So, another great way to prepare your military for combat with an American aircraft carrier strike group and assorted stealth jets is by firing fake rocket-propelled grenades off a rooftop and into a busy metropolitan area in broad daylight.
I wish I were kidding, but we have the video.
"This can’t be real. It just can’t be," my RedState colleague Bonchie posted this morning.
Indeed, "The dude looks through binoculars like he’s spotting B-17s in 1944 and then starts flailing like he’s marshaling an airliner at a gate. All with d-level sound effects slapped on top."
And here's the clip:
WATCH: Venezuelan military training.pic.twitter.com/CPAE8lMql7
— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 26, 2025
“Military” and “training” are punching way above their weight in that post.
Gentle reader, I have set off a lot of fireworks in my time. And when I say "a lot," what I mean is, "By age 11, my best friend Kevin and I had gotten so bored with just lighting them and running off that we starting having contests over who could hold the most Black Cat lady fingers in the palm of their open hand."
So let me claim just some small amount of authority when I say that, to my ears, that Venezuelan RPG sounds exactly like a bottle rocket.
Also, whatever it is those "soldiers" are firing, pray they aren't real rounds, because they're firing them right into the city.
Or to put it another way, the fighting men and women of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), now including the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) Carrier Strike Group, ain't exactly losing any sleep over the high training status of the Venezuelan military… or militia… or whatever that was.
And Another Thing: While I'm good friends with a very well-placed source in SOUTHCOM, I didn't consult him for this piece. I imagine he's quite busy these days.
But none of what's going on with our current buildup of forces in the Caribbean is about Venezuela in any essential sense. If the good people of that country want to overthrow Maduro, that would be great. If not, that's on them. What some analysts now believe — including Yours Truly — is that the impressive military buildup is about China, Russia, and Iran. And about kicking them back out of our hemisphere.
Almost exactly a dozen years ago, then Secretary of State John Kerry declared, "The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over."
"The doctrine that bears his name," Kerry explained, "asserted our authority to step in and oppose the influence of European powers in Latin America. And throughout our nation’s history, successive presidents have reinforced that doctrine and made a similar choice."
"Today, however, we have made a different choice."
So Obama's SecState declared it was Open Season for the first time in two centuries for European (Russia), East Asian (China), and Middle East (Iran) powers to do whatever the hell they want in our neck of the woods. And guess what? They've done exactly that.
Trump's doing this:
🚨 BREAKING: It's been confirmed that the MASSIVE military buildup in our own hemisphere isn't JUST about Maduro and Venezuela
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 24, 2025
"It's about getting Russia, China and Iran OUT of the western hemisphere."
Now that's what I voted for 🔥🇺🇸
"Should President Trump order strikes… pic.twitter.com/HHD2Hgq2JT
It's been a long time coming.
I'm a much bigger fan of speaking softly than smacking anybody with the big stick, but here's what PJ Media's own Sarah Anderson had to say about whacking Maduro a time or two:
Should we become militarily involved in Venezuela, it won't look anything like what we've seen in recent decades. What it would look like is helping a nation that will most likely become one of our most important allies in the fight against keeping extra-hemispheric actors — hello, China, Russia, and Iran — out of our own backyard, as well as keeping our own nation safe from the cartels and other terror networks that live within the Americas.
We used to call it "gunboat diplomacy," and it used to keep our backyard free of foreign vermin.
(Man, I really am writing like a 19th-century jingoist today. You're welcome.)
Anyway, back to the subject at hand.
I get the feeling that these "training" videos are aimed at Venezuelans either too disillusioned to care or too hungry to notice — in other words, your typical serfs on the glorious socialist plantation.
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