History, Security

Trump “Precision Cyber” Meant 150 Planes Bombing Venezuelan Infrastructure to Rubble

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As a long time advocate and expert in cyberattacks, I call bullshit on Venezuela operations.

150 aircraft. City-wide blackout. Substations reduced to rubble. Over 40 dead. All this just to arrest one guy and his wife at a known location, after months of constant expensive CIA surveillance.

“At least seven loud explosions were heard across Venezuela’s capital, Caracas with air sirens and low-flying aircraft adding to the alarm. Several neighborhoods reported panic on the streets and power outages following the blasts.” Source: Twitter

This is the most obnoxious attack I’ve ever studied in forty years, including Hegseth’s flaccidly failed Houthi attacks, clearly disproportionate and (I’m not a lawyer)… apparently illegal. Someone wanted to destroy infrastructure and prevent it being used again. Were they expecting the contract to rebuild, or expecting to sell it?

Calling this precision is like reclassifying a gold-plated toilet as a disposable cup when taxpayers complain about cost. Throwing records of billions wasted into a shredder doesn’t make anything better. We all saw the gold-plated toilet, right?

And when did the NYT turn into a laundry for dirty government tricks?

Cyberattack in Venezuela Demonstrated Precision of U.S. Capabilities

Oh did it? I see the debunked atomic bomb theory of victory. American politicians (i.e. military-industrial-congressional complex) want everyone to buy into expensive new technology and ignore what actually happened on the ground. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria is what compelled Japan to surrender in WWII. But Americans apparently are still being treated by the NYT as suckers for a “clean tech” narrative. Their false “demonstrated precision” story serves the same function today as 1945.

Let me explain, for those not inside cyberattack circles, because this is some disturbing revisionism by the NYT.

Back in 2019 the NYT told us that Maduro was lying about US cyberattacks – no evidence, just poor maintenance. The largest power outage in the country’s history. At least 43 deaths. Infrastructure decay.

Now in 2026 the NYT says US cyberattack “demonstrated precision of capabilities” because 150 aircraft pounded the city into rubble in a loudly claimed American demonstration of might.

The same paper that dismissed Maduro’s 2019 accusations as paranoid dictator propaganda is now laundering the actual 2026 attack as a technical achievement.

You can’t use over a hundred planes to bomb critical infrastructure and frame it as a multi-domain demonstration of “precision, reversible” cyberattacks.

More to the point, you can’t heavily bomb a city’s power grid to serve an arrest warrant and call it light police work.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Criteria

Test Standard Source
Military Necessity Force must be necessary to achieve a legitimate military objective. Less destructive alternatives must be unavailable or impractical. Hague Conventions; Customary IHL Rule 14
Distinction Parties must distinguish between combatants and civilians, and between military objectives and civilian objects. Attacks may only be directed at military objectives. Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol I, Art. 48, 51-52
Proportionality Expected civilian harm must not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. Additional Protocol I, Art. 51(5)(b), 57
Precaution All feasible precautions must be taken to minimize civilian harm. Advance warning must be given unless circumstances do not permit. Additional Protocol I, Art. 57-58
Humanity Weapons and methods that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering are prohibited. Hague Convention IV; Additional Protocol I, Art. 35

Jus ad Bellum Criteria (Right to War)

Test Standard Source
Just Cause Use of force requires self-defense against armed attack or UN Security Council authorization. UN Charter Art. 2(4), 51; Chapter VII
Right Authority Only legitimate authorities may authorize military force. Unilateral action without UNSC approval is presumptively unlawful. UN Charter Art. 39-42
Right Intention Force must be used for stated legitimate purpose, not territorial gain, regime change, or resource acquisition. Customary International Law
Last Resort All reasonable peaceful alternatives must be exhausted before force is employed. UN Charter Art. 2(3), 33
Proportionality (ad bellum) Overall harm caused by intervention must not exceed harm prevented. Scope of force must match scope of threat. ICJ Nicaragua v. United States (1986)
Reasonable Chance of Success Military action must have reasonable prospect of achieving its stated objectives. Just War Theory; Customary IL

Applied: Operation Absolute Resolve (Venezuela, January 3, 2026)

Test Assessment Result
Just Cause US claims law enforcement action on narcoterrorism indictment. No armed attack by Venezuela. No UNSC authorization. “Inherent constitutional authority” is domestic legal theory, not international law. FAIL
Right Authority No UN Security Council authorization. No congressional declaration of war. Executive action only. FAIL
Right Intention Trump stated US will “run the country” and rebuild oil infrastructure. María Corina Machado (democratic opposition leader) dismissed. Openly stated resource/regime objectives far beyond any law enforcement claim. FAIL
Last Resort Trump claims phone call to Maduro offering surrender. No evidence of exhausted diplomatic channels, sanctions review, or international negotiation. FAIL
Military Necessity Objective: arrest one man at known, surveilled location. Method: 150 aircraft, city-wide blackout, infrastructure destruction. Less destructive alternatives clearly available given intelligence penetration. FAIL
Distinction Civilian power grid deliberately targeted. Substations serving residential areas destroyed. “Lights of Caracas were largely turned off” per Trump. FAIL
Proportionality (in bello) 40+ killed including civilians. 3+ million affected by blackout. Hospitals, water systems, communications disrupted. Ongoing infrastructure damage 12+ days later. Military kidnapping of Maduro. FAIL
Precaution No advance warning to civilian population. Operation conducted at 2 AM to maximize surprise. Media (NYT) warned to suppress information. FAIL
Proportionality (ad bellum) Scale of intervention (invasion-level force) vastly exceeds stated threat (criminal fugitives). Precedent: any nation can now militarily extract foreign leaders under domestic indictments. FAIL
Reasonable Success Maduro kidnapped, yet stable transition cancelled and regime apparatus uncertain, with Maduro’s own replacement now president. UNCERTAIN

Venezuela wasn’t political intercourse with other means; it was intentionally and unnecessarily overwhelming force dressed up as law enforcement dressed up as cyber precision. That’s three layers of misdirection and disinformation.

Note on “Law Enforcement” Framing: The Trump administration blows tens of millions to rebrand defense into a “War Department,” demands bombing civilians in small boats be seen as a “Drug War,” and now wants to call bombing critical infrastructure “law enforcement with military support” under a theory of inherent presidential authority that no international body recognizes. International law does not permit military operations in sovereign territory to execute domestic criminal warrants. Even the Noriega invasion (1989), widely condemned as illegal, had trigger events and threats, OAS consultation, congressional notification, and a treaty basis that Venezuela entirely lacks. Rebranding defense to war, announcing unilateral intention to go to war, and then retroactively calling it all “law enforcement” doesn’t change legal character under IHL or the UN Charter.

Soviet propaganda called Molotov’s bombs “bread baskets” for the hungry, to invade Finland; Trump calls his infrastructure bombs “law enforcement” for drugs, to arrest one Venezuelan in a well-known location. Same propaganda technique, same function: euphemism as war crime laundering.

Sources: Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols (1949, 1977); UN Charter (1945); Hague Conventions (1899, 1907); ICJ Nicaragua v. United States (1986); ICRC Customary IHL Database; Rome Statute of the ICC (1998).

Security

Trump’s CSAM Problem: From Epstein to Elon Musk

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The Trump administration is actively suppressing evidence of their connections to child trafficking, while issuing a travel-ban on the EU official who tried to enforce laws against child sexual abuse material. Now Trump is in the news for protecting a platform that monetized CSAM generation.

Since the beginning of January, thousands of women and teenagers, including public figures, have reported that their photos published on social media have been “undressed” and put in bikinis by Grok at the request of users. The deepfake tool has prompted investigations from regulators across Europe, including in Brussels, Dublin, Paris and London.

Look at who’s missing from the list of regulators demanding action. Reuters captures the picture like this:

From Europe to Asia, governments and regulators are cracking down on the sexually explicit content generated by Grok, imposing bans and demanding safeguards in a growing global push to curb illegal material.

From Europe to Asia, CSAM regulation. Nothing from Trump?

California has now stepped in to join the EU complaints. Elon Musk has responded to the state by saying he’s open to restriction as jurisdiction-based (“where it’s illegal”) without identifying any jurisdictions, meaning he may continue harms wherever laws don’t explicitly force child protection.

Why not Trump? Consider the reporting about a 14-year-old girl taken to Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 1994. Epstein introduced her by asking “This is a good one, right?” Trump smiled and nodded in agreement. It’s not new information that emerged from any Epstein Files being released so far, just confirmed by the release despite administration efforts to bury it.

This context is more important than ever today, given the EU Commission has explicitly stated the child sexual exploitation content generated by Elon Musk’s platform is illegal. They specifically referenced harm to children.

The X (Twitter) response to the EU investigation has been… to monetize access to the capability, require payment for access. The Trump administration has done nothing to protect children.

There’s no ambiguity to launder here. Elon Musk didn’t disable the feature. He didn’t add consent verification. He didn’t implement age detection to prevent processing images of minors. He took the regulatory reaction as a value multiplier and ordered a paywall to capitalize on harm to children.

The only functional difference between “free illegal CSAM generation” and “paid illegal CSAM generation” is that the latter creates a revenue stream and a paper trail of subscribers who are paying specifically for the capability to generate this content.

It’s actually worse than just continuing to offer it because the paywall creates a business model predicated on demand for the illegal use case, since the illegality has driven attention to the feature in the first place. They’re pricing in the criminal market they just demonstrated exists.

The move is almost a perfect distillation of the emerging Silicon Valley non-compliance playbook: when caught enabling harm, add friction that filters out casual users while preserving access for motivated bad actors, who cleanse themselves with money. “Everything must be ok if someone is willing to pay”. It transforms liability questions without addressing the underlying harms. The women and children whose images are being processed without consent aren’t protected by the paywall, since the harms are now generating subscription revenue for attackers.

The Trump travel ban on EU officials for enforcing the DSA is the context that makes this make sense. Elon Musk is operating on the assumption that the Trump administration will shield his CSAM generation tools, so “compliance” becomes pure theater and gestures toward process while continuing and now monetizing the underlying violation of children.

There’s no hypocrisy, just consistency. They’re protecting each other’s CSAM operations.

Security

Meta Treats Staff Like Shit: Flushes 1,000 People to Bury $71 Billion Metaverse Failure

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Bay Area reporters are dancing around what actually just happened.

Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook to “Meta” in October 2021 because the Facebook name had become synonymous with election manipulation, teen mental health destruction, and genocide facilitation in Myanmar.

Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress, April 2018. He was relentlessly mocked for lack of empathy, a robotic cruelty that suited his cold appearances, back when he still had to answer questions. Note the sea of cameras hinting at accountability.

The metaverse was never a product.

It was PR to avoid accountability for documented crimes against humanity. If you’re just a Meta company instead of whatever came before, you can’t really be charged with crimes. Get it? Facebook was yesterday. Nothing is real today because it’s Meta, not even laws, perception itself is controlled by Zuckerberg in his unilaterally defined “verse”.

For three years, the company poured $71 billion into building legless avatars with no rights for an empty private virtual world that even their own employees refused to use.

The business press dutifully covered quarterly losses as if it were a “long-term bet” on future paradise, rather than what it was: an expensive disinformation campaign to hide Meta’s actual business model. Converting the politically-driven surveillance of 3 billion people into advertising revenue had a new name, while changing exactly nothing.

The cover story was weak, despite billions propping it up—Elon Musk knows the playbook, his driverless Tesla always just around the corner. The absurd metaverse of Meta finally has become too embarrassing to defend.

And the 1,000 people at Meta who believed it the most? They will be sacrificed now, while the predatory company announces a “pivot to wearables”, as if the metaverse wasn’t always about wearables from the very start.

In 2014 Facebook paid $2 billion for a wearable tablet (Oculus), which has since been panned as the worst product idea in history.

Who wants to sign up today and replace the 1,000 workers who just got treated like shit, because 2026 wearable work won’t be like 2016 wearable work?

Meatspace surveillance cameras for your face sound as bad as they are. The entire concept is just a tool for power struggle, attracting privileged young men to assert public domination in a gladiator combat fetish costume. A recent incident on the subway is foreshadowing.

A New York subway rider is going viral after a TikToker accused her of breaking his Meta AI glasses, a moment that instantly made her a folk hero…. The eyewear, which can discreetly record video, has been criticized as a creeping surveillance threat. …the internet has already taken her side, celebrating her as the anti-AI vigilante of their dreams.

Notice how the framing in every news story is still about “Meta cuts jobs”. Is that really the story? “The company announced layoffs.” Passive voice. No actor. No responsibility. And no mystery why.

So let me rewrite the news as accurately as possible, while others dance around as if they can’t see:

Mark Zuckerberg spent $71 billion on a vanity propaganda project, to curate and rehabilitate his reputation. The Emperor needed new clothes.

New hair, new workout, who’s this?

The makeover worked to shed accountability. The metaverse cost $71 billion and 1,000 people lost their jobs so the Emperor could have new clothes.

The actual product failed completely, while the makeover worked, and now workers are being discarded to clean up his mess while he moves on to a new flavor of the same fantasy. Why does everyone need clunky surveillance glasses? Who wants ugly gladiator goggles? Expect marketing phrases like “cognitive disadvantage” to spin the surveillance.

The metaverse wasn’t a business strategy. It was radical narrative cover, to prevent victims ever seeing any justice. The layoffs aren’t an operational adjustment. They’re evidence disposal.

The actual business of Facebook remains unchanged: collect and harvest humans, selling their extracted value to advertisers and politicians, rename and repeat.

Full disclosure: I worked with the original Facebook security team and deleted my account in 2009 and wrote about it here in 2011, when it was already clear data privacy and integrity were intentionally undermined, and Russian money was funding the platform for objectives without transparency.

Zuckerberg faced serious charges of breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy.

Energy, Security

Trump’s Iran Threats Are About Venezuela

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A new DW article makes the connection explicit: Iran covers 4% of global oil demand versus Venezuela’s 1%. Iran exports 2 million barrels per day; Venezuela manages 350,000. The article notes that if Iranian production stalls, eventually other producers would fill the gaps.

That means Venezuela.

The Calendar

  • Dec 10: U.S. forces seize Venezuelan oil tanker Skipper, escalating tensions.
  • Dec 19-27: U.S. military buildup in Caribbean reaches 15,000 troops. Energy stocks quietly move to sector-leading positions despite weak crude prices.
  • Dec 27: An anonymous Polymarket account is created. It will bet on exactly two things.
  • Jan 3: Maduro captured in U.S. military operation. Trump immediately declares U.S. oil companies will “spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure.”
  • Jan 3-5: Oil majors “largely silent” as Chevron, Exxon, and ConocoPhillips stock rises—but companies refuse to commit to new investment because “the situation on the ground remains uncertain.”
  • Jan 5: Analysts note Venezuela would require $53 billion just to maintain current output. Oil executives say they need “certainty about who is in charge” and “long-term stability” before committing—30-year projects need confidence about the operating environment “decades into the future.”
  • Jan 5-14: Iran protests explode. Trump escalates threats of military strikes, creating maximum uncertainty in Iranian supply.

Gaming the Market

Someone wagered $32,000 on Maduro’s ouster hours before the operation, when prediction markets gave it 6% probability. The account was created December 27 to bet on exactly two things: U.S. invasion and Maduro’s removal. It allegedly netted over $400,000, although some say a semantic loophole will prevent payment (e.g. they bet on an invasion, yet Trump rhetoric insists it was an “action”).

The CFTC, which nominally regulates these markets, has one-eighth the SEC’s staff. The Justice Department has dropped investigations into prediction markets. TruthSocial has announced plans to launch its own, while Trump Jr. advises both major prediction market platforms. In other words, no regulation.

A potential Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz—through which 25% of global oil passes—could push prices to $120 per barrel. That price spike transforms Venezuela’s $50-180 billion investment requirement from economically marginal to lucrative.

Oil companies won’t commit capital to Venezuela until the deal is sweetened. This means Trump is seeking external pressure. Making Iranian supply genuinely unstable creates the strategic calculus where Western Hemisphere reserves become insurance rather than speculation.

It’s the same coercive arbitrage logic I’ve documented elsewhere: create the crisis that makes one preferred outcome the rational choice. The reluctant oil companies get pushed toward Venezuelan investment not by promises but by making the alternative unacceptably risky.

The Contradiction

Here’s what oil companies actually need. Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann explained:

If you want to recover oil, you need to go back to rule of law. Let’s be very mechanical: You need to change the hydrocarbons law. And to change the hydrocarbons law, you need a congress that people think is legitimate.

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, at Trump’s oil executive meeting, also explained:

If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s un-investable. And so significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system, there has to be durable investment protections and there has to be change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.

Oil companies need democratic legitimacy—rule of law, enforceable contracts, a legislature that can change hydrocarbon laws. Military regime change provides none of that. It provides the appearance of stability while destroying the institutional foundations that make long-term investment rational.

Destabilizing Iran creates price pressure. while also it creates urgency that might override oil executives’ assessment that Venezuela remains “un-investable.” The coercion operates on two levels: make the alternative dangerous, and make the timeline for waiting seem unaffordable.

The bet is that $120 oil makes “un-investable” irrelevant. That when the Strait of Hormuz is on fire, Exxon’s lawyers will find a way to make Venezuelan hydrocarbon law work. That crisis overrides judgment.

And once they’ve committed billions to an unstable regime, they become dependent on continued U.S. military presence to protect those assets.

The Trump trap is set.