The Drums Of War, Con't

You know the shooting part of any US regime change plan is going to start very soon when the State Department bugs out of the local embassy.

The U.S. said late Monday that it is pulling its last remaining diplomats from Venezuela, saying their continued presence at the country’s embassy in Caracas had become a “constraint” on U.S. policy as the Trump administration aggressively looks to oust socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

The announcement came from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a tweet shortly before midnight comes as Venezuela struggles to restore electricity following four days of blackouts around the country.

The U.S. has led an international effort to replace Maduro with opposition leader Juan Guaido, who vows to hold a new presidential election. Guaido is backed by some 50 countries, while Maduro maintains support from countries such as China, Russia and Cuba.

Maduro ordered all U.S. diplomats to leave Venezuela in late January because of its support for Guaido, but he later retreated and allowed them to stay. The U.S. still withdrew the bulk of embassy personnel, leaving a skeletal staff led by career foreign service officer James Story.

Pompeo said the remaining diplomats would be out of Venezuela by the end of the week but gave no indication of future policy steps despite past warnings that “all options” — including the use of military force — are on the table for removing Maduro.

The move came after another day of chaos as power outages that began Thursday evening continued to cause problems for Venezuelans, leaving them with little power, water and communications.

Don't be surprised if in the process of getting diplomats out, we get a few special ops teams in.  No better cover for a stealth mission than a nationwide blackout to go bag up the local dictator so that we can get our dictator in place.

Nothing good is going to follow this, especially when the Secretary of State flat out says that the presence of any remaining US embassy personnel could basically become hostages in case, I dunno, we decide to invade the joint.

It's Panama 1989 all over again.