the early Middle Ages – they would be well advised to take whatever Trump offers in trade, and be grateful. They’ll still be able to visit, not that many of them have ever bothered. ...

Rather than attempting to grind their way through tens of thousands of Venezuelan soldiers, with all the carnage and wreckage that would entail, the US military simply conducted a decapitation strike. They cut the head off of the snake, and with that one act threw not only the Venezuelan government, but governments all over the world, into terrified disarray. ...

Consider the technical prowess that the raid on Caracas required, the flawless coordination of a huge number of moving parts, each of which had to play its role impeccably.

CIA intelligence assets infiltrated the country months beforehand: they had to gather detailed intelligence on Maduro’s movements, habits, and defences, while evading detection. ...

This was no cake-walk. Maduro was guarded by dozens of supposedly elite Cuban officers; America’s spec ops team cut them down in minutes, without taking a single casualty.

The absurdly complex operation was executed with smooth perfection. It is probably the most impressive feat of combined arms that has been seen in living memory. It was both a tactical coup and a strategic masterpiece, rearranging the geopolitical chess board in America’s favour with one decisive cut. Not only that, but it was incredibly civilized. For all the mewling about violations of fictive international lawl, no one could help but notice that casualties were kept to an absolute minimum. Not a single American death; Venezuela and Cuba combined lost some 50 or 60 military personnel; there were only 2 civilian casualties. ...

It is the same American military that, until just a year ago, was struggling to fill its ranks, because the warrior class had concluded that it was not a military worth belonging to, that a government which held them in such contempt was not a government worth fighting for.

Only one thing changed: a year ago, when Trump won the election, the American state was decapitated.

Because Trump won the election, he could fire the fat bureaucrat Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defence, and appoint in his place the energetic, muscular young Hegseth as Secretary of War. Because Hegseth was the Secretary of War, he could begin eliminating the dross of the Cancelled Years and refocus the American military on its actual mission.

It turned out to be that simple. Change the leadership, replace the dance troupe of hollow men and men in dresses that has cavorted through the halls of power for far too long with platoons of competent men, and allow the competent men to do what they know how to do, without interference from politicians, lawyers, and ideologues. Just point them in the right direction and get out of their way.

Elite circulation is the Fix Everything switch.




A bunch of extraordinarily capable people inside the services just put their heads down and kept going. A military that couldn’t plan or execute…could. The Mark Milleyfication of the American armed forces was imposed and discardable, a Potemkin transgendered village. ... This is both heartening and tragic to see. It means that we’re in better shape today than we thought we possibly could be, but it also means that a brutal twenty-year shambles was entirely avoidable. ... The weight of the symbol machine could always just be tossed aside. We didn’t have to put up with any of this.

Now the truth is plain.

Decline is a choice.

A choice being made, every day, in every way, by the usurpers and pretenders who insinuated themselves into the key nodes of power and influence in our societies so that they could murder our civilization with malice aforethought while claiming that it is succumbing to natural causes in its senesence.

Mass third world invasion is a choice. Economic sabotage in the name of preventing the weather from changing is a choice. Ruining the lives of young men with DEI is a choice. Blackwashing our history and mythology is a choice. Predatory taxation is a choice. Overregulation is a choice. Brainwashing the young to hate themselves is a choice. Yasslighting the young women into choosing girlbossery over family is a choice. Sacrificing the lives of the young to the fears of the old during the COVID lockdowns was a choice.

Allowing the incompetent to run things in the name of ‘social justice’ is a choice, and the contrast between the litany of inept fumbles that has resulted in and the smooth professionalism on display in the Caracasian raid has thrown the consequences of that choice – and the consequences of its alternative – into sharp relief.

And all we have to do to reverse the decline is decapitate the beast, put the right men in charge, and everything will follow naturally from there. Nature will begin to heal, as surely as Yellowstone’s ecology repaired itself once wolves were returned to their rightful place at the predatory apex. ...

Trump was already popular with the trigger-pullers; in the afterglow of Operation Absolute Resolve, they are probably burning incense to his effigies in the barracks. As Roman history tells us, the support of the legions is often politically decisive on the home front, particularly when there are influential enemies at home with whom the sovereign can deal only by declaring a state of exception.

I have just been informed that Venezuela is going to be purchasing ONLY American Made Products, with the money they receive from our new Oil Deal. These purchases will include, among other things, American Agricultural Products, and American Made Medicines, Medical Devices, and Equipment to improve Venezuela’s Electric Grid and Energy Facilities. In other words, Venezuela is committing to doing business with the United States of America as their principal partner – A wise choice, and a very good thing for the people of Venezuela, and the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter!