Episode 32 - Israel strikes Iranian targets in Syria, and Mutiny in Venezuela!

A return to “the troubles” in Northern Ireland?  Israel strikes Iranian targets in Syria, and Mutiny in Venezuela!  It’s January 22nd, and we’ll break it all down here on today’s episode of the Hot Zone.

 

Hi Folks.  Every time we think things can’t get any worse in Venezuela, they do.  But before we get to that, I just want to give you a quick update on the terror attack that happened in Colombia over the weekend.  As I mentioned on yesterday’s show, the attack that killed 21 people at a police academy graduation ceremony has been blamed on the radical left wing terror group called the National Liberation Front, or ELN.  The group hasn’t claimed the attack, but the government is pretty sure they are responsible, since the vehicle used in the bombing was from  a part of the country where ELN still has several thousand fighters.  

 

And those guys have been busy.  Unlike the larger rebel group, called the FARC, which turned in its’ weapons in 2017 and became a political party, the ELN is still heavily involved in kidnapping, extortion, illegal mining, drug smuggling and murder, and they seem to have a special affinity for bombing Colombia’s oil pipelines.  Most recently this week, ELN Terrorists bombed the trans-andes pipeline, causing an oil spill that fouled a local waterway.  This kind of stupidity happens on a better than weekly basis - ELN bombed pipelines 64 times in 2018 alone.  As I mentioned, this is not an ideological movement.  It’s a criminal one.  And after the horrific bombing last week, the Colombian government is likely to step up it’s efforts to drive these savages back into the hole they crawled out of.

 

Speaking of savages, another terror group raised it’s ugly head last Saturday night, this time in Northern Ireland.  Members of the Irish Republican Army, which I think most people thought had gone defunct a long time ago, detonated a crude car bomb in the Irish city of Londonderry.  Fortunately in this case nobody was hurt, and at least four arrests have already been made in the attack. 

 

I’m old enough to remember what was called “the Troubles”, which was several decades of low-grade conflict between Catholics and Protestants  in Northern Ireland.  Between 1969 and 1994 there were more than 10,000 bombings, which resulted in over 3500 deaths and nearly 50,000 injuries.  Several years ago I went to Northern Ireland to learn more about the troubles, and I think you’ll find it informative as well.

 

[Northern Ireland Package]

 

An eye for an eye makes us all blind.  Indeed.  This latest bombing didn’t cause any casualties, but  it would be a mistake to assume the group behind it are just a few local bubbas looking to cause a stir.  The group known as the New IRA is a straight up terror group, and has perpetrated occasional terror attacks in Northern Ireland since 1998, the worst of which killed 29 people.  Their goal is to make Ireland a separate country, and the whole Brexit debacle playing out right now in the UK may prove to be the catalyst for more of these kinds of attacks.  US Intel agencies estimate the New IRA makes about fifty million dollars a year from things like fuel theft and counterfeit cigarettes, so this group is one the Brits are going to have to take seriously.  

 

Okay, let’s move on to Israel.  The IDF struck deep inside Syria on Monday to take out several targets they claim to be Iranian assets inside the embattled country.  One of the strikes was on Damascus international airport, which I once got stuck at for a few hours several years go.  Israel claims the Iranians fired a missile at the Golan heights, which was intercepted by Israel’s golden dome system.

 

[Netanyahu quote] 

 

We’ve talked about Syria a lot, partially because there is not just one conflict happening in that country.  In addition to the outright battles against the Islamic State, there is the ongoing conflict between turkey and the Kurds, proxy wars between the United States and Russia, and another between Iran and Israel.  And the potential for shooting the wrong people is tremendous, and happens often enough that the various parties have set up a party line of sorts to call each other and warn them when a strike is planned.  In the case on Sunday,. Israel warned Syrian units not to fire at their airplanes as they were striking right in the heart of Damascus.  This almost borders on the surreal.  Can you imagine calling your sworn enemies on the phone and saying “hey, we’re going to hit this target over here, so we’re just calling to let you know we aren’t shooting at you…this time.”  

 

This is called deconflicting the battle space, and it happens all the time.  I’ve even seen instances in Iraq where the Kurds would get on the same radio frequencies with ISIS and let them know they were about to destroy a certain compound, because they knew the ISIS fighters inside were actually conscripts who didn’t really want to be there, or they suspected there might be civilians inside.  Just one of those weird things about war in the 21st century.

 

This might be one reason President Trump wanted to get our troops out of this sort of circular firing squad, but you have to wonder whether Iran would have felt bold enough to launch missiles at Israel if we had not just signaled our desire to leave.  Whether that’s true or not, Israel is never going to stand by and let itself be attacked, but if they get too aggressive in Syria they always run the risk of sparking an even larger regional conflict.  And nobody wants that.  The US needs to keep a close eye on Syria, and pulling our forces out will only make that more difficult.

 

Okay, now on to Venezuela.  On Monday it appears there was an attempted coup which didn’t get very far as a group of national guardsmen mutinied and stole a cache of weapons, apparently intent on sparking an uprising against Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.  They  stole some military trucks and were heading towards the presidential palace in western Caracas when they were apprehended.  At the same time some videos surfaced on social media of armed guardsmen encouraging the people to rise up and depose Maduro and his government.  It appears they had the support of the opposition-controlled Venezuelan congress, because the The Venezuelan Supreme Court quickly declared the congress illegal.

 

So things are getting sporting in Venezuela, or even more like the walking dead than last week.  People are suffering intense hardship, without even running water in some places now.  If you ask me, that country cannot continue much longer.  I have been to the border a couple of times and have watched the country descend to depths of misery and deprivation that are truly hard to imagine.  Venezuela doesn’t yet qualify as a true failed state, but what do you call a country where people have eaten all their pets, and are catching pigeons off their roofs to survive?  Where inflation is topping 1 million percent per year, and where crime is absolutely off the charts.  And it has finally gotten bad enough that the people look like they are willing to lay it all on the line to depose Maduro.  It’s likely there will be huge demonstrations to that effect tomorrow, Wednesday, and it would surprise me if the dictator’s regime lasts another month.  But I’ve said it can’t get worse before, and so far I’ve always been proven wrong.  It can almost always get worse.

 

Maduro has weathered several other attacks on his presidency, like when a drone exploded over the podium at a parade back in August of last year. But this time we are seeing broad international support for his ouster, and the US is levying even tougher financial sanctions against Venezuela, which is the right thing to do, because every dollar we allow into that country will only serve to prolong the misery those people are going through.  It’s time for the Maduro regime to collapse under the weight of it’s own evil, and even if it does, the damage this period has done to the Venezuelan people, economy and culture will literally take generations to undo.

 

Okay, that’s all we have for today folks.  If you’ve made it this far, you must be liking what we’re putting out, so why not subscribe over at Patreon.com/hotzone.  Every little bit helps and we’ll be sure to show you how your support helps people around the world in times of crisis.  Because this podcast isn’t supposed to be about just telling you what is happening, I want to give you a way to actually affect what is happening by spreading love directly to the people who need it most.  

 

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We’ll have another great show tomorrow.  See you then.  I’m Chuck Holton and this has been the Hot Zone.