End game… for Mad Maduro?

Mad Maduro seems possessed of the nine lives usually attributed to cats. Stumbling into Miraflores Palace after the untimely death of Chavez due to cancer in 2013, the ex-bus driver had to face the might of the US against which Chavez had practically declared war against!! Which was to impose conditions on the US oil majors’ profit that all except Chevron found unacceptable – especially ExxonMobil!!
So he’s survived assassination attempts, coups attempts, two democratic losses at the polls; Venezuelan oil sanctions; sanctions against himself and his family; a US$5M bounty; mercenaries trying to foster a rebellion; and now the largest naval blockade ever, in the western hemisphere. With one-quarter of the entire US Navy floating off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast!! As a result, the Venezuelan economy imploded and more than one-quarter of the population fled the country!! The 100,000 that ended up in our country ain’t even the tip of THAT iceberg!!
So most folks thought that this time Trump was gonna use his ultimate weapon – a US invasion to literally kick Mad Maduro out of the country!! He’d created a justification by insisting that Mad Maduro had actually already declared war against America as head of a narco-smuggling Cartel de los Solos, that killed thousands of Americans with drugs smuggled into the US!! They’d already done a dry run when they’d invaded Panama in 1989 and ejected Noriega for trial in the US!!
So what’s been holding back this doomsday scenario from unfolding since August – the beginning of Operation Southern Spear?? Well, it would seem that based on his actions in other theatres, Trump doesn’t want to commit American troops into battle since that means some of them might have to return stateside in body bags!! Even tiny Panama needed 26,000 US troops of which twenty-three died along with three civilians. The Panamanian 202 civilian and 314 military deaths were collateral damage.
With Venezuela’s ten-times more powerful forces in all domains – land, sea, air and cyberspace – looks like the US miliary brain trust figure that Venezuelan war of attrition doctrine would inflict unacceptable US casualties. So what’s the end game?? To figure that out, we gotta see what’s different in the US actions in this go around a regime change!! And it’s the oil blockade now coupled with the seizure of tankers with Venezuelan oil!!
Even with all the American efforts in the last year, Venezuelan oil production had slowly inched up to almost 1million BPD. One-third of its peak Chavista levels – but enough to stabilize the (admittedly devastated) economy. With the blockade however, everything is unravelling and if kept up there’s gonna be no hope of a recovery.
The Americans expect Mad Maduro to accept their offer to step down!!

…in PNC?
Your Eyewitness talked about a new PNC leader. But any aspirant to the founder leader’s seat gotta be au fait with his philosophy. As a socialist, he followed Lenin’s dictum from “What Is To Be Done?”: “Before we can unite and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation.” So what’s your lines of demarcation, wanna-be leaders?? Just raw ambition?? These new aspirants should know that ultimately, that wasn’t enough – even for LFS!!
But the socialists of yore had an additional take on the issue – this time from Mao Tse tung who advised: “Unity is the aim of struggle; struggle is the means to unity”. So why’re we seeing all unity and no struggle? They’re waiting for the next Congress where the aspirants gonna duke it out in the elections (read struggle!) for leadership. Gotta be ready for November “next year” when it is constitutionally due!!
Can’t have all unity and no struggle, can we??

…for Sanction Man
With almost certain deportation facing him in 2026, your Eyewitness wonders what’s Sanction Man’s New Year resolution?? That he’ll just have to grin and bear it when he’s placed in general population decked out in his tight orange jump suit?