Sen. Warren: I just left the Venezuela briefing. It's worse than you thought.

[Warpy]

19. Everything I've read//heard has gotten worse and worse

Plus I have no idea what Maduro is going to be charged with besides Fatso saying he doesn't like the guy. Getting into office via a crooked election (which he did) is more of an internal matter. If they want to pin the drug kingpin title on him, they're going to have an uphill battle because apparently his role was just looking the other way. Cozying up to Russia isn't an international crime, although it's pretty stupid, considering what shape Russia is in, not that it started out that great. See: Russian air defenses vs. US tech, it was no contest at all.

The political situation between the US and Venezuela has not been helped, although there were some street demos there cheering the ouster of Maduro. His VP is not going to be our friend, she seems to be even more of a hard liner than he was. Fatso's threats that the US will form a kunta down there are not playing well. Somebody needs to staple his mouth shut. The raid gained us nothing but a man we can't charge plus a worse enemy in Venezuela.

Fatso probably thinks she's going to obey his orders because she's only a woman. Sigh.

The death toll in Venezuela was also higher than they wanted to admit to. I don't know about the crews at the air defenses or maybe workers at the power plant up in the hills, but I have read that US forces wounded or killed nearly every guard in or near the presidential residence, from bodyguards to army guys guarding the perimeter. That's another reason Venezuela is not going to be amenable to being occupied by the US, too many funerals.

I can't see what this has gained the US beyond giving Russia and China a scary demonstration of US capabilities, at least while the high tech lasts, not long in a big war.

ETA: And their oil? It's high sulfur goo that our refineries don't handle, so it will end up in China or India, like it was going to do before the raid.