{"id":178223,"date":"2026-01-12T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=178223"},"modified":"2026-01-11T17:24:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T22:24:36","slug":"speedbumps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=178223","title":{"rendered":"Speedbumps?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the wake of the ‘regime change’ exit of President Maduro from Venezuela, there are a few unanswered questions, and a few other spots which seem to be drawing Presidential (ours, not Venezuela’s) attention. Let’s start with ground zero.<\/p>\n

Originally it was assumed that the person we had acted like we were supporting, Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, who was popularly supposed to have actually won their election (but, in a familiar refrain, was described as “cheated”) would take over. However, even though she has said that she would happily give the Nobel Peace Prize she was given to Donald Trump, a) they aren’t transferable and b) the Donald does not like losing and has since stated that she is not going to take over. In the interim, though, when people ask who will run the country, Trump has said that the US will. In actual fact, though, gangs of roving militia seemingly led by Diosdado Cabello (on whom our government has placed a $25,000,000 bounty,)\u00a0 look to be taking over instead of their ranking leader, Delcy Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

Mobs of motorcycle-riding civilians often armed with assault rifles, known as colectivos, have been conducting intrusive searches and establishing checkpoints to identify and punish anyone showing support for Maduro\u2019s removal from power, Reuters reported.<\/p>\n

The reported crackdown began with a government directive to root out dissent against the Venezuelan regime. According to Reuters, a state of emergency decree published on Monday ordered police to “immediately begin the national search and capture of everyone involved in the promotion or support of the armed attack by the United States.” Fox News<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unless something changes, we may THINK we are going to run the country – but a good chunk of the citizenry does not seem to agree.<\/p>\n

Venezuela is one of the oil-richest countries in the Western Hemisphere, which could be great. Donald Trump even said one of the reasons we went in for for their oil, right? He has been calling for a $100,000,000,000 investment in Venezuela’s crumbling oil infrastructure (crumbling since they nationalized the US assets which used to do their refining). Another somewhat problematic point – he thinks the oil infrastructure should be attractive to major petrochemical companies – but they don’t seem to think so.<\/p>\n

Exxon’s chief executive Darren Woods said: “We have had our assets seized there twice and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we’ve historically seen and what is currently the state.”<\/p>\n

“Today it’s uninvestable.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0Officials (US – ed.) say they have been coordinating with interim authorities in the country, which is currently led by Maduro’s former second-in-command, Vice-President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n

But they have also made clear they intend to exert control over the sales, as a way to maintain leverage over Rodr\u00edguez’s government.\u00a0\u00a0BBC<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sounds a lot like we may want to say<\/em> we are in control, but not so much that it’ll be smooth sailing from now on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And then there is Greenland. Owned by Greenland, Trump has been threatening to take it over by whatever means\u00a0 needed. This presents a few issues.<\/p>\n

Greenland is owned by an ally and NATO member. Taking Greenland militarily would probably fracture NATO for good , which in a time of Russian imperialist actions, would bode poorly for both Europe and us. Come to think of it, if we just took<\/em> Greenland, what difference would there be between Trump and Putin?<\/p>\n

Greenland itself may be owned by the Danes, but they are moving slowly toward a less dependent relationship. That does NOT mean they are hankering for statehood, though. The relationship is probably described as far more distant than, say, Puerto Rico’s. Trump has suggested to buy it – not sure where those funds would come from. Is it asset rich under all that ice? Indeed, yes – but would the price we would need to pay offset that? What do we have in common with Greenland? Any of you fellas stationed there in the past want to comment?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The one that really makes me shake my head – Trump saying if Iran shoots any of its protesting citizens, we are “locked and loaded” and ready to intervene. Iran would be the biggest tar baby in the WORLD. (For those of you who may be unfamiliar with that term: go read Uncle Remus. If it offends you… grow a set.) They have a collapsing economy, their military surrogates\u00a0 have been spanked in Israel, Lebanon, Yemen, and pretty much everywhere, they have citizens rioting in the streets: LEAVE THEM ALONE. Their own people are kicking the crutches out from under the mullahs – we don’t need to give them a foreign threat to coalesce against.\u00a0 As someone famously said about the Walls of Jericho: “Let ’em topple.”\u00a0 (Bonus points if you know which movie without googling.)<\/p>\n

CNN<\/a><\/p>\n

BBC News<\/a><\/p>\n

Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n

CBS News<\/a><\/p>\n

Fox News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of the ‘regime change’ exit of President Maduro from Venezuela, there are a … Speedbumps?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,643],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-2024-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178226,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178223\/revisions\/178226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}