It happened in October 2012. The Internet had discovered what seemed like a program whose existence was unknown to ordinary mortals: the complex used by Navy SEAL Team 6 to train in the raid against Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was still visible in Bing satellite view. The surprise was huge: an identical model of Laden’s refuge in Abbottabad had been built in the United States.
From then until now, Washington has perfected the tactic.
From the laboratory to the real assault. The capture of Nicolás Maduro It was not an adventurous improvisation nor a bet on chaos, but rather the almost literal execution of a plan. rehearsed for months in a controlled environment. Before helicopters, fighters and drones crossed Venezuelan airspace, the United States had already traveled that path dozens of times in Kentucky, within a life size replica from the shelter where the Venezuelan leader spent his nights.
Walls, reinforced doors, interior routes and reaction times were studied to the extreme, in the same way that had been done fourteen years before with the Abbottabad complex. The logic is simple and brutal: reduce reality to a technical problem, turn a real assault into a repetition of training, and almost completely eliminate the friction of the unexpected.
Abbottabad as a manual. The operation against Osama bin Laden in 2011 marked a before and after in the US doctrine of high value operations. So the CIA and JSOC built replicas of the Pakistani compound, analyzed the target’s life patterns for months, and rehearsed every move to the hilt. In fact, published the programs of the models used.
The use of human intelligence, persistent surveillance, and physical target simulation allowed the SEALs to enter a sovereign country, execute the mission, and leave within minutes. Venezuela shows that that was no exception history, but the birth of a method. Everything that worked with Bin Laden (replications, life patterns, repeated trials, night execution and rapid withdrawal) has been reapplied almost point by point in Caracas.
Replica of Bin Laden’s house developed by the CIA
Replica of Bin Laden’s house developed by the CIA
The eye that does not blink. One element connects Abbottabad and Caracas especially clearly: the use of RQ-170 Sentinel. We are talking about a stealth drone, designed to monitor high-value targets in hostile environments, which was key both in Pakistan as in Venezuela. Its mission is not to attack, but to observe without being seen, establish routines, confirm presences and offer information in real time during the assault.
In the case of Maduro, the TWZ analysts that the Sentinel would have orbited for weeks to fine-tune every detail of your daily life and, already in operation, to feed the command centers with live images and data. It is the modern equivalent of the all-seeing surveillance, but with sensors capable of turning an entire city into a dashboard readable from thousands of kilometers away.
The qualitative leap of the objective. The big difference between Abbottabad and Caracas is not in the technique, but rather in the target range. Bin Laden was the leader of a terrorist organization hiding in a private compound. Maduro was the head of a sovereign state, protected by regular armed forces and housed in military facilities.
Replicating the same methodology for him implies an escalation enormous political and strategic. If in 2011 the United States demonstrated that could enter Pakistan to eliminate an enemy, in Venezuela he has shown that he can kidnap an active president, take him out of the country and do it without own casualties. The implicit message is much more disturbing: there is no rank, position or border that makes someone untouchable if Washington decides otherwise.
The final lesson. If you also want, the comparison between Bin Laden and Maduro leaves a conclusion that is difficult to ignore. United States has perfected a doctrine which combines human intelligence, stealth aerial surveillance, physical simulation of the target and special forces to turn the capture of a specific person into an almost industrial problem. First it is rehearsed, then it is executed. First you observe it for months, then you act in minutes.
From that prism, the Venezuela operation It does not inaugurate anything new, but it does confirm something essential: everything learned in Abbottabad is not only still valid, but has been expanded and normalized. The strategic lesson in this sense is clear and deeply uncomfortable for the rest of the planet: if Washington sets its mind to it, today it has the ability to capture practically any individual on the planet, in almost any place, and at the time it deems appropriate.
Image | INC
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