Dishonor...

Some ugly truths about the Maduro arrest

Author: A retired senior CIA officer with long experience in Latin and South America.

People don’t talk much about honor these days. When this country was founded, and up to around the time of the Civil War, men lived and died for honor. To threaten a man’s honor was to put your own life on the line.

While it never entirely died out, the bitter experience of the Civil War infused cynicism into many American men. The rise of the United States as an industrial power and the great fortunes made by the Robber Barons had their effect. Most of those newly rich men avoided service in the war or made money selling shoddy supplies to the Union army, but that did not keep them from elevating themselves as an “old money” elite. In the new America of money, honor was seen as a quaint reminder of days gone past. The so-called Gilded Age degenerated into a sordid and corrupt scramble for money. Most Americans were left out of the stampede to get rich and scoffed openly at the idea of honor among their business and political leaders. They were right.

The image of the Southern gentleman of old who would challenge a man to a duel if he accused him of telling a lie or cheating became a joke.

Despite this, most Americans retained a rather rough notion of honor, without the delicate sticking points of an earlier age. A man, especially a professional or any respectable working man, did not lie, cheat, or steal – the code of honor of West Point. Politicians were widely assumed to be somewhat corrupt, but there were stern exceptions, and everybody knew who they were and (maybe somewhat) admired them. Even the crooks knew there were red lines they could not cross. From time to time, one of them reached his arm too far into the cookie jar and ended up in jail.

On 3 January 2026, a combined military/law enforcement unit snatched Nicolas Maduro from his bed at Fort Tiuna in Caracas, Venezuela. Maduro and his wife were quickly flown off to a navy ship and then to a jail cell in New York. The charges against them were involvement in drug trafficking. Their guilt is clear.

The capture of Maduro was the least important part of a plan developed over months by U.S. government officials, the Qatari’s, oil company executives, and a gang of shady U.S. businessmen (most based in South Florida) who fully intended to profit from their participation. Many of them had been doing dubious deals with the Chavez/Maduro regime for years, and they were determined to keep that regime in place so as not to lose their access to millions in Venezuelan oil money, to say nothing of other resources. The last thing on their mind was the suffering of the Venezuelan people or the fact that the regime was allied with virtually every enemy the United States has.

Cuba, Russia, China, Iran, Hezbollah, the Colombian terrorists of the FARC and ELN, and, of course, the drug trafficking cartels, all enjoyed the warmest relationships with Chavez and then Maduro. Venezuela had become the center of anti-American agitation, propaganda, and espionage.

It seems that there was one other player in this plan, Delcy Rodriguez. A hard-core Communist, she was corrupt to the core (like almost all Latin American “revolutionaries”). There appears to be little doubt that lovely Delcy was intimately involved in the operation to remove Maduro. He was the chump in the poker game.

Delcy Rodriguez was almost immediately “recognized” as the new president of Venezuela. She was never elected in anything like a legitimate process, yet the U.S. government – President Trump – chose to confirm her in this new position, even heaping praise on her and claiming we have a “wonderful” relationship with her “government.”

He gave a cold shoulder to the person who had a valid claim to be the real president of Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize winner. The reason given was the need for “stability” and doubts about Machado’s leadership qualities. This explanation, at best a tortured and dodgy excuse for Trump’s actions, is now a fly-blown source of shame for the United States. Nobody is buying it any longer, if they ever did.

The ugly truth is that President Trump, knowing virtually nothing about Latin America and primarily concerned with ensuring America’s energy supply, allowed himself to be rolled by a clique of ‘hangers on,’ golfing buddies with business interests in Venezuela, the Qatari’s (they have long-standing relations with the Chavez/Maduro regime), sleazy ten percenters, and, worst of all, incompetent and inexperienced CIA officials, few of whom had ever had any real contact with Latin American Communists and “revolutionaries.”

But there was more. Several senior CIA officials are suspected of working with Cuban intelligence, or at least following a game plan laid out by Barry Obama to “improve relations” with both the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes, in which they went over the line into supporting both. These “contacts” were often facilitated by a weird collection of American “entrepreneurs,” the kind that are found doing business in places like Cuba or North Korea. Like Maduro, the CIA and State Department officials were the chumps. They stumbled around like Mr. McGoo while the Venezuelan regime funneled hundreds of millions in drug money and stolen government funds into European bank accounts and flooded our country with cocaine and illegal aliens.

With Delcy Rodriguez firmly in place, backed by none other than the President of the United States, it was party time for everybody who got in on the ground floor. Everybody is getting rich.

In the meantime, nothing has changed for the Venezuelan people: the drug traffickers in the Venezuelan military have not been purged, the Colectivo thugs still ride around Caracas brandishing their rifles and pistols, the cocaine still flows, and the misery remains.

The declarations by the U.S. government that we have “good relations” with Venezuela are a sick farce. There is no relationship at all. Delcy and her henchmen can be as charming as any other Latin Americans when they want to be. They are smiling, making promises, inviting the stupid gringos to dinners and cookouts, and singing the praises of their Uncle Sam.

In fact, they hate and despise the United States. They see the bumbling U.S. officials in Caracas as clowns. To be sure, there are dedicated, experienced professionals among our intelligence officers and diplomats in Caracas, but you better believe they know better than to point out that the emperor is buck naked. That is a good way to be put on the fast track to a career-enhancing position in Port au Prince, Haiti, or Somalia.

The plan that put Delcy Rodriguez in power has dishonored the United States. Our Latin American friends – who are aware of what is really going on – are horrified by the sight of the U.S. in bed with these criminals and aghast at the absurd idea of making Venezuela the 51st state, an idea that properly belongs in cloud cuckoo land.

But the recent earthquake is the last straw. Job was tormented less than the Venezuelan people, and now this. Rage is building, and the Venezuelans know exactly who to blame – Delcy Rodriguez and…Donald Trump. No, the Venezuelans are not happy.

President Trump has very little time left to correct his mistakes. He must frog march Delcy Rodriguez and the rest onto a C-130 and dump them in the Canary Islands, or some such place. He must back a provisional president and a provisional ruling council, until real elections can be held. The full force of the U.S. must be brought to bear to flush out the Cubans, Chinese, Russians, and Iranians. The Hezbollah boys can be sent to Gitmo.

The elections in Colombia offer the perfect excuse for changing course. The conservative president-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella, knows all there is to know about the Chavez/Maduro regime. He was the defense lawyer for Alex Saab, Maduro’s bagman. He will give his full support to a Trump makeover.

President Trump, that clock has stopped ticking. The explosion will come very soon if you do not move.