Editor’s Note: A version of this article appeared in The Algemeiner.
We are accustomed to staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at Israeli military prowess. But respect and honor also to the United States military and its amazing personnel. Since the days of Thomas Jefferson’s war against the Barbary pirates, they have protected our people and our way of life, regardless of the situation presented to them by the political establishment. And to Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who twice in seven months commanded an extraordinary operation to accomplish legitimate American objectives with minimal collateral damage.
And twice in seven months, he came forward to explain what was done and how.
In Venezuela, more than 150 aircraft, including fighter aircraft, bombers, surveillance aircraft, intelligence aircraft, and helicopters, flew from 20 different bases. The mission included Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Space Force, as well as the CIA, NGA, and NSA. “We watched, we prepared, we remained patient and professional,” Caine told the assembled press at President Donald Trump’s news conference Saturday.
US intelligence knew Maduro’s pattern of life – where he moved, lived, traveled, ate, and worked. The military made plans accordingly. Caine said the mission was “meticulously planned” and was “the culmination of months of planning and rehearsals.”
Quietly, discreetly, our military planned for the day it would be ordered to act.
In response to a clear military success, however, a significant segment of Congress is jumping up and down decrying the secrecy of the administration in extracting from his fortress a criminal dictator under indictment in the US. President Trump snickered politely when secrecy was mentioned, and muttered, “It would have leaked.” You KNOW it would have leaked. Nothing in the US House and Senate remains a secret if political axes are to be ground. And no president appears to have caused the opposition to grind its axes as much as this one.
What did either party on the Hill say about the Obama administration ordering more than 542 drone strikes killing 3,797 people, including an American aid worker and his Italian colleague, and a 16-year-old American citizen who was in the car with his father, the target – and also an American citizen. SEAL Team 6 was used in Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, and, of course, in Pakistan, where President Obama ordered the killing of Osama Bin Laden with neither congressional nor Pakistani permission.
President Clinton intervened in Somalia and Haiti, and in bombing missions in the Yugoslav wars, without authorization. Reagan had Grenada and Nicaragua; George HW Bush invaded Panama to nab Noriega; George W Bush did Afghanistan. You can go back to John Adams and the “Quasi War” against France in the Caribbean.
Not a complaint, but a reminder.
Stop there for a moment; there is another foreign intervention that deserves mention here.
In a remarkably planned and executed American military operation, “Midnight Hammer” destroyed a large part of Iran’s nuclear program in July 2025. Author Edwin Black wrote: “Operation Midnight Hammer played out as one of the most sophisticated and synchronized military operations since World War II… within the space of minutes, twelve MOPS dropped on Fordow, two MOPs plunged into the Natanz facility, and the Tomahawks pounded Isfahan.”
MOPS are Massive Ordnance Penetrators – you don’t need to know the technical details to see their success. But know this: MOPS development began in 2004, and beginning shortly thereafter, plans were being laid for the attack we saw in Iran. Hundreds, if not thousands, of US Defense Department personnel, other government officials, and staffers kept their mouths shut about it for more than 20 years.
American foreign policy toward Iran has swung heavily from presidents Obama through Trump 1 through Biden and into Trump 2. During all that time, the military establishment was improving MOPs and plans – silently.
In his remarks Saturday, Gen. Caine said, “We think we develop, we train, we rehearse, we debrief, we rehearse again and again, not to get it right, but to ensure that we cannot get it wrong. Our jobs are to integrate combat power so when the order comes, we can deliver overwhelming force at the time and the place of our choosing against any foe anywhere in the world.”
Any foe determined by the President to be “delivered.”
This calls to mind the response by then-Press Secretary Jay Carney in response to a question about the use of drones without informing Congress or the government of the country in which the drones were operating. The Washington Post reported, “Carney suggested that nothing Obama had said could be a security violation: ‘He’s the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States. He’s the president of the United States.’”
Military operations to secure our country do not require a “declaration of war” by Congress. They do, however, require a ready, precise, and well-led military to achieve their goals. The United States has such a force. It is a blessing.
