Last night the U.S. bombed several places in Venezuela. The bomb attacks were likely planned to hit air-defense systems. But several targets were purely administrative government places and one was a mausoleum with Hugo Chavez’s body.

With the air defenses defeated U.S. special forces landed by helicopter near a place that housed President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Both are said to have been abducted and flown out of the country. Maduro was known to often change the place were he was living. The NY Times claims (archived) that a CIA source was involved:

A C.I.A. source within the Venezuelan government monitored the location of Nicolás Maduro in both the days and moments before his capture by American special operation forces, according to people briefed on the operation.

The American spy agency, the people said, produced the intelligence that led to the capture of Mr. Maduro, monitoring his position and movements with a fleet of stealth drones that provided near constant monitoring over Venezuela, in addition to the information provided by its Venezuelan sources.

The human source claim sounds plausible. (The stealth drone fleet doesn’t.)

But where were the body guards that should have been looking after Maduro 24/7?  Why was none of the U.S. helicopters shot down?  This was either a huge failure or treason. Who gave the order to the military to hold its fire?

Maduro will brought to the states and incarcerated. He is out of the picture for now.

But Chavistas still rule in Venezuela. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez is acting as president and Defense Minister Diosdado Cabello is also in place. The government issued a fierce statement:

The objective of this attack is none other than to seize Venezuela’s strategic resources, particularly its oil and minerals, in an attempt to forcibly break the nation’s political independence. They will not succeed. After more than 200 years of independence, the people and their legitimate government remain steadfast in defending their sovereignty and their inalienable right to decide their own destiny. The attempt to impose a colonial war to destroy the republican form of government and force a “regime change,” in alliance with the fascist oligarchy, will fail like all previous attempts.

It called on its people to defend the country.

One wonders what the next steps are the U.S. is planning to take. It does not have enough forces to invade Venezuela. Nor would a blockade of the country lead to a change of its government. An internal revolution is unlikely to succeed.

The U.S. gnomes managed to steal the underwear. Now comes step 2. Then profits. That sounds like a good plan.

But nobody seems to know so far what step 2 might entail.