My understanding is that technical support for many of the drug-shipping semi-submersibles is from HEZBOLLAH —they work closely with Colombian gangs, and some of that work is in Venezuela.
We had a chance to topple him too, some years back, but fumbled it away.
Based on some of the anecdotes I’ve read here on FR from guys doing military technical support for armor and aircraft in Arab/Muslim countries, there is no way in Hell I’d ever get in a submarine that was operating with “technical support” from Hezbollah.
Meantime, I read in Tikkun—a radical left rag by a socialist Jewish rabbi, that they like Venezuela’s “democratizing” of the media—where “locals” determine programming. Mark Lloyd, Obama appointee, is also a fan. Maybe we should look at Venezuela’s decline under Chavez more closely and see if we can learn anything to forestall similar ambitions here by the left.