THE U.S. MILITARY IS STILL GREAT
I have a lot of questions about what happens next in Venezuela, but the success of the military operation is undeniable.
Hey y’all, welcome back to Unfit to Print.
We’re whitepilling today.
THE U.S. MILITARY IS STILL GREAT
I’m going to hold off for now on getting too deep into the politics behind the Venezuela operation — whether it was a good idea, what the long-term implications are, how this squares with Trump’s campaign promises, etc.
Instead, let’s have a moment of optimism (which we rarely get in this newsletter, if we’re being honest).
After months of planning, the U.S. managed to seize control of Venezuela and capture its dictatorial leader in just a few hours.
The Friday night attack was preceded by the U.S. surrounding Venezuela with warships and sneaking in a CIA team to learn everything there was to know about President Nicolás Maduro: his movements, his habits, and even his pets’ names. Trump called Maduro a week ago and urged him to surrender; Maduro declined, and Trump gave the order to launch “Operation Absolute Resolve” at 10:46 p.m. on Friday.
At least 150 aircraft quickly gained control of the Venezuelan skies, bombing military bases, disabling air defense systems, providing surveillance, and dropping off the elite fighters who would bag Maduro. Delta Force, which trained repeatedly on a compound modeled after Maduro’s residence, breached the compound around 1 a.m. Troops had blowtorches in case they needed to get inside Maduro’s steel safe room, but the president didn’t make it that far.
U.S. forces were out of Venezuela, package in hand, by 3:30 a.m.
Several American troops sustained injuries, but all are recovering.
My initial reaction in our staff Slack chat to the successful raid and capture was, “Fucking surgical.”
We had another impressive military strike earlier this year with “Operation Midnight Hammer.” Seven B-2 stealth bombers flew 18 hours from Missouri to Iran, refueled several times midair, dropped bunker busters on Iran’s nuclear facilities, then flew straight home. The entire bombing mission took about 37 hours from start to finish, not counting the advance work done by other aircraft to distract from the B-2s.
I have a lot of questions about what happens next in Venezuela, but the success of the military operation is undeniable. And it put to bed a lot of lingering doubts I had about our ability to still pull off such incredible feats.
After the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, the DEI-ification of our military, poor recruitment numbers, weird drag queen social media posts, Lloyd Austin in a Darth Vader COVID mask, and mass firings due to vax mandates, it’s reasonable that people would wonder. But it’s amazing what can be achieved when you depoliticize military leadership and focus on quick, decisive action with clear goals.
WHAT ELSE IS ON MY RADAR
See ya, “retard”!
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Another reason why I am a Bonvoy member.
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Another one.
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