Argentina Was Planning an Armed Invasion of Venezuela in 2019 – Telesur

2nd of November, 2022. Region News. Venezuela/Argentina. GSA News

Through the Puma exercise, which contemplated the invasion of Venezuela, the Argentine armed force carried out several exercises.

A new journalistic investigation revealed that the Argentine army contemplated the invasion of Venezuela, between April and July 2019, under the government of now former President Mauricio Macri, who supported the United States military strategy to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro.

Through the Puma exercise, which contemplated the invasion of Venezuela, the armed force executed in seven sessions in the Campo de Mayo garrison and by videoconference with the parachutist brigade of Córdoba, the Mechanized Brigade X of La Pampa and the commandos of the Force of Special Operations, also from Córdoba.

In the investigation of the Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky it was revealed that General Juan Martín Paleo, who was then commander of the rapid deployment force, was in command of the operation. Since March 2020, he has been Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces.

These events occurred at a time when the Donald Trump government maintained a policy of siege against Venezuela, which included the imposition of unilateral coercive measures to destabilize the South American country, among other measures, such as supporting actions to assassinate President Maduro.

Several South American nations, including Argentina (during Macri’s administration), gave their support to the White House’s hostile policy against Venezuela.

In Puma’s planning, the rapid deployment force was part of a multinational force, created by a figurative United Nations resolution (which never happened in reality), the investigation revealed.

In addition to the rapid deployment force, with its Command Company and Intelligence Section, troops from the IV Parachute Airborne Brigade, the X Mechanized Infantry Brigade and the Special Operations Force commandos participated.

In the extensive investigation by journalist Verbitsky, published in “The Rocket to the Moon,” the extensive escalation of the Trump administration to overthrow President Maduro is detailed, which included several incursions on the ground with the support of the Washington Government. Trump’s purpose of taking care of Venezuela and Cuba within his National Security Strategy is also recalled.

The United States will take care of the “anachronistic authoritarian leftist governments of Venezuela and Cuba” because they allow the United States’ competitors, China and Russia, to operate, which “seek to expand their military ties and the sale of weapons in the region,” were the guidelines of the Trump administration.

Regarding Argentina’s participation in the plans against Venezuela, Admiral Craig Faller, head of the Southern Command, visited Buenos Aires and warned cadets from the Joint Warfare School of the Armed Forces against the threat from China and Venezuela.

The strategy regarding the planned invasion of Venezuela would be backed by an Argentine command that would act for humanitarian reasons, according to the declaration of General Juan Martín Paleo himself.

“Regardless of the political and moral assessment that a plan to invade Venezuela deserves in which Argentine soldiers would do the dirty work for the United States, from a tactical point of view, a little over two years after the end of Exercise Puma, the assumptions on which it was based have been proven wrong,” Verbitsky said.

“The situation in Venezuela has stabilized, the United Nations did not decide to form any multinational intervention force and the political forces of the ruling party and the opposition settle their differences at the polls,” he specified.

Source: Telesur