there's footage of a half dozen US Chinooks over Caracas with no resistance being put up at all. Possbly a General has acquiesced to a US led coup. This isnt just lobbing missiles.
Your source, in translation, describes no specific responses, but largely that "The regime ordered the deployment of military and police commands throughout the country".
This is not inconsistent with, say, the US making an offer that Venezuelan military command in charge of air defences couldn't refuse, say, to stand down and not challenge US air supremacy.
I'm not saying that this did happen, but it's one plausible scenario, particularly for a country whose core competency is literally manufacturing US dollars, the most-prized currency worldwide.
I’ve seen videos of what are clearly MH-47s over Caracas.
Presumably there are SF and/or airborne units executing coordinated strikes on the ground right now. Most likely the 160th, as they were deployed there last I checked.
I don't presume to say, other than there can be a lot of possible missions other than decapitation. Their army has ~120K and they've been expecting stuff to go down for months. This "deal with a general" you're suggesting is very hand-wavey.
oh for sure, such is the nature of speculating on these things as they are occuring.
As you say, this check has been in the mail for a while, so how are vulernable helicopters flying over caracas without any resistance? One dude with a MANPADS could take them down.
Decapitation is also the only aparent strategic goal of this operation, so it's hardly far fetched to suggest they going for 'one and done'.
