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Maduro just gave a speech in Caracas and it's interesting to note that his main argument against allowing humanitarian aid in doesn't seem to be that it's a ruse to mask some kind of invasion, but rather that he just doesn't like the idea of getting free stuff. https://twitter.com/AFPespanol/status/1093913436348653570 The quote from Maduro in the tweet above is "Venezuela will not allow the false humanitarian aid show [to take place] because we don't beg from anyone". He made similar comments a couple of days ago, and even went into a weird pseudo-"bootsraps" path: quote:Venezuela cannot be made a false promise of humanitarian aid. Venezuela must be called to work, to produce, to grow our economy.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:10
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Squalid posted:That might be less of a problem than you'd think. The Venezuelan military handles a good deal of the border smuggling, moving a few dozen guns on top of the hundreds of kilos of cocaine they are normally responsible for shouldn't be too onerous a job. for your average soldier on the border, there's a pretty big difference between lining your pockets with drug money and outright treason. not to mention for the cia, you also run the risk of the weapons being stolen, damaged, or lost.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:11
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i think the only reasonable thing to do is send in our planes to blow up power stations, maybe a handful of major bridges, definitely all their airports, important highways, and some water treatment facilities. that's definitely the best thing for the venezuelan people. worked out great for the iraqis
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Feb 8, 2019 18:12
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from the nyt story today: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/world/americas/venezuela-sanctions-maduro.html quote:Mr. Rodríguez forecast that sanctions would cut Venezuela’s exports by two-thirds, to just $14 billion this year, and lead to a 26 percent reduction in the economy’s size. The economy has already shrunk by about half since Mr. Maduro came to power in 2013, causing millions of people to flee the country or skip meals to survive. the aid is miniscule and obviously designed to draw bad press for the regime. if the us actually cared about the humanitarian situation, it would have placed narrowly targeted sanctions rather than a virtual outright death sentence against the venezeulan economy. instead, it appears clear that it was designed to make the current economic crisis worse, creating a situation where life is so intolerable for the average venezuelan that a popular revolt is inevitable. it seems absurd to me to focus on the tiny amount of aid that maduro is blocking rather than the economic blockade that is going to starve the whole country. Concerned Citizen fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Feb 8, 2019 |
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Feb 8, 2019 18:20
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Acebuckeye13 posted:A lot of the replies on the second post make the good point that these weapons wouldn't really make sense for clandestine US government provided weapons shipments - they're all semi-auto civilian weapons in a variety of calibers, as opposed to full-auto AKs or other military grade weapons. Being semi-auto doesn't necessarily make a weapon less useful for military purposes. A lot of military-issue service rifles don't even have fully automatic capabilities, although they do have 3-4 round burst firing modes to raise their lethality. In fact, if you're going to arm some kind of citizens' militia on the fly, it's better to give them weapons that can't do full auto because they would just be wasting ammunition. And as has been pointed out, whatever ammunition is available to use for those guns would be in limited supply.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:20
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Being semi-auto doesn't necessarily make a weapon less useful for military purposes. A lot of military-issue service rifles don't even have fully automatic capabilities, although they do have 3-4 round burst firing modes to raise their lethality. In fact, if you're going to arm some kind of citizens' militia on the fly, it's better to give them weapons that can't do full auto because they would just be wasting ammunition. And as has been pointed out, whatever ammunition is available to use for those guns would be in limited supply. Also significant, groups like the CIA tend to try and maintain plausible deniability on their actions. Transferring civilian semi-auto weapons would help maintain that veneer, and many of the weapons could be converted to full auto once in Venezuela. Alternatively, these were purchased by independent Venezuelan activists with their own money, and US security agencies have chosen to simply look the other way or simply to provide advice. Or they were smuggling drugs and didn't just want to fly back an empty plane.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:30
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Bob le Moche posted:What's the point of this? What's this game you're all playing where you keep arguing that we shouldn't talk about the possibility of intervention until there are actually boots on the ground in Caracas, no matter how much closer and closer things have been getting to that point? You can't prevent intervention anyway. How big were the protests against invading Iraq and it still happened? You think an invasion of Venezuela would even get that kind of turnout?
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Feb 8, 2019 18:35
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Being semi-auto doesn't necessarily make a weapon less useful for military purposes. A lot of military-issue service rifles don't even have fully automatic capabilities, although they do have 3-4 round burst firing modes to raise their lethality. In fact, if you're going to arm some kind of citizens' militia on the fly, it's better to give them weapons that can't do full auto because they would just be wasting ammunition. And as has been pointed out, whatever ammunition is available to use for those guns would be in limited supply. Not... really? The M16A2 and A4 maxed out at a three-round burst, but I can't think of any other infantry weapons that aren't full auto (Including the M4 carbines used to replace the M16). For the record, these are the kinds of weapons the CIA supplied to rebels in Syria for comparison's sake:  https://web.archive.org/web/20161205081205/http://www.janes.com/article/59374/us-arms-shipment-to-syrian-rebels-detailed
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Feb 8, 2019 18:37
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It's really the lack of anything heavier than an infantry rifle that makes me shy away from believing this particular shipment is definitely CIA. Anyone can buy a gun—it's the heavier stuff that's going to be locked up in government armories, and if the CIA really is expecting poo poo to go down then they're going to have to have an answer for the Army's T-72s and BMPs if it comes to that.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:43
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Acebuckeye13 posted:It's really the lack of anything heavier than an infantry rifle that makes me shy away from believing this particular shipment is definitely CIA. Anyone can buy a gun—it's the heavier stuff that's going to be locked up in government armories, and if the CIA really is expecting poo poo to go down then they're going to have to have an answer for the Army's T-72s and BMPs if it comes to that. the lack of heavy weapons makes sense because the transfer is covert and through commercial freight. heavier weapons would be subject to export restrictions, which would blow the operation. if the us is exporting heavier weapons it would have to be by other means.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:48
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Also lol 19 guns == cia coup Heavily armed mercenaries from a Russian company that seems to have deep ties to the kremlin and gets tactical support in Syria from regular Russian forces == nothing to see here I’d wager someone with money who may or may not have any linkage to the opposition wanted some tacticool AR style rifles.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:51
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freeasinbeer posted:Also lol it would cost millions of dollars to operate the flights (again, 40+ including flights to colombia), so it's vastly more plausible that it's one piece of a larger operation than millionaires deciding to dump their net worth into a relatively small arms shipment program.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:53
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Concerned Citizen posted:the lack of heavy weapons makes sense because the transfer is covert and through commercial freight. heavier weapons would be subject to export restrictions, which would blow the operation. if the us is exporting heavier weapons it would have to be by other means. I, uh, really, really do not understand this logic. This transfer was covert enough to be CIA... but not covert enough to send anything useful?
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Feb 8, 2019 18:54
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I, uh, really, really do not understand this logic. if the administration wants to skirt congressional approval, they are limited in what kinds of support they can provide directly. but they could find other means by which they get arms to opposition groups, including working with intermediaries. but we also do not know the full extent of what is happening so no one can really authoritatively state either way. but i find the idea that this would be some rogue program by activists to be very, very far-fetched. a cartel would be more plausible but even then, don't think they generally just hire out 767 cargo planes that run day and night. Concerned Citizen fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Feb 8, 2019 |
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Feb 8, 2019 18:56
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Concerned Citizen posted:it would cost millions of dollars to operate the flights (again, 40+ including flights to colombia), so it's vastly more plausible that it's one piece of a larger operation than millionaires deciding to dump their net worth into a relatively small arms shipment program. I mean they weren’t using a whole flight to smuggle 19 guns. Presumably there was other normal goods on the flight that vastly out numbered the guns and this was slipped in.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:57
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freeasinbeer posted:I mean they weren’t using a whole flight to smuggle 19 guns. Presumably there was other normal goods on the flight that vastly out numbered the guns and this was slipped in. obviously, yes. but it would still require millions of dollars to operate regardless of what was in the rest of the manifest. the fact that there's other stuff in there makes it even more expensive since exporting into venezuela is unprofitable when you get paid in a worthless currency (as dollars are in rather short supply), which has been a large contributor when it comes to food shortages. Concerned Citizen fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Feb 8, 2019 |
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Feb 8, 2019 19:01
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i mean this is occam's razor here. on one hand, we have an administration that: 1. is explicitly opposed to maduro 2. has stated all options are on the table in terms of removing him from power 3. has recognized the opposition as the rightful government in venezuela 4. is engaged in a diplomatic push to isolate and bankrupt the venezuelan government 5. has access to an intelligence agency that is famous for doing this exact thing any non-cia explanation requires you to believe there is another actor who has the means & desire to run constant flights from the us mainland to venezuela/colombia for nearly a month and the ability to start running large scale shipments within a week of guaido declaring himself president. like, yeah, sure it's possible it's not part of a cia operation, but that's pretty loving far-fetched given the clear evidence in front of us. like yeah, it's just 19 guns! except over 40 flights, that's 760 guns, which is not insignificant. Concerned Citizen fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Feb 8, 2019 |
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Feb 8, 2019 19:16
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Not... really? The M16A2 and A4 maxed out at a three-round burst, but I can't think of any other infantry weapons that aren't full auto (Including the M4 carbines used to replace the M16). M4s issued to us military aren't full auto, full auto weapons are almost always crew-served in the US military, meaning you will have one SAW or squad automated weapon, a 240B or a 249, attached to a squad sized element. This is because automatic weapons are used to suppress fire, or in larger cases, such as the 50 caliber automatic machine gun, to destroy vehicles or structures. Sometimes automatic weapons like the MP5 are given to personal security detachments for VIPs, i.e. a buddy of mine who was tasked with a spot on a US generals PSD. If you wanted to fund guerilla paramilitaries issuing them semi automatic rifles would take priority over automatic weapons because they're much more useful for what guerillas and paramilitaries generally do. Edit: I am speaking from first hand experience as someone who spent 5+ years in the army as a combat medic in infantry, artillery, and aviation.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:17
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Honestly, I think Maduro should step down but even I find it hard to believe that the CIA is somehow not involved in this coup, given what we know so far. I don't know about this particular shipment, but the CIA being behind it is not some outrageous idea, given the current context of US policy.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:23
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Squalid posted:Also significant, groups like the CIA tend to try and maintain plausible deniability on their actions. Transferring civilian semi-auto weapons would help maintain that veneer, and many of the weapons could be converted to full auto once in Venezuela. Alternatively, these were purchased by independent Venezuelan activists with their own money, and US security agencies have chosen to simply look the other way or simply to provide advice. Or they were smuggling drugs and didn't just want to fly back an empty plane. If the CIA wanted to smuggle weapons it wouldn't be 19 US made civilian weapons on a direct flight from Miami. It would be 19 containers of AK-47s and RPG from the former Soviet Republic of Landlockistan. They probably busted a drug smuggler who kept weapons on board.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:28
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Xae posted:If the CIA wanted to smuggle weapons it wouldn't be 19 US made civilian weapons on a direct flight from Miami. It would be 19 containers of AK-47s and RPG from the former Soviet Republic of Landlockistan. why would a drug smuggling plane with a crew of only a few people carry 19 rifles, and no drugs?
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Feb 8, 2019 19:32
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GoluboiOgon posted:why would a drug smuggling plane with a crew of only a few people carry 19 rifles, and no drugs? I guess its possible they offloaded the drugs on the other end and this was the return trip?
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Feb 8, 2019 19:33
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GoluboiOgon posted:why would a drug smuggling plane with a crew of only a few people carry 19 rifles, and no drugs? They were there to pick up the drugs? Maybe that was the trade? Maybe the whole thing was bullshit? Any of those are far more plausible than the CIA shipping rifles a dozen or two at a time.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:35
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Concerned Citizen posted:if the administration wants to skirt congressional approval, they are limited in what kinds of support they can provide directly. but they could find other means by which they get arms to opposition groups, including working with intermediaries. but we also do not know the full extent of what is happening so no one can really authoritatively state either way. but i find the idea that this would be some rogue program by activists to be very, very far-fetched. a cartel would be more plausible but even then, don't think they generally just hire out 767 cargo planes that run day and night. I'm just having trouble believing that someone would get the idea that, we need to send relatively small numbers of guns to someone in Venezuela, and start using extremely transparent methods to send them there, but wouldn't bother sending anything that couldn't be bought at a gun show in the US. I can absolutely see why you'd lean towards the CIA being behind this, and I don't disagree it's incredibly suspicious in several aspects, but it just seems amateurish and ineffective even by CIA standards. But like you said, until more information comes out there's no way to say what's really going on. Ace of Baes posted:M4s issued to us military aren't full auto, full auto weapons are almost always crew-served in the US military, meaning you will have one SAW or squad automated weapon, a 240B or a 249, attached to a squad sized element. This is because automatic weapons are used to suppress fire, or in larger cases, such as the 50 caliber automatic machine gun, to destroy vehicles or structures. Sometimes automatic weapons like the MP5 are given to personal security detachments for VIPs, i.e. a buddy of mine who was tasked with a spot on a US generals PSD. Isn't the M4A1 full auto and pretty widely issued? I do disagree about semi-auto weapons taking priority though since that doesn't seem to track with the history of US arms smuggling to the best of my knowledge. In that chart I just posted, for instance, we sent a lot of full-auto infantry rifles to Syrian rebel groups.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:35
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Xae posted:If the CIA wanted to smuggle weapons it wouldn't be 19 US made civilian weapons on a direct flight from Miami. It would be 19 containers of AK-47s and RPG from the former Soviet Republic of Landlockistan. what kind of drug smuggler runs a chartered, american-based 767 cargo plane 24/7 out of international airports? that's absurd. there are plenty of plausible reasons why the cia wouldn't want to try and import ak-47s/rpgs, including the fact that it would require congressional review and likely would be impossible to do with such short notice.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:35
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I'm just having trouble believing that someone would get the idea that, we need to send relatively small numbers of guns to someone in Venezuela, and start using extremely transparent methods to send them there, but wouldn't bother sending anything that couldn't be bought at a gun show in the US. I can absolutely see why you'd lean towards the CIA being behind this, and I don't disagree it's incredibly suspicious in several aspects, but it just seems amateurish and ineffective even by CIA standards. But like you said, until more information comes out there's no way to say what's really going on. No, the M4s issued are semi auto, I know because we got brand new ones still in the packaging before we deployed to Afghanistan, the reasoning is that 3 round burst is exclusively used for suppressive fire (like automatic weapons) and is much more effective than emptying your magazine for 3 seconds longer. Syria is a much different theater of war where engagements between militias/SAA/YPG/turkey and the terrain would have much greater use for automatic weapons, there's also a question of what the recipient of said arms would use them for, as far as I know the opposition gangs/terrorists have been targeting individuals for torture/murder, rather than trying to do full force engagements with the Venezuelan military, and given that the military shows no signs of losing loyalty to President Maduro I don't think that's going to change until the US/Colombia/Brazil invade.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:47
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The idea that the CIA would only move large weapons shipments or like Javelins or whatever is silly and ahistorical, the CIA will gladly trickle weapon sales into Venezuela just like they have all over the world for pretty much their entire existence. Trying to nitpick whether one specific shipment was them or not is getting lost in the woods since they're almost certainly engaging in that behavior whether this specific instance is them or not.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:49
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I'm just having trouble believing that someone would get the idea that, we need to send relatively small numbers of guns to someone in Venezuela, and start using extremely transparent methods to send them there, but wouldn't bother sending anything that couldn't be bought at a gun show in the US. I can absolutely see why you'd lean towards the CIA being behind this, and I don't disagree it's incredibly suspicious in several aspects, but it just seems amateurish and ineffective even by CIA standards. But like you said, until more information comes out there's no way to say what's really going on. the fact that the weapons can be bought at a us gun show is exactly the point. you don't need congressional authorization, you have plausible deniability (rubio just tweeted that it's a cuban disinformation campaign) when you're caught, it doesn't require an export license and therefore can be kept covert. from a venezuelan standpoint, they receive a shitload of imports from the us. a plane going back and forth wouldn't draw unusual attention at a busy port of entry. the operation was only busted when subject to routine inspections. it only suddenly seems extremely unusual when you find out the plane is carrying weapons, ammunition, and radios.
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Feb 8, 2019 19:53
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Chuck Boone posted:Maduro just gave a speech in Caracas and it's interesting to note that his main argument against allowing humanitarian aid in doesn't seem to be that it's a ruse to mask some kind of invasion, but rather that he just doesn't like the idea of getting free stuff. Maduro needs to collectivize all farms in Venezuela and start maximizing agricultural output to feed the people.
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Feb 8, 2019 20:10
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What’s interesting is no one has raised that the guns are 100% bullshit, just like Maduro tends to find all opposition leaders driving around Caracas with grenades and C-4 in their cars I mean it might be true they found the guns, but it’s also possible it’s 100% made up. E: nm someone just said that a couple posts up Saladman fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Feb 8, 2019 |
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Feb 8, 2019 20:19
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Saladman posted:What’s interesting is no one has raised that the guns are 100% bullshit, just like Maduro tends to find all opposition leaders driving around Caracas with grenades and C-4 in their cars That plane was almost certainly smuggling something, though. Its behaviour was incredibly dodgy.
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Feb 8, 2019 20:24
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This thing with the small arms found on a plane is another example of Maduro imitating the things that Chavez did, of the sort that worked out generally well for Chavez, but get weirder and more desperate as his successor wears them out. Chavez was pretty good at weaponizing the fierce antagonism of the US back against the US government and becoming a more popular ruler domestically as a result. Maduro's dividends aren't as great, but as you can see in this thread, you don't have to be particularly clever to sell a story to the people that it was bound to work on regardless. Maduro doesn't have to really care whether or not there's any evidence the small arms came from the CIA at all, or even the most likely reason at all for those guns being on a plane. Just claim it as a massive American plot against Venezuelans. Regime supporters will buy in immediately. They certainly did here. Venezuelan officials most likely chanced across these weapons either being smuggled in or part of other general trafficking, and they immediately and breathlessly slapped it up in state media as conclusive evidence of perfidious plots against the good peoples of Venezuela and their legitimate and benevolent ruler -- me, Maduro! Moreover, this has to have been a top-down plot by the CIA. The fun part about this is that it's been the MO of rightist Israeli media since forever. When the Mavi Marmara was forcefully boarded by Israeli shock troops as part of the Gaza flotilla raid, they stacked up literally anything on the ship that could be construed as a weapon, and Israeli media endlessly reported the resulting assembly of standard tools and some kives as evidence of wide ranging plots to arm anti-Israeli forces with weapons and destabilize the area. I had to watch people using the "Mavi Marmara weapons smugglers" being a constant refrain by zionist opposition for literally years after that fact, so it's a bit cool to watch people geared up to get effortlessly played by essentially the same playbook.
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Feb 8, 2019 20:44
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qkkl posted:Maduro needs to collectivize all farms in Venezuela and start maximizing agricultural output to feed the people. this, but unironically. also, https://twitter.com/Jake_Hanrahan/status/1093467453168988161 I guess civil war is ready to kick off now. Maduro followers getting armed by russians, opposition followers getting armed by cia,
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Feb 8, 2019 21:05
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qkkl posted:Maduro needs to collectivize all farms in Venezuela and start maximizing agricultural output to feed the people. http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/economia/gobierno-expropio-mas-millones-hectareas-estan-improductivas_231096 He already did, and now they produce nothing but weeds.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:09
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So a cargo plane flew direct from Miami to Caracas for weeks, cleared customs for weeks, and only now the government found a small shipment of guns? And this was after the plane already departed. The CIA is better at this than y'all give it credit for.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:10
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Typical Pubbie posted:So a cargo plane flew direct from Miami to Caracas for weeks, cleared customs for weeks, and only now the government found a small shipment of guns? And this was after the plane already departed. quote:The CIA is better at this than y'all give it credit for. seems like these two statements contradict each other
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Feb 8, 2019 21:12
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Truga posted:this, but unironically. i guess the noble colectivo defenders of the revolution weren't enough for him Blue Nation posted:http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/economia/gobierno-expropio-mas-millones-hectareas-estan-improductivas_231096 yeah the PSUV doesn't have a great track record of running their nationalized businesses
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Feb 8, 2019 21:19
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Xae posted:If the CIA wanted to smuggle weapons it wouldn't be 19 US made civilian weapons on a direct flight from Miami. It would be 19 containers of AK-47s and RPG from the former Soviet Republic of Landlockistan. Weapons are so ubiquitous around the globe it doesn't really matter where they came from, so long as they're not government issue. The world doesn't operate along strict dividing lines between a First and Second world anymore. Everyone and their mom has licenses to manufacture Kalashnikovs, and illegally smuggled American guns are all mixed in a big black market smorgasbord. It'd be way more suspicious if the guns were military.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:22
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I know I'm being pedantic but collectivization isn't nationalization.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:23
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Concerned Citizen posted:seems like these two statements contradict each other I mean I'm half-joking since we don't know if this was the first attempt after a series of dry runs, but if an internet detective knew about this plane, Caracas ATC did too and so did the PSUV.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:25
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