Why did it take a private contractor to get Nobel laureate Maria Corina Machado out of Venezuela alive?

American Thinker ^ | 12 Dec, 2025 | Monica Showalter

[MtnClimber]

You'd think the CIA would have a few ace operatives who could do this, but their record in that country is not great.

The Wall Street Journal's longtime correspondent, Juan Forero, published two riveting pieces on how this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado, managed to escape from the Venezuelan socialist hellhole, an arrest warrant with her name on it having driven her into hiding for more than a year.

His first piece begins this way:

Wearing a wig and a disguise, María Corina Machado began her escape from Venezuela on Monday afternoon. The Venezuelan opposition leader was trying to get to Norway by Wednesday in time to receive the Nobel Peace Prize that she won for challenging Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro.

First she had to get from the Caracas suburb where she had been in hiding for a year to a coastal fishing village, where a skiff awaited her.

Over the course of 10 nerve-racking hours, Machado and two people helping her escape hit 10 military checkpoints, avoiding capture each time, before she reached the coast by midnight, said a person close to the operation.

She rested for a few hours, the person said, before the next leg of her journey: a perilous trip across the open Caribbean Sea to Curaçao. She and her two companions set out on a typical wooden fishing skiff at 5 a.m., the person said, with strong winds and choppy seas slowing them down.

It got worse. Forero's second piece described how her flimsy, beat-up boat, chosen so it would not be mistaken for a go-fast drug boat that the U.S. Navy is looking for, sailed at night into the stormy waters, with ten-foot waves battering it. It ran into extreme distress and almost didn't make it:

Forero wrote:

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TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: escape; leftism; machado; mariacorinamachado; venezuela

[MtnClimber]

The CIA might Back Maduro or cause her to be captured to embarrass President Trump.

[Gen.Blather]

All those pilots flying for the Flying Tigers in China were definitely contractors. Even though some of them were straight out of the Army Air Corp. All of those people working for Air America were definitely contractors.

Now while both organizations had a mixture of origins neither could be definitively traced to an official US government action. This is called “plausible deniability.” It’s the equivalent of “Mission Impossible’s” “AS always, if any member of your IM force is caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.”

This is how the Big Boys keep from embarrassing the President.

[jacknhoo]

“You’d think the CIA would have a few ace operatives who could do this, but their record in that country is not great.”

____________

The CIA, and several politicians and judges, are not happy with this administration’s attack on one of their cash cows.

[piasa]

I doubt the real method of getting her out is what has been fed to the press.

[equaviator]

It can be a drag when a “news” article brings mostly wild speculation into the marketplace of ideas.

[PGalt]

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

[marron]

CIA commonly uses contractors who are “ex” military operators. Retired from regular military, CIA hires them and puts them to work doing special projects. If you want specialty work done, you don’t train some college dweeb to do it, you hire someone who’s been doing it for 20 years already.

[Zhang Fei]

The image people have of intelligence service or contractor operations is something like Jason Bourne (whose initials are presumably not coincidentally the same as that of his equally fictional British counterpart). The reality is mass confusion mixed in with sudden death when it goes sour. Michael Spann in Afghanistan and the men who died at Benghazi are just two instances of what can go wrong when men traditionally reliant on guile and camouflage have to go up against hordes of the enemy. There is simply no way the CIA could have its ex-military hires inserted into Venezuela without being spotted and taken into custody right away.

Its Cold War record was terrible. People it recruited to infiltrate hostile countries were almost immediately captured and either turned, or killed. That’s why its longstanding rep is of incompetence fortunately leavened by high-level walk-ins lured by the reputation and reality of a country almost pathetically naive about the world, but ultimately good-hearted.

[Ex-Con777]

Obama and Biden chased the real talent out of the services. Private contractors gathered up the best of the best.

EC

[Psalm 73]

"...you don’t train some college dweeb to do it, you hire someone who’s been doing it for 20 years..."

I think you are spot on. And also plausible that the US Navy was keeping close tabs on the proceedings.

[woodbutcher1963]

The other main reason why they use a contractor is so they have plausible deniability IF anything goes wrong.
Then the US government can say that they had nothing to do with that operation.

[Da Coyote]

If we had a CIA, Soros would be long dead.
And his little turd offspring, too.

[lgjhn23]

Why???? No grovelling, back-stabbing traitors, no woke, no DEI, no low-iQ, no purple-hairs, etc....just plain old-fashion “toxic male masculinity”....the kind of stuff our domestic communists fear and hate....spit.

[Socon-Econ]

We should give her asylum, shooting lessons, and armed guards who shoot first and call the cops later.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Probably because the DemonRAT Party has a hit out on her.

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

“The CIA might Back Maduro or cause her to be captured to embarrass President Trump.”

My thoughts, too. At this point it’s hard to rule that out.

[Georgia Girl 2]

“I doubt the real method of getting her out is what has been fed to the press.”

Good call. The story I heard is our spec ops guys got her out under the watchful eyes of a couple of Super hornets hanging low and slow just off the beach to keep the Venezuelan thugs off their backs while the boat got away. I think Juan Osavin said they were down to around 205 mph. Almost falling out of the sky slow.

Michael missed the ceremony because she was in bad shape when they got her to Norway and she had to go straight to the hospital.

Now that she’s safely out of the country our tier one guys are on the ground looking for the dominion machines and server information Trump needs for the 2020 election investigation. I guess they are also hunting Maduro. My guess is one of the generals will turn him over for the $50 million reward.

[mosaicwolf]

"CIA commonly uses contractors who are “ex” military operators. Retired from regular military, CIA hires them and puts them to work doing special projects. If you want specialty work done, you don’t train some college dweeb to do it, you hire someone who’s been doing it for 20 years already."

Exactly. Private contractors are used all the time all over the planet. The Agency at Langley just analyzes intel. They do the risk assessment, issue the go order, from (guess who), and coordinate support requirements and issues in real time.

Great job!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Because if the US did it Rand Paul, Massie and the DIMs (but I repeat myself) would have had a hissy fit.

And the rest of the world does not care as long as they get their blow.

Private contactors have their place in things. This was one of them.