International Relations and Implications of US Supersoldier Experiments in 2017

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Even if you can somehow stop anyone from mentioning the SUPER SECRET AND AWESOME project on public networks (Int op: "jade serenity- wasen't that the failed super-drug project form the 2000's, why is it getting mentioned more often than any other project this month?"),

Back in 2000, there were a lot of rumours among the classified community about it. Not because it was super-secret and awesome, but because it failed, a lot of people resigned, there was the smell of a cover-up and there was a shooting incident on a US base.

The shooting incident wasn't covered up, obviously, and Raul Vargas and another deserter were the subject of a manhunt, but the US Army did not feel it necessary to publicise the fact that they'd both been participating in a secret drug trial before their arrests and escape. Even so, there were a lot of jokes by those who'd heard about it that Project Jade Serenity had been a front for buying drugs with US government money and even to this day, those connected with it have a negative Reputation among certain circles of people with Security Clearances.

Any number of people might have heard about Project Jade Serenity, just as people have heard of MKULTRA, Stargate Project and Trojan Warrior Project. And they'd think of it the same way, as pseudoscientific projects where people who authorised them were either incompetent or corrupt, in that there were private contractors connected to the officers behind these projects who profited.

Originally Posted by starslayer

You think those three DIRECTORS of the FBI who can't stop themselves from downloading porn can stop themselves from mentioning the super-soldier project they are supposed to keep tabs on?

They weren't supposed to keep tabs on anything. The cover-up was meant to prevent the federal government from getting evidence against military officers who signed falsified documents. Even today, when the secret US task force called Onyx Rain is obviously investigating Project Jade Serenity, they still avoid telling the FBI anything if they possibly can.

Originally Posted by starslayer

You think that military medics and doctors being posted every two years and routinely getting drunk at local bars are not going to have a slip up and talk about the 'guy who can bend metal'.

As far as the military doctors and medics who were involved in Project Jade Serenity are concerned, the experiment was failed and a lot of people lost their jobs and security clearances as a result.

Do they talk about that? Probably, but those who managed to retain their clearances are unlikely to want to draw attention to the time they almost lost them and those who did are probably pretty happy to have escaped criminal charges.

None of them know anything about men who can bend metal, because at the time and for many years afterward, none of the test subjects exhibited anything unusual.

Originally Posted by starslayer

That's not normally how research works. The researchers would still be following there patients for 30+ years to look for adverse side effects. Once they started observing counter-indicators they'd talk with their peers about it to see if its something they have encountered (even if they can't say 'I injected a guy with nutropics for a year', they might ask 'so, have you ever seen any long term results from nutropic xyz?'- if after making inquiries like that they suddenly STOP asking questions, that's suspicious).

The project was cancelled, with extreme prejudice, after security breaches resulted in a shooting incident on a military base. No one was paid to follow it up and for many years, military bureaucrats did the paperwork version of musical chairs to avoid being associated in any way with having authorised the project or having any knowledge about it.

Originally Posted by starslayer

Unless the emergence of the superpowers was explosive, potentially literally, with no slow ramp up.

Our PCs have no reason to believe that anyone working for the US government had any idea about Project Jade Serenity having had any effects at all for at least a decade after it was cancelled. Even then, it tooks years of people unofficially taking note of certain anomalous events for anything official to be done. And this 'official' response, Onyx Rain, might actually be just a very well organised unofficial conspiracy within the US government, with the top-level of government being told a cover story of some sort.

It takes more than correlation of some sort for most people to start to believe in superpowers or biologically impossible drugs. Hell, for all we know, Dr. Vanderbert may have been testing alchemical or magical treatments and only used pseudoscientific babble to convince the DoD to fund him.

Originally Posted by starslayer

As far as criminal groups- they want salable product, and the demand for working nutropics is high 'Yea man, these drugs totally make you better, US government was doing it'. If they find out they give you super-powers they'll be selling 'super-poweres in a jar' (likely trying to cut corners on costs by using cheaper and more unstable drugs, with who knows what effects)

Well, if that happened, it is not likely that any of them worked. Even if somebody had access to the full files of Project Jade Serenity and followed them religiously, these would not be the same drugs that the test subjects were actually getting. Among the many illegal and unethical things about Project Jade Serenity was that the subjects were apparently receiving a number of drugs that they had never consented to testing and that were not approved by the officers who commissioned the experiments.

On the other hand, it may well be that Raul Vargas and his splinter-faction of Caballeros Temparios in Mexico might be selling something that they claim will give users powers similar to 'Caballo Bastos', i.e. Raul Vargas, and some of his closest cronies. Depending on the GM's whim, it may even work, for a given value of 'work'.

Originally Posted by starslayer

The 5 eyes community would, in theory, be informed of the result of the reasearch so that they would share there own research into similar projects. I was considering willing sharing of information between the US and those other countries, not some sort of asylum seeking situation.

Everything on file with the US government would be that Project Jade Serenity failed and there were no results. What's there to share?

That some military officers were gullible and were taken in by research scientists who committed criminal acts? It's not the sort of thing you usually tell other countries, even allies.

Originally Posted by starslayer

Another note I came up with- Russia and China likely have there own supers from roughly the same time period. If jade serenity was not an impossibly well kept secret than likely china (having a huge population base to experiment on) would have done the same regime 'just in case', russia would only have done it if seemed the americans were investing significant funds into it.

I'm sure a lot of other countries have done all sorts of research into nootropic drugs. On the other hand, it's pretty unlikely that the test subjects were receiving the exact same mixture of chemicals, especially as not even the scientists working at Project Jade Serenity are sure about what everyone received. The lead scientists, Dr. Edward Vanderbert, was doing something very strange and didn't seem all that concerned that the official record for the experiments actually reflected what he was doing.

Mind you, Dr. Vanderbert has been missing since 2000, so he could be anywhere in the world, running new experiments and making supersoldiers for anyone at all. But hacking into the falsified records left after Project Jade Serenity would not be a valid way for any nation state to learn how to make supersoldiers, as the US government has not been able to piece together anything useful from them either.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Aside from that, he has a Masters degree in Latin American Studies with a Security Studies focus and a PhD in International Relations with a Latin American and Caribbean Focus. He also has a Masters degree in Strategic Studies, where his thesis focused on US policy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

He's also likely to prefer a country where English and/or Spanish is a useful language. That prompted me to check the world's Spanish-speaking countries. Simply taking over Equatorial Guinea is a possibility, although a high-risk one. Having control of a country, and running it better than the government you replaced, presents the rest of the world with an interesting dilemma.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

He's also likely to prefer a country where English and/or Spanish is a useful language. That prompted me to check the world's Spanish-speaking countries.

Alejandro Ortiz also speaks good French and decent Portuguese, but not all of his men speak those. All of them speak English and Spanish, though, so as you say, any country where those were useful would be more attractive to them than countries where few people spoke either.

Some of the men will speak Dari and Pashto, with maybe one or two having some Arabic or another language spoken in Afghanistan, like one of the Turkic languages. Those will be at Broken to Accented, though, not Native like the English and Spanish.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Simply taking over Equatorial Guinea is a possibility, although a high-risk one.

That didn't go so well for Sir Mark Thatcher. Of course, Col. Ortiz and his men are probably considerably more effective.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Having control of a country, and running it better than the government you replaced, presents the rest of the world with an interesting dilemma.

Just so. Personally, I'd consider such a plot excellent for our adventuring purposes. It offers the possibility of being horrified at the idea and reluctantly having to work against old friends and childhood heroes or deciding that it is the best course of action open to us and joining the outlaws.

And, of course, it allows reasonable PCs to disagree about the right course of action, which is always good for roleplaying.

Of course, Col. Ortiz might consider a coup somewhere more ambitious than Equatorial Guinea. Cuba has already been mentioned and I'm sure that there are Central American and Caribbean nation states where someone with strong views on human rights could justify the use of targeted violence in order to provide a better government, especially if Col. Ortiz has contacts among local political factions that he believes would provide better goverment, respect individual rights more and be willing to set up a refuge for superpowered individuals who'd otherwise be used in unacceptable ways by governments and corporations.

[Icelander]

Is it likely that Col. Ortiz might consider Henrique Capriles a candidate for replacing Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela?

Is the situation in Venezuela, with events in the last few weeks and days, dire enough for Col. Ortiz to consider Maduro's regime a dictatorship worth fighting against?

Could Col. Ortiz plausibly believe that Henrique Capriles would be an unambigious improvement?

Would Capriles have the popular support to become the ruler if Col. Ortiz and his men could remove Maduro and his strongest supporters?

If Venezuela is not suitable, what about other countries in the region?

Are there any Caribbean countries where a small group of elite superpowered special operators could seize power and then partner with a faction which they'd view as better for the locals than the preceding government?

And which would be powerful enough or where the faction that received power would be viewed as legitiamate enough so that the US or another country couldn't just mount a cover-coup within days?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Well, their educational system doesn't seem to be hugely impressive. They have decent medical schools, and could do investigations into the physiology of the test subjects; how far they'd get depends on how complex the changes are.

That depends on the subject, it seems. Chase Taylor has biochemistry that differs fundamentally from normal humans and any doctor can recognise something extremely off from a blood test or even many types of medical scans. The physiology of his eyes is recognisably alien and MRI scans of his brain would reveal major changes. This all suggests that any medical researcher could chart the ways he differs from the human norm and perhaps even learn something about the whys and wherefores.

By contrast, Danny O'Toole and Dr. Michael Anderson seem human on any medical test, with any changes subtle enough so that an ordinary hospital visit wouldn't reveal anything out of the ordinary. It seems that Onyx Rain can possibly detect some indicators with multiple invasive scans and a full medical team working for days, but we don't know how it is done.

We don't know whether it's more common for subjects to display obvious signs or not. We might learn something if and when Cherry Bell undergoes testing by Onyx Rain. Of note is that the two who could pass a medical test also have powers that are less biologically based and more mystical. It's unclear if they can even be scientifically quantified.

Anderson and O'Toole also have powers that are way off the typical powers that Onyx Rain briefed us on, so it might be that it is more common for test subjects to display obvious physiological changes.

Of course, from the perspective of us as players, there isn't any obvious reason why the changes should be explainable by scientific means at all. As I noted, it could be alchemy or magic. My personal theory* about Dr. Edward Vanderbert is that it's a false identity, the latest in a long line assumed by the being also known as Adam Weishaupt and "Frankenstein's Monster". He's trying to create more beings like himself, you see.

*Half-serious, at least.

Originally Posted by johndallman

Their best bet for security would be secrecy: setting up a biomedical research station somewhere unpopulated in the Andes, with a very boring cover story. Studying the lichens that grow on fresh volcanic rocks or something like that - they do have genuine expertise in volcanology.

That could be done, I suppose. Basically, beyond certain tiny nation states without a real intelligence community or military, every polity is going to have the theoretically capability to take Col. Ortiz and his men in. Having the capability to take advantage of the research opportunity to reverse engineer the 'supersoldier' drugs probably requires a bit more discretionary income and a solid technological and educational base, but I'd estimate that at least a third of the nation states in the world could muster it.

The ability and political will to do something that will very likely result in the US doing everything short of cutting diplomatic ties to demonstrate their displeasure, however, is the kicker. That's what's really difficult to find, especially in combination with political stability*, unobjectionable human rights record and, ideally, some way for Col. Ortiz to have inside knowledge of the country and contacts there.

*So Col. Ortiz can have reasonable confidence that any deal he cuts with them will be honoured by future administrations.

Originally Posted by johndallman

They don't seem to have major enemies. Their history of acquiring military equipment gives some idea of their alliances.

All over, basically. :-)

Originally Posted by johndallman

The basic reason they've been able to protect Julian Assange so long is that the UK doesn't feel arresting him is worth violating diplomatic protocols. The fact that Assange has been trashing his own reputation may have something to do with that.

Of course, an embassy in the capital of an allied power is a somewhat difficult place to get away with clandestine shenanigans. A secret lab away from everything else would be much easier to attack from that perspective.

Very few countries could protect Col. Ortiz from the US if public opinion and diplomatic norms were irrelevant. He'll aim for enough secrecy so that the existence of super-drugs of youth and health aren't trumpeted everywhere, prompting every aging generalissmo, oligarch and mafioso to consider kidnapping one of the subjects and enough physical security to force anyone who wants to try to have to mount an operation of such size and complexity that disguising its origin would be impractical.

Mostly, though, he'll rely on the fact that the US and many of the others who will hear of this in the future are going to hesitate at invading a neutral country in order to kidnap people who have legally been given citizenship there. The rest of the security is just to prevent the smaller players, without such scruples, from being in a position to try.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by johndallman

He's also likely to prefer a country where English and/or Spanish is a useful language. That prompted me to check the world's Spanish-speaking countries. Simply taking over Equatorial Guinea is a possibility, although a high-risk one. Having control of a country, and running it better than the government you replaced, presents the rest of the world with an interesting dilemma.

Well, "filibustering" (in the original definition of the term) is a pretty serious federal felony, in the United States. Any U.S. military officer who tried to pull a William Walker had better hope he or she never winds up in U.S. custody.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willia...er_(filibuster)

The most likely result of such a coup, at this time (especially by a U.S. military officer), would result in angry protests from just about every country in Africa, as well as much of the rest of the world. It could very easily result in a vote of condemnation by the U.N. Security Council, which the United States would have to think hard about whether or not to veto.

Even if it did veto the resolution, the U.S. would still have considerable political interest in "correcting" the situation in Equatorial Guinea, so as to spare itself the political embarrassment. As long as Ortiz remains in power, in that country, it will be seen as (at best) a CIA op gone toxic.

Most would just consider it a naked act of aggression by the United States, regardless of any claims to the contrary (especially given the international opinion of the current U.S. administration).

So, regardless of Ortiz' intentions, any coup in Equatorial Guinea wouldn't last more than a few months. No matter what happens, the U.S. parks a carrier group offshore and sends in the Marines.

Once secured, a smart diplomatic move would be to work with the African Union to identify the best groups in Equatorial Guinea with whom to set up a new government and help draft a Constitution. Preferably, the groups selected would at least give lip-service to greater respect for human rights, and (more importantly) demonstrate a willingness to respect deals cut with petroleum companies in Europe and the United States.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Is it likely that Col. Ortiz might consider Henrique Capriles a candidate for replacing Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela?

Ortiz might seriously consider it, were he to come up with a way to make it work, but that presents its own problems.

The thing is, the conservative parties in Venezuela, in many ways, created the monster that plagues them; Chavez and Maduro are just the faces of that monster. The former leaders of Venezuela hitched the nation to the star of petroleum wealth, and made absolutely no efforts to diversify the national economy.

Additionally, corruption was rife and they did very little to distribute the wealth in any effective way -- they built few schools, and even fewer hospitals or clinics. They focused on infrastructure needed to for the petroleum industry, and made sure the capitol city looked nice, but neglected improvements in the rest of the country.

The first signs of trouble date back to the 1980s oil bust, after the OPEC cartel started to disintegrate and petroleum prices tanked. Chavez tried his first coup in the 1990s. It failed and he was arrested, but eventually pardoned.

What people seem to like to forget is that Chavez won a reasonably fair election by a landslide in 1999. His opponents tried to oust him in 2002 and actually succeeded for a few months, but massive protests by his poor supporters forced the coup's leaders to relinquish control of the country and return Chavez to power.

The fact that Chavez screwed the country over so royally doesn't change the fact that while the people he replaced had different stated ideologies, they were absolutely corrupt and only marginally more competent. The Venezuelan people had good reason to hate them.

So, where do you go, in Venezuela? If an American military officer helps install anybody, then that person will have absolutely no political credibility, whatsoever, with the Venezuelan people. He'll essentially walk into office with two broken kneecaps, no matter how competent and well-meaning he might be, otherwise.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Is the situation in Venezuela, with events in the last few weeks and days, dire enough for Col. Ortiz to consider Maduro's regime a dictatorship worth fighting against?

Almost certainly. The question is, could the fight be won, in any meaningful way, with the help of what would be perceived as intervention by the United States?

Given the history of the nation, I'm pretty skeptical about that.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Could Col. Ortiz plausibly believe that Henrique Capriles would be an unambigious improvement?

Would Capriles have the popular support to become the ruler if Col. Ortiz and his men could remove Maduro and his strongest supporters?

(SNIP)

I don't think there's much doubt that Capriles would do a better job, given his record. Nobody could do any worse, that's certain.

Capriles appears to be playing the long game, and while it's risky, what he's doing is right. If he (or his colleagues) continue to govern the state of Miranda well, and make it the least bad place to live, in Venezuela, then he has the chance to rise to power legitimately, based on popular support.

The existing leftist regime in Venezuela certainly seems to identify him as a serious threat, given that they've tried to boot him out of office and (when he declined to resign) burned down his political headquarters.

Were Ortiz to get involved, at all, he'd have to go in completely clandestinely, because any open knowledge of his presence could fatally undermine the credibility of Capriles. Moreover, once Capriles took power, the situation would prove so full of pitfalls that the smart political move would be to require that his U.S. "advisors" leave the country, immediately, before anybody found out about them.

Chances are, though, that while Capriles might welcome intelligence assets, there's no way he could ever accept any help of a more overt nature.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I don't think there's much doubt that Capriles would do a better job, given his record.

Capriles appears to be playing the long game, and while it's risky, what he's doing is right. If he (or his colleagues) continue to govern the state of Miranda well, and make it the least bad place to live, in Venezuela, then he has the chance to rise to power legitimately, based on popular support.

The existing leftist regime in Venezuela certainly seems to identify him as a serious threat, given that they've tried to boot him out of office and (when he declined to resign) burned down his political headquarters.

I was under the impression that Capriles could not run for office or take part in Venezuelan politics once his current term as governor runs out, because he has been banned from all politics in Venezuela for 15 years. That was the news three days ago.

That would seem to remove all chance of him running against Maduro legally. And from the outside, at least, the tendency of the Venezuelan government to ban all political activity and in extreme cases jail any opposition politician with a reasonable chance of winning a vote looks like a method that ensures that democratic and legal means of contesting their rule are out, as elections with only those candidates allowed to take part that the ruling regime favours aren't really elections.

As things stand now, Capriles appears to have the most popular support and legitimacy of any opposition politician in Venezuela, but cannot run for office until 2032, by which time it's very unlikely that he'll have much support remaining.

Has this latest move by the Maduro regime not removed all legal options from Capriles, leaving him the option of conceding defeat or violating the law in some way?

I'll grant that continuing politics and forcing Maduro to jail or kill him is more likely than him leading a coup, but when all legal means are ruled out, it's not impossible that something that would have been viewed with distaste before might be seen as more palatable.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Were Ortiz to get involved, at all, he'd have to go in completely clandestinely, because any open knowledge of his presence could fatally undermine the credibility of Capriles. Moreover, once Capriles took power, the situation would prove so full of pitfalls that the smart political move would be to require that his U.S. "advisors" leave the country, immediately, before anybody found out about them.

Chances are, though, that while Capriles might welcome intelligence assets, there's no way he could ever accept any help of a more overt nature.

How powerful is a governor in Venezuela?

Powerful enough to smuggle Col. Ortiz and his men into the country without Maduro finding out?

I'm sure that Col. Ortiz would prefer an advisory role to any more active one and, in any case, him and his men would be more useful, in the long term, training bodyguards, elite guard units and a corps of professional officers and military advisors for Capriles.

Of course, that would require Capriles to have a position where he could move 10-50 people inside Venezuela without border checks and then hide them indefinitely. Somehow, I doubt that this is the case with any political opponent of the Maduro regime. But I simply don't know enough about the division of power between local governors and the central government.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I was under the impression that Capriles could not run for office or take part in Venezuelan politics once his current term as governor runs out, because he has been banned from all politics in Venezuela for 15 years. That was the news three days ago.

They definitely issued the ban and demanded Capriles step down as governor of Miranda. However, Capriles basically said, "no," and argued that since the people of Miranda elected him, and not the central government, it's up to them to vote him out of office -- the central government has no say. He can make that claim because he enjoys increasingly popular support in Miranda.

That puts the national government in a bind. Here, Maduro faces a guy who does his job, effectively and, as a result, provides a very unfortunate contrast with the status of the rest of the country. However, because Capriles does the job reasonably well, despite everything, the people in his area appreciate him more, all the time.

If Maduro move against Capriles, under the current delicate circumstances, he wagers a lot on what could trigger an ugly civil war that could, very well, go pear-shaped for the leftist government. Instead, they've opted to try to undermine Capriles' popularity by accusing him of homosexuality, Zionism, oligarchical leanings and acting as a puppet for U.S. interests. Ideally, if they could find any mud to stick to him that might destroy his credibility, that's the big win.

Originally Posted by Icelander

That would seem to remove all chance of him running against Maduro legally. And from the outside, at least, the tendency of the Venezuelan government to ban all political activity and in extreme cases jail any opposition politician with a reasonable chance of winning a vote looks like a method that ensures that democratic and legal means of contesting their rule are out, as elections with only those candidates allowed to take part that the ruling regime favours aren't really elections.

They can only jail someone they can manage to arrest. To arrest Capriles, at this point, would likely require Maduro order the army into Miranda, to forcefully depose the lawfully-elected governor. As far as sparks go, that's a big one to light when sitting on a powder-keg.

It's the Venezuelan version of a Mexican stand-off. :)

Originally Posted by Icelander

As things stand now, Capriles appears to have the most popular support and legitimacy of any opposition politician in Venezuela, but cannot run for office until 2032, by which time it's very unlikely that he'll have much support remaining.

Has this latest move by the Maduro regime not removed all legal options from Capriles, leaving him the option of conceding defeat or violating the law in some way?

I don't mean any offense (and please don't take it as such), but as an attorney in a very stable country, I think perhaps you sometimes place a little too much emphasis on legalities, maybe?

Laws only have validity to the extent the population considers them legitimate. In a situation such as the one in Venezuela, where the central government is seen as decreasingly legitimate, and the opposition increasingly so, then more and more people perceive the decrees of the central government as "unlawful."

Here in the United States, where people are so law-abiding that it makes some visitors laugh ("Why do you stop at stop-lights, even if it's the middle of the night and there is nobody else at the intersection?"), many of us don't hesitate to disobey laws we consider silly (marijuana). In Venezuela, where the leaders before Chavez were (rightfully) perceived as bad, and Chavez and his successors are increasingly perceived as even worse, "legal decrees" just become background noise or objects of scorn.

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'll grant that continuing politics and forcing Maduro to jail or kill him is more likely than him leading a coup, but when all legal means are ruled out, it's not impossible that something that would have been viewed with distaste before might be seen as more palatable.

The choice isn't so binary. In situation where the future balances on the edge of a knife, while not every misstep will result in a disaster, almost any one of them could. If the central government is perceived as moving against a popularly-elected governor of a wealthy region who enjoys widespread support because of his competent policies, then the leftists could lose everything. I'd bet that Capriles is gambling that Maduro won't make such a move, and Capriles thinks he can win the long game.

Given what's being said in the Venezuelan media, I'm betting Maduro suspects the same thing, and is trying to find a way to undermine Capriles' popularity. He's trying to paint Capriles as a Jewish homosexual in an overwhelmingly Catholic country with conservative social values, who only used the pretty actress Erika de la Vega as a "beard."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4765048/?ref_=nm_knf_t2

If Maduro can pull that off, then Capriles becomes a nothing more than another right-wing political puppet of the United States, with no morals, willing to lie to people to cover up his true nature.

Originally Posted by Icelander

How powerful is a governor in Venezuela?

Powerful enough to smuggle Col. Ortiz and his men into the country without Maduro finding out?

I'm sure that Col. Ortiz would prefer an advisory role to any more active one and, in any case, him and his men would be more useful, in the long term, training bodyguards, elite guard units and a corps of professional officers and military advisors for Capriles.

I'm not sure how powerful governors are, usually, but a popular opposition leader in an increasingly unstable country exercises a lot of power, regardless of the position he or she ostensibly holds (if any). Also, a quick look at Miranda State indicates it has the best Human Development Index, in Venezuela, and that means somebody has been doing something more right than not, there.

Before he was governor of Miranda, Capriles was the popular mayor of Baruto, a large suburb (I guess?) of Caracas. As governor of Miranda, I'd imagine he still has plenty of friends in the Caracas area.

Now, Caracas isn't directly on the sea (there's a mountain range between it and the Caribbean), but it's not that far away, either. It's also a pretty big tourist and business center (to the extent that business is still done, in Venezuela), so I'd imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for Ortiz and his men to slip into the country.

The question is, would Capriles want them? I'm betting the answer is, "no," unless Ortiz could quickly and conclusively demonstrate not only amazing utility and considerable political acumen, but also astonishing discretion. After all, if Maduro can I.D. Ortiz as an American, then everything he says about Capriles' status as a U.S. puppet immediately gains traction.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

They definitely issued the ban and demanded Capriles step down as governor of Miranda. However, Capriles basically said, "no," and argued that since the people of Miranda elected him, and not the central government, it's up to them to vote him out of office -- the central government has no say. He can make that claim because he enjoys increasingly popular support in Miranda.

That puts the national government in a bind. Here, Maduro faces a guy who does his job, effectively and, as a result, provides a very unfortunate contrast with the status of the rest of the country. However, because Capriles does the job reasonably well, despite everything, the people in his area appreciate him more, all the time.

If Maduro move against Capriles, under the current delicate circumstances, he wagers a lot on what could trigger an ugly civil war that could, very well, go pear-shaped for the leftist government. Instead, they've opted to try to undermine Capriles' popularity by accusing him of homosexuality, Zionism, oligarchical leanings and acting as a puppet for U.S. interests. Ideally, if they could find any mud to stick to him that might destroy his credibility, that's the big win.

Fair enough. Say that Capriles is safe as long as he stays in Miranda and enjoys popular support there.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

They can only jail someone they can manage to arrest. To arrest Capriles, at this point, would likely require Maduro order the army into Miranda, to forcefully depose the lawfully-elected governor. As far as sparks go, that's a big one to light when sitting on a powder-keg.

It's the Venezuelan version of a Mexican stand-off. :)

I didn't consider it likely that the central government would depose him while he still held power in Miranda and was staying put there, protected by his supporters. I assumed that if he tried to run against Maduro in the next presidential elections, which I believe will be in 2018, he'd have to travel the country to campaign.

It's not exactly far fetched to imagine that if Capriles doesn't withdraw from the campaign, he'll end up in prison, the same as López, the other popular candidate. And if he or his supporters were to resist, well, isn't the murder rate in Venezuela in the top three in the world, even without counting extrajudicial killings by the police?

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I don't mean any offense (and please don't take it as such), but as an attorney in a very stable country, I think perhaps you sometimes place a little too much emphasis on legalities, maybe?

Maybe so, but how can anyone gain power legally if he's prevented from running for office?

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Laws only have validity to the extent the population considers them legitimate. In a situation such as the one in Venezuela, where the central government is seen as decreasingly legitimate, and the opposition increasingly so, then more and more people perceive the decrees of the central government as "unlawful."
[...]
In Venezuela, where the leaders before Chavez were (rightfully) perceived as bad, and Chavez and his successors are increasingly perceived as even worse, "legal decrees" just become background noise or objects of scorn.

Ok, but who administers presidential elections? I'm guessing it's the central government, in which case it doesn't matter what the public believes about the decree, it still has as much validity as the officials and judges who administered the election and rule on its legality if needed decide.

Basically, if somebody isn't a legal candidate, does the central government have to allow their name to appear on the ballots at all?

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The choice isn't so binary. In situation where the future balances on the edge of a knife, while not every misstep will result in a disaster, almost any one of them could. If the central government is perceived as moving against a popularly-elected governor of a wealthy region who enjoys widespread support because of his competent policies, then the leftists could lose everything. I'd bet that Capriles is gambling that Maduro won't make such a move, and Capriles thinks he can win the long game.

Given what's being said in the Venezuelan media, I'm betting Maduro suspects the same thing, and is trying to find a way to undermine Capriles' popularity. He's trying to paint Capriles as a Jewish homosexual in an overwhelmingly Catholic country with conservative social values, who only used the pretty actress Erika de la Vega as a "beard."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4765048/?ref_=nm_knf_t2

If Maduro can pull that off, then Capriles becomes a nothing more than another right-wing political puppet of the United States, with no morals, willing to lie to people to cover up his true nature.

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I'm not sure how powerful governors are, usually, but a popular opposition leader in an increasingly unstable country exercise a lot of power, regardless of the position they ostensibly hold (if any).
[...]
Now, Caracas isn't directly on the sea (there's a mountain range between it and the Caribbean), but it's not that far away, either. It's also a pretty big tourist and business center (to the extent that business is still done, in Venezuela), so I'd imagine it wouldn't be too difficult for Ortiz and his men to slip into the country.

Hmmm... slipping into the country illegally wouldn't feel very safe. They'd need passports and new identities, which is usually what security agencies can arrange.

Granted, buying Venezuelan passports on the open markets seems to be fairly easy, but Col. Ortiz would probably prefer legitimate passports from somewhere. Unless he's determined that no nation would take him and his men in and grant them what they need unless he first helps a chosen candidate gain power somewhere, but I don't think we've ruled out all other possibilities.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

The question is, would Capriles want them? I'm betting the answer is, "no," unless Ortiz could quickly and conclusively demonstrate not only amazing utility and considerable political acumen, but also astonishing discretion. After all, if Maduro can I.D. Ortiz as an American, then everything he says about Capriles' status as a U.S. puppet immediately gains traction.

That's true.

Col. Ortiz could probably provide quite a bit of help, with 14-18 at various political skills and Intelligence Analysis at 22+. It probably wouldn't be enough help to justify the risk, however, unless Capriles was pretty sure that Maduro would try to kill or capture him at some point.

In that case, Leadership, Strategy and Teaching at 22+ and Tactics 25+ would begin to look pretty good.

Note that Alejandro Ortiz can probably pretend to be Colombian immigrant pretty reliably, as he's a graduate of the Lancero school who has spent about five years in Colombia, cumulatively, over the last twenty years. I understand there are tens of thousands of Colombians who emigrated to Venezuela in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Of course, now they are leaving, being deported and demonised in the media almost as much as Americans, it seems.

Ortiz might be able to live a cover as a native of several other Hispanic countries, certainly Mexican, possibly Dominican or Puerto Rican, conceivably even as a speaker of Voseo-dialect Spanish from El Salvador, Honduras or Guatemala, but his men are not all Hispanic in appearance and few of them speak as many dialects fluently as he does.

US Special Forces operators are often highly educated, intellectually curious men with a gift for languages and foreign cultures, which might surprise people who have an image of them as knuckle-dragging commandos, but even in that community, Col. Ortiz stands out for his intellectual gifts.

He's probably one of the leading subject matter experts on Latin American culture, security and strategic analysis. Granted, his multiple advanced degrees aren't all that rare among US officers groomed for high command, but a PhD is less common than multiple Masters and most people, promising officers or not, don't have IQ 14 and several relevant Advantages even before they are chosen for nootropic drug trials and supersoldier programs.

If Capriles has any friends among generals or members of the intelligence community in Colombia, El Salvador or other nations that have worked with the US on security matters, he could probably confirm that Ortiz was politically sympathetic, discreet and honourable. I don't know how likely such contacts are, of course.

It is not established in the campaign continuity so far how long Ortiz has been considering running. It is very possible that he started to plan for the possibility in 2012 or so, in which case he might have maintained informal contacts with several powerful people which he considered as possible allies. For the first few years, he wouldn't necessarily have done anyting explicitly illegal, apart from possibly not report every detail of his conversations with peers in Colombia and other Latin American countries, but he could have been gathering data and building relationships with people who could be of assistance later.

In other words, Ortiz could have cultivated Venezuelan expatriates friendly to Capriles living in Colombia or elsewhere, especially if he could do so as part of his actual day-job, as an officer on the intelligence staff of SOCSOUTH. It is far from implausible that he'd have been among staff officers assigned to perform intelligence estimates of the situation in Venezuela after Chavez's death and in connection to the elections of 2012 and 2013.