A retired general said the "hairs on his neck stood up" when he heard one part of Donald Trump's plans for Venezuela.
Ret. Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling appeared on MS NOW on Saturday, where he was asked about the Trump administration's decision to capture the leader of Venezuela. Trump went on to say he plans to have the U.S. take control over the country, as opposed to letting the nation's constitution do its job, and didn't rule out having U.S. boots on the ground.
The host asked Hertling about the administration's plans, saying, "So, general, you used theword difficult, challenging.Would you add dangerous to thatdescription?"
He replied, "Yeah, I most certainly would.And truthfully, it brought backa whole lot of scar tissue forme. Having been in Iraq acouple of times, especially mylast tour, there was in an areathat had the Baiji oilrefineries and some of theKurdish oil fields. We tried tobring in oil companies to helpthe Iraqis figure out how towork their their oil facilitiesbetter than they had been. Andit was difficult because ofsecurity issues."
He then added, "And I kind ofreally... the hairs on my neckstood up when the presidentsaid, 'Oh, we don't have toworry about boots on the ground.We can do that.' And that wasprobably something new to theaudience today, too. Theyprobably weren't expecting thefact that we might havemilitary forces in Venezuelaand in these kind of situationsin a country that's as big asVenezuela with a 300 or with a30 million citizen population,and with a security forcebetween the army and the policeforces, measures about 300,000in Venezuela."
Concluding his answer on an ominous note, the general said, "I'mnot sure they're going to opentheir welcoming arms to allthose people that might becoming in from the various oilcompanies."