Comment by bawolff
7 days ago
Probably, but there is also some speculation usa had help on the inside, so it probably depends on the nature and pervasiveness of that help.
7 days ago
Probably, but there is also some speculation usa had help on the inside, so it probably depends on the nature and pervasiveness of that help.
I agree with that speculation, but if you keep your launch chain of command short enough (as the US does), nukes can also be a deterrent to a palace coup; doubly so for a foreign-backed one.
There's still a lot of information coming out, a lot of it conflicting, so that's hard to say.
And frankly, the Venezuelan military is absolutely tiny and has been facing the same economic issues as the rest of the country. They have 24 F-16s, but rumor is none of them work anymore, maybe some SU-30s, but those would be shot down pretty much as soon as they were scrambled. There was pretty heavy bombing before hand to knock out AA. And they bombed Chavez's tomb, which is quite a dick move of there wasn't any AA there; blowing up a graveyard for shits and giggles on an op is some shit even cartels have a little bit more respect than to do.
IDK, the whole thing seems like equally could have been mostly what it says on the tin, with no more than the normal intelligence HUMINT/SIGINT/*INT cloak and dagger crap to have the right intelligence.
> And they bombed Chavez's tomb, which is quite a dick move of there wasn't any AA there
Is that confirmed? because i think that would be a textbook example of a war crime.
I think people are suspicious because Maduro allegedly didnt seem to make it to a bunker in time, which if things are being bombed and helicopters are showing up on radar, one would think he would have sufficient time to get to some secure room, which in turn would delay things enough for reenforcements to arrive.
I think some of the suspicion is that we are talking about helicopters not fighter jets, which seem like they would be easy to take out even with how degraded their military is. But idk
BBC says the Chavez tomb thing was AI slop.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cly1x12v33jt
> One image claiming to show the tomb actually shows the aftermath of a real US strike on the nearby Cagigal Observatory. The observatory is reportedly used by the General Command of the Bolivarian Militia branch of the Venezuelan military.
> We’ve also seen a viral image claiming to show extensive damage to the mausoleum but this appears to be an an AI-manipulated version of a real picture of the building published in 2013.
> Plus, the Hugo Chavez Foundation posted its own videos on Monday to show people the tomb was intact and called on people in Venezuela not to spread speculation.The videos displayed Monday’s date on a phone before zooming in on the Cuartel de la Montaña 4F to show there was no visible damage to the building.