Between January 2nd and 3rd, 2026, the silence of the night over Caracas was not shattered by the wail of sirens but by the nearly imperceptible hum of helicopter rotors. The shadows of the CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters, which were painted the color of the night sky, slipped over the rooftops of residential districts. Their target was the residence of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. At that same moment, thousands of kilometers away in the North Atlantic, a U.S. destroyer forced an empty Russian-flagged tanker, the Marinera, to halt.
These two seemingly unrelated events were part of the same grand plan. The Delta Force assault team landed and immediately moved toward the bedroom. They had rehearsed this countless times in an exact replica of the compound built from the ground-based agents' specifications. The commandos captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in their bedroom. During the exfiltration, the team engaged in a brief firefight; however, the Cuban security detail was no match for the attackers. Showing no signs of struggle, Maduro and his wife boarded the American helicopter. This was not the end but the beginning of a new reality in which the old rules were declared null and void.
It was not a military triumph in the classical sense. Rather, it was the final act of a strategic performance in which the lead roles were played not by soldiers but by intelligence agents, crypto traders, and geopolitical pragmatists. The fall of Caracas revealed the weakness not just of one regime but of the entire world order, in which sovereignty became conditional and a crypto wallet proved more valuable than a vault of gold. The story of that night is not just about the fall of a residence but of an entire era.
Contrary to what some folks assume, the U.S. kidnapping of Maduro and his wife was the result of a massive amount of planning and practice, as well as the cooperation of elements within the Maduro administration. Although some resistance was encountered and roughly 80-100 of Maduro's people were killed, the operation was not exactly the heroic affair that the liar-in-chief lies. Trump, or Rubio, or someone, chose a Saturday for the raid in order to not upset the stock market apparently and according to Scott Ritter, the raid was conducted during a full moon and the helicopters carrying the Delta mercenaries had their lights on. This in itself gives the game away; had there not been cooperation from the Venezuela military, the raid would have been conducted on a moonless night and the helicopters would have had their lights turned off, or the raid possibly would not have been carried out at all.
The article continues:
Upon observing the actions of the Delta Force and U.S. airpower, one is struck not by the efficiency of the special forces or the precision of the airstrikes, but by the absolute passivity of the defense. Air defense radars were silent. Command centers seemed unresponsive. The palace guard was demoralized and disoriented. The key to understanding this lies not in the tactics of the assault but in a chronicle of years-long decline. Generals who grew wealthy controlling oil flows, food markets, and even gold mining had long since ceased to be soldiers. They had become businessmen in uniform, loyal not to an idea or person but to the stability of their corrupt schemes.
The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal takes a look at Hugo "El Pollo" Carvajal, the former Venezuelan military chief who is likely to testify against President Nicolas Maduro in a New York court.
Blumenthal reveals that Carvajal is not just a coerced witness who cut a secret deal with the US to save his own skin; he is spinning out bonkers conspiracies to please Trump.
On the Iran front, we all know that Israel and the U.S. are pursuing regime change there as well and again the same tactics have been employed, they being crippling sanctions designed to turn the Iranian people against their government. We also know for a fact that the Mossad has a foothold in Iran as was clearly apparent in the opening salvos of the '12 day war' when Israeli operatives decapitated Iran's military, a disaster that was quietly and quickly corrected by Russians operating in Iran, according to Pepe Escobar. Although the following reports are from Iran's state media, given the fact that Israel's intelligence operatives are present in Iran (they couldn't have all been cleaned out after the 12 day war), there is no logical reason whatsoever to doubt their validity.
The Iranian Army has issued a statement, warning of foreign plots following recent riots in several cities across the country and calling on citizens to remain vigilant against foreign conspiracies aimed at creating instability and unrest.
"The Iranian army calls on the vigilant and aware people of Iran to remain alert and use national prudence to thwart enemy plots, and to maintain national unity and cohesion to prevent the enemy from achieving their malicious goals," it said in a statement Saturday.
Referring to the US-Israeli aggression in June, the statement noted that the enemy whose hands are stained with the blood of Iranians is seeking to instigate another sedition and conspiracy with false claims of supporting the Iranian people.
Between June 13 and 24, Israel waged its blatant act of aggression against Iran, killing at least 1,064 people.
On June 22, the United States joined Israel and bombed three Iranian nuclear sites in violation of international law. Two days later, the Islamic Republic managed to impose a halt to the criminal assault through its successful retaliatory attacks.
Iran's ambassador to the United Nations says the United States is responsible for turning peaceful demonstrations in Iran into unrest and violence, according to a letter submitted to the UN Security Council.
Amir Saeid Iravani, Tehran's permanent representative to the UN, said in the letter that Washington bears direct responsibility for "riots and violent acts" in Iran.
He condemned the United States' "illegal behavior" and its coordination with Israel to interfere in the Islamic Republic's internal affairs.
Iranian security officials say more than 100 people have been arrested in several provinces in connection with recent riots, while senior officials cited foreign involvement, including the United States and Israel, for turning economic protests into violent disturbances.
Police in Lorestan province said security forces, working alongside other military and intelligence bodies, had identified and detained more than 100 people for involvement in riots and acts of insecurity in several cities over recent days, according to reports by the Tasnim news agency.
Lorestan police also said two "terrorist teams," consisting of four and seven members, had been identified and dismantled in the cities of Borujerd and Khorramabad.
The groups were said to be equipped with firearms and bladed weapons, planning unrest and fatalities in the province.
This next article is by Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst:
The title of this piece is my reaction to tonight's (Saturday) report in the NY Times that contains this blurb:
"The president has said he will be "hitting them very hard" if Iranian leaders kill protesters amid widespread demonstrations calling for wholesale changes in the country."
Ok, Donald Trump, the ball is in your court. According to a number of press reports, Iranian security forces have killed some of the Iranians who the West describes as protestors, conveniently ignoring the fact that there are Western-backed radicals with firearms killing Iranian police and torching government buildings in several cities in Iran. As I have written previously, I believe that Trump's meeting with Netanyahu on Monday, December 29, 2025, included a discussion of plans for a new series of military attacks on Iran. It is no coincidence that the protests erupted across Iran just prior to Trump's meeting with Bibi.
In this next piece, the well-connected and eloquent Pepe Escober is challenged by a novice regarding Venezuela and Iran.
I've said on multiple occasions that after Maduro's capture, and with the severe weakening of Iran and their proxies, it's become very difficult to criticize the capabilities of the U.S military and their intelligence.
Well, Pepe Escobar disagrees, and he disagrees with many of my stances, including whether the Iranian regime will survive the current protests.
In this conversation we discuss:
Who betrayed Maduro within his inner circle
What the future of Venezuela looks like
Is Iran next
Will the Iranian regime survive
And what all this means for the ongoing war in Ukraine
Lastly, i'll close this post with a comment on the wild card in all of this global chaos, that being the advanced weaponry in the possession of the United States.
I've always said, absent nukes, the U.S. cannot win a war against Iran which possesses massive stockpiles of all sorts of missiles, including those of the hyper-sonic variety for which the U.S. has no defense and Iran is in geolocated in a position that makes it very easy for them to knock out all U.S. military bases in the region. Iran has been preparing for exactly this confrontation for decades while the U.S. was busy getting its ass handed to it in the Red Sea by the Houthi's, twice. There is a wild card however, and that is the fact that the U.S. has weapons that are an order of magnitude more advanced and more powerful than any of the antiquated conventional stuff in its arsenal and, very likely, in Iran's arsenal. It is interesting that someone (i forget who) asked the other day whether we might see such weapons being deployed in 2026 and my answer is that i have no idea, but i tend to doubt it (UPDATE: See this). For those that can't fathom why the military isn't using such weapons in its current conflicts, the answer is simple; there are essentially two militaries and one we are familiar with doesn't know what the other one is doing. We know this for a fact given that very senior people in the visible military, as well as the intelligence community and heads of state, have attempted to gain access to the highly classified programs under the control of the latter and have basically been told to go piss up a rope.
So now there's two ways that Iran's government could be destroyed, either by its own citizens overthrowing it with the assistance of the CIA and Mossad, or by the deployment of these next generation weapons. Right now it appears the government is getting a handle on the rioters by arresting their leaders and, as i said, i suspect the use of advanced weaponry is unlikely. How this will play out if the coup fails, since any military action using conventional weapons would almost certainly be met with doom, is anyone's guess. In the mean time, i'd suggest stocking up on popcorn ... either that or a a lot of canned goods for your bomb shelter.
Speaking of food, i gotta share this since it's so good:
Dump about a cup and a half of dried peas in a soup pot along with a bunch of good, chunked-up ham and enough water to cover all that. Add salt, pepper and a bit of basil and simmer until the peas mostly dissolve, then add chunked up potatoes, kidney beans carrots and fresh chopped garlic and simmer until the veggies are tender. What started out as a half-assed attempt to make a meal since i was running low on everything turned out to be way better than i expected.
