[ZeroHedge] Recent reporting highlights a sustained U.S. military buildup across the Caribbean, coinciding with briefings to President Trump in which senior Pentagon officials outlined potential operational scenarios against Venezuela. This activity has raised questions among observers about regime change operations.
Public justification and the narrative in corporate media have centered on counter-narcotics missions aimed at disrupting transnational criminal networks operating in and around Venezuela. However, the scale and posture of U.S. forces have prompted speculation that this buildout might not just be about dismantling command and control structures of narco terrorist networks.
In this 10-post X thread, Jason Lewris of real-time housing market data website Parcl Labs explored one potential cause for the U.S. military buildup and goes beyond drug smuggling, linking Venezuelan cartels and Iranian-backed groups (like Hezbollah).
"But drug smuggling may not be the full story—or the real motivation," Lewris began the thread. He said, "A far more concerning pattern is emerging."
"Here's how a small Venezuelan island (Isla de Margarita), Iranian-backed terrorist groups, and U.S. housing may all connect within a sophisticated people-transportation network into the United States," Lewris explained.
Lewris cited a text from a 2013 House Foreign Affairs Committee on the subject of "Hezbollah's STRATEGIC SHIFT: A GLOBAL TERRORIST THREAT."
At a House hearing on March 20, 2013, lawmakers were briefed that Isla de Margarita (Margarita Island) was being used by Hezbollah to train Venezuelan cartel members.
With the text, Lewris pointed out, "Hezbollah has also conducted terror training on Margarita Island for recruits from Venezuela and other Latin American countries. Hezbollah operatives and their co-conspirators hold senior positions in the Venezuelan Government. They provide travel documents, weapons, and logistics support to terrorist operations and cocaine smugglers as our witnesses will explain further."
Here are the key points from the thread:
U.S. Military Actions as Cover? The White House has ramped up releases of dramatic videos showing U.S. forces destroying drug-smuggling boats (e.g., recent strikes in the Eastern Pacific killing 6 "narco-terrorists"). This follows U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025 and includes quiet military buildups in Puerto Rico, suggesting a broader response to threats.
Historical Ties on Margarita Island: Since at least 2013 (per a House hearing), Venezuela's Isla de Margarita has served as a Hezbollah training hub for local cartels, facilitating exchanges of tactics and resources. Iran and Venezuela's long-standing alliance amplifies this.
Smuggling Operations: Established cartel routes across the Caribbean could now transport people, potentially terrorist operatives, rather than just drugs. Dense clusters of Venezuelan/Iranian-owned U.S. properties (via shell companies tied to their governments) near the southern border provide safe havens, built up over years.
And if that alone sounded troubling, what comes next points to a national security threat.
Rubio might find this interesting...
The alarming part:
Venezuela and Iran already own U.S. properties-many through shell companies with direct ties to their governments.
And there are dense pockets of these holdings along the southern border.
Lewris' thesis: "U.S. officials understand the Iran–Venezuela partnership. They understand these smuggling routes, which historically moved drugs. But the concern now is that people, not drugs, are being moved. And those people may include terrorist operatives. We're tracking the intersection of these networks with U.S. housing at @ParclLabs."
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
11/17/2025 00:00 ||
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#1
Remove the top 10 feet of terrain from the island. Should provide an amusing response. Bombs get old; use them or lose them. Seems like a most worthy cause.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
11/17/2025 5:16 Comments ||
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#2
Note that the first "drug boat" zapped had come from I. Margarita, and was carrying a rather large number (10-11) of people on board.
They were smuggling something, and it wasn't drugs.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/17/2025 8:51 Comments ||
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#3
Not sure why they'd need an island when they have all of Venezuela at their disposal. But if it's a problem...
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/17/2025 11:52 Comments ||
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#4
"Remove the island" -- Big Whisky
Posted by: Regular joe ||
11/17/2025 13:29 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Pushed toward an agreement with ex-jihadi Syrian president, a wary Jerusalem seeks to at least secure its border, protect the Druze and perhaps contain Turkey along the way
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa likes to move quickly.
Eleven months ago, his forces rushed into Damascus to topple longtime Syrian dictator Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... , sparking his dizzying ascent from jihadist warlord to respectable statesman. Within weeks, Washington removed the $10 million bounty on the head of the former al-Qaeda commander, and last week, he became the first Syrian head of state to be hosted by a US president in the Oval Office.
For many, the sight was a curious spectacle, but for Israel, the latest display of Sharaa’s rising stock on the world stage carries with it important implications for national security. Jerusalem faces the challenge of figuring out its approach to a rapidly transforming Syria while securing its own interests vis-à-vis its northern neighbor.
Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this means ensuring that a series of red lines remain inviolable, protecting vulnerable minorities, and preventing hostile powers from gaining a foothold on parts of Syria near Israel’s borders.
While the Trump administration has near-instantly embraced Sharaa as a pragmatic partner capable of stabilizing Syria and containing bad boy threats — confident it can shrug him off if need be like a Muammar Ghadhafi of Libya or Manuel Noriega of Panama — Israel has no such luxury.
Instead, Jerusalem is trying to balance a more cautious approach while knowing it must adapt quickly to a young leader whose ideological trajectory remains unclear, but whose future could reshape the security of Israel’s northern frontier and beyond.
Long locked out of Damascus by Assad’s alliances with Russia and Iran, the US saw an opening with Sharaa to reshape Syria’s security landscape and gain an important client, bringing a country that had been part of what George W. Bush called the axis of evil into the West’s orbit.
But Sharaa’s past continues to stir Israeli skepticism.
"The al-Sharaa regime is an enigma," cautioned Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser and senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies. "Sharaa claims he has changed, but there is not a single case in the history of the Middle East where a radical Islamist movement changed for the better after taking power."
Sharaa’s rise triggered a bellicose Israeli response. The IDF quickly pushed into southwestern Syria after Assad’s fall, launching an ongoing deployment that the government calls a temporary measure against potential spillover threats.
In March, after hundreds of civilians from the Alawite minority were reportedly killed in festivities between Sharaa’s forces and Assad-loyal hard boys, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar warned world leaders that Syria’s rulers "were jihadists and have remained so, even if they now wear suits."
Months later, Israeli forces took action to stop Sharaa-backed fighters from entering Druze parts of Syria, including bombing his military headquarters in Damascus.
Tensions have since taken a back seat to Washington’s efforts to broker a potential Israeli-Syrian security arrangement, and perhaps more. Still, Israeli forces remain across the border in Syria, and officials continue to cite bad boy elements and the regime’s treatment of minorities — especially the Druze — as reasons to move warily.
But with each Western capital Sharaa visits, Israel’s caution appears less and less in sync with the US and other allies.
Since their first meeting in Riyadh in May, Trump’s support for Sharaa has steadily grown, all while Sharaa toured European and Arab capitals and delivered a confident debut at the UN General Assembly.
"It’s getting harder to argue with the international recognition Sharaa is now receiving, despite all the suspicion and skepticism from Israel’s perspective," said Carmit Valensi of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
While the US is a major player with significant leverage in Damascus, other interests are also weighing on efforts to shape Syria’s future, not least those of The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... A key backer of the insurgency that toppled Assad, Ankara retains significant influence in northern Syria, a reality that deeply worries Jerusalem, due to Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... ’s support for the Moslem Brüderbund and for Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... . Turkey hosts Hamas leaders and Erdogan regularly likens Israel to Nazi Germany.
As Israel seeks to place its thumb on Syria’s future, diluting Turkey’s influence will likely emerge as a major point of contention, though one in which Jerusalem may see little success.
Al-Tamimi said Israel must "temper expectations" about rolling back Ottoman Turkish involvement, which he understood as inevitable. Instead of hoping to marginalize Ankara — or focusing on distant goals like normalization — he argued that Israel should concentrate on shaping the security arrangement with Damascus.
Saudi Arabia is now asking the U.S. to approve a massive purchase of 48 F-35 stealth jets, the most advanced fighter aircraft on earth.
But this isn’t a simple arms sale. Not even close.
Why? Because Israel is currently the only country in the region with F-35s, and we don’t just fly them.
Israel upgrades the aircraft with our own classified tech, making the jet more effective than the original U.S. platform…
and we feed those enhancements back into American manufacturers.
So here’s the danger:
If the U.S. sells F-35s to Saudi Arabia, Riyadh isn’t just getting American technology — they’d inevitably be receiving Israeli technology too.
And Saudi Arabia’s close strategic ties with Russia and China mean one thing:
👉 That technology could end up in Moscow or Beijing.
This would erode Israel’s qualitative military edge, undermine American technological dominance, and risk the most advanced jet on the planet falling into adversarial hands.
This is not a sale of “generic military hardware.”
This is about the crown jewel of American airpower, and the backbone of Israel’s deterrence.
Any administration considering this deal should think very, very hard.
Posted by: badanov ||
11/17/2025 00:00 ||
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[1761 views]
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[AmericanThinker] Several years ago, my husband Steve and I were watching TV as an American politician of Hispanic descent responded to a challenging question by an antagonistic news hound.
The politician gave such an eloquent and informed answer, sprinkling his response with historical facts, literary allusions, and even dashes of humor, that when he completed his answer, Steve said, "Damn...that is one brilliant guy!"
Reflexively, I expressed what I’ve privately suspected for ages when witnessing similar scenarios: "He’s probably Jewish!"
Steve laughed, but I meant it.
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE
According to Eric Buesing, the world is more Jewish than we realized.
"DNA testing is revealing that as many as 152 million additional people have Jewish roots. If more people knew they were part-Jewish, would they still hate Jews?" Buesing asks.
In the thousands of years that the Jewish people lived all over the world in the diaspora, he says, in order to survive, "many Jews became crypto-Jews" — known in Spain as Conversos — hiding their identities, "adopting new names and blending into Christian, Moslem, or secular societies under the shadow of inquisitions, pogroms, and forced conversions."
Today, he says, "Advances in genetic testing have revealed that millions worldwide ... carry traces of Jewish ancestry in their DNA. In the United States alone, an estimated 15.8 million people, roughly 4.58 percent of the population, may have Jewish roots, often without knowing it."
STAGGERING RESULTS
Buesing reports that a 2018 study analyzed DNA from 6,589 individuals across five Latin American countries: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. The results were staggering. Approximately 23 percent of those sampled had at least 5 percent Sephardic Jewish ancestry, averaging 1 to 4 percent across these nations. This translates to an estimated 136 million Latin Americans who may carry Jewish DNA!
"These numbers," Buesing says, "are more than statistics; they are stories of survival, of ancestors who hid their menorahs, whispered Shema Yisrael in secret, and passed down fragments of identity that science is now rediscovering."
WHAT IF?
Buesing asks us to imagine what it would be like for a Christian — or someone of any other religion — to discover that a great-great-grandparent was a Converso and that his Jewish DNA traced back some 2,000 years.
"Antisemitism has plagued humanity for centuries," he explains, "fueled by myths, stereotypes, and the scapegoating of Jews as ’outsiders.’ But what if the world knew that millions — perhaps one in every 54 people globally — carried Jewish ancestry? If 152 million people, from São Paulo to Seville, from Johannesburg to Albuquerque, shared this heritage, the notion of Jews as ’other’ begins to crumble."
#3
Is there a DNA marker for being a Jew? What are the traces of Jewish ancestry in their DNA.?
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/17/2025 8:31 Comments ||
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#4
So, we're gonna go with the 'one drop of blood' definition?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/17/2025 8:47 Comments ||
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#5
....I recall back in the 50s and 60s, it was blacks trying to pass as whites. Now days, it the reverse with white trying to pass as blacks. Unless you want go the native American route (see - Fauxcahontas).
#7
I have wondered once or twice, Grom. Lemme consult Wikipedia...
Way out West, a meshuggener born,
Gorgeous gunslinger [shriek of tin horn]
From a mighty white branch,
Right at home on a ranch,
She's, I'm sure, no more Jewish than Lorne.
The geoid is the true, most accurate model of Earth's shape, accounting not only for its rotation but also for the distribution of masses inside the planet, making the surface slightly uneven and deviating from a perfect sphere. Unlike a school globe, which depicts Earth as an… pic.twitter.com/PB9Uff5VZk— Black Hole (@konstructivizm) November 16, 2025
Text:
The geoid is the true, most accurate model of Earth's shape, accounting not only for its rotation but also for the distribution of masses inside the planet, making the surface slightly uneven and deviating from a perfect sphere.
Unlike a school globe, which depicts Earth as an ideal ball, the geoid resembles a slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator potato, with height variations up to 100 meters due to gravitational anomalies.
This shape arises from the centrifugal force of Earth's rotation, which "inflates" the equator by an additional 21 kilometers compared to the polar diameter.
Interestingly, the geoid is used in GPS navigation and geodesy to precisely measure elevations above sea level, as oceans follow this "uneven" surface.
Imagine: if you shrank Earth to the size of a basketball, the geoid's irregularities would be smaller than the roughness on an orange's skin, yet they still impact our daily lives!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
