It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day. That's not how these things work. This is like the first stone of an avalanche. It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
Considering the extreme amount of crime and violence that currently exists in Venesuela removing it's government without being able to put anything in its place will not be pretty at all...
Without a full military occupation it might just turn into another Haiti just on a much bigger scale. Of course US will probably have to intervene to "secure" the oil industry...
Personally, I think most Americans don't give Venezuela much thought.
I think Trump is hoping to get a short popularity boost the way George Bush did with the capture of Manuel Noriega, but people cared more about who controlled the Panama Canal in the 1990s than they care about who controls Venezuela today. And I don't know anybody who expects this to impact drugs coming from Venezuela or Latin America in general.
But, we also still enjoy all of the benefits of being like this. Cheap oil(that impacts you even if you don't drive), globally very high income, resources of all varieties from all over the world, relative security etc. All these things don't happen to use because we're a nation of swell people. They happen because we do awful things to people around the world in a variety of ways in order to maintain our way of life.
The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
Another comment was discussing how shocked they were with how brazen a move this was for oil, and that in the past the government wouldn't have been so honest. As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
>The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
The truth is Americans mostly don't like this, but have little means to do much due to the political structure of how our government works. Our legislature is silently approving and it is clearly costing the seats, even thought it is still 10 months before the next cycle of elections for those seats. But that's 10 months away, and while tensions were strong for months this happened in a single day. It's so much easier to tear down than to build up.
And the truth is that most of us aren't going to try and perform a violent upheaval against a trillion dollar military complex. We lack the skills, resources, and even geography for that. I can't even afford a plane ride to DC at the moment.
I'm not a particular fan of the "you critique society yet you participate in it" argument. This assumes a lot of agency in the individual that doesn't exist without collective bargaining.
>As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
Every country has inconvenient truths it tries to hide. It being brazen about the evils it commits is the truly surprising part. The whole point of propaganda is convincing your people that they are the good guys, and there was none of that pomp here.
The strategy of the administration appears to be that they have authorization to “breaking things quickly” and then can ask the powers at be to approve any “fix” or simply accept the broken state.
If Venezuela descends into a state of anarchy, they can ask congress to approve a plan to restore order. We’re irrevocably involved in the situation now.
But I will be blunt, the problem is not just the current government. One of our political parties starts at least one large conflict every time they are in power. This has happened for 35 years now, if this continues my entire lifespan will have existed in a perpetual state of war.
George W. got reelected - by a razor-thin margin - for three reasons: lucky timing, an unpopular opposition candidate, and a deliberate campaign to smear Kerry's record in the service.
GW's popularity steadily declined from the summer of '03 until the end of his presidency. If the election had been any later, he would've been below 50% and wouldn't have been able to pull it off. Meanwhile Democrats chose the least energizing presidential candidate I've seen in my entire adult life. (I've been voting since Bush v. Gore.) And when Kerry was nominated and the Swift Boat smear campaign started - a group whose claims have been since been discredited - Democrats did very little to fight back.
Even if we did "want this" back then, support for the invasion of Iraq plummeted during Bush's second term and has never recovered. Two-thirds of Americans, and almost that many veterans who actually fought in the war, said it wasn't worth fighting and still say so today.
Excellent comment that really gets to the crux of the matter. Countries like China and India see themselves as civilizational, America sees itself as a perfect marketplace - it exists to feed its customers's wants and whims as efficiently as possible. I don't necessarily mean this in a demeaning way, it is what it is. In some sense, America is a state-level example of hedonic adaptation with its positives being improvements in quality of life and development of new tech, negatives being a bully in world politics, endless wars and bloodshed.
In general, hedonic adaption ends either with internal retrospection (shifting from pleasure to purpose) or an external disruption. In America's case, the former is extremely unlikely IMHO - the American people will not put their money where their mouth is because they enjoy the wealth generated this way. It will be upto external disruptors to check on Uncle Sam's endless thirst.
As long as people all over the world are using ChatGPT and GMail they have all the intel needed to control the world, just like they won wars by all telegrams going through them in the 1800s.
China is their only competitor, but so far people clearly prefer to chat with AI companies from USA.
I'm not so sure. Sure, they want the benefits that are provided. However, if being aware of what the costs are to get those benefits apriori, I'm not sure Americans would think the exchange worthwhile.
> Sure, they want the benefits that are provided. However, if being aware of what the costs are to get those benefits apriori
no being aware is the key here. For example just on NPR - 40% of American kids think bacon is a plant.
(Don't get me wrong - i intentionally immigrated to US and i like all those benefits of life here. Speaking about the costs of that to the rest of the world - back in Russia i worked for domestic employers as well as for a US based one, and being "exploited" by the US based employer were much nicer than by the domestics.)
>They’re children. They don’t need to know where bacon and hot dogs come from.
not sure about that. Around age 7 i saw a full butchering of a pig at my grandmother's farm, and i was still happily eating pork for the next 20+ years, and i don't remember anybody in my childhood not knowing where the bacon is coming from. I stopped eating beef and pork though about 20 years ago exactly for the reason where it comes from.
Btw, "They don’t need to know where ... come from" can be said by the powers-to-be about people of any age.
While that might certainly be true in the abstract, it isn't worth much.
Most people would probably eat less meat if they knew exactly what was happening to the animals in that process. We'd eat less chocolate if we really thought about the slavery in the chocolate supply chain. We'd not buy certain products because of the environmental impact and working conditions.
But instead we just mostly deliberately avoid learning and thinking about those things. And I count myself as well. The incentives all push Americans to be OK with this.
I think you and your parent think that people have more of a concern of others than actual reality. Most americans walk past homeless people and think nothing of it. Most americans, and certainly those in wealthy cities, care about others at a superficial level. For instance you and your parent complain, and that’s where it ends. You will not sacrifice yourself or your life for others, asking others to is just negligent.
>You will not sacrifice yourself or your life for others, asking others to is just negligent.
I'm asking about 218 elected representatives and 67 senators to do their job. This isn't a matter of "we (the people) need to start a civil war to show our disdain for these actions". At least, not yet. There's so many channels to address this that doesn't involve "sacrificing ourselves", but the channels are at best clogged and at worst compliant, despite what they were voted to do.
Because you don't know what you're getting yourself into with a stranger, and most people aren't social workers or drug counselors with experience helping the homeless.
thats nonsense. I hang out with the homeless all the time. some of them are really just mentally ill, some are real shitheads, but there are alot of
perfectly normal people out there that are just reacting to daily trauma. if can live through not having a place to sleep where you dont have to worry about getting fucked up or raped, and having your shit jacked by the police and other homeless all the time, and still keep some semblance of sanity, then you're a stronger person than I.
"in the past the government wouldn't have been so honest"
I'm 37, so I was young at the time of Afghanistan/Iraq, about 14. I recall thinking the adults who said it was "for the oil" were dangerously naive: neither had significant oil resources that would alter supply dramatically, gas prices weren't high, the administration had 0 to say on that front, and it wasn't even close to a focus once fighting settled.
This leaves me curious about conclusions drawn from that.
I find it mildly amusing I'm at -1 for an obviously-correct observation re: oil not being a clear motivation & the top reply is "we wanted control of heroin trade, to help Israel defeat their principal regional rival Afghanistan, and pay off military contractors."
In reality, an administration with an ideological bent towards using military force reacted, with universal acclaim, to 9/11.
Future historians, it didn't used to be like this. Started getting really weird around 2018.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Sadam was a dictator that kept the various religious factions in line. America was just looking for an excuse to go in again. Everyone knew there were no weapons of mass distraction too.
The reasons for America going in are complex, but relate to control of the middle east, keeping USA currency top, resources, and money for various groups that benefitted.
And the us became a oil net exporter, which makes you more interested in a constricted supply. The whole story just never checked out, if you move it around just a little bit.
It was about giving US companies control over the profits from the oil industry and crushing an unaligned country in the region to turn it into a US puppet state, not just to carry barrels of crude oil home.
dont forget that Iraq _was_ a US puppet state for the bulk of the Iran-Iraq war. It's entirely plausible that Hussein just got too uppity, and needed to be taken out.
This is simultaneously A) true B) not particularly huge IMHO (~5% of global oil production, 8% of reserves) C) unrelated as to whether the US "got their oil"
If I'm understanding correctly, I'm reminded of an old saw I think I made up:
You can lie (shade people's interpretations) by either using percentages, or gross amounts.
I'm sure that's a TON of oil, gross amount.
I'm also sure 8% is "not particularly huge".
For instance, if I could get you without this frame, and told you that you got a 92% on a test, you got an "absolutely bonkers amount" of questions wrong...you'd argue with me.
If you started crying when I told you that you got a 92% on the test, then told you that's a "not particularly huge" amount to get wrong, I think you'd agree, if not be consoled.
And, sorry, but your analogy sucks. Multiple students can get 0-100% on any given test independently.
Now imagine if only one student out of a class of ~200 (~195 countries in the world) can get the right answer to each question (200 questions total) and once one person answers the question, no one else can get credit for it (if you burn oil, it's gone).
By default, each country should get 1 question or 0.5% (percent of oil) on the test. Now the teacher announces that the answer to 16 questions (8%) can be found in the library and the person who gets there first gets all those points.. Getting a hold of even ONE block of 8% probably puts you in the top 10 students in the class. If you can find such a block to add to your 3% (US), at 11%, you're likely to be in the top 5 students in the class. Add another 10% (Venezuela) and 6% (Canada), and at 27%, you're probably #1.
I respect the shit out of you for chasing this and coming up with an obvious angle I missed in my last volley. I agree to disagree, because my fundamental reaction at this point is you’re being obtuse on purpose and that’s unfair and wrong. I owe you a beer if we meet, good hard interlocution.
I find a lot of that type of thinking is born of conspiracy theory motivations: they want the world to make sense so there has to be "a plan". It leads to people chronically overvaluing money and chronically underestimating ideology.
Trouble is that Trump's ideology is all but explicitly rapacious and amoral.
I think you are correct that Bush had a very different ideology. I view him as more of a buffoon than a robber baron. (We spent $2-3T in Iraq -- if it was robbery, it was not effective.) I doubt it makes much difference to people whose lives were ruined. But it could be important in the broader context of predicting US behavior: Bush started the PEPFAR program which saved millions from AIDS in Africa; Trump wrecked it.
One very sad possibility is that Bush discredited the ideology of "compassionate conservatism" in the US through his bumbling, and that contributed to the relative popularity of Trump's "amoral conservatism".
> We spent $2-3T in Iraq -- if it was robbery, it was not effective.
The robbery was done against the American people. They are the ones who were robbed! Imagine in what shape the country would be if you would have gotten free higher education and free healthcare instead?
The other and with that the biggest victim were the causalities from the invasion, but they were not robbed but rather assaulted…
> They happen because we do awful things to people around the world in a variety of ways in order to maintain our way of life.
And having been lucky in the last century+ that none of your neighbors did anything wild. Not having to fight an actual war in your own country helps a lot in getting ahead.
And no, pearl harbor doesn't count, as bad as that was it's nothing compared to the destruction of 2 world wars that set Europe back a century
If we’re still chasing cheap oil we’re going to get crushed by China. Both from an economic and national security perspective, ignoring renewable energy to pursue burning more fossil fuels is the height of ignorance. Not only are we destroying the planet for future generations, burning oil is already more expensive than wind and solar + batteries.
Which is what I've come to realize: at least for the US, national prosperity comes at the expense of foreigners' misery [0]. I wonder if this holds for other countries, too? I wonder if --- for example --- former European colonist state's citizens stare at themselves in the mirror and question who built their large buildings; what the provenance of the gold decorations on their buildings? Would they be so well off?
Having moved to Europe from Mexico, I sometimes get asked if Spain is regarded as "having brought civilization" to Mexico; the first time I heard the question, it took me a while to collect my jaw from the floor: I could not believe someone was that accidentally uninformed... seems like it had been a deliberate choice to not teach about the race systems that their ancestors had imposed (i.e. inventors of apartheid, in a way), the raping, the slavery, nor systematic complicity of the church, as well [1]:
> In 1512, the Laws of Burgos forced the conquistadores to respect the rights and freedom of Indigenous peoples. This was followed formally by the papal bull, Sublimus Dei of 1537 which declared Native Americans were no longer to be considered “dumb brutes created for our service” but were “truly men” capable of thinking, acting, and deciding their own destiny, control their own properties, and enjoy liberty. It proceeded to formally prohibit the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, one year later, this was nullified (Pope Paul III, 1537).
And that's not even covering the destruction of written history and books [2].
So, I think you may be right... this entire world may be filled with selfish monsters that do not want to know --- really know --- how much they are benefiting from other people's suffering.
Well allowing Iran unlimited access to global markets would certainly help that.
Same for Venesuela, lifting sanctions and making it easier for them to develop their infrastructure would have lowered the global price of oil.
Governments in both countries are more than happy to sell more oil if anyone allowed them to.
It's not like US politically controlling a large oil producing country makes oil cheaper for Americans. They still have to buy it at the same price as everyone else.
Profits of American oil companies is quite a different matter, though.
Only because no one is presenting both options to the public as a choice - cheap gas but you'll screw up dozens of countries and create insecurity for your kids. They would be less likely to want that if they understood the tradeoff. Let's be clear, this choice was made by rich people who'll make a lot more money from it, and they won't be the ones bearing the costs. So this isn't on Americans' greed, just their ignorance.
It’s because we have a sense of fatalism about our political class’ ability to address any long-term negative consequences: climate change, and a ballooning debt that a future administration will use as an excuse to shred whatever is left of Social Security and America’s safety net. Don’t confuse that with acceptance.
The US is a shit country. I've been traveling around the world for months now and there's no benefit to living in the US. Cheap gas but no health care, no public transit, no trains, no affordable housing, shitty class relations? American exceptionalism is deluded. The imperialism isn't benefiting the American people quit fooling yourself.
I don't think the US has "shitty class relations". Most of your complaints are true, but in the US social class is mutable and upgrades to social class are encouraged and celebrated (even though this is becoming much more difficult in practice). Contrast this with Europe and other parts of the world with entrenched aristocracies and castes that survive generations. There are major problems but social mobility is still relatively better in US; in Europe healthcare is way better and being on the bottom rung isn't as bad, but fewer people from the bottom make it to the top.
There is a tiny portion that makes the GDP look nice, but as someone who knows average Americans outside of tech, it's an absolute joke. Especially when you look at necessities you basically cannot get around (medical costs, taxes, etc.).
Sure if you are on HN chances are you might not notice, but I know people that effectively live in somewhat close to slavery because they need to work every working hour simply to live and has been caught in a nice web where they don't even have time to reconsider life. Something the employer clearly set up that way, including things like being the landlord.
That's why there can be an elite and a "middle class" that lives off these people.
The homeless problem not just in SF but all the way to the midwest is ridiculous and how these homeless people are dealt with - basically like a pest is outrageous.
People here get severely upset about how bad people have it here, when they do have it much nicer. Meanwhile people in the US seem to largely turn a blind eye.
All that while taking the hit of refugees that have (largely) been caused by US politics.
I am sorry, but things don't work despite meddling with any country that has natural resources.
And I mean that as it is. I know it's not easy to come out of it. But the thing is starting a war every now and then doesn't seem to help a lot of fixing actual problems. Despite all the benefits it clearly has for the US.
How do we even know they're being honest? They've been lying about everything for so long, and now we're just suddenly gonna believe they're being honest only when it pertains to Venezuela? Why?
If they're lying... that's an awfully strange choice of lies. It makes them look rather thuggish. Usually you pick a lie that would make you look better, right?
The administration doesn't care about whether their motives appear palatable or not. Every decision is based on an ever increasing cascade of consequences they can dam up and then release on other people so said administration can go do something else during the cleanup. Aside from one person who's a massive narcissist they don't give a damn about how they're perceived. They only cared when other people had the authority to grand them authority, but now that they are the authority they'll never give it away. And when you don't have to worry about losing your authority you don't have to care about what people think of you. This is why the weakest monarchs were the ones with debts, and the strongest ones were those with centralized militaries.
> The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
For myself, I could not disagree more. I don't want this. And if you know of a lever I can pull to make it stop, I'm all ears - as long as it's not voting, calling my reps, or holding a sign. I've been doing those things for over 25 years and they haven't done squat.
I appreciate the honesty myself... While I'd like to see the actually elected officials in Venezuela put in charge, I understand the govt will largely be working through the seated govt and other channels in order to encourage the desired changes.
I don't think Oil is the sole reason for this, I think that the influences of Iran, China, Russia and Cuba in Venezuela as well as the drug trafficking coming through them is the larger issue... getting back the Oil trade in the end is just icing on the proverbial cake. I also think it could be better for the people of Venezuela in the long run vs the authoritarian and communist influences they've had over the past half century.
Trump is funny, dishonest as hell when it comes to his ego, but more honest than any other politician I've ever even heard of at the same time.
Besides being a fiction very much supported by dictators, international law is a delusion entertained by (a) those who have never lived under a dictatorship and (b) those oblivious to the fact that their freedoms and peace depend on the protection of the world’s most powerful military.
Or, is reducing it to “dictator bad; gone good” unobvious, and something that slipped by everyone?
To wit: we’re in a thread for the top comment for a 3844 comment post, and that comment is noting that when there’s a power vacuum, things usually* get worse for the citizenry.
If it had been about taking out dictators, they were kind of spoiled for choice in that regard. They could have picked an easier one, or at least one which made strategic sense in some way.
While it's true that so far they only removed Maduro, removing a sitting president and his wife is a show of power, it's a "we do whatever we want". What is stopping the US to remove the next person, and continue doing so until as they find someone that they like? Or to organize an up-rising or a coup? The writing is on the wall.
This already likely was a coup. They knew exactly where Maduro was and were able to get in and out, with no air defense issues, no alarm issues, and all presumably with just a small commando group. This isn't like grabbing Osama who was relatively alone on a compound - this is the current President of a country, who was already probably quite paranoid, and who now was under active threat and certainly behaving accordingly. Doing all that as an outsider is basically impossible, so they must have had substantial amounts of insider help, which is essentially the definition of a coup.
And the media is already reporting that 'somehow' all of his inner circle seem to have survived.
True but you don't need advanced defense to take out slow moving helicopters, the fact that nobody used manpads is extremely suspect. Also in syria the russians did token airstrikes while jolani's forces blitzed through the countryside.
It was done at night with stealth helicopters, and over 150 planes in the air. Not sure it's necessarily easy to take out US military helicopters in that environment. They move pretty fast.
Sure, but bulky chinnok helicopters flying low to the ground and barely getting shot at? Smelling an inside job honestly, especially with rumors of trump wanting have Venezuela's current VP ascend to the presidency instead of the other investor lady.
2-3 years max in a federal country club prison, minimum security. Then it's off to Switzerland or Dubai with his ill gotten gains. It is rather sad to see people having a personal stake in this. It's a big club, and you ain't in it.
To be fair, an illegitimate president, who was being protected with forces from a foreign (to them) govt. A LOT of people in and from Venezuela wanted Maduro out. The dancing in the streets are a pretty big indicator of this. And it's quite probable there were insiders involved that helped this operation happen.
They should study political philosophy a bit more so they don’t say foolish things.
America is very clearly a legitimate democracy, even if who was voted in office and the actions of that democratically elected government don’t align with your expectations or world view.
I didn’t vote for the guy. But I did vote. And as a poll worker I can tell you first hand that we ran a free and fair election as we have for any year I can think of. Legitimate Democracy. Period.
That's a legitimately run _election_, which is necessary for but not the same as a legitimate democracy. For a democracy to be legitimate you need an impartial judiciary, an enforced constitution, fundamental civil liberties, and an accountable government.
Those are good points and the United States could do a better job, but those elements are all graded on a spectrum. I don’t think that having a few failures over some number of years means all of a sudden the entire thing is illegitimate.
Thank you for serving as a poll worker. (Seriously: thank you)
We have a legitimate democracy in terms of vote-counting, and you personally contribute to that.
It looks a lot less legitimate to me when I think about factors like votes having vastly varying weights because of gerrymandering and the Electoral College.
It gets even less legitimate when I think about how severely restricted our choice of candidates are, and how they are more or less chosen by party leaders and the oligarchy via billions of dollars of lobbying etc.
In this case, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral vote... that said, I believe in the idea of the Electoral College in that it's important to balance population and each State's rights. The one thing I would like to see are a larger congressional body as there are too few congressional representatives for the size of the electorate. We should probably have at least 3x the members of the House to at least be closer to the founding norms. Just my own take.
I'd also like to see a better runoff system than what we have in place, which could give a chance to more parties coming out. Right now, there are alignments into the two major parties and a lot of infighting because they are at least closer to what each group wants, but not really aligned and these create hard splits where there shouldn't be on a lot of issues.
Well, in the same vein I could tell you to re-take your primary school civics classes and write me an essay on the key components of a modern democracy.
The mechanism by which we choose leaders isn’t even in the top three most important prerequisites for a functioning democracy. If you didn’t pay attention in history and civics classes this may come as a surprise.
Democracy is about voting. What you’re referring to is “modern government,” which is full of undemocratic institutions and run by unelected bureaucrats according to values that don’t reflect the public’s.
As corporate lobbying succeeds with its lobotomization/capture of public institutions, it fundamentally raises the bar for what constitutes legitimate democracy - for example ranked choice voting rather than raced-to-the-bottom plurality. Or to the point you're responding to - as Congress continues to sit by and let this dictator run amok, how much can we say that this is really the democratic system working as laid out, rather than a mere husk of the old democratic structure going through the motions while something else is actually running the show?
This should be doubly apparent in this thread, where this specific invasion would likely still be happening even if the fascists had lost in 2024 - this has military industrial complex's manufacturing consent and nation building all over it, regardless of it benefiting Trump to distract from the childrape files and whatever other corruption/stealing he can wedge in.
> You do realize the current government won the elections and the president won the popular vote right
Technically he won a plurality of the popular vote, but he didn't win the popular vote. This is typically not a distinction that matters, but in this case it's what happened. The majority of people voted for someone else, but he got votes from more people than any other candidate did.
Of course, what really matters is the electoral college, but the popular vote is often seen as lending even more legitimacy to a victory.
The reason it doesn’t matter is that everyone who chooses to vote third party does so fully knowing who the two front runners are, as well as the likely margin of their state. Most third-party voters are in extremely uncompetitive states, making it quite safe to make a statement vote, even though it potentially dampens your “lesser of two evils” candidate’s apparent mandate.
For instance, I wrote an invalid write-in candidate since both major parties ran clowns in 2024, but Harris carried my state by a mile.
This is very true... I used to vote Libertarian for all races where there was a Libertarian candidate... then my state shifted purple, and I'd rather see a Republican more often than not over a given Democrat candidate. While I don't agree with the actual far right fringe, I cannot vote for a party with prominent communists in it.
I agree that most people who vote for other candidates come from uncompetitive states. But this doesn't necessarily prove your point. If there were more other-candidate supporters who would have voted for Kamala (if they had to vote for one of the two main candidates) than Trump, then that would mean he wouldn't have won the popular vote if it was just between the two of them.
Regardless, I think it's important to be precise about claims like this, since there is actually a difference between winning the popular vote and winning a plurality of it. Imagine making the claim if 10% of the popular vote went to third-party candidates, or even 20%!
Don’t worry, the next out-of-touch geezer you run will definitely have the charisma to win. It looks like they may be up against JD Vance for Christ’s sake.
At this point the bar is so low, who knows? A criminal rapist fraudster grifter won and continues to have enthusiastic support. Personally, I blame religion for strengthening those tribalism neural pathways and eroding critical thinking abilities.
Critical thinking comes later, not before. So religion doesn't erode them, but delays them.
Secondly, tribal behavior is strengthened through sports teams, college allegiances, rep vs dem party lines and many other things, with the latter of those being the main reason.
Thirdly, the dems were very pro zionist while Trump was able to maintain deniability. This swung a lot of dem voters.
Lastly, Kamala got something like 0 votes in the primary. Wishing she would win the general election was delusional. Dems should themselves in the foot twice vs Trump with Kamala and when they betrayed Bernie to help Hillary.
You should engage in some critical thinking yourself instead of blasting your insecurities over the internet. Your media diet (bet $1000 that reddit is a big part) needs a do-over.
> Critical thinking comes later, not before. So religion doesn't erode them, but delays them.
Critical thinking is a base human ability, which religion can indeed erode before it has a chance to grow.
> Secondly, tribal behavior is strengthened through sports teams, college allegiances, rep vs dem party lines and many other things, with the latter of those being the main reason.
This doesn't negate anything I've said, it adds to it. It is notable that the more religious parts of the US act more religious about their political party, however - something not seen in most western countries.
> Thirdly, the dems were very pro zionist while Trump was able to maintain deniability. This swung a lot of dem voters.
They were not as pro zionist as the "Lets demolish Gaza and build new resorts" GOP.
> Wishing she would win the general election was delusional.
Only because the US population is what it is, which is why wishing the only rational choice got elected is too much to hope for.
> blasting your insecurities over the internet.
I'm doing no such thing, however the way you make assumptions so haphazardly shows you yourself could benefit from some critical thinking instruction.
The left barely altered course in any perceptable manner, at least to disinterested parties outside of the US.
The US right, however, went all in on woke .. they literally couldn't shut up about "the left", "woke" and immigrants eating pets.
Outside of that Fox / Carson / Turner Network et al altered reality bubble it was hard to see evidence of significant increases in Drag Conversion therapy in school libraries and litter boxes in school classrooms.
Good effort though, it was years of sustained make believe and dead cat after dead cat thrown on the table of public discourse.
Tell yourself that if you want, but it's well-documented that the "Kamala's for they/them, Donald Trump is for you" ad was the top performer in the 2024 election cycle.
Kamala declined to walk back her support for, among other things, taxpayer funding of transgender surgeries for inmates. This was an extreme position that most Americans do not support. It is also at odds with the global trend, including in progressive European countries, with regard to the risks/benefits of transgender surgeries.
The Left loves to play the "Republicans pounce" game, and say that the Right is politicizing things. But this is a situation where the Right was reacting to a move the Left had made. This situation helped the Right win in the 2024 election cycle because they had the 80 percent side of multiple 80/20 issues (especially border security and transgender issues).
You can dislike the outcome (I sure do!), but this was a case of the pendulum swinging back, not the Right getting out over its skis.
ADDITION: It also didn't help that the prior administration had lied its face off about Biden being competent, which undermined trust in Dems in general and Kamala in particular. But when Republicans called this out, they were not exaggerating, they were just 6 months ahead of CNN/MSNBC finally admitting it after the debate.
> Tell yourself that if you want, but it's well-documented that the "Kamala's for they/them, Donald Trump is for you" ad was the top performer in the 2024 election cycle.
That's the problem, though. It shows how gullible and easy manipulated the US population was. Trans people are already such a tiny part of society, and an even tinier part of the prison population.
Offering healthcare for prisoners is something a developed, first world country should do, and trans healthcare is considered by experts to be necessary most of the time.
To throw away a vote on this single issue can only be due to ignorance, hate or both.
> That's the problem, though. It shows how gullible and easy manipulated the US population was. Trans people are already such a tiny part of society, and an even tinier part of the prison population.
But Kamala's position was not that it wouldn't cost very much. She backed the ideology, and the vast majority of Americans disagree with that ideology.
> To throw away a vote on this single issue can only be due to ignorance, hate or both.
Many Americans saw this issue as yet another one (like the Biden competence one) where Dems were telling them to ignore what appear to be plainly obvious facts, like "men cannot become women". Some voters decided that they could not support a candidate who appeared to live in a different reality, on the thinking that "if she's willing to lie to me about such basic facts, what won't she lie to me about?"
> But Kamala's position was not that it wouldn't cost very much. She backed the ideology, and the vast majority of Americans disagree with that ideology.
I don't think that's really accurate. Most Americans are deeply misinformed on the issue, and a fair percentage of them think it's something like men making excuses to go in women's prisons.
A lot of those voters got their info specifically from misinformation sources like Fox News or those ads.
> Many Americans saw this issue as yet another one (like the Biden competence one) where Dems were telling them to ignore what appear to be plainly obvious facts, like "men cannot become women". Some voters decided that they could not support a candidate who appeared to live in a different reality, on the thinking that "if she's willing to lie to me about such basic facts, what won't she lie to me about?"
This is why I've said elsewhere democracy doesn't work when you have such an uneducated population. Those voters are not informed on issues of transgender health of gender dysphoria, and so were taken advantage of and misled by a party that created/stoked fears and spread misinformation to win an election.
> This is why I've said elsewhere democracy doesn't work when you have such an uneducated population
You're literally the person who downthread advocates for redefining "majority" to be a synonym with "plurality" because people who don't know the actual definition of "majority" use it that way.
> Those voters are not informed on issues of transgender health of gender dysphoria, and so were taken advantage of and misled by a party that created/stoked fears and spread misinformation to win an election.
> You're literally the person who downthread advocates for redefining "majority" to be a synonym with "plurality" because people who don't know the actual definition of "majority" use it that way.
No. Far from it. This seems to be a case of willful ignorance, as I said in a previous reply reputable dictionaries[0] define majority to mean 'most', i.e. a definition exists for the word majority which exactly matches the way people use it.
It would seem it is you who is unaware of at least one of the definitions of the word majority.
To the extent is is autobiographical, your comment about uneducated people who were misled by a party spreading misinformation is indeed objective. Good luck escaping your chosen bubble!
No, it isn't autobiographical. It's pretty widely documented that the vast majority are ignorant about transgender issues and help. The GOP ads focusing on trans issues were objectively misinformation, just like 45s claim about migrants eating cats and dogs.
Out of the two of us, I'm not the one in a bubble.
"I'm not in a bubble" is literally what people in a bubble say, FWIW.
You seem to think it's more likely that 80% of the country has been misled by propaganda related to basic human biology than that the other 20% is wrong. There have been plenty of times when 80% of people were wrong about something, but when the topic is one that all humans have firsthand experience with, it's somewhat less likely that they've been magically misled.
You're off-base comparing this to migrants eating cats and dogs. That was never an 80/20 issue.
> The left barely altered course in any perceptable manner, at least to disinterested parties outside of the US.
Obama carried out mass deportations, claimed that undocumented migrants broke laws and must be held accountable, ordered extrajudicial execution of US citizen and was protected by executive privilege, invaded Pakistan to kidnap and execute Osama bin Laden, deposed Gaddafi and destroyed Libya, campaigned on a platform opposing gay marriage, wanted better relations with Russia and was secretly transmitting promises to Putin, vastly expanded the state surveillance apparatus, had citigroup appoint his cabinet, gave bankers bankers / wall st a pass for their role in the mortgage crisis. And he was (and very much still is), he was a darling of the left.
When pressed, many will try to claim they never really liked him, disavowed those particular things about him, that he was actually a right-wing president, etc., which in a weasely way might be technically true, but the difference in decibels surrounding very similar actions betrays reality.
The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade. Not sure why I see so many denying this. Unless you're trying to say they never cared about any of that and still don't they're simply cheerleading for their team, which is more cynical but more understandable I guess.
> The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade.
The only thing the American "mainstream left" did in the last decade is grow from a completely insignificant size, on a national scale, to a slightly less insignificant size, through a subset of the political disaffected becoming engaged (a big catalyst for that being Bernie Sanders 2016 primary campaign; DSA membership shot up, IIRC, more than 10-fold directly after that.)
The set of viewpoints in that group didn't really change all that much, nor did the set of viewpoints in the actually mainstream groups left of the GOP (which themselves are not actually left, but center-right pro-capitalist.)
Its the closest thing to both mainstream and left that currently exists.
And its also the source of the change in the overall Democratic coalition; the Democratic center-right that has been (and remains) the dominant faction of the party hasn't moved an inch, but the party as a whole has moved because the segment further left has grown substantially, mainly by mobilizing the previously disaffected.
> No it's not, that's just something the left uses to deflect rather than take ownership of their own problems.
No, it is the fucking left.
> The democrat party essentially is the mainstream American left
The US has no political party named “the democrat party”, and the Democratic Party is (as historically each of the two major US parties has normally been) a broad coalition party, the dominant faction of which currently is center-right neoliberal capitalist, not anything even approximating left. The center-left to left component of the party is substantially weaker (though it has grown stronger since 2016, with an influx of the previously disaffected, as I described.)
On a very zoomed out aggregate level, sure, the Democratic Party has changed—and if that’s what you want to talk about, just say that—but the source of that change is the part that isn’t center-right neoliberal capitalist drawing in new blood from outside the party, not a change in the positions of the left (or, for that matter, a change in the position of the dominant faction of the part,y, either.)
If you use “left” to refer to a faction that (1) is largely seen as an opposing force by those who identify as “left”, and (2) largely sees the “left” as the label of an opposing force, and (3) where even you admit there is a much clearer term for what you are actually referring to... Well, maybe you should reconsider your terminology.
No, you're just going berserk for no good reason. Everybody understood the words and the context, even you did despite feigning ignorance. These are commonly used terms, and were put in an entirely proper and understandable context. Having a little tanty on the internet won't change any of that that. Deal with it.
> Technically he won a plurality of the popular vote, but he didn't win the popular vote. This is typically not a distinction that matters, but in this case it's what happened.
Colloquially majority means 'greatest share', and he certainly had the greatest share of votes out of all candidates. I don't like it, but it's correct to say he won the popular vote.
I agree that some people use the phrase loosely. I would ask such people what they would say to distinguish between someone who actually won the majority of the popular vote versus someone who did not. It's not a "super-majority" situation, IMO. But surely it's worthwhile to have a different way of referring to the two cases, especially now that the less-common one has happened in recent history.
> I would ask such people what they would say to distinguish between someone who actually won the majority of the popular vote versus someone who did not.
This is like asking someone to distinguish between a hypothesis of who killed JFK when they say they have a theory of who did. You're mixing the colloquial usage for no reason.
Majority doesn't mean more than 50% of the vote in everyday language, it means 'the most'. Trump got the most votes of any one candidate.
> Majority doesn't mean more than 50% of the vote in everyday language
I guess it depends on whom you hang out with and talk to. I completely agree that some people can't understand the difference and speak accordingly. But I don't think we should redefine words based on the lowest common denominator of understanding/usage.
And in this case, it's especially important not to redefine "majority" because if we do then there's no word left to refer to an actual majority. That's not the same thing as JFK conspiracy theories.
> But I don't think we should redefine words based on the lowest common denominator of understanding/usage.
No one is redefining anything. Merriam-Webster and Oxford both have a definition for majority meaning most, and that's the more common definition that is used in everyday speech.
Context matters.
> And in this case, it's especially important not to redefine "majority" because if we do then there's no word left to refer to an actual majority.
In this context, talking about the popular vote, no information is lost, nothing is miscommunicated by using the word majority and understanding how people are using it. Which, by the way, they are using correctly as per dictionary definitions.
> That's not the same thing as JFK conspiracy theories.
No, but it's the same as per my example in that you are being pedantic about a word in a way that serves no purpose, except maybe to try and make people feel stupid.
> Merriam-Webster and Oxford both have a definition for majority meaning most, and that's the more common definition that is used in everyday speech.
I don't have a subscription to Oxford's dictionary, but MW's lead definition mentions being more than half [1]. The fact that there is some other definition that doesn't specifically mention this is not probative of your claim that this is the more important definition. And your unsubstantiated claim that this is the more common usage is belied by the fact that your preferred definition is not the lead definition.
The definition you're attached to/fixating on, is marked as definition 'a'. Definition 'c' is defined as: the greater quantity or share - it's two lines below, you must have seen it.
That's the definition most people are using, and they are using it correctly. It's some shameful attempt at elitism to insist on correcting people, especially when they are not wrong - really it's just a completely inability to understand that different contexts use different definitions.
> And your unsubstantiated claim that this is the more common usage is belied by the fact that your preferred definition is not the lead definition.
I'm not sure the ordering of definitions indicates what you think it does, in any case it's trivial to find examples of the word majority being used to mean definition c. Ask your favorite AI, I bet they'll tell you you're wrong - and you know what? There's nothing wrong with that.
> a number or percentage equaling more than half of a total
a majority of voters
a two-thirds majority
I never said I couldn't find it, and I linked to it above. It's not a "shameful attempt at elitism" to point out that the first-listed definition is what I said. Your rejoinder that there exists some definition that could encompass your preferred usage does not refute what I said. Since you seem to be impervious to such logic, I'll leave it here. Have a good one!
> It's not a "shameful attempt at elitism" to point out that the first-listed definition is what I said.
That wasn't the behavior backing the claim, and you know it. The behaviour backing the claim was ignoring the definition being used as an excuse to try and correct people when you know well what they were saying. It's a sign of insecurity, generally.
> Your rejoinder that there exists some definition that could encompass your preferred usage does not refute what I said.
The fact that the word as a definition that shows that people were using it correctly is what refutes your claim.
> Since you seem to be impervious to such logic
I have no problem with logic, but I am critical of various peoples "logic".
> I'll leave it here.
I'm skeptical, but if you follow through I'll be appreciative.
All while Europe dabbles in outlawing and criminalizing opposition parties they’re deeming “far right”. Sure anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is now “far right”. Regardless of opinion, democracy is about the people determining that conversation, not politburos.
Alternatively the UK violating the millennia old Magna Carta by halting jury trials for criminal offenses with less than 2 years of jail time.
It's actually a bit more complicated than that. And unlike the US during the 20th century, Europe has actually had to contend with the far right abolishing democracy and committing genocide on its own population before. It is understandable that Europe doesn't want to repeat that mistake.
As for your assertion that anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is somehow far right: you are simply wrong.
If you want to find out how wrong you are I would encourage you to try moving to Norway. Then tell me if the process feels "unrestricted".
I would suggest knowing things before you express strong opinions.
The comment I was replying to is also whataboutism from Europe. It was Nazi's who didn't like free speech. Shutting down any sort of debate by yelling "far-right" at everything isn't a functioning democracy either. My grandfather tried to fight in WWII against the actual Nazis, but his politics would be labelled "far-right" now. That's just absurd.
If you're still treating Reddit, especially large subreddits, as a serious source of information rather than an extremely manipulated outlet of 90% propaganda bots, that is quite foolish.
Maybe I should make a website where example.com/e/Europe shows whatever I want people to think Europe thinks, and people will treat it as an authority for some reason? That's basically what you're doing with Reddit.
Yes, clearly the russian bots are running a campaign against Trump, the most explicitly pro-Russia president we've had in decades. Donald "Ukraine started the war" Trump.
The goal isn't to help one coherent team win, but rather to foment division that undermines cohesive action. This is also an attractor for anybody interested in neutralizing democratic governments, be it Russia or simply corporations that don't want to be regulated as they gradually form more and more of their own government.
It doesn't seem far fetched to me for Russia to further drive a wedge between the US and Europe.
I don't partake in that subreddit so I have no clue as to the content or if this claim is true or false but it doesn't seem like a crazy idea for Russia to do. Sure there's plenty of content Trump gives Russia to potentially amplify, but there could still be bots amplifying things and making some opinions or takes on a story be more popular than reality.
If you sit people down and talk to them, I think you will find that most people around the world are actually able to distinguish between peoples and their governments. However when you look at what people say online, or when you ask groups of people, they do not always make the distinction.
The people who can not present a problem. Regardless of what pairing of nationalities.
While there may be some truth to that (bots)... there are definitely a lot of quasi communists that are participating in these groups. They are active, involved and have an outsized influence in terms of being a squeaky wheel.
You just have to look at the protests in NYC over Venezuela to see it... they aren't actually for what the people of Venezuela seem to want (they're celebrating), the protestors are clearly pushing for and protecting at what represents communist values, even if Maduro isn't really much of a Communist.
You could start with none of them voting for their presidential candidate to be nominated.
The Democratic Party is at odds with Democrats, in my opinion. They just don't want to let anyone but the party itself pick the candidate, then are surprised when their own voters don't feel the candidate is theirs.
Obama was nominated in spite of the party, and people showed up for him.
Trump is awful, but losing to him twice is unfathomably stupid.
Yeah, polls are limited in a variety of ways. The election results at least represent when someone took some amount of effort to vote.
2024 eligible voters: 244,666,890
2024 ballots cast: 156,766,239. 64% of eligible voters cast a vote
Trump votes: 77,284,118. 49.2% of votes cast, 31.6% of eligible voters
Harris votes: 74,999,166. 47.8% of votes cast, 30.6% of eligible voters
Trump got 1% more of the eligible voting population to go through the effort of casting a vote. That's not nothing, and it put him in office, but it's not a landslide that grants him an unquestionable public mandate.
I didn't say it was a landslide. The electorate is closely divided. But saying "most people didn't vote for Trump" makes it seem like they wouldn't have voted for him if they had to choose. And the data we have points in exactly the opposite direction. The pool of non-voters is low trust and cynical about American institutions. In that regard, they are more Trumpy than the electorate as a whole. In the Blue Rose study, Harris would have won if only 2022 midterm voters had voted in 2024. And if everyone had voted, Trump would have won by almost 5 points.
Making assumptions that non-voters would or would not support particular policies is erroneous. Harvard-Harris did a poll question on this last month, and found that 76% of Americans supported the U.S. arresting Maduro and bringing him to stand trial in the U.S.: https://harvardharrispoll.com/press-release-december-2025. That means most Americans are further to the right on this issue than a bunch of isolationist conservatives who voted for Trump.
Well, then I'd first have to ask how you define "communist" or "quasi-communist" to understand what you mean. The term "communist" means different things depending on the context of the person who uses that term.
There's Option 3: Trump built a campaign on lies, a significant minority of the American public were gullible enough to believe him, and many of those people regret it.
Option 3 is consistent with national polls. This fact is not flattering to the American public, but it's also not damning. Unfortunately, our electoral system has a slow cycle rate so we're stuck with the consequences for a while.
Assuming you are European, I can only offer these small words of consolation: I feel confident that a significant factor Trump's plummeting approval ratings is his anti-Europe and pro-Russian rhetoric. Everyone was pretty aghast when Trump declared the new public enemies (Canada and Greenland) on his first day in office.
Americans generally have very positive feelings towards Europe. We all just need to make it through the next three years.
Oh, so we’re just making up our reality now? Biden and Trump each won the popular vote and to suggest otherwise would require a belief in a colossal conspiracy theory.
Hi, here in America we also know this is true. :) Just riding it out til the regime of crazy falls over. When it happens, there will be much rejoicing.
This one is probably also -- if not completely invented by -- at least seriously boosted by russotrolls. And weaponized for several pro-Russia talking points, such as campaigning against Kamala Harris ("she is not against Israel so don't vote for her") and driving global gaze out of Ukraine.
I asked why, not how. In any democracy that question is easy to answer. You can look at the candidates platform or poll the voters to find out why someone won. You can't answer the question I asked, because nobody knows why she got the job. The vote in the Europarl had a single candidate choice (her) and nobody else. Literally a rubber stamp.
Because the party groups negotiated with the heads of states comprising the European Council to find a suitable candidate?
You know, like how all parliamentary systems works? No parliamentary system directly has the populace vote for their prime minister.
After the election someone has the task of proposing an executive government to the parliament. In many countries that is the speaker of the house. In the EU it is the heads of states.
The European Parliament has also rejected commissioners from being appointed. How is that literally being a rubber stamp?
Yes, the EU is a bit more complex. What most people miss is that the EU functionally has both an upper and lower house, with the upper house being selected from the national elections and lower house from EU wide elections.
I personally would prefer a more transparent system with more involvmement of the people in the EU democracy. But the EU functionally is democratic where the votes in both EU and national elections leads to the current executive branch.
"Because the party groups negotiated with the heads of states comprising the European Council to find a suitable candidate?"
What negotiations? We have no proof any negotiations took place. We don't even know if there was a vote, or if there were discussions, what was discussed, or who the candidates were. The entire process is secret. Think about how mad that is.
"You know, like how all parliamentary systems works?"
No parliamentary system works this way.
"After the election someone has the task of proposing an executive government to the parliament."
There was no election.
"The European Parliament has also rejected commissioners from being appointed. How is that literally being a rubber stamp?"
The head of the Commission before vdL said that both national and Europarl vetos on commissioners are meaningless. They just suggest a replacement who is ideologically identical.
"What most people miss is that the EU functionally has both an upper and lower house, with the upper house being selected from the national elections and lower house from EU wide elections."
You just said it has a single chamber! It really has none because the Europarl can't pass its own laws so it's not a house of representatives, just a room full of theatre kids playacting democracy. The EU doesn't have an upper and lower house by any definition used anywhere in the world. Stop pretending to not understand things.
Do you have proof the negotiations take place before the speaker of a house/king/whatever process proposes a canditate to form the executive branch in a parliamentary system?
> There was no election.
Just stop with the misinformation.
The current Commission is the von der Leyen Commission II, which took office in December 2024, following the European Parliament elections in June of the same year.
> The EU doesn't have an upper and lower house by any definition used anywhere in the world.
Yes, every country is unique. And the EU moreso due to its history.
> It really has none because the Europarl can't pass its own laws so it's not a house of representatives, just a room full of theatre kids playacting democracy.
It is just the chamber that accepts the proposed commmission, and has the decision to unilaterally force a no-confidence vote if the commission does not propose the laws the chamber wants.
Yes we do have proof of such negotiations. Political parties often use elections internally to select their leaders, those campaigns are public, and then they may spend months negotiating between themselves based on their publicly stated stances in order to form a government, or in more direct non PR systems, just take power directly if they win a majority. The resulting coalitions or governments are explainable. The EU Commission isn't and it's deliberately so.
>The current Commission is the von der Leyen Commission II, which took office in December 2024, following the European Parliament elections in June of the same year.
And those Europarl elections had no influence on who became leader of the Commission, did they, so why are you bringing them up - this seems like the kind of obfuscation the EU regularly relies on. Make noises that sound like what happens in real democracies and hope nobody notices that key links in the chain have been severed.
> Yes, every country is unique. And the EU moreso due to its history.
The EU is not a country. Its "history" is short and artificial. It could work however the people who constructed it wanted it to work, and they chose a dictatorship. What does that tell you about their intentions?
> It is just the chamber that accepts the proposed commmission, and has the decision to unilaterally force a no-confidence vote if the commission does not propose the laws the chamber wants.
No democracy has a chamber that works like this because that is useless and undemocratic. The Europarl's power to fire the Commission is theoretical. It requires a 2/3rds majority so it was never successfully used in its entire history - the Santer Commission resigned, it wasn't fired. No MEPs have ever suggested firing a Commission in order to get specific policies passed, so MEPs have no influence over policy at all. They can theoretically veto things and then watch the Commission reintroduce it again in a different form, so nobody who cares about policy ever goes into EU-level politics.
The only reason that does not happen in the EU is that we do not have EU wide parties. Therefore the palatable candidate needs to come from somewhere else.
Take Sweden, the only requirement for the prime minister is to be a Swedish citizen without holding any position that would lead to a conflict of interest, followed by the parliament accepting the nomination.
It is only by convention and incentives that one of the party leaders of the government coalition becomes prime minister. Sweden has the past 3 years had the third largest party's leader as the prime minister since that was the one the government coalition found palatable.
> And those Europarl elections had no influence on who became leader of the Commission
Please. Just stop. How can they have no influence on who became the leader of the Commission if they are the one to accept the nomination?
Vote no and it is back to the drawing board for the European Council. Which it was close this time as only 51% of the MEPs voted to accept the proposed commission.
This is just getting ridiculous.
> The EU is not a country. Its "history" is short and artificial. It could work however the people who constructed it wanted it to work, and they chose a dictatorship. What does that tell you about their intentions?
True. It is a tightly integrated union which still haven't merged completely. Somewhere in the grey area.
How can they choose dictatorship if everything is democratic stemming from national and EU wide elections?
> No democracy has a chamber that works like this because that is useless and undemocratic. The Europarl's power to fire the Commission is theoretical. It requires a 2/3rds majority so it was never successfully used in its entire history - the Santer Commission resigned, it wasn't fired. No MEPs have ever suggested firing a Commission in order to get specific policies passed, so MEPs have no influence over policy at all.
This is just getting stupid. Please. The power was not exercised but a commission was forced to resign after become ineffective due to not being aligned with the european parliament.
The money quote from wiki:
> The crisis had compounded the already reduced powers of the Commission in favour of the Parliament's legislative power, the council's foreign policy role and the ECB's financial role. However the change with Parliament was the most profound, the previous permanent cooperation between the two bodies came to an end with the shift in power
I truly want to understand why you hate the EU so much? It seems like you are cherrypicking facts to embellish your view rather than seeing things for what they are.
An evolving democratic system with competing national and union interests.
So what are the parties in the europarl then? They're not EU wide parties but also not national parties. Waving national flags in the EU Parliament is against the rules, lol.
They're not genuine political parties at all, because you can't build such things in the EU. Parties with no ability to take power aren't parties.
> How can they have no influence on who became the leader of the Commission if they are the one to accept the nomination?
Because it's a pointless power as adequately explained already by Juncker, that's why the EU is designed that way. Europarl is given exactly one candidate and zero input on who it is. What happens if they reject? Assuming procedure is even followed (not certain in the EU institutions), they'll be given another candidate who is a carbon copy of the first. Same views, same background, same ideology.
And they know this stupid game because the EU operates this way regularly. See the number of times they lost referendums on constitutional change and then made people vote on the same thing again, or the way stuff like Chat Control never dies. That's why the only people who sign up to be MEPs are either just rubberstamp cheerleaders for the Commission who often don't bother turning up, or people who think the Europarl is fake and their countries should leave the EU entirely.
What kind of a chamber is it that can't even stop itself being spammed with the same legislation it keeps rejecting in different forms, can't repeal unpopular legislation, is full of members who openly say it's damaging/fake and gets openly disrespected on live TV by the real power center? A fake one.
> due to not being aligned with the european parliament
You mean: due to being corrupt.
> I truly want to understand why you hate the EU so much?
Why did Russians hate the USSR? There's nothing to like about it. It's an evil system designed to enforce left wing dictatorship on Europe using lies, secrecy and, when necessary, aggression. It sees any attempt to remain independent as a problem to be crushed by abusing its powers. It makes Europeans more divided and less cooperative. I've lived in two central/west European countries in my life. The EU has treated both of them like dogshit. That's enough reasons.
Elections is only one characteristic of a democracy. Other characteristics include freedom of the press, freedom of speech, minority rights, rule of law, accountability and transparency, and separation of powers.
Nothing about democracy implies minority rights, the rule of law, or the separation of powers. Indeed these things are in greater or lesser degrees anti democratic.
None of those things are characteristics of “democracy.” Many of those are exactly the opposite: they are anti-democratic checks on democratic government. They empower a privileged class of lawyers and judges to overrule majorities based on supposed “rights.”
You'd make an excellent politician, as you have a great way of using words in an emotive manner to win a point.
"privileged class" immediately plays on people's emotions, along the lines of "the people have spoken", meaning if you didn't vote the same way, you're not "the people". I lived through all this in the brexit vote, and your language is all very similar sounding.
Over the years, democracies around the world have evolved these kind of checks and balances. They are part of the system, not imposed on it by some "privileged class" for their own nefarious reasons.
Historically in the American Republic, this has been true more often than not. There's a reason something taking "an act of Congress" is not a new expression for difficulty.
"Act of Congress" has always implied "something that is hard", but it has also implied "something that is fairly definitive". Today, congress can be largely ignored by the executive and congress seems to support it vocally. Is this also something that has been true more often than not in the American Republic?
And I wouldn't exactly say that Congress is wholly supporting unrestricted presidential power currently either. E.g. Senator Thune continually shooting down Trump's more oddball pleas.
There are very vocal supporters of the president in both the House and Senate GOP caucuses, but they're not the majority.
I think the strongest version of your argument would be something like 'In recent US Congressional history, both parties when in power have used congressional power to tactically check opposition party presidents, but neither have sought to permanently expand and defend the bounds of congressional power.'
Wouldn’t a functioning congress have resisted the executive aborbing its powers? After all, congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch. For good reason.
> congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch
Just re-read the USA constitution. Despite much effort, I did not find any "power rankings" of the three branches. Please point me in the right direction.
It was written before Dragonball Z existed so they didn't have the convenient framework of "power level" to use. Instead the power of Congress is indicated by the fact that all acts of the government are derived from bills originating in Congress, which the president rubber stamps (or not, which congress can then override), and the supreme court judicially interprets - but only if someone brings suit.
Now the president can do police actions and stuff but it seems like the intention was congress being the branch that had independent autonomy to just do things and get the ball rolling.
Congress sets the president's salary and has the power to fire him. The president has no such reverse power. The legislative branch is clearly the more powerful. "co-equal" is a fiction made up out of whole cloth by Nixon to further his criminal activities.
Until the party system existed, this was true. As soon as the party system evolved (pretty much immediately), with the President nominally the head of the party and the President has at least 1/3 of the Senate, the President comes near to immune from dismissal.
At that point, combined with the recent Supreme Court decisions holding 'official acts' as non-prosecutable, has swung the power meter severely to the executive.
Really? You read the constitution and managed to not absorb how the system is structured?
Hint: Look at who has which powers. Congress has the power to check every other branch. Neither the President nor the courts have symmetrical power over Congress. This asymmetry reflects its position.
I must admit I am a bit flabbergasted. How can you not understand what you read? And if a portion of Hacker News users, who are likely to have above average cognitive ability, don’t understand this, how poorly does the rest of the population understand the core ideas of how their political system works?
I'm not sure which Constitution you read but apparently it was a different one than the one I read.
Congress was not set up to be more powerful than the other branches. The president can veto laws that Congress tries to pass and the Supreme Court can also completely undo laws that Congress has passed.
There are degrees. I don’t think congress has been this weak before in our lifetime. And most people seeming not to care scares me.
I have been looking at productivity numbers for congress over the past decades. And I don’t get why people aren’t furious over the current congress not doing their job.
That is rubbish. I loathe Trump more than most, but there's no serious claim that he wasn't freely elected in 2024. There appears to be a lot of buyer's remorse and we'll see what happens in the mid terms. But (sadly) Americans asked for this and they got it.
The opposition refused to address internal issues with the incumbent until they were painfully evident, then switched in a much weaker candidate in the final months who had never won a primary.
Had a stronger candidate been offered from the beginning, Trump well could have lost.
In a way, America didn’t ask for what it got. America voted for a guy who claimed to have never heard of Project 2025. It got Project 2025.
Also, Trump ran on a populist message. Yet if you look at what he has done materially since he got into office, it seems his true allegiance is with the billionaire elite.
Gerrymandering alone would be enough to disqualify the US elections as 'free and fair' by many standards. And that's before we get into dollars are votes and other little details.
Indeed. There's plenty of other forms of disenfranchisement (restricted polling access, overly aggressive purging of voter rolls, etc)
It's a pity that this is perceived as such a hot-button partisan topic, because that's not my intent -- I just want to see free and fair elections.
The more distressing fact is that despite my assertion of election fuckery, there's clearly a large number of people that are willing to vote against their best interests because they are so easily swayed by anger and hate. Democracy really is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Gerrymandering is atrocious and anti-democratic but it didn't affect Trump's election. States' electors are winner-take-all[1] based on statewide popular vote so district boundaries don't factor in.
[1] I just learned there are two exceptions, Maine and Nebraska. But they have few electors (9 total between them) so this was not significant in the 2024 election.
But it does affect congressional elections, and despite the effective neutering of the congress, having a majority there is crucial for maintaining power.
I don’t really care to get involved of the affairs of foreign governments. This isn’t about “narcoterrorism” or democracy. You’re a fool if you think that.
I don't really care what it's "about". I care that the Venezuelan people get their democracy back. Even if Trump is doing this because the voices in his head told him to do it, ending Maduro's rule is a step in the right direction.
Well first the Venezuelan people will have to wait while the Trump administration runs their government (the remaining Maduro administration) and oil fields until a stabile transition can take place as determined by the US government. So they haven't gotten their democracy back yet.
And Trump has decided the Nobel peace prize winner doesn't have enough support of the people to take over. So whatever democracy there is to be had in the future seems to be up to a foreign government.
Yes, foreign intervention worked wonderfully in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. We should also thank Russia for trying hard to extend its thriving democracy to Ukraine.
That just shows that popular will is not a justification for something. If the popular will was self destructive would a powerful entity be justified in giving them what they desire?
> If Venezuela recovers and improves, are you willing to fundamentally change your opinion about US interventions?
Uhh, no?
My opinion is that US interventions are incredibly risky. There have been numerous successes. There have also been numerous failures. Both have required immense resources and focus from us.
Some interventions are worth the risk, and others are not. I have not seen any compelling rationale for the risk-reward of this particular intervention, and have very low hopes for the follow through, which makes the risk-reward calculus even worse.
You don't think Venezuela having the largest oils reserves on the planet and it being a strong ally to Russia, Iran and China make the possible reward fairly significant from a US standpoint?
Sure it's conceivable. Can you go a level deeper on your analysis?
Are you suggesting that cutting off oil flow to those nations will be advantageous to us? Is this like... tomorrow? During a potential armed conflict? When?
By what specific mechanism does the US assert "control" over the oil? POTUS just now said it's via a ground occupation "until transition of power." What's the transition plan?
Not cutting off, but it's enough that the US increases oil supply which lowers the prices to significantly hurt Russia and Iran. And then you have China which is the main consumer of Venezuelan oil so you get another point of leverage.
Also probably helps to ensure the petro dollar is here to stay for longer.
Obviously this is a very shallow analysis, and there's definitely significant risks, but I do think it's obvious that it has large potential upsides.
It's not shallow, it is gullible. Of course Trump has an angle otherwise he wouldn't have done this. We can speculate about what the angle is but there is absolutely no way that he did this for the good of the Venezuelan population.
Edit: So, that took only 8 minutes, the other shoe just dropped, it was about the oil after all. Where do I collect my check?
Oh yeah, I'm certain the intent behind this wasn't for the sake of the Venezuelan population, but that in itself doesn't mean it won't result in a better outcome for the population (but also not saying that it will)
The thing I occasionally say about Trump is: "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
We ("the opposition") can't get into the frame where we say that everything Trump does is wrong. It's not frequent, but sometimes - yes even for totally wrong reasons - he does things which are probably right. Our identity needs to be more than just "the opposite of what Trump does", otherwise the Trumpists will frame all debates around issues that make us look crazy, rather than the issues that demonstrate blatant grift and criminality.
If Maduro is gone, it's a good thing. Let's go back to talking about the clear and obviously terrible things Trump does. Don't let them change the subject.
Agree with your overall sentiment but this is just a ridiculous position to hold at this point. History is absolutely full of horrible people being toppled just for more horrible people to take their place. There is literally no evidence whatsoever of a plan for post-Maduro Venezuela. At all!
They're either acting completely clueless for the cameras for some unknown reason, or this is very likely going to go really badly.
Venezuela has already been going really badly, by nearly any quantitative metric of "how going". This is a country that - a couple decades ago - was a rare success story of democracy and prosperity in Latin America.
I think the Venezuelans will work it out, despite Trump's ineptitude.
I can appreciate that but taken to its conclusion it's a recipe for paralysis and complacency. It always could be worse, so let's just let sit here and let shit happen?
Unlike all those places you mention, Venezuela has a democratic tradition which was only recently derailed. This isn't some middle eastern theocratic monarchy. It's "get back on track" not "find new tracks where none existed before".
No, shit can always get worse so act carefully and with a plan.
I and many others are asking for evidence of such a plan. The US administration has denied the existence of such a plan.
Maybe those factors you mention will turn out to be relevant or even determinative, and maybe not. I suspect in absence of an actual plan, the mere tradition of democracy will not suffice.
The Trump administration is incompetent to manage a pre-school, let alone world affairs. We're not going to get a plan. The best we can hope for is an occasional random steps vaguely in the right direction.
Maduro in prison is an improvement from Maduro still in power. Accept it as a tiny win and move on.
Frankly insane position to hold ~24 hours after the events and with the information currently available.
You are aware you're allowed to say, "it'll take some time for this to shake out sufficiently to understand whether it's a tiny win, a huge win, net-neutral, or regionally catastrophic," right?
The future is always uncertain. Sometimes you just have to take the rare chances afforded. "Maduro suddenly recognizes the value of democracy and transitions power to Gonzáles" wasn't on the table.
I'd push the delete button for every unelected dictator on the planet if I could. Repeatedly. It's morally offensive not to.
China is heavily dependent on oil imports and a big part of Germany's defeat in WW2 was due to difficulties obtaining oil. This move may - if successful - change the calculation over Taiwan
> Ethics debates are not served by utilitarian arguments.
There isn't just a single universally agreed upon moral framework that serves as the basis for ethics.
Depending on whether you adopt a Rawlsian, Utilitarian, Libertarian, or Communitarian moral framework, your actions would look different depending on the circumstances.
Specially, the Utilitarian moral framework optimizes for the greatest good for the greatest number. Willing to sacrifice the few of the many. It might not be your or my moral framework, but I don't know that we can rule it out as a valid way to approach ethics.
> Specially, the Utilitarian moral framework optimizes for the greatest good for the greatest number.
No, the proponents of the utilitarian moral framework try to justify illegal actions retrospectively if the outcome was good and refuse to take responsibility if it is bad.
Ethics should guide your decisions beforehand and require you to take responsibility for all possible outcomes.
Are you arguing that Utilitarianism isn't a way to guide decisions? And are you saying it is an invalid moral framework?
FWIW, many ethicists suggest using multiple frameworks and would argue using Utilitarianism for policy.
For example, in the EU utilitarianism is rarely used as the sole moral foundation but serves as the primary tool for practical decision-making and public policy. Most visible in how the EU balances competing interests to achieve the "greatest good".
If your hand is on the track switch, you're just as responsible for the trolley no matter which way it goes. Walking away from the switch does not absolve you.
The issue with regime change is whether there's enough political cohesion in a country's population after a despot / autocrat is removed.
"The opposition" is rarely a large and representative enough group to effect national power transition. (Btw, thanks for flagging that incorrectly as affect, Apple)
Especially in multi-ethnic states, most cohesive national identities are forged through extremely popular singular leaders.
Unfortunately, those are exactly the same leaders external regime-change initiators are wary of (too independent).
This year's winner of the nobel prize is highly organized and ran a parallel election campaign, which was obviously dismissed by the Maduro regime. There is a slim possibility of a peaceful transition given the democratic efforts underway in Venezuela for many years at this point.
POTUS just said she's not involved, won't be involved, doesn't have the support necessary to lead. Who does? Unclear. His plan appears to be: "oil companies come in, sell the oil" and I'm seriously not exaggerating.
> His plan appears to be: "oil companies come in, sell the oil"
In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan. See Carville's "It's the economy, stupid."
Popular support of any government is mostly (a) quality of life & (b) individual freedom. Quality of life is directly correlated to the economy and public finances.
If someone can quickly boost Venezuelan oil production, and therefore state revenue, then all sorts of social funding programs become feasible.
The issue with autocracies is that they selectively enrich key supporter groups (internal police, military) at the expense of others (wider population).
If you can substantially boost public revenue, then you don't have to make a tradeoff -- everyone gets more!
And there are certainly worse beginnings for new governments.
(All of this ignoring the flagrant violation of international law, international ramifications vis-a-vis Taiwan, climate change, etc.)
Well, Trump is probably the least qualified person in the administration to ask that question of, while at the same time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.
A bad look, but I seriously doubt the state department doesn't have some sort of plan for continuity of government.
Especially since, in critical difference with post-Hussein Iraq, no one in this administration seems ideologically opposed to working with the old guard, if they put on new colors.
Would be very surprised if the remaining elements of the government aren't put in temporary charge with guidelines (no killing protestors, freeing political prisoners, monitored elections on X date, etc.), then things are left business as usual.
With additional strikes if anyone tries to buck the system.
But higher placed members of corrupt regimes tend to be pretty pragmatic about their own skins when the winds shift, so I'd be surprised if anyone goes to the mat for a leader who's already been extradited.
The President of the United States has stated over and over now that there is no transition plan. There is no successor. There is no plan for elections.
This isn't "he hasn't been asked" or "he has declined to comment." He has said affirmatively there is no plan.
So either he's lying or there's no plan.
In either case, my presentation is correct, and your assumptions are completely unfounded.
Trump's Reaganesque in Reagan's weaknesses, without any of his strengths. Except maybe charisma to some people.
At this point in his second administration, I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.
Big decisions? Sure, he makes yes/no. But "Let me hear the plan for day x+1?" In what universe would the Trump we've seen ask that question? We're talking about the McDonald's guy.
> I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.
But at the same time:
> time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.
So they're making plans, but they won't actually commit to any of the plans because in the end the plans are meaningless and Trump is going to push for whatever he wants at the moment. Doesn't that make the actual plans practically worthless?
Under the hood here you're assuming Trump is (largely) incompetent to lead but surrounded by people who 1) know that and 2) are competent themselves.
A scarier possibility, which I think is actually far better evidenced, is that he's surrounded by people who largely believe he's competent (because it's a cult) and who are themselves not competent at all.
I think the people around him believe (1) he's competent to win the popularity contest that is an election & (2) he's vengeful against any perceived disloyalty.
There are probably some true-believers among his cabinet, but most of those are evidenced by their paper-thin CVs and lack of their own power-bases (Hegseth, Bondi, Rollins, Chavez-DeRemer, Turner, McMahon, Noem, Zeldin, Loeffler).
>In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan.
Building which nation? The despotic dictatorship of USA one would have to assume you mean. The profits are no more likely to go to Venezuela's further development than they are to bring in universal health care in USA.
QoL is nothing if it is bought through the pain and suffering of others.
I don't know why you think this is a new beginning, it's just extension of USA's dictatorship to ensure even more people suffer and the USA oligarchy gets even more insanely wealthy.
The popular will is the woman the majority voted for. Trump already said she will not be allowed to run the country, that the US will and that we will help them develop, read steal, their oil.
The majority voted for Edmundo González, and María Corina Machado has called for him to be recognized as the leader of the nation.
It's complicated because Maduro banned her from running in the last election (and still lost anyway). In a just world maybe she deserves the position. But if we want to restore democracy in Venezuela, González would be a natural place to start (along with new elections).
For what it's worth he did stop the Taliban from raping the wives and daughters of the opium farmers. Obviously not for humanitarian reasons but I was rather fond of how he dealt with it even if for the wrong reasons.
> This looks a lot like when the U.S. & Israel were running dry on interceptors last year, and made a deal with the Iranians to pretend to blow up Fordow in exchange for ceasing hostilities.
Do you have a citation for this? (Genuinely curious)
The author’s claims that “there was never any credible evidence that Iranian medium- and long-range air defenses against fixed-wing aircraft were attrited to any significant degree“ and that the B-2 is easily to track and target… seem rather questionable. Unfounded even.
> the silence of the Iranian government on this point suggests something coordinated to me
Or, you know, a theocratic autocracy that realizes the perception of its military power is critical to keeping the populace in line?
And admitting to an inability to stop military action on one of their most heavily defended targets by the very enemy they've whipped their supporters into a froth over is a bad look?
In your zeal you seem to have misunderstood the point I was making. The Iranian government did not dispute American claims of having flown over and destroyed Fordow, which is the opposite of the "they'll say anything to look strong" thesis you're advancing.
I think the U.S. whipped the Iranian government's supporters into line by treacherously using peace negotiations as a pretext to target their scientists, helping Israel launch a completely unjustified sneak attack with all the Mossad rats they had hidden in the country, and facilitating the genocide in Gaza. With enemies like that the Iranian government hardly needs help.
I used to be a Skeptic magazine reading, blanket conspiracy doubting "classical liberal." Since this system is predicated on lies, everyone with a base level of commitment to the truth eventually turns their back on the official narratives.
I mean, it's hard to tell what is really going on in Venezuela right now, but as far as I can tell the only truly fragmented or "schizo" worldview would be that the United States was able to hover a Chinook over Caracas and extract Maduro without firing a single shot, without some kind of pre-agreed deal being in place.
I guess we'll see if Trump's blustering that he'll install American oil execs in Caracas pans out, won't we? Given that Chinese officials met with Maduro just before all this, I'm open to the idea that some kind of deal has been made to hand Latin America to the U.S. in exchange for our forbearance elsewhere in the world, so we might see something more serious, but at this point we just have the removal of a single head of state under extremely suspicious circumstances.
And it appears they did so with assistance from within the government, at least with assistance from the military. That's why the operation went so smoothly. It seems like it was unusually easy, precisely because it was.
Any details/sources on this? I thought it was strange that the airspace seemed almost entirely uncontested. Scrambling fighters take a while of course (particularly if unmaintained and you're corrupt), but I had at least expected some ground-based air defences to be active. Maybe they were being blown up in the first few videos that surfaced? Unless they were disabled by other means, that's another catastrophic display of the Russian systems.
In addition, USAF/USN have been flying ELINT platforms (e.g. RC-135s) off the coast for months now.
So even without the cooperation of any of the Venezuelan military, it's possible the mission was:
1. Precision long-range strikes on air defense radars around Caracas (and possibly assets)
2. Closer SEAD with F-35s to clear a path
3. SOAR Delta Force infiltration with tactical air suppression
4. CAP from F-35s to intercept any scrambled fighters
5. Exfiltration along same route
If the intelligence was good (location of air defenses and Maduro), it's entirely possible the above just went off cleanly.
See: Desert Storm air campaign. Having capable anti-air assets doesn't matter when your enemy has access to more timely intelligence and the means to do something with it.
I think that might be a step too far, rather I'd guess the US just knows the Russian systems very well. The success of the latest campaign against Iran shows that too, and if anything they learnt even more from that.
Either way, although Trump might every now and then be a bit too friendly with Putin, but a) cooperation at this scale and b) the bad looks and damage to Russian investments I think makes it seem unlikely. Putin doesn't stick his neck out for others unless it serves him. I'm not that well read on the Russian involvement in the area though...
Update from Reuters: ‘"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Trump told reporters. […] "We can't take a chance at somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. We've had decades of that. We're not going to let that happen."’
I'd like to stress that Trump not only said this during the conference from his luxury resort, but repeated and belabored the point several times that the United States would be taking over Venezuela.
He's trying to hide the impact his failed economic policies are having. He can't let the 16 Nobel Prize winning economists who warned him that he'd crash the economy "win."
Medieval kings were considered the embodiment of the government, but that didn't make them autocratic. Indeed, they were not only bound by a thicket of obligations and customs, but authority itself is only legitimate when it is just, a view that is traditional; it is modern legal positivism that roots authority in fiat, making it inherently tyrannical.
> Indeed, they were not only bound by a thicket of obligations and customs, but authority itself is only legitimate when it is just, a view that is traditional;
Ultimately they were bound not by tradition, but by the reality that they may lose their heads, often at the hands of a competing relative, but also at the hands of starving subjects.
Not yet. Once the anger metastasizes into a new wholly anti-american government, new targets will emerge.
Trump is far from universally loved, but just imagine what the US would become if an outside nation swooped in and captured him. 100% of the american people would be screaming for blood.
I'd be concerned about exactly what price would be asked. No one country spends their cash and soldiers to "liberate" for free. I've turned down free gifts before because I knew they came with strings attached.
People say that, but the sight of say Russian/Mexican/Chinese/Canadian troops parachuting onto the whitehouse lawn to abduct a sitting president, no doubt killing many in the process, would be such an afront that domestic politics wouldnt matter.
This already happened. Trump lead a Russia-backed coup against the United States in January, 2021 to overturn the 2020 election and illegally take the presidency. It failed, but he and every government employee who supported him after that is guilty of treason and is serving illegitimately.
Trump is president because he was elected by the American voter while the opposition was in power. I would not label that as illegitimate and I think it is dangerous to spread that narrative.
Trump lead a coup against the US, is guilty of treason, and is ineligible for public office. I agree it is dangerous to have a traitor to the US in the presidency.
A lack of prosecution does not imply innocence. There were several attempts to go after him for it, but the courts are intentionally set up to favor the wealthy and powerful, in this case via infinite delay tactics. I still think it could've been done and I'll never forgive the Biden DOJ for delaying forever and letting him skate. He should've been in jail by February, serving his sentence by summer.
There will always be enemies and corrupt people. We need to establish a system of government and culture that doesn't so easily give over the reigns of the nation to these bad actors. If we don't actively do this we will long for the good old days when the corrupt leaders just wanted to steal money for themselves and hurt trans people.
for what is Maduro an enemy of the US. He wasn't willing to sign over the oil reserves to US oil companies. wanting to keep what is theirs away from rapacious foreign invaders would make most of the planet an enemy of the US.
I doubt Vance is capable of getting the support from Congress and the maga voters that Trump has. Once Trump is gone, the Republican party is going to have a hard time putting itself back together.
Meanwhile, the individual upthread suggesting they’d support a foreign power invading the US and capturing Trump is the ridiculous, childish, and deeply unserious brand of self-loathing that we are voraciously (and necessarily, if our country is to survive) opposed to.
You, personally, might, but I think it's going to be a clusterfuck. You can't stick a different person in a cult of personality and expect it to act the same.
I would not be screaming for blood. It is the world order he wants, and perhaps the only possible lesson in why we shouldn’t give him that world order.
Capture might not be the aim. The coming decades will see anonymous effective asymmetric warfare with USA infrastructure and the USA political establishment as prime targets. That's the big concern.
Huh... they better build some readily-available hyper-powerful infrastructure, pronto, or that next election could hand power to folks that don't have the best interest of the country in mind:
Trump is Russia's guy. There is no way I'd be screaming for revenge over a horrifying complicated nightmare becoming even more toxic, even more complicated, and even more nightmarish. If anyone comes and gets Trump it ain't Russia: he is already theirs, and acting in such a way as to further all their aims and all their narratives.
The oil production there is completely decimated. They have huge reserves but production is low and falling because the regime doesn't do any maintenance or support of anything in the oil production and supply chain. It is very much the meme of "living in the ruins of a once great society".
Completely dishonest answer. Sanctions decimated Venezuela's ability to maintain its oil infrastructure. Everything, from machined parts, to the various chemicals needed, everything, was affected.
It just took a few years for the sanctions to bite, as the Venezuelans conserved & used stockpiles.
Again, a completely dishonest take. Speaks volumes, when most defenders of todays criminality keep spouting arguments to this effect.
Venezuelan oil production was cratering years before the first oil sanctions because they replaced everybody who knew how to drill oil with loyalists. I didn’t realize this was debatable.
>While reports circulated that Ms. Rodríguez was in Russia at the time of the attacks, Ms. Rodríguez is in Caracas, according to three people close to her. Russian state media also denied reports that she was in Moscow.
(Permalink, since it's on the second page of the live thread now.)
This live format is kind of irritating. Here's another one:
> He claims the oil business in Venezuela has been a "bust", and that large US companies are going to go into the country to fix the infrastructure and "start making money for the country"
You made the mistake of believing that Trump is more than a zero step thinker. Many do.
The fact is, his tactics and plans end where his nose does.
Many of his advisors are capable of planning, but there are times he just doesnt listen to them and lets whatever heavy metals are in the spray tan do all the thinking. See January Sixth for one example that got people killed. See USAID for another.
On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, I don't think this administration would have bothered to talk to China at all. I don't think they need to.
China isn't giving up any barrels of oil. It's a global market. If Venezuela is selling 5 million bbl per day to China, and it stops selling to China, someone else will start buying it. Since they are now buying 5 million bbl per day from Venezuela, that means they are buying 5 million bbl / day less from their existing suppliers. China will buy that oil.
Although that doesn't seem like much of a solution though: the press will be bored of this by the end of the week and the only news that can come out is bad news.
Today. She's still part of the same regime and party. It's not obvious Trump will let her stay in charge. Also the control the government had over the criminal gangs/syndicates/cartels was seemingly very weak anyway. Even if the current decapitated regime is allowed to stay it won't be very strong.
The US has long recognized Edmundo González as the rightful president of the country following the 2024 election. I imagine they will try to install him.
Alternatively there's María Corina Machado who overwhelmingly won the presidential primary for that election but wasn't allowed to run.
I am not sure what you mean by "control the government had"...they are the same thing. It is like the situation with IRA and Sinn Fein, this bizarre roleplay where people (for various reasons) went to massive effort to imply they were separate when it was obvious they were led by the same people. There is no distinction between the government and cartels...the assumption that there is makes no sense at all given the latitude they have to operate.
Low level officials can be eliminated through missile strikes.
If if had to guess, Maduro could have been take out with a GBU or two, but the US holds a grudge against him so they took him out to humiliate him, and send a message to others.
There's a big international diplomacy difference between assassinating a leader and forcibly extraditing one on drug charges.
Not too many countries will go to the mat to support a leader who was engaged in narcotics trafficking, if the US is able to present a viable case (which they seem to intend to, if he's being charged in US federal court).
I'm skeptical, as it seems to have that ring of circa-2003 WMD justification about it, but I won't dismiss it out of hat.
And if the US intends to prosecute Maduro on drug crimes in SDNYC (good!), then they'll have to present evidence to the court, which presumably means they think they have a case.
Personally, I doubt Maduro intentionally ran a narco-state as a primary focus. But I can very much see a sizable narcotics enterprise, with state support, being used as a key way for him to enrich select supporters absent a viable economy. Money to pay the generals has to come from somewhere...
You can't credibly pardon one massive drug dealer and then go and kidnap the head of state of another country based on the same kind of thing. The lack of consistency alone should cause some serious headscratching.
Headscratching is not an international consequence.
"Right" rarely matters in geopolitics.
What matters is who opposes a course of action, and how far they're willing to go in their opposition.
Is China or the UK going to insist that former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández be prosecuted on drug crimes? If not, then the US is realpolitik free to do what it wants.
Similarly with Maduro. Who's going to support him? And how far are they prepared to go?
> > Pardoning a different drug dealer can be a way to show Maduro that they were serious about the offer, that they really would have gone easy on him.
Maduro is not a drug dealer and even if it was not directing all the limited resources of its government to stop the drug trade we are talking about allocation of resources which should have happened in order to put Americans Interests first whereas Venezuela has so many other serious problems.
Also even if all that was true we are talking about cocaine, the party (and somewhat productivity) drug.
The fentanyl is produced 10,000 miles away from Venezuela, in CHYNA which used to be a great talking point in 2016 but of course nothing ended up happening
It's possible to imagine all kinds of fantastical explanations but usually the simplest one is the correct one: Trump is receiving bags of money for the pardon. Also bolstered by his past (and ongoing) behaviour of openly and shamelessly enriching himself at every opportunity.
You could do whatever is good for your country. Credibly.
Getting rid of a head of state that brings your primary competitors (china) influence to your doorstep is not head scratching. Just try to think in real-world terms
This seems like the type of comment the parent comment is referring to. It's day 1 of the invasion. Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
> Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Any student of history would be skeptical. The US record after interference in a country is abysmal. Relatively recent failures: Iraq, Afghanistan. Less recent failures: Nicaragua and throughout Central America.
I would include Libya. Gaddafi died, we were happy, Libya became a hellhole with open slave markets. The same can easily happen here if they don't have a good plan.
Afghanistan was a weird "how long to we have to pretend to give a shit before we give it back to the guys we never really wanted to take it from in the first place" situation.
Iraq was a textbook example of why you don't dismantle the entire administrative state.
I don't think either is relevant here. Other central american shenanigans are the better reference points IMO.
They got lucky, the economy needed to be rebuilt and the Pinochet government had no idea how to do it and not much interest in it. So they put the economists who wrote the "Ladrillo" in charge because it sounded like a good plan. This combination of a stable government combined with libertarian economic policies lead to the success. Usually you don't get this combination under dictatorship.
No strongman in charge, sorta-kinda democratic government (more democratic than almost anywhere else in the Arab world), violence has subsided, the country didn't disintegrate into pieces unlike Yugoslavia, the economy has grown moderately, and they haven't become an Iranian puppet regime.
Frankly, by the standards of the Near and Middle East, this is very much not an abysmal failure.
The insurgency that preceded this was very bad, though. No denying that. But some other modern nations have such insurgencies in their recent history, such as Ireland, and that didn't stop them from developing towards prosperity.
It took decades for the US to stabilize itself as a nation after its birth.
Why would you think Iraq would find it easy to stabilize itself post Hussein, such that you'd declare their future void already. Iraq is not yet a failure and is dramatically more stable than it was under Hussein (dictatorships bring hyper instability universally, which is why they have to constantly murder & terrify everybody to try to keep the system from instantly imploding due to the perpetual instability inherent in dictatorship).
Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Kuwait, and most of Eastern Europe (which the US was extremely deep in interfering with for decades in competition with the USSR). You can also add Colombia to that list, it is a successful outcome thus far of US interference.
I like the part where people pretend the vast interference in positive outcomes don't count. The US positively, endlessly interfered in Europe for the past century. That interference has overwhelmingly turned out well.
And what about the precedent it sets for other world powers?
Why shouldn't Russia or China just do the same and interfere with the leadership of countries they don't like.
Also it is impossible to argue the cost of the war in Iraq was worth the benefit, even if we agree Iraq is in a better place now then it was under Hussein.
> Also it is impossible to argue the cost of the war in Iraq was worth the benefit, even if we agree Iraq is in a better place now then it was under Hussein.
But the Iraquis didn’t pay the military monetary cost (arguably they paid a different cost, but it’s very hard to balance that against living under a dictator, and I said that from experience), and I’m sure US’ imperialist shenanigans could recoup the monetary cost. Seeing as US doesn’t have compulsory conscription, that takes away part of the reprehensibility of the human cost of US’ personnel caused by its interventionist policy. Which, to my eyes, leaves the thing as a net positive.
One thing can be said with certainty about countries like Venezuela and Cuba: they are broken and they cause untold pain to their citizens. The moral imperative to fix them is there, even if one can certainly discuss how and maybe quibble a little about the monetary cost.
Just noticed the “whataboutism”. I don’t have a particular take on the comment above but those countries do those things in their own parts of the globe.
The government of nations is anarchy and in anarchy the only rule is that “might makes right”. Some seem to have a view that there is a world government and that there are “rules” when in reality there are none.
There are international agreements, consequences, and parties that may or may not choose to enforce those consequences.
E.g. the entire UN Security Council was predicated on the idea that no other country could/would force a nuclear power to do anything it didn't want to
"That interference has overwhelmingly turned out well."
What an absurd thing to say. The US doesn't only overthrow dictatorships - it supports them too, as it suits its self-interest. Why not include the US interference when it SUPPORTED Hussein and later changed its mind - still think "interference turns out well" after backing a genocidal monster, supporting his invasion of a neighbour, invading twice and related deaths of 400 000 people?
Countries stabilise over time, that's what their people make happen. You ignore Indonesia, Iran, El Salvador, Nicaragua and dozens of disaster of US imperialism but give credit to the US when their populations rebuild them.
The US has done some positive things but they're the convenient accidents you've cherry picked to make your point.
So true. I think everyone should remember exactly that anytime a MAGA tribesman uses the language of reason and compassion to gain an air of respectability. They have no concern for truth or ethics and don't deserve the legitimacy of respectful discourse. Identify it early, call them out on it, smash their hollow arguments and show everyone how little respect it earns. Reason's due for a comeback.
> The US positively, endlessly interfered in Europe for the past century. That interference has overwhelmingly turned out well.
Are we counting the financial support that Wall Street and the budding CIA boys at Sullivan & Cromwell gave Hitler to harass the Soviet Union, which ultimately had to take care of the problem they created, in the "turning out well" column here?
"surprised Pikachu face" lmao, just absurdly arrogantly wrong. Molotov-Ribbentrop was Stalin's last resort and (successful) bid for time and breathing room after trying and failing numerous diplomatic efforts to unite the Allies against Hitler. Many of those Allies were explicit, at the time, about their desire to use Nazi Germany to inflict a mortal blow on the godless communists in Moscow.
Em. After Molotov-Ribbentrop, the Soviet Union tried to formally join the Axis as the fourth Axis power.
It's hard to argue that was to buy time, especially given they had spent more effort conquering their neighbors and helping the Nazis than building defenses against the them. They just wanted a larger chunk of Europe and Western Asia.
Their attempt failed because Stalin got greedy with what chunk of Europe he wanted and their poor performance against Finland convinced the Nazis to double cross them and invade.
Hitler offered the Soviets to join the Axis in 1940, predicated on a bunch of conditions that they refused to accept. Where in the world did you come up with this completely false reinterpretation of that as "the Soviets tried to join the Axis"?
To describe the Soviet-Nazi discussions to join the Axis as the Soviets refusing because of Nazi demands is certainly an odd view of history especially given how Stalin's proposal, one he personally drafted, was received.
Perhaps this was one of the self-serving Soviet narratives, like the nonsense of having to side with the Nazis and invalid Poland because the Allies refused them - as opposed to actively double dealing and choosing the Axis because they offered the best deal.
Regarding the counterproposal, Hitler remarked to his top military chiefs that Stalin "demands more and more", "he's a cold-blooded blackmailer" and "a German victory has become unbearable for Russia" so that "she must be brought to her knees as soon as possible."[12] Hitler had already decided to invade the Soviet Union in July 1940,[13] but this apparently accelerated the process.
It all goes back to what Zhukov said, "we rescued Europe from fascism, and they will never forgive us for it."
And of course the Allies' own self-serving behavior and cutting deals with Hitler, or leaving the internal dissident generals within the Wehrmacht to twist in the wind, is always to be completely ignored, the fruits of four decades of history textbooks published by Ghislaine Maxwell's capitalist spook father.
> we rescued Europe from fascism, and they will never forgive us for it
Yeah, they "rescued" it alright. Like they rescued, err stolen, Moldova from Romania and they kept it for more than 40 years. Heck, they're still messing with it. Then at the end of the war they robbed and raped civilians from the countries they "liberated".
They have flown the flag of USSR in several occasions during their offensive war in Ukraine. It’s not the troops trying to be funny, either: their MoD has been sharing such videos.
Germany would have quite literally run out of oil (and other materials and even grain) a few months after conquering Poland. Most was imported was imported from the Americas before the war.
The French and British could have pretty much waited Germany out had Stalin decided not to bankroll the Nazis invasions of Norway and France. The allies were quite seriously considering bombing Soviet oil fields in Azerbaijan before France fell.
Presumably Stalin was hoping to prop-up Germany just long enough for them to get stuck in a protracted war in France so that he could swop in and "liberate" Europe. Unfortunately for millions it turned out to be a slight miscalculation...
Nah, Stalin didn’t anticipate the attack. And also deposing capitalist regimes, in what would become Allies, was famously the long-standing goal of the USSR
Those capitalist regimes were messing with the USSR continually from the moment of its inception, of course both sides were trying to undermine the other. Only one resorted to the sorts of terror tactics exemplified by the Phoenix Project, Operation Gladio, and the like.
Kuwait is a dictatorship. South Korea and Taiwan were, too until the 80s-90s. Especially, in the case of Taiwan it is unclear what US intereference there has been politically: the Chinese fought hard to be free of interference and although in Taiwan they need US support I don't think they are as controlled as South Korea and Japan (which has been invaded and "vassalised"). If interefence there is it is indeed to literally interfere to foster separation with the mainland.
Re. Iraq, interestingly the US invasion has vastly increased Iran's influence in the country because the majority is Shia while Saddam was from a Sunni tribe.
Which is somehow inherently wrong due to what reason exactly?
But yes, the South Korean regime in the 50s (and the RoC one in Taiwan to a lesser extent) was extremely brutal and oppressive and hardly much worse than the one in the north.
Korea, by what metric? South Korea was through the 50 poorer than North Korea, North Korea was considered the roaring growth economy, huge success of planning and leadership.
Park Chung Hee took a country that could not be a functional democracy, provided leadership and put it onto the path of economic success. Iirc, the reduction in poverty through that period is the fastest in human history (when you consider that China, that is an incredible statement).
I think people (still) assume both that democracy is superior economically for every situation and that people who don't have any food care about being unable to vote...neither of these things is obviously true. Indeed, in the latter case, we now have a good test case of poor countries adopting democracy early and they have generally not been successful as power rotates between various quasi-dictators who give massive handouts to the poor to retain power (without doing anything actually useful).
The choice should be free though - everyone should be able to opt out. Restricting people to leave the country is a major red flag that something is going in the wrong direction.
Considering the Soviet strategy of stripping assets from the East and the fact that Britain and France were broke and in shambles - yes, the Marshall plan deserves great credit. To this day East German states remain the poorest in the nation.
To be fair they had kind of started implementing the Morgenthau Plan until they realized that maybe it wasn't the best idea (and the British played a significant role in convincing the US government about that...)
1945 to ~1947 were very rough in Germany even in the allied occupation zones (and that was at least partially an outcome of a conscious decision by the allies to not allow German industry to recover)
Grenada is something of a joke in this context - the entire thing came about because the communist government fell apart and started fighting internally, so it's pretty likely the regime would have shortly collapsed with or without the invasion
Idk man, if my country was ruled by a dictator who faked elections I would be very happy to see some outsiders removing him. Kidnapping (and hopefully jailing for a long time) anyone who is in power by cheating the election is a big moral win in my book.
Awesome. I think we should also extend that to leaders who have increasingly overwhelming evidence that they planned to and intended to overturn elections (just because they failed isn't an excuse, attempted murder is still a crime)...
Extensive polling also showed Hillary Clinton crushing Donald Trump in the 2016 US election. Polls have been wrong before. I'm asking for evidence not anecdotes.
I have not ignored any evidence. I've discounted vague allegations made without presenting any proof. If you care about facts then you should ask yourself why you are so sure Maduro faked the election when you haven't seen any evidence.
We both know you are. You'll immediately dismiss anything people bring up no matter what it is and then follow up with another fake question.
You simply dont care what other people have to say. Which is fine. But stop phrasing it as a question. Just make your opinion known, say you disagree and think they are wrong and you don't care what they have to say, and leave it at that.
But the whole Q/A thing? Where you phrase a dismissal as a question pretending like you care about the answer? Its boring. Played out. Predictable.
I promise you that you'll be much happier with yourself if you just say your opinions with the full force of your true convictions instead of playing faux debate games with others.
You might even be able to convince some people, if you stop phrasing your opinions as fake questions. The fake Socratic method just gets annoying after a while, once people see through it.
Oh I very much have a lot of facts. I'm just not going to waste my time writing a multi paragraph response when we both know that you don't care what the answer is.
Feel free to go ask ChatGPT for some answers if you like though.
You can just say that you don't care. It's fine. Lots of people don't care about other people's opinions.
Not really, though? Most polls going almost as fat back as September were within the margin of error.
Clinton won the popular vote by 2% and she was on average 3-4% ahead in the polls..
In fact she she got more votes than predicted in early November since 3rd party candidates significantly underperformed relative to what they were polling.
Have a closer look at the article. I read it after posting here.
Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino shared Mr Blinken's view, writing in a post on X, formerly Twitter: "We can all confirm, without a doubt, that the legitimate winner and President-elect is Edmundo González."
Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Peru have also recognised Mr González as the president-elect...
[Machado] claimed her party's candidate, Mr Gonzalez, won by a landslide and Ms Machado said she could prove this because she had receipts from more than 80% of polling stations.
Ms Machado appealed for help, saying it was now up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate what she called an illegitimate government.
I gather that the Nobel Prize does not convey a tendency for honesty.
"[Machado] claimed her party's candidate, Mr Gonzalez, won by a landslide and Ms Machado said she could prove this because she had receipts from more than 80% of polling stations."
Yes, the opposition claimed that it had proof. However, it has not allowed any independent third parties to verify said proof. That she won a peace prize is inconsequential. They gave one to Henry Kissinger too.
And even if we accept that, the US has declared effectively that the US takeover, while removing the supposed false winner, will also not restore the actual winner that called for help, but that the US will run the country directly, while seizing its oil resources (contrast with the 1990 invasion of Panama, where we also deposed and arrested a leader we accused of illegally holding power, and charged him with US crimes, but openly stated and followed through on intent to restore the government we described as having won, and did not declare that we would run the country or seize its resources, and did not, in fact, do that.)
If you have the data, are extremely careful and build a coalition, maybe. This admin has done none of that and the answer if asked will be “eat shit”. Blows my fucking mind that there are apologists for this.
> Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Because they failed doing that in Iraq and Afghanistan, both cases where they did try, and there is also Libya (where they did not try all that much, if at all, I'll give you that). I mean, they did put some of their puppets in both Kabul and Bagdad, but the puppets in Kabul eventually got swept by the Talibans, while the puppets in Bagdad switched over to Iran's side by 2015-ish.
As far as I can ascertain, there is no invasion. Just a special ops kidnapping.
It is unclear what will happen next, but likely the regime or large elements of it will survive. Perhaps a more moderate faction will take control? That would be the best case scenario.
>> In geopolitics, an invasion typically refers to a military offensive in which a polity sends combatants, usually in large numbers, to forcefully enter the territory of another polity,[1] with either side possibly being supported by one or more allies. While strategic goals for an invasion can be numerous and complex in nature, the foremost tactical objective normally involves militarily occupying part or all of the invaded polity's territory. Today, if a polity conducts an invasion without having been attacked by their opponent beforehand, it is widely considered to constitute an international crime and condemned as an act of aggression.
That definition includes what happened here. Drop all the optional conditions (“usually large numbers”, “possibly being supported”) and the core statement becomes:
“an invasion typically refers to a military offensive in which a polity sends combatants to forcefully enter the territory of another polity”
Can you at least appreciate the irony of someone using their own definition that disagrees with yours, you arguing against their using their own definition, and then there being another widely-cited definition that disagrees with your own, which you also argue against?
I’m not arguing against the Wikipedia definition because it does not disagree with mine. It says “usually in large numbers”, aka not necessarily large numbers. It says goals are complex but “normally involves militarily occupying”, aka not necessarily occupying.
Well, absent further interventions - possibly even a real invasion! - there is no reason for the current regime in Venezuela to change its policy very much (aside from beefing up its air defense maybe)
They've already been threatened to play ball: "While it is conceivable that Rodríguez has agreed to co-operate with the Trump administration to save her own skin – Trump said the US was prepared carry out a second wave of strikes if necessary – she will not be seen as someone willing to implement change."
Intent is 90% of the law. We still call someone a murderer even if their attempt failed. And today there were action behind the words. I don't see any reason to argue this is anything but an invasion.
I would not agree. Intelligence operatives are often in place for long durations in hostile sovereign territory, and some were likely used in this event. Their presence is not an invasion.
Air operations also are not seen as invasions, and the recent stealth strikes by the U.S. in Iran are not seen this way.
It appears to me that armed troops in place that are taking and holding territory for a prolonged duration are the definition.
The dictionary definition below is "the incursion of an army for conquest or plunder."
We have the president of the United States, who ordered the assault, saying openly that “we are going to run the country” and you ask what the object of conquest was?
This is just making stuff up. None of the definitions offered up here posit this requirement aside from the one apparently in your head.
The United States sent ground troops into another country to depose its leader and install a government that will bend to United States demands. The president of the United States and his advisors have openly stated that this was done to take over the other country and extract money. This is an invasion by any reasonable definition, including the ones that have been shared here.
> Edit: if the Maduro kidnapping is an invasion, then it follows that the Eichmann kidnapping was likewise.
Was Eichmann the leader of Argentina? Did this action effect a systemic change in the government of Argentina or give Israel power or access to Argentinian resources?
Let's pretend that the International Criminal Court were to apprehend Donald Trump and take him to the Hague for trial today over this event.
His claims to control the country and its resources would be inadmissible as charges, because they have not happened. They would be admissible to establish intent, but that would lead to lesser charges.
While I realize that the lower limit of a legal definition of the events of the last twenty-four hours is in the thoughts of very few, no overt actions of force have been taken as yet to obtain those goals.
That lower limit is extra-judicial kidnapping.
Edit: if someone involved in an assault says the words "I want to kill you," then that can establish intent and trigger, among other things, a restraining order, or perhaps elevate the charge to aggravated assault.
The words themselves cannot be used to prosecute for murder.
In the same way, there are many ways that nations inflict violence upon one another, and I think "invasion" is premature, but certainly possible.
However, none but Maduro and his wife were taken, so perhaps the force of arms will be judged sufficient.
> His claims to control the country and its resources would be inadmissible as charges, because they have not happened.
I fail to see the relevance of this tangent. You haven’t even specified what the hypothetical inadmissible charges would be.
It seems like you are trying to say that an unsuccessful invasion should not count as an invasion, which is absurd. If Canada sent 100k troops to DC to take over America but they were all promptly killed, would that not count as an invasion?
Axios has a new article with information that is germane.
'...no U.S. troops would be on the ground "if the vice president does what we want..."'
'[Rodriguez] also left the door open to a dialogue with the Trump administration, calling for "respectful relations," according to the Associated Press.'
You're pointing to an article with the US threatening to do it again, and you're still trying to argue this isn't an invasion?
The semantics are cute for technical documents. But please get some perspective. Buildings and destroyed and innocent lives lost. I don't care what you call it, it's bad.
Surely the best case scenario is the regime collapsing, all collaborators of Maduro ending up dead or in jail and then the guy who actually won the election or a women who would have won it ending up in power?
Of course that would be great, but pretty unlikely with just a decapitation strike. Like most dictators, Maduro was not holding the country in a superhuman iron grip, but instead the representative of various elites and factions that kept him in power for their own interests. However given how easy this operation has been, there is a suspicion that one or more factions colluded with the US, and may now be consolidating control - and then maybe a peaceful transition back to democracy? We shall see.
No - Trump has just announced that he intends for the US to "run" Venezuela for the time being and that that will include ... shock horror... American oil companies taking a significant role in the country's oil infrastructure.
You think the business executives in this administration managed to organize the kidnapping of a head of state? Trump pointed at it and a massive machinery which was built over hundreds of years made it happen. People who have been doing this kind of work for decades organized this. Good thing those same business executives are also hell-bent on destroying the machinery, I suppose.
During the 2024 campaign, oil executives met at Mar-a-Lago and agreed to pay $1B to Trump’s campaign. It is one or more of those men who will be interfacing with the Venezuelan generals about shifting their oil away from China.
I still don’t get these kinds of comments. Is it supposed to be funny because it’s so hyperbolic? I’d hope debates here would at least acknowledge that he’s pursuing some broader aims even if most of it is probably just to benefit his friends. Does anyone really think his actions lack any ulterior motives especially with how the cabinet is selected? You can‘t deny that he has more agency then a Government-by-committee-by-proxy like Bidens final years were like, where it really felt like it was dementia taking over. I feel it’s absurd to claim that a president is incompetent for not serving his people if that is not his goal in the first place.
Without Greene, the campaign goals of MAGA wither. The “I don’t start wars; I end wars” president doesn’t even have the fortitude to start by asking Congress. It’s not as much hyperbole as it sounds.
Were they really campaign goals or were they just marketing material to win an election? It makes so much more sense to not view everything MAGA as stupid „because they are lying“. Well they’ve won the election. Is that not the goal of a campaign? I‘m not saying lying is good, but it’s not like a only minority of politicians do that and it’s not like only a minority of politicians then do the exact opposite of what they promised and incur damage to their country. Some do it by benefiting themselves like Trump, some do it by being to indecisive and weary like Merkel or Biden
Ok, so you hope debates here should charitably acknowledge wider aims. I think we can agree that campaign promises rarely align with those. But pardoning Juan Orlando Hernández means that precisely none of this is about Maduro at all.
No that’s not what I mean. I‘m saying we should acknowledge them, not necessarily by doing so charitably. My point is that you cannot have productive debates about politicians if you think they all act to benefit their people and if they do something that contradicts that suddenly everyone says they are incompetent or stupid. Only then we can start asking what is he trying to accomplish with that. Which could be an interesting debate. What is he trying to accomplish for US citizens with that is a stupid question
I‘m not making a moral judgement here. I‘m saying even if the attack happens for different reasons than those you have been told (honestly a US classic), the search for a coherent reason behind it (no matter if justifiable) cannot end by saying „It doesn’t serve us. He is a stupid president, he promised us something and did something else he’s so incompetent“ because incompetent has to mean in regards to something. And if his goal really is narcissistic validation and money, well then he surely either is very lucky currently or not incompetent.
Ok it sounds like the best drawn-out support for your argument goes like this:
Since the Nov 21 call with Trump, Maduro and his wife knew to keep their bags packed. Maduro never had a strong hold on the generals, so gave them profitable organizational roles with the Sinaloa cartel. Trump was told that the cash offer had the best chance at good news in January. At least, he understands a cash offer even if he doesn’t know why he got an MRI or what for.
So the military buildup and strikes fulfill something else. What was it?
I don‘t disagree with that, in fact that’s exactly what I‘m saying. If someone becomes president to achieve those goals, do you really call him incompetent for building his cabinet around achieving that very goal?
I think that most people would define the quality of a president based on their performance for their country.
If a leader pillages the country and flees with the money, I doubt that they would be praised for their excellence ‘because they archived what they set out to do’.
That‘s entirely true, but my entire point is you cannot judge somebody as incompetent based on something they are not trying to achieve. You can say he‘s a bad president, makes sense because a good president serves his country. But you can’t say he is an incompetent one just because he has ulterior motives.
Who said they will remove the government ? From current news they could very well just leave it in place as long as they sell their petroleum in dollars and agree to other restrictions.
It's also a threefold solution to Trump's current problems -
1. it takes the Epstien files completely out of media discourse, which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.
2. it satisfies the biggest donors to the republican party - weapons manufacturers and oil companies.
3. it allows Trump to control the narrative, and makes the media forget about the drugs that were supposedly being exported from venezuela. truth is there are effectively no drugs coming in from venezuela. i saw a deep explainer on reddit (yes, it could entirely be bullshit) that basically said that venezula produces between 0.02 to 0.08% of all illicit drugs entering the USA per year. No idea how that is calculated, but it makes sense in the context that Houndouras' president was effectively pardoned by Trump, and Hondouras by its very location is balls deep in the drug trade
Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
> which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.
While there's no shortage of creepy anecdotes about Trump in what's been released, there's been nothing that comes close to showing he had sex with any underage girls, nor have any come forward to claim that.
> Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
People are missing the point here. This wasn't a regime change, this is psychological warfare against the ruling party to get them to be more compliant. And yes, of course it's all about oil. While this could potentially deny China access to Venezuelan oil in the long term, it also removes the threat to Guyana's production, which is skyrocketing.
Uhh, there is absolutely girls who have come forth to say that he at least has had girls perform oral sex upon him, and other sexual acts beyond "vaginal penetration" (hint: men generally don't describe thirteen year old girls' nipples as "pert". They generally don't have or find opportunities to evaluate them in the first place).
But hey, maybe that's MAGA's next spin, "it's not pedophilia if it's not actual vaginal sex".
If you have a source for that I'll be more than happy to go edit my original post to acknowledge being completely wrong on this. But my instinct is that if there was an even mildly credible report of an underage girl performing oral sex on him, we'd all have heard about it by now.
>if there was an even mildly credible report of an underage girl performing oral sex on him, we'd all have heard about it by now.
We could have the entire epstein report unredacted and you'd still be arguing that the video evidence was Ai generated. There's no helping people like you at this point.
I guess this is what Germany feels like with holocaust deniers. Too bad our constitution makes it hard to prosecute this kind of denial.
The woman known as Katie Johnson accused Trump of raping her and another girl at age 13 at one of Epstein's parties, but dropped the lawsuit. Michael Wolff said Epstein showed him pictures of Trump with topless girls who could have been underaged from his vault. Trump was accused of going into his underaged beauty pageants when they were dressing. Trump sent the birthday letter to Epstein with the nude female drawing and lots of innuendo about sharing a secret. Maxwell was given a very favorable deal by Todd Blanche, and it's known the administration didn't want to release the full Epstein files because of how much Trump was mentioned in them.
Plus Trump was very good friends with Epstein and Maxwell. Do the math.
Counter any of them with real evidence, I dare you.
1. Trump is a pedophile. This is confirmed by the fact that he's been sued for his pedaristic actions, and "wished well" his former Mossad-backed recruiter.
2. Weapons makers and oil companies have quite literally had their executives and shareholders go from the board room to cabinet or VP level positions in the US government. this isn't a conspiracy.
3. Venezuela produces very little of the drugs the US consumer consumes. Mexico, Colombia, etc.. produce far more, like double-digit multiples more. Context: I live in SoFLA and interact with Venezuelans daily, and I lived in Mexico for several years and am pretty familiar with how their cartels operate.
The previous poster totally misunderstands how the War Power Act works, and many of those statements are at best supposition and at worst demonstrably false. The war powers act does not allow any domestic action at all.
> 2. it satisfies the biggest donors to the republican party - weapons manufacturers and oil companies.
This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party. And the oil industry bit is just like the nonsense take on the Iraq war which saw virtually no contracts going to US companies.
Additionally:
>truth is there are effectively no drugs coming in from venezuela.
While Venezuela does not supply drugs bound for the US the regime there has long partnered with FARC to smuggle cocaine and weapons[1].
> Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
The first Gulf War was about kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, not capturing oil, so yeah conspiracy and false statements.
>This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party.
Wow, that's the most cringe thing I've seen in this thread. The defense industry owns both parties but contributes significantly more to Repbublican efforts than DEM efforts.
You'll notice that while the defense industry contributes to DEM candidates, they far outspend on "conservative" politicians.
>And the oil industry bit is just like the nonsense take on the Iraq war which saw virtually no contracts going to US companies.
The US oil industry didn't get any contracts during the Iraq takeover? The oil industry literally had a Haliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, go from the C-Suite to the Vice Presidency.
> The US oil industry didn't get any contracts during the Iraq takeover? The oil industry literally had a Haliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, go from the C-Suite to the Vice Presidency.
Until about a year ago most Iraqi oil contracts were held by a Chinese company that bought it's contract under Saddam an maintained it beyond the war. Haliburton mostly made money handling logistics for the war, things like construction and laundry. Oil law in Iraq was finalized post-Saddam in 2007 and pre-2000 levels of production didn't happen until 2011 after the US withdrawal.
> This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party.
Horseshit:
> Across 2017–2022, analyses based on OpenSecrets data find the defense industry’s contributions split at ~57% to Republicans vs ~43% to Democrats (a “kitchen-sink” strategy of giving to both parties).
Giving 1/3 (32.6%) more is not "pretty much even".
Here's the facts. In the last 18 election cycles, here's what happened (source: Open Secrets)
the Defense industry spent $242.54m on GOP candidates. They average $13.47m spent per election cycle on GOP candidates.
the Defense industry spent 181.51m on DEM candidates. They average $10.08m spent per election cycle on DEM candidates.
Only 4 times has the industry spent more on DEM candidates than GOP candidates - 1992, 1994, 2008, and 2010. For spending those years, the average difference between GOP and DEM campaign contributions is roughly $233k, or a grand total of $4.21m (as in that is the difference in overall political spending between GOP/DEM across all those cycles).
For the other 14 cycles, when the GOP was given more than the DEM, the average difference is $3.624m between parties, for a grand total of $65.24m. You could eliminate the industry's GOP contributions for the last 4 cycles and they'd still have given more to the GOP than DEM since 1990.
Bottom line: when the industry spends more on DEM than GOP, it's by a few hundred thousand dollars. When the industry spends more on GOP than DEM, it's by a few million dollars.
Splitting hairs? That's several million dollars. You're free to write me a check for that amount if it's truly splitting hairs.
Given the money spent on US elections $3.624m is barely anything. Most of this is probably down to which districts their plants are located in. Congressional candidates spent $2.7 billion on 2022 midterm races alone, $3m is a drop in an ocean of spending.
As soon as she won the prize she called up Netanyahu and praised him for what he's done in Gaza. They're not really even trying to make these hollowed out institutions look credible anymore.
> It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day.
What gives you that impression? I haven't seen a single comment that is surprised or wasn't aware of the existing history between the two nations, nor a single comment saying that "Ok, I'm glad/sad that that's over now". What comments specifically are you talking about?
There is no unintended consequence. Regime change was the explicit consequence of wars in the Middle East, it was the intended consequence. It went very badly.
The intended consequence here is to demonstrate to an organized crime group that being part of the government does not mean they are safe. There is no other intention, it has worked.
One possibility is that Maduro’s security detail, mostly Cuban counterintelligence, have access to damaging Epstein records. Epstein was in contact with Castro as of 2003 and was able to travel there despite sanction which would have prevented less-connected people.
FWIW, traveling to Cuba from the US (via flight from Canada, Mexico, or a dozen other convenient spots) has never been difficult, even for completely non-connected citizens.
He used “I feel” language. He didn’t say it is or isn’t. Every small change, like a butterfly flapping its wings, can have profound negative effects in the future. Inaction too can have profound effects. It’s not a useful question imo other than to notice that radical changes are typically favored by progressives, while no change is favored by conservatives. Here we have an inversion of that, which to me is interesting.
Yes, he has to telegraph that to the world to try to minimize fears that the US _desires_ a prolonged intervention, regardless of what happens, and regardless of what he actually believes.
Statements made by politician need not be taken as truthful.
Even this long-delayed (for a shadow docket case) limited ruling (can't send troops for now but left door open for a rehearing after lower court is finished) is an exception for history's most compliant SCotUS (unprecedented 90% favoring admin).
What about the war powers act are you talking about? It just limits situations (or purports to) where the president can use the military without a declaration of war. Even if we were suddenly actually attacked (not just Venezuelan forces fighting back) it wouldn't give any path to "no more democracy".
The President can now tell "his" DOJ to indict someone in another country (like its leader), and use that to 'legally' justify an attack on said country to grab the person.
Ironically, the current administration thinks that American courts can hold any president accountable for crimes, except the American president.
This forum won't have any obviously partisan comments (that are visible, anyway) so you have to read between the lines. They will have an air of "hah, well, Trump already captured Maduro so what do you think of that liberal?" but instead disguised as something like this[0].
There is plenty of talk in MIGA/MAGA circles that say, in effect, that Venezuelans have now been liberated, there will be no occupation, and other related assumptions / coping mechanisms which they are using to preserve the facade of Trump being anti-war.
Reagan something very similar twice and it worked out reasonably(ish) fine.
Of course Venesuela isn't that similar to Panama or Granada in various ways. Given the massive amounts of internal issues, and insanely high levels of crime/murder removing the government and washing your hands might turn it into something like Haiti...
Fundamentally on the moral level removing oppressive tyrants like Sadam, Maduro, Gaddafi etc. is the right thing to do. Of course nobody ever figured out how to prevent the situation from getting even worse in the aftermath..
Examples of US-facilitated regime change that resulted in lasting stability/democracy are more the exception than the rule, when you look at the track record overall.
So I dont think we should but doing regime change - however the ones you cited appear to have broad popular support in their respective lands and are at most minor nuisances to their neighbors - they're also participants in the international community too.
> the ones you cited appear to have broad popular support in their respective lands
So you're saying that authoritarianism works and is just fine. The implication is that Venezuala is a shithole and it's people are unhappy with their leader because of sanctions, not because of the lack of democracy.
I'm saying people have a right to choose that, and moreover it's not my obligation as an American to fund overthrowing those regimes, or for that matter make them pariahs for being undemocratic alone.
As much as I dislike it, there are also an acceptable amount of human right abuses before we care, and its somewhere between punishing dissidents and genocide.
Venezuela had economic issues before sanctions due to chronic mismanagement of the economy, which led to a humanitarian crisis causing a mass exodus (which made the economic issues worse).
> Fundamentally on the moral level removing oppressive tyrants like Sadam, Maduro, Gaddafi etc. is the right thing to do.
If the issue was what was “right” then Trump wouldn’t have cozied up to Putin and abandoned Ukraine, or cozied up to MBS and waved away his murder of a US journalist, and on and on it goes. This administration has zero moral credibility. I don’t know what will happen in Venezuela but we should all be skeptical of fruit from a poisonous tree.
I do concede that it is possible the situation will deescalate from here on out, but there is no possible way to be sure of that. Right now the situation is very volatile and could very easily spiral into a huge mess. MAGA people don't want to acknowledge that possibility, because they want to believe Trump is honest and competent.
I think you would be best served prioritizing other areas of study over geopolitical conflicts; one that teaches you to respect people, even if their beliefs differ from your own.
We should just make them a territory like Guam and instead of assuming we'll fix everything and give it back, we'll just work under the assumption that we're keeping it indefinitely.
I see Google's AI and top results all give this answer, but "MIGA" most certainly does not refer to India in this or most contexts, but to Israel. It is a criticism of Trump's pro-Israel actions, and presumably Google recognizes its anti-semitic usage and so will not suggest that as an answer unprompted.
I'm pointing this out specifically because I'm surprised to see that Google and also DuckDuckGo both suppress the true definition if you don't already know it.
And things have already happened. Close allies have stopped sharing intelligence information with the US. Even if the US doesn't need the info the deterioration of those partnerships is concerning. Or maybe good from the perspective of weakening the global surveillance machine but that's a whole other issue.
Not to mention all the other things that happen that when you put together are more concerning.
People forget, there are no real "big things".
Instead there's just a bunch of little things that come together to look big. As programmers we should be intimately familiar with this. Though normally we're using it in the other direction: taking a big problem and determining all the little problems that come together to create the big one. Working in the assembly direction is much harder than the disassembly direction (far larger solution space) but the concept is still the same.
But I agree with you, this isn't the end. This is definitely a concerning inflection point.
Well, these days someone who just looked at the current situation and wasn't familiar with history might guess Russia, Hungary, Turkmenistan or even Venezuela.
Well if you exclude the politicians then most people share values. I mean we got a bunch of Chinese people living in America and a bunch of Americans living in China. Same is true for a lot of countries and ones where the countries politically are at odds. Yet the people... not so much.
There's some truth to that, although there can be value differences that aren't so obvious. But it does seem to be the case that power structures select for those most likely to abuse them.
No matter the outcome, we are not here giving judgement on the action. We are here questioning how is any of this legitimate? How did we elect a person who promised to keep america out of foreign affairs but is now doing the same thing his predecessors did.
Groups of people over time are a complex system. What more of us educated types can do is try to help more people get educated and have good jobs. The more vulnerable, ignorant folks we have in the population, the easier it is to end up with extreme crony types.
Not to disagree but venezuela's context is different from the middle east, and this was made so quickly it might cause a stable swap. Now that's just my bedroom geostrategist wannabee opinion and yeah it might create a long mess, especially knowing trump emotional profile, if things don't benefit him quick, he might add oil to the fire thinking he's the smartest.
The guy that partially demolished the universal symbol of the United States abroad (the White House, in case that wasn't clear) and tends to not have a plan beyond the next meal would really surprise me if he had contingency plans in place for if this backfires somehow. Right now it is a toss up, it could go any way from here.
The one thing that is a given is that kidnapping foreign heads of state - no matter how despicable - is now on the menu. I'm pretty sure that this isn't the last time we see this. And the pretexts are unconvincing given how Trump dealt with that other drug dealer. I'm guessing Maduro didn't want to play ball more than anything, this feels very personal.
>> Trump also said he believes that American companies will be “heavily involved” in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.[1]
There we have it. The real reason for the invasion. Looks like the start of yet another avalanche as you say.
Jan 6th, extrajudicial killings, ICE deportations, threatening to takeover Greenland, and now the kidnap of a foreign country's leader. The world needs to wake up and realise the USA is just China/Russia with better PR.
Edit: And now he's confirmed the US will run the country until they decide otherwise.
These threads makes it depressingly obvious how "might makes right" is the main underlying principle in the end - albeit periodically latent. Suddenly proportionality disappears and it's one of the worst regimes out there, a narco-state. Obviously unlawful actions is reported as "legally questionable" etc. It doesn't even matter that the current US administration is an unusually vulgar example of erratic, dishonest, and self-serving leadership.
how "might makes right" is the main underlying principle in the end
This is not surprising, this is how society ultimately works, even internally, not just on international scale.
I live in a democracy. I could still name several laws of the land that I consider fundamentally unjust, but the might of the majority translated into political and physical power means that I have to obey them, right or wrong. It is better that this power is controlled democratically and not by a single autocrat or a single ruling party, but it is still fundamentally coercion.
Are there even any alternatives? Ultimately we cannot all agree on what is right for everyone.
My point was to highlight the double standards of this kind of after-the-fact reporting and discussions. I'm cynical enough to know that "might makes right" is a part of life to various degrees.
Oh, something changed there. Iran's attitude towards nuclear weapons has changed considerably, and none for the better. They're a deal with Pakistan or Russia away from achieving that.
Iran was well on that path anyway.
The US strike absolutely did turn Iran from a peaceful actor with no interest in nuclear weapons into a regime bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
Americans have remarkably short attention spans. In 5 years when Iran is widely acknowledged to have nuclear weapons, you’ll know what changed after Fordrow.
That’s correct. The point is that until now Iran has intentionally not built a nuke - they’ve kept themselves within range to make it a credible threat, but they’ve not completed the project because so far the tacit agreement has been that if they don’t build a nuke, the US doesn’t let the Israelis bomb Tehran.
Let's just focus on the not-legitimately-elected ones. Venezuela was a functioning democracy until Maduro took control through force and fraud. Shed not one tear for him.
I won't. That still doesn't mean this is over by a long shot. My bet is on the oil with a side dish of Epstein distraction. At least the latter seems to have worked. Wouldn't it be too bad if Venezuela actually gets to decide who they want to deal with regarding their oil and they pick France, the UK or China...
Jack Smith also made the clear case to Congress last week that he has the evidence that Trump did try to overthrow the 2020 election and inspired the January 6th insurrection, so he should not have been eligible to run in 2024. He should have been in prison.
To be fair, the English names for all other places named after Cristoforo Colombo use the English spelling for Christopher Columbus. It might be difficult to remember the (locally-less common) exception.
And our primitive spell checkers often cannot deduce from context, as there are many, perhaps most cases, where Columbia is the most-likely correct rendition. Even if we transcend our own difficulties, Siri might defeat us.
You are correct that the correct English spelling for Colombia is Colombia, and surely it is problematic to localize a foreign country's name.
So please reciprocally acknowledge receipt of our formal request for Colombians to stop calling the USA "EE. UU.", "Estados Unidos de América", and all other such indignities. :)
Plus, the stalemate on Taiwan right now is US strategic ambiguity. Maybe Trump “visiting” China to offer his strategic brilliance during their expansion will finally get him a bigger peace prize.
It’s also worth noting that, according to Trump’s former Russia advisor, Fiona Hill, Russia once pushed for a “swap” in which it would abandon its support for Venezuela in exchange for the U.S. abandoning its support for Ukraine.
> I haven't seen a convincing argument about why it would have been better if he remained in power.
You're way off base here. No one is arguing that he should be in power. It's the way it was done. You're also ignoring a very important question: now what?
Sorry, but the last year has not inspired confidence that this administration knows what it's doing.
I think no americans are afraid of venezuela, so what could possibly come that we don’t want? you think venezuela can stand toe-to-toe in a full scale military engagement? you see how we just walked into their country, took the president, and his wife, and walked out without issue? have you seen how many venezuelans are celebrating?
>> It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day.
Trump just said in the press conference that from now on the US will run Venezuela...The US is "designating" the people that will run the country.
They mentioned the president of Colombia has to "watch his ass" and that Cuba is a mess. And said that the US will be selling the oil to other countries, and the US will take "our oil".
I hope to be wrong, but think it certainly will. all the money everyone is spending on arms it seems soon the only game left in town in the military industrial complex. the other career options are to become a doctor, or nurse.
the US in its current form is heading towards long drawn out collapse like the Roman empire, and they're dragging all their former allies down with them. there seem to be no peaceful options to prevent that collapse.
E.g.:
- I do not see any way they can modernize their messed up political system.
- their population is divided more than any country on the planet
- thanks to heavily propagandized citizens they don't have the critical mass to bring in change (not in a country where the companies have so much power)
To me this is one of those situations where regardless of what happens in Venezuela, there were better, more morally and legally justifiable, ways of achieving the same end.
Watching BBC news earlier, two interviewees were acolytes of Venuzuelan politician and exile Maria Corina Machado, who recently received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Juan Guaidó, the former American-backed coup (or whatever you want to call it) leader. They were adamantly pro-Maduro getting helicoptered away, but somewhat neutral on bombings on their own capital city. I think the consent factory is still making porkie pies.
Machado seems to be the opposite of an exile until she escaped to accept the Nobel Peace Prize last month.
Machado was prohibited from leaving Venezuela by a decade-old
government-imposed travel ban and, by late 2025, had spent months in hiding
amid the risk of arrest.
Yeah it’s surprising how little justification there’s been for this. As a well-read US citizen, I don’t actually know why we did this.
Was it for oil? Socialism bad? To stop drugs? I think you latter is the narrative I’m most familiar with.
Immigration would be the most logical, since this administration and political base care a lot about that, but I don’t think they’ve drawn a clear line between economic success and emigration. Logic isn’t exactly a cornerstone for these idiots.
I’m guessing we did it to flex and distract from our own economy, but usually there is at least some pushed narrative for why America did the thing?
Geopolitically the US has abandoned world hegemony and is consolidating in the western hemisphere.
Venezuela has massive oil reserves and its leadership has been anti-Zionist since Chavez.
It’s a juicy target close to home, been a thorn for decades, and not as prickly as Iran or Yemen.
But you’re right, it’s noteworthy they are not attempting to sell interventionism to the public anymore. 15 years ago they’d have staged a color revolution and gone with the populist uprising narrative. They seem to have dropped the narcoterrorist narrative already. The use of raw force without moral justification is a sign of decline. The Twitter right is trying to sell this as an imperial / Nietzschean triumph but few are going to buy it.
I think it’s just realpolitik grand chessboard strategy. Knocking out an unfriendly/uncooperative leader of a strategically important country. That’s always been the real justification for US foreign policy. It’s a game of risk, without moral considerations beyond optics. There isn’t much more to it than that.
You can be socialist if you cooperate. You can be a dictator if you cooperate. It’s not about political philosophy or forms of government, just playing ball with the hegemon.
The media has been branding maduro a narco-terrorist for a while now. And trump has declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction and exclusively blamed venezuela for it. The establishment has a playbook and they stick to it. Let's not forget the nobel committee gave a "peace prize" to a woman advocating for war against venezuela.
Venezuela has been linked to the fentanyl crisis. "The Trump administration has described strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific as attacks against terrorists attempting to bring fentanyl and cocaine to the US.
However, fentanyl is produced mainly in Mexico and reaches the US almost exclusively via land through its southern border."
The 'wars on drugs' and the 'war on terror' have been abused many times in the past to just do whatever person 'x' wanted to do anyway. See also: National security.
Also, based on threats Trump has made and that recent national security proposal or whatever, it seems the administration is intent on regime change in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico. I bet Brazil is watching its back too. So it’s really going to be many avalanches as America revives colonialism. All to the cheer of half the country.
I doubt any of our allies like Canada or European countries can trust us again.
Yep - That group of people have something we want (gold, spices, women, revenge or the ever classic we want to replace their religion with ours) and for the last 30 years especially now oil and minerals appear to be on the menu
The Arab spring was a mass uprising, this was the removal of one person - it's really not the same.
Think of it this way - Maduro could had died from choking on a turkey bone over Christmas - would there inevitability be a civil war?
What matters is whether there is a fight for political power as a result - and particularly what the generals think. ie any fight is much more likely to start from the top rather than the bottom.
My guess, and it's just a guess, is that the smoothness of the extraction mission strongly suggests serious inside info/cooperation. ie somebody did a deal with the US - involving giving up Maduro in exchange for removal of the sanctions ( particularly oil which the US has escalated with tanker seizures ) which was crippling the country.
So my prediction is an internal smooth transition of power, cooperation around oil, with neither the US nor the new leader being keen on quick elections as that will interfere with the execution of the deal.
All the Trump cares about is the public 'win' and the oil and minerals flowing. The Venezuelan leadership will want to end the US sanctions and get the countries economy working again - if this happens they will think election prospects will improve - can't see Trump caring that much about Venezuelan internal politics as long as he get's the win and a positive flow of oil revenue and strategic access to minerals.
The Arab world is different because the people are largely fundamentalist and there's many extremists while the governments are relatively moderate. So get rid of the government and all the extremists take over.
Venezuela is Catholic and while it definitely has crime issues, there's no religious/fundamentalist element to the violence so the odds of anyone fighting to the death to support their failed dictator and his ideology is slim to none.
Which government was relatively moderate? Gaddhafi who threatened to slaughter the rebellious cities block to block on TV? Assad who did just that and gassed his own people for a good measure?
The indecision of the international community to act is what caused the suffering lasting a decade, led to the rise of ISIS and refugee crisis of enormous proportions.
> Which government was relatively moderate? Gaddhafi who threatened to slaughter the rebellious cities block to block on TV? Assad who did just that and gassed his own people for a good measure?
Both of them were more moderate than ISIS lol.
But yeah, Egypt is more moderate than the Muslim brotherhood. Jordan is moderate. The non-Hezbollah part of Lebanon. UAE, Qatar, Oman all quite moderate. The Saudis are even secularizing a tad to try calming down fundamentalist sentiment. All these states actively suppress Islamism and generally are pro-west.
None of them where Arab Spring had struggled were "moderate", this is ridiculous. Assad has caused death of over 600k people (by the time they stopped counting in 2019). And ISIS is a natural consequence of these secular (if you can call personality cults even that) dictatorships lasting decades.
The US supported the Arab Spring not understanding that the public mob is worse than the dictators. No country that's not China and perhaps the most powerful NATO allies can resist US military superiority.
Most of the states I listed stayed on the right side of the US and US military equipment and aid keeps them stable.
Oh, so Obama admin was behind this? Same admin that had to be dragged by the French to help Libyans and that ceded Syria to Assad and Russia in 2013? Gotcha.
I think what was meant was moderate ideologically and religiously. Still extreme in their disregard for human life and their determination to maintain power.
> Venezuela is Catholic and while it definitely has crime issues, there's no religious/fundamentalist element to the violence so the odds of anyone fighting to the death to support their failed dictator and his ideology is slim to none.
Colombia managed a decades long violent armed conflict with the same demographics. Organized crime, political instability, political ideologues, etc all can get people to kill each other without religious extremists.
> So get rid of the government and all the extremists take over.
Oh, the so called "extremists" are/were the ones with power. This is where it tops out. I know it's hard to see from a distance but you have no idea how bad can it get under the safe and sound status quo.
And apart from the usual destabilisation possibilities, with the current US leadership there's no guarantee the outcome isn't Maduro agreeing to pay some oil revenues into Trump's personal bank account, makes some vague symbolic promise to stop drugs and emigrants and gets released to carry on as he was, but maybe with a few more internal scores to settle
Considering all the recent meddling of the USA around the world their track record is pretty bad. Higher chance it will end worse than they began with. Worse on an unpredictable way.
? The arab spring came from the islamic world regularly building population powder kegs, without having a modern industrial society to keep these populations educated, fed and with a perspective beyond fanatic death-cultist movements.
The arab spring exploded, because obama rerouted us-surplus food from subsidizing allied regimes (egypt) into bio-fuels, causing wild price spikes to the bread prices in egypt and the arab world. These situations are not really comparable - like at all. Not even on the surface level.
Neither Trump nor the GOP cares about the stability of the country or the health of its citizens. They care about distracting from problems (Epstein, affordability, etc) and about how they can extract Venezuela’s oil and minerals so they can make billions off this theft
As long as they can protect the mining and refining operations the rest doesn’t matter. And I fully expect the America First, America Only group that claims to be the next thing after MAGA, to find ways to justify this regime change and corruption.
6 years ago to the day many people were hysterical when Trump offed Soleimani on his Baghdad field trip. Turned out it brought substantial positive change to the Middle East.
It may not work out this time but when you start from a terrible rock bottom status quo the chances are already biased.
It impeded the Iranian colonial project considerably. Influence of Iran sponsored militias in Iraq have declined. It limped in Syria as well, which allowed for the fall of Assad regime a year ago.
You realize he was there at Iraq's invitation? The only impact of killing him is that both the Iraqis and whomever took his place is guaranteed to never forget why the job was open.
Looking at the middle east right now compared to 2020 I see a much bigger shitshow, including Syria. Having a bunch of people die chaotically doesn't serve anyone's interest, it just creates the next generation of radicals.
Remember in his first term how he had his loyalists, many of who were expressly in "support" of the 2nd amendment, cheering on the government jackboots who came in the middle of the night to make "cold dead hands" ? The cultists will believe anything. That's the fundamental problem with cults.
I think this is something thats really missing. In the vacuum of power who is stepping in? If its someone who is just going to sell oil to the us who gets to continue to oppress and destroy the Venezuelan economy then is it really a win?
It be like the Russians taking out Trump only to have Vance take over. Hes still propped up by miller, hegseth, bondi, the house AND senate AND courts and the cavalcades of sycophants who really only are doing the whims of oligarchs who have no interest in helping society as a whole.
Yup. Bangladesh’s government was toppled last year. With at least the tacit support of the Biden administration. Now the formerly banned Islamist is running #2 in the polls and looks like they will be part of a coalition government.
I’m not saying the U.S. overtly toppled Bangladesh’s government. I’m agreeing with the part about “be careful what you wish for.” What follows a revolution is usually worse.
> It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
Admitting that you don't know is often the most intellectual mature position to take. The world is in a chaotic circumstance right now, there's a sense of this being just the start of something far more horrifying, but anybody telling you they have a crystal ball is lying.
> Admitting that you don't know is often the most intellectual mature position to take.
It's actually more like grandstanding to satify oneself emotionally. It's "I am right" esque type of answer because "anything can happen" is always true.
The statement can be omitted because it literally adds nothing to any discussion.
> but anybody telling you they have a crystal ball is lying.
Then, we can add to a discussion saying which part might not be true, which assumption is incorrect, and etc.
Nobody would predict anything with 100% confidence. You make that up and state "anything can happen"-type of statement to satisfy yourself emotionally.
If those people were that sure about their predictions, they would bet on polymarket and become a billionaire already.
Yeah I remember Occupy protesters. I got trapped in a gaggle of them shouting “Tahir Square!” again and again. I literally lost hearing in one of my ears.
It never really recovered. Probably need a hearing aid, but I can just use the other one.
This is the Ron Paul position and its a solid one.
The non-intervention principle applies if you are not actively suffering intervention.
The flaw however, is that applying non-intervention in this instance, is choosing to ignore the real, direct hurt currently endured by non-actors (LATAM + US citizens) from the policies of Maduro.
I do concede that whatever follows Maduro, may be worse.
If I'm getting poked by a neighbor for years and i finally punch back, punching is a valid response. If the neighbor then comes back later and shoots me with a gun, it doesn't mean that my self-defense act was invalid.
> The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or head of state to head of municipal government or head of a chivalric order. As a result, the word sovereignty has more recently also come to mean independence or autonomy.
It isn't necessarily just a non-interventionist stance. Someone could be taking this position in this situation because they're highly skeptical that the Americans involved in this have the ability or desire to proceed in a way that will result in a minimum of casualities or in a way that will bring about real democractic change to the region.
People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things, not whoever is doing currently doing it.
> Someone could be taking this position in this situation because they're highly skeptical that the Americans involved in this have the ability or desire to proceed in a way that will result in a minimum of casualities or in a way that will bring about real democractic change to the region.
> People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things
Why would people who don't want Trump doing it want an Eisenhower doing it? He helped overthrow democratically elected Árbenz in Guatemala with even weaker justifications than Trump overthrowing Maduro (Maduro at least seems to lack popular support and probably cheated in elections).
Eisenhower:
Overthrow of Árbenz to protect fruit company profits > series of military dictators > 30+ years of civil war where the US-backed government committed a genocide against Maya people
Reports that Maria Corina Machado (peace prize winner) will be the next leader - so that is a good sign. I've also seen many reports and videos of locals celebrating.
Not a chance in hell. The regime is 100% intact. Maria Corina Machado would be executed the moment she lands. A complete military takeover will follow the ousting of Maduro.
I know nothing about her but worth pointing out that 'peace prize winner' is irrelevant. Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She has since presided over ethnic cleansing.
We essentially took out the Venezuelan version of Trump. There are still the cabinet, remaining military leaders, courts, representatives, even down to governors and mayors who all profited from the current setup who are not going to be willing to just roll over cause the US supports someone
But in the end of the day, Arab spring worked just fine everywhere? In every single country where pro-Russian dictators were in power, they fell (Iran is not pro-Russian, just a potent enemy by itself, and is not Arab for that matter). Except Libya where they fell partially, with country being effectively split in halves. But this is already a big deal - there isn't a single pro-Russian regime now in the entire Arab world.
Why do you think it won't work like that with Venezuela?
PS: I realised that i made a mistake, so-called Palestine is absolutely pro-Russian, the entire ethnic group is created by Russians out of thin air in 1967, but it's a separate case and they did not participate in Arab Spring anyway.
So what if they're pro-Russian? America just showed to the world that they're a terrorist state just like the big scary Russians. Now you can expect Putin to make a BIG play in Ukraine and Europe very soon; the gloves are off.
I can't help but think this is going to end so poorly for the innocent men, women, and children in Venezuela. I feel for them. While Maduro seems to not be loved, these periods of violent transition can result in horrid outcomes for the local populace. I can only hope my fellow Americans start to see the light and vote the current administration out of office. I'm not hopeful.
This comment is so out of touch with the reality of Venezuelans. They are crying tears of joy. This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.
That pretty much sums it up. I think Zack covered it well too. [1] I do not understand what benefit there was to a dictator remaining in place and why so many on HN support him. Over a third of Venezuelans fled that country and lost everything to escape tyranny.
The GP didn't say changing Maduro to other president is bad, but that "periods of violent transition" can have dire consequences for the regular people. And US seems to be in it for the money, not to liberate the downtrodden.
They can and often become worse. Look at Saddam Hussein and his family. They were monsters, but the reason they engaged in torture and fearmongering was to keep the other monsters in place.
Collapsed states are the worst, these becomes breeding grounds for organizations like IS.
Most places often hold as failed states and by our standards, they look terrible. Law enforcement doesn't work, so gangs become enforcers. Money doesn't really work either. But it still beats total anarchy and especially anarchy of a region with a lot of natural resources. A few hundred billion dollars of oil may not be much to a country, but it's a hell lot to terrorist organizations who are waiting to come in once the US pulls out.
Venezuelan here. It’s not that simple: Maduro was an _absolutely_ horrible dictator and yes many Venezuelans (myself included, and likely many of the 8+ million that left) are overjoyed with him being ousted, we haven’t seen any change in over two decades. And yet, it is transparently clear that the Trump admin is here not to save Venezuela, or Venezuelans… it’s here to line its pockets and that of its shareholders.
There was a very evident omission during Trump’s press conference: Any mention of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the duly elected president-elect of Venezuela (who won with a super majority last July - backed by Maria Corina Machado). Instead, Trump bad mouthed Maria Corina saying that “she does not have the support or respect of the country to run it”. They ousted Maduro, but they kept his VP (Delcy Rodriguez - which along other things is in charge of running the torture centers for political prisoners) as “she will do anything we ask her”. Trump doesn’t care about democracy or regime change - these things take time and are a long, thorny road (this wouldn’t be the US’ first rodeo). Instead they’ve chosen to keep the regime obedient with the threat of force, and instead just come in and extract as many riches as humanly possible…
Dark times ahead for Venezuela and the Venezuelan people
Many of the replies to my comment ascribe support for Maduro where there is none. However, I’m still sorry for what we have done. I don’t think there was a single motivation behind it aside from acquiring Venezuelan oil and gold reserves through thinly veiled piracy. Anyone who says we did it to topple a dictator is a rube or myrmidon. Too many unpredictable outcomes have been birthed from government foolishness like this in the past for me to believe it will end any differently.
All the best to you and your family and friends. For what it’s worth (not much I’m sure) many of us didn’t vote for this and are aghast.
> All the best to you and your family and friends. For what it’s worth (not much I’m sure) many of us didn’t vote for this and are aghast.
This white knighting is getting rather tiresome. Why does the _why_ of why it happened matter besides virtue signalling? What matters is the end effect of the action. And the end effect here is better for EVERYONE (or at the worst neutral) involved other than Maduro and his cronies.
Funny how no one listens to real Venezuelans speaking. As a chinese I understand you fully. Everyone hates dictators, but sometimes the alternative isn’t just necessarily better as people might hope. Transition is gonna be long and painful.
What we’ve been living through in the last 28 years is Chavismo and yet Chavez is not around. When Chavez died in 2013 we celebrated that he was gone, and what we got after was much, _much_ worse. Now Maduro is gone, and we can celebrate it too. That said, Trump has signaled that he’s not interested in removing Chavismo: he’s keeping Delcy, Diosdado, et al, as they continue to be the brokers of power as long as he gets access to oil. This is just Chavismo aligned to American interests. Time will tell whether this is better or worse.
PS: As an aside, since I was a child growing up in 90’s Venezuela, the overall political mentality of people was that things were so bad that they couldn’t get any worse - and yet they continued to worsen. A lesson that I’ve learned is that in politics things need to be intentionally built - there is no “rock bottom”, the fact that things have been horrible doesn’t mean that they can’t get even worse. Thus my hesitation with what’s going on. There are no guarantees that this isn’t going to be a deal with the devil that leaves us in an even worse state…
> That said, Trump has signaled that he’s not interested in removing Chavismo
I think you're jumping to conclusions. What Trump has said is that he wants the demands of the US satisfied. One of those is ultimately elections in Venezuela. You're mistaking taking a case-by-case approach for "non-interest".
Thanks for the reply. I hope the Trump admin does what’s right and puts the people of Venezuela in a position to choose their own leadership. Maybe the remaining Chavismos will be removed from power before too long.
And that’s where my hopes vanish. A dictator-wannabe that has a track record of not respecting the peaceful transition of power in _his own_ country and has run his entire campaign on hatred for immigrants and more recently Venezuelans in particular, is going to, all of a sudden, grow a conscience and do what’s right for the Venezuelan people? Let’s call it what it is: this is about oil. I don’t have to say it, because he already did in front of the cameras. He doesn’t care what happens to Venezuela or Venezuelans.
> > This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.
Really? The Venezuelan community online (eg. /r/Vzla and /r/Venezuela) communicate using memes and rather unintelligent discourse.
It's not enough to want democracy, democracy and stability happens when there is an engagement in collective thinking , whereas disorder and chaos happens when people don't want to work and don't think things through
> The social media posts of on a web forum represent the ideological position of an entire nation.
I believe it’s naive to assign Reddit and social media “discourse” any importance. Anything else is an exercise is confirming your already held bias.
Why does the post on a website by some people (who says they are even Venezuelan?) allow you to make the claim a nation “ doesn’t think thing through”?
While I agree with the sentiment, Maduro’s fate, for the time being, seems much better than Gaddafi’s. And while increased chaos in the region is not unlikely, I don’t foresee open air slave markets in SA at least
Libya wasn’t for oil, intervention was approved by the full UN Security Council, it was motivated by stopping crimes against civilians committed by the regime, and the intervention ended immediately after the regime fell, instead of “running things” and taking the oil like Trump is doing.
Lybia is a tribal country that has always been divided between its eastern and western part. Gaddafi married a bride from the opposing tribe to seal an alliance and bring stability to the country.
The "revolution" was done by the Tripoli (western) tribe, against the Cyrenaica (eastern) one - it was more a civil war starting than a popular uprising.
Gaddafi could have indeed crushed them, bring back order to the country, avoiding the current long lasting chaos, civil war, open slavery, migrant waves and so on.
It's hard to evaluate situations with a westerner mind, in countries that are structured around very different cultural norms, and with deep ethnic divisions. "Democracy" is not the silver bullet it those cases, and maybe we should acknowledge that.
That's the false history of the felon Nicolas Sarkozy, who is going to prison for the crimes he did in Libya for his personal enrichment [0].
The reason France and its crook leader invaded Libya was, according to public reports[1], because they had negotiated back-room deals with anti-Qaddafi rebels for oil. 35% of Libya's oil production in exchange for French support. Literally a war for oil.
Qaddafi's atrocities were real, but they were never the motivation of the French-lead bombing of Libya. That was a false rationalization made up to manufacture public consent. Manufacture consent for a failed intervention, that left Libya worse off than it had ever been.
> "was approved by the full UN Security Council"
Whose members actually knew about the corrupt oil deal[2], and chose to go along with the fraud, lying to their own people.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/01/libya-oil ("The new Tripoli government has denied the existence of a reported secret deal by which French companies would control more than a third of Libya's oil production in return for Paris's support for the revolution")
Gaddafi was trying to establish a gold-backed "arab" currency system and wanted to sell his oil using it. This was a threat to the US dollar so Obama was very happy to see Sarkozy knock at his door asking to go get the oil themselves lol
I don’t see that at all. Lots of good things will come from this IMO. The old wet-kneed approach to shenanigans going on in our own backyard is a disastrous message to people around the world. Just as a resurgently effective law enforcement body can restore a local community that has gone to the dogs, so too it works at an international level.
The paradoxical thing about these actions though, is that when they are run by humble mission-oriented and very effective people, they quickly disappear from the public consciousness. So we are all biased to when it goes wrong, ie to when we have incompetent leadership at the helm.
Venezuela was not a society held together by a strongman unlike Iraq/Libya/Syria. It also does not have the religious or tribal divides those places did. The country was already on the brink of collapse from a combination of sanctions and truly astronomical levels of corruption. There has been a roughly 70% economic decline over the past decade and while there is no longer hyperinflation, inflation in 2025 was at least 200%. Panama would be a more appropriate reference point.
Germany is still split in so many ways. Just look at any map of demographics, pension, income, anything "social/society scale", the borders are clearly there still, somehow.
In the presence of more similar experiments, only with pure dogma or dishonesty that one can opt to infer the outcome based on far less similar and even less contemporaneous experiments.
So you think USA will go into Venezuela and do a complete takeover, rewrite it's constitution, and have troops there for 50 years to enforce the new order?
The US did not care at all about Japan had all kinds of nazi clubs in the country.
It only gave a damn from Japan to retaliate against it... And let's not pretend it became all sunshine and rainbows for Japan post WW2. Internment camps. No standing military. Huge cultural disruption.
SK who remembers the war doesn't have the best opinion of the US either. They essentially pulled out and did a half assed job. Who's even to say that a communist Korea wouldn't have been the best long term plan? It might have destabilized faster than what we know today as North Korea.
This is a good take if you know nothing about the history of the US meddling with other countries. For those who do have some knowledge here, this is fucking just stupid and naive.
How much worse could you get from a society where 80% of people are living in extreme poverty and where in a good year inflation is 250%? Maduro was not some great guarantor of stability who kept a divided society together. For instance about half the prisons are run under the so called pranato system which means they are literally run by the inmates. I think it's reasonable to say that almost anyone would be better than him.
Pretty much everyone who wasn't in on the CADIVI scam or the subsidized gasoline racket or selling $0.05 screws to PDVSA for $75 stands to benefit from a new government. Many corrupt dictators understand that stealing a small percentage of a bigger pie is a more stable arrangement that can ultimately be more profitable in the long run but the clan that ran Venezuela was so greedy they wanted to take everything as fast as possible.
You obviously seem to have no idea how mafia-style dictatorships like those of Iran, Russian and Venezuela work. No fault of you. Most people don't.
And even their own citizens come to the realization after a long time living under them; partly because they get caught in the constant propaganda campaign which is one hallmark of these regimes. They always live in the propaganda mode.
A fairly optimistic way to spin this situation is as follows. Either it somehow works out for Venezuela, in which case we effectively helped millions of people Homer Simpson style. Or, more likely, failure disgraces Trump the same way it disgraced GWB. Then (fingers crossed) we elect a humbler, more realistic leader who works to rebuild the country we wrecked, and we can move on from the Trump era.
Why would Trump allow a peaceful transfer of power? Jan 6 happened and it failed because the first Trump administration still had people who cared about the rule of law (e.g. Pence).
I think the only hope is that the guy is old and unhealthy, in contrast to e.g. when Putin or Orban grabbed power. And it is possible that the GOP will fracture over fights between who see themselves as his successor. If this doesn't happen, I don't have much hope for the US as a democracy.
The Monroe Doctrine is over 200 years old and simple enough for your average dictator to understand. Don't expect the US to turn a blind eye to investments in key strategic assets of your country by its strategic rivals.
I don't think it's a coincidence that a special envoy of Xi met Maduro hours before being captured. It was probably the final straw.
Realpolitik can only ever be an explanation, not a justification. We don't need to accept this from our leaders, especially if we live in any of the more powerful nations of the globe.
The last US president to seriously question their country's foreign policy got their head blown off. It goes without saying that Trump is not a serious person.
Everyone wants to live in the most powerful nation of the globe. Nobody wants to acknowledge what it takes to be the most powerful nation in the world.
Even if a peace deal is reached, and even if that is part of the peace deal, that doesn't mean we are accepting it: we [Europeans] fought (mostly economically) a good 5 years to try to prevent it, and lost. Accepting this would have meant not providing any aid to Ukraine and instead just saying "Russia has a clear doctrine of not allowing NATO control of the Ukraine region" as if this justified and their actions.
Russia is one of Europe's major trading partner. This issue is also the same for Australia, where they go against their largest trading partner to appease the US Empire.
Per the speech given by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this operation was already green light for an unspecified period of time, but they waited on ideal weather conditions to launch the operation.
>On December 2021, The New York Times published the Civilian Casualty Files. These files reveal that the US military, under the Obama and Trump administrations, deliberately killed civilians
Ah yes that well known conspiracy site known as “The New York Times” /s
I just spent way too much time reading through this thread looking for a single post more concerned about Venezuela and its people than the poster's own politics. I gave up when I noticed I was only a 1/4 of the way through thread, should have started from the bottom.
One thing to keep in mind is that reflexive comments always show up first, because they're the quickest responses to feel, to write, and to post. Reflective and thoughtful comments—such as ones that express concern for people, as you were wanting to see—are slower to arise, take more time to write, and therefore are slower to show up in threads [2].
Reading a few hundred mostly low effort reactionary posts of people using the events in Venezuela as validation for their politics had a strong effect on my mood.
These sorts of events are tricky on HN, all the user can do is flag flag flag and hope you or others like you (mods) will sort it all out and give the front page its one thread on the topic, if we don't the front page will be consumed and the community will die. But we can't always rely on mods, you have lives and have to rely on certain pragmatism, you have to wait and see how the community reacts/events unfold to see if something should get a thread on the front page or risk the consequences. And I think you did weigh in but vouching on a single thread may have won out against the flagging, as it should. So I gave the thread a chance and started reading.
One of the only changes I think HN could use, is mods being able to make a post in a thread that can not be voted on or replied to but will remain top post and simply stating that the community has ruled and this submission will live but every related submission will be killed as a dupe until the thread dies. But that would be very difficult to do without being accused of having an agenda by one side or the other.
Part of the reason I avoid becoming too much a part of sites like HN is because I fear being asked to be more than a user. I do not envy your position but I appreciate all you do.
> One of the only changes I think HN could use, is mods being able to make a post in a thread that can not be voted on or replied to but will remain top post and simply stating that the community has ruled and this submission will live but every related submission will be killed as a dupe until the thread dies.
We do sometimes make pinned posts like that—I've listed a few below—but they're mostly for reminding people to follow the site guidelines. In a way, that includes the message you're talking about (i.e. we're allowing this thread because the community insists on it), but only implicitly.
> Part of the reason I avoid becoming too much a part of sites like HN is because I fear being asked to be more than a user.
Can you say more? What would constitute being asked to be more than a user?
>What would constitute being asked to be more than a user?
That was mostly a way to say that I really don't want your job. Mostly, I want to retain my ability to occasionally make posts like the one I made in this thread.
>practically unique!
Are you saying that I am unique in a practical, salt of the earth fashion or that I am almost unique? I ultimately did exactly what I admonished in this thread and just admitted to wanting to cling to being able to be salty and moody, which fits well with almost unique. It was very Gassian in its phrasing and quite good. Even if unintended, it was very on point.
With some charity, you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.
The politics are baffling. There hasn't even been a case made that one could disagree with. Why are we killing Venezuelans and kidnapping their president? If this is for the greater good, where is that argument?
1. Most people from Venezuela are happy Maduro is out. A striking difference with people from Ukraine about the invasion. This is the most important thing about this and most people here in comments ignore it.
2. Maduro wasn't even the president. He was someone who took the country illegally with cartel people.
3. Why? Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA. Huge operations. And I guess there must be geopolitical reasons. You want China and Russia be there? And people from Venezuela were the biggest migration wave in the World last decades. You want millions of refugees?
I think one of the best arguments against US interventionalism when it comes to tyrants is just how 'variable' (let's say) the outcomes have been over the years. For every Panama, there's two or three Guatamalas, Irans or most recently Iraq. Generally the hard part is not the removal of the head of state, which for the US is usually pretty quick. It's what beurocratic structures remain functional and whether the power vacuum created brings something better and more robust, or just decades of violence.
I think Sarah Paine on dwarkesh has noted that it tends to go well when the countries already have fairly robust institutions and tends to go badly when they don't
As I'm not a historian, I can only note that it hasn't gone well recently even when multiple successive presidents want it to
> Most people from Venezuela are happy Maduro is out.
Based on what? There's a poll already about the US bombing Venezuela and kidnapping Maduro? There's a big difference between removing a leader through a legitimate domestic process and this.
What legitimate domestic process are you envisioning? He lost an election and stayed in power anyway. Any domestic process to remove him would look like a coup.
If there was drug trafficking, why has the administration failed to provide any evidence of it on the many boats they've destroyed and the many lives they've taken for it? Instead, the limited evidence we have points at the boats being entirely unrelated to drug trafficking.
If the administration had evidence, it would be in its best interest to have shared it already. Instead they keep on pushing points they can barely articulate and that conflict with known information.
They indicted Maduro and his cronies in 2020, before anything with the boats. And the "why" might be that there is no standard that a government needs to release the information they make decisions on. In fact, it's more standard to not release it under the guide of "sources and methods". In any case, are the boats even related to Maduro or just some other thing?
> Not in itself, but the trafficking of drugs into the US is a US issue.
They are already backtracking on the "Cartel de los Soles" accusation, after finally realizing there's no such organization, but it was always a slang frase about corruption in the military. Maduro cannot possibly lead an organization that doesn't exist. Source: NYT.
The indictment removed almost all of the mentions of this cartel, now phrasing the accusation in much broader, vague terms.
It wouldn't surprise me if at some stage they changed tack entirely and tried a different angle than drug trafficking, since, let's face it:
We did. And if he was successful, and then started threatening Canada, I think I'd be totally fine with Canada performing a special operation and taking him to stand trial.
And if that doesn't work? You could, for example, envision a situation where 10% of the people are well treated and armed by the government. It'd be very hard for an unarmed ill-treated 90% to conduct any kind of uprising if the government was sufficiently well organized and brutal.
The word “exiled” implies these people were forced out by the Maduro regime, which is not the case; virtually all of them left the country due to deteriorating economic conditions.
Venezuelans for the past 5+ years have been the most or almost the most numerous asylum seekers in the US. And "poor economic conditions" or general poverty is not a valid reason to claim asylum
> Venezuelans for the past 5+ years have been the most or almost the most numerous asylum seekers in the US.
That by itself does not demonstrate that the majority have been exiled, even if we want to expand the definition of "exile" to be inclusive of those who were not actually forced to leave, but felt it was necessary to leave due to political persecution.
The majority of Venezuelans will never have a legal option to reside in the United States. This incentivizes Venezuelans to make asylum claims in order to gain entry. Similar abuses of the asylum process are seen at far smaller scales in Canada and the European Union.
What sort of persecution are these people claiming to have experienced, and more specifically, what rights are they alleging to have been deprived of by the Maduro regime?
Please, educate yourself on Maduro and the people of Venezuela. It would be hard to find a less popular leader. A quarter of Venezuelans have fled the country under his regime. 82% of Venezuelans are living in poverty and he has presided over hyperinflation. Exit polls showed him losing the last election in a landslide and he stole the country anyway.
Well the videos of ~200,000 Venezuelan people partying in the capitol of Argentina is a start. As well as many other pictures and videos of gatherings wherever there is significant Venezuelan refugees.
My question wasn't about whether he was popular, it was about whether people approve of this specific military action by the US. People can hate their leaders and still not want a foreign country directly replacing them.
In this case you are just objectively wrong. Venezuelans are thrilled with this military action. They are happy they don't have to die by the millions to oust their dictator. For many, this was the best-case scenario (assuming democratic elections are held at some point in the future.)
Normal Venezuelans saw absolutely zero benefit from whatever oil revenue there was, so even in the worst case scenario, which is not a given, their lives would not be different.
I think there's massive astroturfing with the usual talking points about drug trafficking, Maduro a dictator, Venezuelans are "Happy" plastered everywhere to try and distract from the naked fact of the oil.
First off, I'll give you credit for at least trying to justify this, it puts you ahead of the administration that can't even bother.
Second off, only #3b above (geopolitics) could possibly count at all. We support dozens of dictators, don't give a darn about their people as long as it's geopolitically useful. So I've been conditioned to assume it's bullshit when someone says "we're doing it for the people there".
Third, and to your #3.. it's Venezuela. No disrespect to the people there but it's not exactly the lynchpin of international relations. Is this really worth it? For some crude which is really high in sulfur and not even that important given fracking? Even if I'm a Henry Kissinger psychopath, this still doesn't make sense.
I am saying that a wide majority of Venezolans are totally happy about this and most people here aren't concerned about this at all. They just want to talk about their pet political point.
About what are the reasons behind this I (and most people commenting here) can only have educated guess, but I wouldn't discard so easily to weaken cartels as a reason. It is the third (Cuba and Nicaragua the others) Country they got to totally control and the most important and they are powerful and organized enough to keep spreading, and they are supported by China.
Maduro lost elections. 8 millions of exilees can't love him. And I interact daily with exilees. You can disagree. It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
We are talking about 20% of the population here. A massive wave.
They would be impoverished, imprisoned or dead have they not fled. Hard to believe people who stayed are happy about this.
But check the news, the web, talk to people objectively.I can be wrong, but I think the evidence is overwhelming, statistically speaking.Check for yourself.
My Venezuelan friends in the US are for the most part very happy about it. And this is not a gotcha at all, but I haven’t seen much about Venezuela in exporting fent to the US coming from anyone outside the Trump camp
No doubt that exilees do not love him. But it was about a "wide majority" who hold that opinion. There are lots of russian refugees for example as well and they are not a fan of Putin. But back at home he still seems to enjoy majority support in a broad sense at least and I have no inside knowledge into Venezuela at all.
I see you keep repeating this exact statement every time you are challenged and asked for actual sources. Others have pointed out that when you do provide some sources, they end up contradicting your position. If all you have is videos of people celebrating, then you can find plenty of those from Jan 6th. Does that mean that Biden lost the elections and the people of the United States approved of the attempted coup?
At this point, it's hard to imagine that you are actually arguing in good faith.
Any argument along the lines of "Venezuelans aren't happy with this" out of touch with Venezuelan culture. They do not have to die by the millions to oust a dictator that killed thousands and caused 20% to emigrate. They are happy with this.
That is what OP is saying: HN users, in order to promote their personal politics, are being concerned for a people that don't want and actively reject your concern because they are happy with the outcome.
HN is doing the equivalent of (a) denying Venezuelans appreciate this, and when that fails (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
> That is what OP is saying: HN users, in order to promote their personal politics, are being concerned for a people that don't want and actively reject your concern because they are happy with the outcome.
> (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
Well, this isn't surprising at all. At least these two points also apply to the right within the US, the HN bubble doesn't even try to understand their actual views either.
> HN is doing the equivalent of (a) denying Venezuelans appreciate this, and when that fails (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
It’s very dangerous to do the “right thing” for the wrong reasons in a complex situation. This is step 1. Does anyone have faith that the Trump admin will properly execute steps 2..N?
I would have some respect if the administration announced that it would support a provisional government led by the apparent winner of the last election in Venezuela. As such it seems to be that the administration has left the existing power structure in place and established a client/patron relationship with the leadership. This is revolting.
> It’s very dangerous to do the “right thing” for the wrong reasons in a complex situation.
Venezuelans do not care for this train of thought. No one else was going to do it, and their equivalent of Hitler has just been ousted.
Far better, from their perspective, to have the evil guy removed than endless do-nothing hand-wringing from the international community that shares your train of thought.
Democratically held elections will be run again in the country.
The "wrong reasons" can still be mutually beneficial. The US gets its oil and Venezuela gets its dictator disappeared.
It's not clear what this is really about. Trump doesn't care about the people of the US, much less Venezuela, but there seems to be a widespread consensus that Maduro was a nogoodnik who won't be missed. I have no idea what the mood on the ground really is.
As for drugs, if Trump cared about drugs, he wouldn't pardon so many drug kingpins.
Some say this has to do with asserting control over China's oil imports, but according to https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/fi... and other sources, Venezuela barely makes it into the list of China's top 10 suppliers. So while China is indeed Venezuela's best customer, this argument doesn't seem persuasive unless I'm missing something. Venezuela's next-highest volume customer is the US itself.
My guess is drugs, not because Trump cares, but because they had become too powerful, controlling Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, as well as a wide net of politicians.
Thanks for engaging in good faith, but you know that China is selling more cars to all of Latin America than us currently, right?
Will this engagement deepen Latin American trust and respect for the US or the opposite? China makes it very clear that they do not give a shit about politics and just want to do good business, they're deepening ties that way. What's our plan? Invade random countries and tell them they better not cross us? How long does that work?
Full diaclosure: I am from Argentina. I interact daily with exilees from Venezuela. They are coworkers, they drive my Uber. They are totally happy about this.
About trust and respect, I don't see any change. Leftist will keep their mantra and Normal people will mind their business.
About the 'master plan'. No one commenting here really knows. As I mentioned to avoid criminal cartels controlling three countries and spreading it is not something I would discard. Imagine if they get nukes. Or they can start to systematicallly buy politicians in USA, as they do in Mexico.
Increasing the supply of oil will lower its price. Bringing production in Venezuela back online will have this effect. Historically they have produced three million barrels per day, currently that number is closer to one million.
Russia is funding its war in Ukraine with profits on thier oil production. All else being equal, this makes it harder for them to keep doing that. They reportedly spent $6 billion on air defense systems in Venezuela, not for no reason.
Lower oil prices also reduce China’s dependence on Russia for energy. Reducing the incentive for those two countries two cooperate would be in US interests.
Energy is fungible and lower oil prices will help reduce the cost to operate AI data centers. On the margin it will improve their profitability and reduce public backlash about rising electricity prices in the US.
A large portion of the migrant crisis in the US has been driven by Venezuelan refugees fleeing Maduro’s gross mismanagement of the country. If the subsequent government can bring prosperity back to the country it also reduces illegal immigration in the US, something the current US administration clearly supports.
Lots of positive things could result here and you don’t have to be a “Kissinger psychopath” to imagine them and hope they materialize.
Ok, but at the cost of American freedoms? We are a country ruled by laws not people. Everything about this operation violated this principle. Are you willing to give up your freedoms in order to create cheap oil so that your scenarios play out? My ancestors didn't die on the battlefield to support such things.
What freedoms did you lose today? The Patriot Act was signed into law two decades ago. I can’t remember the last time Congress passed a declaration of war prior to the President engaging in military action.
I’m sympathetic to your sentiment but that train left the station likely before you were born.
I'm very likely older than you so I have total context going back to the 1970's. Your question is silly. You don't suddenly lose freedoms, they erode. The current executive overreach is without precedent. In prior administrations congress was involved. Even during the second Iraq war congress was involved and time was taken to make a justification. The action of today was by executive fiat.
I am still confused about this. Is the goal for US companies to extract Venezuelan oil, or is it to suppress Venezuelan oil exports altogether? Or are both goals orthogonal?
I don't think oil has something to do with this. As I have mentioned I think the main reason is the cartel has become too powerful and menacing, controlling three countries and expanding.
Everyone claimed we invaded Iraq back in the early 2000s to take their oil, but the US spent a whole bunch of money on the military operations, and opened up oil and gas to basically every other country, including geopolitical rivals like China and Russia. Maybe "oil" is too simple of an explanation.
Oil is important but as lever to pull on because it affects China.
The invasion is meant to orient the US to fight China. We are cutting away the Middle East war baggage, trying to end the Ukraine war baggage so we can focus on China. Russia would be a nice ally against China.
China was moving around Lat Am and we are removing the communists from the hemisphere.
China likes oil. Loves oil but can’t get enough oil which is why it’s building solar and nuclear so quickly. The US can clamp down on the oil if Venezuela is an ally. So the US wants a strong Venezuela that can’t be used against us.
It’s hard to conduct war without oil.
The US has a strong incentive to make sure Venezuela comes out strong, and the Chinese have a strong incentive to not let that happen.
Sure, but don't forget the oil on your educated guess. There are other reasons besides the official being said. There's no invasion for justice, there's always an underlying motive for this scale of invasion. Presidents are not kidnapped because of narco traffic
Whatever you and I say about this are educated guesses.
He wasn't the president. My educated guess is that with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, together with China support cartel become too powerful. They systematicallly buy politicians in México, Spain, Colombia, probably Brazil and Argentina. They expanded too much. But again, it is just speculation.
I'm not Venezuelan, but I am Brazilian, so I consider myself closer to the problem than people outside of South America. If the cartels were the real problem, the US would have invaded Mexico or Brazil a long time ago.
Maduro was not fairly elected, it was a fraud, but he was the de facto head of state of Venezuela.
The whole cartel excuse is just a sham in my opinion, it is all about power, sending the example and getting the oil. Maduro, and Chavez before him, challenged the US grip on SA, and actively fought american interest in the region.
Maduro lost elections. 8 millions of exilees can't love him. And I interact daily with exilees. There are already videos if people celebrating in Caracas and all over the World. You can disagree. It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
They would be impoverished, imprisoned or dead have they not fled. Hard to believe people who stayed are happy about this. And exilees are 20% of Venezuela's population. It was a massive wave.
Asking questions in good faith is not appropriate?
If difference exist between two people then the quickest way to resolve them is to reveal them. It seems some people prefer to paw around in the dark out of deference. I did not believe this was part of the "hacker ethic."
> Asking questions in good faith is not appropriate?
You aren't asking questions in good faith, you're trying to score points.
> It seems some people prefer to paw around in the dark out of deference.
You're doing it here, implying that I'm a deferential coward instead of stating it outright. I would urge you to review the site guidelines. The only reason this site is worth visiting in the first place is because it isn't ordinarily full of the sort of Reddit-style commentary you're engaging in right now.
Thoroughly answering somebody's questions and refuting their points is not appropriate for this forum?
We should all agree with each other and sing along how lucky Venezuelans are that US, the self proclaimed world police, came to steal their oil and bomb their capital (terrorism/war crime)?
1) the method the US performed is irrespective of popular sentiment. If we were to buck the rules, I'm not sure if Venezuela would make the top 10 targets.
3) Trump pardoned the Honduras president. The drug smuggling excuse is moot. This is a power grab, as usual. And it came from Trump's mouth. We're no better than Russia if we choose to go with this narrative.
> Why? Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA. Huge operations.
What are you talking about? The war on drugs is just a bad excuse. Trump keeps claiming that Venezuela is responsible for the fentanyl crisis, which is demonstrably wrong.
And if the US administration was so worried about drugs, why did Trump pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, ex-president of Honduras, who had been sentenced to 45 years for drug trafficking? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o
If Russia rolled into the United States tomorrow and deposed Trump, _most people_ would "be happy" trump was out.
It's not important at all. I've seen this exact line repeated all over the Internet today, almost like it's not a real sentiment and instead a pre seeded talking point to muddy the waters.
It is amusing to see the consent factory so efficiently spit this shit out though.
> you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.
Let’s be real, the vast majority of Americans couldn’t even place Venezuela on a map.
The default state for humans isn’t caring about everything and everyone, nobody has the mental capacity or resources to do that.
We only care about something when we are incentivized to by actual self interest, familial bond, or emotional stories that align this 3rd party with our familial instincts via empathy.
I am perpetrating the exact wrong the parent poster referenced but: this is why liberalism is such a good principle and political position. It's almost a meta-position, and it provides clarity in circumstances like these.
My political reaction comes from the following chain of thought:
* My country just did something I think is wrong.
* My country is led by people elected by a process that I generally trust but believe is under stress.
* The process or the people have failed and I want to stop this from happening by fixing the process so the people are replaced.
And, now I am stuck on how to do this. There a other actions I can take to help the people of Venezuela, but from a civics perspective, I believe it is my responsibility to partake in a discussion about the systemic failure that lead to this.
I think it is common for Americans to do this because we have a history of at least trying to fix our government because we usually believe we can.
Write to your representative and senators. It may seem impotent, but it what you as an American can to today. If you are concerned it is your duty to take the 10 minutes to write. If you do not then you are condoning these actions and the erosion of your rights.
How is that helpful? You either have a blue representative that already agrees with you, or a corrupt red one that most likely don't really listen to their constituents, or at least not the one that send mail.
Because that is how democracy works. I you don't exercise it will go away. Also there are Republican representatives who are on the record as being against the executive overreach. Getting feedback from their constituents will give them the support to push back. It really does work.
I believe you may have the causality backwards: ignoring constituents is probably not how democracy works, yet that is what we see today, therefore what we see today must not be democratic.
How can they get away with ignoring their constituents? Well: gerrymandering has made it so that representatives can select their constituents (and their opponent's constituents, or lack thereof). They will remain in their post indefinitely, regardless of this carefully-selected minority of constituents wants, so long as they continue to bend the knee and kiss the ring for you-know-who.
If an existing politician already lacks both the moral compunction and a self-interested political survial motivation to say a thing is bad, then a letter from a minority-opinioned constituent of theirs won't change their mind.
My concern for Venezuelans is precisely what makes me believe "removing Maduro good" even though things are more nuanced and complex than those three words.
Destabilizing the country and/or installing a US puppet or just allowing the power vacuum to fill itself is likely not to the betterment of their people.
Maduro lost elections. 8 millions of exilees can't love him. And I interact daily with exilees. There are already videos of people celebrating all around the world. You can disagree. It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Surely Maduro is bad, but that doesn't mean the next phase won't be worse. Trump has never shown any interest in spreading democracy or human rights. I would not be surprised if the mission involved a side deal with someone in Maduro's inner circle to let them become the new dictator who is willing sell oil leases to the US and who will be as bad or worse to the Venezuelan populace. We have absolutely no idea what happens next and Trump has not given any indication of strategy beyond wanting oil.
Does anyone believe that the US regime, an entity that utterly ignores the needs of its masses in favor of a relative handful of lobbyists, is really going to install a representative government that exists to improve the lives of Venezuelans instead of enriching the same powers that it's beholden to?
It's a great point. Maduro won't be missed by anyone. But the top posted comment here perfectly captured my feelings. There's the wider picture to look at. I personally would love it if America did that to Iran, Russia, Cuba etc, but i feel there should be more of a process and i'm allowed to be suspicious of the motives.
If Venezuela actually becomes a functioning country again and drugs, gangs and illegal immigrants stop flooding America then i personally would applaud the operation. Still, you really shouldn't just kidnap other countries presidents just like that as a general rule.
Unless the said comments you want to read don't discuss how US imperialism has been benefitting corporations for over a 100 years, I wouldn't expect much honest introspection.
I think 2026 will be the year when we move way past that threshold. When conflicts and casualties are rare, each one gets highlighted and garners significant attention. But once you pass a certain point, it becomes just another conflict, just more people suffering. A tragic event affecting millions of people becomes another line item on a list.
Most conflicts in the last 20 years had significant coverage (ie: Iraq war, Georgia annexation, etc.). If you have 30-40 active conflicts world wide, then China invading Myanmar becomes a side-story.
Crazy amount of comments - We need a tool that maps narrative angles and reply/conversational interation mapping. Ratio of comments herein to other stories is wild. Lot of lurkers on this site that seem very informed when things like this come up.
I think you're greatly exaggerating here. I'm seeing pretty nuanced discussion from everyone.
It's a political event between two countries. So people are discussing two things: What it means for Venezuela that Maduro is gone, and what it means that Trump can completely sidestep Congress to start a war. Both seem relevant. But you're trying to reduce it to something narrower. Most of us are aware that feelings in the first 24 hours of something like this are completely irrelevant. Time will tell if this is a net positive.
Why does it matter? Illegal actions are illegal. On the 1 in a million chance this results in things getting better for Venezuela the outcome does not forgive the action.
Care for others is an increasingly condemnable trait in public opinion nowadays, a social suicide, ironically. As history taught us it will not end well.
To be blunt, I simply don't have much more than the default respect for Venezuela as a country and fellow human beings. I have no special sentiment to provide in that regard. This is destructive, I hate that more innocent lives are lost over this, etc. I can't speak intimately to its culture, norms, attitudes, nor economics. So I won't talk on ignorant grounds.
Meanwhile, I hold disdain for my country's actions and have some minimal pull to at least protest and complain to my reps about it. So the focus of my discussion will be around those actions.
Americans are too culturally isolated from other countries and cultures to build empathy. I think Americans have main character syndrome at scale, and these comments are obvious when read through this lens.
This may surprise folks who don't live in the U.S., because Americans describe their country as a nation of immigrants and say things like "I'm Italian" and "I'm Irish" when describing their identity. Yet these same folks haven't set foot in Italy or Ireland, don't speak the language or have awareness of present-day concerns from those countries.
I think it's worse than that. There's a general unwillingness to engage with uncomfortable things. Can't really build empathy if there isn't space to talk about problems.
the entire readership of this website is clueless, it’s an echo chamber. Unless you write a thoroughly detailed contra comment you get downvoted. If you say Elon is good you get downvoted. I do not want to source my comments, I work a job! Maybe Elon is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Maybe I don’t want to drop how I know something because my employer would be very mad.
You can no longer get the full picture because all the guys with alpha (investing term) left and post on Twitter/X now. All rando accounts without their faces. Anything interesting for AI is on there now and you can chat with the actual researchers too, you don’t need to bump into them at a shoes off party after work.
There’s a lot of very uncomfortable discussion on Twitter/X if you can stomach it, you’ll end up with a much clearer picture of the world. There’s a lot of dumb stuff on there too! You have to sift through it.
HN hit its Eternal September. There’s still some really great technical stuff you can find on here though. I don’t know how long the decline has been but it doesn’t seem to be getting better.
I almost feel bad for the people who instigated the War on Terror. They did not know how badly it would go - and they worked really hard and tirelessly to build and sell their illegitimate case to the American public.
This administration is making the same mistakes - but in living memory of the first, with a less noble prize, and with complete derision of Congress and Americans' intelligence.
The first political memories i have are the aclu telling everyone who would listen and many who wouldn't that this is exactly the slippery slope invading afghanistan would lead to. Don't feel sorry for anyone who was allowed to do politics from that period
Why? They accomplished their goal (making money in Iraq for US business interests, expanding the power of the presidency massively) and have suffered no consequences.
I’m not sure it’s the same. Seems like one man at the top just wants to continue chaos to divert attention from bad poll number, inflation, pedo friend circle etc.
Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"? The people who came up with these wars against abstract ennemies knew exactly what they were doing, fighting against another country/government is very limiting, once the war is settled you need another reason to start a war. When you go to war with an idea/concept you can continue your forever wars and raise taxes for/increase investment in the War related industries as long as you need to prop up your economy and get reelected.
Trump got reelected with slogans like "no new war" and in less than a year he started at least one (arguably I'd say two with the 12 days wars as Israel knew ut couldn't win this one without American bombers) also makes me think none if this is a "mistake", just a long term plan to keep power.
This is about oil and resources and maybe a proxy attack on China more than anything. A friend of mine called this as soon as that huge oil deposit was discovered off a small neighboring country’s coast. He said, “Venezuela is going to try to claim it, and the US will take them out.” I thought he was full of shit when he said it, but now I’m pretty sure he nailed it.
I don't want to defend Trump - starting a war is about the most serious thing a country can do, and doing it unilaterally is terrible. Trump should be condemned for this.
But most of those doing the condemning were also supportive of Pres. Obama (or at least refused to condemn his actions) back in 2011 when he attacked Libya, and in 2013 and 2014 when he attacked Syria -- all of this happening after we should have learned from what we were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those people who didn't protest against Pres. Obama's illegal actions have lost moral high ground to protest against Trump.
The 2011 action in Libya was an international effort carried out under a UN authorization to protect civilians, not a unilateral move by Obama based on a fabricated rationale. There were limited airstrikes and aid to rebels, but the US did not directly take out Gaddafi or make any pretense of "running the country."
Obama deliberately went to Congress for authorization to strike the Syrian chemical program in 2013, and after it quailed from taking a vote, the strikes didn't happen.
The 2014 strikes were against ISIS, not Syrian government forces, and carried out under the existing AUMF authorization to combat Al Qaeda and its affiliates. One can argue whether ISIS qualified (even the administration at the time acknowledged it was a stretch and wanted a more clear-cut resolution from Congress), but it definitely was a major terrorist threat in the region and had been working with AQ in the past.
Those people were not condemning Fordow. But nearly everyone has high ground on Trump, so they don’t base their objections on simply having the high ground. He’s unfit to be president.
2011 was 15 years ago. I was not even legally adult back then. And even if I was old enough back then, people are allowed to change their opinions in 15 years.
Regardless of your opinion on Maduro, you can still acknowledge that the head of a sovereign state being captured in an unannounced/unnamed military operation by a superpower is wrong from a principled standpoint, and that it’s destabilising a country with 30+ million people if not the entire region.
Not only the region... A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures. Also, here we have another permanent member of UN Security Council making decisions to intervene without consulting the UN or even their own constitutional bodies...
(My opinion of Maduro is that he was not a legitimate leader.)
Especially when no nation wants to touch this (e.g., Starmer being very quick to say that the UK wasn’t involved, etc.), it only reinforces that any power willing or able to make a bold move like this will likely not face much opposition (also see Russia in Ukraine).
The most prominent case for such a future would be china moving against Taiwan, which now got easier with two of the 3 big world powers making their move.
Taiwan is a different story. There are quite detailed war simulations built for defending the country. I guess you might mean that russia is one of the “3 big world” powers and their move is the special operations to capture kiev. I stop here
Yes, I meant China, Russia and the US with the "3 big world" powers and yes, I was referring to the war in Ukraine. I am aware that the situation in Taiwan, Ukraine and Venezuela cannot be compared one-to-one. My categorization was not intended to suggest that these 'moves' are the same, nor to make any evaluation regarding good or bad. From the respective perspectives of the 3 world powers, they have been motivated by different interests. The important point is that each of the three will use the moves of the others to justify their own, whether this is correct or not.
What frustrates me is the justification I hear for this from those opposed to the kidnapping of Maduro, an illegitimate president.
Somehow it's not ok for the USA to violently meddle in the internal affairs of another country, but it is for the PRC because... Taiwan is nearby? Because the people speak the same language? Because the ghosts of the CPC's past are here on the island? It's frustrating.
> A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures
Go type "list Russian regime change operations from the last 20 years" in chatgpt.
It's not just encouraging, it's almost making it a necessity. Putting aside one's respect for law may be a matter of responsibility when your competitors are gaining advantage by not playing by the rules.
The UN permanent security council members are (or were meant to be) precisely the countries that are so powerful they can choose to invade you and nobody can stop them. The hope was that by letting them veto you, they'll veto you instead of invading you.
Indeed. If I'm Xi, I'm invading Taiwan tomorrow. Russia invading Ukraine, USA decapitating Venezuela....there's not even a pretense that international law matters any more.
It's also clear that Trump only respects power, which China clearly has. He already backed off tariffs with the critical minerals threat. Unlikely he'd come to Taiwan's aid in my opinion.
With political polarization in America, you can bet all kinds of fingers would start pointing at Trump in America, saying he enabled it by meddling with Venezuela. Stock market collapse from TSMC blockade would enhance this even moreso. I wouldn't count on much, if any, rallying around the flag effect.
How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? You think international law is what has been preventing Xi from invading?
Trump does only respect power, as do all other serious leaders. Power is all that matters in the end.
How do you think the system of international law came into existence? It was imposed by the US at the end of WWII because of their overwhelming military strength and the fact that no other nation had nuclear weapons at the time.
The armchair analysis from some folks on this topic is really lacking. You guys are just wrong, and the hubris you bring with your “analysis” is really off putting.
>How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? You think international law is what has been preventing Xi from invading?
It doesn't change the physical realities of that much at all besides maybe slightly further cementing that the US will not come to Taiwan's aid.
No, the main change is that now Xi can more reliably expect a weaker, less unified response from the west due to political divisions inside America as well as between western nations. He can expect less diplomatic pushback, fewer sanctions, etc.
Also, no all serious leaders do not only respect power. Serious leaders who are also morally and ethically good also take into account right and wrong when they make decisions.
The right thing to do would be for America to try to preserve and enforce a rules based order, regardless if other countries do. America has significant agency in the world and should consider how the world should be and try to get there. Not only consider how the world is.
Even from a realpolitik standpoint, there is benefit on showing consistent adherence to an ethical code. It encourages other actors to follow that same code as well. When we violate our own morals and values, we can't expect others to respect them.
How does one nation following an ethical code encourage others to follow it as well?
Following an ethical code in international affairs constrains the nation following it. It provides an asymmetric advantage to others who choose not to follow that code.
This is partly why China has become so powerful over the past three decades. They chose to ignore western ethical codes around intellectual property rights, fair trade, environmental protections, and human rights. They are powerful today in no small part to their willingness to disregard these things.
This is difficult for people to understand because in interpersonal relationships following an ethical code is 100% the path to healthy and meaningful relationships, and most modern history education attempts to anthropomorphize past interactions between nations. But the cold fact is that international politics is nothing like interpersonal relationships.
A nation can encourage other nations to follow their ethical code by threatening to use force if they don't. They can create incentives to encourage nations to change their behavior through trade or treaty. But I can't think of a single time in history when a nation was such a shining star of morality that they inspired other nations to change their ways and adopt their ethics.
You can't expect other nations to respect your nation's moral and ethical values when they don't care about them in the first place and in fact hope that you choose to follow them to the fullest extent so that you're easier to compete against.
> maybe slightly further cementing that the US will not come to Taiwan's aid
Isn't that the opposite? The US just demonstrated that it can still conduct military operations, and the presence of Chinese envoys in the country does not deter it in any way. As of now, China has one fewer source of oil it can rely on in case of an invasion.
Maybe you're right, but I view it more as: China can now be confident that the US doesn't care much at all about the sovereignty of weaker nations or coming to the aid of allies. "Might makes right", and if China asserts itself with strength (as in a full blockade/invasion instead of a few envoys present) Trump will most likely back off.
How does the US invading one country imply they won’t defend another country?
I get that military resources devoted to one theatre can’t be used in another and for that reason the US might be less able to defend Taiwan, but that may not make them less willing.
A more reasonable read is that the aircraft carriers and other naval assets in the Gulf of Mexico are more effective there than they could be in the Pacific. Venezuela doesn’t have hypersonic anti-ship missiles. China does.
> The armchair analysis from some folks on this topic is really lacking. You guys are just wrong, and the hubris you bring with your “analysis” is really off putting.
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
I have put in good faith efforts to convert with MisterMower, for example, in [1]. Shortly after that, they insulted me. [2] This is also against the HN Guidelines, and that kind of behavior is not welcome here. Here are additional examples of hostility and insults they've made:
> Old farts like yourself [3]
> In case you don't understand how analogies work [4]
Please don't comment like this here. HN is a text-only discussion forum where people come together to discuss topics that gratify intellectual curiosity. This place can only work if people respect and follow the guidelines, and it's fine for users to politely point out to each other how they can be doing better – precisely so they don't have to get the moderators involved.
This comment comes across as mean-spirited. It's not cool to open with an apology then proceed to put out up to 7 paragraphs of eloquently-worded personal attack.
HN is only a place where people want to participate because this kind of thing is not accepted here. Please show you respect the guidelines and care about the health of the community if you want to participate here.
> How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan?
Taking the beaches here would require spilling the blood of tens of thousands of PLA troops, but as demonstrate two days ago, the only real barrier to blockading us was the threat of the USA showing up.
Xi's hunger for Taiwan shouldn't be underestimated. It's utterly irrational but it is his obsession. It's becoming clear he intends to die in office, and he's seeing his legacy as a mirror of that of the entire communist revolution - he wants to be the next Mao, with a permanent framed photo on the wall of every school and many houses in the PRC. Mao was happy to waste millions of PLA in every conflict the PRC engaged in as an outright military strategy, he called it something like "drowning the enemy in a sea of bodies," Xi will be the same.
Oh, yes I agree for the most part none other than perhaps the USA military is about to be distracted by South America.
Xi himself probably already had war gamed what it would look like to kidnap the president here in Taiwan from the presidential palace or whatever. The main difference is, now we're all talking about it - if it was that easy to snatch a president, will the PRC try it against us? Will the KMT throw Lai under the bus so the PLA can do a targeted kidnapping or assassination, perhaps alongside his US-friendly VP?
The assumed difference in Venezuela is that Maduro and his policies are not popular enough for a similar leader to easily slip into his place and cohesively unite the country against the US while maintaining Maduro’s policies and keeping his factions and constituents from which his power was derived happy.
Big assumption to be sure, and time will only tell if it’s a correct one.
In a place like Taiwan or the US that assumption is almost certainly false. Imagine Xi kidnaps the US president. Does anyone honestly believe the entire government and its people just roll over and say, “I guess China owns us now”?
This is the incorrect word to use since the PRC has never held territory here. If the PLA sets foot on Taiwan, that's an imperialist invasion, nothing less, unless the people of Taiwan have democratically chosen to abdicate their government for CPC rule, in which case the word should be "unify" or "merge."
We use the term "reunification" for Germany but the Federal Republic never "held territory" in the Democratic Republic. However, of course both states were the result of a split of "Germany". This is the same with the ROC and PRC so bringing both sides together, whatever the mean, is a reunification in that sense.
The narrative of rejecting the term can be said to be broadly propaganda but plays on a peculiarity that both sides don't recognise each others.
> However, of course both states were the result of a split of "Germany".
> This is the same with the ROC and PRC
It really isn't.
Note that West Germany did not have to invade East Germany to re-unify and that East Germany was on a per-capita basis much poorer than West Germany.
Unlike Taiwan, which is doing more than twice as good. So this would be more in line with Russia invading Ukraine. And that's precisely the rhetoric they are using: 'unification'.
This is all totally inacurrate and beside the point.
China has factually split, like Germany before. Whether any "reunification" happens peacefully or not is irrelevant to the use of term and so is which side is the richer.
Russia and Ukraine is obviously not the same at all, and "unification" is obviously not the same as "reunification".
Define "China." 中國? 中華人民共和國? 中華民國? 大清? 大明? 大元? The English term is far overloaded, kinda like the word "dumpling." Having this conversation in English is really hard for that reason.
The key word is 中國, typically translated literally as "middle country," though if you put it in google translate it'll just say "China." Really though, the word means "empire." Empire of what? China? No, just, The Empire. E.g. 一個中國原則 "one China principle," all things that we could call 中國 ruled by the same government.
That's the issue I have. The CPC claims a mandate of heaven for a "Chinese" meta-dynasty, claiming to have domain over everything any government in the region has ever touched (even the Mongols!). I reject this, a mandate to rule should be earned basically every day, and self determination matters far more than maintaining a dynasty of a culture.
Like many empires, the PRC is even creating an ethnostatic justification, calling everyone Han 漢族人 or Hua 華人 and claiming a mandate to rule everyone that could feasibly be called that, using race science to expand their domain. Like "white," under scrutiny, these terms are meaningless. We could translate either, in the context of their usage by the CPC, as "people the CPC thinks it should be allowed to govern." That includes people in Xinjiang, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, America, hell even Okinawa lately.
That kind of ethnostatic imperialist expansionism should be roundly rejected by anybody that values self determination. And, that's why "reunify" isn't the correct word, because there is no country on earth called "China" and there never has been, there's just a government ruling a territory that wants some more territory. The PRC isn't some magical inheritor of every racial, cultural, linguistic, and historical aspect of that region. "China" has not split with the fleeing of the KMT to Taiwan in the 50s, nor was "China" overthrown when the Taiwanese deposed the KMT military dictatorship in the 90s, or when the Qing dynasty was overthrown by the KMT.
You obviously understand what I wrote by "China split" because it is uncontroversial and rather obvious as a historical fact.
You are trying too hard and doing so does you a disservice because it makes you write nonsense that any sources can disprove.
So... why? Why do people get so attached to a narrative? Is it like religion, cult? Need to believe in sonething?
Past history is what it is. It does not mean that the people of Taiwan have to be forced into re-joining the mainland but let's keep the facts otherwise we are really leaving in 1984. If you want to say that the people of Taiwan have a moral right to remain independent if they wish to then just say so.
Have you considered the possibility that you are just wrong? Your 'uncontroversial and rather obvious historical fact' is neither uncontroversial nor is it obvious.
That's why we have a 32 page article on the subject on Wikipedia:
There is only one country where your 'historical fact' is seen as true, and it isn't Taiwan. And that is why China is threatening to invade, and why you yourself use Taiwan without further qualification right after 'South Korea':
The 'one China' term itself is overloaded, depending on who you ask (Chinese, Taiwanese) you get different answers.
Taiwan is an independent country, if not de jure then de facto. That China is a much larger and much more dangerous country is the only reason everybody tiptoes around this.
What is actually unbelievable is that you keep arguing against me by quoting sources that only say exactly what I have been writing all along. So I don't really understand what is this about and perhaps you don't, either...
This is bizarre at this point.
Perhaps you wrongly assume that by "China split" I meant "the PRC split" although it is abundantly clear that I didn't.
Those source do not say what you have been writing all along. Those sources make it plain that this is a controversial and complicated subject that you wish to flatten into a much simpler worldview. But that worldview is at odds with the facts, both the facts on the ground and the view of the parties involved.
You can continue to stick to your worldview, or you can admit that maybe the matter is more complex than you thought it was. The point is that there are multiple viewpoints on this and yours is not necessarily the only one and given that you claim not to have a horse in the race it is strange that you would end up carrying water for one of the parties.
Agreeing to disagree is a thing too, you're perfectly entitled to your own take on this no matter how wrong I think it is. But you are not entitled to your own facts and if you really believe this to be an uncontroversial thing then I don't think I can help you with that.
None of what I wrote is a worldview and I avoided any controversies by sticking to facts: China has split and this is explained in the first link in your previous comment, and "reunification" can therefore be an accurate term.
How is that at odds with "facts"? What "facts"? What do you think I claimed? How is it controversial? I am not sure you know at this point as you are being evasive and shifting to ad hominems.
Claiming that the Earth is round is "controversial" to flat-Earthers. Does this make it a controversial topic?
> You obviously understand what I wrote by "China split" because it is uncontroversial and rather obvious as a historical fact.
I also know, generally, what people mean when they say "goblin," but that doesn't mean goblins are real, and it's also true that two people might be thinking of very different things when a goblin is mentioned. Such is the same for the word "China."
> any sources can disprove.
Well then, should be pretty easy for you to disprove me with some sources then!
> So... why? Why do people get so attached to a narrative? Is it like religion, cult? Need to believe in sonething?
Please explain to us how you aren't also attached to a narrative. Are you a omnipotent entity, immune to human narratives, and the one true knower of Universal Truth? I think it's unintentional, but you come off that way, and that's why you're getting such a strong response here.
> Past history is what it is.
This sentence is genuinely meaningless.
The problem is, you've made some unsubstantiated claims (you can't even define "China"), presumed to be right, and then acted aghast when a bunch of people said "hm no, that's not quite right, here's why," and then you doubled down without providing any further substance to your argument other than just repeating in different ways, "I'm right and you're all wrong."
What's the point of talking with someone like that? I'm happy to have the conversation but I don't see the purpose when people behave like that.
Ad hominem attacks and character assassiination are the tactics of the CPC, not of democratic Taiwan...
I agree that "China" may mean several things but in the context of this discussion and previous comments it is rather clearer.
You can have a look at the Wikipedia link about the political status of Taiwan that @jacquesm posted. You can also have a look at related article about the history of China or Taiwan.
Quick summary (to mostly repeat myself as you point out but it does seem hard to get you guys to even read the links you provide yourselves, or don't want to accept them) is that China asserted control over Taiwan since the 17th century (as a reaction to European imperialism) with Taiwan acquiring province status towards the end of the 19th century. It was then ceded by China to Japan after the First Sino-Japanase war, and "reunited" in 1945.
Following the Chinese civil war the communists took over the mainland and the government kept, and retreated to, Taiwan, which led to a split with de facto two states and official policies to "reunite".
That's all there in the links mentioned. So, again, I don't understand the drama.
I never denied that Taiwan was de facto a state independent of the mainland, or that the majority of the people of Taiwan do not want to be absorbed by the PRC, or even that a portion of the people of Taiwan would like no affiliation with "China" and be simply the Republic of Taiwan. And, yes, Taiwan was never controled by the PRC (like East Germany was never controled by West Germany prior to German "reunification", and there is still no country called "Germany" or "Korea"...). But that said I do have a problem with rewriting history and fallacious arguments to further a political aim.
Someone who lives in Taiwan. Anyway, that's obviously a fallacious argument (argument from authority?) and I note that you keep avoiding engaging with the point and historical evidence and references provided (included by you!) so I don't even know what you agree or disagree with and why at this point.
Yes, just like you are a French guy living in the UK, I would take your statements about the UK or about France as more relevant and better informed than those from some random person on the other side of the globe.
The one common thing about discussions between you and others on HN about any subject that goes on for more than a few comments is that it always ends in you feigning indignation and claiming the other party is unfair towards you. Maybe get off your high horse instead and learn to see things are more nuanced than as black-and-white and simplified as you make them out to be?
Your 'historical evidence' is not nearly as simple and as clear cut as you make it out to be, it is just what you chose to extract from the body of information about the subject because it confirms your worldview or some pre-conceived idea of how things are or should be. Not necessarily how they actually are and that is a massive difference.
> China asserted control over Taiwan since the 17th
This is a great example of why your usage of this word is an expression of your agreement with the idea of an ethnostatist meta-dynasty that a government like the CPC can claim a mandate to rule, rather than a universal fact.
It seems you don't believe Khagan-emperor Kublai was Chinese, since you pin the first "Chinese" assertion of control in the 1600s, even though the Yuan dynasty claimed Penghu.
You also give away your political agenda a bit when you accurately refer to Western actions on the island as "imperialism" but simply refer to Chinese empire activity as "asserted control," rather than what it clearly was, which is also imperialism. In fact it's especially interesting you did this considering that the entire reason the dutch colonists were expelled from the island was because of a battle between two entities that wanted to be called "China": the Qing dynasty, and Zheng Chenggong's remnant Ming dynasty. So here's another question: Manchus, Chinese, or no? Qing dynasty, Chinese, or no? Both yes? Well then both the Kingdom of Tungning and the Qing dynastic territories were China, despite being engaged in a deeply ethnostatist battle defined clearly on Han vs Manchu racial identity. And now the Manchus are 華人 just like everyone else, which demonstrates my point that the words "China" and 中國 are just a political propaganda tool to claim a mandate to rule an empire. The same fight has been fought before, except this time Taiwanese people have no desire to claim the mantle of The Empire.
You believe you're stating facts when actually you're just stating support of the CPC's claim to dynastic inheritance. Thus it's not "never clearer" what's meant by "China" in a time when all people who could be labeled "Chinese" (including PRC citizens) are reckoning with what that identity means in regards to governance and nationality.
> Ad hominem attacks and character assassiination are the tactics of the CPC, not of democratic Taiwan...
You clearly have never watched even 5 minutes of Taiwanese tv or politics lol.
This is a factual statement, not propaganda. The propaganda (or political theatre in mainland China) is that the ROC does not exist and Taiwan is part of the PRC.
Reunite is propaganda because it gives credibility to the lie that these two countries are and/or were one like for instance Germany after world war II.
Taiwanese do not see themselves as Chinese, just like Ukrainians do not see themselves as Russian even if they speak the language. By playing along you are effectively carrying water for the Chinese. That may be your goal, but then you should be clear about that. If that is not your goal you should refrain from adopting the language of the party that is clearly the aggressor here. The 'ROC' moniker stems from a bunch of Chinese that fled there in 1949 after they lost their struggle with the communists inside China. They ruled Taiwan and they named it 'Republic of China', a name that has caused a lot of confusion with those unfamiliar with where it came from.
This is the reason the Chinese now lay claim to Taiwan, and it is about as misguided as it gets. They got Hong Kong by being patient, they may take Taiwan by force.
If you are playing into their hands by parroting their terminology you are fractionally helping to normalize their behavior towards Taiwan. If it should come to pass that China will take Taiwan by force that will have grave consequences, for the Taiwanese, the Chinese and the rest of the world as well due to the central spot that Taiwan occupies in the global supply chain.
Mainland China and Taiwan were one country. It is bizarre to try to deny it.
Taiwan was part of China and ceded to Japan by treaty after the first Sino-Japanese war of 1895. It was then "reunited" to China following WWII... that's really the root of the current situation since that's why the Chinese government (ROC) retreated there in 1949. Taiwan held the Chinese seat at the UN until the 1970s!
Hongkong was also seized by the UK through naked imperialistic aggression and it is testament to the power of propaganda that China be painted as "the bad guys".
Your comment is not factually correct irrespective of rights and wrongs or wishes of the people in Taiwan.
Why should people always have an ulterior motive beyond stating things as they are?...
No need to discuss further if that's going to turn into this. People really need to take a step back and a deep breath when discussing world issues.
I am not even Chinese or Asian if that is your suggestion (a little in the gutter, by the way). I don't have skin in the game and am just looking at history in the most factual way I can.
He said he was looking at history and present reality in the most factual way. Perhaps for you, your identity shapes your viewpoint more than the facts do. Why don't you provide your arguments instead of questioning his nationality?
A properly aged account that suddenly springs to life without ever before having commented on anything or submitted a single link. What a joyful occasion.
Taiwan has been Chinese territory for centuries—just like California has been part of the US. Calling China's reunification 'invasion' is like saying the US is 'invading' Texas if some rebels tried to break away. The real propaganda isn't about history—it's about pretending Taiwan is some separate country when it's been part of China longer than most modern nations even exist.
Taiwan has never declared independence from China. Popular opinions aside, the ROC govt still officially adheres to the One-China Policy which considers it to be a single country together with the mainland.
The main reason for that is because they know that if they did declare that formally (rather than just acting like it is already a fact) that China would most likely immediately respond with force. So this is not because they want it to be like that but because they are playing a longer game.
With the US unreliable and distracted all bets are off on how this will unfold, the chances China attempting to take over Taiwan have substantially increased.
It's unclear how China would have responded because they were not, and probably still aren't, in a position to mount a successful attack on Taiwan.
I think what's missing is that opinion in Taiwan in actually split. The KMT, certainly up to the last president in 2016 is simply opposed to declaring "independence" because they share the position that Taiwan is China, just obviously not the PRC.
> The KMT, certainly up to the last president in 2016 is simply opposed to declaring "independence" because they share the position that Taiwan is China, just obviously not the PRC.
That is only because of the history of the KMT, which is only a fraction of the story of Taiwan. By the same token the Dutch could invade Taiwan tomorrow morning and claim re-unification.
I was just quoting the actual speech. The point is, for anyone claiming the US attempting regime change in Venezuela is going to factor into China's long standing plans to invade Taiwan is delusional.
The US has been involved in regime change operations spanning like 40+ different countries, and almost continuously for a century. This is not a unique event in even recent US history, even though folks with orange-man syndrome would like you to believe otherwise.
As if Xi is thinking "gee, I'd really like to invade Taiwan, but people might get upset! If only Trump would conduct the US's 5th regime change operation this decade...then people would...not care anymore about Taiwan or something?? Wait, this fantasy may have logical flaws..."
The bending over backwards that Americans do to convince themselves the US is responsible for everything that happens is always amusing.
I guess they are, because china was (or still is) practicing blocking of Taiwan. And Trump made somewhat a commitment to Taiwan, but who knows if there won't be a better deal with china tomorrow?
why? Xi already made his intention with Taiwan clear many years ago. Besides, Xi, while pretending to be neutral, has become the major backer of Putin's war effort. It's not like Trump is doing anything special.
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.
Even if you'd accept this warped logic, I don't see how you'd get from "this was just a slightly more complex police action" to "we're gonna run the country from now on and take over the oil sector", legally speaking...
Maybe we should let people learn that actions have consequences. The kind and uplifting are seldom shot.
Take Isabelle Robinson from parkland. Paraphrasing: "It's not my responsibility to "befriend" a person who is showing violent red flags; it’s the school’s job to intervene and provide professional help or remove the threat."
So she did notice the red flags, but didn't do anything, she believe the school should do something not her. The failure in this line of reasoning is that every institution is made up of individuals, if they all think the same way nothing will change.
This is literally a school shooting victim saying she doesn't believe that she should personally have to pay... well she didn't have to pay as much as some of her classmates.
The school of will find their own people to blame.
Pretty much every major religion teaches something like: If they slap one cheek show them the other, and that we are all one.
Nevertheless, very few people will take any amount of responsibility for another "individuals" actions. The logical conclusion is that we sit in silod VR pods until the life support systems fail
I think the (disputable) argument is that, for global stability and equilibrium reasons, there should be a general prohibition against kidnapping/assassination of de facto heads of state, regardless of whether they were legitimately elected or are dictators.
Most of the people who make the argument I described probably believe the UN is the only legitimate body that could make this decision, based on some combination of practicality, historical precedent, and international agreement. And the UN absolutely has a mechanism for doing it (the security council). But one alternatively might argue the UN is broken/dysfunctional/corrupt enough that it can't be relied on despite having the "proper paperwork", just as national democracies can be for national affairs.
It's why the UN has an obsession with a tiny democracy in the middle east and ignores the multitude of brutal dictatorships which oppress and kill far more people around it and across the globe.
Well, as always, who decides the leader is illegitimate? Are the Saudis illegitimate, according the the rubric we put on Maduro?
The UN deliberately has no mechanism for this because it's a talking shop intended to help avoid war by providing a talking venue. That's the whole idea, they're not the world police, there is no such thing. They're a forum.
I'm absolutely not defending any given dictator but history shows that every attempt to remove a dictator "for the greater good" is usually 1) selfishly motivated and 2) backfires horribly.
I'm arguing against the US installing leaders in Latin America, sorry if I was unclear. I happen to have some Chilean friends and stories from them, from the Pinochet era, have helped shape my perspective.
To phrase it more completely, regime change and general destabilization of Latin American countries has definitely led to the immigration crisis in the United States now. Lack of stable governments and economies has absolutely exacerbated the production and transportation of drugs into the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed or disappeared by US-empowered gangs or governments.
Now that said, I don't know what the world would look like had their right to self-determination been preserved. Nobody knows. But as a general rule, countries whose power structures were not toyed with by colonial powers do better than countries whose power structures were toyed with.
Imagine if Hitler was removed before... Instead, foreign powers favored appeasement and trade; conservative elites thought they could control him, Nazi propaganda and terror consolidated power, and Germans were disillusioned with democracy after WW1.
> are you seriously saying Maduro had Hitler-like potential to ignite global war if we didn't stop him?
No, and in fact the comparison to Hitler felt out of place. I'm simply saying that it isn't as black and white that one should NEVER remove a head of state.
What I will concede is that catch 22 of not knowing how the future will play out, so how COULD you confidently and with wide agreement intervene BEFORE someone commits atrocities.
I'm still not convinced removing Hitler before his invasion of Poland would have been a good idea, it seems possible someone like Himmler would be just as capable of picking up Mein Kampf as an ideological framework to continue imperialism and kick off genocide. "Look what the Jews and communists did when we tried to stand up to them, they killed the leader of our movement," etc etc.
Once the genocide started though I do thing all considerations, including national stability and continuity, are lower priority than ending the genocide as fast as possible.
Like Hitler, Trump has (or rather, had, based on recent performance) the power of oratory. Himmler did not and I wonder if he would have been able to whip up the kind of fervor that Hitler did.
That's what made Trump so dangerous, it is insane that such terrible people have such a charismatic appeal. To me they are horrible men, to others they seem to come across as some kind of savior.
Basically, "leave it to the population to sort out themselves, even if they've lost the democratic means to do so," up until a government has gone so insane it's massacring its people, or other people.
So we should have done a much bigger intervention in Syria, much earlier? We should intervene in Sudan right now? We should finally intervene in Russia where they slaughter their own children and Ukrainians in a genocidal war of aggression? We should finally intervene in Palestine and destroy Hamas (and in Iran and destroy their Mullah-sponsors) who've committed a genocide on October 7th, killing thousands of Israelis and ten thousands of Palestinians?
From a purely moral standpoint, my answer would be "yes, absolutely." Unfortunately, most of these interventions are not practically possible. Taking out a dictator in US's backyard is so much easier (and easier to do bloodlessly) than any of these examples.
General rules don’t apply to superpowers or the countries they protect. China, US, Russia get to do whatever their military or economic power affords them, unprovoked aggression, war crimes, terror acts.
There are general rules against war crimes and they still happen day after day, under flimsy excuses. Bombed a hospital or a wedding party? There was a suspected terrorist there. White phosphorus over civilians? It was just for the smoke screen. Overthrew a government overseas? Freedom for those poor people.
Right but "Don't kidnap/assassinate the enemy leaders" is often a good policy even when nobody will enforce that rule on you by force.
For example if your country is subject to a terror bombing campaign, it's very tempting to assassinate the one leader who had the power/respect/authority to order the attacks to start but often they're also the only leader who can order the attacks to stop
In the 1970s/1980s presumably the UK could have had IRA leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness assassinated. But it sure turned out to be useful, in the late 1990s peace process, that the IRA had identifiable, living leaders who could engage in negotiation, sign an agreement, and get the bomb makers to stop making bombs.
The definition is probably not very precise. They started a war of aggression and every other country is tiptoeing around them. Iraq was also a regional power and got a very different treatment. So the “power” line isn’t so clear.
China on the other hand doesn’t get visibly involved in almost any remote conflict and they’re obviously a (if not the) superpower.
Russia has neither industrial nor economic base to project power outside of its sphere of influence. The only reason why everyone tiptoes around them is because they’re world’s gas station that attacked world’s bread basket. And largest stockpile of nukes.
> , there should be a general prohibition against kidnapping/assassination of de facto heads of state, regardless of whether they were legitimately elected or are dictators.
Since ideas don't execute themselves, who would you pick to enforce this prohibition, never mind even getting 100%(?) alignment from countries what the conditions are for "kidnap", "assassination", and "de facto head of state"?
Of who? If the PRC invades Taiwan and starts brutally oppressing the people here, you ostensibly have 1.3 billion people in support, plus possibly PRC allied, a non insignificant number of tankies abroad...
If people would still default to boycotting war-mongering states, the PRC would have a serious economic problem afterwards. Since, the relevant states (EU) are already in a (mild) crisis, they messed up there foreign economic diversity and individualism is all the rage now, there won't be.
> the PRC would have a serious economic problem afterwards
Don't get me wrong, I live in Taiwan so it's not something I want to have happen, but the PRC seems focused on localizing its economy as much as possible, so it may be that if that time comes, it doesn't matter if other countries boycott it. Didn't seem to matter that much to Russia in the Ukraine situation, or at least, it didn't stop them.
It's not about what should be the case. It IS the case. If we should decide to change that it won't work if one government unilaterally decides who stays or who goes for obvious reasons. Last month we saw Trump prostrate himself before MBS, who is apparently totally legitimate.
Case in point : if you had the biggest military in the world, and no one to credibly oppose you, you'd have a lot of arguments to convince everyone that your bank account is actually full.
Lesson 1 of W.Spaniel course on international relationship is that "international order" is the longest running form of anarchy.
Pray you stay on the good side of the Emperor closest to your home.
It's a good thing the current emperor is old - at least we have patience and trusting biology as an option. Successions are often messy, and I don't see Emperor Trump as the kind to cautiously pick his heir.
That is a misunderstanding. The stated and actual purposes of the UN are different. The actual purpose was to give great powers a place to negotiate with each other, so that we wouldn't get a third world war.
That is why the 5 most powerful countries were permanently put on the security council with complete veto powers.
There was a brief period, from the fall of the Soviet Union to Bush's invasion of Iraq, where "rules-based international order" was not a joke, and in fact was taken pretty seriously by quite a lot of people.
Democracy, free trade, free speech and freedom of religion had "won" over the soviet union. International treaties were reducing stockpiles of nuclear and chemical weapons. The WTO had just started resolving trade disputes through negotiation rather than trade wars. International peacekeeping forces were preventing ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, even though there wasn't anything like oil motivating the peacekeeping forces. Planners of the genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda were being prosecuted by an international war crimes tribunal.
Then-UK-Prime-Minister Tony Blair believed in this stuff pretty earnestly - in fact he wanted to get a UN resolution authorising the Iraq invasion so badly he was happy to submit fabricated WMD evidence to get it.
Of course, even at the height of the "rules-based international order" there were always some stark inconsistencies - especially in the middle east, for example.
You imagine wrong. It was a point that I first remember seeing from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Dyer. Who is not from the US, but is an expert on the subject.
It was in his documentary series War, but I don't remember which episode.
It's also widely acknowledged that elections in Russia are rigged, and yet the US was quite angry at Ukraine over Russia's (false, as it turned out) claim that Ukraine attacked Putin...
The 3rd section of the 14th amendment[1] states that no person having engaged in insurrection[2] shall hold any office, civil or military, in the United States. So technically Trump isn’t a legitimate head of state either.
> The 3rd section of the 14th amendment[1] states that no person having engaged in insurrection[2] shall hold any office, civil or military, in the United States. So technically Trump isn’t a legitimate head of state either.
Was he tried and convicted? As far as I know the powers that be instead decided for some reason to attack him on other charges (sexual misconduct, corruption, etc.)
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump engaged in insurrection as a matter of fact. That is, they deemed it so obvious from the evidence presented (much of which was publicly available) that it didn't require a trial for determination.
This was appealed to the US Supreme Court, who didn't rule that this wasn't true, they ruled that the 14th amendment needs to be applied by Congress for reasons of consistency across states... which sidestepped the entire issue and was a dereliction of duty in my opinion, in the sense that they are the highest court and could have ruled on the issue of insurrection, or at least required some kind of jury proceeding at that time. They basically didn't do their one job.
Then Jack Smith later amassed a case about it, with grand jury approval. He ran out of time to try and convict Trump before he was elected, basically published a summary report of his case. Recently he testified before a congressional committee about it and asserted he was extremely confident Trump would have been convicted. He testified that he never consulted with Biden about the case, and asked that the rest of his materials from his investigation be publicly released.
Legally speaking there is a strong argument that Trump engaged in insurrection; he's just been shielded from the consequences by political maneuvers and poor timing.
Put differently, one state supreme court decided he so obviously engaged in it that it didn't require a trial. Another federal attorney presented his evidence to a grand jury and they decided he was likely to succeed if it went to trial.
My personal belief is historians will look at the evidence presented and conclude that US Congress made catastrophic mistakes by not impeaching Trump the first time (for obstruction of justice first, and insurrection second), and that SCOTUS made an equally catastrophic mistake (or corrupt decision) by not ruling on insurrection as the highest federal court, either on its own or with a grand jury trial.
You think you are making a counter argument, but you just managed to be welcomed to the end of the thought process of this exercise as contending can be done by just about anyone. It reinforces a bad precedent.
You have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to contend that Zelensky is not the democratically legitimated head of state of Ukraine. For Maduro, it's much simpler: He lost the election, yet he remained in power.
Seems silly to ignore that the last date in your list had an event closer to what OP is referring to than any other year, no? Considering he was already crying election fraud in 2016 you could certainly view this as a line with upwards slope…
Alrighty then, in a few years you can test your model’s accuracy against my prediction based on history and an understanding of how our laws and civics actually work.
TSMC running stateside != "nevermind Taiwanese independence"/"US withdrawing military protection for Taiwan"
For starters, TSMC has opened facilities in Az, but these are still owned and operated from Taiwan and rely significantly on Taiwanese capability for substantial inputs to the development process in both knowledge and operational capacity.
The new wafer capacity is not a replacement for Taiwan based infrastructure, but rather an extension of those operations.
And to be blunt: If amerika were to immediately about-face on 1975's "back-to-basics" math movement and resume math theory based primary education in order to develop the foundational comprehension necessary for the materials science at|in the design level workforce, it would still be at least one generation before homegrown capacity was 'on-par' with the current Taiwanese (and Dutch) resources.
TLDR; not a concern from a rational leadership condition.
However, pretending that one TSMC plant in Az is sufficient reason to TACO and post on social media in saggy golf pants == very much a potential outcome; regardless of the absolute immediate cost in lives and material capability, and the unavoidable long term consequences both within the US and around the world caused by said capricious behaviour.
The Ukrainian Constitution suspends elections in a State of Emergency. The State of Emergency is renewed regularly by the Ukrainian Parliament. The Ukrainian people are broadly supportive of Zelensky, who is publically open to holding elections if given the space and resources to do so. Which is a ceasefire, and some time and money.
I think following the constitution is a good thing, even if bombs are falling. I mean, look, people are dying, and yet the country is not just hunkered down in bunkers for the last four years. Life is going on. People are getting up and going to work and coming home and eating dinner and going to bed. Surely they could also go and vote... if the constitution did not say what it says.
I would agree, but Russia has shown that they're not about fair elections in their own country and they've bombed plenty of civilian targets throughout this conflict. I'd assume that Putin would crank up the notch about 10x on all fronts if he knew elections were taking place to make it impossible to have anything resembling a fair process.
> He won the election in the most corrupt country in Europe.
He won by a landslide regardless of corruption (if there ever was one during those elections). Everyone was fed up with Poroshenko, and Zelensky was seen as a new wave, young politician who will bring change (on top of his popularity as a comedian).
> he suspended the next election and no more elections have been celebrated ever since.
Zelensky did not suspend elections. Ukraine's constitution prohibits the holding of elections under conditions of martial law.
"However, martial law—imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and still in place as the war continues—has prevented elections from taking place. Under Ukrainian law, elections cannot be held while martial law is in effect to ensure continuity of governance and support the nation’s defense." [1]
> Then, he suspended the next election and no more elections have been celebrated ever since.
Yes, but that may have something to do with the fact that his country was invaded and he has been at war ever since. Suspending elections for that reason is legitimate by "our" standards.
We didn't suspend elections during World War II. We had been attacked (and overseas parts had been invaded and conquered), and we were at war. Elections still went on as normal.
Even during the Civil War there were elections, even though there was fighting in some of the states that were voting.
> We [industrial superpower dwarfing whole axis combined, surrounded by ocean with no neighbors who can challenge us and unique geography that makes it literally impossible to invade at the time] didn't suspend election during World War II. We had been attacked [parts so insignificant compared to the whole that there was no reason to even consider delaying elections]...
This is the most `ShitAmericansSay` argument ever. What's next? Poland should've held elections while being pounded from both sides? Russia had "elections" during WWI and look where it ended up.
As opposed to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Mother Russia, who won every single one of his extremely fair and properly done democratic elections with a landslide. 88.48 at his last democratic election! So beloved!
Honestly, I'm getting increasingly fascinated with the utterly absurd logic that states are putting into their justifications for war.
You get "preemptive self defense" that urgently requires "buffer zones" on foreign territory, which then mysteriously become your own territory and have to be defended with even more buffer zones.
Some Terror Regime of Literal Nazis is doing Unspeakable Atrocities to its own population which practically forces you to invade the country purely out of empathy and the goodness of your heart. Nevermind that the population has never asked for the invasion and will in fact be worse off through the war than before - and that this other state who is your ally is doing the exact same things, but then it's suddenly "realpolitik" and just the way the world works.
Someone has broken the law of his own country. "Internal affairs" or grounds for invasion? Depends if he is your ally or enemy.
Pardon the cynicism, but my growing impression is that war justifications only serve as discussion fodder for domestic audiences and have very little to do with the actual war.
> war justifications only serve as discussion fodder for domestic audiences and have very little to do with the actual war.
Two things intersect here:
"War is the continuation of politics by other means" - Carl von Clausewitz
"Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex" - Frank Zappa
There's a third quote that kinda sums it all up neatly: "War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it." — George Orwell
The media in the US, being a wholesale production of the oligarchy now, has been brazenly honest about the fact that this is purely a large-scale looting of Venezuela.
Just speculating, but I wonder if there is another purpose as well: To hand the military a story it can tell itself to assure they are still the "good guys" - i.e. ensuring "troop morale".
If you have thousands and thousands of servicemembers, not all of them might submit to drill or be motivated by money or career advancements or other personal goals - some people might ask questions about the bigger picture, about why they are doing an operation, etc. I imagine for situations like this, it's useful for an officer to have some ready-made answers available that they can use to counter those questions, even if the answers really don't make a lot of sense.
For all the personnel who executed the Maduro operation, the "we're just helping law enforcement to arrest a criminal" story was probably the practical reality for the last months, no matter how ridiculous it is in the larger context.
You know the president said that the Epstein files were a democrat hoax, right?
I feel like at this stage the US administration could contend that the moon is in fact made of cheese and news agencies would respond by running news stories about the implications of this on future possible lunar missions.
Interesting that they felt the need to redact a hoax and even include an innocent photo of Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson that was redacted to make it look suspect.
Trump is a sex offender. He's also a convicted criminal. He is also completely devoid of ethics or morality.
But because of the car crash that is American politics, you have to address all of this through the theatre of the set of documents associated with the world's most infamous paedophile (who also appears to be his best mate).
Well, I'm just an onlooker, so I don't have any influence on U.S. politics. I'm just constantly astonished that the U.S. people would vote for such a charlatan. Twice.
The problem is you’re getting all your information from the internet (I’ll bet social media?).
The impact of that is on display in this very thread. Random unproven accusations, conspiracy theories and repetition of “facts” that have been disproven long ago.
If your goal is to educate yourself about the US leadership, or really any subject, you’re not going to do it by what you see on social media.
> > Random unproven accusations, conspiracy theories and repetition of “facts” that have been disproven long ago.
Every person who has been out in the world had to deal with a Trump like person in the workplace or wherever .
And people don't like it, as a matter of fact they despise it, he's only kept afloat by those who fail to connect the abusive bullying behavior of DJT with their own personal experience with a similar character and those who enjoy bullying or are paitiently waiting in line to do some bullying.
An open society shouldn't have all the mainstream media in the control of just a handful of people - that's a recipe for abuse and cover-ups. It reminds me of hierarchical religions where just certain people (e.g. priests) have access to the "higher powers" and can thus mislead the masses.
I see the point you're trying to make, but I'm not fully convinced it's as black and white as you make it out to be. I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them? Election fraud? Etc. Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
> I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
The greater good of whom? Regardless, we have international organizations where action can be taken by a coalition is states, which provides not only legitimacy but also some level of judicial control.
This is so obviously an imperialist power play for the world's largest oil reserves. That some would portray this as acting for the greater good is beyond ridiculous.
Interesting to keep reading the narrative about the supposedly worthless Venezuelan oil here. So worthless that the US has to block sales with an embargo and is starting a war over it, apparently.
It's not a narrative, it's a fact you can easily verify by accessing the internet using the device in front of you.
The idea that oil in Venezuela is particularly attractive to anyone is patently absurd. Crude oil prices are already at uncomfortable levels for producers with significantly higher margins, and the situation isn't going to get any better.
>and is starting a war over it
Anyone who in 2025 still blindly believes what Donald Trump says is an idiot. And even if that were true, you'd still be an idiot for assuming that Trumps motivations are grounded in reality.
>Anyone who in 2025 still blindly believes what Donald Trump says is an idiot. And even if that were true, you'd still be an idiot for assuming that Trumps motivations are grounded in reality.
OK, but the other piece of international aggression in the news recently was yesterday, when Trump promised that the US would "come to the rescue" of protestors in Iran if the regime starts killing them. Possibly this and Venezuela are related, and oil is involved, but in a strategic way rather than any immediately rewarding treasure-seeking.
From your source: "Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day," Florida Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar said in a recent interview on Fox Business.
"American companies can go in and fix all the oil pipes, the whole oil rigs and everything that has to do with... oil and the derivatives."
Trump might seem open to such arguments.
He campaigned on the slogan "drill, baby, drill" and has generally called for expanding oil production, which he has tied to lower prices for Americans.
/quote
It then goes on to note that output could be more than doubled in two years. That alone would put them as the 11th largest oil producer and the third largest in the Americas. The decade timeline and budget was for creating maximalist infrastructure for fully exploiting the resources.
The strongest proof that the article has that trump isn’t interested in oil is his word that he isn’t interested in oil. How much faith do you put in Trump’s honesty?
The 2023 Trump quote is "We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil". But I think war-for-oil explanations are too pat, generally. Just because he shamelessly says the oil is a motivation doesn't mean it makes sense as a motivation.
He said it then, he said it now, everyone else in the know is saying it. Trump has openly declared his intent to go after numerous other country’s mineral and oil resources leveraging military force if necessary. (Ukraine, Canada, Denmark off the top of my head). Why should I think that a man who sees everything through the lens of power and money has not just made a power and money play after spending a year promising to do just that.
I don’t doubt that other motivations exist. I do not think that the US would have gone after them if they did not have oil. I do not think the US government would be crowing about all the money they will finally be able to make with oil, if that wasn’t a motivation.
All they have to do is keep power for ten years and keep renewables being illegal (Trump already banned offshore wind turbines because he can see some from one of his overseas golf courses)
To be fair we don’t know the atrocities the US would have committed in those regions if the UN didn’t exist. I’m not saying I know either obviously! But it’s not like the world seemed to be a better place before the UN.
I could go along with this to some degree if any country would be able to act the same way the USA is doing; then there would be a balance of power. But as it is, only a small number of powerful nations are able to act like this, without military repercussions.
So if Venezuela wanted to forcefully reverse a coup in the USA? Or Canada wanted to reverse election fraud in the USA?
They can’t. So the USA shouldn’t either.
Unless you can tolerate living by the whim of a more powerful bully.
Which I, as a non-us resident/citizen, am forced to tolerate now, but don’t like.
So no, I don’t think nations can justify interfering in sovereign nations by force for any reason.
The history of central and south America is littered with such events, committed by the US. I guess that's why those countries are all so safe and prosperous. Nicaragua and Haiti got it twice so they're doing fantastic right now!
The funniest part of DPRK is how we got bombed with propaganda about how the "supreme leader" was a madman that shouldn't be allowed to have nukes because he would immediately use them and then suddenly the propaganda stopped as soon as there was evidence that they had actual nukes. I suspect the same thing would have happened with Iran if they had gotten them.
> requires stronger justification, like active, extreme mass killing.
… which actually did happen under Maduro, btw.
> Protests following the announcement of the results of the presidential election in July were violently repressed with excessive use of force and possible extrajudicial executions. Thousands of arbitrary arrests were carried out against political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists; hundreds of children were among those detained. Detainees including women and children were allegedly tortured. Detention conditions continued to deteriorate. Impunity prevailed for human rights violations.[1]
Is your argument that his dictatorship wasn’t repressive or bloody enough to warrant that? I don’t think that argument has legs - I think it is reasonable for him to be ousted based on the repressive regime argument. Yes, there are bloodier regimes around the world, but that’s like a speeder complaining to a police officer, “why did you stop me? I was only doing 80, the guy in front of me must’ve been doing 90!”
To me, the strongest argument against overthrowing Maduro is geopolitical destabilization and the general, “don’t mess with other countries because it erodes the norms that keep peace around the world.”
I am unsure. It's certainly very good that he's gone. I don't know if it meets the threshold. There being bloodier regimes is I actually think a reasonable counter-argument: should we topple all them, too?
If polls show over 95% of Venezuelans are happy with this outcome after three months, I may shift my position a bit. In general though, I think it's a bad precedent for the world superpower to bomb countries and abduct rules because the ruler is bad. Plus, Trump's motives here are not remotely pure.
Now it’s not clear who is running the country. Maduro’s administration is saying they’re still in charge via their VP, but the opposition has said they are “prepared to assume power,” wherever that may mean.
I fear that there could be so much suffering as a result of this. Power vacuums and forced regime changes don’t seem to go well.
This reminds me a little of when the US toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq - initially there was celebration, which soon gave way to, “oh shit… now what?”
I think his removal has a lot more to do with his willingness to cooperate with the “bad guys“ in the Middle East. I think this also has a lot to do with why we suddenly care about Somali fraud rings that have been operating since the 1990s. The stage is getting set for another regime change in the Middle East. It’s pretty amazing what you can buy with a $250 million campaign donation.
Are asylum cases from Venezuela legitimate or not? One cannot support asylum claims while simultaneously believing Maduro didn't deserve to be arrested.
I absolutely believe that asylum claims from Venezuela are completely legitimate and that Maduro completely deserved to be arrested. I am just saying under international law and norms, the United States government did not have the legal or moral right to go in and abduct him to arrest him. And also, I am not necessarily sure if he deserved to be arrested to be charged with the odd charges the United States is saying they'll charge him with (drug-related offenses) as opposed to all the things related to human rights violations and being a despot. And double-also, Trump's motives here are almost entirely ulterior and impure, as opposed to a moral desire to bring a horrible dictator to justice and free a nation from his clutches.
If it was about peace and rebuilding their economy oil would have been mentioned as US companies move in to help them leverage their resources AT COST.
Instead, the joke about the US invading for oil proves true once again, and look at everyone fooled by the justification for it. Maduro a bad person? Yeah duh...so why US moving in to take profits from their oil as well as supporting politicians there who were allied with Maduro...
US are liars. And Venezuelans on here gonna act happy bc Maduro gone. But just you wait, 30 years will go by then Venezuelans will be crying about reparations for their natural resources being raped by the US.
I appreciate your world view and politico-science philosophical approach, but Venezuela has natural resources, is close to the USA, and decided to mingle with American competitors.
Venezuela was supported via economic trade with nations not aligned with US objectives in exchange for security guarantees that would supposedly prevent US intervention.
More concretely: Russia was supposedly supporting them through economic activity and arms trades. Russia is overextended in Ukraine which is providing an opening and a cautionary signal to any other state that has Russian support that, in fact, any Russian security guarantees aren’t backed by more than words. See Iran and Syria as well.
This is very transactional and a spheres of influence move. It’s also pressuring Russia to find an Ukraine deal fast. The longer they’re in Ukraine the more their global sphere of influence is being reduced due to their inability to fight multiple military fronts at once.
My thought is, China is seen as needing to be curtailed.
Syria curtailed Russia, as you said, they lost the capacity to support it. Iran was a show of force, and something that could be done. And, Iran was very much supporting Russia -- lots of support, such as Iranian drone tech.
But from the China perspective, China was buying a lot of oil from Iran. That was cut off. And I imagine Venezuela as well, has been selling a lot of sanctioned oil to China too.
China has no domestic oil supply of note, and needs to import a LOT of oil. This could be a message to both Russia and China.
You didn't even mention the whole proxy war that Russia is fighting with France across most of Africa (and Eastern Europe). With both mutually picking apart the other's sphere of influence in the respective regions.
Fair, most folks are completely clueless about this being an ongoing concern for nearly 5 years now.
> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer
I don’t think it’s that difficult to answer, and the answer is “no” for two main reasons:
1. I don’t think the US has the greater good of humanity in mind nor even of its citizens except a minority, when it’s policing around.
2. Even if we were to assume otherwise (that the US concerns itself with the greater good), “who will watch the watchmen?” Especially when its institutions are being undermined day by day…
> What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them?
Once upon a time, “forcefully” doing anything with any country for any reason was considered an act of war. I agree that bad people should be removed from power. But the consequences associated with doing so forcefully (i.e., engaging in acts of war) need to be fully acknowledged and dealt with. The U.S. (and others) have played this game of “military actions” for so long that we, the regular people, have taken up that language uncritically as well. Once force enters, it is an act of war. Period. A discussion about whether country A should declare a war to remove the leader of country B is a much more honest and accurate one than vaguely positing whether country A can “capture” the leader of country B.
You are 100% right in all your assertions, and still miss the point.
I'm in agreement with everything you said, but none of it applies.
The US (or any other country) should never intervene due to a "bad person" or "illegitimate" or "dictator"
Instead, US intervened because the policies of Maduro directly led to the flight of 8M causing harms to many countries in LATAM, and US.
If a dictator was not actively enforcing policies that made foreign innocent (bystanders!) neighbors hurt or destitute, then your argument would apply
It was not a war bullet that have killed random Chileans, or Ecuadoreans or Americans. But nevertheless, there have been hundreds of venezuelan bullets (and drugs) kiling everyday civilians. The act of aggression exists (exporting hardened criminals and economic destitutes abroad) .
That was the casus belli. The US just happened to respond in force, when other countries couldn't.
I’m not disputing the right of the U.S. to intervene. I’m saying that we should call this “intervention” what it is — an act of war. It doesn’t matter what the cause or impetus for the act is; we need to stop pretending that forceful, military-based aggression into sovereign land (regardless of who the leader of that land is) is anything other than an act of war.
I suppose my argument is then that war was already happening, and it was declared by Chavez/Maduron on most of LATAM and USA, the moment they decided to export their problems (drugs, criminals, destitutes), into LATAM and USA, hurting our citizens.
You could make a moral argument for it. But we should NOT support that. And i think the US framers were clear on this topic.
Personally, I would say no.
However, a country persecuting its citizens doesn't bode well for the neighbor's citizens own security or well being, which is usually why it often leads to some form of govt vs govt war.
A government should not act with force until its own citizens are suffering, meaning, if brazilians themselves were hurt because of US policy.
Right, and in theory that all sounds very thoughtful and morally calibrated—until you remember that U.S. foreign policy decision-making has roughly the transparency of a raccoon operating a shredder at midnight. There is no clear, open process where the U.S. earnestly weighs “dictator versus coup versus fraudulent election” on some ethical flowchart labeled For the Greater Good. Instead, it’s often more like: Is there oil? A lot of oil? Like, cartoonishly large amounts of oil? Because if there is, suddenly democracy becomes very important, very quickly.
And yes, we’re told—solemnly—that every intervention is about democracy, human rights, and justice, which is fascinating because those principles have an uncanny habit of aligning perfectly with strategic interests. Venezuela is a great example, where the rhetoric about freedom somehow managed to coexist with very unsubtle comments about wanting “all that oil.” At that point, the moral argument starts to feel less like a difficult philosophical dilemma and more like a PowerPoint slide hastily slapped over a resource grab labeled “Don’t Look Behind This.”
So while you’re absolutely right that the question of global policing isn’t black and white, the problem is that U.S. interventions often aren’t shades of gray either—they’re shades of green. And once that’s the pattern, claims about benevolent intent stop sounding like hard ethical reasoning and start sounding like a press release written by someone who assumes the audience has the memory of a goldfish.
Maduro is obviously authoritarian. But if the US want to make the world a more democratic place by going to war I could think of a long list of countries they could attack before Venezuela.
>Now, I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.
>Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years, we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values.
>Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy, but when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say "ourselves" because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them.
>Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not, and thank God they lost the Cold War.
>They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to invent, to build.
Veeeery selective choices, arent there? The cancelled Romanian elections he talks about were cancelled and rerun for a good reasons. This was literally defending democracy against meddling.
The churches were not closed by some hostile state forces. People stopped being christians out of their own choices.
> We must do more than talk about democratic values.
This is dishonest to the maximum. Vance does not believe in democracy. Not in the USA and not in the Europe. He is trying to dismantle it and replace it with authoritarian fascism. He does not care about laws either, he cares about making his own thugs unreachable by law.
There's nothing Vance said in the speech which was literal defense of fascism, as alleged. It's a case of two competing narratives of what "democracy" means.
The Romania stuff is a complete farse. The campaign for Georgescu wasn't funded by Russia. It was funded by a member of the same ruling coalition whose judges cancelled the vote. [1] They launched a PR campaign that horribly backfired as they were skirting bounds of campaign law, so they couldn't actively name a candidate. The influencers followed their script, but didn't exactly have the same candidate in mind. It's like an equal but opposite of Bud Light hiring Dylan Mulvaney for PR.
Imagine in Hungary if a sort of pro-establishment (NATO/EU/Ukraine/etc) type won, and then they cancelled the election, banned this candidate, and reran it after making some mostly unprovable (and ultimately false) claims of foreign meddling. Can you imagine how you would feel about this? Can you imagine how the unelected EU bureaucrats would act, or what they would be calling it? For people on the other side of the political aisle, you just had an act carried out that would more than justify all the rather hyperbolic rhetoric you're using about the US. And when it's reality, and not just rhetoric, this ends up shaping the views of people for decades.
there's a lot of assumptions here, but granting it's a difficult question: this is why the legislature holds the responsibility to decide, not the executive.
> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
I would argue that it should be the UN that does something like this, if it's done at all. I would like to see a world in which there was a top-level body that would arrest a dictator, the same way the US government would arrest someone who tried to become dictator of an American state.
But it wouldn't be up to the governor of one of the other states to do it without the agreement of the rest of the country. That would be chaos.
oh, its not that scary or offensive. Maduro was an illegitimate dictator, just like all of Trumps other friends. but he just wouldn't play along. ultimately thats why the US is so intent on supporting corrupt governments. your son-in-law gets a big contract from the US, and my LLC gets a lease to do mining operations and we're all happy now right? Trump gave Maduro a deal he couldn't refuse, and he .. refused! what's a Don supposed to do, if Maduro can refuse than everybody else is going to get ideas.
I don't find this argument convincing. You could make the same argument when you see a parent physically hitting their child, that it's not anybody else's business, but most of the civilized world agrees that you should intervene, either directly or by contacting the authorities. The child is helpless to defend themselves. The same applies in many countries worldwide today. Even if the majority of the population wants a change of regime, coordinated military power held by a handful of individuals is more than enough to suppress any hope of that.
Using your analogy you are not someone who's seen anybody hitting their child, you're someone who's fine with a random neighbour doing justice because he tells you he was bad.
If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow, is Xi allowed to invade and capture him? Or is it reserved only for small and weak countries while the big ones can do whatever they want?
Can he round up the goons in the CIA and FBI while he’s at it? Is being a tributary vassal state of China materially worse than being a tributary vassal state of foreign power? I’d like sovereignty, but that’s not really an option.
Both countries involved are currently dictatorships. Consider the role reversal: Would it be good if Maduro invaded the USA and kidnapped Trump? Why or why not?
It's very black and white. It's an internal affair, and no one elected the USA to be the police of the world.
We could also argue that even internally in the US, the current president was not democratically elected. Maybe you agree that another state should go there and remove him, just because.
I for one would support a Native American take over of the White House, and giving them back their country. You seem to support this logic
>>I for one would support a Native American take over of the White House, and giving them back their country.
What would you do with 100s of millions of Americans who are not decedent from native Americans? I'm even more curious how far back in history would you go to start returning countries to their native populations?
How about the country doing the capturing stays the fuck out of the business of all the other countries instead ?
Escalations like this push the doomsday clock closer and closer to midnight, no matter how well intentioned, and I can't say I think Trump has good intentions anyway. America is just privateering, these days.
So we can justify, say, deposing the king of Saudi Arabia? Or Zelenskyy on the pretext that he hasn’t held a timely election? Or the president of Taiwan on the basis of illegitimacy of the election? Regardless of Maduro’s sins, this is a massively destabilizing action and I expect we will see unpleasant downstream effects even if, in a vacuum, the action was justifiable and legal.
It's of course very difficult to justify, but in your example, Zelenskyy has the approval of the Ukrainians for now, while Maduro only had the approval of the military and a low percent of civilians.
The approval of the people is irrelevant if Putin cites Zelenskyy’s democratic illegitimacy as a reason to remove him (which, arguably, they have) or Trump as a reason to withhold support.
> I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about ${WHATABOUTISM}?
I think a regime that is hell-bent on kidnapping foreign leaders at the whim of it's glorious leader by circumventing any of it's checks and balances, such as congress approval, is clearly and by far the worst problem.
And calling the US under the Trump administration "democratic" is a hell of a stretch, even as a thought experiment.
Edit: in case my comment doesn't make sense, the parent comment originally asked why the US doesn't try to topple Russia. Parent edited comment after my reply.
It is, along with NATO. The invasion of Ukraine is being managed in a way that bleeds Russias economic and war fighting power without escalation of the conflict to other states.
Ukraine is being spoon-fed arms and support just enough to keep them able to attrit Russia without ending the conflict until Russia is exhausted. Once Putin stuck his foot in the bear trap, there is no way he can turn back and retain power/life. I’m sure he’d love to have backed out in the first few weeks while it was still possible at this point.
It’s great for the region and for NATO, but it trades Ukrainian blood for NATO interests. Obviously Zelenskyy knows the play by now, but he and the Ukrainian people are between a rock and a hard place. It’s tragic for them, but there is a little hope at least of having earned a seat at the table if they survive. My heart (and donations) goes out to the Ukrainian people.
> My heart (and donations) goes out to the Ukrainian people
your donations go straight into the pockets of the elites. You need to be an idiot to think you are helping by sending money, unless you are sending it to your relatives.
Idk, I’ve bought some gear for a couple of the units, stuff like that. I don’t see it going to the pockets of the elites, though I suppose it might be an elaborate scam to resell the gear they are asking for. Doesn’t seem like it though.
Maduro is not the head of a sovereign state. The President of Venezuela is Edmundo González, the winner of their last election[1]. To know if this violates Venezuela's sovereignty, you would have to ask their President. Personally, I fully support this operation, unless their President indicates otherwise. It's a good day for democracy and freedom.
As much as I wish I could go and pontificate about how much better and more moral the PCC is than any other government on the face of the earth, they are in the worst possible spot right now.
It's less of a 'will they topple the revolutionary government in Cuba?' and more of a 'will they do it before or after they topple the revolutionary government in Nicaragua?'.
I'm not naive about Trump's motivations, he tried to destroy democracy in the US after all. But it doesn't bear on my interpretation of the outcome of this event, which is what I am happy about. Call it a coincidental alignment of self-interest with what's best for the people inside Venezuela.
Yeah, I'll defer judgement of this for 5 years, after we see: results in Venezuela. How this emboldens other wannabe agressors elsewhere in the world, and where the erosion of respect for rules of UN charter will lead.
Until then, the only conclusion I’m comfortable drawing is this: anyone confidently declaring that kidnappings, bombings, and killings are great for democracy, without waiting to see if there are any real long-term benefits, isn’t offering serious analysis. They’re just enthusiastically clapping for violence and hoping history does the cleanup later.
This careful response seems sensible at first blush. After all, maybe in 5 years things will be better for Venezuelans! On the other hand, maybe not. In my heart of hearts I believe the odds are not great, but in lieu of a time machine, I think we can do no better than call it 50:50 odds.
In the meantime, though, this action is already having effects beyond the US and Venezuela. Withholding judgement until this conflict has fully played out carries with it an implicitly permission for similar actions in other places and situations. After all, maybe those will be for the better too!
That's why I oppose this action. Not in support the Maduro regime, which in my view has little to nothing that's worth defending, but because of the precedent that it sets for future events. This is hardly the first time a nation has had its sovereignty violated by a stronger power, and I'm not so naive to believe that it will be the last if only enough people spoke out. But at the same time, I strongly believe that accepting it as something that's inevitable (or even good) will only make it happen more often.
How about in 10-20 years when all of Venezuela's natural resources are owned by America "b-but muh job creators" minimum wages then all the big profits go offshore. Tale as old as time.
I don't think that blog says what you think it does.
Tao is using a deliberately limited model to make a probablistic claim, not saying he'd make a 10⁸:1 bet that the election was rigged.
The election may well have been rigged anyway, it doesn't change the fact that Maduro was the one sitting in the president's chair and carrying out the president's duties.
Regardless of your opinion of maduro, you can still acknowledge that if the head of a sovereign state enacts policies that result in the mass emigration of 8M to neighboring countries, destabilizing all of them [1],[2] in the process, exporting criminal enterprises, any affected head of the affected government certainly has casus belli on said head of state.
The policy of no aggression applies. If a government, thru its actions (or inactions) causes massive aggression and hurt on your own people, then its your *duty* as elected official, to stop it and protect your citizens
Self-defense is literally the most important mandate a government can have.
Amusingly what you described translates to USA actions if you are from a country in the middle east. For example did you know that there are at least 5M emigrants of Afghanistan in Iran?
Not arguing about other nations actions, just a reminder that if you apply many western logic indiscriminately, the resulting bad actors are very different.
Unfortunately, everyday Americans' security is deeply impacted by the clowns with office desks in DC, since the 1990s.
It's not lost on me that I may lose living relatives living in the US because of Kissinger playing RISK for a living, back in the day.
Just as the clowns in government made horrible decisions and should potentially be legally in jeopardy for them, I can also say they are getting the venezuela one, right (at least for now).
The reasons for doing something and public justification, aka casus belli, are different things. Casus belli makes it cheaper to execute, but reasons are what actually drives them.
The clowns and the reasons that drive them are the same for Middle East and Venezuela. Does it make it any better that they happened to have a casus belli that you or I may sympathesize with, given that the reasons not in line with our values? Even a broken clock is right once a day.
The difference between casus belly and a state of war is:
Casus Belli is a 1-time event, whereas
State of War means ongoing action that is bellicose in nature.
So i chose my words wrong.
I'd argue that a state of war already existed, well before the events in the gulf. It just didn't involve formal military movements.
I think there were that many immigrants. I don’t believe they are so many living there now. Iran demonstrated pretty conclusively that mass repatriation is completely possible if you have a government that actually wishes to do so.
If two wrongs didn't make a right, we wouldn't punish people who commit crimes.
It should be up to the Venezuelans to decide who leads them. Maduro decided to ignore the will of the people when he held power through clear and blatant election fraud. If some sort of global public service could reach out and punish all politicians who do this, the world would be a better place.
If you are unfamiliar with Venezuela, this is a good primer:
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. He is neither American nor lives in the US.
Whether Maduro is corrupt, authoritarian, or illegitimate by your definition doesn’t suddenly make an undeclared foreign military strike to seize a sitting head of state acceptable. Sovereignty isn’t a reward for good behavior. It’s a constraint meant precisely to prevent powerful states from unilaterally deciding which governments get removed by force.
If the standard is “we can capture leaders we deem illegitimate,” then you’ve effectively endorsed a world where power, not law, decides regime change. You can oppose Maduro and still acknowledge that abducting a head of state via air strikes destabilizes a country of 30+ million people and sets a precedent that will be used by actors far less selective than the U.S.
Two wrongs don’t cancel out just because one feels morally satisfying. of course, we all drink the American imperialism koolaid here.
There are also reports of 40 something people killed. Doesn't that amount to basically (mass) murder? There is no declaration of war, so you can't really call them civilian casualties.
We have different definitions of sovereign state apparently.
"In his time in office, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has stolen two presidential elections, electoral monitors and human rights groups contend, while jailing critics and overseeing an economic collapse that caused eight million Venezuelans to emigrate, including to the U.S.
But in some ways, Maduro is more safely ensconced than ever, with most opposition leaders in exile and Venezuelans too fearful to protest as they once did.
The problem for those who see hope in the military rising up is that Maduro has surrounded himself with a fortress of lieutenants whose fortunes and future are tied to his, from Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López to generals, admirals, colonels and captains throughout the armed forces."
What's that have to do with it being a sovereign state? By that standard, neither Russia nor China are sovereign states.
And it's not like the US gives a shit about democracy outside its borders. The CIA overthrew Jacobo Árbenz in the 50s, supported the military coup in Brazil in 1964, pinochet and Hugo Banzer in the 70s. This is normal behavior for the US in Latin America. It's nothing to do with concern for Venezuela's citizens.
There's really no benefit in arguing on the basis of the definition of sovereignty. There is no definition. It's a self-evident state: if you assert that you are sovereign, and you can back it up, then you're sovereign. That's it.
I think heads of state bearing personal responsibility for misconduct is an excellent precedent that I would love to see applied much, much more widely. Preferably to the superpowers, especially if said leader were to say, for a totally-hypothetical example, recklessly create a massive security risk near our borders for the sole purpose of benefiting a foreign interest group… but I’ll take what I can get. I think the Sword of Damocles is missing all too often from high society. If life and death decisions, don’t come with life and death risks, then I think they become taken too lightly. I think we are too quick to insulate high society from the consequences of their actions.
What's kind of shocking to me is that no matter how obvious they make the motives this time, and how clearly Venezuela doesn't pose a threat, I'm still reading the same Bush-era justifications ironically being offered in the comments.
I think it's sort of a terminal centrism. They can't accept that they would do such actions for obvious reasons (despite them overtly telling us 'we're going to run the region' and 'it's for oil') so instead they try and downplay it so that they can seem rational which ironically makes them look even more irrational. They're working backwards to try and justify their stance.
It's really insane but also not surprising to see considering how many people do truly live in their own fictional world and never bother to reassess it.
At this point, I don't think it is naivety or lack of insight. It is propaganda at its best. They like what is going on and support it. They cant just say "it makes us feel manly so we should do it and extract some resources", because they are educated and want to be seen as intellectuals.
Maduro is a dictator and a criminal - there is no doubt about it.
He is an illegitimate president who has systematically violated the rights of the Venezuelan people. He has bought off the military, the judiciary, and other key institutions, hollowing out the state to ensure his grip on power.
His regime has also supported and benefited from the existence of drug cartels in Venezuela as another mechanism to maintain control and stay in power.
Together with Chávez, Maduro has ruled the country for more than 27 years, a period marked by countless atrocities against the population, from forced disappearances to torture and rape.
The result is one of the largest humanitarian and migration crises in modern history: more than 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country to escape the regime.
The international community has proven itself unwilling to act. The UN will do nothing. NATO will do nothing. No one will.
We were, and perhaps still are, watching Venezuela turn into another Cuba, with one crucial difference: Venezuela sits on vast oil reserves.
The "Crazy Red" is a pig, but at least he is the only one willing to confront Maduro. This may end up being the only genuinely positive thing he does during his presidency.
Yes, the attack is not "ideal". But in an ideal world, there would be no dictatorships, there would be no Maduro.
And I say all this as a South American with family in both Colombia and Venezuela.
EDIT: this is written by the Vzla admins in Reddit: Foreigners, if your opinion comes without ever meeting a Venezuelan part of the biggest diaspora of the 21st century, I would advise against commenting. You might deserve a ban from this subreddit, thank you for your attention to this matter.
I do not acknowledge that. If you want to make an argument that overthrowing a dictator is always wrong on principle, go ahead. But I will not accept this as axiomatic.
Claiming this could “destabilize” the country suggests that the country is stable. It’s not.
You mention the 30+ million people who live there, under the dictatorship, but ignore the 8+ million who have fled the country in recent years and the instability that has unleashed on country and the entire region.
A wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by yet another wrong...
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"Flood the zone" is a political strategy in which a political figure aims to gain media attention, disorient opponents and distract the public from undesirable reports by rapidly forwarding large volumes of newsworthy information to the media. The strategy has been attributed to U.S. president Donald Trump's former chief political strategist Steve Bannon."
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Pay attention to the context of this moment. The timing of this invasion is no coincidence.
> Since 2019, more than 50 countries, including the United States, have refused to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s head of state.
Including the EU and its member states
> a country of 30+ million people
If those 30 M being the remainder after ~8 M fled the country (20% of the population) within the last 10 years, the „destabilization“ was already there.
I'm guessing willingly Maduro surrendered as he took the cash offer from Dec 1, 2025 while publicly rejecting it. After all, he left with his wife.
> “You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now,” Trump reportedly said, offering safe passage for Maduro, his wife and his son “only if he agreed to resign right away”.
I need you to know that the discussion on this news on Reddit today was the last straw for me, there is no nuance. It’s just simple minded left, and right. I asked ChatGPT to help me find a site that might have more intelligent discussion more nuance, and this was the very first comment I saw after I registered my account and I literally let a sigh of a relief. Thank you.
Substack is another good platform for nuanced discussions. The Notes feature is a bit like Twitter but with +20 IQ points. Literally the first post that popped up when I opened the app:
There isn't really much difference between here and Reddit. Especially on political topics, you get the same tired and defeated arguments and opinions over and over again.
To an extent yes, but individually I have much more nuanced interactions here with users. Whereas on Reddit I get dog piled by hundreds of black and white thinkers all circle jerking each other, making identical replies to my comments.
Here I often will get a deep thread with one user that's quite interesting, even if we disagree in many ways. It's also usually polite for the most part.
That's why I'm so happy HN has resisted the call to allow people to post images. You get the occasional link to that stick figure site but other than that posting here requires some minimal effort. Rate limiting all posters might be another way to increase the signal to noise ratio.
The people and LLMs that use this website are as numb-skulled, illiterate, and misanthropic as the people and LLMs that use reddit; In fact, these are the same people and the same LLMs.
It's hard to ignore that the country being targeted holds the world's largest oil reserves. In a global context where China has become one of the top oil importers, that makes the situation look less accidental.
America is not a principled country. It has for a long time now operated on the protection racket model: externalizing costs onto citizens.
In the American model, anything that could destabilize society is the fault of an individual who should be punished, ironically this means collectives can do no wrong. Leaving AI safety up to people living in such a country is frightening.
Race is the one exception (maybe sports teams too), but that definitely doesn't help Venezuelans
It's just realpolitik laid particularly bare. The major complaint seems to be that the paperwork wasn't done 'right' here, not much else eh?
What is the real difference between Iraq and what just happened, except this was arguably done much cleaner, and with less BS (no having to come up with Yellow Cake, or fake WMDs, for example).
This does have the effect of hopefully waking up anyone who is still confused, but I doubt it.
I think I agree. For anyone paying attention, the new rules have been officially established and I don't think they bode that well for previous international order. Still, I am only processing the news and I guess I will need to watch the conference now.
The international order was dead ten years ago. GWB put it on life support with Iraq 2. Obama pulled the plug when he didn’t respond to Putin in Crimea.
Hmm. You do have a point. Maybe I should have used a different word that is not as laden with previous baggage. New balance of power is likely more apt. It is still not as accurate as I would want, but it conveys similar message.
You can't blame America for every single problem people suffer. Cuba was also embargoed and managed to pull off a medical system with a lower infant mortality rate than the USA, and as far as I know nobody starved there to the degree they did in Venezuela.
USA sanctions means Venezuela can't be a Petrostate, that's it. There's nothing stopping the government from organizing state industries in agriculture and mineral extraction as well as distribution to build a hyper localized economy. Hell, they're supposed to be communists, this is supposed to be the whole thing they're meant to be doing anyway.
The state of Venezuela is mostly the fault of Maduro's failed governance, and some of the responsibility lays also on the heads of Venezuelans. I personally believe to pretend it's all America's fault is to engage in a prejudice of low expectations.
I don't belittle what VE has gone thru and I accept that something awful for you has been removed from the board.
> it’s one of the reasons of what happened today.
I would clarify that the current US leadership has little/no history of taking actions that are genuinely for others' welfare. The admin continually claims it is doing good. It's a continual stream, one after the other. By the time one is debunked (and they are), ten more are issued.
This method is dividing many Americans (by design) between those who believe the stream of claims and those being overwhelmed by the mountain of debunked falsehoods.
Irrelevant, Chavez died 13 years ago, a lot has happened and changed. Maduro lost the last election hard, he wrecked the support he inherited back then
We allow brutal dictatorships to continue subjugating tens of millions of people and killing millions in the name of convention. Our international organizations (the UN in particular) are basically ruled by authoritarian regimes. Is there no justification for external powers to effect regime change? We just have to wait and watch as the dictator kills a ton of people? Oh, and of course there is Maduro's support for Putin via sanctions evasion. Even now, Venezuelans face a brutal security force that is likely to retain power, but hopefully that power fragments.
Imo we should have done this right after the last election which Maduro stole.
Something like 50% of the population of the world live under rulers who were not democratically elected. Should the US taxpayers fund all of their removals?
On top of that, removing a ruler without any plan for follow-up frequently makes things worse, not better. We seem to have already forgotten that removing the leadership of Iraq led to the rise of ISIS and its horrifying consequences.
> Something like 50% of the population of the world live under rulers who were not democratically elected. Should the US taxpayers fund all of their removals?
If it's in our interest, absolutely. Venezuela nationalized (which is a nice way to say they stole) American oil interests and companies decades ago, has assisted Russia in flouting US sanctions, and has in part enabled the drug cartels. Each of those things cost us money. We're also getting a ton of immigrants from Venezuela that we have to spend money dealing with. Venezuela could also be a much better trading partner for us in the future with a liberal democratic society. All of that is directly in the best interest for the US. Believe it or not, sometimes our interests lie outside our borders.
Isolationism is a failed policy by every nation that tries it, and this is something that used to be taught to every school child in America about our past policies. It's a shame those lessons seem to have been forgotten by our people.
> On top of that, removing a ruler without any plan for follow-up frequently makes things worse, not better. We seem to have already forgotten that removing the leadership of Iraq led to the rise of ISIS and its horrifying consequences.
This is absolutely true. You have to destroy the security forces as well, and support the elected democratic leadership. We may fail to do so in this case.
This is a point worth discussing imo. To what extent is the state of a nation and the conditions of its people, the responsibility of the people itself, even if they're oppressed?
The Russians were oppressed and had a revolution about it. Then they didn't like Communism anymore and broke up the USSR about it. Taiwan had a military dictatorship that was killing and jailing people in the thousands, and managed to overthrow it with absolutely zero outside intervention in the 90s, all while the PRC salivated over taking the country even back then.
I'm not sure I think "citizens should just be left to suffer under brutal regimes," but I also want to avoid a prejudice of low expectations. I also wonder, to what degree do citizens bear shared responsibility for the crimes their government commits against others? How responsible for the invasion of Ukraine are Russians for not deposing Putin? How responsible are Americans for the destabilization in southeast Asia, the middle east, south America?
Let's ignore the politics of the current situation for a while and look at the first principles of right and wrong.
1) When somebody knowingly and intentionally hurts another person without a valid reason, that's wrong.
2) Now the aggressor is in the wrong and requires punishment (there are multiple purposes to punishment: taking away any advantage gained by the offense, further disadvantaging aggressors, compensation for the victim, retribution, deterrence, etc.).
3) A punishment is just if it's proportional to the offense but only those with sufficient certainty about the extent of the offense, about the offender's identify and his guilt can carry it out. Usually, in western style societies, courts serve this purpose but courts are a legal concept, justice is a moral concept. Morally, the punishment can be carried out by anyone who satisfies the criteria, there's nothing to put one person above another morally.
Legality has multiple tiers: tier 1 is individuals, tier 2 is states. States are a tier 2 institution imposed on tier 1. There is no tier 3 court-like institution which can be imposed on tier 2 entities.[0] Does that mean wrongs by tier 2 entities should go unpunished? No. They often do but there's no moral principles saying that it has to be that way, let along that it should be.
4) Punishment by its nature is the act of intentionally and knowingly hurting another person. But it's not wrong because unlike in point 1), it has a valid reason.
*What some people consider the second wrong is not actually a wrong.*
[0]: You could think of international organizations but they don't have a monopoly on violence above state level and therefore no actual mechanism for enforcement.
You’ll hear a lot of the same people decrying this action simultaneously calling for the assassination of Putin. The cognitive dissonance is something to behold.
They want something, they have the means to take it, and so they take it. With no regards to others, others can fck themselves in fact. They proclaimed in loud enough and often enough in the past months.
As every agressors they can hammer together some form of excuse for doing so. Just like anyone else in similar situation did throughout the history. One of them was the leader of Germany once and was called Hitler. But we can name lots of other enemy-of-the-humanity viles from Japan, Russia, Mongolia, etc, etc. the line is long for the despicable beings.
should this same logic apply to someone like say, Hitler? if you hide behind the “sovereign nation” (while denying the US the same) then you can justify all sorts of atrocities.
No no no no. We get to have an opinion of Maduro and we should because you have an opinion by saying it is a wrong.
This is not a "regardless" situation. Bookmark this because the support for Maduro AND socialism in Venezuela is strong. They will never let you see socialism succeed because then all our own oligarchs would be out on their a$$e$. This is nothing but some trumped up capitalist Monroe Doctrine BS.
Watching all the Venezuelan CIA toadies on the news this morning was so infuriating.
Both Edmundo González and María Corina Machado are fascists right wing creeps that were working with the US for this to happen.
Pulled what off? Russia was trying to occupy Ukraine, not just kill Zelensky (though they’d obviously like to do that).
Trump announced that the plan is to “run Venezuela” but there are no troops on the ground, the US controls no territory. This isn’t The Wizard of Oz where you kill the wicked witch and the flying monkeys leave. This is only just starting.
High probability that trump gets distracted by something else and forgets, but if not welcome to the next three years of your life.
You don't remember the initial hours of the war where Russia attempted to take over Hostomel airport and land commandos there? And Ukrainian intelligence stating that Zelenskyy was the target?
No, Russia attempted it, failed, moved goalposts, failed again, and keeps moving goalposts to save face.
If you're ever confused by Don's actions, just remember: all he cares about is gaining more wealth (and power if possible). This was done to enrich Don and the oil barons who funded his campaign.
Prediction: the regime will not fall. This will destabilize the country further, not so much the regime itself.
There will be a decrease in oil production, marginally boosting world prices. What's probably being taken out right now is the regime's ability to react in any meaningful way to the oil embargo.
It will also allow Maduro to throw his hands in the air and blame the US for all of VZLA's ills going forward. More poverty, more suffering, more migration.
Well they just captured Maduro and flew him out of the country, so yes the regime quite literally did just fall minutes after you created your throwaway account to post this.
It's a game of probabilities. Even if it does turn out fine, similar things in recent history have turned out very poorly*. But to be honest, I hate Maduro anyway, so I'd be happy for this to turn out well.
* - Claims 2 years ago about the removal of Hamas; assassinations of militia leaders leading to peace
> assassinations of militia leaders leading to peace
The purpose of the assassinations is security, not peace. Peace is a bilateral process and it does confer security, but if it's not on the table then you can't force the issue unilaterally.
Yes. And some russian sources seem very understanding of the situation. I strongly believe Trump made a Deal with Putin. South america belongs to him. Putin can have europe.
Otherwise there would have been american aircraft shot down with russian tech. Or really any kind of support except empty words.
What technology prevents a american helicopter from being shot down by a russian anti aircraft missile?
The open question is rather, if the S-500 system can beat the F35 stealth capabilities (nobody know that as far as I know as it was never tried). Not that russians systems are useless against ordinary planes and helicopters.
I believe there were many deals. With the russians to not interfer and send capable anti aircraft systems in the last months.
And I suspect there were deals with parts of the venezuelan military as well. The weak reaction indicates as much.
And everything else potentially dangerous, active radar and anti air systems were destroyed in the first wave of attacks. Possible with the help of special forces.
They did not had the most modern russian systems, but older versions. And what they had, was taken out by special forces on the ground. That would not have been necessary, if the F35 would be really invisible.
SEAD was conducted by both ground and air assets, Israel only has about 30 F-35’s and Iran is massive.
The F-35 is “invisible” ;)
Iran’s air defenses were either obliterated or rendered useless, hence how Israel was flying slow ass drones at low altitude above their capital on day 3.
The US is even more capable when it comes to SEAD.
The gap between the west and everyone else when it comes to both military technology and doctrine is massive.
Putin can have Europe? You mean that country 10x poorer compared with EU will somehow take Europe? Country that's stuck in a war with the poorest european country for years?
No, I don't mean that. That the deal between Trump and Putin might have been of sphere of interest. With Trump not interested in europe. Does not mean, that Putin will succeed. But unfortunately it is not out of the question as europe is not united. Some parts of germany for example voted 40% for a russian friendly party. Hungary is pretty much over the fence already. Etc. If they unite under Putin's leadership, things might look dark.
there's footage of a half dozen US Chinooks over Caracas with no resistance being put up at all. Possbly a General has acquiesced to a US led coup. This isnt just lobbing missiles.
Your source, in translation, describes no specific responses, but largely that "The regime ordered the deployment of military and police commands throughout the country".
This is not inconsistent with, say, the US making an offer that Venezuelan military command in charge of air defences couldn't refuse, say, to stand down and not challenge US air supremacy.
I'm not saying that this did happen, but it's one plausible scenario, particularly for a country whose core competency is literally manufacturing US dollars, the most-prized currency worldwide.
I’ve seen videos of what are clearly MH-47s over Caracas.
Presumably there are SF and/or airborne units executing coordinated strikes on the ground right now. Most likely the 160th, as they were deployed there last I checked.
I don't presume to say, other than there can be a lot of possible missions other than decapitation. Their army has ~120K and they've been expecting stuff to go down for months. This "deal with a general" you're suggesting is very hand-wavey.
oh for sure, such is the nature of speculating on these things as they are occuring.
As you say, this check has been in the mail for a while, so how are vulernable helicopters flying over caracas without any resistance? One dude with a MANPADS could take them down.
Decapitation is also the only aparent strategic goal of this operation, so it's hardly far fetched to suggest they going for 'one and done'.
None of this makes sense. Venezuela has faced crippling sanctions from the US since 2017 that have not allowed it to sell to any western nation. Only China, Russia, and Cuba are potential customers for it. I highly doubt this will have any immediate effect on oil prices. It is also crude oil which only a handful of countries are capable of processing (the US probably being the best equipped)
US corporations will be brought in to exploit oil the same way they did in Iraq where they actually had to amend the constitution to allow for foreign corporations in.
A military coup seems like a decent possibility here IMO.
The Venezuelan opposition leader was extracted and moved to Europe and I assume the US wants to install her. Maybe that is more likely, but a military takeover before the US can install whatever puppet government they're hoping for.
Are you saying the US will decide not to take out the senior leadership of the regime? Or are you saying that the regime will survive even if they do that?
If they have any brains they’ll keep the functionaries and install their own puppet as the new head, likely Machado.
For some reason we wisely keep the machineries of government in place in Japan and Germany post-war and threw that lesson out the window in Iraq. Always boggles my mind, how the CPA ran things immediately into the ground.
Well, what I know about Venezuela, and the fact that the operation so far has targeted oil production capacity. In recent history, every cornered dictator with proven staying power has not gone quietly or quickly.
Here's another prediction: the regime will fall, the invasion will prove breezy and popular among huge fraction of Venezuelans. Trump admin (which was hugely insecure about its actual strength) will be bolstered and do some really really stupid thing next.
When was the last time America successfully conducted a regime change via military force? One that didn't result in a bloody civil war and hundreds of thousands dead?
Sure, though your prediction of "will prove breezy and popular" is something that takes years, or even a couple of decades to play out. e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq.
It develops pretty quick now. If you follow the news you already start to glimpse that I was spot on and it sounds like you try to move the goalposts now. Don't worry tho I'll take the high road.
I'll repeat, we don't know the long term outcome yet. Years not hours are what matters. The track record is very poor.
> you try to move the goalposts now
I do not agree. Long-term outcomes are what matter to the ordinary people in these countries, regardless of what scores points for internet posters today. Guessing outcomes today is very premature.
> I was spot on ... I'll take the high road.
What a smug and self-contradicting statement. This is no longer a serious conversation, have a good day.
If you read the original comment I think he only cares about the effects on Trump, not on Venezuela. People in Venezuela will likely celebrate in the streets which will bolster Trump to keep doing stupid things. The backlash will come in a couple of years for the Venezuelan people and the world but then Trump will have been able to fuck up more things.
There is always a "rally round the flag" effect, to support the country - the country, not the leader - in the face of a foreign attack. It's not "Support Maduro or support USA". Those are not the options.
It might be welcome by the majority of Venezuelans (nor not, depending what’s next) but it is not justified in a US domestic sense or indeed by international law
Why talk only to displaced Venezuelans though? If you want meaningful data, your sample shouldn't be biased. What is the overall proportion of Venezuelans supporting this action?
There are videos of Venezuelans celebrating in the streets, singing in large groups, cheering. I saw a video of someone from a balcony and it sounded like the entire city of Caracas was cheering. You can wait a few years for a survey or throw one up yourself.
The reaction I'm seeing from second-hand and direct reddit comments from actual Venezualans seems really positive.
I keep seeing this argument in here, but no one seems to point at any actual Venezuelans or message boards or whatever to support the point. Personally I only know a couple, classmates from decades ago who are FB friends and while they don’t support Maduro IIRC, I also don’t see any posts celebrating this great victory for the people. Who knows, maybe they’re partied out.
But a military invasion of another country to commit regime change is literally what Russia tried to do to Ukraine.
America has blood on it's hands yet again.
EDIT: If the reports are true that Maduro has been captured and the fighting stops, then that's the best resolution one could hope out of this horrible situation. I pray for the Venezuelan people.
Right, and that's what the Allies did in Germany in 1945. I don't think it's helpful to paint everything with such a broad brush.
Russia is trying to annex Ukraine. They took part of it in 2014, then came back for more, and then organized sham annexation referendums in the regions they did control. Whatever the US is trying to achieve in Venezuela, it's probably not that. All war is deplorable, but some lead to good outcomes and some to bad ones.
Going to change your tune now that Trump has said that the US will run Venezuela? They’re not even pretending. This is far far more similar than it is different.
Chomsky's argument was never that "no regime deserves to be changed", so maybe academic skills come in useful when comprehending arguments, books, and hills.
And we wonder why rogue regimes seek nuclear weapons. My biggest concern in geopolitics is non-proliferation and every little thing we do like this works against it.
This is a red herring. Rogue regimes will, by construction, seek the security offered by nuclear weapons. Hence the need, where possible, to apply diplomatic or military means to prevent exactly that.
That’s counter to what happened for several decades when we actually cared about preventing it. Few regimes at all sought them and several were convinced to abandon nuclear programs.
Did the US allow all the other nuclear countries to develop nuclear weapons? There are quite a few states that could easily and quickly develop their own nuclear deterrent and the US is in a much worse position now to deter them from that.
The current administration WANTS Europe to develop the military necessary to defend themselves so we don’t have to pay for it. We’ll probably send them the schematics if they haven’t already infiltrated whatever servers we keep them on.
Every sovereign nation should do. The notion that uppercase D "Democracy" is the only valid type of sovereign state is uppercase L liberalism propaganda.
The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
The US is giving another clear message that it does not care about global order, just global control. We're back in the 70s.
There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans, its a power play, if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes. Pinochet, The Brazilian regime are all here as testament to that.
I hope the power change turns out better for the Venezuelans. I hope this is a catalyst of change for a better government. Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
Yeah, I was mostly surprised about the brazenness of it all. So the plan is to take over the government, take over the oil industry, sell the oil and in infinite grace give the Venezuelans some part of it back (minus of course the "compensation" for the years in which US companies were kept out of the country)
And all that as official doctrine, not even some secret strategy paper or covert ops campaign.
Edit: I had to chuckle at his "reviewing" of the Monroe doctrine as DONroe doctrine. There is "on the nose" and there is "punching someone in the face"...
> minus of course the "compensation" for the years in which US companies were kept out of the country
I don’t want to sound like I’m running coverage for the Americans, but wasn’t a lot of that infrastructure built by foreign multinationals and then expropriated by Chávez in 2007?
> built by foreign multinationals and then expropriated by Chávez in 2007?
If you follow this reasoning - after what happened today - you will get Iran 2.0: Venezuelan boogaloo
I have zero optimism that after this - ordinary Venezuelans will have better outcomes in 10 years time.
Current USA government is some weird klepto-oligrachy. Hates brown people. It’s not doing it out of benevolence to Venezuelans. Venezuelans will get either colonialist resource extraction treatment or some power vacuum will bring just another despot.
It blows my mind anyone can hold this opinion after 10+ years of Trump very publicly spewing racist garbage. Let's just review a few recent examples:
- Claimed Haitian immigrants were eating neighbors' pets
- Currently claiming Somalian immigrants have setup vast networks of fraudulent daycares
- While he's worked diligently to stop immigration from, what he calls, "shithole countries" like Somalia, Haiti, and Afghanistan, he's advocated for increased immigration from "nice" or "beautiful" countries like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. He also specially carved out a special South African Afrikaner refugee status for white South Africans.
- Repeatedly called SARS-CoV-2 the Chinese virus, "kung-flu", etc.
- Told four congresswomen of color (3 of whom were born in the U.S.) to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came". A bipartisan resolution was passed in The House condemning these comments as racist.
- And we can go back a long time ago, and remember the Central Park Five, where he relentlessly attacked five innocent black and latino children, calling for the death penalty for them. Even after DNA evidence proved their innocence, Trump never apologized or acknowledged wrongdoing.
Each of these you could try to individually explain away as a misunderstanding or whatever. But there's an abundantly clear pattern of racism, not just with Trump, but much of his administration.
Your comment triggers so many thoughts, but the first one is I'm so friggin' naive, which is embarrassing. In my fantasy world corporations make investment decisions based on risk. They invest in a country like Venezuela and part of the due diligence is evaluating whether things may go sideways, like in any investment, and what plan b is if they do. And if plan b is getting the government to backstop you with money, guns and/or regulations then that would not be a viable strategy.
But, at every level in the US, that plan b is viable. And it's used over and over and over again, from small local businesses with local politicians to the US Federal Government and military for the likes of the oil industry.
At what point do you just accept the truth: that you (me!) are the dumb one because you hold onto this fantasy of how you think things ought to be as opposed to how they are?
Why is plan (b) bad? From my perspective it is certainly how things ought to be. If my property is nationalized in another country by force, I am fully in favor of my country swinging its dick around to get it back.
And what is to say that plan (b) isn't taken into account when doing the risk assessment in plan (a)?
In your world everybody will be at war with each other. The way to deal with the risk of foreign nationalization of your assets is to price it in or to forego the opportunity. Expecting your country to go to war for your private interests is ridiculous. You can go to court if you want and if you lose you'll have to take your lumps.
It must be lovely to exist in a world where you think you can punch someone in the face and nothing will ever happen to you if they don’t respond immediately.
Good thing the window of opportunity for retaliation is now firmly closed and we’ll never see anyone come back years later for revenge.
Unrelatedly, has anyone seen the twin towers lately? I visited NYC for the first time in 30 years and I couldn’t find them anywhere.
Indeed, and that was just a loosely knit organization of US haters that figured if they can't do anything in a direct confrontation maybe an indirect one would work.
One of these days someone is going to set off a nuke in a capital somewhere and we're all going to wonder where that came from...
Incidentally, I believe Bin Laden is in part responsible for Trump's election.
You may have not seen the update, but as per the king we will be running Venezuela.
This isn’t over and out adventures like this tend to create adversaries that bite us in the ass later, even when a competent admin is the one with their hands on the wheel
The US has sent nun rapers all across Latin America, puppet leaders, outright military takeovers, and everything in-between. The people we make enemies with haven't forgiven us for all those things, and I can't imagine there is much remaining unaccounted overlap between people that disagreed with all the other stuff, and those who were ok with the other stuff but not this.
This is one of those weird moments where I have a hard time wondering what new people we can even piss off that somehow weren't already against us from prior LA incursions.
Ordinary citizens were bombed in Caracas. There are videos of such bombings. Please do consider that the loss of the lives of ordinary people is a risk.
I am obviously speaking from the perspective of a superpower or a nation, not my own perspective. To a superpower, the lives of 40 people is indeed "virtually no cost" for the benefit of $17T worth of oil reserves and a favorable regime change.
> Expecting your country to go to war for your private interests is ridiculous.
At the risk of coming across as flippant: Why? I don’t think the math has worked out on most peer conflicts during the past hundred years. The cost of the operation has likely already exceeded the value of whatever infrastructure was left in Venezuela to be reclaimed. But why should we expect courts and bailiffs to enforce the law domestically and not expect soldiers to enforce it internationally?
The benefits definitely do not accrue to you, though. There is no direct or indirect benefit to you supporting the invasion of another country where you can now bomb locals with impunity.
What if military intervention was an explicit part of the investment agreement in the first place? I’m not saying it was, but would it affect your judgement?
Imagine you start a business in another country where the law says your business assets will be seized if you don't file tax form 123(a) before August. That is to say, non-filers don't have any business property rights. And you don't file the form.
Do you:
(Plan A) Realize you fucked up
Or
(Plan B) Send in the military to kidnap the president and take over the country, retroactively claim the law wasn't the law, undo its effects (but only for you) and then change the law so that property rights work exactly the same way they work in your country.
Now you see why people are saying plan B is bad, and would cause everyone to be at war all the time.
> If my property is nationalized in another country by force, I am fully in favor of my country swinging its dick around to get it back.
In this case your property is actually not your property though. Assuming property == oil, then it belongs in Venezuela - you seized control of it but it’s not really yours.
I'm sorry, I can't resist extending your metaphor:
The problem comes when "swinging your dick around" you accidentally get the other country pregnant. Then you have to co-parent the resulting child government, and they are always moody, rebellious, and ungrateful.
As soon as they're standing they run all over the house, painting the walls, breaking things, and costing you gobs of money. You can't ever go out, because the moment your attention wanders even a little they throw a party and invite their hooligan friends over; and wrapping up the party and throwing out their friends is another expensive debacle.
Not to mention the endless shady boyfriends/ girlfriends that parade through the place. They're "just experimenting" they claim: fascism, communism, and dictatorship are just phases they're going through as they explore who they really are.
Eventually they get resentful and want to live on their own. To accomplish this they kick you out of the house, and you end up leaving your car and many other possessions behind, and many times they trash the place as you leave.
If you're lucky, you both mature and you can develop an adult relationship in time. If you're not, they end up beating up their cousins and you have to break up the fights and pay for the broken furniture.
In short: don't swing your dick around, and if you must, be sure to use protection. I'm not sure what that equates to in this metaphor, but it's obvious the U.S. flunked sex-ed.
Of course it's taken into account. Feel like you didn't read what I wrote.
Question back to you: who decides when the government gets involved in getting your property back? You cool with it if they don't do anything to get your property back because of the size of your property; the cost to make it happen; you're not friends with the right person; etc.? Or better yet they don't get yours back but they get your competitor's/neighbor's back? Seems like the thing that happens in these situations is that someone maybe gets their property back and then the dick swings to piss on the people who didn't.
As far as I recall, in Guatemala, United Fruit had undervalued the worth of their land to reduce their taxes. So when they were compensated for the nationalization of their land based on their own valuation, they said that they were under compensated. United Fruit complains helped trigger the US intervention.
That’s the story in every oil producing third world country. Without western countries, and these days China, they would just have oil in the ground because they lack the technology and capital to explore for it and extract it. They want the colonizers to come just long enough to install the oil spigots then leave.
I admittedly don’t know much about the industry, but didn’t most other countries not elect to expropriate the infrastructure? My understanding was that a lot of the problems the Venezuelans are having now arose from alienating themselves from the international supply chains and expertise necessary to maintain the equipment used to extract and refine petroleum.
They just do not want colonizers to steal their country and interfere in their internal decisions. Unfortunately, this is the story with every First World colonizer: they do not agree with that.
They want to have their cake and eat it too. Here, the Venezuelan government invited western oil companies to develop its oil fields. Then they broke the deal and stole the infrastructure the western countries had built.
That’s very different from actual colonization, where countries showed up and expropriated resources the natives were already developing.
Oil companies were apparently compensated, but also allegedly not enough. Companies were awarded further compensation in international arbitration, but Venezuela has avoided fully paying up.
If that's all accurate there are numbers out there for what they owe, and it shouldn't be whatever the POTUS decides.
These countries are also mad at Britain and the Netherlands. In a few decades they’ll be mad at the Chinese too.
If these countries had been smarter they would have negotiated better deals and solicited competition from international companies to get the best terms. But that’s their own fault.
As someone living in a country where all of our oil wealth is being extracted by American corporations - America has a very special talent for "convincing" government officials to sign away their citizen's oil wealth. Not repairing that theft by nationalizing the oil seems more criminal than allowing the corporations to continue
What happens to the infrastructure built or businesses run or labor contributed by “illegal” immigrants who are now deported? Does the USA somehow reverse it and make it disappear?
Such a line of reasoning used to justify this kind of extrajudicial and warlike activity is somewhat similar to France’s nonsensical demand for long term reparations from Haiti for colonial infrastructure.
> What happens to the infrastructure built or businesses run or labor contributed by “illegal” immigrants who are now deported?
I believe “built” here refers to the financiers. Like when someone says “I’m building a house” they mean they’re paying to have a house built, unless they’re actually in the construction business, etc.
You mean the lady that basically called for this invasion, praised Trump and MAGA, promised she would let western companies extract whatever they want in exchange for personal power? Yeah, surely this will end well for Venezuelans.
It’s reasonable for her to say such things in order to get support of the nation most capable of removing Maduro and allowing her to rule. It doesn’t make her a bad person or speak negatively on how effective a ruler she will be.
I missed the part where Jefferson promised Louis the XVIth exclusive access to the colonies' wealth, and then France abducted the King.
Better analogy would be Pinochet's coup. Nationalists calling for the US to coup their own country and place them in charge in exchange for acting like docile puppets to US interests. This is exactly what is happening there, Trump said so a few hours ago.
She could had gotten everything she wanted if she only understood that blowing smoke up Trump's ass isn't good enough anymore. He demands bribes as well.
If $1-6 million buys a pardon, how much buys a country?
Which makes total sense, the military has been Chavismo's strongest asset for as long as it's been a thing
That won't change just because Maduro isn't there, whomever does take control, will need external protection, or the US acting as an unspoken enforcer (Unspoken because "No boots on the ground right now" but "prepared for a second wave")
The military clearly moved (or strategically chose to indicate they wouldn't move) for a paranoid, military-aligned dictator to be captured by a small force with only naval backup exactly when everybody most expected the US to move. Unless there's a faction there that actually likes Machado she may even be lower on the next-leader list than "Maduro pays his captors off with the contents of his offshore accounts, meaningful promises of oil money and empty statements about cracking down on narcotics trade". I assume he has ways of finding out who his loyalists are and who they aren't too...
I suspect there is also consideration of strategy here. The regime's lack of democratic approval is actually a benefit. A client state that has democratic approval has much more leeway to go against its master. A client regime that is unpopular with its population has no other base of support than the powerful country that put it there. This maximizes leverage.
Which implies it's may not be the actual reason. The reason might be as trifling as being salty over Machado getting the Nobel peace prize, and not Trump.
Prepare Canada and Greenland, you can see the standard American right wing response to unchecked war mongering right here.
On a technology note, anyone got any bets on which company gets all the free loot? Did Erik Prince rebrand for the fiftieth time? Seems like he’d be a safe bet.
I'd make the case it depends on who's defining what is and is not a crime.
Consider that the POTUS is a 34x convicted criminal, and yet he not only has total freedom, he literally has the highest quality personal protection ecosystem on the planet, and so much more.
So, who is the criminal here? Which are the crimes? And what is _actually_ going to happen?
He was charged 34 times for the same payment, multiple times per check, because they were entered as payment for lawyer instead of hush money for porn star.
"Falsifying business records" is a not a crime, unless it's done in the pursuit of another crime. The other crime was trying to influence the election (literally his job as a candidate). This is despite the fact that the books were cooked as payment to lawyer in 2017, after the election.
Alvin Bragg, the person who convicted Trump, specifically ran on prosecuting Trump.
It was entirely a political prosecution. If Trump had paid cash, he would have 10000x counts against him, one for each dollar bill.
34x of 4 years means he could have been convicted for a maximum of 134 years. One count for 4 years wasn't enough, they had to give him more time than some serial killers.
The judge specifically postponed the conviction after the election to see if he should receive prison terms or not. He absolutely would have had he lost.
When you're talking about changed laws, are you referring to the civil case against E. Jean Carroll? And when you are talking about "charges that the banks said weren't even an issue" are you talking about the civil fraud case? No banks were victims in the hush money case, which is where the felonies are from.
There was no victim in the hush money case which is why the prosecution was clearly political. Even Andrew Cuomo, Democrat and former NY DA, said that those charges never would have been filed against anyone other than Trump.
What made it a felony under New York law is the claim that the falsified records were intended to conceal another crime, specifically efforts to influence an election.
To a decent approximation, if Trump had not been running for office when he did this, then it wouldn't have been a crime. But then, he wouldn't have cared to cover it up.
Covering up that he got off with a porn star isn't the problem. Like Bill Clinton, it's the actual particulars of the coverup rather than generically that there was a desire to cover up an extramarital affair itself that's the problem.
Technically opening up your neighbor's mailbox is a felony. But in practice you will never be charged for it. Same thing with the hush money case. There is no law that makes covering up an affair illegal while running for office and Trump was not charged with any campaign finance violations. He was charged with the vague crime of "falsifying business records" which, while technically illegal in all cases, in practice is only ever charged if there is a victim who has been defrauded by the falsification. In this case there was none.
The Clinton case is exactly the same concept and is also 100% a politically motivated prosecution. So is the Hunter Biden gun charge. Nobody else ever would have been charged for that.
Yea, I read through the court cases. He got 3rd party valuations on property and just decided to change it on his whim to get a better deal on loans.
I understand that the rich are usually not prosecuted for this fact but if one of us plebs did that and the banks found out, they’d be all over us for fraud.
No, they really wouldn't. People do this all the time. Take the example of the (politically motivated) charges against Leticia James for mortgage fraud. Everybody lies about the house being their primary residence to get a better interest rate and nobody who doesn't piss off politically powerful people are ever charged for it. Fraud is essentially never charged if the loan is paid back.
From what I've heard, "primary residence" is a different issue, something along the line of US banks asking this at time of issue and never checking about updates.
Saying the property is worth more or less than it is… I don't know how this would even happen. The countries in which I've looked at mortgages, the banks don't give an option for a self-assessment. Is the US not like that? Or is it specifically a thing for getting a loan secured on a property that you already own rather than a new purchase?
The point is that in both cases it was a lie on a loan document, which is fraud. Donald Trump's loan was not a simple residential mortgage so the same underwriting process does not apply.
He got materially better rates than he would have based on lower valuations.
Banks have never given me or the other plebs the grace of fucking the risk profile of their investments to our own benefit when it’s found out.
You’re conflating the fact that it’s usually not worth the cost of investigation and enforcement in the event that the loans are paid back, with the idea that it’s not enforced in general
If the bank is stupid enough to give a loan on Donald Trump's own valuations rather than insisting on seeing the third party valuations then they have some employees that need to be fired. The criminal justice system just doesn't get involved in these matters where there are no civil damages, whether you like it or not.
The bank was unaware he had changed the valuation.
Also wasn’t it just for the fraud, it was because this fraud was connected to his attempts to manipulate the election.
If we are going to go further in this conversation I need to know if you can point to an action he has taken that you think is bad, other than appointing someone he turned on later.
You need to stop repeating things that are not true. His charges had nothing to do with the election. They were "falsifying business records". This law has nothing to do with elections and it is not a arguable point. Also, "manipulate the election" is a completely meaningless phrase.
Nope, you can't argue out of both sides of your mouth on the electoral bit.
Yes people are rarely prosecuted for this crime, because its usually not worth finding out and dealing with. His was found because in this particular instance his crimes were found because he was committing them while trying to manipulate the election via hush money payments that were connected.
You're either one of the sanewashers for this guy or the ones who fell for his shtick, but just because he's constantly committing crime all the time, including while engaging in politics, doesn't mean he has an aura of protection because of it
That isn't manipulating the election. It has absolutely nothing to do with the election whatsoever. NDAs to cover up embarrassing personal matters have always been legal.
I don’t have anything to say further to you. I cannot help you reason your way out of an emotional position and if you think the stormy Daniel’s shit wasn’t done to hide the story during a campaign then you are in an emotional position.
Of course it was done for the campaign. But that isn't illegal, which is why he was not charged with any campaign finance related charges. You really can't seem to get that through your head, can you?
You do know that "it" can refer to two different things at different times, right? In this case the action, which had everything to do with the election, and the charges, which had nothing to do with it.
You are confusing different cases. The one he was convicted for was falsifying business records. That was an open and shut case where no banks were involved and no law has to be changed.
There were a couple of dpdgy cases against him but he was not convinced of any of them.
I'm a Norwegian without direct skin in the game, but according to these[1][2] sources it was "§ 175.10 Falsifying business records in the first degree"[3], stated to be a class E felony in New York.
Penal Law Section 175.10
Falsifying business records in the first degree
A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof. Falsifying business records in the first degree is a class E felony.
Falsifying business records with intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime.
The 'another crime' was never specified.
I guess he joins all the other people convicted of falsifying business records with an intent to commit another crime unspecified.
It does seem a bit made up for him. I'm sure lots of people have errors in their business reporting and how do you defend against being accused of an unspecified crime?
I'm not really a Trump fan but I think it would have been much better to prosecute him for something real like trying to steal the 2020 election than the above silliness that was just ignored and let him get back into office.
> Consider that the POTUS is a 34x convicted criminal
To be fair, they were political persecutions and show trials just so that people like you could write that sentence and help the Democrat Party keep the presidency.
I’m not saying Trump is innocent in life, so don’t mistaken what I am saying for that. I am clearly and specifically saying that the 34 convictions are a joke and that only the gullible and the zealots buy into them.
Isn't the 34 counts due to the fact that the trial concluded that Trump paid Daniels via Cohen but hidden the payment as "legal expenses" and therefore falsified 34 different documents?
It is not like they invented extra fake actions that Trump did not do, it is all part of the same fraud. Either you recognize that Trump was guilty in this affair, and he gets X counts of fraud, X being a large number due to the number of document involved (and maybe someone can argue on the exact count, but 34 or 28 is not a big difference, so it is a different argument that move the goalpost), or Trump was not guilty at all. You cannot really say "well, Trump is guilty for the first 2 counts, but then not the 32 other counts": how can he be guilty in one document and not be guilty in the other which is basically identical except for the date?
Also, isn't a large number of counts of conviction pretty common in case of fraud? (for exactly the reason I've given: the falsification of each document counts for 1 count)
People who claims that 34 counts of conviction is the result of a political persecutions seems to have no idea that 1) this is usually how it works, this is usually what people get for fraud, there was no special treatment for Trump, 2) pretending that it was maybe 1 or 2 counts of felony but not 34 does not make any sense, 3) even if they wanted, it would not have been possible for the trial to conclude "just 1 or 2 counts", and it is therefore ridiculous to pretend that this number is the result of a political bias where they choose the higher number just to be mean toward Trump.
> and help the Democrat Party keep the presidencty
You're writing your own narrative there bud. I'm not even a USA citizen, I have literally zero ability to influence the USA electorate to any degree. So cut the rhetoric, it's tiring and frankly destructive to real discussion.
I'm neither gullible nor a zealot. Trump has a long standing history of ripping people off for many millions of dollars, regardless of the currency. There's an endless supply of receipts, give me a break.
And that's long before we even consider that he's literally operating illegal wars (not approved by congress), which _is_ breaking USA law.
There are different categories of crimes and violations.
You can call it "The penal code", "Common law", or "Crimes" (as opposed to violations).
And in almost all countries in the world the list is the same and has been for hundreds of years: Murder, robbery, theft, rape, battery and so on.
Do you think people walking the streets of Washington DC are less safe because of crimes such as those Trump was convicted of? Or are their main concern murder, robbery, theft, rape, battery and such?
Edit: Of course my comment nets a hacker down vote instead of a discussion, but for example Nordic countries make a difference between "crimes" and "illegal things" in their laws. And so do South American countries.
The United States has the "felonies" category, which is very comparable. But they also include victimless and non-serious crimes such as tax evasion and copyright infringement.
One batch of crimes is awfully much worse than the other. That is what law takes into account. Dismissing Trump's public safety measures in Washington because he himself has been criminally convicted is what I myself would call "intellectual gymnastics". But sadly also typical of hackers, who seem to forget to feel empathy with the victims of street crime.
Trump definitely killed probably 100s of thousands of people, with how he handled COVID, and USAID. The law doesn’t consider those as murders, but it’s quite obvious that they were.
Also, the laws of the world have definitely not had the same list for hundreds of years, and the old ideas of those things are somewhat different to the modern versions. For example, for most of those hundreds of years, "rape" wasn't just about intercourse, it was about kidnapping (same etymology as "rapture": snatch and carry off). This is specifically why spousal rape, in the modern usage of the term, needed to be added to the statue books: little to no thought given to the idea of a husband kidnapping their own wife.
Also on that list for hundreds of years: charging interest on loans.
Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote sounds like an admission of sexual battery to me. Now, it's important to note that I'm not a lawyer, but here's the thing: lawyers have also said this about that quote.
Even if you ignore all the stuff about Epstein, even if you limit yourself to just that self-chosen set of goalposts, he's a wrong-un.
> Also, the laws of the world have definitely not had the same list for hundreds of years
You're correct. The list has been the same for thousands of years, not hundreds. Since the great Hammurabi. Then it has been added on to, and very rarely redefined. As in the good example you give.
> Also on that list for hundreds of years: charging interest on loans.
Usury is still a crime, but has been redefined away by legislators. Just as rape is again being redefined away in some countries right now.
Now back to the topic at large:
> Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote sounds like an admission of sexual battery to me.
> Trump has lost lawsuits related to sexual abuse
If you go to walk the streets in Washington DC, would you be afraid of Mr. Trump charging out of the White House to sexually abuse you, perhaps grabbing you by your genitals? Or stealing your purse? Or would you be more concerned about your more common criminal doing something like that?
Because the hacker above claims Trumps crimes somehow negates public safety campaigns in Washington DC.
> You're correct. The list has been the same for thousands of years, not hundreds. Since the great Hammurabi.
No it hasn't.
First, I've read some of the code of Hammurabi. Fun stuff like this:
7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.
…
110. If a "sister of a god" open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.
…
282. If a slave say to his master: "You are not my master," if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.
(Also, bit of fun, number 6: "If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death." - to which I point at the photos of all those documents he was supposed to return after his first term in a bathroom in Mar a Lago).
Second, I've also read Leviticus. Fun stuff like this:
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
and
Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
To quote others on this:
The "Law of Moses" in ancient Israel was different from other legal codes in the ancient Near East because transgressions were seen as offences against God rather than solely as offences against society (civil law).[6] This contrasts with the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100–2050 BCE), and the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BCE, of which almost half concerns contract law).
> Then it has been added on to, and very rarely redefined.
Oh gods no. Even the Christian Bible has seen significant politicised re-translations, famously with the King James Bible, but also fundamentally the New Testament itself is a refutation of almost all Torah law.
Even just within European Christian nations, there's been huge variations of what was allowed. 1066 England, Normans became a ruling military elite over the now-conquered Anglo-Saxon population, a native Englander killing a Norman triggered severe penalties, but a Norman killing an Englander did not.
And I've not even touched on Islamic law, the range of things in pre-contact Americas, across Africa, across the east Indies, in Asia.
Not all cultures even have a concept of personal property for theft to be a coherent concept. You may object that you said "countries", but go back pre-Westphalia and you don't even find something we'd really recognise as countries.
> Usury is still a crime, but has been redefined away by legislators.
That's tautologically false: if something is "still" a crime it cannot also "have been redefined away by legislators".
> Just as rape is again being redefined away in some countries right now.
"Away"?
At most, I'm seeing a return to the old definition (IIRC, this would include Russia?)
> If you go to walk the streets in Washington DC, would you be afraid of Mr. Trump charging out of the White House to sexually abuse you, perhaps grabbing you by your genitals?
Given I'm not his type, too old and too male, that's a silly question.
If I had a teenage daughter, I'd avoid DC just in case.
> Or stealing your purse? Or would you be more concerned about your more common criminal doing something like that?
I would not fear a common criminal stealing my purse before or now.
Trump, however, I would fear ordering his people locking me up with a demand that I hand over money to make the problem go away.
It's not like he's obeying the constitution or anything.
> Because the hacker above claims Trumps crimes somehow negates public safety campaigns in Washington DC.
Just look at the subject of this very thread: he's essentially just stolen an entire nation.
The run-up to this involved ordering the deaths of 114 confirmed dead plus 1 more missing presumed dead, by way of the strikes on alleged(!) drug boats, when actual convictions even if those boats had reached US waters would not have been death penalties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_strikes_on_alleg...
This, *by itself*, is about twice the difference in DC homicides between 2024 and 2025, 187 -> 128.
I would add that for vast swaths of time in a lot of areas of the world in between Hammurabi and now, there wasn't even a written code of law, it was more based on customs. Rome did not have written laws for the first 300 years of its founding. A friend I was talking about this was in disbelief when I mentioned this.
Good point. That Rome fact raised my eyebrow, but then I remembered how low literacy has been historically, and the eyebrow returned to the usual position.
Because the basic crimes are so universally understood and detested, that there needs to be nothing written. Murder, theft, robbery, etc. Every person knows from birth that those things are wrong, and it takes severe brain washing for people to change their minds on it.
Have inconsistent definitions over time. Hence my example of legalised murder in post-Norman conquest England, and cultures without personal property where theft is a nonsensical concept.
Also, just ask around left- and right-coded answers to "is taxation theft?", or in the US specifically "is abortion murder?" or "is the death penalty just state-sanctioned murder?"
"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"
And, pertinently to this thread, when is a military action murder vs. not murder? There's lawyers looking at the videos of Venezuelan boats being destroyed saying "the US murdered those people". Is one of the sides here, pro or con it doesn't matter which, a victim of "severe brain washing"?
Similar disagreements (albeit by non-lawyers) are had regarding all wars I recall in my lifetime.
The existence of grey zones doesn't negate the existence of clear cut cases.
You can argue for or against anything by quoting edge cases. That doesn't mean that every case is an edge case. Very few cases are edge cases.
> There's lawyers looking at the videos of Venezuelan boats being destroyed saying "the US murdered those people". Is one of the sides here, pro or con it doesn't matter which, a victim of "severe brain washing"?
What's the argument being made? That's war, which is of course murder. A soldier's job is to murder the enemy.
As for your examples, they are probably not as certain as you think. Good luck secretly taking somebody's favourite hunting spear from him and then tell him that personal property doesn't exist.
Congratulations on knowing that people have different perspectives on most things, and that these can vary through time and through places. You are not the only person who knows this. What is interesting are the common values which sprung up in different cultures, different times and different places.
If somebody murders your child or your sibling, you are going to be outraged if you are a human. Only severe brainwashing and total dehumanization could make a person react in a different way.
I appreciate your reply very much, it was nice reading. But between you and me, I sense that you might be getting a bit too high on your own supply of intelligence.
Certain crimes tend to be low in dictatorships, so I don't think that's a good indicator of anything.
What about the storming of the Capitol 6th January? The criminals got pardoned and the people investigating the crimes conducted that day were fired. This shows that Trump does not care about law and order at all, only about personal power and control.
The policy that led to a collapse in oil production in a petro state? The policy that led to an economic collapse so severe that 20% of the population has emigrated? That's the policy you call defensible?
That was the policy that allowed him to build a social welfare state for people tired of being exploited. Famine decreased, life expectancy increased, and the HDI became high. Unfortunately, this ended when the country was sanctioned and embargoed.
Why do these strong, socialist countries anyways need US trade to function?
The Venezuelan economy was dying before the sanctions.
Burning the economy to hand out free money isn't good for the people.
Maduro and Chavez fixed the exchange rate, imposed price controls, printed money and did a wave of nationalisation (not the oil infrastructure that was in the 70s). USA isn't to blame for Venezuelan dysfunction.
> socialist countries anyways need US trade to function
Sanctions go way beyond just direct trade with the US; they attempt to prevent all countries on earth from trading with the sanctioned entity, by force of the USD settling system, or as the past week has shown - the US Navy. So it reduces the number of potential trading partners from hundreds to a handful with (near) reserve currencies, and a navy that's not a pushover.
Now I hate your typical south american dictator just like the next guy and know a thing or two from the ground about what sort of instability and crime wave his regime caused across much of South America, but some reality check - if US blocks you from selling oil and you are a regular country and not a china/russia, you practically can't sell oil, not in stable big numbers that can contribute to economy. Yes bits here and there on black market for much lower price, but thats it. And all oil is sold in USD, hence the popular 'petrodolar' expression, and US will fight till its last soldier and missile to keep that status.
Also tells you how serious US is with sanctioning russia and its army of oil&gas resellers btw, which is the primary cash flow financing russian war in Ukraine.
Chavez actually did quite well in the early years. I'm not sure he nationalized oil but took greater amounts of the revenue in tax and used it for positive things for the people. It went downhill after a while with many of the problems common to communist policy though.
He was awful from the start, sending political opponents to prison and transferring oil money to himself and his croneys, but he claimed to be taking from the rich to give to the poor, so the Western left lapped it all up. It took them years to realise what he was actually doing (from the start).
He could give a hell of a speech. I've listened to him make speeches where pretty much everything he said was correct from a policy standpoint. The problem was he was an incompetent administrator running a personality cult.
I'm reminded of Noam Chomsky and what has recently come out about his social time with Epstein. He would talk about how the media only allows leftist thought in public as a sort of controlled opposition. Then he turns out to be exactly what he was complaining about. One moment he's calling Steve Bannon the enemy and the next he is smiling with him and Epstein, in a photo I've heard multiple people describe as "the happiest they have ever seen him".
All this is to say: it's not enough to "say the right things". Your actions have to match.
Chavez was corrupt but the people he replaced were also corrupt. Even when Venezuela was "rich", most of the people were poor and felt like they weren't benefiting from it. The US is probably going push Venezuela to that prior state, where the country is rich on paper but most people are struggling, setting up a call for another Chavez. That assumes the US can just waltz into the country and take complete control, which is probably not going to happen.
> Better some people are poor than everybody is poor
Well, technically it's only better for the few that are not poor, for all of the others, it's the same. It's even probably worse because rich people in a country with mostly poor people tend to be very efficient with capturing most of the value produced by the others.
He also indicated they will work directly with Maduro's second in command, not the putative winning candidate from the last election. This is purely about theft.
In the eyes of the US, the expropriation of American assets in Venezuela [0] and then selling them to Russian [1], Chinese [2], and Indian [3] interests was theft.
Russian-US relations are tense for the same reasons due to the saga of Sakhalin-I's nationalization from Exxon [4] following the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine and Russia's sale of Exxon's stake to Japanese [5] and Indian [6] interests.
The previous administration also stopped Saudi and UAE from invading Qatar in 2017 [7] due to Rex Tillerson's personal interests with Exxon's stake in Qatar's energy infra [8]
That said, assuming the US doesn't attempt a Venezuelan version of de-Baathification [9], this should be a fairly standard transfer of power - US-Venezuela relations only really tanked when Maduro came to power and hard pivoted Eastward, as even under Chavez American business operations continued and the relationship wasn't severely tense. And from the sounds of it, the faction backing Delcy Rodriguez chose to give Maduro up and (reading between the lines) roll back nationalization in return for staying in power.
Almost everything in political science can be modeled using Tsebelis's Veto Player model, Mesquita's Selectorate Theory, Kuran's Revolutionary Threshold, and the Agency Problem.
In a nutshell - "might makes right". Also, Maduro was charged all the way back in 2020 in SDNY [0]. I am not a lawyer, but SDNY is almost always used because most high profile cases have some sort of economic crimes component, which inevitabely leads to Manhattan (Rayiner can jump in and corroborate or correct this statement).
If someone pushes back on DoJ authority, the Trump admin will point to Juan Orlando Hernandez's (Honduras) indictment in 2021 [1] and get an opportunity to bash the Biden admin and call out "double standards" for his base. If not, then this will stand. That's why I find the drug indictment angle interesting - it seems that it is being used in lieu of the now revoked FCPA because it also gives the ability to leverage physical force whereas the former only really gave an economic lever.
Essentially, the rules-based consensus was a 1989-2014 era anomaly, and we already made a return to multi-polar power competition. Most foreign policy leaders under Obama 2 onwards have all been "realists" like Allison, Doshi, Mastro, and Colby and the worry of great power competition has been the primary topic of conversation for almost 2 decades now.
Not taking sides here, just trying to steelman: some Venezuelans might be so done with Maduro, that they consider US getting the oil profits to be a fair price.
This is all irrelevant - it's completely unacceptable for the US President to send the military into another without Congressional approval, and to kidnap a leader at all (especially without a declaration or war or UN authorization).
The War Powers Act actually does allow this. Congress has to be back filled within 48 hours after the action (and they were). He can also station troops up to 60 days without congressional approval.
As Jonathan Turley reports https://jonathanturley.org/2026/01/03/the-united-states-capt... this operation will be justified as executing the criminal warrant (issued by the Biden DOJ and outstanding since 2029) and responding to an international drug cartel, a very similar legal framework to the one used against Noriega in 1989 - which was tested in multiple US courts. So like it or not there is longstanding court affirmed precedent supporting that earlier operation, which will now be used to defend the actions in Venezuela.
Does this mean trump will be pardoning Maduro on receipt of a sufficiently large bribe? That seems like the only explanation for recent pardon of former Honduran president Juan Hernandez.
Even before Trump v. United States, Maduro would have enjoyed immunity as a head of state. They still need him as a source of info on the generals. And if the drug smuggling explanation works, cartel details justifying maneuvers in Mexico.
So a thought experiment: If China were to put out a warrant for Trump's (the most unpopular president in US History, someone the majority of Americans disapprove of, a convicted criminal, and a pedophile who raped young people and has not been brought to account for these crimes as of yet) under the pretense that some of his victims were Chinese nationals and then invaded the Whitehouse to forcibly remove him to China, would that also be legal and justified ? What would you expect the reaction in the US to be ?
To be very clear I do not support this -- out leaders should be held to account to their people, not foreign invaders deciding for us. Even if it seems unlikely that they ever will be, it's our process and people.
This argument doesn't really hold water because the jurisdiction of a nation isn't the whole world.
If we have a warrant for a Sovereign or someone else with Diplomatic Immunity we -- at the very least -- should not invade their territory to carry it out. That's not how the civilized society works, and that's not how we want it to work as evidenced by the thought experiment above.
If we are at war with a nation or people, and reject the premise of their fundamental sovereign or diplomatic nature of course it's a different story since we are talking about a fundamental disagreement of reality. There's a separate process for that weighty decision by the US people's representatives.
well, there are ICC warrants. They do ignore diplomatic immunity. And opinion of many people that, for example, Netanyahu should be at least arrested if he lands in Europe and at most "somebody" should send extraction team to kidnap him
It seems like we should not invade another sovereign country unless we are at war -- a weighty process we should undergo because it's how the will of the people manifest in power.
The US isn't a participant to the ICC, so I'm not sure what exactly your implication is... ?
I do not think we should invade Israel and kidnap their leader. I believe the people of that country should self-govern within their sovereign rights. I don't think China should invade the US and kidnap it's leader. I believe the people of the US should self-govern within their sovereign rights. I don't believe the US should invade Venezuela and kidnap their leader. I believe the people of Venezuela should self-govern within their sovereign rights.
i was pointing out that diplomatic immunity (of head of state) that you mention is trashed by ICC warrants (in countries who are party to it. i.e. good chunk of europe).
so, in the moment that something as basic as diplomatic immunity can be violated by warrants for investigation (not for trial), invading another country to arrest somebody based on warrants that you had issued domestically is not that big of leap
You are talking about a after a country has decided that they want to participate in the this process by ratifying their participation intentionally. How does this relate to a unilateral invasion ?
Vienna Convention (1961): This treaty standardized the rules, making diplomatic immunity a binding obligation for its over 190 signatory nations
And then comes ICC (via Rome statue, ratified by 125 countries and half a dozen of them in process of withdrawal) and trashes with it warrants diplomatic immunity.
So in case international law/treaty from 1961 is all of sudden not binding, why wouldn't uniliteral invasion (actually it looks like it more of arrest operation) (which is probably prohibited by some other international treaties) not be ok ?
I do not understand the point you are making. You cite a treaty that countries explicitly agree to protect diplomats while they are guests in another country -- I'm not sure what relationship this has with one sovereign nation using force to rendition someone from another country.
The only country that has agreed to the terms of the ICC here is Venezuela -- but there is no ICC arrest warrant for anyone involved, nor is the US acting on behalf of the ICC nor does it have any authority to do so.
The invasion (which was required to perform the arrest, since it was within the territory) was definitely an invasion and morally wrong.
As noted several times, there are many ways that this could have been done that are in accordance with civil society it. It wasn't, and that is bad.
my point is that diplomatic immunity is international law. signatories to rome statue said that they will violate it (diplomatic immunity of Israeli head of state) because of icc warrant.
this is violation of international law that multiple countries openly stated that they will perform.
essentially it means that international law is not binding and selectively enforced. this is slippery slope.
if you can ignore vienna convention why not ignore whatever other part of international law that prohibits invasion ?
PS. UK and France just bombed ISIS in Syria. Is it also invasion and morally wrong ?
I still do not understand your point because as you state there is no conflict between the two agreements, and further there are no pair countries involved that mutually agreed to the ICC:
- Diplomatic Immunity (through various treaties): Countries that participate will respect diplomats
- ICC: Countries that agree will participate in ICC judicial process
From what I can tell, you seem to be under the impression that there's some conflict here. If that is your position then you are wrong. A country can both simultaneously respect foreign diplomats and work with the ICC to ensure that local citizens are held accountable in the ICC.
BUT, a further point -- international law can never be binding. It's between sovereign peers, and is based on the concept of reciprocal benefit. International treaties give the participants some benefit in exchange for something else. This has to be the case because there is no superior entity to arbitrate violations of the law. If you don't keep up your end of the bargain, you risk the other participants not keeping up their end of the bargain.
This is, for example, why having the top US officials committing war crimes is bad -- it's not because some superior nation will inflict justice upon the violator (because no such entity exists) but because other signatories have no legal obligation to not commit war crimes against us (although, many people are morally opposed to most war crimes and wouldn't commit them anyway).
A further note about your PS, which seems unrelated to the topic is that bombing isn't itself an invasion (it may be part of one), but for my opinion I think that killing people without due process is bad and should be a last resort for defense.
I've had some additional time to reflect on this thread and I think I can spot the core disconnect.
Do you believe that the Vienna Convention requires that countries treat their diplomatic representatives in some special legal way ? For example, do you believe that the Vienna Convention obligates the US to extend diplomatic immunity to the US Ambassador to France ?
If so, that's backwards. It doesn't obligate one country to treat their own diplomats specially inside their own legal system, it defines how participants of the treaty will treat FOREIGN diplomats. The benefit of being part of the treaty is that your diplomats are treated specially when they are in foreign lands, and the cost is you treat foreign diplomats specially when they are in your land.
The currency of treaties is reciprocity.
A treaty can never be binding, there exists no superior entity for which to bring your appeal which can then ultimately use their monopoly on force to extract justice -- each nation is sovereign and a peer in that respect.
Finally, I didn't address your last paragraph but I will now: It does not matter if the USA calls it a law enforcement operation and not invasion, it was still an invasion. It was an invasion because it meets the definition of the word. But ALSO it wasn't a law enforcement operation because the laws of the US do not apply in Venezuela. Also, it's illegal in the US to use the US Military for enforcing US laws except in times of invasion... although it sadly specifies that the US must be the entity being invaded, not just there be an invasion.
So it sounds to me like you are stating that you are okay with the original premise that it would be okay for China to come to the US Whitehouse and forcibly remove Trump to China to stand trial for the crimes he may have committed against Chinese nationals ?
I would love to live in a world where every government was democratically elected by an informed populace and never tried to assert authority outside it's borders.
> not how this works
When you say this, what exactly are you referring to?
Just because something is happening doesn't mean it's according to the law or even morally justified. We are discussing whether it is lawful, not whether it actually happened or whether they are capable of doing it with or without consequences.
You believe in something which has never existed and will never exist. In international relations, there has never been anything besides "might is right". Anything else is an illusion. At most something that leaders pay lip service to, when it aligns with their own goals.
The law of the jungle is reality. World War II was won by terror bombing civilians. It is lamentable, but reality is reality. So to say "that's not how it works" is denying reality.
“Never”? Not once in the Story of Us has any dispute between large groups of humans been resolved by anything other than a superior application of brute force? Strong claim, but I’ll run with it.
And you appear to believe this is a pretext for humans to ignore their own laws and commit atrocities, when they could choose otherwise.
It may be reality that jungle law is currently how humans almost always handle conflict at nation-state scale. Non sequitur that it should remain so.
Unfortunately thats how the politics and economics of violence work when you are the most powerful country in the world (n.b. I am not American and think this situation is deplorable, but the legal facts and construction support Trump’s actions)
You act as if they don't have loopholes for this or that there will be consequences when the military industrial complex is behind things. Were there any consequences for Iraq WMD BS
Why? It's not a war they were just capturing someone to face charges. In the same way we didn't need to declare war against Pakistan to go in and get Osama
This is wrong and hilariously short sighted. Other countries don't respect America due to military might - they do so because of decades of mutually beneficial trade agreements. Soft power is infinitely more useful than hard power.
Both play a significant role. Many countries absolutely respect us because of our military might. They rely on it because they don't want to divert funding from welfare to build out their own militaries. As such, they ally with us, creating inroads to trade et al.
Obviously, there's more than just military might, we have the most innovative and powerful economy on the planet as well.
However, with a country like Venezuela, where none of our allies truly care what we do (sure, they might blow hot air but whatever), we are free to use hard power to achieve our objectives.
People who don't live in a superpower. People who care about international law. People who would rather the most powerful countries didn't act like bullies whenever it suits their interests.
"Who cares?" was glib on my part, I admit. It was obviously stated from the perspective of an American relying on that power, towards other Americans.
However, international law has always been a thin veneer over the reality of international relations. History shows that nations act in their own self-interest, regardless of the "rules."
The concept of one country "bullying" another is irrelevant moralizing. You are applying playground rules (or the rules of civil society) to a global stage defined by anarchy: there is no "teacher" to stop the "bullying" here. It is a zero-sum game of security and power. At this level, "bullying" isn't a meaningful concept, only leverage is.
Should the world be this way? I wish not. Political realism is a grim framework. Unfortunately, game theory tells us that so long as any one superpower believes in realism, the rest of us must as well, or risk getting outmaneuvered. And Russia/China certainly believe in it.
The United Nations was created to avoid future world wars by managing conflicts. If the US decides as the world's superpower to go on an imperialist rampage through the Americas without regard for what the UN, Europe or Russia & China thinks, eventually the rest of the world is going to team up like the Allies during WW2.
The UN is simply ignored by all superpowers, and many lesser powers. Failed experiment. It is, at best, a forum for communication, but with no real enforcement capacity of any "rules."
> "Who cares?" was glib on my part, I admit. It was obviously stated from the perspective of an American relying on that power, towards other Americans.
> there is no "teacher" to stop the "bullying" here.
It's funny how the same person can mention "realism" and then proceed to "leverage" in the same conceptual realm of thought about the present day US. Just wait until three to four (insignificantly) smaller powers collude, target, and act against you like hyennas do, then try applying your leverage of ... what exactly?
"Realism" is not being used in the sense of the colloquial word, but as in "political realism," the framework that governs international relations between most superpowers today and in which "leverage" through hard or soft power is the core concept.
That's explicitly been the case since 45 was elected a second time. Even if we get an adult in charge again, there is no guarantee of stability anymore with the way the population is.
Like who? Biden a puppet with dementia, Obama invading Libya and helping kill Gadaffi (and actually killing his family), as well as drone strikes on individuals in lots of middle eastern countries, Bush and Iraq/Afghanistan, Clinton and .. Iraq? but also war on drugs and Mexico border fence. Previous Bush - Iraq again?? Before that, South America again.
Biden became worse in the last year, but he wasn't a 'puppet', certainly not like the current president is. I'm not a fan of Obama's actions but he at least gave justification instead of inventing it and lying like Bush.
Kamala was the obvious choice and the only adult running in the last election, but she lost largely due to sexism, racism and gullibility of the red state population.
Assuming we get to have another election, we'd hopefully have someone like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren.
Democratic rejected Kamala resoundingly in the primaries, and then the Democratic leadership tried to force her down everyone's throat. That's on them, not the voters. They asked people to eat a sandwich some shit on it instead of a shit sandwich and not surprisingly voters weren't too enthused.
No, it's on the voters, 100%. A primary would have been messy. She may not have been everyone's first choice, but she was 100% the responsible choice. People screwed over the country out of spite, but that's 100% in line with how immature and uneducated the US population is. Not to mention bigoted in various ways.
Obviously she was not everyone's first choice. She was almost no one's first choice. Democrat voters let her know that when they only gave her ~7% support in the 2020 primaries. Maybe a messy primary that everyone feels a part of would have been better than a few leaders of the Democratic party attempting to anoint the next president. Maybe you think it was the responsible choice, but that certainly isn't what Obama thought in 2024, since he was pushing for open primaries before his hand was forced into endorsing Harris.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both performed significantly better than Harris did in the 2020 primaries. Maybe one of them would have been the responsible choice.
> Obviously she was not everyone's first choice. She was almost no one's first choice.
Right, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter that she wasn't the ideal choice, it only matters that she was so much significantly better than the alternative.
Clearly that was a miscalculation then. Maybe because when people vote, most people don't think "Who is better - Trump or Harris?", they think "Do I like my party's nominee?"
Bernie Sanders vs. Trump. That would have been interesting. Two populists, but also two geriatric white men. Trump would have the advantage of insults and better media savvy, but Bernie would have the advantage of not being Trump (and not being tied to Biden either).
If Trump successfully stole the election in 2021, I'm sure there would have been many Americans who would be happy for Canada or England or France to capture him and put him on trial..
That will really be up to the new Venezuelan regime to decide whether it was an act of war or not. I don't think Maduro will have much ability to declare it as such.
Is your position that if someone commits a coup, some other country or the international community can't go in and uninstall that person from power?
Regardless of whether the leader of a country was a dictator, elected or not, another country going in and kidnapping the acting leader within the borders of his own country is an act of war.
This doesn't depend on what the successors think. They might later declare this act of war was necessary for the liberation or whatever, but it's still an act of war.
You may agree with the act, but it's an act of war.
Well, I'm certain Maduro considered it an act of war. But he's not president any more. Does the current President of Venezuela consider it an act of war?
> Well, I'm certain Maduro considered it an act of war. But he's not president any more.
It doesn't matter what Maduro thinks. It doesn't matter whether he's a bad guy or a dictator. The situation after the fait accompli also doesn't matter.
What matters is that the military of a country crossing the borders of another country without permission, to conduct a military operation, and kidnapping the (de facto or legal, doesn't matter) leader of said country is an act of war.
There's no "it depends". It might be a justified act of war, but it's an act of war.
It boggles the mind that you dispute this. You seem to be confused, mentally adding "evil" or "illegal" to the words "act of war".
> Does the current President of Venezuela consider it an act of war?
> Is your position that if someone commits a coup, some other country or the international community can't go in and uninstall that person from power?
I find the assumptions behind your question fascinating.
Where did I say anything about what a country can or cannot do? A country can do whatever its military might and ability to absorb repercussions allows it to do.
This is completely unrelated to whether the path the country does decide to take constitutes an act of war or not.
If you're asking me whether I like that the US is playing world police and deciding who must face the law, and take them by force anywhere in the world, weeeell... let's say it's really messy to try to justify the US when it supports some coups, some dictators, and some brutal regimes, but acts against others, and the overall rule seems to be "if they play ball with the US it's ok, if they don't then war".
A small consolation is that the US is seemingly stopping their horrifying practice of extraordinary renditions and torturing suspects abroad, outside the scrutiny of US society and institutions. I think that was Bush era, but maybe it persisted during Obama too.
> It's not a war they were just capturing someone to face charges.
Invading a foreign country with military force is a war even if the purpose is to effect an arrest. And when the President claims that the intent is also that the US will run the country afterwards, its even more clearly a war.
> In the same way we didn't need to declare war against Pakistan to go in and get Osama
Congress had already exercised its power to declare war with an open-ended declaration almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, which covered the operation direct against the head of al-Qaeda.
I have yet to see it in this thread, but the WSJ reported that the "crime" they "extradited" him for is running a drug cartel and dumping tons of cocaine into the US.
I know this is what they claim (well, they also say because of oil and because he was friends with US rivals, but that's less defensible), but anyone really believe this is about drugs? Was there ever any proof Maduro was a cartel boss?
They are getting their message very confused. Is this about drugs? About the Venezuelan elections? About oil? All of the above? None of the above? Who knows anymore.
Bombing a capital city and kidnapping its political leader and hijacking its oil tankers is not the same thing at all. Not to mention Pakistan was and is officially an ally of America, and despite them harboring terrorists, officially Osama was a criminal there too.
Look, you don't just regime change, It didn't work in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. It only really kinda worked in Kosovo, but even then it was touch and go, require lots of troop time and a load of money and ongoing international police.
And yet, it's not a justification for what was done there, and it's not a justification for what was done in this case either. Wasn't a justification in Iraq with Saddam for that matter. I remember the day the Iraqis pulled that statue down, they seemed very happy to be able to do that. And then...
My understanding is that the US military is not so great at the "hearts and minds" game, to put it politely. It doesn't take much time for locals to be outraged by macho assholes acting like they own the place. Makes the recently dethroned dictator look somewhat decent in comparison.
if we’re going to steelman we have to acknowledge that many venezualans liked him too.
we can’t simultaneously say we don’t like corruption of socialist governments while literally bombing another nation and imprisoning political enemies just so we can have its oil for our cronies.
Trump said Machado doesn't have support to be leader and endorsed Maduro's VP as willing to work with the US. It seems unlikely the Venezuelan people are going to see any benefits here. They will get more of the same.
There should be a sitcom where Assad, Yanukovich, Snowden, and the Venezuelan VP are sharing an apartment in Moscow. In the Christmas episode, Putin shows up and teaches them the true meaning of Christmas.
Trumps approval rating isn't great either but I doubt many people would see that as justification for another country kidnapping him in the middle of night to charge him with "has an army with machine guns" before taking American oil
If Trump made himself king and dragged the US so far into corruption and poverty that another country could so easily capture us, yeah I'd be fine with them bagging him.
On top of that, I don't think the common Venezuelan laborer was getting much benefit out of the Maduro regime capturing the oil wealth. From the point of view of the less fortunate, there isn't much difference between a Venezuelan elite enriching themselves off the local oil vs an American elite enriching themselves off the local oil.
Claims of sovereignty are meaningless, what happens is whether those claims hold up in real life, and in this case they clearly don't.
A country is either powerful enough to enforce sovereignty, or it is not actually sovereign; so this hand-wringing about "Venezuela's sovereignty" is meaningless. It's already been proven false, to some extent.
The US is free to do what it wants with Venezuela, or virtually any non-nuclear country in the world. Always has been, really. It simply doesn't exercise said power very often.
Is this then a call to assassinate local politicians you don't agree with? Some might makes right thing? We're all at least momentarily able to overpower or mortally harm one another, but often don't choose to. Why do you think that is?
You seem to be mistaking my comment for a moral stance.
I am not making a call to do anything, I am simply describing the nature of international relations throughout the vast majority of human history (including the current day), in a framework most commonly defined as realism.
Superpowers act in their self interest, ignoring "international law" when the benefit meaningfully exceeds the cost. They can do this because there is no one to stop them. They will do this because it is in their self interest.
Americans will probably benefit from this action, or at least that is the administration's thesis. Is it moral? No, but discussions of morality are irrelevant on the world stage, which is a zero-sum game defined only by leverage.
I think I assumed you're commenting for a reason because it doesn't make sense to make these comments otherwise - they're more or less vacuously true, and there's no value to them outside of an assertion of some sort.
> the world stage, which is a zero-sum game
I'm not at all convinced this is true.
You should think about the question posed in my first comment - why do you think we don't choose to overpower one another regularly to take what we want?
svnt and HN's misunderstanding of international relations and the concept of "sovereignty" is what my comment is directed at: in discussions about superpowers on the world stage,
(a) moralizing is simply irrelevant, discussions about whether this is "good" or "bad" are childishly naive and have no place - only whether it was advantageous or not; and
(b) sovereignty is meaningless if a nation does not have the hard/soft power (and the will) to back it, just as if you declare your house a "sovereign nation" it will not be respected unless you are able to back it up.
Perhaps this is an obvious/vacuous truth to you, but most HN'ers are clearly failing to grasp this.
> why do you think we don't choose to overpower one another regularly to take what we want?
Because it is not always advantageous to do so. When it is clearly advantageous, nations tend to do so (as evidenced by virtually all of human history, including the current era.)
So much of the past decade has been the internet infecting the population with 19th century thinking like this. Alliances are a thing, and might makes right is something we have told ourselves for generations that we oppose. I am so tired of this nihilism dressed as edge.
Please leave a substantive comment instead of just calling something a "redditism" and "appalling."
You may not like the framework of realism but it is the reality of international relations today (and throughout most of history.)
Rules-based international order has always been a thin veneer over the fact that nations will always act in their self-interest regardless of what they say.
Finally, game theory tells us that as long as one superpower behaves according to the principles of realism, the rest must as well, or risk getting outmaneuvered.
People don't like to see difficult to accept facts stated plainly. And sometimes equate a statement of unfortunate fact with endorsement of status quo.
More on topic, I hoped there would be some support from Colombia, Russia, and China in place to help with this situation. Instead it seems like Maduro took an exit deal and left the country at the hands of the GOP who openly promulgate the idea that the US should lord over all other countries in the western hemisphere.
There's nothing substantive to the comment I'm replying to.
It's explaining in too many words that might makes right. We all know that.
On the other hand I believe, but I could be wrong, that the many comments of the sort in this thread are a way for some people to cheer these sort of actions without being too obvious about it because they know it's not a good look in some circles, hn being one. So rather than chanting usa usa usa like their gut tells them too, they resort to such emotionally distanced statements, obvious to everyone, pretending to simply constate the gap in military capabilities of the US versus other powers.
There's a massive difference, and that difference is that American oil companies, unlike the Venezuelan state run industry, are actually very competent at extracting oil. This means more good paying jobs, more state revenue, and massive economic growth. Contrary to the claims of most of the economically illiterate morons commenting here, having a functional local oil industry run by foreign companies will actually be great for Venezuela.
your comment sounds alot like nationalist chest thumping, the reason they were unable to do much with their oil is much more related to the usa deciding they would sanction the country meaning basically worldwide they can't sell the oil
Definitely not, but the furthest away the ones profiting from something are, the worse it can get.
It is definitely not a guarantee that a local enriching elite will at some point lead to something better, but most examples that come to mind about "colonies" (places very far from a center of power), resulted in said places to develop much harder.
But neither the Venezuelan elite nor the American elite will tolerate any hint of democracy. And neither elite will be satisfied with merely exploiting the oil.
How about not going there at all for whatever reason, under any circumstances. And there are bigger issues at stake, no amount of drugs "made in Venezuela" inhaled by Americans can kill them as much as one North Korean Nuke.
I'm surprised no lesson the US learnt from similar overthrows in the past, but again this is Trump. The country can get so unstable that by the time Marco start giving out "legitimate" orders, there will be 30 different groups fighting and killing each other. True unchecked anarchy. So what's then? Boots on ground. Are we still in the spirit of sacrificing 150,000 American soldiers in the name of freedom, like we did in Iraq? When we kicked out Russians from Middle East we were not aware they kept islam jihadists at bay, then Al Quaida came to live and we all now how it ended.
I wasn't even thinking about the drugs. Is that a real thing? North Korean nuke isn't a real concern.
Iraq had no goal. The stated reason was WMDs and 9/11, so bogus and unrelated. Stability wasn't our concern either, I mean we funded Saddam Hussein to begin with. US companies did set up oil drilling, but I really don't think the driving motivation was oil, otherwise we'd have gone to Venezuela first.
Afghanistan has no oil. Iraq does, but the US showed no interest in taking it for decades. It was most likely pushed by our "greatest ally" there who also has no oil.
The Kurds are our greatest ally in Iraq and they most definitely have lots of oil in addition to letting US operate on their territory in exchange for protecting the oil interests. I suppose you could say that's not us taking the oil but we still get value like we had taken the oil and provided fair market rate to host bases in exchange.
I said fair market rate to host bases. Saddam was definitely not leasing us military at fair market rate in Iraq (or Syria for that matter, where Kurds also host US base).
> I'm surprised no lesson the US learnt from similar overthrows in the past, but again this is Trump.
Its not Trump, its the US.
Someone always comes along trying to attack/occupy a country. Making big promises.
Years later when nothing is achieved. Someone else will come along talking about how much US is spending, taxpayers dollars being lost, failures etc.
In recent example, Afghanistan and Trump come to mind. Everyone talked about how Afghanistan was a waste of taxpayer dollars. But now here we are.
The only thing which I can say specifically about Trump is that I wouldn't be surprised if the flip towards "Venezuela was a waste of taxpayer money" happens during his administration and he comes out saying "I have never heard of Maduro".
> When we kicked out Russians from Middle East we were not aware they kept islam jihadists at bay, then Al Quaida came to live and we all now how it ended.
I thought the US was well aware of this, since the US was funding the Mujahideen at the time?
Let's not sacrifice anymore Americans in the name of freedom, but the number was substantially fewer than 10,000, not anywhere close to 150,000. Perhaps that many Iraqis died, or maybe even more.
Absolutely, this has been clear for a long time. Countries are only truly sovereign if they have a reliable nuclear capability, otherwise they are always at the whim of another country with a sufficiently powerful military.
> It's an objectively fantastic thing when those presidents are doing things not in our interests
Why wouldn't China do the same in another country whose president is not acting in China's national interest? If you were Iran[1], would abandoning your nuclear weapons program for sanctions relief still be an option?
Of course each of these countries are ignoring international law in various respects and doing things in their self interest.
Anything as brazen as capturing a president? Not yet. But I can absolutely see them doing this if they deem the cost/benefit great enough.
I wouldn't be surprised if China goes further and launches a full-scale invasion of Taiwan in the next decade, they've certainly been preparing for it according to our intel.
> What the fuck do you think China is going to do next time the US does an “exercise” in the china sea?
They will continue to blow hot air but ignore it, unless they truly and sincerely believe it is a real military action worth starting a war over (and destroying both economies over.)
> What the fuck do you think Iran is going to do next time Israel acts up and the US supports it?
They will continue developing their weapons program thinking they can do it in secret, and it will continue to get compromised and/or blown up.
I don't really care what you think of me, but please adhere to the HN guidelines[1] for civil discussion, this sort of fulminating and personal attack simply has no place here (though there are other websites for that, if you so desire.)
Re. nuclear weapons, sovereignty - I am not "advocating" for anything. I am simply describing the factual reality of international relations, and "political realism," the school of thought that governs international relations between superpowers in the current day and throughout most of human history.
That you are ascribing to this description some sort of moral stance on my part is a judgement error on yours.
Who’s we? I’m guessing you’re not a general in the US military, so I don’t know why you’re inserting yourself into this decision.
Do you think a nuclear war would be good for you? Obviously not, so you shouldn’t want your government to threaten to start one. And you shouldn’t support your government when they signal to the world that the only way to be safe from interventionism is to develop nuclear weapons. Or when they signal to other superpowers that they don’t respect international treaties, or the sovereignty of other nations.
If the answer is "nobody" then yeah. Venezuela doesn't have nukes. North Korea or Russia aren't going to nuclear war over a country they don't even have a security agreement with, or even if they did. The US has already attacked Iran, Iraq, and Syria (under Assad).
I'm not the one who brought up nukes and legit don't understand what they meant by that. To answer the other question, yeah I can generally see some valid reasons to remove a foreign leader from power. Not sure about Maduro.
No, but I am one with regard to US foreign policy.
Since you’re not (by your own admission), spend more time reading the globalist (1950s - present) reasons why the US meddles with foreign governments and what forcibly creating a power vacuum does for the local populace.
Then you’ll be better equipped to have a conversation with knowledgeable people about the topic at hand, instead of blithely wondering “hmm, is it actually bad when we extra-judiciously remove a head of state because we want oil?”
> "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so."
> "We're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have it"
> "It's gonna make a lot of money"
> "Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial"
I think it’s normalization. If they can ignore Congress, lie to them, break American law, ignore international law, what’s to stop them from violating the constitution? It’s how they will ultimately deport 100 million Americans, like they proposed a few days ago on the DHS Twitter account. Don’t fix things through the political process - just ignore them and use military force.
> And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela"
Venezuela is down to 1 million barrels per day, down from 3 million per day from the 2000s because of the sanctions after Hugo Chavez. They own the worlds largest reserve (about 300 billion barrels worth) and it was always my understanding that we worked with them before Hugo Chavez went the route he went and brought a great nation to shambles for a power trip.
I think Venezuela will recover with our aid, but a lot of their old infrastructure is gone, they will need investors. They will also need to deal with their crime problem and hold real elections for once.
> I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime.
I heard that as Trump doing his usual thing patting himself on the back while justifying the continued use of our military for domestic law enforcement.
Why is this downvoted? He never misses a chance to say its a good thing that the military is being used on the American population. The recent ruling against the use of the National Guard comes at a time when Kavanaugh is just upset that his name is going down in history for the term Kavanaugh Stops
>>"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and >>judicious transition"- And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go >> into Venezuela"
The new President of Venezuela will be called Fulgencio Batista...
>ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
I get the impression they are concerned at least a bit with the welfare of Venezuelans. Maybe a secondary consideration to drugs and oil but here's what Trump was saying:
>We're going to run the country until
such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious
transition. So, we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get
in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the
country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious
transition. And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about. We
Bots don't have much of an opinion on these things. I'm disappointed that everyone is so cynical. At least the Venezuelans seem cheerful even if some HN commenters are not and sound like they'd be happier if Venezuela had another twenty years of poverty and dictatorship.
People who remember Iraq and Libya understand the difference between stable dictatorship and unstable warlord era. Removing those dictators left the countries more deadly and poor than otherwise. Libya in particular created the European refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. I suspect one outcome of this will be even more Venezuelan refugees, including illegally in the US.
> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
100x times this!
US administration doesn't care about the welfare of most human beings in the world (including in the US).
We saw it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Yemen and now Palestine. Having an assumption that this move was made for Venezuelans and now they're liberated from evil is wrong.
Iraq was probably against Israel's interests. (Israel hates Iran, Iraq hated Iran. US taking out Iraq made Iran stronger which made Iran more threatening to Israel)
He didn't say not to attack. It says in there that he told Bush that Iraq was a threat, but that he shouldn't occupy Iraq or try to build a democracy there because it won't work. The rest of the article is 2007 hindsight.
I feel like OPEC scales up/down production on a whim more than Iran produces.
Unless you mean the potential for a boycott like what happened back in the day. However the geopolitical situation has changed enough that i think that is exceptionally unlikely.
I don't think Israel is capable of a ground invasion and i don't think USA has the stomach for it.
I suspect they will just continue to try and economically strangle iran and pick off their allies one by one in the hope of an internal revolution (or wait until there is so much economic damage they aren't relavent anymore)
The psyops online is quite amusing and insane, painting this as a victory for Venezuela. And weirdly by pro-Israeli account on Reddit.
By now my radar assumes Israel is somehow connected like many other events we've witnessed in the past. Venezuelas president was quite staunchly against Israel and it's interests, close with Iran too.
Israel is just an extension of the US in the middle east under the branding of Judaism. The desire is to weaken and eventually ignite the region in conflict. Already taking place between Saudi, UAE, Yemen etc. Weakening takes time.
Funny list of countries. Ask women in Afghanistan how they were treated with US presence vs. now. Ask jews in Palestine how Hamas treated them vs. Israel. Ask people in Yemen how they are living right now, but be sure to talk to them directly instead of writing to them, because barely anybody there can read. Their leaders just love them so much, they don't want them to read any bad news.
If you ask women in Afghanistan you will hear different views. People in the cities had a better life during the American occupation but in rural Afghanistan women were often worse off than under the Taliban. The US propped up warlords, some of them real monsters, and those controlled a lot of the country side. There was no good side in Afghanistan and the US should have stayed out, instead of propping up one group of oppressors to try to defeat another.
I don't think I understand what your point is? Are you implying that the US should have what? Stayed in Afghanistan forever? What solution would you have proposed there?
I see a lot of people posting about a lot of Venezuelans being happy that Maduro is out, and many using that as providing moral justification for the action. But this seems murky to me. If say the majority of the US population would be happy if trump is gone, does that justify some other country coming in and kidnapping him (leave aside the ability and consequence of this)? It doesn't seem like it.
It looks like propaganda. Day after, and then all the American news sites post stories about Venezuelans celebrating? Looks like propaganda. Almost no dissenting stories, no real discussion. Blackhawks and missiles at night, and hooray, spontaneous street parties, and news reporters just happen to be there to capture their "spontaneous" rejoicing. Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC, NBC. Rejoicing, dreams of democracy, yatta. CBS seems like one of the only sites that actually carried somewhat balanced coverage of people burning US flags, and no to American war.
My vote had absolutely zero impact on the election, and I haven't been able to vote for a person I actually liked, supported, and believed represented my interests in any national US election.
I'm mostly wouldn't like an external coup because it'd activate all my neighbors and we see a whole lot of violence in that struggle. I imagine I'd feel the same way if I lived in another country and some 3rd party deposed my government for arbitrary reasons.
That's explicitly not true. The vast majority of your life is managed by much more local politicians where your vote matters a lot more. Not to mention, if the only time you vote is once it's "red vs. blue", you've missed the primaries, which is your chance to say which red or blue you want to see up there.
Having been involved with local governments and served on city council committees, my experience has been that they literally only care about things that are legible to them. If I have an idea about parking or a preference for landscaping, they are pretty responsive. If I want them to remove flock cameras they tell me I am a crank. And all the canidated running feel the same way.
But honesty, national politics are very local for me.
Because you can answer this question, maybe:
in what way did my vote in rural Colorado effect -any- election at -any- level in a way that I could have avoided this situation where I go to weekly protests against ICE?
Cause, hoss, I hate this shit. There is literally -nothing- more that I would love to believe than I could just, like, vote for a better local school board.
I am almost 50 and I am in the streets with kids because I know for a fact that mass deportations which started under Obama are the root of what we are seeing.
Or how about this:
literally what voting action have I have taken that makes me responsible for the two children who were kidnapped from my community by ICE, for whose sake I got pepper sprayed by DHS Federal Police and ICE, and who we were unable to prevent from being stolen.
Because while I feel culpable for not following up on all actions that I had at hand, I don't think that it was voting that led the feds to assault me and 20 of my comrades.
So you're smart- tell me how my vote caused that in a way that I can "do better next time".
I think Maduro almost certainly cheated. All history and our current geopolitical relationships indicate that does not matter to the US unless you oppose them.
Even pretending to follow international law when you don’t actually do so is, to some small degree, support for international law. What the US did is essentially state kidnapping of the sitting head of an another state. This is going to be vastly more stabilizing than Maduro cheating.
> The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
As opposed to what? Who "should" be the decider? China? Russia? Maduro? The Venezuelan Military?
The alternative is not that Venezuelans choose who stays in power democratically. The alternative, as we just saw until now, is that the Maduro dictatorship maintains power through force.
You seem to think US did this because Maduro was a dictator. They themselves clarified it's because of oil.
Why they don't attack Saudi Arabia then? Saudi's even had a role in 9/11.
Decades of lies shaped the narrative that all invasions US do is because countries have dictators, it's being the narrative even now when they explicitly say it's because of oil.
They didn't do it because of oil (well to take for ourselves). They did it because Venezuela has been cozying up way too much to Russia and China, and sending both of them a lot of oil.
The President of the United States quite literally plainly stated on national TV that we did it for oil and will be sending US oil companies in to steal their oil to sell for ourselves.
He even went so far as to say it was “our” oil a few weeks ago. That was quickly forgotten among a stream of other outrageous things that happen daily.
Today seems like a day to rewatch Team America: World Police
Maybe try learning something about oil extraction before making insane claims that it is even possible for an oil company to just roll up and "steal" oil and send it back to the US.
I'm no fan of Trump, and I believe he's basically gone rogue, but, literally, he never said what you say he said. If I missed something, please provide a reference, but I doubt you'll find anything. You simply misheard. He's been extremely brazen in mentioning such a crass topic as American interest in Venezuelan oil, which normally would be pushed vigorously under the rug, but he didn't go as far as saying that's the reason. The official (and preposterous by itself) reason is still the drugs.
My take concords with what @JumpCrisscross said elsewhere in this thread:
"HN sometimes has trouble understanding coalitions.
Some support for oil. Some want to unseat a dictator. Some are concerned about Venezuela being a hive of Chinese, Russian and Iranian activity. Some did it to destabilise Cuba, or lay the groundwork for hitting Iran. Still others are just plain psychopaths and like blowing things up."
I would add that personal pique probably had as big a part in this decision as anything else.
"We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country, and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so," Trump said.
Yes, and? Read my comment and the comment I was replying to. Nowhere did Trump "literally admit" they went in "for the oil". Nor that they plan to "steal the oil". I'm not saying that that's not part of the reason (probably is, but not the only one). Trump though, didn't "literally admit it". This whole adventure is outrageous and misguided enough as it is, without us needing to bend the truth to make it feel even more so.
HN sometimes has trouble understanding coalitions.
Some support for oil. Some want to unseat a dictator. Some are concerned about Venezuela being a hive of Chinese, Russian and Iranian activity. Some did it to destabilise Cuba, or lay the groundwork for hitting Iran. Still others are just plain psychopaths and like blowing things up.
Yes, and oil will now flow to Florida - for as long as an obedient US puppet lives. The gal who actually won the election is not obedient enough for Trump since she doesn't have "support and respect" of the nation according to Trump.
Oh, I don't think the US should just topple all dictatorships!
If the US could press a button and have all dictatorships automatically become stable, liberal democracies, I'm pretty sure they would do that and we'd all be happy.
But the US cannot just topple the government of all dictatorships at once. If it tried that, it would just cause immense chaos, and all those countries would unite against the West.
The US has to ally with some dictatorships against other dictatorships, like it did with the USSR against the Nazis and how it does with Saudi Arabia against Iran.
Iran hates us since the Islamic Revolution (when we supported the Shah), and finances multiple terrorist groups such as Hesbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship, but at least it's not a revisionist state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_state) and has a more peaceful objective towards its neighbors.
If the US refused to ally with dictatorships, the only country in the entire Middle East that it could ally with is Israel. It would have to fight all other countries at once.
They don't pay us anything to sell their oil. We have a relatively small partnership with them, but that's about it. And they're part of OPEC, which is deliberately designed counter to US interests.
As hard as it is to watch a people suffer a dictatorship; that's the Venezuelan's task, not the US's, not Russia's and not China's.
International law clearly states that a sovereign nation has the right to self-rule, without external intervention. The UN Charter doesn't differentiate between democractic and non-democratic nations - it's up to the people of a nation to select their leadership.
We've seen this principle violated before, when the Ukrainian people took the streets for months to topple their leader in 2014. Russia to this day takes this as an excuse to question Ukrainian sovereignty, framing the events as a "US coup" to justify their violent invasion of Ukraine.
The argument you make just plays in their hand. "There was a violent coup - we need to remove the coup government and bring back democracy to Ukraine", they say.
Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized.
What if the US decides that it will not recognize the government of Denmark as democratically elected and moves to liberate the people of Greenland from their despotic dictatorship?
You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
I think you have some good points, but you take it too far. The UN charter is the way it is not because it's the optimal approach, but because non-democratic countries had too much power for it to be otherwise.
As an example, the American Revolution had support from France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Britain saw this as shocking interference in an internal matter, as did loyalists in America.
Personally, I think it was a good thing, helping a people determine their own fate. Applying the same measure here, I simultaneously think it's great Maduro is out, but that the manner of it is terrible. As well as being foolishly shortsighted, both for the US and the world more broadly.
The charter limits the powerful nations. Rule #1 is nations cannot start wars. Starting a war is a crime.
The charter requires some consensus by the international community to authorize use of force against another country.
Article 51 acknowledges the right to self-defence. The only country that has a right to violence is the defending nation and those who aid it from aggression.
And this is, once again, American aggression. We aren't doing it because it's right. We're doing it because we can. In violation of international law.
I doubt there is any other "optimal" approach, but do say what you would propose.
There will always be indirect interference anyhow (think social networks, books, press, people talking, tariffs, visas, etc.), so there is some possibility for states to push things in their direction.l
I think imagining there can be some "authority" that could decide when "direct interference" is allowed or not will be a disaster at some point, because even if at first is OK, as a society we don't seem to be at a point where we can have organizations that work well for hundreds of years.
I think the last part of my post makes it clear that I do. But if not, let me just make clear that we have to struggle through the Harding administration as best we can, but better days are ahead.
> As an example, the American Revolution had support from France, the Netherlands, and Spain
But to what extent did they do it to "free" america vs to take Britian down a peg because they worried Britian was getting too powerful?
I think most people here are doubtful of Trumps motives or that this coup will actually lead to a free Venezuela.
America worked out really well. There are many many examples in history where imperial powers interfering in a local power struggle worked out very poorly for the average person of the country.
Are these really separable? Even a an individual I generally have multiple motivations for an action. That has to be even more true for whole nations.
And I don't think there's any reason to be doubtful of Trump's motivations. He's a would-be tyrant and has made it clear that this is about world dominance, Venezuela's oil, and enriching American businessmen. He has no interest in a free, democratic Venezuela. If this does work out well for Venezuelans, it'll be more due to Trump's flaws (arrogance, laziness, increasing dementia, and the TACO phenomenon) than any intent on his part.
My read of your argument: international law says don't intervene in foreign government, and by intervening we legitimize future violence.
I'm not sure this argument makes sense. Maduro stole an election to force his way to dictatorship, is widely blamed for running the country into mass poverty, and continues to hold onto power through threat of violence. The Venezuelan people don't have any recourse here.
Also, in your example of Ukraine you indicate that Russia frames the uprising as a "US coup", suggesting that the reality of whether there even was external involvement isn't so important.
Even so, if some nation tried to use this strike on Venezuela as further justification for violence wouldn't they be violating the same international law you cite anyway?
Obviously the US has a rough track record of replacing foreign governments (a much stronger argument against this kind of act IMO), but so far this mission has looked pretty ideal (rapid capture of Maduro, minimal casualties, US forces instead of funding some rebel group). There is opportunity for a good ending if we can steward a legitimate election for Venezuela, assist with restoration of key institutions (legal, police, oil), and we avoid any deals regarding oil that are viewed as unfair by the Venezuelans.
You are deluding yourself. This is not some kind of "humanitarian" intervention, this is about controlling Venezuela and its resources[1]. Venezuela will not become a proper democracy after that, instead it will be an imperial US protectorate.
Whether Maduro stole the election or not is exactly and only the Venezuelans' issue. No one but them as a standing in the matter.
I did not mean to suggest that our motives were purely humanitarian. As I understand it there are numerous geopolitical implications with Venezuela, from China's loans-for-oil relationship to the Iran assisted drone manufacturing facilities. And of course we'd like some of that oil, too.
I'm just not convinced that removing Maduro is some horrible violation of international law. As I said in my original comment, I'd be more sympathetic to the argument that the US has a horrible track record with regime change.
Regardless, given the geopolitical significance of Venezuela's relationships with China and Iran it is ignorant to suggest that "[only Venezuelans have] a standing in the matter." And the illegitimacy of Maduro's election is not a topic of serious debate as your phraseology might suggest. He stole the election, he's bad for Venezuelans, and he's good for our geopolitical rivals. It is yet to be revealed whether our intervention will be a net positive.
Panama has done fine since a similar intervention.
The US didn't loot Iraq or Kuwait.
Trump is supremely transactional, so he doesn't do anything for free, but the high likelihood is that the US as a whole will spend more than it gets back in revenue, especially government revenue.
Panamá is doing "fine" because they actually own their fucking canal. If the US had its way and reestablished the Canal Zone, the rest of the country would collapse in on itself.
Which is exactly what they want to do with the Venezuelan oil.
Today, the Panama Canal is owned and operated by the government of Panama.
> The US first built Panama, and then built the canal.
We can concede that the US played the most significant role in the construction of the canal and applying pressure for Panamanian secession from Colombia, but Panama’s national identify predates the United States.
I love the USA too, but please chill with the rhetoric.
Right. I'm not disputing that the canal is, in fact, owned by Panama today. Nor am I suggesting the US should take it back even though I think it was pretty stupid to give it away.
The North did not attack the South; it was the Confederates who initially succeeded from the Union and fired the first shot of the Civil War at Fort Sumter in 1861.
Yes it does matter because by succeeding they broke the US Constitution, and by attacking the US military they committed an act of war against the United States military. Your comparison to the current situation in Venezuela doesn't hold because the US Civil War wasn't a foreign intervention, it was a domestic constitutional conflict.
Ok! Imagine the North was the one to fire the first shot to end slavery. In a hypothetical different timeline. Apparently you would oppose this and would just support letting slavery exist indefinitely in the south?
the south was already signed onto the law for ending slavery, and were part of the same union.
you havent made a good enough hypothetical yet.
there's no lack of slave states around, including ones that the US does business with happily. i think yes, if you made your hypothetical "what if the US had a slaver neighbor" yes, the US would be leaving them alone, other than some economic pressures here and there
You’re assuming that’s the only thing at issue here. When the US starts these wars for resources we always make statements about “spreading democracy” so we can hide behind that bailey. But Trump actually explained what it was really about in his speech: restoring access to cheap Venezuelan oil. Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt here. He’s doing the sane thing George W Bush did.
> Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized.
That was already the case. Our enemies don't care about the concept of hypocrisy. They aren't waiting for some moral high ground. They are going to do what they want to do regardless.
> You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
No it doesn't. If it is bad to invade somewhere, we can simply not do that. And we can judge this based on the situation and the consequences.
Your tut tutting isn't going to get Maduro back in power. That's what the guns and helicopters were for.
Additionally, if you want to actually figure out what was right or wrong, Id recommend that you go talk to some actual Venezuelans about this. The opinions are quite universal.
> International law clearly states that a sovereign nation has the right to self-rule, without external intervention. The UN Charter doesn't differentiate between democractic and non-democratic nations - it's up to the people of a nation to select their leadership.
I really wish people would accept that political realism is how the US really operates, rather than buying into the fantasy that there is some rules based order and quoting the UN Charter.
> The argument you make just plays in their hand.
Any argument made on this site by anyone here will have absolute no effect on the outcome in anyway. That has been the case for all of human history and will never change.
"Article 1 (2) establishes that one of the main purposes of the United Nations, and thus the Security Council, is to develop friendly international relations based on respect for the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”. The case studies in this section cover instances where the Security Council has discussed situations with a bearing on the principle of self-determination and the right of peoples to decide their own government, which may relate to the questions of independence, autonomy, referenda, elections, and the legitimacy of governments."
It isn't. There isn't a force standing behind to enforce the charter.
With politics and most importantly international politics, there is no law and no right & wrong. It's basically actions and consequences and whether the advantage you gain from your actions is worth the consequences.
People and groups of people (nations) will press their advantage. We press our advantage every day. Most people driving frequently exceed the speed limit - why? Because you can get away with it. If one could skip paying taxes and get away with it we would have done it. The reason the tax skipping doesn't happen often is because the consequences of doing it are high compared to the advantage.
The US just pressed its advantage today because it could get away with it and with minimal cost.
Pieces of paper don't do anything. They are not magic spells that enforce anything, and they only matter in so far as they are enforced by other actors with real power.
If you want to talk about what other countries with a military or trade power might do, go ahead. But the piece of paper is rarely relevant at the international stage.
That was certainly the case on The Walking Dead with the various surviving communities. But we should hope the actual world would operate a little more lawfully than a post-apocalyptic free for all.
So Russia's invasion of Ukraine will be legal if Russia wins? I doubt most people in the West will see it that way. Might makes right has never been a good basis for law.
I would argue that the concept of "legal" has no meaning in this setting. But if Russia wins in Ukraine, everyone will call it illegal, and nobody will do a damn thing to push them out. Eventually the world will recognize it as Russian territory just like they recognized it as Soviet territory and part of the Russian Empire before that. So yeah, it will be legal.
International law is real. It has discernible content, people who professionally study it, and it does influence (however incompletely) the behaviour of the world’s governments
This idea that law can’t exist if it doesn’t have a clearly identified enforcer is very modern-a lot of traditional/customary law (e.g. the Pashtunwali in Afghanistan or the Kanun in Albania) never had a clear enforcer but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, people sometimes paid attention to it, it influenced how people behaved even if they sometimes got away with ignoring it
Law is defined as "a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior".
International law is defined as "the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations".
When people say that international law is not real, what they mean is that "international law" is to "law" as a "guinea pig" is to a "pig".
The primary differentiation is enforcement.
People bastardize the term law, because they like to throw the word "illegal" around and imply "evilness" without being arbitrary. But guess what: Trump can be evil, without his actions being "illegal".
Without international law, actions would be the same (Serbia gets punished, Rwanda gets away), but you would have to argue for morality individually. Instead, people can point to some tome some unelected people wrote and say "this book says you're evil and you can't argue with it". The book says it's illegal and that's that.
Yep, the "great cost" is something that seems to get lost in the shuffle sometimes in conversations about this. No leadership realizes the error of their ways before a lot of suffering.
Not to justify what happened here, but your argument would mean that the US would likely have remained a British colony given that French intervention on behalf of the colonies was a contributing factor to the success of the revolutionary war. It also would heavily imply that once the allied forces had beaten the Nazi's back behind German borders, that they should have stopped there. An extreme non-interventionist policy might be the best default policy, but it is implicitly an endorsement of might makes right as well. There are almost certainly times when a country should feel justified in intervening in another country's "regime change", but those times should be very carefully considered and (IMO) never ever viewed as a first or easy step, only a last (or nearly last) resort.
Your argument is perfectly well suited to justify the imperialist Russian aggression against Ukraine.
My point is that there's no entity with the authority to declare a government illegal - besides the UN security council. Next thing you know China invades Taiwan and it will be hard to argue with "sovereignty of nations". Nobody - not even the US - cares about it anymore, right? We just declare a government as illegitimate and presto - no need to justify it anymore. Here we go for some more foreign wars.
This is not about "liberating Venezuela" from a dictatorship. It's just about placing a new dictator at the head of Venezuela, equally illegitimate and equally authoritarian. Venezuela has become an US protectorate for the foreseeable future. At least until the oil runs dry [1].
> Your argument is perfectly well suited to justify the imperialist Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Once you accept that there may be cases where you need to interfere with another country’s internal affairs, you can make up all sort of justifications to interfere (or not) in any given case. So yes, Russia would argue that the specific circumstance justify their actions. I would argue they don’t, but clearly Russia doesn’t care about me (and frankly wouldn’t care even if my opinion was that there is never a justification for interfering).
> My point is that there's no entity with the authority to declare a government illegal - besides the UN security council.
Now that’s an interesting claim. Why does the security council have this authority? From where do they derive that authority? Just 15 nations can declare your government “illegal”? Unless of course the government you want declared illegal happens to be one of those 15 I guess. So some nations internal affairs are more sacrosanct than others? And what happens when the UN declares your government “illegal”. Can anyone just waltz their military in and overthrow your government despite the fact that no one is supposed to have the right to interfere with the internal affairs of another country?
> This is not about "liberating Venezuela" from a dictatorship.
You appear confused because I never argued that it was. I merely objected to the idea that there was never a justification to interfere with the internal affairs of another country.
The principles of self defense say that once you are no longer being attacked, any further aggression on your part is no longer defense. For example, you can use lethal force to protect yourself from a person attempting to cause you grievous harm, but once they stop attacking you and start retreating, if you chase after them and beat them or kill them, you’re no longer acting in self defense and are now committing a crime. By that same token, once the axis forces had been pushed back behind their own borders, invading them becomes an act of aggression rather than defense. Once they’re behind their own borders, fascist war mongering governments are an “internal affair” for the affected peoples to deal with.
Now you might argue that a declared war is no longer a situation where “non-interference” applies, but war can be declared unilaterally. So you might say that only the initial defenders have a right to engage in regime changes, but does that mean that the Ukrainian people have a right to overthrow the Russian government in response to the current war? Do the Palestinians have a right to overthrow the Israeli government? Do the Irish have a right to overthrow the British monarchy for their previous aggressions? Do the British have a right to overthrow the US government for the American Revolution?
Which ultimately is just a long way of getting back to my point that “non-interference” might be (and IMO is) a good default policy, it’s also an unrealistic one for all situations. At some point something about the current political landscape requires a nation to interfere in the “internal affairs” of another country. But that is a dangerous game that should never be the default.
Ukraine was a US coup too, decades of involvement. Otherwise, either Russia wouldn't have invaded, or US wouldn't have been afraid to directly fight Russia over it. The sad reality is that countries in this situations will get captured or proxied by someone or another if they don't play things exactly right.
Yes, so let's imagine for a second there was no US involvement (there was minimal, in an advisory and intelligence role); Would Yanukovich still be in power? Would 2014 would've gone any different? Do you know what events happened preceding the shootings? The police violently beating the protesters? Obviously not on all counts. So to say that the Maidan was a result of US involvement is a russian talking point on a good day and a blatant, filthy lie on any other.
If you imagine that there was no US involvement and Ukraine's leadership did not in fact repeatedly state its intentions to fully join NATO in the 2000s, sure. I won't claim that the US materially supported the Maidan uprising, because there's no evidence.
Now going with that, it means Russia invaded Ukraine in an act of pure aggression. Instead of the halfway support Biden gave, we should be directly fighting Russia over this. Putin won't start WW3 over us stopping a totally unjustified expansion, unless he's already intent on WW3 anyway.
Now we're in agreement. Boots on the ground by 1st March 2022 would've saved us a whole lot of trouble in the long run, and a whole lot of lives. A bully never stops when he remains unchallenged.
Except that didn't happen in 2022 or later, so something in this story doesn't add up. And there's no reason to ignore that Ukraine kept expressing interest in joining NATO, that's actually a big deal.
Ukraine was NEUTRAL and NON-ALIGNED when russia invaded in 2014.
Putin's "NATO expansion" excuse is a barefaced LIE, and it's time more people called it out.
"From 2010 to 2014, Ukraine pursued a non-alignment policy, which it terminated in response to Russia’s aggression. In June 2017, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation reinstating membership in NATO as a strategic foreign and security policy objective. In 2019, a corresponding amendment to Ukraine's Constitution entered into force." (https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/partnerships-and-cooperat...)
2014 yeah, only under Yanukovych who was on Russia's side. 2005-2010, Yushchenko publicly stated that he wanted Ukraine to join NATO and was taking steps towards it, while both Bush and Obama supported expanding NATO to Ukraine.
"I welcome the decision by President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and Parliament Chairman Arseny Yatsenyuk to declare Ukraine's readiness to advance a Membership Action Plan (MAP) with NATO" -Obama
Before 2005, there were already smaller steps taken, including granting NATO military access. 2005 was a disputed election with both Russia and US involved.
Why does history have to start in 2010 for a 2014 war? You're picking a Russia-backed presidency that was getting ousted before Russia attacked. There's no way they were going to stay nonaligned. That 2010 law was just a law, signed by the president, undoable by the next (and it was undone).
"Russia then occupied and annexed Crimea, and in August 2014 Russia's military invaded eastern Ukraine to support its separatist proxies. Because of this, in December 2014 Ukraine's parliament voted to seek NATO membership, and in 2018 it voted to enshrine this goal in its constitution." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations)
A full ten months elapsed before Ukraine finally decided to change its constitution. That rather destroys your argument.
Russia attacked directly after Ukraine removed their nonalignment leadership. I'm not saying Ukraine changed its constitution before the attack, just that the 2010 law was evidently possible to reverse.
Even if Russia didn't attack, Ukraine would've gone back to NATO alignment just as they were doing pre 2010. Maybe even more seeing how the entire point of the 2014 revolution was to push away from agreements with Russia, and the protest leaders were all loudly pro-NATO politicians. How could this possibly have led to nonalignment, aside from "this is a Russian talking point"?
You have to think of the long-term consequences of blatantly abandoning the rule of (international) law for might makes right. The end doesn't justify the means.
Not to mention that the "end" here is first and foremost enriching the administrative "elite" and extending their power. If they cared about democracy, they'd stand firmly behind Ukraine instead of humoring Russia.
I think a coup was forming regardless. Fort Tiuna where Maduro was is not near the coast. So basically no one heard/saw/detected the US forces coming that far inland. Also, most importantly, no one stopped them from leaving with their president.
The whole "we got him" is a bit fishy. I think the Venezuelan military (and the current vice president) wanted Maduro out. A coup would have been messy. So the US comes in and does them a favor.
Part of the function of the fleet sitting off the coast for the past month would have been first intimidating then cultivating relationships with collaborators. Collaborators are far easier to find if there's a credible chance that things are about to change.
If that is you actual view of society, than you reject the concept of law itself. Just because people are able to act against the law (and get away with it) doesn't make law obsolete. In fact if they wouldn't act against it, there would be no reason to have a law.
And to be fair nearly happened in July 2024 as the last item of a long list of incident involving U.S. Presidents starting from Lincoln all the way up to the July 2024 episode and of course the last successful hit being JFK in 1963 and the last successful injury being the one suffered by Ronald Reagan
Socialism = tyranny? Wow. I guess you prefer the freedom of being bankrupted if you get injured, and getting taken by masked men from an unmarked van if you got some tan on your vacation, and then dropped to El Salvador.
At least he's honest, even if it's more like he lacks an effective filter. "bannana republics" and "bigger gun diplomacy" don't quite describe Trumps approach to foreign policy. One thing i can say about the operation is that it's a lot cheaper and less bloody then a ground invasion.
Someone should tell him Iran has loads of oil and China is getting it all...
IMO this has nothing to do with Maduro. This is just the first step. It is about the US securing large reserves of oil. Don't get caught into the propaganda.
The US doesn’t need large reserves of oil. The US is an energy exporter. The country is limiting investment in solar and wind, ON PURPOSE.
This is crony capitalism. This is Trump shoring up support from oil companies.
Mr Trump has purposefully depressed the value of non-petroleum energy sources in the US, which props up the value of US oil Producers and processors.
And now, This is a territory takeover by a mafia don, so he can hand favors to other rich guys. Maduro wasn’t doing the deal Trump wanted, so this is what Trump did.
If solar and wind were thriving in the US (as they could be!) then this new oil territory would be worth less. That’s why Trump hates wind. He cannot convert clean energy into a benefit for himself.
It’s not about drugs or fentanyl. It’s not about democracy or corrupt elections in VZ.
On the relative upside, Panama was a 10X smaller country. The US had some long-term skin in the game with the Canal. And Bush Sr. was in the Oval Office - making it not-too-hard to imagine that sane grown-ups were in charge.
Vs. "70s" sounds far more like Vietnam. And a whole load of other bigger/uglier/longer conflicts, under Presidents whose moral and military leadership seemed rather lacking.
Cuban forces with the help of Russia, Iran and China took control of Venezuela over 25 years ago, effectively looting that nation, and no one bitched about it.
As a brazilian, could you clarify what you mean by "The Brazilian Regime"?
Genuine question, the decades long dictatorship backed by the US military in 64 or the recent pressure Trump made to try and put Bolsonaro back into power despite his crimes?
It is so crazy that he is not turning around and putting the World Peace Prize winner in place. Everyone can get behind that and it is probably the fastest way to getting oil companies in there anyway.
Apparently, the Venezuelan vice president has sold out her country or is acting out of duress because she has allegedly offered full cooperation with the US. That could be a viable way to a US-led military/CIA dictatorship there, if the Venezuelan military and police around her allows it to happen. She seems to be in the line of succession. That seems to be the current "plan."
Yes, she has no democratic base since Maduro took power via election fraud. Watch the media to see if they just copy the feeds from the press agency, or that they will do the work they should actually be doing and put what-is-actually-going-on in focus.
That information is outdated by now. The assessment was based on Trump's claim that the US will work together directly with her instead of Machado, whom he considers unfit to be president right now. It was an attempt of giving a rational explanation of Trump's and Rubio's press conference. I assumed that in order for their statements to make sense there would have to be some backdoor deal with her. However, she has given a speech now condemning the attack and refuting the US narrative (although, leaving some door open for diplomacy).
I can't edit the original comment any longer so I hope people read this one. In any case, the situation is still very fluid.
> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelan
Depending on how cynical you are, you could say that all American administrations are like that. (I don’t think that’s quite true—I think Reagan/Bush had a genuine ideological vision of using foreign policy to promote democracy and capitalism around the work. But it’s certainly a common criticism.)
Maduro stole the election and no one in Venezuela could do anything about it. How exactly was Venezuela going to take care of it themselves?
Ultimately it's going to be outside actors, and no matter who it was, even the UN, Venezuela could just say we don't recognize your authority and nothing would happen
> Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
Lol this is already proven false.
The put the Vice President in power who is now coincidentally supporting what the US is doing, including sending oil companies in to as Trump put it “sell oil to the Chinese”.
Trump also did not even inform the armed services or foreign affairs committees. He spoke to FOX before he spoke to Congress. It is not clear if he's done or if we just declared war. His public statement that the US will now be majorly involved in Venezuelan oil is both very telling and very mysterious. How the hell are we going to assert power over their industry without foisting a new, friendlier government?
Easiest path from here on for the US is to cooperate with existing power structures in the resources grab/"sharing" + forcing some concessions, like increased efforts to fight against drug trafficking.
The institutions work if all countries abide by their rulings. The US doing this sort for things is destroying the institutions we have, chief of all the UN and the ICJ, put in place at the end of World War 2 to avoid a repeat. We have not learned.
JFK tried to build up international institutions on the basis that "Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside", but then both he and NSK got cancelled...
Yes, the UN was founded in 1945, and the Geneva Conventions originated all the way back in 1864, but some US administrations have tried to bolster international institutions, and some to tear them down. JFK, having said, "If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved" was among the former.
In 1962, he and NSK managed to arrive at a diplomatic cooperation; the reward for both of them was being cancelled.
That would be the UN. The last time the UN invaded a nation was in 1950. That happened because the Soviet Union boycotted the UN, so it wasn't able to veto it.
For the UN to ever fix a international issue it would require that country to anger all 5 UN powers. Venezuela has Russia and China on its side, so nothing would have happened.
>> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans,
I don't think this was a humanitarian mission. I'm speculating from Trump's perspective, Maduro was a major de-stabilizing factor. The Western world also seems to tacitly agree that the man had to go -- I don't think Maria Machado's recent Nobel Peace Prize was coincidence.
Conceptually, tariffs could help manufacturing. The policy Trump actually enacts, massive and unpredictable tariffs on manufacturing inputs, turns out to destroy manufacturing. Conceptually, removing Maduro might help the people of Venezuela…
Must? its a choice. Even more of a choice when you're on top.
Trump might not have a choice not because they don't exist, but because he is incapable of understanding them. He's clear on not believing in win/win scenarios.
He respects them to the extent that you must for competent opponents. Sometimes, you have to play politics. You have to try to get what you want with compliments before you rush to sacrifice American lives and treasure over what might have been settled diplomatically. And sometimes, you have to bide your time for the right moment to show your full hand.
Perhaps people forget that countries are sovereign and can do whatever they want. The "global order" has always been based on strength: the stronger do what they want and the weaker do what they can.
What the US have just done is not something new because of Trump.
We are told about "international law" and "norms" so much that we perhaps forget that this is mostly BS.
This is the attitude that permits world wars. In the aftermath of WW2, a lot of people genuinely believed in the power of international law to prevent WW3. Now, it seems like a ton of people think that's just BS, and the fact that so many people think that is what makes it BS. If a strong majority of people actually believed in international law, it would be "real".
> Everybody that is cheering this on has a significant gap in their education.
Macron, President of the French Republic, for reference, says:
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible."
> > If a strong majority of people actually believed in international law, it would be "real".
International law has always been BS, what works is fear of retribution by the offended party or retribution from the observers thinking they might be next and getting together to enact preventive measures
If international law had any effect people would believe in it. You're mixing cause/effect. This situation has been going on for years and the lack of response by international organizations makes people lose all confidence in them.
"International law" are voluntary agreements but countries remain sovereign. The only way to force something is to have bigger guns and/or more economic power than the other countries and, as it happens, the US are #1 on both.
Edit: The best protection we have against WWIII is not "international law", it's that the big guys can instantly nuke each others.
I don't think you're wrong, but it's one of those facts that's basically a self-fulfilling prophecy, like "the bank is failing" (which, if people think is true, quickly becomes true) or "money has value".
The US is a superpower of course, but world wars are multilateral, and US alliances are not what they were just a year ago.
You forget that the cold war wasn't won by the US alone. But by the alliance systems which centered around the US.
The US is no longer a credible partner, and without coalition forces the recreational wars in the 2000s would have been a lot less "fun".
I'm not so sure you want a global order based on strength. You don't want small countries with little to loose arming do with nukes. But voting for it is suddenly very attractive.
That's interesting because the post-WWII Western alliance system at large is largely born of the US military and economic might: most of those countries were invaded by the US and then helped economically by the US. Obviously a commom adversary (the communists) helped but it was, and still is "led" by the US for a reason.
The global order is based on strength, both military and economic strength. I am just stating the obvious here.
You and I are subject to the law. This is not voluntary and it will be enforced against us by the state.
On the other hand, countries are sovereign. They are not subject to "laws", and if they do it is on a voluntary basis. Ultimately it boils down to military and economic strength for a country to be able to stand its ground and do what it wants. We never left this behind, this has always been the case.
From the replies it seems that commenters believe that countries are subject to "laws" the same way that they are...
The goal of the rules based international order was to subject countries to laws, yes. Those laws could have been (and were various times in the past) enforced by larger organizations in the same way the state acts on citizens. Westphalian Sovereignty is not any more real than the rules based international order - clearly Venezuela's sovereignty did nothing for them here.
There was a time when Germany thought just like that. In the aftermath we decided that maybe it's not such a good idea, this might-makes-right thing and we strove for a world where transitions are peaceful because we realized that our power to kill had grown to proportions unseen in our history and because some of us - rightly, in my view - felt that the human race itself was now in the balance.
If you toss that out you have to at least acknowledge all possible outcomes. People - even powerful people, and powerful countries too - should be subject to the law because no single person and no single country stands above all the others.
Actually, what has happened to Germany is exactly an expression of what I described in my previous comments.
> powerful countries too - should be subject to the law
Perhaps so but that is idealistic. Again, countries are sovereign, there is no such things as "laws" in the sense that applies to individuals that apply to them, only voluntary agreements. Practically you would also need a level above countries with its own overwhelming force to enforce it, and that simply does not exist.
I am trying to discuss the world as it is, including indeed in the legal sense, not as it might be in dreams because that's pie in the sky and totally unbounded in scope.
Yes, you're pretending to be a 'realist' who is wise because of your grounded worldview, but you totally miss the forest for the trees: if we don't want to end with blowing ourselves up then we have to depart from the might is right and 'how the world is' mentality because that stops us from changing into a future where we will not blow ourselves up.
Your worldview is essentially a pessimistic one, mine an optimistic one: I think we are capable of change. We just make the stupid mistake of putting egomaniacs in positions of power all the time and then we are surprised by the outcomes.
Some of the most powerful words ever spoken in American history were 'I have a dream'. Dreams are good, especially if they are dreams of a better world and we all should strive to create that world, not to declare it a pipe dream and get on with the business of raping each other.
I would suggest that you take a look at the "Politics and the English Language" essay by Orwell. The person you are responding to is making a fair point that this is well trodden ground, albeit not in the most diplomatic terms. It would be helpful to engage with the arguments presented, otherwise we are just spinning our wheels here unconsciously relitigating issues from the 1930s.
Strange oblique accusation as neither Venezuela nor my comments have anytging to do with the "the 30s" or even politics (or Germany's past). Perhaps there is a lack of perspective and indeed realism in the reply or a Pavlovian reaction to "Trump" conditioned by some media (Trump is a fascist, Musk a Nazi, etc).
As said there were no arguments presented nor anything to discuss about the geopolitical situation so I don't know what to engage with.
An interesting discussiin might be about the reasons for the US' actions and their reasons for this course of action (capture) vs more classic coup.
If so, what’s the next step and how long do you think it will take for a world in which no country is above the law… but no mechanism to create and enforce such law?
Einstein had some interesting thoughts about this, I don't have a reference handy but it boils down to a UN with teeth, effectively a single world government. And I think that that is something I could get behind because countries are not stable enough over a long enough period of time to give us what we need.
Even so, there is a lot of potential for abuse there too and it will most likely never happen because human nature is what it is.
> a single world government. And I think that that is something I could get behind because countries are not stable enough over a long enough period of time to give us what we need.
I assume you would want such a world government to be some form of democracy? If so, it would mean near-zero voice for Australians (0.32% of world population), Germany (1%), The Netherlands (0.21%), UK (0.83%), France (0.83%).
It would, however, mean much more say for Russia (1.7%), China (17.2%), India (17.8%).
What moral code should such a democratic world government adopt? Would it be secular or religious?
Even if we thought that end-state is ideal, I have a very hard time seeing practical steps that get us there other than through bloodshed (similar to how many current nation states got formed). One exception might be a common enemy that unites the vast majority of humans, e.g. an alien invasion.
Given the huge coordination problem of forming and maintaining a single world government (top-down), I would prefer a more bottoms-up, federated approach where secular, democratic, free-ish market, values continue to spread.
Agreed on all of that and yes, there are obviously some very big problems that would need to be resolved. We are no closer to that today - and probably further from it - than when the UN was founded.
No, at the time they were the biggest kid on the playground, their mistake was to think that the playground would be a constant. If Germany had just taken over Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland they might have gotten away with it too. The lack of consolidation and Hitler being drunk on power caused them to continue to set higher goals.
Then once the theater of the war shifted to Global and Japan brought the USA into the war things changed rapidly.
Forget Venezuela, this is a major problem for America. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth lied to Congress a couple weeks ago when they explicitly said that this is not about regime change. Entering an illegal war, committing acts of international piracy, and pledging to take over another country’s resources is completely illegal and a violation of American laws as well as international laws.
And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts. Spineless Republican senators and legislators are staying quiet as they allow this horrific dictatorial action to go on without any criticism. And meanwhile, tech billionaires like Elon Musk are continuously tweeting sycophantic support for this illegal act of state terrorism.
How will America recover? Its political system is broken. And its international reputation is shattered.
I’m wondering if the entire right wing has gone insane. Watching Elon Musk tweet a bunch of racist stuff for several days, followed by weird pro white ethnicity posts, followed by several fawning posts about how this attack was a good thing, is pretty shocking. But also the open hypocrisy of all of these everyday people in social media who have been saying they have not voted for more wars, now turn around completely and say that this war is OK is pretty shocking. And all of the other Republican politicians are either silent or basically claiming that the president has the full authority to do whatever he wants, is also pretty shocking.
I’m sure it is easy to say that this is what everyone should have expected, but I feel like the conduct has gone well past what people expected. The scary thing is I don’t think it will be easy to do something about this. Half the country thinks everything that is happening is completely justified and completely legal. And in practice that means it is effectively legal. So are there any remaining checks and balances that are functioning?
There is still tomorrow. What Trump has shown me is that the crap just never ends, one thing after another. Some guy in this thread is happy about 'vigorous foreign policy'. You really can't make it up.
I don't think there are any checks and balances that are still functioning other than the ones that have served us well to get rid of evil people since thousands of years ago and sooner or later these assholes will be gone. But they will always be replaced by new assholes with the same ambition: to own and rule over a disproportional share of the world.
When this happened during the Bush years I saw a lot of the a same behavior. All these people shut right up when the economy crashed, they went and hid in their caves for a year or so until they pivoted towards hating the Black guy (Obama). The reason being they finally felt a bit of the pain. When the inevitable crash comes from this era, they will all go back into hiding for a while.
Unfortunately this behavior has been a part of a portion of the country for a long time and we will be dealing with these people for the rest of our lives. EU, Canada and the rest talk a big talk about making moves to disconnect from the US. It would be nice to have independent democracies that can take up the mantle if things here need time to correct themselves.
This next time it feels like those same people will hate more than just the Black guy. Many seem to be supremacists who hate all other races and want them deported as a whole - not just the president. The world’s richest person is posting bizarre and disturbing pro white memes daily. And many young GenZ males who follow certain voices on the right seem intent on keeping the flame of racism alive. I agree it will last our whole lives.
Its a losing battle. I guess people don't really know this but Gen Alpha, who are the kids of millennials born 2013-2025 are the first non White majority generation. Its already over and they are just trying to prolong the inevitable for a few more years while the oldest die off.
I don't know how Gen-Z males will fare long term but at this point all available evidence that I've seen shows they are really done with supporting Trump. Will that reflect in long term shift to Dems? Well Bernie type candidates have always done well with Gen Z but what happens if they play games again. I think a major crash that appears to be coming will correct Gen-Z males for a while.
I know, I don't disagree with your ideas on good faith journalism, I just have so little time right now. I am more or less waiting out what happens with the MN fraud investigations. I think it has blown up to such a huge amount that Walz is not running now. All I can say is that a 23 year old kid was able to make that video and a few weeks ago everyone blew a nut because Bari Weiss dropped a 60 minutes investigation on CECOT (A Boring Ass Dead Story).
60 Minutes in 1990 would have DREAMED of breaking the MN scandal story. I remember them breaking a story like Gasoline pump fraud in the 90s and it didn't do any research other than recording gallons pumped into Gallon Water jugs - but they still posed it as fraud.
> And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts.
Well, they said they wanted that. But maybe Trump wasn’t lying to them as much as lying alongside them.
Which Venezuelans? I ask because this exact same argument was used to justify the many failed assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs debacle and sanctions on Cuba where many Cuban Americans were anti-Castro.
Now that might've been true but consider the source: many Cubans in America fled when Batista was ousted or in response to that. A famous example of that is Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz famously said he hates communism because his father was tortured... by Batista [1]. And it's a failure in journalism that he wasn't challenged and lambasted for this idiotic take.
There are a lot of Venezuealsn in the US who justifiably fled the chaos there. But why was it chaotic? The US will try and tell you it's because of Maduro. But what about the sanctions? As a reminder, sanctions are a nice way of starving "we're goign to starve you and deny you medicine in the hopes you do what we want to the administration we can't otherwise topple".
Also, the US doesn't actually care about any of the crimes they accuse Maduro of. This is the same country who deposed Allende and installed Pinochet into Chile, who was a brutal dictator. That too was about resources. Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil. Or the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The list goes on. This happens so much there's a Wikipedia page on it [2].
So, for anyone who celebates this (and I mean this generally, not at the commenter I'm responding to), you will see no benefit for this. A few billionaires will get richer, probably. The US was probably pour countless billions into supporting some puppet, probably Machado but we'll see. And I would be surprised if the lives of Venezuelans gets any better.
And if the lives of Venezuelans does actually get better, it's probably by lifting sanctions and you should be asking why we were starving them in the first place.
As a reminder, the US knows the effects of sanctions. When confronted by a report on sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqi children in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State responded [3]:
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
All which are currently in foreign countries and are free to express their voices without fear of prosecution. I live in spain with my venezuelan girlfriend, and everybody here from her venezuelan bubble is celebrating and cheering - hoping this is a first step towards freedom. You can turn on your TV to "rtve Telediaro", it is a spanish 24h news channel where they also show venezuelan expats getting together and celebrating from within spain. Other cities in latin america are the same, just watch some news channels from the spanish-speaking world.
They were probably also cheering in the streets in the US, if they weren't afraid of ICE deportations.
Because that worked out so well for the people of Chile (under Pinochet). And Libya (post-Gaddafi). And Iran (1953 onwards). And Iraq (post-Saddam).
Whatever your (valid) criticisms of Maduro, it's important to remember that:
1. The US was intentionally starving Venezuela through sanctions. If conditions improve because the sanctions now get removed, it's not because Maduro is gone. It's because Venezuela's oppressor (the US) just stopped opressing (as much).
Let me put it this way. If I take all your people and put them into a ghetto in Warsaw and build a giant fence around it, letting nothing in or out. And I then decide to let food in once you've given me all your valuables or given up some leader and you now have something to eat, I'm still not the good guy because I later let food in after looting your people and I'm still responsible for starving you in the first place.
2. 20+ years ago the US would lie and say they're doing this to spread democracy and that the people would welcome them as liberators. This was the exact script for Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though it was all about oil they'd never say that. Now they don't even pretend. Trump has outright said that it's about oil and they're going to govern until a suitable puppet is put in place, who will let Western companies loot Venezuela's natural resources.
So good luck with the coming brutal dictatorship and kleptocracy your girlfriend and her countrymen are now celebrating.
In the 90s I had a professor from Ukraine for a math class. He grew up during Stalin and Khrushchev and worked during the Brezhnev years. At a party a group of us decried Pinochet. His response, “What is the big deal. So he killed 10,000 people. In Ukraine we would gladly kill 10,000 people to have their economy.”
I'm a Venezuelan in the USA and I think what happened is an absolutely illegal travesty. Trump and his acolytes are nothing better than criminal thugs and this needs to be fought and protested.
Are you suggesting Maduro should be restored to power in Venezuela? Would that be good or bad for Venezuelan's (regardless of what happens with oil or anything else). Would you be willing to live in Venezuela under Maduro?
Its too late for that now. America has created a mess and will now be responsible for cleaning up that mess (or eschewing responsibility when things don't go as easily as Trump thinks they will, which is probably more likely). There is already a huge power vacuum that is going to be filled with chaos, it is too late to just bring Maduro back since the damage has already been done.
It's important to note only the top of the pyramid was removed here - not the entire government. Most everything will continue as usual for quite some time, or forever.
Just like removing the President of the United States wouldn't mean the country descends into chaos.
It does send a very clear message to whoever becomes the top of the pyramid next, however.
> Just like removing the President of the United States wouldn't mean the country descends into chaos.
Oh, it would definitely. There would be a power vacuum, people would wonder if the remaining government would obey the constitution or ignore it, etc...before Trump I would have said the process would have been resolved smoothly, now I have no idea.
Removing the head of a government doesn't break the government, but it definitely creates chaos before the top is filled. If the government has transitioned into a top-down autocracy, the chaos is even worse, as government agencies would have lost their ability to act independently over time. At that point, various factions start shooting at each other to try and take control of the country (aka a civil war). Throw in one or two foreign militaries in the background and there is even more reasons to start shooting.
> before Trump I would have said the process would have been resolved smoothly, now I have no idea.
Kind of absurd to say this. Even with Jan 6. - things still ran like they were supposed to, and will continue doing so. The government is huge and filled with millions of people. It would take an unprecedented level of coordination to not do what is supposed to happen.
Venezuela has a VP, and a rightfully elected President (not Maduro). I guess we'll see what happens there. The US has committed to maintaining order during the transition - so it seems unlikely to devolve into a civil war as anyone initiating such a thing would have to contend with the US military.
Time will tell... regardless - it seems clear as day Venezuelans will be better off without Maduro. The amount of money that is about to flow into Venezuela will be stunning. Yes, oil companies will swoop in, but the money spent there will rebuild a failed economy, provide untold numbers of jobs for Venezuelans, and lead to a more prosperous nation over time - like it was before Chavez/Maduro.
are you Venezuelan? did you know the country had like a 70-90% deep poverty rate before Chavez? Guess who the oil profits used to go to? Guess what Chavez lowered that poverty rate to before oil prices crashed?
Venezuela was on edge even before Trump did this, do you think they are going to be able to hold it together while the US military is demanding to take control and the people are anxious? Time will tell, but I bet this will wind up like every other case of American regime change in the last 30 years.
> Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil.
It was about the Soviet Union. The British convinced the US that Mosaddegh was going to align himself with the Soviet-proxy communist party (Tudeh) to stay in power. The British, on the other hand, did it because Iran had nationalized British oil fields. The US' oil interests were in Saudi Arabia.
Also the way people describe this is rather twisted. The Shah was not installed by the US. The Shah had been in power since 1941. He was installed by the British, same as his father. The coup replaced Mosaddegh with Fazlollah Zahedi, not the Shah.
Moreover, Mosaddegh's government was not remotely democratically elected. There's a rather in-depth State department memo from the era that describes how those "elections" worked in Iran which made clear that the people voting had little to do with who won. Elections were full of ballot stuffing, bribery and just outright manipulation by pretty much everyone - the Shah, Mosaddegh, Tudeh, foreign governments, etc. [1]
Plus, Mosaddegh had halted Parliamentary election counting early to prevent more opposition from getting elected risking his majority (his party controlled the more urban areas of Iran which finished "counting" earlier). He began ruling with emergency powers and jailing his opposition. That led to mass resignations in Parliament - to the point where they couldn't even form a quorum. Mosaddegh then dissolved Parliament and granted himself full dictatorial powers and ruled by decree after another sham election where 10% of the population "voted."
And it's at this point that the coup happened. The Shah, using his power under Iran's constitution, wrote a letter dismissing Mosaddegh. He was replaced with Fazlollah Zahedi and the Shah started to take a far more active role in government.
Mosaddeq sought fairer royalties for oil from what is now BP but what was then the AIOC after decades of tension and a decrease in Iran's royalties (with increasing British revenues) in the 1940s, ultimately culminating in the nationalization of AIOC in 1951 [1].
Relations deteriorated. Britain isolated Iran through sanctions and oil embargoes. The US sided with Britain but initially rebuffed attempts at a coup, I believe initially under Truman but Eisenhower was also initially reluctant.
Britain did argue that nationalization of oil and other British interests in Iran was Soviet-led and made an argument to Eisenhower's SEcretary of State that a coup was in the interests of fighting communism, something the administration was likely more receptive to given the Truman doctrine and "containment". The Korean War was ongoing at the time.
So did Britain argue this was to fight commmunism? Yes. Was it really? No. It was about Britain's oil interests and colonial ambition. It was no more about fighting communism than invading Iraq in 2003 was about spreading democracy.
Fears of the USSR played a much bigger role in the 1979 Revolution where the US got their then ally, Saddam Hussein, to release the Ayatollah Khomenei from prison to try and make Iran fundamentalist rather than falling into the Soviet sphere of influence.
As for any election abnormalities, nobody cares about that. Like, at all. It's undeniable that Mossadeq was immensely popular in the early 1950s for his stance that Iranian oil should benefit Iranians, first and foremost, rather than a colonial power.
> So did Britain argue this was to fight commmunism? Yes. Was it really? No. It was about Britain's oil interests and colonial ambition. It was no more about fighting communism than invading Iraq in 2003 was about spreading democracy.
More than one party was involved. They had different reasons for their involvement.
The United States' reason was to fight against communism (read: the Soviet Union). As quite a few internal memos make clear, the US did not particularly care about Britain's oil issues and wished to stay out of it. Rather, the US was almost single minded about it's fight against the Soviets. Britain used that to manipulate the US into getting involved.
> As for any election abnormalities, nobody cares about that.
If no one cared about it, people would stop stressing he was "democratically elected."
> It's undeniable that Mossadeq was immensely popular in the early 1950s for his stance that Iranian oil should benefit Iranians
And he was incredibly unpopular by 1953 as he was blamed for the deterioration of the economy caused by the British refusal to ship Iranian oil and he went full autocrat.
Indeed, had Mosaddegh remained popular, the Shah never would have agreed to go through with the coup. After all, he had seen what had happened after Mosaddegh resigned in 1952.
Tell that to the Chileans who endured Pinochet, Iranians who endured the Shah and the Ayatollah and likewise for Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Guatemala, etc.
All a puppet would've done was be a brutal dictator who suppressed and disappeared anyone who resisted while enabling Western companies to loot the natural resources and the local populace would see no benefit from that at all.
You might say that Cubans would be better off if Castro had been deposed. Is that because you'd expect the sanctions to be removed? If so, the problem is the sanctions. You're basically saying "you would've been better off if you let me install a puppet dictator and loot your natural resources because then at least I would've stopped intentionally starving you".
And if you can't see the problem with that statement, well, I'm not sure what to say.
The current Iranian regime is a direct result of US involvement in Iran. We are largely responsible for it, for two reasons:
1. By overthrowing a democratic government in the first place to make the Shah a dictator, creating the seeds of revolution; and
2. When it becamne clear that Iran was "lost" (to the West) and fearing a takeover by the Communists and Iran falling into the Soviet sphere of influence, the US got Saddam Hussein, our then-puppet in Iraq who we used to stoke a war for a decade killing more than a million people as an aside, to release the Ayatollah Khomenei from prison in the hopes that the Islamic fundamentalists rather than the communists would win the revolution.
He was imprisoned in Iran, then went to Turkey and from there to Iraq iirc, but it is long ago, so I suspect the GP meant after he was arrested by the Shah.
As far as one can reasonably know something it’s clear that Maduro was not the fairly elected president. Chavez and Maduro were disastrous for Venezuela and millions now have hope for a better future.
Your perception about Iran in 1953 is badly wrong.
Guessing it’s what he said in 2002? But the Tablet EIC made these remarks last week. Not really equivalent, although you’re entitled to your media choices.
A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99 per cent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against.[83] According to historian Mark Gasiorowski, "There were separate polling stations for yes and no votes, producing sharp criticism of Mosaddeq" and that the "controversial referendum...gave the CIA's precoup propaganda campaign to show up Mosaddeq as an anti-democratic dictator an easy target".[84]
A person has to be very gullible to believe 99% of the vote went one way in a fair election involving 2+ million people.
I think most people agree about Maduro being horrible to Venezuela, but this has nothing to do with that. If this is legitimized, any president can be kidnapped by the US at will. This is a very dangerous precedent which a lot of people will regret when the bully turns against them and not their enemy.
Well for starters he quite clearly stole the election so he is not even the legitimate President. Beyond this he faces indictment for a large number of crimes in the United States and has been extradited to face trial for them.
It's just an excuse to remove an opponent from power and install a puppet. Believing that that's the reason is of extreme naivety. This does not mean that Maduro being out of power is a bad thing, but believing this has anything with law or democracy is ridiculous.
A country indicted a foreign leader for crimes their nation will not prosecute.
Just the other day, half of the Maduro supporters here on HN were expressing outrage over US interference regarding just this the same thing, in a reversal of principles and roles. What we are witnessing on this board is a raw demonstration of politics and power. Who or what principle you support merely depends on where folks sit.
Both sides of this debate make fair points-- what's regrettable is that so many participants seem unwilling or unable to recognize they are reflexively taking the position opposite the US, or Israel and lack any sounder organizing principle.
yeah it feels like the sort of thing that will go sideways easily, I get the "optimistic" angle who doesn't love strong men being removed from power, but it seems more like a recipe for civil war that we're forced to be heavily involved in
will all of the military and paramilitary forces there suddenly become to compliant? will other nations try to turn it into a proxy war to drag the us down possibly as payback for Ukraine?
maybe everyone moves on I have no idea, I'd personally rather just not be involved
Sorry, can't trust claims from a brand new account created in response to a contentious political event. I saw a lot of non-organic stuff like this when the US invaded Iraq too.
Reasoning like this is part of the reason why history keep repeating itself. Completely ignoring how previous US led decapitations turned out, and just hoping this time will be different.
It should not be contentious at this point, the US only cares about the geopolitical value of Venezuela, and if supporting another dictator helps towards this end, then that's what will happen.
The sheer ignorance . To form such an opinion, with such confidence and literally the only grounding is a few women he/she has dated. We are living in an idiocracy.
And the sentence "What really stood out to me was how intelligent Venezuelans are"... no shit, Sherlock, people are intelligent, we're all one species, what did he expect?
He expected what commonly tweeted “IQ by race / country” memes say on X, which is to say they regurgitate old debunked scientific racism that is now popular once again due to confirmation bias.
Significant IQ differences DO exist across countries, with key factors being education, health & nutrition, socioeconomic status, environmental factors (more controversial), the Flynn effect.
Dude, theres not much point in arguing that. You see this kind of 5th column in the aftermath of most popular revolutions, from Iran to Chavez in Venezuela. A whole horde of folks who were part of the previous elites (or more likely, their functionaries) who decamp en masse to the US, where they proceed to spout unhinged propaganda ad infinitum.
A tell tale is how they tend to completely overlook (to the point of pretending it isnt happening) the role of economic sanctions, blockades & other forms of coercive pressure on the economies of those countries. Instead, putting it all down to local actions by local actors.
There won't be much mention of any of the social improvements & economic uplift which Chavez in particular was able to do, before the external economic pressures became overbearing.
When you can control the narrative on both sides of the equation to this extent, kidnapping the leader of a sovereign (until today) country seems almost normal.
Jeffery Sachs summed it up best a couple of hours ago. The US is not even pretending to be a constitutionally-governed state any more, and this is just 1 sign of that.
I think I kind of understand why the Soviets were able to industrialize that fast and win an existential war against the mighty Wehrmacht.
The so called purges from late 20s to to the 30s were Stalin eliminating these 5th columnists.
The Soviets had a lot of Western assistance with industrializing. Ford in particular played a huge role in the Gorky factories.
The Wehrmacht lost because numbers kind of matter in war. When you look at the natural resources Russia had, the population disparity between Russia and Germany, and the size of territory the Germans attempted to conquer, it really wasn't a close contest at all.
Stalin's purges had absolutely nothing with removing any "5th Column." The White Movement was thoroughly defeated by 1921 as were the Mensheviks etc. Stalin purged his officer class because he was supremely paranoid. And while he killed many of the officers, many were sent to the gulags and recalled to service after the German invasion in 1941.
The entire concept of a 5th column is just fear-mongering by most countries who faced defeat due to their incompetence. And the term was used by countries to impose draconian controls and oppression.
Didn’t Trump explicitly say the US is putting Maduro’s second in command in charge? If so, that makes any benefits to the people from removing Maduro pretty unlikely. Besides removing sanctions, assuming the new dictator kisses the ring.
How much of this is if Hong Kong "friends" abroad hypothetically backed the UK invasion of Hong Kong, I just have no respect for this "my friends from that country validate simplistic politics" type of ad hominem. Victims and escapees of oppressive systems are filled with bitter and anger but that doesn't make their solutions automatically the right one.
> The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
"I really want it" is not the reason. Come on! Maduro is indicted in the Southern District of New York. Both charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US.
The military operation was merely to lead the operation to allow FBI to arrest. Now, the oil issue certainly can be argued as the real reason for the strike and capture, but frankly they were OUR oil fields (funded by US companies) before Maduro seized them and nationalized them.
You’re not wrong about the motives, but others are:
The U.S. has all the oil it needs right now.
The message from the U.S. to the world is: don’t nationalize our businesses infrastructure and then use it against our interests (even if they are on your sovereign territory) - we do not forgive and we do not forget.
Why would it signal that? The loud and clear message would be "do not let American companies get involved in your infrastructure, government or any other system where government requirements would come into open conflict with their profits".
First line: My whole point was the opposite, not sure how you had that reading. Wrong thing, might "maybe" and hopefully turn out good for Venezuelans. The only good outcome trump seems to care is his ego and oil interests.
Second line: You presumed that out of feeling? I did not write anything hinting at that.
Thank you for articulating this outside of the regular "HN myopia" lenses.
This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is. Venezuela is very important strategically for them, they can't let it slide unless they're weak.
Surely, they won't go as far as direct US confrontation, but if they don't make Venezuela into a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there, one can draw the conclusion that China isn't as strong as many make them (including me, I confess).
But it wouldn't be that surprising if Venezuela turns out being a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there...
Swap China for Russia/Iran and Venezuela for Syria/Yemen if you want an idea how that plays. Spoiler: not well for the proxies.
Without some sort of underlying religious ideology to neutralize being concerned about the likely outcome of hellfires dropped on you from 20k feet if you kill American soldiers, I can’t see many stepping up.
A "proxy" is someone who primarily serves someone elses interests first. Their own interests are subservient to that (if they come in at all).
Venezuelans who may end up fighting for Venezuelan freedom to rule themselves as a soveriegn free nation, with the right to fully benefit from THEIR own natural resources, are NOT proxies of anyone. Regardless of who helps them.
When you're a closet imperialist who thinks nothing of stealing other peoples land, resources, dignity & even lives, then everyone opposing you starts to look like a terrorist, an insurgent or a proxy.
> This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is.
Chinese intervention in Venezuela is a suicide mission by every rule of warfare. You are surrounded, you have no supply line and you can't amass your material at the front since America is already there.
I don't know, I guess there's all kinds of tricks. It's not as if US presence made the territory magically impervious to everything. Last time, weather balloons fooled the US military good enough.
I mean, the US can't even keep migrants from illegally crossing their borders with dangerous drugs. Are you really making the case that as soon as the US have boots on the ground, that Venezuela's borders are a 100% secure? America, fuck yeah!
Here's a trick I've learnt to get an authentic view of events like these, a nice way to parse through the keyboard warrior and ivory tower voices and noise is to hear what Venezuelans, the millions of Venezuelan migrants, and the citizens of neighboring countries who've had to reckon with the legacy of Chavez think about this. You can extend this to anything really with good results.
No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
I've been traveling South America including Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Brazil. There are no good guys anywhere. A lot of the low wage labor come from Venezuela, and in the case of southern Brazil, Cuba. In Lima, Peru it is impossible to take an Uber without having to hear about how much a shit Maduro is. The crisis has strongly affected all countries in South America and if the Venezuelans are able return home and democratically elect a new regime it will be better for everybody.
Yeah. Exactly. There have been many regime changes in the last few centuries. It’s hard to think of more than a handful that were actually objectively better. It’s even harder to think of any where the US was involved in the overthrow and installation of the replacement, and it went well. The Marshall plan was good. Any others?
Yugoslavia in the sense that the cultures were at an unlivable state with eachother without significant autonomy. Bad from an economic perspective as the resulting nations are weaker than what a unified yugoslavia would have been today when one looks at gdp projections.
Are you from the region? Yugoslavia has been a far richer and developed country than any of its successor states for a long time, and I hardly think most locals would see the cost of human lives and untold destruction the war brought to settle some incomprehensible ethnic conflict as a good trade.
Worth remembering that Russia experienced three revolutions in the beginning of the 20th century: in winter of 1905, turning it into a constitutional monarchy at least de jure; in spring of 1917, turning that into a parliamentary republic; and in autumn of 1917, turning the parts that did not secede into a dictatorship that shortly became embroiled in a civil war. The Bolsheviks later did an impressive job of erasing the memory of the third being essentially a military coup against the second, despite their very name originating in (remarkably petty) name-calling in the parliament.
By the time the October revolution came, the Provisional Government had lost most of its popular support by choosing to continue WWI though.
Anyway, the main point is that as nice as getting rid of a dictator sounds, the consequences can be much worse than the dictatorship itself, at least in the short term (which can last for a decade or more…).
I sincerely wish the best to Venezuelans, but previous US toppling of terrible dictatorships don't have a stellar record to say the least.
Living in a country stuck in a decade of counterinsurgency warfare doesn't feel particularly great, and I'm sure the Iraqis or Afghans would agree.
> [T]he Provisional Government had lost most of its popular support by choosing to continue WWI
Whereas the Bolsheviks took very little time to effectively surrender to Germany and its allies only half a year before Germany itself surrendered to the former allies of Russia. (Thus freeing up the returning army to wage several years of civil war amongst various parts of itself.) Every option sucked here, much like in every other case during WWI.
And yes, it’s absolutely true that little good usually comes from violently overthrowing a dictator. The best results are obtained from the dictator peacefully resigning after a promise of amnesty for them and their inner circle, however crass and unfair that sounds. Generally speaking, it’s not very helpful to put people in power before a choice of either losing everything or attempting to maintain their hold on that power by whatever means necessary: it’s going to be the second one every time.
That's a very bad example, as ordinary Russians lived MUCH better lives under the USSR than they did under the Czars, at least at that time. The Czarist empire was still mostly a feudal state, and most peasants lived with no education and no money, barely scraping by. Standards of living, while still much, much lower than what was achieved in Western Europe, were still much better than what came before.
Now, can we imagine a world where the Czar was replaced with a Western-style democracy, where the Russian population would have ended up much better than they did? It's possible, sure - but there are no guarantees.
> For one, immigrants are not representative of their country, they are so biased that they left.
That's close to 20% of their population. And the most relevant factor deciding if people fled or not was whether they could reach another country before Maduro closed the borders.
To me it seems like an obvious oversight that they didn’t acknowledge the irony of mentioning on this board not to read this board’s posts.
They could’ve actually done what they stated, talked about the people, instead of just a meta-criticism of HN, which is probably the #1 type of comment on threads on HN already.
And yes I’ll acknowledge this is a meta criticism of a meta criticism.
True, but it is like saying that to know China you have to ask the nationalists in Taiwan. Or that to understand Italian resistance you have to ask the millions of people in Italy that supported fascism.
It’s not a one-way street on principle. Italy could go do whatever it wanted. It’s a one-way street in capabilities to take action.
There isn’t anything stopping Italy, the sovereign state, from doing anything it thinks it could do. What is stopping it from bombing San Francisco (besides it not making sense whatsoever) would be that the US would physically stop the Italian Air Force and navy.
The US spend years building the UN and the system of international law and it benefits a lot from it. The US is like 4% of the world population and 2% of the area, but dominates pretty much anything you care to measure. It is really not in US interest to overthrow the current system. Its wild that the main threat to international order is coming from the US. Not just this latests development, but the talk of annexing Canada and Greenland, the undermining WTO and WHO etc. Read Hobbes, even the strong do not benefit from “jungle law”.
People who drive policy believe it has already collapsed; now it’s just about asserting control over the resources that will let US(or them personally) thrive in an isolationist, post-AGI world.
The lunatic fringe has long seen global institutions as arms of a shadowy conspiracy to destroy national sovereignty and impose a world government. Far from being instruments for exerting US control, they’re seen as holding us down.
It’s just like vaccines. Why would a country deliberately weaken and sicken its population by discouraging the most effective medical interventions ever devised? Because the nuts have take over and conspiracy theories have gone mainstream.
The point is we should be adult enough in 2026 to have an international order that we can draw a line between our modern behavior and what we did in the bronze age.
If you think this kind of caveman-era diplomacy is the future And want humans to be a multi-planetary species then lol, good luck.
This word is doing a lot of lifting here. You are essentially saying "the world should be better" without even a hint of suggestion of what a minority of countries could do to achieve it (in the presence of adversarial, nuclear states)
Let's say someone is sick and they want to roll around in dog shit to cure themselves. I can say that's a bad idea and not be a doctor with a clinical diagnosis. That's a valid position.
Unilaterally bombing a country, overthrowing its government and installing a puppet leader to capture its oil reserves can be called a bad idea.
I don't need to have a fellowship at Georgetown or some sophisticated alternative.
Some things are obvious: stabbing your eye is a bad idea. no ophthalmology degree required.
It's also rather telling that nobody in Caracas seems to have really tried to stop the US from doing this, it doesn't take all that much to shoot down at least one helicopter.
You'd expect them to have air defenses on high alert 24/7 prepared to immediately respond to any US actions.
Much of this stuff is incredibly easy to hide, hard to imagine that. Surely you'd want to have MANPADS distributed widely in preparation for a possible US strike too.
No not really. Actual leftists (as opposed to authoritarians who have seized the language) have a tendency to cede power gracefully.
Look at Dilma Rousseff who stepped down without much of a fight. Mujica, Allende, Morales, the left wing is really bad at holding on to power because they give into perceptions and affectations of mass sentiment regardless of their authenticity or accuracy.
Hundreds of billions in support, massively increased defense spending, and hefty sanctions are obviously nothing..
Also much more people have been to Italy,or at least know the country and it's culture compared to Ukraine. So the Fallout in Public Opinion would be way worse. China would also be salivating at an Opportunity to isolate the US, and that would be one presented on a silver platter
China doesn't like them, Russia doesn't like them, the EU would immediately pass sanctions as it is its own territory, who else is really left? Canada and Mexico?
> Countries would be scrambling to team with the USA IMO. You see the same happen for obvious "bad actors" now.
I honestly don't see that happening. Yes, there are Hungary and Poland, but if Italy - currently a US ally - got wiped off the map for some lame reason, why would or should anyone trust their alliance with the US?
Non-EU European countries also have mixed feelings about the US (and the West in general). See Serbia for example.
> Also, I think America can make it on its own, no help. And still be a powerhouse. You don't have to agree.
Yes, I'll disagree. We once had the whole making-it-on-our-own story in many countries in Eastern Europe. There were numerous shortages of even the most basic household items like fabric softeners and coffee. Many of those countries even had some trade between each other (Comecon) but it wasn't enough and that was 50+ years ago when we weren't dependent on China for electronics and every other piece of plastic out there.
The world is now more globalized and codependent than ever. You don't have to agree with me either.
Public opinion is dead, what matters is policy makers opinion on controlling financial interests in the West, and what the CCP politbureau thinks. One is a mongrel divisive semi-hereditary plutocracy, the other is a reimagined empire that clearly has a long game going. I don't think anyone cares for the public at large, at least to the extent the public doesn't get any wild ideas like having an opinion and expressing it with a pitchfork.
Yes, you're right. It just that the comparison with Ukraine (invaded for no rational reason) + 'wiping out' made me think sejje was making a stronger (?) hypothetical.
I think we're have strayed too far from the point of ´might makes right' is bad, actually. GP very clearly chose Italy as an example because it's less polemic than the obvious option with a enormous manufacturing base and nukes.
To be clear, if we are talking about a salt-the-earth level conventional bombing for pure annexation / genocide of a EU nation the French would:
1. Remind the US via diplomatic means that they have nuclear subs and the will to use them.
2. If ignored, select some non-mainland territory (PR or Hawaii) and make a ultimatum. Mention that if the US does not desist they will wipe it, but will not launch attacks on the continental US.
3. Repeat 2 until they stop or escalate.
The French would absolutely do this, the thing you propose is so beyond the pale (even now) that the only conclusion is that the French would be next.
Absolutely. Submarine launched and with 10000km range it doesn’t even have to be in open seas. Now France would get obliterated too in response but we’re talking a scenario where the US has already « deleted » Italy so the game theory leans fatalistic
Pariahship only really matter if you care. Look at both India and China. For the past 80 years countries cared about being pariahs because there was only one real country: the United States of America. Today, there are a handful of truly sovereign countries (America, China, India, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, North Korea) who will actually defend themselves without resorting to nominal allies .
In the normal state of human affairs, being a pariah doesn't matter as long as your goals get done
It limits both sides involved in a conflict from using nuclear weapons first.
As history has clearly shown, it doesn't do much to prevent conventional wars, especially involving third parties.
I don't think anyone in power truly believes that France would actually use nuclear weapons to protect Italy during a conventional war against a nuclear power when France itself isn't in danger - let alone in a war Italy started. That's a no-win scenario for France.
Italy isn't a third party. They're both EU states. French nuclear doctrine is specifically the only one with nuclear first strikes as response to conventional threats.
If push comes to shove, I believe France is incredibly unlikely to actually attack the US with nuclear weapons regardless of what happens to Italy.
Doctrines and policies are meaningless under pressure. Would France risk global nuclear armageddon and the near-extinction of humanity for Italy? Almost certainly not, regardless of what their "doctrine" says.
They are a third party. The EU isn't a country, it's an association and it's clear that solitary between member countries only goes so far.
We saw what happened when France triggered the mutual defense clause in the EU charter after the terrorist attacked. Even when they all but begged other EU states to help them, they were rebuffed.
There's little reason to believe France would behave any differently if the roles had been reversed in the especially if there was any real risk to themselves if they got involved.
I don’t know how many Americans actually approve of this. The left will hate it. Trump’s base has largely been isolationist.
Obviously if someone like Italy bombed us we would invade and beat the shit out of them. We did a two decade, trillions of dollars revenge tour for like 2700 people dying.
(I’m not advocating for any of this but US policy is pretty consistent. Part of the value of a US passport is knowing (and everyone else knowing) that the government will go to incredible lengths to get you back.)
I don't know either but I've spotted two comments in this thread that pretty much argued for that. Multiply that by the US population ratio vs HN size and it could really add up.
Given the Jan 6th insurrection attempt (which made trump ineligible for office) I think a clear eyed spectator thinking deeply about the US political situation would find that his base will think whatever he tells them to think
The point is we say "well some people don't think much of their elected leader in X, so that justifies us destroying their cities, overthrowing their government and killing hundreds of thousands of people there!"
Alright, is this the global rule now? Where's the cutoff? Trump is getting 41%, is that low enough? Who gets to overthrow Washington? My vote is the Swedes, they seem pretty nice.
The US isn’t too progressive about addiction. The culture tends to blame it on the individual vs. the environmental causes (including over prescription of opioids) that lead to it.
We’ve pressured China to crack down on fentanyl and its precursors, which they have to some extent, but there isn’t someone to invade, really, to stop it.
Can you truly not see the fundamental difference here? Taking drugs is voluntary and the risk of drugs being laced is known by effectively everyone. Comparing THAT to people getting incinerated in their office place is nothing short of daft and insulting.
Beyond the other replies to your 'point', fent has nothing to do with Venezuela⁰. It's pretty obvious if you think about it for 5 seconds, it's a dense synthetic opioid. Is there incredible chemistry knowhow in the quite far off Venezuela? No. It makes as much sense as making meth on the Peruvian jungle.
The precursors are made in legal-ish Chinese and Indian labs and shipped to the US and Mexico (y'know close where the users are). It's finished state-side or in Mexico where the DEA has less power. In fact one of the routes is:
China Lab -> Conventional Post -> Porch of a clueless gringo with a new 'online job'-> Smuggled to Mexico -> Mexican Lab -> Smuggled to the USA -> Distribution
You say you'd disapprove a violent action. But when it actually happens? I've seen explicit support for Luigi from many otherwise apolitical and non-violent people.
Because they see what the insurance exec was doing through his job as itself being violence, as it resulted in many deaths.
They view Luigi's alleged actions as self-defense/ defense of others, i.e. morally justified.
I wouldn't personally morally disagree with someone Luigi'ing Maduro or the other guy mentioned according to that same standard, but in this situation and the knock-on hypotheticals of government intervention, this is not an individual using personal force according to their beliefs, these are governments (which have no moral rights, just the assertion/ imposition of authority by violence) expropriating them for political purposes. So not defense of others.
That's quite different. Luigi killed the banker. You're thinking of Thomas Crooks. I don't think I've seen too many Crooks fanboys.
And even then, there's a difference between that and say if it was a sniper squadron working for say, let's pick the Azerbaijan military or any other organized state force.
Anyone can already bomb the United States, and I think most people here in the US just don't imagine it happening here, no matter how much we invite a military response.
The only country I could imagine doing this is North Korea, because, while we would carpet bomb them, they can delete Seoul from the map with traditional artillery that we can’t stop.
But I don’t think that their leaders are actually suicidal. They’ve played their hand pretty well over the years, for their own survival and enrichment (no pun intended.)
Your way of life got destroyed by a guy in a cave half the world away, and then a dictator of a small country finished the job with some propaganda and some cash to grease the right palms. A response can be quite effective even if it isn't by men in uniform.
It's not "my" way of life. I'm not american. I'm just saying that it's a basic geopolitical fact that anyone who's actually foolish enough to declare war on the USA is going to get killed.
Military response means men in uniform battling for their country. Terrorism is not a military response, it's one of several ways to cope with the enemy's superior military forces. They can't overtly bomb america back to the stone age, so they resort to tradecraft and clandestine operations.
It actually works, which is why governments pull all the stops when it comes to fighting terrorists. Even this plays into their ideological objective of forcing america to compromise on its founding principles, thereby corrupting it from within.
> I'm just saying that it's a basic geopolitical fact that anyone who's actually foolish enough to declare war on the USA is going to get killed.
That's mostly true. But a bunch of Saudi's got away with it and are still getting away with it.
> They can't overtly bomb america back to the stone age, so they resort to tradecraft and clandestine operations.
> It actually works, which is why governments pull all the stops when it comes to fighting terrorists. Even this plays into their ideological objective of forcing america to compromise on its founding principles, thereby corrupting it from within.
Precisely. So now try to imagine what the effect would be if the USA started to engage in wars on the American continent. You reap what you sow and if you're the biggest bully on the block that isn't going to be any use if you can't protect your backside.
All this talk of invading Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Cuba and I probably missed some is going to backfire spectacularly, and in many ways it already does.
On the world stage I see everything on display that we try to teach our children to avoid. Lying, bullying, law breaking, it's all in our faces. And the real problem is that it is supported and even celebrated on television, in print, and socia media.
To put this in perspective, Ukraine before Russian invasion had already lost 11 million people, that left the country because it was ruled by oligarchs and mobsters. 11 millions over 52 millions makes it a gran total of 21% of the population. Making it the fourth worse demographic decline in the world. Does it mean Russia was right?
If you have some hard numbers supporting how much Americans don't like Trump and how shit is their life under Trump, then ..maybe? (Also, why the USA, why not start with North Korea, Venezuela etc first.)
We kinda have the obligation to ensure that Earth is not a practical hell for many people.
"Bomb San Francisco" can mean many things, and it is ultimately a Trolley Problem[0], but the answer is not a simple no.
About the stupidest thing I’ve ever read here. Why does a US perspective not matter when the fucking US conducted the strike? If Russia decides trump stole the election in 2024 you’d just sit back and let them take over?
You simply can’t. Just enjoy the show. Sorry, last 5 years have been a complete destruction of common sense and logic, just focus on something else to remain sane.
Yeah this is just flawed. Even people close to what is happening can be ignorant/brainwashed or (and even more likely) have ulterior motives. Venezuela doesn't exactly come across as a sophisticated nation.
We have an ongoing war in Europe because one President tried to remove the President of another country. You can perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify military actions, and depending on who you ask you will always get the answers you want.
I'm not arguing the point you're making. I'm saying that these discussions on these sorts of things on chat boards populated by privileged western nerds and conspicuous progressives have little merit and are merely a reflection of biases/ego of the privileged western nerd when put up against the lived experiences of people in Venezuela and neighboring states.
You're not really saying anything, in fact, just bashing everyone else's opinion.
And note that we can look at history and see that, sometimes, people's honest opinions about their own country and what is best for it happen to be wrong. Libyans were extremely happy when Gaddafi was killed - and now they're living in much worse conditions than when he was alive. Many Afghans welcomed the US toppling of the brutal taliban regime, and now after twenty years of brutal war, the taliban are back in power as if nothing happened.
It would be absolutely wonderful if the same fate doesn't happen to Venezuela. I sincerely wish and hope that they will have a provisional government which quickly organizes free and fair elections and that a much better leader is elected who can start reversing the damage Maduro did. I don't think this is particularly likely to happen, sadly, looking at the history and track-record of violent regime change by foreign powers. This observation remains true regardless of what the people of Venezuela think and hope, sadly.
That is not a reason why there is a war. The Ukrainian war is an existential one, a continuation of multiple acts of genocide performed by russians for centuries.
That is a big difference between war in Ukraine and war in Iraq or Venezuela.
Russia has unlimited objectives: destroy Ukrainian identity and sovereignty. Annex the country.
While USA has limited objectives, like to overthrow the government.
Russia would be very happy to install a puppet regime in Ukraine, as long as they had some certainty this regime would be stable and subservient to their interests. We know for a fact that they don't care about necessarily invading other countries as long as those countries are subservient: they are not planning to annex Belarus, nor did they have any real problems with Ukraine as long as it was led by their preferred leaders and it was not making any overtures to NATO or the EU.
The exact same thing will happen in Venezuela: the USA will be happy with any leader that they have confidence will represent US interests, stop doing any business with Russia or Iran, and that they think will last. If instead another member of Maduro's party looks likely to win power, either now or in the near future, they will certainly not allow that to happen, even if it were to happen as a result of free elections.
Yes, they did, and there was no attempt to annex Ukraine before that regime fell, I said as much in my comment.
Note that this is not in any way an attempt to justify Russia's actions, quite the contrary. I'm using the comparison to Russia's obviously horrible actions in Ukraine to condemn the USA's equally horrible actions in Venezuela.
In the 90s, the status of Crimea was an internal dispute in the newly-formed Ukrainian state. The status of Crimea as a part of the new Ukrainian state at this time was not yet settled in any way. The territory only became firmly a part of Ukraine in 1995.
The 2003 dispute over the island of Tuzla - whose status had not been clearly settled during the independence of Ukraine from the USSR - was settled diplomatically. If you call this occasion an "attempt to annex Ukraine", then we could equally say that "Romania attempted to annex Ukraine" when the countries had several rounds of negotiation and arbitration for control of Snake Island in the Black Sea.
The only reason Russia has been reluctant to formally annex territories it broke away from other countries until 2022 was minimizing economic damage to itself. They knew how sensitive the western countries were to forceful changes of the world map, and felt no need to inflict economic sanctions on themselves for a mere symbolic act of annexing a territory they already fully controlled.
Once that Rubicon was crossed (sanctions were in place and there was nothing to lose), they annexed the four regions of Ukraine that they partially controlled.
>> Russia stood by while everything Russian, including the Russian language which is the native language of millions of Ukrainians, was facing many restrictions
You think Ukrainians shouldn't decide which language to use? Also russian is native for millions of Ukrainians due to ethnic cleansing done by russians for centuries.
Well behaved governments will provide national minorities with everything they need to feel at home. Bilingual street signs, schools in minority's native language, churches, radio and TV broadcasts in minority's native language etc.
Any government who denies this to their national minorities should be promptly replaced as this kind of disrespect to other peoples' culture, religion and national identity inevitably leads to bad outcomes.
Information that is known to be wrong is still useful. The immediate talking points on both sides reveal quite a bit if you can read between the lines. Everyone is lying but the lies themselves are revealing.
You will soon see many comments "misteriously" disappear without leaving traces, especially the ones telling the truth about US, "democratic values", "rule of law" and their similars. The better the comment, the faster it "evaporates". As such comments do in Russia or China related discussions, whatever the exact mechanism is.
This forum is not for you to get information about the american "public opinion". It is rather used to shape it (as a myriad of other similar forums in the "free world").
There's no such thing as a comment "disappearing without leaving traces" on HN, except in rare cases when an author asks us explicitly to delete their post and we do. Other than that, the most that happens is that a comment gets killed (a.k.a. marked as [dead]), and anyone who wants to can see those comments in their, er, glory by turning on 'showdead' in their profile. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
We don't moderate this place to promote (or demote) any particular political agenda, let alone try to "shape" public opinion, something which sounds even more boring than soulless. As long as you're implying secret sinister processes taking place here, I think you should include some specific links so readers can make up their own minds.
Maduro is a dictator and a murderer but I'm sure most people should now be uncomfortable with the way this was handled. Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold and no there won't be regime remaining because Maduro doesn't have popular support it requires to do so.
I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do or if it will have negative implications in the future. I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
Having said that, international law is a myth. At the power level of nation states what we have is basically anarchy where interests is what matters. Not saying its right or wrong but it is what it is.
Arguments over definitions really bore me. To any reasonable person predicting the future, international law is an important factor. It cannot be simply waved off because it is flawed and unevenly enforced.
Any predictive model I would construct about geopolitics does include international agreements such as treaties and laws.
I challenge anyone to build a predictive model that ignores these factors. I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
Countries appeal to international law when they don’t have enough power to achieve their goals through brute force alone.
Countries that do appeal to international law but also have the wherewithal to do what they want only make those appeals to conceal their naked ambitions under the guise of the rules based order. It’s just good marketing. Nothing more.
The model you should construct should assume treaties and agreements are stable insofar as the incentives for players to maintain them remain in place.
It’s all about national interest, always has been, and at this point I’m surprised anybody can be so dense as to not be able to see this.
I don’t think anyone in int’l law is mistaken about the constraint that enforcement is so thoroughly contingent. The argument is just that the stability elicited from int’l law amongst players trying to (mostly) cooperate can have utility.
> I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
You are misunderstanding me. I had hoped my claim was clear, but maybe not, so I'll try again: if you want to understand and predict the world well, factoring in international law is an important factor. Claim: no serious scholars or analysts would disagree. Of course they will build different models (unfortunately relatively few are quantitative, but there are exceptions) and argue the details.
Now to your statement "I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today."...
Recency bias has a huge effect on people. But today is one data point out of many. It matters, in context, weighted appropriately. But how to weight it? Have you put thought into this? What was your prior and how much did today change it? (Admittedly, few people write down their priors, so for most of us, this exercise is sort of like a retrospective where we realize we probably never thought about it carefully in the first place!)
I will reiterate my original point more clearly: international law does not affect how superpowers behave.
When convenient they will use international law and norms as justification for actions they would take regardless. When inconvenient, they will just ignore them.
To the extent that superpowers do “follow” international law, it is only because those laws were written by the superpowers themselves or align with their interests at any given time.
Appeals to scholars or analysts is meaningless in this context. You should post why those people think they matter, or what their reasoning is, not, “hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters.”
My priors before this were that international law mattered a little, but this event has convinced me it’s all a farce. Exhibit A: the UN’s increasing irrelevance as we move toward a multipolar world.
Why do you think international law constrains nation states, despite much evidence to the contrary, including today’s events?
Ok, I'm pretty sure I understand your claims. I'll divide up my response in sections with `---` addressing each of them. I'll use ILN for "international laws and norms". (My edits are finally done as of 10:33 am eastern.)
---
> Why do you think international law constrains nation states, despite much evidence to the contrary, including today’s events?
For clarity, I didn't say nor mean «ILN determine/constrain actors in all cases». I conveyed, to the best of my ability: «ILN are a useful factor to include in a model»".
In the text below, I'll elaborate quite a bit on why ILN matter as factors to include.
---
As I read your comment, I'm interpreting it as claiming to argue against «ILN is a useful factor to include in a model». You put forth an argument saying it doesn't matter. I'll argue against your argument.
But I should pause. I should not assume... I don't know your age, your nationality, your educational and/or professional background, and so on... Do you know what I mean by a quantitative model? Even people with Ph.D. can easily talk past each other on this. I'll give just one example of what I'm talking about: [1]. It is likely easier to grok than a dense statistical analysis 'locked up' in an academic paper.
Here is some context about why I care about this. Professionally I've worked as a software developer, entrepreneur, machine learning & statistical researcher and analyst, and lots more. At my core I both (a) build technology to solve human problems and (b) enjoy building things because it is fun and enabling. About ~10 years ago I build a search engine to surface quantitative models. One of my key underlying drivers is to help people to move past merely talking about stuff. Talk is cheap and imprecise. There are many kinds of models, none perfect, but the use of them is vastly better than pretending like any one framing _is_ reality. Recognizing a model as a model is the first step. Then you can step back and figure out "what is this model useful for?". With models we can put things 'on paper' and point and them and say things like "what happens when we factor in X"? We don't have to fixate on one model. We can be fluid and think about what we're trying to understand and predict.
---
> When convenient they will use international law and norms as justification for actions they would take regardless. When inconvenient, they will just ignore them.
This is both a false binary and (for lack of a concise phrase) 'starting very late in the causal chain'. I'll start with the first and then explain the second afterwards.
1. The above is a false dichotomy. There are at least three other cases. ILN are (to some degree):...
A. ... imbued in a leader such that they don't even _want_ to venture too far outside the parameters of 'acceptable'.
B. ... perceived to have consequences that need to be accounted for. Over time the leader will more or less compare their perceptions of reality to what happens in reality.
C. ... these consequences (perceived and actual) affect the decision space of a leader. A change in the decision space, in general, may change the decision. (not always of course).
There is variation in how much A, B, C apply and play out. This variation provides informational value -- a foundational concept in modeling. More informational value, ceteris parabus, makes model predictions better. We're on the same page?
2. You may have noticed that above I've already implicitly explained my second criticism. If you want to predict how leaders act, it is unwise to start the analysis at the point of 'where they made their mind up'. Instead, you want to predict how and why they form their views and goals. My claim is that factoring in ILN (international laws and norms) is useful -- it is better to factor it in than to exclude it. To skip past it is 'starting too late in the causal chain'. It would be analogous to saying "Once the trigger is pulled, the laws against murder cannot stop the bullet."
2'. If one wants to build an even _better_ predictive model, one would want to predict what kinds of leaders come to power. Imagine some counterfactuals. What if there was no UN Declaration of Human Rights? In such a world, what kind of leaders would come to power? In general, they would be different than the current slate. I'd predict to see more warlord-like behavior; there would be less trust and more military spending. Without trust, more force and threats of force are necessary. I hope you can see I've sketched out an argument for why ILN provide some shared basis for countries to cooperate based on shared values. [2]
In short, if you are arguing -- and want to continue doing so -- that ILN have no predictive value, I challenge you to build a predictive model and prove it. But I don't think you really will hold such a view once you step away from the keyboard and reflect.
I don't confuse my approximations for reality. I once rigidly held a view not too different from the one you probably do. I thought my model was 'real'. But no longer. I've found better models for predicting.
---
> My priors before this were that international law mattered a little, but this event has convinced me it’s all a farce. Exhibit A: the UN’s increasing irrelevance as we move toward a multipolar world.
Two responses:
3. It is too soon to assess the scope of international responses to Trump's invasion of Venezuela. My response here is the same as the section above. The problem is reasonable people will struggle to find consensus on how to operationalize "farce" into a prediction. It is too squishy. We can do better than this; we can build models. I've already covered this ground above.
---
> Appeals to scholars or analysts is meaningless in this context. You should post why those people think they matter, or what their reasoning is, not, “hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters.”
I don't think I'm really fully tracking you here, so I'll respond as best I can... We're standing on the shoulders of giants. We cannot discount the work of scholars throughout history.
My claims are not arguments from authority. They are arguments along the lines of 'smart people have taught us that thinking about the world in terms of models is superior to not doing so.' To use another phrase that conveys the same idea: don't confuse the map with the territory.
No charitable person would claim that my argument is anything like "hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters". If you go back and reread, now, you don't really think I'm saying that, do you? To make such a claim would be to ignore large parts of what I wrote -- it would involve tossing those out -- and myopically and forcing an uncharitable interpretation onto my words. Hacker News works better when people are charitable. [3]
---
I'll gone to some lengths to try to understand your position and explain mine. At this point, I hope you will reciprocate.
[1] https://conflictforecast.org ... this is just an example to give flavor. I'm not holding it up as a great model, but at least it is relatively clear in how it works – compared to what you'll typically see when some pundit says something about some risk of conflict: """Our forecast uses millions of newspaper articles to make the conflict forecast. In our analysis of the content of the newspaper articles we rely on a so-called topic model which summarizes the millions of articles and words into topics using unsupervised machine learning. The topic model allows us to calculate 15 topic shares for each country/month which we display in the bubbles to the right."""
[2] Some people can't or don't see this. Some people fixate on isolated individual behavior. They ignore evolutionary foundations that people exist in a social context. They don't understand or appreciate game theory or theory of mind; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind .
[3] """Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.""" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Corrections: please replace #3 above with these points:
1. It is too soon to assess the scope of international responses to Trump's invasion of Venezuela. A large part of ILN is what happens after a particular event.
2. "Farce" is rather squishy. One interpretation (one I agree with) means i.e. "international responses often fall short of rhetoric". Ok, sure. But few savvy people expect rhetoric to match reality. The impact of ILN are neither a 0 nor a 1. It is probabilistic -- not totally random -- and it depends on the circumstances. More detailed models have the potential to make better predictions (if they don't overfit).
We need to drive towards measurable (quantitative) predictive models. Here's an example question: "If the United Nations changed its charter so that one veto was not enough to block enforcement, how would state-based aggression change (by how much)?" See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...
I gave you a predictive model, and I challenge you to prove it is incorrect. Nations do what they want irrespective of international law. If they can write it to align with what they wanted to accomplish anyway, they will. Otherwise they ignore it.
Go touch grass, brother. Life is more than models. Most things in life really aren’t that complicated. People do what they want and make up the reasons for why they did what they did as they go. It’s basic human behavior at the state level.
Since I've put in a markedly higher level of effort here, I'm only going to respond further if you carefully and thoroughly respond to my comments above.
I wouldn’t call the word soup you posted across multiple comments “high effort”. This isn’t high school English class. Higher word count doesn’t mean the information within is somehow more valuable.
> I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
And you'd have lost the bet with such a naive understanding of geopolitics and power dynamics played by nation states. Are you reading the thread you're on?
To the commenter above: it seems like you are responding to something other than what I wrote. Perhaps my meaning didn't come across? I'll try again:
Start with model M which does not account for international law.* For any such model, that model can be modified by including information about international law. Call that M'. I claim M' will do better than M. Do you agree? Disagree? Why?
Onto my next point. Please take the context into account. I was responding to a comment that said:
>>> Having said that, international law is a myth.
This is why I said:
>> Arguments over definitions really bore me. To any reasonable person predicting the future, international law is an important factor. It cannot be simply waved off because it is flawed and unevenly enforced.
I am having a hard time understanding how you think I'm naive for saying the above. To me, it would be naive to ignore international law altogether, simply because it is nuts to ignore relevant information. Am I just redefining my claim to be "this information is relevant to predicting an outcome". Maybe, but even this seems to be getting lost in translation.
May I ask if you've done geopolitical analysis at the international level? I have no idea -- you very well might have. By the same token, I may have as well. This isn't a who-has-the-bigger GPU question. I'm just trying to understand if you understand the game we're talking about. If you're trying to predict price stability, election outcomes, how long a dictator stays in power, etc... what models do you build?
If you want to compare some models on this, let's do it. We'll compare and see if including international law/agreements has predictive value (relative to not including them). Are you game?
* It is possible a model could build up an internal representation of international law even if not provided it directly. If such an internal representation proves useful and predictive, this serves to prove my overarching point, albeit in a different way; namely international law (conceptually) matters. It doesn't matter if we call it 'real', 'fake', 'a myth' or whatever. Arguing such terminology is a waste of time. If we can measure it (somehow, to some degree) and use it to make better predictions, that is good enough for me.**
** It is also good enough for physicists! People may argue the _metaphysics_ of quantum physics tirelessly, but if the equations work, that is pretty darn impressive. Call it "spooky action at a distance" or "entanglement". In an an important sense, these are just words, metaphors, attempts to make sense of reality. Focus on how to turn the crank on the theory and don't get hung up on what is 'real'.
Yes I was incorrect to say such a model would be strictly worse off. But my read is that you over index on the notion of laws, hence your general befuddlement on the current outcome. Sovereign nations follow international law and order to the extent their goals align and perceived costs of contravening them exceeds some threshold. Might ultimately makes right, has always been the case. That's realpolitik for you, unfortunately.
I appreciate the discussion and thoughtful response.
> But my read is that you over index on the notion of laws
To be fair, nothing I said asserted the relative importance of international law in comparison to other influences (i.e. military power, strategic goals, economic interests, a vindictive leader).
> hence your general befuddlement on the current outcome
Where do you get the impression that I'm befuddled? I was disappointed in the lack of nuance of some comments, so I pushed back, but I'm not 'befuddled' by current events.
> Sovereign nations follow international law and order to the extent their goals align and perceived costs of contravening them exceeds some threshold.
This sounds like the 'rational actor' model from international relations. [1] But that model is not the only game in town, nor is it universally the best model to use!
> Might ultimately makes right, has always been the case.
I would happily see this phrase fall out of usage. It is what authoritarians want you to believe. What is right != who has power. Normative != positive. They are not the same. We would do well not to blur 'what is' with 'what should be', not even in an aphorism.
Yes I would like that phrase to fall out of use too. My intention was less of the idiom's original normative meaning but to emphasize that it is ultimately power that enables or constrains a nation's possible actions. Apologies for my confusing use of the phrase.
> but to emphasize that it is ultimately power that enables or constrains a nation's possible actions.
If one interprets this as "perceived power" I think we'd be getting closer. But even that is not enough.
I would also need us to recognize "the power that ideas have in shaping worldviews". Consider the Magna Carta, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and so on. They can't simply be accounted for using a probabilistic calculus of consequences w.r.t. military force, economic sanctions, popular uprisings, and so on.
International law and notions to some degree also become normative. They are worldviews and aspirations that spread. (Memetics is a powerful analytic frame here!) These laws and norms take hold in people's minds and they shape how leaders and their people think about what is good and what should be done. In this sense, even though they are ultimately just neural patterns (if you are a materialist like me), they can be thought of as 'real' and impactful when it comes to making predictions about how leaders act.
I wonder if we would both agree on this: as people lose faith in the normative force of law, they care relatively more about the perceived consequences. Seems pretty straightforward?
Such a degradation, seems to me, cannot be good for civilization. A world where everything is purely contractual or consequentialist does not work in a world of agents with very limited computation.* It is just too costly to formalize everything in terms of individual incentives. Building systems where all the consequences are perceived by actors at the right levels of the system is really hard. Maybe it can work with certain kinds of information systems. But with humans, with our current biology and technology, I don't think it scales well at all. (At this point you might wonder if John Von Neumann is rolling is in his grave, but I suspect if he lived today, he would agree! His work spanned computation theory, game theory, and more.)
* Here is a guess that seems plausible (hypothetically): In a perfect world of unlimited computation, agents would be smart enough to think of interactions as long-run games and might be able to have a healthy society even if they don't 'believe' in norms.
We used the same precursor to remove the Taliban in 2003. We used the same formula to remove saddam. All of it was always a bad idea. It destroyed the countries. Venezuela will be no different.
I dont like Maduro but I hate the aftermath of removing him violently.
> I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
Do you know the "standard technique of privatization"? Sanctions are the "Defund" aspect of that for American Imperialism. The woes of Venezuelans are largely economic and a product of the sanctions.
Venezuelans would disagree loudly with you, and in fact would take offense with the notion external interference caused their country's downfall given the extent Maduro's gov ran the country into the ground.
> Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold
This is BS. If he was an issue for the region he needed to be tried by his country by his own people and they should get their power back. A foreign power taking over the country to siphon it's oil doesn't help in any way.
It's the same situation with Trump, China swooping in and kidnapping Trump wouldn't help. We'd need the US population to fix it's own mess if we're hoping for any improvement.
We're just getting into another cycle of pain and grudges.
Democrats and republicans are concerned about China because it has a massive impact on many issues that both parties care about. This includes Taiwan, Hong Kong, Us manufacturing, US ip, immigration, etc.
Replying to your earlier comment: in terms of words spoken during the 2024 campaign, tariffs and immigration tied for first. I think MAGA heard “China” when tariffs was pronounced positively and “Hispanic” when immigration was pronounced negatively.
The one part of this I will agree with is that US foreign policy is uniparty.
The disastrous War on Terror spanned 4 presidential administrations, 2 Democrat and 2 Republican. Middle East policy differences between the two parties are somewhere between superficial and nonexistent.
Even something like Ukraine where you might say Republicans and Democrats differ isn't true. Had Trump been in office when Russia invaded Ukraine, the two parties would simply be in each other's seats.
This is 100% the case when it comes to China too. Oh, and when it comes to Taiwan (and Hong Kong), official US policy is the so-called One China policy [1].
As for US manufacturing, it's dead. Because capitalists killed it by moving it to China to increase profits and (under Regan, in particular) to destroy unions and the labor movement [2].
As for China and IP, US companies did this to themselves knowingly to increase short-term profits and to break unions and suppress wages. At no point will I accept the framing that a Chinese person, a Mexican, an Indian or a person from [developing country of choice] stole someone's job. No, a capital owner made a choice to take your job and give it to someone else so he or she could become slightly richer.
I'm not sure how immigration factors into China concerns.
The only reason China is the biggest buyer is because of crippling US sanctions since 2017 that have made it impossible for Venezuela to trade with any western nation
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Few hours later: "US oil companies will fix Venezuela's "broken infrastructure" and "start making money for the country", Trump added"
Obviously anyone with common sense understands that the above translates to exporting oil to the US. Just like that, a lot of noise about democracy goes out of the window.
>The US empire currently maintains an imperialist network of over 800 military bases in 70 countries. (For comparison, all other countries combined have only 30 bases)
If this is a list of atrocities, I am already somewhat underwhelmed. Almost all of those bases are present with the consent of the host country, except for Gitmo. Besides Gitmo, the US always leaves when requested in the cases I have been able to find.
(Why do we still have a base in Gitmo? Because Florida is a swing state. It sucks.)
To be fair, the rest of the list looks like an excellent argument for closing all the bases.
But you're the good guys and do that to deliver freedom and democracy so it's OK. I think you're under estimating how the world is rapidly updating their views on the US, and the lasting damage to your soft power.
This is exactly the kind of ignorant chest thumping arrogance that lead to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, destabilised the entire region, lead to the rise of IS, and eventually to streams of refugees heading for Europe. edit: tone
I can't speak for other countries, but the regime in Russia has popular support.
And if "every Venezuelan you know" is someone who immigrated because of Chavez and/or Maduro, then you have an extremely biased sample to gauge the overall mood of their populace.
That's not quite true even today (it all depends on how loud your non-support is), and was even less true prior to the war. The majority support Putin not because the alternative is prison but because they genuinely believe that he's a good leader. And they're wrong, but that's a different story.
> then you have an extremely biased sample to gauge the overall mood of their populace.
I think that if a good chunk of the people that don't agree with their government are basically forced to emigrate you don't get to turn around and say "See, everyone that remains loves the government!"
What happens if the Venezuelan people decide they want their oil profits to stay in Venezuela rather than flowing into oil company coffers? Will they have the "freedom" to choose that?
Don't get me wrong, Maduro being toppled is a positive in isolation, but it's still wait-and-see regarding what he gets replaced with.
"We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so" [1]
If you are talking about those that left the country... yeah, obviously they are happy. They literally left and got a better life. That's called immigration. That doesn't mean that it will be fine for those that stayed.
A lot of talk about how the administration didn't even try to justify this, but I think that the administration actually believes they did justify it. They exist in some bubble completely un-tethered from reality. I don't know what that means for the future but it's terrifying.
How many is it? Your link gets us to 1, and it's from months ago. I expected you to link the number since you're claiming it's high.
Supposedly there's been 500k deportations, and 2.5m "self-deportations" in 2025, so what would be high here?
Edit: I also googled that man's name. A quick read of nbcs article suggests it's not clear he's a citizen. The judge said he "had a substantial claim to citizenship," which means nothing either way. He was born in Thailand.
"In his Nov. 3 brief, [a lawyer] contends Souvannarath stayed in the United States for 19 years after his removal order without challenging it or seeking proof of citizenship."
So, to answer his question: not realistic at all that you'll get deported as a citizen. That's without fact checking you. I haven't seen anything about actual citizens being removed, including in the sibling comment claiming it with a reference.
> Besides, how realistic is a fear that a law abiding citizen would be endangered by the ICE?
Perhaps you are having trouble following the conversation. The argument put forth by OP is that ICE is endangering american citizens. That is factually true.
I didn’t sneak anything in - you failed to follow a thread. Why are you trying to put that on me? It’s okay to admit fault and take responsibility. It is obvious at this point that you do not care or won’t take the time to understand the conversation or respond in good faith.
My concern covers all LEO fucking with American citizens, especially the masked and unidentified ones.
So anyway, per your link: 170 citizens "wrapped up" by ice during between 327,000 and 605,000 deportations, depending on which source you like (I linked them in a different response to you in another thread).
Between .0005% and .0003% chance that if ICE grabs someone up, they're a citizen. I think that's a pretty good record, actually. I don't think it's very alarming.
We have 348 million citizens, 170 got held for...days! While we conducted the most effective deportation of illegals in history.
I'm pretty sure ICE isn't going to accidentally get me. This problem may as well be non-existent.
What's real is actual citizens wrapped up in actual bullshit with regular LEO. With probably several orders of magnitude difference, wouldn't you agree? Maybe thousands per day, instead of 170 per year? Costing folks more than a few days' detention.
I think that's extremely alarming, given the fact they are trying to deport people as fast as possible so they don't have time for a hearing in front of a judge. The hearing that they are supposedly guaranteed by the fifth amendment to the Constitution!
Why do you think deportation is the only thing that matters? We've seen ICE fuck up the lives of American citizens by destroying their property, illegally holding them, arresting entire buildings etc in Chicago. And there is zero recourse for these blatant violations. How about you open up your wallet and pay for their crimes if you're willing to go to bat for them so hard?
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Hawaii, Guam, Cuba, Panama, and the Philippines?
In the last 100 years the trend has been been for America to invade a country and try to install a friendly government rather than formally annex them - Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria.
So it's not longer 30 years but 100? What the US did pre WW2 was in no way abnormal or worse than that what every other powerful was doing..
Also US never technically invaded Lybia, Yemen or Syria (unless you count their intervention to support the Kurdish and Iraqi governments against ISIS an invasion...)
What happened in Korea was the opposite of the invasion (of course the South Korea regime they were saving was extremely oppressive and arguably not worse at all than the one in the North at the time).
Also are you implying that the majority of military bases US has in other countries (especially in Europe) is involuntary?
Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population. Invading to occupy, destabilise and depredate is much worse.
> Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population.
How is that relevant to Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Whenever Russia takes territory they're filling mass graves with raped Ukrainian civilians.
American forces too have committed innumerable atrocities, and there is no forgiving that, but it doesn't support the premise above that Russia is in some way cleaner.
No intention to deny individual episodes of war crimes, but the ratio of civilian to military casualties in the conflict is pretty low, despite a drawn out war and massive military casualties: we're talking about 12-15 thousand civilian deaths in almost four years of war. Absolutely tragic but doesn't seem to indicate a genocidal intent. Compare with the widespread massacres of civilians perpetrated by Israel in Palestine.
Ukranian civilians sensibly fleeing for their lives when the front gets close has prevented many deaths, and doesn't change the facts of what happens when they don't escape.
There's 3.5 million people living in the Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine now. The Wikipedia entry about them even lists "forced Russification" as one of the abuses they suffer: "Ukrainians have been coerced into taking Russian passports and becoming Russian citizens". Now, as bad as this is, being forced to become a regular citizen of the occupying state is a far cry from being deported and murdered by that state. Nazi Germany wasn't giving German citizenship to Poles and Jews in occupied territories; Israel is not giving Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in occupied territories. Do you see the difference?
Putin himself has famously claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people: this is the very opposite of the ideological premise to justify a genocide.
From what I understand from friends who still spend a lot of time in Donetsk because their businesses are there, you might be taken to a basement and shot if you say the wrong thing.
It's pretty bad, but sure, if you just go along with it you'll probably be fine.
>this is the very opposite of the ideological premise to justify a genocide.
Genocide is an attempt to kill a group; That does not happen only by murdering people - it's also forced assimilation. In this case, Russia is directly violating article 2) e) of the Genocide Convention*: "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
>citizenship
Citizenship is not relevant to the genocide convention at all.
Putin has famously claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people for the same reasons that Hitler claimed that the Sudetendeutsche are the same people as the Germans - to justify an illegal imperial attack on a neighbor.
Russian imperialism needs Ukraine, since without Ukraine there's no Russian empire. Russia invaded Ukraine out of imperialist delusion, not for humanitarian reasons.
You have thoroughly bought into Russian propagandist lies.
> for the same reasons that Hitler claimed that the Sudetendeutsche are the same people as the Germans
Indeed, but Hitler is not famous for mass-murdering the Sudetendeutsche.
And I never claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine for humanitarian reasons. I think it did because it could not tolerate a Ukraine fully integrated in the West and NATO- but this just means exercising political control over Ukraine, it doesn't imply an ethnic cleansing or genocide of Ukrainians.
We'll see about Venezuela, it's early to say. In Ukraine, a short conflict would have been better than a prolonged one, and in case of annexed territories, the status and civil rights of annexed populations should have been the focus of any peace agreement. The territory doesn't care who owns it, it's the people that suffer.
For example, the Israeli occupation and progressive annexation of Palestine is especially criminal because they have no intention of including the native population in their ethno-state- it's an annexation with ethnic cleansing or, if needed, genocide.
>Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population.
This is soviet bullshit, the Moscowitz did a lot of genocides you can find plenty of sources, so they were and are as bad as Israel because the Rusky/slavs in Ruzzia are indoctrinated to feel superior to the other non slaves in the empire and feel still a bit more superior then the rest of the slavs. You can look at the existing recent data from the Ruzzian stats and how the minorities are more in decline then the Ruskies.
So for uninformed people that might read this soviet guy comment, read a wikipedia summary of what moscowites did and Putin is still doing, I suggest not reading in detail, like reading books or interviews with vitims of this criminal empire you will fill a big amount of pain if you have empath on how this Ruscists treated humans , I will never forget the stuff Ir ead and better if I did not know the details.
Ruzzia, israle , USA all are bad but the situation is multidimensional and is not easy to say that Ruzzia is less bad then Nazis and are better then Israle etc., we cana dmit that criminal are criminals, dictators are dictators, bastardads are bastards and trolls are trolls.
Russia in the last 30 years invaded and occupied Moldova, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria - not to mention the atrocities committed in Africa.
But with the exception of Syria, Russia always had genocidal intent - deny cultures, erase them, and make those countries as unstable as possible while remaining occupied.
I'm not saying what the US did was good, or right, but there's a big difference.
The US never denied the existence of cultures, languages, etc.
Right, so what's the scope of time we're talking about here? Are we talking about the world post WW2, or are we going back to the Roman Empire?
Because if you want to "win" arguments by randomly swinging hundreds of years to make a point, then it's pointless, because anyone can pick a point in thousands of years of History to show "look - they were bad here".
I think discussions about modern history are sufficient for the post-WW2 period, as there was a global consensus on international law and the Charter of the UN.
If you hold grievances about events hundreds of years old to make points about current events, then it's pointless.
If you believe the US that colonized part of North America is the same as post-ww2 US, then I can understand.
I don't think they're the same, so many institutions were established that over the years that I don't see them as the former colony of the British crown.
But hey, if you want to discuss semantics, go for it.
Yeah, when you draw arbitrary limits (30 years for you it seems), it's easy to paint one side as the better one. Once you start to think a bit bigger, you start to realize most big nations act as the others, and it's just different flavors of "bad", yet they're all as bad as the others.
What about segregation then, is that recent enough for you? Or that wasn't about culture/language, so that too isn't applicable? I'm afraid that with rose-tinted glasses, everything has an explanation why your favorite is different than their favorite.
Why is the founding of the UN, at the end of WW2, and the signature of the UN Charter, considered an arbitrary event in modern History for you?
It's the biggest geopolitical event in modern History to prevent the death of millions, by attempting to stop the expansion of borders through military force and making countries recognize the borders of each of its members.
> What about segregation then, is that recent enough for you?
What about segregation? Where? In different European countries? USA? South Africa? India?
Was there a global consensus to end segregation? Or were different events at different points in time, achieved in different manners? Is there still segregation happening in some societies?
So all the countries Russia interfered with are neighbours, with hundreds of years of ethnic, cultural and religious disputes, while basically all the countries the US interfered with are across one or more oceans, with no historical disputes with the US, and happen to be resource rich.
Thanks for explaining why Russia is less unreasonable than the US.
"Historical disputes" is the most unreasonable claim to violate international law and the UN Charter lmao
You're basically saying that one countries interpretation of events is enough to annex another. That's the old logic of pre WW2 lol
Especially Russia that has revised their history so many times they even have a saying that "Russia's past is uncertain".
So to have that interpretation of what I said shows that you have a very poor understanding of History and current events, or it's just a deficient provocation.
So they invaded their own internationally recognized territory. Wonderful. By that standard Ukraine invaded Donbass after they declared themselves independent of Ukraine.
>Syria
Even more outlandish claim, considering they were invited by the government. Whether the west considered the government illegitimate or not didn't matter.
>Moldova
>Georgia
in both conflicts in protection of a minority, on whose territory a larger state laid claim using Soviet drawn borders and dissolution of the USSR. Since the Ukrainian conflict started I observed lots of enthusiasm for Soviet borders on the side of Russia's detractors, which were often drawn with territories assigned as a form of favoritism, simply because communist leadership in Moscow had better a relationship with the communist leaders of one of the ethnicities in question. That way historic Armenian land of Artsakh was assigned to Azerbaijan for example -- the recent ethnic cleansing outcome of that is well known.
The US just stole every good ever. The Maine. Union Fruit/Banana Company.
If the US tried to survive by just fair economics it would crumble into dust in less than a decade. Yet they use Latin America as their own backyard in order to avoid this.
And, well, as an European I have to say that France does the same with Africa in order to be semi on par with Germany. If not, their GDP would just be slightly better than Spain, if not worse because centralisation it's hell for modern times.
Some states in the US would do fine, OFC. But in order to support the whole USA, that's unfeasible. You can't have a country where a few powerhouses have to carry up the rest in a really innefective way, such as oil dependant transportation.
Meanwhile, the Chinese and Europe will just build non-polluting railways everywhere.
Someday it will be your country and yourself, and nobody will be outraged anymore, because everybody is the same. Stop this cycle and organize, instead of separating like-minded people with useless lines, standing aside and shouting about how things should be, in your opinion, and how everyone else should do... something, because you know better than insiders.
You know that justification in support of access to firearms in the US- "we need to be armed in case our government goes rogue". I always thought it was BS, but in case it's not, maybe this is the time.
The problem is that there's no "we". Tens of millions of Americans support the Trump regime and its actions in Venezuela. Coincidentally, they are also the ones who have most of those firearms.
The specific Americans you speak of mostly care about domestic issues and trend isolationist. They'll perhaps be slightly peeved anytime we intervene overseas, but they'll certainly overlook it while they get what they want at home.
I doubt they care (or know) about Venezuela.
Also I think the number is hundreds of millions, not tens.
I'm referring specifically to the people who support the military action in Venezuela, which is a subset of those who voted for Trump. Like you say, most of them care mainly about domestic issues. However there is a crowd that is all in on Trump and supports whatever he does - you can see them cheering even here in the comments - those are the tens of millions that I'm speaking of. It's still way too many, unfortunately.
Thanks for answering my question and imploring me to drone some mantra (I counter with: everything is a system, my dog is a system), and I'll guess I have to wait for New Zealand to do some invading.
sigh Nevermind, it's obviously way too much to ask for a simple answer to a simple question after being strawmanned.
Do you understand that the difference in the Ukrainian case is literally caused by the actions of Western countries?
Venezuelans are going to work tomorrow because no one has provided their corrupt dictatorial government with hundreds of billions of dollars in military and financial aid?
The difference is that Russia's goal is the annexation of most or all Ukrainian territory, the looting of the country and the erasure of its national identity. Without western support, Ukraine would be in a much worse state than it is now.
Whatever US goals are, it seems they are not pushing forward after snatching Maduro.
Yeah, sure, if they did not get support they would have dies already and look what peaceful place this graveyard is. Slight hiperbole, not everyone would be dead, but a lot, for sure, and the rest, too scared they would be next to do anything else.
Regardless of anything else equating Maduro's Venezuela and Ukraine and the military side-effects of both invasions/"operations" isn't exactly fair. The Venezuelan government is/was both illegitimate and very oppressive. Not that I'm implying that Trump did what he did on Humanitarian grounds...
> Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable.
Any attempt at holding the admin accountable would make it look a bit more like Venezuela. NA is rightfully too soft to want to ever go that route. They'll peacefully protest and that'll be it. Anything more than that would be the individuals throwing their lives away unless the whole country did it in unison.
Trump was extraordinarily lucky here, the Maduro regime was wholly unprepared and he was immediately extracted from the county; he can claim "mission accomplished", parade Maduro in front of the world media and watch from afar the PSUV leadership tear themselves appart.
But the dice Trump rolled could have easily fell onto a well prepared Maduro regime, which could have downed a few Blackhawks, torpedoed the ship from which they launched, captured and killed a few dozens to a few hundreds US service men, paraded them in the streets of Caracas and used them as human shields protecting the main military targets etc.
I.e, Trump could have easily committed US to a long term war and a ground invasion, without Congress authorization or allied support, and with Iraq or worse long term results.
While I strongly doubt this is true, it still doesn't change the fundamental gamble Trump took: it's impossible to predict how a regime change attempt will go, who will betray and who will rally around the flag. Especially in a resource rich country.
DJT 2.0 did a `Charlie Kirk' flex and acted out of MAGA base self interest before the Who you know. Stocking up on fuel will put more cards in the hand for next moves in China or Iran.
what? I'm reading this as: "We're gonna need oil for fuel when we go to war with china"
But south America is easily blockaded in times of war the oil (if we needed it) would be ours regardless. Second, we don't need it, we've been a net exporter for like over a decade now right?
Its been a few days. It turns out this was a simply capricious and erratic act on the part of Donald Trump, and we stand to essentially benefit not one iota as a country from it!
It seems it was her wife who pushed for that. By reading the article, it doesn't sound like he believed any of that.
> "If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it," she quoted the president as saying.
Also
> Both the president and Nancy Reagan denied that any policies or decisions were based on astrology.
So we can't really tell to what extent, if any, those consultations affected the actual policies.
In general, I don't trust politicians by default. Still, I also don't trust astrologers (and even less so), so there is no reason for me to believe the astrologer more than the president.
> The president became aware of the consultations and warned his wife to be careful because it might look odd if it came out, Nancy Reagan wrote in her book.
> Nancy Reagan began consulting Quigley after the 1981 assassination attempt on her husband. She wanted to keep him from getting shot again, Nancy Reagan wrote in her 1989 memoir, "My Turn." "If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it," she quoted the president as saying.
> The consultations were revealed to great embarrassment for the White House in a 1988 book by former White House chief of staff Donald Regan, who blamed the first lady for his ouster a year earlier. Regan said almost every major move and decision the Reagans made during his time as chief of staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes. He did not know her identity.
> The woman was in fact Joan Quigley, an heiress and Republican political activist. Quigley told The Associated Press in 1988 after her identity was revealed that she was a "serious, scientific astrologer."
A "serious, scientific astrologer", but no such thing exists, does she understand formulating null hypothesis and hypothesis testing statistics? probably not, so not scientific, any scientist actually applying the scientific method to astrology will quickly distance herself from astrology at all.
Of course he now denies this so that never happened, he also said that 'doing so would not have been wrong'. Ever the lawyer. My client didn't do it, and if he did it wasn't wrong.
Nor did he ever claim that 'God influenced his deliberations'...
True, but how is that a problem; it is God. Is a human a better than God to make those decisions?
I suppose all of this assumes that God is infallible, but I imagine God has more information and processing power than the President.
I am not suggesting a theocracy. I doubt God is whispering in anyone's ear today, and humans can still make bad decisions and claim it was God's will. Just a thought exercise.
When people claim that God led their hand what they mean is that they will just do whatever they want to do and there isn't a thing you can do about because you are no match for God. This has caused 100's of millions of people to die so far.
The previous time, 23 years ago, there was a broad campaign beforehand, and Bush assembled a serious international coalition before going for Iraq. This time, it's just some PR statements before the press.
> Bush assembled a serious international coalition before going for Iraq
Uh? Bush failed to assemble a coalition by providing dubious and faked proofs of supposed WMDs and chemical weapons. The Europeans and especially the French didn't fall for it. The only one who did was Tony Blair and he's still paying the price both domestically in the UK and abroad. AFAIK, Trump isn't planning to send troops in Venezuela on the scale Bush did in Iraq.
The Spanish president at the time, Aznar, also "fell for it" (probably didn't believe it but played along just for posturing, because he loved being pictured with Bush) and paid the price domestically. The best thing is that he was such a toady, ignoring the Spanish people's will becuase he wanted to be seen with the big boys and to be their equal, and you don't even remember him when you recall that coalition. The fact that you haven't remembered him has actually made me smile hard.
Blair didn't believe it either. Nobody did. What everyone banked on (including e.g. Hillary Clinton) was that the invasion would be so awe-inspiring, popular and such an obvious unqualified success that everyone who opposed it would be embarrassed, and the WMD claims would quietly be forgotten (or maybe they could scrounge up a trailer with chemicals or something).
And for months, years even, that "can't argue with success" strategy worked great. Some help from a loyal press was necessary, of course.
This is what the architects of this invasion (it's hardly Trump alone) are banking on, too. We WILL get told that suddenly life is so much better for everyone in Venezuela, and for a while it might even be true - it's very cheap for the US to provide, after all. The serious, realistic position will be that this was a shrewd thing to do, and the Nobel Peace prize committee showed great foresight and were vindicated in their choice.
To quote from internet history, the famous "you forgot Poland" from the 2004 presidential debates:
"KERRY: ...when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That's not a grand coalition. We can do better.
LEHRER: Thirty seconds, Mr. President
BUSH: Well, actually, he forgot Poland. And now there's 30 nations involved, standing side by side with our American troops."
That is not true either. France, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Canada, Greece and Luxembourg all refused to help. NATO was basically split in half on the issue.
Tony Blair wasn't fooled by the fake WMD evidence - he was fully on board and deliberately went against the advice and evidence of the intelligence services.
He should be tried for war crimes for dragging the UK into a war on false pretences.
It infuriates me every time that I see Blair given publicity by the mainstream media and how he's still involved with international politics - especially the middle east/Israel. I did declare that I would never vote for Labour until they got Blair tried for war crimes (have voted for Greens since though most years that has been wasted as I live in Bristol which was a strongly Labour area).
Bush successfully assembled a coalition to invade Afghanistan. He didn't even promise that there'd be WMDs there, he just said "They gots terrorists" and a large portion of the UN joined in the invasion.
Upon reflection, the justifications to invade Afghanistan were every bit as flimsy as the justification to invade Iraq.
Maybe (and this is a big maybe) at the beginning. However, it really went to show how ineffective such actions are and lead to the creation of ISIS. 20 years of occupation were wholly unjustified.
The right move by the US would have been to kill osama the way they ultimately did, through intelligence gathering and a targeted strike.
The head of the organization responsible for the deaths of almost 3000 civilians was known to be present in Afghanistan, and the government refused extradite him.
Not to me. The US was justified in killing Osama the way they did, through intelligence gathering and a targeted strike. Occupying the nation for 20 years was completely unjustified.
U.S. foreign policy is bipartisan. The big plan was to keep the Russians tied up in Ukraine, get Syria (achieved under Biden) and now get China and Russia out of Venezuela.
It could work with bribing officers like in Syria, in which case there will be minimal resistance and then probably the Nobel War Prize recipient Machado will be installed.
It is possible that all of this was discussed with Russia (you get things in your backyard, we in ours).
Trump is a man who will push boundaries further and further until someone physically stops him from doing so. But you don’t need to justify anything if you have full control over people who would normally investigate, prosecute or restrict such things.
Then you put your thumb on the scale (i.e. Texas) so you don’t cede power to the other party in the midterms and then you never need to worry about consequences for your entire term.
It’s a bit more of a problem in 2028 but Trump is term-limited so that’s someone else’s problem.
There's a pretty well established Turkic solution to that. (Change the constitution. Claim the term limit applied to the old republic and it's your first term actually and go about your day)
There's a simpler one: Have Vance run as president with Trump as VP, then Vance immediately steps down on day 1. The Supreme Court will then ignore the intent of the 22nd amendment instead focusing on a narrow interpretation, make up some "this isn't a precedent" one-time ruling that allows it, and ta-da!
You seem to assume that Vance is willing to be Trump's puppet. I don't assume that.
Vance has been willing to ride along with Trump as long as it gets Vance to positions of higher power. But it seems to me that Vance's agenda is Vance, not Trump. I doubt that he'd play that "resign" game. (He might tell Trump that he was going to...)
It wasn't until the 25th amendment (which, you'll note, came after the 22nd) that the vice president was officially the successor to the presidency. So it would be weird for the 22nd to have a "what if" answer to something that wasn't yet itself law
Or have a military takeover or manufacture a crisis. At the very least they will claim election fraud and we saw what happened in Trump 1.0. There are definitely many ways MAGA will (likely) remain in power. Fascists don't give up power without a fight.
Hum hum... Bombing of Libya. Support for ISIS against Al Assad in Syria. Doesn't make what happened today right, but it is pretty myopic to see this as unique to Trump or unprecedented.
This absolutely nothing at all like Libya, where an ongoing civil war resulted in UN resolutions of force.
Snatching a national leader of a country with which the US is not at war, has had zero force authorization, off of that leader's own soil, is completely unprecedented, no matter how bad that leader is.
Not sure if it's really unprecedented, but I think all wars should be like that. Go kidnap or kill the leader but please leave everyone else alone. Also by all means go and capture the US' leader if you think you need to retaliate.
The US president abducting a foreign head of state without any congressional authorization, and you are unsure if it's unprecedented?!
Wars should not be the unilateral whim of an uncountable dictator, ever. They should not be started by the US on pretenses that continually change, have not been clearly stated to the American people or Congress, and that make zero sense to anyone involved.
The most clear explanation I have heard that makes any sense at all for this behavior is that Marco Rubio thinks he can ride this to the presidency because he knows it will be popular with a large chunk of Latin Americans, even if it is inexplicable to most Americans.
Regardless of the logistics of how wars should be conducted, the destruction of the US constitution inherent in this action is treasonous to our country's ideals.
All of the justification in this moment reads to me like: Trump is giving different segments of his coalition reasons to get off the fence and on his side. It’s something different for Rubio than for DoD than for the oil cronies. It’s not really about persuading anyone outside of Trump’s coalition.
"Justified" in what sense? Who does this administration - or indeed USA in general - answer to?
Folks there's nothing new or insane here. Countries attacked other countries all throughout human history. The surprise is when they don't.
Now it's not super hard to understand why Trump is fixated on Venezuela in terms of geopolitics. There's a decision by this admin to bolster US in the western hemisphere, possibly in preparation to coming to terms with a bipolar world split between US and China. So the US is now meddling with Canada and Greenland. Now with the shift towards the right in Latam (Milei in Argentina, Bukele in El Salvador, Kast in Chile) Trump is just pushing a few more bricks to create a more uniform American-led sphere. Plus, Venezuela was very close with the Iranians and Russians, so removing this regime surely serves some strategic goals.
The War Powers Resolution (WPR) of 1973 sets a 60-day limit for U.S. forces in hostilities without a formal declaration of war or congressional authorization, allowing for a potential 30-day extension for withdrawal, totaling 90 days, after which the President must remove troops.
Examples of bombings/ground invasions using WPR without congressional AUMF:
Invasion of Grenada (1983) (7,300 US troops, 19 KIA)
Invasion of Panama (1989) (27,000 troops, 23 KIA)
Airstrikes on Libya (1986) (and 2011) [Obama administration argued they did not need Congressional authorization because the operations did not constitute "hostilities" as defined by the War Powers Resolution. Therefore, they argued, the 60-day clock never started.]
Kosovo Air Campaign (1999) [The bombing campaign lasted 78 days in violation of the 60-day limit]
The US Congress didn't pass a declaration of war for Vietnam, Lebanon, Laos, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Honduras, Panama, or Iraq I, all before the 2000s and since the last declaration (WWII). That doesn't include the UN-authorised military interventions.
While I in no way endorse whatever batshit insane things Trump is doing, I don't think the US has issued a declaration of war since WW2. Declarations of war have been quite rare internationally in general since the end of WW2 outside of a few examples.
I imagine the calculus goes something like "unjustified war didn't matter any of the other times, so it won't matter this time either". Although this time the US would be bringing death and destruction to its own continent so there is a moral improvement on what they normally do and that will probably going to make the war more of a political problem for Trump.
It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same.
For example I'm not american and mostly on the right, and I think it's doubtful if it's legally justified (how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition), but it makes a lot of sense, it aligns with realpolitik and it's morally good for several independent reasons. In particular it has a hugely disproportionate geopolitical impact, and less importantly it can bring a few million people from under a dictatorship.
As an interesting aside, I recently did a quick research on the Grenada invasion, widely spoken of as an embarrassing moment. It went... very well. They came, remove a budding dictatorship right after a coup, left in two months, and Grenada had no ill effects in the years after (both by subjective reporting, and by GDP per capita comparable to neighboring countries). The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. The number of dictatorships that did well in recent history is exactly two, and neither was socialist (SK and Singapore).
I see we’re now living in a world where many people genuinely don’t even remember the answer to this question.
Roughly, you can legally justify a war if (i) it’s in self defense or (ii) you get a UN Security Council resolution. That’s why GWB tried to get a security council resolution before going into Iraq, as the case for self defense was pretty shaky.
Is it common for actual wars to meet these legal requirements? No. But that’s just because wars are something that generally shouldn’t happen. It’s also not common for murders to meet the requirements on justifiable homicide.
> The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region.
This. Your logic could at least make sense with other US president, but not wanna-be dictator one doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators in the world. Not a good fit to fight for democracy.
There is no left or right here. There is ultra right and right. Trump is a ultra right authoritarian ruler, and the Democratic party is just another right wing party. The left vs right is just a way for powerful people to have someone to blame. Please stop using these propaganda terms.
I don't like using these terms without qualifications, just like socialism means three different things in three different contexts.
But saying the Democratic party, with AOC, Bernie Sanders and two decades of progressism is "right"... you might as well say the sky is green. That's just ignoring any meaning of the words, not trying to find a more precise one.
War can only be justified after the fact as a result of good outcomes. The decision prior is always a roll of the dice that loads the thrower with infinite responsibility.
You say that as if the reason is that Venezuela is a dictatorship. I despise Maduro but this break of international rules is everything but morally good. It opens a world of brute force and lack of international rules. It is only "morally good" in the short term. In the medium-long, it's morally horrible and terrifying.
My country is not a fan of Trump, is it morally right to send a bunch of covert soldiers to capture him and throw him out of the country? We'd be saving the US from a dictatorship.
I certainly didn't expect a "well if you can depose a country's president, feel free", especially combined with a "once it's a dictatorship" cop out, as if there's the Worldwide Department of Dictatorship Judgement to tell us if a country is a dictatorship or not.
Which is why you don't do it nilly willy. There are plenty of hard decision in the real world, with real consequences when you guess wrong.
But as far as my personal opinion goes, I'd prefer a bit more intervention in the world. We actually created United Nations with this purpose, but it got hobbled by Russia and China's security vetos, and by the arab block making it a "resolution against Israel" machine.
But we never decided as a planet to just leave Sudan-like atrocities to happen without taking action because "sovereignty". That's not a thing that happened, and I'm actually a bit puzzled everybody acts like we did.
It's worth remembering the UN fought in the Korean war and wasn't was always a place for authoritarian regimes to pass useless resolutions and make noise.
The fact we, as humanity, have allowed so many genocides and slave nations to exist, and to treat them with a measure of equality, is a failing.
And, to be clear, I'm not talking about people I disagree with politically. I'm talking about places and peoples like North Korea and Cambodia and Sudan. There's a ton of shades of gray, but some situations really require a special kind of blindness to pretend are gray.
There are very good reasons to avoid that kind of thing. Modern warfare is extremely devastating, so the bar for ethical use of force is extremely high.
> how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition
What? There's a process for initiating an offensive war in the US and they didn't follow it. Legally, Congress must authorize it. Though that hasn't been followed for quite a few wars now.
But we did have an AUMF for the absolute disasters that were the afghanistan and iraq wars. Somebody who isn't american coming in and saying "whatever, fuck it, Trump just does what he wants" is terrifying to me.
Trump would prefer it if I were killed. Should I be shot?
The president is legally able to authorize an offensive action though. Maybe not an "all out war" like Vietnam but what's happening in Venezuela is entirely legal from the US standpoint.
>It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same.
For example I'm not american and mostly on the right
Ah a textbook case of outgroup homogeneity bias. [1] Your follow up comment about Bernie and AOC is icing on the cake.
[edit] Maduro remained under US federal indictment on narco‑terrorism and related cocaine trafficking conspiracy charges throughout the Biden administration.
Venezuela has always been a minor player in the drug trade compared to other countries. The whole narco-terrorism thing has always been code for "he took back the oil and we don't like him"
I mean, do they really need to justify it any further? They just arrested Maduro while causing very little collateral damage, if they'd failed dramatically then they'd have much more questions to answer.
The obviously reply to that would be "The US forces were invited by the democratically elected Venezuelan leadership to put a stop to the ongoing coup"
The concept of "international law" here is pretty confusing because to begin with you'd need to choose who decides what counts as a violation of Venezuelas sovereignty. Presumably the people backed by the US are okay with this, and team Maduro isn't.
Presumably, if you were to agree that Maduro wasn't in fact the legitimate leader of Venezuela, you'd just consider this an internal issue with US helping in local law enforcement matters.
If you disagree and consider Maduro to be the legitimate president, presumably no amount of justification will help you see it differently. But then, I'm not sure anyone particularly cares about your opinion either.
>The obviously reply to that would be "The US forces were invited by the democratically elected Venezuelan leadership to put a stop to the ongoing coup"
Were they? And is that the justification the US has cited? If not, you're writing fan fiction and that's not really interesting.
I'm not a supporter of totalitarian regimes including Maduro's, but the US has a track record of producing very poor outcomes for people in South America when they topple one leader in favor of a more--shall we say--"market friendly" character waiting in the wings.
As for international law, it is extremely clear, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. International law recognizes only two clear exceptions: self defense or a US Security Councul resolution.
>Were they? And is that the justification the US has cited? If not, you're writing fan fiction and that's not really interesting.
This is all necessarily speculative, we might never have sufficient visibility to know all the facts.
I'm merely attempting to provide the strongest reply the administration could provide if they cared to try. I believe it's reasonably grounded in facts.
1. US government openly does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate head of state of Venezuela
2. US government does recognize Edmundo González Urrutia as the president-elect.
3. Venezuelan opposition has been heavily lobbying in an effort to get foreign governments to intervene in Venezuela
All of these things are verifiable facts, I think they can be distilled into my perfectly reasonable suggestion as to how the US could fend off such criticism.
There's no second party to this action, it's the US's alone. Even if we accept the electoral fraud claims, Venezuela did not ask for US intervention. The rightfully elected leader of a nation can't call for a second nation to invade and bomb their nation.
Because nations have laws and the majority of nations laws don't give a leader unilateral authority to call for self invasion. In fact, that's usually called "treason".
For Venezuela, this would be something that, if any organization could call for it, it'd be the "Supreme Tribunal of Justice" [1]
And before you say it, yes I get that they are corrupt. But there are still laws. Which is why if you are going to overrule the laws of another nation, you should have at least some backing from the UN first. Deciding on your own that the the courts are wrong is just international vigilantism.
> Which is why if you are going to overrule the laws of another nation, you should have at least some backing from the UN first. Deciding on your own that the the courts are wrong is just international vigilantism.
On the other hand, if much of the world agrees with you anyway, not bothering with asking the UN might not matter at all.
> As for international law, it is extremely clear, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations. In international relations, actors are simply the individuals and collective entities, such as states, international organizations, and non-state groups, which can make behavioral choices, whether lawful or unlawful. Rules are formal, typically written expectations that outline required behavior, while norms are informal, often unwritten guidelines about appropriate behavior that are shaped by custom and social practice.[1] It establishes norms for states across a broad range of domains, including war and diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights.
Sure, yeah, but you'll just give yourself a headache trying to keep track of all the ridiculous things this admin puts out.
The reality is that there a lot of people across the political divide at very high levels of government who deeply dislike Maduro for a variety of reasons, some perhaps more pure-hearted than others.
Oil and drugs are obviously not even how they're justifying this to themselves. The oil in Venezuela isn't that interesting because it's really only US and some Canadian oil companies that are capable of extracting it. The US is always going to control oil production in Venezuela, no matter what.
But yeah, instead of focusing on all the silly statements the admin puts out you might as well just guess at the eventual steelmanned argument they'll present in writing at a later date.
This is quite a bit like the invasion of Panama by US forces and the removal of Manuel Noriega from power. Except Noriega wasn't "elected" like Maduro and the US doesn't have a strategically important canal to protect in Venezuela.
Anyway, good riddance. Maybe the Trump Administration actually has a plan for peaceful transfer of power now that they removed Maduro? The US still needs to disrupt ELN drug operations, if that's what they're really after.
There are many undemocratic and repressive regimes around the world. Trump has professed his admiration for various of these leaders. You can't seriously attribute noble goals of supporting democracy to him. Also, shouldn't he then be doing this in many other places in the world?
I like how we went from "international law" to "noble goals", I suppose that's pretty on point :)
> Also, shouldn't he then be doing this in many other places in the world?
No, I don't see how that would follow. I can choose to give money to a charity, but that does not mean I have to choose to give my money to all the charities in the world.
Much like “intellectual property”, “international law” is a nonsense term that tells you only that the person who employs it lives in their own bubble, captured by powerful interests of others.
And money is just a construct but I still need to pay the mortgage. And international rules removed the hole in the ozone layer, reduced cheminal weapons stockpiles by something like 99%, and ICJ rulings have adjudicated to force entire countries to comply with compromises.
I would be curious about the logic that allows you to call intellectual property a nonsense term while still allowing other property to make sense. Both are social constructs.
In general, that term is mostly used outside of the borders of a country looking in. After all, "illegitimate leaders" tend to be authoritarians who take power and quell dissent within the borders.
Not at all arguing that it somehow leads to justification for an illegal invasion.
In this specific case the claim comes down to assertions of a sham election. If this was indeed the case (with the lens of an international survey obviously the US view is suspect considering the attack), then the Venezuelan people themselves do not view him as a legitimate leader, which simplifies the situation.
You really believe this, right? That you can decide for someone else, specifically a whole nation, what their view is and what they want to do with their nation. That you are doing the world a favour. Guess it's worked in the past, a new sucker is born every minute.
Your original comment is justifying the bombing of a foreign country and kidnapping of its leader, not whether a leader can be seen as illegitimate. That is not reasonable at all.
Step out of your American exceptionalist bubble for a second. How would you like if the inverse were true? There's some shady elections in US so Venezuela decides to throw bombs on Washington. How would you enjoy that?
I think you're misreading my original comment, I was merely stating that there will be no meaningful calls for Trump admin to justify themselves because they succeeded in pulling this off without making a mess.
>Step out of your American exceptionalist bubble for a second. How would you like if the inverse were true? There's some shady elections in US so Venezuela decides to throw bombs on Washington. How would you enjoy that?
I'm neither from the US, nor a huge fan of the US.
I do think Venezuela could probably have been right to depose Trump in a similar manner had he managed to cling to power after January 6, but that's an absurd thing to speculate about.
What if he was the leader of a brutal coup and the legitimately elected government requested foreign help to have him removed?
It's really really difficult to paint this as inherently bad, it's hard to see how the conclusion here doesn't entirely depend on how you feel about the results of the previous Venezuelan elections.
It shouldn’t be difficult to see this as bad, but I guess the future will tell. I hope for the sake of the Venezuelan population things go better than the last time the US decided to initiate regime change.
Depends on the point of view. I certainly agree that there are many very good reasons to see this as bad, but I don't think that concerns about Venezuela's national sovereignty rank very highly on that list.
From the perspective that regime change often goes horribly wrong? Absolutely.
From the point of view that Maduro was effectively in charge of a coup that the real elected candidates were desperately seeking foreign support to stop? Harder to see the intervention as bad, as it is probably the only way to rectify the situation.
There's no doubt that this heavily depends on one's personal views, so there's no obvious answers. At least the concern about regime change is fact-based and pretty much universal, regardless of personal beliefs. The concern about whether or not it's right or wrong for the US to go and arrest Maduro depends largely on how one views the recent Venezuelan election results, and therefore inherently relies on some major assumptions on matters where we're unlikely to ever see conclusive proof.
Of course, there are also pretty good technical reasons to believe the electoral receipts published by the Venezuelan opposition. I believe they would have been pretty much impossible to fake. That topic and others related to it have been pretty much endlessly discussed on HN already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123155
“The concern about whether or not it's right or wrong for the US to go and arrest Maduro depends largely on how one views the recent Venezuelan election results”
Again, no it doesn’t. It’s the unilateral extraterritorial interventionism that’s the problem. I have no time for Maduro or his administration.
And if you think this intervention is about protecting democracy I have a bridge to sell you.
It's only unilateral if you reject the electoral fraud claims.
>And if you think this intervention is about protecting democracy I have a bridge to sell you.
No, I certainly don't think that. I'd suspect it's mostly about personal grievances and Trumps desire to make a show. But still I think it makes more sense to focus on the best-case justifications than trying to guess at the real reasons behind why this administration does what it does.
By that definition no foreign intervention could ever be unilateral because you can always find some local group to support you. By that logic the English conquest of Ireland was locally supported because the Earl of Desmond supported them.
The actual motivations matter because they dictate the outcome. In this case the actual motivations have been stated publicly by Trump a few years ago, they want the oil back. They will happily support whoever ends up in power so long as they hand back the oil rights.
I think you're stretching a bit, I'm simply proposing they have a pretty good case here because much of the world openly agrees with the US claim that Maduro did not actually win the previous elections.
>In this case the actual motivations have been stated publicly by Trump a few years ago, they want the oil back. They will happily support whoever ends up in power so long as they hand back the oil rights.
That's obviously not credible, you can't profitably extract Venezuelan crude without US involvement. There's simply nobody else with the capabilities to do so. Venezuelan oil is particularly difficult to get out of the ground, it's tremendously difficult to extract profitably.
>"That's obviously not credible, you can't profitably extract Venezuelan crude without US involvement. There's simply nobody else with the capabilities to do so. Venezuelan oil is particularly difficult to get out of the ground, it's tremendously difficult to extract profitably"
I see that you do not manage your finances properly. Lemme take over.
Besides I do not believe this "nobody else" BS. If there is a need and money to be made they will find someone with the tech or deep enough pockets to develop it.
> If there is a need and money to be made they will find someone with the tech or deep enough pockets to develop it
There's no need and there's likely to be no money to be made. The extraction costs will probably be closer to $60 per barrel, which is more than you can sell it for.
You seem intent on not understanding my point. Absolutely none of the details matter, the broad strokes of arresting someone in a foreign jurisdiction and taking them by force to your country to face trial sets about the worst precedent imaginable.
Trump says a lot of things which aren't remotely credible. WTI price is under $60 and going down. The last thing they need is more crude supply into the market lowering the benchmark price even lower.
It doesn’t have to be a good idea for it to be their rationale. They have stated it publicly to the media a few hours ago and you refuse to believe, how utterly bizarre.
Their stated rationale also doesn't have to be their true rationale. For example, it's hard to believe that this is about oil rather than the headlines for Trump.
I think there may have been some deliberate misdirection. I'm writing this after the US announced they have captured Maduro. If they had said they were going to do that he probably would have taken precautions. The subsequent justification may be that María Machado won the election, is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Maduro's removal with US assistance. Though who knows?
He might have. Or he might well have come willingly, ordered his bodyguards not to shoot etc. figuring that he'll have a better chance being an alive headache for the US, than as an Allende being found dead by his own hand (supposedly), or as Saddam being found hiding in a pigsty somewhere 50 days later.
That justification feels weak because of how much it could parallel with Putin's special military operation, where Zelensky is an illegitimate president, Viktor Yanukovych is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Zelenksy's removal with Russian assistance.
I don't like how Trump has unilaterly decided this extreme of an action, but at the moment I am glad that this didn't fail like it did in Ukraine. I am still worried about what the aftermath will lead to. I don't think peace and democracy is having a particularly winning record at the moment.
Yeah but if you take an honest look Zelensky was elected with 73% of the vote so probably a legitimate ruler. The Venezuela election seems to have been about "Maduro had in fact won just 30% of the vote, compared with 67% for González" so González, the proxy for Machado should have been the winner. (source https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/10/gonzal...)
But if we're going to invade some country on the grounds of making it into a democracy, one does have to wonder why we don't start with the countries that are very proudly and openly not democracies.
These are the bad non-democracies. There are good non-democracies too. Are you being critical of good non-democracies? Maybe you are living in a bad non-democracy and can't tell the difference, you might get invaded and enlightened any time soon.
But the Russian narrative would be that Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by the Ukraine Parliament in 2014 in what Putin described as a "coup". So Moscow will allege that any president from a future election is illegimate.
Just listened to the Trump press conference, it seems Machado won't be involved in the US-led transition government. He said she is deeply unpopular in Venezuela and it wouldn't work. Conversations are developing between Sec.State Rubio and Venezuela VP Delcy Rodriguez who is Acting President.
As someone old enough to have seen the US invade too many countries, I'm struck by the lack of effort put into justifying this sort of military action these days. There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal and I have no idea where the courts or history will ultimately land on that decision. But the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far.
To briefly quantify some things: US public support at the onset of the Afghanistan invasion polled at 88% [a]; at the onset of the Iraq invasion, 62%, rising to 72% [b]; and Venezuela here and now polls at 30% supporting "U.S. taking military action in Venezuela" [c] (Nov. 19–21 2025).
I suspect that invading and bombing a country for a few hours and then pulling out is not what most people will have in mind when you mention "taking military action". People are much, much more likely to remember the military quagmires in Vietnam or the Middle East, which have absolutely nothing to do with what occurred here.
Taking out Maduro is likely to lead to similar consequences as toppling Saddam, isn’t it? I predict the nation will be very unstable for decades ahead.
The action is smaller scale, but the ethics of it are the same: it’s abhorrent. The justifications are paper-thin ”the people deserve democracy”, while everyone knows the only interest served is that of the US government.
"Taking out Maduro is likely to lead to similar consequences as toppling Saddam, isn’t it? "
I don't think so. The Near East is a simmering cauldron of ancient ethnic and sectarian hatreds. Compared to that, Venezuela is ethnically and religiously almost homogeneous.
There is no equivalent of mad clerics preaching to their flock that they have to exterminate their heretic neighbours and that God will grant them paradise for doing so.
That’s the same talking point the far right uses for why the US shouldn’t get involved in Ukraine because they worry about a destabilized Russia if Putin goes away.
It’s some sort of dictator insurance policy. The idea that they are there because the country will likely just do it again but worse given the chance.
I’d say it’s easily the most common talking point I’ve seen from westerners on Twitter against overly supporting Ukraine and specifically providing them advanced American weaponry to strike within Russia proper, which was the biggest debate/controversy for about two years.
Also not necessarily “remove Putin by force”, it’s create instability in Russia where there’s a power vacuum if they lose badly in Ukraine.
Everyone just takes all of their American foreign policy lessons from Iraq and applies it broadly because Iraq briefly had ISIS and other extremist pop up
It’s also deeply rooted in a lack of respect for the general public in those countries, who they think will keep supporting evil regardless
”Following the war on social media” is a highway to poor psychological health, so I’ve avoided that after the first few weeks of the Russian invasion. In retrospect, I think I’m better off for having missed these far-right talking points.
Edit: Twitter? Why would anyone but the far right still be on Twitter these days?
Not necessarily, but there is the risk that ELN will further consolidate power. Maybe the US dies not want the group's leader, Antonio Garcia, to be the next president of Venezuela.
Public opinion in 2001 and 2003 followed the 9/11 terror attack and was very fresh in peoples mind. A more recent war (2015) would be the attack on Yemen by Barack Obama.
I can however not find any good public opinion for that war.
I don't think Americans perceive much of a difference between attacking Al Qaeda++ in Afghanistan versus in Yemen, certainly not enough to see it as "a different war", and it's not clear that perception is incorrect.
Afghanistan had the context of 9/11. All Americans knew about 9/11, and most cared strongly about it.
I doubt most Americans know anything about Yemen or know anything about any US involvement there, nor do they care.
Military strikes in Yemen aren't seen as the same war. Afghanistan and Iraq were boots on the ground, building up military bases, hearing about the occasional death of US personnel, etc. It's also decades apart.
When it comes to Yemen, the average American is probably entirely unaware of it, and the ones that do know about it are definitely going to place it in the Palestine/Israel context (which has huge mindshare circulation here, All things considered - we usually just ignore things outside of US borders and this is ultra politicized here). Maybe without that element, there would be more truth to what you were saying, but it's definitely in the Israel/Hamas war bucket as of now.
I think Americans are broadly aware that the US has been striking AQ, AQ++, and ISIS affiliates across the Middle East as part of the broader GWOT/OIR for years, and the exact jurisdictions in which it happens are essentially implementation details.
As of a few months ago, when the US began striking Yemen for purpose of defending Israel, it ha become loosely affiliated with that conflict, but the period discussed was Obama era.
We've been bombing Yemen on and off since post 9/11, including a rather large attack with UK support just last year (2025). Are you thinking of the Saudi-led intervention that occurred in 2015 in Yemen as part of the Yemeni civil war? Or maybe when we built a base there in 2011 to facilitate more drones?
I think this is a very good indicator US has been transitioning away from democracy towards something else for quite a while and now it has reached a point where no justification for an illegal war is even required.
After the Iraq war we(US allies that were dragged into this war by a bunch of lies) felt like this was very bad, but it was a blunder of one administration and the trust in the US as a whole was going to be restored.
> After the Iraq war we(US allies that were dragged into this war by a bunch of lies) felt like this was very bad, but it was a blunder of one administration and the trust in the US as a whole was going to be restored.
I don't understand how people can be this naive. It's the only thing the US has ever done for the entirety of it's existence! How did you miss that?
True. Maduro has not been the president since the last elections; he merely usurped the position. You cannot perform such an action without facing some constraints. For him, personally, maybe this was the better outcome.
First, read up on Venezuela's oil. I don't think that's the case. At the very least it's very expensive oil, hard to use and very bad for engines, refineries and for the environment and also oil is over (meaning oil will go into terminal decline probably before 2028 and that will be the end of the oil companies)
Second, when the US did have Venezuela's oil things were going a lot better in Venezuela for the whole population. So would that really be such a bad thing?
Third, Chavez made things so bad in Venezuela it's tough to imagine this making it worse. Oh and then he died and Maduro came ... and made things worse.
> and also oil is over (meaning oil will go into terminal decline probably before 2028 and that will be the end of the oil companies)
Back in the 90s, my dad told me a quote from someone big in oil:
"Oil is too valuable to burn"
(Shah of Iran? Trouble with searching for quotes on the internet, they get misattributed a lot).
Oil as a fuel will, hopefully, be over soon. 2028 is… I think that's too soon, though it would be good if it was. But oil is useful for a lot more than just fuel, and engineered bacteria synthesising more is probably more like a 2030s thing than a 2028 thing.
You don't understand. 2028 is the time peak oil will definitely be behind us, and therefore the oil business will only deteriorate from that point forward. It will quickly mean the end of all oil producers except the very cheapest.
If you're going to go with conspiracy theories, China is desperate for oil and was openly allying with Venezuela, and so was, ironically, petrostate Russia, although that's ending (for now). I bet Putin is looking for contingency plans though. Even though Venezuela is not exactly the easiest to reach for either of them, but beggars can't be choosers. Preventing any progress here might have been worth a lot to both the US and the EU. And, yes, I know how it sounds, but this will be pretty helpful with the Ukraine war. Yes, really.
Of course leftist tankies will be mad the billionaire fake-communist "revolution" that started with Chavez and should have ended 20 years ago is now very likely over. Of course, most Venezuelans (75% according to the opposition) would describe that revolution as a nightmare.
Of course I doubt 75% of Venezuelans wanted the US to resolve it.
I seriously doubt either China or Russia could manage to extract significant quantities of Venezuelan oil at a profit even if the US lifted all sanctions and completely forgot about Venezuela.
The costs of getting production set up at are so high compared to the relatively bleak outlook for the oil market, it's likely that Venezuelan oil isn't a hugely attractive proposition for anyone.
China is desperate, and also the enemy of essentially every source of oil ... "except" Venezuela (disregarding the fact that of course Maduro can't be trusted, and thus isn't really an ally of China. More accurately they're both desperate and might be able to help one another).
Russia is also desperate. And is extracting oil in Venezuela easier than doing it while under Ukrainian bombardment? Good question but we can summarize: extracting oil inside Russia is failing, thanks to Putin's 3-day special military operation ... and they've already had to import fuel twice in the past 6 months, despite how utterly ridiculous that is: the country that out-produced Saudia Arabia when it comes to oil needed to import fuel.
China is moving away from oil at such a pace that any massive development of first the extraction technologies for Venezuela and then the actual infrastructure would probably take too long to be particularly useful.
Venezuela is also simply too far from China to be a reliable source of oil.
Yes because the only reason Chinese government officials would talk with Venezuela is because China wants to spin up large-scale oil production there? Literally no other reason they could possibly be talking, right?
The question is whether it's the majority of Venezuelans. I have no doubt that there are many who hate Maduro and his regime - for very good reasons - but that's true of many authoritarian countries that nevertheless have the "silent majority" tacitly supporting their regime.
There is the opposition vote result that showed us 75% wanted Maduro out. Of course you can ask, did that include having US forces remove him? On the other hand, you can bet a lot the result would have been even more than 75% if everybody wasn't afraid while voting in secret.
"Rules-based order" just means Washington makes up the rules and gives out the orders. The very phrase hints at its conceit. Why "Rules-based order" instead of "International law" ? Its because International law is something concrete, something you can point to and hold up as a standard. International law means UN, ICC, Geneva conventions, votes and parlimentary procedure. It means accountability and uniform application of said law. "Rules-based order" just gives a slightest hint of legitimacy while Washington and its cronies do whatever they want. "Rules-based order" means that the United States can invoke the Monroe Doctrine in Venezuela, Cuba and all over its "backyard" i.e. South America, but Russia doing the same in Ukraine or China doing it in Taiwan is an affront to civillization.
What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off. They don't even pretend to give a plausible reason anymore because noone will ever buy it so why bother. "All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force." That is what we are witnessing now.
> What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off.
The mask has been off since the ICC came into existence (at the latest). The reason why the U.S. don’t recognize the ICC is because they know they’d be defendants there one second after.
I will admit i was slow to catch on. But watching the whole abominable horror show laid out - Gaza, Ukraine, Epstein, Trump coins, resorts, and ballrooms. Seeing the Nobel prize being given to the woman literally calling for Trump to invade her country and take their oil and cheering as her countrymen get bombed. And then seeing the media and liberal elites spin it as a snub against Trump as she dedicates the prize to him. I am ashamed that i was taken in for so long.
"Rules-based international world order" consists of just two rules:
1. The Western countries (basically meaning USA makes the decision) may attack any country.
2. Other countries may not defend themselves nor attack any country.
Iraq, Iraq (several separate agressions on Iraq, that is not a typo), Afghanistan, Cuba, Serbia, Libya, Sirya, Venezuela... the list goes on, Venezuela is of no particular significance here.
Hungary, Chechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan, Ichkeria, Ukraine, Syria... The list goes on
If you're genuinely curious dig into the protests 2014, who won the election, who asked her supporters to take to the streets, and what has she been advocating for for a long time before.
It's all about Crimea and the black sea fleet and pipelines. Every time the same conflict, as Orwell put it: We've always been at war with Eurasia.
Edit: Instead of down-voting, tell me where I'm wrong. All of the facts are public information and you won't even have to leave Wikipedia.
I'll bite: speaking for myself, I can't figure out what point you are trying to make
First sentence says to look up 2014 protests and "her" supporters, second sentence says "it's" about the Black Sea and Crimea. Third sentence "we've" always been at war with Eurasia
> First sentence says to look up 2014 protests and "her" supporters, second sentence says "it's" about the Black Sea and Crimea
Yulia Tymoshenko (pro-West), she urged her supporters to take to the streets when the pro-Russian candidate won the election. For a long time she wanted to withdraw from the Russian/Ukrainian deal that the Black Sea Fleet could be in Crimea until 202? (can't remember the exact year right now).
When those protests erupted Russia (unofficially) sent forces to protect their interests, Crimea. The conflict then escalated to the invasion.
> Third sentence "we've" always been at war with Eurasia
We as in the West, are always at war with the east. We want a world order where we are at the top of the food chain and we'll stop any attempt to rise. If we're going to prosper the rest of the world has to remain as cheap labor.
Look into any conflict this and the previous century and you'll see the same pattern. It's always been a game och risk between the East and the West.
One interesting thing to look into is which countries along the Russian border are not Nato members. Correlate this to where there has been pro-Western protests and even coup attempts in the last decade.
The world is run by psychopaths and they have most of their populations living in ignorance of how geopolitics actually work. My most important principle in life is to judge "my side" harder. Russia and China don't have to be our enemies, but a country is easier to run if there's an external threat. And that's why Oceania in Orwells' 1984 is always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia.
It's a big subject and it's difficult to summarize in a comment, that's why I listed a few questions to look into. I can dump facts and events all I want but the best thing one can do is to look into these conflicts themselves and find the patterns. It's always about who's allied with who, and who's extracting the resources. Gas/oil/minerals/power.
We were fine with Saddam (that we put in power in the first place) trying to exterminate the kurds, but mention leaving the petrodollar, oh no you didn't.
Thank you for the clarification. Given that the current context is comparing Ukraine to Venezuela, and Venezuela's opposition leader is a woman and there were protests in 2014, I had no idea you were talking about Tymoshenko.
According to West, not allowed. However, the West does not exist anymore, and we have two different ideological camps within it. According to USA, it’s bad, but it did not hurt American interests, so a good deal is possible. According to EU, foreign policy of which is hijacked by Baltic right, it is still not allowed, but… Deep currents indicate that as soon as it’s done with formal condemnations, it is desirable that business will resume as usual.
There’s massive propaganda effort painting the picture of imminent invasion, so opinion polls are naturally reflecting that. I doubt that there was ever a reason for Finland to worry about it. It’s just a convenient narrative for politicians, mainly on the right. But I was not saying that it’s only right leaning voters think this way. Just pointed out that we have Kallas as head of EU diplomacy and few other vocal politicians from Baltic right wing parties, and they are fixated on Russian threat, which is necessary for their political survival.
Plenty of European businesses still operate in Russia or have set up their exit for easy return via Dubai legal entities. Also Belgium fiercely resisting confiscation of Russian assets etc.
>Also Belgium fiercely resisting confiscation of Russian assets etc
Isn't this literally them not wanting to be left holding the paper bag?
What businesses are doing, I don't know, I am more aware of what states are doing. What're your thoughts on the expansion of military expenditure? Let Ukraine die, keep ourselves defended?
> Isn't this literally them not wanting to be left holding the paper bag?
It’s telling that they consider this a possibility. If EU wanted it, they could protect Belgium. But anticipation of business as usual means that whoever distances from such decisions better, will do better.
„Let Ukraine die“ decision was made in 2022, when NATO chose not to engage directly and not to switch to war economy, rapidly scaling production of military equipment and supplies. In NATO vs Russia war, Russia had no chances, but it quickly became Ukraine vs Russia war with token Western support, where Ukraine has no chances in the long term. As for increase in military spending, it’s necessary, but whatever is done, is insufficient. It is barely enough for containment of Russia, and EU needs independent operation in Middle East and Africa, pushing out USA from the region (whatever America does there, always ricocheting on Europe, so they should be denied action without approval of allies)
It is not like citizens of Iran decide to attack Israel or like sponsoring terrorist orgs attacking Israel. I am not sure if Russians freely vote in referendum to attack Ukraine. These decisions are made by despots ruling these countries and then their citizens suffer. Either they die in trenches or suffer economic misery. What for? China too can live without Taiwan. Chinese people do not need to have another island belonging to their country. Only despots wants to have statues raised after them, or write their names in history books, because all other things: Power, Money, Sex they already have.
>the invasion had broad popular support at the beginning.
According to whom?
You should understand that public opinion surveys in authoritarian countries are problematic. In autocracies, people might want to hide their opinions and give socially desirable answers that conform to the official government position for fear of facing repression or deviating from the consensus view.
According to my own relatives, friends, and acquaintances in Russia, where I'm from. You don't need to tell me about "hiding opinions". The majority support is regardless of all that, though.
This is a ridiculously small sample to tell me that "the invasion had broad popular support at the beginning". It had a broad support in your own circles and you casually extrapolated it to the whole population.
According to my own relatives, friends, and acquaintances in Russia (where I'm from) – no one supports or ever supported in the beginning the total idiocracy which is happening.
Expectations are higher, competition is stiffer, and the gap between bottom and top end has grown, but by and large (especially in the US), the middle class quality of life has gone up.
Obviously specific regions that failed to transition out of low value-add manufacturing and agriculture have suffered, but the vast majority of Americans live in cities doing or supporting high value work.
It's not even competition anymore. It's a screaming void that deafens everyone, causing them to reach for the nearest "acceptable" thing just to quiet the endless cacophony of human struggling.
Yes this is a big problem but a large part of this is the total elimination of starter homes from the market. I.e. they would be able to afford the types of homes that earlier generations started in, but those homes simply don't exist anymore.
It's kind of a quality of life degradation, but it's a bit more complex than just "an attainable item is no longer attainable." It has never been normal to buy a 2600 sqft, 4 bedroom home at the start of a career.
It's not that starter homes were eliminated or were torn down, it's that construction stopped in cities. The downzonings of prior generations, combined with the limited ability to expand by car travel, finally hit its limit and the urban planning apparatus was in complete capture of people who didn't want the built environment to change.
The reason construction slowed down so much is that developers fear another 2008. We have just barely gotten back onto a historically normal-ish pace of construction: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST
And this talk of "just build build build," while not wrong per se, overlooks the fact that of course prices will come down, which then discourages construction. The system is self-equilibrating. 2008 reset the equilibrium point very low for 15 years, and now the nature of the costs of construction (labor and land) means it is not advantageous for anyone to build starter homes, and it's hardly advantageous to build homes at all.
Restrictive zoning is a problem and would be a very tidy explanation of all the woes of residential in the US, but there really isn't much evidence for it mattering that much in the grand scheme of things.
The single most important factor in home prices is local income levels. This gets baked into both land prices and labor costs, which then makes it very difficult to profitably build much, and completely unprofitable to build entry level homes.
The building industry never really recovered after 2008 because the only surviving companies were extremely cautious. In order to get more builders, there needs to be more places to build, and entry into the industry needs to be easier. It's all permitting, zoning, and discretionary processes stopping housing from being built where it's wanted to be built.
Well I've shared a statistical analysis and raw data series backing my points and directly contradicting yours. On the flip side I guess we have "trust me bro."
To the extent "it's all [any individual cause]", that cause is rising incomes. The second major cause of rising housing prices is cost of inputs (labor, land, material). Zoning definitely plays a role, but again: there's just no evidence that "solving zoning" will actually solve affordability. We should do it anyway because it'll solve all sorts of other problems in our built environment, but there's not good evidence affordability is one of them.
You ar also doing "trust me bro" with a statistical analysis that at most shows that prices rise with wages when supplies are constrained. Which, yes! That's what everyone says! K shaped recoveries happen when there's unequal access to opportunity, and supple constraints in access to the geography of good incomes is exactly the sort of supply constraints. Further, in order to get their weak results they do silly things like transform "supply constraints" into an indicator variable, and on the basis of that single odd regression try to overturn a huge body of literature showing the opposite.
Yet this one strange paper keeps getting cited as if it were God's own truth, the holy grail of economics that changes everything that was known before.
Supply restrictions are not binary, though that's how your paper treats them, and they perform none of the causal analysis that would be needed to extend their analysis to the conclusions you are trying to draw.
Here's a random paper with completely different results that agrees with the rest of the field:
I remember the last time the "we can't change zoning" folks passed around a paper like the NBER paper you shared, and it was one about transit-oriented-development in Chicago, where allowing small upzonings close didn't change pricing much. It was contra to the vast majority of the literature, covered only a small geographic area with fully adequate housing supply, yet for a few years nobody could suggest doing the obvious zoning reforms without people claiming that Chicago proved that upzoning doesn't change pricing.
And again, supply will always be constrained below "affordability" by virtue of there being no profit available at affordable price points given the costs of inputs. So yes, if we imagine a world where supply isn't constrained first by the actual cost structure of construction, then clearly artificial constraints are the sole problem and solving them would solve the problem overall. But that's not the world we live in!
From your random paper:
> Fig. 5 shows the event study results for the change in log hedonic rents. In contrast to the housing supply, we find no statistically significant effect of upzoning on rents.
So it looks like your paper actually agrees with mine.
As I've said over and over: we should overhaul zoning for sure. However there is not good evidence that will solve affordability, and there's basically zero evidence that it is the cause of "all" the problems, as you so boldly claimed.
> I wouldn't call it "some inflation". The living standard of the western middle class has been on the decline for a long, long time.
IMHO the main problem nowadays, especially facing young people, is housing.
Otherwise there is probably never been a greater time to be alive, generally speaking, than right now. If you believe there is, can you outline the year(s) in question and how they were better?
As for inflation, using Bank of Canada numbers (since I'm in CA), $100 of goods/services from 1975-2000 increased by 220% to $320.93, while $100 of goods/services from 2000-2025 increased by 71% to $171.22.
While unpleasant, and higher than that of what many young(er) people have experienced, it is hardly at a crazy level. The lack of people's experience of higher rates is simply more evidence as to how stable things have generally been:
Interestingly, this is not just flaunting international law. It is a blatant violation of federal domestic law in the USA itself: Congress is the only body that can declare war, and they have not done so. The Presidency has no right whatsoever to attack a foreign country without a declaration of war.
While yes, Congress authorized the "War on Terror", there is very obviously no possible justification for applying that to the case of Venezuela.
My point is that —- regardless of appropriateness —- this is about as far from “unprecedented” as can be imagined.
Congress didn’t declare ware on Syria, or Iraq, or Yemen, or Somalia, or any number of other African countries when the US attacked them during the Biden administration.
That’s not what I was saying, but I didn’t argue when smarter men than I said exactly that:
But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
- Lysander Spooner
Liberia has/had a nearly identical constitution and look at them. It was just a roadmap for what the US could become if we became even more savage like them. It was never the Constitution that made the USA special, in other hands you got what we're getting now.
You always needed a populace that respected life, liberty, and property above all in order to have a prayer of it working out; that is long gone if it ever existed.
Ah yes, using the Coast Guard's aircraft carrier, stealth fighters, and their famous "Delta Force" commandos. I bet they even got a warrant to kick in Maduro's door and read him his rights!
Just like how Denmark and Greenland stole American land that happens to be where Greenland is. Or Canada.
Seriously though, even the imperial ambitions from the guy feels racist :)
I guess Turkey can stop worrying on thanksgiving days.
I have a lot of conflicting views with both the "left" and the "right" these days, but it seems the so-called "conservatives" are not that conservative in their ambitions, no?
Panama and Granada in the 80s weren't that fundamentally different. And before that US had a very long history of invading or intervening in Latin American countries due to various often dubious reasons.
If anything the last few decades might have been the exception.
> the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far
A lot of Americans don't care. They either actually don't care. Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Like, this entire exercise is a leveraged wager by the Trump administration that this will not cost them the Senate in any of these states next year [1].
As an American, I think we make this excuse too often. People have opposed and overthrown their governments more effectively under much harsher circumstances.
What data do you have that they don’t care? Waging a war is a pretty massive thing to not care about. I would think that someone would either be positive or negative towards it. Because even if they don’t care about invading countries per se they would presumably care about what their presumed tax money is spent on.
Of course being “nihilistic” is a different matter.
> Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Typical.
Doing anything about US foreign interventions is a very tall order in a country where the vast majority are politically disenfranchised (with income and wealth as a proxy). It’s difficult enough for domestic affairs, like getting universal healthcare. Much harder to fight the war machine.
Americans did put up a fight against the interventionism of the Reagan administration. But that didn’t stop the funding of the Contras. “All it did” was force the interventions to become clandestine. (A big contrast to this admin.)
But ordinary Americans do have the largest power in all of the world to fight the war machine of their own country. That ought to be encouraged. But as usual we see the active encouragement of nihilism from comments where A Lot Of X are deemed to be useless for this particular purpose. Ah what’s the point, People Are Saying that everyone around me are useless or politically katatonic. Typical.
It’s funny how the America First, America Only crowd is cheering on this shameless regime change whose ultimate goal isn’t about drugs or democracy, but getting access to oil and minerals to make the Trump family richer.
And that’s so why there is a lack of effort to justify it. The right has been compromised and will support anything the party does - deporting citizens, invading countries, making things unaffordable with tariffs.
I have seen many people on X who have a profile saying America First or America Only or both post messages supporting the boat strikes or “thanking” Hegseth or whatever. Among big influencers - Matt Walsh, Benny Johnson, others have all supported the narrative in one form or the other. For example Johnson pushed the conspiracy theory that Venezuela rigs elections in America. Often they use dishonest language to shill their support for what’s going on - “we don’t want a new war but here’s ten reasons why Venezuela is bad”
> There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal
There might be a local debate about the legality in the US. But from the outside perspective in terms of international law, there is not much to debate. Unless i missed some UN resolution, the US has no jurisdiction in Venezuela.
This is a consequence of the society concentrating on its internal culture war. International politics became irrelevant to most voters; they don't really have any personal stake in it anymore, or they at least don't feel so. Their kids won't be drafted to war.
>There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal
Or maybe there wouldn't be any debate and people will move on to the next bombastic thing he does. Populists get away with everything by simply not engaging, people get tired and seek new entertainment and there's no actual checks and balances beyond the decency. When someone has no claim of decency, they are untouchable. No one will ever arrest them, stop them or deny them anything because they can just replace those who do not obey. Maduro, Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Orban and many others are made from the same cloth.
It was one or two elections ago that we entirely dropped the pretense of dignity.
Quite refreshing, actually.
Earlier today I heard the argument that idealism was promoted in the West because it encourages a separation from reality and makes people easier to control.
I consider myself an idealist. I just don't believe that ignorance and delusion are the means by which an ideal can be brought about.
I think all that's required here is that Maduro had such bad relationships with everyone both inside and outside the country that there was no one to defend him.
If the UN calls for a vote to condemn the US, it will likely fail even without veto power.
I haven't been keeping track of this realm of politics closely. Is there a concise well-informed summary anywhere? Unfortunately everything I find contains a degree of polemic that I find is usually accompanied by low-information content.
Maduro isn't a good leader. He's been very repressive, very likely stole the 2024 election from his opponent. Venezuela has terrible economic problems and food and medicine shortages.
They have been assisting Russia, operating a shadow fleet of oil tankers that routinely disable transponders to evade international sanctions against each other. They've also been helping Iran to manufacture UAVs.
They are also a narco-state. The cartel there has at least partially captured the government.
Installing a more palatable leader and administration would perhaps allow the sanctions to be lifted, oil to be sold on the global market, and aid to flow in. The brain drain from the country might partly reverse.
Or, it could devolve into a civil war, insurgency, mass refugee exodus, etc.
All the above describes many countries, more or less. Why the US is targeting Venezuela in particular likely has to do with oil, geopolitical principle (Monroe doctrine) and advantage (weaken Iran and Russia), Venezuelan immigration to the U.S., distraction from Trump's failing health, personal & political scandals, "red meat" for the base and war-hawks, and the political security afforded to a "war time" president.
>Monroe asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence,[4] and thus further efforts by European powers to control or influence sovereign states in the region would be viewed as a threat to U.S. security.[5][6]
>In turn, the United States would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries.
I highly doubt that weakening Iran and Russia is the goal here, and I'm not even sure how people got that idea. This isn't 2010 anymore.
These decisions require a pretty broad coalition to get a workable plan in front of Trump for him to activate for attention. So there is never 1 single reason, but my 2cents are that:
- Most of the oil export goes to China. Especially with the recent metals kerfuffle, this is a quick way to improve the US' negotiation position.
- The hawks in the army are getting restless and are clamoring for real-world modern drone warfare experience - especially if Taiwan turns hot. Getting a trial run in your backyard in similar terrain is good practice. (Assuming they'll send in an occupying force, and it's contested by china backed insurgents).
To be more explicit: Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the entire world and, due to the above, are not inclined to transact it with the US.
This deserves far more than the two little sidenotes you've dropped in here.
POTUS demonstrably does not give a fuck about countries "assisting Russia", "being repressive", "stealing elections" or "having economic/food/health problems".
Trump blamed Venezuela for stealing US oil when it nationalized US oil companies there, and for shipping drugs to America, and for creating Dominion voting machines which he believes were used to cheat in the 2020 election. Some in his administration have also blamed Venezuela for working with Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas. One or more of those could be the reason for the invasion.
Trump also blamed Venezuela for literally conducting an invasion of the United States (not just in rhetoric, but as his legal justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act in March of 2025.)
I can't remember the last time the US invaded a South American country and it ending up in a better position. Usually, a fascist dictator is installed, and the country is economically raped out of its wealth. The population is left oppressed and made even poorer.
> Venezuela is a hive of Russian, Chinese and Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere. That is–long run–a problem for America.
A problem for American ideology or dominance? Sure. But a valid reason for war? No. Right now America is breaking international law. Stealing oil tankers is literal piracy. Bombing a country is imperialism. These things should be done with a process that involves other countries and seeks consensus.
> Venezuela is also a brutal dictatorship that is oppressing its people and producing waves of migrants.
Agree.
> Finally, Venezuela is rich in underdeveloped mineral and energy resources. (Caveat: Exxon currently pumps those wells.)
Given how the Trump family is using every single means to become rich through their power, I imagine this is their main motivation.
> Venezuela is also not Epstein, so, idk, there's that.
I view this Venezuela war and the Somalian daycare fraud as ways the administration distracts from inconvenient issues like Epstein and affordability.
>What do you mean? Do you think that Ukrainian natonalists started the war
You could start by watching Bush Sr.'s speech in Kiev in 1991: "Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred".[0]
Americans later did support them, of course. [1]
Fast forward to 2014:
"The night before the clashes, Right Sector called on all of its members to ready themselves for a "peace offensive" on 18 February. <...> That morning, around 20,000 demonstrators marched on the parliament building as that body was set to consider opposition demands for a new constitution and government. Around 09:45, the demonstrators broke through the police barricade of several personnel-transport trucks near the building of the Central Officers' Club of Ukraine and pushed the cordon of police aside. The clashes started after some two dozen demonstrators moved a police vehicle blocking their path to parliament." [2]
Right Sector is "the right-wing, paramilitary confederation of several ultranationalist organizations" [3]
After overthrowing pro-Ukrainian president who was predominantly supported by the Eastern Ukraine, pro-Western Ukrainian nationalistic "government" started what they cynically called Anti-Terrorist Operation in the Eastern Ukraine
I'm Polish, I know how Russians are, I do not need to watch American sources for this or to listen to Russian guy trying to shift blame from his country :)
You won't find any avenues in Russia named after Stalin. They were renamed after 1953 condemnation of Stalin's "cult of personality". Post-2014 regime in the Ukraine has renamed scores of streets after Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazis. The most cynical was the renaming of major avenue in Kiev leading to Babiy Yar (the place where thousands of Jews were massacred) to honor Bandera and the renaming of the avenue that used to honor Nikolai Vatutin[0], Soviet general who fought Nazis on the territory of Ukraine, after after Shukhevych[1], another Nazi collaborator and mass murderer.
You can easily find the names of these despicable people in Google Maps on the maps of Kiev and many other Ukrainian cities.
No, it's what I found in 2025 in Moscow, if I were to look in whole Russia I would find hundreds of these. I'm ending this discussion, unfortunately it's very typical for Russians to discuss like this - always deny anything wrong even when facts are very clear, and when it's impossible to deny then just downplay it or even say that the wrongdoing you do is actually good.
A new monument to Soviet leader Josef Stalin was unveiled in the southern Russian city of Volgograd on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory in the battle of Stalingrad — as Volgograd was known until 1961 — a key turning point in World War II. The bust of Stalin was installed near the Battle of Stalingrad Museum alongside those of Soviet World War II marshals Georgy Zhukov and Alexander Vasilevsky. All three monuments were designed by sculptor Sergey Shcherbakov, a Volgograd native. This is the second monument to Stalin to have been unveiled in Volgograd in recent years. The first modern memorial, a two-meter concrete bust, was opened near the local Communist Party headquarters in December 2019 to mark the 140th anniversary of Stalin’s birth. According to a law adopted by the Volgograd Duma in 2016, the city reverts to its Soviet-era name Stalingrad on certain public holidays, including Victory Day and the annual anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad.
Volgograd is a city with a population of 1 million.
Authorities in northwestern Russia’s Vologda region unveiled a statue of Joseph Stalin over the weekend, the latest monument to the Soviet dictator to have sprung up in the country in recent years. At an unveiling ceremony, Vologda region Governor Georgiy Filimonov described the Stalin monument as “a step toward a sober, balanced view” of Russia’s past. Just hours before, Filimonov laid flowers at a local memorial dedicated to victims of political repression. “It’s difficult to overestimate Joseph Stalin’s role in shaping our country’s history,” the governor said. “Of course, there were tragic lows [during his rule], but there were also highs.” Filimonov added that Stalin’s memory should be “cherished” and “passed on to future generations” to keep Russia “powerful.”
The most WTF of them all is erecting monuments to Stalin in occupied Ukraine.
The Communist Party of Russia unveiled a monument to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in occupied Melitopol, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, on May 8 to commemorate Victory Day in World War II, the party announced. The statue carries a plaque that reads: "To the organizer and inspirer of the victory of the Soviet people over the Nazi invaders, Generalissimo of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin, from grateful descendants." The ceremony was attended by Russian-installed officials and local school students who laid flowers at the site. Melitopol has been under Russian occupation since March 2022. Stalin's legacy in Ukraine is marked by profound suffering. Under his rule, millions of Ukrainians died during the Holodomor, a man-made famine in 1932–1933. The dictator also oversaw mass deportations, purges of Ukrainian intellectuals and leaders, and the suppression of the Ukrainian language and culture.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, товарищ. Soviet nostalgia has become central to Putinism and thanks to the non-stop brainwashing, in 2020 '75% of Russians agreed that the Soviet era was the "greatest time" in the history of Russia.'. This is used to justify the illegal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian terrorist state.
Any random Eastern European sees right through your bullshit, protomolecule.
Maduro is alive and charged with crimes in a US court. So, we will see evidence presented I guess. This is new.
I'm surprised Maduro wasn't just killed, and wonder if he might somehow die in US custody. The US will have to make a case in court while the whole world watches. That will be embarrassing I expect.
If they have evidence he violated US law smuggling weapons and drugs into the domestic USA, he should be tried under such law. It's neither ironic, funny, strange, or anything else. What law should he be tried under if he did these alleged things?
They extradited him by force because Venezuela wouldn't. They don't have an extradition treaty. If Venezuela doesn't want this to happen again - negotiate a treaty.
The USA doesn't "accept" the ICC because it's not a party to the agreement. There are not-insignificant constitutional problems with the USA being a party. It's because they have such strong civil protections that those issues come up.
The ICC is also complementary - you misunderstand what it is for. If the USA is able to prosecute this guy themselves, you don't need an ICC, because it doesn't apply in this case.
no, that makes sense. It's probably too soon to be sure what has happened. This is why we need actual journalists and not just tiktok and yt commentators
POTUS confirmed it, first on CBS News and prior to the Guardian posting that, then on his Mastodon server. There is no room for doubt about who bombed where.
As this is an evolving situation, the OP headline has now been changed to "Trump claims US has captured Venezuelan dictator and wife" and is basically a different article at this point.
The bias in this Guardian reporting is very visible beyond just the headlines.
(I don't blame you for being confused btw)
Suggesting "US bombs Venezuela" for HN headline (still uncertainties around the "capture").
Welcome to the wonderful world of news/media. Try this with US/China, EU/russia, Israel/Palestine, etc. Note the framing, word usage, etc. Both sides could do the same thing but the headlines diverge. One side gets "aggressive", "destablizing", "terrorism", etc. The other gets "defensive", "stabilizing", "anti-terrorism", etc. Not to mention who gets called a "dictator/authoritarian". That one is real funny.
edit: this comment made before two threads were consolidated. Original thread titled "Explosions reported in Venezuelan capital Caracas"
While I agree that "hypocrisy" isn't the right word here, I see where OP is coming from.
At least in American media, the use of passive voice (or as I've heard it called sometimes "exonerative voice") often obfuscates or otherwise provides cover for authorities. For example, "Tower collapses after missile strike" and "Man dies after being struck by bullet during arrest" are both technically true and yet also leave out important context (the country who fired the missile, the person who fired the gun and why).
Even if this headline is appropriate for now, it's not surprising that there should be questions over how it's worded.
It's not textbook responsible when it's consistently and predictably done for only one side of every conflict.
That's like if a waiter gives the appropriate amount of attention to the tables with white guests and disregards tables with minority guests. You can't clutch your pearls and say that it isn't hypocrisy to notice that the waiter treats a given table correctly.
Yes they know what "hypocrisy" means. It is the hypocrisy of western media of jumping to say "evil country X bombed/invaded country Y" when it's a non-western country doing something (not that I'm justifying any country bombing/invading another) but when it's done by a country like the US the report is just "wow these buildings in Caracas just popped, crazy huh?"
You’re hand-waving, not stating causality when it has not been confirmed is basic journalism and is standard practice in all serious media outlets regardless of what parties are involved.
Actually you are hand-waving. Look at the original post, it says "Notice the hypocrisy of the "explosions reported" title instead of "US bombs Venezuela".".
It is referencing the usage of passive voice and the lack of mention to the actor that did the reported act, it is not referencing the absence of casualty at all. So you are just straw manning and criticizing an argument that neither the OP nor myself defended at any point of the conversation.
One would have to completely ignore the context of the last few months to not make a link in causality with basic inference.
These are the same "serious media outlets" that repeat that same context in their articles over and over again as if readers haven't come anywhere near a news source in over a year.
It's like they are back in school trying to hit that arbitrary 500 word requirement when it's entirely unnecessary. Modern journalism is neither serious nor rigorous.
Just to clarify: Trump didn't do worse than Maduro (he got stopped) but he did do much worse than "ignore the election results" in that he actively tried to overturn the results.
There are two possibilities. Either we live in a rules-based international order, in which case China would be punished for invading Taiwan. Or we live in a world where power decides outcomes, in which case China would still be punished, this time by the United States, which is arguably still the strongest actor.
Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
With the US being now engaging her Navy in South America more, I am not so sure that America can really match a Blitzkrieg-style invasion, and it is probably not quite able to project enough soft power to get the 'vassal states' to effectively help.
So while I am by no means pro-Taiwan invasion, I do believe that there is a very significant downside wrt China with this move.
N.B. I'm no military wonk or political strategist, far from it. I just call 'em as i see's 'em.
>Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
There's someone else in this thread suggesting that the quid pro quo was exactly that. My brothers in Christ, I am worried.
"Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to 'liberate' by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest.
The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election', 'protecting interests', 'restoring order'. The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.
The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable."
The media can blast propaganda all they want about the reasons.
It’s just history repeating itself. Never trust american politicans.
If this started a war with China (it wont, but as a thought experiment), wouldn’t american politicans at least want to pretend this was the will of the people? Or are they just so sure they can set the discourse that democracy no longer has a meaning?
Rules and laws only matter if you can enforce them.
The UN sits and is "deeply concerned" about terrible leaders and events all around the world all the time. Leaders of so many EU countries "condemn" people they disagree with. But they can't enforce anything, so it doesn't matter.
I prefer living in a world where a country I'm more aligned with than most can enforce their morality on the world _effectively_, like this. Not just empty words and platitudes and endless talking about "this is against international rule of law" -- none of that is real unless you _enforce_ it.
Venezuelans seem to be celebrating this. Maybe let them speak for themselves for once. And let's not forget, Maduro was indicted under Biden. This isn't a recent invention by the Trump administration.
Some Venezuelans are celebrating. Some Iraqis celebrated when Saddam’s statue fell. How they felt five years later is the more relevant data point.
“Let them speak for themselves” is doing a lot of work here. Which Venezuelans? The ones in Miami and Doral? The ones still in Caracas who’ll live with whatever comes next? The ones who’ll be caught in the crossfire if this destabilizes into civil war?
> I prefer living in a world where a country I’m more aligned with can enforce their morality on the world effectively.
So does everyone. The problem is that China and Russia feel the same way. Rules exist precisely because “let the powerful enforce their values” is a race to the bottom.
You’re comfortable with this because you trust the current enforcer. But frameworks outlast administrations. You’re not just endorsing this action, you’re endorsing the principle that whoever has the most power gets to decide. Hope you still like that principle when the power shifts.
Enforcement without wisdom is just violence with good PR.
You're not going to stop Russia with rules unless you enforce them. Look at Ukraine. Same with China. They're not going to leave Taiwan in peace unless you are willing to back up your "concern" with _force_.
Maduro trafficked humans, colluded with terrible gangs, was working with Iran, and had so many opportunities to stop. He was given an olive branch by the current US government and ignored it. He fucked around, now he found out.
If you want Putin to stop harassing Ukraine, you either are willing to go to the FO stage, or your words are wind. Because Russia is. And now, luckily, so is the US, and my way of life as a Norwegian is _so much more_ aligned with the US way of life than China or Russia or a socialist dictatorship like Venezuela was under for decades. I _want_ my allies to be able to enforce my world view _if and when_ our opponents don't respect us.
Edit: The EU is a perfect example of an (unelected) ruling body that plays nice with everyone, diplomacy first, always concerned, never willing to back up anything by force. Your perfect utopia judging by your own words. They _never_ get _anything_ done, and nobody respects them. Especially not its enemies like Russia or China. Spineless bureaucrats that are so far removed from everyday human reality they don't even understand how laws _work_.
You’re conflating two different things: defending allies against invasion (Ukraine, Taiwan) and unilateral regime change (Venezuela, Iraq, Libya).
I agree that deterrence requires credible force. Defending Ukraine from Russian invasion is enforcement of a principle (sovereignty) against an aggressor. That’s fundamentally different from the US deciding a government is bad and removing it.
The problem isn’t “using force ever.” It’s “using force to overthrow governments we don’t like, without allies, without a plan for what comes next, based on a track record of catastrophic failures.”
Norway’s security depends on NATO credibility, which depends on the US being seen as a rule-enforcing power rather than a rule-breaking one. Every time the US acts unilaterally, it makes it harder to maintain the coalitions that actually protect your way of life. Russia points to Iraq and Libya to justify its own actions. You’re not strengthening the enforcement regime; you’re eroding the legitimacy that makes enforcement possible.
“Fucked around and found out” is a framework for bar fights, not foreign policy.
Yes Russia points to Iraq and Libya, and they may be right. We can point to Georgia and Ukraine, and maybe we are right. At the end of the day, and I'm repeating myself because people forget this constantly, rules and laws don't mean _anything_ unless you're willing to back them up with consequences -- and in this context, military might.
It's just like raising a child. When a child starts kicking you in the shins, you can say "please stop dear" as much as you want, they'll keep doing it until there's consequences. Might not need more than a strategic targeted pinch in the ear that hurts just enough to back up what you should've said: "That hurts, stop it right now."
This way of removing Maduro wasn't excessive force. It was a strategic pinch in the ear.
Yugoslavia had NATO consensus, active ethnic cleansing in progress, and regional support. It’s a stronger case than Venezuela, and even it is still debated.
Countries aren’t children. This framing smuggles in an assumption that the US has legitimate authority over other countries’ governance, which is exactly the point in dispute.
The “strategic pinch” assumes this is the end. Removing Saddam was also supposed to be surgical. The mess comes after. Ask me in five years if this was a pinch or another amputation.
This is a lot of rationalization to justify conservative worldview, America playing world police, and other such shortsighted political talking point fallacies.
I’m a Norwegian, I don’t ascribe to any one political leaning. But I observe the failings of the EU and European countries from within and know where this path leads, I see it every day. Call me any <label> you prefer I don’t care and don’t identify as any. I judge events and actions individually based on my own life experience and foundational morality, which also means I am not shackled by having to like everything a leader does when I like some things.
This was a good thing. It gets Venezuela out of Russia and China’s grasp, removes a cruel dictator, and puts the country’s resources to better use for both its people and the West. And as many problems as I have with many facets of the west it sure as hell beats whatever shitholes Russia and China are cooking — they are incompatible with the things I value, and yes I have been to the latter and will never return.
China has a good economy and export business that it wants to protect, which “protects” Taiwan since much of their export business goes poof if they decide to invade the island. The “detachment” of the US and Chinese economies makes an invasion of Taiwan more likely, not less. Economic entanglement has led to more peace than military force projection.
Ya, but Russia was an economic basket case with a resource curse before they invaded Ukraine. They didn’t lose much economically because they didn’t have much to lose, and perhaps Putin used Ukraine as a huge distraction for Russia’s huge domestic problems. China is different, they are going to grow into the #1 super power this or next decade. Hopefully that makes it much less likely for them to turn their back on the western world (at least until that happens).
The EU isn’t my utopia, and I’m not sure where you got that. My point is narrower: unilateral regime change has a bad track record, and defending allies against invasion is a different category of action. You seem to be arguing against a position I don’t hold.
We’ve gone from “Venezuelans are celebrating” to “the EU is spineless bureaucrats.” I think we’re past the original topic of discussion at this point.
Man, I don't want to be that guy calling AI on everything, but it's odd that almost every sentence of that is some form of "not X, but Y". Is that an LLMism that persists even in other languages?
It’s estimated there are over a million Venezuelans in the U.S. who fled the country. Over 600,000 are currently under temporary protected status with asylum claims. 7 million in neighboring countries.
Who gets to decide that this is good, but removing the dictator behind this is bad? Who gets to decide that we must live with this chaos because taking action might not reduce the chaos.
> Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election'
Why? Those are two completely different things. We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
> We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
The US has claimed the capacity to make this evaluation before, repeatedly, and has been wrong in ways that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe we're not the ones who should be deciding this unilaterally.
"Oh, but this time is different", you might say. "Maduro is an unambiguous dictator who stole an election, caused 7 million refugees, and was already under indictment. This isn't like Iraq, where we invented WMDs."
The justification was "real and documented" for Libya too (Gaddafi was about to massacre Benghazi, remember?). The result: Libya was rated as the Fragile State Index's "most-worsened" country for the 2010s decade, with ISIS using the country as a hub to coordinate regional violence and Libya becoming the main exit point for migrants trying to get to Europe. The intervention may have also made nuclear nonproliferation harder, since Gaddafi had already given up his nuclear program and then been overthrown anyway. Iran and North Korea both noted that "the Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson".
The issue isn't whether Maduro is bad; he obviously is. It's whether US military intervention produces better outcomes than the alternative. I honestly hope it does this time. I truly hope it's a case of "a broken clock is right twice a day". But am I holding my breath? Absolutely not.
No serious person actually argued the category error of respecting the sovereignty of a dictator but rather respecting the autonomy of a a nation and a people. And the empirical historic reasons are WHY this principle/heuristic ought to be followed, even if those did not articulate that.
It's a litmus test for conservative value systems since anyone who paid attention in high school social studies and history should have at least passing familiarity with the arguments.
Claiming we must honor the autonomy of people who have had their autonomy stripped away by a dictator is just as silly as saying we need to respect the sovereignty of the dictator himself.
I'm not sure why we're debating this as if the people had a say in this at all. This was clearly an operation led by Trump and the military, planned for months in secret, and carried out in a single day. There were no debates in congress or the senate. There was no vote to the people.
All we can do is try to figure out what the short, medium and long term conesquences of this might be, and consider how to pressure the government to limit the power of the executive branch to do things like this without oversight in the future.
People want to determine if the inportant events surrounding them are bad or good, even if they don't have a say in them. Perhaps it's even a way to cope with the lack of influence we have.
But I do like the idea of imagining how to limit the executive branch. Spitball here - we use sortition, and permission to use force of any kind has to go through a council of say, ten, randomly chosen, representative citizens.
Sure you removed the "bad dictator". Gratz! Will you now leave Venezuelan oil alone ? I am guessing not. The U.S. oil companies effectively become the new dictator behind the scenes, at-least until people realize they are being merrily looted and rise up.
Respectfully, offering asylum to Venezuelan people and choosing to invade Venezuela and remove their dictator are nearly orthogonal. The USA could instead choose not to provide asylum to these people in the future, and accept the reality that for the millions it already has, it has made its bed so to speak.
One is a matter of internal policy, the other is a matter of international law and order. One the USA had complete and total control over for decades, the other is a delicate and precarious matter which requires significant planning, oversight, congressional approval, and international engagement.
> Why? Those are two completely different things.
These are different things, yes, but the problem is exactly that: the same methods and justification will be applied in either case, despite deserving totally different treatment. I believe this is the consequence of permitting brazen realpolitik principles into government.
> The USA could instead choose not to provide asylum to these people in the future, and accept the reality that for the millions it already has, it has made its bed so to speak
And who decided that? American citizens certainly did not. Biden’s de facto open border policy was very unpopular with most American citizens, and all but guaranteed the reelection of Donald Trump. Besides that, only 60% of the Venezuelans who fled into the United States did so as asylum seekers. It’s estimated there are another ~500,000 here illegally. Who made that bed?
And this ignores the 7+ million people that other countries had to absorb. So even if the US secured its border and stopped providing asylum, we’re ignoring the actual human suffering of the millions of people who were compelled to flee from their lives and homes and families.
So it’s better to ignore the cause and let the problem continue indefinitely out of deference to international bureaucracy? Sorry, we are not Europe.
I'm not convinced that invasion solves or even addresses the problem you're describing. It could actually make it worse through causing unrest and destabilization, which is evidently a risk according to past American interventions.
There is more than just one person behind Venezuela's misfortune. The external pressure to undermine the country has been immense and shouldn't be discounted. As always, not black and white.
It’s not a complicated answer, it’s just an arbitrary answer.
Did the citizens of those countries agree to take in the asylum seekers? What alternative would you suggest when 8 million people flee across the border? In the U.S., there are an estimated 600,000 Venezuelan asylum seekers, and another 400,000 to 500,000 undocumented immigrants. Who in America decided that was good? Was it Americans citizens? No, the Biden administration decided that unilaterally when they stripped the border patrol of the power to do its job. But he’s gone, his disastrous policies led to Trump regaining power, and who gets to decide what’s good now? And weren’t Maduro’s actions, which led 8 million Venezuelans to flee to neighboring countries, not directly impacting those other countries (if not encroaching on their own sovereignty)? If so, how did you get to decide that “sovereignty” gives a dictator impunity to act free of consequences?
And it's usually those who have never experienced the aftermath of US intervention defending it. Ask Iraqis how they feel about the intervention that killed hundreds of thousands and created ISIS. Ask Libyans enjoying their open-air slave markets. [1]
The people who lived through US regime change have plenty of complaints. We just don't center their voices when it's inconvenient.
Or the Vietnamese refugees who fleed on boats 50 years ago. I grew up listening to radio with Vietnamese announcements towards the boats every morning. Sadly Americans abondoned them, they lost their home country and were left behind.
If there are terrible crimes being committed by a dictator then there is the ICC and the UN. It would require building up rather than undermining the institution but it’s there.
So the US will be excluded from the SWIFT banking system? Heavy international sanctions will be put in place? Europe will send weapons and money to help Venezuela defend itself?
They extradited a guy for crimes also illegal in Venezuela. What would the point of sanctioning actions like this be?
This is about the cleanest extraterritorial action you can take. A guy probably did some seriously illegal stuff in your country and his, who was probably illegally elected, who probably had people killed.
Why not do this? Why not say to Venezuela, hand him over or we'll take him ourselves?
He's not going to gitmo, he'll have the same due process that every other American gets. Rights Maduro denied to millions. If you asked me to describe "justice" - I have to give this as a good example. He's going to die in prison like Noriega, after a fair trial.
"The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was presented with the inaugural 'FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World' by FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ at the iconic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC" [1].
…that they invented from whole cloth this year just so they could award it to Trump, the most deserving president of a fake prize from one of the most corrupt organisations on Earth.
...and the Nobel Committee awarding the 'Nobel Peace Prize' to Maria Cornia Machado for 'democracy' and now will be used for the toppling of a leader in another country and creating another war. [0]
This is why the Nobel Peace Prize has become completely meaningless.
Yes, it's more peaceful than war. Especially when the "illegitimately" part is determined by US-aligned and sponsored organizations for the purpose of manufacturing consent for regime change.
If it's to get access to the oil reserve, it is bad news for the shale oil industry in the USA : maybe "drill baby drill" is not feasible any more, and the only way to maintain the level of GDP is to get the oil from somewhere else.
Or it's just banking oil to prepare a war with China.
Thank FSM some AI-first is going to create fusion any time soon to power the robots solving climate change.
Don't expect the administration to make any sense on this topic. The same time they were signing executive orders and blabbing about the US oil industry, they were telling OPEC to lower prices. There's no coherency to be had with them. They simply don't understand the world or trivial economics.
I can steelman this into a “everything is about oil today, and minerals tomorrow”.
* Let’s assume the US is going to stabilise Venezuela quickly enough, that the Venezuelan oil will soon flow around, but only to “selected” countries (basically, …. Anyone but China)
* Let’s assume that the US is going to keep the war in Ukraine dragging on (it’s winter anyway), so that Ukraine can continue bombing the Russian oil infrastructure and
Then the outcome would be:
* USA kept happy because cheap oil will flow from Venezuela to USA, which would help keeping gas price down at the pumps, during an election year
* Europe kept obedient, because it’s not guaranteed to be on the list of “selected” countries that will get the cheap oil. Maybe they’ll even strike a “nice” bargain for Groenland, “or else...”
* Ukraine kept busy fighting ; and the “coalition of winning” kept “unable” to put boots on the ground in Ukraine (which they only want to do at the latest possible time, as the first “coalition” soldier to fall will trigger a domino effect leading to either WW3, or humiliation
* Putin kept annoyed, because they can’t sell cheap oil at all without refineries in Venezuela, and with less and less infrastructure in Russia
* China kept annoyed, because they can’t buy cheap oil, or at least not enough to stockpile for a war against USA
* OPEC kept “happy ish”, I guess, because they can hike up prices for whoever is not on the “selected” list of countries approved by Emperor Trump ?
* Eventually, maybe the USA gets the minerals in Ukraine and Groenland, making them double-happy
Of course I’m missing things, this is pure keyboard geopolitics.
But my point is just that I don’t need USA to be completely “crazy” to justify what they’re doing. Just “more willing to take bold risks” then we have been used to. In a sense, that’s what USA voted for in 2024.
> * Let’s assume the US is going to stabilise Venezuela quickly enough, that the Venezuelan oil will soon flow around, but only to “selected” countries (basically, …. Anyone but China)
This is a bad assumption. Trump has already promised China their oil on the first day of this nonsense. You don't need to steelman anything. Incompetence does exist in the real world. There's no more reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Well, If I strawman them now, this assumption fail in a different way: I very much expect the cartels and narcos to organise a guerilla that will disturb oil trade for a while. (Russia would be incentivized to fund / equip / help the cartels. This would backfire, of course, but what doesn't ?)
It’s incredibly depressing to watch the same mistake made again well within my own lifetime. Regime change by chopping off the top failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and it’ll fail here too. Many will die. It doesn’t matter how bad or illegitimate the deposed leader is.
I get slightly desperate realizing how people are lead to such naive discussions, even in a place with supposedly instructed, informed persons.
Maduro may be a dictator, a murderer, whatever. This has absolutely no relation with the reasons for US invading, bombing and killing Venezuelans, or whichever country. For about a century, US has been doing it all over the world, not because they wanna live in a better, peaceful world - quite the opposite, they've been doing it for supporting coups and stablishing dictatorships that favour their supremacy, their role as the most powerful country in the world.
Do you really, really believe Mr. Donald is very concerned about the lives of poor venezuelans? Or, just to stay in the region, he supports El Salvador dictator because he's a very nice fellow?
I don't understand what you're saying here. First, yep, countries act in self-interest. There's no war in the history of the planet that was started out of the kindness of one's heart. That doesn't mean that the outcome of a self-interested intervention can't be just or good for the country in the long haul. I don't know how this one will pan out, but I suspect that the interests of the US and of the citizens of Venezuela are aligned much more closely than, say, in the Middle East.
Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum. The reality is that there's a fierce competition between superpowers to broaden their spheres of influence and ultimately control the world. There's no future in which a relatively small, resource-rich, and politically dysfunctional country is left to its own devices. The choice is between Russia, China, and the US. Venezuela was more or less one of the Russian client states, and that status quo was maintained through undemocratic means, including mass murder of political opponents using the military gear provided by RU. Now, the US is going to try its hand, probably in a far less brutal way.
The US regime hates Maduro because he kept Venezuelan oil nationalized so it can be benefit the Venezuelan people rather than foreign shareholders of oil companies. Although US sanctions intended to choke their economy and bring about regime change have made that difficult in practice.
The interests of the US imperialists and the Venezuelan people therefore could not be more diametrically opposed.
Nobody was benefiting from the oil nationalization, least of all the Venezuelan people. All their oil engineers left! You can't walk around Doral, Fl; Katy, Tx; or Alpharetta, Ga without tripping over young venezuelans with petroleum engineering degrees who have fled the poverty and repression of Maduro's Venezuela.
It is very much about spheres of influence. Look at China and ports in Africa. And Russia trying to mingle in militias and whatnot. The US is losing a huge amount of influence currently, due to how they treat former allies in Europe and currently due to inept leadership playing a losing game. Russia same. Russia couldn't even defend its border, if Europe collectively decided to invade, to make them finally shut up. But Russia got nukes. It might soon just be an oversized North Korea, if it continues getting decimated in Ukraine. The only winner currently is China, who is catching up with the US in influence and military fast.
You clearly did, US is acting out of pure self interest and pretending otherwise.
> Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum
Invading a foreign nation, stealing their resources and imprisoning thier leader is a malicious act, no matter how you slice it.
Just because there are other competitors or good "may" come out of it (so you say), doesn't justify it.
The mental gymnastics by Americans to position themselves as "liberators", while bombing other countries and stealing their territory / resources is stunning.
I believe the argument is, this can simultaneously be a bad thing yet the best achievable outcome within the current reality.
In other words, the point is that the hypothetical good choice is not actually on the menu.
I will note a similarity to the US political situation with respect to people who, rather than choose the lesser of two evils, opt not to vote entirely.
Nevertheless, that doesn't mean humanity shouldn't strive for better.
It's a win-win, it's good for Venezuelans and US wants the country to become an ally. People behind the decision probably took both into account.
In principle, it's morally good to overthrow a dictator in some circumstances. The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
These countries don't well match those on the overthrowing-the-dictator list, which now includes Venezuela.
For Germany we defeated it's government with a crap-ton of help, after Germany had declared war on us. For France we ousted an invading foreign power (again, with a crap ton of help). For the third we were effectively partitioning the country in prep for the proxy war with the Soviet Union.
Japan is also a good example. If the US is going to marshall aid (or the equivalent) Venezuela for the next many decades then I think it'll certainly be a win-win.
I mean this kinda implies that there's a chance it could fail but failure basically is no worse than doing nothing?
Most of those examples were failed or problematic countries before and after US intervention. If there's a chance of sucess that's better than doing nothing no?
> Who hired former nazi torturers to kill the left wing.
I can't tell if this is a question or an assertion.
If it's a question, Pinochet utilized Nazis to torture people (ex:Colonia Dignidad) and had lots of leftists tortured and disappeared (too many to list here).
And I went through a year or two of binging from the beginning and caught up to present day a year or two ago, but took a break for Jamie Loftus stuff and Knowledge Fight, as well as Some More News and Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff to help balance the bummer lol
Knowledge fight would be interesting, but always balk at their episode count. Also watch some more news when they have something interesting. Basically everything from the frequent bastards guests.
There is a _lot_ of KF there, I started that from the beginning and I’m close to episode 300…I shudder to think how much of my last two years has been Alex Jones content…but it’s fascinating. And frustrating that his whole shtick seems so transparent yet too complex to get through to people already wrapped up in it
It’s surprising how hard it is for some people to understand this. Yes oil blah blah. A few billion bucks, but the much bigger picture is (at least in this theory) Venezuela gets a democracy and the U.S. gets a stable strategic partner in an important part of its back yard. I’m not evaluating it yet, but there is definitely a bull case for this move on the geopolitical level.
> The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
So let's say they take out Kim jong Un...
Now you have a country where every living being from their birth has been trained that US is bad and their leader is like God on earth.
Your 'little risk of something going wrong' is wishful thinking or naive
It will never happen because Kim has nukes. All these regime changes starting from the Afghaninstan, through Saddam, through Gaddafi....now Maduro they are just teaching strongmen to get nukes as the only way to be safe from U.S. (or others) regime change
NK is a dictatorship with concentration camps, where a small group of people has 20 million hostages. The US is a democracy. (For the record, I'm not American and I wanted Harris to become the president.)
The definition of democracy usually includes the rule of law, that no longer exists in USA. Trump declared himself to be dictator, and his handlers are having him act that way. They take no account of USA law, nor of international law, nor ethics of any religious group AFAICT.
Also, paying another country to run your concentration camps is no less evil.
This is "we don't let poor people have money because they'll only get fat if they have food to eat" levels of rhetoric.
USA military should be taking heed of their own country's laws before pretending to be enforcing laws in other countries in order to further enrich their oligarchy.
Sure, remove the NK dictator that USA is partly responsible for being put in to power ... but only with international agreement and a plan for rapid move to have open elections. USA is in no place to do this given the lack of democracy there.
Do you really believe the story about freeing Venezuelan's? You're in for a surprise then when USA rapes them for their oil.
How would you feel if Iran captures Trump, a convicted felon with no respect to the rule of the law, running crypto schemes from the office and with proved connections to a pedophile ring trafficking and planning for a 3rd therm and staying in the office for life?
I’m sure a lot of Americans will be celebrating it on the streets. Will that be a win win too?
I don't think Americans would celebrate on the streets but many would be secretly happy. How would I feel? Depends on what I think would be the consequences for the world.
The US could be acting in their own interest and their actions could benefit Venezuelans at the same time. Venezuela has insane amounts of oil and could be the Saudi Arabia of south America. Why aren't they? Why are there food shortages there? Where's all the oil revenue going? Why isn't there more oil revenue?
A major factor is that Venezuela's oil is mostly heavier crude, which is denser and more viscous. This makes it costlier and more difficult to extract and refine, and usually sells for a lower price than lighter crude.
There's also rampant mismanagement, poor infrastructure, and sanctions affecting the output and outcomes. See also: "resource curse"
Based on where I was born and my background, I should not know as much as I do about Venezuela. Improbably, life led me to develop close ties to some Venezuelans, and with them as a window, I've learned a lot about that country.
In this case, the people of Venezuela are desperate to get rid of their socialist government. It has, predictably and inevitably, led them directly to poverty, starvation, and violent repression.
I have a lot of reservations about the way in which Trump is operating and in this case, the legality of every aspect of how he is doing this operation in Venezuela. Despite all those reservations, this is a rare situation where this action benefits everyone and the world.
HN comments is a heavily biased and propagandized place. The most moderate opinion you'll find here will be something like "actually Venezuelans are happy that they are being bombed by the US!"
Have you considered that it might not be HN being propagandized but instead all other social medias from which you likely use to construct your worldview? It would be an incredible waste of time to try and sway opinion here on global politics.
Out of all the sources I'm checking with different political biases this is one of the few places that people are so desperately trying to frame a country bombing another country to steal their oil as something good
Ironic comment. El Salvador’s president has extremely high approval ratings and was definitely elected democratically. The US hasn’t ousted a democratically elected government since the end of the Cold War (as far as I know).
You missed the part of my comment that said “since the Cold War”. All of your examples are during the Cold War, of course. (Other than Maduro, and I don’t think most people believe he was democratically elected.)
I think people are overindexed on the US's failures to turn Islamic theocracies into democracies. The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
Venezuela had a democracy for decades. It's the US that has been trying to destroy it for decades because the venezuelans voted for the wrong guy. It's funny how we forgot that the US also tried to remove the previous elected leader of venezuela.
No - we know Maduro lost the election. That's knowledge, not opinion. And he stayed in power, while crushing the opposition.
Maduro is a garden variety dictator. Spectacularly corrupt, jails his political opponents, having taken over the media and so on.
How do you know? The official election council certified that he won. A bunch of foreign governments and US-aligned media claimed it was rigged. But the US has been trying to regime change them since they nationalized their oil.
You're trying to paint a picture that it's just the US and it's lackeys that claim the election was rigged.
In truth, we know that the election was neither free nor fair, with the government prosecuting and oppressing the opposition.
The Venezuelan opposition made a point of providing evidence that they won, most notably official tally sheets which collaborate that they won. The government did not produce evidence or even care to refute the opposition's claims.
You'd think Machado winning the Nobel peace prize would be enough for people to not question the popularity of Maduro, but here we are, random keyboard warriors defending dictators nonstop.
Your comment doesn't make any sense. The Nobel Peace Prize isn't decided by Venezuelan people, it's decided by a council appointed by the Norwegian government.
No, people can't just kick out an authoritarian dictator. Such rulers don't need democratic support to stay in power. Strong men only leave their palaces due to two reasons - death from old age or an even stronger power forcing them.
> No, people can't just kick out an authoritarian dictator.
If that was the case, the US wouldn't exist. Might want to brush up on american history.
> Such rulers don't need democratic support to stay in power.
They most certainly do. Once they lose it, they collapse internally. Read up on some history.
As I said, if maduro had lost the popular support, the US wouldn't have had to invade and kidnap maduro. The venezuelan people would have done so. The only time foreign intervention is required is when a significant portion of the populace supports the leader.
This is fundamentally incorrect. A dictator can oppress 90% of the people by just treating 10% of the population well, provided the 90% isn't allowed to heavily arm themselves anyway.
You jump from "some revolutions have happened" to "revolutions always happens and always succeed"...
By your logic why are there any tyrannies at all in the world? Do you really believe all governments are supported by their people and that oppression does not exist?
Given the US position in favor of Bolsanaro against Lula indicates that Trump is not interested in Democracy if it produces the wrong result. If Venezuelans elect a Socialist, they will immediately be out of our good graces.
> The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney (but I'm sure it'll work out this time)
There is a whole lot of directions this can go after we arrest the dictator, but a liberal democracy magically immediately popping isn't on my list. There might be one in the future but there will be a lot of chaos and violence between now and then.
What happened in Europe after WW2? Dick Cheney didn't invent the idea of America liberating a country and being greeted as liberators, it had happened before, specifically in countries that had a history of liberal democracy.
For some reason he thought it would apply to Islamic theocracies and it clearly didn't. Pattern matching Venezuela against Iraq or Afghanistan is an obvious mistake.
We aren't occupying Venezuela and rooting out everyone in the current regime and putting them on trial. We just arrested a handful of people leaving the rest of the government intact. It playing out like WW2 doesn't make sense
Trump has today, explicitly said that the US administration - specifically his administration - will run Venezuela, with boots on the ground, for as long as is necessary.
I was listening to the press conference and almost went back to edit my comment with a note about it. Honestly, coming out of that I have no idea if what is his saying is reality. As things stand and what we know, it doesn't make sense. We don't know about more troops currently on the ground. He said the VP has agreed to assist, but she is publicly saying very different things. I hate we are in a place as a country where we can't believe basic things about important topics our president says.
Also in the Q&A he mentioned this was mostly targeting the protection of the oil extraction/American companies taking over, not the rest of the country.
(tho not sure how much we can really trust what he says)
> What happened in Europe after WW2? Dick Cheney didn't invent the idea of America liberating a country and being greeted as liberators, it had happened before, specifically in countries that had a history of liberal democracy.
Those countries were actually being liberated from a foreign power that had invaded them just a few years prior.
There are very few examples where a foreign nation overthrowing the indigenous government (no matter how despised that government may be) are greeted as liberators, and in those select few instances the sentiment is almost universally short lived.
I don't know if you remember that Hugo Chavez was voted into power, had a legitimate mandate to dismantle the democracy that elevated him, and then his voters defended him against a violent coup to restore that democracy.
The funny part of that narrative is the US government currently being led by people who have been trying to tear down the concept of democracy in the US. Maybe once Venezuela has their democracy back, they can help out the people in the US?
Why would Washington try to get oil from Venezuela when its domestic oil industry produces all the oil the US needs (and if production were to decrease, the US economy could easily make up the shortfall by buying oil from Canada)?
It's not about needing the oil to use, it's about profit for American oil companies. Resource extraction from foreign countries at gunpoint is a major basis of the US economy.
US has a long history of overthrowing both democracies and dictators to allow their companies to extract resources lining the pockets of already rich industrialists.
Has that got anything to do with why these[1] graphs of US oil and gas production are limited to "Lower 48 states". I found that restriction to be very strange.
Domestic crude oil is mostly not compatible with US refineries, so it mostly gets exported. The US imports heavy crude, like that produced by Venezuela, for our domestic use.
Why would you buy oil from Canada when you can take oil from Venezuela?
>Domestic crude oil is mostly not compatible with US refineries
The oil produced in Texas is easy to refine. Some of it is exported as crude, and an approximately equal amount of heavy crude is imported because US refiners have a competitive advantage in refining it. It is not that US refiners cannot refine Texas crude: they make more money refining the heavy stuff or stuff with a high load of contaminants.
>Why would you buy oil from Canada when you can take oil from Venezuela?
But the US is not going to take it, just like they never took oil from Iraq after conquering that country. The value of all the oil produced worldwide in 2023 was about $1.7 trillion. Of course it cost a lot of money to extract the oil. That year the IRS collected over $4.7 trillion in tax revenue. The US government has easier ways of getting money than invading oil-rich countries.
The US does not want any country or economy in the Western Hemisphere to be stragically dependent on Russia or China, so kicking Chinese or Russians out of the oil industry in Venezuela might have been one goal of the current military action.
Can you guess what resource the US is trying to procure by this military action?
I think you are trying to force an incorrect simplistic narrative on the situation. Obtaining natural resources is not an important motivation for US military action with the possible exception of US intervention in the Persian Gulf during the Cold War (and even there I see no evidence that the US was trying to get out of paying the going international rate for the oil as opposed to merely ensuring that willing sellers in the Gulf could continue to transport their oil over the ocean). Venezuela's cooperation with Moscow and Beijing is a much more likely motivation, i.e., US national security.
> Venezuela's cooperation with Moscow and Beijing is a much more likely motivation, i.e., US national security.
If that’s the case why pootin got a red carpet in Alaska instead of orange jumpsuit?
Why if ruzzia is such a “threat to national security”, current government of “no new wars” doesn’t help Ukraine?
Don’t forget that eliminating (or reducing its influence to nothing) ruzzia - would hurt China immensely. Two birds with one stone and all… also with a benefit of a true legitimacy of helping Ukraine and destroying ruzzian totalitarianism.
Determining the goodness of a blatantly illegal action by its ultimate success is a very Machiavellian view. Why have laws if all that matters is the final result?
What kind of democracy do Venezuelans want and will it be the same kind of democracy Trump wants to install? What if they want a democracy that continues to be friendly towards Cuba and wary of the US? Will Trump accept that?
I can talk to them. I can talk to the Venezuelan refugees, who came here not because they are "political refugees" like some claim but because there was a famine in Venezuela.
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.”
― George Orwell
I'm old enough that I grew up (well) before 9/11. Many in my age bracket will describe the 90s as the last great decade. I feel sad for those who are younger who never experienced that world, the world between the Cold War and the War on Terror.
It was a time when you could walk up to the gate in an airport before the TSA. A lot of younger people don't realize that's how it actually was. They think it's one of those things made up for movies.
Houses were cheap. Rent was cheap. Cars were cheap. Gas was cheap. Food was cheap. A friend of mine had college buddies who shared a 4 bedroom house in Iowa for $175/month. Not each. Total. I rented a 2 bedroom apartment close to a train and the city center for a little over $200/month. I lived as a student just fine on $200/week (in 1995), including paying for rent. My degree cost me about $10,000.
The other side of that was the Cold War when we lived under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. I think this was generationally traumatic to people who grew up in the 50s (way before my time) but by the 80s? It wwas like background noise.
There was a lot of optimism with the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Union. On reflection, much later, I think this was terrible for the world. When the USSR existed as a counter to the US, the US was forced to at least do something for its citizens. The Red Scare destroyed collectivism and the US does things like the War on Terror now and, well, capturing the Venezuelan president, with complete impunity. They're open about it too: it's for oil. A handful of billionaires will get richer as a result of this.
The Big Lebowski is, to me, the most 90s movie of all time and it just gets better with age. Oh, the output of HOllywood in general was amazing in the 1990s. At that time I used to go see movies once or even twice a week. There was always something good on. Goodfellas and Terminator 2 spring to mind.
There just seemed to be more hope then. Now? I feel for anyone who was born after 2000. Crippled with debt with limited prospects of any kind of security. It's just so different to how it was.
EDIT: qualified that the $200/week figure was in 1995, not the 1980s. That's like $430 in today's money by the same inflation calculator.
Important to note here that the $200/week figure from 80s is the same as $830/week today due to inflation [0]. Rent and degrees specifically have gone up a ridiculous amount, yes, but as far as the rest of it goes, most students today would jump at the opportunity of having that much disposable income.
Not to be that guy who always turns up and points out things aren't that bad, but you can easily rent a 5 bedroom home in Iowa for quite a bit less than 830 / week ($3300 / month) today.
5 bedroom home currently goes for about $2400 / month on Zillow.
I have to think part of the issue is that people no longer want to live in Iowa / LCOL and now prefer NYC / HCOL.
You're wrong, you've mixed up the numbers. Their general living expenses were $200/week. Their rent was $200/month, that's $200 for the whole month, not per week.
I believe the Jesus Jones song, "Right Here, Right Now" has become an ironic commentary on Gen X; in that brief moment in the 90's when we thought the nuclear sword of Damocles dangling over all of us had finally been cut down...
Not a great song, but one that expresses the zeitgeist in a pretty succinct way.
We thought that we were at the cusp of a new era... one where we could overcome the injustices of the past and author a future based on the best version of ourselves.
In the end, Gen X never even got a chance to start; we watched from the sidelines as geriatric Boomers clung (and still cling) to power -- leaving less and less of that (ever more naive) dream behind.
"Right here, right now,
there's no other place I'd rather be.
Right here, right now,
watching the world wake up from history."
The song hasn't aged well & has become a cloy reminder of that time and what we didn't become.
"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. On the sixth day of Hate Week... it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally."
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
The standard playbook. If its not nuclear weapons, it's the spread of democracy, or "helping people". The global police just securing their natural resources, nothing to see here.
No dictatorship has been communist. They use the mantle, that it's for nation and country, but they don't even pay lip service to communism ideals and mechanism. They are just crony capitalist, where the head of the state is the one that uses the state to control the economy rather than the rich doing it by proxy.
No, I'm blaming the ills of humanity on humanity. Capitalism isn't a system that existed till... like 180 years ago. The industrial revolution didn't happen when "capitalism" as a concept existed. Capitalism existed in the time that Marx was alive. Also, I'm muddling concepts? No, the public doesn't know crap about this stuff. I studied 6 years economics, so I have become very annoyed when people call communism or socialism to countries that were neither just because their governants called themselves such.
Read any good book about history of economic theory and thought, you will see that the crap that people talk about on tv and the internet isn't even near with what actual academics study.
At best this is a violation of international law, at worst we have seen many times how badly things can turn when leaders are removed by foreign power.
“If we [Economic Hit Men] falter, a more malicious form of hit man, the jackal, steps to the plate. And if the jackal fails, then the job falls to the military.”
Hard to draw conclusions from early reports like this. Situations involving explosions tend to generate a lot of noise before verified facts emerge, especially in politically tense environments. Best to wait for confirmation on cause, scale, and impact before speculating, and hopefully accurate information follows quickly.
Based on the fleet and aircraft movement and mobilization reports, this was probably a combination of 3/75 Ranger Regiment and/or RRC, Delta/CAG, 24th STS, and probably 1 or more SEAL teams based on the sub movement.
The clear fly-out with rotary wing craft seemingly without a concern in the world tells me they absolutely decapitated Venezuela's air defenses.
Their intelligence must have been flawless to have this level of confidence.
This wasn't just a raid, it was an extremely visible one meant to send a message.
Edit: Bloomberg is reporting they captured and extracted Maduro
followup: the little black outlines in the video correspond to helicopter-like objects. I just referred to Apache for some reason, most local memory of an attack helicopter. apparently it's something else
I’m not suggesting it’s “nothing” or minimizing it. Just that in the first hours after explosions, reports are often incomplete or wrong. Past cases show everything from industrial accidents, gas explosions, ammo depots, infrastructure failures, or internal security incidents getting misattributed early on.
Jumping straight to geopolitical conclusions before verified facts usually adds heat, not clarity. Waiting for confirmation on what actually happened doesn’t excuse anyone’s behavior, it just keeps the discussion grounded in evidence rather than emotion.
That's not going to play well with DJT's bid for Nobel Peace Prize. Although I guess invading Sweden would be a solution, and there are probably plenty of reasons to invade Sweden - they must be looking badly at Russia, or he can mix it up with Groenland, or something.
That being said, how many continents are we left from being able to call that a bona fide world war ? Can we count Africa as "in a state of war per default", leaving only Oceania ? Should Australians brace themselves ?
To be fair, the existence of Surströmming [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming] is a valid casus belli. We aren't talking about food here - it's "haloanaerobic bacteria producing hydrogen sulfide in a pressurized vessel". An unregulated bio-weapons program hiding in plain sight.
Australians are currently paying him billions for 2nd hand nuclear submarines (which are not likely to ever be delivered), so that they can protect themselves from their biggest trading partner.
Australia is more dependant on Chinese trade than the reverse. If something untoward happens and China's relationship with Australia changes, it is prudent for Australia to have long range submarines.
The deal is admittedly shakey, but so is most things the US is involved in these days.
So, Australia has a trade déficit with China ? Surely Trump is going to invade Australia to put tarifs between New-Zealand and "Newer-Zealand", as Emperor Trump is soon planed to rename Australia.
A trading partner that has absolutely nothing to gain from ever setting foot on the Australian continent, and has never expressed or even implied the slightest intention to do so.
But hey, if making up a bogus threat is what it takes to sell guns…
The land border between Sweden and Norway is what everyone is aware of and expects to be invaded via. It is at the border between Norway and Finland no one would expect a little special operation.
Just because DJT has limited subtlety, doesn't mean he has zero subtlety. The ambassador to Sweden will tell the members of the committee, one by one in a way where they can't confer with each other, to accept the bribes or "else". It's not like it would be the first inducement to the committee in recent years, so they are likely to go along with it.
Why is it so popular to make up ridiculous fantasy stories about bad things that people/organizations you don't like might do? There's plenty of real stories you can refer to. It's almost as if you want your enemies to do more bad things to justify your hate.
Now you're confounding 'humor' with 'quality humor'. The first one only needs that the intent of the sentence is tongue-in-cheek and not meant to be taken literally; which the OP clearly was, and the first reply clearly missed.
Would he be as equally justified to correct the names of Greenland and Iceland (by swapping their names) as he was justified to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America?
I actually believe the majority of children who need to study geography would prefer Greenland (which has a lot of ice) to be called Iceland, and Iceland (which doesn't have a lot of ice) to be called Greenland.
I think a majority consensus would be easily achieved.
Language is defined by how people use it, not decreed top down. It would just be convenient if the very apogee of power (despite the deep state) concurred with and recognized the wisdom of the least represented in the world: children.
Congress practically matters when significant mobilization, boots on the ground, money, with high likelihood of many lives lost. Iraq. Not random one-off adventures.
Otherwise modern Presidents have done this thing for decades.
I think it’s more an effective argument to question this as a policy. As in “is there a plan for what comes next”. Congress should be holding hearings and performing oversight to understand whether theres actually a plan and to allow debate.
Footage is quickly spreading, looks like strikes on military bases as well as a bunch of low-flying helicopters, so a strike + a ground invasion? They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent for a war against Venezuela. Wonderful.
> Even the ballot box isn't enough. We don't have an anti-war party in the US
This is lazy and wrong. Simple answer is leadership is betting this won't lose them the Congress in the midterms because enough Americans won't care. Conceding ex ante the ballot box is literally proving that hypothesis.
Protest has never stopped a government from doing what it wanted. Not a single time in history.
When it's appeared to work, that has one of two causes: either the government didn't really care very much to begin with, or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group's demands while saving face. (See civil rights)
> Protest has never stopped a government from doing what it wanted. Not a single time in history
This is nonsense.
> or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group's demands while saving face
Violence isn't needed. Protest is designed to tip the balance of power.
Some of the Eastern European anti-Soviet revolutions probably qualify. I suppose it depends on whether the U.S.S.R. "wanted" to crush the protests violently but couldn't. It certainly did conduct violent reprisals in several cases.
Civil rights in the US has been, I agree, sanitized. No, civil rights didn't progress solely because the majority in power was touched that minorities demanded their rights so peacefully and insistently. There was a violent side too, that provided necessary pressure.
We're three days out from 2025 and Nepal and Madagascar have already been forgotten?
Like, there is criticism of the 3.5% rule [1] for being too narrowly based. But the hot take that protest never works is genuinely one I haven't seen yet.
Is that really necessary? Venezuela recently held an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power. Very few US citizens will find this particularly odious.
> They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent
Chomsky was smart and influential. But he was a linguist. Not a political scientist. The manufacturing-consent hypothesis sort of worked under mass media. But even then, it wasn't a testable hypothesis, more a story of history.
In today's world, unless you're willing to dilute the term to just persuasion in general, I'm not sure it applies.
Instead, the dominant force here is apathy. Most Americans historically haven't (and probably won't) risk life, liberty or material wealthy on a foreign-policy position. Not unless there is a draft. (I'm saying Americans, but this is true in most democracies.)
Most of Manufacturing Consent is about ideological alignment in media and government being an emergent property, not the product of deliberate conspiring. People seek out jobs with people/organizations they already agree with. People hire people they already agree with. People are more likely to get promoted if their boss thinks they have good opinions, etc. It's not a conspiracy, at least there doesn't need to be a conspiracy, because Manufacturing Consent describes an anti-conspiracy. All of this obviously still happens today, there hasn't been any fundamental change in human behavior, people still have special affinity for people they agree with. Always have, and always will.
Chomsky, as a linguist, was probably better equipped to understand the implications of emergent behavior than more mainstream political scientists.
Trump ran on "no more wars". Manufacturing consent means admitting that he's entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it's not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.
Plus, the more of a splash, the more Epstein stays out of the news.
> Trump ran on "no more wars". Manufacturing consent means admitting that he's entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it's not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.
Or, he could acknowledge that their is a conflict, and pretend he didn't start it but Venezuela did. Like he could claim that Venezuela invaded the US first (oh, wait, he actually did that last March, using it as the pretext for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.)
We have seen the same scenario. First military occupation, second a puppy US-phile government, third oil infra rebuild by US oil companies. Simultaneously a clear sign to Russia/China who the boss is in South America.
It is early in the news but I also read about the US working on directly having the nation transition. Gives me bad vibes as someone who lived through the invasion of Iraq. TBH, I am not very knowledgeable but I assume there's less sectarianism and lack of infrastructure so it is a different situation. Although with all things Trump, it's his execution and competency following through after the immediate ready decision.
Easy: he’s the Emperor of America. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court said that laws don’t apply to him and the Republican-controlled Congress disbanded itself. Are you honestly surprised that he’s just doing whatever he wants?
Based on the speech he just staggered through he genuinely believes he’s emperor of the west. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Wonder who we will we bomb tonight. Mexico? El Salvador? New York?
Wtf kind of dumbass answer is this. It's not even out of character for the USA to do this.
The brain-rot seeping from this comment.
The guy committed crimes in Venezuela and USA. Now he's going to be tried for him. They could have just killed him - they didn't. He will be tried and spend the rest of his life in prison.
And for cleanly executing that we have people talking about an emperor and disbanded congress.
If you want a real answer, it's because the president is the supreme commander ("commander-in-chief") of the US armed forces. He can order them to, and it's unlikely that they would refuse to carry out an operation like that.
If you're asking "why is it legal", that's a somewhat separate question, but the short answer is that the Congress has long abdicated this responsibility and has not sought to reassert it. Basically, they're OK with it, and there's no one else in power in the US who will be upset about the US successfully arresting Maduro.
> Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Decades and decades of Congress generally refusing to do their job and also refusing to counter the ever-larger expansion of the Executive branch's assumed authority.
You might also note that the last time the US has declared war was WWII. [0] Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Those weren't wars, they were "military actions", "military interventions", or "international police actions". [1]
It's been like this for a while. It has been assumed that Congress doesn't have that power anymore but the president does. Here is a letter that President Obama wrote on the subject that explains it a bit (but if you want to hear more about this check 99 Percent Invisible podcast on the latest constitution breakdown series).
I haven't yet seen what the legal cover for this use of military action was but there's a lot of guessing it will be the same Authorization of the Use of Military Force that was passed in response to 9/11 [1]. Yes, seriously.
The actual reason is that the Supreme Court has made Trump a dictator and Congress has abdicated any responsibility on checking the power of the president.
The people behind this don't call Trump a dictator. They couch it in softer, more legalistic language. It's called the unitary executive theory [2].
FWIW (not much), you can say that this kind of thing isn't unprecedented for a US President. I'm referring specifically to Panama's General Manual Noriega [3].
He has delegated authority, from congress, to do this. Rephrase please. This is not abdication. Are you a Chevron deference die hard too? Yes the executive and legislature didn't turn out exactly as the framers intended - deal with it in healthier ways than calling him a dictator.
You misunderstand unitary executive theory. It's not completely settled law but most of it is and requires your own interpretation of Vesting - but that has nothing to do with what happened in Venezuela so I'm not sure why you bring this up.
Unitary executive is about executive power. Go read some opinions about it, even the 5-4 opinions don't have much daylight between them. If you can cite AUMF you can read judicial review of the executive. It is so annoying to have taken the time to read these things and then come across some nitwit saying unitary executive is a softer way of saying dictator. Go say that in a law school.
If the president oversteps their supposed authority and those polices or executive orders get enforced without a legal basis and the courts and the legislature decline or fail to rein in the president, then they're effectively making new law.
There is no legal basis or even a hint of presidential immunity in the Constitution yet here we are. The Supreme Court is fully behind this unitary executive theory, at least when it comes to Trump, and they've invented all sorts of "doctrines" to contort their way into the constitutionality of various actions such as the major questions doctrine (which allows SCOTUS to ignore the executive and the legislative branches if they decide the language wasn't clear enough to their liking) and the "history and traditions" test.
SCOTUS has ruled from the emergency or shadow docket to empower the president such that there's no even a ruling to to go over in some cases.
These judges like to maintain this air of legitimacy so they can't let everything through. They occasionally rebuff the president but not in a way that's precedent setting. Instead they'll simply deny standing, meaning the plaintiff doesn't have the right to sue. So they're not ruling against the president on the merits (generally) so the administration is free to challenge again if they find some novel standing to intervene.
Watch this whenever the Supreme Court rules against the administration and see if it's because of standing. More often than not it is.
The Supreme Court is probably the worst in our history, even worse than the 1850s Supreme Court that gave us such gems as Dred Scott. There is very little pretense that they aren't ideologues acting for their political interest.
And that's how we get to a president who is effectively writing new laws. Like a dictator.
> CNN, citing a source: The Trump administration justified Maduro's arrest to Congress by stating that President Trump is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Trump does whatever he wants. He ignores the courts and congress. Approval only matters if a power exists to hold him accountable (enforcement of laws). It doesn't. Trump has the military and law enforcement in his pocket, so there is no power capable of challenging him.
If you think this is primarily about drugs and authoritarianism, don't overlook this one important dimension: the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world is...Venezuela.
That's a terrible diagram. I would have assumed that Iran and Saudi Arabia have the biggest oil reserves from looking at that diagram, since they are front and centre on that visual. Why aren't the shapes uniform?
And where is the legend? What do the colours mean? Why are Libya and China the same colour?
It also is predominately heavy crude oil, something the US lacks (it's what it mainly imports, with domestic shale oil being 'light') even though a lot of it's refineries are optimised for this.
By "given" you mean sold and by "Cuba, Iran, Russia, China..." you mean the only countries that aren't gonna follow the US' absurd sanctions that have led to so much suffering inside of Venezuela
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
From what I gather, most of the food insecurity in Venezuela arose pre-2017 back when Obama was doing narrowly targeted sanctions on key individuals. You can see undernourishment rockets upward after Maduro takes power in 2013:
Nothing Trump has done to Venezuela was justified or sensible. I just want to clarify that the nation's dysfunction does not seem to be primarily due US activity. (Maybe if we wait a little bit, it will be!)
This really doesn't have much to do with oil. This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge and subscribe to an absurd notion of Domino Theory where communism will fall. Maduro already promised to stop trading with China and negotiate absurdly favorable mineral and energy deals. He even conceded to give up power on a 2-3 year timeline. Obviously, we will go in and control the nation and take a ton of resources. However, this was primarily about Marco Rubio living out his father's fantasy as outlined in his autobiography. It was sold to Trump as a drugs bust because he is an absolute moron and needed a distraction from Epstein.
Honestly, this is disgusting. Trump is personally renting and selling out America for personal profit. To Israel and now a cadre of South Floridians. He is selling passports and pardons and letting countries have trade deals or bases. I simply do not understand how everyone with power is letting this happen. This is not even ideological. The country is in recession and we are attached to 3 wars. WTF IS HAPPENING?
> This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge
Maybe. Combating communism in south america is certainly a noble goal. Maduro is one of many communists that plague this region and his fall will undoubtedly contribute to significant power shifts in south american politics.
But it's not Marco Rubio who holds the power, it's Donald Trump. And Trump absolutely will deal with communists if it's profitable for him and/or the USA. His dealings with Brazil prove it. He embarrassed not only Rubio but various other staff and arguably his entire administration by leveraging tariffs and Magnitsky sanctions into some kind of deal with the communist brazilian president.
Trump could not care less about communism in south america. His past discourse on the matter of Venezuela is entirely focused on oil. He's been talking about seizing the resources for years. It's also easy to see how doing so benefits him and his country greatly.
I was hoping that he'd also end up unwittingly fighting the communists and drug gangs over the course of his war so that south america as a whole might at least reap some benefit but now it looks like even that was too much to hope for.
If resources don’t have a legitimate owner, they’re effectively unowned. This is the case of all dictatorships. Any free country can take those resources and integrate them into their system, provided they recognize and enforce property rights. Otherwise it’s anarchism, a dysfunctional hybrid of old dictatorship and American pragmatic profit, not a secure system of property rights.
(Assigning ownership to nation as such wouldn’t fix the problem. A nation without property rights cannot own anything.)
If “making free” means building outside a system of freedom, that’s too expensive. The U.S. tried to build a “democracy” in Iraq but failed.
If “making free” means just leaving people alone do what whatever they want, it’s not necessary. (They’d end up with another warlord anyways.) If the citizens of a free country want resources, why not provide them with a legitimate way to get it? The U.S. could, instead of making hypocrite puppet regimes, fully integrate (with military if needed) the resources they need into her system.
And Trumpty Dumpty promised he wouldn't be nation building or starting wars. I believe "no more wars, America first!" was a campaign talking point. And now a war started in our own backyard against an "enemy" who posed no threat, but had resources to grab. Trump is a fraud.
I’m sure a moron for living in a dictatorship, seeing what kind of compromises perpetuate it (such as the right to self-determination) and trying to break them.
We tried every peaceful way to get rid of the regime, they stole the elections, commit multiple human rights violations, the list of crimes is too long. The majority of Venezuelans wanted this to finally happen.
I am in favor of leaders fighting each other directly instead of sending millions of their citizens to die in their stead.
I can only hope there's a plan for what happens in Venezuela now. But I'm certain that as long as it isn't a protracted war with millions dead, it is better for everyone than what's going on in Ukraine.
The problem with having leaders fight eachother is you get a situation like feudal europe where all your leaders are soldiers whose chief qualifications are skill in combat and extracting resources from their subjects to keep them combat ready.
You really want to stop unnecessary wars, make the leaders dig the latrines for any forces they want to send off to fight.
I'm not advocating cage matches here. Just that the objective of any military action should be capturing or killing opposing leaders as efficiently as possible rather than any other objective.
I will spare saying the obvious illegality of such actions and how serious this is.
I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s, when the world felt like it was going towards a brighter age of peace and respect. Berlin wall falling, China opening, Apartheid ending in South Africa, even Palestine and Israel were moving towards a more peaceful future.
But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages.
General public not caring anymore about any tragedy, it's just news, general public being fine with their press freedom being eroded, journalists being spied and targeted, more and more conflicts all around.
I just don't see nor feel we're heading where we should considering how developed and rich we are.
We should boast in how well we raise our kids, how safe and healthy our cities are, but it's nothing but ego, ego, money and money.
I agree with your condemnation of this and other conflicts, but disagree that this is in any way new or worse than any purported golden age.
One month after the Berlin Wall fell the US invaded Panama to kidnap its leader so he could stand trial in the US on drug trafficking charges [1], an almost identical situation to this one.
The sentiment I’m pushing back on is that 30 years ago the world was bright and is now painted over with blood and darkness. I pointed out that during the bright times an almost identical event occurred. Other commenters have listed the many other horrible conflicts and genocides that occurred during those bright times. The invasion of Panama was not an isolated event.
I do fear for the US domestic situation, which has been deteriorating in increasingly alarming ways, but lawless aggression against Latin America is not new.
- Yugoslav Wars (1991-1999)
- The Troubles
- Ethiopian Civil War (1974 - 1991)
- Ugandan Bush War (1981-1986)
- Angolan Civil War (1975 - 2002)
- Mozambican Civil War (1977 - 1992)
- Second Sudanese Civil War (1983 - 2005)
- Rwandan Civil War and Genocide (1990 -1994)
- First Congo War (1996 - 1997)
- Second Congo War (began 1998)
- Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 - 2009)
- Salvadoran Civil War (1980 -1992)
- Guatemalan Civil War (1960 - 1996)
- Nicaraguan Contra War (1981 - 1990)
- Iran–Iraq War (1980 -1988)
- Lebanese Civil War (1975 - 1990)
- Israeli–Palestinian First Intifada (1987 - 1993)
I think the cycle is because people forget how destructive war is for all sides, how much human wealth is thrown away in order to achieve enormous human misery. If it's happened in recent memory, people are reluctant to let those who think they might benefit from it to pursue it. The more time that passes, the easier it is to distract people from the misery and the easier it is to persuade people that it's justified.
Yeah as someone being born in the early 90s to Eastern European parents who experienced generational joy when Causescu and his wife were shot dead, the globalization that followed hasn’t exactly delivered for people - mostly so in the West.
Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since, but beyond that, wealth has flowed to the top 1% any country you look at (check median wealth ownership in the US, basically plummeted for the average Joe since the mid 80s), the environment has gone to shit and the generational promise that the children will have it better than their parents has gone over board with asset prices ballooning.
I‘m right there with you, the societal promise of meritocracy and the middle class was broken in the early 90s and so far there is no replacement in sight.
> Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since...
That... seems like something that shouldn't just be waved by.
And if you include China and India it's more like hundreds of millions. Like, if you think about the people of the world and not just "the West" the standard of living since the time Causescu was overthrown has increased dramatically.
What is at work is that you cannot treat it like electrical charges and say that the sum is neutral (and even there distance matters, such a statement would only be within a very small distance).
What happens elsewhere is elsewhere. If you get sick, do you want to be sent home because the public health statistically educated doctor tells you that overall health has increased worldwide (just using it as an example, I make no statement about actual worldwide health)?
There is this public discussion phenomenon that in every discussion somebody will inevitably use such a "neutralization" method to "balance" somebody's statement. I find this less than helpful for any discussion.
If we talk about too few good bakeries in the state of Idaho, there is no point in saying that New York has more than enough of them.
Similarly bad discussion phenomena: We cannot even talk about problem X, never mind do anything about it, as long as completely unrelated problem Z exists elsewhere. Or, we should not spend money on X as long as there is Z.
It's like some people assume a Single Global Lock mechanism exists, and the lock is set whenever somebody somewhere attempts to deal with some problem, preventing others from doing anything about theirs.
We didn't have the internet back in the 80's and 90's to doom scroll all day. We read the events in the newspaper and watched it on on the news at 6pm and that was it. This might be partially why things seem darker.
Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines? You've been doing it repeatedly and we've already asked you to stop. If you keep doing it, we'll end up banning you.
The first thing to learn from a well-examined life and study of history is that we must always be vigilant and active to protect progress and human betterment.
The second thing to learn from recent history is that transnational petroleum interests will not quietly and meekly surrender their control, influence and interests.
That's because the WWII generation who created these institutions and laid the groundwork for many of these change were still around for all that time. Around 2016 the last remaining members passed away. Now we have the boomers in charge and they are at long last able to enact all their fantasies without restraint in their final few years before they too pass.
There’s probably something to theories of generational cycles. But the people in charge are put their by voting populations who aren’t all one demographic.
Having a democracy heavily weighted in voting numbers by people with the smallest timescale left (and no prospect of being drafted into the armed forces) to consider has consequences. This compounded by the fact younger voting block often unable to spend much time in voting related activities due to working 2,3 jobs to afford the housing that cost boomers 1/2 the price in real terms, either because housing was cheaper or it was legal to live in an urban ~hovel that would now be declared violating one of a million regulations that have since been enacted.
He didn't give Trump a gold CD to invade Venezuela.
He gave Trump a gold CD so you didn't have to pay a 30-50% tariff on iPhones, and it worked.
If it was as simple as giving Trump a golden CD to stop being a moron, some billionaire would've done that already. Turns out, that problem is much harder to solve.
Yep, Cook has worked against his personal interests for decades. He probably feels like a sociopath, but why would that stop him? There's money to be made.
Moreover, it's fascinating how both sides of America's political aisle refuse to see anything but the best in Apple. To liberals, Apple is a shining beacon of innovation and social justice that exercises their private cudgel to bring digital offenders in-line. To conservatives, Apple is a stalwart defender of private capital and the halcyon of privacy and free speech for the common man. Neither one can decipher the fact that they've been duped, instead they both hold onto the belief that Apple will fully embrace their politics and vindicate their faith.
This is illegal, immoral, unsupported by the vast majority of the US population and requiring immediate action by every US citizen and elected official.
Election polls were only ever off a couple percentage points. US elections are hard to predict because they are so close. And because of the electoral system. So missing by a bit can mean making a wildly wrong prediction.
This does not apply to opinion questions that show huge differences (not single digit percentage point differences), though there validity, not reliability is a bigger concern, especially since there exists no voting benchmark you can measure against.
Still: I think it’s awfully convenient to just wholly discount actual empirical evidence whenever you feel like it because it might not be perfect. Why exactly do you think your gut feeling is better?
Unlike popular opinion before other US actions like this, opinion polls show any military action in Venezuela as being very unpopular, like half the popularity of Trump, 20% popular.
That can change after the action, especially depending on how the media covers it, so we will see. The past few years have greatly lessened my faith in the inherent goodness of Americans, and I believe that we have let ourselves abandon our traditional ideals.
Trump got 77 million votes in 2024, which is 44% of the eligible voting population and a mere 32% of the US adult population. Trump's current approval rating is 39%. Even among those who support Trump overall, presumably a non-trivial portion don't support this particular action.
HN seems to mostly lean right...maybe not most users, but certainly the mods. It's not really surprising since it's a VC backed forum and concern for maximizing profit dwarfs everything else, even/especially moral issues.
Just look at how often relevant stories get suppressed.
Risking being downvoted to oblivion but as a South American this is a way more complex situation morally speaking.
Law-wise I agree and it has set an awful precedent.
But in the other hand Venezuelans all over the world (certainly the Venezuelans here that I know) are celebrating. I myself am in some way relieved. This is a dictator that did unspeakable things to their own population, set proxy criminal organizations, sent hitmen to kill dissidents in my country, highly decreasing our perceived safety.
So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
Willing to completely give up domestic control of your energy sector in exchange for this regime change?
Because that's what has actually happened here.
It's not like there will be peaceful and organized elections now. The template from US actions in Latin America in the past is: A puppet regime will be installed and it will be involved in heavy domestic oppression of its own.
> Willing to completely give up domestic control of your energy sector in exchange for this regime change?
You're saying this as if they (the people) had any control before.
A military intervention should always be the last resort. Two examples of military intervention / occupation working out in the long run are Germany and Japan in WW2. Maybe even South Korea (stabilization of a dictatorship and economic development lead to a democratic revolution later). One can be hopeful that this starts a better chapter for the Venezuelians as well.
> Two examples of military intervention / occupation working out in the long run are Germany and Japan in WW2. Maybe even South Korea (stabilization of a dictatorship and economic development lead to a democratic revolution later). One can be hopeful that this starts a better chapter for the Venezuelians as well.
Ignoring the fact that we have been using these examples for decades now as reasoning for going to war, these were all done after years of war. What makes you so convinced that this is "over" and the Venezuelean people can live happily ever after? History says it's far from over.
The Venezuelan diaspora is of approximately 8 million people. The current Venezuelan population is around 28 million. That’s a huge percentage of the population you a disregarding. And note that most still have relatives in their country of origin and they are also supportive of US intervention. At the end the oil is the least of their concerns. It’s easy to disregard them from a moral and legal point of view, but the suffering of this whole continent because of that dictator is very real.
The administration that has been saber rattling about "Tren de Aragua" and has had dozens of deportation flights of venezuelan refugees...
let me get this clear: you think this administration is somehow simultaneously raiding and deporting people to a place they are so empathetic to the refugee and asylum claim of that they are bombing it for humanity while also rejecting the asylum claims?
The administration that is pardoning major drug traffickers but bombs boats on a theory of importing a drug that they do not make. Then they destroy all the evidence that could support their claim?
This has nothing to do with the fact that this country has more proven oil than Saudi Arabia? Or their chosen successor María Corina Machado wants to privatize oil on day 1, that's just you know, random noise?
You can solve all Trump foreign policy mysteries with one weird trick.
People like to say "no, this is all very nuanced". I mean come on... Is Trump quoting Frantz Fanon and Hedley Bull? I mean what planet do you live on. This is a man with a golden toilet that eats at mcdonalds.
It is. Members of the imperial core will always find a way to rationalize their imperial brutality.
I mean I'd like to imagine that expats see through it but actually maybe they are less likely since they took great sacrifice to come to the US while I am merely an american because of the geography of my birth.
Exactly this, as a Colombian with many friends who fled Venezuela, the consensus is that the means aren't good but it's looking like a great outcome for democracy (might be too early to tell)
As an American, I’m outraged at this blatant disregard for international norms.
As a person living in the Americas… I’m surprised at how good this outcome is? Did we just remove a terrible regime in a comparably bloodless way?
This appears to be a prisoner’s dilemma. What just happened is probably a utilitarian win. But the president it sets could enable horrible abuses in the future.
That's also how it seemed after the Iraq invasion and the removal of Saddam Hussein. “Once we get rid of the bad guy at the top, everything in Iraq will get better.”
It didn't turn out well. I hope this one turns out better.
> Did we just remove a terrible regime in a comparably bloodless way?
You captured Maduro in an blatantly illegal act of war and until now the Regime is still there.
I hope for the people in Venezuela that this will end without a bloodshed. AFAIK Maduro has still support, especially in the poorer part of the population.
Same as you. This piece of shit needed to be gone.
I've seen Venezuelans begging for food, money and shelter in geographic areas where you wouldn't even imagine due the exodus.
I've seen South American communities orbiting xenophobia on Venezuelans because the lack of opportunities of immigrants where almost impossible in countries where there weren't any for many of the current residents.
>So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
Putting her in charge just means that the country will get looted by the Western Parasite Capitalist class instead of the South American Socialist Mobster class.
Let's say best case scenario, zero innocent casualties and a democratic government takes over and Venezuela prospers - would you still consider it immoral?
That isn’t how morality works. It’s expressly the opposite, a restating of “end justifies the means”. It’s a defensible position to hold, but not a moral one.
> The end does justify the means. This is obvious with even a few seconds' thought, and the fact that the phrase has become a byword for evil is a historical oddity rather than a philosophical truth.
> Hollywood has decided that this should be the phrase Persian-cat-stroking villains announce just before they activate their superlaser or something. But the means that these villains usually employ is killing millions of people, and the end is subjugating Earth beneath an iron-fisted dictatorship. Those are terrible means to a terrible end, so of course it doesn't end up justified.
> Next time you hear that phrase, instead of thinking of a villain activating a superlaser, think of a doctor giving a vaccination to a baby. Yes, you're causing pain to a baby and making her cry, which is kinda sad. But you're also preventing that baby from one day getting a terrible disease, so the end justifies the means. If it didn't, you could never give any vaccinations.
> If you have a really important end and only mildly unpleasant means, then the end justifies the means. If you have horrible means that don't even lead to any sort of good end but just make some Bond villain supreme dictator of Earth, then you're in trouble - but that's hardly the fault of the end never justifying the means.
Hang on you’re asking me to consider a philosophy that is explicitly aligned with the concept as a counterpoint?
Admittedly I was raised Catholic and it was pretty much the opposite of that. I’m not holding to any one point I guess. I just feel like I “know” regardless of outcome, the current administration did what they did for all the wrong reasons.
USA invaded a country. It was unprovoked, Venezuela did not pose any immediate threat to the safety of USA. There is no moral justification for any of this no matter how you try to spin it. Now Putin can gleefully say: "See? I told you that the West is full of warmongering fascists!"
If it wasn't a man suspected of being impeached over a looming child-sex trafficking scheme so deep that it makes watergate look like a game then maybe we'd pretend drugs has anything to do with it.
We've already seen plenty of stuff that Biden could have used against Trump but didn't. Regardless of why it wasn't used, there's no reason to believe there isn't more.
> > Trump comes up over 1,500 times in the Epstein files in what's currently unredacted. [1]
Trump's name would be coming up the same amount of times with every relevant escort agency owner in NYC and West Palm Beach had they received the same scrutiny from law enforcement agencies as Mr. Epstein.
To steel-man and provide a more charitable interpretation of last night:
1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
2. These people quietly oust Maduro in the middle of the night.
3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
5. There is still stability because most of the people in charge are still there. Only the illegitimate president is gone. Venezuela can have a real election now.
> 1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
> 3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
Concern:
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.(
How is it a lie? It’s a plausible story to be sure and you certainly haven’t given us any reason to think that a different story is more likely than this one
1. Trump lies more than he tells the truth. What that means is that when this administration makes a claim, we must assume it is a lie, and then try to prove it's not a lie. Yes, this is the opposite of how it usually is and no, there is no other reasonable way to go about it.
2. Venezuela has the largest amount of oil reserves in the world.
3. The oil Venezuela has is crude oil, which the US is adept at extracting.
4. There has been past tension between Venezuela and US oil companies, so I think we can all see where this is going.
5. Most US-backed coups are done for reasons outside of official statements. Usually economic and political control reasons.
6. Therefore, the most reasonable answer is that this was done for economic (oil) and political control reasons.
steel-man means trying to interpret someone's argument in the most favorable light rather than arguing against a weaker interpretation. It does not mean making up a different argument for them that you like better.
No. What you describe is closer to “giving the benefit of the doubt”. “Straw manning” was always inventing reasons that are easy to refute, and steel manning has always meant its opposite
> ... we're making that decision now. We can't take a chance on letting somebody else run it, just take over where he left off. So we're making that decision
they have already signaled that this is not what will be allowed to happen
Yes. I am generally dumbfolded on how many of these comments trying to explain the situation completely ignore oil, when it is the main drive for US going to war in the last 50 years. This _is_ an oil motivated attack no doubt
The US has no use for Venezuelan oil. The US is sitting on a vast reserve of relatively good quality oil and is pumping as much as the global markets can handle. Venezuela is sitting on massive reserves of low quality, difficult to process oil.
The US goal is deprive China of access to Venezuelan oil. China is ~80% of all Venezuelan oil exports (legal or illegal). Venezuela represents a very large potential supply of oil for China, for the next 30-50 years (a time after which oil probably won't matter very much to China).
Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil. China & India mostly have got that output. The US spent trillions of dollars, used its super power military to fully invade and occupy Iraq, and then did not take its oil. Read that again if anybody still feels brainwashed from the false campaign that endlessly proclaimed the US invasion of Iraq was to Steal The Oil.
Iraq was about the great power conflict with Russia across the Middle East (see: Syria, Libya, etc).
Venezuela is about the great power conflict with China and controlling what the US considers its backyard.
> The US has no use for Venezuelan oil. The US is sitting on a vast reserve of relatively good quality oil and is pumping as much as the global markets can handle.
First, our oil tends to be better for making gasoline but worse did asphalt or diesel, so there is a market for Venezuelan oil replacing Alberta’s.
Second, this is what the man himself has been talking about. He spent weeks going on about the nationalization in the 70s–and note how much of his worldview is stuck half a century ago when he was young—and in the first interview today he said this: “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave.”
There are reasonable arguments about how much this is really worth but one thing we’ve learned is that he doesn’t do subterfuge or misdirection well. If he’s talking about making the world safe for Exxon, I’d bet that he believes it.
Actually it's just the exact opposite. The US might be the biggest oil producer, but it still imports 60% of its oil that it uses from Canada. Why is that? Apparently because US infrastructure was built for heavy oil, not the light version the US produces.
Well, well, well ... It just so happens that Venezuela sits on the worlds largest repository of heavy oil.
The US consumes about 20 mil bbls of oil per day and imports around 4 mil bbls per day from Canada, about 20% of US consumption. Total oil imports is about 6 mil bbls/day, with about 2/3 of imports coming from Canada.
Two fun facts: 1) the US is now the largest producer of crude oil on the planet and 2) the US exports about 4 mil bbs of oil per day. Venezuela is a distant #18 at around 1 mil bbls/day
And lastly, pretty much anything you can distil from heavy crude, you can also distil from light crude, just less of it (by volume). There's a reason tar, asphalt and such is so cheap, it's made from the distillation waste products.
Almost double that of Saudi-Arabia, roughly 20 times that of Venezuela
Imported heavy crude rose from 12% 50 years ago to 70% today.
> pretty much anything you can distil from heavy crude, you can also distil from light crude
You can, but at what cost and where? The largest raffineries are apparently built for heavy crude and you can’t just retrofit them to handle light crude.
> with about 2/3 of imports coming from Canada
There are just two other countries equipped with large enough resources to compete for that market share: Russia and Venezuela
Considering this was one of his first statements on what happened, I think it’s a clear signal for what his priorities are.
We are straight back to the Reagan years of toppling regimes for our own resource interests. There is no way we did this out of the kindness of our hearts or because we believe in open, free elections. We have clear material interests and he’s not even trying to hide it.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy (/s obviously) but let’s not pretend this was some sort of magnanimous gesture or that it shouldn’t be deeply concerning to their neighbors that the US has no problem attacking a sovereign nation’s capital city and making off with a country’s leader + family when we’re not even at war.
Again I am not losing sleep for Maduro specifically but the way this was handled is not something that should be simply glossed over because of who he was and how he came to power, and we should definitely not pretend “the US has no use for Venezuelan oil.”
Before the invasion, influence and control was iraqi state owned. Afterwards, it was controlled by the US government up to ~2011. Then the western oil companies had influence. So sure they didn’t use it but they can dictate where it goes.
Sure: it would be dumb for Washington through inaction to allow China to become secure in its region like the US is secure in its region because then China would be free to intervene all over the world, like the US does and has done for 80 years, which would be bad for the US, so Washington should try to prevent it.
In short, great-power competition is mostly zero-sum, and intuitions derived from relations between individuals in a civilized society mostly do not apply.
The US may have no use for Venezuelan oil, but Venezuela nationalized US investments in 1976, stealing Exxon and Gulf Oil's assets then paying them back a pittance.
Venezuela owes those companies several billion in 1976 dollars, money they have not repaid. The US will now likely use their oil as collateral to force them to pay. No I am not dumb enough to think they will stop only there or do this in a justifiable way, but I would assert, when someone steals something from you, you have the right to use force to get it back, even if the method just used is not the right one.
I'm fairly certain that there's a large segment of the population who would deeply dislike that rationale, especially if it's applied consistently to all past actions (cough slavery)
Why wouldn't apply to the people that keep or have kept slaves? It's probably harder to find anyone alive who has kept slaves or conspired with those who kept slaves, but I'm sure you could find some. Most of them are sex trafficking victims nowadays.
(to be clear here, living person Maduro was in an active conspiracy with the [at the time] living person Chavez who seized those assets* and Maduro knowingly and intentionally used the stolen assets of currently living shareholders of Exxon and and Gulf oil, this isn't even remotely analogous to some nebulous group of white people paying people who look like they might have been slaves but have never been slaves for the sins of other dead people who happened to be the same skin color who kept slaves)
If you mean just grabbing some random person who looks like a former slaveholder and then going after them for reparations to someone who happens to look like they might have been a slave if born in another time, then no that doesn't make sense. In fact most white people that are here probably can trace their lineage to the post civil war pre-WWII mass immigration, they don't even have a family lineage or personal inheritance lineage to slave holders.
>, especially if it's applied consistently to all past actions (cough slavery)
reply
Also of note here, it was applied against slaveholders in a literal civil war where a notable portion of them were killed, although it by no means made up for what happened nor was it even the sole reason for the war. So yes the US government has done far more against slaveholders than they have against the Maduro/Chavez regime.
* Yes it happened before Maduro was in the Chavez regime, but he wittingly and knowingly later entered the conspiracy and used the stolen assets of living people as an ongoing continuation of the theft.
Where do you draw the line in the list of "not the right [method]"? I would assert that this is not justified, (in addition to not being the right method).
Can we send troops down there and just starting kill people until they pay us? Torture them maybe? Start spraying agent orange?
If someone steals something from me, I'm justified in beating them up, threatening their family, maybe even burning their house down until I get what I want, 50 years later?
Where do you draw the line between justified and unjustified when it comes to "not the right [method]"?
You shouldn't. But you are, and taxes ultimately are there to force via violence people to pay to help fund what they won't pay voluntarily. Now we're only left thinking about how we got here. You and I have next to nill say in this, particularly since the guy ordering it is a 'lame duck' with no further vote to worry about and has a nearly unilateral command of the military by congressional deadlock on any funding hiccups until at least midterms.
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Re: taxation is theft argument below regarding taxpayer monies used for justice (my comments throttled so I can't reply in thread)
Didn't say American taxpayers should have to help. I fully agree any self-help should be fully funded by the victim and not the taxpayers. I completely agree with your argument; simultaneously I'd argue they do have the right to fund an operation to seize their assets. I stated the US did this for this reason; I'd also agree if someone say steals my bike it is theft to try and use taxpayer funds to use the police to get it back, but I'd still acknowledge why the police did it and acknowledge the right of the person with the stolen bike to get it back even though I might not acknowledge they've done it in the right way.
>Your previous comment was saying that the US has the right to use force to get back assets that Venezuela seized
I did not. I said the person that has them seized has the right to get them back. You assumed I meant I supported the US doing it via violence of forcing taxpayers to do it.
The general populace is far more agreeable to theft of the general populace for justice of theft than you or I, though, our arguments fall completely flat in the face of that of an argument for a democratic republic. Generally taxation is considered an acceptable for the securement of the most basic tenants of life, liberty, and property under such political ideology.
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>Huh? You commented on an American military operation by saying that If someone steals from you then you have the right to use force to retrieve it.
Yes I commented that because that is the rational used why the US did it; they are wrongly doing proxy by justice under a principle that could be right if done correctly. I agreed with the underlying rational but not the US forces doing it by proxy via taxpayer expense. However under the popular argument that taxation isn't theft I think your argument falls flat.
I did not say the US had the right to retrieve it via violence against innocents, in fact I said exactly what you said, the person that has it done has the right to retrieve it, not that you could force someone else to do it at gunpoint as the US has done to its citizens.
I explicitly said * even if the method just used is not the right one* to reflect my agreement with your argument, but I did not say your argument out loud, because it is deeply unpopular and it would just get my comment ignored/flagged because that has happened everytime I've used your hardcore-libertarian type logic.
>Was that just a total non sequitur? Were you just saying the oil companies have the right to use force, unrelated to the US military, on a comment thread that is specifically about the US using military force?
It is not at all unrelated that the oil companies wanted something (that might be moral, if done correctly) and then the US went on to do something they wanted in an immoral way, have you been paying attention at all to politics in the US for the past 30+ years? It's baffling you could even come up with this conclusion.
Of course even if they limited the mission to getting back Exxon assets, they will be damned either way. Either for using private mercs at their own expense, people will say they're operating outside the law. If they use the sovereign state, then people will argue the taxation is theft argument about using military assets for misplaced justice and argue they should have just used mercs. They really cannot win either way.
I don’t understand. Your previous comment was saying that the US has the right to use force to get back assets that Venezuela seized. Since I’m an American taxpayer, that means the US has the right to force me to help with this. Now you’re saying I shouldn’t be. That seems like the exact opposite of your previous statement.
I completely agree that this is happening regardless of what I think and all we can really do is consider how we got here. But that wasn’t at all the comment I was replying to.
> Didn't say American taxpayers should have to help. I fully agree any self-help should be fully funded by the victim and not the taxpayers. I completely agree with your argument; simultaneously I'd argue they do have the right to fund an operation to seize their assets.
Huh? You commented on an American military operation by saying that if someone steals from you then you have the right to use force to retrieve it.
Was that just a total non sequitur? Were you just saying the oil companies have the right to use force, unrelated to the US military, on a comment thread that is specifically about the US using military force?
Sorry for the wonkiness, I now have an extra comment to reply in-sequence. Thank you for your grace in handling that and the inconvenience there.
I think the crux of your difficulty of understanding is not understanding the difference between a victim being able to fight back, a victim being able to fight back with the assistance of a willing proxy, and the wrongness to force 3rd parties to pay.
It is possible that Exxon has the right to fight back. And that Exxon can use a mercenary force to effect that effort. It is possible that the US military is a mercenary force. The wrong part would be that the mercenary force forced you to pay. Not that Exxon might get justice via proxy.
It can be simultaneously true that a mercenary force could act justly, while also being true they did not act justly, in part because they also used violence against uninvolved 3rd parties (in this case, taxation against you and perhaps also violence against some uninvolved Venezuelans). I think that is the case here.
I’m not sure why you’re talking about hypotheticals where a different act could be just. I thought we were talking about what’s actually happening. In the context of a news story about US military actions that I help pay for, you stated that force is justifiable to recover stolen property. Either this describes what we’re actually discussing i.e. the actual events taking place, or it’s a confusing non sequitur.
Let me be explicitly clear in the context, and take on good faith you're just not understanding.
In this particular, concrete event I believe Exxon had the right as a victim to take back their assets, and I believe that the funding of the US military by taxes is immoral, the very act of the people doing so is moral only so far as it does not affect innocent third parties such as yourself or go beyond compensation for the theft. I think I have been pretty clear about this, that in the concrete I think it's simultaneously true that recovery is justified but the funding method was not.
I do believe the US military actions insofar as they recover stolen property is justified, but not the funding mechanism by which they've done so. I'm not sure why this is hard to understand -- if say the police recover your stolen bicycle I can remark the police had a right to go get it even though the police have done it in the wrong way by using violence to tax 3rd parties to go get it. In this case two results -- the victim by proxy rightly recovered the stolen property but also wrongly used violence against third parties to achieve it, both simultaneously true. You are trying to muddy things by suggesting if I agree with one I must agree with the other.
I think I see the disconnect. I thought you were saying that it’s ok for an entity to recover its own stolen property by force, and conflating the United States with US-based oil companies. But you actually meant that recovering anyone’s stolen property by force is right.
Suffice to say I don’t agree with this expanded version in all cases, especially when it’s the military doing it.
Yes I would argue this is a fundamental aspect of property rights. Stolen property held with intent to deprive the owner of the assets, has no legitimate title to be held by the person holding it. Therefore you definitely do not do anything wrong to the thief by taking it.
Whether you do anything wrong to the real owner very much depends on the intent and actions taken after you take it from the thief. If the owner asked you to take it, then well you have clearly done nothing wrong. If the owner did not ask you, then it depends on your intent and your immediate disposition to the owner. If you did not intend to deprive the owner of the property from enjoying the property for any additional time, and you took all reasonable actions to return it immediately, then it definitely cannot be theft against the thief nor the owner. Therefore it is at the very least not wrong, and probably right.
I do very much doubt though that the US military will simply take the assets, immediately return them to Exxon et al, and that will be that. And the drug and machine gun charges against Maduro, are certainly not defensible in my opinion.
Then why isn't Trump saying this in his speech. Instead he's talking about Venezuela emptying it's prisons into the US and making cities he sent the NG to crime ridden because the Democratic leaders failed or some such rationalization.
Someone should tell Trump that because he’s not been remotely subtle about his thought process.
> Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil
That doesn’t mean there was no desire to take that oil. And there very transparently was. Looking at the end result and working backwards is faulty thinking. The US disastrously mismanaged Iraq. They certainly didn’t intend to.
It's possible, but we'll probably never know. However, the WTI price is under $60 and going down. The last thing any big oil companies need is more crude supply into the market lowering the benchmark price even lower, especially particularly expensive (to extract) Venezuelan crude
> The last thing any big oil companies need is more crude supply into the market lowering the benchmark price even lower, especially particularly expensive (to extract) Venezuelan crude
Check Chevron's stock on Monday to see if you're right. My prediction: It will be significantly up, showing that the action benefited them.
US controls those supplies anyway because nobody else is going to develop the capabilities to profitably extract Venezuelan crude. Not Venezuela, certainly not China or Russia.
Never in the past 60 years has it been more clear from observing the current US administration in its international "relations" and its domestic abuses that there is no charitable interpretation.
No, you're not steel manning. You're just justifying unilateral regime change.
None of that matters.
There was no declaration of war powers from Congress, this entire operation is a flagrant violation of US and international law.
And, to point 1, this operation was carried out by a US President who attempted to violently overthrow the US government to avoid ceding power, which really puts a damper on point 1 I think.
If Maduro stole the election from someone else, and the US does not put that someone else in power, then what does that mean? If the US exercises their own decision making and judgement when installing someone in Maduro’s place and overrides or eclipses the will of the Venezuelan people, then how is this in support of democracy?
Are dictators hypnotists? Are they wizards? If the regime functioned on the existence of a single man in a single chair, and EVERYONE around him wanted him gone, why does it take the military force of a different country to make it happen? Why isn't it the responsibility of the people in that country to remove him from power?
So as long as we have excuses we can bomb a country? Right? This time we don’t sanction and shut off swift, visa, Mastercard? Because this time we are the good guys?
Fox News: What do you see as the future of Venezuela’s oil industry?
Trump: Well, I see that we’re going to be very strongly involved in it. That’s all I can say. We have the greatest oil companies in the world—the biggest, the greatest—and we’re going to be very much involved in it.
> 4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
What's the point of this? Surely there's no deniability if the bases were abandoned?
It doesn't matter. The supreme court has made Trump immune, Trump has no accountability. He can just do this and face little consequences.
Your steelman means nothing. Nor does the opposite.
We're powerless. Trump isn't.
The discussion should be about accountability of his actions first. When he can actually be made accountable then steelmanning and debating his actions in general can come into play because then it will actually mean something.
The SCOTUS ruling I think you are referring to was about crimes commited by the person who happens to be president, and whether they are punishable. (So not stuff like "you need to undo that bad thing", but "you will go to jail for that".) The acts of the executive branch are absolutely still accountable to the Court via suits of legality and constitutionality.
Also, raise hell at your law makers who thought it was a good idea for Congress to give sweeping powers to the executive in the first place.
Come on, this is borderline insulting. I think most of us are educated enough in US history and foreign policy to know that this is fanciful.
I don't doubt that there were people in the Venezuelan govt who want Maduro gone and would be happy for a US-backed coup and collaborated with the US (i.e., provided intel, etc.)
But it's still a foreign coup and military-backed regime change, no matter how you or Trump spin it.
The lesson to the world continues to be: if you're big and powerful, you can do whatever the f you want in other countries to ensure they are "on your side" and to gain access to their natural resources.
Alternative explanation: The election was stolen overnight by US barbarism, prepared by years of reactionary rhetoric by the election stealer in chief.
Laws often fail to matter in cases where they should. If a country as powerful as the USA wants to handle a problematic country (from its perspective) by whatever means, they will do so and with a glaikit smirk on the faces of its leaders and politicians. "Here's democracy and justice on your face," has been a typical American foreign policy for a long time whether we like it or not. A lot of people thankfully do see through this pretence, but also at the same time, the fierce followers of Cheneyism are trying hard to find possible explanations to legitimize this.
This part of the situation is the interesting thing to me.
Is this US administration establishing itself as the effective dictator of Venezuela indefinitely? What does running that country have to look like directed by the US president and what changes will they make to restrict the position to prepare it for transition? Is the plan to make no changes to the position and then forever make a mockery of their elections by only letting people run in the future who suite US interests? It feels like this situation has the potential to turn into a colonial-like relationship always under threat of direct US military intervention.
It’s wild to me that (at least for now) Trump has publicly repudiated the second (or first if one swings that way) place vote getter in last election as unqualified even after she brown nosed Trump hard. He apparently needs a bigger sycophant in charge like his cabinet members https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-03/nobel-win...
"US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Venezuela that strong action would be taken if Guyana is invaded or an attack is launched on ExxonMobil's oil assets in the Stabroek Block."
https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news...
Why take a chance?
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. If you're looking for bias, he is neither American nor lives in the US.
Surprise, surprise, US still the country of regime change and military intervention, when control of or access to valuable natural resources are at play.
US flexing its muscles and showing that it's in charge of its "backyard", just as it always has been.
Please don't insult our intelligence with comments about how this is about justice, drugs, or democracy. I've lived long enough to have seen this movie many times.
This is going to make the US look less predictable to adversaries, and that's, on balance, perhaps not such a bad thing.
It will be interesting to observe how the aftermath unfolds. If the US succeeds in installing a gov't which gains some level of legitimacy, perhaps by stoking the economy, then this will be a significant win for the US. If not, it will be a strong "the US is the newish sick man" signal.
That said, it's one thing to pull this in Venezuela, another thing to annex Greenland.
Meanwhile, One America News Network's front page reporting that Mamdani is undoing protections against "antisemitism"; DOJ is demanding Minnesota voting records; Will Smith accused of sexual harassment of a male violinist; and, of course, polling readers on the question "Does President Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?"
Maybe the whole attempt is to bully the current government into giving the Venezuelan/Cuban faction in the US government exactly what they want. They want an entry into the society, and to open it up, maybe among other things.
With this USA is essentially saying that "see I can just walk into your home and no one will stop me, so better do as I say".
I will be surprised if USA tries to land ground troops into that country. Running the country, I suspect, will be extremely ugly for USA. OTOH, if they can just coerce the existing government into giving them exactly what they want, then it would certainly be mission accomplished.
It's all a huge gamble, and will depend on how obstinate the Venezuelan setup is.
Reading through this thread is disturbing not because people disagree, but because of how the disagreement is happening.
What I'm seeing is a breakdown in the ability to hold consistent principles across contexts. The same people who condemned Russian actions in Ukraine are now making "realpolitik" arguments about Venezuela. The same people who claim to oppose foreign intervention are now calculating whether this was "done cleanly enough." Positions seem determined entirely by tribal affiliation rather than any coherent framework about sovereignty, international law, or the use of military force.
There's also a striking historical amnesia at work. The US has been running this exact playbook in Latin America for over a century. We have extensive data on how these interventions typically unfold, what the second and third-order effects tend to be, and how the initial justifications relate to the actual outcomes. Yet that entire body of evidence seems to have evaporated from the conversation. People are reasoning about this as if it's a novel situation requiring fresh analysis, rather than a well-worn pattern.
Most concerning is the casual normalization. We're discussing whether it's "justified" to invade a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader as if this is a routine policy question. The window of what's considered shocking has shifted so far that outright imperial aggression gets the same treatment as a zoning dispute. When someone points out we didn't even attempt to follow Constitutional requirements for declaring war, the response is essentially "yeah, we stopped doing that decades ago, so what?"
The nihilism is the most insidious part. "What are we supposed to do about it?" Well, at minimum, we could refuse to let the Overton window keep drifting. We could maintain some continuity of ethical standards. We could recognize power plays for what they are instead of generating elaborate post-hoc rationalizations about democracy and narcotics.
The question isn't whether Maduro is a dictator (he is) or whether this particular operation succeeded tactically (it apparently did). The question is whether we've collectively lost the capacity to see what we're actually doing and where this pattern of behavior leads.
The US is completely cooked man, the right has fully committed to mashing the gas pedal towards fossil fueled 'based' racist authoritarianism while the so-called-left is writing strongly worded op-eds. Even if Dems win again, they've proven to be way too cowardly to fix anything, this democracy is 100% done. Personally I just hope California is able to secede and do a Nordic Model before the entire country becomes Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but I'm pretty doubtful anything good can ever happen here. Good luck everyone.
All your "moral" comments don't matter, I live in Argentina and the ABSURD amount of venezuelans that migrated here in the last 10/15 years is nothing you'll ever see. I have 3 venezuelan friends here and a couple more that I only know (one is an Uber I once took and have a couple neighbors in the building), all were able to escape the dictatorship and left their family there, I just can't express with words the JOY I saw in their statuses from WhatsApp and Instagram today when the door to maybe go back to their country finally opened.
One of my friends is my motorcycle mechanic, met him in 2015 when I bought my first KTM, still my mechanic to this day. A lot of the bike services I stayed with him talking while he worked, I listened to a lot of his stories from back in the day, why he had to run, why his family stayed, how he had to send money to them to eat and some other horror stories.
In the name of my friends, if you think what happened today is bad, you can respectfully go fuck yourself.
Considering the former state AG lost the election to the felon facing two open-and-shut federal cases, I think the "law and order" label has to be retired.
On the plus side, nothing here is permanent, this guy is out in just over three years. How much more damage could he possibly do?
I do. Pretty certain he only ran to avoid being convicted in the Jan 6 and classified documents cases. Now he can pardon himself and even if the next DOJ prosecutes he can run out the clock.
Why do you think he will try to stay in office? Cause he said he might?
You think that he's afraid of going to prison only? Oh noo, house arrest in Mar-A-Lago for x amount of years due to "bad health".
I think the man is severely and uncurably addicted. Got his ultimate high and will do anything and throw anyone or anything under the bus to maintain that.
No I am saying this time around there is zero chance he gets convicted of anything before he dies, due primarily to the SCOTUS immunity decision for anything this term and the fact that self-pardons for prior crimes would require another trip to the Supreme Court.
> I think the man is severely and uncurably addicted.
How do you distinguish this from him rubber stamping other people's agendas and falling asleep all the time?
That is a lot of certainty for your vague intuition about his desires three years from now. Money is no longer a concern and he seems to play a lot of golf for someone drunk on power.
> USA is officially a roque state internally and externally
All of the great powers are. So are most of the regional powers. It's basically the EU and Brazil hanging on to the old rules-based international order.
It’s not a coping mechanism, it’s a reality-facing mechanism. What happens here and how the world responds both provides insight and will be a huge input into whether and how Xi Jinping decides to invade Taiwan.
> Never thought that whataboutism was going to be the coping mechanism
Not a coping mechanism and definitely not an excuse. Just a statement of reality. This doesn't make America special. America at least sometimes trying to uphold that system is what used to make it special. Now we're back to spheres-of-influence realpolitik.
Here in middle Europe the rumble is that it is time to BDS the United States. I hear this everywhere, on the streets, at parties, at work.
I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
It’s going to be bumpy if/when it happens, but does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice. Everything else is doom.
Maybe its ruling class aren’t into it, but the people are pissed and have definitely had enough of the US’ shit. They’ve also had enough of the EU’s shit too, incidentally.
I would say we are not a Democracy and it doesn't matter who we vote for. I think it will take a full on dollar collapse to end it, and I think Washington would sacrifice every one of us to not lose grip on power.
> Perhaps Venezuela is just a reaction to the action that is already happening, namely a world-wide concerted effort to abandon the petrodollar…
The petrodollar hypothesis is obsolete. It has been since America became an oil exporter.
The way you're presenting it, it's never been the case. Petrodollars let America finance a massive military. The military gives it power. We aren't sanctioning Venezuela into submission. We're bombing it.
Also, oil has been traded in non-dollars for ages. I've personaly done it at a bank trading desk in Connecticut.
What, per your reckoning, is the petrodollar hypothesis?
I see it as the world starting to become very unwilling to trade anything at all with the US, and moving to other currencies and finance systems for trade and economic transfer.
> What, per your reckoning, is the petrodollar hypothesis?
Petrodollar recycling [1] backed by U.S. military might. It was a way, in the 1970s and 80s, for us to secure our oil supplies by e.g. guaranteeing the security of the House of Saud.
The point was securing oil. The dollar benefits were a side effect. The dollar is ascendant because we're massive consumers.
> I see it as the world starting to become very unwilling to trade anything at all with the US
This has nothing to do with the petrodollar!
> moving to other currencies and finance systems for trade and economic transfer
Sure. Folks talk about this. It has nothing to do with Venezuela. (Again, oil is traded in multiple currencies and has been for at least two decades.)
The dollar is ascendant because the rest of the world is forced to use it for trading purposes, under threat of military incursions or other forms of massive civil undoing, courtesy of the American MIC.
And the point is, the American consumer market means less and less to a world that is sick and tired of the suffering the American people bring to it.
>two decades
Yes, that’s the point, the world is moving off the US Dollar as a global currency, and this is why America needs more endless, endless war, and its why we have endless, endless war. The rest of the world sees this all too clearly now.
> I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
I doubt that. It's far more likely to backfire into increased support for aggressive right-wing populism of the kind Trump peddles. It also seems doubtful that Europe could really afford that economically at the time when it's already in an open confrontation with Russia and not exactly on friendly terms with China.
> does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice.
We do not have an effective mechanism for that. Even if our democracy were truly functional, people have voted for candidates who promised no more wars for >15 years now, and yet here we are. Meaningful reforms that would _perhaps_ enable this require constitutional amendments, which have such a high bar as to be unattainable in this political climate. I don't think the system can recover, but it still has a lot of capacity to do damage as it breaks down.
There is a groundswell of activity among the European populations to bring these conflicts to an end. It’s there, but you won’t see it in the nightly news, you have to actually get out there and talk to people.
I just completed a tour of Italy, through 9 cities, and everywhere I discussed these issues I found that people are just sick and tired of the US’ (and Israels) bullshit, and they want to start divesting from these nations activities. This may not be visible for a few more months or even years, but I do believe there will be political ramifications on the horizon that might give us a bit of hope.
Note, I live in middle Europe, and this is a sentiment shared here as well…
Israel is easy to sanction economically speaking. US is a lot harder.
And I have no doubt that Europe can pull it off in principle. But can you afford that while also ramping up your defense spending to the levels necessary to stand up to Russia?
Europeans do not have as much invested in the “Russia is the enemy” meme as Americans do. Sure, there are easily-duped segments of European society who will just parrot this line from their American and British cousins, but there is a far greater segment who see peace with Russia as being the only reasonable approach going forward, returning to an era where Russia and Europe were actually economically aligned, able to work together, and thus profiting from the partnership. Not everyone outside the Western bubble believes that Russia is going to roll tanks into Berlin - only those who seek to profit from that fantasy, actually parrot it as a possibility. Many in Germany and other middle European states remember when Russians were actually decent trading partners, not so long ago, before the UK and the USA started to interfere in what was, to be fair, a pretty good deal for Europe - but not so great for the Brexiteers and American MIC profiteers.
If this results in Maduro leaving office with a small number of mostly military deaths, followed by the swift return of Venezuelan democracy, I would concede that the hawks made a good call this time. It is extraordinarily uncommon for US regime change wars to go that way and I don’t think this is going to be the exception.
(E: Honesty compels me to come back and say that it is looking somewhat likely I was wrong and will have to concede to the hawks.)
I bet the one that gets implemented by an invasion force will be great. It's a crisis that has to be handled internally by the populus of the country. Not by a country which leader implied he wants the natural resources of the country they are now "freeing from a dictatorship" or whatever cope you are coming up with in your mind.
It's hard to think through the implications of living in a world where it is accepted that countries with more power simply invade each other and take land and possessions from those with less power. I can't think how it doesn't ultimately lead to broadscale instability and ultimately, war. In turn it depresses me that this is toxic to the humanity progressing and solving its bigger picture problems.
You can even go further, _all_ human history had stronger groups taking things from weaker groups. On the classical era of Aristotle and on the paleolithic pre-history. We sometimes forget that humanity can be cruel and work only for self-interest, we like to think that war and pillaging is something from the past, but it will be forever with us
This isn't universally true. There are actually a very large amount of cultures where we have ZERO evidence of violence. E.g. for the Sámi in southern Scandanevia we have zero evidence of violence. Similarly the Tripolye culture in modern Ukraine/Moldova/Romania is famous for building megaworks and housing for up to 15,000 people. But despite this large population there is virtually zero evidence of walls/forts/moats/any defensive fortifications. Not specialized weapons.
Evidence of large-scale warfare in prehistoric periods is also extremely rare in general. Most violence we have evidence for seems to be driven by personal conflict. This could just be due to decreased population densities but the conclusion that humans have always widely used war or organized violence is certainly not supported by the existing evidence
Speaking of the 1800s, I wonder if we could learn anything about peace in a multipolar world by studying the Concert of Europe. Might be a good topic for a historian to write a book about. I'm looking right now, and it's kinda sad to see so many books about WW1 and so few about the peaceful period which came before.
How about when Carter made peace between Egypt and Israel? Carter also gave the canal back to Panama and normalized ties with China.
Carter may not have won the FIFA Peace Prize. But he did win the Nobel one. My father respected Carter more than almost any other living person, and I trust his judgement.
No, they didn’t, and if your media tells you that’s what’s happening, it’s either misinformed or propaganda (or both).
Our political left already thinks we’re the bad guys. Our political right is posting pictures of eagles on Facebook. Nobody feels any different than they did yesterday.
Why? It really isn’t anything new. The only new thing is the admission it is for oil, which we usually pretend it isn’t.
Those of us who are opposed to it probably didn’t vote for Trump and surely have no foreign policy influence, which is the same as when Bush invaded Iraq. Same old song and dance.
This isn’t out of line with past performance. We have spent decades toppling regimes. Basically since WW2.
Hows this any different than what we did to Noriega? Saddam? Qaddafi?
That’s my original point, to anyone who is paying attention it’s already been priced in. The method was novel perhaps, but nothing else about it was anything different. I’m not that old and I’ve already seen it happen several times.
If somebody punches you in the face from Monday through Friday, then they punch you in the face on Saturday you probably don’t feel any different about them on Sunday.
I certainly can’t say I expected the exact method of capture, but I had no doubt all of those carriers were moving to the Caribbean for some reason other than show. I figured we would just blow some stuff up and topple the regime that way.
I would guess not at all for any of them. Drugs clearly aren’t that much of the reason involved here. If you were listing the countries that export the most drugs to us, Venezuela wouldn’t even be top five. I am not sure I would be opposed to us taking out cartel leaders in Mexico, but there are certainly a lot of downsides to it that have held us back. I don’t think Gloria Shienbaum is on our enemies list.
What they have that we care about is a third of the world’s oil reserves. They are friendly with our biggest geopolitical rival, China. This is not to endorse what we did at all, but it’s pretty clear that there is a future coming where oil gets scarce, and the last thing we want is China to have a better supply of it than us.
I don’t think this was probably the right way to solve the problem, but it is a problem that needed to be solved, and even though I don’t like it, I have to admit there is a lot of upside.
Going by the historical record the chances of a mess are larger than the chances of a net positive. One thing is for sure: the US reputation abroad just sunk a little lower and it really did not need that.
Certainly possible. There are plenty of examples where these sorts of interventions worked for the country we intervened in though. Even in Latin America, which I’ve travelled extensively. I’ve talked to them about it.
A year ago today I was in Grenada looking at a statue of Reagan. The Grenadians love America (and the older ones love to tell you about it) for our intervention in the 80’s which I was not old enough to remember. They did not want to become another Cuba and we saved them from it.
South Korea. Japan. Germany. There were some solid wins in our nation building along with the losses.
I think the shock is more of a shift from the lawful evil spectrum, where the US either did things covertly or had a much better narrative prepared, to chaotic evil. Apparently Congress had no clue here, and Trump simply called them "leakers".
To be more blunt, we knew America was a pompous asshole, but it always pretended to be orderly. This is the US putting in a toupe and plucking its mustache. The act isn't surprising, the shift in attitude is.
Responsibility for the aftermath is with the US. They previously didn't do a good job in Afghanistan or Iraq after they assumed defacto control, without really trying to make the countries stand on their own. Life is not much better for the average person there.
Venezuela has lots of oil and drugs. If different factions fight between themselves there's no reason you couldn't end up with a divided and dangerous country that in some ways could be worse for the people than Maduro.
The best way for "oppressed" people to be liberated is through some joint effort by parties that really want to help out and assume responsibility, or by supporting a revolution that naturally takes over. I don't think there's been any cases of success from this process of forcibly removing the dictator, and crossing your fingers that things will go well.
Putting aside, for a moment, a lot of important questions around (gestures broadly at the political situation in the US), what are the economic implications of a conflict between the US and Venezuela?
Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?
I don't think you can meaningfully answer this without knowing the military goals or the ultimate outcome.
The worst-case outcome for the US is that it gets pulled into another unpopular, long-term conflict that undermines its international standing and allows assorted rogues to advance their goals (Ukraine, Taiwan, who knows what else).
The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran. How you assess the likelihood of these outcomes sort of depends on your priors.
I would say, however, that the recent history of US military interventions doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Venezuela is nowhere near being the cluster---- that we've dealt in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc, but who knows.
Intelligence seems more capable nowadays compared to 2003, probably due to better cyber/SIGINT. It took 3 years for the coalition to find Saddam despite a large ground presence. I wouldn't give Maduro more than a month if the US was intent on taking him out, after the capabilities that we saw in Iran and South Lebanon the last two years that simply did not exist 2 decades ago. For the first time, war has been inverted, and it's the regime that dies first instead of the soldiers.
Second difference is the absence of political Islamism as a dominant ideology in the culture. This makes it more comparable to regime change wars against Japan and Germany in WW2 than recent wars in MENA.
What about radical communism as a binding ideology instead of radical Islamism? I swear that I've heard during at least 5 different wars in my lifetime that things would turn out differently. And I'm not old. Now I want consequences.
I could say the same thing about radical fascism in Germany and Japan, and yet.
Historically, fascism and authoritarianism communism have been temporary secular hysterias that come and go. Ukraine post-Maidan, for example, embraced democracy because they tried communism already and learned that it sucks.
Islamism seems more potent and durable and always rears its head in instability like in Bangladesh most recently, or the Arab Spring before. My explanation for this durability is that it is tied in with religion and is believed to be divinely ordained, rather than just a human made system that sucks.
This is unlike Christianity which is structurally secular by doctrine ('render unto Caesar').
> Islamism seems more potent and durable and always rears its head in instability like in Bangladesh most recently, or the Arab Spring before. My explanation for this durability is that it is tied in with religion and is believed to be divinely ordained, rather than just a human made system that sucks.
> This is unlike Christianity which is structurally secular by doctrine ('render unto Caesar').
That's historical crackpottery. Christianity went through two centuries of religious warfare starting in the early 1500s, with the German population suffering a per-capita death toll higher than WW2. Before that, it launched centuries-long crusades into the Middle East - at some point wiping out the non-Christian people of the city of Jerusalem, which was, and eventually returned to being, a multi-religious city under Muslim rule.
Radical Islamism has only existed since 1979 because of the Iranian revolution. It looks like it's on the decline now. It might have only emerged because of failed efforts at modernising. Europe and the West might have only lapped MENA because they were geographically well-placed to pillage the Americas - not because of any cultural superiority.
[EDIT: I've just read over this, and I'd like to clarify that I like Christianity and Christians in many respects, even though I'm not a Christian myself. I also like the modern West. I just hate lying, hypocritical, cowardly, proud and murderous xenophobes like you]
> I could say the same thing about radical fascism in Germany and Japan, and yet.
Germany and Japan stopped being fascist because nobody was going to let them go back to gassing people.
I'm sorry that I spoke so uncarefully as to cause this reaction in you. I did not knowingly lie, although I may be wrong about many things. I will try to speak with more care next time, especially on topics related to people's identities, which is understandably a sensitive area of discussion that can contribute to fears even if that is not the intention. The world definitely doesn't need more xenophobia on social media.
> The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran.
There is no need to scare Iran. The mullahs are already scared shitless and were utterly humiliated this summer. They could have easily been removed, but it was decided that it was not worth it, as the next regime could be even worse. A weak, scared Iran is the best outcome.
It won't help with oil. The Permian's breakeven prices have crept upwards and, because VZ crude grades are high-sulfur, the US refinery complex can't absorb it without retooling away from the plants specialised for the low-sulfur Permian output.
Possibly dragging supply down, with no net effect at best.
>90% of Venezuelan crude has been refined in China in recent years.
This is going to hurt China economically, and in a way that isn’t going to be seen as targeted at China or unfair by international community.
Russia’s production and refining capacity has been seeing attrition from Ukraine’s efforts. They’re producing less oil, selling it for less, and for rubles that each buy less.
I’ve said before on HN that I thought Venezuela was intended to soak up Russian resources - this is just the next step.
What is the risk calculation one would perform before attempting to invade Taiwan while Trump is calling shots? Whatever else you think about Trump, for better or worse, he is not bound by establishment prerogatives: make the "wrong" move, as Trump exclusively defines it, and anything — literally any conceivable thing plus a distant horizon of things you are cognitively incapable of conceiving — might happen.
Maduro is in a cage somewhere pondering this right now. Iran's leaders are all thinking about the threats Trump made not 48 hours ago, possibly to the great benefit of rebels in the streets right now. Federal investigators are closing in on Walz and friends in Minnesota right now: he could find himself in a cell within earshot of Maduro at any time.
Probably not much. If Maduro is kicked out, you still need time to establish a new government and ramp up oil production. That's bullish, but it's far from guaranteed; there could be coups, instability, etc. If Maduro isn't kicked out, things get murky. Will the US intervene with boots on the ground? Will they just keep sanctions in place? For how long? Will there be resistance?
Actually, thinking about it more, this makes little sense. There's very little upside (and it's far off), while there's plenty of short and long-term downside. Great geopolitical strategizing out there.
Always remember the role of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in preparing this unprovoked and illegal (under international law) attack on Venezuela by awarding the prize to María Corina Machado.
Julian Assange actually filed a Swedish criminal complaint against Nobel Foundation officials, alleging misappropriation of Nobel endowment funds and facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado, and it seeks immediate freezing of funds and a full investigation: https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...
As a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.
Also, some people seems to miss the fact that South America military power is very weak, and we, culturally, are way less proned to fight and die than people in middle east.
Yeah, we know this is all about oil, and I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge. But the fact is we don't have a, undeniable, dictator as neighbor, and my friends can see their families again.
No, we are not happy. We were not happy when they intervened and installed their friendly dictator. I can criticize Maduro and I can censure these actions. I don't want any other country to invade mine because they didn't like the government that we had.
> I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge
If history teaches us anything, a democracy won't emerge. Nothing good comes from the US intervening in foreign affairs. This is being done to the benefit of the invaders, not those being invaded.
It is, and I understand the hope, but Maduro wasn't a good replacement for Chavez, yet he persisted because of the support of the rest of the regime. I hope for the best, but this is not an auspicious beginning.
Publicly, it's about oil, privately, it's also about China getting a foothold in South America, on the USA's doorstep and denying them a source of cheap oil from the world's largest proven reserve. It's the modern version of the Great Game.
You are still young so you don't seem to get it yet but history has shown that killing or capturing the leader of a country with outside actors rarely leads to anything good. It usually just leads to more instability.
Pop-culture shows you that if you get rid off Mojo Jojo you suddenly get rainbows and flowers but reality doesn't work that way very often and it is just propaganda.
Colombian here. Maduro wasn't the leader of a country; he lost the elections and became a cruel dictator. He led a regime that murdered, tortured, and disappeared thousands of people, turning Venezuela into a narco-state run by the ELN and other paramilitary groups. It may not have worked in other areas, but the US intervention in Panama, which resulted in the capture of another dictator, Noriega, transformed Panama into the fastest-growing economy in Latin America (6% average annual growth). Poverty fell by 60%, and today it's a very prosperous country. I can assure that there will be massive celebrations today by all our Venezuelan brothers and sisters living in Latin America.
Edit: I just discovered that Noriega was also captured on January 3rd.
Maduro was the leader of the country. Leadership is a practical matter, it doesn't depend on elections or democracy. Stalin wasn't elected either, and nobody says "he wasn't the leader of the USSR".
Likewise, there are leaders of countries who weren't elected that are currently aligned with the US, and nobody claims those leaders aren't the leaders.
A dictator or a king aren't elected, but sometimes they are leaders nonetheless. They are leaders if they de facto lead their countries/kingdoms. If insurgents wrestle control, they cease being leaders.
Well it didn't take long for Trump to announce he now runs Venezuela to plant US companies to export oil to the US. Once you understand American foreign policy it is just predictable.
That's good to hear. As a European, I do hope our leaders keep this in mind... It may be an unconventional move, but it's hard to argue this is a bad outcome.
I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
> I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil
Why would the US be entitled to any oil here? And how would that be a good outcome for the people of Venezuela?
> and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
That's a big if. Ask the Iraqis how well it went when their dictator was gone. And that was with boots on the ground not just leaving a power vacuum like this.
> It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
Wait a few decades till China does this to you and we'll see how you feel.
I meant does this to the US or any other country. The precedent that's being set is that you can just fly in and kidnap a head of state that you disagree with.
> If you think the EU’s “diplomacy over force” approach will deter anyone, look at Ukraine.
Enlighten me, what's the policy of the USA as of last year? Because I honestly don't know. It depends who the guy last talked to. That's American foreign policy now, no plan, all based on the irrational behavior of an 80 year old.
I think it's pretty clear based on the intent. We are not privy to the details of policy making, we are only privy to what is actually shared publicly.
The _intent_ of the policies seem to be "treat the US better as a trading partner than you have under Biden, or get punished in ways that hit you the hardest", usually via tariffs or other means. NATO members have exploited the US with lopsided investment in the alliance under Biden, and many European countries had really bad trading agreements with the US -- bad for the US, not for us. I'm surprised we got away with it for this long.
You do realize the guy also ripped up the trade deal with Mexico and Canada, right?
That was negotiated by whom again? Oh, right, trump in his first term...
So the only conclusion I can draw is that he's like a toddler. If you give him what he wants he'll want more. That's foreign policy now.
Also, NATO has seen article 5 invoked once. By the US and it's allies helped out after 9/11. So it hasn't been too bad for the US. I don't disagree with the fact that a lot of European countries should've been spending 2% of GDP though all along
You will quickly discover that the values that you hold and the values that they hold are not at all similar. They were just pretending to get your support. And after they no longer need the useful idiot guess what will happen to you?
I’m a Norwegian. But had I voted for Trump as an American I would so far have gotten what I wanted. He’s doing exactly what he ran on; still a lot of work left to do, particularly on the real economy of the average Joe (stonks aren’t real IMO), but he’s fixed the border, made America respected, working for the American people’s future. Removing at least some wasteful government spending and getting rid of illegals.
If only Norway had the political system to allow something similar…
Did he? Or did you mean "feared"? So "respect" in the Machiavellian sense of the word?
A lot of people now dealing with Trump, even his allies, seem to be walking on egg shells, trying not to say something that angers him, appeasing him with adulation and false praise, and trying very hard to remind him "we're all friends". Much like one would treat a dangerous guys who happens to be holding a gun.
A forever war implies people in the ground that actually would want to resist, and barring conscription (Which will be limited, because diaspora) I don't see how that could actually work
Check social media or go ask a trusted Venezuelan / Latino, happiest I've ever seen the community, because regardless of what's comming, it looks like the light at the end of a tunnel
> Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
Agreed about the better lives, but has it come to a point we accept invading other countries to "secure their oil" is a great outcome? I mean, what is this, Hitler's "Operation Blue"?
Securing oil is NOT a valid reason to invade countries. Does this need to be said!? Mind boggling.
This is peak cynicism. I'm really surprised to read some opinions here.
Next up: "imperialism wasn't bad, securing a big empire with colonies is a great outcome".
Fixing the dilapidated oil production will take years I think. But my best wishes to all my Venezuelan friends. Hoping for a bloodless transition and a brighter future for the country.
Well color me impressed the CIA managed less than 24 hours turnaround on their dancing locals images! I'm disappointed we didn't get anything like the toppled statue in Baghdad but what can you expect with a rush job?
At this rate I assume they'll have the "mission accomplished" banner up by Tuesday.
Of a electoral system that makes sure that the votes of the few are worth more than those of the plenty. We democracies actually make sure that all votes are worth the same.
He does seem to be invading other countries without popular support? One can find a reason (especially post-hoc) to allow, or disallow, any intervention. The US in cases like this just picks whatever is convenient. Dictator matters here, but in Saudi Arabia it doesn't.
it's a positive step for the population, my worry is about global signalling.. we were trying to keep the armed fascists floodgates tight since putin invaded ukraine and now US is doing bold military regime changes, not even covert (some would argue old CIA was worse).
hard to sleep well these days
ps: if anybody knows places where people discuss this, feel free to hit me
Yeah, totally agree. Like anything that matters this is a complex topic with multiple reasons to each move in this game, my positive position towards what happened is pretty much related to the reactions of my Venezuelans friends and my personal perception of how people has suffered with Maduro's regime.
On a side note, it was kind of strange watching the media dance around what Chavez was doing. When he first took power and started seizing money and power it was all framed as he is demolishing the corrupt institutions. Then as election irregularities started happening and the economy started failing, the blame was placed on the U.S for boycotting them.
"War for oil" is always the easy go-to to criticize any American military action, even in countries that don't have oil.
And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
America has more oil than it knows what to do with, and because of that, prices are so low that there are lots of newspaper articles about how American oil companies have dramatically slowed exploration and production. Plus, even under the current administration, America is using more and more renewable energy sources (some states now get more than 50% of their energy from wind/solar).
With the whole Chevron situation, I'm willing to think that oil may play a role here, but again the "war for oil" seems like nothing more than a convenient slogan for a high schooler's protest sign.
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
This along with other direct quotes from officials is what led me to the conclusion that, yes, oil is a large factor.
The problem is that you can't cherry-pick quotes from this administration and use them as a source of truth like you could with previous administrations.
Especially from Mr. Trump, who says something and then an hour later states the opposite. (See his record on solar, electric vehicles, various personnel and congressmen.) Keeping people guessing is part of this administration's strategy, and is inherited from how he did business.
It wasn't just him making such quotes, as I indicated before, and I made no attempt to make an exhaustive account of such statements which can be easily found elsewhere. It's very reasonable to conclude that that is an issue at play here. That is all I attempted to convey.
America has plenty of the wrong type of oil. They need heavy oil as that's what the usa oil refinery are made to handle, but they have a shortage of heavy oil, and a oversupply of light oil. Venezuela has the heavy oil they need
US even mastermind amd helped overthrowned Iranian elected government and then only recently admitted and apologized to that but the damaged already done [2].
There are sanctions on Venezuelan oil due to the drug trafficking. The oil tankers are captured to punish violations of the sanctions. We don’t capture and appreciable amount of oil this way. And in fact the sanctions drive up the price of oil.
Yet another incoherent policy for this administration that will be interesting to see people defend. Why does Maduro get invaded and captured but convicted drug smuggler (and ex Honduran president) Juan Orlando Hernandez get pardoned?
It's interesting that you're anti-economic sanctions but pro-tariffs. This administration talking points specifically justify tariffs as punishments for countries' behaviors.
Anyway be clear, I'm talking about this administration. Specifically their choice to invade Venezuela and capture their head of state, while simultaneously pardoning the ex-Honduran head of state who was convicted for the exact same thing. When I say inconsistent, I mean: they are saying (vocally and militarily) that they are anti-drug cartel, but also they are apparently pro-some-cartels? It makes no sense to me.
> It's interesting that you're anti-economic sanctions but pro-tariffs. This administration talking points specifically justify tariffs as punishments for countries' behaviors.
I agree that tariffs and economic sanctions are similar. But tariffs are in theory targeted at economic conduct that affects us. While sanctions are used to police the moral behavior of other countries, which I don’t support.
> And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
Yes it is.
> But Trump has also made his desire for Venezuelan oil clear. He said that the blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going to and from the country would remain “until such time as they return to the United States all of the oil, land, and other assets that they stole from us.” He did not clarify what land and “other assets” he was referring to.
> In a social media post, Miller also characterized the expropriations as an injustice against the US. “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” wrote. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
> And in a 2023 speech, Trump was even more pointed about his designs on the country’s oil. “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse,” he said, referring to the end of his first term in the White House. “We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door.”
This is especially silly because the US is always going to control oil extraction in Venezuela because nobody else has the technical capabilities required to do so profitably at a large scale.
There's no need to really fight with the Venezuelan government over this, unless Venezuela decided that they'd rather leave the oil in the ground.
The only comparable large-scale extraction projects in the world would be the oil sands in Canada.
This is a super small niche, with oil margins constantly getting squeezed around the world it'd probably be tricky to convince anyone to significantly scale up production in Venezuela even if the US lifted all sanctions and whatnot.
> The 2003 Iraq War, initiated as a U.S. unilateral action, has also been viewed through the lens of economic interests, particularly oil access. Following the conflict, significant American business opportunities arose, notably through contracts with oil companies to exploit Iraqi oil fields, marking the end of Iraq’s long-standing oil nationalization policy. Technological advancements were another key economic byproduct of these wars; innovations developed for military use often transitioned into civilian applications, influencing various sectors.
> Additionally, a trend towards privatization emerged, as private firms undertook roles traditionally held by the military, further intertwining the defense industry with the economy. This shift raised ethical concerns and sparked debate regarding the implications of privatizing military functions. Overall, the Iraq wars illustrate the complex intersection of military action, resource control, and economic interests within American foreign policy.
Assuming it was about oil was giving them far more credit than they deserve. That is a sane reason if an immoral one. I think it has far more to do with economic systems and opportunity. It is about creating freedom for capital. That means oil but also a mirage of schools, defence, healthcare, condos.
Trump has a history of using resource cutoff as a bargaining or coercive tool. hes doing it with Minnesota right now with the scandal and has done it with NYC. control over oil flows to European allies or other allies and adversaries gives his tactic more reach.
Oil is fungible. If America takes Venezuelan oil for themselves and doesn't let China have any, China will just buy more from Russia and the Middle East instead. There's no oil blockade to China, those ships aren't being stopped, and the minute such a blockade would be announced is the minute this 5th generation warfare WW3 turns into a 3rd generation war.
You need to understand marginal economics and why China will have to pay slightly more for oil as a result of this. Resulting in China having less money to spend on other things.
Plenty of things are fungible, that doesn't eliminate scarcity.
What I find interresting and would like to see discussed more, is the psychology at play that makes us believe this is another "exception to the rule of international law". I wonder if one could generalize the terror management theory (TMT) to social obedience?
"Be the change yo want to see", I guess. So, my pet peeve theory is that "the rule of law" is not something the ruling class needs to cover their track; it's something the ruled class needs to cover their shame. Shame of being ruled, but also terror of being ultimately subjected to arbitrary power.
For instance, I believe that in the feodal past lay people used to genuinely believe that kings got their authority from God; not because kings were good observants of the precepts of religion (they were not), but because that protects the self-esteem and helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes.
I find it surprisingly hard to try to convince myself that there is no such thing as "rule of law", that for instance the overthrown of a non-aligned regime could be just about the oil and competition with China, although I know that's how future historians will deal with that non-story; There is some surprising amount of resistance from within to this idea. It's interresting to do the experiment.
Part of Schachnovelle as I remember it is that Dr. B as Weltbürger is driven crazy by the dual facts that Czentovic is both a primitive brute and yet succeeds at chess via brute force, which perhaps is meant to be compared with his earlier imprisonment in 1938, by people who succeeded at politics not by subtlety but by brute force.
The idea that cosmopolitan, educated, and cultivated people could be left like deer in the headlights by brutes setting themselves through by force reminded me of your description of TMT, or at least the ego-protective "helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes" part of your explanation.
Note also that Thucydides' Athenians say that if they were to speak to the many, they would not put the matter so baldly, but since they are speaking to the few, they feel they may be frank.
I'm sceptical of directly "transpiling" lessons from history-- & in general I find that Austrians are full of it* (sorry! It does feel like they are on the elitist end of the populist-elitist divide)
*Earnings
Ps:
>Be the change yo want to see
It's Gandhi's saying that needs (more) elab :) I'll be that hypocrite and leave you to it
This is wonderful! Not only does Gandhiji speak on multiple levels, but unlike many who attempt it he carries the conceit through to perfection, offering valid first-aid advice to complete the surface reading.
https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/M...
(if one were only to read the first and last few pages, one would miss completely the change of tone in the middle; did EAB pick up this habit from the subcontinent?)
Heh. I just noticed DJT literally used the words "extraordinary military operation" during his press conference; does VVP's «специальной» have vastly different connotations in ru from "extraordinary" in en?
Unlikely to be intentional plagiarism, maybe just parallel evolution?
History repeats
But then again, it has to
Nobody listens
Guess I'd been reflecting on how close CBO and EMO (if I'm doing justice to the ru meaning?) sound to me. But I was already complaining at the formation of the DHS that it sounded remarkably parallel to an infamous organisation:
Department Ministerium
of für
Homeland Staats-
Security sicherheit
so I'm probably just a whiner and malingerer.
There's always the general lesson; even if Hillel[0] didn't get nailed to a stick[1] for preaching it, he doesn't seem to have many followers in, say, Likud.
A more specific lesson for the Old Country would be The Frogs Who Desired a King?
I've lifted^Wliberated this from somewhere, but can't remember where atm: the trouble with revolutions is that when they succeed[2], you rapidly discover that you didn't need a better government, you needed better people.
One reason I haven't finished the Durants' The Story of Civilization yet is that if you binge it, you rapidly discover that despite the pleasant turns of phrase, it's largely 13'549 pages of people treating each other poorly.
Pedantry to (nothing but): ERII could at least take a Landy offroad[3], even if in practice, as a lady, she often left it up to her chauffeur.
[1] I do love the characterisation in Master & Margherita which makes it sound like Mr. INRI was maybe on the spectrum (come to think of it, M&M is another frame story, but with the fantastic and realistic elements reversed)
[2] as the US 1776'ers, the Girondins, and the Mensheviks (to take just 3) might know?
[3] making her more accomplished than the modal Chelsea Tractor driver?
[2] Algolia-fu on yourself ;) do the inner party of SV or Fed have better people? It's possible that each of our "three hegemons" lose sleep over that question
The law of large numbers suggests that all of the hegemons:
bellatores military ML
laboratores economic IEF
oratores political DI
should optimise their practices and procedures for the population mean[0]: although one of them will obviously have slightly better people at any given point, which one is subject to time and chance, and the odds that that advantage would be larger get exponentially smaller.
(then again, the boundaries are more porous[1] than in the feudal days; I know of at least two MGIMO alums moonlighting in the economic realm)
[0] we've already covered 孫中山's triad, right?
[1] or are they? I think a typical "retirement plan" for an aging but rich bellator was to endow[2] a monastery with a comfortable amount of land, and then take orders there, because who would bump off an orator[3]? In the modern world, I see RAK (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/12/29/world/29FACEBOOK-...) has grown a long beard since I last saw him; is he in the process of transitioning from bellator to orator? Maybe not: he seems to be feeling acutely unwell.
[2] compare El Cid's provision for his wife and daughters; or even Goldmund's father "gifting" Blaze the pony
[3] compare "Hideyori's son, Kunimatsu (age 8) was captured and beheaded; his daughter Naahime (Princess Naa) (age 7) was sent to Tōkei-ji, a convent in Kamakura, where she later became the twentieth abbess Tenshūin (1608–1645)."
Ok, yes I think it helped me to understand what you had in mind.
I'm not interrested in the mind of violent sociopaths as much as I'm interrested in that of the decent people who have to accept to live under their rule, not only because of the numbers involved. Rulers might be a bit shy about their motives at times (although I can apreciate a candid one), but living under one's reign is one of our strongest taboo - thus my interest.
On the gripping hand, there might be the possibility of ignoring wanna-be authoritarian leaders but convincing people not to follow them, à la https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278
Maybe there are more possibilities of which I am unaware; of these three, I chose the first.
Both those who voted for Trump or abstained from Harris believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians.
(BB was kinda fiction-in-a-fiction and would have provided no clue either for Harris and against Trump-- and 1984 (/Schachnovelle) didn't give a clue on how you might recognise an inner party-goer if you ran into one? Maybe Animal Farm would be better?)
Maybe it looks to you as if those who voted for Trump believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians, but I've lived among them.
I was still living in their midst when they tarred and feathered the Dixie Chicks (as they were then) for having the audacity to say GWB's Iraq Adventure might not be the most wonderful thing since sliced mayonnaise. (could we say they "cancelled" the Chicks?)
But now they're cheering Operation Southern Spear as if it were a homecoming game, as they did for GHB's Iraq. My local paper even had https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266 (sorry for the X link) in it this morning.
They may say they're voting on a mind-your-own-business-principle, but whenever you look at what they do, they've consistently been voting on a leader-principle.
</anger>
Q. How do you describe a principled authoritarian follower?
A. "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind"
Inner Party Pigs
Outer Party Dogs
Proles the Equal animals
you are talking about the base that Trump knows he can always count on. they don't matter as much these days. (I completely forgot about them no airquotes) I'm not sure David Graeber ever publicly got angry at these guys, however*
Ask PH (or Algolia it) about who he is angry with on the left. Those who drove the Swing voters (the prole equivalent of interchangeables) over to the other side or got Biden to "abdicate" . Loosely reminds me of the turncoats at Sekigahara and Bosworth Field
(*The rival camps that the Trump "inner corporatists" take seriously are SV "inner-outer party" (Shu Han?) and WallStreet/Fed (Wu?). With their bands of incorrigible rationalists/technocrats.
Imho Trump _wants_ leftist intellectuals distracted from his true strategy, and this is why he's more careful with Mamdani-- enemy of my enemy yada yada)
One of the ways to learn a smattering of a language would be to look at YouTube comments; sentences of the form "in YYYY they still made real music" and "is anyone watching in YYYY?" seem to occur in every natural language.
(for Sekigahara I wonder if part of the issue was credibility: if Tokugawa promises so many koku, you can be pretty sure you're getting them [and in the event he even lasted into his 70s] but if Ishida promises you so many koku, well, a lot can happen in 7-8 years: what are the chances that young Toyotomi will honour Ishida's old deals?)
Edit: come to think of it, both Shu and Wu do spend many of their waking hours trying to figure out how to intermediate themselves into any possible otherwise-dyadic transaction... Wei supposedly does as well, but compared with Shu and Wu, at least here, Wei has a light touch.
True, but you were talking about voting Trump/Harris, which pretty much implies the wide electorate, no matter who the real selectorate may be.
(speaking of selection, I completely forgot to include the judiciary in previous models. Would the whole Civil Rights thing have even happened if it hadn't been for the Warren Court?)
[Not that Warren was an angel, but despite his bigotry in other ways —or maybe because of it?— he was able to win state office by just winning both party's primaries, which I hadn't even known was a thing]
There's a wonderful line in one of the Retief stories where The Corps Diplomatique Terrestrien attempts to introduce "one sentient one vote" on some planet out in the galactic boondocks, and the natives instantly grasp its corollary: one less sentient, one less vote...
I'd believe the low of SV to be such a force; the high appear to be heading for https://www.angryflower.com/348.html , and I've been away for over half a lifetime, so I don't know what the mid may be doing. Blowing in the wind, probably?
How you might recognise an inner party-goer? In the case of the US, I think long-tenured legislators were part of it during my tour, but in DJT's time I'd guess they, alongside silicon valley owners of various social graphs, are to be found among the interchangeables*.
Certainly casual Trump-watching is even less useful than the old days of Kremlin-watching; his inner circle changes so often (cue Bueno de Mesquita & Smith) that it's a good thing we have the web now — the airbrush artists probably would've organised and gone on strike if they'd had to keep up.
(I guess I should give DJT his due: I had thought the two party system was a structural problem, yet he's delivered an existence proof that it is indeed possible to do something about it)
* should someone send all 535 members of congress a copy of the snakebite article? It's not going to be me; that's their problem.
In principle, our diplomats have mentioned "respecting the prohibition on the use of force enshrined in international law and the territorial integrity of sovereign states"
(Alexander the Great, on his deathbed, was asked who would inherit his empire; whether because he was an early "realist" or because he was apathetic or simply narcissistic [or?], he replied: the strongest)
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible.
"
Damn. And no large-scale military activity in play.
I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win, especially where Maduro has been considered being more and more authoritarian, rejecting democracy, and probably would've been willing to sacrifice thousands of lives in a ground war if this increasing threat was handled less finely.
Add to this the fact that Venezuela has crazy amounts of oil BUT a totally mismanaged and badly exploited extraction operation and the economy is in the toilet. Unless this somehow leads in to a Libya situation, everyone could benefit from this, compared to the hopelessness of the past.
> I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win
It has only been a few hours, so nobody knows what is going to follow. Even if US does not engage further this may well trigger a civil war in Venezuela with massive casualties.
There was a time in my life when I would spend a few hours learning about US-Venezuela relations and the Venezuelan government and related topics so I could have a skin deep understanding of it and play an internet expert in threads like this.
I’m not going to do that today. It’s sunny, and I want to spend time with family. Being naive about this topic doesn’t affect the core of things I want to be knowledgeable about. And the reality is, having a vote only gives me nominally more agency over US foreign policy than someone who can’t vote. I am mostly just observing.
Not patting myself on the back for accepting some kind of notion that "I am too stupid to consider what is this all about and go about my life with that understanding."
Also good to read the Hernández indictment from 2022[1] and the press release at the time[2].
> Maduro and Other High Ranking Venezuelan Officials Allegedly Partnered With the FARC to Use Cocaine as a Weapon to “Flood” the United States
> Hernández Allegedly Partnered with Some of the Largest Cocaine Traffickers in the World to Transport Tons of Cocaine through Honduras to the United States
They don't have an extradition treaty so they took him. What Maduro was doing was illegal in Venezuela too.
If you can give me an argument about why it's illegal or improper to try Maduro in a USA court for crimes he committed against the USA, like drug trafficking, I would love to hear it.
If you think the extraction itself was illegal - under what law? What do you think a military is for? If you have a military to defend your country and capture a criminal who you then try for laws that he broke - this seems like a good reason to have a military.
Under normal circumstances - diplomatic relations can solve this, but the consequences of breaking diplomacy is that the only way to get criminals into court is military/CIA. It's not diplomacy or nothing, that's not the world I want to live in, that's Neville Chamberlain theory.
I guess somehow the US will argue that Maduro was directly responsible for smuggling drugs to the US, and that he has broken US laws. Or acts of "drug terrorism".
The second someone without US jurisdiction as much as investigates US servicemen abroad, or Israel for that mater, they are sanctioned by the US. See ICC judges that have been sanctioned for doing exactly those things. The US argues that ICC does not have any jurisdiction to do so.
When it comes to US geopolitics, there's a wafer-thin line between taking the moral high ground, and straight up hypocrisy backed up by "who's gonna stop us?"
As far as I can tell from the narrative, Venezuela was basically serving as a puppet state for China, and if that's true, I would probably give that as the primary reason, but who knows. Maybe it's because Venezuela did poorly in the FIFA World Cup qualifier and this was action dictated by his recent peace prize award.
Good call on the China angle. Maduro is a first grade asshole. But this is just one bully taking out another on a pretext. I'm thinking more along the lines of a gang war over territory than a goal of lifting up Venezuela to the point that they will be freely able to deal with whoever (or nobody) when it comes to their natural resources.
Sorry for not being specific enough: former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted of importing over 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.
You’re getting downvoted but your take is simply the truth. Trump does not think like a politician or leader- he does not listen to, care about, or consider things like facts or broader consequences. Insiders in his administration have repeatedly leaked that they are not allowed to communicate information or facts to him, and he never shares reasons for his orders, they have to creatively make that up after the fact for the media. He operates the presidency as a reality TV show, he is interested only in how an action will play with the public and his base in the short term- will it increase his power and help him shift public narratives the way he wants, or not?
It gets better, the comment is now flagged, which is funnier still considering that Trump & Co are now on the record that it was indeed about the oil. I wonder how that will affect Maduro's court case...
None of these things are the most likely reason. The national security establishment doesn't want a Chinese-allied socialist state with a regime perceived to be hostile in South America, especially if its resource-rich. But the timing is very convenient for burying the Epstein stuff.
Maybe Trump captured Maduro just so he could pardon him? This would be a joke but comedy died when that man was elected, and this might actually be the case.
This is a unilateral invasion and regime change operation with no Congressional authorization, no UN mandate, no coalition. It's unprecedented in its brazenness—not because the U.S. hasn't done regime change before (Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, etc.), but because there's not even the pretense of justification or coalition-building.
The "narco-terrorism" charges are a legal fig leaf. The real drivers appear to be oil (Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves), geopolitical positioning (removing a Russian/Chinese/Iranian ally from the hemisphere), domestic politics (Trump wants a "win" and to appear strong), and what seems like a personal vendetta given how publicly Trump has obsessed about Maduro.
What's disturbing goes beyond the act itself. Trump literally said the U.S. will "run Venezuela"—not "support democracy," not "help transition"—run the country. That's colonial language with no euphemism.
There was no Congressional authorization. This violates the War Powers Act at minimum. If a president can unilaterally invade a country, kidnap its leader, and declare we're taking control, what's the limiting principle? Where does this stop?
The mask is completely off. Previous imperial adventures at least performed the ritual of justification, built coalitions, went through motions at the UN. This is naked power. Trump explicitly mentioned oil, saying American companies will "invest billions" to "refurbish" Venezuela's oil industry. He's just admitting it openly.
What we're witnessing is the final abandonment of even the performance of international norms. The question isn't whether this is legal or justified—it clearly isn't. The question is whether there are any remaining constraints on executive power when it comes to foreign military action.
Man, the guy probably broke a ton of Venezuelan and American laws. Maduro is responsible for the break down in diplomacy - what did he think was going to happen if he kept breaking the law?
There's no extradition treaty - how else does the USA bring him to trial?
Go to the courthouse when he gets convicted and yell about how clearly illegal it all is. You'll look like a nutcase. I'll just celebrate that he's going to die in prison.
What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal? Why does he get away with it because he's a president? He's not even the president of Venezuela, it's disputed - chiefly by Venezuelan's themselves.
Now we get to hold him to account in an open court. This is just good ass news. You don't get to declare the whole thing illegal and unjustified.
He will get returned in 20 years and probably tried for murder by the people he repressed.
Finally - he's a really cool thing about the US legal system, if his rendition was illegal, as you say, he can claim that in court. It won't work because it wasn't.
> What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal?
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
Interesting that World War 3 never happened; instead, we smoothly transitioned to War World, where war is just something that happens all the time, randomly, intermittently, undeclared, and interminably.
I’m not so sure. This War World is very similar to the geopolitical game played by the great European - and increasingly US as well, especially in SA - powers in the 19th century. That Belle Epoque was of course what drove the global politics into the first Great War.
Kissinger maintained his goal was to avoid stumbling into another Great War; we may or may not believe him, but at least he took the trouble to rationalize his actions.
(I have a friend who is a PRC citizen; I don't know her background precisely but her habitus reminds me of nothing so much as the slightly younger women I'd met at a boarding school in Palo Alto, so I think it's safe to say that socialism with chinese characteristics has at least one non-prole class :-)
You don't know what the ICC is for. It absolutely cannot stop the USA from trying him for breaking domestic USA law. That is a foundational principle of what it is.
> Vice President J. D. Vance suggested on X that this morning’s incursion is legal because “Maduro has multiple indictments in the United States for narcoterrorism.” But as my colleague Conor Friedersdorf has noted, this logic would mean that the president can order an invasion of “any country where a national has an outstanding arrest warrant.”
A reasonable person can say international law is unevenly enforced. This does not mean it does not matter. Both positive (what exists) and normative (what is ethical) considerations matter.
Communicating well matters. The above style of exaggeration is unhelpful if one cares about making sense of the world. Try to predict what happens in the future without factoring in international agreements and laws. Predictions from such models will be inferior, relatively speaking, to a version that does include paying attention to law.
I hope the rest of south america doesn’t let this stand. Heavy sanctions on US, maybe even military intervention. The US can’t go to war with an entire continent.
Are you from South America? Do you think the neighboring countries are happy about all the Venezuelan refugees? What about Guyana - do you think they would join sanctions in support of Venezuela?
Yes, I am, and yes I don’t particularly mind the immigrants.
Even if I did mind them, venezuelan immigrants are preferable to the US military invading my neighbours.
The TIAR? The one that says an attack on one is an attack on all, which both USA and Venezuela are members of? Fat lot of good that did to protect them.
But I don’t know why I bother to reply to you when given your “farmers with sticks” comment it’s clear that you’re a racist asshole.
„The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Lots of people seem to expect that the map will look exactly the same a thousand years from now; but the last hundred years of relative - historically speaking - stability are the exception, not the rule.
"Venezuelan allies Russia, Cuba and Iran were quick to condemn the strikes as a violation of sovereignty."
Right, Russia, who has been attacking Ukraine not just for one night, but for four years, is now going to lecture the US about violations of sovereignty. Their moral high ground, if they ever had any, is long gone.
I'm not sad if Maduro's gone. I'm even less sad if this results in actual freedom for Venezuela after 20 years of nightmare.
But I am not happy about the president of the US, on his own authority, choosing to remove the head of other countries, on rather flimsy pretexts. (If he presents actual evidence that Maduro was actively and deliberately shipping drugs to the US, or worse, criminals, then I will change my opinion. But I need evidence, not just claims and bluster.)
Last month the US president pardoned a Honduran politician who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into America.
Whatever is behind this attack, it has nothing to do with drugs.
Nobody with interest in politics thinks it's about drugs. It's a pretext and a way to gain legitimacy to exert force over foreign nation with some legitimacy that would otherwise clearly go against international law.
Most of the USA's refineries specialize in low grade oil. The best grade oil is often shipped out of the USA for refining. Shipping costs are so low on a grand scale that it's more profitable to ship the USA's high quality oil overseas than building new refineries in the USA just for that:
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/05/13/the-u-s-exports...
Many might not like it, but given US interests and Chinese ambitions, the Monroe doctrine is one of the few parts of American foreign policy that makes sense (in a realpolitik way) in the current geopolitical landscape.
The state sponsored drug smuggling is symbolic of a country not paying sufficient fealty to its master, but is secondary to the larger strategic issues in play.
It's not new, it's been the prevalent way of being for thousands of years - we had a brief moment of piece with the creation of the UN.
But apparently there are a lot of countries that think the UN and international law is cumbersome, and are in the way of securing their "sovereignty" (more like securing regimes) - it was obvious this was going to be outcome.
Funny enough, some of those have collapsed or are in the verge of collapsing: Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Russia...
Let's hope Europe doesn't flip to far right and start their own campaign, history shows they can be quite effective and destructive.
The best outcome is that this is just the final breath of those old regimes, and this is temporary.
“You know as well as we do that justice, as the world goes, is only a matter between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” From Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.
I personally think this quote explains the Trump administration’s worldview far better than anything Trump himself would say.
> Nicolás Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
I'm sorry but "possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
The fact that the cureent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has called on the foreign power most responsible for the problems in her home country to launch a war against her home country is all the proof anyone should need of how much of a sham this prize is (if Kissinger getting it has gone out of living memory, of course).
Not to say that the Maduro regime is not terrible, it obviously is, but cheering on a literal invasion makes you either a complete moron, or a psychopath of the highest order, hoping to rule over the ashes.
Sure, that would be good, but that doesn't justify US military action in any way, shape or form. If the USA was concerned with this, they could just bring this up before the UN council and ask for an authorization to conduct a specific military operation in Venezuela to put this right.
> fact that the cureent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has called on the foreign power most responsible for the problems in her home country to launch a war against her home country is all the proof anyone should need of how much of a sham this prize is
...wouldn't the alternative be to listen to what she's saying?
[Note: in the following, I will use quote marks around thinks I'm paraphrasing, since there is no official transcript and I don't have the patience to carefully check every word]
She says that the killings of Venezuelan citizens that were killed by the US army were the fault of Maduro, by his refusal to stop collaborating with drug dealers. She also calls Maduro's actions "starting wars with other countries", parroting Trump talking points. She is saying that "finally, there is action from an international coallition", calling her own state a "narco terrorist" state, again parroting Trump pro-war talking points.
When the interviewer point blank asks her if she would support US strikes on Venezuelan territory, she says that "the escalation that is taking place is the only way to get Maduro to understand that it's time to go" - so yes, she does support such strikes. To furhter the point, she talks about such escalation being the last chance for a peaceful transition, and that they have tried everything else. The interviewer presses on this point, and asks her again whether, given that Maduro was unlikely to give up power, she thinks US military actions are the only way forward - and again she confirms, using vague language - "it is absolutely required for a credible threat to exist".
All of this part starts at around the 6m mark and continues to the 12m mark at least.
I rejoice any time something doesn’t go Donald Trump’s way because he frequently says that he hates me and wishes to do me harm. I separately agree that Nobel Peace Prize awards often don’t make much sense.
No, his hatred is quite general, directed at various groups which I belong to some of. One time I remember well, for example, is when he posted a video of himself dumping poo on No Kings protesters (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna238521). If a friend or relative responded to some political dispute with a video of them pooping on me, I’d be pretty scared.
If your biggest fear is that Trump is going to come and poop on you, you are very well protected and safe! And any stress you have is totally self inflicted.
My biggest fear is that the kind of insane person who threatens to poop on me might do other, much worse things. It's not likely to ever happen, but doing what I can to stand against Trump seems like an effective way to minimize the risk. I celebrate when he fails, I'll celebrate when he croaks, and I hope that dancing on his grave one day will help future political movements learn what you and your favorite dictator-in-chief couldn't.
I feel like you’ve learned a strange, distorted version of the concept of “main character syndrome”. There’s a number of main characters who the Trump administration has gone out of their way to immiserate, and it’s entirely reasonable for fear that you might be next to motivate your politics. Trump doesn’t care about me personally yet, and presenting as many obstacles as possible to the causes he cares about will help keep it that way.
Before anyone starts telling us how they are attacking a legitimate president and that the people will defend it, take your time to find your closest Venezuelan (there are 8 million around the world, so don't need to look to far) and ask him how he feels about this, you will find that happy is part of their emotions.
Are they Venezuelans living in Venezuela? I think the ones you have to worry about are the ones still living there.
Additionally, might it be that every dictatorship is hated by most expatriates? I think that that was the case for the 2 (or 3) countries that the neo-cons invaded, and I don't remember any of those invasions turning out well. Reckless.
I imagine, purely as a thought experiment, if you asked a sample of US expats what their reaction to the "forced removal" of the current president from office you'd get a similar response.
I don't see a single comment in this thread praising Maduro, I have basically never heard anyone express this sentiment in these discussions: "Maduro: Democratic leader, universally loved by his ever grateful people for standing up to the autocratic regimen of the USA" the argument is that regime change and military intervention in foreign conflicts have led to disaster time and again.
Let me strap on my vocabulary filter for this site and say very diplomatically that what you typed is completely, entirely incorrect, a caricature, and is not relevant.
If you’re tracking signals around geopolitical events, there’s a quirky one a few folks like to watch: the Pentagon Pizza Index. It’s a real-time dashboard that monitors pizza shop activity near the Pentagon as an informal indicator of unusual late-night activity. Historically people have pointed to spikes in food orders before major operations as a sort of low-tech OSINT signal.
https://www.pizzint.watch/
Obviously this isn’t hard intelligence — correlation isn’t causation — but when combined with more grounded indicators (verified reports, diplomatic channels, satellite data) it can be a piece of the broader picture. Just a fun example of how people try to find patterns in publicly available data.
Do you disagree? Come, let's inspect your thoughts. What news have you been consuming. Who do you trust? We can precisely evaluate your degree of susceptibility to propaganda. Aka "retardation"
You can start by listening to what any Venezuelan thinks of the situation. Those on the low end of the bell curve do tend to think highly of themselves.
Those who rejoice today with the fall of Maduro may not rejoice when China or India or any other regional player decides to topple the government of another country and kidnap their leaders and then install a "friendly" regime in their place.
Regardless of how you feel personally about Maduro and his regime, this sets the precedent that it can be done and that the rest of the world and especially the EU who is always so quick to remind everyone of the rule of law will do nothing and let it happen.
Will the EU sanction the US and cut it off from SWIFT? Will the EU arm the Venezuelans should they decide that their new leaders are not legitimate?
Either the rules apply to everyone or the rules don't exist. If it's not acceptable for Putin to go to Kiev and remove Zelensky and if it's not acceptable for Xi to go to Taiwan and remove their leaders, then what happened is simply not acceptable. You can't have it both ways.
Finally this will remind everyone that the only real protection you have in this world is nukes. If Venezuela had nukes then the US would probably not have been so quick to invade.
Looking just at the facts, the action to take over Venezuela seems to be a good decision.
1. Public opinion isn't as important anymore, as Trumpism has found a way to flood the zone with so much shit, they have many more options
2. International environment looks way harsher and less cooperative, stressing the need to gain resources/influence
3. Resource rich, unstable country that has been in the headline and run down for years, right on the doorstep of the US
If they really gain access to all that oil the challenges US hegemony is bolstered up again. Seems low risk high reward. If they give it the facade of legitimacy by installing a local puppet government, they might get away with it.
As expected: "Trump now turns now to oil. He claims the oil business in Venezuela has been a 'bust', and that large US companies are going to go into the country to fix the infrastructure and "start making money for the country"."
I get why some people were neo-con the first 3 or so times (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) but it's criminal not to learn after failing 3 times over. I want the most severe consequences for the people who have enabled this to happen again.
Unless Maduro was somehow actually deposed BEFORE the US mil came into the country, or at least into Maduro's residence, Trump just changed the standing international order of centuries to allow kidnapping of heads of state
So, Putin could now legitimately go grab Zelenskyy for "crimes", or Xi could go grab Trump for "crimes".
This so-called administration is insanely bad at thinking ahead.
it's truly incredible the harm that the psychological need for "strong man" leaders has on the world. What's even more strange, in my opinion, is that the bumbling and incoherent stuff Trump says is actually viewed by anyone as tough or strong. In my view it shows tremendous fear of directness and accountability. To call it womanish would be an insult to women.
Similarly, how does picking on much weaker countries (some of whom are allies) seem tough to anyone? In my view it's ugly and shows weakness rather than strength.
It’s interesting to see how Americans assume Venezuelans aren’t happy about this. People are so clueless. I’m in South America right now and everyone is happy for the Venezuelans. Especially the Venezuelans. It’s been 25 years of hell. They don’t really care at the moment if Trump did it for oil. You think Russia and China just wanted the recipe for Arepas? That’s the common saying. Venezuelans just wanted a chance to live a normal life. This is not a society like Afghanistan that cannot function as a democracy when autocrats are removed.
The world failed to solve this problem for decades. Trump is a loose cannon, but this shot was a good one. Of course it’s TBD how things play out. But at least there is hope.
Americans may lack theory of mind of Venezuelans, but that doesn't invalidate thethe concerns of outsiders, as you yourself says it's TBD how things play out, especially with global ramifications and in the long run for all nations affected by this American action.
Agreed. But… the other alternative is continued repression and suffering of millions of people. Iranians are wishing their captors would fall next. Not that people will see those posts on blue sky.
>It’s interesting to see how Americans assume Venezuelans aren’t happy about this. People are so clueless. I’m in South America right now and everyone is happy for the Venezuelans.
It doesn't matter at all. Venezuelans may be over the moon about this, but the fact remains that Trump broke international law and committed an act of war without the authorization of Congress. You don't see the problem with that? This is the slippery slope of authoritarianism. They start by doing illegal things that seem like they're good things, but which break down the rule of law. Once they've normalized this, they start doing it with less popular things.
Humans are so stupid with their ideas of "my team won so it's OK!". It's not ok. This is how the system begins to implode, and it's by design.
I just called my representatives and told them they need to do their jobs and put a check on the executive branch and stop this illegal, undeclared war. Please do the same.
Your comment was chemically and biologically decomposed by microorganisms and fungi, which extracted energy from it and returned the remaining nutrients to the surrounding soil, providing a fertile ground for the growth of plants?
If USA can attack Venezuela for oil, why other countries, like France, couldn't do the same to Qatar or Koweit for example? France has more needs for oil that USA.
They attacked Venezuela because it's ruled by an illegitimate leader who allegedly commands a drug cartel responsible for smuggling cocaine and fentanyl.
It's also not difficult to see the broader strategy: every US adversary (China, Russia, Iran) has been taking a piece of Venezuela over the past several months. They were already "conquered". This could also give the US an upper hand in ending the war in Ukraine as it further weakens Russia as it loses access to cheap oil.
We won't know for a while but I don't imagine there will be mass civilian graves, abducted children, or the intent to annex the country. This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.
"This is more about oil and deposing Maduro."
Scary how overt these 'operations' are these days. 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this. Someone said 'lack of shame' is very concerning with governments of today. Wonder if this is a reflection of where we as a humanity are heading.
Putin has always been very clear about conquering Ukraine and eliminating anything Ukrainian, including its statehood. Tons of public writing, won't shut up about his fake history of the region, etc. Putin is as clear about his intentions as Hitler was about his intentions.
Could you point to some sources please? Every time I see Putin talk on Ukraine, he clearly expresses the very opposite, so I'd like to see where he's said otherwise.
I can't honestly claim to have paid attention to the whole interview and followed all of his rambling, but he seemed to express in the Tucker interview that he views Ukraine as traditional/rightful Russian territory. Tucker was trying to lead Putin into the claim that the invasion was prompted by NATO doing NATO things (which is the talking point favored by right-aligned American commenters, who want to somehow blame Obama/Biden foreign policy for the war), but Putin just wanted to talk about shit that happened centuries ago.
But it is being proposed. What do you think Elon is doing when he tweets support for remigration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration), which is literally ethnic cleansing? Or when the DHS posts memes in public proposing to deport 100 million people (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dhs-100-million-deportations-...)? These are acts of ethnic cleansing being normalized before it actually happens. Let’s not ignore it. Instead, let’s vote out every single GOP politician that supports this or stays silent about it.
How well would you say it has been working out so far, to steelman Republican policies and attempt to find common ground and compromise? Personally I was doing so up until ~June of 2020 and all I really got for it was a lot of grief with still no recognition that I understand and care about many of the things they claim to care about. And society wide? Well, here we are.
Ethnic Cleansing is a policy of rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area. You seem to be using a commonly cited inaccurate definition of genocide instead of the broader term “ethnic cleansing”, but note that even genocide does not require killing as the means, as it is defined (in the 1948 Genocide Convention) as any combination of one or more of seven different acts (one of which is killing members of the group) when undertaken with the specific intent to destroy the given racial, ethnic, national, or religious group.
TIL that neighborhood crime causing white flight is actually ethnic cleansing.
No, that's probably not ethnic cleansing, since the white people who fled to the suburbs were in a position of privilege and wanted to give up their homes. The American government practices ethnic cleansing, as you assert, so and for some reason they just made it illegal to do it in their own cities for the benifit of the most privileged ethnic demographic. Perplexing.
> Ethnic Cleansing is a policy of rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area
So removing non-white Hispanics from America would count? What if the goal isn't to render the area ethnically homogenous?
> So removing non-white Hispanics from America would count?
Obviously that’s the argument put forth. Why phrase it as a question?
> What if the goal isn't to render the area ethnically homogenous?
A fair point, since a favorite argument of the regime and now protected legal doctrine is “the bad thing happened but it’s ok because we didn’t mean it like that”.
Except that doesn’t apply in this case since the goal is explicitly stated.
Yes, there were elections where at most only 18M people voted, compared to the 24M people that voted when the pro-Russian candidate won, in 2010. Because there were almost no ballot station in those regions leaning more towards Russia. Yet the government didn't think that was a problem at all; in fact, it was good for them (imagine if Trump could just make that people in some blue states couldn't vote). All this in a climate with banned parties and where all the media was controlled by the "Maidan" parties.
So it doesn't look the situation in Ukraine was very democratic either.
If he would barely speak Ukrainian, communicate mostly in Polish instead of Ukrainian, sacrifice his country’s interests in favor of Poland for 15 billion instead of following EU integration path, then yes – he was a Polish puppet all along.
Well, Zelensky actually barely speaks Ukrainian. He communicates mostly in Russian. As for his country's interests, we'd better wait to see how Ukraine is after all this finishes, and who are the biggest beneficiaries, in comparison to how it was when his term began.
> Why am I seeing footage of Chinooks if it's only a bombing? Those are troop-carriers
Based on what we're being told now, this was an extraction. (Slash detention. Slash kidnapping. In any case, requiring troop transport and extraction.)
It's so much easier to keep score these days. Up until the 90s, you were tube-fed the news from your TV (pun intended). You would have to go out of your way to read anything contrary to the sanctioned narrative or to see the effects of your country's policies and actions.
These days everything is live-streamed. So, anyone with an inquiring mind can lookup different sources and make their own conclusions.
But I fear this won't be for long. It is slowly becoming clear that the AI rally is less about productivity and more about mass surveillance and controlling online dissent globally [1].
Well considering Taiwan's independence and Putin's absolute obsession over NATO, it seems like the score ought to reflect the whole story. I'm not saying it's great, but it's gotta be better than historical comparables.
I am against China attacking Taiwan, I am against Russia attacking Ukraine, but I am also against Ukraine wanting to join NATO. The war started because of NATO and the US, and it almost fucked us over here in Germany when the US helped the Ukrainians blow up Nord Stream.
I am against any offensive action which leads to the misery and impoverishment of people, for some stupid power games of power hungry idiots.
I am sorry, you are blaming the United States for Russia invading Ukraine? Because Ukraine wanted to join a defensive alliance to protect themselves from a country that invaded them in 2014 and tried to keep their puppet in power before Maidan punted him?
"Bro please just look at the expansion map. I swear bro the war started because of NATO and the US. It’s not an invasion bro it’s a forced reaction to unipolar hegemony. Just one more provocation and the bear had to bite back. Please bro just admit it's a proxy war. I promise bro if the West just stayed out of the sphere of influence everything would be fine."
This tribalism that you display is exactly the reason that we end up in situations that we have. Do not pledge tribal allegiance to anyone. Pledge allegiance to critical thinking.
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
As a Ukrainian I would assume US forces don't intend to conduct a campaign of mass murder, rape and looting, and US government overall doesn't plan genocide and erasure of national identity of Venezuela together with annexation of its territories?
OP's question was about how the current Russian invasion of Ukraine is different, not about some grand total score of infractions by major powers in 20th century. Overall I find this opinion of many western liberals that it is only fair for Russia to murder some Ukrainians, loot their homes and rape their women because US did some bad things before quite perplexing.
That wasn't my point. My specific argument is about US operational policy on the ground in similar engagements. Based on precident, we would expect them to engage in the behavior the commentor indicts.
I dream that neither of these imperial powers - Russia or the US - will be allowed to inflict imperial violence, but I wouldn't be mistaken and assume that this military action will be any different than, say, JSOC in Iraq.
Do you expect US soldiers to systematically loot homes on occupied territories? Or arbitrary murder anyone speaking language they don't like or found to be subscribed to Telegram channels they don't approve of on mass scale? Do the US plan to conduct genocide and annex Venezuela in your opinion?
The conduct of VSRF in Ukraine could perhaps be compared to the US conduct in Vietnam but definitely not in Iraq.
In Iraq, JSOC operational doctrine was literally to target assassination campaigns based on 'nodal analysis' from contacts lifted from cellphones; if telegram had existed, they certainly would have used it too.
Famously, they didn't have enough Arabic translators, so Delta Force was often taking targets entirely based on reported association. They couldn't target based on language because they couldn't even tell what language locals were speaking most of the time.
Russia's goal is to destroy Ukraine as nation and a country, because there's no "Ukrainians", there's no "Ukrainian language", and every country that speaks Russian should be controlled by Russian tsar. That's why they don't care and demolish ("liberate") Ukraine, town after town.
For one the whole country of Ukraine is fighting like hell for almost 4 years following the orders of their elected government to defend their country.
If Russia was on the right, the people of Ukraine would have just hanged Zelenskyy and his gov, instead of sending their children to the meat grinder.
Let’s see if Venezuelans will put their lives on the line to protect the regime.
Military (or part of) can (and historically does) initiate a coup. If civilians are also on board the gov is over in hours. Coups typically fail when people are not on the same page.
Turkey is a great example. Heck Putin also had Wagner knocking his door in Moscow.
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
Cynically: maybe Venezuela will get a bit less sympathy because it's a somewhat shittier (see emigration numbers) and less democratic government than Ukraine's. And I suspect we have a more positive view of US troops than Russian troops, despite everything (Abu Ghraib is seen as an aberration and not as the normal way of working).
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
Cynically it's different in that Trump hopefully will not going to kill 220,000+ and leave 500,000+ war invalids of US military personnel in process. Though you never know...
A surgical strike that was over before the news broke out vs. a 4-year campaign of plundering with literal criminals, press-ganged foreigners, and chechen blocking detachments, featuring mass rape, executed civilians, abduction and forced reeducation of thousands of children, gross mistreatment of PoW, etc.
Emphasizing that I’m not defending this war at all, but one key difference I’m extremely confident in is that the US will not attempt to annex its favorite regions of Venezuela.
FWIW Russia was initially quite happy with "independent" Ukraine provided that their guy Yanukovich was in charge. It was only when he was ousted that they switched to open invasion tactics.
So from that perspective, I don't think US is really much different, just better at keeping its own puppets in power.
Russia didn’t react to his ouster by demanding a restoration of proper governance, they reacted by sending clandestine troops to seize Crimea in preparation for annexation the next month. Annexing other countries’ sovereign territory is a red line for good reason.
I'm not defending Russia here. Yanukovich was ousted for good reasons (and arguably he carried out a coup first when he reverted the country's constitution). My point is that, if we don't invade other countries only because their leadership does what we want, then we aren't really qualitatively any better.
No. I suppose I’m less confident in that, but I still don’t think it’s very likely. The American oil companies with contracts in Guyana would certainly be unhappy about it and it’s not clear what political benefit anyone in the US could hope to gain.
Offensive aggression has certain leeway; it can be covert so that the aggressor can deny the very fact of aggression. West likes that position very much; it suits its lying nature. Defensive aggression has no such freedom: here the aggression has to be visible.
I was born and grew up in Russia, and all my life I heard people like you telling us that NATO is going to invade any time now. Maybe it's time for you to wake up and realize that this was never a threat to begin with, just a justification for bullying others.
NATO is invading. They just don't do it overtly. You don't think those Chechen "freedom fighters" were, like, independent? It was USA all along. It was not a mistake, some leftover from Cold War or something, some project they forget to close now when Soviet Union broke. It was the policy all the time. There is no way to somehow negotiate it to stop short of surrendering. We have to fight. We do not want to, but there is no other option.
Recently there was a terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow and about 150 people were killed. The actual attackers were rather simple-minded Tajik people. No way they could plan such an attack themselves. You do realize that there was someone else? "A quiet American"? (Or maybe a British; doesn't matter.) Some timidly looking guy visited that concert hall before that attack, walked around and made notes. He noted, for example, whether the finishing materials were flammable. He did that reconnaissance in several places and finally picked that concert hall. That fellow belongs to a group that does this kind of things. They have something like a list of cases, teaching materials and lectures. You don't see such people in the news; but they surely do exist.
Thank you for the comment. It's a very good illustration of the kind of paranoia that is prevalent among Russians in general and their rulers in particular, and this is exactly why NATO is necessary and Europeans shouldn't assume that feeding Ukraine to the wolves will help in the long run.
Another difference that has not been mentioned in other comments is that: The US is not completely delusional about its military capabilities and could actually complete this invasion in three days. In fact, it may already be over, as Maduro have been captured.
Holy whataboutism. Regardless of what you think about Trump the US system is nothing like that of Venezuela or Russia or any other actually authoritarian state.
The "whataboutism" accusation is absurd--that's not even remotely an example of it. All my comment was about was editorial insertions of biased loaded language into a supposed news report. And I didn't say that the U.S. "system" is "like" Venezuela or Russia--that's a blatantly intellectually dishonest misrepresentation ... a) "authoritarian" is broader than the most extreme examples, and b) the Trump regime is acting outside of the "system". And: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5340753/trump-democracy...
"A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism."
That's from April ... the move to a "Department of War" and the actual waging of unauthorized war pushes things considerably further.
The USA are a blight on the Americas and the larger World. Their fanatic population will immediately jump in to justify a violent, naked attempt at stealing this country's mineral resources. This already happened dozens of times, always with terrible outcome, yet here we are again. The fall of the American empire can't happen fast enough.
Your enlightened president, a few minutes ago on Fox News, when asked about Venezuelan oil: "What can I say? We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it."
well maybe the world is indeed back to different spheres of influence, as per the latest US security policy
overall it should make the world a bit more stable hopefully, and locally of course it would make more sense for Venezuela to be in bed with US, rather than far away giants
hopefully the country doesn't plunge into endless domestic conflict / war, we have enough of that happening already everywhere..
For everyone defending these actions on the basis of Maduro's own corruption and the desires of Venezuelans, I would encourage you to research the history of American intervention and regime change in Latin America. It is impossible to anticipate the second and third order effects of this change, and how it will be absorbed in the local politics. We are witnessing the return of American military intervention in Latin American, nothing more and nothing less.
To everyone proclaiming that we should turn to Venezuelans to assess these actions, how dare you assert that Americans have no autonomy in the actions of their own government. It is tremendously unfortunate that congress has forfeited all decision making authority to the executive branch, but as our democracy was intended this would amount to an act of war, which would require authorization by congress.
You can't really put politics aside when the US was obviously dangling the return of the Monroe doctrine for Ukraine. Let's see what that "deal" looks like.
Well, this thread certainly hasn't aged well. Lots of people here trying to spin this as an act of liberation while the real motivation has been more than obvious.
Turns out the Trump administration doesn't even bother to change the regime as long as it is willing to give up the oil reserves. They just kidnapped Maduro to set an example and coerce the regime to cooperate. Trump and Rubio aren't even trying to hide it, they are saying it plain and clear on national TV!
Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea. Surely some fanatics and crazies existed, but society at large didn't "need" it.
One person made a decision.
And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.
Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.
> Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea.
is just bollocks.
> On 21 May 1992 the Supreme Soviet of Russia declared 1954 transfer of Crimea as having "no legal force", because it was adopted "in violation of the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Russian SFSR and legislative process", but because subsequent legislation and the 1990 Russo-Ukrainian treaty constituted that fact
I talk about people, not government. Unfortunately it's two different things. And of course I don't mean 100% of people. But percentage wise - you wouldn't say that majority wanted to "get it back". And that's my point - leaders less and less represent the people.
As for the government - your are absolutely on point. And I don't disagree.
It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.
As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague.
Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such.
Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.
> I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague
Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.
>Which is why they have been subverted and subjugated and all their will usurped.
But America's armed populace and the stalwart vigilance of its militias are supposed to make that impossible.
Americans were more up in arms (literal and figurative) over Obamacare and Covid lockdowns than anything Trump has done, domestically or abroad. The only rational conclusion is that they're either complicit or else they simply don't care.
Americans are the most propagandized peoples on the planet. Those bullets can’t stop information, and there is a massive information war going on to keep the American people divided.
Those who could effectively field a real protest or uprising are either too busy trying to keep their credit cards from defaulting, or are living on the streets addicted to drugs. General strikes? Forget it, America doesn’t have the infrastructure in place (local food sources) to sustain such a thing…
Populations of far less affluent countries under far more oppressive regimes without a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms and a billion dollar domestic arms industry that flooded their country with more guns than people and a culture of "give me liberty or give me death" have managed it.
The right got Jan. 6th and the left got Portland, so resistance is possible on both sides. In any country that took things half as seriously as the US claims to, Washington DC would look like a war zone. But what are we doing? Twerking in front of ICE in frog costumes?
> But what are we doing? Twerking in front of ICE in frog costumes?
Once again, the people who are broadly approving of violence as a way to solve problems, and who actually have the guns, are largely supportive of what ICE is doing. Many of them are quite literally itching to pull the trigger on some libs. I've been in the middle of that crowd and seen it all close up. Those people are not the potential solution - they are a part of the problem.
Countries with oppressive regimes see revolutions if the population gets discontent enough that a strong majority wants it, or is at least willing to go along with it. That is certainly not true of US right now.
This man did not say he was going to bomb anything until after he was voted in, so the American people were - once again - completely duped by their own hubris.
A third of the American people voted for him, based on a campaign which promised a completely different economy than he has delivered (remember when people were pretending Biden had an egg-price level in the Oval Office?) and no foreign wars. It is unreasonable to look at that election and say a plurality voted for this.
Now this I would like to see, but I have serious doubts it will ever happen. I don’t think the American people have the courage to do something about their heinous, out of control government, personally. Happy to be proven wrong, because it would be a legitimate step to world peace on behalf of the American people, but I seriously doubt they are, as a population, capable of it.
I largely agree with you. Democratic leadership responded to an attempted coup by slow rolling prosecution with the hope that Trump would simply recede from public life and they'd never have to do the hard thing of trying and convicting a former president.
The Democrats have just as much blood on their hands as their Republican counterparts, and that is the problem - the only force capable of dealing with this conundrum is the American people, and they are too busy playing sides to actually confront the reality of their nations heinous war crimes record.
The entire media apparatus is owned by oligarchs: from Fox News to Twitter to Meta, now CNN... All are relaying non-stop right-wing propaganda. There can be no real democracy while information is this captive.
To be clear, war crimes are illegal here. They can carry the death penalty.
I think there's a strong case to be made for Pete Hegseth to be executed for his crimes, according to US Law.
But you're right. There's no expectation that the Hague enforce international law without the consent of the US Government. Our government should either try our leaders in our courts, or hand them in manacles and chains to the ICC and The Hague.
But I agree, I don't expect the international community to be able to do this over our objections. It's something we must do.
There are also provisions in the UCMJ that are applicable to members of the military
---
(I also had a consequential typo in my earlier post, which I've now edited. I originally wrote they "carry the death penalty", but I meant to write "they can carry the death penalty", and it depends on the specific circumstances of the war crimes committed.)
"Murder.—
The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause" [1].
Yes, if you’re curious the DoD’s own Laws of War manual uses shipwrecked survivors of an attack as “hors de combat” or out of combat.
This is very relevant to the second strike on the Venezuelan boat. I think the original strikes are also war crimes, but the second strike on the shipwrecked survivors is like… beyond all doubt a murder
>one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities
Remember when we bombed Yemen and in the Signal chat they laughed about killing a High-Value Target while he was visiting his girlfriend? Sounds like this section would apply for her.
I don’t think the US is going to be allowed to act outside the ICC for too much longer. All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again.
The US previously never faced real pressure on this, a new administration would see it as an easy win.
> don’t think the US is going to be allowed to act outside the ICC for too much longer
The U.S. is not a signatory. (Most of the world's population isn't subject to ICC jurisdiction [1].)
> All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again
Nobody is treating the ICC seriously [2].
To be clear, this sucks. But it's America joining China and Russia (and Iran and Israel and India and every other regional power who have selectively rejected the rules-based international order).
Being a signatory is not required for being subject to ICC jurisdiction, though it is one route to being subject to it, and, in any case, not being a signatory is not an immutable condition. So the upthread suggestion that “All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again” is not rebutted by observing that the US is not currently a signatory of the Rome Statute.
> But it's America joining China and Russia (and Iran and Israel and India and every other regional power who have selectively rejected the rules-based international order).
No, the US despite rhetorically appealing to it when other countries are involved, has led, not followed, in rejecting the rules-based order when it comes to its own conduct.
The "allies" would have mass riots and six-digit death tolls (shortly after an initial 3-6 month period of adjustment) without the supplies of LNG, fertiliser and payment clearing services the U.S. exports. America has the rest of the west by the balls, with maybe the exception of Australia and Japan. Nobody will even give the C-levels responsible for Grok arrest warrants for the many serious crimes their product carries out.
I hope to god the next administration actually holds the criminals in the current administration accountable. Gerry Ford set a disgusting precedent when he loudly said that those who hold the office of the President should never be be held accountable for their actions.
He believed that within the limits of the political culture of America introducing accountability would lead to a tit-for-tat cycle of imprisonments and executions by each party against the other under the cover story of accountability, with the possibility of gradual escalation towards an end state of states mobilising armored brigades against each other to siege cities and cleanse target populations. Like the Congo, or Rhodesia. His memoirs are wacky stuff.
unlikely. trump didnt held obama accountable for all sorts of crazy things that happened during his administration (bombing libya, drone striking a us citizen minor, using USAID to mount a fake vaccination campaign for DNA surveillance in pakistan e.g.). why would the next administration hold trump accountable?
The Biden administration was prosecuting Trump though. They didn’t complete the prosecutions because Trump’s strategy to avoid accountability was to be reelected and then shut down the investigations, and that worked. But the fact he was indicted by Jack Smith who very likely could have convicted him goes to show lack of accountability is not for lack of trying.
Its very much for lack of trying. They had 4 years, we got no epstein files and they slow walked prosecutions to happen during the election, thinking it would help them. It didn't work, here we are.
It’s clear you didn’t follow these cases if your opinion is the SC slow walked them to enhance Democrats’ electoral out look. They secured multiple indictments and were heading to trial, which they were likely to win. Delays were caused by Trump appointed Judge Cannon and Trump appointed SCOTUS justices.
Securing indictments and going to trial is an instance of actually trying. So you really can’t say they didn’t try, because that is factually false. It’s true they could have done more, but they didn’t do nothing as others are saying.
I'm not a lawyer, and I didn't follow every motion, you're right. Still, in my book, fast walking would have meant moving faster. Venue shop if you have to. Release/declassify documents to make the bad guys look bad. There's lots of "improper" stuff they could have done and are currently getting owned by.
I'm not a lawyer either but I did follow the cases closely. My opinion is that Merrick Garland did a disservice to the country by not appointing a SC immediately, but beyond that Jack Smith moved with lightning speed in prosecuting the cases. Moreover, Congress did make the bad guys look bad -- they held a whole summer's worth of hearings where they prosecuted the case in public, offering plenty evidence. And I encourage you also to look at how it was the Supreme Court who slow walked their decisions, which ultimately benefitted Trump in obscene ways. You can't venue shop SCOTUS.
One thing about prosecuting a former POTUS for the first time is it has to survive the test of time. You can't behave like them if you want the prosecution to be legitimate, because they are lawless. But it was the failure of voters to do their due diligence to not elect a felon who bear the ultimate blame, as they are the final check. Now we bear the consequences. But again, not for lack of trying.
It's late where I am so I don't have a well-reasoned response, just wanted to say I understand what you're saying. It sucks, given what the current admin is getting away with, but I understand it.
i would feel better about that if the biden administration also prosecuted obama. they didn't. besides trump I (nor biden) didnt do any new foreign adventures AFAICT. we had a blissful 8 years of waning US imperialism
It's unclear if most if not all of those things you were actually crimes legally (regardless of how morally and ethically reprehensive they might have been). Regardless there was an established precedent for what Obama was doing. Not so much for the crimes Trump was being accused..
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a 16-year-old United States citizen who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, a country with which the United States was not at war with.
Please let me know what was the established precedent for allowing extrajudicial assassination of American citizens is.
Edit add:
He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all.
A 16-year-old American boy accused of no crimes was killed in American drone attack
pretty sure when obama murdered Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (nb: not talking about the more famous Anwar) that was unprecedented. Trump later murdered Abdulrahman's sister, but at that point, it was "precedented" by obama.
All this fuckery date from at least bush 2nd. Election mess, with heavy involvement of his brother the governor despite promises to revise, crowds attacking poll workers, war crimes, putting incompetent friends at the head of agencies (remember FEMA response to Katrina? Or the initial response to the subprime crisis?), attacks on science programs and schools, and the use of executive orders to bypass congress. Obama was so tame compared to Bush2.
Europe is not the military power that once was at the beginning of the 20th century... aging populations, economic decline, trade deficits, their former colonies are now independent, they haven't waged war in a while.
Negatively. That has always been the problem of the US, it's the reason why they cannot act like the most of the rest of the world. The military has way too much influence on decision making.
Just watch one of the sessions of the UN general assembly. There are many speeches about fixing all kinds of situations. If the best ideas were implemented we would be in a utopia with flying cars, free ponies for everyone and open bar. But we don't live in such world because if one motion somehow makes one of the countries with veto power uncomfortable, they will just veto the resolution and that's the end of it. And countries with veto power are backed by military power. That's the world we live in and it has always been like that.
And things work like this at every level in every organization. For example people in your line of reporting at work can veto any decision you make unless you are protected by law, which is an entity that can shut down your company by force.
That’s just the reality of it. The GDP of Russia and Canada is about the same but nobody cares about Canada from a geopolitical context because it has an irrelevant military.
ICC is a joke though. It can only accomplish anything if the home country of the perpetrator is cooperating. Those allies also have much politically important economic and geopolitical concerns than prosecuting war criminals (unfortunately only small minorities in western countries care about things like that at all)
No, they wouldn't. Not if they're the Democrats as we know them. They fight tooth and claw against the new normal, until it's the new normal, and then they fight tooth and claw to defend the new normal.
There's very little principled opposition to Trump in the corridors of power. There's plenty of opposition, but it's more about which horses have been bet on.
It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq/Ukraine/Libya/Afghan/Syria/Yugoslav/... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.
The fact that it didn't happen for the those previous administrations is why it's happening again now.
If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes, and the guilty parties were cooling their heels in a jail cell, then we probably wouldn't be seeing this action tonight.
"If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes"
and yeah who is gonna charge them ???? US have (arguably) strongest military on earth, who can put justice to them if not themselves ???? and themselves I mean US Gov. which is would never happen since every administration have "blood" in some form and another
The problem is that nearly everyone in the US national security establishment believes that the US should be involved in lots of wars. You may recall how little sympathy Biden got for pulling out of Afghanistan. I genuinely don’t think you could assemble Washington staff with the foreign policy expertise a president requires without ending up with a majority who support bombing Maduro.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan may have occurred under Biden, but it was Trump who made the decision to pull out. The only change Biden made was delaying our withdraw by a couple of months.
The only 'leaders' that end up in the Hague and convicted are those forcibly captured via military action. And those 'orders' declared by the UN can, and be vetoed by China, Russia, USA, UK, and France. Guess which two use their veto all the time?
And there are not that many indications that we are moving towards that direction or we can even ever have. I guess that sort of idealism might have existed in the late 40s immediately after the UN was established but it never had a chance.
External or internal (which seems rarely feasible unless the government is highly incompetent) regime change realistically is the only thing that worked.
Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya's leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS / "JV team" terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that "rules based order"?
I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?
I don't think you followed the part where they said they believed in the rules based order and I questioned that in a bit of a sarcastic way. It was the entire point of my comment really. There is no "rules based order", the rules based order has always been whatever the wealthy and powerful can do to further enrich themselves and cement their power is the rules, and the order is that they remain on top.
It's not a hoax, it's an empty platitude designed to fool people into thinking their side is in the right. Unfortunately many people are incapable of ever admitting they have been fooled.
Every war criminal should be arrested, and tried. I think they should also be hanged, but they generally don't do executions at the Hague is my understanding.
I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply.
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
Once they declared it a terrorist organization (which is the problematic side of everything), they can claim these are unlawful combatants and do not have any of the protections of the Geneva convention, like any other war on terror assassination.
So I don't think double tapping is a war crime, any more than bombing a car with terrorists in the first place and that doesn't seem to be regarded internationally as a war crime. However, they could have done better to highlight Venezuela actual involvement with terrorism (which is real but not enough for this) rather than magically declare them terrorists just to not go through Congress
That "unlawful combatant" designation was invented by the US as an excuse and has always stood on shaky legal grounds even in the US. Other Western countries don't support this legal construction. That being said, the double-tapping was ordinary murder, not a war crime. Every bombing of those ships could have been avoided by boarding them and presenting those drugs as evidence, as the Coast Guard normally does. But that would only have worked if there had been any evidence to start with...
Western countries that had recently used that clause to assasinate terrorists are the US, UK and France. There is no reason to believe other european countries attacked by ISIS would not do the same if needed or if capable.
Regarding double tapping, that's exactly the modus operandi of assassinations, as the UAVs goal is not the car/ship but the people inside.
That said, the Venezuelan case is a huge overreach
Not a shred of evidence was ever provided that the crewmen of these boats were "terrorists." That alone makes these murders very different from other illegal extrajudicial killings, where this evidence is usually provided or readily available.
That's not to say that I would in any way support extrajudicial killings, in many cases the high civilian/bystander casualties have been completely unsupportable. I just wanted to point out the stark difference between "normal" extrajudicial killings and these murders.
There are some credible war crimes accusations (in fact, some pretty flagrant war crimes), but the most critical crime is actually not a war crime, but one precedent to their being a war at all, the crime of aggression.
Starting a war is generally what is known in modern international law as the crime of aggression (in the language of the Nuremberg Charter, this was, “crimes against peace”, the first listed category of crimes subject to the tribunal, above war crimes and crimes against humanity.)
Rudolph Hess, notably, was convicted and imprisoned for life solely for this crime.
This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.
On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government.
What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
> Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
Thats probably true, but trump also tried to rig an election, so its not really up to him to unilaterally decide is it? Especially as hes bumchums with putin who shocker, rigs election, killed hundreds of thousands of his own people invading other countries.
> had the USA stayed in South Korea
Korea was a UN action, not US unilateral. but alos hugely costly in everyone's lives
The number of deaths due to the Kim dynasty is in the millions, including their kwanliso murder camps and man-made famine, and vastly outnumbers war casualties unfortunately.
Considering your post history it's clear exactly what you're doing, but I don't think it's as much of an ideological gotcha as you might think because the answer is yes. We can throw Trump and what remains of the Obama administration in jail; I don't really give a fuck. We can work our way down the list as far as you want and I'd give it the thumbs up if it means we can ensure future presidents and politicians think at least four times before doing something.
>Obviously I was not asking someone to link to my profile.
That's true. I misread your comment. My apologies.
Unfortunately, I can't delete my comment any more, but it should be (and deservedly so) pretty well grayed out by now.
Although I'm a bit confused since your profile as well as every other users' profile is linked by HN in each and every comment you (or I, or any other user) make.
If it's poor etiquette to "link to my profile," why does HN do that on every single comment?
Well, 'western' 'rules based order' involves democratic elections and being in 166th place for government transparency isn't a good sign. Appointing your successor isn't exactly democratic, in fact it's very much the sign of most countries that end in dictatorship:
"Chavez was elected to a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in due to medical complications; he died in March 2013.[95] Nicolás Maduro was picked by Chavez as his successor, appointing him vice president in 2013."
Some certainly will, but not many I think. There are very few westerners outside of the US, who want to have anything to do with what the US are doing now.
> all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it
MAGA is a rejection of the international rules-based order. Trump joins Putin and Xi in explicitly rejecting it. To the extent anyone in America is calling for a return to that order, they're doing it while criticising Trump.
If the last 2 years of Gaza genocide didn't do that, I'm n not sure why this would. They'll spend the first 20 minutes talking about how bad Maduro is and the next 5 minutes saying this is "misguided" and didn't go through the proper channels.
When Trump talks about rules, laws, and order it’s in the “L'État, c'est moi” (the state is me) sense. I.e. following the law means following his whims.
Never. Trump wants to be a dictator, he loves Putin, he wants power and any "rules" that control him are antithetical to his entire political program and to his political party.
Anybody who wants a rules based order is extremely anti-Trump, just as they are anti-Putin.
No idea what you're going on about. Those in the West who stand for a rules-based international order certainly didn't ask for this war, and Trump, who did start this war, never gave a shit about rules or norms, international or otherwise.
Trump hardly is a representative for "westerners", actually the majority of them think he's a lawless looney. No one outside of his administration or party is justifying his actions.
Rapist presidents have no authority to defend 'rules based order'. Were you also ok with him defending 'rules based order' by arming Israel as they committed genocide? Or when he committed war crimes by blowing up the boats over the last few months?
This is illegal, immoral and not supported by the vast majority of the country. Every us citizen and every elected official needs to act, now, to stop this.
At this very moment I am likely a lot of things, but at the top of the list is mad. Very, very mad. I don't have words for this anymore or the patience to debate the intricacies of the broken system that has gotten us here. I am just viscerally, exceptionally, mad. Something will change.
Technically ~49.8% of voters, ~31.6% of eligible voters, or ~22.7% of the US population. Or at least those were the numbers when I looked it up 10 months ago.
This is muddying with jargon. You're insisting on nuance where there is none: Trump won emphatically, and the campaign couldn't have been clearer about what MAGA intended to do in power.
The combined margin in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (which could combine to flip the election) was about 250,000 votes. That's not all that emphatic.
> 60% of Americans oppose sending US troops into Venezuela to remove Maduro from power. Support is heavily concentrated among Republicans, with 58% in favor, compared to just 21% of independents and 14% of Democrats.
Now that Trump has reported that Maduro was removed from power, it will be interesting to run this poll again and see the support given the success of the operation.
He asked why he can't use nukes in 2016. Trump is pro raw power, pro war, always was, always will be. "We didn't vote for this" - all Germans 1945. SPOILER ALERT: They did, it was all in "Mein Kampf".
I hate it when everyone says "Nazi Germany" instead of just "Germany".
Trump asked why the US can't nuke other countries when it has so many nukes. Trump loves war ("department of war") loves bombing other countries - always has. That he is so eager to use nukes should frighten everyone.
I agree with the rest of your point but I dont think its factual to say the majority of the country voted for trump. 77m/343m or ~20% of the country voted for trump, though I'm sure this is what you meant to say.
1. The majority of voters voted for Trump
2. People who don't vote are like fine with whoever wins like "What pizza? I'm fine with every pizza you bring"
False. Comment demonstrates ignorance of the electoral college and disregard for fact. Even among eligible voters who did vote, Trump got less than 50% of votes.
Majority means > 50%. Perhaps you meant plurality.
Regardless, US presidential elections do not depend on getting a majority or even a plurality of popular votes, but rather on a majority of electoral votes. And Trump did not get a majority of popular votes as claimed.
This being HN, the fact-check seemed appropriate and I stand by it.
Especially in the US, this is a strawman. There is simply not enough granularity of choice that you can make voters accountable for every action Trump does.
The US only has two parties because people only want two parties. The "our team vs. other team" is so ingrained in US all thinking, people can't stop. Football is not played with three teams. The election system doesn't help, but there is nothing in the constitution that says "Only two parties".
The polling indicates that the US is desperate for an alternative for something other than the two incumbent parties. They're wildly unpopular and there actually seems to be a political consensus that the US is sliding into ruin which reflects badly on the mainstream policy consensus the majors have been pushing over last few decades.
Just a post ago you identified that Mr. "Why do we have nukes if we don't use them?" was the best available option. That doesn't mean he's a good option, it means there were two choices and the other one was generally seen as the same or worse than Trump. Which given all the stuff that got thrown at Trump is an impressive level of failure.
The two party nature is a part of it - historically it might have worked. I currently it seems like oligarchic structures are what's ruining the democracy.
Regardless, If allowed intellectual hoolahop, then most systems of governance can be argued to be democratic.
I believe the problem with democracy is that it's affected by various problems analogous to the ones of markets, but often amplified.
In this case, to me, it really seems a matter of extreme information asymmetry as you'd never see in a regular market.
Does he actually mean those things, or is that some sort of joke? How do you even know? BTW, he didn't actually use Nukes, and I don't believe he will. On the other hand, he said he wanted to end wars and sounded like he was against starting new ones.
I've seen people regretting voting for Trump because of tariffs, even though they supported tariffs in the first place.
They had no idea that Trump's "tariff" would mean some blanket tariffs at those rates. They thought it was some small tariffs on "key industries".
A further confirmation of the information asymmetry is that after a year, support for Trump is far below what would be needed to elect him.
What kind of visa Mr. Maduro was using when he entered the US?
I'm guessing it must be very good since, let's just say he kinda fits the profile which President Trump might describe as "worst of the worst", and yet the US Customs still just letting that guy walk right in.
But anyhow I hope Mr. Maduro don't illegally overstay because if ICE found out about it, there's a chance they'll deport Mr. Maduro to Venezuela.
It can’t be fun running HN right now. Sorry, dang et al.
It’s like you’re the owners of a particularly popular pub that’s suddenly filled up with Johns, Jameses, Evas, and Annes, all loudly making their thoughts known while ordering a nice normal Western drink at the bar.
Vodkas, baijius, and sojus all round!
(To be fair, there are probably some Coors Lite and Stella drinkers here too.)
What did y’all think María Machado won the Nobel for over Trump? Does it even matter or is orange man bad all you care about anymore? HN was over the moon to see her win just a few months ago.
I honestly have little sympathy, and not because Maduro is a dictator or whatever label the US has given him. It's because he spent his country's resources on useless, incompetent staff that fell apart before any conflict even began. Say what you want about Iran, but at least they maintain a solid defensive posture.
Any country that doesn't invest in its own tech stack gets what it deserves. This is information superiority in action; made possible by the deep proliferation of American technology. The US is now leveraging information warfare for what used to require physical force. The difference is stark. We've seen it with the Hezbollah pager attacks, high-profile targeting in Iran, and now this.
I understand the point that some dictators are so bad he damages the whole region. The world invented the procedure to resolve it through the UN and the international institutions.
Yet one superpower decides to do it itself because no one can stop it. I think that makes world more chaotic, it is the opposite of restoration of the order ax it was declared.
The question is irrelevant as the US just pardoned a major Honduran drug smuggler head of state, not to mention the well documented US involvement in the foreign drug trade (e.g., Afghanistan).
Maduro is a dictator who stayed in power by force after losing an election. No one who believes in democracy should mourn his fall. Trump's pretexts and potential geopolitical deals especially w Russia deserve scrutiny, but the Venezuelan people deserve a chance at freedom.
As with everything Trump does, his motivations will be about personal power and enrichment. This does not contradict that Maduro was an illegitimate thug allied with others like him. However his removal was arranged (deal?) it shakes the global forces of dictatorship.
Condemning a nation's people to authoritarianism and repression because of potential bad outcomes after the fall of their dictator is a free world observer's luxury. Democracy and prosperity can never be guaranteed, but the opportunities for them should be promoted.
I don't like our dictator, but I am glad our dictator took out this other dictator (for personal reasons) who was working with other dictators (some of which our dictator supports) because it might mean that we have less dictators even if it comes with the risk of severe instability.
I can understand this position and have always admired Kasparov's principled ideology, but I think this is too narrow of a look. More things could've been done to peacefully attempt to oust Maduro with the cooperation of other countries.
Maduro has apparently been indicted in New York on various drug trafficking conspiracy charges and gun charges[0].
Seeing how various other cases have went (James Comey, Letitia James) in this administration run by loyalists, what are the chances that he's acquitted due to prosecutorial incompetence?
I grow tired of the might makes right world we inhabit again. If you are not a citizen of a hegemon, or their allies, all the best envisioning a stable environment to thrive for your children when you know that the price of sovereignty and nationalised natural resources is a US invasion.
There's a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel, disallowing them access to things like Microsoft software and unbanking them:
> a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel
Yeah. Pettiness. The ICC doesn't have jurisdiction in the United States. We aren't a signatory to the Rome Statute. (Most of the world's population doesn't live under its jurisdiction.)
There is no way the former allies of the US are going to normalise relations with them before they fix this though. The fallout for this is going to be a lot larger than I think you suspect.
> no way the former allies of the US are going to normalise relations with them before they fix this though
I think you genuinely hold this take and it's admirable. I'm not seeing any indication (a) our militarised allies are behaving particularly differently or (b) they're concerned about us bombing stuff in the Western Hemisphere. (Versus in their backyards, creating refugee crises.)
> fallout for this is going to be a lot larger than I think you suspect
Maybe. Hopefully. I doubt it. Russia, China, Israel, France and the UK are doing fine.
Translation: "Name a Zionist-holocaust-of-babies-supporting-pedophile-rapist-infested-government in the OECD that’s fundamentally opposed to this intervention"
This administration is just a continuation of the last administration. Same policies on anything important. But it is possible you missed the Gaza Genocide?
No surprise Pam Bondi can just use her Grok subscription to make an incitement appear out of thin air, but what jury is going to be fair and unbiased here? How are American citizens Maduro’s peers? How could a judge have jurisdiction over him?
> Andrew McCabe quotes Trump as saying of Venezuela "That’s the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”
> In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."
PBS [2]:
> "We want it back," he added. "They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back."
Venezuelan oil is kind of crappy. I would say the two biggest reasons for this are 1. Trump wanting migrants from Venezuela to stop and 2. Ending Venezuelan support for Cuba. Oil is definitely one of the reasons though.
Venezuelan oil is very heavy, but the US oil industry is literally designed to process this type. The US exports their sweet crude elsewhere because they can't process it.
It is heavy crude but it's what our refineries are set up to use. There was a very informative news report on this recently posted to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk
Apparently shale oil mostly comes out as light, so our own production doesn't feed our refineries and we've increasingly taken to importing heavy crude.
I literally linked my source. It's less than 7 minutes long. It's not that refineries are idle, it's that we have to import the heavy crude to keep them producing. Heavy crude went from 12% of imports to 70% as of 2025. The most relevant graphs, if you really can't stomach 7 minutes of video, are shown from 3:30 - 4:30ish in the video. And again, record production levels of shale oil is producing LIGHT crude. The information you're seeking has already been provided to you.
The other day there were people here seriously arguing that China was more interventionist than the US.
The latest US mass theft and aggression is far from surprising to anyone that studied south American history. Trump just drops the humanitarian pretexts, but the act itself is exactly in line with how US treats South America.
looking through the comments one thing I find strange that no one has picked up on is that maduro had met the chinese hours before being captured. To me I think the initial plan was to just let the economy tank by blockading the economy, chinese stepped into help and trump goes nuclear and kidnaps the guy.
still pretty shocking that they wont hand over power to the party who won the election and plan on setting up a puppet state and steal the oil, does seem USA has become some despot country albeit with a large army.
I don't think people didn't "pick up" on it, I just don't think anyone thinks it matters. There is no smoke-and-mirrors back-room strategizing here. It looked cool on Fox News. Then the president went onto Fox News and talked about how cool it looked on Fox News. The text is text. The subtext is nonexistent.
The Guardian reports that Maduro has been charged with: "narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
Good to know that possession of machine guns is finally being made illegal by the US!
Marco Rubio needed this for his presidential run in 2028. Does this mean that Putin will look the other way for Maduro as long as Trump looks the other way when Putin captures or kills Zelenskyy? Have they officially agreed to divide the world as spheres of influence?
So they are taking the oil reserves, that's why they came, oh the hypocrisy is unbearable, the democratic powerhouse terrorising a weak country the same way for what they condemned Russia for.
There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?
The congress people who are military veterans recently put out a public service announcement reminding those in the military that they must refuse illegal orders, and Trump called that reminder of the law "treasonous" and said the veterans should be executed for reminding people of the law.
There should be military tribunals for all involved here to ensure that law and order is maintained. The US is losing its constitution, its rule of law. There is not country if we have two different sets of laws, one for normal people but zero laws for those following rhe president's wishes. That's a monarchy.
No American, but the War Powers Resolution seems to allow for these kind of actions? That doesn’t make them any better but I was wondering the same thing
There is exactly one law (Public Law 93-148, originating in the 93rd Congress as H.J.Res. 542, and passed over Presidential veto on November 7, 1973) which has as its official title the “War Powers Resolution”. Since it’s passage, it is also frequently referred to by a less-official name as the “War Powers Act” to emphasize that it has completed the process to become an official Act of Congress. The reference, especially to the exact official name, is not at all ambiguous.
> There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?
No. From an international-law perspective, Trump is stepping into the footprints left by Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Khamenei and his own predecessors in D.C.
From a domestic-law perspective, this is un-Constitutional.
Crazy how far down I had to scroll to see this. Yeah, the timing of it is an Epstein thing. He knows he's gonna get impeached again and files will be released in 2026 when he loses midterms, and needs to concoct an emergency.
Here's how to know if I'm right -- since this isn't high enough drama, he'll make it amp up by a factor of 1-5 with false-flag attacks on America or something else to try to create a real sense of emergency in the next year.
Just checked on r/conservative what the diehard MAGA fans are saying and they seem to be very happy that Trump is attacking the Cartels and Chinese influence in their backyard. That seems to be the current narrative among MAGA right now.
Who might be the first European head of state or similar they lift out? Ursula von der Leyen? :-D
Air defenses in the EU does not seem to be in the best shape, the way Russian drones seem to operate without trouble.
arabs and iran you should now team up and do something about your collective security, because US is now openly started kidnaping the future of countries. team up with pakistan and ensure it's economic stability and make some NATO like agreement and get atleas 10 Nukes each otherwise you will also see the same day as maduro. i beleave you have very little time.
So the US can just fly into a country and kidnap it's president and his wife at will now? Just because Donald Trump feels like it. And most Americans will somehow praise and love it.
What the hell? I hate getting too political because it ends up so toxic and divisive, but with what logic is this not insane?
It’s so simple to understand. There are tens of dictatorships around. Why this one? Shit is fucked more a lot more in Congo. Why is the US not interested? This is not about human rights. This is about oil.
Venezuela has had plenty of recent multinational support in recent years from China National Petroleum, Anhui Guangda Mining, Rosneft (Russia), and Iran.
Trump's handlers have proven the USA military don't care about the Constitution. They're happy to enforce the dictators will even though they know it to be unlawful. Seems like that is a significant movement that opens the door for Trump to be even more evil. They've rallied to the sex offender, they probably have to follow through now to avoid joining him and his cohort in jail.
Yup. Venezuelans voted for the Bolivaran Revolution. This is it. We shouldn’t waste our time with it. Especially because every time we topple a regime like this it creates a refugee crisis and a huge influx of refugees to the U.S.
I didn't know Maduro was responsible for protecting the US border. Perhaps he should be charged with "dereliction of duty"? To go along with his other trumped up charges (ha.. ha..) such as "possession of machine guns and other destructive devices".
There might be more than one reason for an ongoing crisis, and different takes on who’s responsible. However Maduro is responsible of huge number of refugees fleeing Venezuela, and we (and some other countries around) have some obligations to help asylum seekers.
What is the “it” they voted against? Did the reject the ideology? Or are they just unhappy with the current dictator but will vote for the next one that comes along?
So correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a new kind of crime committed by the US? We've been involved in a lot of regime change operations but I can't think of one where we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state and bring them to the US. I guess Saddam Hussein but that was after we caused the collapse?
Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
The US has historically captured and executed heads of states in wars, including Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2006 (executed by the US-administered Iraqi government), and Imperial Japan's Tojo in 1948.
The US extradited, convicted, and imprisoned Honduras' Juan Orlando Hernández, for drug trafficking crimes (though Trump, incongruously, pardoned him in 2025).
Another notable example, the UK arrested Chile's Pinochet in 1998 on a Spanish arrest warrant claiming universal jurisdiction, though no conviction followed from that.
edit: And US Marines captured Grenada's Hudson Austin in 1983, turning him over to Grenada's new government who sentenced him to death, commuted to prison.
edit²: Two other heads of state imprisoned in the US were Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala (extradited to and convicted in US courts in 2014), and Pavlo Lazarenko of Ukraine (fled willingly to the US, convicted in 2006).
The US has been in a lot of wars/conflicts (even if they were not officially declared) since WWII. Heads of state have not typically been captured. It’s not unprecedented but also not the norm.
It has been presented as a law enforcement action to bring a wanted criminal to justice. What do you mean by “televised sham trial”? Are you suggesting the US manufactured evidence?
Have you considered this is part of a negotiated exit?
Maduro was a monstrous dictator who was guaranteed to kill more people than this US strike did. And there is an opposition party which has been suppressed by Maduro, but is otherwise ready to go. There is much hope to be had for this beautiful country and its people now.
Hopefully this act will also have a chilling effect on other vile left wing dictators like those in North Korea and Cuba
Very disappointing to see some of the arguments being put forth in favour of this blatant aggression. After reading through quite a few comments I'm left with the impression that very many people seem to hold some pretty dubious opinions:
1. That previous justifications in the lead up to this event are now irrelevant or to be ignored or forgotten about ('narco-terrorism', 'it's our oil', 'sanctions busting', etc).
- These were all weak to begin with (but are still relevant because the truth is in there and stated almost explicitly - i.e. 'US interests').
2. That this attack on Venezuelan sovereignty was done for moral reasons ('bad regime').
- Even accepting that the government of Venezuela is a 'bad regime', this is insufficient - there are many arguably much worse governments in the world.
3. That might is right.
- Correct in some sense but morally bereft.
All in all a lot of post-facto nonsense on display.
I'm frankly appalled at the self-serving moral blindness on display here. I refuse to believe that people are arguing in good faith here. Disappointing to see from the otherwise thoughtful commenters on this site.
To anyone making the above arguments, let me ask you - what do you think of the saying "do unto others as you would have done unto you"?
"Trump claims Maduro 'captured and flown out of the country'
US president Donald Trump claims that the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife have been “captured and flown out of the country”.
In a Truth Social post shared only moments ago, Trump wrote:
The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.
The Guardian has been unable to independently verify this report."
Combat footage is coming out by the minute. Watching it, I don't understand how Americans can be so fundamentally evil. Watching helicopters gun people on the ground down. What makes you so sick in the head that you would do this? How could you obey these orders and feel nothing as you slaughter innocent people? There isn't even any possible pretext to this invasion. They know what they're doing and still choose to do it. It's utterly incomprehensible.
Yep. It's the illiberal authoritarians. The people who need hierarchy, for domination and submission. This is why equality is an scary abomination to them.
All societies have such people. But civil societies prevent them from gaining significant power. Failing that, it's going to be expensive.
This society elected a known abuser. Of course this society will be abused. But also because of this society's global power, the world will also be abused.
I regret to inform you that this is not how the cycle of violence works. As the US itself has repeatedly found, inflicting violence on people makes them more supportive of violence, both because you’ve taught them it’s a legitimate tool and because many of them want revenge on you.
US states literally have been built on the motto "come and take it." Americans have been the most common foreign volunteers to die in places like Ukraine and Syria.
Invading America would be like invading Afghanistan. If you wrestle a pig, expect they might even enjoy it. And yes I have fought in a civil war, I know what it's like, even without the advantage of American weapon, so no need to go down the road of me not understanding the implications. It would only embolden us, we wouldn't learn the lesson you're thinking.
If one believes we are moving towards major conflict with China this sort of operation is justifiable given Maduro's closeness to the CCP.
It is very unlikely this will be met with anything like a coordinated condemnation from the Europeans given Maduro's closeness to Russia. Hence giving Trump some degree of international political cover for the move.
I think it will be regarded as a poor move long term to so boldly put the us stamp on what will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or two
I'm admittedly somewhat ignorant of all the details but I don't see what the real benefit is
my only guess is that it's to disincentivize the Russians and Chinese from being more involved in South America but it feels like it could do the opposite and act as an annoying wedge
Venezuela already was a refugee crisis ~5 years ago, until they liberalized the economy slightly some years ago. Not sure what the current status is.
I could foresee
* some US-backed pro-business president coming to power
* GDP going up
* still no completely liberal democracy but anyway better than Maduro
* less emigration or maybe people start coming back
The main casualty is the notion that the US follows rules instead of doing whatever it wants. I'm not sure if I'd say democracy is a casualty as well, because (AFAIK with my non-leftist sources) Venezuela wasn't a real democracy.
Yes, I’m sure a US invasion will help the local populace finally understand that they should be friendly with Uncle Sam and his freedom loving ways rather than the Russians and Chinese who brought mostly shady investments as a way of building influence.
I guess even the last former voter now understands that a certain orange man is a huge liar. So much for "I'm gonna get the peace nobel prize" by Invasion 2.0. Actually, it is not even an invasion right now - it is just a distraction from certain files. How much has not yet been revealed with regard to that network involving underage people?
Am I going to see Venezualan flags pop up all over European capitals like I did when Putin did the exact same thing in Ukraine that Trump just did?
I had highly doubt it. I guess invading foreign countries is fine if it’s „our“ side doing it.
Trump is solidifying control over (North and South) American oil to ensure oil reserves in the event of a global war. China's first move would be to control middle eastern and russian oil - choking manufacture.
I just woke up to this madness, and have heard nothing about it prior to today. Has this come as a surprise to everyone in the USA too, or were there murmurings leading up to it? What was the reason given? I'm presuming there was _something_, even if it was clearly nonsense?
It's not entirely unexpected - you must have missed the recent deployment of the US Navy in the region, which looked like a naval blockade. But this operation is certainly daring - far more impressive than simply blowing Maduro up with a drone strike, which I personally expected.
It's justified by portraying Maduro as a drug kingpin responsible for the fentanyl epidemic in the US. He is also blamed for some gang activity.
I figured it was coming because of Dear Leader's ramblings. TBH, I thought it was going to be the focus of the sudden address given on December 17. Instead we got amphetamine-fueled yelling about "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, THE ECONOMY IS REALLY GREAT" and something about a military bonus that was really just a way to rename and tax a pre-existing housing allowance.
This will lead to a long drawn out guerilla war in the name of oil. Thousands or tens of thousands will die. And trump does. Not. Care. At. All. Neither their lives, or yours or mine, have any meaning to him and his cabinet. They simply do not care.
From the standpoint of international law, this is an unprovoked attack, it's a war crime and act of terror.
Trump and United States of America can now be officially treated as a terrorists and terrorist state!
Venezuela is playing the usual card about America trying to seize oil; US playing usual card about narcotics. You can believe what you want, or buy into whatever mainstream narrative you want, I’m not here to judge, but I’ve seen these cards played out so many times in my lifetime.
Neither makes sense to me for this level of resistance and response from the US. I have a feeling this has to do far more with Iran, Russia, and China, than Venezuela/drugs.
For instance next-door, China is active around the Darien gap region, developing roads and highways. Allegedly this is for port infrastructure, but given Chinese history of low intensity conflicts and island building techniques in the South China sea, this could be a land version of that strategy.
I need to read up about Venezuelan and Iranian Russian connections and interactions. I think the most underrated piece of news is the seizure of tankers under embargo, with blowing up drug boats as the distraction.
One thing is for sure; even the most hard core right of uneasy to support Trump in a new war, and Trump has publicly lamented the expense (of all things) of war.
Not too much info out yet, but I'm guessing one of these happened:
A) Maduro negotiated some deal for himself and his family.
B) His whole military leadership sold him out.
(A) Makes sense if you assume that he had no other exit strategies. If he could have fled to Russia, he'd already done that. I'm thinking that Trump pressed hard on Putin not to take him. With no strong allies left, there's no exit for him. At best he'd be exposed to full-scale invasion by the US, civil war, or other internal power struggles.
(B) Makes sense if you assume that someone simply took the bait, and were flown out of Venezuela with the US operatives. But from a military perspective, it wouldn't be easy - any serious country has contingency plans, and there are many moving parts. Obviously one (or many) generals could provide these things in great detail, but there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of military personnel that will stick to their procedures once shit hits the fan.
From what I've seen, some airstrikes took out AA systems. And there's been reported some fighting back.
I don't know. (A) sounds a bit more likely to me. By any measure, the man was backed into a corner. I think his hail marry was for Putin to offer to save him. But that never happened...a big clue will be how Russia, and the Russian disinformation campaigns react to this.
It's a US military invasion. I hope that an unpopular invasion with zero justification results in some level of political consequences for Trump but sadly I remain skeptical
Abuse of power by a self-serving oligarchy, redux. “ Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny out of the most extreme form of liberty.” ~ Plato (The Republic)
Trump is acting exactly as an agent of Russia would. Pissing off allies, trying to break up the EU and NATO, creating a distraction war to cut aid to Ukraine.
Considering the general incompetence of this administration, this level of success with such a surgical operation seems completely out of character.
Incredibly impressive operation, whether or not you agree with it. Although the ability to operate helos over Caracas with such impunity may very well suggest high-level collaborators in the local military.
The army is full of very competent people regardless of who's in charge for the last 4 years, it's not like they start from scratch at every new administration. And most of them just like to blow shit up regardless of the moral aspect of it, as we've seen in the past
I certainly don't doubt the competence of the US army, but the fact that they spent only minutes on active SEAD bombing raids to enable this operation suggests that it wasn't just cool tech or super competent SOF operators that truly enabled this operation.
We're talking about the top #1 military power VS one of the most corrupt country in the world, lead by a dude who has a sub 20% approval rating, and a tiny ass army equipped with last century russian surplus equipment which hasn't been in any hot conflict since the 60s...
Yeah, probably not. I'd also imagine that the significant show of force by the US would have forced many in the military to assess their options, even if they might otherwise have supported Maduro.
> suggest high-level collaborators in the local military
This - almost guaranteed that this was a negotiated outcome/coup from the military.
Also it's telling i had to scroll halfway down the page to find the first non "trump therefore bad" comment. The cognitive dissonance of the posters vis a vis Machado is pretty astounding.
It's really a shame topics like this attract such lazy ideological struggle on HN. Reiterating Trump=bad over and over simply doesn't make for interesting conversation regardless of how true it may be.
Even on this particular story, there are so many interesting HN-worthy details to discuss. Instead we're stuck lazily debating whether this was right or wrong.
You can find higher-quality, much more aggressively moderated conversations on topics like this on r/CredibleDefense. However, even that subreddit struggles with the traffic from high-profile events like this.
This administration is lawless to an almost a comical degree. First murdering people with little more than the most obvious figleaf, now invading a country without Congressional approval. Clearly the US constitution is just a list of suggestions to Trump.
I guess it'll just be another count added when the Dems start impeachment proceedings on November 4th.
Thank God, Chavez turned the richest country in south america into the poorest and Maduro continued his legacy with the average person losing 17lbs in a year when the price of oil fell. Although I'm surprised Trump is getting involved in world affairs we're at least at a point where the situation can't get any worse. Hopefully Trump will end socialism and bring back democracy to Venezuela
This is just sad. We have a long history and lots of data to know this will be catastrophic for the Venezuela. Hope it doesn’t go that way but feels inevitable. The us is never expected to learn from its mistakes so nothing new there, with the administration desperate to distract from the Epstein files has decided war is the way.
It's funny how all the comments are discussing it from a "was Maduro good or bad" point of view.
This is an invasion for oil, nothing to do with drugs since they come from Mexico, and that propaganda is weak. And nothing to do with Maduro being a dictator or anything similar since each one of our politicians is objectively worse than him, I wish this was an exgeration, but when you look at the Epstein files, even the few unredacted things found there (and most of them are redacted) make it obvious that we are literally ruled by criminals.
Now you either look at it as it is, and accept that Santa isn't real, and that life is hard, and we are greedy, and we don't care about other people, and then you stop the moralizing when you do nothing about it, or you keep gobbling up the lie after lie, that Murica is the good guy, and everyone else is evil, and that all Murica's wars are moral and bringing freedom and liberating those third worlders.
TLDR: free your mind before you talk about freeing others (which is ironic because I'm doing the same thing, but I'm also writing this message for myself).
There was already an Israeli pundit on Fox News saying that Venezuela harbors Hamas and Hezbollah operatives. My assumption is that they are throwing that out there to garner support from Trump’s “anti-war unless it’s defending Israel” supporters.
This is a crime. It is an unlawful act of aggression which may defacto trigger an international armed conflict. There will be paper thin justifications of course but those are merely to give loyalists talking points and a thread to grasp to in their mental gymnastics.
I suggest reading the few south american comments in this thread hidden by the usual whatever Trump does vitriol fro EU/US commenters.
r/venezuela is one placce to start. Very different tone there than the ill informed commenters here ( and I say that with detest for “that other site”)
Hopefully the Venezuelan people will have a fighting change to restore their country now.
What's the desired strategic outcome here - to remove the incumbent president and his political party from power and replace it with one more favorable to US oil interests? And to do that without putting ground troops in to some Latin American Vietnam? Good luck with that.
It'll be the usual playbook: replace Maduro with a pet dictator. It won't go well for Venezuela and it's people, but since when did the USA give a damn about people?
And yet droves and droves from south and Central America want to come here and live instead!
Also do these countries governments care for their own ppl? Seems like no as if they did ..they wouldn’t be corrupt 2nd to 3rd world countries & their citizens wouldn’t be fleeing to America in droves
You might want to look into the history of why South and Central America have been blighted by corruption and dictators - the USA has had a large hand in it.
Why are comments allowed on these posts? What is the point? What is ever gained? Conservatives question and deny. Liberals point out the multiple laws broken. People from the rest of the world tell those of in the USA that we have our head up our ass.
How are any of us better for this? How is this better than Facebook's engagement-bait?
Regardless of how retarded maduro was, "i felt like it" should not be justifiable reason to kidnap a president of a different country on their own turf.
Maybe i felt better about that if trump wasnt in bed with another dictator.
1. It's distraction on a grand scale from the Epstein Event Horizon, also on a grand scale.
2. Trump: (2018) We don't want to be the policemen of the world BY BRETT SAMUELS - 04/30/18 [0]
> President Trump on Monday said the U.S. should no longer serve as the “policemen of the world.”
> “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
> “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldn’t be the priority,” he said.
> Trump ran on the promise that he would extricate the U.S. from foreign wars.
Neither the republican nor democrat base wanted this. There wasn't even an attempt at justification, the drugs argument was a complete and utter joke. They could at least do a little false flag attack.
Hernàndez was captured by Biden. Trump pardoned him because Biden bad.
This world is a shitshow. Honestly, I am GenX and always read of wars and tensions as historical artefacts (there were wars, but localized and far away from France).
Now I am seriously wondering if this is going to end well for us over here. I do not work that much about myself, I had an interesting life, but rather about my children whom I now start to regret. I did not expect to hand them a world like this one.
I know, global warming was there but I was 30 and was looking my close surroundings. My bad. This said, if I know what the world would be today I wrote reconsider having them.
Boy is trying to outdo both Regan and Dubya. He didn't even try to sell it to us like they did with Iraq.
Venezuelans, I'm sorry my shithole country is about to inflict a fascist puppet state on you. Nobody here gives enough of a shit despite all the chest-thumping and "MUH LIBERTY TREE". We'd rather have drum circles and ask for permission to dissent.
It's time for you Americans to wake up. You're supporting the wrong things!
National sovereignty is a fundamental principle of international law and cannot be selectively applied according to the interests of global powers. Donald Trump’s threats and aggressive rhetoric toward Venezuela undermine this principle by treating a nation’s self-determination as negotiable. Criticizing this stance does not mean endorsing the Venezuelan government, but acknowledging that sanctions, intimidation, and external pressure rarely affect political elites and instead harm ordinary people, deepening humanitarian crises.
Latin American history reveals a recurring pattern of foreign interference framed as the defense of democracy. From a moral standpoint, collective punishment and imposed solutions are indefensible. If such actions would be unacceptable when directed at the United States, they cannot be justified against Venezuela. A responsible international approach requires multilateral dialogue, international mediation, and genuine respect for the sovereignty of nations.
The reaction on HN to what just happened in Venezuela is exhausting and revealing. People who have never lived under socialism, communism, dictatorship, or military rule speak with total confidence while dismissing those who have.
More than 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country, one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. They are celebrating. You are being critical. That alone should give pause.
Those condemning this action (and almost defending the oppressors) have never:
- Lived under a dictatorship where dissent leads to prison, torture, rape or disappearance
- Watched the military and police become criminal enterprises
- Seen private property and entire industries seized by the state, as happened under Chávez and Maduro
- Experienced the collapse that follows decades of corruption, repression, and ideological control
Latin America knows this story well. Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela have followed different paths with the same outcomes: repression, exile, fear, and destroyed civil society. Venezuela didn’t “fail suddenly.” It was dismantled over decades through nationalization, purges, censorship, and military collusion with organized crime.
If you claim to care about migrants, human rights, or the oppressed, you cannot only care after people escape. You cannot oppose every serious attempt to end regimes that jail, torture, and kill their own citizens while calling yourself humanitarian. That is not morality, it’s distance.
Is oil involved? Of course. Venezuela’s oil industry, built with foreign investment, was expropriated, looted, and mismanaged into ruin. But this is also about state-backed criminal networks, narcotrafficking, and regional destabilization that have killed hundreds of thousands beyond Venezuela’s borders.
If you had lived under these conditions, if your family had been broken by fear, disappearance, or exile, you would not be citing abstract “international law” to defend your oppressors. You would be hoping, every night, that someone powerful enough would intervene.
What’s missing here isn’t compassion. It is context.
Before defending dictators from the safety of a functioning democracy, have the self-awareness to ask whether you understand the reality you’re judging. Otherwise what comes through isn’t moral clarity, it’s ignorance dressed up as virtue.
yeah might is right. if you wanna bully citizens like dictators do - now they fear some big bully might come snatch them in the middle of the night like bully does to its citizens
Your comment is completely and utterly disconnected from reality. Venezuelans WANT THIS and have been wanting this for decades.
I lived in Argentina at the time when the military were making people disappear by the thousands, never to be found again. Most commenters on HN have no clue what they are talking about and no context whatsoever.
Give it a few weeks. Maybe a few months, hard to say. You will see people joyfully demonstrating on every street in Venezuela flying both Venezuelan and American flags. Just hold your thoughts and opinions if you can for a a bit of time and you'll see. And, of course, don't get your news from leftist outfits who are angry about a socialist/communist/dictator losing power. You'll be able to watch news directly from Venezuela.
Important point: Venezuela is NOT Iraq or Afghanistan. I've seen people equate events. Again, ignorant. Venezuelans WANT democracy. Latin Americans are culturally and religiously aligned with the west. They want this and they want the socialist-dictatorial nightmare to be over.
As is always the case, most are not thinking past the headlines. Venezuela, once the transition to sanity, rule of law and democracy is completed, is likely to become a major player both in the region and globally.
How?
Well, most go for the obvious: Oil.
That's not it though. Expand beyond that: Energy.
And expand beyond that yet again: Manufacturing.
And yet one more time: AI data centers (which need energy, manufacturing and a stable environment).
Venezuela could become a magnet for investment and development we cannot possibly imagine. This one move by Trump, if executed well, will change the face of the American continent --for the better-- in ways that are hard to imagine today. This is a good moment in history. I hope other nations understand the reign of terror is over and join a coalition to truly make Latin America not only great again, but part of what could become the most powerful association in the world, a new, powerful, integrated and developed American continent. I hope to see this in my lifetime. It would be amazing.
It sounded like a sarcastic comment meaning characterizing the action as unjustified bullying rather than what it was.
The left's position on what just happened isn't only immoral, it is 100% dislocated from the opinion of the 9 million Venezuelans living in the diaspora as well as almost the entirety of those still in Venezuela. The reason I say "almost" is that there's a small layer (politicians, military, etc.) who were making a living or getting rich from the regime that is now evaporating.
Had a few interactions in person over the holidays where the presence of discussion of certain narratives would cause an otherwise normal and talented adult person to almost immediately respond in a repulsive rage.
Yes, that's very much the type of brain virus we've been dealing with for around a decade. Social media did not help. Critical thinking went out the door completely. And the pandemic made is massively worse, driving people into deep dark holes characterized by ignorant resonance with a healthy dose of zero thought given to everything.
Right now you have entire news networks defending --actively defending-- a brutal dictator who exported death in the form of drugs, tortured, jailed and killed his own people. I almost feel like I am watching a primitive primate culture from space driven to rage without a clue or care of where reality lies.
I think this will pass eventually, but it might take another ten years.
Yes—there are very clear, recurring *themes*, and what’s striking is how consistently people keep circling the same fault lines from different angles. I’d group them like this:
---
## 1. *Legality vs. Morality*
*Core tension:*
> Is overthrowing a dictator morally right even if it violates international law?
* One side argues law exists precisely to restrain power, not to reward virtue.
* The other argues moral urgency overrides abstract legalism when human suffering is extreme.
* This becomes a meta-question: Who decides when morality trumps law?
This is the philosophical backbone of the entire thread.
---
## 2. *Precedent Anxiety*
*“Today Maduro, tomorrow anything.”*
* Fear that once unilateral regime change is normalized, the justification becomes infinitely elastic:
* Libya and Iraq function as *cautionary archetypes*, not historical footnotes.
This is less about Venezuela than about *future permission structures*.
---
## 3. *Outcomes Over Intentions*
*Ends don’t redeem means if outcomes are catastrophic.*
* Even commenters who despise Maduro emphasize:
* removing a dictator is easy
* building a functioning state is hard
* Post-intervention chaos (ISIS, slave markets, fragmentation) is cited repeatedly.
* There’s deep skepticism that this time will be different, even when facts are “better documented.”
This is pragmatic pessimism rather than ideological purity.
---
## 4. *American Power & Self-Deception*
*A recurring, uncomfortable self-indictment.*
* Several comments converge on the idea that:
* Americans benefit materially from interventionism
* but psychologically disavow responsibility for the costs
* The line “Americans want this but don’t like knowing they want it” resonates strongly.
* Counterpoint: lack of agency within political structures blunts individual responsibility.
This becomes a debate about *collective guilt vs. structural impotence*.
---
## 5. *Realpolitik vs. Institutionalism*
*Power acting directly vs. power constrained by process.*
* Appeals to ICC, UN, asylum frameworks represent belief in institutions.
* Skeptics argue those institutions are deliberately weakened by the same powers invoking morality.
* Others argue asylum and invasion are orthogonal issues—and conflating them is rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Underlying question: Is global governance real, or decorative?
---
## 6. *Lived Experience vs. Abstract Judgment*
*Who gets moral authority?*
* “Those who’ve never lived under dictatorship say this.”
* Counter: “Those who never lived through US intervention say that.”
* Venezuelans in-thread complicate narratives of total collapse or total liberation.
* Firsthand testimony destabilizes neat moral binaries.
This creates epistemic friction: *whose suffering counts as evidence?*
---
## 7. *Cynicism About Motives*
*Oil never disappears from the conversation.*
* Even when people argue it’s not literally about barrels of crude, they frame it as:
* control
* leverage
* profit flows
* contractor ecosystems
* What’s new is not cynicism—but how brazen the cynicism feels.
Several commenters note the lack of even performative moral cover.
---
## 8. *Democratic Exhaustion*
*A sense that democracy is no longer the brake it claims to be.*
* Rapid escalation vs. slow electoral correction
* Legislatures perceived as compliant or irrelevant
* No clear mechanism for popular restraint short of catastrophe
This feeds resignation rather than outrage.
---
## 9. *Historical Echoes & Decline Narratives*
*“We’ve seen this movie.”*
* Arab Spring
* Iraq
* Libya
* Panama (Noriega)
History is invoked less as analogy and more as *warning fatigue*—people feel trapped in a loop.
---
## 10. *A Deeper Subtext: Loss of Moral Coherence*
Perhaps the most important theme:
> The argument isn’t about whether Maduro is bad.
> It’s about whether the system judging him is still capable of moral credibility.
That’s why the thread feels less like debate and more like *collective unease*.
---
### If you zoom out:
This isn’t really a Venezuela thread.
It’s a conversation about *power without trust*, *law without enforcement*, and *morality without consensus*—and whether any of those concepts still function in the current world order.
If you wanted to fictionalize this, it wouldn’t be a war story.
It would be a story about *people arguing at the edge of legitimacy*, trying to decide whether the rules still mean anything once the strong stop pretending they do.
So many people in the comments arguing as if the U.S. government made a rational decision based on specified goals and policies.
Trump is a pathological narcissist and sociopath. He admires dictators like Putin and wanted to emulate his invasion of Ukraine. Stephen Miller is pure evil, and Hegseth is a fool, so they came up with a pretext to attack Venezuela. All of this conveniently distracts from the Epstein files.
Nothing that's happened is justified, legal or rational. It's just the egos of idiots who should not be in power.
there are other people behind these decisions proposing them to trump as options, and its following the current US strategic plan about militarily dominating the americas.
its gonna be some other central and south american countries next like panama, the on to conquering greenland from the danes and greenlanders, then canada
It's so hard to talk about this from the perspective of a venezuelan.
Venezuela is under a dictatorshipt that has violated human rights massively, in Caracas (the capital) there's a prison know as El Helicoide, that's the headquarterts of the SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia), they are the secret police and the have arrested opposition members, reporters, human rights activists, and even family members of any of the three. Their headquarters is El Helicoide, a prison that is the equivalent of Guantanamo, but in Venezuela; it is the largest torture center in Latin America.
On July 28, 2024, presidential elections were held, which were extremely difficult to reach. Negotiations with the government were necessary to allow the opposition to participate. The opposition held primary elections to determine its candidate, and María Corina Machado (MCM) (the previous year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate) won with approximately 90% of the vote. There was also a high voter turnout that the government had not anticipated, so they disqualified her, she then proposed another candidate, but this person was also disqualified, and ultimately, they had to put forward Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), an stranger in Venezuelan politics, and had to convince him to participate in the elections.
During the campaign, the government placed every possible obstacle in their path to prevent them from campaigning, closing roads, arresting campaign workers, and issuing threats. On election day, there were several irregularities, and at midnight, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Maduro had won. However, MCM claimed there had been fraud and, days later, presented evidence. She had conducted a large-scale operation to collect all the electoral records from every polling station in the country, managing to gather the vast majority, which showed that EGU had won with 67%. This sparked widespread protests and severe repression, including the arrest of many members of Vente Venezuela (MCM's party). She was forced into hiding, and EGU was forced to leave the country, but only after making a deal with the government while taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. His son-in-law was also arrested and remains missing to this day.
If you ask any Venezuelan, many agree with an US invasion. The vast majority are against the regime, just like me, although many aren't aware of how dangerous Trump is, or the things he's done in the US. To me, Trump isn't so different from Chávez: he insults those who disagree with him, he doesn't respect institutions, he installs his people in positions of power, and he only cares about loyalty. That's why I'm in a very complicated position, because on the one hand, I want this dictatorship to finally end; on the other hand, I don't like Trump. He's quite capable of trying to establish his own dictatorship in his country. He's not doing this just to liberate us; he's doing it because he has his own interests.
There are also many people who have spoken ill of MCM; many have said she didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and that she's just a puppet of Trump.
I couldn't disagree more with those statements.
I don't completely agree with her; I have a somewhat different ideology than hers, but even I can see how much effort she puts into everything she does. Here in Venezuela, she's greatly admired. I'm not one to admire people or have idols. I even criticize her a bit because she never makes it clear what the plan is for getting out of this situation and always says that freedom will come soon, something that gets very tiresome, but even so, I can understand her.
Being in her position is very difficult, due to the alliances the government has made. A large part of the left worldwide has sided with the dictatorship or doesn't denounce its atrocities, and because of that, she has no choice but to ally herself with right-wing people, including Trump. I don't think she agrees with everything he does, and she's even asked him to treat Venezuelans better, but she can't anger him either, because he's the only ally who can help her with this. That's why she told him he should have received the Nobel Prize, to avoid further anger and to try to appease him.
It's also important to mention something else: the Venezuelan government has used various operations to manipulate public opinion, both inside and outside Venezuela, trying to portray itself as a legitimate government and claiming that everything the U.S. does is for the sake of oil. While this is partly true, it also attempts to tarnish the reputation of MCM and the opposition. It's possible that here, on Twitter, Bluesky, or many other sites, there are fake accounts trying to promote this narrative, so be careful what you read, because this government has committed atrocities; don't forget that.
Talking about all this is very difficult, because on the one hand this is a dictatorship that we want to free ourselves from, but on the other hand Trump is one of the worst things that has happened to the world.
Excuse me if my text seems strange, I originally wrote it in Spanish and translated it in Google Translate, although I know English, it was easier for me to do it this way.
There's no more proof that any Venezuelan election's results has been tampered with than with any US election. The state of Venezuela's state is sad, and so is the fact that millions of people have felt forced to flee the country due to economic uncertainty. But this is probably a mix of culture, ingrained corruption and US blockage for decades.
It’s completely unrelated, I find a bit insulting that even our own wrongdoings have to be blamed to the US. Not everything wrong that happens in the world is caused by the US, the regime has been very capable of their own wrongdoing and mismanagement through the past couple of decades. Just look up the UN reports of human right abuses committed by the regime, thousands killed and tortured.
> The Republican Party's ticket—Donald Trump, who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and JD Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio—defeated the Democratic Party's ticket—Kamala Harris, the incumbent U.S. vice president, and Tim Walz, the incumbent governor of Minnesota.
> The election was contentious, with international monitors calling it neither free nor fair,[4] citing the incumbent Maduro administration's having controlled most institutions and repressed the political opposition before, during,[2][5] and after the election. Widely viewed as having won the election, former diplomat Edmundo González…
You have to fix your problems yourself. I say this as a citizen of a nation in South-East Asia. Do not depend or cheer external actors like the U.S. to solve internal issues - they will only use and throw you away. The U.S. is also a nation whose political culture respects only strength - they hold absolute contempt for soft, weak/poor and divided nations. A home-grown dictator is better than a foreign one promising "democracy". It is one of the reasons that the U.S. regularly takes leadership out - they would like nations in their sphere to remain weak, poor and/or fully economically dependent.
You can look forward to U.S. oil companies doing free looting now. Sure, the "trickle down" effect will make some Venezuelan's prosperous but you have effectively given up the resources of your nation and chosen to become subservient slaves. And U.S. billionaires will become even richer.
It's down here for a reason. Anything that even alludes to the fact that Trump's broken clock might accidently be right for some people twice a day can't surface. Thus the anti-regime Venezuelans get their comments pushed down into the shithole, because we can't outright say the very people we are white-knighting are wrong so we just ignore them.
This takes the American Oligarchy to the next level. Trump is now enabling his billionaire friends plunder another country, no doubt Trump will get a cut of the profits.
There is a science fiction book "The inhabited island" ("Prisoners of power"?) by A. and B. Strugatsky. In one of episodes they try to describe the feeling of being in a very human-looking but also completely alien culture (a different planet with humanoid inhabitants). So they describe how a group of people works out a credentials/paperwork situation (they need to move a prisoner from one place to another) but literally, as these actions are seen by the prisoner who does not understand the meaning. "This one gave that one a yellow rectangle but that one refused to take it and said something in a raised voice."
I always remember that episode as I see headlines like that.
Prediction: it won't. HN is very touchy about things that make the president look bad, as well as about bold statements, as well as about politics (except when it's good for VC money, then it's apolitical).
We don’t “remove” anything, and what we “like” doesn’t come into it; our job is to keep discussions healthy and curious and maintain the trust of the community.
Stories that are primarily about political controversy will generally get downweighted by:
- community flags
- flamewar penalties
- software penalties that are applied by default to publications and topics that are primarily focused on daily politics controversy.
But even with these penalties the stories can easily be found on /active, and everything that’s ever posted can be found on /newest (with ‘showdead’ turned on).
When a story contains “significant new information” we turn off these penalties to ensure it gets exposure on the front page, which we’ve done here and which we’ve done for every major breaking story over the many years that this approach has been in place.
Yes, I agree, it's very traditional for businesses to use the behaviour of their software as an accountability sink, as if they didn't create that behaviour to begin with, don't have the ability to change it, and don't have the ability to override it.
I try to stay humble when predicting the future. But there is just no way there will be a literal military invasion. Trump would never risk a bunch of american dying on the ground, it would be terrible optics.
His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
In reality, he's building out Imperium Americanum, he is fighting wars without Congressional approval and proper casus bellis, he's not bringing the troops home and it is clear he represents the fucking Deep State even more than any of his predecessors since JFK. Shame on him for renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center. Which is absolutely disgusting given the reality of things!
Prime example: Invading Venezuela to steal their oil, just like his predecessors did with Syria (if you do not believe me, look where the US Army is located in Syria, and the prime locations of their oil fields).
Additionally: Trump's United States now has given Putin's Russia and Xi's China precedent to do whatever they fucking want to whoever or whatever. Because who fucking cares about international law if even the United States government, home of freedom and democracy and the rule of law, currently doesn't even give a fuck?
So now fucking what?
(And yes, as you might have noticed I AM FURIOUS AS HELL.)
> His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
A journalist asked him in the press conference just now how capturing Maduro and running the country in iterim is "America First". His simple answer is that a more stable set of countries in the region is good for America.
Right now the US have not invaded Venezuela but in effect attempted to precipitate a "coup". We shall see what happens now. Note, too that Maduro is not widely recognised as President by Western countries because of accusation of election rigging.
This is classic US action South of the border since the 19th century so I think the outrage is excessive. Perhaps people think, wrongly, that this is new becaude of Trump. What is new is that this seems actually aimed against China.
Regarding international law, it seems that it's been invoked so much in recent years that people have "drunk the Kool Aid" and actually believe that this is something carved in stone that must be obeyed, or even just actual "law"...
Y'all never lived under a dictatorship, and it's felt.
"Fuck venezuelans, how can you capture a dictator, that violates a law no one gives a fuck about". You should be really happy how Trump treats putin, like a dear friend, not violating any law. I hope marines will raid kremlin next.
That's an excellent outcome to hope for. The odds are that we have already used up our "stopped clock is right every 12 hours" karma. Not that anyone should feel sorry for Maduro.
While it is possible for modern Europe to repeat the mistakes of Rome, that played out slowly over centuries.
I'd be more concerned with making sure to not repeat e.g. the surprise rapid end to the USSR, along with a few other sudden scenarios like "gets invaded".
Episodes like these only serve to cement that Iran and North Korea are right to think that having nuclear deterrence is the only viable insurance policy.
(Delivery & effectiveness is another subject on its own but still)
I thought exactly this. The first comment talked about potentially destabilising not only the country but the entire region. In reality it perpetuates violence globally.
Not sure why you're putting Iran and North Korea together here, as Iran is hoping for a nuke, while NK already has them, and has for many years. And yes, calls for toppling the brutal NK dictatorship have completely disappeared once that happened - so the theory is extremely soundly proven.
North Korea is not trying to get a nuclear bomb, they've already got nuclear bombs and have for more than 10 years.
This is why I'm confused. They're also not the only examples of dictatorial states getting nuclear bombs - surely the Soviet Union and China are earlier examples of that.
What we saw with Venezuela was something nukes wouldn't prevent. Doing the same with Putin is infinitely harder, but if it did occur, chances are whoever fills in the power vacuum in Russia would be pretty happy with their situation.
I'm not saying chances are with regard to nukes, I'm saying with regard to whoever gets to take over Russia. In either case they definitely aren't using nukes because it means mutual destruction over one man who has 0% chance of ever returning to Russia.
You're obviously just trolling. The US is still a solid democracy - a country you disagree with, sure. In a couple years Trump will be out and life goes on. As for Maduro, he's a dictator - he needed to go. He works closely with Iran, Russia and with China doing very nefarious things.
I agree however that Trump is largely self centered and this is a risk. Oil should not be the goal here, it should be the freedom of the Venezuelans.
It is not a solid democracy if the only two political parties are largely aligned on most issues, leaving citizens helpless to change the way the uni party functions.
As for foreign policy, yes the United States is a terrorist state and has been for a long time.
It tells me that doing that is a meaningless performance. If it weren't, they'd actually try to actively ban it. Look at all the anti-BDS legislation for an example.
USA bombed iraq, killed thousands of civilians
USA bombed libya, killed thousands of civilians
USA funding israel, killing thousands of civilians
USA bombed vietnam, killed thousands of civilians
and the list goes on.
I am not trolling, USA is built on white supremacy by genocide of native americans and is sustained by war because military industrial complex needs to sell their weapons so some american can afford starbucks.
America is a terrorist state, far from democracy where avg citizen doesnt even know the crimes of their govt. Just few days ago their whole leadership was revealed to be sinister pedophiles and americans basically did nothing. Americans are the most propagandized people ever
> Only during 2025 russian forces launched over 54,000 long-range drones and over 1,900 missiles
This would be a lot more compelling of an argument if the Ukrainians were not trying to use social media to PsyOp the world into believing that life in Ukraine is going on as usual.
I could accept the idea that an election can’t be effectively fortified during a war, but if the war was as popular as the Ukrainian government wants me to believe, why are men barred from leaving the country and being abducted off the streets to serve as conscripts?
Even though the military was involved, I think this was officially a law enforcement action, much like capturing Manuel Noriega and sentencing him to prison.
Nicolás Maduro was indicted for various crimes in 2020. I have a feeling the "possession of a machinegun" charge will be dropped, but the US does have a long track record of saying drug activity affects the US enough that it can arrest and prosecute almost anybody.
The invasion of Ukraine, on the other hand, is -- I believe -- a regular military exercise. Putin has claimed that he wants to achieve some unusual goals ("denazify the Ukraine special forces"), but even those goals aren't really law enforcement.
Main difference is that Russia is 1409 days into their 3 day "special operation" that has obviously become a war, while this looks like it was actually a special operation.
A "special operation" that makes hypocrites of every US official complaining that the EU is engaged in over-reach* and that EU has no sovereignty in the USA, but still it is success (at least with regard to the immediately stated objectives) that's the difference.
Long term, I expect this to be a colossal failure for the USA, the USA has a very poor record for pulling long term benefits out of this kind of action, and Trump is a sub-unity multiplier on that.
That said, if I was anyone in Mexico right now, I'd be worried by the rhetoric. There's things Mexico can do to prepare for this, that's not going to be any fun at all for the USA. I can see a big pile of dry tinder here waiting to ignite, but I don't want to suggest details because path dependency is a huge variable, e.g. consider that Trump himself could be impeached for all the Epstein stuff at fairly short notice by Republicans worried he's dragging them down in domestic polls.
* with regard to the EU telling Big Tech that certain content is not welcome within the EU. I mean, imagine if any EU nation did this to forcibly extradite Musk. Or if the UK did it for 4chan. I wouldn't cry over either, but I would definitely be shocked. And neither Musk nor 4chan's staff have diplomatic immunity.
Russia invaded Ukraine under a U.S. President that believed (and talked about often) in "international norms". Due to which international law violation did the Japanese attack pearl harbor? Do you think the reason China didn't attack Taiwan yet is because "well, America is acting moral, we can't go around disturbing the global order"
You realize that this kind of vigorous foreign policy that you are a fan of is going to rebound massively? Or have the last 80 years worth of lessons learned passed you by?
Plundering Latin America is not just going to be unpopular with European HNers, it will be with the vast majority of the world. You are hoping for 'exciting times', you fail to realize that 'may you live in exciting times' is a curse, not a blessing.
Broadly speaking, you can shape the world, or decide to sit it out and let everyone else try.
We should absolutely do everything in our power to make the world a better place for us.
The last 80 years taught me we can take down the USSR if we try, we can build europe back up if we try etc. I don't know what lessons you've learned from the past but there were many who were anti fighting (not literally, but through proxies, economics - soft power) the USSR and they were wrong. It's possible to win! & yes, I'm happy we have that spirit again
Does fact that Congress, not the President, has the power to "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water" matter? Or is the constitution not what you voted for?
You are correct, but also it doesn't matter because the US has flaunted the constitution in precisely this way for every single war America has been in since WW2. Wars without congressional declaration are de facto legal and have been for as long as you and I have been alive.
This, of course, is one of the reasons why people's opinion of the USA has been steadily dropping.
They don't play by the rules that they themselves created. They are not a trustworthy partner.
Any country that can ought to be removing any and all dependencies on the USA as a matter of priority - as Europe is doing for military matters. It's actually pretty easy, you just schmooze the orange fuckwit and tell him everything's ok, and then you do what you want, incrementally so you can boil that frog.
Europe's defense newswires are full of interesting stuff supposedly happening, but until money is reallocated from welfare to defense, nothing is actually happening for all practical purposes.
In other words: a bunch of hot air. And will EU denizens agree to lowering their welfare spending to fund defense? Questionable, given the recent tantrums in France over raising the retirement age (which is objectively necessary for their budget.)
Finally, no superpower in the history of humanity has or will irrevocably bound themselves by the "rules they create" on the global stage. Expecting any superpower to do so is sheltered naïveté at best. The real world does not work that way, superpowers will do whatever they feel is in their best interest regardless of "international law" and this will never change so long as geopolitics exists.
Look I agree this whole thing is wrong, but to say this instance of regime change, unprovoked attack, war, whatever you call it is UNIQUELY unconstitutional is obviously wrong.
Every US President since the end of WW2 has waged war without a formal declaration of war from Congress. And presidents from both parties will continue to do so.
This is not to say it's right or good. But there is surely widespread agreement that it is constitutional to do things like this, and there has been for nearly a century.
A regime is not a single person, e.g. Mr Maduro largely continued from Mr Chavez.
If it is true that Mr Maduro has been abducted, there will surely be changes to the regime in Venezuela. A complete change of regime, however, is not guaranteed. And trying to do it might require more application of forcer, with all the attendant risks of that.
Any nuclear-empowered nation is obviously off limits, but any nation without nuclear and with active hostilities towards the US is certainly thinking twice.
Trump has spent the last year (decade actually) doing a disgraceful show of pleasing a dictator who invaded his neighbour. To say nothing of his own authoritarian projects at home. And let's not even get started about Netanyahu.
How can you talk about this as if it was a crusade for justice against dictators? Some people are just terminally gullible.
> Dictators will go to sleep just slightly more terrified tomorrow night.
The irony of someone who (presumably, from statements) voted for Trump saying this while their own country tortures, disappears and in some cases murders thousands, plus potentially rigged elections...
I don't see any case of US citizens being tortured, murdered, and disappeared at scale. Source please?
Source on rigged elections? I didn't believe it when Trump cried wolf and I don't believe it when people think 2024 was rigged.
Edit: "But ICE!" - ICE is deporting (not torturing or murdering thousands of) non-citizens. They are doing a fantastic job (low false positive rate, maybe 10/300,000 with 0 permanent citizen deportations.) I am asking specifically about citizens.
Grabbing illegals* off the streets, which is fine in my book. They also aren't being tortured or killed en masse, so comparing this to Maduro is hysteria at best.
Any non-citizens grabbed (very few! shockingly low false-positive rate, given 300k+ deportations) have been promptly let go.
We could have had a more formal process if the borders weren't opened to literally millions of illegals, but unfortunately that ship has sailed and this is the only practical way to deal with the problem.
A nation is only ultimately responsible to its citizens. I care not about illegals being deported - in fact, I support it.
The US certainly is not leading the scoreboard in the murder of my people; I regret to inform you that my own people lead the scoreboard in their own murder.
as usual with Trump supporters: trying to make both sides seem "equal" on election rigging, when one side (in 2020) caused Jan 6 to happen and still won't accept the election results from 2020, whereas a few fringe people (I guess) had some problems with 2024.
You voted for brown people on flimsy boats to be blown up in extrajudicial killings and for regime change? I thought MAGAs were all about love and peace unlike the war monger, Barrack Obama.
Out of all the many years of fighting a war on drugs, what difference is this going to make? Some lackeys (forced potentially) get blown up, the barons find some more, or use different methods, and 40 years later we're still fighting the war on drugs.
People love drugs. They really want to get hold of them. Someone is going to keep supplying drugs, no matter how many lackeys you blow up.
It’s ~1,000 miles from the US to Venezuela. Have you ever been on a fishing boat? Especially an “overpowered” one? Guess how much fuel they burn? It’s very unlikely a boat has enough fuel to make it to the US, and if it did it would need fuel to get back. Where are they getting the fuel for these drug runs?
You can read about the logistics from countless sources.
For most boats, it's not a straight shot to the US, they often refuel from boats at sea or utilize refueling points in Central America; or perform a handoff in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic.
They don't "need the fuel to get back," the boats are scuttled on arrival. The value of the boats and fuel is a rounding error compared to the value of the drugs.
5000 years of civilisation and a sizeable chunk of the population of first-world countries still doesn't understand why law and courts are better than "just kill people who are le bad".
Let's not even talk about the killing of shipwrecked people who are hors de combat according to the Geneva Convention. Even the Nazis during unrestricted submarine warfare had the decency of not murdering shipwrecked crews and passengers. We are truly in a wretched time when nothing matters anymore.
No evidence, as in, it was just Hegseth saying they were "narco terrorists" and using that as justification for military force. Whether or not it's typical for the government to provide it, I don't know, but the public certainly demands it because killing foreign nationals in fishing boats doesn't pass the smell test.
If they were confident about their "narco terrorist" statement, why not arrest them and put it on trial? We're obviously very capable at stopping boats because we seized an oil tanker recently.
> Was there a PowerPoint presentation citing evidence every time Bush and Obama blew up a wedding
Does it matter? I personally didn't support those actions and would condemn them just as harshly as these ones. You're doing the "But what about Obama?!" meme. A large part of Trump's 2024 campaign was about "peace" which turned out to be a complete lie. Will you admit that Trump lied or are you going to deflect to Obama again?
You again failed to acknowledge the pardon of a drug trafficker, btw.
Saying the government shouldn't carry out extrajudicial executions of terrorists without providing a trial in domestic court is just very sheltered/naive. It's simply not what the real world demands.
Killing fisherman as a pretext to regime change is not what the "real world demands", but okay at least you're admitting it was all a lie.
EDIT: the drugs narrative was a lie too. Trump just admitted that it was about extracting oil in his speech. Now we're running the country until him and his buddies can strike a d—sorry, figure out a "transition" plan.
I’m not. My point is that the ordinary rule accepted by most people, especially the mass media, is that the government doesn’t provide public evidence for military actions. So when the New York Times complains that “there is no evidence” here it seems like special pleading.
Given that it was used as justification for regime change ("Venezuela is sending fentanyl and killing Americans!!") then I'd say the pleading should be special.
I only did because that's the phrasing everyone uses for describing our operations in the middle east. Those are bad, but doing the same in South America is good because evil drug traffickers?
Why do your interests dictate who should or shouldn't get ousted? Will the new dictator work in the interests of other powers? If they are unfriendly to Chinese interest will it be fair game for China to launch an invasion?
So why bother with the earlier hypocritical pretence bringing up torture and murder? Just straight up say you approve of the move because a new U.S. stooge in Venezuela would be better for US geopolitical interests.
So “torture”, "disappeareance", “murder of thousands”, and “rigging elections” are fine if it's in US interests now? Then why use them as argument in the first place.
better for whom? It's, at best, a lateral move for Venezuelans (you know, the people who's country we just bombed) and it's very unlikely that the average American will benefit from a fascist junta in South America.
This is a completely unacceptable comment on HN, and we have to ban accounts that post abusive comments repeatedly. HN is for people who have higher standards than this in what they think is appropriate to post online. Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to keep participating here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Just wait a few years for Trump to pardon you as he did for the jailed former Honduran president recently, same charges even. The hubris of this administration is off the charts.
But it's not murder. It's an arrest of someone who wouldn't leave office after losing an election. Admittedly the people celebrating are Venezuelans abroad rather than in Venezuela. Hope it goes ok there too.
>> And what are they going to to do against the militias and military that are loyal to Maduros political party?
> We’ll see about that.
This seems hand-wavy - like you're not aware of any plan for the future and that you're comfortable with that. If I'm mistaken, what specifics have you heard?
> In the meantime I get to see Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded on a US warship heading to NY.
This sounds like great joy to have working to install leadership that won't massively harm VE (for once).
But this joy would also sound ominous in the absence any such work - like you're being distracted while something awful is put in place.
At the least, I'd check out this post with news links - that this US admin has designs on VE's oil facilities.
Life is good? Your feeling about the goodness of life depends on if a powerful country captures the leader of another country?
Whatever you think of the morality and ethics of the man, the precedent, the outcome, the extrajudicial action is opening the door for less law and order in the world.
This sets a precedent that the US is back to regime change and world policing, and that went swimmingly in the past as we all know.
That's true. But a similar case could be made for many other world leaders, they just don't happen to be sitting on top of a lot of oil and/or are able to credibly defend themselves. This was never about Maduro or democracy.
It’s also a crime against the US constitution and the international legal order. By condoning “might is right” Trump has given an excuse to every tinpot dictator, from Putin to Kim, to invade and kill whoever they want
And the voters who elected Trump because he promised to stop with "nation building".
But with Venezuela's +300bn oil barrels at Trump's disposal now, I bet the gas prices will plummeted. I wonder how the MAGA fanbase will react (probably will be happy to let just this one "nation building" project to slip through their ethics).
If you remember the aftermath of the Iraq2 invasion (which a lot of people claimed was about oil) gas prices did not plummet at all but the reverse. Gas doubled at the pump, maybe slightly more.
Because the US completely botched stabilizing the country despite 10s of thousands of troops on the ground for years. Meanwhile the indigenous insurgency and the previous to the invasion non-existent but subsequently massed foreign Al-Qaeda in Iraq both ensured no meaningful exports could be accomplished.
In Venezuela it's extremely unclear how suddenly creating a giant power vacuum will allow the US to obtain Venezuela's oil.
On one hand, this seems classic from the Trump Admin in that rash actions have been taken with no future plans in place (cf. DOGE), on the other hand this does appear in line with the promise of "no forever wars" (no sustained US ground presence) and if the US does actually end up with the oil, then it will be at a very low cost (in terms of US blood and treasure).
> The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (often called the War Powers Act) is a U.S. law designed to limit the President's power to commit the U.S. to armed conflict without congressional approval, requiring presidential consultation with Congress before deploying forces and mandating reports within 48 hours, with a 60-day limit for troop deployment without a formal authorization, though presidents have often challenged or sidestepped its provisions.
You - and Venezuela - should solve your own internal problems at your own time table. Foreign intervention more often than not translates into puppet regime installation.
Beyond this, if you are from Venezuela it's difficult to stay in the middle beyond the outcomes, it is completely different when prople talk without living or being an expat.
> should solve your own internal problems at your own time table
That's not how international geopolitics works. There are many means in which nation states pull levers to take on problems that exist in other countries. Sanctions, diplomacy, trade barriers, propaganda, military interventions, threats, etc. are all tools that are used by nation states around the world every day.
Why should they not be like that? Absolutist non-intervention is not a realistic strategy in a universe where nation states border each other and their actions affect each other.
As a German, I can say I‘m very happy for the intervention some decades ago, but it’s of course just one example, potentially a bad one, and likely cannot be generalized — just wanted to throw this into the ring as a positive example.
> Germany waged war on just about the whole world, the response to that was one of defense, not offense.
I find it useful to distinguish legality from morality of the move of capturing Maduro and his wife.
One way I approach it is to ask myself: if one could have Maduro returned to Venezuela today, would one? Perhaps the answer that most people would give is yes (i.e. everyone would be better off), but I'm not so sure.
And some of them are levers that we should not tolerate.
I'm not sure who Trump is doing favors for here, but much like when it was Bush doing favors for Haliburton, we could end up with decades of pointless war which neither of the corrupt parties that started it take any responsibility for cleaning up.
Whether through politics or sabotage, its appropriate to intervene if somebody is about to stick you with the bill for something like this. We can't be all "boys will be boys" about it. The consequences are often too severe.
The US only exists due to the foreign intervention of France, and the at-the-time foreign intervention of a few Indian tribes, to help overthrow the crown regime. You might note the domestic efforts were also a dominating force, but I have no reason to believe anti-Maduro domestic efforts were not an instrumental force in making such a smooth operation possible for the US.
Sadam was there because of the US (1959), and he was removed by the US, and not because he was a ruthless dictator.
Bin Laden & Afghanistan same (though obviously he was not their head of state) but much worse. Afghanistan has been abused by so many people it is hard to reason about it without having to go back a century or more.
We live in a world where even regional nuclear war will trigger a nuclear winter that starves people across the earth. Nationalist isolationism makes no sense in the modern world.
That's a very, very bad take and I'm really surprised that you can't see the difference between helping people defend themselves vs interfering in a foreign country because their leadership does not want to give you access to their natural resources on a pretext.
Are you really trying to paint Maduro’s authoritarian regime, who traffics people and drugs, and helps Russia evade international oil and arms sanctions and the US arresting of him as “their leadership doesn’t want to give America access to their natural resources”?
The EU doesn’t even recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela and he forced the democratically elected president into hiding!
By that logic the US shouldn’t get involved in any other foreign entanglement or global police action because of unintended consequences. Tell me, who from the international community will seize Russian shadow fleet oil tankers evading sanctions!
Wait! Crap!
We can’t sanction Russia - if we do it might destabilize the Russian dictator and if he goes out a worse authoritarian regime might come to power!
Meh. The US has a history of installing totalitarian or terrorist governments. The middle-east is a lovely example; the US was responsible for the likes of Osama Bin Laden (CIA asset), for the installation of Saddam Hussein, and many many more.
> As an American, I’m glad to see an authoritarian dictator removed
Personally I'm not. This is like kidnapping the CEO of Kroger because your eggs are too expensive, and then telling everyone you did it because he wasn't listening to his employees enough.
We can't undo this and this was a very big stick we used. I highly doubt this was done with the interests of the common American in mind.
> You think it’s a good idea for foreign countries to overturn domestic elections?
I certainly don't, and I don't speak for the person you replied to but I figure most people commenting here don't think that either
> The Bolivarian regime came to power in a free and fair election
Hugo Chavez was elected president legitimately in 1998, so it's true that the Bolivarian regime came to power fairly. But just about nobody that's paying attention thinks Maduro won the presidential election in 2024. Elections were held, Maduro lost (by a huge margin), and he continued being president anyway
I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections… The official results reported Maduro winning with about 51 % of the vote.
European Parliament resolutions and reports explicitly described the process as lacking transparency and integrity such as not publishing detailed polling station results, meaning the results could not be independently verified, and concluding the election was neither free nor fair.
You may recall María Corina Machado was barred from running shortly before the election itself.
Maduro was reported winning with 5,150,092 votes, or 51.20000% of the vote, and the main opposition had 44.20000% of the vote. These are considered suspiciously round percentages.
Which election. I find no source for that. And even if that where the case, it wouldn't be too far fetched to think someone computed votes from rounded percentages when writing an article.
The Carter Center has a 43 page report that goes into the facts of the 2024 election in detail.
For example “A few minutes after midnight, with 80% of the votes counted, the CNE declared Nicolas Maduro the winner, with 51.2% of the vote, followed by Edmundo González with 44.2%. The CNE did not publish the results by polling station, claiming - without providing evidence - that a cyberattack had made it impossible to upload the results to its website. However, the CNE did not release the results by any alternative method. The lack of detailed results prevented independent verification of the overall results announced by the CNE The CNE canceled three postelection audits that could have verified the alleged cyberattacks.
This included a second citizen verification exercise. The integrity of the elections was damaged by the lack of transparent information.
In a parallel effort, the opposition - through party representatives, observers, and citizens — collected and published online more than 80% of the results forms produced by the voting machines. According to these results, González received 67.1% of the vote, and Maduro received 30.4%. The Venezuelan government claimed - without providing evidence - that the results forms published by the opposition were forged. However, the result forms published were deemed legitimate by external auditors and academics. The Carter Center reviewed the data in the results forms and found it to be accurate.”
> I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections…
I've heard that American elections are rigged too. That still isn't an open invitation for an invasion by another nation to kidnap government officials on US soil. Even if Maduro had abandoned elections entirely and installed himself as king it wouldn't justify what the US has done.
If you look at the Wikipedia article on the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, it seems to be unlikely that the outcome of that election was that Maduro won.
The opposition boycotted the election and told their supporters not to vote, then cried foul when they lost. It may not have been a representative election, but the incumbent party had no need to rig it.
Venezuela haven't had any free and fair election since the dictator in power was Chaves.
IMO, the US doing piracy around it is way more concerning than kidnapping a dictator that sent the military against its people, architected a couple of famines, and forced a double-digts percentage of their population out of the country.
Still, this won't lead to anything good. Because the entire US Executive is composed of incompetent sadistic people right now. But it could be a good thing for Venezuela in different circumstances (but I imagine anybody capable of making good change there would refrain from doing so).
So once elected more than 25 years ago they are allowed to stay and perpetuity and stage sham election just because they won a legitimate one a generation ago?
Venezuelans didn’t just vote for a candidate. They voted to re-found the country under a new constitution and ideology. They’re enjoying the consequences of the ideology they voted for.
Telling someone they're biased must be the most low-effort comment there is. Everyone is biased about any subject where they have even a nuanced self interest in. And in your case, you didn't even specify which part of their comment was allegedly being affected by bias. Nor did you acknowledge your own bias.
Drugs? No. War?! No, words have meanings and that's not what "war" means.
Ignoring diplomacy? Are you accusing the US of ignoring diplomacy, because that's the only half ways reasonable interpretation.
This is weak and pathetic misinformation. I guess it will take a few days before the propaganda machine gets going to try to justify this gigantic waste of taxpayer money and pointless destruction. Hopefully the pros get involved because this is just sad.
You can watch even CBS explain why this was done. Maduro was letting the cartel use private planes under diplomatic immunity to traffic drugs and weapons. EVEN CBS. Don't close your eyes and ears now.
Trump gave one of the biggest drug dealers ever a pardon as well as the Silk Road guy. Time to sanitise where you get your news, you seem to be eating all the propaganda.
Maduro had it coming, although I'm not surprised the bleeding hearts on HN can't see that. The guy was a dictator. Fuck him. Well done USA and happy new year.
I really don't understand one thing: is there a single american who still think this has been done to liberate a country from a dictator in the name of freedom?
Seriously?
This has been done for economical and power interests and USA is the most destabilizing power in the world and a source of war and desperation and death: they supports israel to get political power in middle east, they invaded countries as done in Iraq, they push Nato to the border of Russia and provoke war (not to say Putin had right to invade Ukraine but what would have done usa if mexico Canada or Cuba had russian weapons and support? Oh yes, we knew about Cuba).
And the president Trump: he’s just a ridicolous bully like the ones you can find at high schools.
Please US citizens, grow up. There had been a time when you were admired and respected, now your country is killing the world.
I’m not saying former soviet countries lived better under soviet imposition, but no one can be so naive to think US did that to help and free people.
When a mobster comes to you and free you from your previous mobster, it’s not because he is a good man and wants you to live freely: he does it to impose you his will and power exactly as US have always done.
As the parent comment said, the Warsaw Pact countries pleaded to join. Even Russia wanted to join at one point. America did it for its own reasons? Good, they win and we win.
For some reason I can’t reply to your next comment on nato forced on your country.
When I’m implying that nato has been pushed to former soviet countries I’m referring to the influence done by US to support different governments. In Ukraine revolution in 2014 has been greatly supported by US.
I’m in no way saying China, Russia or whatever country is acting better, I’m just saying nobody can be so naive to not understand that there is no ideal of freedom involved in any US action but only political/power interests.
I’m curious to see which freedom-related justification will be used for the future annexation of Greenland
I have already said that living under soviet would have been worst but that is not the point.
The point is: usa is acting not in the falsey mith of global freedom but only in the name of extending its power and influence.
In Venezuela they didn’t combat narcotraffic otherwise I must expect Italy (my country) invasion since we are the home of one of the greatest cancer in history: mafia.
Don’t drink the lie USA are fighting for freedom otherwise a lot of human lives will be sacrificed uselessly
Nato is an extension of usa in the sense that even if it is a group of nations, in reality, it’s under usa command and influence since usa is its “major shareholder”.
The US provides a large amount of the military force so it has a lot of influence but you're missing the point: it is a mutual protection agreement. Each country agrees to protect the other against attacks. This would be the case even without the US. It is not under US command since it a cooperative organization that elects its own leader and everything it does is though mutual agreement.
But you didn't answer my question: how is NATO a mobster? Because the US is involved? Even if one accepts your anti-US view in this regard, how does that make the other countries in NATO mobsters? Guilt by association? Other NATO countries have shown to be quite independent from the US in recent history.
You misread my comment: when I referred to mobster I was talking about the US “liberating” other countries and not to NATO.
So this is the response to your question.
Anyhow NATO is still under US great influence so in a way or another is acting as an extension of US.
There is nothing bad in joining a coalition but please don’t tell me NATO is not acting as a branch of US when exercising US influence.
Now go back to the point: US liberated Venezuela, yes for sure and it didn’t do for oil or other political interests and it won’t force it’s interests upon those of Venezuelans nor it will put people in command that are neutral and are not puppets in the hands of the US…come on how can you believe the bullshit of war to export democracy and freedom, how?
I responded to your comment as written, you're adding more to it in this reply or importing earlier of your comments. I still disagree with your characterization of NATO.
The US invasion of Venezuela illegal under both US and international and just plain wrong.
I don't support it and never said I did, go through my comment history and check if you want to.
Bolivian here - no tears will be shed over this scumbag. Check tiktok live and people are celebrating in the streets. Believe venezolanos, and neighbors, and not redditors lol.
The world is complex... It is a fact that Chavez and Maduro have completely ruined Venezuela.
That doesn't mean things can't get worse.
I pray the majority of Venezuelans really have had enough of socialist dictatorships and can find a way to govern themselves. The US should not govern Venezuela - but neither should Maduro or his cronies.
This can only be good news for the Venezuelans, having lived in such poor conditions for so long. Soon they will be able to go to McDonald's, drink Starbucks, and maybe one day if they really prove themselves to have that special drive and spirit that only Americans have, apply for US citizenship!
Alright
So I'm fully expecting that companies like Visa and Mastercard to promptly exit US market, for the EU to stop issuing visas to US citizens and harsh sanctions on the US economy by the EU.
"Officials from the United States and other countries have questioned the legality of the strikes."
Look, this is getting tiring. You have no idea what the people in this country went through and they might as well see it as a "good thing". I think the same applies to Iran, an intervention by the US could be the best thing that ever happened in these countries, so the "legality" issue doesn't quite sound warranted in my opinion.
Im not sure we want the president to be going around bypassing congress in regards to the military. I would prefer a congress that took back its power from the executive.
I'm not well informed on how this came to be, but to consider this with regard to US's own interests, I think it is simply a problem to be dealt with sooner than later. You definitely don't want to ignore it until it's a "real problem".
edit: I'd also add that this was also a message to the Supreme Leader -- he seems to be oblivious to the consequences of the threats for his own people and, quite frankly, counts on the percentage of people who disagree. The sheer volume of the lies that is going around is astonishing and you have to live it to know.
It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day. That's not how these things work. This is like the first stone of an avalanche. It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
Remember the 'Arab spring' and what came after.
Considering the extreme amount of crime and violence that currently exists in Venesuela removing it's government without being able to put anything in its place will not be pretty at all...
Without a full military occupation it might just turn into another Haiti just on a much bigger scale. Of course US will probably have to intervene to "secure" the oil industry...
There is not an extreme amount of crime and violence. Years ago yes. But now it's a lot better. Source: living here.
Best of luck to you and yours in the coming days, here's to hoping that it all lands on its feet.
> Best of luck to you and yours in the coming days, here's to hoping that it all lands on its feet.
Imagine some other country kidnaps your country's President and he sends this message to you
I am not directing him specifically. I should have written "someone's" instead of "yours."
But the main point remains the same. This is an act of terror every sane human should condemn
Imagine being incapable of empathy.
The parent comment is probably not written by the POTUS.
The operation was not carried by POTUS either.
With all due respect, that is fatalist logic that does nothing to refute the parent's kind words.
What’s the general mood in your social circles? Are people mad at America or happy to be free of Maduro?
Personally, I think most Americans don't give Venezuela much thought.
I think Trump is hoping to get a short popularity boost the way George Bush did with the capture of Manuel Noriega, but people cared more about who controlled the Panama Canal in the 1990s than they care about who controls Venezuela today. And I don't know anybody who expects this to impact drugs coming from Venezuela or Latin America in general.
Sorry we (the U.S.) are like this. Many of us have been furious for decades but don't know what to do.
But, we also still enjoy all of the benefits of being like this. Cheap oil(that impacts you even if you don't drive), globally very high income, resources of all varieties from all over the world, relative security etc. All these things don't happen to use because we're a nation of swell people. They happen because we do awful things to people around the world in a variety of ways in order to maintain our way of life.
The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
Another comment was discussing how shocked they were with how brazen a move this was for oil, and that in the past the government wouldn't have been so honest. As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
>The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
The truth is Americans mostly don't like this, but have little means to do much due to the political structure of how our government works. Our legislature is silently approving and it is clearly costing the seats, even thought it is still 10 months before the next cycle of elections for those seats. But that's 10 months away, and while tensions were strong for months this happened in a single day. It's so much easier to tear down than to build up.
And the truth is that most of us aren't going to try and perform a violent upheaval against a trillion dollar military complex. We lack the skills, resources, and even geography for that. I can't even afford a plane ride to DC at the moment.
I'm not a particular fan of the "you critique society yet you participate in it" argument. This assumes a lot of agency in the individual that doesn't exist without collective bargaining.
>As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
Every country has inconvenient truths it tries to hide. It being brazen about the evils it commits is the truly surprising part. The whole point of propaganda is convincing your people that they are the good guys, and there was none of that pomp here.
The strategy of the administration appears to be that they have authorization to “breaking things quickly” and then can ask the powers at be to approve any “fix” or simply accept the broken state.
If Venezuela descends into a state of anarchy, they can ask congress to approve a plan to restore order. We’re irrevocably involved in the situation now.
But I will be blunt, the problem is not just the current government. One of our political parties starts at least one large conflict every time they are in power. This has happened for 35 years now, if this continues my entire lifespan will have existed in a perpetual state of war.
Haven’t all the large conflicts in the past 40 years been started by one party? Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq 1, all the stuff in South America in the 80s…
I think that was their point.
I just checked the American approval of ousting Maduro. It's surprisingly lower than I expected. About an even 33/33/33 split for yes/unsure/no.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/only-33-americans-app...
Bush Jr. was re-elected after invading Iraq. So majority if Americans do want this.
George W. got reelected - by a razor-thin margin - for three reasons: lucky timing, an unpopular opposition candidate, and a deliberate campaign to smear Kerry's record in the service.
GW's popularity steadily declined from the summer of '03 until the end of his presidency. If the election had been any later, he would've been below 50% and wouldn't have been able to pull it off. Meanwhile Democrats chose the least energizing presidential candidate I've seen in my entire adult life. (I've been voting since Bush v. Gore.) And when Kerry was nominated and the Swift Boat smear campaign started - a group whose claims have been since been discredited - Democrats did very little to fight back.
Even if we did "want this" back then, support for the invasion of Iraq plummeted during Bush's second term and has never recovered. Two-thirds of Americans, and almost that many veterans who actually fought in the war, said it wasn't worth fighting and still say so today.
So no, the majority of us don't want this.
What does it matter 49 or 51?
More than 40% want this. You would condemn cultures around the world happily if significant percentage are like this. Why are you so special then?
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Excellent comment that really gets to the crux of the matter. Countries like China and India see themselves as civilizational, America sees itself as a perfect marketplace - it exists to feed its customers's wants and whims as efficiently as possible. I don't necessarily mean this in a demeaning way, it is what it is. In some sense, America is a state-level example of hedonic adaptation with its positives being improvements in quality of life and development of new tech, negatives being a bully in world politics, endless wars and bloodshed.
In general, hedonic adaption ends either with internal retrospection (shifting from pleasure to purpose) or an external disruption. In America's case, the former is extremely unlikely IMHO - the American people will not put their money where their mouth is because they enjoy the wealth generated this way. It will be upto external disruptors to check on Uncle Sam's endless thirst.
As long as people all over the world are using ChatGPT and GMail they have all the intel needed to control the world, just like they won wars by all telegrams going through them in the 1800s.
China is their only competitor, but so far people clearly prefer to chat with AI companies from USA.
> The truth is Americans do want this
I'm not so sure. Sure, they want the benefits that are provided. However, if being aware of what the costs are to get those benefits apriori, I'm not sure Americans would think the exchange worthwhile.
> Sure, they want the benefits that are provided. However, if being aware of what the costs are to get those benefits apriori
no being aware is the key here. For example just on NPR - 40% of American kids think bacon is a plant.
(Don't get me wrong - i intentionally immigrated to US and i like all those benefits of life here. Speaking about the costs of that to the rest of the world - back in Russia i worked for domestic employers as well as for a US based one, and being "exploited" by the US based employer were much nicer than by the domestics.)
Children ages 4-7.
They also believe a fat man dressed in red zips around the earth one night to give everyone presents.
They’re children. They don’t need to know where bacon and hot dogs come from.
I doubt those children care about anything outside their bubble.
>They’re children. They don’t need to know where bacon and hot dogs come from.
not sure about that. Around age 7 i saw a full butchering of a pig at my grandmother's farm, and i was still happily eating pork for the next 20+ years, and i don't remember anybody in my childhood not knowing where the bacon is coming from. I stopped eating beef and pork though about 20 years ago exactly for the reason where it comes from.
Btw, "They don’t need to know where ... come from" can be said by the powers-to-be about people of any age.
Those are 4-7 year old children in the study, but still...
While that might certainly be true in the abstract, it isn't worth much.
Most people would probably eat less meat if they knew exactly what was happening to the animals in that process. We'd eat less chocolate if we really thought about the slavery in the chocolate supply chain. We'd not buy certain products because of the environmental impact and working conditions.
But instead we just mostly deliberately avoid learning and thinking about those things. And I count myself as well. The incentives all push Americans to be OK with this.
I think you and your parent think that people have more of a concern of others than actual reality. Most americans walk past homeless people and think nothing of it. Most americans, and certainly those in wealthy cities, care about others at a superficial level. For instance you and your parent complain, and that’s where it ends. You will not sacrifice yourself or your life for others, asking others to is just negligent.
This is hardly a uniquely American problem. People have been writing about treating the poor better for millennia.
>You will not sacrifice yourself or your life for others, asking others to is just negligent.
I'm asking about 218 elected representatives and 67 senators to do their job. This isn't a matter of "we (the people) need to start a civil war to show our disdain for these actions". At least, not yet. There's so many channels to address this that doesn't involve "sacrificing ourselves", but the channels are at best clogged and at worst compliant, despite what they were voted to do.
You and those politicians understand their job descriptions very differently.
Because you don't know what you're getting yourself into with a stranger, and most people aren't social workers or drug counselors with experience helping the homeless.
thats nonsense. I hang out with the homeless all the time. some of them are really just mentally ill, some are real shitheads, but there are alot of perfectly normal people out there that are just reacting to daily trauma. if can live through not having a place to sleep where you dont have to worry about getting fucked up or raped, and having your shit jacked by the police and other homeless all the time, and still keep some semblance of sanity, then you're a stronger person than I.
I don't understand why your comment is phrased as if it contradicts me?
"in the past the government wouldn't have been so honest"
I'm 37, so I was young at the time of Afghanistan/Iraq, about 14. I recall thinking the adults who said it was "for the oil" were dangerously naive: neither had significant oil resources that would alter supply dramatically, gas prices weren't high, the administration had 0 to say on that front, and it wasn't even close to a focus once fighting settled.
This leaves me curious about conclusions drawn from that.
Control of the poppy trade (opium/heroin) and suppression of some of Israel's neighborhood enemies. And a lot of profits for military contractors.
Remember Dick Chaney had huge conflicts of interest. It was also about oil but not only oil.
I find it mildly amusing I'm at -1 for an obviously-correct observation re: oil not being a clear motivation & the top reply is "we wanted control of heroin trade, to help Israel defeat their principal regional rival Afghanistan, and pay off military contractors."
In reality, an administration with an ideological bent towards using military force reacted, with universal acclaim, to 9/11.
Future historians, it didn't used to be like this. Started getting really weird around 2018.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Sadam was a dictator that kept the various religious factions in line. America was just looking for an excuse to go in again. Everyone knew there were no weapons of mass distraction too. The reasons for America going in are complex, but relate to control of the middle east, keeping USA currency top, resources, and money for various groups that benefitted.
I agree wholeheartedly: I don't think it was smart or right. Simply, an administration without an ideological taboo against war reacted to 9/11.
He said Israel, not "the Jews." Israel doesn't represent all Jews and you know it
He said Israel, not "the Jews." Israel doesn't represent all Jews, I know it.
And the us became a oil net exporter, which makes you more interested in a constricted supply. The whole story just never checked out, if you move it around just a little bit.
It was about giving US companies control over the profits from the oil industry and crushing an unaligned country in the region to turn it into a US puppet state, not just to carry barrels of crude oil home.
Also line up the pockets of the military contractors that got paid to "rebuild" Iraq.
dont forget that Iraq _was_ a US puppet state for the bulk of the Iran-Iraq war. It's entirely plausible that Hussein just got too uppity, and needed to be taken out.
Those who think the US is evil were not affected by these predictions not coming true.
It's typically not an empirically based conviction.
Iraq has huge oil reserves. Afghanistan, not, but Iraq yes.
This is simultaneously A) true B) not particularly huge IMHO (~5% of global oil production, 8% of reserves) C) unrelated as to whether the US "got their oil"
Iraq has historically had a lot of undiscovered reserves.
8% of the entire world's proven oil reserves is not particularly huge?!
Correct
Compared to what? Cause by any reasonable measure I can come up with, that's an absolutely bonkers amount of oil.
I'm a bit confused.
If I'm understanding correctly, I'm reminded of an old saw I think I made up:
You can lie (shade people's interpretations) by either using percentages, or gross amounts.
I'm sure that's a TON of oil, gross amount.
I'm also sure 8% is "not particularly huge".
For instance, if I could get you without this frame, and told you that you got a 92% on a test, you got an "absolutely bonkers amount" of questions wrong...you'd argue with me.
If you started crying when I told you that you got a 92% on the test, then told you that's a "not particularly huge" amount to get wrong, I think you'd agree, if not be consoled.
And, sorry, but your analogy sucks. Multiple students can get 0-100% on any given test independently.
Now imagine if only one student out of a class of ~200 (~195 countries in the world) can get the right answer to each question (200 questions total) and once one person answers the question, no one else can get credit for it (if you burn oil, it's gone).
By default, each country should get 1 question or 0.5% (percent of oil) on the test. Now the teacher announces that the answer to 16 questions (8%) can be found in the library and the person who gets there first gets all those points.. Getting a hold of even ONE block of 8% probably puts you in the top 10 students in the class. If you can find such a block to add to your 3% (US), at 11%, you're likely to be in the top 5 students in the class. Add another 10% (Venezuela) and 6% (Canada), and at 27%, you're probably #1.
I respect the shit out of you for chasing this and coming up with an obvious angle I missed in my last volley. I agree to disagree, because my fundamental reaction at this point is you’re being obtuse on purpose and that’s unfair and wrong. I owe you a beer if we meet, good hard interlocution.
Afghanistan produced like 90% of the world's opium.
I find a lot of that type of thinking is born of conspiracy theory motivations: they want the world to make sense so there has to be "a plan". It leads to people chronically overvaluing money and chronically underestimating ideology.
Trouble is that Trump's ideology is all but explicitly rapacious and amoral.
I think you are correct that Bush had a very different ideology. I view him as more of a buffoon than a robber baron. (We spent $2-3T in Iraq -- if it was robbery, it was not effective.) I doubt it makes much difference to people whose lives were ruined. But it could be important in the broader context of predicting US behavior: Bush started the PEPFAR program which saved millions from AIDS in Africa; Trump wrecked it.
One very sad possibility is that Bush discredited the ideology of "compassionate conservatism" in the US through his bumbling, and that contributed to the relative popularity of Trump's "amoral conservatism".
> We spent $2-3T in Iraq -- if it was robbery, it was not effective.
The robbery was done against the American people. They are the ones who were robbed! Imagine in what shape the country would be if you would have gotten free higher education and free healthcare instead?
The other and with that the biggest victim were the causalities from the invasion, but they were not robbed but rather assaulted…
The taxpayers paid $2-3T in Iraq. The military-industrial complex made a killing.
Yes - it was a direct transfer of $$ from taxpayers to Haliburton (Dick Cheney, IIRC) et al.
> They happen because we do awful things to people around the world in a variety of ways in order to maintain our way of life.
And having been lucky in the last century+ that none of your neighbors did anything wild. Not having to fight an actual war in your own country helps a lot in getting ahead.
And no, pearl harbor doesn't count, as bad as that was it's nothing compared to the destruction of 2 world wars that set Europe back a century
If we’re still chasing cheap oil we’re going to get crushed by China. Both from an economic and national security perspective, ignoring renewable energy to pursue burning more fossil fuels is the height of ignorance. Not only are we destroying the planet for future generations, burning oil is already more expensive than wind and solar + batteries.
Which is what I've come to realize: at least for the US, national prosperity comes at the expense of foreigners' misery [0]. I wonder if this holds for other countries, too? I wonder if --- for example --- former European colonist state's citizens stare at themselves in the mirror and question who built their large buildings; what the provenance of the gold decorations on their buildings? Would they be so well off?
Having moved to Europe from Mexico, I sometimes get asked if Spain is regarded as "having brought civilization" to Mexico; the first time I heard the question, it took me a while to collect my jaw from the floor: I could not believe someone was that accidentally uninformed... seems like it had been a deliberate choice to not teach about the race systems that their ancestors had imposed (i.e. inventors of apartheid, in a way), the raping, the slavery, nor systematic complicity of the church, as well [1]:
> In 1512, the Laws of Burgos forced the conquistadores to respect the rights and freedom of Indigenous peoples. This was followed formally by the papal bull, Sublimus Dei of 1537 which declared Native Americans were no longer to be considered “dumb brutes created for our service” but were “truly men” capable of thinking, acting, and deciding their own destiny, control their own properties, and enjoy liberty. It proceeded to formally prohibit the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, one year later, this was nullified (Pope Paul III, 1537).
And that's not even covering the destruction of written history and books [2].
So, I think you may be right... this entire world may be filled with selfish monsters that do not want to know --- really know --- how much they are benefiting from other people's suffering.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a9xlQrcbx0
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/spanish...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa#Suppression_of_...
> Cheap oil
Well allowing Iran unlimited access to global markets would certainly help that.
Same for Venesuela, lifting sanctions and making it easier for them to develop their infrastructure would have lowered the global price of oil.
Governments in both countries are more than happy to sell more oil if anyone allowed them to.
It's not like US politically controlling a large oil producing country makes oil cheaper for Americans. They still have to buy it at the same price as everyone else.
Profits of American oil companies is quite a different matter, though.
Only because no one is presenting both options to the public as a choice - cheap gas but you'll screw up dozens of countries and create insecurity for your kids. They would be less likely to want that if they understood the tradeoff. Let's be clear, this choice was made by rich people who'll make a lot more money from it, and they won't be the ones bearing the costs. So this isn't on Americans' greed, just their ignorance.
It’s because we have a sense of fatalism about our political class’ ability to address any long-term negative consequences: climate change, and a ballooning debt that a future administration will use as an excuse to shred whatever is left of Social Security and America’s safety net. Don’t confuse that with acceptance.
The US is a shit country. I've been traveling around the world for months now and there's no benefit to living in the US. Cheap gas but no health care, no public transit, no trains, no affordable housing, shitty class relations? American exceptionalism is deluded. The imperialism isn't benefiting the American people quit fooling yourself.
I don't think the US has "shitty class relations". Most of your complaints are true, but in the US social class is mutable and upgrades to social class are encouraged and celebrated (even though this is becoming much more difficult in practice). Contrast this with Europe and other parts of the world with entrenched aristocracies and castes that survive generations. There are major problems but social mobility is still relatively better in US; in Europe healthcare is way better and being on the bottom rung isn't as bad, but fewer people from the bottom make it to the top.
> globally very high income
As someone from central Europe: lol
There is a tiny portion that makes the GDP look nice, but as someone who knows average Americans outside of tech, it's an absolute joke. Especially when you look at necessities you basically cannot get around (medical costs, taxes, etc.).
Sure if you are on HN chances are you might not notice, but I know people that effectively live in somewhat close to slavery because they need to work every working hour simply to live and has been caught in a nice web where they don't even have time to reconsider life. Something the employer clearly set up that way, including things like being the landlord.
That's why there can be an elite and a "middle class" that lives off these people.
The homeless problem not just in SF but all the way to the midwest is ridiculous and how these homeless people are dealt with - basically like a pest is outrageous.
People here get severely upset about how bad people have it here, when they do have it much nicer. Meanwhile people in the US seem to largely turn a blind eye.
All that while taking the hit of refugees that have (largely) been caused by US politics.
I am sorry, but things don't work despite meddling with any country that has natural resources.
And I mean that as it is. I know it's not easy to come out of it. But the thing is starting a war every now and then doesn't seem to help a lot of fixing actual problems. Despite all the benefits it clearly has for the US.
How do we even know they're being honest? They've been lying about everything for so long, and now we're just suddenly gonna believe they're being honest only when it pertains to Venezuela? Why?
Well, they're pretty blunt and open about "get their oil" motives.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/us-will-look-tap-ven...
If they're lying... that's an awfully strange choice of lies. It makes them look rather thuggish. Usually you pick a lie that would make you look better, right?
They like being seen as thugs. Being a thug generally works on people because most people are too scared to challenge them.
They are telling you who they are. Believe them.
The administration doesn't care about whether their motives appear palatable or not. Every decision is based on an ever increasing cascade of consequences they can dam up and then release on other people so said administration can go do something else during the cleanup. Aside from one person who's a massive narcissist they don't give a damn about how they're perceived. They only cared when other people had the authority to grand them authority, but now that they are the authority they'll never give it away. And when you don't have to worry about losing your authority you don't have to care about what people think of you. This is why the weakest monarchs were the ones with debts, and the strongest ones were those with centralized militaries.
When the howling base demands mass deportations they look quiet peacefully.
> The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
For myself, I could not disagree more. I don't want this. And if you know of a lever I can pull to make it stop, I'm all ears - as long as it's not voting, calling my reps, or holding a sign. I've been doing those things for over 25 years and they haven't done squat.
I appreciate the honesty myself... While I'd like to see the actually elected officials in Venezuela put in charge, I understand the govt will largely be working through the seated govt and other channels in order to encourage the desired changes.
I don't think Oil is the sole reason for this, I think that the influences of Iran, China, Russia and Cuba in Venezuela as well as the drug trafficking coming through them is the larger issue... getting back the Oil trade in the end is just icing on the proverbial cake. I also think it could be better for the people of Venezuela in the long run vs the authoritarian and communist influences they've had over the past half century.
Trump is funny, dishonest as hell when it comes to his ego, but more honest than any other politician I've ever even heard of at the same time.
As someone originally from a country that would have benefitted from a similar intervention, I wish the U.S. were more like this.
That’s assuming Venezuela does not turn into a civil war, or the American-installed dictator will not be as bad as Maduro.
Not respecting international law?
Besides being a fiction very much supported by dictators, international law is a delusion entertained by (a) those who have never lived under a dictatorship and (b) those oblivious to the fact that their freedoms and peace depend on the protection of the world’s most powerful military.
People in Venezuela and Iran have more pressing concerns than international law.
Getting rid if dictators is good, actually.
Yes - is there a bit more going on?
Or, is reducing it to “dictator bad; gone good” unobvious, and something that slipped by everyone?
To wit: we’re in a thread for the top comment for a 3844 comment post, and that comment is noting that when there’s a power vacuum, things usually* get worse for the citizenry.
* nigh universally
If you look at what happened to EU or north Africa after death of Kaddafi or Hussain:
No, it was a terrible outcome. US stold gold and oil while the rest of the world had to cope with the aftermath.
US and Izrael are notoriously breaking international laws, both countries are ruled by criminals.
If it had been about taking out dictators, they were kind of spoiled for choice in that regard. They could have picked an easier one, or at least one which made strategic sense in some way.
https://chatgpt.com/share/695a2613-97e8-800e-b2e4-28fc7707f2...
Is it getting rid of it or changing for another one?
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They haven’t removed the government. They removed Maduro. Very different.
While it's true that so far they only removed Maduro, removing a sitting president and his wife is a show of power, it's a "we do whatever we want". What is stopping the US to remove the next person, and continue doing so until as they find someone that they like? Or to organize an up-rising or a coup? The writing is on the wall.
This already likely was a coup. They knew exactly where Maduro was and were able to get in and out, with no air defense issues, no alarm issues, and all presumably with just a small commando group. This isn't like grabbing Osama who was relatively alone on a compound - this is the current President of a country, who was already probably quite paranoid, and who now was under active threat and certainly behaving accordingly. Doing all that as an outsider is basically impossible, so they must have had substantial amounts of insider help, which is essentially the definition of a coup.
And the media is already reporting that 'somehow' all of his inner circle seem to have survived.
They blew up the air defences and reportedly had help from a CIA informant, but there's nothing to indicate that it was a coup.
True but you don't need advanced defense to take out slow moving helicopters, the fact that nobody used manpads is extremely suspect. Also in syria the russians did token airstrikes while jolani's forces blitzed through the countryside.
It was done at night with stealth helicopters, and over 150 planes in the air. Not sure it's necessarily easy to take out US military helicopters in that environment. They move pretty fast.
Sure, but bulky chinnok helicopters flying low to the ground and barely getting shot at? Smelling an inside job honestly, especially with rumors of trump wanting have Venezuela's current VP ascend to the presidency instead of the other investor lady.
That was only to save face. It was part of a negotiated exit.
2-3 years max in a federal country club prison, minimum security. Then it's off to Switzerland or Dubai with his ill gotten gains. It is rather sad to see people having a personal stake in this. It's a big club, and you ain't in it.
To be fair, an illegitimate president, who was being protected with forces from a foreign (to them) govt. A LOT of people in and from Venezuela wanted Maduro out. The dancing in the streets are a pretty big indicator of this. And it's quite probable there were insiders involved that helped this operation happen.
Venezuela was a functioning democracy until a short number of years ago, when Maduro stole the election through clear and blatant fraud.
Not every country is Iraq or Afghanistan. At least here it's fairly clear that removing Maduro reflects the popular will of Venezuelans.
One could easily ask the same question about the US. With congress having abdicated it raises the legitimate question of exactly what the US is now.
Among my European friends, no one considers the USA to be a legitimate democracy any more. The USA has for us devolved into a bandit state.
They should study political philosophy a bit more so they don’t say foolish things.
America is very clearly a legitimate democracy, even if who was voted in office and the actions of that democratically elected government don’t align with your expectations or world view.
I didn’t vote for the guy. But I did vote. And as a poll worker I can tell you first hand that we ran a free and fair election as we have for any year I can think of. Legitimate Democracy. Period.
That's a legitimately run _election_, which is necessary for but not the same as a legitimate democracy. For a democracy to be legitimate you need an impartial judiciary, an enforced constitution, fundamental civil liberties, and an accountable government.
Those are good points and the United States could do a better job, but those elements are all graded on a spectrum. I don’t think that having a few failures over some number of years means all of a sudden the entire thing is illegitimate.
Thank you for serving as a poll worker. (Seriously: thank you)
We have a legitimate democracy in terms of vote-counting, and you personally contribute to that.
It looks a lot less legitimate to me when I think about factors like votes having vastly varying weights because of gerrymandering and the Electoral College.
It gets even less legitimate when I think about how severely restricted our choice of candidates are, and how they are more or less chosen by party leaders and the oligarchy via billions of dollars of lobbying etc.
In this case, Trump won both the popular vote and the Electoral vote... that said, I believe in the idea of the Electoral College in that it's important to balance population and each State's rights. The one thing I would like to see are a larger congressional body as there are too few congressional representatives for the size of the electorate. We should probably have at least 3x the members of the House to at least be closer to the founding norms. Just my own take.
I'd also like to see a better runoff system than what we have in place, which could give a chance to more parties coming out. Right now, there are alignments into the two major parties and a lot of infighting because they are at least closer to what each group wants, but not really aligned and these create hard splits where there shouldn't be on a lot of issues.
Well, in the same vein I could tell you to re-take your primary school civics classes and write me an essay on the key components of a modern democracy.
The mechanism by which we choose leaders isn’t even in the top three most important prerequisites for a functioning democracy. If you didn’t pay attention in history and civics classes this may come as a surprise.
Democracy is about voting. What you’re referring to is “modern government,” which is full of undemocratic institutions and run by unelected bureaucrats according to values that don’t reflect the public’s.
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As corporate lobbying succeeds with its lobotomization/capture of public institutions, it fundamentally raises the bar for what constitutes legitimate democracy - for example ranked choice voting rather than raced-to-the-bottom plurality. Or to the point you're responding to - as Congress continues to sit by and let this dictator run amok, how much can we say that this is really the democratic system working as laid out, rather than a mere husk of the old democratic structure going through the motions while something else is actually running the show?
This should be doubly apparent in this thread, where this specific invasion would likely still be happening even if the fascists had lost in 2024 - this has military industrial complex's manufacturing consent and nation building all over it, regardless of it benefiting Trump to distract from the childrape files and whatever other corruption/stealing he can wedge in.
I certainly see the vitriol against the US on r/europe which seems like it has more news about the United States than Europe.
Can’t help but think it’s orchestrated by Russian bots.
You do realize the current government won the elections and the president won the popular vote right
> You do realize the current government won the elections and the president won the popular vote right
Technically he won a plurality of the popular vote, but he didn't win the popular vote. This is typically not a distinction that matters, but in this case it's what happened. The majority of people voted for someone else, but he got votes from more people than any other candidate did.
Of course, what really matters is the electoral college, but the popular vote is often seen as lending even more legitimacy to a victory.
The reason it doesn’t matter is that everyone who chooses to vote third party does so fully knowing who the two front runners are, as well as the likely margin of their state. Most third-party voters are in extremely uncompetitive states, making it quite safe to make a statement vote, even though it potentially dampens your “lesser of two evils” candidate’s apparent mandate.
For instance, I wrote an invalid write-in candidate since both major parties ran clowns in 2024, but Harris carried my state by a mile.
This is very true... I used to vote Libertarian for all races where there was a Libertarian candidate... then my state shifted purple, and I'd rather see a Republican more often than not over a given Democrat candidate. While I don't agree with the actual far right fringe, I cannot vote for a party with prominent communists in it.
I agree that most people who vote for other candidates come from uncompetitive states. But this doesn't necessarily prove your point. If there were more other-candidate supporters who would have voted for Kamala (if they had to vote for one of the two main candidates) than Trump, then that would mean he wouldn't have won the popular vote if it was just between the two of them.
Regardless, I think it's important to be precise about claims like this, since there is actually a difference between winning the popular vote and winning a plurality of it. Imagine making the claim if 10% of the popular vote went to third-party candidates, or even 20%!
> For instance, I wrote an invalid write-in candidate since both major parties ran clowns in 2024,
That makes you part of the problem. And no, only one party ran a clown, and that party won because of people like you.
Don’t worry, the next out-of-touch geezer you run will definitely have the charisma to win. It looks like they may be up against JD Vance for Christ’s sake.
At this point the bar is so low, who knows? A criminal rapist fraudster grifter won and continues to have enthusiastic support. Personally, I blame religion for strengthening those tribalism neural pathways and eroding critical thinking abilities.
Critical thinking comes later, not before. So religion doesn't erode them, but delays them.
Secondly, tribal behavior is strengthened through sports teams, college allegiances, rep vs dem party lines and many other things, with the latter of those being the main reason.
Thirdly, the dems were very pro zionist while Trump was able to maintain deniability. This swung a lot of dem voters.
Lastly, Kamala got something like 0 votes in the primary. Wishing she would win the general election was delusional. Dems should themselves in the foot twice vs Trump with Kamala and when they betrayed Bernie to help Hillary.
You should engage in some critical thinking yourself instead of blasting your insecurities over the internet. Your media diet (bet $1000 that reddit is a big part) needs a do-over.
> Critical thinking comes later, not before. So religion doesn't erode them, but delays them.
Critical thinking is a base human ability, which religion can indeed erode before it has a chance to grow.
> Secondly, tribal behavior is strengthened through sports teams, college allegiances, rep vs dem party lines and many other things, with the latter of those being the main reason.
This doesn't negate anything I've said, it adds to it. It is notable that the more religious parts of the US act more religious about their political party, however - something not seen in most western countries.
> Thirdly, the dems were very pro zionist while Trump was able to maintain deniability. This swung a lot of dem voters.
They were not as pro zionist as the "Lets demolish Gaza and build new resorts" GOP.
> Wishing she would win the general election was delusional.
Only because the US population is what it is, which is why wishing the only rational choice got elected is too much to hope for.
> blasting your insecurities over the internet.
I'm doing no such thing, however the way you make assumptions so haphazardly shows you yourself could benefit from some critical thinking instruction.
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The left barely altered course in any perceptable manner, at least to disinterested parties outside of the US.
The US right, however, went all in on woke .. they literally couldn't shut up about "the left", "woke" and immigrants eating pets.
Outside of that Fox / Carson / Turner Network et al altered reality bubble it was hard to see evidence of significant increases in Drag Conversion therapy in school libraries and litter boxes in school classrooms.
Good effort though, it was years of sustained make believe and dead cat after dead cat thrown on the table of public discourse.
Tell yourself that if you want, but it's well-documented that the "Kamala's for they/them, Donald Trump is for you" ad was the top performer in the 2024 election cycle.
Kamala declined to walk back her support for, among other things, taxpayer funding of transgender surgeries for inmates. This was an extreme position that most Americans do not support. It is also at odds with the global trend, including in progressive European countries, with regard to the risks/benefits of transgender surgeries.
The Left loves to play the "Republicans pounce" game, and say that the Right is politicizing things. But this is a situation where the Right was reacting to a move the Left had made. This situation helped the Right win in the 2024 election cycle because they had the 80 percent side of multiple 80/20 issues (especially border security and transgender issues).
You can dislike the outcome (I sure do!), but this was a case of the pendulum swinging back, not the Right getting out over its skis.
ADDITION: It also didn't help that the prior administration had lied its face off about Biden being competent, which undermined trust in Dems in general and Kamala in particular. But when Republicans called this out, they were not exaggerating, they were just 6 months ahead of CNN/MSNBC finally admitting it after the debate.
> Tell yourself that if you want, but it's well-documented that the "Kamala's for they/them, Donald Trump is for you" ad was the top performer in the 2024 election cycle.
That's the problem, though. It shows how gullible and easy manipulated the US population was. Trans people are already such a tiny part of society, and an even tinier part of the prison population.
Offering healthcare for prisoners is something a developed, first world country should do, and trans healthcare is considered by experts to be necessary most of the time.
To throw away a vote on this single issue can only be due to ignorance, hate or both.
> That's the problem, though. It shows how gullible and easy manipulated the US population was. Trans people are already such a tiny part of society, and an even tinier part of the prison population.
But Kamala's position was not that it wouldn't cost very much. She backed the ideology, and the vast majority of Americans disagree with that ideology.
> To throw away a vote on this single issue can only be due to ignorance, hate or both.
Many Americans saw this issue as yet another one (like the Biden competence one) where Dems were telling them to ignore what appear to be plainly obvious facts, like "men cannot become women". Some voters decided that they could not support a candidate who appeared to live in a different reality, on the thinking that "if she's willing to lie to me about such basic facts, what won't she lie to me about?"
> But Kamala's position was not that it wouldn't cost very much. She backed the ideology, and the vast majority of Americans disagree with that ideology.
I don't think that's really accurate. Most Americans are deeply misinformed on the issue, and a fair percentage of them think it's something like men making excuses to go in women's prisons.
A lot of those voters got their info specifically from misinformation sources like Fox News or those ads.
> Many Americans saw this issue as yet another one (like the Biden competence one) where Dems were telling them to ignore what appear to be plainly obvious facts, like "men cannot become women". Some voters decided that they could not support a candidate who appeared to live in a different reality, on the thinking that "if she's willing to lie to me about such basic facts, what won't she lie to me about?"
This is why I've said elsewhere democracy doesn't work when you have such an uneducated population. Those voters are not informed on issues of transgender health of gender dysphoria, and so were taken advantage of and misled by a party that created/stoked fears and spread misinformation to win an election.
> This is why I've said elsewhere democracy doesn't work when you have such an uneducated population
You're literally the person who downthread advocates for redefining "majority" to be a synonym with "plurality" because people who don't know the actual definition of "majority" use it that way.
> Those voters are not informed on issues of transgender health of gender dysphoria, and so were taken advantage of and misled by a party that created/stoked fears and spread misinformation to win an election.
This appears to be largely autobiographical.
> You're literally the person who downthread advocates for redefining "majority" to be a synonym with "plurality" because people who don't know the actual definition of "majority" use it that way.
No. Far from it. This seems to be a case of willful ignorance, as I said in a previous reply reputable dictionaries[0] define majority to mean 'most', i.e. a definition exists for the word majority which exactly matches the way people use it.
It would seem it is you who is unaware of at least one of the definitions of the word majority.
> This appears to be largely autobiographical.
It's as objective as can be.
[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority
To the extent is is autobiographical, your comment about uneducated people who were misled by a party spreading misinformation is indeed objective. Good luck escaping your chosen bubble!
No, it isn't autobiographical. It's pretty widely documented that the vast majority are ignorant about transgender issues and help. The GOP ads focusing on trans issues were objectively misinformation, just like 45s claim about migrants eating cats and dogs.
Out of the two of us, I'm not the one in a bubble.
"I'm not in a bubble" is literally what people in a bubble say, FWIW.
You seem to think it's more likely that 80% of the country has been misled by propaganda related to basic human biology than that the other 20% is wrong. There have been plenty of times when 80% of people were wrong about something, but when the topic is one that all humans have firsthand experience with, it's somewhat less likely that they've been magically misled.
You're off-base comparing this to migrants eating cats and dogs. That was never an 80/20 issue.
> "I'm not in a bubble" is literally what people in a bubble say, FWIW.
I assume people genuinely not in a bubble also say it though. Gee whiz, what a conundrum!
> You seem to think it's more likely that 80% of the country has been misled by propaganda
I never gave or implied a percentage anywhere close to that.
> related to basic human biology than that the other 20% is wrong.
Yes, I trust medical experts and scientific and medical consensus over people that have no clue or expertise but let themselves be riled up.
> but when the topic is one that all humans have firsthand experience with, it's somewhat less likely that they've been magically misled.
Same reasoning people like you used to use that homosexuality "isn't natural".
> You're off-base comparing this to migrants eating cats and dogs. That was never an 80/20 issue.
Nor is trans health issues. If you really believe so, please provide some sources.
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> The left barely altered course in any perceptable manner, at least to disinterested parties outside of the US.
Obama carried out mass deportations, claimed that undocumented migrants broke laws and must be held accountable, ordered extrajudicial execution of US citizen and was protected by executive privilege, invaded Pakistan to kidnap and execute Osama bin Laden, deposed Gaddafi and destroyed Libya, campaigned on a platform opposing gay marriage, wanted better relations with Russia and was secretly transmitting promises to Putin, vastly expanded the state surveillance apparatus, had citigroup appoint his cabinet, gave bankers bankers / wall st a pass for their role in the mortgage crisis. And he was (and very much still is), he was a darling of the left.
When pressed, many will try to claim they never really liked him, disavowed those particular things about him, that he was actually a right-wing president, etc., which in a weasely way might be technically true, but the difference in decibels surrounding very similar actions betrays reality.
The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade. Not sure why I see so many denying this. Unless you're trying to say they never cared about any of that and still don't they're simply cheerleading for their team, which is more cynical but more understandable I guess.
> The American mainstream left has changed quite a bit in the last decade.
The only thing the American "mainstream left" did in the last decade is grow from a completely insignificant size, on a national scale, to a slightly less insignificant size, through a subset of the political disaffected becoming engaged (a big catalyst for that being Bernie Sanders 2016 primary campaign; DSA membership shot up, IIRC, more than 10-fold directly after that.)
The set of viewpoints in that group didn't really change all that much, nor did the set of viewpoints in the actually mainstream groups left of the GOP (which themselves are not actually left, but center-right pro-capitalist.)
No, that's not the American mainstream left.
Its the closest thing to both mainstream and left that currently exists.
And its also the source of the change in the overall Democratic coalition; the Democratic center-right that has been (and remains) the dominant faction of the party hasn't moved an inch, but the party as a whole has moved because the segment further left has grown substantially, mainly by mobilizing the previously disaffected.
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> No it's not, that's just something the left uses to deflect rather than take ownership of their own problems.
No, it is the fucking left.
> The democrat party essentially is the mainstream American left
The US has no political party named “the democrat party”, and the Democratic Party is (as historically each of the two major US parties has normally been) a broad coalition party, the dominant faction of which currently is center-right neoliberal capitalist, not anything even approximating left. The center-left to left component of the party is substantially weaker (though it has grown stronger since 2016, with an influx of the previously disaffected, as I described.)
On a very zoomed out aggregate level, sure, the Democratic Party has changed—and if that’s what you want to talk about, just say that—but the source of that change is the part that isn’t center-right neoliberal capitalist drawing in new blood from outside the party, not a change in the positions of the left (or, for that matter, a change in the position of the dominant faction of the part,y, either.)
If you use “left” to refer to a faction that (1) is largely seen as an opposing force by those who identify as “left”, and (2) largely sees the “left” as the label of an opposing force, and (3) where even you admit there is a much clearer term for what you are actually referring to... Well, maybe you should reconsider your terminology.
No, you're just going berserk for no good reason. Everybody understood the words and the context, even you did despite feigning ignorance. These are commonly used terms, and were put in an entirely proper and understandable context. Having a little tanty on the internet won't change any of that that. Deal with it.
I admire your patience with @stinkbeetle — especially given that he's done little or nothing to earn it.
> Technically he won a plurality of the popular vote, but he didn't win the popular vote. This is typically not a distinction that matters, but in this case it's what happened.
Colloquially majority means 'greatest share', and he certainly had the greatest share of votes out of all candidates. I don't like it, but it's correct to say he won the popular vote.
I agree that some people use the phrase loosely. I would ask such people what they would say to distinguish between someone who actually won the majority of the popular vote versus someone who did not. It's not a "super-majority" situation, IMO. But surely it's worthwhile to have a different way of referring to the two cases, especially now that the less-common one has happened in recent history.
> I would ask such people what they would say to distinguish between someone who actually won the majority of the popular vote versus someone who did not.
This is like asking someone to distinguish between a hypothesis of who killed JFK when they say they have a theory of who did. You're mixing the colloquial usage for no reason.
Majority doesn't mean more than 50% of the vote in everyday language, it means 'the most'. Trump got the most votes of any one candidate.
> Majority doesn't mean more than 50% of the vote in everyday language
I guess it depends on whom you hang out with and talk to. I completely agree that some people can't understand the difference and speak accordingly. But I don't think we should redefine words based on the lowest common denominator of understanding/usage.
And in this case, it's especially important not to redefine "majority" because if we do then there's no word left to refer to an actual majority. That's not the same thing as JFK conspiracy theories.
> But I don't think we should redefine words based on the lowest common denominator of understanding/usage.
No one is redefining anything. Merriam-Webster and Oxford both have a definition for majority meaning most, and that's the more common definition that is used in everyday speech.
Context matters.
> And in this case, it's especially important not to redefine "majority" because if we do then there's no word left to refer to an actual majority.
In this context, talking about the popular vote, no information is lost, nothing is miscommunicated by using the word majority and understanding how people are using it. Which, by the way, they are using correctly as per dictionary definitions.
> That's not the same thing as JFK conspiracy theories.
No, but it's the same as per my example in that you are being pedantic about a word in a way that serves no purpose, except maybe to try and make people feel stupid.
> Merriam-Webster and Oxford both have a definition for majority meaning most, and that's the more common definition that is used in everyday speech.
I don't have a subscription to Oxford's dictionary, but MW's lead definition mentions being more than half [1]. The fact that there is some other definition that doesn't specifically mention this is not probative of your claim that this is the more important definition. And your unsubstantiated claim that this is the more common usage is belied by the fact that your preferred definition is not the lead definition.
1: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority
> The fact that there is some other definition
lol, why are you acting like you can't find it?
The definition you're attached to/fixating on, is marked as definition 'a'. Definition 'c' is defined as: the greater quantity or share - it's two lines below, you must have seen it.
That's the definition most people are using, and they are using it correctly. It's some shameful attempt at elitism to insist on correcting people, especially when they are not wrong - really it's just a completely inability to understand that different contexts use different definitions.
> And your unsubstantiated claim that this is the more common usage is belied by the fact that your preferred definition is not the lead definition.
I'm not sure the ordering of definitions indicates what you think it does, in any case it's trivial to find examples of the word majority being used to mean definition c. Ask your favorite AI, I bet they'll tell you you're wrong - and you know what? There's nothing wrong with that.
Oh I found it, and the first definition is:
> a number or percentage equaling more than half of a total a majority of voters a two-thirds majority
I never said I couldn't find it, and I linked to it above. It's not a "shameful attempt at elitism" to point out that the first-listed definition is what I said. Your rejoinder that there exists some definition that could encompass your preferred usage does not refute what I said. Since you seem to be impervious to such logic, I'll leave it here. Have a good one!
> It's not a "shameful attempt at elitism" to point out that the first-listed definition is what I said.
That wasn't the behavior backing the claim, and you know it. The behaviour backing the claim was ignoring the definition being used as an excuse to try and correct people when you know well what they were saying. It's a sign of insecurity, generally.
> Your rejoinder that there exists some definition that could encompass your preferred usage does not refute what I said.
The fact that the word as a definition that shows that people were using it correctly is what refutes your claim.
> Since you seem to be impervious to such logic
I have no problem with logic, but I am critical of various peoples "logic".
> I'll leave it here.
I'm skeptical, but if you follow through I'll be appreciative.
Trump received 77.3M votes while Kamala received 75M. Since the total was 156.7M it was barely a plurality instead of a majority (just under 50%).
All while Europe dabbles in outlawing and criminalizing opposition parties they’re deeming “far right”. Sure anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is now “far right”. Regardless of opinion, democracy is about the people determining that conversation, not politburos.
Alternatively the UK violating the millennia old Magna Carta by halting jury trials for criminal offenses with less than 2 years of jail time.
It's actually a bit more complicated than that. And unlike the US during the 20th century, Europe has actually had to contend with the far right abolishing democracy and committing genocide on its own population before. It is understandable that Europe doesn't want to repeat that mistake.
As for your assertion that anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is somehow far right: you are simply wrong.
If you want to find out how wrong you are I would encourage you to try moving to Norway. Then tell me if the process feels "unrestricted".
I would suggest knowing things before you express strong opinions.
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The comment I was replying to is also whataboutism from Europe. It was Nazi's who didn't like free speech. Shutting down any sort of debate by yelling "far-right" at everything isn't a functioning democracy either. My grandfather tried to fight in WWII against the actual Nazis, but his politics would be labelled "far-right" now. That's just absurd.
> The comment I was replying to *is also* whataboutism
Whoosh.
If you're still treating Reddit, especially large subreddits, as a serious source of information rather than an extremely manipulated outlet of 90% propaganda bots, that is quite foolish.
Maybe I should make a website where example.com/e/Europe shows whatever I want people to think Europe thinks, and people will treat it as an authority for some reason? That's basically what you're doing with Reddit.
But people do treat sites such as reddit as a source of truth. That's part of the problem.
Yes, clearly the russian bots are running a campaign against Trump, the most explicitly pro-Russia president we've had in decades. Donald "Ukraine started the war" Trump.
The goal isn't to help one coherent team win, but rather to foment division that undermines cohesive action. This is also an attractor for anybody interested in neutralizing democratic governments, be it Russia or simply corporations that don't want to be regulated as they gradually form more and more of their own government.
It doesn't seem far fetched to me for Russia to further drive a wedge between the US and Europe.
I don't partake in that subreddit so I have no clue as to the content or if this claim is true or false but it doesn't seem like a crazy idea for Russia to do. Sure there's plenty of content Trump gives Russia to potentially amplify, but there could still be bots amplifying things and making some opinions or takes on a story be more popular than reality.
I have no issue with critique of him and his admin, but r/europe is on a whole different “dismantle usa” level lol
Elected heads of state have moved towards totalitarian rule before.
Besides, elections isn’t what defines a functioning democracy.
Why do so many people fail to pay attention in history and civics class? And why do people get so upset when their ignorance is pointed out to them.
«He was elected» is not a justification. If it were then the rest of the world would take a dim view of Americans. Be glad that hasn’t become worse.
> If it were then the rest of the world would take a dim view of Americans.
I have news for you...
If you sit people down and talk to them, I think you will find that most people around the world are actually able to distinguish between peoples and their governments. However when you look at what people say online, or when you ask groups of people, they do not always make the distinction.
The people who can not present a problem. Regardless of what pairing of nationalities.
Sure but also tourists etc from USA give the country a bad name worldwide no matter who is in government in the country at the time.
What if it isn't? What if the sentiments expressed represent what Europeans think of the US?
While there may be some truth to that (bots)... there are definitely a lot of quasi communists that are participating in these groups. They are active, involved and have an outsized influence in terms of being a squeaky wheel.
You just have to look at the protests in NYC over Venezuela to see it... they aren't actually for what the people of Venezuela seem to want (they're celebrating), the protestors are clearly pushing for and protecting at what represents communist values, even if Maduro isn't really much of a Communist.
Never forget that the largest share of the 2024 US voting-eligible population went to "did not vote".
Harris received 97% of Trump's vote count.
There is not that strong a popular mandate for Trump, which shows in his approval ratings.
They made their choice. It's damning for the Democrats that they couldn't engage more of them.
The US must end the bipartisan model before the bipartisan model ends the US.
There, I said it.
You could start with none of them voting for their presidential candidate to be nominated.
The Democratic Party is at odds with Democrats, in my opinion. They just don't want to let anyone but the party itself pick the candidate, then are surprised when their own voters don't feel the candidate is theirs.
Obama was nominated in spite of the party, and people showed up for him.
Trump is awful, but losing to him twice is unfathomably stupid.
Multiple polls have found that Trump would have won by an even larger margin if those people had voted.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5447450/trump-2024-elec...
https://data.blueroseresearch.org/hubfs/2024%20Blue%20Rose%2...
And yet, they did not vote. People often say things in polls that don't align to their actions.
Sure. But polling has consistently underestimated Trump voters, including in this most recent election.
Yeah, polls are limited in a variety of ways. The election results at least represent when someone took some amount of effort to vote.
2024 eligible voters: 244,666,890
2024 ballots cast: 156,766,239. 64% of eligible voters cast a vote
Trump votes: 77,284,118. 49.2% of votes cast, 31.6% of eligible voters
Harris votes: 74,999,166. 47.8% of votes cast, 30.6% of eligible voters
Trump got 1% more of the eligible voting population to go through the effort of casting a vote. That's not nothing, and it put him in office, but it's not a landslide that grants him an unquestionable public mandate.
I didn't say it was a landslide. The electorate is closely divided. But saying "most people didn't vote for Trump" makes it seem like they wouldn't have voted for him if they had to choose. And the data we have points in exactly the opposite direction. The pool of non-voters is low trust and cynical about American institutions. In that regard, they are more Trumpy than the electorate as a whole. In the Blue Rose study, Harris would have won if only 2022 midterm voters had voted in 2024. And if everyone had voted, Trump would have won by almost 5 points.
Making assumptions that non-voters would or would not support particular policies is erroneous. Harvard-Harris did a poll question on this last month, and found that 76% of Americans supported the U.S. arresting Maduro and bringing him to stand trial in the U.S.: https://harvardharrispoll.com/press-release-december-2025. That means most Americans are further to the right on this issue than a bunch of isolationist conservatives who voted for Trump.
Well, then I'd first have to ask how you define "communist" or "quasi-communist" to understand what you mean. The term "communist" means different things depending on the context of the person who uses that term.
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Show me a politician who hasn't lied.
Show me anyone who lies even 10% of Trump
Ps. Firehose of falsehoods is a Russian propaganda technique. Whataboutism too
1 lie doesn't compare to the plethora of Trumps lies
Whataboutism is a fallacy.
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There's Option 3: Trump built a campaign on lies, a significant minority of the American public were gullible enough to believe him, and many of those people regret it.
Option 3 is consistent with national polls. This fact is not flattering to the American public, but it's also not damning. Unfortunately, our electoral system has a slow cycle rate so we're stuck with the consequences for a while.
Assuming you are European, I can only offer these small words of consolation: I feel confident that a significant factor Trump's plummeting approval ratings is his anti-Europe and pro-Russian rhetoric. Everyone was pretty aghast when Trump declared the new public enemies (Canada and Greenland) on his first day in office.
Americans generally have very positive feelings towards Europe. We all just need to make it through the next three years.
But #1 is so poorly framed, you would think it would be written by someone who only knows America via the corporate media.
> I certainly see the vitriol against the US on r/europe which seems like it has more news about the United States than Europe.
Nonsense.
> Can’t help but think it’s orchestrated by Russian bots.
Rational people can.
> the president won the popular vote
False.
> False
Trump won the popular vote in 2024. He lost it in 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_elections
Oh, so we’re just making up our reality now? Biden and Trump each won the popular vote and to suggest otherwise would require a belief in a colossal conspiracy theory.
trump was ineligible due to his attempted insurrection on Jan 6th, end of story
Evidently the country's people, and government, disagree with you.
Maybe the president of the USA can do something about the president of the USA being authoritarian
The problem is they elect a different president and their opinion of authoritarian changes.
ding ding ding, we have a winner!
Hi, here in America we also know this is true. :) Just riding it out til the regime of crazy falls over. When it happens, there will be much rejoicing.
That's the story many Europeans are hearing from their hand rectangles.
> Among my European friends, no one considers the USA to be a legitimate democracy
Sure is a bold statement considering Spain was a dictatorship as recently as 1975.
Maybe they know what they're talking about then?
Whataboutism says a great deal about a person and the evaluation of their thought processes and the validity of their statements.
Same friends who believe there is genocide in Gaza?
This one is probably also -- if not completely invented by -- at least seriously boosted by russotrolls. And weaponized for several pro-Russia talking points, such as campaigning against Kamala Harris ("she is not against Israel so don't vote for her") and driving global gaze out of Ukraine.
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Authoritarians can legitimately win elections, as in receiving the majority of the cast votes, there is no “joke” or contradiction here.
Probably because there appear to no longer be checks and balances.
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Proposed by the European Council [1] = governors in US terms.
Accepted by the European Parliament = single chamber congress.
What part of this process is not democratic?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council
I asked why, not how. In any democracy that question is easy to answer. You can look at the candidates platform or poll the voters to find out why someone won. You can't answer the question I asked, because nobody knows why she got the job. The vote in the Europarl had a single candidate choice (her) and nobody else. Literally a rubber stamp.
Because the party groups negotiated with the heads of states comprising the European Council to find a suitable candidate?
You know, like how all parliamentary systems works? No parliamentary system directly has the populace vote for their prime minister.
After the election someone has the task of proposing an executive government to the parliament. In many countries that is the speaker of the house. In the EU it is the heads of states.
The European Parliament has also rejected commissioners from being appointed. How is that literally being a rubber stamp?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/26/meps-reject-tw...
Yes, the EU is a bit more complex. What most people miss is that the EU functionally has both an upper and lower house, with the upper house being selected from the national elections and lower house from EU wide elections.
I personally would prefer a more transparent system with more involvmement of the people in the EU democracy. But the EU functionally is democratic where the votes in both EU and national elections leads to the current executive branch.
https://x.com/MillennialWoes/status/1893134391322308918
"Because the party groups negotiated with the heads of states comprising the European Council to find a suitable candidate?"
What negotiations? We have no proof any negotiations took place. We don't even know if there was a vote, or if there were discussions, what was discussed, or who the candidates were. The entire process is secret. Think about how mad that is.
"You know, like how all parliamentary systems works?"
No parliamentary system works this way.
"After the election someone has the task of proposing an executive government to the parliament."
There was no election.
"The European Parliament has also rejected commissioners from being appointed. How is that literally being a rubber stamp?"
The head of the Commission before vdL said that both national and Europarl vetos on commissioners are meaningless. They just suggest a replacement who is ideologically identical.
"What most people miss is that the EU functionally has both an upper and lower house, with the upper house being selected from the national elections and lower house from EU wide elections."
You just said it has a single chamber! It really has none because the Europarl can't pass its own laws so it's not a house of representatives, just a room full of theatre kids playacting democracy. The EU doesn't have an upper and lower house by any definition used anywhere in the world. Stop pretending to not understand things.
Do you have proof the negotiations take place before the speaker of a house/king/whatever process proposes a canditate to form the executive branch in a parliamentary system?
> There was no election.
Just stop with the misinformation.
> The EU doesn't have an upper and lower house by any definition used anywhere in the world.Yes, every country is unique. And the EU moreso due to its history.
> It really has none because the Europarl can't pass its own laws so it's not a house of representatives, just a room full of theatre kids playacting democracy.
It is just the chamber that accepts the proposed commmission, and has the decision to unilaterally force a no-confidence vote if the commission does not propose the laws the chamber wants.
Yes we do have proof of such negotiations. Political parties often use elections internally to select their leaders, those campaigns are public, and then they may spend months negotiating between themselves based on their publicly stated stances in order to form a government, or in more direct non PR systems, just take power directly if they win a majority. The resulting coalitions or governments are explainable. The EU Commission isn't and it's deliberately so.
>The current Commission is the von der Leyen Commission II, which took office in December 2024, following the European Parliament elections in June of the same year.
And those Europarl elections had no influence on who became leader of the Commission, did they, so why are you bringing them up - this seems like the kind of obfuscation the EU regularly relies on. Make noises that sound like what happens in real democracies and hope nobody notices that key links in the chain have been severed.
> Yes, every country is unique. And the EU moreso due to its history.
The EU is not a country. Its "history" is short and artificial. It could work however the people who constructed it wanted it to work, and they chose a dictatorship. What does that tell you about their intentions?
> It is just the chamber that accepts the proposed commmission, and has the decision to unilaterally force a no-confidence vote if the commission does not propose the laws the chamber wants.
No democracy has a chamber that works like this because that is useless and undemocratic. The Europarl's power to fire the Commission is theoretical. It requires a 2/3rds majority so it was never successfully used in its entire history - the Santer Commission resigned, it wasn't fired. No MEPs have ever suggested firing a Commission in order to get specific policies passed, so MEPs have no influence over policy at all. They can theoretically veto things and then watch the Commission reintroduce it again in a different form, so nobody who cares about policy ever goes into EU-level politics.
The only reason that does not happen in the EU is that we do not have EU wide parties. Therefore the palatable candidate needs to come from somewhere else.
Take Sweden, the only requirement for the prime minister is to be a Swedish citizen without holding any position that would lead to a conflict of interest, followed by the parliament accepting the nomination.
It is only by convention and incentives that one of the party leaders of the government coalition becomes prime minister. Sweden has the past 3 years had the third largest party's leader as the prime minister since that was the one the government coalition found palatable.
> And those Europarl elections had no influence on who became leader of the Commission
Please. Just stop. How can they have no influence on who became the leader of the Commission if they are the one to accept the nomination?
Vote no and it is back to the drawing board for the European Council. Which it was close this time as only 51% of the MEPs voted to accept the proposed commission.
This is just getting ridiculous.
> The EU is not a country. Its "history" is short and artificial. It could work however the people who constructed it wanted it to work, and they chose a dictatorship. What does that tell you about their intentions?
True. It is a tightly integrated union which still haven't merged completely. Somewhere in the grey area.
How can they choose dictatorship if everything is democratic stemming from national and EU wide elections?
> No democracy has a chamber that works like this because that is useless and undemocratic. The Europarl's power to fire the Commission is theoretical. It requires a 2/3rds majority so it was never successfully used in its entire history - the Santer Commission resigned, it wasn't fired. No MEPs have ever suggested firing a Commission in order to get specific policies passed, so MEPs have no influence over policy at all.
This is just getting stupid. Please. The power was not exercised but a commission was forced to resign after become ineffective due to not being aligned with the european parliament.
The money quote from wiki:
> The crisis had compounded the already reduced powers of the Commission in favour of the Parliament's legislative power, the council's foreign policy role and the ECB's financial role. However the change with Parliament was the most profound, the previous permanent cooperation between the two bodies came to an end with the shift in power
I truly want to understand why you hate the EU so much? It seems like you are cherrypicking facts to embellish your view rather than seeing things for what they are.
An evolving democratic system with competing national and union interests.
> we do not have EU wide parties.
So what are the parties in the europarl then? They're not EU wide parties but also not national parties. Waving national flags in the EU Parliament is against the rules, lol.
They're not genuine political parties at all, because you can't build such things in the EU. Parties with no ability to take power aren't parties.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIRM1qOZQPQ
> How can they have no influence on who became the leader of the Commission if they are the one to accept the nomination?
Because it's a pointless power as adequately explained already by Juncker, that's why the EU is designed that way. Europarl is given exactly one candidate and zero input on who it is. What happens if they reject? Assuming procedure is even followed (not certain in the EU institutions), they'll be given another candidate who is a carbon copy of the first. Same views, same background, same ideology.
And they know this stupid game because the EU operates this way regularly. See the number of times they lost referendums on constitutional change and then made people vote on the same thing again, or the way stuff like Chat Control never dies. That's why the only people who sign up to be MEPs are either just rubberstamp cheerleaders for the Commission who often don't bother turning up, or people who think the Europarl is fake and their countries should leave the EU entirely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtZpvmnONww
https://youtu.be/jWGfzJpkyVk?si=HRtVRdTR6yZ4NQxe&t=48
What kind of a chamber is it that can't even stop itself being spammed with the same legislation it keeps rejecting in different forms, can't repeal unpopular legislation, is full of members who openly say it's damaging/fake and gets openly disrespected on live TV by the real power center? A fake one.
> due to not being aligned with the european parliament
You mean: due to being corrupt.
> I truly want to understand why you hate the EU so much?
Why did Russians hate the USSR? There's nothing to like about it. It's an evil system designed to enforce left wing dictatorship on Europe using lies, secrecy and, when necessary, aggression. It sees any attempt to remain independent as a problem to be crushed by abusing its powers. It makes Europeans more divided and less cooperative. I've lived in two central/west European countries in my life. The EU has treated both of them like dogshit. That's enough reasons.
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Elections is only one characteristic of a democracy. Other characteristics include freedom of the press, freedom of speech, minority rights, rule of law, accountability and transparency, and separation of powers.
Nothing about democracy implies minority rights, the rule of law, or the separation of powers. Indeed these things are in greater or lesser degrees anti democratic.
None of those things are characteristics of “democracy.” Many of those are exactly the opposite: they are anti-democratic checks on democratic government. They empower a privileged class of lawyers and judges to overrule majorities based on supposed “rights.”
You'd make an excellent politician, as you have a great way of using words in an emotive manner to win a point.
"privileged class" immediately plays on people's emotions, along the lines of "the people have spoken", meaning if you didn't vote the same way, you're not "the people". I lived through all this in the brexit vote, and your language is all very similar sounding.
Over the years, democracies around the world have evolved these kind of checks and balances. They are part of the system, not imposed on it by some "privileged class" for their own nefarious reasons.
> With congress having abdicated
Historically in the American Republic, this has been true more often than not. There's a reason something taking "an act of Congress" is not a new expression for difficulty.
"Act of Congress" has always implied "something that is hard", but it has also implied "something that is fairly definitive". Today, congress can be largely ignored by the executive and congress seems to support it vocally. Is this also something that has been true more often than not in the American Republic?
> Today, congress can be largely ignored by the executive and congress seems to support it vocally.
I seem to remember the 116th and 118th Congresses pushing back against executive power, which were the last times the US had divided government. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Presidents-Coinciding/...
And I wouldn't exactly say that Congress is wholly supporting unrestricted presidential power currently either. E.g. Senator Thune continually shooting down Trump's more oddball pleas.
There are very vocal supporters of the president in both the House and Senate GOP caucuses, but they're not the majority.
I think the strongest version of your argument would be something like 'In recent US Congressional history, both parties when in power have used congressional power to tactically check opposition party presidents, but neither have sought to permanently expand and defend the bounds of congressional power.'
Wouldn’t a functioning congress have resisted the executive aborbing its powers? After all, congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch. For good reason.
> congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch
Just re-read the USA constitution. Despite much effort, I did not find any "power rankings" of the three branches. Please point me in the right direction.
It was written before Dragonball Z existed so they didn't have the convenient framework of "power level" to use. Instead the power of Congress is indicated by the fact that all acts of the government are derived from bills originating in Congress, which the president rubber stamps (or not, which congress can then override), and the supreme court judicially interprets - but only if someone brings suit.
Now the president can do police actions and stuff but it seems like the intention was congress being the branch that had independent autonomy to just do things and get the ball rolling.
Congress sets the president's salary and has the power to fire him. The president has no such reverse power. The legislative branch is clearly the more powerful. "co-equal" is a fiction made up out of whole cloth by Nixon to further his criminal activities.
Until the party system existed, this was true. As soon as the party system evolved (pretty much immediately), with the President nominally the head of the party and the President has at least 1/3 of the Senate, the President comes near to immune from dismissal.
At that point, combined with the recent Supreme Court decisions holding 'official acts' as non-prosecutable, has swung the power meter severely to the executive.
Obviously the one which sets the law, also the one which has first article dedicated to it.
Really? You read the constitution and managed to not absorb how the system is structured?
Hint: Look at who has which powers. Congress has the power to check every other branch. Neither the President nor the courts have symmetrical power over Congress. This asymmetry reflects its position.
I must admit I am a bit flabbergasted. How can you not understand what you read? And if a portion of Hacker News users, who are likely to have above average cognitive ability, don’t understand this, how poorly does the rest of the population understand the core ideas of how their political system works?
I'm not sure which Constitution you read but apparently it was a different one than the one I read.
Congress was not set up to be more powerful than the other branches. The president can veto laws that Congress tries to pass and the Supreme Court can also completely undo laws that Congress has passed.
Then you read it, but understood nothing. Perhaps you should have some remedial civics classes?
There are degrees. I don’t think congress has been this weak before in our lifetime. And most people seeming not to care scares me.
I have been looking at productivity numbers for congress over the past decades. And I don’t get why people aren’t furious over the current congress not doing their job.
That is rubbish. I loathe Trump more than most, but there's no serious claim that he wasn't freely elected in 2024. There appears to be a lot of buyer's remorse and we'll see what happens in the mid terms. But (sadly) Americans asked for this and they got it.
I would not say that we asked for it.
The opposition refused to address internal issues with the incumbent until they were painfully evident, then switched in a much weaker candidate in the final months who had never won a primary.
Had a stronger candidate been offered from the beginning, Trump well could have lost.
Really doesn't matter. America had two choices and made the one it did. It's clear what the country is, and is not.
> That is rubbish. I loathe Trump more than most, but there's no serious claim that he wasn't freely elected in 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_efforts_to_di...
In a way, America didn’t ask for what it got. America voted for a guy who claimed to have never heard of Project 2025. It got Project 2025.
Also, Trump ran on a populist message. Yet if you look at what he has done materially since he got into office, it seems his true allegiance is with the billionaire elite.
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Gerrymandering alone would be enough to disqualify the US elections as 'free and fair' by many standards. And that's before we get into dollars are votes and other little details.
Indeed. There's plenty of other forms of disenfranchisement (restricted polling access, overly aggressive purging of voter rolls, etc)
It's a pity that this is perceived as such a hot-button partisan topic, because that's not my intent -- I just want to see free and fair elections.
The more distressing fact is that despite my assertion of election fuckery, there's clearly a large number of people that are willing to vote against their best interests because they are so easily swayed by anger and hate. Democracy really is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Gerrymandering is atrocious and anti-democratic but it didn't affect Trump's election. States' electors are winner-take-all[1] based on statewide popular vote so district boundaries don't factor in.
[1] I just learned there are two exceptions, Maine and Nebraska. But they have few electors (9 total between them) so this was not significant in the 2024 election.
But it does affect congressional elections, and despite the effective neutering of the congress, having a majority there is crucial for maintaining power.
It does depress turnout
That has nothing to do with Trump and that election
History is filled with countries that wanted their leader gone, but rejected foreign influence.
I think most Venezuelans want freedom, prosperity, peace, and sovereignty.
I’m not sure in what order.
Time will tell if this move brought them any closer to those goals.
It's still military interference in a soverign nation to effect regime change.
Nevertheless, if you genuinely believe in the principles of democracy, this is a win.
It would have been better if Maduro had respected the choice of Venezuelan voters. But that didn't happen, so here we are.
I don’t really care to get involved of the affairs of foreign governments. This isn’t about “narcoterrorism” or democracy. You’re a fool if you think that.
I don't really care what it's "about". I care that the Venezuelan people get their democracy back. Even if Trump is doing this because the voices in his head told him to do it, ending Maduro's rule is a step in the right direction.
> I care that the Venezuelan people get their democracy back.
They are not.
Well first the Venezuelan people will have to wait while the Trump administration runs their government (the remaining Maduro administration) and oil fields until a stabile transition can take place as determined by the US government. So they haven't gotten their democracy back yet.
And Trump has decided the Nobel peace prize winner doesn't have enough support of the people to take over. So whatever democracy there is to be had in the future seems to be up to a foreign government.
History says the US will just install another dictator.
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> Nevertheless, if you genuinely believe in the principles of democracy, this is a win.
That is at best premature. Maybe wait for the outcome?
Yes, foreign intervention worked wonderfully in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. We should also thank Russia for trying hard to extend its thriving democracy to Ukraine.
that's always the convenient excuse of the foreign attackers -- that they are "liberating the people"
we've seen this over and over again in foreign policy of large powerful countries
lets not pretend that this is about establishing democracy; it's about access to Venezuelan oil
it's the US showing it can do whatever it wants in its "backyard", just as it always has
No wonder Trump likes Putin
That just shows that popular will is not a justification for something. If the popular will was self destructive would a powerful entity be justified in giving them what they desire?
I agree. “Wisdom of the crowd” is the least useful aspect of democracy. “Broad support” and “bloodless regime change” are probably the most useful.
Eh, Saddam Hussein wasn't terribly popular. History is full of awful people being toppled and situations further degrading. Sometimes horrifically.
Iraq was never a democracy. It bounced from monarchy to military rule to one party rule to Hussein's personal dictatorship.
Venezuela had a... let's call it "respectable" democracy since the late 50s. Chavez did it no favors but it didn't completely collapse until Maduro.
If Venezuela recovers and improves, are you willing to fundamentally change your opinion about US interventions?
> If Venezuela recovers and improves, are you willing to fundamentally change your opinion about US interventions?
Uhh, no?
My opinion is that US interventions are incredibly risky. There have been numerous successes. There have also been numerous failures. Both have required immense resources and focus from us.
Some interventions are worth the risk, and others are not. I have not seen any compelling rationale for the risk-reward of this particular intervention, and have very low hopes for the follow through, which makes the risk-reward calculus even worse.
Agree.
If I wear a blindfold, cross a highway and am not hit by a car, am I willing to concede that crossing the highway blindfolded is safe?
You don't think Venezuela having the largest oils reserves on the planet and it being a strong ally to Russia, Iran and China make the possible reward fairly significant from a US standpoint?
Sure it's conceivable. Can you go a level deeper on your analysis?
Are you suggesting that cutting off oil flow to those nations will be advantageous to us? Is this like... tomorrow? During a potential armed conflict? When?
By what specific mechanism does the US assert "control" over the oil? POTUS just now said it's via a ground occupation "until transition of power." What's the transition plan?
Not cutting off, but it's enough that the US increases oil supply which lowers the prices to significantly hurt Russia and Iran. And then you have China which is the main consumer of Venezuelan oil so you get another point of leverage.
Also probably helps to ensure the petro dollar is here to stay for longer.
Obviously this is a very shallow analysis, and there's definitely significant risks, but I do think it's obvious that it has large potential upsides.
Well... POTUS just said that the plan is to sell large amounts of Venezuelan oil to China and Russia.
So again: conceivably sure, but the details matter. The details we have right now do not look very promising IMO.
It's not shallow, it is gullible. Of course Trump has an angle otherwise he wouldn't have done this. We can speculate about what the angle is but there is absolutely no way that he did this for the good of the Venezuelan population.
Edit: So, that took only 8 minutes, the other shoe just dropped, it was about the oil after all. Where do I collect my check?
Oh yeah, I'm certain the intent behind this wasn't for the sake of the Venezuelan population, but that in itself doesn't mean it won't result in a better outcome for the population (but also not saying that it will)
The thing I occasionally say about Trump is: "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."
We ("the opposition") can't get into the frame where we say that everything Trump does is wrong. It's not frequent, but sometimes - yes even for totally wrong reasons - he does things which are probably right. Our identity needs to be more than just "the opposite of what Trump does", otherwise the Trumpists will frame all debates around issues that make us look crazy, rather than the issues that demonstrate blatant grift and criminality.
If Maduro is gone, it's a good thing. Let's go back to talking about the clear and obviously terrible things Trump does. Don't let them change the subject.
> If Maduro is gone, it's a good thing.
Agree with your overall sentiment but this is just a ridiculous position to hold at this point. History is absolutely full of horrible people being toppled just for more horrible people to take their place. There is literally no evidence whatsoever of a plan for post-Maduro Venezuela. At all!
They're either acting completely clueless for the cameras for some unknown reason, or this is very likely going to go really badly.
Venezuela has already been going really badly, by nearly any quantitative metric of "how going". This is a country that - a couple decades ago - was a rare success story of democracy and prosperity in Latin America.
I think the Venezuelans will work it out, despite Trump's ineptitude.
I see this sentiment around here a lot and I just have to laugh.
Things going badly does not mean — even at all — that things cannot go much much worse.
Libya was bad and got worse
Syria was bad and got worse
Afghanistan was bad and got worse
Sudan was bad and got worse
In fact, nearly every really bad situation was already bad, and then it got worse.
I can appreciate that but taken to its conclusion it's a recipe for paralysis and complacency. It always could be worse, so let's just let sit here and let shit happen?
Unlike all those places you mention, Venezuela has a democratic tradition which was only recently derailed. This isn't some middle eastern theocratic monarchy. It's "get back on track" not "find new tracks where none existed before".
No, shit can always get worse so act carefully and with a plan.
I and many others are asking for evidence of such a plan. The US administration has denied the existence of such a plan.
Maybe those factors you mention will turn out to be relevant or even determinative, and maybe not. I suspect in absence of an actual plan, the mere tradition of democracy will not suffice.
The Trump administration is incompetent to manage a pre-school, let alone world affairs. We're not going to get a plan. The best we can hope for is an occasional random steps vaguely in the right direction.
Maduro in prison is an improvement from Maduro still in power. Accept it as a tiny win and move on.
Frankly insane position to hold ~24 hours after the events and with the information currently available.
You are aware you're allowed to say, "it'll take some time for this to shake out sufficiently to understand whether it's a tiny win, a huge win, net-neutral, or regionally catastrophic," right?
The future is always uncertain. Sometimes you just have to take the rare chances afforded. "Maduro suddenly recognizes the value of democracy and transitions power to Gonzáles" wasn't on the table.
I'd push the delete button for every unelected dictator on the planet if I could. Repeatedly. It's morally offensive not to.
In the short term this will likely decrease oil supply and drive up oil revenue for Russia.
Venezuela supplies less than 1% of the world's oil, basically meaningless.
China is heavily dependent on oil imports and a big part of Germany's defeat in WW2 was due to difficulties obtaining oil. This move may - if successful - change the calculation over Taiwan
POTUS said his plan is to sell vast amounts of Venezuelan oil to China and Russia.
So what you say may happen, but not if "it" (being the plan stated by the orchestrator and executor of said move) is successful.
"…it being a strong ally to Russia, Iran and China…"
You're making a pretty good case for high risk.
You could easily say the same thing about not doing anything.
But also remember that Russia is occupied in Ukraine and couldn't even help the Assad regime which was a much closer ally, and same with Iran.
i think the argument is Venezuela can help - or hurt - Russia.
This is all about China, not Russia
> strong ally to Russia, Iran and China
It's more like (similar to other sanctioned countries) "forcibly coerced by the USA into being a ally of Russia, Iran and China by sanctions".
Since the purpose of the interventions is to get more access for US oil companies, they are always successes
> Iraq was never a democracy. It bounced from monarchy to military rule to one party rule to Hussein's personal dictatorship.
In reference to this, have you seen the footage of Saddam Hussein taking power? It’s chilling.
Ethics debates are not served by utilitarian arguments.
> Ethics debates are not served by utilitarian arguments.
There isn't just a single universally agreed upon moral framework that serves as the basis for ethics.
Depending on whether you adopt a Rawlsian, Utilitarian, Libertarian, or Communitarian moral framework, your actions would look different depending on the circumstances.
Specially, the Utilitarian moral framework optimizes for the greatest good for the greatest number. Willing to sacrifice the few of the many. It might not be your or my moral framework, but I don't know that we can rule it out as a valid way to approach ethics.
> Specially, the Utilitarian moral framework optimizes for the greatest good for the greatest number.
No, the proponents of the utilitarian moral framework try to justify illegal actions retrospectively if the outcome was good and refuse to take responsibility if it is bad.
Ethics should guide your decisions beforehand and require you to take responsibility for all possible outcomes.
Not sure I follow your line of thinking.
Are you arguing that Utilitarianism isn't a way to guide decisions? And are you saying it is an invalid moral framework?
FWIW, many ethicists suggest using multiple frameworks and would argue using Utilitarianism for policy.
For example, in the EU utilitarianism is rarely used as the sole moral foundation but serves as the primary tool for practical decision-making and public policy. Most visible in how the EU balances competing interests to achieve the "greatest good".
There's a lot of unprincipled ethicists around.
I have no idea what you're saying.
If your hand is on the track switch, you're just as responsible for the trolley no matter which way it goes. Walking away from the switch does not absolve you.
Would the Rawlsian say this is unacceptable?
Ah so US will allow Venezuela to profit from their own oil? This time surely
I can't wait for the Total Energies or Shell Oil announcement.
With investments from Kushners Saudi fund.
You know there are boardroom meetings going on right now…
100% on the money this comment. This is all about the spoils and absolutely not about the people or the drugs.
Thinking about this some more: good chance this whole thing was decided in a board room a while ago.
Yes it will. Iraqi government budget is ~88% funded by oil revenues.
I'm not sure using examples from the bush administration are necessarily relevant to the actions of the trump administration.
The issue with regime change is whether there's enough political cohesion in a country's population after a despot / autocrat is removed.
"The opposition" is rarely a large and representative enough group to effect national power transition. (Btw, thanks for flagging that incorrectly as affect, Apple)
Especially in multi-ethnic states, most cohesive national identities are forged through extremely popular singular leaders.
Unfortunately, those are exactly the same leaders external regime-change initiators are wary of (too independent).
This year's winner of the nobel prize is highly organized and ran a parallel election campaign, which was obviously dismissed by the Maduro regime. There is a slim possibility of a peaceful transition given the democratic efforts underway in Venezuela for many years at this point.
POTUS just said she's not involved, won't be involved, doesn't have the support necessary to lead. Who does? Unclear. His plan appears to be: "oil companies come in, sell the oil" and I'm seriously not exaggerating.
> His plan appears to be: "oil companies come in, sell the oil"
In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan. See Carville's "It's the economy, stupid."
Popular support of any government is mostly (a) quality of life & (b) individual freedom. Quality of life is directly correlated to the economy and public finances.
If someone can quickly boost Venezuelan oil production, and therefore state revenue, then all sorts of social funding programs become feasible.
The issue with autocracies is that they selectively enrich key supporter groups (internal police, military) at the expense of others (wider population).
If you can substantially boost public revenue, then you don't have to make a tradeoff -- everyone gets more!
And there are certainly worse beginnings for new governments.
(All of this ignoring the flagrant violation of international law, international ramifications vis-a-vis Taiwan, climate change, etc.)
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m saying it appears to be the entire idea, which makes it a bad one.
He was asked “who will govern” and “when will there be elections” and “will there be boots on the ground” over and over.
His answers were “I don’t know”.
Well, Trump is probably the least qualified person in the administration to ask that question of, while at the same time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.
A bad look, but I seriously doubt the state department doesn't have some sort of plan for continuity of government.
Especially since, in critical difference with post-Hussein Iraq, no one in this administration seems ideologically opposed to working with the old guard, if they put on new colors.
Would be very surprised if the remaining elements of the government aren't put in temporary charge with guidelines (no killing protestors, freeing political prisoners, monitored elections on X date, etc.), then things are left business as usual.
With additional strikes if anyone tries to buck the system.
But higher placed members of corrupt regimes tend to be pretty pragmatic about their own skins when the winds shift, so I'd be surprised if anyone goes to the mat for a leader who's already been extradited.
You can inject as many assumptions as you wish.
Right now the evidence is as I’ve stated it.
"It appears to be the only idea" is a bit strong.
'It's the only information about the plan presented in the last 15 hours' would be better.
Nah, it's really not "a bit strong."
The President of the United States has stated over and over now that there is no transition plan. There is no successor. There is no plan for elections.
This isn't "he hasn't been asked" or "he has declined to comment." He has said affirmatively there is no plan.
So either he's lying or there's no plan.
In either case, my presentation is correct, and your assumptions are completely unfounded.
Trump's Reaganesque in Reagan's weaknesses, without any of his strengths. Except maybe charisma to some people.
At this point in his second administration, I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.
Big decisions? Sure, he makes yes/no. But "Let me hear the plan for day x+1?" In what universe would the Trump we've seen ask that question? We're talking about the McDonald's guy.
So you've said:
> I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.
But at the same time:
> time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.
So they're making plans, but they won't actually commit to any of the plans because in the end the plans are meaningless and Trump is going to push for whatever he wants at the moment. Doesn't that make the actual plans practically worthless?
That seems like an accurate appraisal of the last year.
Sometimes Trump doesn't decide to veer off-script and scupper plans. But it happens more than never!
And rarely, when he does, more informed heads are able to turn him back around. E.g. the bullshit 'Ukraine tried to assassinate Putin' scheme
Under the hood here you're assuming Trump is (largely) incompetent to lead but surrounded by people who 1) know that and 2) are competent themselves.
A scarier possibility, which I think is actually far better evidenced, is that he's surrounded by people who largely believe he's competent (because it's a cult) and who are themselves not competent at all.
I think the people around him believe (1) he's competent to win the popularity contest that is an election & (2) he's vengeful against any perceived disloyalty.
There are probably some true-believers among his cabinet, but most of those are evidenced by their paper-thin CVs and lack of their own power-bases (Hegseth, Bondi, Rollins, Chavez-DeRemer, Turner, McMahon, Noem, Zeldin, Loeffler).
>In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan.
Building which nation? The despotic dictatorship of USA one would have to assume you mean. The profits are no more likely to go to Venezuela's further development than they are to bring in universal health care in USA.
QoL is nothing if it is bought through the pain and suffering of others.
I don't know why you think this is a new beginning, it's just extension of USA's dictatorship to ensure even more people suffer and the USA oligarchy gets even more insanely wealthy.
> Especially in multi-ethnic states, most cohesive national identities are forged through extremely popular singular leaders.
And before you know it you have a genocide on your hands.
Sometimes, but it can go the other way too.
Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint Louverture, Simon Bolivar, Giuseppe Mazzini, Otto von Bismarck, Mustafa Atatürk, Gamal Nasser
A whole bunch of those are not the counterexamples you think they are.
Want to point out which / why?
The popular will is the woman the majority voted for. Trump already said she will not be allowed to run the country, that the US will and that we will help them develop, read steal, their oil.
The majority voted for Edmundo González, and María Corina Machado has called for him to be recognized as the leader of the nation.
It's complicated because Maduro banned her from running in the last election (and still lost anyway). In a just world maybe she deserves the position. But if we want to restore democracy in Venezuela, González would be a natural place to start (along with new elections).
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For what it's worth he did stop the Taliban from raping the wives and daughters of the opium farmers. Obviously not for humanitarian reasons but I was rather fond of how he dealt with it even if for the wrong reasons.
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> This looks a lot like when the U.S. & Israel were running dry on interceptors last year, and made a deal with the Iranians to pretend to blow up Fordow in exchange for ceasing hostilities.
Do you have a citation for this? (Genuinely curious)
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> it isn't credible that B-2s flew over Fordow without Iranian permission
It is very credible because a few days before this happened, Israel wiped out Iran's air defense systems with f35 attacks.
The author’s claims that “there was never any credible evidence that Iranian medium- and long-range air defenses against fixed-wing aircraft were attrited to any significant degree“ and that the B-2 is easily to track and target… seem rather questionable. Unfounded even.
> the silence of the Iranian government on this point suggests something coordinated to me
Or, you know, a theocratic autocracy that realizes the perception of its military power is critical to keeping the populace in line?
And admitting to an inability to stop military action on one of their most heavily defended targets by the very enemy they've whipped their supporters into a froth over is a bad look?
In your zeal you seem to have misunderstood the point I was making. The Iranian government did not dispute American claims of having flown over and destroyed Fordow, which is the opposite of the "they'll say anything to look strong" thesis you're advancing.
I think the U.S. whipped the Iranian government's supporters into line by treacherously using peace negotiations as a pretext to target their scientists, helping Israel launch a completely unjustified sneak attack with all the Mossad rats they had hidden in the country, and facilitating the genocide in Gaza. With enemies like that the Iranian government hardly needs help.
So, your conspiracy is that Iran allowed US bombers to strike Fordow, proved by the fact that the Iranian government didn't say anything about it?
I'm not sure how that disagrees with my point.
Honestly can't tell if troll or schizo.
The even weirder option is that they may be right and that I can no longer tell the difference with 100% accuracy. This is very annoying.
I used to be a Skeptic magazine reading, blanket conspiracy doubting "classical liberal." Since this system is predicated on lies, everyone with a base level of commitment to the truth eventually turns their back on the official narratives.
I mean, it's hard to tell what is really going on in Venezuela right now, but as far as I can tell the only truly fragmented or "schizo" worldview would be that the United States was able to hover a Chinook over Caracas and extract Maduro without firing a single shot, without some kind of pre-agreed deal being in place.
I guess we'll see if Trump's blustering that he'll install American oil execs in Caracas pans out, won't we? Given that Chinese officials met with Maduro just before all this, I'm open to the idea that some kind of deal has been made to hand Latin America to the U.S. in exchange for our forbearance elsewhere in the world, so we might see something more serious, but at this point we just have the removal of a single head of state under extremely suspicious circumstances.
And it appears they did so with assistance from within the government, at least with assistance from the military. That's why the operation went so smoothly. It seems like it was unusually easy, precisely because it was.
Any details/sources on this? I thought it was strange that the airspace seemed almost entirely uncontested. Scrambling fighters take a while of course (particularly if unmaintained and you're corrupt), but I had at least expected some ground-based air defences to be active. Maybe they were being blown up in the first few videos that surfaced? Unless they were disabled by other means, that's another catastrophic display of the Russian systems.
Caracas was definitely hit in preparation for the operation, and I'd assume air defenses and assets within scramble range were the primary targets.
Example footage that seems to track with BBC confirmed Caracas strike locations: https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2007340229536239646
The US had previously positioned a lot of USAF and Army air assets in Puerto Rico and on offshore platforms: https://www.twz.com/news-features/cv-22b-osprey-mc-130j-comm...
Those appear to have been used: https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2007339573156950095
In addition, USAF/USN have been flying ELINT platforms (e.g. RC-135s) off the coast for months now.
So even without the cooperation of any of the Venezuelan military, it's possible the mission was:
If the intelligence was good (location of air defenses and Maduro), it's entirely possible the above just went off cleanly.See: Desert Storm air campaign. Having capable anti-air assets doesn't matter when your enemy has access to more timely intelligence and the means to do something with it.
"catastrophic display of the Russian systems." - that, or the Russians actually helped the Americans...
I think that might be a step too far, rather I'd guess the US just knows the Russian systems very well. The success of the latest campaign against Iran shows that too, and if anything they learnt even more from that.
Either way, although Trump might every now and then be a bit too friendly with Putin, but a) cooperation at this scale and b) the bad looks and damage to Russian investments I think makes it seem unlikely. Putin doesn't stick his neck out for others unless it serves him. I'm not that well read on the Russian involvement in the area though...
Thats what I'm most curious about right now, did they completely suppress Venezuela's air defenses or were they turned off?
It would not surprise me if it was a mix of both. (Portions of the military stood down, and the more loyal aspects were suppressed.)
https://theaviationist.com/2011/05/18/mh-47x/
Always soften the target before anything happens, no need to suppress when nothing is active.
Update from Reuters: ‘"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition," Trump told reporters. […] "We can't take a chance at somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn't have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. We've had decades of that. We're not going to let that happen."’
I'd like to stress that Trump not only said this during the conference from his luxury resort, but repeated and belabored the point several times that the United States would be taking over Venezuela.
(edit - whoops)
Could you please re-edit this comment? I think you forgot a word towards the end.
Whoops, my bad, thank you! Fixed
Entirely unexpected. /s
"Trump says US will ‘run’ Venezuela until ‘judicious transition’ following capture of Maduro"
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/venezuela-explosions-car...
That might be a while then, it will take some time to get that oil out.
He's trying to hide the impact his failed economic policies are having. He can't let the 16 Nobel Prize winning economists who warned him that he'd crash the economy "win."
https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rh1YcFoC...
Equating a person with the government or the nation is a common trait among autocrats. L'État, c'est moi.
Not quite...
Medieval kings were considered the embodiment of the government, but that didn't make them autocratic. Indeed, they were not only bound by a thicket of obligations and customs, but authority itself is only legitimate when it is just, a view that is traditional; it is modern legal positivism that roots authority in fiat, making it inherently tyrannical.
> Indeed, they were not only bound by a thicket of obligations and customs, but authority itself is only legitimate when it is just, a view that is traditional;
Ultimately they were bound not by tradition, but by the reality that they may lose their heads, often at the hands of a competing relative, but also at the hands of starving subjects.
Not yet. Once the anger metastasizes into a new wholly anti-american government, new targets will emerge.
Trump is far from universally loved, but just imagine what the US would become if an outside nation swooped in and captured him. 100% of the american people would be screaming for blood.
> 100% of the american people would be screaming for blood.
Absolutely not. I'd be out celebrating.
I'd be concerned about exactly what price would be asked. No one country spends their cash and soldiers to "liberate" for free. I've turned down free gifts before because I knew they came with strings attached.
People say that, but the sight of say Russian/Mexican/Chinese/Canadian troops parachuting onto the whitehouse lawn to abduct a sitting president, no doubt killing many in the process, would be such an afront that domestic politics wouldnt matter.
I assumed they would be parachuting in on Mar-A-Lago or some golf course somewhere.
C-canadian??
They can burn the whitehouse down. Again.
I think you vastly overestimate the value that people place on Trump. The GOP would swear in President Vance and count their blessings.
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> I would welcome any method to depose them.
So just to be clear, you think that Trump and the GOP are so bad you would welcome Xi or Putin launching an assault on US soil and depose him?
To push your point even further: do you feel so strongly that you would volunteer to help?
> Putin launching an assault on US soil
This already happened. Trump lead a Russia-backed coup against the United States in January, 2021 to overturn the 2020 election and illegally take the presidency. It failed, but he and every government employee who supported him after that is guilty of treason and is serving illegitimately.
> and is serving illegitimately.
Trump is president because he was elected by the American voter while the opposition was in power. I would not label that as illegitimate and I think it is dangerous to spread that narrative.
Trump lead a coup against the US, is guilty of treason, and is ineligible for public office. I agree it is dangerous to have a traitor to the US in the presidency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
> Trump lead a coup against the US, is guilty of treason
Was he tried and convicted? If his successor and the opposition truly believed that why did they not go after him for it?
A lack of prosecution does not imply innocence. There were several attempts to go after him for it, but the courts are intentionally set up to favor the wealthy and powerful, in this case via infinite delay tactics. I still think it could've been done and I'll never forgive the Biden DOJ for delaying forever and letting him skate. He should've been in jail by February, serving his sentence by summer.
... and then President Vance maintaining the status quo would bring you back to reality.
One fewer enemy of the US in a position of power is worth celebrating even if it's not all of them.
There will always be enemies and corrupt people. We need to establish a system of government and culture that doesn't so easily give over the reigns of the nation to these bad actors. If we don't actively do this we will long for the good old days when the corrupt leaders just wanted to steal money for themselves and hurt trans people.
for what is Maduro an enemy of the US. He wasn't willing to sign over the oil reserves to US oil companies. wanting to keep what is theirs away from rapacious foreign invaders would make most of the planet an enemy of the US.
I doubt Vance is capable of getting the support from Congress and the maga voters that Trump has. Once Trump is gone, the Republican party is going to have a hard time putting itself back together.
No, we very much support Vance.
Meanwhile, the individual upthread suggesting they’d support a foreign power invading the US and capturing Trump is the ridiculous, childish, and deeply unserious brand of self-loathing that we are voraciously (and necessarily, if our country is to survive) opposed to.
What is childish about being glad an enemy of the United States was removed from a position of power?
Ask your parents.
Weak.
You, personally, might, but I think it's going to be a clusterfuck. You can't stick a different person in a cult of personality and expect it to act the same.
> 100% of the american people would be screaming for blood.
Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't be one of them.
I would not be screaming for blood. It is the world order he wants, and perhaps the only possible lesson in why we shouldn’t give him that world order.
Most polls put it at 30%. (And 30% of those that could vote, didn't—so here we are.)
Capture might not be the aim. The coming decades will see anonymous effective asymmetric warfare with USA infrastructure and the USA political establishment as prime targets. That's the big concern.
Huh... they better build some readily-available hyper-powerful infrastructure, pronto, or that next election could hand power to folks that don't have the best interest of the country in mind:
https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/trump-isnt-building-a-...
A new cold war effectively, but with the goal of cementing local power.
That is a very real risk. Action -> reaction.
Trump is Russia's guy. There is no way I'd be screaming for revenge over a horrifying complicated nightmare becoming even more toxic, even more complicated, and even more nightmarish. If anyone comes and gets Trump it ain't Russia: he is already theirs, and acting in such a way as to further all their aims and all their narratives.
Maybe, but from observing US politics from afar for a decade, 50% would be screaming for Trumps blood to lock in the win.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez is in charge, so nothing is gonna change for Venezuelan citizens.
Oil industry in Venezuela is Chinese, or for China, this is not gonna change either.
What we are seeing here is a show, or may be also more related to Venezuela being a narco-state.
not quite
The oil production there is completely decimated. They have huge reserves but production is low and falling because the regime doesn't do any maintenance or support of anything in the oil production and supply chain. It is very much the meme of "living in the ruins of a once great society".
Sanctions had nothing to do with this?
Replacing all competent but ideologically unreliable people by reliable but incompetent people got more to it. See "Politicization" in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDVSA?wprov=sfla1
Not really. VZ oil production peaked in 2012, long before the sanctions.
Completely dishonest answer. Sanctions decimated Venezuela's ability to maintain its oil infrastructure. Everything, from machined parts, to the various chemicals needed, everything, was affected.
It just took a few years for the sanctions to bite, as the Venezuelans conserved & used stockpiles.
Again, a completely dishonest take. Speaks volumes, when most defenders of todays criminality keep spouting arguments to this effect.
Venezuelan oil production was cratering years before the first oil sanctions because they replaced everybody who knew how to drill oil with loyalists. I didn’t realize this was debatable.
>Venezuela vice president Rodriguez in Russia, four sources say
>Her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the national assembly, is in Caracas, three sources with knowledge of his whereabouts said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-vice-presid...
^ Disputed by NYT:
>While reports circulated that Ms. Rodríguez was in Russia at the time of the attacks, Ms. Rodríguez is in Caracas, according to three people close to her. Russian state media also denied reports that she was in Moscow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/world/americas/maduro-ven...
You may be wrong about the oil industry, Trumps already saying it in between the lies/pretense about drugs.
"Trump says that the US is going to be "strongly involved" in Venezuela's oil industry moving forward." [0]
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt?post=asset%3Aea9f...
(Permalink, since it's on the second page of the live thread now.)
This live format is kind of irritating. Here's another one:
> He claims the oil business in Venezuela has been a "bust", and that large US companies are going to go into the country to fix the infrastructure and "start making money for the country"
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt?post=asset%3A27af...
Certainly I may be wrong. By the moment I just find it hard to believe that Taiwan has been traded for Venezuelan oil.
I mention Taiwan because I think it is the only currency that could make the Chinese government give up those barrels of oil without retaliating.
You made the mistake of believing that Trump is more than a zero step thinker. Many do.
The fact is, his tactics and plans end where his nose does.
Many of his advisors are capable of planning, but there are times he just doesnt listen to them and lets whatever heavy metals are in the spray tan do all the thinking. See January Sixth for one example that got people killed. See USAID for another.
So much evidence to suggest this.
No reason to think there will be follow up investments or even follow up thoughts.
On the one hand, I agree. On the other hand, I don't think this administration would have bothered to talk to China at all. I don't think they need to.
China isn't giving up any barrels of oil. It's a global market. If Venezuela is selling 5 million bbl per day to China, and it stops selling to China, someone else will start buying it. Since they are now buying 5 million bbl per day from Venezuela, that means they are buying 5 million bbl / day less from their existing suppliers. China will buy that oil.
We'll know soon enough then.
I think the next in line is her brother, who is the president of the National Assembly (Congress).
Venezuela is rich in mineral resources as well. Whatever it is the Trump admin is after, it's not democracy, it's some form of self-enrichment.
Just a small reminder that we aren't talking about Epstein much today.
Although that doesn't seem like much of a solution though: the press will be bored of this by the end of the week and the only news that can come out is bad news.
> Vice President Delcy Rodriguez is in charge
Today. She's still part of the same regime and party. It's not obvious Trump will let her stay in charge. Also the control the government had over the criminal gangs/syndicates/cartels was seemingly very weak anyway. Even if the current decapitated regime is allowed to stay it won't be very strong.
The US has long recognized Edmundo González as the rightful president of the country following the 2024 election. I imagine they will try to install him.
Alternatively there's María Corina Machado who overwhelmingly won the presidential primary for that election but wasn't allowed to run.
It’s not just the US that recognizes González, the evidence was pretty clear that he won in a landslide.
But this is not the result of a free election, more promising candidates like Machado were not able to run: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-opposition-...
So you can't just install this person as president now.
González ran in Machado's place.
Some reports that she is already in Moscow.
I am not sure what you mean by "control the government had"...they are the same thing. It is like the situation with IRA and Sinn Fein, this bizarre roleplay where people (for various reasons) went to massive effort to imply they were separate when it was obvious they were led by the same people. There is no distinction between the government and cartels...the assumption that there is makes no sense at all given the latitude they have to operate.
> It's not obvious Trump will let her stay in charge.
What's he going to do, kidnap her? Oh, wait.
Low level officials can be eliminated through missile strikes.
If if had to guess, Maduro could have been take out with a GBU or two, but the US holds a grudge against him so they took him out to humiliate him, and send a message to others.
There's a big international diplomacy difference between assassinating a leader and forcibly extraditing one on drug charges.
Not too many countries will go to the mat to support a leader who was engaged in narcotics trafficking, if the US is able to present a viable case (which they seem to intend to, if he's being charged in US federal court).
> forcibly extraditing
Commonly known as "kidnapping."
The US has no jurisdiction over Venezuela. This is pure mafia behavior by the US.
This is a coup and she is part of the conspiracy
> Venezuela being a narco-state.
That is an insane take
Is it?
I'm skeptical, as it seems to have that ring of circa-2003 WMD justification about it, but I won't dismiss it out of hat.
And if the US intends to prosecute Maduro on drug crimes in SDNYC (good!), then they'll have to present evidence to the court, which presumably means they think they have a case.
Personally, I doubt Maduro intentionally ran a narco-state as a primary focus. But I can very much see a sizable narcotics enterprise, with state support, being used as a key way for him to enrich select supporters absent a viable economy. Money to pay the generals has to come from somewhere...
You can't credibly pardon one massive drug dealer and then go and kidnap the head of state of another country based on the same kind of thing. The lack of consistency alone should cause some serious headscratching.
Headscratching is not an international consequence.
"Right" rarely matters in geopolitics.
What matters is who opposes a course of action, and how far they're willing to go in their opposition.
Is China or the UK going to insist that former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández be prosecuted on drug crimes? If not, then the US is realpolitik free to do what it wants.
Similarly with Maduro. Who's going to support him? And how far are they prepared to go?
Maduro was offered some sort of limited amnesty and safe conduit before.
Pardoning a different drug dealer can be a way to show Maduro that they were serious about the offer, that they really would have gone easy on him.
> > Pardoning a different drug dealer can be a way to show Maduro that they were serious about the offer, that they really would have gone easy on him.
Maduro is not a drug dealer and even if it was not directing all the limited resources of its government to stop the drug trade we are talking about allocation of resources which should have happened in order to put Americans Interests first whereas Venezuela has so many other serious problems.
Also even if all that was true we are talking about cocaine, the party (and somewhat productivity) drug.
The fentanyl is produced 10,000 miles away from Venezuela, in CHYNA which used to be a great talking point in 2016 but of course nothing ended up happening
It's possible to imagine all kinds of fantastical explanations but usually the simplest one is the correct one: Trump is receiving bags of money for the pardon. Also bolstered by his past (and ongoing) behaviour of openly and shamelessly enriching himself at every opportunity.
You could do whatever is good for your country. Credibly.
Getting rid of a head of state that brings your primary competitors (china) influence to your doorstep is not head scratching. Just try to think in real-world terms
You can very much see whatever you like if you're a credulous dope
Stay skeptical.
Always.
This seems like the type of comment the parent comment is referring to. It's day 1 of the invasion. Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
> Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Any student of history would be skeptical. The US record after interference in a country is abysmal. Relatively recent failures: Iraq, Afghanistan. Less recent failures: Nicaragua and throughout Central America.
I would include Libya. Gaddafi died, we were happy, Libya became a hellhole with open slave markets. The same can easily happen here if they don't have a good plan.
Afghanistan was a weird "how long to we have to pretend to give a shit before we give it back to the guys we never really wanted to take it from in the first place" situation.
Iraq was a textbook example of why you don't dismantle the entire administrative state.
I don't think either is relevant here. Other central american shenanigans are the better reference points IMO.
On the other hand, Chile was a success. Not ethically, of course, but they accomplished what they wanted.
They got lucky, the economy needed to be rebuilt and the Pinochet government had no idea how to do it and not much interest in it. So they put the economists who wrote the "Ladrillo" in charge because it sounded like a good plan. This combination of a stable government combined with libertarian economic policies lead to the success. Usually you don't get this combination under dictatorship.
As of 2025, Iraq looks better than it used to.
No strongman in charge, sorta-kinda democratic government (more democratic than almost anywhere else in the Arab world), violence has subsided, the country didn't disintegrate into pieces unlike Yugoslavia, the economy has grown moderately, and they haven't become an Iranian puppet regime.
Frankly, by the standards of the Near and Middle East, this is very much not an abysmal failure.
The insurgency that preceded this was very bad, though. No denying that. But some other modern nations have such insurgencies in their recent history, such as Ireland, and that didn't stop them from developing towards prosperity.
It took decades for the US to stabilize itself as a nation after its birth.
Why would you think Iraq would find it easy to stabilize itself post Hussein, such that you'd declare their future void already. Iraq is not yet a failure and is dramatically more stable than it was under Hussein (dictatorships bring hyper instability universally, which is why they have to constantly murder & terrify everybody to try to keep the system from instantly imploding due to the perpetual instability inherent in dictatorship).
Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Kuwait, and most of Eastern Europe (which the US was extremely deep in interfering with for decades in competition with the USSR). You can also add Colombia to that list, it is a successful outcome thus far of US interference.
I like the part where people pretend the vast interference in positive outcomes don't count. The US positively, endlessly interfered in Europe for the past century. That interference has overwhelmingly turned out well.
And what about the precedent it sets for other world powers?
Why shouldn't Russia or China just do the same and interfere with the leadership of countries they don't like.
Also it is impossible to argue the cost of the war in Iraq was worth the benefit, even if we agree Iraq is in a better place now then it was under Hussein.
> Also it is impossible to argue the cost of the war in Iraq was worth the benefit, even if we agree Iraq is in a better place now then it was under Hussein.
But the Iraquis didn’t pay the military monetary cost (arguably they paid a different cost, but it’s very hard to balance that against living under a dictator, and I said that from experience), and I’m sure US’ imperialist shenanigans could recoup the monetary cost. Seeing as US doesn’t have compulsory conscription, that takes away part of the reprehensibility of the human cost of US’ personnel caused by its interventionist policy. Which, to my eyes, leaves the thing as a net positive.
One thing can be said with certainty about countries like Venezuela and Cuba: they are broken and they cause untold pain to their citizens. The moral imperative to fix them is there, even if one can certainly discuss how and maybe quibble a little about the monetary cost.
Trillions added to the US national debt. Those chickens haven't yet come home to roost.
Just noticed the “whataboutism”. I don’t have a particular take on the comment above but those countries do those things in their own parts of the globe.
The government of nations is anarchy and in anarchy the only rule is that “might makes right”. Some seem to have a view that there is a world government and that there are “rules” when in reality there are none.
I wouldn't say there are no rules.
There are international agreements, consequences, and parties that may or may not choose to enforce those consequences.
E.g. the entire UN Security Council was predicated on the idea that no other country could/would force a nuclear power to do anything it didn't want to
"Don't worry, the democracy will eventually trickle down".
There is such thing as a post-Vietnam America, and its record is pretty bad.
"That interference has overwhelmingly turned out well."
What an absurd thing to say. The US doesn't only overthrow dictatorships - it supports them too, as it suits its self-interest. Why not include the US interference when it SUPPORTED Hussein and later changed its mind - still think "interference turns out well" after backing a genocidal monster, supporting his invasion of a neighbour, invading twice and related deaths of 400 000 people?
Countries stabilise over time, that's what their people make happen. You ignore Indonesia, Iran, El Salvador, Nicaragua and dozens of disaster of US imperialism but give credit to the US when their populations rebuild them.
The US has done some positive things but they're the convenient accidents you've cherry picked to make your point.
And overthrows actual democratically elected leaders when they're inconvenient too. Hello, Chile. (The OG 9/11?)
You're saying only facts and somehow getting downvoted, I guess denial is easier for some people.
It isn’t denial it is tribalism at this point.
So true. I think everyone should remember exactly that anytime a MAGA tribesman uses the language of reason and compassion to gain an air of respectability. They have no concern for truth or ethics and don't deserve the legitimacy of respectful discourse. Identify it early, call them out on it, smash their hollow arguments and show everyone how little respect it earns. Reason's due for a comeback.
> The US positively, endlessly interfered in Europe for the past century. That interference has overwhelmingly turned out well.
Are we counting the financial support that Wall Street and the budding CIA boys at Sullivan & Cromwell gave Hitler to harass the Soviet Union, which ultimately had to take care of the problem they created, in the "turning out well" column here?
Looks like we’re forgetting that Soviet Union was pretty buddy buddy with Hitler until surprised pikachu face happened in 1941.
"surprised Pikachu face" lmao, just absurdly arrogantly wrong. Molotov-Ribbentrop was Stalin's last resort and (successful) bid for time and breathing room after trying and failing numerous diplomatic efforts to unite the Allies against Hitler. Many of those Allies were explicit, at the time, about their desire to use Nazi Germany to inflict a mortal blow on the godless communists in Moscow.
Em. After Molotov-Ribbentrop, the Soviet Union tried to formally join the Axis as the fourth Axis power.
It's hard to argue that was to buy time, especially given they had spent more effort conquering their neighbors and helping the Nazis than building defenses against the them. They just wanted a larger chunk of Europe and Western Asia.
Their attempt failed because Stalin got greedy with what chunk of Europe he wanted and their poor performance against Finland convinced the Nazis to double cross them and invade.
Hitler offered the Soviets to join the Axis in 1940, predicated on a bunch of conditions that they refused to accept. Where in the world did you come up with this completely false reinterpretation of that as "the Soviets tried to join the Axis"?
To describe the Soviet-Nazi discussions to join the Axis as the Soviets refusing because of Nazi demands is certainly an odd view of history especially given how Stalin's proposal, one he personally drafted, was received.
Perhaps this was one of the self-serving Soviet narratives, like the nonsense of having to side with the Nazis and invalid Poland because the Allies refused them - as opposed to actively double dealing and choosing the Axis because they offered the best deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_tal...
"How Stalin's proposal was received"
Are you referring to this?
Regarding the counterproposal, Hitler remarked to his top military chiefs that Stalin "demands more and more", "he's a cold-blooded blackmailer" and "a German victory has become unbearable for Russia" so that "she must be brought to her knees as soon as possible."[12] Hitler had already decided to invade the Soviet Union in July 1940,[13] but this apparently accelerated the process.
It all goes back to what Zhukov said, "we rescued Europe from fascism, and they will never forgive us for it."
And of course the Allies' own self-serving behavior and cutting deals with Hitler, or leaving the internal dissident generals within the Wehrmacht to twist in the wind, is always to be completely ignored, the fruits of four decades of history textbooks published by Ghislaine Maxwell's capitalist spook father.
> we rescued Europe from fascism, and they will never forgive us for it
Yeah, they "rescued" it alright. Like they rescued, err stolen, Moldova from Romania and they kept it for more than 40 years. Heck, they're still messing with it. Then at the end of the war they robbed and raped civilians from the countries they "liberated".
> we rescued Europe from fascism, and they will never forgive us for it.
is that why modern Russia bankrolling every fascist party under the sun?
Are you under the misapprehension that Putin's Russian Federation represents some kind of line of succession from the USSR?
They have flown the flag of USSR in several occasions during their offensive war in Ukraine. It’s not the troops trying to be funny, either: their MoD has been sharing such videos.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/09/video-russian-troops-brandishi...
every American is :)
Not this one, but I admit I'm a rare bird.
What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Commerci...
Then?
Germany would have quite literally run out of oil (and other materials and even grain) a few months after conquering Poland. Most was imported was imported from the Americas before the war.
The French and British could have pretty much waited Germany out had Stalin decided not to bankroll the Nazis invasions of Norway and France. The allies were quite seriously considering bombing Soviet oil fields in Azerbaijan before France fell.
Presumably Stalin was hoping to prop-up Germany just long enough for them to get stuck in a protracted war in France so that he could swop in and "liberate" Europe. Unfortunately for millions it turned out to be a slight miscalculation...
Nah, Stalin didn’t anticipate the attack. And also deposing capitalist regimes, in what would become Allies, was famously the long-standing goal of the USSR
Those capitalist regimes were messing with the USSR continually from the moment of its inception, of course both sides were trying to undermine the other. Only one resorted to the sorts of terror tactics exemplified by the Phoenix Project, Operation Gladio, and the like.
> from the moment of its inception
Also saved millions of people from starvation in the early 20s by ending a devasting famine while the Soviets were busy blowing up their economy.
It's not exactly obvious that the Bolshevik regime would have survived the famine of 1921–1922 had Hoover et al. not bailed them out...
Of course you missed one major thing. The capitalist regime of Germany was responsible for the creation of the USSR.
Kuwait is a dictatorship. South Korea and Taiwan were, too until the 80s-90s. Especially, in the case of Taiwan it is unclear what US intereference there has been politically: the Chinese fought hard to be free of interference and although in Taiwan they need US support I don't think they are as controlled as South Korea and Japan (which has been invaded and "vassalised"). If interefence there is it is indeed to literally interfere to foster separation with the mainland.
Re. Iraq, interestingly the US invasion has vastly increased Iran's influence in the country because the majority is Shia while Saddam was from a Sunni tribe.
> separation with the mainland.
Which is somehow inherently wrong due to what reason exactly?
But yes, the South Korean regime in the 50s (and the RoC one in Taiwan to a lesser extent) was extremely brutal and oppressive and hardly much worse than the one in the north.
eh, germany and japan seemed to go okay, grenada too. korea kind of a mixed bag (it took decades for it to not suck)
Korea, by what metric? South Korea was through the 50 poorer than North Korea, North Korea was considered the roaring growth economy, huge success of planning and leadership.
Park Chung Hee took a country that could not be a functional democracy, provided leadership and put it onto the path of economic success. Iirc, the reduction in poverty through that period is the fastest in human history (when you consider that China, that is an incredible statement).
I think people (still) assume both that democracy is superior economically for every situation and that people who don't have any food care about being unable to vote...neither of these things is obviously true. Indeed, in the latter case, we now have a good test case of poor countries adopting democracy early and they have generally not been successful as power rotates between various quasi-dictators who give massive handouts to the poor to retain power (without doing anything actually useful).
The choice should be free though - everyone should be able to opt out. Restricting people to leave the country is a major red flag that something is going in the wrong direction.
Crediting the US for Germany's post-WWII transition is a bit of a stretch. There were quite a few more players involved.
Considering the Soviet strategy of stripping assets from the East and the fact that Britain and France were broke and in shambles - yes, the Marshall plan deserves great credit. To this day East German states remain the poorest in the nation.
To be fair they had kind of started implementing the Morgenthau Plan until they realized that maybe it wasn't the best idea (and the British played a significant role in convincing the US government about that...)
1945 to ~1947 were very rough in Germany even in the allied occupation zones (and that was at least partially an outcome of a conscious decision by the allies to not allow German industry to recover)
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> grenada too
Grenada is something of a joke in this context - the entire thing came about because the communist government fell apart and started fighting internally, so it's pretty likely the regime would have shortly collapsed with or without the invasion
The scale of investment and commitment was orders of magnitude larger, as was the utter devastation inflicted for years before hand. Incomparable.
I conclude that you cannot apply consequentialism when the outcome is unknown, so the US has done something immoral and illegal, end of story.
Idk man, if my country was ruled by a dictator who faked elections I would be very happy to see some outsiders removing him. Kidnapping (and hopefully jailing for a long time) anyone who is in power by cheating the election is a big moral win in my book.
Awesome. I think we should also extend that to leaders who have increasingly overwhelming evidence that they planned to and intended to overturn elections (just because they failed isn't an excuse, attempted murder is still a crime)...
Amazing to see so many people spelling out their rationalization in such simple terms.
Do you have any evidence of the election being faked? Other than the US says so?
Extensive polling shows this, yes.
Maduro is not popular. Go find the nearest Venezuelan and ask them what they think about the situation if you want to learn more.
Extensive polling also showed Hillary Clinton crushing Donald Trump in the 2016 US election. Polls have been wrong before. I'm asking for evidence not anecdotes.
Ok if you are just going to ignore all evidence or facts you could have just said that.
It you have an opinion, just say it. You don't have to pretend like you care about what other people are saying or what facts or evidence they have.
You can just be honest from the start that you don't agree with them and don't care what they have to say or show.
I have not ignored any evidence. I've discounted vague allegations made without presenting any proof. If you care about facts then you should ask yourself why you are so sure Maduro faked the election when you haven't seen any evidence.
> I have not ignored any evidence
We both know you are. You'll immediately dismiss anything people bring up no matter what it is and then follow up with another fake question.
You simply dont care what other people have to say. Which is fine. But stop phrasing it as a question. Just make your opinion known, say you disagree and think they are wrong and you don't care what they have to say, and leave it at that.
But the whole Q/A thing? Where you phrase a dismissal as a question pretending like you care about the answer? Its boring. Played out. Predictable.
I promise you that you'll be much happier with yourself if you just say your opinions with the full force of your true convictions instead of playing faux debate games with others.
You might even be able to convince some people, if you stop phrasing your opinions as fake questions. The fake Socratic method just gets annoying after a while, once people see through it.
tl,dr; You have no facts to support your belief and now you're mad I called it out.
Oh I very much have a lot of facts. I'm just not going to waste my time writing a multi paragraph response when we both know that you don't care what the answer is.
Feel free to go ask ChatGPT for some answers if you like though.
You can just say that you don't care. It's fine. Lots of people don't care about other people's opinions.
Many of the polls were looking at popular votes, not the electoral college which Clinton did win.
Not really, though? Most polls going almost as fat back as September were within the margin of error.
Clinton won the popular vote by 2% and she was on average 3-4% ahead in the polls..
In fact she she got more votes than predicted in early November since 3rd party candidates significantly underperformed relative to what they were polling.
I mean look up why recent Nobel Prize winner got the prize. It's not just US saying so.
In other words, no, you don't?
International observers concluded the election didn't meet standards of international election and those were already heavily filtered.
It seems the only evidence you would accept is written testimony signed by Maduro himself. I don't think it's a reasonable standard though.
If we accepted your standards we would be helping dictators stay in power. This is not reasonable way of thinking imo.
Is this a trustworthy source?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd1d10453zno
> The US secretary of state has said there was "overwhelming evidence" Venezuela's opposition won the recent presidential election.
As I wrote, "the US says so" is not evidence.
Have a closer look at the article. I read it after posting here.
Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino shared Mr Blinken's view, writing in a post on X, formerly Twitter: "We can all confirm, without a doubt, that the legitimate winner and President-elect is Edmundo González."
Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Peru have also recognised Mr González as the president-elect...
[Machado] claimed her party's candidate, Mr Gonzalez, won by a landslide and Ms Machado said she could prove this because she had receipts from more than 80% of polling stations.
Ms Machado appealed for help, saying it was now up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate what she called an illegitimate government.
Ok. So the US says so, a number of states aligned with the US, and the Venezuelan opposition. Still no evidence.
I gather that the Nobel Prize does not convey a tendency for honesty.
"[Machado] claimed her party's candidate, Mr Gonzalez, won by a landslide and Ms Machado said she could prove this because she had receipts from more than 80% of polling stations."
Yes, the opposition claimed that it had proof. However, it has not allowed any independent third parties to verify said proof. That she won a peace prize is inconsequential. They gave one to Henry Kissinger too.
None of it is proof, but all of it is evidence. Given that you have provided zero evidence to the contrary, the balance of evidence seems clear.
And even if we accept that, the US has declared effectively that the US takeover, while removing the supposed false winner, will also not restore the actual winner that called for help, but that the US will run the country directly, while seizing its oil resources (contrast with the 1990 invasion of Panama, where we also deposed and arrested a leader we accused of illegally holding power, and charged him with US crimes, but openly stated and followed through on intent to restore the government we described as having won, and did not declare that we would run the country or seize its resources, and did not, in fact, do that.)
> cannot apply consequentialism when the outcome is unknown
Can you not substitute the mean expected outcome where the factual outcome is not yet known?
If you have the data, are extremely careful and build a coalition, maybe. This admin has done none of that and the answer if asked will be “eat shit”. Blows my fucking mind that there are apologists for this.
Not when you're claming the moral high ground and all you have is guesswork.
Recklessness is immoral, and look how the discourse normalizes it so cleverly.
> Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Because they failed doing that in Iraq and Afghanistan, both cases where they did try, and there is also Libya (where they did not try all that much, if at all, I'll give you that). I mean, they did put some of their puppets in both Kabul and Bagdad, but the puppets in Kabul eventually got swept by the Talibans, while the puppets in Bagdad switched over to Iran's side by 2015-ish.
> the puppets in Kabul eventually got swept by the Taliban
Eventually? Withdrawal was announced in May 2021 and was to occur over a few months.
By late August the Taliban had full control.
What a complete fiasco.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_U.S._troop_w...
As far as I can ascertain, there is no invasion. Just a special ops kidnapping.
It is unclear what will happen next, but likely the regime or large elements of it will survive. Perhaps a more moderate faction will take control? That would be the best case scenario.
> there is no invasion. Just a special ops kidnapping
When one nation’s military illegally enters another nation’s sovereign territory to carry out military actions, that’s usually called an invasion.
Not really - an invasion implies holding ground, which isn't the case here.
Ah, the time-honored tradition on the Internet of making up one’s own definition and confidently asserting that everyone who disagrees is wrong.
Of course everyone knows it’s trivial for police to apprehend home invaders because invasion implies that they stay after they break in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion
>> In geopolitics, an invasion typically refers to a military offensive in which a polity sends combatants, usually in large numbers, to forcefully enter the territory of another polity,[1] with either side possibly being supported by one or more allies. While strategic goals for an invasion can be numerous and complex in nature, the foremost tactical objective normally involves militarily occupying part or all of the invaded polity's territory. Today, if a polity conducts an invasion without having been attacked by their opponent beforehand, it is widely considered to constitute an international crime and condemned as an act of aggression.
That definition includes what happened here. Drop all the optional conditions (“usually large numbers”, “possibly being supported”) and the core statement becomes:
“an invasion typically refers to a military offensive in which a polity sends combatants to forcefully enter the territory of another polity”
Can you at least appreciate the irony of someone using their own definition that disagrees with yours, you arguing against their using their own definition, and then there being another widely-cited definition that disagrees with your own, which you also argue against?
I’m not arguing against the Wikipedia definition because it does not disagree with mine. It says “usually in large numbers”, aka not necessarily large numbers. It says goals are complex but “normally involves militarily occupying”, aka not necessarily occupying.
If you have to spend that many words explaining how it doesn't disagree with you, it disagrees with you.
You'd make an awful lawyer with that mentality.
Anyways, Trump removed all ambiguiti today saying the US is gonna run Venezuela. It invaded and took over.
You chose a definition that is not concise and then selectively misread it.
I don’t know how to politely say that your misreading is why I needed so many words.
"Selectively misread" it? What are we calling having to deemphasize key components then? "Discriminately highlighting"?
Probably we can distinguish between military invasion, and the use (arguably miss use) of the word colloquially in the US for home intruders.
Per the Cambridge Dictionary: "an occasion when an army or country uses force to enter and take control of another country"
In our case no 'taking control' has occurred, so this is not an invasion.
I'm sure that whoever follows up Maduro will be completely confident in the fact that they will be able to set policy free of foreign influence.
Well, absent further interventions - possibly even a real invasion! - there is no reason for the current regime in Venezuela to change its policy very much (aside from beefing up its air defense maybe)
They've already been threatened to play ball: "While it is conceivable that Rodríguez has agreed to co-operate with the Trump administration to save her own skin – Trump said the US was prepared carry out a second wave of strikes if necessary – she will not be seen as someone willing to implement change."
Ukraine will be happy to hear that they haven't been invaded.
“We are going to run the country” - Trump
Clearly the US administration believes they have taken control.
This is also the man who said that he could solve all of the problems in Ukraine in a one hour phone call.
We cannot discount an assertion that this administration is expressing faith based upon falsehoods, as they have done before.
Intent is 90% of the law. We still call someone a murderer even if their attempt failed. And today there were action behind the words. I don't see any reason to argue this is anything but an invasion.
lets see how well they stay on control, and keep US oil companies out, and maintain their friendships with russia and china.
Trump just said US will run Venezuela.
"or else"...
I would not agree. Intelligence operatives are often in place for long durations in hostile sovereign territory, and some were likely used in this event. Their presence is not an invasion.
Air operations also are not seen as invasions, and the recent stealth strikes by the U.S. in Iran are not seen this way.
It appears to me that armed troops in place that are taking and holding territory for a prolonged duration are the definition.
The dictionary definition below is "the incursion of an army for conquest or plunder."
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invasion
Is Maduro and his wife "plunder?" That would stretch this meaning, I think.
> Is Maduro and his wife "plunder?" That would stretch this meaning, I think.
Sure. But “We are going to run the country” sounds an awful lot like “conquest”.
When a standing army is involved, then we will all agree that it is an invasion.
If it comes by financial aid to the elected president and oil deals to rehabilitate PDVSA, then it is not.
Okay but you chose to point to the Mirriam-Webster definition that doesn’t say anything about a standing army or holding territory.
"the incursion of an army for conquest or plunder."
We sent in an army for conquest but now you don’t like that definition anymore.
What exactly was the object of conquest?
"something conquered, especially : territory appropriated in war"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conquest
Is this Maduro and his wife?
The object of conquest remains to be seen, and if a standing army is used to achieve it.
We have the president of the United States, who ordered the assault, saying openly that “we are going to run the country” and you ask what the object of conquest was?
It has to be taken and held by a standing army.
While that may come to pass, I think today we should call what has happened an "extra-judicial kidnapping" for the purposes of federal prosecution.
That is frightening enough.
Edit: if the Maduro kidnapping is an invasion, then it follows that the Eichmann kidnapping was likewise.
https://www.annefrank.org/en/timeline/136/israel-kidnaps-ado...
> It has to be taken and held by a standing army
This is just making stuff up. None of the definitions offered up here posit this requirement aside from the one apparently in your head.
The United States sent ground troops into another country to depose its leader and install a government that will bend to United States demands. The president of the United States and his advisors have openly stated that this was done to take over the other country and extract money. This is an invasion by any reasonable definition, including the ones that have been shared here.
> Edit: if the Maduro kidnapping is an invasion, then it follows that the Eichmann kidnapping was likewise.
Was Eichmann the leader of Argentina? Did this action effect a systemic change in the government of Argentina or give Israel power or access to Argentinian resources?
Let's pretend that the International Criminal Court were to apprehend Donald Trump and take him to the Hague for trial today over this event.
His claims to control the country and its resources would be inadmissible as charges, because they have not happened. They would be admissible to establish intent, but that would lead to lesser charges.
While I realize that the lower limit of a legal definition of the events of the last twenty-four hours is in the thoughts of very few, no overt actions of force have been taken as yet to obtain those goals.
That lower limit is extra-judicial kidnapping.
Edit: if someone involved in an assault says the words "I want to kill you," then that can establish intent and trigger, among other things, a restraining order, or perhaps elevate the charge to aggravated assault.
The words themselves cannot be used to prosecute for murder.
In the same way, there are many ways that nations inflict violence upon one another, and I think "invasion" is premature, but certainly possible.
However, none but Maduro and his wife were taken, so perhaps the force of arms will be judged sufficient.
> His claims to control the country and its resources would be inadmissible as charges, because they have not happened.
I fail to see the relevance of this tangent. You haven’t even specified what the hypothetical inadmissible charges would be.
It seems like you are trying to say that an unsuccessful invasion should not count as an invasion, which is absurd. If Canada sent 100k troops to DC to take over America but they were all promptly killed, would that not count as an invasion?
Axios has a new article with information that is germane.
'...no U.S. troops would be on the ground "if the vice president does what we want..."'
'[Rodriguez] also left the door open to a dialogue with the Trump administration, calling for "respectful relations," according to the Associated Press.'
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/03/trump-maduro-venezuela-delc...
My hope is that the use of the word "invasion" is premature. I fear that it will come to pass.
You're pointing to an article with the US threatening to do it again, and you're still trying to argue this isn't an invasion?
The semantics are cute for technical documents. But please get some perspective. Buildings and destroyed and innocent lives lost. I don't care what you call it, it's bad.
Your argument is almost as bad as your vocabulary.
Trump is on fucking television saying "this is going to make us a lot of money."
Surely the best case scenario is the regime collapsing, all collaborators of Maduro ending up dead or in jail and then the guy who actually won the election or a women who would have won it ending up in power?
Of course that would be great, but pretty unlikely with just a decapitation strike. Like most dictators, Maduro was not holding the country in a superhuman iron grip, but instead the representative of various elites and factions that kept him in power for their own interests. However given how easy this operation has been, there is a suspicion that one or more factions colluded with the US, and may now be consolidating control - and then maybe a peaceful transition back to democracy? We shall see.
No - Trump has just announced that he intends for the US to "run" Venezuela for the time being and that that will include ... shock horror... American oil companies taking a significant role in the country's oil infrastructure.
> shock horror... American oil companies taking a significant role in the country's oil infrastructure.
And to think that Dick Cheney just barely didn't live to see this. (Died November 2025)
I never saw that coming. /s
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> The president is in late-stage dementia, and his cabinet couldn't put together a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.
Well, they just managed to organize the kidnapping of a head of state!
You think the business executives in this administration managed to organize the kidnapping of a head of state? Trump pointed at it and a massive machinery which was built over hundreds of years made it happen. People who have been doing this kind of work for decades organized this. Good thing those same business executives are also hell-bent on destroying the machinery, I suppose.
The same people were probably like "Joe's fine"
During the 2024 campaign, oil executives met at Mar-a-Lago and agreed to pay $1B to Trump’s campaign. It is one or more of those men who will be interfacing with the Venezuelan generals about shifting their oil away from China.
I still don’t get these kinds of comments. Is it supposed to be funny because it’s so hyperbolic? I’d hope debates here would at least acknowledge that he’s pursuing some broader aims even if most of it is probably just to benefit his friends. Does anyone really think his actions lack any ulterior motives especially with how the cabinet is selected? You can‘t deny that he has more agency then a Government-by-committee-by-proxy like Bidens final years were like, where it really felt like it was dementia taking over. I feel it’s absurd to claim that a president is incompetent for not serving his people if that is not his goal in the first place.
Without Greene, the campaign goals of MAGA wither. The “I don’t start wars; I end wars” president doesn’t even have the fortitude to start by asking Congress. It’s not as much hyperbole as it sounds.
Were they really campaign goals or were they just marketing material to win an election? It makes so much more sense to not view everything MAGA as stupid „because they are lying“. Well they’ve won the election. Is that not the goal of a campaign? I‘m not saying lying is good, but it’s not like a only minority of politicians do that and it’s not like only a minority of politicians then do the exact opposite of what they promised and incur damage to their country. Some do it by benefiting themselves like Trump, some do it by being to indecisive and weary like Merkel or Biden
Ok, so you hope debates here should charitably acknowledge wider aims. I think we can agree that campaign promises rarely align with those. But pardoning Juan Orlando Hernández means that precisely none of this is about Maduro at all.
No that’s not what I mean. I‘m saying we should acknowledge them, not necessarily by doing so charitably. My point is that you cannot have productive debates about politicians if you think they all act to benefit their people and if they do something that contradicts that suddenly everyone says they are incompetent or stupid. Only then we can start asking what is he trying to accomplish with that. Which could be an interesting debate. What is he trying to accomplish for US citizens with that is a stupid question
Very good. Do you think Trump is involved in day-to-day decision making? Is there a plan?
What are you arguing?
That the attack is ok if there was a reason for it, even if that reason differs from what we have been told?
I‘m not making a moral judgement here. I‘m saying even if the attack happens for different reasons than those you have been told (honestly a US classic), the search for a coherent reason behind it (no matter if justifiable) cannot end by saying „It doesn’t serve us. He is a stupid president, he promised us something and did something else he’s so incompetent“ because incompetent has to mean in regards to something. And if his goal really is narcissistic validation and money, well then he surely either is very lucky currently or not incompetent.
Ok it sounds like the best drawn-out support for your argument goes like this:
Since the Nov 21 call with Trump, Maduro and his wife knew to keep their bags packed. Maduro never had a strong hold on the generals, so gave them profitable organizational roles with the Sinaloa cartel. Trump was told that the cash offer had the best chance at good news in January. At least, he understands a cash offer even if he doesn’t know why he got an MRI or what for.
So the military buildup and strikes fulfill something else. What was it?
The dude literally has dementia. It's not hyperbole, it's a basic fact. Like, 2 minutes of watching him try/fail to speak makes this clear.
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I don‘t disagree with that, in fact that’s exactly what I‘m saying. If someone becomes president to achieve those goals, do you really call him incompetent for building his cabinet around achieving that very goal?
I think that most people would define the quality of a president based on their performance for their country.
If a leader pillages the country and flees with the money, I doubt that they would be praised for their excellence ‘because they archived what they set out to do’.
That‘s entirely true, but my entire point is you cannot judge somebody as incompetent based on something they are not trying to achieve. You can say he‘s a bad president, makes sense because a good president serves his country. But you can’t say he is an incompetent one just because he has ulterior motives.
> you cannot judge somebody as incompetent based on something they are not trying to achieve
Competency in a job isn’t defined by what the individual wants, it’s defined by the job description.
That only works if you are trying to fulfill your job role. So would you say a quiet quitter is necessarily incompetent for example?
I’d say that a quiet quitter can be appraised against their job description. If they fulfill their role, they are competent by definition.
That’s the whole point.
Who said anything about removing the government? Has the government been removed? Is there any sign it will be?
Who said they will remove the government ? From current news they could very well just leave it in place as long as they sell their petroleum in dollars and agree to other restrictions.
The US has not toppled Venezuelan government.
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It's also a threefold solution to Trump's current problems -
1. it takes the Epstien files completely out of media discourse, which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.
2. it satisfies the biggest donors to the republican party - weapons manufacturers and oil companies.
3. it allows Trump to control the narrative, and makes the media forget about the drugs that were supposedly being exported from venezuela. truth is there are effectively no drugs coming in from venezuela. i saw a deep explainer on reddit (yes, it could entirely be bullshit) that basically said that venezula produces between 0.02 to 0.08% of all illicit drugs entering the USA per year. No idea how that is calculated, but it makes sense in the context that Houndouras' president was effectively pardoned by Trump, and Hondouras by its very location is balls deep in the drug trade
Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
> which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.
While there's no shortage of creepy anecdotes about Trump in what's been released, there's been nothing that comes close to showing he had sex with any underage girls, nor have any come forward to claim that.
> Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
People are missing the point here. This wasn't a regime change, this is psychological warfare against the ruling party to get them to be more compliant. And yes, of course it's all about oil. While this could potentially deny China access to Venezuelan oil in the long term, it also removes the threat to Guyana's production, which is skyrocketing.
I think you’re the type of person that believes the court of law (and public opinion) needs NP complete proof to make someone guilty.
It doesn’t. The files contain enough evidence to convict any regular citizen.
Uhh, there is absolutely girls who have come forth to say that he at least has had girls perform oral sex upon him, and other sexual acts beyond "vaginal penetration" (hint: men generally don't describe thirteen year old girls' nipples as "pert". They generally don't have or find opportunities to evaluate them in the first place).
But hey, maybe that's MAGA's next spin, "it's not pedophilia if it's not actual vaginal sex".
If you have a source for that I'll be more than happy to go edit my original post to acknowledge being completely wrong on this. But my instinct is that if there was an even mildly credible report of an underage girl performing oral sex on him, we'd all have heard about it by now.
>if there was an even mildly credible report of an underage girl performing oral sex on him, we'd all have heard about it by now.
We could have the entire epstein report unredacted and you'd still be arguing that the video evidence was Ai generated. There's no helping people like you at this point.
I guess this is what Germany feels like with holocaust deniers. Too bad our constitution makes it hard to prosecute this kind of denial.
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The woman known as Katie Johnson accused Trump of raping her and another girl at age 13 at one of Epstein's parties, but dropped the lawsuit. Michael Wolff said Epstein showed him pictures of Trump with topless girls who could have been underaged from his vault. Trump was accused of going into his underaged beauty pageants when they were dressing. Trump sent the birthday letter to Epstein with the nude female drawing and lots of innuendo about sharing a secret. Maxwell was given a very favorable deal by Todd Blanche, and it's known the administration didn't want to release the full Epstein files because of how much Trump was mentioned in them.
Plus Trump was very good friends with Epstein and Maxwell. Do the math.
Plus, Trump himself stated on Howard Stern's Show that his line was 12 year olds.
You can find this on YouTube and Stern has spoken about it.
Delusions until the end.
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This is pure conspiracy, and doesn’t belong in this forum.
Trump agents out in full force, I see.
Counter any of them with real evidence, I dare you.
1. Trump is a pedophile. This is confirmed by the fact that he's been sued for his pedaristic actions, and "wished well" his former Mossad-backed recruiter.
2. Weapons makers and oil companies have quite literally had their executives and shareholders go from the board room to cabinet or VP level positions in the US government. this isn't a conspiracy.
3. Venezuela produces very little of the drugs the US consumer consumes. Mexico, Colombia, etc.. produce far more, like double-digit multiples more. Context: I live in SoFLA and interact with Venezuelans daily, and I lived in Mexico for several years and am pretty familiar with how their cartels operate.
Conspiracy? This is all out in the open.
The previous poster totally misunderstands how the War Power Act works, and many of those statements are at best supposition and at worst demonstrably false. The war powers act does not allow any domestic action at all.
> 2. it satisfies the biggest donors to the republican party - weapons manufacturers and oil companies.
This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party. And the oil industry bit is just like the nonsense take on the Iraq war which saw virtually no contracts going to US companies.
Additionally:
>truth is there are effectively no drugs coming in from venezuela.
While Venezuela does not supply drugs bound for the US the regime there has long partnered with FARC to smuggle cocaine and weapons[1].
> Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
The first Gulf War was about kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, not capturing oil, so yeah conspiracy and false statements.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela_and_state-sponsored_...
>This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party.
Wow, that's the most cringe thing I've seen in this thread. The defense industry owns both parties but contributes significantly more to Repbublican efforts than DEM efforts.
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?Ind=D
You'll notice that while the defense industry contributes to DEM candidates, they far outspend on "conservative" politicians.
>And the oil industry bit is just like the nonsense take on the Iraq war which saw virtually no contracts going to US companies.
The US oil industry didn't get any contracts during the Iraq takeover? The oil industry literally had a Haliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, go from the C-Suite to the Vice Presidency.
> The US oil industry didn't get any contracts during the Iraq takeover? The oil industry literally had a Haliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, go from the C-Suite to the Vice Presidency.
Until about a year ago most Iraqi oil contracts were held by a Chinese company that bought it's contract under Saddam an maintained it beyond the war. Haliburton mostly made money handling logistics for the war, things like construction and laundry. Oil law in Iraq was finalized post-Saddam in 2007 and pre-2000 levels of production didn't happen until 2011 after the US withdrawal.
PLEASE stop bringing wild conspiracies here.
Haliburton is a oil and gas company, not a laundry company.
PLEASE stop ignoring the obvious here.
Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR built and serviced military bases including laundry. Seriously please go read something that isn’t from Reddit.
> This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party.
Horseshit:
> Across 2017–2022, analyses based on OpenSecrets data find the defense industry’s contributions split at ~57% to Republicans vs ~43% to Democrats (a “kitchen-sink” strategy of giving to both parties).
Giving 1/3 (32.6%) more is not "pretty much even".
This is just dumb hair splitting, nearly half goes to each party.
I did the math so you don't have to.
Here's the facts. In the last 18 election cycles, here's what happened (source: Open Secrets)
the Defense industry spent $242.54m on GOP candidates. They average $13.47m spent per election cycle on GOP candidates.
the Defense industry spent 181.51m on DEM candidates. They average $10.08m spent per election cycle on DEM candidates.
Only 4 times has the industry spent more on DEM candidates than GOP candidates - 1992, 1994, 2008, and 2010. For spending those years, the average difference between GOP and DEM campaign contributions is roughly $233k, or a grand total of $4.21m (as in that is the difference in overall political spending between GOP/DEM across all those cycles).
For the other 14 cycles, when the GOP was given more than the DEM, the average difference is $3.624m between parties, for a grand total of $65.24m. You could eliminate the industry's GOP contributions for the last 4 cycles and they'd still have given more to the GOP than DEM since 1990.
Bottom line: when the industry spends more on DEM than GOP, it's by a few hundred thousand dollars. When the industry spends more on GOP than DEM, it's by a few million dollars.
Splitting hairs? That's several million dollars. You're free to write me a check for that amount if it's truly splitting hairs.
Given the money spent on US elections $3.624m is barely anything. Most of this is probably down to which districts their plants are located in. Congressional candidates spent $2.7 billion on 2022 midterm races alone, $3m is a drop in an ocean of spending.
It would be conspiracy if Trump didn't always say the quiet part out loud (40 seconds in)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=153GkS75mwM
Maria Corina Machado (nobel peace prize winner) is purported to be their new leader. So all the signs so far are looking up.
it is so funny to hear when nobel "peace" prize winner is working so hard to overthrow a government.
I am little confused about the meaning of "peace"
Since the prize went to Barack Dronebama before, she looks much better poised.
This seems weird. Do you think somebody who worked to overthrow the Nazis wouldn't deserve a peace prize?
As always, she's preferred because she intends to welcome US oil companies. Winning a prize is a red herring.
She is going to be a disaster for Venezuela, but a big win for Israel.
As soon as she won the prize she called up Netanyahu and praised him for what he's done in Gaza. They're not really even trying to make these hollowed out institutions look credible anymore.
Fond memories of when it emerged that the chair of the Nobel committee had been (at least) wined & dined by Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates.
> It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day.
What gives you that impression? I haven't seen a single comment that is surprised or wasn't aware of the existing history between the two nations, nor a single comment saying that "Ok, I'm glad/sad that that's over now". What comments specifically are you talking about?
Andrew Yang: "Bringing Maduro to stand trial feels like a win for the region and the world."
Could be!
Could also be really bad.
Wonder where that trial would be considering US doesn't recognize ICC
> Wonder where that trial would be considering US doesn't recognize ICC
It has nothing to do with ICC.
Maduro will be tried in New York and then in Florida. Those are the two places where prosecutors charged him, according to CNN.
Southern district of New York
Law of unintended consequences weighs heavy…
There is no unintended consequence. Regime change was the explicit consequence of wars in the Middle East, it was the intended consequence. It went very badly.
The intended consequence here is to demonstrate to an organized crime group that being part of the government does not mean they are safe. There is no other intention, it has worked.
There are always unintended consequences... always.
So you’re backing the rapist, paedophile and fraudster again the criminal?
I have no idea who you are talking about. Politics isn't a team sport for me so I have no idea about the memes.
No. It couldn't be. Not even a remote chance.
https://theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mi...
One possibility is that Maduro’s security detail, mostly Cuban counterintelligence, have access to damaging Epstein records. Epstein was in contact with Castro as of 2003 and was able to travel there despite sanction which would have prevented less-connected people.
FWIW, traveling to Cuba from the US (via flight from Canada, Mexico, or a dozen other convenient spots) has never been difficult, even for completely non-connected citizens.
Let’s do the same for Trump. Same base idea, right?
"If they didn't have double-standards, they wouldn't have any standards at all."
He used “I feel” language. He didn’t say it is or isn’t. Every small change, like a butterfly flapping its wings, can have profound negative effects in the future. Inaction too can have profound effects. It’s not a useful question imo other than to notice that radical changes are typically favored by progressives, while no change is favored by conservatives. Here we have an inversion of that, which to me is interesting.
He’s also angling for the Supreme shortlist.
Plenty of far-right pages are already celebrating "Mission accomplished!"
Only reason I know, is that if I check out any of the explore pages on IG etc. I get too many of those pages.
How many are clear references to Bush's premature declaration of success?
I'd expect some of those to be made of astroturf, though ...
"Far right fascists aren't real. Don't believe your lying eyes. They definitely don't run the fucking government."
What is this endless desire to claim that the right lacks any agency whatsoever.
> "He [Rubio] anticipates no further action in Venezuela now that Maduro is in US custody," says Senator Lee
Yes, he has to telegraph that to the world to try to minimize fears that the US _desires_ a prolonged intervention, regardless of what happens, and regardless of what he actually believes.
Statements made by politician need not be taken as truthful.
War powers act.
No more democracy.
Congress hasn't declared war so there's no way we can be at war.
Question is whether the Supreme Court will sell us out or not.
We should find a new name for wars that aren't wars. Maybe a some kind of special operation?
"Special Military Operation" (Специальная Военная Операция) is what the war against Ukraine is called in Russia
Pretty sure that's the joke...
Really? Wow, I never knew that. /s
They did not do this for Ukraine either, which seems quite a bit larger.
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> Question is whether the Supreme Court will sell us out or not.
Trump just ended the National Guard deployment in LA, Chicago, and Portland after an overwhelming Supreme Country loss: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/31/donald-trump-nation...
Even this long-delayed (for a shadow docket case) limited ruling (can't send troops for now but left door open for a rehearing after lower court is finished) is an exception for history's most compliant SCotUS (unprecedented 90% favoring admin).
What about the war powers act are you talking about? It just limits situations (or purports to) where the president can use the military without a declaration of war. Even if we were suddenly actually attacked (not just Venezuelan forces fighting back) it wouldn't give any path to "no more democracy".
The President can now tell "his" DOJ to indict someone in another country (like its leader), and use that to 'legally' justify an attack on said country to grab the person.
Ironically, the current administration thinks that American courts can hold any president accountable for crimes, except the American president.
There is a path to no more democracy, and being at war makes that path a lot easier.
I'm not American, my 'war powers act' statement wasn't pointing at specific legislation, it was a hand wave to the past.
It rhymes.
Notably trustworthy individual Marco Rubio
This statement was contradicted by Trump later in the day: "we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so,"
This forum won't have any obviously partisan comments (that are visible, anyway) so you have to read between the lines. They will have an air of "hah, well, Trump already captured Maduro so what do you think of that liberal?" but instead disguised as something like this[0].
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46474662
There is plenty of talk in MIGA/MAGA circles that say, in effect, that Venezuelans have now been liberated, there will be no occupation, and other related assumptions / coping mechanisms which they are using to preserve the facade of Trump being anti-war.
Reagan something very similar twice and it worked out reasonably(ish) fine.
Of course Venesuela isn't that similar to Panama or Granada in various ways. Given the massive amounts of internal issues, and insanely high levels of crime/murder removing the government and washing your hands might turn it into something like Haiti...
Fundamentally on the moral level removing oppressive tyrants like Sadam, Maduro, Gaddafi etc. is the right thing to do. Of course nobody ever figured out how to prevent the situation from getting even worse in the aftermath..
Examples of US-facilitated regime change that resulted in lasting stability/democracy are more the exception than the rule, when you look at the track record overall.
Why aren't we getting rid of the Saudi, Qatari, Emirati, Egyptian, etc. governments?
So I dont think we should but doing regime change - however the ones you cited appear to have broad popular support in their respective lands and are at most minor nuisances to their neighbors - they're also participants in the international community too.
> the ones you cited appear to have broad popular support in their respective lands
So you're saying that authoritarianism works and is just fine. The implication is that Venezuala is a shithole and it's people are unhappy with their leader because of sanctions, not because of the lack of democracy.
I'm saying people have a right to choose that, and moreover it's not my obligation as an American to fund overthrowing those regimes, or for that matter make them pariahs for being undemocratic alone.
As much as I dislike it, there are also an acceptable amount of human right abuses before we care, and its somewhere between punishing dissidents and genocide.
Venezuela had economic issues before sanctions due to chronic mismanagement of the economy, which led to a humanitarian crisis causing a mass exodus (which made the economic issues worse).
Ostensibly the difference lies in the monroe doctrine, though of course the real issue is practicality.
> Fundamentally on the moral level removing oppressive tyrants like Sadam, Maduro, Gaddafi etc. is the right thing to do.
If the issue was what was “right” then Trump wouldn’t have cozied up to Putin and abandoned Ukraine, or cozied up to MBS and waved away his murder of a US journalist, and on and on it goes. This administration has zero moral credibility. I don’t know what will happen in Venezuela but we should all be skeptical of fruit from a poisonous tree.
I do concede that it is possible the situation will deescalate from here on out, but there is no possible way to be sure of that. Right now the situation is very volatile and could very easily spiral into a huge mess. MAGA people don't want to acknowledge that possibility, because they want to believe Trump is honest and competent.
"MAGA people," yeesh.
Sorry, I meant "People of a MAGA Persuasion." People first terminology, right?
I think you would be best served prioritizing other areas of study over geopolitical conflicts; one that teaches you to respect people, even if their beliefs differ from your own.
Lol, you're crying about "MAGA people"
MAGAts?
We should just make them a territory like Guam and instead of assuming we'll fix everything and give it back, we'll just work under the assumption that we're keeping it indefinitely.
I think Trump heard you. Stop giving them ideas.
We shouldn't stop with Venezuela, need to take the entire hemisphere while we're at it.
I sincerely hope you are joking or sarcastic. If not...
MIGA?
My favorite computer was a MIGA
Make India Great Again, something coined early 2025 around Modi's visit in US. According to brief we search.
I've also seen it stand for Make Israel Great Again, given the unwavering support for Netanyahu and his agenda from the administration
I see Google's AI and top results all give this answer, but "MIGA" most certainly does not refer to India in this or most contexts, but to Israel. It is a criticism of Trump's pro-Israel actions, and presumably Google recognizes its anti-semitic usage and so will not suggest that as an answer unprompted.
I'm pointing this out specifically because I'm surprised to see that Google and also DuckDuckGo both suppress the true definition if you don't already know it.
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> What gives you that impression?
What's the next stage then according to the administration?
Anyone celebrating has the tone of "we did it, it's over". You wouldn't really celebrate if you thought anything bad comes next.
This is kind of more like a "gasp" moment, even if Maduro sucks.
And things have already happened. Close allies have stopped sharing intelligence information with the US. Even if the US doesn't need the info the deterioration of those partnerships is concerning. Or maybe good from the perspective of weakening the global surveillance machine but that's a whole other issue.
Not to mention all the other things that happen that when you put together are more concerning.
People forget, there are no real "big things".
Instead there's just a bunch of little things that come together to look big. As programmers we should be intimately familiar with this. Though normally we're using it in the other direction: taking a big problem and determining all the little problems that come together to create the big one. Working in the assembly direction is much harder than the disassembly direction (far larger solution space) but the concept is still the same.
But I agree with you, this isn't the end. This is definitely a concerning inflection point.
> Close allies
"Allies" like "The West" who take our money, don't have the same beliefs or core values, no shared religion or culture? those "Allies"?
good riddance. I am sick of us propping up failed European states
If you don’t think Europe shares our values, I’m curious who you think does?
Well, these days someone who just looked at the current situation and wasn't familiar with history might guess Russia, Hungary, Turkmenistan or even Venezuela.
Well if you exclude the politicians then most people share values. I mean we got a bunch of Chinese people living in America and a bunch of Americans living in China. Same is true for a lot of countries and ones where the countries politically are at odds. Yet the people... not so much.
There's some truth to that, although there can be value differences that aren't so obvious. But it does seem to be the case that power structures select for those most likely to abuse them.
No matter the outcome, we are not here giving judgement on the action. We are here questioning how is any of this legitimate? How did we elect a person who promised to keep america out of foreign affairs but is now doing the same thing his predecessors did.
> How did we elect a person who promised to keep america out of foreign affairs but is now doing the same thing his predecessors did.
Anybody who voted for current POTUS who is actually surprised at this turn of events...words fail me.
Whether you like the man or not, DT and his team have been more than forthcoming on what their plans were and they have more or less delivered to a T.
Groups of people over time are a complex system. What more of us educated types can do is try to help more people get educated and have good jobs. The more vulnerable, ignorant folks we have in the population, the easier it is to end up with extreme crony types.
Not to disagree but venezuela's context is different from the middle east, and this was made so quickly it might cause a stable swap. Now that's just my bedroom geostrategist wannabee opinion and yeah it might create a long mess, especially knowing trump emotional profile, if things don't benefit him quick, he might add oil to the fire thinking he's the smartest.
The guy that partially demolished the universal symbol of the United States abroad (the White House, in case that wasn't clear) and tends to not have a plan beyond the next meal would really surprise me if he had contingency plans in place for if this backfires somehow. Right now it is a toss up, it could go any way from here.
The one thing that is a given is that kidnapping foreign heads of state - no matter how despicable - is now on the menu. I'm pretty sure that this isn't the last time we see this. And the pretexts are unconvincing given how Trump dealt with that other drug dealer. I'm guessing Maduro didn't want to play ball more than anything, this feels very personal.
yeah, it seems there's a race for autocrats to establish dominance, they're all somehow power hungry and rules/gloves are off.
>> Trump also said he believes that American companies will be “heavily involved” in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.[1]
There we have it. The real reason for the invasion. Looks like the start of yet another avalanche as you say.
Jan 6th, extrajudicial killings, ICE deportations, threatening to takeover Greenland, and now the kidnap of a foreign country's leader. The world needs to wake up and realise the USA is just China/Russia with better PR.
Edit: And now he's confirmed the US will run the country until they decide otherwise.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt
These threads makes it depressingly obvious how "might makes right" is the main underlying principle in the end - albeit periodically latent. Suddenly proportionality disappears and it's one of the worst regimes out there, a narco-state. Obviously unlawful actions is reported as "legally questionable" etc. It doesn't even matter that the current US administration is an unusually vulgar example of erratic, dishonest, and self-serving leadership.
Maduro making himself dictator was also a "might makes right" move tbh.
how "might makes right" is the main underlying principle in the end
This is not surprising, this is how society ultimately works, even internally, not just on international scale.
I live in a democracy. I could still name several laws of the land that I consider fundamentally unjust, but the might of the majority translated into political and physical power means that I have to obey them, right or wrong. It is better that this power is controlled democratically and not by a single autocrat or a single ruling party, but it is still fundamentally coercion.
Are there even any alternatives? Ultimately we cannot all agree on what is right for everyone.
My point was to highlight the double standards of this kind of after-the-fact reporting and discussions. I'm cynical enough to know that "might makes right" is a part of life to various degrees.
Or... nothing will change at all. See the Fordow strike: attack another country, pull out unexpectedly, and pretend nothing ever happened.
Oh, something changed there. Iran's attitude towards nuclear weapons has changed considerably, and none for the better. They're a deal with Pakistan or Russia away from achieving that.
Iran was well on that path anyway. The US strike absolutely did turn Iran from a peaceful actor with no interest in nuclear weapons into a regime bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
> no interest in nuclear weapons
Is that satire or am I confused? Do we actually think any sovereign nation in the world has “no interest in nuclear weapons”?
I mean…pretty sure greenland was cool with it up until a year ago now…
Americans have remarkably short attention spans. In 5 years when Iran is widely acknowledged to have nuclear weapons, you’ll know what changed after Fordrow.
Or when there is an early sunrise somewhere in the Middle East.
I've been hearing "Iran is weeks away from a nuke" since the 1980's.
It's almost like that dude who keeps saying, "FSD in my EVs is just months away."
That’s correct. The point is that until now Iran has intentionally not built a nuke - they’ve kept themselves within range to make it a credible threat, but they’ve not completed the project because so far the tacit agreement has been that if they don’t build a nuke, the US doesn’t let the Israelis bomb Tehran.
I cant wait for the Monday press conference where the Epstein files are not even brought up again.
They did not capture the Iranian leadership, though.
"Events in the present determine events in the future".
Very deep observation.
Maduro had to be removed, this is a win for Venezuela. On one side he's a criminal, on the other side people at the country are cheering for this [1].
He didn't even win the most recent election. I'll write that again, he was not elected.
I haven't seen a convincing argument about why it would have been better if he remained in power.
1: https://x.com/SofyCasas_/status/2007455810884886992
People were asking for an example of such attitudes on HN, thank you for providing one.
All of the reasons you list apply to many world leaders, legitimately elected or not. You must be ecstatic about the pardon of Hernández then.
> legitimately elected or not
Let's just focus on the not-legitimately-elected ones. Venezuela was a functioning democracy until Maduro took control through force and fraud. Shed not one tear for him.
I won't. That still doesn't mean this is over by a long shot. My bet is on the oil with a side dish of Epstein distraction. At least the latter seems to have worked. Wouldn't it be too bad if Venezuela actually gets to decide who they want to deal with regarding their oil and they pick France, the UK or China...
>All of the reasons you list apply to many world leaders, legitimately elected or not.
That's correct. One at a time, I'd say. :)
"He shouldn't be in power" and "He should be kidnapped and removed by the US military (and his county bombed)" are two different arguments to make.
As Trump said, Venezuela was not pumping it's oil out of the ground at a high rate. Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves.
Trump is risking organized human life by helping accelerate global warming and ecological collapse.
This is not a good outcome for the world.
Could you redo this analysis and explain why China shouldn't fly into Florida and kidnap Trump?
After all most of the country wants him out, he's a felon and broke the law countless times since his election.
Seems like a win for the people of the US and America.
President Trump was elected democratically by the people of the US, by majority in both the electoral and popular vote.
Jack Smith also made the clear case to Congress last week that he has the evidence that Trump did try to overthrow the 2020 election and inspired the January 6th insurrection, so he should not have been eligible to run in 2024. He should have been in prison.
Maybe Colombia could swoop in and abduct Trump... This world is getting crazier by the hour.
Well Columbia, Mexico and Cuba have been threatened by the Trump administration since Maduro was taken.
Colombia. It's not that difficult, @goatlover.
To be fair, the English names for all other places named after Cristoforo Colombo use the English spelling for Christopher Columbus. It might be difficult to remember the (locally-less common) exception.
And our primitive spell checkers often cannot deduce from context, as there are many, perhaps most cases, where Columbia is the most-likely correct rendition. Even if we transcend our own difficulties, Siri might defeat us.
You are correct that the correct English spelling for Colombia is Colombia, and surely it is problematic to localize a foreign country's name.
So please reciprocally acknowledge receipt of our formal request for Colombians to stop calling the USA "EE. UU.", "Estados Unidos de América", and all other such indignities. :)
I’m sure the evidence for this is as strong as the Russiagate evidence.
You don’t see the irony in claiming Trump wasn’t elected in a democratic fashion, by using undemocratic methods to force him out?
I see the irony.
>President Trump was elected democratically by the people of the US, by majority in both the electoral and popular vote.
It was a plurality of the popular vote, not a majority[0]. A majority is >50%. Trump received 49.8%.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
Not in 2016.
So? Because he was legitimately elected he can do whatever he wants with no consequences?
Multiple lawsuits and inquiries on Trump were stopped when he became president.
Plus, the stalemate on Taiwan right now is US strategic ambiguity. Maybe Trump “visiting” China to offer his strategic brilliance during their expansion will finally get him a bigger peace prize.
Good do Putin next then.
I reckon this was an agreement between Putin and Trump. Ukraine for Venezuela. I can be wrong, of course.
It’s also worth noting that, according to Trump’s former Russia advisor, Fiona Hill, Russia once pushed for a “swap” in which it would abandon its support for Venezuela in exchange for the U.S. abandoning its support for Ukraine.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-venezuela-take...
Of course, that doesn't mean that there is a deal, but it is certainly a possibility.
> I haven't seen a convincing argument about why it would have been better if he remained in power.
You're way off base here. No one is arguing that he should be in power. It's the way it was done. You're also ignoring a very important question: now what?
Sorry, but the last year has not inspired confidence that this administration knows what it's doing.
> He didn't even win the most recent election. I'll write that again, he was not elected.
The most recent election in Venezuela was in 2025 and Maduro's faction(s) won a landslide victory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Venezuelan_parliamentary_.... Nothing indicates that the results were fraudulent.
Remember the end of Saddam and what came after that.
Very different interventions and very different countries.
Venezuela was a prosperous, serious and fully democratic country before Maduro and their predecessors took over.
I think no americans are afraid of venezuela, so what could possibly come that we don’t want? you think venezuela can stand toe-to-toe in a full scale military engagement? you see how we just walked into their country, took the president, and his wife, and walked out without issue? have you seen how many venezuelans are celebrating?
Have you learned absolutely nothing from 9/11?
Considering I was in a war over 9/11? Venezuela still seems like a a sunday walk.
if you were in a war over 9/11 which we lost just like we lose them all other potential wars should concern you
>> It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day.
Trump just said in the press conference that from now on the US will run Venezuela...The US is "designating" the people that will run the country.
They mentioned the president of Colombia has to "watch his ass" and that Cuba is a mess. And said that the US will be selling the oil to other countries, and the US will take "our oil".
Insanity does not even starts to describe it...
> or it could roll on for quite a while
I hope to be wrong, but think it certainly will. all the money everyone is spending on arms it seems soon the only game left in town in the military industrial complex. the other career options are to become a doctor, or nurse.
the US in its current form is heading towards long drawn out collapse like the Roman empire, and they're dragging all their former allies down with them. there seem to be no peaceful options to prevent that collapse.
E.g.:
- I do not see any way they can modernize their messed up political system.
- their population is divided more than any country on the planet
- thanks to heavily propagandized citizens they don't have the critical mass to bring in change (not in a country where the companies have so much power)
>the US in its current form is heading towards long drawn out collapse like the Roman empire,
The Roman empire collapsed for more than 250 years. Longer than US exists. I think it's too early to compare those two.
Panama was an opened and closed book in practically less than a week.
I was there and no it wasn't.
Open and closed in the collective US attention span
To me this is one of those situations where regardless of what happens in Venezuela, there were better, more morally and legally justifiable, ways of achieving the same end.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
Except they didn’t even bother to manufacture consent this time? Or did a very lousy job of it.
Watching BBC news earlier, two interviewees were acolytes of Venuzuelan politician and exile Maria Corina Machado, who recently received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Juan Guaidó, the former American-backed coup (or whatever you want to call it) leader. They were adamantly pro-Maduro getting helicoptered away, but somewhat neutral on bombings on their own capital city. I think the consent factory is still making porkie pies.
> exile Maria Corina Machado
Machado seems to be the opposite of an exile until she escaped to accept the Nobel Peace Prize last month.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Corina_MachadoThey'll have it sorted by prime time.
Yeah it’s surprising how little justification there’s been for this. As a well-read US citizen, I don’t actually know why we did this.
Was it for oil? Socialism bad? To stop drugs? I think you latter is the narrative I’m most familiar with.
Immigration would be the most logical, since this administration and political base care a lot about that, but I don’t think they’ve drawn a clear line between economic success and emigration. Logic isn’t exactly a cornerstone for these idiots.
I’m guessing we did it to flex and distract from our own economy, but usually there is at least some pushed narrative for why America did the thing?
Geopolitically the US has abandoned world hegemony and is consolidating in the western hemisphere.
Venezuela has massive oil reserves and its leadership has been anti-Zionist since Chavez.
It’s a juicy target close to home, been a thorn for decades, and not as prickly as Iran or Yemen.
But you’re right, it’s noteworthy they are not attempting to sell interventionism to the public anymore. 15 years ago they’d have staged a color revolution and gone with the populist uprising narrative. They seem to have dropped the narcoterrorist narrative already. The use of raw force without moral justification is a sign of decline. The Twitter right is trying to sell this as an imperial / Nietzschean triumph but few are going to buy it.
I think it’s just realpolitik grand chessboard strategy. Knocking out an unfriendly/uncooperative leader of a strategically important country. That’s always been the real justification for US foreign policy. It’s a game of risk, without moral considerations beyond optics. There isn’t much more to it than that.
You can be socialist if you cooperate. You can be a dictator if you cooperate. It’s not about political philosophy or forms of government, just playing ball with the hegemon.
It’s always oil. And trying to cripple anyone who was making deals with Venezuela.
Given Rubio's role, "communism bad" seems the most coherent explanation. He's been on this beat for a long time.
The media has been branding maduro a narco-terrorist for a while now. And trump has declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction and exclusively blamed venezuela for it. The establishment has a playbook and they stick to it. Let's not forget the nobel committee gave a "peace prize" to a woman advocating for war against venezuela.
> Or did a very lousy job of it.
It's more obvious than lousy.
You have to remember Trump is an adjudicated rapist. It makes sense he wouldn't consider consent important.
I think Trump got the news a bit late.
Venezuela has been linked to the fentanyl crisis. "The Trump administration has described strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific as attacks against terrorists attempting to bring fentanyl and cocaine to the US.
However, fentanyl is produced mainly in Mexico and reaches the US almost exclusively via land through its southern border."
The 'wars on drugs' and the 'war on terror' have been abused many times in the past to just do whatever person 'x' wanted to do anyway. See also: National security.
It obviously doesn’t end today but it should be fast.
When Noriega was arrested by the US, the legitimate president started operating normally a few days after.
Trump is threatening, today, the new Next In Line leader of Venezuela.
I'm skeptical it will be over soon.
We in the USA now own Venezuela. It's all our fault going forward.
As we saw in Iraq, Americans do not care. It creates opportunities for them anyway while someone else is going to bear consequences.
Increased nuclear proliferation is a one of those possible paths.
Trump has done a great deal already to incentivize nuclear proliferation by destroying confidence that the US will be a reliable defensive ally.
Also, based on threats Trump has made and that recent national security proposal or whatever, it seems the administration is intent on regime change in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico. I bet Brazil is watching its back too. So it’s really going to be many avalanches as America revives colonialism. All to the cheer of half the country.
I doubt any of our allies like Canada or European countries can trust us again.
Don't forget Greenland.
I think it has been like this forever, since the beginning of human civilization.
Yep - That group of people have something we want (gold, spices, women, revenge or the ever classic we want to replace their religion with ours) and for the last 30 years especially now oil and minerals appear to be on the menu
The Arab spring was a mass uprising, this was the removal of one person - it's really not the same.
Think of it this way - Maduro could had died from choking on a turkey bone over Christmas - would there inevitability be a civil war?
What matters is whether there is a fight for political power as a result - and particularly what the generals think. ie any fight is much more likely to start from the top rather than the bottom.
My guess, and it's just a guess, is that the smoothness of the extraction mission strongly suggests serious inside info/cooperation. ie somebody did a deal with the US - involving giving up Maduro in exchange for removal of the sanctions ( particularly oil which the US has escalated with tanker seizures ) which was crippling the country.
So my prediction is an internal smooth transition of power, cooperation around oil, with neither the US nor the new leader being keen on quick elections as that will interfere with the execution of the deal.
All the Trump cares about is the public 'win' and the oil and minerals flowing. The Venezuelan leadership will want to end the US sanctions and get the countries economy working again - if this happens they will think election prospects will improve - can't see Trump caring that much about Venezuelan internal politics as long as he get's the win and a positive flow of oil revenue and strategic access to minerals.
Remember that historically oil was 90% of export revenues and 25% of GDP.
The real knee-on-the-neck was the US blockade/piracy of oil tankers and associated sanctions.
Right on. We haven’t even tried to win the hearts and minds yet. Not to mention a surge or two.
The Arab world is different because the people are largely fundamentalist and there's many extremists while the governments are relatively moderate. So get rid of the government and all the extremists take over.
Venezuela is Catholic and while it definitely has crime issues, there's no religious/fundamentalist element to the violence so the odds of anyone fighting to the death to support their failed dictator and his ideology is slim to none.
Which government was relatively moderate? Gaddhafi who threatened to slaughter the rebellious cities block to block on TV? Assad who did just that and gassed his own people for a good measure?
The indecision of the international community to act is what caused the suffering lasting a decade, led to the rise of ISIS and refugee crisis of enormous proportions.
> Which government was relatively moderate? Gaddhafi who threatened to slaughter the rebellious cities block to block on TV? Assad who did just that and gassed his own people for a good measure?
Both of them were more moderate than ISIS lol.
But yeah, Egypt is more moderate than the Muslim brotherhood. Jordan is moderate. The non-Hezbollah part of Lebanon. UAE, Qatar, Oman all quite moderate. The Saudis are even secularizing a tad to try calming down fundamentalist sentiment. All these states actively suppress Islamism and generally are pro-west.
None of them where Arab Spring had struggled were "moderate", this is ridiculous. Assad has caused death of over 600k people (by the time they stopped counting in 2019). And ISIS is a natural consequence of these secular (if you can call personality cults even that) dictatorships lasting decades.
Ok so you ignored the states I did list and focused on the tongue in cheek comment. Gotcha.
None of the places you listed (sans Egypt) were a part of Arab Spring, I wonder why.
The US supported the Arab Spring not understanding that the public mob is worse than the dictators. No country that's not China and perhaps the most powerful NATO allies can resist US military superiority.
Most of the states I listed stayed on the right side of the US and US military equipment and aid keeps them stable.
Oh, so Obama admin was behind this? Same admin that had to be dragged by the French to help Libyans and that ceded Syria to Assad and Russia in 2013? Gotcha.
I think what was meant was moderate ideologically and religiously. Still extreme in their disregard for human life and their determination to maintain power.
> Venezuela is Catholic and while it definitely has crime issues, there's no religious/fundamentalist element to the violence so the odds of anyone fighting to the death to support their failed dictator and his ideology is slim to none.
Colombia managed a decades long violent armed conflict with the same demographics. Organized crime, political instability, political ideologues, etc all can get people to kill each other without religious extremists.
> So get rid of the government and all the extremists take over.
Oh, the so called "extremists" are/were the ones with power. This is where it tops out. I know it's hard to see from a distance but you have no idea how bad can it get under the safe and sound status quo.
Who is already seeing this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day?
And apart from the usual destabilisation possibilities, with the current US leadership there's no guarantee the outcome isn't Maduro agreeing to pay some oil revenues into Trump's personal bank account, makes some vague symbolic promise to stop drugs and emigrants and gets released to carry on as he was, but maybe with a few more internal scores to settle
I definitely would not rule that out. This is very specific. I wonder how well Mark Carney sleeps tonight.
> there's no guarantee the outcome isn't Maduro agreeing to pay some oil revenues into Trump's personal bank account
Too late, Maduro is in custody - that bargain is for the next Venezuelan president to make
Stranger things have happened. After a chat with the capo di tutti capi he may come to new insights.
Considering all the recent meddling of the USA around the world their track record is pretty bad. Higher chance it will end worse than they began with. Worse on an unpredictable way.
? The arab spring came from the islamic world regularly building population powder kegs, without having a modern industrial society to keep these populations educated, fed and with a perspective beyond fanatic death-cultist movements.
The arab spring exploded, because obama rerouted us-surplus food from subsidizing allied regimes (egypt) into bio-fuels, causing wild price spikes to the bread prices in egypt and the arab world. These situations are not really comparable - like at all. Not even on the surface level.
Of course assuming that this is a book that was opened today and not many years ago, is the tell tale sign where this argument comes from.
Or Afghanistan
What?!? Not end in one day? Nonsense!
Soon you will be telling me the Taliban still run Kabul.
Neither Trump nor the GOP cares about the stability of the country or the health of its citizens. They care about distracting from problems (Epstein, affordability, etc) and about how they can extract Venezuela’s oil and minerals so they can make billions off this theft
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-22/oil-gold...
As long as they can protect the mining and refining operations the rest doesn’t matter. And I fully expect the America First, America Only group that claims to be the next thing after MAGA, to find ways to justify this regime change and corruption.
6 years ago to the day many people were hysterical when Trump offed Soleimani on his Baghdad field trip. Turned out it brought substantial positive change to the Middle East.
It may not work out this time but when you start from a terrible rock bottom status quo the chances are already biased.
Can you point out the substantial positive change?
It impeded the Iranian colonial project considerably. Influence of Iran sponsored militias in Iraq have declined. It limped in Syria as well, which allowed for the fall of Assad regime a year ago.
You realize he was there at Iraq's invitation? The only impact of killing him is that both the Iraqis and whomever took his place is guaranteed to never forget why the job was open.
Looking at the middle east right now compared to 2020 I see a much bigger shitshow, including Syria. Having a bunch of people die chaotically doesn't serve anyone's interest, it just creates the next generation of radicals.
He was there to coordinate his militias during the ongoing attack on the U.S. embassy.
And countless lives have been saved in Syria now that Assad is out.
I'd love to see a source that he was there to coordinate an attack on the US embassy. Did the Iraqis invite him for that purpose?
"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"
“MI$$ION ACCOMPLISHED”
Well it’s even simpler than that on paper. The government has a succession plan. Most likely outcome: Maduros party stays in power
It may actually mean next to nothing geopolitically other than to outrage the rest of the world and make Trump look tough.
> make Trump look tough.
But only to his loyalists.
Exactly. Delivering freedom to Venezuela will get the splintering aspects of his tribe focused on the message and away from Epstein.
The people he needs at home are pretty simple. This type of thing makes it easier for his loyal propagandists to do their thing.
I thought his loyalists were expressly against protecting foreigners from oppression, e.g. Ukraine? America first etc.
This will be a real challenge, then. Who is performatively nimble enough to say “we’ve always been at war with Venezuela!”
I think the narrative is that South America is America.
Remember in his first term how he had his loyalists, many of who were expressly in "support" of the 2nd amendment, cheering on the government jackboots who came in the middle of the night to make "cold dead hands" ? The cultists will believe anything. That's the fundamental problem with cults.
I think this is something thats really missing. In the vacuum of power who is stepping in? If its someone who is just going to sell oil to the us who gets to continue to oppress and destroy the Venezuelan economy then is it really a win?
It be like the Russians taking out Trump only to have Vance take over. Hes still propped up by miller, hegseth, bondi, the house AND senate AND courts and the cavalcades of sycophants who really only are doing the whims of oligarchs who have no interest in helping society as a whole.
Yup. Bangladesh’s government was toppled last year. With at least the tacit support of the Biden administration. Now the formerly banned Islamist is running #2 in the polls and looks like they will be part of a coalition government.
I’m not sure we can compare US involvement between Venezuela and Bangladesh. It is interesting that Nobel prizes are involved in both.
I’m not saying the U.S. overtly toppled Bangladesh’s government. I’m agreeing with the part about “be careful what you wish for.” What follows a revolution is usually worse.
Ah, this we agree on. I see revolutions as a net negative and it’s often an early propaganda point to frame it otherwise.
Unfortunately, the action is perpetrated by the least capable amaerican government so theres slim chance ultimate good comes out.
> It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
So, your prediction is "anything is possible".
I gotta say nobody can disagree with that.
Admitting that you don't know is often the most intellectual mature position to take. The world is in a chaotic circumstance right now, there's a sense of this being just the start of something far more horrifying, but anybody telling you they have a crystal ball is lying.
> Admitting that you don't know is often the most intellectual mature position to take.
It's actually more like grandstanding to satify oneself emotionally. It's "I am right" esque type of answer because "anything can happen" is always true.
The statement can be omitted because it literally adds nothing to any discussion.
> but anybody telling you they have a crystal ball is lying.
Then, we can add to a discussion saying which part might not be true, which assumption is incorrect, and etc.
Nobody would predict anything with 100% confidence. You make that up and state "anything can happen"-type of statement to satisfy yourself emotionally.
If those people were that sure about their predictions, they would bet on polymarket and become a billionaire already.
> Nobody would predict anything with 100% confidence.
We're all going to die.
This too shall pass.
100%
Still can't be totally certain. Even fallibilism could be wrong.
You got me! You've predicted something with 100% certainty.
I have another one. A better one. A less risky one. "true is true"
Yeah I remember Occupy protesters. I got trapped in a gaggle of them shouting “Tahir Square!” again and again. I literally lost hearing in one of my ears.
It never really recovered. Probably need a hearing aid, but I can just use the other one.
> It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is.
So you'd prefer.. inaction? So we know for a fact we will going to reach world peace ten years from now having done absolutely nothing?
Its worked for north korea going on over 70 years now
This is the Ron Paul position and its a solid one.
The non-intervention principle applies if you are not actively suffering intervention.
The flaw however, is that applying non-intervention in this instance, is choosing to ignore the real, direct hurt currently endured by non-actors (LATAM + US citizens) from the policies of Maduro.
I do concede that whatever follows Maduro, may be worse.
If I'm getting poked by a neighbor for years and i finally punch back, punching is a valid response. If the neighbor then comes back later and shoots me with a gun, it doesn't mean that my self-defense act was invalid.
Invading and kidnapping the leader of a sovreign nation sounds rather illegal to me.
Is it really illegal is nobody has the power to apply that designation?
Absolutely. I declare it so.
There's no such thing as a sovereign dictatorship, that's a contradiction in terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign
> The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or head of state to head of municipal government or head of a chivalric order. As a result, the word sovereignty has more recently also come to mean independence or autonomy.
It isn't necessarily just a non-interventionist stance. Someone could be taking this position in this situation because they're highly skeptical that the Americans involved in this have the ability or desire to proceed in a way that will result in a minimum of casualities or in a way that will bring about real democractic change to the region.
People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things, not whoever is doing currently doing it.
And look what happened when Eisenhower did it in Iran.
> Someone could be taking this position in this situation because they're highly skeptical that the Americans involved in this have the ability or desire to proceed in a way that will result in a minimum of casualities or in a way that will bring about real democractic change to the region.
> People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things
Why would people who don't want Trump doing it want an Eisenhower doing it? He helped overthrow democratically elected Árbenz in Guatemala with even weaker justifications than Trump overthrowing Maduro (Maduro at least seems to lack popular support and probably cheated in elections).
Eisenhower:
Overthrow of Árbenz to protect fruit company profits > series of military dictators > 30+ years of civil war where the US-backed government committed a genocide against Maya people
I've met Ron Paul.
You, sir, are no Ron Paul.
That way lies madness.
If anyone else is like me and unfamiliar with Ron Paul’s views, they are listed in his wiki.
He sounds insufferable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul
Reports that Maria Corina Machado (peace prize winner) will be the next leader - so that is a good sign. I've also seen many reports and videos of locals celebrating.
Not a chance in hell. The regime is 100% intact. Maria Corina Machado would be executed the moment she lands. A complete military takeover will follow the ousting of Maduro.
I know nothing about her but worth pointing out that 'peace prize winner' is irrelevant. Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She has since presided over ethnic cleansing.
I don't think that's likely. The current president is Maduro's VP.
We essentially took out the Venezuelan version of Trump. There are still the cabinet, remaining military leaders, courts, representatives, even down to governors and mayors who all profited from the current setup who are not going to be willing to just roll over cause the US supports someone
But in the end of the day, Arab spring worked just fine everywhere? In every single country where pro-Russian dictators were in power, they fell (Iran is not pro-Russian, just a potent enemy by itself, and is not Arab for that matter). Except Libya where they fell partially, with country being effectively split in halves. But this is already a big deal - there isn't a single pro-Russian regime now in the entire Arab world.
Why do you think it won't work like that with Venezuela?
PS: I realised that i made a mistake, so-called Palestine is absolutely pro-Russian, the entire ethnic group is created by Russians out of thin air in 1967, but it's a separate case and they did not participate in Arab Spring anyway.
So what if they're pro-Russian? America just showed to the world that they're a terrorist state just like the big scary Russians. Now you can expect Putin to make a BIG play in Ukraine and Europe very soon; the gloves are off.
I can't help but think this is going to end so poorly for the innocent men, women, and children in Venezuela. I feel for them. While Maduro seems to not be loved, these periods of violent transition can result in horrid outcomes for the local populace. I can only hope my fellow Americans start to see the light and vote the current administration out of office. I'm not hopeful.
This comment is so out of touch with the reality of Venezuelans. They are crying tears of joy. This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.
They are crying tears of joy.
That pretty much sums it up. I think Zack covered it well too. [1] I do not understand what benefit there was to a dictator remaining in place and why so many on HN support him. Over a third of Venezuelans fled that country and lost everything to escape tyranny.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_x9aWccFCE [video][52m][language]
Exactly. As if leaving Maduro in power is somehow better for Venezuelans than an external intervention. Things could not be worse than they have been.
>Things could not be worse than they have been.
Things can always get worse.
The GP didn't say changing Maduro to other president is bad, but that "periods of violent transition" can have dire consequences for the regular people. And US seems to be in it for the money, not to liberate the downtrodden.
I wish them peace and prosperity, though.
I wish them peace and prosperity as well. Everyone does. It’s been 25 years of hell and it was just going to continue as such.
They can and often become worse. Look at Saddam Hussein and his family. They were monsters, but the reason they engaged in torture and fearmongering was to keep the other monsters in place.
Collapsed states are the worst, these becomes breeding grounds for organizations like IS.
Most places often hold as failed states and by our standards, they look terrible. Law enforcement doesn't work, so gangs become enforcers. Money doesn't really work either. But it still beats total anarchy and especially anarchy of a region with a lot of natural resources. A few hundred billion dollars of oil may not be much to a country, but it's a hell lot to terrorist organizations who are waiting to come in once the US pulls out.
[dead]
> why so many on HN support him
Because "anything orange man does is bad, no matter what."
Seriously. People cannot think beyond their stupid party lines at all.
Venezuelan here. It’s not that simple: Maduro was an _absolutely_ horrible dictator and yes many Venezuelans (myself included, and likely many of the 8+ million that left) are overjoyed with him being ousted, we haven’t seen any change in over two decades. And yet, it is transparently clear that the Trump admin is here not to save Venezuela, or Venezuelans… it’s here to line its pockets and that of its shareholders.
There was a very evident omission during Trump’s press conference: Any mention of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the duly elected president-elect of Venezuela (who won with a super majority last July - backed by Maria Corina Machado). Instead, Trump bad mouthed Maria Corina saying that “she does not have the support or respect of the country to run it”. They ousted Maduro, but they kept his VP (Delcy Rodriguez - which along other things is in charge of running the torture centers for political prisoners) as “she will do anything we ask her”. Trump doesn’t care about democracy or regime change - these things take time and are a long, thorny road (this wouldn’t be the US’ first rodeo). Instead they’ve chosen to keep the regime obedient with the threat of force, and instead just come in and extract as many riches as humanly possible…
Dark times ahead for Venezuela and the Venezuelan people
Many of the replies to my comment ascribe support for Maduro where there is none. However, I’m still sorry for what we have done. I don’t think there was a single motivation behind it aside from acquiring Venezuelan oil and gold reserves through thinly veiled piracy. Anyone who says we did it to topple a dictator is a rube or myrmidon. Too many unpredictable outcomes have been birthed from government foolishness like this in the past for me to believe it will end any differently.
All the best to you and your family and friends. For what it’s worth (not much I’m sure) many of us didn’t vote for this and are aghast.
> All the best to you and your family and friends. For what it’s worth (not much I’m sure) many of us didn’t vote for this and are aghast.
This white knighting is getting rather tiresome. Why does the _why_ of why it happened matter besides virtue signalling? What matters is the end effect of the action. And the end effect here is better for EVERYONE (or at the worst neutral) involved other than Maduro and his cronies.
To boil down my take down to virtue signaling is a reductio ad absurdum. You desperately need more education on US history in Latin America.
Funny how no one listens to real Venezuelans speaking. As a chinese I understand you fully. Everyone hates dictators, but sometimes the alternative isn’t just necessarily better as people might hope. Transition is gonna be long and painful.
At least there is hope of… something changing for the better though? With Maduro out.
What we’ve been living through in the last 28 years is Chavismo and yet Chavez is not around. When Chavez died in 2013 we celebrated that he was gone, and what we got after was much, _much_ worse. Now Maduro is gone, and we can celebrate it too. That said, Trump has signaled that he’s not interested in removing Chavismo: he’s keeping Delcy, Diosdado, et al, as they continue to be the brokers of power as long as he gets access to oil. This is just Chavismo aligned to American interests. Time will tell whether this is better or worse.
PS: As an aside, since I was a child growing up in 90’s Venezuela, the overall political mentality of people was that things were so bad that they couldn’t get any worse - and yet they continued to worsen. A lesson that I’ve learned is that in politics things need to be intentionally built - there is no “rock bottom”, the fact that things have been horrible doesn’t mean that they can’t get even worse. Thus my hesitation with what’s going on. There are no guarantees that this isn’t going to be a deal with the devil that leaves us in an even worse state…
> That said, Trump has signaled that he’s not interested in removing Chavismo
I think you're jumping to conclusions. What Trump has said is that he wants the demands of the US satisfied. One of those is ultimately elections in Venezuela. You're mistaking taking a case-by-case approach for "non-interest".
Thanks for the reply. I hope the Trump admin does what’s right and puts the people of Venezuela in a position to choose their own leadership. Maybe the remaining Chavismos will be removed from power before too long.
And that’s where my hopes vanish. A dictator-wannabe that has a track record of not respecting the peaceful transition of power in _his own_ country and has run his entire campaign on hatred for immigrants and more recently Venezuelans in particular, is going to, all of a sudden, grow a conscience and do what’s right for the Venezuelan people? Let’s call it what it is: this is about oil. I don’t have to say it, because he already did in front of the cameras. He doesn’t care what happens to Venezuela or Venezuelans.
people naturally want to sound smart, sound empathetic without thinking
Incorrect, actually! I’d encourage you to learn about the history of empire and violent conquest. What you learn may surprise you!
> > This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.
Really? The Venezuelan community online (eg. /r/Vzla and /r/Venezuela) communicate using memes and rather unintelligent discourse.
It's not enough to want democracy, democracy and stability happens when there is an engagement in collective thinking , whereas disorder and chaos happens when people don't want to work and don't think things through
> The social media posts of on a web forum represent the ideological position of an entire nation.
I believe it’s naive to assign Reddit and social media “discourse” any importance. Anything else is an exercise is confirming your already held bias.
Why does the post on a website by some people (who says they are even Venezuelan?) allow you to make the claim a nation “ doesn’t think thing through”?
Maduro and Chavez before him are the horrid outcomes.
Chavez was the result of democratic elections, before he grabbed dictatorial powers.
Yes, let's pretend this didn't happen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_1992_Venezuelan_coup_...
I didn’t pretend that. Still, he was elected and the 1998 election is largely uncontested as far as I’m aware.
And the election he stole last year?
Who, Chavez? He died in 2013.
Are you that clueless?
Does no one remember when Obama did this for the exact same reason in Lybia? He wasn’t as dumb about it, but the outcome will be the same.
While I agree with the sentiment, Maduro’s fate, for the time being, seems much better than Gaddafi’s. And while increased chaos in the region is not unlikely, I don’t foresee open air slave markets in SA at least
Libya wasn’t for oil, intervention was approved by the full UN Security Council, it was motivated by stopping crimes against civilians committed by the regime, and the intervention ended immediately after the regime fell, instead of “running things” and taking the oil like Trump is doing.
You’re rewriting history.
Lybia is a tribal country that has always been divided between its eastern and western part. Gaddafi married a bride from the opposing tribe to seal an alliance and bring stability to the country.
The "revolution" was done by the Tripoli (western) tribe, against the Cyrenaica (eastern) one - it was more a civil war starting than a popular uprising.
Gaddafi could have indeed crushed them, bring back order to the country, avoiding the current long lasting chaos, civil war, open slavery, migrant waves and so on.
It's hard to evaluate situations with a westerner mind, in countries that are structured around very different cultural norms, and with deep ethnic divisions. "Democracy" is not the silver bullet it those cases, and maybe we should acknowledge that.
Anyone who went to Afghanistan to fight knows this, but explaining it to a suburban Cul du sac family is impossible
That's the false history of the felon Nicolas Sarkozy, who is going to prison for the crimes he did in Libya for his personal enrichment [0].
The reason France and its crook leader invaded Libya was, according to public reports[1], because they had negotiated back-room deals with anti-Qaddafi rebels for oil. 35% of Libya's oil production in exchange for French support. Literally a war for oil.
Qaddafi's atrocities were real, but they were never the motivation of the French-lead bombing of Libya. That was a false rationalization made up to manufacture public consent. Manufacture consent for a failed intervention, that left Libya worse off than it had ever been.
> "was approved by the full UN Security Council"
Whose members actually knew about the corrupt oil deal[2], and chose to go along with the fraud, lying to their own people.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_financing_in_the_2007_F... ("Libyan financing in the 2007 French presidential election")
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/01/libya-oil ("The new Tripoli government has denied the existence of a reported secret deal by which French companies would control more than a third of Libya's oil production in return for Paris's support for the revolution")
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/libyan-oil-gold-and-qaddafi-... ("Libyan Oil, Gold, and Qaddafi: The Strange Email Sidney Blumenthal Sent Hillary Clinton In 2011")
Interesting, I didn’t know about the French side of that.
Gaddafi was trying to establish a gold-backed "arab" currency system and wanted to sell his oil using it. This was a threat to the US dollar so Obama was very happy to see Sarkozy knock at his door asking to go get the oil themselves lol
Because the oligarchy running the show behind the scenes is the same.
I don’t see that at all. Lots of good things will come from this IMO. The old wet-kneed approach to shenanigans going on in our own backyard is a disastrous message to people around the world. Just as a resurgently effective law enforcement body can restore a local community that has gone to the dogs, so too it works at an international level.
The paradoxical thing about these actions though, is that when they are run by humble mission-oriented and very effective people, they quickly disappear from the public consciousness. So we are all biased to when it goes wrong, ie to when we have incompetent leadership at the helm.
Yes, because that is exactly what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Libya, Syria, and on and on and on and on.
Venezuela was not a society held together by a strongman unlike Iraq/Libya/Syria. It also does not have the religious or tribal divides those places did. The country was already on the brink of collapse from a combination of sanctions and truly astronomical levels of corruption. There has been a roughly 70% economic decline over the past decade and while there is no longer hyperinflation, inflation in 2025 was at least 200%. Panama would be a more appropriate reference point.
The administration is pretty clear that this is about oil. So i am not sure why people are making up other excuses?
You made the exact point of the parent comment.
Everyone remembers the bad ones only.
What about Germany and Japan after WWII? What about South Korea?
Germany was a split country for 50 years.
Korea is still a split country.
I guess I have to give you Japan, although now you could say "clearly the solution is nukes" if you're just going blindly on data.
Even if you think it's going to go well this time, you have to admit this sort of thing does not have a good track record.
Germany is still split in so many ways. Just look at any map of demographics, pension, income, anything "social/society scale", the borders are clearly there still, somehow.
Indeed, and not just on maps. If you drive through Germany on secondary roads the border is as visible as it ever was.
So you admit it didn’t go smoothly.
The intervention in those countries wasn't explicitly for oil. And do you wonder why do you have to go so far back?
> And do you wonder why do you have to go so far back?
I'm wondering why you don't think they count.
Newer information should cause you to update your Bayesian priors formed with older information.
Relevance is relative.
In the presence of more similar experiments, only with pure dogma or dishonesty that one can opt to infer the outcome based on far less similar and even less contemporaneous experiments.
So you think USA will go into Venezuela and do a complete takeover, rewrite it's constitution, and have troops there for 50 years to enforce the new order?
Because those things aren’t comparable to this.
The US did not care at all about Japan had all kinds of nazi clubs in the country.
It only gave a damn from Japan to retaliate against it... And let's not pretend it became all sunshine and rainbows for Japan post WW2. Internment camps. No standing military. Huge cultural disruption.
SK who remembers the war doesn't have the best opinion of the US either. They essentially pulled out and did a half assed job. Who's even to say that a communist Korea wouldn't have been the best long term plan? It might have destabilized faster than what we know today as North Korea.
Good point. I could be wrong. I hope you are right.
This is a good take if you know nothing about the history of the US meddling with other countries. For those who do have some knowledge here, this is fucking just stupid and naive.
How much worse could you get from a society where 80% of people are living in extreme poverty and where in a good year inflation is 250%? Maduro was not some great guarantor of stability who kept a divided society together. For instance about half the prisons are run under the so called pranato system which means they are literally run by the inmates. I think it's reasonable to say that almost anyone would be better than him.
Pretty much everyone who wasn't in on the CADIVI scam or the subsidized gasoline racket or selling $0.05 screws to PDVSA for $75 stands to benefit from a new government. Many corrupt dictators understand that stealing a small percentage of a bigger pie is a more stable arrangement that can ultimately be more profitable in the long run but the clan that ran Venezuela was so greedy they wanted to take everything as fast as possible.
>How much worse could you get from a society where 80% of people are living in extreme poverty and where in a good year inflation is 250%?
That plus a power vacuum. So maybe Haiti?
The US has had a successful campaign for a few decades winning the "how much worse can it get" game. Let's not play anymore.
[flagged]
We've banned this account for repeatedly posting abusive comments and refusing our multiple requests to stop.
You obviously seem to have no idea how mafia-style dictatorships like those of Iran, Russian and Venezuela work. No fault of you. Most people don't.
And even their own citizens come to the realization after a long time living under them; partly because they get caught in the constant propaganda campaign which is one hallmark of these regimes. They always live in the propaganda mode.
Maduro was handing out guns to civilians but people here thinking he was not loved.
People forget that Iraq was a key wedge issue which allowed Trump to gain mindshare within the GOP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ThZcq1oJQ
A fairly optimistic way to spin this situation is as follows. Either it somehow works out for Venezuela, in which case we effectively helped millions of people Homer Simpson style. Or, more likely, failure disgraces Trump the same way it disgraced GWB. Then (fingers crossed) we elect a humbler, more realistic leader who works to rebuild the country we wrecked, and we can move on from the Trump era.
Why would Trump allow a peaceful transfer of power? Jan 6 happened and it failed because the first Trump administration still had people who cared about the rule of law (e.g. Pence).
I think the only hope is that the guy is old and unhealthy, in contrast to e.g. when Putin or Orban grabbed power. And it is possible that the GOP will fracture over fights between who see themselves as his successor. If this doesn't happen, I don't have much hope for the US as a democracy.
I'm not sure he has enough support in the deep state to pull it off.
The US continuing a long tradition of interference in LatAm:
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/world/the-united-states-hist...
edit: typo
The Monroe Doctrine is over 200 years old and simple enough for your average dictator to understand. Don't expect the US to turn a blind eye to investments in key strategic assets of your country by its strategic rivals.
I don't think it's a coincidence that a special envoy of Xi met Maduro hours before being captured. It was probably the final straw.
That doesn't make it in any way acceptable. No one accepts (nor should they accept) Russia doing the same in its sphere of influence, for example.
Sure it might be unacceptable but realpolitik and realism has little to do with anyones moral or ethical principles.
Realpolitik can only ever be an explanation, not a justification. We don't need to accept this from our leaders, especially if we live in any of the more powerful nations of the globe.
The last US president to seriously question their country's foreign policy got their head blown off. It goes without saying that Trump is not a serious person.
Everyone wants to live in the most powerful nation of the globe. Nobody wants to acknowledge what it takes to be the most powerful nation in the world.
It seems we are accepting Russia enacting regime change, though.
Even if a peace deal is reached, and even if that is part of the peace deal, that doesn't mean we are accepting it: we [Europeans] fought (mostly economically) a good 5 years to try to prevent it, and lost. Accepting this would have meant not providing any aid to Ukraine and instead just saying "Russia has a clear doctrine of not allowing NATO control of the Ukraine region" as if this justified and their actions.
You didn't fought, you got sacrificed at the alter of US interests.
US interests? Russia is more of a threat to Europe than America. And Europeans know it.
Russia is one of Europe's major trading partner. This issue is also the same for Australia, where they go against their largest trading partner to appease the US Empire.
Sorry, that was meant as a statement on the US regime, not the Europeans.
> It was probably the final straw.
Per the speech given by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this operation was already green light for an unspecified period of time, but they waited on ideal weather conditions to launch the operation.
Good thing they have no reason to lie then.
Yeah, it's a long list. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
Yawn. That site is like the conspiracy nut's dream. If you look hard enough, you find evidence for pretty much anything, it turns out.
Take your meds and get to bed grandpa.
>On December 2021, The New York Times published the Civilian Casualty Files. These files reveal that the US military, under the Obama and Trump administrations, deliberately killed civilians
Ah yes that well known conspiracy site known as “The New York Times” /s
And a list of the wider world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
It's a long read but that should not be a surprise to most people.
I just spent way too much time reading through this thread looking for a single post more concerned about Venezuela and its people than the poster's own politics. I gave up when I noticed I was only a 1/4 of the way through thread, should have started from the bottom.
I hear you, but it takes time for these threads to play out.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479679 is the fourth-highest subthread now, and (not sure whether they meet your criteria but) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46476455 is the second-highest, and yours is the fifth-highest but would be higher except that we downweight the meta aspect [1].
One thing to keep in mind is that reflexive comments always show up first, because they're the quickest responses to feel, to write, and to post. Reflective and thoughtful comments—such as ones that express concern for people, as you were wanting to see—are slower to arise, take more time to write, and therefore are slower to show up in threads [2].
[1] not because of the content but because meta always draws excessive attention - see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for explanations if curious
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Reading a few hundred mostly low effort reactionary posts of people using the events in Venezuela as validation for their politics had a strong effect on my mood.
These sorts of events are tricky on HN, all the user can do is flag flag flag and hope you or others like you (mods) will sort it all out and give the front page its one thread on the topic, if we don't the front page will be consumed and the community will die. But we can't always rely on mods, you have lives and have to rely on certain pragmatism, you have to wait and see how the community reacts/events unfold to see if something should get a thread on the front page or risk the consequences. And I think you did weigh in but vouching on a single thread may have won out against the flagging, as it should. So I gave the thread a chance and started reading.
One of the only changes I think HN could use, is mods being able to make a post in a thread that can not be voted on or replied to but will remain top post and simply stating that the community has ruled and this submission will live but every related submission will be killed as a dupe until the thread dies. But that would be very difficult to do without being accused of having an agenda by one side or the other.
Part of the reason I avoid becoming too much a part of sites like HN is because I fear being asked to be more than a user. I do not envy your position but I appreciate all you do.
First of all, you're a great HN user (thank you!) - anyone who posts about APL and J is close to our hearts. Throw in Gaddis (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45942274) and Gass (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45793425) and you're practically unique!
> One of the only changes I think HN could use, is mods being able to make a post in a thread that can not be voted on or replied to but will remain top post and simply stating that the community has ruled and this submission will live but every related submission will be killed as a dupe until the thread dies.
We do sometimes make pinned posts like that—I've listed a few below—but they're mostly for reminding people to follow the site guidelines. In a way, that includes the message you're talking about (i.e. we're allowing this thread because the community insists on it), but only implicitly.
> Part of the reason I avoid becoming too much a part of sites like HN is because I fear being asked to be more than a user.
Can you say more? What would constitute being asked to be more than a user?
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221528 (Dec 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45203452 (Sept 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44432526 (July 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43860905 (May 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42992992 (Feb 2025)
>What would constitute being asked to be more than a user?
That was mostly a way to say that I really don't want your job. Mostly, I want to retain my ability to occasionally make posts like the one I made in this thread.
>practically unique!
Are you saying that I am unique in a practical, salt of the earth fashion or that I am almost unique? I ultimately did exactly what I admonished in this thread and just admitted to wanting to cling to being able to be salty and moody, which fits well with almost unique. It was very Gassian in its phrasing and quite good. Even if unintended, it was very on point.
> Are you saying that I am unique in a practical, salt of the earth fashion
Alas I was not, but I like this version so much better that I'll retroactively sign up for it :)
With some charity, you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.
The politics are baffling. There hasn't even been a case made that one could disagree with. Why are we killing Venezuelans and kidnapping their president? If this is for the greater good, where is that argument?
1. Most people from Venezuela are happy Maduro is out. A striking difference with people from Ukraine about the invasion. This is the most important thing about this and most people here in comments ignore it.
2. Maduro wasn't even the president. He was someone who took the country illegally with cartel people.
3. Why? Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA. Huge operations. And I guess there must be geopolitical reasons. You want China and Russia be there? And people from Venezuela were the biggest migration wave in the World last decades. You want millions of refugees?
I think one of the best arguments against US interventionalism when it comes to tyrants is just how 'variable' (let's say) the outcomes have been over the years. For every Panama, there's two or three Guatamalas, Irans or most recently Iraq. Generally the hard part is not the removal of the head of state, which for the US is usually pretty quick. It's what beurocratic structures remain functional and whether the power vacuum created brings something better and more robust, or just decades of violence.
I think Sarah Paine on dwarkesh has noted that it tends to go well when the countries already have fairly robust institutions and tends to go badly when they don't
As I'm not a historian, I can only note that it hasn't gone well recently even when multiple successive presidents want it to
In Iraq/Afghanistan, the US dismantled the institutions and tried to build new ones.
In Venezuela, it appears they are simply moving the gun to the head of Maduro's replacement.
> Most people from Venezuela are happy Maduro is out.
Based on what? There's a poll already about the US bombing Venezuela and kidnapping Maduro? There's a big difference between removing a leader through a legitimate domestic process and this.
What legitimate domestic process are you envisioning? He lost an election and stayed in power anyway. Any domestic process to remove him would look like a coup.
> He lost an election and stayed in power anyway
Hey, we had a guy who tried to do that too! Thank goodness it didn't work out.
Not everything is about your country
No, but the referenced individual is responsible for this geopolitical mess we're discussing, so it's certainly relevant.
Maduro is responsible for the mess by stealing an election and installing himself as dictator
that doesn't sound like a United States issue
Not in itself, but the trafficking of drugs into the US is a US issue.
If there was drug trafficking, why has the administration failed to provide any evidence of it on the many boats they've destroyed and the many lives they've taken for it? Instead, the limited evidence we have points at the boats being entirely unrelated to drug trafficking.
If the administration had evidence, it would be in its best interest to have shared it already. Instead they keep on pushing points they can barely articulate and that conflict with known information.
They indicted Maduro and his cronies in 2020, before anything with the boats. And the "why" might be that there is no standard that a government needs to release the information they make decisions on. In fact, it's more standard to not release it under the guide of "sources and methods". In any case, are the boats even related to Maduro or just some other thing?
Okay, so Mexico in that case has every reason to invade DC and kill thr president, then. Sounds good to me.
Is trump operating a cartel to supply illegal drugs across the Mexican border?
Could be, in equal measure to Maduro: There's no authoritative, definitive court judgement either way for either person in question.
> Is trump operating a cartel to supply illegal drugs across the Mexican border?
Maybe, who knows! Let's send a commando raid into the US, send Trump to DF to be indicted. Then we'll find out.
This won't happen simply because Mexico is an ant and the US is a bear, and so Mexico cannot pull this off. Also, Mexico isn't out of their minds.
> Not in itself, but the trafficking of drugs into the US is a US issue.
They are already backtracking on the "Cartel de los Soles" accusation, after finally realizing there's no such organization, but it was always a slang frase about corruption in the military. Maduro cannot possibly lead an organization that doesn't exist. Source: NYT.
The indictment removed almost all of the mentions of this cartel, now phrasing the accusation in much broader, vague terms.
It wouldn't surprise me if at some stage they changed tack entirely and tried a different angle than drug trafficking, since, let's face it:
It's about oil. Trump is not shy about this.
It's not about drugs, it's about oil. Anyone saying otherwise is just arguing in bad faith.
This is such a bad take I don't even know where to start.
We did. And if he was successful, and then started threatening Canada, I think I'd be totally fine with Canada performing a special operation and taking him to stand trial.
There have been uprisings that weren't coups in many countries in the world.
And if that doesn't work? You could, for example, envision a situation where 10% of the people are well treated and armed by the government. It'd be very hard for an unarmed ill-treated 90% to conduct any kind of uprising if the government was sufficiently well organized and brutal.
At some point is what you believe, but based on lost elections and literally millions of exiled people.
The word “exiled” implies these people were forced out by the Maduro regime, which is not the case; virtually all of them left the country due to deteriorating economic conditions.
Venezuelans for the past 5+ years have been the most or almost the most numerous asylum seekers in the US. And "poor economic conditions" or general poverty is not a valid reason to claim asylum
> Venezuelans for the past 5+ years have been the most or almost the most numerous asylum seekers in the US.
That by itself does not demonstrate that the majority have been exiled, even if we want to expand the definition of "exile" to be inclusive of those who were not actually forced to leave, but felt it was necessary to leave due to political persecution.
The majority of Venezuelans will never have a legal option to reside in the United States. This incentivizes Venezuelans to make asylum claims in order to gain entry. Similar abuses of the asylum process are seen at far smaller scales in Canada and the European Union.
What sort of persecution are these people claiming to have experienced, and more specifically, what rights are they alleging to have been deprived of by the Maduro regime?
Venezuelan social media. It is likely dominated though by opposition who left the country.
Please, educate yourself on Maduro and the people of Venezuela. It would be hard to find a less popular leader. A quarter of Venezuelans have fled the country under his regime. 82% of Venezuelans are living in poverty and he has presided over hyperinflation. Exit polls showed him losing the last election in a landslide and he stole the country anyway.
Please educate yourself on the history of US "interventions" in south and central America.
> Based on what?
Well the videos of ~200,000 Venezuelan people partying in the capitol of Argentina is a start. As well as many other pictures and videos of gatherings wherever there is significant Venezuelan refugees.
Im shocked that anyone would contest this.
It's completely baseless.
Have you ever actually talked to a Venezuelan? I mean, come on. One thing that is indisputable is Venezuelans' hatred of Maduro.
My question wasn't about whether he was popular, it was about whether people approve of this specific military action by the US. People can hate their leaders and still not want a foreign country directly replacing them.
In this case you are just objectively wrong. Venezuelans are thrilled with this military action. They are happy they don't have to die by the millions to oust their dictator. For many, this was the best-case scenario (assuming democratic elections are held at some point in the future.)
Even with those who are happy that Maduro is gone, I can't imagine they could be happy about the US "running" the country and siphoning off the oil.
Normal Venezuelans saw absolutely zero benefit from whatever oil revenue there was, so even in the worst case scenario, which is not a given, their lives would not be different.
I swear these comments could be copy-pasted from NYT op-eds in 2004 regarding Iraq.
They're all greased by oil.
I think there's massive astroturfing with the usual talking points about drug trafficking, Maduro a dictator, Venezuelans are "Happy" plastered everywhere to try and distract from the naked fact of the oil.
Well, in which scenario WOULD they see benefit from the oil?
It's always slightly odd that a country with the largest oil reserves in the world doesn't manage to stock up its supermarkets.
I don't want to excuse corruption and cronyism, but surely, the US sanctions at least deserve a mention?
First off, I'll give you credit for at least trying to justify this, it puts you ahead of the administration that can't even bother.
Second off, only #3b above (geopolitics) could possibly count at all. We support dozens of dictators, don't give a darn about their people as long as it's geopolitically useful. So I've been conditioned to assume it's bullshit when someone says "we're doing it for the people there".
Third, and to your #3.. it's Venezuela. No disrespect to the people there but it's not exactly the lynchpin of international relations. Is this really worth it? For some crude which is really high in sulfur and not even that important given fracking? Even if I'm a Henry Kissinger psychopath, this still doesn't make sense.
I am not saying USA did this for the people.
I am saying that a wide majority of Venezolans are totally happy about this and most people here aren't concerned about this at all. They just want to talk about their pet political point.
About what are the reasons behind this I (and most people commenting here) can only have educated guess, but I wouldn't discard so easily to weaken cartels as a reason. It is the third (Cuba and Nicaragua the others) Country they got to totally control and the most important and they are powerful and organized enough to keep spreading, and they are supported by China.
"I am saying that a wide majority of Venezolans are totally happy about this"
How do you know that?
What I know anecdotically from other persons from latin america is, they are happy for Maduro to be gone, but fear of venezuela becoming a US colony.
Maduro lost elections. 8 millions of exilees can't love him. And I interact daily with exilees. You can disagree. It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
This is a bit like saying "everyone hates the regime in Cuba. I've talked with lots of Cubans in Miami and they all say that".
We are talking about 20% of the population here. A massive wave. They would be impoverished, imprisoned or dead have they not fled. Hard to believe people who stayed are happy about this.
But check the news, the web, talk to people objectively.I can be wrong, but I think the evidence is overwhelming, statistically speaking.Check for yourself.
My Venezuelan friends in the US are for the most part very happy about it. And this is not a gotcha at all, but I haven’t seen much about Venezuela in exporting fent to the US coming from anyone outside the Trump camp
No doubt that exilees do not love him. But it was about a "wide majority" who hold that opinion. There are lots of russian refugees for example as well and they are not a fan of Putin. But back at home he still seems to enjoy majority support in a broad sense at least and I have no inside knowledge into Venezuela at all.
I don't know about Russia, maybe their economy didn't collapse as Venezuela's did. But I really don't know.
I see you keep repeating this exact statement every time you are challenged and asked for actual sources. Others have pointed out that when you do provide some sources, they end up contradicting your position. If all you have is videos of people celebrating, then you can find plenty of those from Jan 6th. Does that mean that Biden lost the elections and the people of the United States approved of the attempted coup?
At this point, it's hard to imagine that you are actually arguing in good faith.
Any argument along the lines of "Venezuelans aren't happy with this" out of touch with Venezuelan culture. They do not have to die by the millions to oust a dictator that killed thousands and caused 20% to emigrate. They are happy with this.
That is what OP is saying: HN users, in order to promote their personal politics, are being concerned for a people that don't want and actively reject your concern because they are happy with the outcome.
HN is doing the equivalent of (a) denying Venezuelans appreciate this, and when that fails (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
> That is what OP is saying: HN users, in order to promote their personal politics, are being concerned for a people that don't want and actively reject your concern because they are happy with the outcome.
> (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
Well, this isn't surprising at all. At least these two points also apply to the right within the US, the HN bubble doesn't even try to understand their actual views either.
> HN is doing the equivalent of (a) denying Venezuelans appreciate this, and when that fails (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
It’s very dangerous to do the “right thing” for the wrong reasons in a complex situation. This is step 1. Does anyone have faith that the Trump admin will properly execute steps 2..N?
I would have some respect if the administration announced that it would support a provisional government led by the apparent winner of the last election in Venezuela. As such it seems to be that the administration has left the existing power structure in place and established a client/patron relationship with the leadership. This is revolting.
> It’s very dangerous to do the “right thing” for the wrong reasons in a complex situation.
Venezuelans do not care for this train of thought. No one else was going to do it, and their equivalent of Hitler has just been ousted.
Far better, from their perspective, to have the evil guy removed than endless do-nothing hand-wringing from the international community that shares your train of thought.
Democratically held elections will be run again in the country.
The "wrong reasons" can still be mutually beneficial. The US gets its oil and Venezuela gets its dictator disappeared.
It's not clear what this is really about. Trump doesn't care about the people of the US, much less Venezuela, but there seems to be a widespread consensus that Maduro was a nogoodnik who won't be missed. I have no idea what the mood on the ground really is.
As for drugs, if Trump cared about drugs, he wouldn't pardon so many drug kingpins.
Some say this has to do with asserting control over China's oil imports, but according to https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/fi... and other sources, Venezuela barely makes it into the list of China's top 10 suppliers. So while China is indeed Venezuela's best customer, this argument doesn't seem persuasive unless I'm missing something. Venezuela's next-highest volume customer is the US itself.
one which concerns me is that the US cutting oil exports to Japan is the reason Pearl Harbor was bombed.
I agree it is not clear.
My guess is drugs, not because Trump cares, but because they had become too powerful, controlling Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, as well as a wide net of politicians.
Thanks for engaging in good faith, but you know that China is selling more cars to all of Latin America than us currently, right?
Will this engagement deepen Latin American trust and respect for the US or the opposite? China makes it very clear that they do not give a shit about politics and just want to do good business, they're deepening ties that way. What's our plan? Invade random countries and tell them they better not cross us? How long does that work?
Full diaclosure: I am from Argentina. I interact daily with exilees from Venezuela. They are coworkers, they drive my Uber. They are totally happy about this.
About trust and respect, I don't see any change. Leftist will keep their mantra and Normal people will mind their business.
About the 'master plan'. No one commenting here really knows. As I mentioned to avoid criminal cartels controlling three countries and spreading it is not something I would discard. Imagine if they get nukes. Or they can start to systematicallly buy politicians in USA, as they do in Mexico.
Increasing the supply of oil will lower its price. Bringing production in Venezuela back online will have this effect. Historically they have produced three million barrels per day, currently that number is closer to one million.
Russia is funding its war in Ukraine with profits on thier oil production. All else being equal, this makes it harder for them to keep doing that. They reportedly spent $6 billion on air defense systems in Venezuela, not for no reason.
Lower oil prices also reduce China’s dependence on Russia for energy. Reducing the incentive for those two countries two cooperate would be in US interests.
Energy is fungible and lower oil prices will help reduce the cost to operate AI data centers. On the margin it will improve their profitability and reduce public backlash about rising electricity prices in the US.
A large portion of the migrant crisis in the US has been driven by Venezuelan refugees fleeing Maduro’s gross mismanagement of the country. If the subsequent government can bring prosperity back to the country it also reduces illegal immigration in the US, something the current US administration clearly supports.
Lots of positive things could result here and you don’t have to be a “Kissinger psychopath” to imagine them and hope they materialize.
Ok, but at the cost of American freedoms? We are a country ruled by laws not people. Everything about this operation violated this principle. Are you willing to give up your freedoms in order to create cheap oil so that your scenarios play out? My ancestors didn't die on the battlefield to support such things.
Venezuela was not a sovereign state, it wasn't people's will at all to have Maduro as head of state, rather the opposite is true.
What freedoms did you lose today? The Patriot Act was signed into law two decades ago. I can’t remember the last time Congress passed a declaration of war prior to the President engaging in military action.
I’m sympathetic to your sentiment but that train left the station likely before you were born.
I'm very likely older than you so I have total context going back to the 1970's. Your question is silly. You don't suddenly lose freedoms, they erode. The current executive overreach is without precedent. In prior administrations congress was involved. Even during the second Iraq war congress was involved and time was taken to make a justification. The action of today was by executive fiat.
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> Is this really worth it? For some crude which is really high in sulfur and not even that important given fracking?
The US doesn't need their oil. It's about stopping China from getting it.
I am still confused about this. Is the goal for US companies to extract Venezuelan oil, or is it to suppress Venezuelan oil exports altogether? Or are both goals orthogonal?
I don't think oil has something to do with this. As I have mentioned I think the main reason is the cartel has become too powerful and menacing, controlling three countries and expanding.
This argument doesn't stand a chance. The US military and intelligence is far outmatched. The drugs war is just a pretext.
> ahead of the administration that can't even bother
It's possible they have tried to justify, but via Fox News and Truth Social. Neither of which you and I read, I presume.
Most people in Crimea supported annexation by Russia. Does that make that one OK?
They didn't actually though.
With such a slam dunk case, it should have been a cakewalk to get UN buy-in, or at the very minimum, Republican-controlled congressional approval.
UN is deadlocked with Russia and China
That is a one-sided list if I can see one, you basically copying and pasting the justification for invasion
They were responding to a comment that asked what the justification for invasion was; it would be weird if it was anything else
You shouldn't be searching for the reasoning only on the official sources. Oil is clearly the biggest variable on this, not Maduro per se
Everyone claimed we invaded Iraq back in the early 2000s to take their oil, but the US spent a whole bunch of money on the military operations, and opened up oil and gas to basically every other country, including geopolitical rivals like China and Russia. Maybe "oil" is too simple of an explanation.
Oil is important but as lever to pull on because it affects China.
The invasion is meant to orient the US to fight China. We are cutting away the Middle East war baggage, trying to end the Ukraine war baggage so we can focus on China. Russia would be a nice ally against China.
China was moving around Lat Am and we are removing the communists from the hemisphere.
China likes oil. Loves oil but can’t get enough oil which is why it’s building solar and nuclear so quickly. The US can clamp down on the oil if Venezuela is an ally. So the US wants a strong Venezuela that can’t be used against us.
It’s hard to conduct war without oil.
The US has a strong incentive to make sure Venezuela comes out strong, and the Chinese have a strong incentive to not let that happen.
tldr: it’s all about china
Most people from Venezuela are happy Maduro is out. This is my main concern. Besides that I only have educated guesses.
Sure, but don't forget the oil on your educated guess. There are other reasons besides the official being said. There's no invasion for justice, there's always an underlying motive for this scale of invasion. Presidents are not kidnapped because of narco traffic
Whatever you and I say about this are educated guesses.
He wasn't the president. My educated guess is that with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, together with China support cartel become too powerful. They systematicallly buy politicians in México, Spain, Colombia, probably Brazil and Argentina. They expanded too much. But again, it is just speculation.
I'm not Venezuelan, but I am Brazilian, so I consider myself closer to the problem than people outside of South America. If the cartels were the real problem, the US would have invaded Mexico or Brazil a long time ago.
Maduro was not fairly elected, it was a fraud, but he was the de facto head of state of Venezuela.
The whole cartel excuse is just a sham in my opinion, it is all about power, sending the example and getting the oil. Maduro, and Chavez before him, challenged the US grip on SA, and actively fought american interest in the region.
It is a totally different business to invade a sovereign state like Mexico or Brazil. Something akin to what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
Venezuela was not a sovereign state, it wasn't people's will at all to have Maduro as head of state, rather the opposite is true.
As I have mentioned, we can only guess the real motivation behind this.
Okay. I'm an American. My main concern is not having us plunge into WW3. Good luck with your country.
> Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA. Huge operations.
What evidence is there of that?
> Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA
Do you have sources for this not including the official White House position?
> Most people from Venezuela are happy Maduro is out.
Is there any evidence of this?
Maduro lost elections. 8 millions of exilees can't love him. And I interact daily with exilees. There are already videos if people celebrating in Caracas and all over the World. You can disagree. It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
Typically exilees are exiled for a reason
They would be impoverished, imprisoned or dead have they not fled. Hard to believe people who stayed are happy about this. And exilees are 20% of Venezuela's population. It was a massive wave.
Well yes, this is how you treat shitty people
Please read the HN guidelines[1] if you would like to continue engaging with the community.
Calling exilees "abusive shitbags"[2] and "shitty people" is not the kind of discourse we accept here.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484264
> He was someone who took the country illegally with cartel people.
That's an allegation. We are from a nation of laws where this behavior within it's borders would be in violation of the constitution.
> Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA
Shall we talk about what the CIA has been doing in Venezuela for decades?
> You want China and Russia be there?
The worst form of whataboutism.
> And people from Venezuela were the biggest migration wave in the World last decades.
Is that because they hate Maduro or because they need money?
> You want millions of refugees?
We already have them. Can we /please/ talk about WHY without getting distracted by nonsense drug dealing claims?
This style of commentary is obnoxious and not appropriate for this forum.
Asking questions in good faith is not appropriate?
If difference exist between two people then the quickest way to resolve them is to reveal them. It seems some people prefer to paw around in the dark out of deference. I did not believe this was part of the "hacker ethic."
> Asking questions in good faith is not appropriate?
You aren't asking questions in good faith, you're trying to score points.
> It seems some people prefer to paw around in the dark out of deference.
You're doing it here, implying that I'm a deferential coward instead of stating it outright. I would urge you to review the site guidelines. The only reason this site is worth visiting in the first place is because it isn't ordinarily full of the sort of Reddit-style commentary you're engaging in right now.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Thoroughly answering somebody's questions and refuting their points is not appropriate for this forum?
We should all agree with each other and sing along how lucky Venezuelans are that US, the self proclaimed world police, came to steal their oil and bomb their capital (terrorism/war crime)?
1) the method the US performed is irrespective of popular sentiment. If we were to buck the rules, I'm not sure if Venezuela would make the top 10 targets.
3) Trump pardoned the Honduras president. The drug smuggling excuse is moot. This is a power grab, as usual. And it came from Trump's mouth. We're no better than Russia if we choose to go with this narrative.
> Why? Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA. Huge operations.
What are you talking about? The war on drugs is just a bad excuse. Trump keeps claiming that Venezuela is responsible for the fentanyl crisis, which is demonstrably wrong.
And if the US administration was so worried about drugs, why did Trump pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, ex-president of Honduras, who had been sentenced to 45 years for drug trafficking? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o
If Russia rolled into the United States tomorrow and deposed Trump, _most people_ would "be happy" trump was out.
It's not important at all. I've seen this exact line repeated all over the Internet today, almost like it's not a real sentiment and instead a pre seeded talking point to muddy the waters.
It is amusing to see the consent factory so efficiently spit this shit out though.
"huge operations", wtf are you talking about? get off newsweek.
You have to be pretty naive at this point to believe any of these points are actually real reasons behind this action, esp. 1 or 2.
I never said that. I said that a wide majority of Venezolans are happy and this was barely mentioned in the comments.
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> you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.
Let’s be real, the vast majority of Americans couldn’t even place Venezuela on a map.
The default state for humans isn’t caring about everything and everyone, nobody has the mental capacity or resources to do that.
We only care about something when we are incentivized to by actual self interest, familial bond, or emotional stories that align this 3rd party with our familial instincts via empathy.
I am perpetrating the exact wrong the parent poster referenced but: this is why liberalism is such a good principle and political position. It's almost a meta-position, and it provides clarity in circumstances like these.
Liberalism is a reductionist non-answer to realpolitik. See the sibling comment for what actual reasons there are.
Because it benefits the people in power. Probably in numerous ways.
My political reaction comes from the following chain of thought:
* My country just did something I think is wrong.
* My country is led by people elected by a process that I generally trust but believe is under stress.
* The process or the people have failed and I want to stop this from happening by fixing the process so the people are replaced.
And, now I am stuck on how to do this. There a other actions I can take to help the people of Venezuela, but from a civics perspective, I believe it is my responsibility to partake in a discussion about the systemic failure that lead to this.
I think it is common for Americans to do this because we have a history of at least trying to fix our government because we usually believe we can.
Write to your representative and senators. It may seem impotent, but it what you as an American can to today. If you are concerned it is your duty to take the 10 minutes to write. If you do not then you are condoning these actions and the erosion of your rights.
How is that helpful? You either have a blue representative that already agrees with you, or a corrupt red one that most likely don't really listen to their constituents, or at least not the one that send mail.
Because that is how democracy works. I you don't exercise it will go away. Also there are Republican representatives who are on the record as being against the executive overreach. Getting feedback from their constituents will give them the support to push back. It really does work.
I believe you may have the causality backwards: ignoring constituents is probably not how democracy works, yet that is what we see today, therefore what we see today must not be democratic.
How can they get away with ignoring their constituents? Well: gerrymandering has made it so that representatives can select their constituents (and their opponent's constituents, or lack thereof). They will remain in their post indefinitely, regardless of this carefully-selected minority of constituents wants, so long as they continue to bend the knee and kiss the ring for you-know-who.
If an existing politician already lacks both the moral compunction and a self-interested political survial motivation to say a thing is bad, then a letter from a minority-opinioned constituent of theirs won't change their mind.
My concern for Venezuelans is precisely what makes me believe "removing Maduro good" even though things are more nuanced and complex than those three words.
Destabilizing the country and/or installing a US puppet or just allowing the power vacuum to fill itself is likely not to the betterment of their people.
To be fair, I don’t think there’s any way for their lives to get even worse. So If I was Venezuelan, I’d be cautiously optimistic right now.
The US is really good at challenging such notions like "well it can't get worse". Don't worry, we find a way.
Uh, they could be murdered by the US army like the million Iraqi civilians the US murdered.
You lack imagination.
What’s worse than no toilet paper and nowhere to get it?
A wide majority of Venezolans are happy with having Maduro out.
Source?
Maduro lost elections. 8 millions of exilees can't love him. And I interact daily with exilees. There are already videos of people celebrating all around the world. You can disagree. It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
Ok, so you have no basis to claim that a majority of venezuelans think anything.
> It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
You must be confusing venezuela with a state that traffics in drugs.
Ask people from Venezuela, check the web, the news. They are the main players in all this.
im just asking for an actual source, like a news article from a reputable source. Is that not able to be provided?
Just a few I found in 5 minutes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
https://youtu.be/qxlpRDr6aEg?si=jQdhOwslOLrZBN_5
https://youtu.be/FRbX18Evcvg?si=OLpsLCY4MQwAyIEP
https://youtu.be/aISwtCy02Hg?si=Y0TRfj-bHQANSklZ
https://youtube.com/shorts/4azk6qDE9-I?si=J2SjBmJtAXotU6js
Not a single one of these backs up your claim that a "wide majority" venezuelans are happy about this.
Check better.
I'm not the parent commenter, but here's one:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/09/americas/venezuela-election-r...
and you can google similar keywords from a variety of sources - many dispute the integrity of the 2024 elections
The most good we can do is allowing Venezuela to live without sanctions
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Why would you believe anyone the US installs as a puppet will be any better?
Surely Maduro is bad, but that doesn't mean the next phase won't be worse. Trump has never shown any interest in spreading democracy or human rights. I would not be surprised if the mission involved a side deal with someone in Maduro's inner circle to let them become the new dictator who is willing sell oil leases to the US and who will be as bad or worse to the Venezuelan populace. We have absolutely no idea what happens next and Trump has not given any indication of strategy beyond wanting oil.
I'm not sure many people will believe you saying that
Fortunately, their disbelief does not make it not true.
and the corollary is of course that saying something doesn't make it true
You have the Internet at your disposal. You can see for yourself the opinions of Venezuelans. We'll wait.
Does anyone believe that the US regime, an entity that utterly ignores the needs of its masses in favor of a relative handful of lobbyists, is really going to install a representative government that exists to improve the lives of Venezuelans instead of enriching the same powers that it's beholden to?
I'm more concerned for Greenland and Canada than for Venezuela.
I believe regarding greenland the statement "we have to have it" was made by the US dictatorial leadership. Rather chilling.
It's a great point. Maduro won't be missed by anyone. But the top posted comment here perfectly captured my feelings. There's the wider picture to look at. I personally would love it if America did that to Iran, Russia, Cuba etc, but i feel there should be more of a process and i'm allowed to be suspicious of the motives.
If Venezuela actually becomes a functioning country again and drugs, gangs and illegal immigrants stop flooding America then i personally would applaud the operation. Still, you really shouldn't just kidnap other countries presidents just like that as a general rule.
Unless the said comments you want to read don't discuss how US imperialism has been benefitting corporations for over a 100 years, I wouldn't expect much honest introspection.
I think 2026 will be the year when we move way past that threshold. When conflicts and casualties are rare, each one gets highlighted and garners significant attention. But once you pass a certain point, it becomes just another conflict, just more people suffering. A tragic event affecting millions of people becomes another line item on a list.
How would that differ from any other year in the past 20?
Most conflicts in the last 20 years had significant coverage (ie: Iraq war, Georgia annexation, etc.). If you have 30-40 active conflicts world wide, then China invading Myanmar becomes a side-story.
Because GP is paying attention this time.
Crazy amount of comments - We need a tool that maps narrative angles and reply/conversational interation mapping. Ratio of comments herein to other stories is wild. Lot of lurkers on this site that seem very informed when things like this come up.
Astroturfing and opinion manipulation.
I think you're greatly exaggerating here. I'm seeing pretty nuanced discussion from everyone.
It's a political event between two countries. So people are discussing two things: What it means for Venezuela that Maduro is gone, and what it means that Trump can completely sidestep Congress to start a war. Both seem relevant. But you're trying to reduce it to something narrower. Most of us are aware that feelings in the first 24 hours of something like this are completely irrelevant. Time will tell if this is a net positive.
I have concerns about my own country because it has a big border with Venezuela.
Why does it matter? Illegal actions are illegal. On the 1 in a million chance this results in things getting better for Venezuela the outcome does not forgive the action.
There is none to be found. The people need to play the zombie apocalypse - arm and survive.
The main players: - current government - local army - invading army - chinese and Russian proxies - multiple smaller groups - opposition
And probably more will play the power struggle in the foreseeable future. Unaffiliated people will somehow need to find a way to navigate this mess
Care for others is an increasingly condemnable trait in public opinion nowadays, a social suicide, ironically. As history taught us it will not end well.
To be blunt, I simply don't have much more than the default respect for Venezuela as a country and fellow human beings. I have no special sentiment to provide in that regard. This is destructive, I hate that more innocent lives are lost over this, etc. I can't speak intimately to its culture, norms, attitudes, nor economics. So I won't talk on ignorant grounds.
Meanwhile, I hold disdain for my country's actions and have some minimal pull to at least protest and complain to my reps about it. So the focus of my discussion will be around those actions.
Its 2026, why does this surprise you?
Agreed
Americans are too culturally isolated from other countries and cultures to build empathy. I think Americans have main character syndrome at scale, and these comments are obvious when read through this lens.
This may surprise folks who don't live in the U.S., because Americans describe their country as a nation of immigrants and say things like "I'm Italian" and "I'm Irish" when describing their identity. Yet these same folks haven't set foot in Italy or Ireland, don't speak the language or have awareness of present-day concerns from those countries.
I think it's worse than that. There's a general unwillingness to engage with uncomfortable things. Can't really build empathy if there isn't space to talk about problems.
the entire readership of this website is clueless, it’s an echo chamber. Unless you write a thoroughly detailed contra comment you get downvoted. If you say Elon is good you get downvoted. I do not want to source my comments, I work a job! Maybe Elon is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Maybe I don’t want to drop how I know something because my employer would be very mad.
You can no longer get the full picture because all the guys with alpha (investing term) left and post on Twitter/X now. All rando accounts without their faces. Anything interesting for AI is on there now and you can chat with the actual researchers too, you don’t need to bump into them at a shoes off party after work.
There’s a lot of very uncomfortable discussion on Twitter/X if you can stomach it, you’ll end up with a much clearer picture of the world. There’s a lot of dumb stuff on there too! You have to sift through it.
HN hit its Eternal September. There’s still some really great technical stuff you can find on here though. I don’t know how long the decline has been but it doesn’t seem to be getting better.
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You’re not doing our image any favors.
I almost feel bad for the people who instigated the War on Terror. They did not know how badly it would go - and they worked really hard and tirelessly to build and sell their illegitimate case to the American public.
This administration is making the same mistakes - but in living memory of the first, with a less noble prize, and with complete derision of Congress and Americans' intelligence.
The first political memories i have are the aclu telling everyone who would listen and many who wouldn't that this is exactly the slippery slope invading afghanistan would lead to. Don't feel sorry for anyone who was allowed to do politics from that period
Why? They accomplished their goal (making money in Iraq for US business interests, expanding the power of the presidency massively) and have suffered no consequences.
Any war on <concept> is illegitimate by default. Because there will not be any argument that survives scrutiny capable of defending it.
I’m not sure it’s the same. Seems like one man at the top just wants to continue chaos to divert attention from bad poll number, inflation, pedo friend circle etc.
Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"? The people who came up with these wars against abstract ennemies knew exactly what they were doing, fighting against another country/government is very limiting, once the war is settled you need another reason to start a war. When you go to war with an idea/concept you can continue your forever wars and raise taxes for/increase investment in the War related industries as long as you need to prop up your economy and get reelected.
Trump got reelected with slogans like "no new war" and in less than a year he started at least one (arguably I'd say two with the 12 days wars as Israel knew ut couldn't win this one without American bombers) also makes me think none if this is a "mistake", just a long term plan to keep power.
This is about oil and resources and maybe a proxy attack on China more than anything. A friend of mine called this as soon as that huge oil deposit was discovered off a small neighboring country’s coast. He said, “Venezuela is going to try to claim it, and the US will take them out.” I thought he was full of shit when he said it, but now I’m pretty sure he nailed it.
Oh yeah these are the true motives, I was talking about the usual pretext that they need to sell it on TV and these days on social media too.
It even has a name: 'the resource curse'.
> Isn't this one more related to the "War on Drugs"?
"Good" news! The War on Drugs and The War on Terror have been combined with the invention of the concept of "narcoterrorism"!
Trump pardoned the largest opiates by mail operator in world history on his first or second day in office (Ross Ulbricht).
I don't want to defend Trump - starting a war is about the most serious thing a country can do, and doing it unilaterally is terrible. Trump should be condemned for this.
But most of those doing the condemning were also supportive of Pres. Obama (or at least refused to condemn his actions) back in 2011 when he attacked Libya, and in 2013 and 2014 when he attacked Syria -- all of this happening after we should have learned from what we were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those people who didn't protest against Pres. Obama's illegal actions have lost moral high ground to protest against Trump.
The 2011 action in Libya was an international effort carried out under a UN authorization to protect civilians, not a unilateral move by Obama based on a fabricated rationale. There were limited airstrikes and aid to rebels, but the US did not directly take out Gaddafi or make any pretense of "running the country."
Obama deliberately went to Congress for authorization to strike the Syrian chemical program in 2013, and after it quailed from taking a vote, the strikes didn't happen.
The 2014 strikes were against ISIS, not Syrian government forces, and carried out under the existing AUMF authorization to combat Al Qaeda and its affiliates. One can argue whether ISIS qualified (even the administration at the time acknowledged it was a stretch and wanted a more clear-cut resolution from Congress), but it definitely was a major terrorist threat in the region and had been working with AQ in the past.
Those people were not condemning Fordow. But nearly everyone has high ground on Trump, so they don’t base their objections on simply having the high ground. He’s unfit to be president.
2011 was 15 years ago. I was not even legally adult back then. And even if I was old enough back then, people are allowed to change their opinions in 15 years.
Morality isn't real, but power certainly is.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Regardless of your opinion on Maduro, you can still acknowledge that the head of a sovereign state being captured in an unannounced/unnamed military operation by a superpower is wrong from a principled standpoint, and that it’s destabilising a country with 30+ million people if not the entire region.
Not only the region... A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures. Also, here we have another permanent member of UN Security Council making decisions to intervene without consulting the UN or even their own constitutional bodies...
(My opinion of Maduro is that he was not a legitimate leader.)
Especially when no nation wants to touch this (e.g., Starmer being very quick to say that the UK wasn’t involved, etc.), it only reinforces that any power willing or able to make a bold move like this will likely not face much opposition (also see Russia in Ukraine).
The most prominent case for such a future would be china moving against Taiwan, which now got easier with two of the 3 big world powers making their move.
Taiwan is a different story. There are quite detailed war simulations built for defending the country. I guess you might mean that russia is one of the “3 big world” powers and their move is the special operations to capture kiev. I stop here
Yes, I meant China, Russia and the US with the "3 big world" powers and yes, I was referring to the war in Ukraine. I am aware that the situation in Taiwan, Ukraine and Venezuela cannot be compared one-to-one. My categorization was not intended to suggest that these 'moves' are the same, nor to make any evaluation regarding good or bad. From the respective perspectives of the 3 world powers, they have been motivated by different interests. The important point is that each of the three will use the moves of the others to justify their own, whether this is correct or not.
What frustrates me is the justification I hear for this from those opposed to the kidnapping of Maduro, an illegitimate president.
Somehow it's not ok for the USA to violently meddle in the internal affairs of another country, but it is for the PRC because... Taiwan is nearby? Because the people speak the same language? Because the ghosts of the CPC's past are here on the island? It's frustrating.
Taiwan is stronger than Venezuela.
China is much weaker than the Golden Empire.
> A worry is the step will encourage other regimes that feel they have might to remove leaders they do not like and replace them with marionette-like figures
Go type "list Russian regime change operations from the last 20 years" in chatgpt.
No need for LLMs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_involvement_in_regime_...
Can't rule out Leopold's Congo scenario, as the first comments do not look good:
* resource extraction focus
* dismissal of local leadership (Machado "does not have the following or respect" -- Nobel hurting?)
* no transition plan to self-governance (perhaps it is early)
* military occupation ("not afraid of boots on the ground", "military will protect oil operations")
These things happened today subsequent to Venezuela:
North Korea ‘has fired ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/north-korea-ha...
UK and France carry out strikes against Isis target in Syria https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/uk-france-s...
It's not just encouraging, it's almost making it a necessity. Putting aside one's respect for law may be a matter of responsibility when your competitors are gaining advantage by not playing by the rules.
The UN permanent security council members are (or were meant to be) precisely the countries that are so powerful they can choose to invade you and nobody can stop them. The hope was that by letting them veto you, they'll veto you instead of invading you.
Don't think that's true of Britain and France these days...
Britain for sure, but France's military is explicitly build up as an expeditionary force.
In theory but without allies they're not able to in practice.
Xi Jinping is probably sending thank you cards to Trump right about now.
Indeed. If I'm Xi, I'm invading Taiwan tomorrow. Russia invading Ukraine, USA decapitating Venezuela....there's not even a pretense that international law matters any more.
It's also clear that Trump only respects power, which China clearly has. He already backed off tariffs with the critical minerals threat. Unlikely he'd come to Taiwan's aid in my opinion.
With political polarization in America, you can bet all kinds of fingers would start pointing at Trump in America, saying he enabled it by meddling with Venezuela. Stock market collapse from TSMC blockade would enhance this even moreso. I wouldn't count on much, if any, rallying around the flag effect.
I’m skeptical any of this is true.
How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? You think international law is what has been preventing Xi from invading?
Trump does only respect power, as do all other serious leaders. Power is all that matters in the end.
How do you think the system of international law came into existence? It was imposed by the US at the end of WWII because of their overwhelming military strength and the fact that no other nation had nuclear weapons at the time.
The armchair analysis from some folks on this topic is really lacking. You guys are just wrong, and the hubris you bring with your “analysis” is really off putting.
>How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? You think international law is what has been preventing Xi from invading?
It doesn't change the physical realities of that much at all besides maybe slightly further cementing that the US will not come to Taiwan's aid.
No, the main change is that now Xi can more reliably expect a weaker, less unified response from the west due to political divisions inside America as well as between western nations. He can expect less diplomatic pushback, fewer sanctions, etc.
Also, no all serious leaders do not only respect power. Serious leaders who are also morally and ethically good also take into account right and wrong when they make decisions.
The right thing to do would be for America to try to preserve and enforce a rules based order, regardless if other countries do. America has significant agency in the world and should consider how the world should be and try to get there. Not only consider how the world is.
Even from a realpolitik standpoint, there is benefit on showing consistent adherence to an ethical code. It encourages other actors to follow that same code as well. When we violate our own morals and values, we can't expect others to respect them.
How does one nation following an ethical code encourage others to follow it as well?
Following an ethical code in international affairs constrains the nation following it. It provides an asymmetric advantage to others who choose not to follow that code.
This is partly why China has become so powerful over the past three decades. They chose to ignore western ethical codes around intellectual property rights, fair trade, environmental protections, and human rights. They are powerful today in no small part to their willingness to disregard these things.
This is difficult for people to understand because in interpersonal relationships following an ethical code is 100% the path to healthy and meaningful relationships, and most modern history education attempts to anthropomorphize past interactions between nations. But the cold fact is that international politics is nothing like interpersonal relationships.
A nation can encourage other nations to follow their ethical code by threatening to use force if they don't. They can create incentives to encourage nations to change their behavior through trade or treaty. But I can't think of a single time in history when a nation was such a shining star of morality that they inspired other nations to change their ways and adopt their ethics.
You can't expect other nations to respect your nation's moral and ethical values when they don't care about them in the first place and in fact hope that you choose to follow them to the fullest extent so that you're easier to compete against.
> maybe slightly further cementing that the US will not come to Taiwan's aid
Isn't that the opposite? The US just demonstrated that it can still conduct military operations, and the presence of Chinese envoys in the country does not deter it in any way. As of now, China has one fewer source of oil it can rely on in case of an invasion.
Maybe you're right, but I view it more as: China can now be confident that the US doesn't care much at all about the sovereignty of weaker nations or coming to the aid of allies. "Might makes right", and if China asserts itself with strength (as in a full blockade/invasion instead of a few envoys present) Trump will most likely back off.
How does the US invading one country imply they won’t defend another country?
I get that military resources devoted to one theatre can’t be used in another and for that reason the US might be less able to defend Taiwan, but that may not make them less willing.
A more reasonable read is that the aircraft carriers and other naval assets in the Gulf of Mexico are more effective there than they could be in the Pacific. Venezuela doesn’t have hypersonic anti-ship missiles. China does.
> Power is all that matters in the end.
This can mean different things to different people, such as:
(A) Power dynamics determine outcomes i.e. a claim about how the world works
(B) Might makes right i.e. rejecting ethical notions of right and wrong
I'm pretty sure you mean (A). Fair? Are there other meanings you want to endorse? Some form of nihilism perhaps?
> The armchair analysis from some folks on this topic is really lacking. You guys are just wrong, and the hubris you bring with your “analysis” is really off putting.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
I have put in good faith efforts to convert with MisterMower, for example, in [1]. Shortly after that, they insulted me. [2] This is also against the HN Guidelines, and that kind of behavior is not welcome here. Here are additional examples of hostility and insults they've made:
> Old farts like yourself [3]
> In case you don't understand how analogies work [4]
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488285
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46495327
[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46491155
[4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45001357
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Please don't comment like this here. HN is a text-only discussion forum where people come together to discuss topics that gratify intellectual curiosity. This place can only work if people respect and follow the guidelines, and it's fine for users to politely point out to each other how they can be doing better – precisely so they don't have to get the moderators involved.
This comment comes across as mean-spirited. It's not cool to open with an apology then proceed to put out up to 7 paragraphs of eloquently-worded personal attack.
HN is only a place where people want to participate because this kind of thing is not accepted here. Please show you respect the guidelines and care about the health of the community if you want to participate here.
> How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan?
Taking the beaches here would require spilling the blood of tens of thousands of PLA troops, but as demonstrate two days ago, the only real barrier to blockading us was the threat of the USA showing up.
Xi's hunger for Taiwan shouldn't be underestimated. It's utterly irrational but it is his obsession. It's becoming clear he intends to die in office, and he's seeing his legacy as a mirror of that of the entire communist revolution - he wants to be the next Mao, with a permanent framed photo on the wall of every school and many houses in the PRC. Mao was happy to waste millions of PLA in every conflict the PRC engaged in as an outright military strategy, he called it something like "drowning the enemy in a sea of bodies," Xi will be the same.
I don’t dispute Xi wants Taiwan. My question still stands: how did today’s events change any of the hurdles he would face during an invasion?
Oh, yes I agree for the most part none other than perhaps the USA military is about to be distracted by South America.
Xi himself probably already had war gamed what it would look like to kidnap the president here in Taiwan from the presidential palace or whatever. The main difference is, now we're all talking about it - if it was that easy to snatch a president, will the PRC try it against us? Will the KMT throw Lai under the bus so the PLA can do a targeted kidnapping or assassination, perhaps alongside his US-friendly VP?
The assumed difference in Venezuela is that Maduro and his policies are not popular enough for a similar leader to easily slip into his place and cohesively unite the country against the US while maintaining Maduro’s policies and keeping his factions and constituents from which his power was derived happy.
Big assumption to be sure, and time will only tell if it’s a correct one.
In a place like Taiwan or the US that assumption is almost certainly false. Imagine Xi kidnaps the US president. Does anyone honestly believe the entire government and its people just roll over and say, “I guess China owns us now”?
Taiwan could easily become China's Ukraine.
An invasion of Taiwan is incredibly risky for China and will be guaranteed to be very expensive.
Just guessing but a long term strategy from Xi could be to wait and show that he is different and gain simpathy.
Except this was already going to happen and everybody has known for years.
Xi made a new years address just a few days ago essentially saying China would reunite Taiwan.
> reunite
This is the incorrect word to use since the PRC has never held territory here. If the PLA sets foot on Taiwan, that's an imperialist invasion, nothing less, unless the people of Taiwan have democratically chosen to abdicate their government for CPC rule, in which case the word should be "unify" or "merge."
Reunite is not incorrect in the broader sense.
We use the term "reunification" for Germany but the Federal Republic never "held territory" in the Democratic Republic. However, of course both states were the result of a split of "Germany". This is the same with the ROC and PRC so bringing both sides together, whatever the mean, is a reunification in that sense.
The narrative of rejecting the term can be said to be broadly propaganda but plays on a peculiarity that both sides don't recognise each others.
> However, of course both states were the result of a split of "Germany".
> This is the same with the ROC and PRC
It really isn't.
Note that West Germany did not have to invade East Germany to re-unify and that East Germany was on a per-capita basis much poorer than West Germany.
Unlike Taiwan, which is doing more than twice as good. So this would be more in line with Russia invading Ukraine. And that's precisely the rhetoric they are using: 'unification'.
This is all totally inacurrate and beside the point.
China has factually split, like Germany before. Whether any "reunification" happens peacefully or not is irrelevant to the use of term and so is which side is the richer.
Russia and Ukraine is obviously not the same at all, and "unification" is obviously not the same as "reunification".
> China has factually split
Define "China." 中國? 中華人民共和國? 中華民國? 大清? 大明? 大元? The English term is far overloaded, kinda like the word "dumpling." Having this conversation in English is really hard for that reason.
The key word is 中國, typically translated literally as "middle country," though if you put it in google translate it'll just say "China." Really though, the word means "empire." Empire of what? China? No, just, The Empire. E.g. 一個中國原則 "one China principle," all things that we could call 中國 ruled by the same government.
That's the issue I have. The CPC claims a mandate of heaven for a "Chinese" meta-dynasty, claiming to have domain over everything any government in the region has ever touched (even the Mongols!). I reject this, a mandate to rule should be earned basically every day, and self determination matters far more than maintaining a dynasty of a culture.
Like many empires, the PRC is even creating an ethnostatic justification, calling everyone Han 漢族人 or Hua 華人 and claiming a mandate to rule everyone that could feasibly be called that, using race science to expand their domain. Like "white," under scrutiny, these terms are meaningless. We could translate either, in the context of their usage by the CPC, as "people the CPC thinks it should be allowed to govern." That includes people in Xinjiang, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, America, hell even Okinawa lately.
That kind of ethnostatic imperialist expansionism should be roundly rejected by anybody that values self determination. And, that's why "reunify" isn't the correct word, because there is no country on earth called "China" and there never has been, there's just a government ruling a territory that wants some more territory. The PRC isn't some magical inheritor of every racial, cultural, linguistic, and historical aspect of that region. "China" has not split with the fleeing of the KMT to Taiwan in the 50s, nor was "China" overthrown when the Taiwanese deposed the KMT military dictatorship in the 90s, or when the Qing dynasty was overthrown by the KMT.
You obviously understand what I wrote by "China split" because it is uncontroversial and rather obvious as a historical fact.
You are trying too hard and doing so does you a disservice because it makes you write nonsense that any sources can disprove.
So... why? Why do people get so attached to a narrative? Is it like religion, cult? Need to believe in sonething?
Past history is what it is. It does not mean that the people of Taiwan have to be forced into re-joining the mainland but let's keep the facts otherwise we are really leaving in 1984. If you want to say that the people of Taiwan have a moral right to remain independent if they wish to then just say so.
You're unbelievable.
Have you considered the possibility that you are just wrong? Your 'uncontroversial and rather obvious historical fact' is neither uncontroversial nor is it obvious.
That's why we have a 32 page article on the subject on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan
And it is one of the most heavily brigaded pages there. With edit wars going back as long as the page exists.
As well as articles like this:
https://www.justsecurity.org/87486/deterrence-lawfare-to-sav...
There is only one country where your 'historical fact' is seen as true, and it isn't Taiwan. And that is why China is threatening to invade, and why you yourself use Taiwan without further qualification right after 'South Korea':
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478045
The 'one China' term itself is overloaded, depending on who you ask (Chinese, Taiwanese) you get different answers.
Taiwan is an independent country, if not de jure then de facto. That China is a much larger and much more dangerous country is the only reason everybody tiptoes around this.
What is actually unbelievable is that you keep arguing against me by quoting sources that only say exactly what I have been writing all along. So I don't really understand what is this about and perhaps you don't, either...
This is bizarre at this point.
Perhaps you wrongly assume that by "China split" I meant "the PRC split" although it is abundantly clear that I didn't.
Those source do not say what you have been writing all along. Those sources make it plain that this is a controversial and complicated subject that you wish to flatten into a much simpler worldview. But that worldview is at odds with the facts, both the facts on the ground and the view of the parties involved.
You can continue to stick to your worldview, or you can admit that maybe the matter is more complex than you thought it was. The point is that there are multiple viewpoints on this and yours is not necessarily the only one and given that you claim not to have a horse in the race it is strange that you would end up carrying water for one of the parties.
Agreeing to disagree is a thing too, you're perfectly entitled to your own take on this no matter how wrong I think it is. But you are not entitled to your own facts and if you really believe this to be an uncontroversial thing then I don't think I can help you with that.
None of what I wrote is a worldview and I avoided any controversies by sticking to facts: China has split and this is explained in the first link in your previous comment, and "reunification" can therefore be an accurate term.
How is that at odds with "facts"? What "facts"? What do you think I claimed? How is it controversial? I am not sure you know at this point as you are being evasive and shifting to ad hominems.
Claiming that the Earth is round is "controversial" to flat-Earthers. Does this make it a controversial topic?
I changed my mind, I actually don't know what China is at all.
Can you please tell me what China is?
> You obviously understand what I wrote by "China split" because it is uncontroversial and rather obvious as a historical fact.
I also know, generally, what people mean when they say "goblin," but that doesn't mean goblins are real, and it's also true that two people might be thinking of very different things when a goblin is mentioned. Such is the same for the word "China."
> any sources can disprove.
Well then, should be pretty easy for you to disprove me with some sources then!
> So... why? Why do people get so attached to a narrative? Is it like religion, cult? Need to believe in sonething?
Please explain to us how you aren't also attached to a narrative. Are you a omnipotent entity, immune to human narratives, and the one true knower of Universal Truth? I think it's unintentional, but you come off that way, and that's why you're getting such a strong response here.
> Past history is what it is.
This sentence is genuinely meaningless.
The problem is, you've made some unsubstantiated claims (you can't even define "China"), presumed to be right, and then acted aghast when a bunch of people said "hm no, that's not quite right, here's why," and then you doubled down without providing any further substance to your argument other than just repeating in different ways, "I'm right and you're all wrong."
What's the point of talking with someone like that? I'm happy to have the conversation but I don't see the purpose when people behave like that.
Ad hominem attacks and character assassiination are the tactics of the CPC, not of democratic Taiwan...
I agree that "China" may mean several things but in the context of this discussion and previous comments it is rather clearer.
You can have a look at the Wikipedia link about the political status of Taiwan that @jacquesm posted. You can also have a look at related article about the history of China or Taiwan.
Quick summary (to mostly repeat myself as you point out but it does seem hard to get you guys to even read the links you provide yourselves, or don't want to accept them) is that China asserted control over Taiwan since the 17th century (as a reaction to European imperialism) with Taiwan acquiring province status towards the end of the 19th century. It was then ceded by China to Japan after the First Sino-Japanase war, and "reunited" in 1945. Following the Chinese civil war the communists took over the mainland and the government kept, and retreated to, Taiwan, which led to a split with de facto two states and official policies to "reunite".
That's all there in the links mentioned. So, again, I don't understand the drama.
I never denied that Taiwan was de facto a state independent of the mainland, or that the majority of the people of Taiwan do not want to be absorbed by the PRC, or even that a portion of the people of Taiwan would like no affiliation with "China" and be simply the Republic of Taiwan. And, yes, Taiwan was never controled by the PRC (like East Germany was never controled by West Germany prior to German "reunification", and there is still no country called "Germany" or "Korea"...). But that said I do have a problem with rewriting history and fallacious arguments to further a political aim.
You are arguing with someone from Taiwan, are you presuming to educate them on their own country?
Someone who lives in Taiwan. Anyway, that's obviously a fallacious argument (argument from authority?) and I note that you keep avoiding engaging with the point and historical evidence and references provided (included by you!) so I don't even know what you agree or disagree with and why at this point.
Yes, just like you are a French guy living in the UK, I would take your statements about the UK or about France as more relevant and better informed than those from some random person on the other side of the globe.
The one common thing about discussions between you and others on HN about any subject that goes on for more than a few comments is that it always ends in you feigning indignation and claiming the other party is unfair towards you. Maybe get off your high horse instead and learn to see things are more nuanced than as black-and-white and simplified as you make them out to be?
Your 'historical evidence' is not nearly as simple and as clear cut as you make it out to be, it is just what you chose to extract from the body of information about the subject because it confirms your worldview or some pre-conceived idea of how things are or should be. Not necessarily how they actually are and that is a massive difference.
> China asserted control over Taiwan since the 17th
This is a great example of why your usage of this word is an expression of your agreement with the idea of an ethnostatist meta-dynasty that a government like the CPC can claim a mandate to rule, rather than a universal fact.
It seems you don't believe Khagan-emperor Kublai was Chinese, since you pin the first "Chinese" assertion of control in the 1600s, even though the Yuan dynasty claimed Penghu.
You also give away your political agenda a bit when you accurately refer to Western actions on the island as "imperialism" but simply refer to Chinese empire activity as "asserted control," rather than what it clearly was, which is also imperialism. In fact it's especially interesting you did this considering that the entire reason the dutch colonists were expelled from the island was because of a battle between two entities that wanted to be called "China": the Qing dynasty, and Zheng Chenggong's remnant Ming dynasty. So here's another question: Manchus, Chinese, or no? Qing dynasty, Chinese, or no? Both yes? Well then both the Kingdom of Tungning and the Qing dynastic territories were China, despite being engaged in a deeply ethnostatist battle defined clearly on Han vs Manchu racial identity. And now the Manchus are 華人 just like everyone else, which demonstrates my point that the words "China" and 中國 are just a political propaganda tool to claim a mandate to rule an empire. The same fight has been fought before, except this time Taiwanese people have no desire to claim the mantle of The Empire.
You believe you're stating facts when actually you're just stating support of the CPC's claim to dynastic inheritance. Thus it's not "never clearer" what's meant by "China" in a time when all people who could be labeled "Chinese" (including PRC citizens) are reckoning with what that identity means in regards to governance and nationality.
> Ad hominem attacks and character assassiination are the tactics of the CPC, not of democratic Taiwan...
You clearly have never watched even 5 minutes of Taiwanese tv or politics lol.
> China has factually split
I think it is time for you to nail your colors to the mast.
Not cool to start nasty attacks for stating, and repeating, history... you don't have to like history but it is what it is.
So, no transparency then?
China would invade Taiwan.
You're subconsciously echoing Chinese propaganda.
Invade Taiwan to reunite China.
This is a factual statement, not propaganda. The propaganda (or political theatre in mainland China) is that the ROC does not exist and Taiwan is part of the PRC.
Reunite is propaganda because it gives credibility to the lie that these two countries are and/or were one like for instance Germany after world war II.
Taiwanese do not see themselves as Chinese, just like Ukrainians do not see themselves as Russian even if they speak the language. By playing along you are effectively carrying water for the Chinese. That may be your goal, but then you should be clear about that. If that is not your goal you should refrain from adopting the language of the party that is clearly the aggressor here. The 'ROC' moniker stems from a bunch of Chinese that fled there in 1949 after they lost their struggle with the communists inside China. They ruled Taiwan and they named it 'Republic of China', a name that has caused a lot of confusion with those unfamiliar with where it came from.
This is the reason the Chinese now lay claim to Taiwan, and it is about as misguided as it gets. They got Hong Kong by being patient, they may take Taiwan by force.
If you are playing into their hands by parroting their terminology you are fractionally helping to normalize their behavior towards Taiwan. If it should come to pass that China will take Taiwan by force that will have grave consequences, for the Taiwanese, the Chinese and the rest of the world as well due to the central spot that Taiwan occupies in the global supply chain.
Mainland China and Taiwan were one country. It is bizarre to try to deny it.
Taiwan was part of China and ceded to Japan by treaty after the first Sino-Japanese war of 1895. It was then "reunited" to China following WWII... that's really the root of the current situation since that's why the Chinese government (ROC) retreated there in 1949. Taiwan held the Chinese seat at the UN until the 1970s!
Hongkong was also seized by the UK through naked imperialistic aggression and it is testament to the power of propaganda that China be painted as "the bad guys".
Your comment is not factually correct irrespective of rights and wrongs or wishes of the people in Taiwan.
Why should people always have an ulterior motive beyond stating things as they are?...
> Your comment is not factually correct irrespective of rights and wrongs or wishes of the people in Taiwan.
Unless you are one of those I don't think you get to speak for them.
When did I speak for them or anyone?
No need to discuss further if that's going to turn into this. People really need to take a step back and a deep breath when discussing world issues.
I am not even Chinese or Asian if that is your suggestion (a little in the gutter, by the way). I don't have skin in the game and am just looking at history in the most factual way I can.
> No need to discuss further if that's going to turn into this.
Into what? A discussion where one party berates another for not appreciating the 'wishes of the people in Taiwan'?
You can't credibly make that claim without being transparent about your own nationality.
He said he was looking at history and present reality in the most factual way. Perhaps for you, your identity shapes your viewpoint more than the facts do. Why don't you provide your arguments instead of questioning his nationality?
A properly aged account that suddenly springs to life without ever before having commented on anything or submitted a single link. What a joyful occasion.
I usually prefer reading perspectives over expressing my own, but your bias and ill intentions have compelled me to speak up.
Sure...
Taiwan has been Chinese territory for centuries—just like California has been part of the US. Calling China's reunification 'invasion' is like saying the US is 'invading' Texas if some rebels tried to break away. The real propaganda isn't about history—it's about pretending Taiwan is some separate country when it's been part of China longer than most modern nations even exist.
Taiwan has never declared independence from China. Popular opinions aside, the ROC govt still officially adheres to the One-China Policy which considers it to be a single country together with the mainland.
The main reason for that is because they know that if they did declare that formally (rather than just acting like it is already a fact) that China would most likely immediately respond with force. So this is not because they want it to be like that but because they are playing a longer game.
With the US unreliable and distracted all bets are off on how this will unfold, the chances China attempting to take over Taiwan have substantially increased.
It's unclear how China would have responded because they were not, and probably still aren't, in a position to mount a successful attack on Taiwan.
I think what's missing is that opinion in Taiwan in actually split. The KMT, certainly up to the last president in 2016 is simply opposed to declaring "independence" because they share the position that Taiwan is China, just obviously not the PRC.
> The KMT, certainly up to the last president in 2016 is simply opposed to declaring "independence" because they share the position that Taiwan is China, just obviously not the PRC.
That is only because of the history of the KMT, which is only a fraction of the story of Taiwan. By the same token the Dutch could invade Taiwan tomorrow morning and claim re-unification.
Duh, yes obviously that means invasion.
I was just quoting the actual speech. The point is, for anyone claiming the US attempting regime change in Venezuela is going to factor into China's long standing plans to invade Taiwan is delusional.
The US has been involved in regime change operations spanning like 40+ different countries, and almost continuously for a century. This is not a unique event in even recent US history, even though folks with orange-man syndrome would like you to believe otherwise.
As if Xi is thinking "gee, I'd really like to invade Taiwan, but people might get upset! If only Trump would conduct the US's 5th regime change operation this decade...then people would...not care anymore about Taiwan or something?? Wait, this fantasy may have logical flaws..."
The bending over backwards that Americans do to convince themselves the US is responsible for everything that happens is always amusing.
Very apt username for the occasion.
Taiwan's President should definitely be worried.
I guess they are, because china was (or still is) practicing blocking of Taiwan. And Trump made somewhat a commitment to Taiwan, but who knows if there won't be a better deal with china tomorrow?
CHIPS and Science Act disagrees with "commitment" to the tune of 280 billion, considering that Chip manufacturing is the life blood of Taiwan.
why? Xi already made his intention with Taiwan clear many years ago. Besides, Xi, while pretending to be neutral, has become the major backer of Putin's war effort. It's not like Trump is doing anything special.
That's the point of being a permanent member of UN Security Council -- it's a position of power, not of subordination.
An observation:
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.
* https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/2007450814097305734#m
Also, the irony:
> the administration's position is that American courts can hold any president accountable for crimes, except the American president
* https://x.com/SevaUT/status/2007433614657552640#m
Even if you'd accept this warped logic, I don't see how you'd get from "this was just a slightly more complex police action" to "we're gonna run the country from now on and take over the oil sector", legally speaking...
Might makes right.
Remember this energy when someone stronger than you decides they want your wallet.
I'd just call the police, since they're more powerful than your average robber.
Maduro's remaining cronies could call on Russia for help since they just signed a military alliance. However, that's not likely to work.
this is why people carry guns in america
I thought these were for mass shootings
Only if you’re insane.
They are for BOTH.
Maybe we should let people learn that actions have consequences. The kind and uplifting are seldom shot.
Take Isabelle Robinson from parkland. Paraphrasing: "It's not my responsibility to "befriend" a person who is showing violent red flags; it’s the school’s job to intervene and provide professional help or remove the threat." So she did notice the red flags, but didn't do anything, she believe the school should do something not her. The failure in this line of reasoning is that every institution is made up of individuals, if they all think the same way nothing will change.
This is literally a school shooting victim saying she doesn't believe that she should personally have to pay... well she didn't have to pay as much as some of her classmates.
The school of will find their own people to blame.
Pretty much every major religion teaches something like: If they slap one cheek show them the other, and that we are all one.
Nevertheless, very few people will take any amount of responsibility for another "individuals" actions. The logical conclusion is that we sit in silod VR pods until the life support systems fail
> Regardless of your opinion on Maduro, you can still acknowledge that the head of a sovereign state being captured (...)
Note the US administration contends that he wasn't the legitimate head of state. [1] [2]
[1] https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/marco-rubio-nicolas-m...
[2] I'm (obviously) being sloppy regarding head of state vs. head of government.
I think the (disputable) argument is that, for global stability and equilibrium reasons, there should be a general prohibition against kidnapping/assassination of de facto heads of state, regardless of whether they were legitimately elected or are dictators.
Then nations become stuck with illegitimate leaders. That kind of undesirable stability is called hegemony.
I think these affairs ought to be handled through international bodies. The UN seems to have no mechanism for it.
Most of the people who make the argument I described probably believe the UN is the only legitimate body that could make this decision, based on some combination of practicality, historical precedent, and international agreement. And the UN absolutely has a mechanism for doing it (the security council). But one alternatively might argue the UN is broken/dysfunctional/corrupt enough that it can't be relied on despite having the "proper paperwork", just as national democracies can be for national affairs.
Unfortunately the non-democratic nations outnumber the democratic nations at the UN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
It's why the UN has an obsession with a tiny democracy in the middle east and ignores the multitude of brutal dictatorships which oppress and kill far more people around it and across the globe.
Who decides when a leader is illegitimate or not?
In this case, the person who decides just said that he wants to control Venezuela's oil.
Well, as always, who decides the leader is illegitimate? Are the Saudis illegitimate, according the the rubric we put on Maduro?
The UN deliberately has no mechanism for this because it's a talking shop intended to help avoid war by providing a talking venue. That's the whole idea, they're not the world police, there is no such thing. They're a forum.
I'm absolutely not defending any given dictator but history shows that every attempt to remove a dictator "for the greater good" is usually 1) selfishly motivated and 2) backfires horribly.
Yeah, ask any Chilean how the installation of Pinochet worked out.
I'm arguing against the US installing leaders in Latin America, sorry if I was unclear. I happen to have some Chilean friends and stories from them, from the Pinochet era, have helped shape my perspective.
Yes, I was just adding some context for any MAGA here that might genuinely think that US intervention in Latin America has ever been a good thing.
Good for South America? Or good for the USA?
Yes.
To phrase it more completely, regime change and general destabilization of Latin American countries has definitely led to the immigration crisis in the United States now. Lack of stable governments and economies has absolutely exacerbated the production and transportation of drugs into the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed or disappeared by US-empowered gangs or governments.
Now that said, I don't know what the world would look like had their right to self-determination been preserved. Nobody knows. But as a general rule, countries whose power structures were not toyed with by colonial powers do better than countries whose power structures were toyed with.
The country remains polarized, so the answers might surprise you.
Also 3) not ever about the the greater good, that’s a pretext
How exactly did the removal of Hitler backfire?
I think WW2 had a little bit more justification than whatever this is.
Then maybe you should rephrase your comment, because this is what I've replied to:
> every attempt to remove a dictator "for the greater good" is usually 1) selfishly motivated and 2) backfires horribly.
Imagine if Hitler was removed before... Instead, foreign powers favored appeasement and trade; conservative elites thought they could control him, Nazi propaganda and terror consolidated power, and Germans were disillusioned with democracy after WW1.
I shouldn't bite but are you seriously saying Maduro had Hitler-like potential to ignite global war if we didn't stop him?
> are you seriously saying Maduro had Hitler-like potential to ignite global war if we didn't stop him?
No, and in fact the comparison to Hitler felt out of place. I'm simply saying that it isn't as black and white that one should NEVER remove a head of state.
What I will concede is that catch 22 of not knowing how the future will play out, so how COULD you confidently and with wide agreement intervene BEFORE someone commits atrocities.
Well, while comparing Maduro and Hitler is a bit excessive, he has successfully driven out like 8 million people from Venezuela. That's something.
I'm still not convinced removing Hitler before his invasion of Poland would have been a good idea, it seems possible someone like Himmler would be just as capable of picking up Mein Kampf as an ideological framework to continue imperialism and kick off genocide. "Look what the Jews and communists did when we tried to stand up to them, they killed the leader of our movement," etc etc.
Once the genocide started though I do thing all considerations, including national stability and continuity, are lower priority than ending the genocide as fast as possible.
Like Hitler, Trump has (or rather, had, based on recent performance) the power of oratory. Himmler did not and I wonder if he would have been able to whip up the kind of fervor that Hitler did.
That's what made Trump so dangerous, it is insane that such terrible people have such a charismatic appeal. To me they are horrible men, to others they seem to come across as some kind of savior.
It’s quite reductionist to compare this Maduro situation to WW2.
Genocide being the exception, perhaps.
Basically, "leave it to the population to sort out themselves, even if they've lost the democratic means to do so," up until a government has gone so insane it's massacring its people, or other people.
So we should have done a much bigger intervention in Syria, much earlier? We should intervene in Sudan right now? We should finally intervene in Russia where they slaughter their own children and Ukrainians in a genocidal war of aggression? We should finally intervene in Palestine and destroy Hamas (and in Iran and destroy their Mullah-sponsors) who've committed a genocide on October 7th, killing thousands of Israelis and ten thousands of Palestinians?
From a purely moral standpoint, my answer would be "yes, absolutely." Unfortunately, most of these interventions are not practically possible. Taking out a dictator in US's backyard is so much easier (and easier to do bloodlessly) than any of these examples.
Yes, perhaps, as well as Netanyahu to stop his genocide of the Palestinians.
General rules don’t apply to superpowers or the countries they protect. China, US, Russia get to do whatever their military or economic power affords them, unprovoked aggression, war crimes, terror acts.
There are general rules against war crimes and they still happen day after day, under flimsy excuses. Bombed a hospital or a wedding party? There was a suspected terrorist there. White phosphorus over civilians? It was just for the smoke screen. Overthrew a government overseas? Freedom for those poor people.
Right but "Don't kidnap/assassinate the enemy leaders" is often a good policy even when nobody will enforce that rule on you by force.
For example if your country is subject to a terror bombing campaign, it's very tempting to assassinate the one leader who had the power/respect/authority to order the attacks to start but often they're also the only leader who can order the attacks to stop
In the 1970s/1980s presumably the UK could have had IRA leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness assassinated. But it sure turned out to be useful, in the late 1990s peace process, that the IRA had identifiable, living leaders who could engage in negotiation, sign an agreement, and get the bomb makers to stop making bombs.
Russia is a regional power, though.
The definition is probably not very precise. They started a war of aggression and every other country is tiptoeing around them. Iraq was also a regional power and got a very different treatment. So the “power” line isn’t so clear.
China on the other hand doesn’t get visibly involved in almost any remote conflict and they’re obviously a (if not the) superpower.
Russia has neither industrial nor economic base to project power outside of its sphere of influence. The only reason why everyone tiptoes around them is because they’re world’s gas station that attacked world’s bread basket. And largest stockpile of nukes.
China has everything that Russia lacks and more.
When you have no power you get stomped. That “only” reason is (part of) the superpower.
China was another example of superpower “style”. Not the Russian or US “let’s invade this country” or “let’s kidnap that leader”.
> , there should be a general prohibition against kidnapping/assassination of de facto heads of state, regardless of whether they were legitimately elected or are dictators.
Since ideas don't execute themselves, who would you pick to enforce this prohibition, never mind even getting 100%(?) alignment from countries what the conditions are for "kidnap", "assassination", and "de facto head of state"?
Public opinion?
Of who? If the PRC invades Taiwan and starts brutally oppressing the people here, you ostensibly have 1.3 billion people in support, plus possibly PRC allied, a non insignificant number of tankies abroad...
If people would still default to boycotting war-mongering states, the PRC would have a serious economic problem afterwards. Since, the relevant states (EU) are already in a (mild) crisis, they messed up there foreign economic diversity and individualism is all the rage now, there won't be.
> the PRC would have a serious economic problem afterwards
Don't get me wrong, I live in Taiwan so it's not something I want to have happen, but the PRC seems focused on localizing its economy as much as possible, so it may be that if that time comes, it doesn't matter if other countries boycott it. Didn't seem to matter that much to Russia in the Ukraine situation, or at least, it didn't stop them.
> the PRC seems focused on localizing its economy as much as possible
If they would actually do that, they would loose their threat model to keep the EU in check.
> Public opinion?
Opinion, public or not, cannot enforce anything.
It can be what forces people to do something or to resign?
The UN security council is one reasonable and popular choice, although it has lots of problems.
But enforcement is not even my point. I'm referring to a moral principle.
Companies can become « too big to fail » and dictatord can become « too powerful to fall » ?
We are not hovever optimizing for stabilitybanymore in Kali Yuga that we are living through
It's not about what should be the case. It IS the case. If we should decide to change that it won't work if one government unilaterally decides who stays or who goes for obvious reasons. Last month we saw Trump prostrate himself before MBS, who is apparently totally legitimate.
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I can see how all of this is about leftists on HN, well done.
I contend my net worth is actually 9 figures
Case in point : if you had the biggest military in the world, and no one to credibly oppose you, you'd have a lot of arguments to convince everyone that your bank account is actually full.
Lesson 1 of W.Spaniel course on international relationship is that "international order" is the longest running form of anarchy.
Pray you stay on the good side of the Emperor closest to your home.
It's a good thing the current emperor is old - at least we have patience and trusting biology as an option. Successions are often messy, and I don't see Emperor Trump as the kind to cautiously pick his heir.
That's easily written if you're in the country that benefits most from that situation, not so easily in other countries.
The entire post-WWII system with the UN and international law was an attempt to change this.
That is a misunderstanding. The stated and actual purposes of the UN are different. The actual purpose was to give great powers a place to negotiate with each other, so that we wouldn't get a third world war.
That is why the 5 most powerful countries were permanently put on the security council with complete veto powers.
There was a brief period, from the fall of the Soviet Union to Bush's invasion of Iraq, where "rules-based international order" was not a joke, and in fact was taken pretty seriously by quite a lot of people.
Democracy, free trade, free speech and freedom of religion had "won" over the soviet union. International treaties were reducing stockpiles of nuclear and chemical weapons. The WTO had just started resolving trade disputes through negotiation rather than trade wars. International peacekeeping forces were preventing ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, even though there wasn't anything like oil motivating the peacekeeping forces. Planners of the genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda were being prosecuted by an international war crimes tribunal.
Then-UK-Prime-Minister Tony Blair believed in this stuff pretty earnestly - in fact he wanted to get a UN resolution authorising the Iraq invasion so badly he was happy to submit fabricated WMD evidence to get it.
Of course, even at the height of the "rules-based international order" there were always some stark inconsistencies - especially in the middle east, for example.
I imagine this is the difference between how it's taught in Europe and in the US.
You imagine wrong. It was a point that I first remember seeing from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Dyer. Who is not from the US, but is an expert on the subject.
It was in his documentary series War, but I don't remember which episode.
I wrote
> Pray you stay on the good side of the Emperor closest to your home.
I think we painfully agree, here :/
It's also widely acknowledged that elections in Russia are rigged, and yet the US was quite angry at Ukraine over Russia's (false, as it turned out) claim that Ukraine attacked Putin...
> Note the US administration contends that he wasn't the legitimate head of state. [1] [2]
Trump contends that Biden wasn't the legitimate President because the 2020 election was rigged.
If Trump ends up contending the 2026 mid-terms are not legitimate is that valid too? Are they able to act on those contentions to… do stuff?
The 3rd section of the 14th amendment[1] states that no person having engaged in insurrection[2] shall hold any office, civil or military, in the United States. So technically Trump isn’t a legitimate head of state either.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
[2]https://www.npr.org/2025/12/31/g-s1-104190/capitol-riot-trum...
> The 3rd section of the 14th amendment[1] states that no person having engaged in insurrection[2] shall hold any office, civil or military, in the United States. So technically Trump isn’t a legitimate head of state either.
Was he tried and convicted? As far as I know the powers that be instead decided for some reason to attack him on other charges (sexual misconduct, corruption, etc.)
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump engaged in insurrection as a matter of fact. That is, they deemed it so obvious from the evidence presented (much of which was publicly available) that it didn't require a trial for determination.
This was appealed to the US Supreme Court, who didn't rule that this wasn't true, they ruled that the 14th amendment needs to be applied by Congress for reasons of consistency across states... which sidestepped the entire issue and was a dereliction of duty in my opinion, in the sense that they are the highest court and could have ruled on the issue of insurrection, or at least required some kind of jury proceeding at that time. They basically didn't do their one job.
Then Jack Smith later amassed a case about it, with grand jury approval. He ran out of time to try and convict Trump before he was elected, basically published a summary report of his case. Recently he testified before a congressional committee about it and asserted he was extremely confident Trump would have been convicted. He testified that he never consulted with Biden about the case, and asked that the rest of his materials from his investigation be publicly released.
Legally speaking there is a strong argument that Trump engaged in insurrection; he's just been shielded from the consequences by political maneuvers and poor timing.
Put differently, one state supreme court decided he so obviously engaged in it that it didn't require a trial. Another federal attorney presented his evidence to a grand jury and they decided he was likely to succeed if it went to trial.
My personal belief is historians will look at the evidence presented and conclude that US Congress made catastrophic mistakes by not impeaching Trump the first time (for obstruction of justice first, and insurrection second), and that SCOTUS made an equally catastrophic mistake (or corrupt decision) by not ruling on insurrection as the highest federal court, either on its own or with a grand jury trial.
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Well Russia contends Zelensky isn't the legitimate head of state of Ukraine.
You think you are making a counter argument, but you just managed to be welcomed to the end of the thought process of this exercise as contending can be done by just about anyone. It reinforces a bad precedent.
You have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to contend that Zelensky is not the democratically legitimated head of state of Ukraine. For Maduro, it's much simpler: He lost the election, yet he remained in power.
Bookmark this comment because it’s going to be very relevant in a few years.
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Seems silly to ignore that the last date in your list had an event closer to what OP is referring to than any other year, no? Considering he was already crying election fraud in 2016 you could certainly view this as a line with upwards slope…
I’m sorry…did I miss martial law being declared in 2021? Did I miss Trump being president from 2021 through 2024?
You are considering them binary states while I’m considering it a continuous scale. I prefer my way.
My preference is reality.
Perhaps learn how to model it, then.
Alrighty then, in a few years you can test your model’s accuracy against my prediction based on history and an understanding of how our laws and civics actually work.
Ok, now who can do the toppling? What if China had done this?
I wonder if this emboldens china to do the same to Taiwan..
China gets Taiwan without any US intervention as soon as our chip foundries have been built state side. Xi is patient.
TSMC already came online in Arizona.
TSMC running stateside != "nevermind Taiwanese independence"/"US withdrawing military protection for Taiwan"
For starters, TSMC has opened facilities in Az, but these are still owned and operated from Taiwan and rely significantly on Taiwanese capability for substantial inputs to the development process in both knowledge and operational capacity.
The new wafer capacity is not a replacement for Taiwan based infrastructure, but rather an extension of those operations.
And to be blunt: If amerika were to immediately about-face on 1975's "back-to-basics" math movement and resume math theory based primary education in order to develop the foundational comprehension necessary for the materials science at|in the design level workforce, it would still be at least one generation before homegrown capacity was 'on-par' with the current Taiwanese (and Dutch) resources.
TLDR; not a concern from a rational leadership condition.
However, pretending that one TSMC plant in Az is sufficient reason to TACO and post on social media in saggy golf pants == very much a potential outcome; regardless of the absolute immediate cost in lives and material capability, and the unavoidable long term consequences both within the US and around the world caused by said capricious behaviour.
Done what, exactly? Abduct Maduro?
Yes, for example, or forcefully remove the leader of the country of your choice.
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If they had removed Maduro because he's an illegitmate autocrat funneling drugs into the US, I'd be deeply confused, considering he's on their side.
Hmm, you don't see a simple connection, where China is the counterparty in this power struggle?
Zelensky has suspended elections since Russia invaded. He hasn't had a chance to be voted out, and probably will never get one.
The Ukrainian Constitution suspends elections in a State of Emergency. The State of Emergency is renewed regularly by the Ukrainian Parliament. The Ukrainian people are broadly supportive of Zelensky, who is publically open to holding elections if given the space and resources to do so. Which is a ceasefire, and some time and money.
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> Then, he suspended the next election
No, he didn't do that personally. Ukraine's constitution mandates that elections not be held during times of martial law (i.e. war)
Even if that wasn't a thing, do you think holding elections while bombs are going off is a good idea?
I think following the constitution is a good thing, even if bombs are falling. I mean, look, people are dying, and yet the country is not just hunkered down in bunkers for the last four years. Life is going on. People are getting up and going to work and coming home and eating dinner and going to bed. Surely they could also go and vote... if the constitution did not say what it says.
It just wouldn’t be possible to have a fair election when a sizeable percentage of the population is living under foreign occupation.
Under occupation, in Europe, and in the army on the frontlines.
It's a difficult thing to achieve even without Russia determined to interfere in the process.
I would agree, but Russia has shown that they're not about fair elections in their own country and they've bombed plenty of civilian targets throughout this conflict. I'd assume that Putin would crank up the notch about 10x on all fronts if he knew elections were taking place to make it impossible to have anything resembling a fair process.
You forgot to add that Ukrainian opposition leader supported suspension.
> He won the election in the most corrupt country in Europe.
He won by a landslide regardless of corruption (if there ever was one during those elections). Everyone was fed up with Poroshenko, and Zelensky was seen as a new wave, young politician who will bring change (on top of his popularity as a comedian).
> he suspended the next election and no more elections have been celebrated ever since.
By "he" you mean constitution of Ukraine?
> Then, he suspended the next election
Zelensky did not suspend elections. Ukraine's constitution prohibits the holding of elections under conditions of martial law.
"However, martial law—imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and still in place as the war continues—has prevented elections from taking place. Under Ukrainian law, elections cannot be held while martial law is in effect to ensure continuity of governance and support the nation’s defense." [1]
[1] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/ukraines-presidential...
He closed down critical news channels.
Such as?
https://europeanjournalists.org/blog/2021/02/03/ukraine-pres...
> Then, he suspended the next election and no more elections have been celebrated ever since.
Yes, but that may have something to do with the fact that his country was invaded and he has been at war ever since. Suspending elections for that reason is legitimate by "our" standards.
We didn't suspend elections during World War II. We had been attacked (and overseas parts had been invaded and conquered), and we were at war. Elections still went on as normal.
Even during the Civil War there were elections, even though there was fighting in some of the states that were voting.
> We [industrial superpower dwarfing whole axis combined, surrounded by ocean with no neighbors who can challenge us and unique geography that makes it literally impossible to invade at the time] didn't suspend election during World War II. We had been attacked [parts so insignificant compared to the whole that there was no reason to even consider delaying elections]...
This is the most `ShitAmericansSay` argument ever. What's next? Poland should've held elections while being pounded from both sides? Russia had "elections" during WWI and look where it ended up.
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As opposed to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Mother Russia, who won every single one of his extremely fair and properly done democratic elections with a landslide. 88.48 at his last democratic election! So beloved!
So did the EU parliament and a whole range of European countries
Honestly, I'm getting increasingly fascinated with the utterly absurd logic that states are putting into their justifications for war.
You get "preemptive self defense" that urgently requires "buffer zones" on foreign territory, which then mysteriously become your own territory and have to be defended with even more buffer zones.
Some Terror Regime of Literal Nazis is doing Unspeakable Atrocities to its own population which practically forces you to invade the country purely out of empathy and the goodness of your heart. Nevermind that the population has never asked for the invasion and will in fact be worse off through the war than before - and that this other state who is your ally is doing the exact same things, but then it's suddenly "realpolitik" and just the way the world works.
Someone has broken the law of his own country. "Internal affairs" or grounds for invasion? Depends if he is your ally or enemy.
Pardon the cynicism, but my growing impression is that war justifications only serve as discussion fodder for domestic audiences and have very little to do with the actual war.
> war justifications only serve as discussion fodder for domestic audiences and have very little to do with the actual war.
Two things intersect here:
"War is the continuation of politics by other means" - Carl von Clausewitz
"Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex" - Frank Zappa
There's a third quote that kinda sums it all up neatly: "War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it." — George Orwell
The media in the US, being a wholesale production of the oligarchy now, has been brazenly honest about the fact that this is purely a large-scale looting of Venezuela.
Those are some good quotes.
Just speculating, but I wonder if there is another purpose as well: To hand the military a story it can tell itself to assure they are still the "good guys" - i.e. ensuring "troop morale".
If you have thousands and thousands of servicemembers, not all of them might submit to drill or be motivated by money or career advancements or other personal goals - some people might ask questions about the bigger picture, about why they are doing an operation, etc. I imagine for situations like this, it's useful for an officer to have some ready-made answers available that they can use to counter those questions, even if the answers really don't make a lot of sense.
For all the personnel who executed the Maduro operation, the "we're just helping law enforcement to arrest a criminal" story was probably the practical reality for the last months, no matter how ridiculous it is in the larger context.
You know the president said that the Epstein files were a democrat hoax, right?
I feel like at this stage the US administration could contend that the moon is in fact made of cheese and news agencies would respond by running news stories about the implications of this on future possible lunar missions.
Interesting that they felt the need to redact a hoax and even include an innocent photo of Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson that was redacted to make it look suspect.
I'm so bored.
Trump is a sex offender. He's also a convicted criminal. He is also completely devoid of ethics or morality.
But because of the car crash that is American politics, you have to address all of this through the theatre of the set of documents associated with the world's most infamous paedophile (who also appears to be his best mate).
It's exhausting.
Well, I'm just an onlooker, so I don't have any influence on U.S. politics. I'm just constantly astonished that the U.S. people would vote for such a charlatan. Twice.
The problem is you’re getting all your information from the internet (I’ll bet social media?).
The impact of that is on display in this very thread. Random unproven accusations, conspiracy theories and repetition of “facts” that have been disproven long ago.
If your goal is to educate yourself about the US leadership, or really any subject, you’re not going to do it by what you see on social media.
Your post isn't really doing anything apart from casting general doubt. Can you be more specific please?
Are there more reliable sources of information that you can point to?
> > Random unproven accusations, conspiracy theories and repetition of “facts” that have been disproven long ago.
Every person who has been out in the world had to deal with a Trump like person in the workplace or wherever .
And people don't like it, as a matter of fact they despise it, he's only kept afloat by those who fail to connect the abusive bullying behavior of DJT with their own personal experience with a similar character and those who enjoy bullying or are paitiently waiting in line to do some bullying.
You reply seems to be a nonsequitur to my comment.
it's not, you are arguing for media to conceal or hide Trump's personality and the common intuition ahout him
Intuition?
Let me put it this way - if you wanted to know a subject well, as in truly understand it, for example the current protests in Iran.
Do you think you’d walk away with a good understanding from what the mainstream media says? From social media?
I think it clear to most people the media does a horrible job.
Now consider if they do such a horrible job on those topics, do you think they suddenly do a good job on US politics?
Social media and tech companies are effectively helping external actors (and malicious internal actors) to break western democracy.
Quite - that's been patently obvious since the Cambridge Analytica scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...
Ultimately, there's a war between the haves and the have-nots and one side clearly has more resources.
Yeah.
It's demoralising.
Yes, that is the final observation needed in the proof that open societies are more brittle than those led by dictators.
An open society shouldn't have all the mainstream media in the control of just a handful of people - that's a recipe for abuse and cover-ups. It reminds me of hierarchical religions where just certain people (e.g. priests) have access to the "higher powers" and can thus mislead the masses.
I see the point you're trying to make, but I'm not fully convinced it's as black and white as you make it out to be. I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them? Election fraud? Etc. Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
> I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
The greater good of whom? Regardless, we have international organizations where action can be taken by a coalition is states, which provides not only legitimacy but also some level of judicial control.
This is so obviously an imperialist power play for the world's largest oil reserves. That some would portray this as acting for the greater good is beyond ridiculous.
> world's largest oil reserves
With no infrastructure, and ten years of massive investment needed, I read.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy95pr790pro
Sounds like an opportunity for some lucrative contracts to go to US companies, while forcing the new Venezuelan government to foot the bill.
Which would happen anyway because only US companies are (maybe) capable of extracting Venezuelan crude at a profit.
Interesting to keep reading the narrative about the supposedly worthless Venezuelan oil here. So worthless that the US has to block sales with an embargo and is starting a war over it, apparently.
It's not a narrative, it's a fact you can easily verify by accessing the internet using the device in front of you.
The idea that oil in Venezuela is particularly attractive to anyone is patently absurd. Crude oil prices are already at uncomfortable levels for producers with significantly higher margins, and the situation isn't going to get any better.
>and is starting a war over it
Anyone who in 2025 still blindly believes what Donald Trump says is an idiot. And even if that were true, you'd still be an idiot for assuming that Trumps motivations are grounded in reality.
>The idea that oil in Venezuela is particularly attractive to anyone is patently absurd.
So why was US oil companies moving in specifically mentioned during the takeover if their oil is sooooo worthless?
>Anyone who in 2025 still blindly believes what Donald Trump says is an idiot. And even if that were true, you'd still be an idiot for assuming that Trumps motivations are grounded in reality.
Oh wow, we're in 2026 already.
OK, but the other piece of international aggression in the news recently was yesterday, when Trump promised that the US would "come to the rescue" of protestors in Iran if the regime starts killing them. Possibly this and Venezuela are related, and oil is involved, but in a strategic way rather than any immediately rewarding treasure-seeking.
From your source: "Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day," Florida Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar said in a recent interview on Fox Business. "American companies can go in and fix all the oil pipes, the whole oil rigs and everything that has to do with... oil and the derivatives." Trump might seem open to such arguments. He campaigned on the slogan "drill, baby, drill" and has generally called for expanding oil production, which he has tied to lower prices for Americans. /quote
It then goes on to note that output could be more than doubled in two years. That alone would put them as the 11th largest oil producer and the third largest in the Americas. The decade timeline and budget was for creating maximalist infrastructure for fully exploiting the resources.
The strongest proof that the article has that trump isn’t interested in oil is his word that he isn’t interested in oil. How much faith do you put in Trump’s honesty?
The 2023 Trump quote is "We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil". But I think war-for-oil explanations are too pat, generally. Just because he shamelessly says the oil is a motivation doesn't mean it makes sense as a motivation.
He said it then, he said it now, everyone else in the know is saying it. Trump has openly declared his intent to go after numerous other country’s mineral and oil resources leveraging military force if necessary. (Ukraine, Canada, Denmark off the top of my head). Why should I think that a man who sees everything through the lens of power and money has not just made a power and money play after spending a year promising to do just that.
I don’t doubt that other motivations exist. I do not think that the US would have gone after them if they did not have oil. I do not think the US government would be crowing about all the money they will finally be able to make with oil, if that wasn’t a motivation.
dumber than a box of rocks.
All they have to do is keep power for ten years and keep renewables being illegal (Trump already banned offshore wind turbines because he can see some from one of his overseas golf courses)
Mr. Zelensky would like to have a word.
[flagged]
To be fair we don’t know the atrocities the US would have committed in those regions if the UN didn’t exist. I’m not saying I know either obviously! But it’s not like the world seemed to be a better place before the UN.
I could go along with this to some degree if any country would be able to act the same way the USA is doing; then there would be a balance of power. But as it is, only a small number of powerful nations are able to act like this, without military repercussions.
So if Venezuela wanted to forcefully reverse a coup in the USA? Or Canada wanted to reverse election fraud in the USA?
They can’t. So the USA shouldn’t either.
Unless you can tolerate living by the whim of a more powerful bully.
Which I, as a non-us resident/citizen, am forced to tolerate now, but don’t like.
So no, I don’t think nations can justify interfering in sovereign nations by force for any reason.
Peace has only ever been achieved by waving around a big stick.
This is one such event.
The history of central and south America is littered with such events, committed by the US. I guess that's why those countries are all so safe and prosperous. Nicaragua and Haiti got it twice so they're doing fantastic right now!
It's about peace for the stick carrier, not the pacified
Nuclear armament is the only way to guarantee your safety.
Cuba is going to fall next, and then Nicaragua, and then Brazil, probably.
The DPRK is not going to.
The funniest part of DPRK is how we got bombed with propaganda about how the "supreme leader" was a madman that shouldn't be allowed to have nukes because he would immediately use them and then suddenly the propaganda stopped as soon as there was evidence that they had actual nukes. I suspect the same thing would have happened with Iran if they had gotten them.
The whole point of that saying is the carrying of the stick, not smashing someone in the head with it and scooping their brains out with a scalpel.
Maduro was a terrible dictator but toppling governments requires stronger justification, like active, extreme mass killing.
> requires stronger justification, like active, extreme mass killing.
… which actually did happen under Maduro, btw.
> Protests following the announcement of the results of the presidential election in July were violently repressed with excessive use of force and possible extrajudicial executions. Thousands of arbitrary arrests were carried out against political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists; hundreds of children were among those detained. Detainees including women and children were allegedly tortured. Detention conditions continued to deteriorate. Impunity prevailed for human rights violations.[1]
Is your argument that his dictatorship wasn’t repressive or bloody enough to warrant that? I don’t think that argument has legs - I think it is reasonable for him to be ousted based on the repressive regime argument. Yes, there are bloodier regimes around the world, but that’s like a speeder complaining to a police officer, “why did you stop me? I was only doing 80, the guy in front of me must’ve been doing 90!”
To me, the strongest argument against overthrowing Maduro is geopolitical destabilization and the general, “don’t mess with other countries because it erodes the norms that keep peace around the world.”
[1]https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/south-america/v...
I am unsure. It's certainly very good that he's gone. I don't know if it meets the threshold. There being bloodier regimes is I actually think a reasonable counter-argument: should we topple all them, too?
If polls show over 95% of Venezuelans are happy with this outcome after three months, I may shift my position a bit. In general though, I think it's a bad precedent for the world superpower to bomb countries and abduct rules because the ruler is bad. Plus, Trump's motives here are not remotely pure.
Agreed on all parts.
Now it’s not clear who is running the country. Maduro’s administration is saying they’re still in charge via their VP, but the opposition has said they are “prepared to assume power,” wherever that may mean.
I fear that there could be so much suffering as a result of this. Power vacuums and forced regime changes don’t seem to go well.
This reminds me a little of when the US toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq - initially there was celebration, which soon gave way to, “oh shit… now what?”
The argument is that all things you are claiming are reasons why the US took action are a (naive) fantasy. They are a convenient excuse, at most.
Trump is happy lining up behind far more monstrous characters.
It will be about his pocket, and then about what affects polling.
I think his removal has a lot more to do with his willingness to cooperate with the “bad guys“ in the Middle East. I think this also has a lot to do with why we suddenly care about Somali fraud rings that have been operating since the 1990s. The stage is getting set for another regime change in the Middle East. It’s pretty amazing what you can buy with a $250 million campaign donation.
Are asylum cases from Venezuela legitimate or not? One cannot support asylum claims while simultaneously believing Maduro didn't deserve to be arrested.
The majority of refugees arriving in Europe are Syrian, Afghanistan, African.
Just saying that I get your argument - but when are we taking control over all of those other territories then?
I absolutely believe that asylum claims from Venezuela are completely legitimate and that Maduro completely deserved to be arrested. I am just saying under international law and norms, the United States government did not have the legal or moral right to go in and abduct him to arrest him. And also, I am not necessarily sure if he deserved to be arrested to be charged with the odd charges the United States is saying they'll charge him with (drug-related offenses) as opposed to all the things related to human rights violations and being a despot. And double-also, Trump's motives here are almost entirely ulterior and impure, as opposed to a moral desire to bring a horrible dictator to justice and free a nation from his clutches.
If it was about peace and rebuilding their economy oil would have been mentioned as US companies move in to help them leverage their resources AT COST.
Instead, the joke about the US invading for oil proves true once again, and look at everyone fooled by the justification for it. Maduro a bad person? Yeah duh...so why US moving in to take profits from their oil as well as supporting politicians there who were allied with Maduro...
US are liars. And Venezuelans on here gonna act happy bc Maduro gone. But just you wait, 30 years will go by then Venezuelans will be crying about reparations for their natural resources being raped by the US.
Venezuela will never invade the US now, fr.
And everyone is now giving proper consideration to that important fact and forgetting those pesky domestic issues.
> They can’t. So the USA shouldn’t either.
That's not the way international relations work.
I appreciate your world view and politico-science philosophical approach, but Venezuela has natural resources, is close to the USA, and decided to mingle with American competitors.
Venezuela was supported via economic trade with nations not aligned with US objectives in exchange for security guarantees that would supposedly prevent US intervention.
More concretely: Russia was supposedly supporting them through economic activity and arms trades. Russia is overextended in Ukraine which is providing an opening and a cautionary signal to any other state that has Russian support that, in fact, any Russian security guarantees aren’t backed by more than words. See Iran and Syria as well.
This is very transactional and a spheres of influence move. It’s also pressuring Russia to find an Ukraine deal fast. The longer they’re in Ukraine the more their global sphere of influence is being reduced due to their inability to fight multiple military fronts at once.
Unclear how China fits in the picture.
My thought is, China is seen as needing to be curtailed.
Syria curtailed Russia, as you said, they lost the capacity to support it. Iran was a show of force, and something that could be done. And, Iran was very much supporting Russia -- lots of support, such as Iranian drone tech.
But from the China perspective, China was buying a lot of oil from Iran. That was cut off. And I imagine Venezuela as well, has been selling a lot of sanctioned oil to China too.
China has no domestic oil supply of note, and needs to import a LOT of oil. This could be a message to both Russia and China.
You didn't even mention the whole proxy war that Russia is fighting with France across most of Africa (and Eastern Europe). With both mutually picking apart the other's sphere of influence in the respective regions.
Fair, most folks are completely clueless about this being an ongoing concern for nearly 5 years now.
> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer
I don’t think it’s that difficult to answer, and the answer is “no” for two main reasons:
1. I don’t think the US has the greater good of humanity in mind nor even of its citizens except a minority, when it’s policing around.
2. Even if we were to assume otherwise (that the US concerns itself with the greater good), “who will watch the watchmen?” Especially when its institutions are being undermined day by day…
> What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them?
Once upon a time, “forcefully” doing anything with any country for any reason was considered an act of war. I agree that bad people should be removed from power. But the consequences associated with doing so forcefully (i.e., engaging in acts of war) need to be fully acknowledged and dealt with. The U.S. (and others) have played this game of “military actions” for so long that we, the regular people, have taken up that language uncritically as well. Once force enters, it is an act of war. Period. A discussion about whether country A should declare a war to remove the leader of country B is a much more honest and accurate one than vaguely positing whether country A can “capture” the leader of country B.
You are 100% right in all your assertions, and still miss the point.
I'm in agreement with everything you said, but none of it applies.
The US (or any other country) should never intervene due to a "bad person" or "illegitimate" or "dictator"
Instead, US intervened because the policies of Maduro directly led to the flight of 8M causing harms to many countries in LATAM, and US.
If a dictator was not actively enforcing policies that made foreign innocent (bystanders!) neighbors hurt or destitute, then your argument would apply
It was not a war bullet that have killed random Chileans, or Ecuadoreans or Americans. But nevertheless, there have been hundreds of venezuelan bullets (and drugs) kiling everyday civilians. The act of aggression exists (exporting hardened criminals and economic destitutes abroad) .
That was the casus belli. The US just happened to respond in force, when other countries couldn't.
I’m not disputing the right of the U.S. to intervene. I’m saying that we should call this “intervention” what it is — an act of war. It doesn’t matter what the cause or impetus for the act is; we need to stop pretending that forceful, military-based aggression into sovereign land (regardless of who the leader of that land is) is anything other than an act of war.
I think that's fair.
I suppose my argument is then that war was already happening, and it was declared by Chavez/Maduron on most of LATAM and USA, the moment they decided to export their problems (drugs, criminals, destitutes), into LATAM and USA, hurting our citizens.
This reasoning would justify invasion of just about any country in the hemisphere. Many with much more justification than Venezuela.
Well then why didn't the rest of LATAM fight back against Maduro? They could have asked the US to form a coalition if they wanted the help.
Anyway, that is the exact argument the Trump admin is making (drugs/gangs) but they didn't take it to Congress, as required.
Americans want those drugs though. And we need the immigrants, otherwise who's going to pay for our social security?
Even if we grant your arguments, it’s congress that has the power to declare war for a casus belli, not the President.
Then you get into the contorted question of whether what just happened, is war.
It is certainly an act of war.
De Jure we do need congress' permission for war, as you stated. You are correct.
De facto, limited interventions (especially, special ops missons) have not had a need for congress for a while now.
And this is another opportunity to reevaluate that de facto standard and assert it's illegitimacy.
If the USA killed 8M of its own citizens (which did happen) should Brazil kidnap Trump?
You could make a moral argument for it. But we should NOT support that. And i think the US framers were clear on this topic.
Personally, I would say no.
However, a country persecuting its citizens doesn't bode well for the neighbor's citizens own security or well being, which is usually why it often leads to some form of govt vs govt war.
A government should not act with force until its own citizens are suffering, meaning, if brazilians themselves were hurt because of US policy.
Note that this is pretty much how Russia argues with Ukraine.
Right, and in theory that all sounds very thoughtful and morally calibrated—until you remember that U.S. foreign policy decision-making has roughly the transparency of a raccoon operating a shredder at midnight. There is no clear, open process where the U.S. earnestly weighs “dictator versus coup versus fraudulent election” on some ethical flowchart labeled For the Greater Good. Instead, it’s often more like: Is there oil? A lot of oil? Like, cartoonishly large amounts of oil? Because if there is, suddenly democracy becomes very important, very quickly.
And yes, we’re told—solemnly—that every intervention is about democracy, human rights, and justice, which is fascinating because those principles have an uncanny habit of aligning perfectly with strategic interests. Venezuela is a great example, where the rhetoric about freedom somehow managed to coexist with very unsubtle comments about wanting “all that oil.” At that point, the moral argument starts to feel less like a difficult philosophical dilemma and more like a PowerPoint slide hastily slapped over a resource grab labeled “Don’t Look Behind This.”
So while you’re absolutely right that the question of global policing isn’t black and white, the problem is that U.S. interventions often aren’t shades of gray either—they’re shades of green. And once that’s the pattern, claims about benevolent intent stop sounding like hard ethical reasoning and start sounding like a press release written by someone who assumes the audience has the memory of a goldfish.
Maduro is obviously authoritarian. But if the US want to make the world a more democratic place by going to war I could think of a long list of countries they could attack before Venezuela.
US does not want to make world democratic. It is actively and systematically trying to weaken democracies and ally itself with autoritarians
Right now, us is ruled by literally fascist party and promoting the same elsewhere.
That "literally" is doing a very heavy lifting
I used literally, because current US goverment fits the definition, supports European fascist parties both with money and with words.
If you look at what Miller, Vance, Hegsberg and the rest of them say and do, you find a huge amount of fascist rhetorics.
Agree. It drives me nuts that people can't see this happening. It's as plain as day.
No, it's not.
Umm, yeah, just go look at Vance's statements about European politics. Literally.
Here are some actual statements from Vance:
>Now, I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.
>Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years, we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values.
>Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy, but when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say "ourselves" because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them.
>Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not, and thank God they lost the Cold War.
>They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to invent, to build.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-vice-p...
You are more than welcome to disagree with him, but it's hardly literal fascism advocacy.
Veeeery selective choices, arent there? The cancelled Romanian elections he talks about were cancelled and rerun for a good reasons. This was literally defending democracy against meddling.
The churches were not closed by some hostile state forces. People stopped being christians out of their own choices.
> We must do more than talk about democratic values.
This is dishonest to the maximum. Vance does not believe in democracy. Not in the USA and not in the Europe. He is trying to dismantle it and replace it with authoritarian fascism. He does not care about laws either, he cares about making his own thugs unreachable by law.
There's nothing Vance said in the speech which was literal defense of fascism, as alleged. It's a case of two competing narratives of what "democracy" means.
The Romania stuff is a complete farse. The campaign for Georgescu wasn't funded by Russia. It was funded by a member of the same ruling coalition whose judges cancelled the vote. [1] They launched a PR campaign that horribly backfired as they were skirting bounds of campaign law, so they couldn't actively name a candidate. The influencers followed their script, but didn't exactly have the same candidate in mind. It's like an equal but opposite of Bud Light hiring Dylan Mulvaney for PR.
Imagine in Hungary if a sort of pro-establishment (NATO/EU/Ukraine/etc) type won, and then they cancelled the election, banned this candidate, and reran it after making some mostly unprovable (and ultimately false) claims of foreign meddling. Can you imagine how you would feel about this? Can you imagine how the unelected EU bureaucrats would act, or what they would be calling it? For people on the other side of the political aisle, you just had an act carried out that would more than justify all the rather hyperbolic rhetoric you're using about the US. And when it's reality, and not just rhetoric, this ends up shaping the views of people for decades.
[1] - https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-romanian-...
there's a lot of assumptions here, but granting it's a difficult question: this is why the legislature holds the responsibility to decide, not the executive.
Basically the entire theme of the Culture novels by Iain. M. Banks.
Look at the track record of past US interventions. In hindsight, they almost never "beneficial for the greater good". Things turn to chaos quickly.
I would say that the post-WWII meddling in Europe and in a few Asian countries turned up overall positive, and produced strong US Allies.
It was also done with carrots, not sticks.
Can't really say the same for what happened in the rest of the world.
It would be true if the invading dictator didn’t have ulterior motives and dubious intentions.
> Whether any one country should be global police or not is a very difficult question to answer, but at the same time I could easily see situations where some of these could be beneficial for the greater good.
I would argue that it should be the UN that does something like this, if it's done at all. I would like to see a world in which there was a top-level body that would arrest a dictator, the same way the US government would arrest someone who tried to become dictator of an American state.
But it wouldn't be up to the governor of one of the other states to do it without the agreement of the rest of the country. That would be chaos.
Sadly I don't think anyone is coming to save us.
Intervening in another nation, for whatever purposes, requires much more discussion and negotiations than there was here.
And where do you stop?
If Trump is prosecutor, judge and executioner all in one, then who is a good person and who is a bad person?
So...
Nicolás Maduro Moros of Venezuela - drugs - bad... (got kidnapped by Trump)
Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras - drug - gooood.... (got pardoned by Trump)
Drugs are not the issue here. It's the bullshit reason, because the real reason is so ugly it cannot be see the light of day.
oh, its not that scary or offensive. Maduro was an illegitimate dictator, just like all of Trumps other friends. but he just wouldn't play along. ultimately thats why the US is so intent on supporting corrupt governments. your son-in-law gets a big contract from the US, and my LLC gets a lease to do mining operations and we're all happy now right? Trump gave Maduro a deal he couldn't refuse, and he .. refused! what's a Don supposed to do, if Maduro can refuse than everybody else is going to get ideas.
So big international corruption schemes are the real reason.
Drugs are merely a cover story: sand in the eyes of the public.
> What about dictators? What about military coups and forcefully reversing them? Election fraud?
My country, USA, yearns for freedom. Please someone, anyone, liberate us!
It's never anybody's business to remove a dictator but its own people. End of story.
Nobody else has the right to have anything to do with it, unless that dictator is attacking you.
I don't find this argument convincing. You could make the same argument when you see a parent physically hitting their child, that it's not anybody else's business, but most of the civilized world agrees that you should intervene, either directly or by contacting the authorities. The child is helpless to defend themselves. The same applies in many countries worldwide today. Even if the majority of the population wants a change of regime, coordinated military power held by a handful of individuals is more than enough to suppress any hope of that.
Using your analogy you are not someone who's seen anybody hitting their child, you're someone who's fine with a random neighbour doing justice because he tells you he was bad.
If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow, is Xi allowed to invade and capture him? Or is it reserved only for small and weak countries while the big ones can do whatever they want?
Can he round up the goons in the CIA and FBI while he’s at it? Is being a tributary vassal state of China materially worse than being a tributary vassal state of foreign power? I’d like sovereignty, but that’s not really an option.
Britain certainly can take the US back in today's environment. If only they had the navy for it.
"In the absence of higher authority, everything that is possible is allowed." -- Reality
>If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow
The moment he started ignoring the US Constitution, he became one.
Both countries involved are currently dictatorships. Consider the role reversal: Would it be good if Maduro invaded the USA and kidnapped Trump? Why or why not?
It's very black and white. It's an internal affair, and no one elected the USA to be the police of the world.
We could also argue that even internally in the US, the current president was not democratically elected. Maybe you agree that another state should go there and remove him, just because.
I for one would support a Native American take over of the White House, and giving them back their country. You seem to support this logic
>>I for one would support a Native American take over of the White House, and giving them back their country.
What would you do with 100s of millions of Americans who are not decedent from native Americans? I'm even more curious how far back in history would you go to start returning countries to their native populations?
Again, that's an internal affair. It would be up to the Native Americans to decide. It's their country after all
What are the available options they would have when deciding?
How about the country doing the capturing stays the fuck out of the business of all the other countries instead ?
Escalations like this push the doomsday clock closer and closer to midnight, no matter how well intentioned, and I can't say I think Trump has good intentions anyway. America is just privateering, these days.
So we can justify, say, deposing the king of Saudi Arabia? Or Zelenskyy on the pretext that he hasn’t held a timely election? Or the president of Taiwan on the basis of illegitimacy of the election? Regardless of Maduro’s sins, this is a massively destabilizing action and I expect we will see unpleasant downstream effects even if, in a vacuum, the action was justifiable and legal.
It's of course very difficult to justify, but in your example, Zelenskyy has the approval of the Ukrainians for now, while Maduro only had the approval of the military and a low percent of civilians.
The approval of the people is irrelevant if Putin cites Zelenskyy’s democratic illegitimacy as a reason to remove him (which, arguably, they have) or Trump as a reason to withhold support.
If only there was some process in the constitution for Congress to declare a war or something.
> I think we can both agree that lawfully and democratically elected leader of country A having a lawfully and democratically elected leader of country B captured is bad, for all the obvious reasons. What about ${WHATABOUTISM}?
I think a regime that is hell-bent on kidnapping foreign leaders at the whim of it's glorious leader by circumventing any of it's checks and balances, such as congress approval, is clearly and by far the worst problem.
And calling the US under the Trump administration "democratic" is a hell of a stretch, even as a thought experiment.
Yes, obviously it's the US defending Democracy, and not salivating about the Oil reserves, like Trump and other conservatives did on TV the last weeks
Having lived roughly 50 years on the planet, I recognise this as both a view I used to hold and as pretty naive.
Why then doesn't the US attack other countries that fit the description? It's another dangerous precedent.
Edit: I fully understand the deterrents. I'm making the case that attacking for the sake of 'liberty for all' is a farce.
1. Компромат 2. Nukes
Edit: in case my comment doesn't make sense, the parent comment originally asked why the US doesn't try to topple Russia. Parent edited comment after my reply.
It should if it can do it without triggering WW3.
edit: The person I'm responding to edited their comment, it was originally something along the lines of
"Why doesn't the US topple Russia's government then"
It is, along with NATO. The invasion of Ukraine is being managed in a way that bleeds Russias economic and war fighting power without escalation of the conflict to other states.
Ukraine is being spoon-fed arms and support just enough to keep them able to attrit Russia without ending the conflict until Russia is exhausted. Once Putin stuck his foot in the bear trap, there is no way he can turn back and retain power/life. I’m sure he’d love to have backed out in the first few weeks while it was still possible at this point.
It’s great for the region and for NATO, but it trades Ukrainian blood for NATO interests. Obviously Zelenskyy knows the play by now, but he and the Ukrainian people are between a rock and a hard place. It’s tragic for them, but there is a little hope at least of having earned a seat at the table if they survive. My heart (and donations) goes out to the Ukrainian people.
> My heart (and donations) goes out to the Ukrainian people
your donations go straight into the pockets of the elites. You need to be an idiot to think you are helping by sending money, unless you are sending it to your relatives.
Idk, I’ve bought some gear for a couple of the units, stuff like that. I don’t see it going to the pockets of the elites, though I suppose it might be an elaborate scam to resell the gear they are asking for. Doesn’t seem like it though.
Maduro is not the head of a sovereign state. The President of Venezuela is Edmundo González, the winner of their last election[1]. To know if this violates Venezuela's sovereignty, you would have to ask their President. Personally, I fully support this operation, unless their President indicates otherwise. It's a good day for democracy and freedom.
[1] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-...
The world is full of dictators, one of them just a few miles from Florida, yet the USA only seems interested in dictators with plenty of oil.
You fool no one.
I wouldn't be so sure about the longevity of the Cuban regime right now.
The US has many voters of Cuban origin, and the vast majority of those would be happy with a regime change in Habana.
Rubio is a well-known Cuba hawk and Trump is crazy enough to try.
Yeah, we're fucked.
As much as I wish I could go and pontificate about how much better and more moral the PCC is than any other government on the face of the earth, they are in the worst possible spot right now.
It's less of a 'will they topple the revolutionary government in Cuba?' and more of a 'will they do it before or after they topple the revolutionary government in Nicaragua?'.
I'm surprised Castro's Cuba still exists.
I'm not naive about Trump's motivations, he tried to destroy democracy in the US after all. But it doesn't bear on my interpretation of the outcome of this event, which is what I am happy about. Call it a coincidental alignment of self-interest with what's best for the people inside Venezuela.
This is short sighted too It can also turn out worse for the Venezuelans, it doesn't have to become better.
Yeah, I'll defer judgement of this for 5 years, after we see: results in Venezuela. How this emboldens other wannabe agressors elsewhere in the world, and where the erosion of respect for rules of UN charter will lead.
Until then, the only conclusion I’m comfortable drawing is this: anyone confidently declaring that kidnappings, bombings, and killings are great for democracy, without waiting to see if there are any real long-term benefits, isn’t offering serious analysis. They’re just enthusiastically clapping for violence and hoping history does the cleanup later.
This careful response seems sensible at first blush. After all, maybe in 5 years things will be better for Venezuelans! On the other hand, maybe not. In my heart of hearts I believe the odds are not great, but in lieu of a time machine, I think we can do no better than call it 50:50 odds.
In the meantime, though, this action is already having effects beyond the US and Venezuela. Withholding judgement until this conflict has fully played out carries with it an implicitly permission for similar actions in other places and situations. After all, maybe those will be for the better too!
That's why I oppose this action. Not in support the Maduro regime, which in my view has little to nothing that's worth defending, but because of the precedent that it sets for future events. This is hardly the first time a nation has had its sovereignty violated by a stronger power, and I'm not so naive to believe that it will be the last if only enough people spoke out. But at the same time, I strongly believe that accepting it as something that's inevitable (or even good) will only make it happen more often.
How about in 10-20 years when all of Venezuela's natural resources are owned by America "b-but muh job creators" minimum wages then all the big profits go offshore. Tale as old as time.
How did that work out for Iraq?
It wasn't a good day for the million Iraqi civilians that the US murdered.
Completely agree.
Are we against democracy now?
Maduro is the elected president. Don't spread misinformation.
He's not: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-...
https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-...
I don't think that blog says what you think it does.
Tao is using a deliberately limited model to make a probablistic claim, not saying he'd make a 10⁸:1 bet that the election was rigged.
The election may well have been rigged anyway, it doesn't change the fact that Maduro was the one sitting in the president's chair and carrying out the president's duties.
He is not. He is as legit as Putin is. They fake elections.
Putin doesn't need to fake elections. His approval rating is very-very high. You need to be russian to know that.
Why would he need to tamper with election if he has?
Regardless of your opinion of maduro, you can still acknowledge that if the head of a sovereign state enacts policies that result in the mass emigration of 8M to neighboring countries, destabilizing all of them [1],[2] in the process, exporting criminal enterprises, any affected head of the affected government certainly has casus belli on said head of state.
The policy of no aggression applies. If a government, thru its actions (or inactions) causes massive aggression and hurt on your own people, then its your *duty* as elected official, to stop it and protect your citizens
Self-defense is literally the most important mandate a government can have.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/crime-migration-spect...
[2] https://www.cgdev.org/publication/data-against-fear-what-num...
Amusingly what you described translates to USA actions if you are from a country in the middle east. For example did you know that there are at least 5M emigrants of Afghanistan in Iran?
Not arguing about other nations actions, just a reminder that if you apply many western logic indiscriminately, the resulting bad actors are very different.
And you'd be right.
9/11 did not come out of a vaccumm
Unfortunately, everyday Americans' security is deeply impacted by the clowns with office desks in DC, since the 1990s.
It's not lost on me that I may lose living relatives living in the US because of Kissinger playing RISK for a living, back in the day.
Just as the clowns in government made horrible decisions and should potentially be legally in jeopardy for them, I can also say they are getting the venezuela one, right (at least for now).
The reasons for doing something and public justification, aka casus belli, are different things. Casus belli makes it cheaper to execute, but reasons are what actually drives them.
The clowns and the reasons that drive them are the same for Middle East and Venezuela. Does it make it any better that they happened to have a casus belli that you or I may sympathesize with, given that the reasons not in line with our values? Even a broken clock is right once a day.
The difference between casus belly and a state of war is: Casus Belli is a 1-time event, whereas State of War means ongoing action that is bellicose in nature.
So i chose my words wrong.
I'd argue that a state of war already existed, well before the events in the gulf. It just didn't involve formal military movements.
I think there were that many immigrants. I don’t believe they are so many living there now. Iran demonstrated pretty conclusively that mass repatriation is completely possible if you have a government that actually wishes to do so.
If two wrongs didn't make a right, we wouldn't punish people who commit crimes.
It should be up to the Venezuelans to decide who leads them. Maduro decided to ignore the will of the people when he held power through clear and blatant election fraud. If some sort of global public service could reach out and punish all politicians who do this, the world would be a better place.
If you are unfamiliar with Venezuela, this is a good primer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHXW1vOBI4
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. He is neither American nor lives in the US.
So if China came in and "helped" the Venezuelan people to get rid of Maduro, you'd feel the same way? Of course not.
What on earth? Of course I would feel the same way.
Whether Maduro is corrupt, authoritarian, or illegitimate by your definition doesn’t suddenly make an undeclared foreign military strike to seize a sitting head of state acceptable. Sovereignty isn’t a reward for good behavior. It’s a constraint meant precisely to prevent powerful states from unilaterally deciding which governments get removed by force.
If the standard is “we can capture leaders we deem illegitimate,” then you’ve effectively endorsed a world where power, not law, decides regime change. You can oppose Maduro and still acknowledge that abducting a head of state via air strikes destabilizes a country of 30+ million people and sets a precedent that will be used by actors far less selective than the U.S.
Two wrongs don’t cancel out just because one feels morally satisfying. of course, we all drink the American imperialism koolaid here.
> then you’ve effectively endorsed a world where power, not law, decides regime change.
This has always been the case throughout the vast majority of human history including current day.
You are sovereign if you can prove it, and you aren't sovereign if you can't.
"International law" is something superpowers ignore at will. It is not "wrong" or "right", it simply is.
There are also reports of 40 something people killed. Doesn't that amount to basically (mass) murder? There is no declaration of war, so you can't really call them civilian casualties.
We have different definitions of sovereign state apparently.
"In his time in office, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has stolen two presidential elections, electoral monitors and human rights groups contend, while jailing critics and overseeing an economic collapse that caused eight million Venezuelans to emigrate, including to the U.S.
But in some ways, Maduro is more safely ensconced than ever, with most opposition leaders in exile and Venezuelans too fearful to protest as they once did.
The problem for those who see hope in the military rising up is that Maduro has surrounded himself with a fortress of lieutenants whose fortunes and future are tied to his, from Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López to generals, admirals, colonels and captains throughout the armed forces."
https://www.wsj.com/world/americas/venezuela-maduro-coup-tru...
What's that have to do with it being a sovereign state? By that standard, neither Russia nor China are sovereign states.
And it's not like the US gives a shit about democracy outside its borders. The CIA overthrew Jacobo Árbenz in the 50s, supported the military coup in Brazil in 1964, pinochet and Hugo Banzer in the 70s. This is normal behavior for the US in Latin America. It's nothing to do with concern for Venezuela's citizens.
There's really no benefit in arguing on the basis of the definition of sovereignty. There is no definition. It's a self-evident state: if you assert that you are sovereign, and you can back it up, then you're sovereign. That's it.
I am going to assume that if you were old enough at the time that you thought Iraq had WMD's?
How people can just read one article and think they know the world is fascinating to me.
Hilarious how this is coming from someone that just assumed a 20 year old belief of a person they don’t know
I think heads of state bearing personal responsibility for misconduct is an excellent precedent that I would love to see applied much, much more widely. Preferably to the superpowers, especially if said leader were to say, for a totally-hypothetical example, recklessly create a massive security risk near our borders for the sole purpose of benefiting a foreign interest group… but I’ll take what I can get. I think the Sword of Damocles is missing all too often from high society. If life and death decisions, don’t come with life and death risks, then I think they become taken too lightly. I think we are too quick to insulate high society from the consequences of their actions.
USA just pardoned leader of drug mafia and for.er president along with stream of major criminals.
We all know any attempts to frame USA choices as noble right now is dishonest.
What's kind of shocking to me is that no matter how obvious they make the motives this time, and how clearly Venezuela doesn't pose a threat, I'm still reading the same Bush-era justifications ironically being offered in the comments.
I think it's sort of a terminal centrism. They can't accept that they would do such actions for obvious reasons (despite them overtly telling us 'we're going to run the region' and 'it's for oil') so instead they try and downplay it so that they can seem rational which ironically makes them look even more irrational. They're working backwards to try and justify their stance.
It's really insane but also not surprising to see considering how many people do truly live in their own fictional world and never bother to reassess it.
At this point, I don't think it is naivety or lack of insight. It is propaganda at its best. They like what is going on and support it. They cant just say "it makes us feel manly so we should do it and extract some resources", because they are educated and want to be seen as intellectuals.
So, they create these BS rationalizations.
Maduro is a dictator and a criminal - there is no doubt about it.
He is an illegitimate president who has systematically violated the rights of the Venezuelan people. He has bought off the military, the judiciary, and other key institutions, hollowing out the state to ensure his grip on power.
His regime has also supported and benefited from the existence of drug cartels in Venezuela as another mechanism to maintain control and stay in power.
Together with Chávez, Maduro has ruled the country for more than 27 years, a period marked by countless atrocities against the population, from forced disappearances to torture and rape.
The result is one of the largest humanitarian and migration crises in modern history: more than 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country to escape the regime.
The international community has proven itself unwilling to act. The UN will do nothing. NATO will do nothing. No one will.
We were, and perhaps still are, watching Venezuela turn into another Cuba, with one crucial difference: Venezuela sits on vast oil reserves.
The "Crazy Red" is a pig, but at least he is the only one willing to confront Maduro. This may end up being the only genuinely positive thing he does during his presidency.
Yes, the attack is not "ideal". But in an ideal world, there would be no dictatorships, there would be no Maduro.
And I say all this as a South American with family in both Colombia and Venezuela.
EDIT: this is written by the Vzla admins in Reddit: Foreigners, if your opinion comes without ever meeting a Venezuelan part of the biggest diaspora of the 21st century, I would advise against commenting. You might deserve a ban from this subreddit, thank you for your attention to this matter.
I do not acknowledge that. If you want to make an argument that overthrowing a dictator is always wrong on principle, go ahead. But I will not accept this as axiomatic.
Claiming this could “destabilize” the country suggests that the country is stable. It’s not.
You mention the 30+ million people who live there, under the dictatorship, but ignore the 8+ million who have fled the country in recent years and the instability that has unleashed on country and the entire region.
A wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by another wrong, followed by yet another wrong...
----------
"Flood the zone" is a political strategy in which a political figure aims to gain media attention, disorient opponents and distract the public from undesirable reports by rapidly forwarding large volumes of newsworthy information to the media. The strategy has been attributed to U.S. president Donald Trump's former chief political strategist Steve Bannon."
----------
Pay attention to the context of this moment. The timing of this invasion is no coincidence.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone
> head of a sovereign state
Err
> Since 2019, more than 50 countries, including the United States, have refused to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s head of state.
Including the EU and its member states
> a country of 30+ million people
If those 30 M being the remainder after ~8 M fled the country (20% of the population) within the last 10 years, the „destabilization“ was already there.
I'm guessing willingly Maduro surrendered as he took the cash offer from Dec 1, 2025 while publicly rejecting it. After all, he left with his wife.
> “You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now,” Trump reportedly said, offering safe passage for Maduro, his wife and his son “only if he agreed to resign right away”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/01/trump-maduro-u...
I need you to know that the discussion on this news on Reddit today was the last straw for me, there is no nuance. It’s just simple minded left, and right. I asked ChatGPT to help me find a site that might have more intelligent discussion more nuance, and this was the very first comment I saw after I registered my account and I literally let a sigh of a relief. Thank you.
Substack is another good platform for nuanced discussions. The Notes feature is a bit like Twitter but with +20 IQ points. Literally the first post that popped up when I opened the app:
https://substack.com/@jaysophalkalyan/note/c-194741864?
Yep - Reddit is unfortunately now where the simpletons hang out. This is far better, you can have intelligent debates
But with every redditor that moves here the difference is getting smaller.
There isn't really much difference between here and Reddit. Especially on political topics, you get the same tired and defeated arguments and opinions over and over again.
To an extent yes, but individually I have much more nuanced interactions here with users. Whereas on Reddit I get dog piled by hundreds of black and white thinkers all circle jerking each other, making identical replies to my comments.
Here I often will get a deep thread with one user that's quite interesting, even if we disagree in many ways. It's also usually polite for the most part.
That's why I'm so happy HN has resisted the call to allow people to post images. You get the occasional link to that stick figure site but other than that posting here requires some minimal effort. Rate limiting all posters might be another way to increase the signal to noise ratio.
reddit is simply on another level though. See Paul Graham's concept of the "aggressively conventional-minded": https://paulgraham.com/conformism.html
Thanks for this - Graham hits the nail on the head
The people and LLMs that use this website are as numb-skulled, illiterate, and misanthropic as the people and LLMs that use reddit; In fact, these are the same people and the same LLMs.
Yep, only real difference is Redditors now know they aren't smart or special, people here haven't figured that out yet.
It's hard to ignore that the country being targeted holds the world's largest oil reserves. In a global context where China has become one of the top oil importers, that makes the situation look less accidental.
Arresting the leader of a narco terrorist tyranny allied with even worse powers like Iran, China and Russia is in fact a good thing.
America is not a principled country. It has for a long time now operated on the protection racket model: externalizing costs onto citizens.
In the American model, anything that could destabilize society is the fault of an individual who should be punished, ironically this means collectives can do no wrong. Leaving AI safety up to people living in such a country is frightening.
Race is the one exception (maybe sports teams too), but that definitely doesn't help Venezuelans
Agreed. Watching the worldwide reactions so far, it’s surprising to see the RN (hard-right) in France most vocal in condemning.
It's just realpolitik laid particularly bare. The major complaint seems to be that the paperwork wasn't done 'right' here, not much else eh?
What is the real difference between Iraq and what just happened, except this was arguably done much cleaner, and with less BS (no having to come up with Yellow Cake, or fake WMDs, for example).
This does have the effect of hopefully waking up anyone who is still confused, but I doubt it.
I think I agree. For anyone paying attention, the new rules have been officially established and I don't think they bode that well for previous international order. Still, I am only processing the news and I guess I will need to watch the conference now.
The international order was dead ten years ago. GWB put it on life support with Iraq 2. Obama pulled the plug when he didn’t respond to Putin in Crimea.
Hmm. You do have a point. Maybe I should have used a different word that is not as laden with previous baggage. New balance of power is likely more apt. It is still not as accurate as I would want, but it conveys similar message.
Also the Chavistas have broad support in the population. To point where they won several elections.
That's empirically wrong. Also nearly every single Venezuelan who's left the country since Chavez is against Maduro
That might be why they left, no? The ones who stayed presumably tolerate him more.
The ones who stayed are mostly too poor and famished to leave.
any evidence of that?
Yeah, read any newspaper.
And why are they famished? Could it be because of US sanctions and embargoes?
You can't blame America for every single problem people suffer. Cuba was also embargoed and managed to pull off a medical system with a lower infant mortality rate than the USA, and as far as I know nobody starved there to the degree they did in Venezuela.
USA sanctions means Venezuela can't be a Petrostate, that's it. There's nothing stopping the government from organizing state industries in agriculture and mineral extraction as well as distribution to build a hyper localized economy. Hell, they're supposed to be communists, this is supposed to be the whole thing they're meant to be doing anyway.
The state of Venezuela is mostly the fault of Maduro's failed governance, and some of the responsibility lays also on the heads of Venezuelans. I personally believe to pretend it's all America's fault is to engage in a prejudice of low expectations.
approx 8 million, and we are not allowed to vote, which is against the constitution.
No, they lost the 2024 election by a landslide, it’s one of the reasons of what happened today.
> No, they lost the 2024 election by a landslide
I don't belittle what VE has gone thru and I accept that something awful for you has been removed from the board.
> it’s one of the reasons of what happened today.
I would clarify that the current US leadership has little/no history of taking actions that are genuinely for others' welfare. The admin continually claims it is doing good. It's a continual stream, one after the other. By the time one is debunked (and they are), ten more are issued.
This method is dividing many Americans (by design) between those who believe the stream of claims and those being overwhelmed by the mountain of debunked falsehoods.
Maybe. But there is still popular support; and some of the elections Chavez won, he actually did win.
Irrelevant, Chavez died 13 years ago, a lot has happened and changed. Maduro lost the last election hard, he wrecked the support he inherited back then
True, but that is irrelevant today, they squandered that support and people want a change now.
For starters even EU does not recognize Maduro as legit head of state
This is a core problem of international politics.
We allow brutal dictatorships to continue subjugating tens of millions of people and killing millions in the name of convention. Our international organizations (the UN in particular) are basically ruled by authoritarian regimes. Is there no justification for external powers to effect regime change? We just have to wait and watch as the dictator kills a ton of people? Oh, and of course there is Maduro's support for Putin via sanctions evasion. Even now, Venezuelans face a brutal security force that is likely to retain power, but hopefully that power fragments.
Imo we should have done this right after the last election which Maduro stole.
Something like 50% of the population of the world live under rulers who were not democratically elected. Should the US taxpayers fund all of their removals?
On top of that, removing a ruler without any plan for follow-up frequently makes things worse, not better. We seem to have already forgotten that removing the leadership of Iraq led to the rise of ISIS and its horrifying consequences.
> Something like 50% of the population of the world live under rulers who were not democratically elected. Should the US taxpayers fund all of their removals?
If it's in our interest, absolutely. Venezuela nationalized (which is a nice way to say they stole) American oil interests and companies decades ago, has assisted Russia in flouting US sanctions, and has in part enabled the drug cartels. Each of those things cost us money. We're also getting a ton of immigrants from Venezuela that we have to spend money dealing with. Venezuela could also be a much better trading partner for us in the future with a liberal democratic society. All of that is directly in the best interest for the US. Believe it or not, sometimes our interests lie outside our borders.
Isolationism is a failed policy by every nation that tries it, and this is something that used to be taught to every school child in America about our past policies. It's a shame those lessons seem to have been forgotten by our people.
> On top of that, removing a ruler without any plan for follow-up frequently makes things worse, not better. We seem to have already forgotten that removing the leadership of Iraq led to the rise of ISIS and its horrifying consequences.
This is absolutely true. You have to destroy the security forces as well, and support the elected democratic leadership. We may fail to do so in this case.
Isolationism works fantastic for Switzerland.
This is a point worth discussing imo. To what extent is the state of a nation and the conditions of its people, the responsibility of the people itself, even if they're oppressed?
The Russians were oppressed and had a revolution about it. Then they didn't like Communism anymore and broke up the USSR about it. Taiwan had a military dictatorship that was killing and jailing people in the thousands, and managed to overthrow it with absolutely zero outside intervention in the 90s, all while the PRC salivated over taking the country even back then.
I'm not sure I think "citizens should just be left to suffer under brutal regimes," but I also want to avoid a prejudice of low expectations. I also wonder, to what degree do citizens bear shared responsibility for the crimes their government commits against others? How responsible for the invasion of Ukraine are Russians for not deposing Putin? How responsible are Americans for the destabilization in southeast Asia, the middle east, south America?
Exactly. And worse, it’s violating international law just because you can. This will be used by Putin and China etc to justify ever worse actions
Russia is already doing horrible things without this pretext, so I dont think this argument holds.
> Two wrongs don’t make a right.
I hate this statement with a passion.
Let's ignore the politics of the current situation for a while and look at the first principles of right and wrong.
1) When somebody knowingly and intentionally hurts another person without a valid reason, that's wrong.
2) Now the aggressor is in the wrong and requires punishment (there are multiple purposes to punishment: taking away any advantage gained by the offense, further disadvantaging aggressors, compensation for the victim, retribution, deterrence, etc.).
3) A punishment is just if it's proportional to the offense but only those with sufficient certainty about the extent of the offense, about the offender's identify and his guilt can carry it out. Usually, in western style societies, courts serve this purpose but courts are a legal concept, justice is a moral concept. Morally, the punishment can be carried out by anyone who satisfies the criteria, there's nothing to put one person above another morally.
Legality has multiple tiers: tier 1 is individuals, tier 2 is states. States are a tier 2 institution imposed on tier 1. There is no tier 3 court-like institution which can be imposed on tier 2 entities.[0] Does that mean wrongs by tier 2 entities should go unpunished? No. They often do but there's no moral principles saying that it has to be that way, let along that it should be.
4) Punishment by its nature is the act of intentionally and knowingly hurting another person. But it's not wrong because unlike in point 1), it has a valid reason.
*What some people consider the second wrong is not actually a wrong.*
[0]: You could think of international organizations but they don't have a monopoly on violence above state level and therefore no actual mechanism for enforcement.
Putin and Xi must be ecstatic at the leverage this gives them.
You’ll hear a lot of the same people decrying this action simultaneously calling for the assassination of Putin. The cognitive dissonance is something to behold.
This is agression in its purest form.
They want something, they have the means to take it, and so they take it. With no regards to others, others can fck themselves in fact. They proclaimed in loud enough and often enough in the past months.
As every agressors they can hammer together some form of excuse for doing so. Just like anyone else in similar situation did throughout the history. One of them was the leader of Germany once and was called Hitler. But we can name lots of other enemy-of-the-humanity viles from Japan, Russia, Mongolia, etc, etc. the line is long for the despicable beings.
should this same logic apply to someone like say, Hitler? if you hide behind the “sovereign nation” (while denying the US the same) then you can justify all sorts of atrocities.
No no no no. We get to have an opinion of Maduro and we should because you have an opinion by saying it is a wrong.
This is not a "regardless" situation. Bookmark this because the support for Maduro AND socialism in Venezuela is strong. They will never let you see socialism succeed because then all our own oligarchs would be out on their a$$e$. This is nothing but some trumped up capitalist Monroe Doctrine BS.
Watching all the Venezuelan CIA toadies on the news this morning was so infuriating.
Both Edmundo González and María Corina Machado are fascists right wing creeps that were working with the US for this to happen.
Would you have said the same thing in the 40s if the US were able to capture Hitler?
[dead]
If he committed crimes against the USA, it shouldn’t really matter what his title is. The USA has a duty to uphold its laws.
The EU does the same. Putin has a warrant for his arrest in every EU country, and they are legally allowed to extract him from russia AFAIK.
What principles are you citing? Are they principles that someone made up out of nothing and that no one has ever consistently applied?
Is Maduro the head of a sovereign state? Says who?
Russia already attempted it, failed, and now are into the 4th year of their debacle. The US pulled it off in one night.
The only thing it reinforces is the US' military superiority.
Pulled what off? Russia was trying to occupy Ukraine, not just kill Zelensky (though they’d obviously like to do that).
Trump announced that the plan is to “run Venezuela” but there are no troops on the ground, the US controls no territory. This isn’t The Wizard of Oz where you kill the wicked witch and the flying monkeys leave. This is only just starting.
High probability that trump gets distracted by something else and forgets, but if not welcome to the next three years of your life.
You don't remember the initial hours of the war where Russia attempted to take over Hostomel airport and land commandos there? And Ukrainian intelligence stating that Zelenskyy was the target?
No, Russia attempted it, failed, moved goalposts, failed again, and keeps moving goalposts to save face.
If you're ever confused by Don's actions, just remember: all he cares about is gaining more wealth (and power if possible). This was done to enrich Don and the oil barons who funded his campaign.
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...
Do people struggle with the concept that an old ruthless businessman continues to be a ruthless businessman?
I don't remember him setting up a foundation and giving away all his money and assets prior to getting into office!
Though I don't like it as explanation or topic as it ventures into "it's just business" and "business as usual" in a way that normalises it
Read that article and it makes most of this conversation irrelevant and pointless. I have to say this is the only thing that even makes sense.
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Prediction: the regime will not fall. This will destabilize the country further, not so much the regime itself.
There will be a decrease in oil production, marginally boosting world prices. What's probably being taken out right now is the regime's ability to react in any meaningful way to the oil embargo.
It will also allow Maduro to throw his hands in the air and blame the US for all of VZLA's ills going forward. More poverty, more suffering, more migration.
Well they just captured Maduro and flew him out of the country, so yes the regime quite literally did just fall minutes after you created your throwaway account to post this.
The regime isn’t the President in this case. It’s the ruling party and its institutions.
The power stays in Maduros party and just goes To the VP. It’s anyone’s guess what happens next - but nothing changing is a relatively easy bet.
Pay attention to who is generating the wrong predictions, and what their other opinions are on tangential questions.
It's a game of probabilities. Even if it does turn out fine, similar things in recent history have turned out very poorly*. But to be honest, I hate Maduro anyway, so I'd be happy for this to turn out well.
* - Claims 2 years ago about the removal of Hamas; assassinations of militia leaders leading to peace
> assassinations of militia leaders leading to peace
The purpose of the assassinations is security, not peace. Peace is a bilateral process and it does confer security, but if it's not on the table then you can't force the issue unilaterally.
Yes. And some russian sources seem very understanding of the situation. I strongly believe Trump made a Deal with Putin. South america belongs to him. Putin can have europe.
Otherwise there would have been american aircraft shot down with russian tech. Or really any kind of support except empty words.
> Otherwise there would have been american aircraft shot down with russian tech
Yes, because as we all know Russian military technology is completely on par with that of the United States.
What technology prevents a american helicopter from being shot down by a russian anti aircraft missile?
The open question is rather, if the S-500 system can beat the F35 stealth capabilities (nobody know that as far as I know as it was never tried). Not that russians systems are useless against ordinary planes and helicopters.
How do you think operations like these are executed? One helicopter just enters Venezuelan air space and hopes for the best?
I believe there were many deals. With the russians to not interfer and send capable anti aircraft systems in the last months.
And I suspect there were deals with parts of the venezuelan military as well. The weak reaction indicates as much.
And everything else potentially dangerous, active radar and anti air systems were destroyed in the first wave of attacks. Possible with the help of special forces.
You prevent enemy air defenses from shooting down your aircraft by blowing them up as part of SEAD/DEAD missions, which is exactly what the US did.
Same Russian tech that protected Iranian airspace? ;)
They did not had the most modern russian systems, but older versions. And what they had, was taken out by special forces on the ground. That would not have been necessary, if the F35 would be really invisible.
They had newer systems than Venezuela.
SEAD was conducted by both ground and air assets, Israel only has about 30 F-35’s and Iran is massive.
The F-35 is “invisible” ;)
Iran’s air defenses were either obliterated or rendered useless, hence how Israel was flying slow ass drones at low altitude above their capital on day 3.
The US is even more capable when it comes to SEAD.
The gap between the west and everyone else when it comes to both military technology and doctrine is massive.
The range a stealth jet is visible on radar is proportional to the RCS. Which is why stealth jets use standoff munitions.
It's not just the west. China is likely on par. Russia was near par in terms of defense but it's now been attrited.
RCS: Radar cross-section.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_cross_section>
China isn’t on par, especially when it comes to doctrine you don’t develop that in a simulator.
Quantity is a quality on its own, though.
Yeah tell that to Saddam….
Putin can have Europe? You mean that country 10x poorer compared with EU will somehow take Europe? Country that's stuck in a war with the poorest european country for years?
No, I don't mean that. That the deal between Trump and Putin might have been of sphere of interest. With Trump not interested in europe. Does not mean, that Putin will succeed. But unfortunately it is not out of the question as europe is not united. Some parts of germany for example voted 40% for a russian friendly party. Hungary is pretty much over the fence already. Etc. If they unite under Putin's leadership, things might look dark.
there's footage of a half dozen US Chinooks over Caracas with no resistance being put up at all. Possbly a General has acquiesced to a US led coup. This isnt just lobbing missiles.
Argentine newspaper Clarín reports some resistance.
https://www.clarin.com/mundo/respuesta-nicolas-maduro-explos...
These are not mutually exclusive propositions.
Your source, in translation, describes no specific responses, but largely that "The regime ordered the deployment of military and police commands throughout the country".
This is not inconsistent with, say, the US making an offer that Venezuelan military command in charge of air defences couldn't refuse, say, to stand down and not challenge US air supremacy.
I'm not saying that this did happen, but it's one plausible scenario, particularly for a country whose core competency is literally manufacturing US dollars, the most-prized currency worldwide.
If it was strictly a decapitation attack there probably wouldn't be multiple sites involved. They're claiming four states were targeted.
you dont send the choppers in until the air defence is neutered. What do you think a few dozen specaial forces are doing in Caracas?
I’ve seen videos of what are clearly MH-47s over Caracas.
Presumably there are SF and/or airborne units executing coordinated strikes on the ground right now. Most likely the 160th, as they were deployed there last I checked.
I don't presume to say, other than there can be a lot of possible missions other than decapitation. Their army has ~120K and they've been expecting stuff to go down for months. This "deal with a general" you're suggesting is very hand-wavey.
oh for sure, such is the nature of speculating on these things as they are occuring.
As you say, this check has been in the mail for a while, so how are vulernable helicopters flying over caracas without any resistance? One dude with a MANPADS could take them down.
Decapitation is also the only aparent strategic goal of this operation, so it's hardly far fetched to suggest they going for 'one and done'.
Anyway, beers on me if I'm wrong :)
Usually manpads are locked in an armory and it takes an hour to find the guy with the key.
Maduro and wife have been abducted, according to Trump himself.
It's a country not a ticker symbol. VE is proper but even VZ would be better.
VZLA is the abbreviation Venezuelans use
Prediction: nobody is going to lift a finger to defend Maduro. Unless he already has escaped, his cronies will sell him out.
But afterwards, there's going to be a free-for-all struggle between ACTUAL cartels. That will be indistinguishable ftom a civil war.
Already captured. Press conference in 5 hours.
None of this makes sense. Venezuela has faced crippling sanctions from the US since 2017 that have not allowed it to sell to any western nation. Only China, Russia, and Cuba are potential customers for it. I highly doubt this will have any immediate effect on oil prices. It is also crude oil which only a handful of countries are capable of processing (the US probably being the best equipped)
US corporations will be brought in to exploit oil the same way they did in Iraq where they actually had to amend the constitution to allow for foreign corporations in.
US is an expert in trying to artificially build democracies.
They're more expert at demolishing democracy right now, their very own.
A military coup seems like a decent possibility here IMO.
The Venezuelan opposition leader was extracted and moved to Europe and I assume the US wants to install her. Maybe that is more likely, but a military takeover before the US can install whatever puppet government they're hoping for.
Are you saying the US will decide not to take out the senior leadership of the regime? Or are you saying that the regime will survive even if they do that?
If they have any brains they’ll keep the functionaries and install their own puppet as the new head, likely Machado.
For some reason we wisely keep the machineries of government in place in Japan and Germany post-war and threw that lesson out the window in Iraq. Always boggles my mind, how the CPA ran things immediately into the ground.
Either, really. Just a prediction, not clairvoyance.
What factors are you considering when forming your prediction?
Well, what I know about Venezuela, and the fact that the operation so far has targeted oil production capacity. In recent history, every cornered dictator with proven staying power has not gone quietly or quickly.
Here's another prediction: the regime will fall, the invasion will prove breezy and popular among huge fraction of Venezuelans. Trump admin (which was hugely insecure about its actual strength) will be bolstered and do some really really stupid thing next.
When was the last time America successfully conducted a regime change via military force? One that didn't result in a bloody civil war and hundreds of thousands dead?
Panama and Grenada probably fit that bill.
The question is whether the Venezuelan situation is more like those two, or more like Vietnam / Iraq / Afghanistan.
> the regime will fall, the invasion will prove breezy and popular among huge fraction of $CountryInvaded
When have we not heard this line? When has it even been true?
We always hear it, it's never true.
You are free to bookmark this and rub it in my face later.
Sure, though your prediction of "will prove breezy and popular" is something that takes years, or even a couple of decades to play out. e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq.
Be serious. Did you really scratch your head for years figuring if it was popular in Afghanistan and Iraq?
I am being serious, but I don't know if you are. Look at the long-term outcomes in those countries, how it played out.
It develops pretty quick now. If you follow the news you already start to glimpse that I was spot on and it sounds like you try to move the goalposts now. Don't worry tho I'll take the high road.
I'll repeat, we don't know the long term outcome yet. Years not hours are what matters. The track record is very poor.
> you try to move the goalposts now
I do not agree. Long-term outcomes are what matter to the ordinary people in these countries, regardless of what scores points for internet posters today. Guessing outcomes today is very premature.
> I was spot on ... I'll take the high road.
What a smug and self-contradicting statement. This is no longer a serious conversation, have a good day.
Notice how I said nothing about long-term outcomes yet you insist on arguing in those terms. Have a nice day.
What kind of non-long-term outcomes are worth looking at?
If you read the original comment I think he only cares about the effects on Trump, not on Venezuela. People in Venezuela will likely celebrate in the streets which will bolster Trump to keep doing stupid things. The backlash will come in a couple of years for the Venezuelan people and the world but then Trump will have been able to fuck up more things.
It was actually true in Iraq. The US received no resistance and rapidly captured the entire country ("Mission Accomplished").
The problems started after...
> The problems started after...
So it did not eventually "prove breezy".
I tend to agree with you. Venezuela is no beacon of freedom or prosperity and I think Maduro might prove even less popular than thought.
Maduro is very unpopular but a US occupation would be even less popular.
There is always a "rally round the flag" effect, to support the country - the country, not the leader - in the face of a foreign attack. It's not "Support Maduro or support USA". Those are not the options.
I wonder who is financing your efforts with throwaway accounts? Iran? Russia? China? or is it from drug cartels?
when you predict something you state a time line.
show positions or go away; skin in the game
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Maduro is a coward and has no military power
People here saying it's "unjustified" should go and talk to a displaced Venezuelan.
It might be welcome by the majority of Venezuelans (nor not, depending what’s next) but it is not justified in a US domestic sense or indeed by international law
Why talk only to displaced Venezuelans though? If you want meaningful data, your sample shouldn't be biased. What is the overall proportion of Venezuelans supporting this action?
The vast majority of Venezuelans voted for his opponent in the last election, which is widely considered to have been stolen by Venezuelans and the international community: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
There have been widespread protests in Venezuela throughout Maduro’s regime, but especially after the election.
The question isn't how many Venezuelans oppose Maduro, but rather how many Venezuelans wanted US to invade their country to oust him.
There are videos of Venezuelans celebrating in the streets, singing in large groups, cheering. I saw a video of someone from a balcony and it sounded like the entire city of Caracas was cheering. You can wait a few years for a survey or throw one up yourself.
The reaction I'm seeing from second-hand and direct reddit comments from actual Venezualans seems really positive.
Your attempts to sounding smart only betray a profound ignorance of the current state of things in Venezuela
I keep seeing this argument in here, but no one seems to point at any actual Venezuelans or message boards or whatever to support the point. Personally I only know a couple, classmates from decades ago who are FB friends and while they don’t support Maduro IIRC, I also don’t see any posts celebrating this great victory for the people. Who knows, maybe they’re partied out.
Maduro is a piece of shit.
But a military invasion of another country to commit regime change is literally what Russia tried to do to Ukraine.
America has blood on it's hands yet again.
EDIT: If the reports are true that Maduro has been captured and the fighting stops, then that's the best resolution one could hope out of this horrible situation. I pray for the Venezuelan people.
Right, and that's what the Allies did in Germany in 1945. I don't think it's helpful to paint everything with such a broad brush.
Russia is trying to annex Ukraine. They took part of it in 2014, then came back for more, and then organized sham annexation referendums in the regions they did control. Whatever the US is trying to achieve in Venezuela, it's probably not that. All war is deplorable, but some lead to good outcomes and some to bad ones.
> Russia is trying to annex Ukraine
And to start with they were trying to achieve this through regime change via a "surgical" (by their standards) strike on the government and capital.
That failed.
America is doing this explicitly to take control of Venezuela's resources. It's no different.
> Whatever the US is trying to achieve in Venezuela, it's probably not that
Presumably we're only trying to annex their oil reserves
Going to change your tune now that Trump has said that the US will run Venezuela? They’re not even pretending. This is far far more similar than it is different.
No, what Russia has tried to do to Ukraine is annex it as part of Russia. Not nearly the same, even if both are reprehensible.
The critical reaction is from the people on the Venezuelan street tomorrow.
I'm old enough to remember people in Iraq cheering for the fall of Saddam. Didn't make it great.
I’m naively hopeful that they will band together without more bloodshed. I worry though
Either the Venezuelan people demand new elections or a Maduro faction member succeeds him with the support of the military.
Some regimes deserved to be changed (and of course there are second order consequences)
I know some sheltered academics on Epstein's list disagree with that but that's a hill I will die on
Chomsky's argument was never that "no regime deserves to be changed", so maybe academic skills come in useful when comprehending arguments, books, and hills.
And we wonder why rogue regimes seek nuclear weapons. My biggest concern in geopolitics is non-proliferation and every little thing we do like this works against it.
This is a red herring. Rogue regimes will, by construction, seek the security offered by nuclear weapons. Hence the need, where possible, to apply diplomatic or military means to prevent exactly that.
The US is the rogue regime in this scenario.
That’s counter to what happened for several decades when we actually cared about preventing it. Few regimes at all sought them and several were convinced to abandon nuclear programs.
Even democratic regimes should start acquiring nuclear weapons - ie. every EU country, given Trump's comments and stance about the EU.
Not easy though, the US has to basically allow it.
Did the US allow all the other nuclear countries to develop nuclear weapons? There are quite a few states that could easily and quickly develop their own nuclear deterrent and the US is in a much worse position now to deter them from that.
Tell that to Iran.
The current administration WANTS Europe to develop the military necessary to defend themselves so we don’t have to pay for it. We’ll probably send them the schematics if they haven’t already infiltrated whatever servers we keep them on.
What if France 'donated' some nukes to every EU country (okay, maybe not Hungary) ?
It won't happen, but I wonder what could the US possibly do about it.
Nothing. We could and would do nothing. If we wanted to do something, it would be sanctions. We’re not so far gone as to invade Europe.
The problem is they’d have to donate delivery systems too and I believe the only part of the triad they have is submarines.
Most European countries simply couldn’t use it. But some could.
Every sovereign nation should do. The notion that uppercase D "Democracy" is the only valid type of sovereign state is uppercase L liberalism propaganda.
That sounds like something written by an uppercase C Chinese bot.
I wish more people understood this.
The worst part is the people who make these decisions understand it and they do it anyway because the proliferation will occur in someone else’s term.
If they get close we drop a bunker buster on them to remove the threat but you complain anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
North Korea, Israel, and Pakistan prove you wrong.
You have to admit that non-proliferation was a masterful coup by the capitalist ruling class.
The fruits have just ripened, and they're starting to harvest them.
A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it.
Maduro is not good for Venezuela.
The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
The US is giving another clear message that it does not care about global order, just global control. We're back in the 70s.
There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans, its a power play, if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes. Pinochet, The Brazilian regime are all here as testament to that.
I hope the power change turns out better for the Venezuelans. I hope this is a catalyst of change for a better government. Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition"
And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela"
Never the US has been so honest around so many lies in the same speech.
I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime.
Yeah, I was mostly surprised about the brazenness of it all. So the plan is to take over the government, take over the oil industry, sell the oil and in infinite grace give the Venezuelans some part of it back (minus of course the "compensation" for the years in which US companies were kept out of the country)
And all that as official doctrine, not even some secret strategy paper or covert ops campaign.
Edit: I had to chuckle at his "reviewing" of the Monroe doctrine as DONroe doctrine. There is "on the nose" and there is "punching someone in the face"...
> minus of course the "compensation" for the years in which US companies were kept out of the country
I don’t want to sound like I’m running coverage for the Americans, but wasn’t a lot of that infrastructure built by foreign multinationals and then expropriated by Chávez in 2007?
> built by foreign multinationals and then expropriated by Chávez in 2007?
If you follow this reasoning - after what happened today - you will get Iran 2.0: Venezuelan boogaloo
I have zero optimism that after this - ordinary Venezuelans will have better outcomes in 10 years time.
Current USA government is some weird klepto-oligrachy. Hates brown people. It’s not doing it out of benevolence to Venezuelans. Venezuelans will get either colonialist resource extraction treatment or some power vacuum will bring just another despot.
Ask the Guyanese next door if they think they are getting a good deal from oil exploitation: https://ieefa.org/articles/guyana-paying-oil-costs-20-years-...
What is Guyana’s GDP without western oil technology? https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Guyana/GDP_per_capita_const...
We have already seen this plot in Iraq!
> Hates brown people
You're reading tealeaves to support your own hate-fueled nonsense belief. Correlation doesn't equal causation and all that.
It blows my mind anyone can hold this opinion after 10+ years of Trump very publicly spewing racist garbage. Let's just review a few recent examples:
- Claimed Haitian immigrants were eating neighbors' pets
- Currently claiming Somalian immigrants have setup vast networks of fraudulent daycares
- While he's worked diligently to stop immigration from, what he calls, "shithole countries" like Somalia, Haiti, and Afghanistan, he's advocated for increased immigration from "nice" or "beautiful" countries like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. He also specially carved out a special South African Afrikaner refugee status for white South Africans.
- Habitually calls predominantly non-white opponents "low-iq individuals".
- Repeatedly called SARS-CoV-2 the Chinese virus, "kung-flu", etc.
- Told four congresswomen of color (3 of whom were born in the U.S.) to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came". A bipartisan resolution was passed in The House condemning these comments as racist.
- And we can go back a long time ago, and remember the Central Park Five, where he relentlessly attacked five innocent black and latino children, calling for the death penalty for them. Even after DNA evidence proved their innocence, Trump never apologized or acknowledged wrongdoing.
Each of these you could try to individually explain away as a misunderstanding or whatever. But there's an abundantly clear pattern of racism, not just with Trump, but much of his administration.
Venezuela is the new Africa [or India [or Philipins]]
Your comment triggers so many thoughts, but the first one is I'm so friggin' naive, which is embarrassing. In my fantasy world corporations make investment decisions based on risk. They invest in a country like Venezuela and part of the due diligence is evaluating whether things may go sideways, like in any investment, and what plan b is if they do. And if plan b is getting the government to backstop you with money, guns and/or regulations then that would not be a viable strategy.
But, at every level in the US, that plan b is viable. And it's used over and over and over again, from small local businesses with local politicians to the US Federal Government and military for the likes of the oil industry.
At what point do you just accept the truth: that you (me!) are the dumb one because you hold onto this fantasy of how you think things ought to be as opposed to how they are?
Why is plan (b) bad? From my perspective it is certainly how things ought to be. If my property is nationalized in another country by force, I am fully in favor of my country swinging its dick around to get it back.
And what is to say that plan (b) isn't taken into account when doing the risk assessment in plan (a)?
In your world everybody will be at war with each other. The way to deal with the risk of foreign nationalization of your assets is to price it in or to forego the opportunity. Expecting your country to go to war for your private interests is ridiculous. You can go to court if you want and if you lose you'll have to take your lumps.
1898 is a while ago (the Banana wars).
No, people won't be at war with each other because the cost and the likelihood of war will play a role in the decision on whether to enter war or not.
In this case, the administration (correctly!) assessed that there was virtually no cost or risk (albeit, a very high profit.)
Damn man, no risk?
It must be lovely to exist in a world where you think you can punch someone in the face and nothing will ever happen to you if they don’t respond immediately.
Good thing the window of opportunity for retaliation is now firmly closed and we’ll never see anyone come back years later for revenge.
Unrelatedly, has anyone seen the twin towers lately? I visited NYC for the first time in 30 years and I couldn’t find them anywhere.
Indeed, and that was just a loosely knit organization of US haters that figured if they can't do anything in a direct confrontation maybe an indirect one would work.
One of these days someone is going to set off a nuke in a capital somewhere and we're all going to wonder where that came from...
Incidentally, I believe Bin Laden is in part responsible for Trump's election.
"Incidentally, I believe Bin Laden is in part responsible for Trump's election."
I assume you don't mean he does that from his secret base on the dark side of the moon, but rather 9/11 -> patriot act - war on terror -> ..?
That and the wider division between humans with different amounts of melanin.
Who is going to come back for revenge? Maduro was vehemently hated.
You may have not seen the update, but as per the king we will be running Venezuela.
This isn’t over and out adventures like this tend to create adversaries that bite us in the ass later, even when a competent admin is the one with their hands on the wheel
The US has sent nun rapers all across Latin America, puppet leaders, outright military takeovers, and everything in-between. The people we make enemies with haven't forgiven us for all those things, and I can't imagine there is much remaining unaccounted overlap between people that disagreed with all the other stuff, and those who were ok with the other stuff but not this.
This is one of those weird moments where I have a hard time wondering what new people we can even piss off that somehow weren't already against us from prior LA incursions.
Ordinary citizens were bombed in Caracas. There are videos of such bombings. Please do consider that the loss of the lives of ordinary people is a risk.
I am obviously speaking from the perspective of a superpower or a nation, not my own perspective. To a superpower, the lives of 40 people is indeed "virtually no cost" for the benefit of $17T worth of oil reserves and a favorable regime change.
> Expecting your country to go to war for your private interests is ridiculous.
At the risk of coming across as flippant: Why? I don’t think the math has worked out on most peer conflicts during the past hundred years. The cost of the operation has likely already exceeded the value of whatever infrastructure was left in Venezuela to be reclaimed. But why should we expect courts and bailiffs to enforce the law domestically and not expect soldiers to enforce it internationally?
Maybe because war is terrible and no one wants it? Especially if it means protecting private companies’ revenues.
There is always a cost/benefit done for these decisions, it is never as simple as "war as terrible so we just shouldn't do war."
The benefits definitely do not accrue to you, though. There is no direct or indirect benefit to you supporting the invasion of another country where you can now bomb locals with impunity.
What if military intervention was an explicit part of the investment agreement in the first place? I’m not saying it was, but would it affect your judgement?
Imagine you start a business in another country where the law says your business assets will be seized if you don't file tax form 123(a) before August. That is to say, non-filers don't have any business property rights. And you don't file the form.
Do you:
(Plan A) Realize you fucked up
Or
(Plan B) Send in the military to kidnap the president and take over the country, retroactively claim the law wasn't the law, undo its effects (but only for you) and then change the law so that property rights work exactly the same way they work in your country.
Now you see why people are saying plan B is bad, and would cause everyone to be at war all the time.
> If my property is nationalized in another country by force, I am fully in favor of my country swinging its dick around to get it back.
In this case your property is actually not your property though. Assuming property == oil, then it belongs in Venezuela - you seized control of it but it’s not really yours.
> swinging its dick around
I'm sorry, I can't resist extending your metaphor:
The problem comes when "swinging your dick around" you accidentally get the other country pregnant. Then you have to co-parent the resulting child government, and they are always moody, rebellious, and ungrateful.
As soon as they're standing they run all over the house, painting the walls, breaking things, and costing you gobs of money. You can't ever go out, because the moment your attention wanders even a little they throw a party and invite their hooligan friends over; and wrapping up the party and throwing out their friends is another expensive debacle.
Not to mention the endless shady boyfriends/ girlfriends that parade through the place. They're "just experimenting" they claim: fascism, communism, and dictatorship are just phases they're going through as they explore who they really are.
Eventually they get resentful and want to live on their own. To accomplish this they kick you out of the house, and you end up leaving your car and many other possessions behind, and many times they trash the place as you leave.
If you're lucky, you both mature and you can develop an adult relationship in time. If you're not, they end up beating up their cousins and you have to break up the fights and pay for the broken furniture.
In short: don't swing your dick around, and if you must, be sure to use protection. I'm not sure what that equates to in this metaphor, but it's obvious the U.S. flunked sex-ed.
Of course it's taken into account. Feel like you didn't read what I wrote.
Question back to you: who decides when the government gets involved in getting your property back? You cool with it if they don't do anything to get your property back because of the size of your property; the cost to make it happen; you're not friends with the right person; etc.? Or better yet they don't get yours back but they get your competitor's/neighbor's back? Seems like the thing that happens in these situations is that someone maybe gets their property back and then the dick swings to piss on the people who didn't.
Like I said, fantasyland over here.
what do you think nationalise means? it wasn't taken without compensation.
My understanding is that courts ruled that some (though not all) of the 2007 expropriations were made without proper compensation.
It's fair because privatization of public good is generally not made with proper compensation either.
Compensation is complicated.
As far as I recall, in Guatemala, United Fruit had undervalued the worth of their land to reduce their taxes. So when they were compensated for the nationalization of their land based on their own valuation, they said that they were under compensated. United Fruit complains helped trigger the US intervention.
And Venezuela was well aware of plan b when accepting the investment.
That’s the story in every oil producing third world country. Without western countries, and these days China, they would just have oil in the ground because they lack the technology and capital to explore for it and extract it. They want the colonizers to come just long enough to install the oil spigots then leave.
I admittedly don’t know much about the industry, but didn’t most other countries not elect to expropriate the infrastructure? My understanding was that a lot of the problems the Venezuelans are having now arose from alienating themselves from the international supply chains and expertise necessary to maintain the equipment used to extract and refine petroleum.
They just do not want colonizers to steal their country and interfere in their internal decisions. Unfortunately, this is the story with every First World colonizer: they do not agree with that.
They want to have their cake and eat it too. Here, the Venezuelan government invited western oil companies to develop its oil fields. Then they broke the deal and stole the infrastructure the western countries had built.
That’s very different from actual colonization, where countries showed up and expropriated resources the natives were already developing.
Oil companies were apparently compensated, but also allegedly not enough. Companies were awarded further compensation in international arbitration, but Venezuela has avoided fully paying up.
If that's all accurate there are numbers out there for what they owe, and it shouldn't be whatever the POTUS decides.
So strange that only the US has the expertise to do prospection and build oil rigs and no one else...
These countries are also mad at Britain and the Netherlands. In a few decades they’ll be mad at the Chinese too.
If these countries had been smarter they would have negotiated better deals and solicited competition from international companies to get the best terms. But that’s their own fault.
As someone living in a country where all of our oil wealth is being extracted by American corporations - America has a very special talent for "convincing" government officials to sign away their citizen's oil wealth. Not repairing that theft by nationalizing the oil seems more criminal than allowing the corporations to continue
At least you are paid fair share of taxes instead of being sent to gulag for questioning your dictator.
If it was done in a legal process then it should be litigated in that country.
What happens to the infrastructure built or businesses run or labor contributed by “illegal” immigrants who are now deported? Does the USA somehow reverse it and make it disappear?
Such a line of reasoning used to justify this kind of extrajudicial and warlike activity is somewhat similar to France’s nonsensical demand for long term reparations from Haiti for colonial infrastructure.
> What happens to the infrastructure built or businesses run or labor contributed by “illegal” immigrants who are now deported?
I believe “built” here refers to the financiers. Like when someone says “I’m building a house” they mean they’re paying to have a house built, unless they’re actually in the construction business, etc.
> "And all that as official doctrine"
The Donroe Doctrine.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mbjv2l5otf25
I think a lot of people don't understand the difference between geopolitical control and economic control.
Being explicit, I'm saying that having access to a resource doesn't mean you get to sell it to whoever you like.
Nobody from Latin America is surprised, the US has been a bully state since the cold war.
American interventionism in Latin America goes back hundreds of years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(military)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Corollary
There has never not been a bully in anarchic systems.
The official doctrine yesterday was they were killing Americans with drug trafficking. That didn't even get mentioned today.
> the plan is
There is no plan. Again.
Machado is standing by. But she’s a woman so Trump has ruled her out.
You mean the lady that basically called for this invasion, praised Trump and MAGA, promised she would let western companies extract whatever they want in exchange for personal power? Yeah, surely this will end well for Venezuelans.
It’s reasonable for her to say such things in order to get support of the nation most capable of removing Maduro and allowing her to rule. It doesn’t make her a bad person or speak negatively on how effective a ruler she will be.
> the lady that basically called for this invasion
Like Jefferson lobbied France to help us out with Britain.
I missed the part where Jefferson promised Louis the XVIth exclusive access to the colonies' wealth, and then France abducted the King.
Better analogy would be Pinochet's coup. Nationalists calling for the US to coup their own country and place them in charge in exchange for acting like docile puppets to US interests. This is exactly what is happening there, Trump said so a few hours ago.
I was completely unaware that Maduro was a foreign colonial power like Britain.
She could had gotten everything she wanted if she only understood that blowing smoke up Trump's ass isn't good enough anymore. He demands bribes as well.
If $1-6 million buys a pardon, how much buys a country?
He's just said she's not being considered.
Which makes total sense, the military has been Chavismo's strongest asset for as long as it's been a thing
That won't change just because Maduro isn't there, whomever does take control, will need external protection, or the US acting as an unspoken enforcer (Unspoken because "No boots on the ground right now" but "prepared for a second wave")
The military clearly moved (or strategically chose to indicate they wouldn't move) for a paranoid, military-aligned dictator to be captured by a small force with only naval backup exactly when everybody most expected the US to move. Unless there's a faction there that actually likes Machado she may even be lower on the next-leader list than "Maduro pays his captors off with the contents of his offshore accounts, meaningful promises of oil money and empty statements about cracking down on narcotics trade". I assume he has ways of finding out who his loyalists are and who they aren't too...
I suspect there is also consideration of strategy here. The regime's lack of democratic approval is actually a benefit. A client state that has democratic approval has much more leeway to go against its master. A client regime that is unpopular with its population has no other base of support than the powerful country that put it there. This maximizes leverage.
> Which makes total sense
Which implies it's may not be the actual reason. The reason might be as trifling as being salty over Machado getting the Nobel peace prize, and not Trump.
Correct. I spoke unclearly. I meant that we have a good option, our Endara to Noriega, but instead Trump is hard pivoting to the Baghdad model.
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This particular quote isn't dementia, he's making a joke, it's the "Donroe Doctrine" because DONald Trump is now expanding it or whatever.
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Did we watch the same debate? He was diminished, at the end of his term, during a tough campaign. But not crazy. And certainly not a puppet.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
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You’re right. And it was bad.
This is bad too.
Prepare Canada and Greenland, you can see the standard American right wing response to unchecked war mongering right here.
On a technology note, anyone got any bets on which company gets all the free loot? Did Erik Prince rebrand for the fiftieth time? Seems like he’d be a safe bet.
US oil and gas companies are probably a safe bet to profit from this? Or is this all calculated in already?
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> Your turn
I genuinely don’t get this argument. You’re saying Trump is a vegetable like Biden and counting that as a win?
> Washington being now safest and free of crime
I'd make the case it depends on who's defining what is and is not a crime.
Consider that the POTUS is a 34x convicted criminal, and yet he not only has total freedom, he literally has the highest quality personal protection ecosystem on the planet, and so much more.
So, who is the criminal here? Which are the crimes? And what is _actually_ going to happen?
The 34 crimes are these:
- falsifying business records - 1st degree
- falsifying business records - 1st degree
- falsifying business records - 1st degree
...
- falsifying business records - 1st degree
https://www.scribd.com/document/737791944/Trump-verdict-shee...
He was charged 34 times for the same payment, multiple times per check, because they were entered as payment for lawyer instead of hush money for porn star.
"Falsifying business records" is a not a crime, unless it's done in the pursuit of another crime. The other crime was trying to influence the election (literally his job as a candidate). This is despite the fact that the books were cooked as payment to lawyer in 2017, after the election.
Alvin Bragg, the person who convicted Trump, specifically ran on prosecuting Trump.
It was entirely a political prosecution. If Trump had paid cash, he would have 10000x counts against him, one for each dollar bill.
34x of 4 years means he could have been convicted for a maximum of 134 years. One count for 4 years wasn't enough, they had to give him more time than some serial killers.
The judge specifically postponed the conviction after the election to see if he should receive prison terms or not. He absolutely would have had he lost.
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When you're talking about changed laws, are you referring to the civil case against E. Jean Carroll? And when you are talking about "charges that the banks said weren't even an issue" are you talking about the civil fraud case? No banks were victims in the hush money case, which is where the felonies are from.
There was no victim in the hush money case which is why the prosecution was clearly political. Even Andrew Cuomo, Democrat and former NY DA, said that those charges never would have been filed against anyone other than Trump.
What made it a felony under New York law is the claim that the falsified records were intended to conceal another crime, specifically efforts to influence an election.
To a decent approximation, if Trump had not been running for office when he did this, then it wouldn't have been a crime. But then, he wouldn't have cared to cover it up.
Covering up that he got off with a porn star isn't the problem. Like Bill Clinton, it's the actual particulars of the coverup rather than generically that there was a desire to cover up an extramarital affair itself that's the problem.
Technically opening up your neighbor's mailbox is a felony. But in practice you will never be charged for it. Same thing with the hush money case. There is no law that makes covering up an affair illegal while running for office and Trump was not charged with any campaign finance violations. He was charged with the vague crime of "falsifying business records" which, while technically illegal in all cases, in practice is only ever charged if there is a victim who has been defrauded by the falsification. In this case there was none.
The Clinton case is exactly the same concept and is also 100% a politically motivated prosecution. So is the Hunter Biden gun charge. Nobody else ever would have been charged for that.
Yea, I read through the court cases. He got 3rd party valuations on property and just decided to change it on his whim to get a better deal on loans.
I understand that the rich are usually not prosecuted for this fact but if one of us plebs did that and the banks found out, they’d be all over us for fraud.
No, they really wouldn't. People do this all the time. Take the example of the (politically motivated) charges against Leticia James for mortgage fraud. Everybody lies about the house being their primary residence to get a better interest rate and nobody who doesn't piss off politically powerful people are ever charged for it. Fraud is essentially never charged if the loan is paid back.
From what I've heard, "primary residence" is a different issue, something along the line of US banks asking this at time of issue and never checking about updates.
Saying the property is worth more or less than it is… I don't know how this would even happen. The countries in which I've looked at mortgages, the banks don't give an option for a self-assessment. Is the US not like that? Or is it specifically a thing for getting a loan secured on a property that you already own rather than a new purchase?
The point is that in both cases it was a lie on a loan document, which is fraud. Donald Trump's loan was not a simple residential mortgage so the same underwriting process does not apply.
He got materially better rates than he would have based on lower valuations.
Banks have never given me or the other plebs the grace of fucking the risk profile of their investments to our own benefit when it’s found out.
You’re conflating the fact that it’s usually not worth the cost of investigation and enforcement in the event that the loans are paid back, with the idea that it’s not enforced in general
If the bank is stupid enough to give a loan on Donald Trump's own valuations rather than insisting on seeing the third party valuations then they have some employees that need to be fired. The criminal justice system just doesn't get involved in these matters where there are no civil damages, whether you like it or not.
It wasn’t above board.
It was fraud.
The bank was unaware he had changed the valuation.
Also wasn’t it just for the fraud, it was because this fraud was connected to his attempts to manipulate the election.
If we are going to go further in this conversation I need to know if you can point to an action he has taken that you think is bad, other than appointing someone he turned on later.
You need to stop repeating things that are not true. His charges had nothing to do with the election. They were "falsifying business records". This law has nothing to do with elections and it is not a arguable point. Also, "manipulate the election" is a completely meaningless phrase.
Nope, you can't argue out of both sides of your mouth on the electoral bit.
Yes people are rarely prosecuted for this crime, because its usually not worth finding out and dealing with. His was found because in this particular instance his crimes were found because he was committing them while trying to manipulate the election via hush money payments that were connected.
You're either one of the sanewashers for this guy or the ones who fell for his shtick, but just because he's constantly committing crime all the time, including while engaging in politics, doesn't mean he has an aura of protection because of it
That isn't manipulating the election. It has absolutely nothing to do with the election whatsoever. NDAs to cover up embarrassing personal matters have always been legal.
I don’t have anything to say further to you. I cannot help you reason your way out of an emotional position and if you think the stormy Daniel’s shit wasn’t done to hide the story during a campaign then you are in an emotional position.
Of course it was done for the campaign. But that isn't illegal, which is why he was not charged with any campaign finance related charges. You really can't seem to get that through your head, can you?
> It has absolutely nothing to do with the election whatsoever.
> Of course it was done for the campaign.
Did a 180 in two posts. Disrespectfully get fucked, I think you’re here in bad faith
You do know that "it" can refer to two different things at different times, right? In this case the action, which had everything to do with the election, and the charges, which had nothing to do with it.
You are confusing different cases. The one he was convicted for was falsifying business records. That was an open and shut case where no banks were involved and no law has to be changed.
There were a couple of dpdgy cases against him but he was not convinced of any of them.
I challenge you to name the crime. "Falsifying business records" is not a felony in NY.
I'm a Norwegian without direct skin in the game, but according to these[1][2] sources it was "§ 175.10 Falsifying business records in the first degree"[3], stated to be a class E felony in New York.
Is this not correct?
[1]: https://www.factcheck.org/2024/05/qa-on-trumps-criminal-conv...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-tr...
[3]: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/175.10
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but that does rather look like you need to eat humble pie.
Me neither but I guess so.
Falsifying business records with intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime.
The 'another crime' was never specified.
I guess he joins all the other people convicted of falsifying business records with an intent to commit another crime unspecified.
It does seem a bit made up for him. I'm sure lots of people have errors in their business reporting and how do you defend against being accused of an unspecified crime?
I'm not really a Trump fan but I think it would have been much better to prosecute him for something real like trying to steal the 2020 election than the above silliness that was just ignored and let him get back into office.
Get real
> Consider that the POTUS is a 34x convicted criminal
To be fair, they were political persecutions and show trials just so that people like you could write that sentence and help the Democrat Party keep the presidency.
I’m not saying Trump is innocent in life, so don’t mistaken what I am saying for that. I am clearly and specifically saying that the 34 convictions are a joke and that only the gullible and the zealots buy into them.
Isn't the 34 counts due to the fact that the trial concluded that Trump paid Daniels via Cohen but hidden the payment as "legal expenses" and therefore falsified 34 different documents?
It is not like they invented extra fake actions that Trump did not do, it is all part of the same fraud. Either you recognize that Trump was guilty in this affair, and he gets X counts of fraud, X being a large number due to the number of document involved (and maybe someone can argue on the exact count, but 34 or 28 is not a big difference, so it is a different argument that move the goalpost), or Trump was not guilty at all. You cannot really say "well, Trump is guilty for the first 2 counts, but then not the 32 other counts": how can he be guilty in one document and not be guilty in the other which is basically identical except for the date?
Also, isn't a large number of counts of conviction pretty common in case of fraud? (for exactly the reason I've given: the falsification of each document counts for 1 count)
People who claims that 34 counts of conviction is the result of a political persecutions seems to have no idea that 1) this is usually how it works, this is usually what people get for fraud, there was no special treatment for Trump, 2) pretending that it was maybe 1 or 2 counts of felony but not 34 does not make any sense, 3) even if they wanted, it would not have been possible for the trial to conclude "just 1 or 2 counts", and it is therefore ridiculous to pretend that this number is the result of a political bias where they choose the higher number just to be mean toward Trump.
> and help the Democrat Party keep the presidencty
You're writing your own narrative there bud. I'm not even a USA citizen, I have literally zero ability to influence the USA electorate to any degree. So cut the rhetoric, it's tiring and frankly destructive to real discussion.
I'm neither gullible nor a zealot. Trump has a long standing history of ripping people off for many millions of dollars, regardless of the currency. There's an endless supply of receipts, give me a break.
And that's long before we even consider that he's literally operating illegal wars (not approved by congress), which _is_ breaking USA law.
There are different categories of crimes and violations.
You can call it "The penal code", "Common law", or "Crimes" (as opposed to violations).
And in almost all countries in the world the list is the same and has been for hundreds of years: Murder, robbery, theft, rape, battery and so on.
Do you think people walking the streets of Washington DC are less safe because of crimes such as those Trump was convicted of? Or are their main concern murder, robbery, theft, rape, battery and such?
Edit: Of course my comment nets a hacker down vote instead of a discussion, but for example Nordic countries make a difference between "crimes" and "illegal things" in their laws. And so do South American countries.
The United States has the "felonies" category, which is very comparable. But they also include victimless and non-serious crimes such as tax evasion and copyright infringement.
So one batch of crimes is fine? Is that what you’re saying?
This seems like an intellectual gymnastics exercise in justifying corruption
One batch of crimes is awfully much worse than the other. That is what law takes into account. Dismissing Trump's public safety measures in Washington because he himself has been criminally convicted is what I myself would call "intellectual gymnastics". But sadly also typical of hackers, who seem to forget to feel empathy with the victims of street crime.
We'll probably find out sometime around the first week of January, 2029.
Law and your list are not the same.
Trump definitely killed probably 100s of thousands of people, with how he handled COVID, and USAID. The law doesn’t consider those as murders, but it’s quite obvious that they were.
The rape on your list is even funnier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._T... Oh sorry, sexual assault.
And theft is the funniest, because he was convicted basically for stealing from his companies.
Trump has lost lawsuits related to sexual abuse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._T...
Also, the laws of the world have definitely not had the same list for hundreds of years, and the old ideas of those things are somewhat different to the modern versions. For example, for most of those hundreds of years, "rape" wasn't just about intercourse, it was about kidnapping (same etymology as "rapture": snatch and carry off). This is specifically why spousal rape, in the modern usage of the term, needed to be added to the statue books: little to no thought given to the idea of a husband kidnapping their own wife.
Also on that list for hundreds of years: charging interest on loans.
Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote sounds like an admission of sexual battery to me. Now, it's important to note that I'm not a lawyer, but here's the thing: lawyers have also said this about that quote.
Even if you ignore all the stuff about Epstein, even if you limit yourself to just that self-chosen set of goalposts, he's a wrong-un.
> Also, the laws of the world have definitely not had the same list for hundreds of years
You're correct. The list has been the same for thousands of years, not hundreds. Since the great Hammurabi. Then it has been added on to, and very rarely redefined. As in the good example you give.
> Also on that list for hundreds of years: charging interest on loans.
Usury is still a crime, but has been redefined away by legislators. Just as rape is again being redefined away in some countries right now.
Now back to the topic at large:
> Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote sounds like an admission of sexual battery to me.
> Trump has lost lawsuits related to sexual abuse
If you go to walk the streets in Washington DC, would you be afraid of Mr. Trump charging out of the White House to sexually abuse you, perhaps grabbing you by your genitals? Or stealing your purse? Or would you be more concerned about your more common criminal doing something like that?
Because the hacker above claims Trumps crimes somehow negates public safety campaigns in Washington DC.
> You're correct. The list has been the same for thousands of years, not hundreds. Since the great Hammurabi.
No it hasn't.
First, I've read some of the code of Hammurabi. Fun stuff like this:
… … - https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamcode.asp(Also, bit of fun, number 6: "If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death." - to which I point at the photos of all those documents he was supposed to return after his first term in a bathroom in Mar a Lago).
Second, I've also read Leviticus. Fun stuff like this:
and To quote others on this: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Moses#Law_in_the_Ancien...> Then it has been added on to, and very rarely redefined.
Oh gods no. Even the Christian Bible has seen significant politicised re-translations, famously with the King James Bible, but also fundamentally the New Testament itself is a refutation of almost all Torah law.
Even just within European Christian nations, there's been huge variations of what was allowed. 1066 England, Normans became a ruling military elite over the now-conquered Anglo-Saxon population, a native Englander killing a Norman triggered severe penalties, but a Norman killing an Englander did not.
And I've not even touched on Islamic law, the range of things in pre-contact Americas, across Africa, across the east Indies, in Asia.
Not all cultures even have a concept of personal property for theft to be a coherent concept. You may object that you said "countries", but go back pre-Westphalia and you don't even find something we'd really recognise as countries.
> Usury is still a crime, but has been redefined away by legislators.
That's tautologically false: if something is "still" a crime it cannot also "have been redefined away by legislators".
> Just as rape is again being redefined away in some countries right now.
"Away"?
At most, I'm seeing a return to the old definition (IIRC, this would include Russia?)
> If you go to walk the streets in Washington DC, would you be afraid of Mr. Trump charging out of the White House to sexually abuse you, perhaps grabbing you by your genitals?
Given I'm not his type, too old and too male, that's a silly question.
If I had a teenage daughter, I'd avoid DC just in case.
> Or stealing your purse? Or would you be more concerned about your more common criminal doing something like that?
I would not fear a common criminal stealing my purse before or now.
Trump, however, I would fear ordering his people locking me up with a demand that I hand over money to make the problem go away.
It's not like he's obeying the constitution or anything.
> Because the hacker above claims Trumps crimes somehow negates public safety campaigns in Washington DC.
Just look at the subject of this very thread: he's essentially just stolen an entire nation.
The run-up to this involved ordering the deaths of 114 confirmed dead plus 1 more missing presumed dead, by way of the strikes on alleged(!) drug boats, when actual convictions even if those boats had reached US waters would not have been death penalties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_strikes_on_alleg...
This, *by itself*, is about twice the difference in DC homicides between 2024 and 2025, 187 -> 128.
I would add that for vast swaths of time in a lot of areas of the world in between Hammurabi and now, there wasn't even a written code of law, it was more based on customs. Rome did not have written laws for the first 300 years of its founding. A friend I was talking about this was in disbelief when I mentioned this.
Good point. That Rome fact raised my eyebrow, but then I remembered how low literacy has been historically, and the eyebrow returned to the usual position.
Because the basic crimes are so universally understood and detested, that there needs to be nothing written. Murder, theft, robbery, etc. Every person knows from birth that those things are wrong, and it takes severe brain washing for people to change their minds on it.
> Murder, theft, robbery
Have inconsistent definitions over time. Hence my example of legalised murder in post-Norman conquest England, and cultures without personal property where theft is a nonsensical concept.
Also, just ask around left- and right-coded answers to "is taxation theft?", or in the US specifically "is abortion murder?" or "is the death penalty just state-sanctioned murder?"
And, pertinently to this thread, when is a military action murder vs. not murder? There's lawyers looking at the videos of Venezuelan boats being destroyed saying "the US murdered those people". Is one of the sides here, pro or con it doesn't matter which, a victim of "severe brain washing"?Similar disagreements (albeit by non-lawyers) are had regarding all wars I recall in my lifetime.
The existence of grey zones doesn't negate the existence of clear cut cases.
You can argue for or against anything by quoting edge cases. That doesn't mean that every case is an edge case. Very few cases are edge cases.
> There's lawyers looking at the videos of Venezuelan boats being destroyed saying "the US murdered those people". Is one of the sides here, pro or con it doesn't matter which, a victim of "severe brain washing"?
What's the argument being made? That's war, which is of course murder. A soldier's job is to murder the enemy.
As for your examples, they are probably not as certain as you think. Good luck secretly taking somebody's favourite hunting spear from him and then tell him that personal property doesn't exist.
Congratulations on knowing that people have different perspectives on most things, and that these can vary through time and through places. You are not the only person who knows this. What is interesting are the common values which sprung up in different cultures, different times and different places.
If somebody murders your child or your sibling, you are going to be outraged if you are a human. Only severe brainwashing and total dehumanization could make a person react in a different way.
I appreciate your reply very much, it was nice reading. But between you and me, I sense that you might be getting a bit too high on your own supply of intelligence.
Certain crimes tend to be low in dictatorships, so I don't think that's a good indicator of anything.
What about the storming of the Capitol 6th January? The criminals got pardoned and the people investigating the crimes conducted that day were fired. This shows that Trump does not care about law and order at all, only about personal power and control.
The ironic thing is that nationalizing the oil was pretty much the most defensible part of Chávez's legacy.
(To be clear I'm not a fan of Chávez or of Maduro.)
The policy that led to a collapse in oil production in a petro state? The policy that led to an economic collapse so severe that 20% of the population has emigrated? That's the policy you call defensible?
That was the policy that allowed him to build a social welfare state for people tired of being exploited. Famine decreased, life expectancy increased, and the HDI became high. Unfortunately, this ended when the country was sanctioned and embargoed.
Why do these strong, socialist countries anyways need US trade to function?
The Venezuelan economy was dying before the sanctions.
Burning the economy to hand out free money isn't good for the people.
Maduro and Chavez fixed the exchange rate, imposed price controls, printed money and did a wave of nationalisation (not the oil infrastructure that was in the 70s). USA isn't to blame for Venezuelan dysfunction.
> socialist countries anyways need US trade to function
Sanctions go way beyond just direct trade with the US; they attempt to prevent all countries on earth from trading with the sanctioned entity, by force of the USD settling system, or as the past week has shown - the US Navy. So it reduces the number of potential trading partners from hundreds to a handful with (near) reserve currencies, and a navy that's not a pushover.
Now I hate your typical south american dictator just like the next guy and know a thing or two from the ground about what sort of instability and crime wave his regime caused across much of South America, but some reality check - if US blocks you from selling oil and you are a regular country and not a china/russia, you practically can't sell oil, not in stable big numbers that can contribute to economy. Yes bits here and there on black market for much lower price, but thats it. And all oil is sold in USD, hence the popular 'petrodolar' expression, and US will fight till its last soldier and missile to keep that status.
Also tells you how serious US is with sanctioning russia and its army of oil&gas resellers btw, which is the primary cash flow financing russian war in Ukraine.
As it was all collapsing because no one cared enough to make oil to support those things?
They were under embargo, they can pump as much oil as they want but pdvsa can't sell it.
You mean due to the collapse that the United States engineered?
The Saudis did it in the 1970s. It's a great policy.
Where it failed is that Venezuelans are an utterly corrupt people lacking any sense of nationalism or patriotism.
Chavez actually did quite well in the early years. I'm not sure he nationalized oil but took greater amounts of the revenue in tax and used it for positive things for the people. It went downhill after a while with many of the problems common to communist policy though.
He was awful from the start, sending political opponents to prison and transferring oil money to himself and his croneys, but he claimed to be taking from the rich to give to the poor, so the Western left lapped it all up. It took them years to realise what he was actually doing (from the start).
He could give a hell of a speech. I've listened to him make speeches where pretty much everything he said was correct from a policy standpoint. The problem was he was an incompetent administrator running a personality cult.
I'm reminded of Noam Chomsky and what has recently come out about his social time with Epstein. He would talk about how the media only allows leftist thought in public as a sort of controlled opposition. Then he turns out to be exactly what he was complaining about. One moment he's calling Steve Bannon the enemy and the next he is smiling with him and Epstein, in a photo I've heard multiple people describe as "the happiest they have ever seen him".
All this is to say: it's not enough to "say the right things". Your actions have to match.
Can’t believe that both sides of the Chomsky Foucault debate were possibly diddling children!!!
Also can’t believe that no matter who I voted for in 2016 I had to vote for someone who performed fellatio on bill clinton.
> sending political opponents to prison
sounds like a common theme… only this one involves war and prison and taking oil money for US cronies.
whole thing truly makes me skeptical of anyone’s claims that “socialism always leads to corrupt leaders while capitalism doesn’t.”
Chavez was corrupt but the people he replaced were also corrupt. Even when Venezuela was "rich", most of the people were poor and felt like they weren't benefiting from it. The US is probably going push Venezuela to that prior state, where the country is rich on paper but most people are struggling, setting up a call for another Chavez. That assumes the US can just waltz into the country and take complete control, which is probably not going to happen.
Better some people are poor than everybody is poor, which tends to be the result of putting leftists in charge.
The upper class Cubans in Florida want their plantations and slaves in Cuba back, is that a reasonable tradeoff so some people aren't poor?
> Better some people are poor than everybody is poor
Well, technically it's only better for the few that are not poor, for all of the others, it's the same. It's even probably worse because rich people in a country with mostly poor people tend to be very efficient with capturing most of the value produced by the others.
How large is your ideal value of "some"?
Typically this translates into everybody below me on the social ladder.
You always get that last golden egg out when you kill the goose.
He also indicated they will work directly with Maduro's second in command, not the putative winning candidate from the last election. This is purely about theft.
In the eyes of the US, the expropriation of American assets in Venezuela [0] and then selling them to Russian [1], Chinese [2], and Indian [3] interests was theft.
Russian-US relations are tense for the same reasons due to the saga of Sakhalin-I's nationalization from Exxon [4] following the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine and Russia's sale of Exxon's stake to Japanese [5] and Indian [6] interests.
The previous administration also stopped Saudi and UAE from invading Qatar in 2017 [7] due to Rex Tillerson's personal interests with Exxon's stake in Qatar's energy infra [8]
That said, assuming the US doesn't attempt a Venezuelan version of de-Baathification [9], this should be a fairly standard transfer of power - US-Venezuela relations only really tanked when Maduro came to power and hard pivoted Eastward, as even under Chavez American business operations continued and the relationship wasn't severely tense. And from the sounds of it, the faction backing Delcy Rodriguez chose to give Maduro up and (reading between the lines) roll back nationalization in return for staying in power.
Almost everything in political science can be modeled using Tsebelis's Veto Player model, Mesquita's Selectorate Theory, Kuran's Revolutionary Threshold, and the Agency Problem.
[0] - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/may/02/oilandpetro...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuela-approves-1...
[2] - https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-says-oil...
[4] - https://www.upstreamonline.com/production/russia-takes-contr...
[5] - https://www.japex.co.jp/en/business/oilgas/sakhalin1/
[6] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-moves-cl...
[7] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/1/rex-tillerson-stoppe...
[8] - https://www.qatarenergylng.qa/english/AboutUs/Corporate-Stru...
[9] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification
Any theory on the choice of state jurisdiction for DoJ case?
In a nutshell - "might makes right". Also, Maduro was charged all the way back in 2020 in SDNY [0]. I am not a lawyer, but SDNY is almost always used because most high profile cases have some sort of economic crimes component, which inevitabely leads to Manhattan (Rayiner can jump in and corroborate or correct this statement).
If someone pushes back on DoJ authority, the Trump admin will point to Juan Orlando Hernandez's (Honduras) indictment in 2021 [1] and get an opportunity to bash the Biden admin and call out "double standards" for his base. If not, then this will stand. That's why I find the drug indictment angle interesting - it seems that it is being used in lieu of the now revoked FCPA because it also gives the ability to leverage physical force whereas the former only really gave an economic lever.
Essentially, the rules-based consensus was a 1989-2014 era anomaly, and we already made a return to multi-polar power competition. Most foreign policy leaders under Obama 2 onwards have all been "realists" like Allison, Doshi, Mastro, and Colby and the worry of great power competition has been the primary topic of conversation for almost 2 decades now.
[0] - https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
[1] - https://2021-2025.state.gov/u-s-actions-against-former-hondu...
^ edit: "The previous administration..." should be "The administration previously..."
Not taking sides here, just trying to steelman: some Venezuelans might be so done with Maduro, that they consider US getting the oil profits to be a fair price.
This is all irrelevant - it's completely unacceptable for the US President to send the military into another without Congressional approval, and to kidnap a leader at all (especially without a declaration or war or UN authorization).
The War Powers Act actually does allow this. Congress has to be back filled within 48 hours after the action (and they were). He can also station troops up to 60 days without congressional approval.
As Jonathan Turley reports https://jonathanturley.org/2026/01/03/the-united-states-capt... this operation will be justified as executing the criminal warrant (issued by the Biden DOJ and outstanding since 2029) and responding to an international drug cartel, a very similar legal framework to the one used against Noriega in 1989 - which was tested in multiple US courts. So like it or not there is longstanding court affirmed precedent supporting that earlier operation, which will now be used to defend the actions in Venezuela.
Does this mean trump will be pardoning Maduro on receipt of a sufficiently large bribe? That seems like the only explanation for recent pardon of former Honduran president Juan Hernandez.
I assume that's rhetorical question?
Even before Trump v. United States, Maduro would have enjoyed immunity as a head of state. They still need him as a source of info on the generals. And if the drug smuggling explanation works, cartel details justifying maneuvers in Mexico.
So a thought experiment: If China were to put out a warrant for Trump's (the most unpopular president in US History, someone the majority of Americans disapprove of, a convicted criminal, and a pedophile who raped young people and has not been brought to account for these crimes as of yet) under the pretense that some of his victims were Chinese nationals and then invaded the Whitehouse to forcibly remove him to China, would that also be legal and justified ? What would you expect the reaction in the US to be ?
To be very clear I do not support this -- out leaders should be held to account to their people, not foreign invaders deciding for us. Even if it seems unlikely that they ever will be, it's our process and people.
This argument doesn't really hold water because the jurisdiction of a nation isn't the whole world.
If we have a warrant for a Sovereign or someone else with Diplomatic Immunity we -- at the very least -- should not invade their territory to carry it out. That's not how the civilized society works, and that's not how we want it to work as evidenced by the thought experiment above.
If we are at war with a nation or people, and reject the premise of their fundamental sovereign or diplomatic nature of course it's a different story since we are talking about a fundamental disagreement of reality. There's a separate process for that weighty decision by the US people's representatives.
well, there are ICC warrants. They do ignore diplomatic immunity. And opinion of many people that, for example, Netanyahu should be at least arrested if he lands in Europe and at most "somebody" should send extraction team to kidnap him
It seems like we should not invade another sovereign country unless we are at war -- a weighty process we should undergo because it's how the will of the people manifest in power.
The US isn't a participant to the ICC, so I'm not sure what exactly your implication is... ?
I do not think we should invade Israel and kidnap their leader. I believe the people of that country should self-govern within their sovereign rights. I don't think China should invade the US and kidnap it's leader. I believe the people of the US should self-govern within their sovereign rights. I don't believe the US should invade Venezuela and kidnap their leader. I believe the people of Venezuela should self-govern within their sovereign rights.
i was pointing out that diplomatic immunity (of head of state) that you mention is trashed by ICC warrants (in countries who are party to it. i.e. good chunk of europe).
so, in the moment that something as basic as diplomatic immunity can be violated by warrants for investigation (not for trial), invading another country to arrest somebody based on warrants that you had issued domestically is not that big of leap
You are talking about a after a country has decided that they want to participate in the this process by ratifying their participation intentionally. How does this relate to a unilateral invasion ?
Vienna Convention (1961): This treaty standardized the rules, making diplomatic immunity a binding obligation for its over 190 signatory nations
And then comes ICC (via Rome statue, ratified by 125 countries and half a dozen of them in process of withdrawal) and trashes with it warrants diplomatic immunity.
So in case international law/treaty from 1961 is all of sudden not binding, why wouldn't uniliteral invasion (actually it looks like it more of arrest operation) (which is probably prohibited by some other international treaties) not be ok ?
I do not understand the point you are making. You cite a treaty that countries explicitly agree to protect diplomats while they are guests in another country -- I'm not sure what relationship this has with one sovereign nation using force to rendition someone from another country.
The only country that has agreed to the terms of the ICC here is Venezuela -- but there is no ICC arrest warrant for anyone involved, nor is the US acting on behalf of the ICC nor does it have any authority to do so.
The invasion (which was required to perform the arrest, since it was within the territory) was definitely an invasion and morally wrong.
As noted several times, there are many ways that this could have been done that are in accordance with civil society it. It wasn't, and that is bad.
my point is that diplomatic immunity is international law. signatories to rome statue said that they will violate it (diplomatic immunity of Israeli head of state) because of icc warrant.
this is violation of international law that multiple countries openly stated that they will perform.
essentially it means that international law is not binding and selectively enforced. this is slippery slope.
if you can ignore vienna convention why not ignore whatever other part of international law that prohibits invasion ?
PS. UK and France just bombed ISIS in Syria. Is it also invasion and morally wrong ?
I still do not understand your point because as you state there is no conflict between the two agreements, and further there are no pair countries involved that mutually agreed to the ICC:
- Diplomatic Immunity (through various treaties): Countries that participate will respect diplomats - ICC: Countries that agree will participate in ICC judicial process
From what I can tell, you seem to be under the impression that there's some conflict here. If that is your position then you are wrong. A country can both simultaneously respect foreign diplomats and work with the ICC to ensure that local citizens are held accountable in the ICC.
BUT, a further point -- international law can never be binding. It's between sovereign peers, and is based on the concept of reciprocal benefit. International treaties give the participants some benefit in exchange for something else. This has to be the case because there is no superior entity to arbitrate violations of the law. If you don't keep up your end of the bargain, you risk the other participants not keeping up their end of the bargain.
This is, for example, why having the top US officials committing war crimes is bad -- it's not because some superior nation will inflict justice upon the violator (because no such entity exists) but because other signatories have no legal obligation to not commit war crimes against us (although, many people are morally opposed to most war crimes and wouldn't commit them anyway).
A further note about your PS, which seems unrelated to the topic is that bombing isn't itself an invasion (it may be part of one), but for my opinion I think that killing people without due process is bad and should be a last resort for defense.
in my example countries stated that they will arrest diplomat covered by diplomatic immunity based on icc warrant. not local citizens.
in case international law is not binding, than whatever US did is ok.
and according to usa it was law enforcement operation. not invasion. just like uk and france didn't invade but casually bombed
I've had some additional time to reflect on this thread and I think I can spot the core disconnect.
Do you believe that the Vienna Convention requires that countries treat their diplomatic representatives in some special legal way ? For example, do you believe that the Vienna Convention obligates the US to extend diplomatic immunity to the US Ambassador to France ?
If so, that's backwards. It doesn't obligate one country to treat their own diplomats specially inside their own legal system, it defines how participants of the treaty will treat FOREIGN diplomats. The benefit of being part of the treaty is that your diplomats are treated specially when they are in foreign lands, and the cost is you treat foreign diplomats specially when they are in your land.
The currency of treaties is reciprocity.
A treaty can never be binding, there exists no superior entity for which to bring your appeal which can then ultimately use their monopoly on force to extract justice -- each nation is sovereign and a peer in that respect.
Finally, I didn't address your last paragraph but I will now: It does not matter if the USA calls it a law enforcement operation and not invasion, it was still an invasion. It was an invasion because it meets the definition of the word. But ALSO it wasn't a law enforcement operation because the laws of the US do not apply in Venezuela. Also, it's illegal in the US to use the US Military for enforcing US laws except in times of invasion... although it sadly specifies that the US must be the entity being invaded, not just there be an invasion.
So it sounds to me like you are stating that you are okay with the original premise that it would be okay for China to come to the US Whitehouse and forcibly remove Trump to China to stand trial for the crimes he may have committed against Chinese nationals ?
"This paper we wrote shows the legal justification for the kidnapping, so the kidnapping we performed is completely legal."
Well, in this case, yes. This is the trouble with growing executive power, they can indeed give themselves permission.
They don't have jurisdiction over another country that's not how this works
I would love to live in a world where every government was democratically elected by an informed populace and never tried to assert authority outside it's borders.
> not how this works
When you say this, what exactly are you referring to?
Reality is reality. There is only one reality and the man is on the ship. No matter what you think. Reality is "how this works".
Just because something is happening doesn't mean it's according to the law or even morally justified. We are discussing whether it is lawful, not whether it actually happened or whether they are capable of doing it with or without consequences.
Indeed, why bother having states of law at all? Jungle law works well enough in reality.
You believe in something which has never existed and will never exist. In international relations, there has never been anything besides "might is right". Anything else is an illusion. At most something that leaders pay lip service to, when it aligns with their own goals.
The law of the jungle is reality. World War II was won by terror bombing civilians. It is lamentable, but reality is reality. So to say "that's not how it works" is denying reality.
“Never”? Not once in the Story of Us has any dispute between large groups of humans been resolved by anything other than a superior application of brute force? Strong claim, but I’ll run with it.
And you appear to believe this is a pretext for humans to ignore their own laws and commit atrocities, when they could choose otherwise.
It may be reality that jungle law is currently how humans almost always handle conflict at nation-state scale. Non sequitur that it should remain so.
No one is claiming that humans should be at war with, or rely on violence to assert authority over, one another.
Every arrest is a kidnapping.
That is how any legal system works, just to be clear.
That's not how the international legal system works
I mean to be fair.. the "international legal system" generally doesn't really work. It only works when governments think it works for them.
This usually means weaker (militarily/economically) countries banding together to hopefully provide some dis-incentives for strong arming.
It only works until someone calls the bluff.
what is "the international legal system"?
Unfortunately thats how the politics and economics of violence work when you are the most powerful country in the world (n.b. I am not American and think this situation is deplorable, but the legal facts and construction support Trump’s actions)
No they do not
The USA does not have jurisdiction outside the US borders. Shocking, I know.
But it doesn't, so the charges of "possession of machineguns" [0] is an utter bullshit. Talk about kangaroo courts...
[0] https://xcancel.com/AGPamBondi/status/2007428087143686611
“ it's completely unacceptable”
How do you reach this conclusion that you can’t help suffering?
You act as if they don't have loopholes for this or that there will be consequences when the military industrial complex is behind things. Were there any consequences for Iraq WMD BS
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Why? It's not a war they were just capturing someone to face charges. In the same way we didn't need to declare war against Pakistan to go in and get Osama
Don't think we (Americans) would be happy if another country invaded and started capturing people to face trial in their country.
This is naive. No other country would dare do this to the US because the US would simply rain literal hellfire upon them.
Your mistake is in equating the US to other countries. You cannot. It is a superpower.
When other countries act hostile to the US, it can simply ignore their sovereignty at a whim, and this is a huge benefit to living in US.
Is it unfair? Sure. Who cares?
This is wrong and hilariously short sighted. Other countries don't respect America due to military might - they do so because of decades of mutually beneficial trade agreements. Soft power is infinitely more useful than hard power.
You can take that into the past tense now I think.
Both play a significant role. Many countries absolutely respect us because of our military might. They rely on it because they don't want to divert funding from welfare to build out their own militaries. As such, they ally with us, creating inroads to trade et al.
Obviously, there's more than just military might, we have the most innovative and powerful economy on the planet as well.
However, with a country like Venezuela, where none of our allies truly care what we do (sure, they might blow hot air but whatever), we are free to use hard power to achieve our objectives.
People who don't live in a superpower. People who care about international law. People who would rather the most powerful countries didn't act like bullies whenever it suits their interests.
"Who cares?" was glib on my part, I admit. It was obviously stated from the perspective of an American relying on that power, towards other Americans.
However, international law has always been a thin veneer over the reality of international relations. History shows that nations act in their own self-interest, regardless of the "rules."
The concept of one country "bullying" another is irrelevant moralizing. You are applying playground rules (or the rules of civil society) to a global stage defined by anarchy: there is no "teacher" to stop the "bullying" here. It is a zero-sum game of security and power. At this level, "bullying" isn't a meaningful concept, only leverage is.
Should the world be this way? I wish not. Political realism is a grim framework. Unfortunately, game theory tells us that so long as any one superpower believes in realism, the rest of us must as well, or risk getting outmaneuvered. And Russia/China certainly believe in it.
The United Nations was created to avoid future world wars by managing conflicts. If the US decides as the world's superpower to go on an imperialist rampage through the Americas without regard for what the UN, Europe or Russia & China thinks, eventually the rest of the world is going to team up like the Allies during WW2.
The UN is simply ignored by all superpowers, and many lesser powers. Failed experiment. It is, at best, a forum for communication, but with no real enforcement capacity of any "rules."
> "Who cares?" was glib on my part, I admit. It was obviously stated from the perspective of an American relying on that power, towards other Americans.
> there is no "teacher" to stop the "bullying" here.
It's funny how the same person can mention "realism" and then proceed to "leverage" in the same conceptual realm of thought about the present day US. Just wait until three to four (insignificantly) smaller powers collude, target, and act against you like hyennas do, then try applying your leverage of ... what exactly?
"Realism" is not being used in the sense of the colloquial word, but as in "political realism," the framework that governs international relations between most superpowers today and in which "leverage" through hard or soft power is the core concept.
> Is it unfair? Sure. Who cares?
What do you mean, "who cares"? Obviously a lot of us not from the US care, and many Americans care, too.
It should obviously be read as: "Who cares [that matters to the superpower at hand, and are they willing to actually do anything about it?]"
Even if the answer to the first part can be narrowed down to a few nations, the answer to the second part can be narrowed down to zero.
Israel did that in Argentina with Adolf Eichmann, and the US celebrated it.
They actually had 6 million good reasons.
And he was head of state? (retorical question).
What Trump just did is an act of war, undeclared and deceitful in every way.
It makes diplomacy much harder to do in the future. It makes the US untrustworthy.
> It makes the US untrustworthy.
That's explicitly been the case since 45 was elected a second time. Even if we get an adult in charge again, there is no guarantee of stability anymore with the way the population is.
Like who? Biden a puppet with dementia, Obama invading Libya and helping kill Gadaffi (and actually killing his family), as well as drone strikes on individuals in lots of middle eastern countries, Bush and Iraq/Afghanistan, Clinton and .. Iraq? but also war on drugs and Mexico border fence. Previous Bush - Iraq again?? Before that, South America again.
Biden became worse in the last year, but he wasn't a 'puppet', certainly not like the current president is. I'm not a fan of Obama's actions but he at least gave justification instead of inventing it and lying like Bush.
Kamala was the obvious choice and the only adult running in the last election, but she lost largely due to sexism, racism and gullibility of the red state population.
Assuming we get to have another election, we'd hopefully have someone like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren.
Democratic rejected Kamala resoundingly in the primaries, and then the Democratic leadership tried to force her down everyone's throat. That's on them, not the voters. They asked people to eat a sandwich some shit on it instead of a shit sandwich and not surprisingly voters weren't too enthused.
No, it's on the voters, 100%. A primary would have been messy. She may not have been everyone's first choice, but she was 100% the responsible choice. People screwed over the country out of spite, but that's 100% in line with how immature and uneducated the US population is. Not to mention bigoted in various ways.
Obviously she was not everyone's first choice. She was almost no one's first choice. Democrat voters let her know that when they only gave her ~7% support in the 2020 primaries. Maybe a messy primary that everyone feels a part of would have been better than a few leaders of the Democratic party attempting to anoint the next president. Maybe you think it was the responsible choice, but that certainly isn't what Obama thought in 2024, since he was pushing for open primaries before his hand was forced into endorsing Harris.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both performed significantly better than Harris did in the 2020 primaries. Maybe one of them would have been the responsible choice.
> Obviously she was not everyone's first choice. She was almost no one's first choice.
Right, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter that she wasn't the ideal choice, it only matters that she was so much significantly better than the alternative.
Clearly that was a miscalculation then. Maybe because when people vote, most people don't think "Who is better - Trump or Harris?", they think "Do I like my party's nominee?"
I agree, the problem is the voting population. Democracy doesn't work when you have such a petty ignorant population.
Bernie Sanders vs. Trump. That would have been interesting. Two populists, but also two geriatric white men. Trump would have the advantage of insults and better media savvy, but Bernie would have the advantage of not being Trump (and not being tied to Biden either).
That other country will quickly learn why America doesn't have free healthcare ;)
If Trump successfully stole the election in 2021, I'm sure there would have been many Americans who would be happy for Canada or England or France to capture him and put him on trial..
Osama Bin Laden wasn't the leader of Pakistan, he was just hiding there.
Capturing the de facto leader (elected or dictator) of a country is an act of war.
You could argue the war is justified, or that this dictator was bad for both his country and the US, but it's still an act of war.
How come the US can engage in acts of war without legally declaring it? Shouldn't congress be involved?
We all mocked Putin's "special military operation", why are we not accusing the US of doing the same thing?
That will really be up to the new Venezuelan regime to decide whether it was an act of war or not. I don't think Maduro will have much ability to declare it as such.
Is your position that if someone commits a coup, some other country or the international community can't go in and uninstall that person from power?
Regardless of whether the leader of a country was a dictator, elected or not, another country going in and kidnapping the acting leader within the borders of his own country is an act of war.
This doesn't depend on what the successors think. They might later declare this act of war was necessary for the liberation or whatever, but it's still an act of war.
You may agree with the act, but it's an act of war.
Do you dispute this?
Well, I'm certain Maduro considered it an act of war. But he's not president any more. Does the current President of Venezuela consider it an act of war?
> Well, I'm certain Maduro considered it an act of war. But he's not president any more.
It doesn't matter what Maduro thinks. It doesn't matter whether he's a bad guy or a dictator. The situation after the fait accompli also doesn't matter.
What matters is that the military of a country crossing the borders of another country without permission, to conduct a military operation, and kidnapping the (de facto or legal, doesn't matter) leader of said country is an act of war.
There's no "it depends". It might be a justified act of war, but it's an act of war.
It boggles the mind that you dispute this. You seem to be confused, mentally adding "evil" or "illegal" to the words "act of war".
> Does the current President of Venezuela consider it an act of war?
Yes. Why does it matter?
> Is your position that if someone commits a coup, some other country or the international community can't go in and uninstall that person from power?
I find the assumptions behind your question fascinating.
Where did I say anything about what a country can or cannot do? A country can do whatever its military might and ability to absorb repercussions allows it to do.
This is completely unrelated to whether the path the country does decide to take constitutes an act of war or not.
If you're asking me whether I like that the US is playing world police and deciding who must face the law, and take them by force anywhere in the world, weeeell... let's say it's really messy to try to justify the US when it supports some coups, some dictators, and some brutal regimes, but acts against others, and the overall rule seems to be "if they play ball with the US it's ok, if they don't then war".
A small consolation is that the US is seemingly stopping their horrifying practice of extraordinary renditions and torturing suspects abroad, outside the scrutiny of US society and institutions. I think that was Bush era, but maybe it persisted during Obama too.
> It's not a war they were just capturing someone to face charges.
Invading a foreign country with military force is a war even if the purpose is to effect an arrest. And when the President claims that the intent is also that the US will run the country afterwards, its even more clearly a war.
> In the same way we didn't need to declare war against Pakistan to go in and get Osama
Congress had already exercised its power to declare war with an open-ended declaration almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, which covered the operation direct against the head of al-Qaeda.
https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
charges for what? he is a Venezuelan in Venezuela. You can't say "he broke our laws" and take him to fucking New York.
I have yet to see it in this thread, but the WSJ reported that the "crime" they "extradited" him for is running a drug cartel and dumping tons of cocaine into the US.
I know this is what they claim (well, they also say because of oil and because he was friends with US rivals, but that's less defensible), but anyone really believe this is about drugs? Was there ever any proof Maduro was a cartel boss?
They are getting their message very confused. Is this about drugs? About the Venezuelan elections? About oil? All of the above? None of the above? Who knows anymore.
That said some people in the US ought to catch international charges for human rights violations of all sorts
Sure you can. Why do you think we could go into Pakistan and assassinate someone there?
Bombing a capital city and kidnapping its political leader and hijacking its oil tankers is not the same thing at all. Not to mention Pakistan was and is officially an ally of America, and despite them harboring terrorists, officially Osama was a criminal there too.
Still waiting for the shoes to drop on Osama and Saddam.
Who is "we"?
America
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Completely irrelevant what “some Venezuelans might” want and literally can be used to justify anything if you accept it as a premise.
For example:
Not taking sides here, just trying to steelman: some Americans might want to sell their relatives into sex trafficking.
Can you qualify “some Venezuelans” in any meaningful way?
This framing implies that the US administration considered US or Venezuelan public opinion before taking this action.
We have no evidence of that.
Well at least the nearly 8 million who voted for the opposition in Venezuela and the nearly 8 million who have left.
Are you implying that a vote for the opposition is a vote for the US to take over?
No I'm implying that most people in Venezuela are happy to se Maduro gone and hopefully his whole regime as well.
Admittedly I cannot, I'm not Venezuelan and not familiar enough with the country.
Some Taiwanese will welcome china,
Some ukrainians welcomed russia,
some polish will welcome russia,
some estonians will welcome russia
etc etc etc.
Look, you don't just regime change, It didn't work in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. It only really kinda worked in Kosovo, but even then it was touch and go, require lots of troop time and a load of money and ongoing international police.
“We will be greeted as liberators”
Has not come to fruition for previous US regime change operations.
This kidnapping operation doesn’t give insight one way or the other into the will of the Venezuelan people. It, in fact, completely disregards it.
This is exactly what Putin said about Ukrainians living in the Donbas.
which was true
No this is a Russian canard and not true. In fact some of the fiercest resistance to Russian occupation came from the Donbas.
And yet, it's not a justification for what was done there, and it's not a justification for what was done in this case either. Wasn't a justification in Iraq with Saddam for that matter. I remember the day the Iraqis pulled that statue down, they seemed very happy to be able to do that. And then...
My understanding is that the US military is not so great at the "hearts and minds" game, to put it politely. It doesn't take much time for locals to be outraged by macho assholes acting like they own the place. Makes the recently dethroned dictator look somewhat decent in comparison.
Some of the Austrians Wanted Hitler to annex them!
Didn't a lot of Austrians want that?
Didn't the East Germans later want to be annexed by West Germany?
Don't the people of both Koreas want unification?
if we’re going to steelman we have to acknowledge that many venezualans liked him too.
we can’t simultaneously say we don’t like corruption of socialist governments while literally bombing another nation and imprisoning political enemies just so we can have its oil for our cronies.
Trump said Machado doesn't have support to be leader and endorsed Maduro's VP as willing to work with the US. It seems unlikely the Venezuelan people are going to see any benefits here. They will get more of the same.
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There should be a sitcom where Assad, Yanukovich, Snowden, and the Venezuelan VP are sharing an apartment in Moscow. In the Christmas episode, Putin shows up and teaches them the true meaning of Christmas.
Not impossible given exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heil_Honey_I%27m_Home!
Make it in a similar style to the death of Stalin and it’ll be 10/10!
Trumps approval rating isn't great either but I doubt many people would see that as justification for another country kidnapping him in the middle of night to charge him with "has an army with machine guns" before taking American oil
I say what goes around comes around.
It wouldn’t have been a justification before now, but he’s created the precedent. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
If Trump made himself king and dragged the US so far into corruption and poverty that another country could so easily capture us, yeah I'd be fine with them bagging him.
I suspect you'd be in the minority, but hey if he lives long enough you might just get your wish. He's off to a great start.
On top of that, I don't think the common Venezuelan laborer was getting much benefit out of the Maduro regime capturing the oil wealth. From the point of view of the less fortunate, there isn't much difference between a Venezuelan elite enriching themselves off the local oil vs an American elite enriching themselves off the local oil.
Right, that’s not the issue. The issue is national sovereignty. The US just started taking over South America.
Claims of sovereignty are meaningless, what happens is whether those claims hold up in real life, and in this case they clearly don't.
A country is either powerful enough to enforce sovereignty, or it is not actually sovereign; so this hand-wringing about "Venezuela's sovereignty" is meaningless. It's already been proven false, to some extent.
The US is free to do what it wants with Venezuela, or virtually any non-nuclear country in the world. Always has been, really. It simply doesn't exercise said power very often.
Is this then a call to assassinate local politicians you don't agree with? Some might makes right thing? We're all at least momentarily able to overpower or mortally harm one another, but often don't choose to. Why do you think that is?
You seem to be mistaking my comment for a moral stance.
I am not making a call to do anything, I am simply describing the nature of international relations throughout the vast majority of human history (including the current day), in a framework most commonly defined as realism.
Superpowers act in their self interest, ignoring "international law" when the benefit meaningfully exceeds the cost. They can do this because there is no one to stop them. They will do this because it is in their self interest.
Americans will probably benefit from this action, or at least that is the administration's thesis. Is it moral? No, but discussions of morality are irrelevant on the world stage, which is a zero-sum game defined only by leverage.
I think I assumed you're commenting for a reason because it doesn't make sense to make these comments otherwise - they're more or less vacuously true, and there's no value to them outside of an assertion of some sort.
> the world stage, which is a zero-sum game
I'm not at all convinced this is true.
You should think about the question posed in my first comment - why do you think we don't choose to overpower one another regularly to take what we want?
svnt and HN's misunderstanding of international relations and the concept of "sovereignty" is what my comment is directed at: in discussions about superpowers on the world stage,
(a) moralizing is simply irrelevant, discussions about whether this is "good" or "bad" are childishly naive and have no place - only whether it was advantageous or not; and
(b) sovereignty is meaningless if a nation does not have the hard/soft power (and the will) to back it, just as if you declare your house a "sovereign nation" it will not be respected unless you are able to back it up.
Perhaps this is an obvious/vacuous truth to you, but most HN'ers are clearly failing to grasp this.
> why do you think we don't choose to overpower one another regularly to take what we want?
Because it is not always advantageous to do so. When it is clearly advantageous, nations tend to do so (as evidenced by virtually all of human history, including the current era.)
So much of the past decade has been the internet infecting the population with 19th century thinking like this. Alliances are a thing, and might makes right is something we have told ourselves for generations that we oppose. I am so tired of this nihilism dressed as edge.
This isn't "nihilism dressed as edge," this is political realism, and it is the framework under which our rivals operate wrt international relations.
Yes, alliances are a thing, and the framework fully accounts for these.
It's appalling to read that on HN, and there's plenty of comments like this one in this thread.
To think that some like to pretend HN is better than reddit.
Please leave a substantive comment instead of just calling something a "redditism" and "appalling."
You may not like the framework of realism but it is the reality of international relations today (and throughout most of history.)
Rules-based international order has always been a thin veneer over the fact that nations will always act in their self-interest regardless of what they say.
Finally, game theory tells us that as long as one superpower behaves according to the principles of realism, the rest must as well, or risk getting outmaneuvered.
People don't like to see difficult to accept facts stated plainly. And sometimes equate a statement of unfortunate fact with endorsement of status quo.
More on topic, I hoped there would be some support from Colombia, Russia, and China in place to help with this situation. Instead it seems like Maduro took an exit deal and left the country at the hands of the GOP who openly promulgate the idea that the US should lord over all other countries in the western hemisphere.
There's nothing substantive to the comment I'm replying to.
It's explaining in too many words that might makes right. We all know that.
On the other hand I believe, but I could be wrong, that the many comments of the sort in this thread are a way for some people to cheer these sort of actions without being too obvious about it because they know it's not a good look in some circles, hn being one. So rather than chanting usa usa usa like their gut tells them too, they resort to such emotionally distanced statements, obvious to everyone, pretending to simply constate the gap in military capabilities of the US versus other powers.
And indeed, I find that appalling.
The last year has been eye-opening for me as a HN reader. I've gleaned a lot of insight into the thought process of the soulless tech bro.
Thanks to the regulars on here, I now hear clearly when folks like Alex Karp, Peter Thiel or Lucky Palmer speak.
Their combination of intelligence + lack of empathy + arrogance will eat the world.
There's a massive difference, and that difference is that American oil companies, unlike the Venezuelan state run industry, are actually very competent at extracting oil. This means more good paying jobs, more state revenue, and massive economic growth. Contrary to the claims of most of the economically illiterate morons commenting here, having a functional local oil industry run by foreign companies will actually be great for Venezuela.
I think you got it wrong. It might be better for Venezuela, but it will for sure be great for those companies.
your comment sounds alot like nationalist chest thumping, the reason they were unable to do much with their oil is much more related to the usa deciding they would sanction the country meaning basically worldwide they can't sell the oil
Definitely not, but the furthest away the ones profiting from something are, the worse it can get.
It is definitely not a guarantee that a local enriching elite will at some point lead to something better, but most examples that come to mind about "colonies" (places very far from a center of power), resulted in said places to develop much harder.
But neither the Venezuelan elite nor the American elite will tolerate any hint of democracy. And neither elite will be satisfied with merely exploiting the oil.
I prefer this honesty over the unrealistic expectations the US set up in each Mid East country plus Afghanistan.
How about not going there at all for whatever reason, under any circumstances. And there are bigger issues at stake, no amount of drugs "made in Venezuela" inhaled by Americans can kill them as much as one North Korean Nuke.
I'm surprised no lesson the US learnt from similar overthrows in the past, but again this is Trump. The country can get so unstable that by the time Marco start giving out "legitimate" orders, there will be 30 different groups fighting and killing each other. True unchecked anarchy. So what's then? Boots on ground. Are we still in the spirit of sacrificing 150,000 American soldiers in the name of freedom, like we did in Iraq? When we kicked out Russians from Middle East we were not aware they kept islam jihadists at bay, then Al Quaida came to live and we all now how it ended.
I wasn't even thinking about the drugs. Is that a real thing? North Korean nuke isn't a real concern.
Iraq had no goal. The stated reason was WMDs and 9/11, so bogus and unrelated. Stability wasn't our concern either, I mean we funded Saddam Hussein to begin with. US companies did set up oil drilling, but I really don't think the driving motivation was oil, otherwise we'd have gone to Venezuela first.
You think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan was not related to oil?
Afghanistan has no oil. Iraq does, but the US showed no interest in taking it for decades. It was most likely pushed by our "greatest ally" there who also has no oil.
The Kurds are our greatest ally in Iraq and they most definitely have lots of oil in addition to letting US operate on their territory in exchange for protecting the oil interests. I suppose you could say that's not us taking the oil but we still get value like we had taken the oil and provided fair market rate to host bases in exchange.
Saddam was already selling the oil at fair market rate.
I said fair market rate to host bases. Saddam was definitely not leasing us military at fair market rate in Iraq (or Syria for that matter, where Kurds also host US base).
I see that now. Sorry for my sloppy reading.
I highly suggest you look into the Afghan pipeline project.
I know about this one, it's eh. There are pipelines everywhere and no smoking gun.
The point is that there are certainly oil interests in Afghanistan. To act like there aren’t is inaccurate.
Ok, to put it this way, we'd have gone into Afghanistan with or without the possibility of a pipeline.
Oh also they didn't even set up that pipeline during all the time we were there
> I'm surprised no lesson the US learnt from similar overthrows in the past, but again this is Trump.
Its not Trump, its the US.
Someone always comes along trying to attack/occupy a country. Making big promises. Years later when nothing is achieved. Someone else will come along talking about how much US is spending, taxpayers dollars being lost, failures etc.
In recent example, Afghanistan and Trump come to mind. Everyone talked about how Afghanistan was a waste of taxpayer dollars. But now here we are.
The only thing which I can say specifically about Trump is that I wouldn't be surprised if the flip towards "Venezuela was a waste of taxpayer money" happens during his administration and he comes out saying "I have never heard of Maduro".
“ How about not going there at all for whatever reason, under any circumstances.”
What moral and ethical system brings you this supposition?
> When we kicked out Russians from Middle East we were not aware they kept islam jihadists at bay, then Al Quaida came to live and we all now how it ended.
I thought the US was well aware of this, since the US was funding the Mujahideen at the time?
Let's not sacrifice anymore Americans in the name of freedom, but the number was substantially fewer than 10,000, not anywhere close to 150,000. Perhaps that many Iraqis died, or maybe even more.
>Are we still in the spirit of sacrificing 150,000 American soldiers in the name of freedom, like we did in Iraq?
What are you talking about? Even Vietnam only had a third of that many casualties. Who told you this bullshit? ChatGPT?
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but why put yourself in a false dichotomy?
There isn't one, the third option was to do nothing. But there wasn't a fourth option.
You can actually “prefer” none of what’s happening.
Being honest about doing bad things doesn’t make them less bad. Doing bad things covertly is still bad.
I'm not convinced that this is a good or bad thing yet
You’re not convinced that the US invading other countries and deposing presidents is bad? In a world where nuclear weapons exist?
It's an objectively fantastic thing when those presidents are doing things not in our interests.
We obviously haven't and won't do this to a nuclear-armed country.
> We obviously haven't and won't do this to a nuclear-armed country.
Right... which means that every regime knows they have to become a nuclear-armed country.
Absolutely, this has been clear for a long time. Countries are only truly sovereign if they have a reliable nuclear capability, otherwise they are always at the whim of another country with a sufficiently powerful military.
They need the military either way. There's no country that just has nukes and nothing else, except for North Korea, see how that's going for them.
> It's an objectively fantastic thing when those presidents are doing things not in our interests
Why wouldn't China do the same in another country whose president is not acting in China's national interest? If you were Iran[1], would abandoning your nuclear weapons program for sanctions relief still be an option?
1. Or Saudi Arabia
Of course each of these countries are ignoring international law in various respects and doing things in their self interest.
Anything as brazen as capturing a president? Not yet. But I can absolutely see them doing this if they deem the cost/benefit great enough.
I wouldn't be surprised if China goes further and launches a full-scale invasion of Taiwan in the next decade, they've certainly been preparing for it according to our intel.
What the fuck do you think China is going to do next time the US does an “exercise” in the china sea?
What the fuck do you think Iran is going to do next time Israel acts up and the US supports it?
> What the fuck do you think China is going to do next time the US does an “exercise” in the china sea?
They will continue to blow hot air but ignore it, unless they truly and sincerely believe it is a real military action worth starting a war over (and destroying both economies over.)
> What the fuck do you think Iran is going to do next time Israel acts up and the US supports it?
They will continue developing their weapons program thinking they can do it in secret, and it will continue to get compromised and/or blown up.
The brazen callousness with which you advocate for the spread of nuclear weapons and the subjugation of other nations’ sovereignty is disgusting.
You’re probably one of the worst people I’ve ever interacted with.
I don't really care what you think of me, but please adhere to the HN guidelines[1] for civil discussion, this sort of fulminating and personal attack simply has no place here (though there are other websites for that, if you so desire.)
Re. nuclear weapons, sovereignty - I am not "advocating" for anything. I am simply describing the factual reality of international relations, and "political realism," the school of thought that governs international relations between superpowers in the current day and throughout most of human history.
That you are ascribing to this description some sort of moral stance on my part is a judgement error on yours.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
What's the implication here, we're supposed to threaten to nuke them instead? It only works if you're willing to follow through.
Who’s we? I’m guessing you’re not a general in the US military, so I don’t know why you’re inserting yourself into this decision.
Do you think a nuclear war would be good for you? Obviously not, so you shouldn’t want your government to threaten to start one. And you shouldn’t support your government when they signal to the world that the only way to be safe from interventionism is to develop nuclear weapons. Or when they signal to other superpowers that they don’t respect international treaties, or the sovereignty of other nations.
Nuclear war with who?
Does it matter?
If the answer is "nobody" then yeah. Venezuela doesn't have nukes. North Korea or Russia aren't going to nuclear war over a country they don't even have a security agreement with, or even if they did. The US has already attacked Iran, Iraq, and Syria (under Assad).
Instead of strawmanning and presenting yet another false dichotomy, try answering their question.
I'm not the one who brought up nukes and legit don't understand what they meant by that. To answer the other question, yeah I can generally see some valid reasons to remove a foreign leader from power. Not sure about Maduro.
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Then your understanding of US foreign policy and what’s currently happening is too shallow.
So are you an expert on Venezuelan politics? I'm not.
No, but I am one with regard to US foreign policy.
Since you’re not (by your own admission), spend more time reading the globalist (1950s - present) reasons why the US meddles with foreign governments and what forcibly creating a power vacuum does for the local populace.
Then you’ll be better equipped to have a conversation with knowledgeable people about the topic at hand, instead of blithely wondering “hmm, is it actually bad when we extra-judiciously remove a head of state because we want oil?”
You don't know me. I know for sure that an actual US foreign policy expert wouldn't be so arrogant.
Yeah, and no true Scotsman would put sugar in their porridge.
Read a book. Brinkley's Rise to Globalism is a good start.
How exactly will the US run the country? They have just one guy
It will not. Chavismo did not end with the death of Hugo Chávez. Nor will it end with the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro.
Every time the puppet president fails to meet targets, they are executed by missile strike?
It should be one of the Trump kids to run it. Whichever one knows the most spanish. «¿Como hacer país muy bueno?»
And Republicans won’t see a problem with that.
More quotes in that vein,
> "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so."
> "We're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have it"
> "It's gonna make a lot of money"
> "Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial"
Reading @atrupar.com 's live transcriptions,
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com
The joke about joining the US military to protect a billionaires oil investments is now just publicly stated government policy apparently.
I think it’s normalization. If they can ignore Congress, lie to them, break American law, ignore international law, what’s to stop them from violating the constitution? It’s how they will ultimately deport 100 million Americans, like they proposed a few days ago on the DHS Twitter account. Don’t fix things through the political process - just ignore them and use military force.
> And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela"
Venezuela is down to 1 million barrels per day, down from 3 million per day from the 2000s because of the sanctions after Hugo Chavez. They own the worlds largest reserve (about 300 billion barrels worth) and it was always my understanding that we worked with them before Hugo Chavez went the route he went and brought a great nation to shambles for a power trip.
I think Venezuela will recover with our aid, but a lot of their old infrastructure is gone, they will need investors. They will also need to deal with their crime problem and hold real elections for once.
Oil companies already had contracts that Maduro violated.
>> Never the US has been so honest around so many lies in the same speech.
Its more this: https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeTikToks/comments/1q34556/mill...
> I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime.
I heard that as Trump doing his usual thing patting himself on the back while justifying the continued use of our military for domestic law enforcement.
Why is this downvoted? He never misses a chance to say its a good thing that the military is being used on the American population. The recent ruling against the use of the National Guard comes at a time when Kavanaugh is just upset that his name is going down in history for the term Kavanaugh Stops
I'm not sure. Either people are reading it as though I'm approving what Trump does (I'm not), or they are and don't like my description of it.
>>"We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and >>judicious transition"- And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go >> into Venezuela"
The new President of Venezuela will be called Fulgencio Batista...
Hehe. Ok. This is not a funny thread but that is funny.
>ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
I get the impression they are concerned at least a bit with the welfare of Venezuelans. Maybe a secondary consideration to drugs and oil but here's what Trump was saying:
>We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious
transition. So, we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get
in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the
country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious
transition. And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about. We
want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela. (https://youtu.be/cQdRlS4uf0E?t=3784)
Then the hook is thoroughly in your cheek, if you haven't swallowed it
I'm a bystander but mildly optimistic.
Christ how old are you? Anyone alive during Iraq 2 has no excuse to be this naive.
You may as well be a bot
Bots don't have much of an opinion on these things. I'm disappointed that everyone is so cynical. At least the Venezuelans seem cheerful even if some HN commenters are not and sound like they'd be happier if Venezuela had another twenty years of poverty and dictatorship.
People who remember Iraq and Libya understand the difference between stable dictatorship and unstable warlord era. Removing those dictators left the countries more deadly and poor than otherwise. Libya in particular created the European refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. I suspect one outcome of this will be even more Venezuelan refugees, including illegally in the US.
You cannot possibly be this naive. Are you doing a bit?
> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
100x times this!
US administration doesn't care about the welfare of most human beings in the world (including in the US).
We saw it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Yemen and now Palestine. Having an assumption that this move was made for Venezuelans and now they're liberated from evil is wrong.
All those Mid East operations were way more for Israel than for the US. At least that's not a factor here.
Iraq was probably against Israel's interests. (Israel hates Iran, Iraq hated Iran. US taking out Iraq made Iran stronger which made Iran more threatening to Israel)
We did fund Iraq under Saddam during the Iraq-Iran war. By the 2000s, Israel absolutely wanted us to attack Iraq, for example https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-to-us-dont-delay-iraq-at...
Actually, they did not want US to attack Iraq:
https://forward.com/opinion/9839/sharon-warned-bush/
He didn't say not to attack. It says in there that he told Bush that Iraq was a threat, but that he shouldn't occupy Iraq or try to build a democracy there because it won't work. The rest of the article is 2007 hindsight.
He would have never been there if not for the USA in the first place...
This operation is to secure oil so that an attack on Iran doesn't destabilise oil supplies to the USA and Israel.
I feel like OPEC scales up/down production on a whim more than Iran produces.
Unless you mean the potential for a boycott like what happened back in the day. However the geopolitical situation has changed enough that i think that is exceptionally unlikely.
A boycott is one possibility, another is Iran closing the strait of hormuz, mines could take months to remove.
The war with Iran and Israel is coming in 2026 (with the support of USA) and I’m certain this move is in preparation for that.
I don't think Israel is capable of a ground invasion and i don't think USA has the stomach for it.
I suspect they will just continue to try and economically strangle iran and pick off their allies one by one in the hope of an internal revolution (or wait until there is so much economic damage they aren't relavent anymore)
That’s one hypothesis. Better: it’s to destabilise Cuba so Rubio can deliver to his base.
That thick crude requires refineries to crack it...
What did Afghanistan have to do with Israel?
Nothing, I wasn't including Afghanistan in "Mid East"
That's a little like saying "North America" and then clarifying you didn't mean the united states.
Nobody considers Afghanistan part of the Middle East
I bet 95% of the US does.
No it is like saying North American and clarifying that you did not mean Colombia.
I was appearently wrong here.
The psyops online is quite amusing and insane, painting this as a victory for Venezuela. And weirdly by pro-Israeli account on Reddit.
By now my radar assumes Israel is somehow connected like many other events we've witnessed in the past. Venezuelas president was quite staunchly against Israel and it's interests, close with Iran too.
Israel is just an extension of the US in the middle east under the branding of Judaism. The desire is to weaken and eventually ignite the region in conflict. Already taking place between Saudi, UAE, Yemen etc. Weakening takes time.
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About that
Funny list of countries. Ask women in Afghanistan how they were treated with US presence vs. now. Ask jews in Palestine how Hamas treated them vs. Israel. Ask people in Yemen how they are living right now, but be sure to talk to them directly instead of writing to them, because barely anybody there can read. Their leaders just love them so much, they don't want them to read any bad news.
Ask women in Afghanistan how they were treated with Soviet presence vs. now.
I don't have many good things to say about the USSR, but they are 100x better than the Taliban.
That's a fairly low bar.
This probably doesn’t make the point you think it does.
It goes back to the core issue: which nations have the moral right to tell others how to conduct domestic policy.
If you ask women in Afghanistan you will hear different views. People in the cities had a better life during the American occupation but in rural Afghanistan women were often worse off than under the Taliban. The US propped up warlords, some of them real monsters, and those controlled a lot of the country side. There was no good side in Afghanistan and the US should have stayed out, instead of propping up one group of oppressors to try to defeat another.
So what you say is that there wasn't too much western engagement, but too little. I agree.
> There was no good side in Afghanistan and the US should have stayed out, instead of propping up one group of oppressors to try to defeat another.
I mean... The Taliban caused 9/11... What did you exactly expect the US to do?
They didn't. They helped the organizers to hide after the fact.
And that's OK?
Fair and just societies thrive in refugee camps after all
I don't think I understand what your point is? Are you implying that the US should have what? Stayed in Afghanistan forever? What solution would you have proposed there?
I see a lot of people posting about a lot of Venezuelans being happy that Maduro is out, and many using that as providing moral justification for the action. But this seems murky to me. If say the majority of the US population would be happy if trump is gone, does that justify some other country coming in and kidnapping him (leave aside the ability and consequence of this)? It doesn't seem like it.
> But this seems murky to me.
It looks like propaganda. Day after, and then all the American news sites post stories about Venezuelans celebrating? Looks like propaganda. Almost no dissenting stories, no real discussion. Blackhawks and missiles at night, and hooray, spontaneous street parties, and news reporters just happen to be there to capture their "spontaneous" rejoicing. Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC, NBC. Rejoicing, dreams of democracy, yatta. CBS seems like one of the only sites that actually carried somewhat balanced coverage of people burning US flags, and no to American war.
Stop with the super-conspiracy talk. Conspiracy, sure. Super-conspiracy? No.
They may not be happy with him now, but they did vote for him. Can't say the same about Maduro.
My vote had absolutely zero impact on the election, and I haven't been able to vote for a person I actually liked, supported, and believed represented my interests in any national US election.
I'm mostly wouldn't like an external coup because it'd activate all my neighbors and we see a whole lot of violence in that struggle. I imagine I'd feel the same way if I lived in another country and some 3rd party deposed my government for arbitrary reasons.
“I don’t like my political candidate” is nothing even remotely similar to “I can’t vote”
Yes, blue is different than red, that is true enough. I mean, functionally I have zero representation, but theoretically anything is possible.
That's explicitly not true. The vast majority of your life is managed by much more local politicians where your vote matters a lot more. Not to mention, if the only time you vote is once it's "red vs. blue", you've missed the primaries, which is your chance to say which red or blue you want to see up there.
Having been involved with local governments and served on city council committees, my experience has been that they literally only care about things that are legible to them. If I have an idea about parking or a preference for landscaping, they are pretty responsive. If I want them to remove flock cameras they tell me I am a crank. And all the canidated running feel the same way.
But honesty, national politics are very local for me.
Because you can answer this question, maybe:
in what way did my vote in rural Colorado effect -any- election at -any- level in a way that I could have avoided this situation where I go to weekly protests against ICE?
Cause, hoss, I hate this shit. There is literally -nothing- more that I would love to believe than I could just, like, vote for a better local school board.
I am almost 50 and I am in the streets with kids because I know for a fact that mass deportations which started under Obama are the root of what we are seeing.
Or how about this:
literally what voting action have I have taken that makes me responsible for the two children who were kidnapped from my community by ICE, for whose sake I got pepper sprayed by DHS Federal Police and ICE, and who we were unable to prevent from being stolen.
Because while I feel culpable for not following up on all actions that I had at hand, I don't think that it was voting that led the feds to assault me and 20 of my comrades.
So you're smart- tell me how my vote caused that in a way that I can "do better next time".
I think Maduro almost certainly cheated. All history and our current geopolitical relationships indicate that does not matter to the US unless you oppose them.
Even pretending to follow international law when you don’t actually do so is, to some small degree, support for international law. What the US did is essentially state kidnapping of the sitting head of an another state. This is going to be vastly more stabilizing than Maduro cheating.
> The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
As opposed to what? Who "should" be the decider? China? Russia? Maduro? The Venezuelan Military?
The alternative is not that Venezuelans choose who stays in power democratically. The alternative, as we just saw until now, is that the Maduro dictatorship maintains power through force.
You seem to think US did this because Maduro was a dictator. They themselves clarified it's because of oil.
Why they don't attack Saudi Arabia then? Saudi's even had a role in 9/11.
Decades of lies shaped the narrative that all invasions US do is because countries have dictators, it's being the narrative even now when they explicitly say it's because of oil.
They didn't do it because of oil (well to take for ourselves). They did it because Venezuela has been cozying up way too much to Russia and China, and sending both of them a lot of oil.
The President of the United States quite literally plainly stated on national TV that we did it for oil and will be sending US oil companies in to steal their oil to sell for ourselves.
He even went so far as to say it was “our” oil a few weeks ago. That was quickly forgotten among a stream of other outrageous things that happen daily.
Today seems like a day to rewatch Team America: World Police
Maybe try learning something about oil extraction before making insane claims that it is even possible for an oil company to just roll up and "steal" oil and send it back to the US.
Maybe try realizing that everything out of that man's mouth is fucking insane?
That doesn't matter. What matters is what Trump thinks he's going to do.
I'm no fan of Trump, and I believe he's basically gone rogue, but, literally, he never said what you say he said. If I missed something, please provide a reference, but I doubt you'll find anything. You simply misheard. He's been extremely brazen in mentioning such a crass topic as American interest in Venezuelan oil, which normally would be pushed vigorously under the rug, but he didn't go as far as saying that's the reason. The official (and preposterous by itself) reason is still the drugs.
My take concords with what @JumpCrisscross said elsewhere in this thread:
"HN sometimes has trouble understanding coalitions. Some support for oil. Some want to unseat a dictator. Some are concerned about Venezuela being a hive of Chinese, Russian and Iranian activity. Some did it to destabilise Cuba, or lay the groundwork for hitting Iran. Still others are just plain psychopaths and like blowing things up."
I would add that personal pique probably had as big a part in this decision as anything else.
"We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country, and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so," Trump said.
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/03/g-s1-104346/trump-venezuela-m...
Do you think the plan is for American companies to come in and pump out the oil and pay nothing for it? 1800s colony stuff?
I think oil should not be a reason to take over the government of a sovereign nation, whatever deal is made with American companies.
Yes, and? Read my comment and the comment I was replying to. Nowhere did Trump "literally admit" they went in "for the oil". Nor that they plan to "steal the oil". I'm not saying that that's not part of the reason (probably is, but not the only one). Trump though, didn't "literally admit it". This whole adventure is outrageous and misguided enough as it is, without us needing to bend the truth to make it feel even more so.
Check the talking points memo distributed at 14:15 for an update.
That's the last place I would ever check to find out why a government did something
HN sometimes has trouble understanding coalitions.
Some support for oil. Some want to unseat a dictator. Some are concerned about Venezuela being a hive of Chinese, Russian and Iranian activity. Some did it to destabilise Cuba, or lay the groundwork for hitting Iran. Still others are just plain psychopaths and like blowing things up.
People, not only patrons of HN, like simple answers.
They look at clouds and see the patterns they want to see.
It turns out things are usually more complicated than that.
Personal pique probably, sadly, also played a role.
Personal pique positively played a primary part.
It definitely did. Not Trump, though.
It's Narco Rubio. He probably started shooting ropes the very moment he knew the operation was successful.
Yes, and oil will now flow to Florida - for as long as an obedient US puppet lives. The gal who actually won the election is not obedient enough for Trump since she doesn't have "support and respect" of the nation according to Trump.
Oh, I don't think the US should just topple all dictatorships!
If the US could press a button and have all dictatorships automatically become stable, liberal democracies, I'm pretty sure they would do that and we'd all be happy.
But the US cannot just topple the government of all dictatorships at once. If it tried that, it would just cause immense chaos, and all those countries would unite against the West.
The US has to ally with some dictatorships against other dictatorships, like it did with the USSR against the Nazis and how it does with Saudi Arabia against Iran.
Iran hates us since the Islamic Revolution (when we supported the Shah), and finances multiple terrorist groups such as Hesbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship, but at least it's not a revisionist state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_state) and has a more peaceful objective towards its neighbors.
If the US refused to ally with dictatorships, the only country in the entire Middle East that it could ally with is Israel. It would have to fight all other countries at once.
Why doesn't the US take Saudi Arabia's oil then?
Because they already have it under good enough control. Your question is like asking why the US does not invade Texas and take their oil.
They don't pay us anything to sell their oil. We have a relatively small partnership with them, but that's about it. And they're part of OPEC, which is deliberately designed counter to US interests.
because saudi already pays them. Saudi is already in their control. Iran isnt so they are plotting a regime change there too, use your brain.
As hard as it is to watch a people suffer a dictatorship; that's the Venezuelan's task, not the US's, not Russia's and not China's.
International law clearly states that a sovereign nation has the right to self-rule, without external intervention. The UN Charter doesn't differentiate between democractic and non-democratic nations - it's up to the people of a nation to select their leadership.
We've seen this principle violated before, when the Ukrainian people took the streets for months to topple their leader in 2014. Russia to this day takes this as an excuse to question Ukrainian sovereignty, framing the events as a "US coup" to justify their violent invasion of Ukraine.
The argument you make just plays in their hand. "There was a violent coup - we need to remove the coup government and bring back democracy to Ukraine", they say. Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized.
What if the US decides that it will not recognize the government of Denmark as democratically elected and moves to liberate the people of Greenland from their despotic dictatorship?
You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
I think you have some good points, but you take it too far. The UN charter is the way it is not because it's the optimal approach, but because non-democratic countries had too much power for it to be otherwise.
As an example, the American Revolution had support from France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Britain saw this as shocking interference in an internal matter, as did loyalists in America.
Personally, I think it was a good thing, helping a people determine their own fate. Applying the same measure here, I simultaneously think it's great Maduro is out, but that the manner of it is terrible. As well as being foolishly shortsighted, both for the US and the world more broadly.
The charter doesn't prohibit aiding people.
The charter limits the powerful nations. Rule #1 is nations cannot start wars. Starting a war is a crime.
The charter requires some consensus by the international community to authorize use of force against another country.
Article 51 acknowledges the right to self-defence. The only country that has a right to violence is the defending nation and those who aid it from aggression.
And this is, once again, American aggression. We aren't doing it because it's right. We're doing it because we can. In violation of international law.
I doubt there is any other "optimal" approach, but do say what you would propose.
There will always be indirect interference anyhow (think social networks, books, press, people talking, tariffs, visas, etc.), so there is some possibility for states to push things in their direction.l
I think imagining there can be some "authority" that could decide when "direct interference" is allowed or not will be a disaster at some point, because even if at first is OK, as a society we don't seem to be at a point where we can have organizations that work well for hundreds of years.
I'm not proposing anything. I'm pointing out that in a complex world simple rules, however appealing they are cognitively, aren't sufficient.
> but you take it too far.
you do know who the president of the United States currently is RIGHT ?
I think the last part of my post makes it clear that I do. But if not, let me just make clear that we have to struggle through the Harding administration as best we can, but better days are ahead.
Countries are not like IID random variables which is the basis of this sort of center-liberal argument.
> As an example, the American Revolution had support from France, the Netherlands, and Spain
But to what extent did they do it to "free" america vs to take Britian down a peg because they worried Britian was getting too powerful?
I think most people here are doubtful of Trumps motives or that this coup will actually lead to a free Venezuela.
America worked out really well. There are many many examples in history where imperial powers interfering in a local power struggle worked out very poorly for the average person of the country.
> America worked out really well.
That really depends on who you are asking.
Are these really separable? Even a an individual I generally have multiple motivations for an action. That has to be even more true for whole nations.
And I don't think there's any reason to be doubtful of Trump's motivations. He's a would-be tyrant and has made it clear that this is about world dominance, Venezuela's oil, and enriching American businessmen. He has no interest in a free, democratic Venezuela. If this does work out well for Venezuelans, it'll be more due to Trump's flaws (arrogance, laziness, increasing dementia, and the TACO phenomenon) than any intent on his part.
My read of your argument: international law says don't intervene in foreign government, and by intervening we legitimize future violence.
I'm not sure this argument makes sense. Maduro stole an election to force his way to dictatorship, is widely blamed for running the country into mass poverty, and continues to hold onto power through threat of violence. The Venezuelan people don't have any recourse here.
Also, in your example of Ukraine you indicate that Russia frames the uprising as a "US coup", suggesting that the reality of whether there even was external involvement isn't so important.
Even so, if some nation tried to use this strike on Venezuela as further justification for violence wouldn't they be violating the same international law you cite anyway?
Obviously the US has a rough track record of replacing foreign governments (a much stronger argument against this kind of act IMO), but so far this mission has looked pretty ideal (rapid capture of Maduro, minimal casualties, US forces instead of funding some rebel group). There is opportunity for a good ending if we can steward a legitimate election for Venezuela, assist with restoration of key institutions (legal, police, oil), and we avoid any deals regarding oil that are viewed as unfair by the Venezuelans.
You are deluding yourself. This is not some kind of "humanitarian" intervention, this is about controlling Venezuela and its resources[1]. Venezuela will not become a proper democracy after that, instead it will be an imperial US protectorate.
Whether Maduro stole the election or not is exactly and only the Venezuelans' issue. No one but them as a standing in the matter.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/03/world/trump-united-s...
I did not mean to suggest that our motives were purely humanitarian. As I understand it there are numerous geopolitical implications with Venezuela, from China's loans-for-oil relationship to the Iran assisted drone manufacturing facilities. And of course we'd like some of that oil, too.
I'm just not convinced that removing Maduro is some horrible violation of international law. As I said in my original comment, I'd be more sympathetic to the argument that the US has a horrible track record with regime change.
Regardless, given the geopolitical significance of Venezuela's relationships with China and Iran it is ignorant to suggest that "[only Venezuelans have] a standing in the matter." And the illegitimacy of Maduro's election is not a topic of serious debate as your phraseology might suggest. He stole the election, he's bad for Venezuelans, and he's good for our geopolitical rivals. It is yet to be revealed whether our intervention will be a net positive.
Panama has done fine since a similar intervention.
The US didn't loot Iraq or Kuwait.
Trump is supremely transactional, so he doesn't do anything for free, but the high likelihood is that the US as a whole will spend more than it gets back in revenue, especially government revenue.
Panamá is doing "fine" because they actually own their fucking canal. If the US had its way and reestablished the Canal Zone, the rest of the country would collapse in on itself.
Which is exactly what they want to do with the Venezuelan oil.
Their canal? The US first built Panama, and then built the canal.
> Their canal?
Today, the Panama Canal is owned and operated by the government of Panama.
> The US first built Panama, and then built the canal.
We can concede that the US played the most significant role in the construction of the canal and applying pressure for Panamanian secession from Colombia, but Panama’s national identify predates the United States.
I love the USA too, but please chill with the rhetoric.
Right. I'm not disputing that the canal is, in fact, owned by Panama today. Nor am I suggesting the US should take it back even though I think it was pretty stupid to give it away.
You did in fact imply just that with your 'Their canal?'.
Was the North wrong in attacking the South in the American Civil War over slavery? By your logic, only the slaves have standing in the matter.
The North did not attack the South; it was the Confederates who initially succeeded from the Union and fired the first shot of the Civil War at Fort Sumter in 1861.
The North was obviously threatening to engage in war against the South over the slavery/secession issues. Whoever fired the first shot is immaterial.
Yes it does matter because by succeeding they broke the US Constitution, and by attacking the US military they committed an act of war against the United States military. Your comparison to the current situation in Venezuela doesn't hold because the US Civil War wasn't a foreign intervention, it was a domestic constitutional conflict.
There is not one word in the US constitution that bans secession.
Ok! Imagine the North was the one to fire the first shot to end slavery. In a hypothetical different timeline. Apparently you would oppose this and would just support letting slavery exist indefinitely in the south?
the south was already signed onto the law for ending slavery, and were part of the same union.
you havent made a good enough hypothetical yet.
there's no lack of slave states around, including ones that the US does business with happily. i think yes, if you made your hypothetical "what if the US had a slaver neighbor" yes, the US would be leaving them alone, other than some economic pressures here and there
You’re assuming that’s the only thing at issue here. When the US starts these wars for resources we always make statements about “spreading democracy” so we can hide behind that bailey. But Trump actually explained what it was really about in his speech: restoring access to cheap Venezuelan oil. Don’t give him the benefit of the doubt here. He’s doing the sane thing George W Bush did.
> The argument you make just plays in their hand
Who cares? What are they going to do about it?
> Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized.
That was already the case. Our enemies don't care about the concept of hypocrisy. They aren't waiting for some moral high ground. They are going to do what they want to do regardless.
> You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
No it doesn't. If it is bad to invade somewhere, we can simply not do that. And we can judge this based on the situation and the consequences.
> Who cares? What are they going to do about it?
Yeah, sorry. You're an imperialist. There's not point reasoning with imperialists. Just as there's not point reasoning with bullies.
> There's no point reasoning with imperialists
I'm not sure why you think that matters either.
Your tut tutting isn't going to get Maduro back in power. That's what the guns and helicopters were for.
Additionally, if you want to actually figure out what was right or wrong, Id recommend that you go talk to some actual Venezuelans about this. The opinions are quite universal.
> International law clearly states that a sovereign nation has the right to self-rule, without external intervention. The UN Charter doesn't differentiate between democractic and non-democratic nations - it's up to the people of a nation to select their leadership.
I really wish people would accept that political realism is how the US really operates, rather than buying into the fantasy that there is some rules based order and quoting the UN Charter.
> The argument you make just plays in their hand.
Any argument made on this site by anyone here will have absolute no effect on the outcome in anyway. That has been the case for all of human history and will never change.
International law is not real.
The UN Charter isn't real?
"Article 1 (2) establishes that one of the main purposes of the United Nations, and thus the Security Council, is to develop friendly international relations based on respect for the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”. The case studies in this section cover instances where the Security Council has discussed situations with a bearing on the principle of self-determination and the right of peoples to decide their own government, which may relate to the questions of independence, autonomy, referenda, elections, and the legitimacy of governments."
https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/purposes-and-...
It isn't. There isn't a force standing behind to enforce the charter.
With politics and most importantly international politics, there is no law and no right & wrong. It's basically actions and consequences and whether the advantage you gain from your actions is worth the consequences.
People and groups of people (nations) will press their advantage. We press our advantage every day. Most people driving frequently exceed the speed limit - why? Because you can get away with it. If one could skip paying taxes and get away with it we would have done it. The reason the tax skipping doesn't happen often is because the consequences of doing it are high compared to the advantage.
The US just pressed its advantage today because it could get away with it and with minimal cost.
> The UN Charter isn't real?
Correct. The UN charter is a piece of paper.
Pieces of paper don't do anything. They are not magic spells that enforce anything, and they only matter in so far as they are enforced by other actors with real power.
If you want to talk about what other countries with a military or trade power might do, go ahead. But the piece of paper is rarely relevant at the international stage.
The only thing that matters is what the guys with the guns want to take from you
That was certainly the case on The Walking Dead with the various surviving communities. But we should hope the actual world would operate a little more lawfully than a post-apocalyptic free for all.
The law is only lawful because the guys with guns say it is
So Russia's invasion of Ukraine will be legal if Russia wins? I doubt most people in the West will see it that way. Might makes right has never been a good basis for law.
I would argue that the concept of "legal" has no meaning in this setting. But if Russia wins in Ukraine, everyone will call it illegal, and nobody will do a damn thing to push them out. Eventually the world will recognize it as Russian territory just like they recognized it as Soviet territory and part of the Russian Empire before that. So yeah, it will be legal.
Keep hoping!
International law is real. It has discernible content, people who professionally study it, and it does influence (however incompletely) the behaviour of the world’s governments
This idea that law can’t exist if it doesn’t have a clearly identified enforcer is very modern-a lot of traditional/customary law (e.g. the Pashtunwali in Afghanistan or the Kanun in Albania) never had a clear enforcer but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, people sometimes paid attention to it, it influenced how people behaved even if they sometimes got away with ignoring it
Law is defined as "a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior".
International law is defined as "the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations".
When people say that international law is not real, what they mean is that "international law" is to "law" as a "guinea pig" is to a "pig".
The primary differentiation is enforcement.
People bastardize the term law, because they like to throw the word "illegal" around and imply "evilness" without being arbitrary. But guess what: Trump can be evil, without his actions being "illegal".
Without international law, actions would be the same (Serbia gets punished, Rwanda gets away), but you would have to argue for morality individually. Instead, people can point to some tome some unelected people wrote and say "this book says you're evil and you can't argue with it". The book says it's illegal and that's that.
". . . people sometimes paid attention to it . . ."
Exactly.
Failure to understand this is a primary cause of a lot of unneeded consternation
Then it's just "might makes right" and you pick a favorite imperialist to cheer on to invade their next peaceful neighbor.
Sorry, but I don't buy into that imperialism shit.
Always has been
That imperialism shit doesn't care what you think because it's bigger and meaner than you are and there ain't a damn thing you can do about it.
Once normal people get desperate and mean enough, imperialism tends to loose in a big way. History has proven it at great cost.
Yep, the "great cost" is something that seems to get lost in the shuffle sometimes in conversations about this. No leadership realizes the error of their ways before a lot of suffering.
Not to justify what happened here, but your argument would mean that the US would likely have remained a British colony given that French intervention on behalf of the colonies was a contributing factor to the success of the revolutionary war. It also would heavily imply that once the allied forces had beaten the Nazi's back behind German borders, that they should have stopped there. An extreme non-interventionist policy might be the best default policy, but it is implicitly an endorsement of might makes right as well. There are almost certainly times when a country should feel justified in intervening in another country's "regime change", but those times should be very carefully considered and (IMO) never ever viewed as a first or easy step, only a last (or nearly last) resort.
Your argument is perfectly well suited to justify the imperialist Russian aggression against Ukraine.
My point is that there's no entity with the authority to declare a government illegal - besides the UN security council. Next thing you know China invades Taiwan and it will be hard to argue with "sovereignty of nations". Nobody - not even the US - cares about it anymore, right? We just declare a government as illegitimate and presto - no need to justify it anymore. Here we go for some more foreign wars.
This is not about "liberating Venezuela" from a dictatorship. It's just about placing a new dictator at the head of Venezuela, equally illegitimate and equally authoritarian. Venezuela has become an US protectorate for the foreseeable future. At least until the oil runs dry [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/03/world/trump-united-s...
> Your argument is perfectly well suited to justify the imperialist Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Once you accept that there may be cases where you need to interfere with another country’s internal affairs, you can make up all sort of justifications to interfere (or not) in any given case. So yes, Russia would argue that the specific circumstance justify their actions. I would argue they don’t, but clearly Russia doesn’t care about me (and frankly wouldn’t care even if my opinion was that there is never a justification for interfering).
> My point is that there's no entity with the authority to declare a government illegal - besides the UN security council.
Now that’s an interesting claim. Why does the security council have this authority? From where do they derive that authority? Just 15 nations can declare your government “illegal”? Unless of course the government you want declared illegal happens to be one of those 15 I guess. So some nations internal affairs are more sacrosanct than others? And what happens when the UN declares your government “illegal”. Can anyone just waltz their military in and overthrow your government despite the fact that no one is supposed to have the right to interfere with the internal affairs of another country?
> This is not about "liberating Venezuela" from a dictatorship.
You appear confused because I never argued that it was. I merely objected to the idea that there was never a justification to interfere with the internal affairs of another country.
> imply that once the allied forces had beaten the Nazi's back behind German borders, that they should have stopped there.
How does “we should not interfere in other countrys’ internal affairs” imply “we should not destroy the aggressor in a war they started”?
The principles of self defense say that once you are no longer being attacked, any further aggression on your part is no longer defense. For example, you can use lethal force to protect yourself from a person attempting to cause you grievous harm, but once they stop attacking you and start retreating, if you chase after them and beat them or kill them, you’re no longer acting in self defense and are now committing a crime. By that same token, once the axis forces had been pushed back behind their own borders, invading them becomes an act of aggression rather than defense. Once they’re behind their own borders, fascist war mongering governments are an “internal affair” for the affected peoples to deal with.
Now you might argue that a declared war is no longer a situation where “non-interference” applies, but war can be declared unilaterally. So you might say that only the initial defenders have a right to engage in regime changes, but does that mean that the Ukrainian people have a right to overthrow the Russian government in response to the current war? Do the Palestinians have a right to overthrow the Israeli government? Do the Irish have a right to overthrow the British monarchy for their previous aggressions? Do the British have a right to overthrow the US government for the American Revolution?
Which ultimately is just a long way of getting back to my point that “non-interference” might be (and IMO is) a good default policy, it’s also an unrealistic one for all situations. At some point something about the current political landscape requires a nation to interfere in the “internal affairs” of another country. But that is a dangerous game that should never be the default.
Ukraine was a US coup too, decades of involvement. Otherwise, either Russia wouldn't have invaded, or US wouldn't have been afraid to directly fight Russia over it. The sad reality is that countries in this situations will get captured or proxied by someone or another if they don't play things exactly right.
Yes, tell this to the protesters shot by Berkut in 2014... I have to ask - where do you read this bullcrap?
Shot by Russia-backed forces, yes. Both Russia and US were heavily involved by 2014. Talks with NATO go back to the 90s.
Yes, so let's imagine for a second there was no US involvement (there was minimal, in an advisory and intelligence role); Would Yanukovich still be in power? Would 2014 would've gone any different? Do you know what events happened preceding the shootings? The police violently beating the protesters? Obviously not on all counts. So to say that the Maidan was a result of US involvement is a russian talking point on a good day and a blatant, filthy lie on any other.
If you imagine that there was no US involvement and Ukraine's leadership did not in fact repeatedly state its intentions to fully join NATO in the 2000s, sure. I won't claim that the US materially supported the Maidan uprising, because there's no evidence.
Now going with that, it means Russia invaded Ukraine in an act of pure aggression. Instead of the halfway support Biden gave, we should be directly fighting Russia over this. Putin won't start WW3 over us stopping a totally unjustified expansion, unless he's already intent on WW3 anyway.
Now we're in agreement. Boots on the ground by 1st March 2022 would've saved us a whole lot of trouble in the long run, and a whole lot of lives. A bully never stops when he remains unchallenged.
Except that didn't happen in 2022 or later, so something in this story doesn't add up. And there's no reason to ignore that Ukraine kept expressing interest in joining NATO, that's actually a big deal.
NO.
Ukraine was NEUTRAL and NON-ALIGNED when russia invaded in 2014.
Putin's "NATO expansion" excuse is a barefaced LIE, and it's time more people called it out.
"From 2010 to 2014, Ukraine pursued a non-alignment policy, which it terminated in response to Russia’s aggression. In June 2017, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation reinstating membership in NATO as a strategic foreign and security policy objective. In 2019, a corresponding amendment to Ukraine's Constitution entered into force." (https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/partnerships-and-cooperat...)
2014 yeah, only under Yanukovych who was on Russia's side. 2005-2010, Yushchenko publicly stated that he wanted Ukraine to join NATO and was taking steps towards it, while both Bush and Obama supported expanding NATO to Ukraine.
"I welcome the decision by President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and Parliament Chairman Arseny Yatsenyuk to declare Ukraine's readiness to advance a Membership Action Plan (MAP) with NATO" -Obama
Before 2005, there were already smaller steps taken, including granting NATO military access. 2005 was a disputed election with both Russia and US involved.
Regardless, that was before 2010, after which neutrality and non-alignment were written into Ukraine's constitution.
It doesn't make Putin any less of a liar and a monster.
Why does history have to start in 2010 for a 2014 war? You're picking a Russia-backed presidency that was getting ousted before Russia attacked. There's no way they were going to stay nonaligned. That 2010 law was just a law, signed by the president, undoable by the next (and it was undone).
"Russia then occupied and annexed Crimea, and in August 2014 Russia's military invaded eastern Ukraine to support its separatist proxies. Because of this, in December 2014 Ukraine's parliament voted to seek NATO membership, and in 2018 it voted to enshrine this goal in its constitution." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine%E2%80%93NATO_relations)
A full ten months elapsed before Ukraine finally decided to change its constitution. That rather destroys your argument.
Russia attacked directly after Ukraine removed their nonalignment leadership. I'm not saying Ukraine changed its constitution before the attack, just that the 2010 law was evidently possible to reverse.
Even if Russia didn't attack, Ukraine would've gone back to NATO alignment just as they were doing pre 2010. Maybe even more seeing how the entire point of the 2014 revolution was to push away from agreements with Russia, and the protest leaders were all loudly pro-NATO politicians. How could this possibly have led to nonalignment, aside from "this is a Russian talking point"?
russia attacked on the basis of a presumption, not a fact. (And, considering the stakes, that was a colossal presumption to make...)
Furthermore, nowhere, in any of his speeches, did Putin refer to this presumption. He pretends that 2010-2014 never happened, which is a lie.
There are many alternatives to a unilateral unconstitutional action by a convicted felon.
Anything multilateral for starters, and involving multilateral nonviolent interventions first.
You… What?
How can you say that like it’s a real argument? You’re REALLY, in 2026, defending that the US is “bringing democracy” to other countries by force?
I… How?
The Venezuelan people?
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You said "democratically", which is not necessary
The issue is that the "Venezuelan people" cannot decide because they are under a dictatorship.
Of course they can. At any time they can decide they've had enough and overthrow their government.
It happened in the past. Ever heard of the French Revolution?
If it was about democracy the US would be kidnapping presidents left and right every year all around the world...
… including in the US
You have to think of the long-term consequences of blatantly abandoning the rule of (international) law for might makes right. The end doesn't justify the means.
Not to mention that the "end" here is first and foremost enriching the administrative "elite" and extending their power. If they cared about democracy, they'd stand firmly behind Ukraine instead of humoring Russia.
I think a coup was forming regardless. Fort Tiuna where Maduro was is not near the coast. So basically no one heard/saw/detected the US forces coming that far inland. Also, most importantly, no one stopped them from leaving with their president.
The whole "we got him" is a bit fishy. I think the Venezuelan military (and the current vice president) wanted Maduro out. A coup would have been messy. So the US comes in and does them a favor.
One can look at the shadow of drug boat strikes and reasonably conjecture that there are some undisclosed collaborative relationships.
Part of the function of the fleet sitting off the coast for the past month would have been first intimidating then cultivating relationships with collaborators. Collaborators are far easier to find if there's a credible chance that things are about to change.
If it's fair game to do this in Venezuela, it's fair game here in the US.
That's not really how power works
If that is you actual view of society, than you reject the concept of law itself. Just because people are able to act against the law (and get away with it) doesn't make law obsolete. In fact if they wouldn't act against it, there would be no reason to have a law.
Just sayin
And to be fair nearly happened in July 2024 as the last item of a long list of incident involving U.S. Presidents starting from Lincoln all the way up to the July 2024 episode and of course the last successful hit being JFK in 1963 and the last successful injury being the one suffered by Ronald Reagan
There is no "fair game" in geopolitics
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Isn't that the case though? Where's the separation of powers or the rule of law in the US?
To be clear, I'm not favoring any kind of such action, just holding the honesty of the statement.
Socialism = tyranny? Wow. I guess you prefer the freedom of being bankrupted if you get injured, and getting taken by masked men from an unmarked van if you got some tan on your vacation, and then dropped to El Salvador.
I would choose civil war over being ruled by socialist any it's not close.
Would you elaborate on your definitions for “being ruled” and “socialist”?
Does that mean you would prefer violent rebellion over a United States president with social liberal public policies?
Would you have taken up arms under either of the Roosevelts?
Extremism and violence tend to go hand-in-hand.
Did I say "social democrat" or did I say "socialist"?
Its all about the oil.
Yeah, Trump directly said it multiple times throughout his speech today.
At least he's honest, even if it's more like he lacks an effective filter. "bannana republics" and "bigger gun diplomacy" don't quite describe Trumps approach to foreign policy. One thing i can say about the operation is that it's a lot cheaper and less bloody then a ground invasion.
Someone should tell him Iran has loads of oil and China is getting it all...
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IMO this has nothing to do with Maduro. This is just the first step. It is about the US securing large reserves of oil. Don't get caught into the propaganda.
The US doesn’t need large reserves of oil. The US is an energy exporter. The country is limiting investment in solar and wind, ON PURPOSE.
This is crony capitalism. This is Trump shoring up support from oil companies.
Mr Trump has purposefully depressed the value of non-petroleum energy sources in the US, which props up the value of US oil Producers and processors.
And now, This is a territory takeover by a mafia don, so he can hand favors to other rich guys. Maduro wasn’t doing the deal Trump wanted, so this is what Trump did.
If solar and wind were thriving in the US (as they could be!) then this new oil territory would be worth less. That’s why Trump hates wind. He cannot convert clean energy into a benefit for himself.
It’s not about drugs or fentanyl. It’s not about democracy or corrupt elections in VZ.
Alas, we're back to 1989. Bush did the same to Noriega in Panama when he stopped playing ball with the CIA.
Yes it is similar. And note that Congress was also not consulted back then.
> We're back in the 70s
To be fair we did almost exactly this in 1989 in Panama [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
On the relative upside, Panama was a 10X smaller country. The US had some long-term skin in the game with the Canal. And Bush Sr. was in the Oval Office - making it not-too-hard to imagine that sane grown-ups were in charge.
Vs. "70s" sounds far more like Vietnam. And a whole load of other bigger/uglier/longer conflicts, under Presidents whose moral and military leadership seemed rather lacking.
greenland must be having difficult discussions right now
I guess Europe has a new base of operations and colo for radar and signal intelligence. Welcome to the EU. Bullies are coming, prepare yourself.
If Europe is able to ramp up to match US aggressiveness..
They cannot afford not to. Issue the euro bonds and spin up the defense industry faster.
(one could make the case euro bonds are a superior alternative to US treasuries based on governance trajectories)
Hope so, so far reactions have been mild, maybe by design, maybe by incompetence ..
Unfortunately there are not many options. EU is surrounded by hostile countries like Russia, USA and China.
yeah, all I'm saying is that so far I don't see a strong enough response (or maybe things are moving but kept secret for valuable reasons)
Cuban forces with the help of Russia, Iran and China took control of Venezuela over 25 years ago, effectively looting that nation, and no one bitched about it.
Given his 0/2 track record on targeted prosecutions I wonder what the chance is that Maduro wins in court. What the hell would happen then?
Deportation to el salvador of course. You really need to keep up.
A more important question is if he does get sentenced will Trump just pardon him https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o
Does Maduro still have access to enough money to make the bribe? If not, he won't be getting a pardon.
As a brazilian, could you clarify what you mean by "The Brazilian Regime"?
Genuine question, the decades long dictatorship backed by the US military in 64 or the recent pressure Trump made to try and put Bolsonaro back into power despite his crimes?
It is so crazy that he is not turning around and putting the World Peace Prize winner in place. Everyone can get behind that and it is probably the fastest way to getting oil companies in there anyway.
There's no power change, the core of your whole post is wrong
All of Maduro's people are still in power and the president just said the woman who actually won the vote is not suitable to be in charge
Good luck with the US running another country when we are cratering ourselves
Impeach him and send him to the Hague for trial if this was so justified
BTW they are now talking about Cuba, we are headed for WW3 by 2028
Apparently, the Venezuelan vice president has sold out her country or is acting out of duress because she has allegedly offered full cooperation with the US. That could be a viable way to a US-led military/CIA dictatorship there, if the Venezuelan military and police around her allows it to happen. She seems to be in the line of succession. That seems to be the current "plan."
Yes, she has no democratic base since Maduro took power via election fraud. Watch the media to see if they just copy the feeds from the press agency, or that they will do the work they should actually be doing and put what-is-actually-going-on in focus.
The fourth estate xor corporate media.
source? all that is being reported is her asking for proof of life and him back
That information is outdated by now. The assessment was based on Trump's claim that the US will work together directly with her instead of Machado, whom he considers unfit to be president right now. It was an attempt of giving a rational explanation of Trump's and Rubio's press conference. I assumed that in order for their statements to make sense there would have to be some backdoor deal with her. However, she has given a speech now condemning the attack and refuting the US narrative (although, leaving some door open for diplomacy).
I can't edit the original comment any longer so I hope people read this one. In any case, the situation is still very fluid.
And Mexico, he just talked about it.
> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelan
Depending on how cynical you are, you could say that all American administrations are like that. (I don’t think that’s quite true—I think Reagan/Bush had a genuine ideological vision of using foreign policy to promote democracy and capitalism around the work. But it’s certainly a common criticism.)
Maduro stole the election and no one in Venezuela could do anything about it. How exactly was Venezuela going to take care of it themselves?
Ultimately it's going to be outside actors, and no matter who it was, even the UN, Venezuela could just say we don't recognize your authority and nothing would happen
> Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
Lol this is already proven false.
The put the Vice President in power who is now coincidentally supporting what the US is doing, including sending oil companies in to as Trump put it “sell oil to the Chinese”.
Trump also did not even inform the armed services or foreign affairs committees. He spoke to FOX before he spoke to Congress. It is not clear if he's done or if we just declared war. His public statement that the US will now be majorly involved in Venezuelan oil is both very telling and very mysterious. How the hell are we going to assert power over their industry without foisting a new, friendlier government?
We definitely didn't declare war if Congress isn't in session or otherwise able to vote.
On the contrary, kidnapping the defacto leader of a nation is very much an act of war.
Of course not. There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
>ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans
Neither was doing that with other countries they ransacked. The other was pouring enough propaganda at you so that you think it is somehow different.
Easiest path from here on for the US is to cooperate with existing power structures in the resources grab/"sharing" + forcing some concessions, like increased efforts to fight against drug trafficking.
Looks like it: celebratory crowd
https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2007464418565648690
I hate to break it to you, but that video’s from Chile, as it says in the chat.
See for yourself: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BctQ7hV798imS4cF8?g_st=ipc
Why couldn’t this be resolved using the international institutions we already have? What needs to change?
> Why couldn’t this be resolved using the international institutions we already have?
They’re dead and have been for decades. The reason is they had no enforcement arm.
Mostly because the US has been boycotting them.
The institutions work if all countries abide by their rulings. The US doing this sort for things is destroying the institutions we have, chief of all the UN and the ICJ, put in place at the end of World War 2 to avoid a repeat. We have not learned.
JFK tried to build up international institutions on the basis that "Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside", but then both he and NSK got cancelled...
This has nothing to do with JFK - it was put in place in 1945
Yes, the UN was founded in 1945, and the Geneva Conventions originated all the way back in 1864, but some US administrations have tried to bolster international institutions, and some to tear them down. JFK, having said, "If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved" was among the former.
In 1962, he and NSK managed to arrive at a diplomatic cooperation; the reward for both of them was being cancelled.
That would be the UN. The last time the UN invaded a nation was in 1950. That happened because the Soviet Union boycotted the UN, so it wasn't able to veto it.
For the UN to ever fix a international issue it would require that country to anger all 5 UN powers. Venezuela has Russia and China on its side, so nothing would have happened.
Don't celebrate early. It's all a Hollywood plot, just like 911. Only the innocent suffer
It's debatable - to put it mildly - whether Maduro is the legitimate president of Venezuela.
>> There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans,
I don't think this was a humanitarian mission. I'm speculating from Trump's perspective, Maduro was a major de-stabilizing factor. The Western world also seems to tacitly agree that the man had to go -- I don't think Maria Machado's recent Nobel Peace Prize was coincidence.
Maduro was a figurehead. The rest of the inner circle of that government is still running things.
Conceptually, tariffs could help manufacturing. The policy Trump actually enacts, massive and unpredictable tariffs on manufacturing inputs, turns out to destroy manufacturing. Conceptually, removing Maduro might help the people of Venezuela…
“ The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.”
This is a new opinion. What is your basis for not believing might makes right in an anarchic system?
Because might makes right in all systems
They brought a lot of drugs into the US, don't ignore that. The drugs are destroying the US teens.
Whether Maduro was the legitimate president of Venezuela remains to be proved.
Everyone knows he wasn't. That's not the issue here.
> if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes
This is the key. Trump loves dictators, no matter how they got into power. As long as they give him what he wants or he's afraid of them.
No, he just plays politics like you must in a complex world of 185 countries, many of which are run by dictators or dictator-like figures.
Name a leader he has anything positive to say about who isn't brutal dictator.
Meloni of Italy, Milei of Argentina, Shinzo Abe of Japan, Modi of India, etc etc not hard at all to find plenty of examples
Orbán isn't brutal AFAIK.
He seems to quite like Keir Starmer and Meloni.
Milei was democratically elected and he praises him all the time.
Anthony Albanese.
Alexander Stubb, Finish President
Must? its a choice. Even more of a choice when you're on top.
Trump might not have a choice not because they don't exist, but because he is incapable of understanding them. He's clear on not believing in win/win scenarios.
Trump has stated his admiration for Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un.
He respects them to the extent that you must for competent opponents. Sometimes, you have to play politics. You have to try to get what you want with compliments before you rush to sacrifice American lives and treasure over what might have been settled diplomatically. And sometimes, you have to bide your time for the right moment to show your full hand.
Perhaps people forget that countries are sovereign and can do whatever they want. The "global order" has always been based on strength: the stronger do what they want and the weaker do what they can.
What the US have just done is not something new because of Trump.
We are told about "international law" and "norms" so much that we perhaps forget that this is mostly BS.
This is the attitude that permits world wars. In the aftermath of WW2, a lot of people genuinely believed in the power of international law to prevent WW3. Now, it seems like a ton of people think that's just BS, and the fact that so many people think that is what makes it BS. If a strong majority of people actually believed in international law, it would be "real".
I guess sometimes you just need WW3.
"It's in your nature to destroy yourselves"
The people who actually experienced (either directly fighting in, or living through it) have already died or are rapidly dying out.
We have no concept of just how horrifying a world war would be.
I do. I've visited countries that were at war and I have my grandmothers diaries.
Everybody that is cheering this on has a significant gap in their education.
> Everybody that is cheering this on has a significant gap in their education.
Macron, President of the French Republic, for reference, says:
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible."
--- https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/2007525843401154891
1951. And just as powerful today.
> > If a strong majority of people actually believed in international law, it would be "real".
International law has always been BS, what works is fear of retribution by the offended party or retribution from the observers thinking they might be next and getting together to enact preventive measures
If international law had any effect people would believe in it. You're mixing cause/effect. This situation has been going on for years and the lack of response by international organizations makes people lose all confidence in them.
It's the same with money: if people believe in it it works, if they stop believing in it it stops working.
So there is no cause and no effect, it is something mutually reinforcing.
It is not an attitude. It is a statement of fact.
"International law" are voluntary agreements but countries remain sovereign. The only way to force something is to have bigger guns and/or more economic power than the other countries and, as it happens, the US are #1 on both.
Edit: The best protection we have against WWIII is not "international law", it's that the big guys can instantly nuke each others.
I don't think you're wrong, but it's one of those facts that's basically a self-fulfilling prophecy, like "the bank is failing" (which, if people think is true, quickly becomes true) or "money has value".
The US is a superpower of course, but world wars are multilateral, and US alliances are not what they were just a year ago.
You forget that the cold war wasn't won by the US alone. But by the alliance systems which centered around the US.
The US is no longer a credible partner, and without coalition forces the recreational wars in the 2000s would have been a lot less "fun".
I'm not so sure you want a global order based on strength. You don't want small countries with little to loose arming do with nukes. But voting for it is suddenly very attractive.
That's interesting because the post-WWII Western alliance system at large is largely born of the US military and economic might: most of those countries were invaded by the US and then helped economically by the US. Obviously a commom adversary (the communists) helped but it was, and still is "led" by the US for a reason.
The global order is based on strength, both military and economic strength. I am just stating the obvious here.
Countries that joined NATO did so voluntarily. The pressure to join NATO was never from the US, it was always from Russia.
> The global order is based on strength,
To an extend yes, but small countries wouldn't be as eager or willing to play with the US, if the rules weren't largely followed.
The conversation is about what's right
People commit crimes despite it being illegal. That doesn't make laws "BS".
And yes, this is not something new. It is something old. It is something that we have left behind us and Donald Trump should therefore be condemned.
You and I are subject to the law. This is not voluntary and it will be enforced against us by the state.
On the other hand, countries are sovereign. They are not subject to "laws", and if they do it is on a voluntary basis. Ultimately it boils down to military and economic strength for a country to be able to stand its ground and do what it wants. We never left this behind, this has always been the case.
From the replies it seems that commenters believe that countries are subject to "laws" the same way that they are...
The goal of the rules based international order was to subject countries to laws, yes. Those laws could have been (and were various times in the past) enforced by larger organizations in the same way the state acts on citizens. Westphalian Sovereignty is not any more real than the rules based international order - clearly Venezuela's sovereignty did nothing for them here.
There was never any "larger organizations", only the larger, more powerful countries that enforced the "international order" that suited them.
There was a time when Germany thought just like that. In the aftermath we decided that maybe it's not such a good idea, this might-makes-right thing and we strove for a world where transitions are peaceful because we realized that our power to kill had grown to proportions unseen in our history and because some of us - rightly, in my view - felt that the human race itself was now in the balance.
If you toss that out you have to at least acknowledge all possible outcomes. People - even powerful people, and powerful countries too - should be subject to the law because no single person and no single country stands above all the others.
Actually, what has happened to Germany is exactly an expression of what I described in my previous comments.
> powerful countries too - should be subject to the law
Perhaps so but that is idealistic. Again, countries are sovereign, there is no such things as "laws" in the sense that applies to individuals that apply to them, only voluntary agreements. Practically you would also need a level above countries with its own overwhelming force to enforce it, and that simply does not exist.
I am trying to discuss the world as it is, including indeed in the legal sense, not as it might be in dreams because that's pie in the sky and totally unbounded in scope.
Yes, you're pretending to be a 'realist' who is wise because of your grounded worldview, but you totally miss the forest for the trees: if we don't want to end with blowing ourselves up then we have to depart from the might is right and 'how the world is' mentality because that stops us from changing into a future where we will not blow ourselves up.
Your worldview is essentially a pessimistic one, mine an optimistic one: I think we are capable of change. We just make the stupid mistake of putting egomaniacs in positions of power all the time and then we are surprised by the outcomes.
Some of the most powerful words ever spoken in American history were 'I have a dream'. Dreams are good, especially if they are dreams of a better world and we all should strive to create that world, not to declare it a pipe dream and get on with the business of raping each other.
I am not "pretending" anything. That's quite a personally aggressive term and I don't know what your beef against me is.
I don't have anything against what you wrote but I think that it has no discussion value in context and probably in general.
I would suggest that you take a look at the "Politics and the English Language" essay by Orwell. The person you are responding to is making a fair point that this is well trodden ground, albeit not in the most diplomatic terms. It would be helpful to engage with the arguments presented, otherwise we are just spinning our wheels here unconsciously relitigating issues from the 1930s.
Strange oblique accusation as neither Venezuela nor my comments have anytging to do with the "the 30s" or even politics (or Germany's past). Perhaps there is a lack of perspective and indeed realism in the reply or a Pavlovian reaction to "Trump" conditioned by some media (Trump is a fascist, Musk a Nazi, etc).
As said there were no arguments presented nor anything to discuss about the geopolitical situation so I don't know what to engage with.
An interesting discussiin might be about the reasons for the US' actions and their reasons for this course of action (capture) vs more classic coup.
To be helpful, do you have a solution in mind?
If so, what’s the next step and how long do you think it will take for a world in which no country is above the law… but no mechanism to create and enforce such law?
Einstein had some interesting thoughts about this, I don't have a reference handy but it boils down to a UN with teeth, effectively a single world government. And I think that that is something I could get behind because countries are not stable enough over a long enough period of time to give us what we need.
Even so, there is a lot of potential for abuse there too and it will most likely never happen because human nature is what it is.
> a single world government. And I think that that is something I could get behind because countries are not stable enough over a long enough period of time to give us what we need.
I assume you would want such a world government to be some form of democracy? If so, it would mean near-zero voice for Australians (0.32% of world population), Germany (1%), The Netherlands (0.21%), UK (0.83%), France (0.83%).
It would, however, mean much more say for Russia (1.7%), China (17.2%), India (17.8%).
What moral code should such a democratic world government adopt? Would it be secular or religious?
Even if we thought that end-state is ideal, I have a very hard time seeing practical steps that get us there other than through bloodshed (similar to how many current nation states got formed). One exception might be a common enemy that unites the vast majority of humans, e.g. an alien invasion.
Given the huge coordination problem of forming and maintaining a single world government (top-down), I would prefer a more bottoms-up, federated approach where secular, democratic, free-ish market, values continue to spread.
Agreed on all of that and yes, there are obviously some very big problems that would need to be resolved. We are no closer to that today - and probably further from it - than when the UN was founded.
Germany was right about that. They were catastrophically wrong about who was the biggest kid on the playground, though.
No, at the time they were the biggest kid on the playground, their mistake was to think that the playground would be a constant. If Germany had just taken over Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland they might have gotten away with it too. The lack of consolidation and Hitler being drunk on power caused them to continue to set higher goals.
Then once the theater of the war shifted to Global and Japan brought the USA into the war things changed rapidly.
Forget Venezuela, this is a major problem for America. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth lied to Congress a couple weeks ago when they explicitly said that this is not about regime change. Entering an illegal war, committing acts of international piracy, and pledging to take over another country’s resources is completely illegal and a violation of American laws as well as international laws.
And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts. Spineless Republican senators and legislators are staying quiet as they allow this horrific dictatorial action to go on without any criticism. And meanwhile, tech billionaires like Elon Musk are continuously tweeting sycophantic support for this illegal act of state terrorism.
How will America recover? Its political system is broken. And its international reputation is shattered.
You should read how the international press received this. They're openly wondering if Trump has gone insane.
I’m wondering if the entire right wing has gone insane. Watching Elon Musk tweet a bunch of racist stuff for several days, followed by weird pro white ethnicity posts, followed by several fawning posts about how this attack was a good thing, is pretty shocking. But also the open hypocrisy of all of these everyday people in social media who have been saying they have not voted for more wars, now turn around completely and say that this war is OK is pretty shocking. And all of the other Republican politicians are either silent or basically claiming that the president has the full authority to do whatever he wants, is also pretty shocking.
I’m sure it is easy to say that this is what everyone should have expected, but I feel like the conduct has gone well past what people expected. The scary thing is I don’t think it will be easy to do something about this. Half the country thinks everything that is happening is completely justified and completely legal. And in practice that means it is effectively legal. So are there any remaining checks and balances that are functioning?
There is still tomorrow. What Trump has shown me is that the crap just never ends, one thing after another. Some guy in this thread is happy about 'vigorous foreign policy'. You really can't make it up.
I don't think there are any checks and balances that are still functioning other than the ones that have served us well to get rid of evil people since thousands of years ago and sooner or later these assholes will be gone. But they will always be replaced by new assholes with the same ambition: to own and rule over a disproportional share of the world.
When this happened during the Bush years I saw a lot of the a same behavior. All these people shut right up when the economy crashed, they went and hid in their caves for a year or so until they pivoted towards hating the Black guy (Obama). The reason being they finally felt a bit of the pain. When the inevitable crash comes from this era, they will all go back into hiding for a while.
Unfortunately this behavior has been a part of a portion of the country for a long time and we will be dealing with these people for the rest of our lives. EU, Canada and the rest talk a big talk about making moves to disconnect from the US. It would be nice to have independent democracies that can take up the mantle if things here need time to correct themselves.
This next time it feels like those same people will hate more than just the Black guy. Many seem to be supremacists who hate all other races and want them deported as a whole - not just the president. The world’s richest person is posting bizarre and disturbing pro white memes daily. And many young GenZ males who follow certain voices on the right seem intent on keeping the flame of racism alive. I agree it will last our whole lives.
Its a losing battle. I guess people don't really know this but Gen Alpha, who are the kids of millennials born 2013-2025 are the first non White majority generation. Its already over and they are just trying to prolong the inevitable for a few more years while the oldest die off.
I don't know how Gen-Z males will fare long term but at this point all available evidence that I've seen shows they are really done with supporting Trump. Will that reflect in long term shift to Dems? Well Bernie type candidates have always done well with Gen Z but what happens if they play games again. I think a major crash that appears to be coming will correct Gen-Z males for a while.
Welcome to the exact same feeling we had of Biden and his entire admin. Pop your bubble I voted for Biden.
[unrelated to this thread] You and I had a different discussion in an earlier thread -> here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46393900#46428166
I posted something there about good faith journalism, if you're still interested.
I know, I don't disagree with your ideas on good faith journalism, I just have so little time right now. I am more or less waiting out what happens with the MN fraud investigations. I think it has blown up to such a huge amount that Walz is not running now. All I can say is that a 23 year old kid was able to make that video and a few weeks ago everyone blew a nut because Bari Weiss dropped a 60 minutes investigation on CECOT (A Boring Ass Dead Story).
60 Minutes in 1990 would have DREAMED of breaking the MN scandal story. I remember them breaking a story like Gasoline pump fraud in the 90s and it didn't do any research other than recording gallons pumped into Gallon Water jugs - but they still posed it as fraud.
> And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts.
Well, they said they wanted that. But maybe Trump wasn’t lying to them as much as lying alongside them.
> A lot of Venezuelans are happy about it.
Which Venezuelans? I ask because this exact same argument was used to justify the many failed assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs debacle and sanctions on Cuba where many Cuban Americans were anti-Castro.
Now that might've been true but consider the source: many Cubans in America fled when Batista was ousted or in response to that. A famous example of that is Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz famously said he hates communism because his father was tortured... by Batista [1]. And it's a failure in journalism that he wasn't challenged and lambasted for this idiotic take.
There are a lot of Venezuealsn in the US who justifiably fled the chaos there. But why was it chaotic? The US will try and tell you it's because of Maduro. But what about the sanctions? As a reminder, sanctions are a nice way of starving "we're goign to starve you and deny you medicine in the hopes you do what we want to the administration we can't otherwise topple".
Also, the US doesn't actually care about any of the crimes they accuse Maduro of. This is the same country who deposed Allende and installed Pinochet into Chile, who was a brutal dictator. That too was about resources. Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil. Or the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The list goes on. This happens so much there's a Wikipedia page on it [2].
So, for anyone who celebates this (and I mean this generally, not at the commenter I'm responding to), you will see no benefit for this. A few billionaires will get richer, probably. The US was probably pour countless billions into supporting some puppet, probably Machado but we'll see. And I would be surprised if the lives of Venezuelans gets any better.
And if the lives of Venezuelans does actually get better, it's probably by lifting sanctions and you should be asking why we were starving them in the first place.
As a reminder, the US knows the effects of sanctions. When confronted by a report on sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqi children in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State responded [3]:
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
> Which Venezuelans?
All which are currently in foreign countries and are free to express their voices without fear of prosecution. I live in spain with my venezuelan girlfriend, and everybody here from her venezuelan bubble is celebrating and cheering - hoping this is a first step towards freedom. You can turn on your TV to "rtve Telediaro", it is a spanish 24h news channel where they also show venezuelan expats getting together and celebrating from within spain. Other cities in latin america are the same, just watch some news channels from the spanish-speaking world.
They were probably also cheering in the streets in the US, if they weren't afraid of ICE deportations.
Because that worked out so well for the people of Chile (under Pinochet). And Libya (post-Gaddafi). And Iran (1953 onwards). And Iraq (post-Saddam).
Whatever your (valid) criticisms of Maduro, it's important to remember that:
1. The US was intentionally starving Venezuela through sanctions. If conditions improve because the sanctions now get removed, it's not because Maduro is gone. It's because Venezuela's oppressor (the US) just stopped opressing (as much).
Let me put it this way. If I take all your people and put them into a ghetto in Warsaw and build a giant fence around it, letting nothing in or out. And I then decide to let food in once you've given me all your valuables or given up some leader and you now have something to eat, I'm still not the good guy because I later let food in after looting your people and I'm still responsible for starving you in the first place.
2. 20+ years ago the US would lie and say they're doing this to spread democracy and that the people would welcome them as liberators. This was the exact script for Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though it was all about oil they'd never say that. Now they don't even pretend. Trump has outright said that it's about oil and they're going to govern until a suitable puppet is put in place, who will let Western companies loot Venezuela's natural resources.
So good luck with the coming brutal dictatorship and kleptocracy your girlfriend and her countrymen are now celebrating.
In the 90s I had a professor from Ukraine for a math class. He grew up during Stalin and Khrushchev and worked during the Brezhnev years. At a party a group of us decried Pinochet. His response, “What is the big deal. So he killed 10,000 people. In Ukraine we would gladly kill 10,000 people to have their economy.”
I'm a Venezuelan in the USA and I think what happened is an absolutely illegal travesty. Trump and his acolytes are nothing better than criminal thugs and this needs to be fought and protested.
Are you suggesting Maduro should be restored to power in Venezuela? Would that be good or bad for Venezuelan's (regardless of what happens with oil or anything else). Would you be willing to live in Venezuela under Maduro?
Its too late for that now. America has created a mess and will now be responsible for cleaning up that mess (or eschewing responsibility when things don't go as easily as Trump thinks they will, which is probably more likely). There is already a huge power vacuum that is going to be filled with chaos, it is too late to just bring Maduro back since the damage has already been done.
It's important to note only the top of the pyramid was removed here - not the entire government. Most everything will continue as usual for quite some time, or forever.
Just like removing the President of the United States wouldn't mean the country descends into chaos.
It does send a very clear message to whoever becomes the top of the pyramid next, however.
> Just like removing the President of the United States wouldn't mean the country descends into chaos.
Oh, it would definitely. There would be a power vacuum, people would wonder if the remaining government would obey the constitution or ignore it, etc...before Trump I would have said the process would have been resolved smoothly, now I have no idea.
Removing the head of a government doesn't break the government, but it definitely creates chaos before the top is filled. If the government has transitioned into a top-down autocracy, the chaos is even worse, as government agencies would have lost their ability to act independently over time. At that point, various factions start shooting at each other to try and take control of the country (aka a civil war). Throw in one or two foreign militaries in the background and there is even more reasons to start shooting.
> before Trump I would have said the process would have been resolved smoothly, now I have no idea.
Kind of absurd to say this. Even with Jan 6. - things still ran like they were supposed to, and will continue doing so. The government is huge and filled with millions of people. It would take an unprecedented level of coordination to not do what is supposed to happen.
Venezuela has a VP, and a rightfully elected President (not Maduro). I guess we'll see what happens there. The US has committed to maintaining order during the transition - so it seems unlikely to devolve into a civil war as anyone initiating such a thing would have to contend with the US military.
Time will tell... regardless - it seems clear as day Venezuelans will be better off without Maduro. The amount of money that is about to flow into Venezuela will be stunning. Yes, oil companies will swoop in, but the money spent there will rebuild a failed economy, provide untold numbers of jobs for Venezuelans, and lead to a more prosperous nation over time - like it was before Chavez/Maduro.
are you Venezuelan? did you know the country had like a 70-90% deep poverty rate before Chavez? Guess who the oil profits used to go to? Guess what Chavez lowered that poverty rate to before oil prices crashed?
Venezuela was on edge even before Trump did this, do you think they are going to be able to hold it together while the US military is demanding to take control and the people are anxious? Time will tell, but I bet this will wind up like every other case of American regime change in the last 30 years.
> Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil.
It was about the Soviet Union. The British convinced the US that Mosaddegh was going to align himself with the Soviet-proxy communist party (Tudeh) to stay in power. The British, on the other hand, did it because Iran had nationalized British oil fields. The US' oil interests were in Saudi Arabia.
Also the way people describe this is rather twisted. The Shah was not installed by the US. The Shah had been in power since 1941. He was installed by the British, same as his father. The coup replaced Mosaddegh with Fazlollah Zahedi, not the Shah.
Moreover, Mosaddegh's government was not remotely democratically elected. There's a rather in-depth State department memo from the era that describes how those "elections" worked in Iran which made clear that the people voting had little to do with who won. Elections were full of ballot stuffing, bribery and just outright manipulation by pretty much everyone - the Shah, Mosaddegh, Tudeh, foreign governments, etc. [1]
Plus, Mosaddegh had halted Parliamentary election counting early to prevent more opposition from getting elected risking his majority (his party controlled the more urban areas of Iran which finished "counting" earlier). He began ruling with emergency powers and jailing his opposition. That led to mass resignations in Parliament - to the point where they couldn't even form a quorum. Mosaddegh then dissolved Parliament and granted himself full dictatorial powers and ruled by decree after another sham election where 10% of the population "voted."
And it's at this point that the coup happened. The Shah, using his power under Iran's constitution, wrote a letter dismissing Mosaddegh. He was replaced with Fazlollah Zahedi and the Shah started to take a far more active role in government.
[1] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Ira...
This is not accurate.
Mosaddeq sought fairer royalties for oil from what is now BP but what was then the AIOC after decades of tension and a decrease in Iran's royalties (with increasing British revenues) in the 1940s, ultimately culminating in the nationalization of AIOC in 1951 [1].
Relations deteriorated. Britain isolated Iran through sanctions and oil embargoes. The US sided with Britain but initially rebuffed attempts at a coup, I believe initially under Truman but Eisenhower was also initially reluctant.
Britain did argue that nationalization of oil and other British interests in Iran was Soviet-led and made an argument to Eisenhower's SEcretary of State that a coup was in the interests of fighting communism, something the administration was likely more receptive to given the Truman doctrine and "containment". The Korean War was ongoing at the time.
So did Britain argue this was to fight commmunism? Yes. Was it really? No. It was about Britain's oil interests and colonial ambition. It was no more about fighting communism than invading Iraq in 2003 was about spreading democracy.
Fears of the USSR played a much bigger role in the 1979 Revolution where the US got their then ally, Saddam Hussein, to release the Ayatollah Khomenei from prison to try and make Iran fundamentalist rather than falling into the Soviet sphere of influence.
As for any election abnormalities, nobody cares about that. Like, at all. It's undeniable that Mossadeq was immensely popular in the early 1950s for his stance that Iranian oil should benefit Iranians, first and foremost, rather than a colonial power.
[1]: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/iran-nationa...
The U.S. did not install the Shah. He was already in his position of power well before 1950.
> So did Britain argue this was to fight commmunism? Yes. Was it really? No. It was about Britain's oil interests and colonial ambition. It was no more about fighting communism than invading Iraq in 2003 was about spreading democracy.
More than one party was involved. They had different reasons for their involvement.
The United States' reason was to fight against communism (read: the Soviet Union). As quite a few internal memos make clear, the US did not particularly care about Britain's oil issues and wished to stay out of it. Rather, the US was almost single minded about it's fight against the Soviets. Britain used that to manipulate the US into getting involved.
> As for any election abnormalities, nobody cares about that.
If no one cared about it, people would stop stressing he was "democratically elected."
> It's undeniable that Mossadeq was immensely popular in the early 1950s for his stance that Iranian oil should benefit Iranians
And he was incredibly unpopular by 1953 as he was blamed for the deterioration of the economy caused by the British refusal to ship Iranian oil and he went full autocrat.
Indeed, had Mosaddegh remained popular, the Shah never would have agreed to go through with the coup. After all, he had seen what had happened after Mosaddegh resigned in 1952.
Cubans would be much better off today if Bay of Pigs had succeeded. Venezuela is so bad that around 20% of the population emigrated.
Tell that to the Chileans who endured Pinochet, Iranians who endured the Shah and the Ayatollah and likewise for Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Guatemala, etc.
All a puppet would've done was be a brutal dictator who suppressed and disappeared anyone who resisted while enabling Western companies to loot the natural resources and the local populace would see no benefit from that at all.
You might say that Cubans would be better off if Castro had been deposed. Is that because you'd expect the sanctions to be removed? If so, the problem is the sanctions. You're basically saying "you would've been better off if you let me install a puppet dictator and loot your natural resources because then at least I would've stopped intentionally starving you".
And if you can't see the problem with that statement, well, I'm not sure what to say.
Iranians were way better off under the Shah than under the current regime. The current regime is way worse from a humanitarian perspective.
The current Iranian regime is a direct result of US involvement in Iran. We are largely responsible for it, for two reasons:
1. By overthrowing a democratic government in the first place to make the Shah a dictator, creating the seeds of revolution; and
2. When it becamne clear that Iran was "lost" (to the West) and fearing a takeover by the Communists and Iran falling into the Soviet sphere of influence, the US got Saddam Hussein, our then-puppet in Iraq who we used to stoke a war for a decade killing more than a million people as an aside, to release the Ayatollah Khomenei from prison in the hopes that the Islamic fundamentalists rather than the communists would win the revolution.
Do you have a source showing that he was imprisoned in Iraq? Wikipedia suggests he was there freely
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini%27s_life_in_...
He was imprisoned in Iran, then went to Turkey and from there to Iraq iirc, but it is long ago, so I suspect the GP meant after he was arrested by the Shah.
OP very specifically said that he was imprisoned by Saddam Hussein and that the US pulled strings to get him freed.
As far as one can reasonably know something it’s clear that Maduro was not the fairly elected president. Chavez and Maduro were disastrous for Venezuela and millions now have hope for a better future.
Your perception about Iran in 1953 is badly wrong.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articl...
That tabletmag.com article is a ridiculous work of fiction.
personally, the editor of tablet elevating a claim that immigrants are third world trash put me off that magazine permanently
Ted Turner once said something egregiously stupid and wrong and ever since then I discounted everything CNN did or reported.
Guessing it’s what he said in 2002? But the Tablet EIC made these remarks last week. Not really equivalent, although you’re entitled to your media choices.
I was pointing out the bad reasoning you’ve employed.
It's bad reasoning to say that I don't trust the editorial decisions of someone who cosigns that immigrants are trash?
From Wikipedia:
A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99 per cent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against.[83] According to historian Mark Gasiorowski, "There were separate polling stations for yes and no votes, producing sharp criticism of Mosaddeq" and that the "controversial referendum...gave the CIA's precoup propaganda campaign to show up Mosaddeq as an anti-democratic dictator an easy target".[84]
A person has to be very gullible to believe 99% of the vote went one way in a fair election involving 2+ million people.
Thank you for that convincing insight.
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Very eloquent, thanks.
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I think most people agree about Maduro being horrible to Venezuela, but this has nothing to do with that. If this is legitimized, any president can be kidnapped by the US at will. This is a very dangerous precedent which a lot of people will regret when the bully turns against them and not their enemy.
Well for starters he quite clearly stole the election so he is not even the legitimate President. Beyond this he faces indictment for a large number of crimes in the United States and has been extradited to face trial for them.
It's just an excuse to remove an opponent from power and install a puppet. Believing that that's the reason is of extreme naivety. This does not mean that Maduro being out of power is a bad thing, but believing this has anything with law or democracy is ridiculous.
A country indicted a foreign leader for crimes their nation will not prosecute.
Just the other day, half of the Maduro supporters here on HN were expressing outrage over US interference regarding just this the same thing, in a reversal of principles and roles. What we are witnessing on this board is a raw demonstration of politics and power. Who or what principle you support merely depends on where folks sit.
Both sides of this debate make fair points-- what's regrettable is that so many participants seem unwilling or unable to recognize they are reflexively taking the position opposite the US, or Israel and lack any sounder organizing principle.
As usual, things are complex. Maduro out of power is a good thing, the way of removing him is dangerous.
> If this is legitimized
Russia tried to do this to Zelensky and Bush Sr. did do it to Noriega in 1990.
I would advice them to get ready for what comes next, past experience says it will not be good.
yeah it feels like the sort of thing that will go sideways easily, I get the "optimistic" angle who doesn't love strong men being removed from power, but it seems more like a recipe for civil war that we're forced to be heavily involved in
will all of the military and paramilitary forces there suddenly become to compliant? will other nations try to turn it into a proxy war to drag the us down possibly as payback for Ukraine?
maybe everyone moves on I have no idea, I'd personally rather just not be involved
Sorry, can't trust claims from a brand new account created in response to a contentious political event. I saw a lot of non-organic stuff like this when the US invaded Iraq too.
Reasoning like this is part of the reason why history keep repeating itself. Completely ignoring how previous US led decapitations turned out, and just hoping this time will be different.
It should not be contentious at this point, the US only cares about the geopolitical value of Venezuela, and if supporting another dictator helps towards this end, then that's what will happen.
The sheer ignorance . To form such an opinion, with such confidence and literally the only grounding is a few women he/she has dated. We are living in an idiocracy.
And the sentence "What really stood out to me was how intelligent Venezuelans are"... no shit, Sherlock, people are intelligent, we're all one species, what did he expect?
He expected what commonly tweeted “IQ by race / country” memes say on X, which is to say they regurgitate old debunked scientific racism that is now popular once again due to confirmation bias.
Significant IQ differences DO exist across countries, with key factors being education, health & nutrition, socioeconomic status, environmental factors (more controversial), the Flynn effect.
Importantly: we have no way of knowing that, because there is no such thing as a country-by-country survey of mean or median IQ.
Dude, theres not much point in arguing that. You see this kind of 5th column in the aftermath of most popular revolutions, from Iran to Chavez in Venezuela. A whole horde of folks who were part of the previous elites (or more likely, their functionaries) who decamp en masse to the US, where they proceed to spout unhinged propaganda ad infinitum.
A tell tale is how they tend to completely overlook (to the point of pretending it isnt happening) the role of economic sanctions, blockades & other forms of coercive pressure on the economies of those countries. Instead, putting it all down to local actions by local actors.
There won't be much mention of any of the social improvements & economic uplift which Chavez in particular was able to do, before the external economic pressures became overbearing.
When you can control the narrative on both sides of the equation to this extent, kidnapping the leader of a sovereign (until today) country seems almost normal.
Jeffery Sachs summed it up best a couple of hours ago. The US is not even pretending to be a constitutionally-governed state any more, and this is just 1 sign of that.
I think I kind of understand why the Soviets were able to industrialize that fast and win an existential war against the mighty Wehrmacht. The so called purges from late 20s to to the 30s were Stalin eliminating these 5th columnists.
The Soviets had a lot of Western assistance with industrializing. Ford in particular played a huge role in the Gorky factories.
The Wehrmacht lost because numbers kind of matter in war. When you look at the natural resources Russia had, the population disparity between Russia and Germany, and the size of territory the Germans attempted to conquer, it really wasn't a close contest at all.
Imagine if they had a huge 5th column at home that was working with the Nazis.They'd have lost
Stalin's purges had absolutely nothing with removing any "5th Column." The White Movement was thoroughly defeated by 1921 as were the Mensheviks etc. Stalin purged his officer class because he was supremely paranoid. And while he killed many of the officers, many were sent to the gulags and recalled to service after the German invasion in 1941.
The entire concept of a 5th column is just fear-mongering by most countries who faced defeat due to their incompetence. And the term was used by countries to impose draconian controls and oppression.
Didn’t Trump explicitly say the US is putting Maduro’s second in command in charge? If so, that makes any benefits to the people from removing Maduro pretty unlikely. Besides removing sanctions, assuming the new dictator kisses the ring.
How much of this is if Hong Kong "friends" abroad hypothetically backed the UK invasion of Hong Kong, I just have no respect for this "my friends from that country validate simplistic politics" type of ad hominem. Victims and escapees of oppressive systems are filled with bitter and anger but that doesn't make their solutions automatically the right one.
Look at how well Iraq and Afghanistan turned out. Good times ahead.
Afghanistan even has the same government again, which is even more ridiculous.
Sure, but there's no longer an Afganistan disasterous occupation gap.
The opinions of the womanizer who is surprised by how intelligent the right wing Venezuelan expats he knows are, oh yay now we’ll understand things
Some people just went open season on creative writing in here.
Which expert analyses were you expecting to find here?
> The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
"I really want it" is not the reason. Come on! Maduro is indicted in the Southern District of New York. Both charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US.
The military operation was merely to lead the operation to allow FBI to arrest. Now, the oil issue certainly can be argued as the real reason for the strike and capture, but frankly they were OUR oil fields (funded by US companies) before Maduro seized them and nationalized them.
we should not dilute the effect of what's been by saying Maduro was not good for Venezuela.
> The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY
Good thing then that Maduro isn't the president of Venezuela, but a narco-terrorist usurper.
EDIT: Downvoting me will not change that fact, only hide it.
Other than his country's oil, what's the difference between him and the Honduran president that Trump pardoned?
One surrendered, for starters.
You’re not wrong about the motives, but others are:
The U.S. has all the oil it needs right now.
The message from the U.S. to the world is: don’t nationalize our businesses infrastructure and then use it against our interests (even if they are on your sovereign territory) - we do not forgive and we do not forget.
Which might signal to the EU to not build local cloud infrastructure?
Why would it signal that? The loud and clear message would be "do not let American companies get involved in your infrastructure, government or any other system where government requirements would come into open conflict with their profits".
Like Russia did in 2022?
I believe Russia signed over those rights voluntarily on Ukrainian independence.
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So the US did the right thing for the wrong reasons and therefore it is bad? (not that I even agree with your premise).
Also I presume that it is not OK for the US to have its say on who stays in power in Venezuela, but it's OK for Cuba or Russia to do so?
First line: My whole point was the opposite, not sure how you had that reading. Wrong thing, might "maybe" and hopefully turn out good for Venezuelans. The only good outcome trump seems to care is his ego and oil interests.
Second line: You presumed that out of feeling? I did not write anything hinting at that.
Right and wrong here are all subjective. In this case it's like, abducting another man's wife from their house and saying it's right for their kids
Thank you for articulating this outside of the regular "HN myopia" lenses.
This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is. Venezuela is very important strategically for them, they can't let it slide unless they're weak.
Surely, they won't go as far as direct US confrontation, but if they don't make Venezuela into a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there, one can draw the conclusion that China isn't as strong as many make them (including me, I confess).
But it wouldn't be that surprising if Venezuela turns out being a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there...
Swap China for Russia/Iran and Venezuela for Syria/Yemen if you want an idea how that plays. Spoiler: not well for the proxies.
Without some sort of underlying religious ideology to neutralize being concerned about the likely outcome of hellfires dropped on you from 20k feet if you kill American soldiers, I can’t see many stepping up.
In this scenario, why should Venezuelans fighting against US occupiers be labeled as "proxies" for anyone.
Even if they are aided by others, they would still be fighting for THEIR freedom, in THEIR land.
(distinguishing the good guys from the baddies becomes easier, when you strip away the fluff)
Because that's the definition of a proxy
No it isn't.
A "proxy" is someone who primarily serves someone elses interests first. Their own interests are subservient to that (if they come in at all).
Venezuelans who may end up fighting for Venezuelan freedom to rule themselves as a soveriegn free nation, with the right to fully benefit from THEIR own natural resources, are NOT proxies of anyone. Regardless of who helps them.
When you're a closet imperialist who thinks nothing of stealing other peoples land, resources, dignity & even lives, then everyone opposing you starts to look like a terrorist, an insurgent or a proxy.
The issue isn't them. Its you.
Then there are no proxies because everyone serves their own interests first
> This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is.
Chinese intervention in Venezuela is a suicide mission by every rule of warfare. You are surrounded, you have no supply line and you can't amass your material at the front since America is already there.
That is why I specifically wrote the words "they won't go as far as direct US confrontation". I refer to China-sponsored guerilla warfare.
So, be specific. Do you think Chinese cargo planes are airdropping firearms and ammunition? Supporting the rear with food and water?
Sending money is nice but Venezuela is blockaded.
I don't know, I guess there's all kinds of tricks. It's not as if US presence made the territory magically impervious to everything. Last time, weather balloons fooled the US military good enough.
I mean, the US can't even keep migrants from illegally crossing their borders with dangerous drugs. Are you really making the case that as soon as the US have boots on the ground, that Venezuela's borders are a 100% secure? America, fuck yeah!
Here's a trick I've learnt to get an authentic view of events like these, a nice way to parse through the keyboard warrior and ivory tower voices and noise is to hear what Venezuelans, the millions of Venezuelan migrants, and the citizens of neighboring countries who've had to reckon with the legacy of Chavez think about this. You can extend this to anything really with good results.
No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
I've been traveling South America including Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Brazil. There are no good guys anywhere. A lot of the low wage labor come from Venezuela, and in the case of southern Brazil, Cuba. In Lima, Peru it is impossible to take an Uber without having to hear about how much a shit Maduro is. The crisis has strongly affected all countries in South America and if the Venezuelans are able return home and democratically elect a new regime it will be better for everybody.
If Venezuelans will end up with fair elections, it will be a good result from a bad action.
But knowing the usual modus operandi in SA, a dictator is more likely to be installed than not.
Because the oil seems to be the main discussion topic, it is fair to assume that there are no fair elections or own decision power anytime soon.
Just like how the US installed a dictator in Iraq?
Iraq is really the gotcha you want to lead with?
Is Iraq in SA?
Laughs in Pinochet
Pinochet was a bloody dictator who left the power willingly and callibg elections. Something Maduro wasn't willing to do in +20 years.
Remind me again how Pinochet came to power?
Chavez died in March 2013, Maduro took over after that after being vice president. It's not 20+ years.
Lots and lots of locals were equally excited, if not more, at the beginning of Arab Spring…
Yeah. Exactly. There have been many regime changes in the last few centuries. It’s hard to think of more than a handful that were actually objectively better. It’s even harder to think of any where the US was involved in the overthrow and installation of the replacement, and it went well. The Marshall plan was good. Any others?
Yugoslavia in the sense that the cultures were at an unlivable state with eachother without significant autonomy. Bad from an economic perspective as the resulting nations are weaker than what a unified yugoslavia would have been today when one looks at gdp projections.
Are you from the region? Yugoslavia has been a far richer and developed country than any of its successor states for a long time, and I hardly think most locals would see the cost of human lives and untold destruction the war brought to settle some incomprehensible ethnic conflict as a good trade.
> incomprehensible ethnic conflict
It's about grudges held since hundreds of years. Blood feuds are still a thing in the region.
In 1917's Russia too.
Worth remembering that Russia experienced three revolutions in the beginning of the 20th century: in winter of 1905, turning it into a constitutional monarchy at least de jure; in spring of 1917, turning that into a parliamentary republic; and in autumn of 1917, turning the parts that did not secede into a dictatorship that shortly became embroiled in a civil war. The Bolsheviks later did an impressive job of erasing the memory of the third being essentially a military coup against the second, despite their very name originating in (remarkably petty) name-calling in the parliament.
By the time the October revolution came, the Provisional Government had lost most of its popular support by choosing to continue WWI though.
Anyway, the main point is that as nice as getting rid of a dictator sounds, the consequences can be much worse than the dictatorship itself, at least in the short term (which can last for a decade or more…).
I sincerely wish the best to Venezuelans, but previous US toppling of terrible dictatorships don't have a stellar record to say the least.
Living in a country stuck in a decade of counterinsurgency warfare doesn't feel particularly great, and I'm sure the Iraqis or Afghans would agree.
> [T]he Provisional Government had lost most of its popular support by choosing to continue WWI
Whereas the Bolsheviks took very little time to effectively surrender to Germany and its allies only half a year before Germany itself surrendered to the former allies of Russia. (Thus freeing up the returning army to wage several years of civil war amongst various parts of itself.) Every option sucked here, much like in every other case during WWI.
And yes, it’s absolutely true that little good usually comes from violently overthrowing a dictator. The best results are obtained from the dictator peacefully resigning after a promise of amnesty for them and their inner circle, however crass and unfair that sounds. Generally speaking, it’s not very helpful to put people in power before a choice of either losing everything or attempting to maintain their hold on that power by whatever means necessary: it’s going to be the second one every time.
If you want to abduct a dictator, at least do it when there's an organized opposition movement that can capitalize on it.
And also don't humiliate the opposition leader right in the abduction debriefing…
That's a very bad example, as ordinary Russians lived MUCH better lives under the USSR than they did under the Czars, at least at that time. The Czarist empire was still mostly a feudal state, and most peasants lived with no education and no money, barely scraping by. Standards of living, while still much, much lower than what was achieved in Western Europe, were still much better than what came before.
Now, can we imagine a world where the Czar was replaced with a Western-style democracy, where the Russian population would have ended up much better than they did? It's possible, sure - but there are no guarantees.
Ask ordinary Ukrainians how they remember the USSR-ist policies, especially around 1932.
> That's a very bad example, as ordinary Russians lived MUCH better lives under the USSR than they did under the Czars, at least at that time
Not during the Russian civil war, which is the point I'm making.
Well, who could've anticipated red plague to grip a whole country?
Thankfully Venezuelans aren't Muslim fanatics with a 40-50% chance of their parents being first cousins.
> and the citizens of neighboring countries who've had to reckon with the legacy of Chavez think about this.
Sure, just ask them about the legacy of Chevron in South America next.
If they're old enough ask them about the United Fruit Company.
> You can extend this to anything really with good results.
Your trick is not enough to overcome your ignorance of history.
> No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
Ridiculous. How exactly do you expect me to probe the feelings of an entire nation of people? Have CNN do it for me?
For one, immigrants are not representative of their country, they are so biased that they left.
But i think the opinion of venezuelans has leaked and it s pretty obvious his regime is not popular at home
> For one, immigrants are not representative of their country, they are so biased that they left.
That's close to 20% of their population. And the most relevant factor deciding if people fled or not was whether they could reach another country before Maduro closed the borders.
Venezuelans didn't leave because they were "biased", good grief. They left because they were suffering under poverty, hyperinflation and violence.
There’s still a selection bias involved, just as there is with Cubans in Florida.
Those that leave are mainly the ones with means and/or the ones who feel strongest about it.
The set of people that left their country is not random, and certainly statistically biased.
That's not what they said. They said people who left are inherently biased, because they had to leave, which makes perfect sense.
I don’t think any valuable insight is to be found in the opinions of migrants either in terms of what any of this means long term.
A lot of Iraqis were happy when Saddam was deposed. They certainly didn’t like what happened next.
So that equally applies to your comment here and renders it null?
If we can't talk about the method then I don't know how to get to good results
To me it seems like an obvious oversight that they didn’t acknowledge the irony of mentioning on this board not to read this board’s posts.
They could’ve actually done what they stated, talked about the people, instead of just a meta-criticism of HN, which is probably the #1 type of comment on threads on HN already.
And yes I’ll acknowledge this is a meta criticism of a meta criticism.
Yeah, I agree. But it’s also very hard to gather those voices in one place. Any thoughts on where to find these voices beside a personal network?
True, but it is like saying that to know China you have to ask the nationalists in Taiwan. Or that to understand Italian resistance you have to ask the millions of people in Italy that supported fascism.
It doesn't work.
That's how you get the most reactionary voices. The ones that liked Maduro presumably stayed in Venezuela and didn't start complaining online.
So if Americans don't like Trump then, say, Italy can unilaterally bomb San Francisco?
Or should this only be a one way street? Is dropping bombs to disapprove of elections how we're being adults in 2026?
It’s not a one-way street on principle. Italy could go do whatever it wanted. It’s a one-way street in capabilities to take action.
There isn’t anything stopping Italy, the sovereign state, from doing anything it thinks it could do. What is stopping it from bombing San Francisco (besides it not making sense whatsoever) would be that the US would physically stop the Italian Air Force and navy.
The US spend years building the UN and the system of international law and it benefits a lot from it. The US is like 4% of the world population and 2% of the area, but dominates pretty much anything you care to measure. It is really not in US interest to overthrow the current system. Its wild that the main threat to international order is coming from the US. Not just this latests development, but the talk of annexing Canada and Greenland, the undermining WTO and WHO etc. Read Hobbes, even the strong do not benefit from “jungle law”.
People who drive policy believe it has already collapsed; now it’s just about asserting control over the resources that will let US(or them personally) thrive in an isolationist, post-AGI world.
Interesting, can you link me to more?
just listen to Peter Thiel most of these policies align with his ideas/agenda
The conspiracy nuts are taking over.
The lunatic fringe has long seen global institutions as arms of a shadowy conspiracy to destroy national sovereignty and impose a world government. Far from being instruments for exerting US control, they’re seen as holding us down.
It’s just like vaccines. Why would a country deliberately weaken and sicken its population by discouraging the most effective medical interventions ever devised? Because the nuts have take over and conspiracy theories have gone mainstream.
The point is we should be adult enough in 2026 to have an international order that we can draw a line between our modern behavior and what we did in the bronze age.
If you think this kind of caveman-era diplomacy is the future And want humans to be a multi-planetary species then lol, good luck.
>should
This word is doing a lot of lifting here. You are essentially saying "the world should be better" without even a hint of suggestion of what a minority of countries could do to achieve it (in the presence of adversarial, nuclear states)
Right.
Let's say someone is sick and they want to roll around in dog shit to cure themselves. I can say that's a bad idea and not be a doctor with a clinical diagnosis. That's a valid position.
Unilaterally bombing a country, overthrowing its government and installing a puppet leader to capture its oil reserves can be called a bad idea.
I don't need to have a fellowship at Georgetown or some sophisticated alternative.
Some things are obvious: stabbing your eye is a bad idea. no ophthalmology degree required.
It's also rather telling that nobody in Caracas seems to have really tried to stop the US from doing this, it doesn't take all that much to shoot down at least one helicopter.
You'd expect them to have air defenses on high alert 24/7 prepared to immediately respond to any US actions.
They're using Russian air defense that don't seem like much of a barrier for the US military (iirc same hardware Iran has)
Big difference between helicopters in Caracas and fancy stealth aircraft over Iran.
You could shoot down a helicopter with a WW2 AA gun.
I would expect the F-35s that came in first took out every such gun on the route.
Much of this stuff is incredibly easy to hide, hard to imagine that. Surely you'd want to have MANPADS distributed widely in preparation for a possible US strike too.
No not really. Actual leftists (as opposed to authoritarians who have seized the language) have a tendency to cede power gracefully.
Look at Dilma Rousseff who stepped down without much of a fight. Mujica, Allende, Morales, the left wing is really bad at holding on to power because they give into perceptions and affectations of mass sentiment regardless of their authenticity or accuracy.
It's part of the praxis.
Americans can delete Italy.
Venezuelans can't delete America.
Yes, a bit of a one way street.
If Americans delete Italy they will be the Pariah of the world for a very long time
Maybe, but it's still the reason Italy can't bomb America.
The rest of the world wouldn't do anything about it either, IMO. Just like they're doing for Ukraine now.
Hundreds of billions in support, massively increased defense spending, and hefty sanctions are obviously nothing..
Also much more people have been to Italy,or at least know the country and it's culture compared to Ukraine. So the Fallout in Public Opinion would be way worse. China would also be salivating at an Opportunity to isolate the US, and that would be one presented on a silver platter
If America decided to wipe Italy off the map, you would be happy for the UK to send some money? That would be enough?
I don't think you can impose enough diplomatic sanctions on America to make us care, and certainly not enough to make up for deleting Italy.
If you would be sanctioned into oblivion like North Korea, you would probably care at some point.
Attacking one of the world largest Western economies, would turn the other ones against you
Yeah, I would care, but like I said, don't think the Western countries can accomplish that.
I'm just talking about reality. America can do pretty close to whatever it wants.
China doesn't like them, Russia doesn't like them, the EU would immediately pass sanctions as it is its own territory, who else is really left? Canada and Mexico?
Well the Canadians certainly didn't forgot all those threats about becoming the 51st State.
Countries would be scrambling to team with the USA IMO. You see the same happen for obvious "bad actors" now.
There's more than four non-European countries in the world, Christ.
Also, I think America can make it on its own, no help. And still be a powerhouse. You don't have to agree.
> Countries would be scrambling to team with the USA IMO. You see the same happen for obvious "bad actors" now.
I honestly don't see that happening. Yes, there are Hungary and Poland, but if Italy - currently a US ally - got wiped off the map for some lame reason, why would or should anyone trust their alliance with the US?
Non-EU European countries also have mixed feelings about the US (and the West in general). See Serbia for example.
> Also, I think America can make it on its own, no help. And still be a powerhouse. You don't have to agree.
Yes, I'll disagree. We once had the whole making-it-on-our-own story in many countries in Eastern Europe. There were numerous shortages of even the most basic household items like fabric softeners and coffee. Many of those countries even had some trade between each other (Comecon) but it wasn't enough and that was 50+ years ago when we weren't dependent on China for electronics and every other piece of plastic out there.
The world is now more globalized and codependent than ever. You don't have to agree with me either.
They would scramble if the US would be trustworthy Allies. The Problem is, that under Trump they act irrational, and unpredictable.
Also no Nation can't make it on their own in 2026 without massive losses in Quality of Life
Public opinion is dead, what matters is policy makers opinion on controlling financial interests in the West, and what the CCP politbureau thinks. One is a mongrel divisive semi-hereditary plutocracy, the other is a reimagined empire that clearly has a long game going. I don't think anyone cares for the public at large, at least to the extent the public doesn't get any wild ideas like having an opinion and expressing it with a pitchfork.
Wiping off Italy for no reason is enough to trigger a French nuclear response.
Hypothetical was: So if Americans don't like Trump then, say, Italy can unilaterally bomb San Francisco?
Response was: Yes, Italy could choose to do so. However, American would probably delete Italy if Italy made that choice.
So France would not be looking at the US deleting Italy for no reason.
Yes, you're right. It just that the comparison with Ukraine (invaded for no rational reason) + 'wiping out' made me think sejje was making a stronger (?) hypothetical.
I think we're have strayed too far from the point of ´might makes right' is bad, actually. GP very clearly chose Italy as an example because it's less polemic than the obvious option with a enormous manufacturing base and nukes.
That would result in the obliteration of France?
You really think the French are going to sacrifice themselves to avenge the Italians?
>That would result in the obliteration of France?
To be clear, if we are talking about a salt-the-earth level conventional bombing for pure annexation / genocide of a EU nation the French would:
1. Remind the US via diplomatic means that they have nuclear subs and the will to use them.
2. If ignored, select some non-mainland territory (PR or Hawaii) and make a ultimatum. Mention that if the US does not desist they will wipe it, but will not launch attacks on the continental US.
3. Repeat 2 until they stop or escalate.
The French would absolutely do this, the thing you propose is so beyond the pale (even now) that the only conclusion is that the French would be next.
Can it hit us?
Absolutely. Submarine launched and with 10000km range it doesn’t even have to be in open seas. Now France would get obliterated too in response but we’re talking a scenario where the US has already « deleted » Italy so the game theory leans fatalistic
Modern nukes explode high in the atmosphere, so "hitting" is not very difficult. They aren't exactly precision weapons.
They are quite precise - a hundred meters or so. Air bursts just do more damage.
Pariahship only really matter if you care. Look at both India and China. For the past 80 years countries cared about being pariahs because there was only one real country: the United States of America. Today, there are a handful of truly sovereign countries (America, China, India, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, North Korea) who will actually defend themselves without resorting to nominal allies .
In the normal state of human affairs, being a pariah doesn't matter as long as your goals get done
> Americans can delete Italy.
Boy, Americans really do have an overinflated sense of their power.
There are american military bases all over italy already...
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What would actually happen?
French nukes would happen.
Mutually assured destruction is still a thing.
These hypotheticals aren't helpful though.
Exactly. That's what protects the EU from this scenario.
It limits both sides involved in a conflict from using nuclear weapons first.
As history has clearly shown, it doesn't do much to prevent conventional wars, especially involving third parties.
I don't think anyone in power truly believes that France would actually use nuclear weapons to protect Italy during a conventional war against a nuclear power when France itself isn't in danger - let alone in a war Italy started. That's a no-win scenario for France.
Italy isn't a third party. They're both EU states. French nuclear doctrine is specifically the only one with nuclear first strikes as response to conventional threats.
If push comes to shove, I believe France is incredibly unlikely to actually attack the US with nuclear weapons regardless of what happens to Italy.
Doctrines and policies are meaningless under pressure. Would France risk global nuclear armageddon and the near-extinction of humanity for Italy? Almost certainly not, regardless of what their "doctrine" says.
If the US attacks Italy, humanity is already lost.
Fully agreed. We are just discussing hypotheticals.
They are a third party. The EU isn't a country, it's an association and it's clear that solitary between member countries only goes so far.
We saw what happened when France triggered the mutual defense clause in the EU charter after the terrorist attacked. Even when they all but begged other EU states to help them, they were rebuffed.
There's little reason to believe France would behave any differently if the roles had been reversed in the especially if there was any real risk to themselves if they got involved.
The EU isn't an association, it's a Union.
I don’t know how many Americans actually approve of this. The left will hate it. Trump’s base has largely been isolationist.
Obviously if someone like Italy bombed us we would invade and beat the shit out of them. We did a two decade, trillions of dollars revenge tour for like 2700 people dying.
(I’m not advocating for any of this but US policy is pretty consistent. Part of the value of a US passport is knowing (and everyone else knowing) that the government will go to incredible lengths to get you back.)
I don't know either but I've spotted two comments in this thread that pretty much argued for that. Multiply that by the US population ratio vs HN size and it could really add up.
> Part of the value of a US passport is knowing (and everyone else knowing) that the government will go to incredible lengths to get you back.)
Is this even the case anymore?
The government has shown to turn a blind eye when natural disasters affect states that voted majority voted for the other party. Their own citizens.
If you were stuck overseas but are an outspoken Democrat, I would not count on your government to get you home.
> Trump’s base has largely been isolationist.
Given the Jan 6th insurrection attempt (which made trump ineligible for office) I think a clear eyed spectator thinking deeply about the US political situation would find that his base will think whatever he tells them to think
Huh, I thought that the courts said he could run.
The point is we say "well some people don't think much of their elected leader in X, so that justifies us destroying their cities, overthrowing their government and killing hundreds of thousands of people there!"
Alright, is this the global rule now? Where's the cutoff? Trump is getting 41%, is that low enough? Who gets to overthrow Washington? My vote is the Swedes, they seem pretty nice.
> We did a two decade, trillions of dollars revenge tour for like 2700 people dying.
Then what is the expected scale of a revenge tour for 48,422 fentanyl overdose deaths in 2024 and 76,282 in 2023?
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/releases/20250514.html
The US isn’t too progressive about addiction. The culture tends to blame it on the individual vs. the environmental causes (including over prescription of opioids) that lead to it.
We’ve pressured China to crack down on fentanyl and its precursors, which they have to some extent, but there isn’t someone to invade, really, to stop it.
Can you truly not see the fundamental difference here? Taking drugs is voluntary and the risk of drugs being laced is known by effectively everyone. Comparing THAT to people getting incinerated in their office place is nothing short of daft and insulting.
How about you stop using drugs, how about that?
Really if you want to bomb the people responsible for the overdoses it's probably the overdosers parents who abused them.
What happened to individual responsibility?
Beyond the other replies to your 'point', fent has nothing to do with Venezuela⁰. It's pretty obvious if you think about it for 5 seconds, it's a dense synthetic opioid. Is there incredible chemistry knowhow in the quite far off Venezuela? No. It makes as much sense as making meth on the Peruvian jungle.
The precursors are made in legal-ish Chinese and Indian labs and shipped to the US and Mexico (y'know close where the users are). It's finished state-side or in Mexico where the DEA has less power. In fact one of the routes is:
China Lab -> Conventional Post -> Porch of a clueless gringo with a new 'online job'-> Smuggled to Mexico -> Mexican Lab -> Smuggled to the USA -> Distribution
[0]: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...
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I’m American and I don’t like Trump. If Italy did bomb San Francisco and you asked me what I thought of that, I’d say I disapproved.
If China invaded overnight and absconded with Trump, I’d say I disapproved even though I don’t like him.
You say you'd disapprove a violent action. But when it actually happens? I've seen explicit support for Luigi from many otherwise apolitical and non-violent people.
Because they see what the insurance exec was doing through his job as itself being violence, as it resulted in many deaths.
They view Luigi's alleged actions as self-defense/ defense of others, i.e. morally justified.
I wouldn't personally morally disagree with someone Luigi'ing Maduro or the other guy mentioned according to that same standard, but in this situation and the knock-on hypotheticals of government intervention, this is not an individual using personal force according to their beliefs, these are governments (which have no moral rights, just the assertion/ imposition of authority by violence) expropriating them for political purposes. So not defense of others.
That's quite different. Luigi killed the banker. You're thinking of Thomas Crooks. I don't think I've seen too many Crooks fanboys.
And even then, there's a difference between that and say if it was a sniper squadron working for say, let's pick the Azerbaijan military or any other organized state force.
allegedly killed the banker
Remember: innocent until proven guilty
Allegedly killed.
Interesting comparison. Did Luigi do anything wrong?
Yes, he’s accused of murder, which is wrong.
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Suspected of doing wrong.
Murder.
I’d be upset and disapprove, but I wouldn’t ask them to bring him back.
Sure, they can certainly try. Sovereignty is an illusion until it is tested.
Anyone can already bomb the United States, and I think most people here in the US just don't imagine it happening here, no matter how much we invite a military response.
The only country I could imagine doing this is North Korea, because, while we would carpet bomb them, they can delete Seoul from the map with traditional artillery that we can’t stop.
But I don’t think that their leaders are actually suicidal. They’ve played their hand pretty well over the years, for their own survival and enrichment (no pun intended.)
There is no such thing as a military response to the USA.
Your way of life got destroyed by a guy in a cave half the world away, and then a dictator of a small country finished the job with some propaganda and some cash to grease the right palms. A response can be quite effective even if it isn't by men in uniform.
It's not "my" way of life. I'm not american. I'm just saying that it's a basic geopolitical fact that anyone who's actually foolish enough to declare war on the USA is going to get killed.
Military response means men in uniform battling for their country. Terrorism is not a military response, it's one of several ways to cope with the enemy's superior military forces. They can't overtly bomb america back to the stone age, so they resort to tradecraft and clandestine operations.
It actually works, which is why governments pull all the stops when it comes to fighting terrorists. Even this plays into their ideological objective of forcing america to compromise on its founding principles, thereby corrupting it from within.
> It's not "my" way of life. I'm not american.
Apologies.
> I'm just saying that it's a basic geopolitical fact that anyone who's actually foolish enough to declare war on the USA is going to get killed.
That's mostly true. But a bunch of Saudi's got away with it and are still getting away with it.
> They can't overtly bomb america back to the stone age, so they resort to tradecraft and clandestine operations.
> It actually works, which is why governments pull all the stops when it comes to fighting terrorists. Even this plays into their ideological objective of forcing america to compromise on its founding principles, thereby corrupting it from within.
Precisely. So now try to imagine what the effect would be if the USA started to engage in wars on the American continent. You reap what you sow and if you're the biggest bully on the block that isn't going to be any use if you can't protect your backside.
All this talk of invading Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Cuba and I probably missed some is going to backfire spectacularly, and in many ways it already does.
Moral authority through physical superiority.
On the world stage I see everything on display that we try to teach our children to avoid. Lying, bullying, law breaking, it's all in our faces. And the real problem is that it is supported and even celebrated on television, in print, and socia media.
> Italy can unilaterally bomb San Francisco?
They can try.
I am not an expert but "Don't like" doesn't sound the same of multinational cartel organization overtaking countries, making 8 million people exilees.
To put this in perspective, Ukraine before Russian invasion had already lost 11 million people, that left the country because it was ruled by oligarchs and mobsters. 11 millions over 52 millions makes it a gran total of 21% of the population. Making it the fourth worse demographic decline in the world. Does it mean Russia was right?
If you have some hard numbers supporting how much Americans don't like Trump and how shit is their life under Trump, then ..maybe? (Also, why the USA, why not start with North Korea, Venezuela etc first.)
We kinda have the obligation to ensure that Earth is not a practical hell for many people.
"Bomb San Francisco" can mean many things, and it is ultimately a Trolley Problem[0], but the answer is not a simple no.
[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
"Bomb San Francisco"
Where does that come from? I've seen this verbatim in a few places. Let me guess, the s o c i a l m e d i a?
About the stupidest thing I’ve ever read here. Why does a US perspective not matter when the fucking US conducted the strike? If Russia decides trump stole the election in 2024 you’d just sit back and let them take over?
Many Americans were asking for just this.
You simply can’t. Just enjoy the show. Sorry, last 5 years have been a complete destruction of common sense and logic, just focus on something else to remain sane.
The fish celebrate when the bear is hunted. It does not mean order has been restored to the wild.
Yeah this is just flawed. Even people close to what is happening can be ignorant/brainwashed or (and even more likely) have ulterior motives. Venezuela doesn't exactly come across as a sophisticated nation.
> Venezuela doesn't exactly come across as a sophisticated nation.
Yeah this is just flawed.
We have an ongoing war in Europe because one President tried to remove the President of another country. You can perform all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify military actions, and depending on who you ask you will always get the answers you want.
I'm not arguing the point you're making. I'm saying that these discussions on these sorts of things on chat boards populated by privileged western nerds and conspicuous progressives have little merit and are merely a reflection of biases/ego of the privileged western nerd when put up against the lived experiences of people in Venezuela and neighboring states.
You're not really saying anything, in fact, just bashing everyone else's opinion.
And note that we can look at history and see that, sometimes, people's honest opinions about their own country and what is best for it happen to be wrong. Libyans were extremely happy when Gaddafi was killed - and now they're living in much worse conditions than when he was alive. Many Afghans welcomed the US toppling of the brutal taliban regime, and now after twenty years of brutal war, the taliban are back in power as if nothing happened.
It would be absolutely wonderful if the same fate doesn't happen to Venezuela. I sincerely wish and hope that they will have a provisional government which quickly organizes free and fair elections and that a much better leader is elected who can start reversing the damage Maduro did. I don't think this is particularly likely to happen, sadly, looking at the history and track-record of violent regime change by foreign powers. This observation remains true regardless of what the people of Venezuela think and hope, sadly.
This is abusing the concept of lived experience (which by the way is an ivory tower privileged term)
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You mean one unelected dictator tried to annex a neighboring country and wanted to remove the elected president of that country.
Please don't spread Russian propaganda by taking over their talking points.
Lol, saying the invading countries is bad is Russian propaganda, ok buddy.
That is not a reason why there is a war. The Ukrainian war is an existential one, a continuation of multiple acts of genocide performed by russians for centuries.
That is a big difference between war in Ukraine and war in Iraq or Venezuela.
Russia has unlimited objectives: destroy Ukrainian identity and sovereignty. Annex the country.
While USA has limited objectives, like to overthrow the government.
Russia would be very happy to install a puppet regime in Ukraine, as long as they had some certainty this regime would be stable and subservient to their interests. We know for a fact that they don't care about necessarily invading other countries as long as those countries are subservient: they are not planning to annex Belarus, nor did they have any real problems with Ukraine as long as it was led by their preferred leaders and it was not making any overtures to NATO or the EU.
The exact same thing will happen in Venezuela: the USA will be happy with any leader that they have confidence will represent US interests, stop doing any business with Russia or Iran, and that they think will last. If instead another member of Maduro's party looks likely to win power, either now or in the near future, they will certainly not allow that to happen, even if it were to happen as a result of free elections.
The Russians actually had a puppet regime, which was overthrown by a "revolution".
Yes, they did, and there was no attempt to annex Ukraine before that regime fell, I said as much in my comment.
Note that this is not in any way an attempt to justify Russia's actions, quite the contrary. I'm using the comparison to Russia's obviously horrible actions in Ukraine to condemn the USA's equally horrible actions in Venezuela.
> and there was no attempt to annex Ukraine before that regime fell, I said as much in my comment.
They literally did. It's just they couldn't do it militarily before 2014 because of Chechnya and bad economic at the time.
In 90s they already tried to take Crimea (via politics). In 2003 they tried to take Tuzla.
In the 90s, the status of Crimea was an internal dispute in the newly-formed Ukrainian state. The status of Crimea as a part of the new Ukrainian state at this time was not yet settled in any way. The territory only became firmly a part of Ukraine in 1995.
The 2003 dispute over the island of Tuzla - whose status had not been clearly settled during the independence of Ukraine from the USSR - was settled diplomatically. If you call this occasion an "attempt to annex Ukraine", then we could equally say that "Romania attempted to annex Ukraine" when the countries had several rounds of negotiation and arbitration for control of Snake Island in the Black Sea.
The only reason Russia has been reluctant to formally annex territories it broke away from other countries until 2022 was minimizing economic damage to itself. They knew how sensitive the western countries were to forceful changes of the world map, and felt no need to inflict economic sanctions on themselves for a mere symbolic act of annexing a territory they already fully controlled.
Once that Rubicon was crossed (sanctions were in place and there was nothing to lose), they annexed the four regions of Ukraine that they partially controlled.
russian plan was to rebuild USSR/Russian empire which is pretty much annexation
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t2vz4v/ria_news_ac...
> stop doing any business with Russia
No, they'd be fine with that, as long as they get their cut.
Overthrowing government (and installing puppet government) is considered an unlimited objective.
This is what Russians would presumably also do if able.
So your point doesn't stand
Yes and as a corollary, it has nothing to do with Venezuela having the largest oil reserves of any country.
Not a lot since Maduro had no objections to selling the Oil to the US.
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>> Russia stood by while everything Russian, including the Russian language which is the native language of millions of Ukrainians, was facing many restrictions
You think Ukrainians shouldn't decide which language to use? Also russian is native for millions of Ukrainians due to ethnic cleansing done by russians for centuries.
Well behaved governments will provide national minorities with everything they need to feel at home. Bilingual street signs, schools in minority's native language, churches, radio and TV broadcasts in minority's native language etc.
Any government who denies this to their national minorities should be promptly replaced as this kind of disrespect to other peoples' culture, religion and national identity inevitably leads to bad outcomes.
Russia never cared about diplomacy and always wanted to regain the ex-USSR territories back.
This has been confirmed by various Russian declarations and maps.
The diplomatic issues are merely an official stance that is presented to convince the gullible. It's on you if you believe it.
You can look at Moldova, Georgia, Romania and Chechnya for other examples of Putin and Russia's imperialistic ambissions.
Information that is known to be wrong is still useful. The immediate talking points on both sides reveal quite a bit if you can read between the lines. Everyone is lying but the lies themselves are revealing.
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You will soon see many comments "misteriously" disappear without leaving traces, especially the ones telling the truth about US, "democratic values", "rule of law" and their similars. The better the comment, the faster it "evaporates". As such comments do in Russia or China related discussions, whatever the exact mechanism is.
This forum is not for you to get information about the american "public opinion". It is rather used to shape it (as a myriad of other similar forums in the "free world").
There's no such thing as a comment "disappearing without leaving traces" on HN, except in rare cases when an author asks us explicitly to delete their post and we do. Other than that, the most that happens is that a comment gets killed (a.k.a. marked as [dead]), and anyone who wants to can see those comments in their, er, glory by turning on 'showdead' in their profile. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
We don't moderate this place to promote (or demote) any particular political agenda, let alone try to "shape" public opinion, something which sounds even more boring than soulless. As long as you're implying secret sinister processes taking place here, I think you should include some specific links so readers can make up their own minds.
Maduro is a dictator and a murderer but I'm sure most people should now be uncomfortable with the way this was handled. Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold and no there won't be regime remaining because Maduro doesn't have popular support it requires to do so.
I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do or if it will have negative implications in the future. I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
Having said that, international law is a myth. At the power level of nation states what we have is basically anarchy where interests is what matters. Not saying its right or wrong but it is what it is.
Arguments over definitions really bore me. To any reasonable person predicting the future, international law is an important factor. It cannot be simply waved off because it is flawed and unevenly enforced.
Any predictive model I would construct about geopolitics does include international agreements such as treaties and laws.
I challenge anyone to build a predictive model that ignores these factors. I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
> International law is an important factor
I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
Countries appeal to international law when they don’t have enough power to achieve their goals through brute force alone.
Countries that do appeal to international law but also have the wherewithal to do what they want only make those appeals to conceal their naked ambitions under the guise of the rules based order. It’s just good marketing. Nothing more.
The model you should construct should assume treaties and agreements are stable insofar as the incentives for players to maintain them remain in place.
It’s all about national interest, always has been, and at this point I’m surprised anybody can be so dense as to not be able to see this.
I don’t think anyone in int’l law is mistaken about the constraint that enforcement is so thoroughly contingent. The argument is just that the stability elicited from int’l law amongst players trying to (mostly) cooperate can have utility.
>> International law is an important factor
> I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
You are misunderstanding me. I had hoped my claim was clear, but maybe not, so I'll try again: if you want to understand and predict the world well, factoring in international law is an important factor. Claim: no serious scholars or analysts would disagree. Of course they will build different models (unfortunately relatively few are quantitative, but there are exceptions) and argue the details.
Now to your statement "I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today."...
Recency bias has a huge effect on people. But today is one data point out of many. It matters, in context, weighted appropriately. But how to weight it? Have you put thought into this? What was your prior and how much did today change it? (Admittedly, few people write down their priors, so for most of us, this exercise is sort of like a retrospective where we realize we probably never thought about it carefully in the first place!)
I will reiterate my original point more clearly: international law does not affect how superpowers behave.
When convenient they will use international law and norms as justification for actions they would take regardless. When inconvenient, they will just ignore them.
To the extent that superpowers do “follow” international law, it is only because those laws were written by the superpowers themselves or align with their interests at any given time.
Appeals to scholars or analysts is meaningless in this context. You should post why those people think they matter, or what their reasoning is, not, “hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters.”
My priors before this were that international law mattered a little, but this event has convinced me it’s all a farce. Exhibit A: the UN’s increasing irrelevance as we move toward a multipolar world.
Why do you think international law constrains nation states, despite much evidence to the contrary, including today’s events?
Ok, I'm pretty sure I understand your claims. I'll divide up my response in sections with `---` addressing each of them. I'll use ILN for "international laws and norms". (My edits are finally done as of 10:33 am eastern.)
---
> Why do you think international law constrains nation states, despite much evidence to the contrary, including today’s events?
For clarity, I didn't say nor mean «ILN determine/constrain actors in all cases». I conveyed, to the best of my ability: «ILN are a useful factor to include in a model»".
In the text below, I'll elaborate quite a bit on why ILN matter as factors to include.
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As I read your comment, I'm interpreting it as claiming to argue against «ILN is a useful factor to include in a model». You put forth an argument saying it doesn't matter. I'll argue against your argument.
But I should pause. I should not assume... I don't know your age, your nationality, your educational and/or professional background, and so on... Do you know what I mean by a quantitative model? Even people with Ph.D. can easily talk past each other on this. I'll give just one example of what I'm talking about: [1]. It is likely easier to grok than a dense statistical analysis 'locked up' in an academic paper.
Here is some context about why I care about this. Professionally I've worked as a software developer, entrepreneur, machine learning & statistical researcher and analyst, and lots more. At my core I both (a) build technology to solve human problems and (b) enjoy building things because it is fun and enabling. About ~10 years ago I build a search engine to surface quantitative models. One of my key underlying drivers is to help people to move past merely talking about stuff. Talk is cheap and imprecise. There are many kinds of models, none perfect, but the use of them is vastly better than pretending like any one framing _is_ reality. Recognizing a model as a model is the first step. Then you can step back and figure out "what is this model useful for?". With models we can put things 'on paper' and point and them and say things like "what happens when we factor in X"? We don't have to fixate on one model. We can be fluid and think about what we're trying to understand and predict.
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> When convenient they will use international law and norms as justification for actions they would take regardless. When inconvenient, they will just ignore them.
This is both a false binary and (for lack of a concise phrase) 'starting very late in the causal chain'. I'll start with the first and then explain the second afterwards.
1. The above is a false dichotomy. There are at least three other cases. ILN are (to some degree):...
A. ... imbued in a leader such that they don't even _want_ to venture too far outside the parameters of 'acceptable'.
B. ... perceived to have consequences that need to be accounted for. Over time the leader will more or less compare their perceptions of reality to what happens in reality.
C. ... these consequences (perceived and actual) affect the decision space of a leader. A change in the decision space, in general, may change the decision. (not always of course).
There is variation in how much A, B, C apply and play out. This variation provides informational value -- a foundational concept in modeling. More informational value, ceteris parabus, makes model predictions better. We're on the same page?
2. You may have noticed that above I've already implicitly explained my second criticism. If you want to predict how leaders act, it is unwise to start the analysis at the point of 'where they made their mind up'. Instead, you want to predict how and why they form their views and goals. My claim is that factoring in ILN (international laws and norms) is useful -- it is better to factor it in than to exclude it. To skip past it is 'starting too late in the causal chain'. It would be analogous to saying "Once the trigger is pulled, the laws against murder cannot stop the bullet."
2'. If one wants to build an even _better_ predictive model, one would want to predict what kinds of leaders come to power. Imagine some counterfactuals. What if there was no UN Declaration of Human Rights? In such a world, what kind of leaders would come to power? In general, they would be different than the current slate. I'd predict to see more warlord-like behavior; there would be less trust and more military spending. Without trust, more force and threats of force are necessary. I hope you can see I've sketched out an argument for why ILN provide some shared basis for countries to cooperate based on shared values. [2]
In short, if you are arguing -- and want to continue doing so -- that ILN have no predictive value, I challenge you to build a predictive model and prove it. But I don't think you really will hold such a view once you step away from the keyboard and reflect.
I don't confuse my approximations for reality. I once rigidly held a view not too different from the one you probably do. I thought my model was 'real'. But no longer. I've found better models for predicting.
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> My priors before this were that international law mattered a little, but this event has convinced me it’s all a farce. Exhibit A: the UN’s increasing irrelevance as we move toward a multipolar world.
Two responses:
3. It is too soon to assess the scope of international responses to Trump's invasion of Venezuela. My response here is the same as the section above. The problem is reasonable people will struggle to find consensus on how to operationalize "farce" into a prediction. It is too squishy. We can do better than this; we can build models. I've already covered this ground above.
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> Appeals to scholars or analysts is meaningless in this context. You should post why those people think they matter, or what their reasoning is, not, “hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters.”
I don't think I'm really fully tracking you here, so I'll respond as best I can... We're standing on the shoulders of giants. We cannot discount the work of scholars throughout history.
My claims are not arguments from authority. They are arguments along the lines of 'smart people have taught us that thinking about the world in terms of models is superior to not doing so.' To use another phrase that conveys the same idea: don't confuse the map with the territory.
No charitable person would claim that my argument is anything like "hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters". If you go back and reread, now, you don't really think I'm saying that, do you? To make such a claim would be to ignore large parts of what I wrote -- it would involve tossing those out -- and myopically and forcing an uncharitable interpretation onto my words. Hacker News works better when people are charitable. [3]
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I'll gone to some lengths to try to understand your position and explain mine. At this point, I hope you will reciprocate.
[1] https://conflictforecast.org ... this is just an example to give flavor. I'm not holding it up as a great model, but at least it is relatively clear in how it works – compared to what you'll typically see when some pundit says something about some risk of conflict: """Our forecast uses millions of newspaper articles to make the conflict forecast. In our analysis of the content of the newspaper articles we rely on a so-called topic model which summarizes the millions of articles and words into topics using unsupervised machine learning. The topic model allows us to calculate 15 topic shares for each country/month which we display in the bubbles to the right."""
[2] Some people can't or don't see this. Some people fixate on isolated individual behavior. They ignore evolutionary foundations that people exist in a social context. They don't understand or appreciate game theory or theory of mind; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind .
[3] """Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.""" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Corrections: please replace #3 above with these points:
1. It is too soon to assess the scope of international responses to Trump's invasion of Venezuela. A large part of ILN is what happens after a particular event.
2. "Farce" is rather squishy. One interpretation (one I agree with) means i.e. "international responses often fall short of rhetoric". Ok, sure. But few savvy people expect rhetoric to match reality. The impact of ILN are neither a 0 nor a 1. It is probabilistic -- not totally random -- and it depends on the circumstances. More detailed models have the potential to make better predictions (if they don't overfit).
We need to drive towards measurable (quantitative) predictive models. Here's an example question: "If the United Nations changed its charter so that one veto was not enough to block enforcement, how would state-based aggression change (by how much)?" See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...
I gave you a predictive model, and I challenge you to prove it is incorrect. Nations do what they want irrespective of international law. If they can write it to align with what they wanted to accomplish anyway, they will. Otherwise they ignore it.
Go touch grass, brother. Life is more than models. Most things in life really aren’t that complicated. People do what they want and make up the reasons for why they did what they did as they go. It’s basic human behavior at the state level.
Since I've put in a markedly higher level of effort here, I'm only going to respond further if you carefully and thoroughly respond to my comments above.
I wouldn’t call the word soup you posted across multiple comments “high effort”. This isn’t high school English class. Higher word count doesn’t mean the information within is somehow more valuable.
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> I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
And you'd have lost the bet with such a naive understanding of geopolitics and power dynamics played by nation states. Are you reading the thread you're on?
To the commenter above: it seems like you are responding to something other than what I wrote. Perhaps my meaning didn't come across? I'll try again:
Start with model M which does not account for international law.* For any such model, that model can be modified by including information about international law. Call that M'. I claim M' will do better than M. Do you agree? Disagree? Why?
Onto my next point. Please take the context into account. I was responding to a comment that said:
>>> Having said that, international law is a myth.
This is why I said:
>> Arguments over definitions really bore me. To any reasonable person predicting the future, international law is an important factor. It cannot be simply waved off because it is flawed and unevenly enforced.
I am having a hard time understanding how you think I'm naive for saying the above. To me, it would be naive to ignore international law altogether, simply because it is nuts to ignore relevant information. Am I just redefining my claim to be "this information is relevant to predicting an outcome". Maybe, but even this seems to be getting lost in translation.
May I ask if you've done geopolitical analysis at the international level? I have no idea -- you very well might have. By the same token, I may have as well. This isn't a who-has-the-bigger GPU question. I'm just trying to understand if you understand the game we're talking about. If you're trying to predict price stability, election outcomes, how long a dictator stays in power, etc... what models do you build?
If you want to compare some models on this, let's do it. We'll compare and see if including international law/agreements has predictive value (relative to not including them). Are you game?
* It is possible a model could build up an internal representation of international law even if not provided it directly. If such an internal representation proves useful and predictive, this serves to prove my overarching point, albeit in a different way; namely international law (conceptually) matters. It doesn't matter if we call it 'real', 'fake', 'a myth' or whatever. Arguing such terminology is a waste of time. If we can measure it (somehow, to some degree) and use it to make better predictions, that is good enough for me.**
** It is also good enough for physicists! People may argue the _metaphysics_ of quantum physics tirelessly, but if the equations work, that is pretty darn impressive. Call it "spooky action at a distance" or "entanglement". In an an important sense, these are just words, metaphors, attempts to make sense of reality. Focus on how to turn the crank on the theory and don't get hung up on what is 'real'.
Yes I was incorrect to say such a model would be strictly worse off. But my read is that you over index on the notion of laws, hence your general befuddlement on the current outcome. Sovereign nations follow international law and order to the extent their goals align and perceived costs of contravening them exceeds some threshold. Might ultimately makes right, has always been the case. That's realpolitik for you, unfortunately.
I appreciate the discussion and thoughtful response.
> But my read is that you over index on the notion of laws
To be fair, nothing I said asserted the relative importance of international law in comparison to other influences (i.e. military power, strategic goals, economic interests, a vindictive leader).
> hence your general befuddlement on the current outcome
Where do you get the impression that I'm befuddled? I was disappointed in the lack of nuance of some comments, so I pushed back, but I'm not 'befuddled' by current events.
> Sovereign nations follow international law and order to the extent their goals align and perceived costs of contravening them exceeds some threshold.
This sounds like the 'rational actor' model from international relations. [1] But that model is not the only game in town, nor is it universally the best model to use!
> Might ultimately makes right, has always been the case.
I would happily see this phrase fall out of usage. It is what authoritarians want you to believe. What is right != who has power. Normative != positive. They are not the same. We would do well not to blur 'what is' with 'what should be', not even in an aphorism.
[1]: http://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps12/03-rational-decision-...
I don't disagree with anything you said here.
Yes I would like that phrase to fall out of use too. My intention was less of the idiom's original normative meaning but to emphasize that it is ultimately power that enables or constrains a nation's possible actions. Apologies for my confusing use of the phrase.
Thanks.
> but to emphasize that it is ultimately power that enables or constrains a nation's possible actions.
If one interprets this as "perceived power" I think we'd be getting closer. But even that is not enough.
I would also need us to recognize "the power that ideas have in shaping worldviews". Consider the Magna Carta, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and so on. They can't simply be accounted for using a probabilistic calculus of consequences w.r.t. military force, economic sanctions, popular uprisings, and so on.
International law and notions to some degree also become normative. They are worldviews and aspirations that spread. (Memetics is a powerful analytic frame here!) These laws and norms take hold in people's minds and they shape how leaders and their people think about what is good and what should be done. In this sense, even though they are ultimately just neural patterns (if you are a materialist like me), they can be thought of as 'real' and impactful when it comes to making predictions about how leaders act.
I wonder if we would both agree on this: as people lose faith in the normative force of law, they care relatively more about the perceived consequences. Seems pretty straightforward?
Such a degradation, seems to me, cannot be good for civilization. A world where everything is purely contractual or consequentialist does not work in a world of agents with very limited computation.* It is just too costly to formalize everything in terms of individual incentives. Building systems where all the consequences are perceived by actors at the right levels of the system is really hard. Maybe it can work with certain kinds of information systems. But with humans, with our current biology and technology, I don't think it scales well at all. (At this point you might wonder if John Von Neumann is rolling is in his grave, but I suspect if he lived today, he would agree! His work spanned computation theory, game theory, and more.)
* Here is a guess that seems plausible (hypothetically): In a perfect world of unlimited computation, agents would be smart enough to think of interactions as long-run games and might be able to have a healthy society even if they don't 'believe' in norms.
We used the same precursor to remove the Taliban in 2003. We used the same formula to remove saddam. All of it was always a bad idea. It destroyed the countries. Venezuela will be no different.
I dont like Maduro but I hate the aftermath of removing him violently.
Mission accomplished
> I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
I mean, why?
Have you tried asking the Venezuelans?
Do you know the "standard technique of privatization"? Sanctions are the "Defund" aspect of that for American Imperialism. The woes of Venezuelans are largely economic and a product of the sanctions.
Venezuelans would disagree loudly with you, and in fact would take offense with the notion external interference caused their country's downfall given the extent Maduro's gov ran the country into the ground.
Are you suggesting the difference is that Venezuelans welcome the invasion?
> Its undoubtedly the whole region will be better off without its hold
This is BS. If he was an issue for the region he needed to be tried by his country by his own people and they should get their power back. A foreign power taking over the country to siphon it's oil doesn't help in any way.
It's the same situation with Trump, China swooping in and kidnapping Trump wouldn't help. We'd need the US population to fix it's own mess if we're hoping for any improvement.
We're just getting into another cycle of pain and grudges.
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"It (Venezuela) currently exports (oil) about 900,000 barrels per day and China is by far its biggest buyer."
Ah ok, so this was about China. MAGA's fixation on China is certainly going to lead to more instability.
Democrats and republicans are concerned about China because it has a massive impact on many issues that both parties care about. This includes Taiwan, Hong Kong, Us manufacturing, US ip, immigration, etc.
Replying to your earlier comment: in terms of words spoken during the 2024 campaign, tariffs and immigration tied for first. I think MAGA heard “China” when tariffs was pronounced positively and “Hispanic” when immigration was pronounced negatively.
How did you conclude that democrats do not care about china?
> Hispanic” when immigration was pronounced negatively. reply
I think it means Chinese, Indian, and other ethnic groups too.
I was replying to the comment along the lines of, what does MAGA care about China?
The one part of this I will agree with is that US foreign policy is uniparty.
The disastrous War on Terror spanned 4 presidential administrations, 2 Democrat and 2 Republican. Middle East policy differences between the two parties are somewhere between superficial and nonexistent.
Even something like Ukraine where you might say Republicans and Democrats differ isn't true. Had Trump been in office when Russia invaded Ukraine, the two parties would simply be in each other's seats.
This is 100% the case when it comes to China too. Oh, and when it comes to Taiwan (and Hong Kong), official US policy is the so-called One China policy [1].
As for US manufacturing, it's dead. Because capitalists killed it by moving it to China to increase profits and (under Regan, in particular) to destroy unions and the labor movement [2].
As for China and IP, US companies did this to themselves knowingly to increase short-term profits and to break unions and suppress wages. At no point will I accept the framing that a Chinese person, a Mexican, an Indian or a person from [developing country of choice] stole someone's job. No, a capital owner made a choice to take your job and give it to someone else so he or she could become slightly richer.
I'm not sure how immigration factors into China concerns.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_China
[2]: https://ourfuture.org/20140930/reagan-set-up-the-death-of-th...
The only reason China is the biggest buyer is because of crippling US sanctions since 2017 that have made it impossible for Venezuela to trade with any western nation
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Few hours later: "US oil companies will fix Venezuela's "broken infrastructure" and "start making money for the country", Trump added"
Obviously anyone with common sense understands that the above translates to exporting oil to the US. Just like that, a lot of noise about democracy goes out of the window.
Less than 1% of global oil consumption.
So what? They have the largest global oil reserves. MAGA even spelled it out for you.
>They have the largest global oil reserves.
So what? That's not very useful when getting said oil out of the ground costs more than you can sell it for, is it?
That's what the US oil companies will be there for.
To ... lose money?
This is pretty standard for America, nothing new.
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
>The US empire currently maintains an imperialist network of over 800 military bases in 70 countries. (For comparison, all other countries combined have only 30 bases)
If this is a list of atrocities, I am already somewhat underwhelmed. Almost all of those bases are present with the consent of the host country, except for Gitmo. Besides Gitmo, the US always leaves when requested in the cases I have been able to find.
(Why do we still have a base in Gitmo? Because Florida is a swing state. It sucks.)
To be fair, the rest of the list looks like an excellent argument for closing all the bases.
I'm surprised Github let something like this to stay up.
Why wouldn't it?
Because its against the ToS.
Let freedom ring. Every Venezuelan I know is happy for the regime to fall.
Let's hope Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Russia follow soon.
Yes because it went so well for all the other countries the US meddld with lol
We dropped a lot of ordnance on Germany and Japan and they seem to be doing alright.
I suppose South Korea is doing fine as well, so let’s just hope Chinese troops do not flow over their land border with Venezuela.
If we need a more recent and perhaps more relevant comparison point, Operation Just Cause had a successful outcome.
I know it’s trendy and important to mock Iraq and Vietnam but it’s not all a failures.
You forgot quite a few...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202112/1240540.shtml
But you're the good guys and do that to deliver freedom and democracy so it's OK. I think you're under estimating how the world is rapidly updating their views on the US, and the lasting damage to your soft power.
That you have to reach back to the 80s for a "good" example says something. Even more recent is Afghanistan, safely back in the hands of the Taliban.
This is exactly the kind of ignorant chest thumping arrogance that lead to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, destabilised the entire region, lead to the rise of IS, and eventually to streams of refugees heading for Europe. edit: tone
Germany was two countries for nearly fifty years following ww2.
The fascists are also advocating for an end to foreign aid. Gonna be hard to repeat post war rebuilding efforts.
We killed a million Iraqis, but Iraq seems to be doing alright... Wow dude.
South Korea is doing very well. So is Taiwan.
I don't see how Taiwan is relevant here.
I can't speak for other countries, but the regime in Russia has popular support.
And if "every Venezuelan you know" is someone who immigrated because of Chavez and/or Maduro, then you have an extremely biased sample to gauge the overall mood of their populace.
>>> but the regime in Russia has popular support.
Yeah, because in Russia if you don't support the regime then straight to jail.
That's not quite true even today (it all depends on how loud your non-support is), and was even less true prior to the war. The majority support Putin not because the alternative is prison but because they genuinely believe that he's a good leader. And they're wrong, but that's a different story.
> then you have an extremely biased sample to gauge the overall mood of their populace.
I think that if a good chunk of the people that don't agree with their government are basically forced to emigrate you don't get to turn around and say "See, everyone that remains loves the government!"
There's a difference between happy for the regime to fall" and "a superior military invades and starts a war"
That’s interesting who are they? The few venezuelas I know hate it too, so like is this a gulf war 1 or Iraq war 2?
This usually (never) goes well for the USA. (Source: pick a regime change war.)
> Let freedom ring
What happens if the Venezuelan people decide they want their oil profits to stay in Venezuela rather than flowing into oil company coffers? Will they have the "freedom" to choose that?
Don't get me wrong, Maduro being toppled is a positive in isolation, but it's still wait-and-see regarding what he gets replaced with.
"We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so" [1]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/03/trump-venezu...
If you are talking about those that left the country... yeah, obviously they are happy. They literally left and got a better life. That's called immigration. That doesn't mean that it will be fine for those that stayed.
Iran is already in revolution, started a few days ago.
There are still Maduro-linked armed rebel groups like the ELN in Venezuela that aren't that keen on the US version of freedom.
Nukes make a lot of difference though, wouldn't be so sure about russia
Bombs are not the solution.
When will the US let freedom to ring in Saudi Arabia?
A lot of talk about how the administration didn't even try to justify this, but I think that the administration actually believes they did justify it. They exist in some bubble completely un-tethered from reality. I don't know what that means for the future but it's terrifying.
They don’t need to justify it because Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable.
They're too busy worrying about making rent and defending their neighbors from getting abducted by masked adult boys
> getting abducted by masked adult boys
Which boys?
ICE
They now employ minors?
Besides, how realistic is a fear that a law abiding citizen would be endangered by the ICE?
If you are brown, pretty realistic given the number of brown citizens ICE has deported. [1]
[1] https://nipnlg.org/news/press-releases/ice-deports-man-claim...
How many is it? Your link gets us to 1, and it's from months ago. I expected you to link the number since you're claiming it's high.
Supposedly there's been 500k deportations, and 2.5m "self-deportations" in 2025, so what would be high here?
Edit: I also googled that man's name. A quick read of nbcs article suggests it's not clear he's a citizen. The judge said he "had a substantial claim to citizenship," which means nothing either way. He was born in Thailand.
"In his Nov. 3 brief, [a lawyer] contends Souvannarath stayed in the United States for 19 years after his removal order without challenging it or seeking proof of citizenship."
> Supposedly there's been 500k deportations, and 2.5m "self-deportations" in 2025
I love how you get to use unconfirmed bullshit numbers in your argument but then demand an exact count for the opposition to mix with your nonsense.
Well I have an exact count already of deported citizens in 2025: zero.
The official DHS statistics quote over 605k deported: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/10/thanks-president-trump-a...
The guardian says 327,000 a few weeks ago: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/22/ice-detentio...
You do the math
“I’m quoting the numbers from the fascists themselves. See they’re doing nothing wrong!”
Okay, how many people do you think they've deported?
Several law abiding citizens have been caught up in the ice dragnet. Pay attention.
Several? Like three?
3/600,000 removals in 2025 = .000005% chance
So, to answer his question: not realistic at all that you'll get deported as a citizen. That's without fact checking you. I haven't seen anything about actual citizens being removed, including in the sibling comment claiming it with a reference.
> Besides, how realistic is a fear that a law abiding citizen would be endangered by the ICE?
Perhaps you are having trouble following the conversation. The argument put forth by OP is that ICE is endangering american citizens. That is factually true.
https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-...
Oh sorry, you snuck that and changed the subject in while we were taking about people being deported, to try to salvage a point.
I'm way more concerned with regular law enforcement endangering American citizens than ICE.
I didn’t sneak anything in - you failed to follow a thread. Why are you trying to put that on me? It’s okay to admit fault and take responsibility. It is obvious at this point that you do not care or won’t take the time to understand the conversation or respond in good faith.
My concern covers all LEO fucking with American citizens, especially the masked and unidentified ones.
So anyway, per your link: 170 citizens "wrapped up" by ice during between 327,000 and 605,000 deportations, depending on which source you like (I linked them in a different response to you in another thread).
Between .0005% and .0003% chance that if ICE grabs someone up, they're a citizen. I think that's a pretty good record, actually. I don't think it's very alarming.
We have 348 million citizens, 170 got held for...days! While we conducted the most effective deportation of illegals in history.
I'm pretty sure ICE isn't going to accidentally get me. This problem may as well be non-existent.
What's real is actual citizens wrapped up in actual bullshit with regular LEO. With probably several orders of magnitude difference, wouldn't you agree? Maybe thousands per day, instead of 170 per year? Costing folks more than a few days' detention.
Why do you figure they're wearing masks?
I think that's extremely alarming, given the fact they are trying to deport people as fast as possible so they don't have time for a hearing in front of a judge. The hearing that they are supposedly guaranteed by the fifth amendment to the Constitution!
Which citizen was deported without seeing a judge?
If you mean they're deporting illegals without them seeing a judge, I'd be in favor of that.
Why does a 0% chance of a citizen being deported alarm you?
Why do you think deportation is the only thing that matters? We've seen ICE fuck up the lives of American citizens by destroying their property, illegally holding them, arresting entire buildings etc in Chicago. And there is zero recourse for these blatant violations. How about you open up your wallet and pay for their crimes if you're willing to go to bat for them so hard?
You might be in favor of it, but the Constitution they are sworn to defend is absolutely not in favor of it. It's frankly unamerican.
Hey dummy, the point of having an immigration hearing is to establish whether or not the deportation is legal.
0.0005%*
I don't see how they're any less complicit than the Russians living nice and chilled in Moscow.
So the bar is now at least we are as bad as Russia?
No, you are worse. You need to let Russia attack at least 30 countries in next 30 years while you sit and watch. Then let’s recalculate who is worse.
America has invaded a lot more countries than Russia in the last 30 years...
How many countries did the US invade to make them part of the US?
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Hawaii, Guam, Cuba, Panama, and the Philippines?
In the last 100 years the trend has been been for America to invade a country and try to install a friendly government rather than formally annex them - Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria.
Oh plus all the overseas military bases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_oversea...
So it's not longer 30 years but 100? What the US did pre WW2 was in no way abnormal or worse than that what every other powerful was doing..
Also US never technically invaded Lybia, Yemen or Syria (unless you count their intervention to support the Kurdish and Iraqi governments against ISIS an invasion...)
What happened in Korea was the opposite of the invasion (of course the South Korea regime they were saving was extremely oppressive and arguably not worse at all than the one in the North at the time).
Also are you implying that the majority of military bases US has in other countries (especially in Europe) is involuntary?
> the US did pre WW2 was in no way abnormal or worse than that what every other powerful was doing..
Whataboutism
Invade, none. Continue to occupy to this day? Several. Edit: Although we did take a small chunk of Syria without asking.
Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population. Invading to occupy, destabilise and depredate is much worse.
> Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population.
How is that relevant to Russia's invasion of Ukraine? Whenever Russia takes territory they're filling mass graves with raped Ukrainian civilians.
American forces too have committed innumerable atrocities, and there is no forgiving that, but it doesn't support the premise above that Russia is in some way cleaner.
> Whenever Russia takes territory they filling mass graves with raped Ukrainian civilians
Frankly that's just propaganda.
Bucha, Irpin, Izium, the fate of civil activists in Kherson, horror in Yahidne (just near my hometown) - this list is very long
No intention to deny individual episodes of war crimes, but the ratio of civilian to military casualties in the conflict is pretty low, despite a drawn out war and massive military casualties: we're talking about 12-15 thousand civilian deaths in almost four years of war. Absolutely tragic but doesn't seem to indicate a genocidal intent. Compare with the widespread massacres of civilians perpetrated by Israel in Palestine.
Ukranian civilians sensibly fleeing for their lives when the front gets close has prevented many deaths, and doesn't change the facts of what happens when they don't escape.
There's 3.5 million people living in the Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine now. The Wikipedia entry about them even lists "forced Russification" as one of the abuses they suffer: "Ukrainians have been coerced into taking Russian passports and becoming Russian citizens". Now, as bad as this is, being forced to become a regular citizen of the occupying state is a far cry from being deported and murdered by that state. Nazi Germany wasn't giving German citizenship to Poles and Jews in occupied territories; Israel is not giving Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in occupied territories. Do you see the difference?
Putin himself has famously claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people: this is the very opposite of the ideological premise to justify a genocide.
From what I understand from friends who still spend a lot of time in Donetsk because their businesses are there, you might be taken to a basement and shot if you say the wrong thing.
It's pretty bad, but sure, if you just go along with it you'll probably be fine.
>this is the very opposite of the ideological premise to justify a genocide.
Genocide is an attempt to kill a group; That does not happen only by murdering people - it's also forced assimilation. In this case, Russia is directly violating article 2) e) of the Genocide Convention*: "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
>citizenship
Citizenship is not relevant to the genocide convention at all.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention
Putin has famously claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people for the same reasons that Hitler claimed that the Sudetendeutsche are the same people as the Germans - to justify an illegal imperial attack on a neighbor.
Russian imperialism needs Ukraine, since without Ukraine there's no Russian empire. Russia invaded Ukraine out of imperialist delusion, not for humanitarian reasons.
You have thoroughly bought into Russian propagandist lies.
> for the same reasons that Hitler claimed that the Sudetendeutsche are the same people as the Germans
Indeed, but Hitler is not famous for mass-murdering the Sudetendeutsche.
And I never claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine for humanitarian reasons. I think it did because it could not tolerate a Ukraine fully integrated in the West and NATO- but this just means exercising political control over Ukraine, it doesn't imply an ethnic cleansing or genocide of Ukrainians.
Riiiiight, and so are all those dead Iraqi and Afghan civilians, amirite.
Based on the rest of your comments: it is you that is spreading propaganda.
Are you saying the Ukraine conflict is less bad than this Venezuela conflict?
We'll see about Venezuela, it's early to say. In Ukraine, a short conflict would have been better than a prolonged one, and in case of annexed territories, the status and civil rights of annexed populations should have been the focus of any peace agreement. The territory doesn't care who owns it, it's the people that suffer.
For example, the Israeli occupation and progressive annexation of Palestine is especially criminal because they have no intention of including the native population in their ethno-state- it's an annexation with ethnic cleansing or, if needed, genocide.
>Invading countries to annex them is not even that bad if you give full citizen rights to their population.
This is soviet bullshit, the Moscowitz did a lot of genocides you can find plenty of sources, so they were and are as bad as Israel because the Rusky/slavs in Ruzzia are indoctrinated to feel superior to the other non slaves in the empire and feel still a bit more superior then the rest of the slavs. You can look at the existing recent data from the Ruzzian stats and how the minorities are more in decline then the Ruskies.
So for uninformed people that might read this soviet guy comment, read a wikipedia summary of what moscowites did and Putin is still doing, I suggest not reading in detail, like reading books or interviews with vitims of this criminal empire you will fill a big amount of pain if you have empath on how this Ruscists treated humans , I will never forget the stuff Ir ead and better if I did not know the details.
Ruzzia, israle , USA all are bad but the situation is multidimensional and is not easy to say that Ruzzia is less bad then Nazis and are better then Israle etc., we cana dmit that criminal are criminals, dictators are dictators, bastardads are bastards and trolls are trolls.
It's only because of geography that they haven't done it.
That's just an opinion, the fact is they haven't.
Russia in the last 30 years invaded and occupied Moldova, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria - not to mention the atrocities committed in Africa.
But with the exception of Syria, Russia always had genocidal intent - deny cultures, erase them, and make those countries as unstable as possible while remaining occupied.
I'm not saying what the US did was good, or right, but there's a big difference.
The US never denied the existence of cultures, languages, etc.
> The US never denied the existence of cultures, languages, etc.
You seriously need to open up just one (1) history book about how the US was founded, to understand how wrong you are on just this point.
Right, so what's the scope of time we're talking about here? Are we talking about the world post WW2, or are we going back to the Roman Empire?
Because if you want to "win" arguments by randomly swinging hundreds of years to make a point, then it's pointless, because anyone can pick a point in thousands of years of History to show "look - they were bad here".
I think discussions about modern history are sufficient for the post-WW2 period, as there was a global consensus on international law and the Charter of the UN.
If you hold grievances about events hundreds of years old to make points about current events, then it's pointless.
If you say "The US never ..." then the timeframe is the short duration the US has existed as "The USA".
If you believe the US that colonized part of North America is the same as post-ww2 US, then I can understand.
I don't think they're the same, so many institutions were established that over the years that I don't see them as the former colony of the British crown.
But hey, if you want to discuss semantics, go for it.
Yeah, when you draw arbitrary limits (30 years for you it seems), it's easy to paint one side as the better one. Once you start to think a bit bigger, you start to realize most big nations act as the others, and it's just different flavors of "bad", yet they're all as bad as the others.
What about segregation then, is that recent enough for you? Or that wasn't about culture/language, so that too isn't applicable? I'm afraid that with rose-tinted glasses, everything has an explanation why your favorite is different than their favorite.
Why is the founding of the UN, at the end of WW2, and the signature of the UN Charter, considered an arbitrary event in modern History for you?
It's the biggest geopolitical event in modern History to prevent the death of millions, by attempting to stop the expansion of borders through military force and making countries recognize the borders of each of its members.
> What about segregation then, is that recent enough for you?
What about segregation? Where? In different European countries? USA? South Africa? India?
Was there a global consensus to end segregation? Or were different events at different points in time, achieved in different manners? Is there still segregation happening in some societies?
Over a million people dead in the middle east as a direct result of US wars, including countries that nothing to do with 911 including Iraq
Saddam's Iraq has no History?
So all the countries Russia interfered with are neighbours, with hundreds of years of ethnic, cultural and religious disputes, while basically all the countries the US interfered with are across one or more oceans, with no historical disputes with the US, and happen to be resource rich.
Thanks for explaining why Russia is less unreasonable than the US.
"Historical disputes" is the most unreasonable claim to violate international law and the UN Charter lmao
You're basically saying that one countries interpretation of events is enough to annex another. That's the old logic of pre WW2 lol
Especially Russia that has revised their history so many times they even have a saying that "Russia's past is uncertain".
So to have that interpretation of what I said shows that you have a very poor understanding of History and current events, or it's just a deficient provocation.
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If you want to be blunt, yes.
But if you want to go that path, some of those countries tried and were willing to do the same - or suddenly we forgot what Saddam's Iraq did?
But remind me, what did Ukraine do? They surrendered their nukes and we're a threat to no one.
>"If you want to be blunt, yes."
I am blunt. Murder is a murder.
>"But if you want to go that path, some of those countries tried and were willing to do the same - or suddenly we forgot what Saddam's Iraq did?"
I did not and I have never claimed that Iraq, Iran etc. were good guys. They were murderous regimes. What's your point?
>"But remind me, what did Ukraine do?"
Ukraine is a victim here, so again what's your point?
>Chechnya
So they invaded their own internationally recognized territory. Wonderful. By that standard Ukraine invaded Donbass after they declared themselves independent of Ukraine.
>Syria
Even more outlandish claim, considering they were invited by the government. Whether the west considered the government illegitimate or not didn't matter.
>Moldova >Georgia
in both conflicts in protection of a minority, on whose territory a larger state laid claim using Soviet drawn borders and dissolution of the USSR. Since the Ukrainian conflict started I observed lots of enthusiasm for Soviet borders on the side of Russia's detractors, which were often drawn with territories assigned as a form of favoritism, simply because communist leadership in Moscow had better a relationship with the communist leaders of one of the ethnicities in question. That way historic Armenian land of Artsakh was assigned to Azerbaijan for example -- the recent ethnic cleansing outcome of that is well known.
The US just stole every good ever. The Maine. Union Fruit/Banana Company.
If the US tried to survive by just fair economics it would crumble into dust in less than a decade. Yet they use Latin America as their own backyard in order to avoid this.
And, well, as an European I have to say that France does the same with Africa in order to be semi on par with Germany. If not, their GDP would just be slightly better than Spain, if not worse because centralisation it's hell for modern times.
Some states in the US would do fine, OFC. But in order to support the whole USA, that's unfeasible. You can't have a country where a few powerhouses have to carry up the rest in a really innefective way, such as oil dependant transportation.
Meanwhile, the Chinese and Europe will just build non-polluting railways everywhere.
Instead they just plant people into the government and pretend it is still a sovereign nation.
It would almost be less repugnant had they made Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Korea and Yugoslavia US states and their population US citizens.
That bar was one the ground with the patriot act and never left it since.
You're way worse than that. You invade everyone all the time and all of it is illegal and wrong.
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
The US has a much longer list of invasions and foreign interference than Russia. Its not even comparable.
Poor little $countryName exceptionalists, having to endure being compared to le bad country. (This isn't specific to Americans in any way BTW.)
squints at cold war
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Someday it will be your country and yourself, and nobody will be outraged anymore, because everybody is the same. Stop this cycle and organize, instead of separating like-minded people with useless lines, standing aside and shouting about how things should be, in your opinion, and how everyone else should do... something, because you know better than insiders.
Repeat after me: individuals are not systems.
Organize for what? Protests? And the administration would care about it why, exactly?
You know that justification in support of access to firearms in the US- "we need to be armed in case our government goes rogue". I always thought it was BS, but in case it's not, maybe this is the time.
The problem is that there's no "we". Tens of millions of Americans support the Trump regime and its actions in Venezuela. Coincidentally, they are also the ones who have most of those firearms.
The specific Americans you speak of mostly care about domestic issues and trend isolationist. They'll perhaps be slightly peeved anytime we intervene overseas, but they'll certainly overlook it while they get what they want at home.
I doubt they care (or know) about Venezuela.
Also I think the number is hundreds of millions, not tens.
I'm referring specifically to the people who support the military action in Venezuela, which is a subset of those who voted for Trump. Like you say, most of them care mainly about domestic issues. However there is a crowd that is all in on Trump and supports whatever he does - you can see them cheering even here in the comments - those are the tens of millions that I'm speaking of. It's still way too many, unfortunately.
Thanks for answering my question and imploring me to drone some mantra (I counter with: everything is a system, my dog is a system), and I'll guess I have to wait for New Zealand to do some invading.
sigh Nevermind, it's obviously way too much to ask for a simple answer to a simple question after being strawmanned.
Tomorrow the Venezuelans are going to work and the Ukrainians are going to hide in a bomb shelter. It's not really the same.
Then maybe we should provide a lot of weapons to Venezuelans so that they can fight back- this will make sure that they won't go to work tomorrow.
Fight back whom? US is already out with "no further action" planned according to Rubio.
Do you understand that the difference in the Ukrainian case is literally caused by the actions of Western countries?
Venezuelans are going to work tomorrow because no one has provided their corrupt dictatorial government with hundreds of billions of dollars in military and financial aid?
The difference is that Russia's goal is the annexation of most or all Ukrainian territory, the looting of the country and the erasure of its national identity. Without western support, Ukraine would be in a much worse state than it is now.
Whatever US goals are, it seems they are not pushing forward after snatching Maduro.
> Without western support, Ukraine would be in a much worse state than it is now.
No, that doesn't seem to be true.
Yeah, sure, if they did not get support they would have dies already and look what peaceful place this graveyard is. Slight hiperbole, not everyone would be dead, but a lot, for sure, and the rest, too scared they would be next to do anything else.
I think they would have lost long ago and would have had many times fewer losses in dead and wounded.
Literally anything except answering the single, simple question... so we've had strawmanning, now whataboutism, which logical fallacy is next?
I have a friend from Venezuela (living in EU), and I remember how sad he was that Maduro was „elected”.
Unlike Ukraine, Maduro wasn’t elected democratically, so „unelecting” him through force is not as terrible.
> Silent downvoting intensifies, because of course it does
I downvoted specifically because of this
Regardless of anything else equating Maduro's Venezuela and Ukraine and the military side-effects of both invasions/"operations" isn't exactly fair. The Venezuelan government is/was both illegitimate and very oppressive. Not that I'm implying that Trump did what he did on Humanitarian grounds...
> Americans who are upset don’t possess the wherewithal to hold them accountable.
Any attempt at holding the admin accountable would make it look a bit more like Venezuela. NA is rightfully too soft to want to ever go that route. They'll peacefully protest and that'll be it. Anything more than that would be the individuals throwing their lives away unless the whole country did it in unison.
Trump was extraordinarily lucky here, the Maduro regime was wholly unprepared and he was immediately extracted from the county; he can claim "mission accomplished", parade Maduro in front of the world media and watch from afar the PSUV leadership tear themselves appart.
But the dice Trump rolled could have easily fell onto a well prepared Maduro regime, which could have downed a few Blackhawks, torpedoed the ship from which they launched, captured and killed a few dozens to a few hundreds US service men, paraded them in the streets of Caracas and used them as human shields protecting the main military targets etc.
I.e, Trump could have easily committed US to a long term war and a ground invasion, without Congress authorization or allied support, and with Iraq or worse long term results.
Simpler explanation: the army stood down and Maduro went peacefully.
It's actually quite an impressive feat of negotiation.
While I strongly doubt this is true, it still doesn't change the fundamental gamble Trump took: it's impossible to predict how a regime change attempt will go, who will betray and who will rally around the flag. Especially in a resource rich country.
Any ideas? All ears.
DJT 2.0 did a `Charlie Kirk' flex and acted out of MAGA base self interest before the Who you know. Stocking up on fuel will put more cards in the hand for next moves in China or Iran.
what? I'm reading this as: "We're gonna need oil for fuel when we go to war with china"
But south America is easily blockaded in times of war the oil (if we needed it) would be ours regardless. Second, we don't need it, we've been a net exporter for like over a decade now right?
Its been a few days. It turns out this was a simply capricious and erratic act on the part of Donald Trump, and we stand to essentially benefit not one iota as a country from it!
Un tethered from reality is hardly new. Ronald Reagan had his astrologer: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/reagan-familys-trusted... ; American politics has little to do with the "reality based community".
Nor is "US carries out murder campaign in Latin American country for unclear reasons"
It seems it was her wife who pushed for that. By reading the article, it doesn't sound like he believed any of that.
> "If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it," she quoted the president as saying.
Also
> Both the president and Nancy Reagan denied that any policies or decisions were based on astrology.
So we can't really tell to what extent, if any, those consultations affected the actual policies.
In general, I don't trust politicians by default. Still, I also don't trust astrologers (and even less so), so there is no reason for me to believe the astrologer more than the president.
It was Nancy Reagan.
From the linked article:
> The president became aware of the consultations and warned his wife to be careful because it might look odd if it came out, Nancy Reagan wrote in her book.
> Nancy Reagan began consulting Quigley after the 1981 assassination attempt on her husband. She wanted to keep him from getting shot again, Nancy Reagan wrote in her 1989 memoir, "My Turn." "If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it," she quoted the president as saying.
> The consultations were revealed to great embarrassment for the White House in a 1988 book by former White House chief of staff Donald Regan, who blamed the first lady for his ouster a year earlier. Regan said almost every major move and decision the Reagans made during his time as chief of staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes. He did not know her identity.
> The woman was in fact Joan Quigley, an heiress and Republican political activist. Quigley told The Associated Press in 1988 after her identity was revealed that she was a "serious, scientific astrologer."
A "serious, scientific astrologer", but no such thing exists, does she understand formulating null hypothesis and hypothesis testing statistics? probably not, so not scientific, any scientist actually applying the scientific method to astrology will quickly distance herself from astrology at all.
Tony Blair and George Bush praying for guidance.
Of course he now denies this so that never happened, he also said that 'doing so would not have been wrong'. Ever the lawyer. My client didn't do it, and if he did it wasn't wrong.
Nor did he ever claim that 'God influenced his deliberations'...
If God doesn't exist, then God isn't whispering in his ear like an astrologist would.
If God does exist, then what's the problem exactly?
That God isn't accountable and wasn't elected.
True, but how is that a problem; it is God. Is a human a better than God to make those decisions?
I suppose all of this assumes that God is infallible, but I imagine God has more information and processing power than the President.
I am not suggesting a theocracy. I doubt God is whispering in anyone's ear today, and humans can still make bad decisions and claim it was God's will. Just a thought exercise.
When people claim that God led their hand what they mean is that they will just do whatever they want to do and there isn't a thing you can do about because you are no match for God. This has caused 100's of millions of people to die so far.
I don't disagree.
> humans can still make bad decisions and claim it was God's will.
its a problem in that there's no alignment mechanism between what god wants and what the people want/need.
god could still be infallible at achieving his goals but they still arent the right goals.
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There ware some claims that Putin consulted shamans over the use of nuclear weapons, wanted to get their blessing.
The previous time, 23 years ago, there was a broad campaign beforehand, and Bush assembled a serious international coalition before going for Iraq. This time, it's just some PR statements before the press.
> Bush assembled a serious international coalition before going for Iraq
Uh? Bush failed to assemble a coalition by providing dubious and faked proofs of supposed WMDs and chemical weapons. The Europeans and especially the French didn't fall for it. The only one who did was Tony Blair and he's still paying the price both domestically in the UK and abroad. AFAIK, Trump isn't planning to send troops in Venezuela on the scale Bush did in Iraq.
The Spanish president at the time, Aznar, also "fell for it" (probably didn't believe it but played along just for posturing, because he loved being pictured with Bush) and paid the price domestically. The best thing is that he was such a toady, ignoring the Spanish people's will becuase he wanted to be seen with the big boys and to be their equal, and you don't even remember him when you recall that coalition. The fact that you haven't remembered him has actually made me smile hard.
Blair didn't believe it either. Nobody did. What everyone banked on (including e.g. Hillary Clinton) was that the invasion would be so awe-inspiring, popular and such an obvious unqualified success that everyone who opposed it would be embarrassed, and the WMD claims would quietly be forgotten (or maybe they could scrounge up a trailer with chemicals or something).
And for months, years even, that "can't argue with success" strategy worked great. Some help from a loyal press was necessary, of course.
This is what the architects of this invasion (it's hardly Trump alone) are banking on, too. We WILL get told that suddenly life is so much better for everyone in Venezuela, and for a while it might even be true - it's very cheap for the US to provide, after all. The serious, realistic position will be that this was a shrewd thing to do, and the Nobel Peace prize committee showed great foresight and were vindicated in their choice.
But then the Furies will come knocking.
To quote from internet history, the famous "you forgot Poland" from the 2004 presidential debates:
"KERRY: ...when we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That's not a grand coalition. We can do better.
LEHRER: Thirty seconds, Mr. President
BUSH: Well, actually, he forgot Poland. And now there's 30 nations involved, standing side by side with our American troops."
> The only one who [fell for it] was Tony Blair
I wish that were true, but as somebody from Denmark I can tell you that it isn't
> The only one who did was Tony Blair
"You forgot Poland."
Many European nations contributed, it wasn't just the UK. The french were basically the only NATO members who didn't contribute
> Many European nations contributed, it wasn't just the UK. The french were basically the only NATO members who didn't contribute
Can you outline how Canada contributed? Because I distinctly remember our PM at the time, Chretien, saying 'no thanks'.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_the_Iraq_War
How about Germany?
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/06/iraq.johnhoope...
That is not true either. France, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Canada, Greece and Luxembourg all refused to help. NATO was basically split in half on the issue.
And that was when the "French always surrender" meme started to pop up on the Internet. US propaganda at the time
Tony Blair wasn't fooled by the fake WMD evidence - he was fully on board and deliberately went against the advice and evidence of the intelligence services.
He should be tried for war crimes for dragging the UK into a war on false pretences.
Is there a source for this? In his autobiography he acknowledges he got it wrong, but based on the available evidence at the time
Well, there was the Chilcot Inquiry which was deliberately hobbled from fully investigating and reporting the shenanigans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Inquiry
Blair was accused of misleading parliament over the WMD claims and there was a limited attempt to impeach him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_motion_to_impeac...
Also relevant with regard to war crimes is this recent uncovering: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/30/tony-blair-p...
(There's lots of various opinions given about Blair which are not really authoritative, such as: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair-iraq-gov...)
Thanks for this. I have read the executive summary and, actually, UK intelligence advised Blair that Iraq was not a threat to the UK and that military action would make things worse: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80f42ced915...
So this was purely a political move on the part of Blair to cozy up to the US. Maddening.
It infuriates me every time that I see Blair given publicity by the mainstream media and how he's still involved with international politics - especially the middle east/Israel. I did declare that I would never vote for Labour until they got Blair tried for war crimes (have voted for Greens since though most years that has been wasted as I live in Bristol which was a strongly Labour area).
Germany did send troops. Correct me if I'm wrong.
(edit: I was wrong. Italy, UK, Spain, Poland, Turkey among others.) Anyway, the point is that there was some sort of coalition.
You are wrong.
Bush successfully assembled a coalition to invade Afghanistan. He didn't even promise that there'd be WMDs there, he just said "They gots terrorists" and a large portion of the UN joined in the invasion.
Upon reflection, the justifications to invade Afghanistan were every bit as flimsy as the justification to invade Iraq.
Afghanistan was more justifiable. The argument was that it was a failed government that housed a terrorist organization that just attacked US.
What Iraq had to with it, i honestly have no idea. Somehow we pivotted from Afghanistan to Iraq
Maybe (and this is a big maybe) at the beginning. However, it really went to show how ineffective such actions are and lead to the creation of ISIS. 20 years of occupation were wholly unjustified.
The right move by the US would have been to kill osama the way they ultimately did, through intelligence gathering and a targeted strike.
The head of the organization responsible for the deaths of almost 3000 civilians was known to be present in Afghanistan, and the government refused extradite him.
That seems like a solid casus belli.
Not to me. The US was justified in killing Osama the way they did, through intelligence gathering and a targeted strike. Occupying the nation for 20 years was completely unjustified.
It isn’t from a legal point of view.
The New York Times has been manufacturing consent for some time:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/us/politics/venezuela-uni...
U.S. foreign policy is bipartisan. The big plan was to keep the Russians tied up in Ukraine, get Syria (achieved under Biden) and now get China and Russia out of Venezuela.
It could work with bribing officers like in Syria, in which case there will be minimal resistance and then probably the Nobel War Prize recipient Machado will be installed.
It is possible that all of this was discussed with Russia (you get things in your backyard, we in ours).
i think they prefer the chaos as a welcomed distraction from local issues
I mean it does call into question the timing of the sudden release of jack smiths deposition on Friday. Curious.
They didn’t even try to have a strong argument for it. They were more like “what are you going to do about it”.
Trump commuted the sentence of a fentanyl trafficker and his crime is their whole justification.
There is the Dixie Mafia and the President all over again
Trump is a man who will push boundaries further and further until someone physically stops him from doing so. But you don’t need to justify anything if you have full control over people who would normally investigate, prosecute or restrict such things.
Then you put your thumb on the scale (i.e. Texas) so you don’t cede power to the other party in the midterms and then you never need to worry about consequences for your entire term.
It’s a bit more of a problem in 2028 but Trump is term-limited so that’s someone else’s problem.
> Trump is term-limited
There's a pretty well established Turkic solution to that. (Change the constitution. Claim the term limit applied to the old republic and it's your first term actually and go about your day)
There's a simpler one: Have Vance run as president with Trump as VP, then Vance immediately steps down on day 1. The Supreme Court will then ignore the intent of the 22nd amendment instead focusing on a narrow interpretation, make up some "this isn't a precedent" one-time ruling that allows it, and ta-da!
Vance would never step down. That man is an opportunist through and through.
You seem to assume that Vance is willing to be Trump's puppet. I don't assume that.
Vance has been willing to ride along with Trump as long as it gets Vance to positions of higher power. But it seems to me that Vance's agenda is Vance, not Trump. I doubt that he'd play that "resign" game. (He might tell Trump that he was going to...)
That would be working as intended, besides the resignation. Any ticket with Trump as VP is putting him next in line, as intended.
The people would be knowingly voting for that, and he would have to win the election of course.
After a review of the amendment, I don't believe it would be a "narrow interpretation" to read the text of the law and apply it.
Are you saying it wouldn't be okay for him to be VP and take the helm if Vance died? I think that would be okay, per my reading.
The deception/switcharoo is a different problem, not really related to running three times. Biden could have made Kamala President Day 1 as well.
Why even have term limits if that is okay?
No one has ever expected a former President to want to become a VP — a lower office.
We'll have to address it if it ever happens. I doubt we're the first to consider it happening, including the folks who drafted the amendment.
I don't really think you're that clever, no offense. Other humans can think of "what ifs" just the same as you.
There's probably a historical record of how they arrived at the language, if you care about that kind of thing.
It wasn't until the 25th amendment (which, you'll note, came after the 22nd) that the vice president was officially the successor to the presidency. So it would be weird for the 22nd to have a "what if" answer to something that wasn't yet itself law
Or have a military takeover or manufacture a crisis. At the very least they will claim election fraud and we saw what happened in Trump 1.0. There are definitely many ways MAGA will (likely) remain in power. Fascists don't give up power without a fight.
Hum hum... Bombing of Libya. Support for ISIS against Al Assad in Syria. Doesn't make what happened today right, but it is pretty myopic to see this as unique to Trump or unprecedented.
This absolutely nothing at all like Libya, where an ongoing civil war resulted in UN resolutions of force.
Snatching a national leader of a country with which the US is not at war, has had zero force authorization, off of that leader's own soil, is completely unprecedented, no matter how bad that leader is.
Not sure if it's really unprecedented, but I think all wars should be like that. Go kidnap or kill the leader but please leave everyone else alone. Also by all means go and capture the US' leader if you think you need to retaliate.
The US president abducting a foreign head of state without any congressional authorization, and you are unsure if it's unprecedented?!
Wars should not be the unilateral whim of an uncountable dictator, ever. They should not be started by the US on pretenses that continually change, have not been clearly stated to the American people or Congress, and that make zero sense to anyone involved.
The most clear explanation I have heard that makes any sense at all for this behavior is that Marco Rubio thinks he can ride this to the presidency because he knows it will be popular with a large chunk of Latin Americans, even if it is inexplicable to most Americans.
Regardless of the logistics of how wars should be conducted, the destruction of the US constitution inherent in this action is treasonous to our country's ideals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
it is, for better or worse, precedented
All of the justification in this moment reads to me like: Trump is giving different segments of his coalition reasons to get off the fence and on his side. It’s something different for Rubio than for DoD than for the oil cronies. It’s not really about persuading anyone outside of Trump’s coalition.
"Justified" in what sense? Who does this administration - or indeed USA in general - answer to?
Folks there's nothing new or insane here. Countries attacked other countries all throughout human history. The surprise is when they don't.
Now it's not super hard to understand why Trump is fixated on Venezuela in terms of geopolitics. There's a decision by this admin to bolster US in the western hemisphere, possibly in preparation to coming to terms with a bipolar world split between US and China. So the US is now meddling with Canada and Greenland. Now with the shift towards the right in Latam (Milei in Argentina, Bukele in El Salvador, Kast in Chile) Trump is just pushing a few more bricks to create a more uniform American-led sphere. Plus, Venezuela was very close with the Iranians and Russians, so removing this regime surely serves some strategic goals.
> "Justified" in what sense?
"Justified" in the sense of "went to congress for a declaration of war". You know, that thing Presidents stopped doing in the early 2000s.
The War Powers Resolution (WPR) of 1973 sets a 60-day limit for U.S. forces in hostilities without a formal declaration of war or congressional authorization, allowing for a potential 30-day extension for withdrawal, totaling 90 days, after which the President must remove troops.
Examples of bombings/ground invasions using WPR without congressional AUMF:
Invasion of Grenada (1983) (7,300 US troops, 19 KIA)
Invasion of Panama (1989) (27,000 troops, 23 KIA)
Airstrikes on Libya (1986) (and 2011) [Obama administration argued they did not need Congressional authorization because the operations did not constitute "hostilities" as defined by the War Powers Resolution. Therefore, they argued, the 60-day clock never started.]
Kosovo Air Campaign (1999) [The bombing campaign lasted 78 days in violation of the 60-day limit]
The Mayaguez Incident (1975)
Syria Missile Strikes (2017 & 2018)
Assassination of Qasem Soleimani (2020)
The US Congress didn't pass a declaration of war for Vietnam, Lebanon, Laos, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Honduras, Panama, or Iraq I, all before the 2000s and since the last declaration (WWII). That doesn't include the UN-authorised military interventions.
While I in no way endorse whatever batshit insane things Trump is doing, I don't think the US has issued a declaration of war since WW2. Declarations of war have been quite rare internationally in general since the end of WW2 outside of a few examples.
I imagine the calculus goes something like "unjustified war didn't matter any of the other times, so it won't matter this time either". Although this time the US would be bringing death and destruction to its own continent so there is a moral improvement on what they normally do and that will probably going to make the war more of a political problem for Trump.
It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same.
For example I'm not american and mostly on the right, and I think it's doubtful if it's legally justified (how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition), but it makes a lot of sense, it aligns with realpolitik and it's morally good for several independent reasons. In particular it has a hugely disproportionate geopolitical impact, and less importantly it can bring a few million people from under a dictatorship.
As an interesting aside, I recently did a quick research on the Grenada invasion, widely spoken of as an embarrassing moment. It went... very well. They came, remove a budding dictatorship right after a coup, left in two months, and Grenada had no ill effects in the years after (both by subjective reporting, and by GDP per capita comparable to neighboring countries). The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. The number of dictatorships that did well in recent history is exactly two, and neither was socialist (SK and Singapore).
> how does one legally justify a was anyways
I see we’re now living in a world where many people genuinely don’t even remember the answer to this question.
Roughly, you can legally justify a war if (i) it’s in self defense or (ii) you get a UN Security Council resolution. That’s why GWB tried to get a security council resolution before going into Iraq, as the case for self defense was pretty shaky.
Is it common for actual wars to meet these legal requirements? No. But that’s just because wars are something that generally shouldn’t happen. It’s also not common for murders to meet the requirements on justifiable homicide.
Some of the discussion of the legality of the US invasion of Panama is relevant here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
> The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region.
This. Your logic could at least make sense with other US president, but not wanna-be dictator one doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators in the world. Not a good fit to fight for democracy.
> doing lip service for all the authoritarians and dictators
It’s more than lip service.
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There is no left or right here. There is ultra right and right. Trump is a ultra right authoritarian ruler, and the Democratic party is just another right wing party. The left vs right is just a way for powerful people to have someone to blame. Please stop using these propaganda terms.
I don't like using these terms without qualifications, just like socialism means three different things in three different contexts.
But saying the Democratic party, with AOC, Bernie Sanders and two decades of progressism is "right"... you might as well say the sky is green. That's just ignoring any meaning of the words, not trying to find a more precise one.
the progressive wing of the Democratic party does not have much sway or power within the party tho. the party itself is centrist.
War can only be justified after the fact as a result of good outcomes. The decision prior is always a roll of the dice that loads the thrower with infinite responsibility.
You say that as if the reason is that Venezuela is a dictatorship. I despise Maduro but this break of international rules is everything but morally good. It opens a world of brute force and lack of international rules. It is only "morally good" in the short term. In the medium-long, it's morally horrible and terrifying.
My country is not a fan of Trump, is it morally right to send a bunch of covert soldiers to capture him and throw him out of the country? We'd be saving the US from a dictatorship.
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I certainly didn't expect a "well if you can depose a country's president, feel free", especially combined with a "once it's a dictatorship" cop out, as if there's the Worldwide Department of Dictatorship Judgement to tell us if a country is a dictatorship or not.
Which is why you don't do it nilly willy. There are plenty of hard decision in the real world, with real consequences when you guess wrong.
But as far as my personal opinion goes, I'd prefer a bit more intervention in the world. We actually created United Nations with this purpose, but it got hobbled by Russia and China's security vetos, and by the arab block making it a "resolution against Israel" machine.
But we never decided as a planet to just leave Sudan-like atrocities to happen without taking action because "sovereignty". That's not a thing that happened, and I'm actually a bit puzzled everybody acts like we did.
Yeah, I guess this was just pretty high on my "willy nilly" scale.
I completely agree.
It's worth remembering the UN fought in the Korean war and wasn't was always a place for authoritarian regimes to pass useless resolutions and make noise.
The fact we, as humanity, have allowed so many genocides and slave nations to exist, and to treat them with a measure of equality, is a failing.
And, to be clear, I'm not talking about people I disagree with politically. I'm talking about places and peoples like North Korea and Cambodia and Sudan. There's a ton of shades of gray, but some situations really require a special kind of blindness to pretend are gray.
It's also worth remembering how the UN (which was really mostly US in practice) fought in the Korean war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#War_crimes
There are very good reasons to avoid that kind of thing. Modern warfare is extremely devastating, so the bar for ethical use of force is extremely high.
> how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition
What? There's a process for initiating an offensive war in the US and they didn't follow it. Legally, Congress must authorize it. Though that hasn't been followed for quite a few wars now.
Isolated demand for rigor. When is the last time Congress did that?
Why isolated? There's people demanding it every single time it happened.
Just because it's ignored every time doesn't make this time okay.
They've largely all been illegal.
But we did have an AUMF for the absolute disasters that were the afghanistan and iraq wars. Somebody who isn't american coming in and saying "whatever, fuck it, Trump just does what he wants" is terrifying to me.
Trump would prefer it if I were killed. Should I be shot?
The president is legally able to authorize an offensive action though. Maybe not an "all out war" like Vietnam but what's happening in Venezuela is entirely legal from the US standpoint.
Ah, US is doing a little special operation I suppose, inside another sovereign nation, and this of course shouldn't be considered an invasion.
Maybe? I don’t know there is an Authorization of Use of Force, and we’ve been conducting turkey shoots on civilian craft for lik 3 months now.
Seems on “Illegal” side of things, for whatever that matters in ‘26 huh?
>It's probably just the disconnect between the two sides of american politics. On the right it's justified enough, on the left it doesn't matter what Trump says, the reaction is going to be exactly the same. For example I'm not american and mostly on the right
Ah a textbook case of outgroup homogeneity bias. [1] Your follow up comment about Bernie and AOC is icing on the cake.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
How? Try this:
https://www.state.gov/nicolas-maduro-moros/
[edit] Maduro remained under US federal indictment on narco‑terrorism and related cocaine trafficking conspiracy charges throughout the Biden administration.
Venezuela has always been a minor player in the drug trade compared to other countries. The whole narco-terrorism thing has always been code for "he took back the oil and we don't like him"
No no, we pardon narco-terrorist cocaine trafficking presidents now.
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I mean, do they really need to justify it any further? They just arrested Maduro while causing very little collateral damage, if they'd failed dramatically then they'd have much more questions to answer.
In a world with at least the appearance of international law, yes they very much would have questions to answer
The obviously reply to that would be "The US forces were invited by the democratically elected Venezuelan leadership to put a stop to the ongoing coup"
The concept of "international law" here is pretty confusing because to begin with you'd need to choose who decides what counts as a violation of Venezuelas sovereignty. Presumably the people backed by the US are okay with this, and team Maduro isn't.
Presumably, if you were to agree that Maduro wasn't in fact the legitimate leader of Venezuela, you'd just consider this an internal issue with US helping in local law enforcement matters.
If you disagree and consider Maduro to be the legitimate president, presumably no amount of justification will help you see it differently. But then, I'm not sure anyone particularly cares about your opinion either.
>The obviously reply to that would be "The US forces were invited by the democratically elected Venezuelan leadership to put a stop to the ongoing coup"
Were they? And is that the justification the US has cited? If not, you're writing fan fiction and that's not really interesting.
I'm not a supporter of totalitarian regimes including Maduro's, but the US has a track record of producing very poor outcomes for people in South America when they topple one leader in favor of a more--shall we say--"market friendly" character waiting in the wings.
As for international law, it is extremely clear, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. International law recognizes only two clear exceptions: self defense or a US Security Councul resolution.
>Were they? And is that the justification the US has cited? If not, you're writing fan fiction and that's not really interesting.
This is all necessarily speculative, we might never have sufficient visibility to know all the facts.
I'm merely attempting to provide the strongest reply the administration could provide if they cared to try. I believe it's reasonably grounded in facts.
1. US government openly does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate head of state of Venezuela
2. US government does recognize Edmundo González Urrutia as the president-elect.
3. Venezuelan opposition has been heavily lobbying in an effort to get foreign governments to intervene in Venezuela
All of these things are verifiable facts, I think they can be distilled into my perfectly reasonable suggestion as to how the US could fend off such criticism.
The way the US fends off criticism is by proving their case before the UN and getting the UN to agree to direct action.
Unilateral action by the US against a souvenir nation should be criticized regardless the nation.
Whether or not the US action here was "unilateral" depends entirely on how one views the electoral fraud claims.
No it does not depend on that at all.
There's no second party to this action, it's the US's alone. Even if we accept the electoral fraud claims, Venezuela did not ask for US intervention. The rightfully elected leader of a nation can't call for a second nation to invade and bomb their nation.
>The rightfully elected leader of a nation can't call for a second nation to invade and bomb their nation.
Why not?
Because nations have laws and the majority of nations laws don't give a leader unilateral authority to call for self invasion. In fact, that's usually called "treason".
For Venezuela, this would be something that, if any organization could call for it, it'd be the "Supreme Tribunal of Justice" [1]
And before you say it, yes I get that they are corrupt. But there are still laws. Which is why if you are going to overrule the laws of another nation, you should have at least some backing from the UN first. Deciding on your own that the the courts are wrong is just international vigilantism.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Tribunal_of_Justice_(V...
> Which is why if you are going to overrule the laws of another nation, you should have at least some backing from the UN first. Deciding on your own that the the courts are wrong is just international vigilantism.
On the other hand, if much of the world agrees with you anyway, not bothering with asking the UN might not matter at all.
> As for international law, it is extremely clear, prohibiting the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
Decided by whom?
Let me quickly google that for you:
International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations. In international relations, actors are simply the individuals and collective entities, such as states, international organizations, and non-state groups, which can make behavioral choices, whether lawful or unlawful. Rules are formal, typically written expectations that outline required behavior, while norms are informal, often unwritten guidelines about appropriate behavior that are shaped by custom and social practice.[1] It establishes norms for states across a broad range of domains, including war and diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law
I believe matters of international law are typically decided upon by a randomly selected panel of internet commenters.
Yes, but that's not how they're justifying it.
They're talking about Venuzela stealing their oil (it's not) and of transporting drugs to the US (while pardoning drug king pins).
Sure, yeah, but you'll just give yourself a headache trying to keep track of all the ridiculous things this admin puts out.
The reality is that there a lot of people across the political divide at very high levels of government who deeply dislike Maduro for a variety of reasons, some perhaps more pure-hearted than others.
Oil and drugs are obviously not even how they're justifying this to themselves. The oil in Venezuela isn't that interesting because it's really only US and some Canadian oil companies that are capable of extracting it. The US is always going to control oil production in Venezuela, no matter what.
But yeah, instead of focusing on all the silly statements the admin puts out you might as well just guess at the eventual steelmanned argument they'll present in writing at a later date.
This is quite a bit like the invasion of Panama by US forces and the removal of Manuel Noriega from power. Except Noriega wasn't "elected" like Maduro and the US doesn't have a strategically important canal to protect in Venezuela.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
Anyway, good riddance. Maybe the Trump Administration actually has a plan for peaceful transfer of power now that they removed Maduro? The US still needs to disrupt ELN drug operations, if that's what they're really after.
There are many undemocratic and repressive regimes around the world. Trump has professed his admiration for various of these leaders. You can't seriously attribute noble goals of supporting democracy to him. Also, shouldn't he then be doing this in many other places in the world?
I like how we went from "international law" to "noble goals", I suppose that's pretty on point :)
> Also, shouldn't he then be doing this in many other places in the world?
No, I don't see how that would follow. I can choose to give money to a charity, but that does not mean I have to choose to give my money to all the charities in the world.
The criterion for "legitimate government" is very well established. It's "has effective control of the territory".
It's a low bar, and clearly one that the current Venezuelan government clears.
There is no such thing as international law.
Much like “intellectual property”, “international law” is a nonsense term that tells you only that the person who employs it lives in their own bubble, captured by powerful interests of others.
And money is just a construct but I still need to pay the mortgage. And international rules removed the hole in the ozone layer, reduced cheminal weapons stockpiles by something like 99%, and ICJ rulings have adjudicated to force entire countries to comply with compromises.
I would be curious about the logic that allows you to call intellectual property a nonsense term while still allowing other property to make sense. Both are social constructs.
So capturing a citizen of another country, who happens to be their leader, and spiriting him out of the country is cool with you?
Your question rests on the assumption that Maduro is the legitimate leader of Venezuela, that's a huge assumption.
You rest on the assumption that a foreign nation can decide who is the legitimate leader or not.
Ah, but when it's the US it's fine. They're the champions of democracy, aren't they?
In general, that term is mostly used outside of the borders of a country looking in. After all, "illegitimate leaders" tend to be authoritarians who take power and quell dissent within the borders.
Not at all arguing that it somehow leads to justification for an illegal invasion.
In this specific case the claim comes down to assertions of a sham election. If this was indeed the case (with the lens of an international survey obviously the US view is suspect considering the attack), then the Venezuelan people themselves do not view him as a legitimate leader, which simplifies the situation.
You really believe this, right? That you can decide for someone else, specifically a whole nation, what their view is and what they want to do with their nation. That you are doing the world a favour. Guess it's worked in the past, a new sucker is born every minute.
Ah, but then who can?
I think my assumption that the legitimacy of a government rests in the eye of the beholder is pretty reasonable.
Your original comment is justifying the bombing of a foreign country and kidnapping of its leader, not whether a leader can be seen as illegitimate. That is not reasonable at all.
Step out of your American exceptionalist bubble for a second. How would you like if the inverse were true? There's some shady elections in US so Venezuela decides to throw bombs on Washington. How would you enjoy that?
I think you're misreading my original comment, I was merely stating that there will be no meaningful calls for Trump admin to justify themselves because they succeeded in pulling this off without making a mess.
>Step out of your American exceptionalist bubble for a second. How would you like if the inverse were true? There's some shady elections in US so Venezuela decides to throw bombs on Washington. How would you enjoy that?
I'm neither from the US, nor a huge fan of the US.
I do think Venezuela could probably have been right to depose Trump in a similar manner had he managed to cling to power after January 6, but that's an absurd thing to speculate about.
No it doesn’t. If he was a fruit vendor in Caracas it would still be outrageous to spirit him out of the country by force.
What if he was the leader of a brutal coup and the legitimately elected government requested foreign help to have him removed?
It's really really difficult to paint this as inherently bad, it's hard to see how the conclusion here doesn't entirely depend on how you feel about the results of the previous Venezuelan elections.
It shouldn’t be difficult to see this as bad, but I guess the future will tell. I hope for the sake of the Venezuelan population things go better than the last time the US decided to initiate regime change.
Depends on the point of view. I certainly agree that there are many very good reasons to see this as bad, but I don't think that concerns about Venezuela's national sovereignty rank very highly on that list.
From the perspective that regime change often goes horribly wrong? Absolutely.
From the point of view that Maduro was effectively in charge of a coup that the real elected candidates were desperately seeking foreign support to stop? Harder to see the intervention as bad, as it is probably the only way to rectify the situation.
There's no doubt that this heavily depends on one's personal views, so there's no obvious answers. At least the concern about regime change is fact-based and pretty much universal, regardless of personal beliefs. The concern about whether or not it's right or wrong for the US to go and arrest Maduro depends largely on how one views the recent Venezuelan election results, and therefore inherently relies on some major assumptions on matters where we're unlikely to ever see conclusive proof.
Of course, there are also pretty good technical reasons to believe the electoral receipts published by the Venezuelan opposition. I believe they would have been pretty much impossible to fake. That topic and others related to it have been pretty much endlessly discussed on HN already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41123155
“The concern about whether or not it's right or wrong for the US to go and arrest Maduro depends largely on how one views the recent Venezuelan election results”
Again, no it doesn’t. It’s the unilateral extraterritorial interventionism that’s the problem. I have no time for Maduro or his administration.
And if you think this intervention is about protecting democracy I have a bridge to sell you.
It's only unilateral if you reject the electoral fraud claims.
>And if you think this intervention is about protecting democracy I have a bridge to sell you.
No, I certainly don't think that. I'd suspect it's mostly about personal grievances and Trumps desire to make a show. But still I think it makes more sense to focus on the best-case justifications than trying to guess at the real reasons behind why this administration does what it does.
By that definition no foreign intervention could ever be unilateral because you can always find some local group to support you. By that logic the English conquest of Ireland was locally supported because the Earl of Desmond supported them.
The actual motivations matter because they dictate the outcome. In this case the actual motivations have been stated publicly by Trump a few years ago, they want the oil back. They will happily support whoever ends up in power so long as they hand back the oil rights.
I think you're stretching a bit, I'm simply proposing they have a pretty good case here because much of the world openly agrees with the US claim that Maduro did not actually win the previous elections.
>In this case the actual motivations have been stated publicly by Trump a few years ago, they want the oil back. They will happily support whoever ends up in power so long as they hand back the oil rights.
That's obviously not credible, you can't profitably extract Venezuelan crude without US involvement. There's simply nobody else with the capabilities to do so. Venezuelan oil is particularly difficult to get out of the ground, it's tremendously difficult to extract profitably.
>"That's obviously not credible, you can't profitably extract Venezuelan crude without US involvement. There's simply nobody else with the capabilities to do so. Venezuelan oil is particularly difficult to get out of the ground, it's tremendously difficult to extract profitably"
I see that you do not manage your finances properly. Lemme take over.
Besides I do not believe this "nobody else" BS. If there is a need and money to be made they will find someone with the tech or deep enough pockets to develop it.
> If there is a need and money to be made they will find someone with the tech or deep enough pockets to develop it
There's no need and there's likely to be no money to be made. The extraction costs will probably be closer to $60 per barrel, which is more than you can sell it for.
>"There's no need and there's likely to be no money to be made"
Not your or mine problem. It is up to Venezuela to figure it out either way, at least in a reasonable world it should be.
No doubt, but I'm simply making the point that it doesn't make economic sense for US to go after Venezuelan oil.
>"making the point that it doesn't make economic sense"
Baloney, you said this:
>"You can't profitably extract Venezuelan crude without US involvement"
Pretty sure given enough efforts could play for others as well.
>Pretty sure given enough efforts could play for others as well.
Not really, given the investment involved in developing the necessary technology in the first place.
Only way this could make sense for any third country would be if it was strategic, but Venezuela is kind of poorly located for that.
You seem intent on not understanding my point. Absolutely none of the details matter, the broad strokes of arresting someone in a foreign jurisdiction and taking them by force to your country to face trial sets about the worst precedent imaginable.
That's not setting any kind of precedent at all.
I disagree but that’s hardly the salient point now is it.
So Trump has now explicitly said that US companies are going to take over the Venezuelan oil industry. So much for not credible.
Trump says a lot of things which aren't remotely credible. WTI price is under $60 and going down. The last thing they need is more crude supply into the market lowering the benchmark price even lower.
It doesn’t have to be a good idea for it to be their rationale. They have stated it publicly to the media a few hours ago and you refuse to believe, how utterly bizarre.
Their stated rationale also doesn't have to be their true rationale. For example, it's hard to believe that this is about oil rather than the headlines for Trump.
If they have Maduro why keep bombing?
I haven't seen any reporting suggesting that they continued bombing after they grabbed Maduro
I saw on reddit but I really hope they did stop.
The kind of question where I lament what appears to be a newer generation having absolutely no idea of what has gone before ...
It actually terrifies me ...
It's like we're missing intellectual depth of moral backbone where it really matters (and no, I don't mean on Twitter).
I think there may have been some deliberate misdirection. I'm writing this after the US announced they have captured Maduro. If they had said they were going to do that he probably would have taken precautions. The subsequent justification may be that María Machado won the election, is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Maduro's removal with US assistance. Though who knows?
He might have. Or he might well have come willingly, ordered his bodyguards not to shoot etc. figuring that he'll have a better chance being an alive headache for the US, than as an Allende being found dead by his own hand (supposedly), or as Saddam being found hiding in a pigsty somewhere 50 days later.
That justification feels weak because of how much it could parallel with Putin's special military operation, where Zelensky is an illegitimate president, Viktor Yanukovych is the legitimate ruler and is entitled to ask for Zelenksy's removal with Russian assistance.
I don't like how Trump has unilaterly decided this extreme of an action, but at the moment I am glad that this didn't fail like it did in Ukraine. I am still worried about what the aftermath will lead to. I don't think peace and democracy is having a particularly winning record at the moment.
Yeah but if you take an honest look Zelensky was elected with 73% of the vote so probably a legitimate ruler. The Venezuela election seems to have been about "Maduro had in fact won just 30% of the vote, compared with 67% for González" so González, the proxy for Machado should have been the winner. (source https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/10/gonzal...)
These things are messy.
And why does US have to be involved in any of that?
If we really want to "promote democracy" so badly, let's start with Saudi Arabia.
Well, there's the these things are messy issues. No doubt the US invading Venezuela and not Saudi are somewhat oil related.
Are you proposing the US invades Saudi Arabia?
I'm proposing that we don't invade anything.
But if we're going to invade some country on the grounds of making it into a democracy, one does have to wonder why we don't start with the countries that are very proudly and openly not democracies.
These are the bad non-democracies. There are good non-democracies too. Are you being critical of good non-democracies? Maybe you are living in a bad non-democracy and can't tell the difference, you might get invaded and enlightened any time soon.
I agree Zelensky is a legitmate ruler.
But the Russian narrative would be that Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by the Ukraine Parliament in 2014 in what Putin described as a "coup". So Moscow will allege that any president from a future election is illegimate.
Just listened to the Trump press conference, it seems Machado won't be involved in the US-led transition government. He said she is deeply unpopular in Venezuela and it wouldn't work. Conversations are developing between Sec.State Rubio and Venezuela VP Delcy Rodriguez who is Acting President.
This situation feels messier by the minute.
As someone old enough to have seen the US invade too many countries, I'm struck by the lack of effort put into justifying this sort of military action these days. There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal and I have no idea where the courts or history will ultimately land on that decision. But the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far.
To briefly quantify some things: US public support at the onset of the Afghanistan invasion polled at 88% [a]; at the onset of the Iraq invasion, 62%, rising to 72% [b]; and Venezuela here and now polls at 30% supporting "U.S. taking military action in Venezuela" [c] (Nov. 19–21 2025).
[a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_public_opinion_o...
[b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S...
[c] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-venezuela-u-s-military-act...
I suspect that invading and bombing a country for a few hours and then pulling out is not what most people will have in mind when you mention "taking military action". People are much, much more likely to remember the military quagmires in Vietnam or the Middle East, which have absolutely nothing to do with what occurred here.
Taking out Maduro is likely to lead to similar consequences as toppling Saddam, isn’t it? I predict the nation will be very unstable for decades ahead.
The action is smaller scale, but the ethics of it are the same: it’s abhorrent. The justifications are paper-thin ”the people deserve democracy”, while everyone knows the only interest served is that of the US government.
"Taking out Maduro is likely to lead to similar consequences as toppling Saddam, isn’t it? "
I don't think so. The Near East is a simmering cauldron of ancient ethnic and sectarian hatreds. Compared to that, Venezuela is ethnically and religiously almost homogeneous.
There is no equivalent of mad clerics preaching to their flock that they have to exterminate their heretic neighbours and that God will grant them paradise for doing so.
That’s the same talking point the far right uses for why the US shouldn’t get involved in Ukraine because they worry about a destabilized Russia if Putin goes away.
It’s some sort of dictator insurance policy. The idea that they are there because the country will likely just do it again but worse given the chance.
I haven’t heard that talking point. It seems like a pretty stupid strawman. Nobody is proposing removal of Putin by force, as far as I know.
I’d say it’s easily the most common talking point I’ve seen from westerners on Twitter against overly supporting Ukraine and specifically providing them advanced American weaponry to strike within Russia proper, which was the biggest debate/controversy for about two years.
Also not necessarily “remove Putin by force”, it’s create instability in Russia where there’s a power vacuum if they lose badly in Ukraine.
Everyone just takes all of their American foreign policy lessons from Iraq and applies it broadly because Iraq briefly had ISIS and other extremist pop up
It’s also deeply rooted in a lack of respect for the general public in those countries, who they think will keep supporting evil regardless
”Following the war on social media” is a highway to poor psychological health, so I’ve avoided that after the first few weeks of the Russian invasion. In retrospect, I think I’m better off for having missed these far-right talking points.
Edit: Twitter? Why would anyone but the far right still be on Twitter these days?
Not necessarily, but there is the risk that ELN will further consolidate power. Maybe the US dies not want the group's leader, Antonio Garcia, to be the next president of Venezuela.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Army_(Colo...
The deposing of the Shah only took three days. Three days to create half-a-century of turmoil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
Let's see what happens if they get sucked into supporting the new regime. Amazing prospects already!
What new regime? The president was kidnapped. The vice-president[1] assumed meanwhile. I wouldn't count that as new regime.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delcy_Rodr%C3%ADguez
That’s what remains to be seen. Although I suppose the US could always wash their hands.
Public opinion in 2001 and 2003 followed the 9/11 terror attack and was very fresh in peoples mind. A more recent war (2015) would be the attack on Yemen by Barack Obama.
I can however not find any good public opinion for that war.
I don't think Americans perceive much of a difference between attacking Al Qaeda++ in Afghanistan versus in Yemen, certainly not enough to see it as "a different war", and it's not clear that perception is incorrect.
Entirely different, from an American perspective.
Afghanistan had the context of 9/11. All Americans knew about 9/11, and most cared strongly about it.
I doubt most Americans know anything about Yemen or know anything about any US involvement there, nor do they care.
Military strikes in Yemen aren't seen as the same war. Afghanistan and Iraq were boots on the ground, building up military bases, hearing about the occasional death of US personnel, etc. It's also decades apart.
When it comes to Yemen, the average American is probably entirely unaware of it, and the ones that do know about it are definitely going to place it in the Palestine/Israel context (which has huge mindshare circulation here, All things considered - we usually just ignore things outside of US borders and this is ultra politicized here). Maybe without that element, there would be more truth to what you were saying, but it's definitely in the Israel/Hamas war bucket as of now.
I think Americans are broadly aware that the US has been striking AQ, AQ++, and ISIS affiliates across the Middle East as part of the broader GWOT/OIR for years, and the exact jurisdictions in which it happens are essentially implementation details.
As of a few months ago, when the US began striking Yemen for purpose of defending Israel, it ha become loosely affiliated with that conflict, but the period discussed was Obama era.
Correct. Most americans view those targetted strikes as just continuation of the broader wars against terrorism (AQ, AQ++, ISIS affiliates)
We've been bombing Yemen on and off since post 9/11, including a rather large attack with UK support just last year (2025). Are you thinking of the Saudi-led intervention that occurred in 2015 in Yemen as part of the Yemeni civil war? Or maybe when we built a base there in 2011 to facilitate more drones?
I think this is a very good indicator US has been transitioning away from democracy towards something else for quite a while and now it has reached a point where no justification for an illegal war is even required.
After the Iraq war we(US allies that were dragged into this war by a bunch of lies) felt like this was very bad, but it was a blunder of one administration and the trust in the US as a whole was going to be restored.
Now, no one even pretends this is the case.
> After the Iraq war we(US allies that were dragged into this war by a bunch of lies) felt like this was very bad, but it was a blunder of one administration and the trust in the US as a whole was going to be restored.
I don't understand how people can be this naive. It's the only thing the US has ever done for the entirety of it's existence! How did you miss that?
Ironically it's very possible the support for US military intervention is higher among Venezuelans than US citizens.
On the plus side, that's probably good for the odds of success.
On the minus side, they're not paying the bill.
Do we know who's been installed as a replacement? As with Libya, getting rid of a bad leader doesn't necessarily make the situation better.
Replacement? They haven't overthrown the Venezuela government just captured it's figure head.
True. Maduro has not been the president since the last elections; he merely usurped the position. You cannot perform such an action without facing some constraints. For him, personally, maybe this was the better outcome.
They don't care about "better" they just want the oil reserves for themselves.
First, read up on Venezuela's oil. I don't think that's the case. At the very least it's very expensive oil, hard to use and very bad for engines, refineries and for the environment and also oil is over (meaning oil will go into terminal decline probably before 2028 and that will be the end of the oil companies)
Second, when the US did have Venezuela's oil things were going a lot better in Venezuela for the whole population. So would that really be such a bad thing?
Third, Chavez made things so bad in Venezuela it's tough to imagine this making it worse. Oh and then he died and Maduro came ... and made things worse.
> and also oil is over (meaning oil will go into terminal decline probably before 2028 and that will be the end of the oil companies)
Back in the 90s, my dad told me a quote from someone big in oil:
(Shah of Iran? Trouble with searching for quotes on the internet, they get misattributed a lot).Oil as a fuel will, hopefully, be over soon. 2028 is… I think that's too soon, though it would be good if it was. But oil is useful for a lot more than just fuel, and engineered bacteria synthesising more is probably more like a 2030s thing than a 2028 thing.
You don't understand. 2028 is the time peak oil will definitely be behind us, and therefore the oil business will only deteriorate from that point forward. It will quickly mean the end of all oil producers except the very cheapest.
Yeah, literally nobody but the US could possibly profitably extract Venezuelan oil at any meaningful scale.
If you're going to go with conspiracy theories, China is desperate for oil and was openly allying with Venezuela, and so was, ironically, petrostate Russia, although that's ending (for now). I bet Putin is looking for contingency plans though. Even though Venezuela is not exactly the easiest to reach for either of them, but beggars can't be choosers. Preventing any progress here might have been worth a lot to both the US and the EU. And, yes, I know how it sounds, but this will be pretty helpful with the Ukraine war. Yes, really.
Of course leftist tankies will be mad the billionaire fake-communist "revolution" that started with Chavez and should have ended 20 years ago is now very likely over. Of course, most Venezuelans (75% according to the opposition) would describe that revolution as a nightmare.
Of course I doubt 75% of Venezuelans wanted the US to resolve it.
I seriously doubt either China or Russia could manage to extract significant quantities of Venezuelan oil at a profit even if the US lifted all sanctions and completely forgot about Venezuela.
The costs of getting production set up at are so high compared to the relatively bleak outlook for the oil market, it's likely that Venezuelan oil isn't a hugely attractive proposition for anyone.
China is desperate, and also the enemy of essentially every source of oil ... "except" Venezuela (disregarding the fact that of course Maduro can't be trusted, and thus isn't really an ally of China. More accurately they're both desperate and might be able to help one another).
Russia is also desperate. And is extracting oil in Venezuela easier than doing it while under Ukrainian bombardment? Good question but we can summarize: extracting oil inside Russia is failing, thanks to Putin's 3-day special military operation ... and they've already had to import fuel twice in the past 6 months, despite how utterly ridiculous that is: the country that out-produced Saudia Arabia when it comes to oil needed to import fuel.
China is moving away from oil at such a pace that any massive development of first the extraction technologies for Venezuela and then the actual infrastructure would probably take too long to be particularly useful.
Venezuela is also simply too far from China to be a reliable source of oil.
And yet Chinese government officials were in discussions mere hours before the US attacked. There were also discussions with Russia and Iran going on.
Yes because the only reason Chinese government officials would talk with Venezuela is because China wants to spin up large-scale oil production there? Literally no other reason they could possibly be talking, right?
The vice-president: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delcy_Rodr%C3%ADguez
The question is whether it's the majority of Venezuelans. I have no doubt that there are many who hate Maduro and his regime - for very good reasons - but that's true of many authoritarian countries that nevertheless have the "silent majority" tacitly supporting their regime.
There is the opposition vote result that showed us 75% wanted Maduro out. Of course you can ask, did that include having US forces remove him? On the other hand, you can bet a lot the result would have been even more than 75% if everybody wasn't afraid while voting in secret.
Even the slightest shadow of a "rules-based international world order" is dead. And all it took was some post-pandemic inflation.
"Rules-based order" just means Washington makes up the rules and gives out the orders. The very phrase hints at its conceit. Why "Rules-based order" instead of "International law" ? Its because International law is something concrete, something you can point to and hold up as a standard. International law means UN, ICC, Geneva conventions, votes and parlimentary procedure. It means accountability and uniform application of said law. "Rules-based order" just gives a slightest hint of legitimacy while Washington and its cronies do whatever they want. "Rules-based order" means that the United States can invoke the Monroe Doctrine in Venezuela, Cuba and all over its "backyard" i.e. South America, but Russia doing the same in Ukraine or China doing it in Taiwan is an affront to civillization.
What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off. They don't even pretend to give a plausible reason anymore because noone will ever buy it so why bother. "All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force." That is what we are witnessing now.
> What changed more recently is the mask has slipped off.
The mask has been off since the ICC came into existence (at the latest). The reason why the U.S. don’t recognize the ICC is because they know they’d be defendants there one second after.
I will admit i was slow to catch on. But watching the whole abominable horror show laid out - Gaza, Ukraine, Epstein, Trump coins, resorts, and ballrooms. Seeing the Nobel prize being given to the woman literally calling for Trump to invade her country and take their oil and cheering as her countrymen get bombed. And then seeing the media and liberal elites spin it as a snub against Trump as she dedicates the prize to him. I am ashamed that i was taken in for so long.
It has been a coordinated effort by a portion of republicans for the past decade. It didn’t happen just because of the pandemic
"Rules-based international world order" consists of just two rules:
1. The Western countries (basically meaning USA makes the decision) may attack any country.
2. Other countries may not defend themselves nor attack any country.
Iraq, Iraq (several separate agressions on Iraq, that is not a typo), Afghanistan, Cuba, Serbia, Libya, Sirya, Venezuela... the list goes on, Venezuela is of no particular significance here.
Whatever coutry has the most firepower you mean.
Hungary, Chechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, Tajikistan, Ichkeria, Ukraine, Syria... The list goes on
Lithuania?
Lithuania fought two distinct wars with Soviet Union, both conflicts involved USSR attempts to control the Baltic region and establish communist rule.
Where does Russia's attack of Ukraine fits within this?
If you're genuinely curious dig into the protests 2014, who won the election, who asked her supporters to take to the streets, and what has she been advocating for for a long time before.
It's all about Crimea and the black sea fleet and pipelines. Every time the same conflict, as Orwell put it: We've always been at war with Eurasia.
Edit: Instead of down-voting, tell me where I'm wrong. All of the facts are public information and you won't even have to leave Wikipedia.
I'll bite: speaking for myself, I can't figure out what point you are trying to make
First sentence says to look up 2014 protests and "her" supporters, second sentence says "it's" about the Black Sea and Crimea. Third sentence "we've" always been at war with Eurasia
Maybe fill in the blanks for us?
> First sentence says to look up 2014 protests and "her" supporters, second sentence says "it's" about the Black Sea and Crimea
Yulia Tymoshenko (pro-West), she urged her supporters to take to the streets when the pro-Russian candidate won the election. For a long time she wanted to withdraw from the Russian/Ukrainian deal that the Black Sea Fleet could be in Crimea until 202? (can't remember the exact year right now).
When those protests erupted Russia (unofficially) sent forces to protect their interests, Crimea. The conflict then escalated to the invasion.
> Third sentence "we've" always been at war with Eurasia
We as in the West, are always at war with the east. We want a world order where we are at the top of the food chain and we'll stop any attempt to rise. If we're going to prosper the rest of the world has to remain as cheap labor.
Look into any conflict this and the previous century and you'll see the same pattern. It's always been a game och risk between the East and the West.
One interesting thing to look into is which countries along the Russian border are not Nato members. Correlate this to where there has been pro-Western protests and even coup attempts in the last decade.
The world is run by psychopaths and they have most of their populations living in ignorance of how geopolitics actually work. My most important principle in life is to judge "my side" harder. Russia and China don't have to be our enemies, but a country is easier to run if there's an external threat. And that's why Oceania in Orwells' 1984 is always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia.
It's a big subject and it's difficult to summarize in a comment, that's why I listed a few questions to look into. I can dump facts and events all I want but the best thing one can do is to look into these conflicts themselves and find the patterns. It's always about who's allied with who, and who's extracting the resources. Gas/oil/minerals/power.
We were fine with Saddam (that we put in power in the first place) trying to exterminate the kurds, but mention leaving the petrodollar, oh no you didn't.
Thank you for the clarification. Given that the current context is comparing Ukraine to Venezuela, and Venezuela's opposition leader is a woman and there were protests in 2014, I had no idea you were talking about Tymoshenko.
According to West, not allowed. However, the West does not exist anymore, and we have two different ideological camps within it. According to USA, it’s bad, but it did not hurt American interests, so a good deal is possible. According to EU, foreign policy of which is hijacked by Baltic right, it is still not allowed, but… Deep currents indicate that as soon as it’s done with formal condemnations, it is desirable that business will resume as usual.
You might want to look into opinion polling on Russia in the Baltics or Finland. The idea that only the right considers Russia a threat is ridiculous.
There’s massive propaganda effort painting the picture of imminent invasion, so opinion polls are naturally reflecting that. I doubt that there was ever a reason for Finland to worry about it. It’s just a convenient narrative for politicians, mainly on the right. But I was not saying that it’s only right leaning voters think this way. Just pointed out that we have Kallas as head of EU diplomacy and few other vocal politicians from Baltic right wing parties, and they are fixated on Russian threat, which is necessary for their political survival.
> Deep currents indicate that as soon as it’s done with formal condemnations, it is desirable that business will resume as usual.
What deep currents are those? As a European situated close to Russia, I do not feel that this is the case.
Plenty of European businesses still operate in Russia or have set up their exit for easy return via Dubai legal entities. Also Belgium fiercely resisting confiscation of Russian assets etc.
>Also Belgium fiercely resisting confiscation of Russian assets etc
Isn't this literally them not wanting to be left holding the paper bag?
What businesses are doing, I don't know, I am more aware of what states are doing. What're your thoughts on the expansion of military expenditure? Let Ukraine die, keep ourselves defended?
> Isn't this literally them not wanting to be left holding the paper bag?
It’s telling that they consider this a possibility. If EU wanted it, they could protect Belgium. But anticipation of business as usual means that whoever distances from such decisions better, will do better.
„Let Ukraine die“ decision was made in 2022, when NATO chose not to engage directly and not to switch to war economy, rapidly scaling production of military equipment and supplies. In NATO vs Russia war, Russia had no chances, but it quickly became Ukraine vs Russia war with token Western support, where Ukraine has no chances in the long term. As for increase in military spending, it’s necessary, but whatever is done, is insufficient. It is barely enough for containment of Russia, and EU needs independent operation in Middle East and Africa, pushing out USA from the region (whatever America does there, always ricocheting on Europe, so they should be denied action without approval of allies)
> nor attack any country
It is not like citizens of Iran decide to attack Israel or like sponsoring terrorist orgs attacking Israel. I am not sure if Russians freely vote in referendum to attack Ukraine. These decisions are made by despots ruling these countries and then their citizens suffer. Either they die in trenches or suffer economic misery. What for? China too can live without Taiwan. Chinese people do not need to have another island belonging to their country. Only despots wants to have statues raised after them, or write their names in history books, because all other things: Power, Money, Sex they already have.
It's true that Russians didn't vote to attack Ukraine. Nevertheless, the invasion had broad popular support at the beginning.
>the invasion had broad popular support at the beginning.
According to whom?
You should understand that public opinion surveys in authoritarian countries are problematic. In autocracies, people might want to hide their opinions and give socially desirable answers that conform to the official government position for fear of facing repression or deviating from the consensus view.
According to my own relatives, friends, and acquaintances in Russia, where I'm from. You don't need to tell me about "hiding opinions". The majority support is regardless of all that, though.
This is a ridiculously small sample to tell me that "the invasion had broad popular support at the beginning". It had a broad support in your own circles and you casually extrapolated it to the whole population.
According to my own relatives, friends, and acquaintances in Russia (where I'm from) – no one supports or ever supported in the beginning the total idiocracy which is happening.
> I am not sure if Russians freely vote in referendum to attack Ukraine
They sure as hell didn't protest much when Russia occupied Crimea and started war in Eastern Ukraine.
2014 was before covid.
I wouldn't call it "some inflation". The living standard of the western middle class has been on the decline for a long, long time.
No it hasn't.
Expectations are higher, competition is stiffer, and the gap between bottom and top end has grown, but by and large (especially in the US), the middle class quality of life has gone up.
Obviously specific regions that failed to transition out of low value-add manufacturing and agriculture have suffered, but the vast majority of Americans live in cities doing or supporting high value work.
It's not even competition anymore. It's a screaming void that deafens everyone, causing them to reach for the nearest "acceptable" thing just to quiet the endless cacophony of human struggling.
> the middle class quality of life has gone up.
As long as you don't try to buy a house.
I see kids, right out of college, making more than I ever made, at the peak of my career, unable to afford a house.
Yes this is a big problem but a large part of this is the total elimination of starter homes from the market. I.e. they would be able to afford the types of homes that earlier generations started in, but those homes simply don't exist anymore.
It's kind of a quality of life degradation, but it's a bit more complex than just "an attainable item is no longer attainable." It has never been normal to buy a 2600 sqft, 4 bedroom home at the start of a career.
It's not that starter homes were eliminated or were torn down, it's that construction stopped in cities. The downzonings of prior generations, combined with the limited ability to expand by car travel, finally hit its limit and the urban planning apparatus was in complete capture of people who didn't want the built environment to change.
Would be nice if true, but not really.
The reason construction slowed down so much is that developers fear another 2008. We have just barely gotten back onto a historically normal-ish pace of construction: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST
And this talk of "just build build build," while not wrong per se, overlooks the fact that of course prices will come down, which then discourages construction. The system is self-equilibrating. 2008 reset the equilibrium point very low for 15 years, and now the nature of the costs of construction (labor and land) means it is not advantageous for anyone to build starter homes, and it's hardly advantageous to build homes at all.
Restrictive zoning is a problem and would be a very tidy explanation of all the woes of residential in the US, but there really isn't much evidence for it mattering that much in the grand scheme of things.
The single most important factor in home prices is local income levels. This gets baked into both land prices and labor costs, which then makes it very difficult to profitably build much, and completely unprofitable to build entry level homes.
The K-shaped economy is itself causing housing unaffordability. https://www.nber.org/papers/w33576
That would be nice if true, but not really.
The building industry never really recovered after 2008 because the only surviving companies were extremely cautious. In order to get more builders, there needs to be more places to build, and entry into the industry needs to be easier. It's all permitting, zoning, and discretionary processes stopping housing from being built where it's wanted to be built.
Well I've shared a statistical analysis and raw data series backing my points and directly contradicting yours. On the flip side I guess we have "trust me bro."
To the extent "it's all [any individual cause]", that cause is rising incomes. The second major cause of rising housing prices is cost of inputs (labor, land, material). Zoning definitely plays a role, but again: there's just no evidence that "solving zoning" will actually solve affordability. We should do it anyway because it'll solve all sorts of other problems in our built environment, but there's not good evidence affordability is one of them.
You ar also doing "trust me bro" with a statistical analysis that at most shows that prices rise with wages when supplies are constrained. Which, yes! That's what everyone says! K shaped recoveries happen when there's unequal access to opportunity, and supple constraints in access to the geography of good incomes is exactly the sort of supply constraints. Further, in order to get their weak results they do silly things like transform "supply constraints" into an indicator variable, and on the basis of that single odd regression try to overturn a huge body of literature showing the opposite.
Yet this one strange paper keeps getting cited as if it were God's own truth, the holy grail of economics that changes everything that was known before.
Supply restrictions are not binary, though that's how your paper treats them, and they perform none of the causal analysis that would be needed to extend their analysis to the conclusions you are trying to draw.
Here's a random paper with completely different results that agrees with the rest of the field:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009411902...
I remember the last time the "we can't change zoning" folks passed around a paper like the NBER paper you shared, and it was one about transit-oriented-development in Chicago, where allowing small upzonings close didn't change pricing much. It was contra to the vast majority of the literature, covered only a small geographic area with fully adequate housing supply, yet for a few years nobody could suggest doing the obvious zoning reforms without people claiming that Chicago proved that upzoning doesn't change pricing.
And again, supply will always be constrained below "affordability" by virtue of there being no profit available at affordable price points given the costs of inputs. So yes, if we imagine a world where supply isn't constrained first by the actual cost structure of construction, then clearly artificial constraints are the sole problem and solving them would solve the problem overall. But that's not the world we live in!
From your random paper:
> Fig. 5 shows the event study results for the change in log hedonic rents. In contrast to the housing supply, we find no statistically significant effect of upzoning on rents.
So it looks like your paper actually agrees with mine.
As I've said over and over: we should overhaul zoning for sure. However there is not good evidence that will solve affordability, and there's basically zero evidence that it is the cause of "all" the problems, as you so boldly claimed.
That's true.
From what I can see, those houses are being brought up by corporations, and turned into rentals.
Rental-only society is definitely possible (see Manhattan and Tokyo), but is a very different model from the traditional American suburban dream.
> I wouldn't call it "some inflation". The living standard of the western middle class has been on the decline for a long, long time.
IMHO the main problem nowadays, especially facing young people, is housing.
Otherwise there is probably never been a greater time to be alive, generally speaking, than right now. If you believe there is, can you outline the year(s) in question and how they were better?
As for inflation, using Bank of Canada numbers (since I'm in CA), $100 of goods/services from 1975-2000 increased by 220% to $320.93, while $100 of goods/services from 2000-2025 increased by 71% to $171.22.
In a 2014 article, CPI from 1914 to 2014:
* https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/62-604-x/62-604-x2015001...
From 1955 to 2021:
* https://economics.td.com/ca-inflation-new-vintage
1971-76 and 1977-83 had double the CPI of ~2021.
While unpleasant, and higher than that of what many young(er) people have experienced, it is hardly at a crazy level. The lack of people's experience of higher rates is simply more evidence as to how stable things have generally been:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moderation
Tom Nichols argues that it is boredeom that's the problem: people want some excitement and are willing to stir the pot to get it:
* https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/08/19/donald-tru...
No, you've just fallen victim to the hedonic treadmill.
Just a slight re-write of the rules needed.
Interestingly, this is not just flaunting international law. It is a blatant violation of federal domestic law in the USA itself: Congress is the only body that can declare war, and they have not done so. The Presidency has no right whatsoever to attack a foreign country without a declaration of war.
While yes, Congress authorized the "War on Terror", there is very obviously no possible justification for applying that to the case of Venezuela.
> The Presidency has no right whatsoever to attack a foreign country without a declaration of war.
That’s… just not true.
George Washington himself authorized the US Navy to attack French vessels in the Caribbean in 1798 - with no declaration of war.
> The Congress shall have Power...
> To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
> To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
> To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
> To provide and maintain a Navy;
> To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
> To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
I’m quite familiar.
My point is that —- regardless of appropriateness —- this is about as far from “unprecedented” as can be imagined.
Congress didn’t declare ware on Syria, or Iraq, or Yemen, or Somalia, or any number of other African countries when the US attacked them during the Biden administration.
So the constitution is worthless then?
That’s not what I was saying, but I didn’t argue when smarter men than I said exactly that:
Liberia has/had a nearly identical constitution and look at them. It was just a roadmap for what the US could become if we became even more savage like them. It was never the Constitution that made the USA special, in other hands you got what we're getting now.
You always needed a populace that respected life, liberty, and property above all in order to have a prayer of it working out; that is long gone if it ever existed.
> Congress is the only body that can declare war, and they have not done so.
People keep saying that, and it bears no relation to the actual post-WW2 US military history. How many declared wars have there been since then?
When people wanted “no more wars” this isn’t what they meant…
Anyone who voted for him on that basis was the sort of sucker who loses poker games to five year olds.
Or virtually any other basis
> It is a blatant violation of federal domestic law
War Powers Act of '73.
Nah. Not war.
It's some sort of DOJ operation.
Wait and see.
Ah yes, using the Coast Guard's aircraft carrier, stealth fighters, and their famous "Delta Force" commandos. I bet they even got a warrant to kick in Maduro's door and read him his rights!
Well, "Venezuela has stolen American oil which is in Venezuela".
Isn't that a justification?!
Just like how Denmark and Greenland stole American land that happens to be where Greenland is. Or Canada.
Seriously though, even the imperial ambitions from the guy feels racist :)
I guess Turkey can stop worrying on thanksgiving days.
I have a lot of conflicting views with both the "left" and the "right" these days, but it seems the so-called "conservatives" are not that conservative in their ambitions, no?
>these days
Panama and Granada in the 80s weren't that fundamentally different. And before that US had a very long history of invading or intervening in Latin American countries due to various often dubious reasons.
If anything the last few decades might have been the exception.
> the way they don't even try to convince us this is necessary anymore is a sign that wherever the line is, we let it slip too far
A lot of Americans don't care. They either actually don't care. Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Like, this entire exercise is a leveraged wager by the Trump administration that this will not cost them the Senate in any of these states next year [1].
[1] https://www.270towin.com/2026-senate-election/
I think also many dont have the time or ressources to care. If you live a precarious life, you are happy if you can pay for food and your home.
As an American, I think we make this excuse too often. People have opposed and overthrown their governments more effectively under much harsher circumstances.
It's probably because it was harsher that they did so.
What data do you have that they don’t care? Waging a war is a pretty massive thing to not care about. I would think that someone would either be positive or negative towards it. Because even if they don’t care about invading countries per se they would presumably care about what their presumed tax money is spent on.
Of course being “nihilistic” is a different matter.
> Or they sort of care, but are too lazy and nihilistic to bother doing anything about it.
Typical.
Doing anything about US foreign interventions is a very tall order in a country where the vast majority are politically disenfranchised (with income and wealth as a proxy). It’s difficult enough for domestic affairs, like getting universal healthcare. Much harder to fight the war machine.
Americans did put up a fight against the interventionism of the Reagan administration. But that didn’t stop the funding of the Contras. “All it did” was force the interventions to become clandestine. (A big contrast to this admin.)
But ordinary Americans do have the largest power in all of the world to fight the war machine of their own country. That ought to be encouraged. But as usual we see the active encouragement of nihilism from comments where A Lot Of X are deemed to be useless for this particular purpose. Ah what’s the point, People Are Saying that everyone around me are useless or politically katatonic. Typical.
It’s funny how the America First, America Only crowd is cheering on this shameless regime change whose ultimate goal isn’t about drugs or democracy, but getting access to oil and minerals to make the Trump family richer.
And that’s so why there is a lack of effort to justify it. The right has been compromised and will support anything the party does - deporting citizens, invading countries, making things unaffordable with tariffs.
> how the America First, America Only crowd is cheering on this shameless regime change
Is it?
Yes it is, they might put out words to the contrary but their actions will be blind support. I hope I'm wrong about that.
I have seen many people on X who have a profile saying America First or America Only or both post messages supporting the boat strikes or “thanking” Hegseth or whatever. Among big influencers - Matt Walsh, Benny Johnson, others have all supported the narrative in one form or the other. For example Johnson pushed the conspiracy theory that Venezuela rigs elections in America. Often they use dishonest language to shill their support for what’s going on - “we don’t want a new war but here’s ten reasons why Venezuela is bad”
Odds are they are bot accounts on X and not real people. Also, don’t forget Benny Johnson and other influencers were getting payed by Russia to push out these narratives. https://apnews.com/article/russian-interference-presidential...
Ancient wisdom: Anything before the word “but” is bullshit.
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> There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal
There might be a local debate about the legality in the US. But from the outside perspective in terms of international law, there is not much to debate. Unless i missed some UN resolution, the US has no jurisdiction in Venezuela.
This is a consequence of the society concentrating on its internal culture war. International politics became irrelevant to most voters; they don't really have any personal stake in it anymore, or they at least don't feel so. Their kids won't be drafted to war.
And let's not forget that the stated rationale in this case, drugs, is very obviously pretextual.
>There is going to be a lot of debate over whether this specific operation was legal
Or maybe there wouldn't be any debate and people will move on to the next bombastic thing he does. Populists get away with everything by simply not engaging, people get tired and seek new entertainment and there's no actual checks and balances beyond the decency. When someone has no claim of decency, they are untouchable. No one will ever arrest them, stop them or deny them anything because they can just replace those who do not obey. Maduro, Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Orban and many others are made from the same cloth.
It was one or two elections ago that we entirely dropped the pretense of dignity.
Quite refreshing, actually.
Earlier today I heard the argument that idealism was promoted in the West because it encourages a separation from reality and makes people easier to control.
I consider myself an idealist. I just don't believe that ignorance and delusion are the means by which an ideal can be brought about.
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It’s mind blowing how many people here justify this because Maduro is “bad for Venezuela”, as if the US was appointed to be to police of the world.
Such self centric view that usually leads to dark places.
(I'm not American)
I think all that's required here is that Maduro had such bad relationships with everyone both inside and outside the country that there was no one to defend him.
If the UN calls for a vote to condemn the US, it will likely fail even without veto power.
It's run of the mill conservativism. I wonder if it is just an age group thing or what.
Should be on the lookout for major upcoming domestic news they're trying to bury.
It doesn't have to be upcoming. This is still a distraction from Epstein.
I haven't been keeping track of this realm of politics closely. Is there a concise well-informed summary anywhere? Unfortunately everything I find contains a degree of polemic that I find is usually accompanied by low-information content.
John Stewart had a good piece about it on The Daily Show a few weeks ago. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QGzYFjVaU
Maduro isn't a good leader. He's been very repressive, very likely stole the 2024 election from his opponent. Venezuela has terrible economic problems and food and medicine shortages.
They have been assisting Russia, operating a shadow fleet of oil tankers that routinely disable transponders to evade international sanctions against each other. They've also been helping Iran to manufacture UAVs.
They are also a narco-state. The cartel there has at least partially captured the government.
Installing a more palatable leader and administration would perhaps allow the sanctions to be lifted, oil to be sold on the global market, and aid to flow in. The brain drain from the country might partly reverse.
Or, it could devolve into a civil war, insurgency, mass refugee exodus, etc.
All the above describes many countries, more or less. Why the US is targeting Venezuela in particular likely has to do with oil, geopolitical principle (Monroe doctrine) and advantage (weaken Iran and Russia), Venezuelan immigration to the U.S., distraction from Trump's failing health, personal & political scandals, "red meat" for the base and war-hawks, and the political security afforded to a "war time" president.
>Monroe asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence,[4] and thus further efforts by European powers to control or influence sovereign states in the region would be viewed as a threat to U.S. security.[5][6]
>In turn, the United States would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
Does that last part apply to Venezuela? Or has the doctrine evolved?
I highly doubt that weakening Iran and Russia is the goal here, and I'm not even sure how people got that idea. This isn't 2010 anymore.
These decisions require a pretty broad coalition to get a workable plan in front of Trump for him to activate for attention. So there is never 1 single reason, but my 2cents are that:
- Most of the oil export goes to China. Especially with the recent metals kerfuffle, this is a quick way to improve the US' negotiation position.
- The hawks in the army are getting restless and are clamoring for real-world modern drone warfare experience - especially if Taiwan turns hot. Getting a trial run in your backyard in similar terrain is good practice. (Assuming they'll send in an occupying force, and it's contested by china backed insurgents).
> I highly doubt that weakening Iran and Russia is the goal here, and I'm not even sure how people got that idea. This isn't 2010 anymore.
If Russian and Iran are skirting sanctions with a shadow fleet, it would make sense to disabling that fleet would weaken them. e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/us/politics/russia-oil-ta...
To be more explicit: Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the entire world and, due to the above, are not inclined to transact it with the US.
This deserves far more than the two little sidenotes you've dropped in here.
POTUS demonstrably does not give a fuck about countries "assisting Russia", "being repressive", "stealing elections" or "having economic/food/health problems".
But the side benefits are highly welcome
Trump blamed Venezuela for stealing US oil when it nationalized US oil companies there, and for shipping drugs to America, and for creating Dominion voting machines which he believes were used to cheat in the 2020 election. Some in his administration have also blamed Venezuela for working with Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas. One or more of those could be the reason for the invasion.
Trump also blamed Venezuela for literally conducting an invasion of the United States (not just in rhetoric, but as his legal justification for invoking the Alien Enemies Act in March of 2025.)
Trump is blaming Venezuela for the fentanyl crisis in America. But it’s actually about stealing Venezuela’s oil and minerals:
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-22/oil-gold...
Once a puppet regime has been established, you can bet Trump-related companies will get contracts to extract this stuff.
> it’s actually about stealing Venezuela’s oil and minerals
It's multi-faceted. Venezuela is a hive of Russian, Chinese and Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere. That is–long run–a problem for America.
Venezuela is also a brutal dictatorship that is oppressing its people and producing waves of migrants.
Finally, Venezuela is rich in underdeveloped mineral and energy resources. (Caveat: Exxon currently pumps those wells.)
Venezuela is also not Epstein, so, idk, there's that.
I can't remember the last time the US invaded a South American country and it ending up in a better position. Usually, a fascist dictator is installed, and the country is economically raped out of its wealth. The population is left oppressed and made even poorer.
Panama
Mexico, Dominican Republic, Grenada, the Spanish-American war.
All quite successful as well. It’s a shame interventions in Haiti haven’t helped that place much.
This administration is so incompetent, the CIA might actually do good this time around.
> Venezuela is a hive of Russian, Chinese and Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere. That is–long run–a problem for America.
A problem for American ideology or dominance? Sure. But a valid reason for war? No. Right now America is breaking international law. Stealing oil tankers is literal piracy. Bombing a country is imperialism. These things should be done with a process that involves other countries and seeks consensus.
> Venezuela is also a brutal dictatorship that is oppressing its people and producing waves of migrants.
Agree.
> Finally, Venezuela is rich in underdeveloped mineral and energy resources. (Caveat: Exxon currently pumps those wells.)
Given how the Trump family is using every single means to become rich through their power, I imagine this is their main motivation.
> Venezuela is also not Epstein, so, idk, there's that.
I view this Venezuela war and the Somalian daycare fraud as ways the administration distracts from inconvenient issues like Epstein and affordability.
>Venezuela is a hive of Russian, Chinese and Iranian activity in the Western Hemisphere. That is–long run–a problem for America.
Hmm, the Ukraine is a hive of American, British and German activity near Russian border. That is–long run–a problem for Russia. How does that sound?
Sounds like Russian leadership should have known they're not a match for Americans. A costly misjudgement.
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What do you mean? Do you think that Ukrainian natonalists started the war and not Russia (or to reply in your tone - fans of Stalin)?
>What do you mean? Do you think that Ukrainian natonalists started the war
You could start by watching Bush Sr.'s speech in Kiev in 1991: "Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred".[0]
Americans later did support them, of course. [1]
Fast forward to 2014:
"The night before the clashes, Right Sector called on all of its members to ready themselves for a "peace offensive" on 18 February. <...> That morning, around 20,000 demonstrators marched on the parliament building as that body was set to consider opposition demands for a new constitution and government. Around 09:45, the demonstrators broke through the police barricade of several personnel-transport trucks near the building of the Central Officers' Club of Ukraine and pushed the cordon of police aside. The clashes started after some two dozen demonstrators moved a police vehicle blocking their path to parliament." [2]
Right Sector is "the right-wing, paramilitary confederation of several ultranationalist organizations" [3]
After overthrowing pro-Ukrainian president who was predominantly supported by the Eastern Ukraine, pro-Western Ukrainian nationalistic "government" started what they cynically called Anti-Terrorist Operation in the Eastern Ukraine
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkjxf76xRTw
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-meets-oleh-tyahn...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity#Protest_...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Sector
I'm Polish, I know how Russians are, I do not need to watch American sources for this or to listen to Russian guy trying to shift blame from his country :)
Why did you ask the questions if you react like this when you don't like the answer?
I know the answer - Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked. Your answer is not really an answer - just rehash of russian propaganda.
So why ask? To call facts described in English Wikipedia and Western media "Russian propaganda"?
A lot of people do think exactly that.
>or to reply in your tone - fans of Stalin
You won't find any avenues in Russia named after Stalin. They were renamed after 1953 condemnation of Stalin's "cult of personality". Post-2014 regime in the Ukraine has renamed scores of streets after Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with Nazis. The most cynical was the renaming of major avenue in Kiev leading to Babiy Yar (the place where thousands of Jews were massacred) to honor Bandera and the renaming of the avenue that used to honor Nikolai Vatutin[0], Soviet general who fought Nazis on the territory of Ukraine, after after Shukhevych[1], another Nazi collaborator and mass murderer.
You can easily find the names of these despicable people in Google Maps on the maps of Kiev and many other Ukrainian cities.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vatutin
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Shukhevych
> You won't find any avenues in Russia named after Stalin.
Don't know about avenues, but Russians unveiled new statue of Stalin in Moscow in 2025.
Do we?
Yes, you do - https://apnews.com/article/stalin-statue-russia-ussr-putin-m...
Deep underground on its historical place? I don't like it, not one bit, but is that all you could find in whole Russia?
Meanwhile here is the list of the streets named after Bandera in the Ukraine: https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Вулиця_Степана_Бандери
No, it's what I found in 2025 in Moscow, if I were to look in whole Russia I would find hundreds of these. I'm ending this discussion, unfortunately it's very typical for Russians to discuss like this - always deny anything wrong even when facts are very clear, and when it's impossible to deny then just downplay it or even say that the wrongdoing you do is actually good.
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Volgograd is a city with a population of 1 million.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/12/23/new-stalin-monumen...Vologda is a city with a population of 310k.
And so forth.
The most WTF of them all is erecting monuments to Stalin in occupied Ukraine.
https://kyivindependent.com/russia-erects-stalin-monument-in...>near the Battle of Stalingrad Museum
>near the local Communist Party headquarters
>near the Vologda Exile House Museum
And so forth. Nothing like renaming central avenue in the capital, what you see in the Ukraine.
Russian troll operations mirror the narcissist prayer short of 'they deserve it' + whataboutism
- There are no such monuments in all of Russia
- If there are, they raised by some guy in some insignificant villages
- If there aren't in insignificant villages, they're in next to communist landmarks which makes it ok
- bUt wHaT AbOuT UkRaiNe reNaMinG CeNtRal aVeNuE In CapItal!??!??!?!??!??!??
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, товарищ. Soviet nostalgia has become central to Putinism and thanks to the non-stop brainwashing, in 2020 '75% of Russians agreed that the Soviet era was the "greatest time" in the history of Russia.'. This is used to justify the illegal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian terrorist state.
Any random Eastern European sees right through your bullshit, protomolecule.
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> Ukraine is a hive of American, British and German activity near Russian border. That is–long run–a problem for Russia. How does that sound?
Like a bad reason to go to war. Same here.
I'm not justifying the war. I'm just saying the reasons are–or at least reasonably can be–more complicated than one dimension.
Bad or good, you call it a reason.
Maduro is alive and charged with crimes in a US court. So, we will see evidence presented I guess. This is new.
I'm surprised Maduro wasn't just killed, and wonder if he might somehow die in US custody. The US will have to make a case in court while the whole world watches. That will be embarrassing I expect.
https://youtu.be/ijFOLv17RX4
This is immensely funny (actually it's not) that the US trials Maduro when they do not accept the ICC. I guess US law is the ultimate law.
If they have evidence he violated US law smuggling weapons and drugs into the domestic USA, he should be tried under such law. It's neither ironic, funny, strange, or anything else. What law should he be tried under if he did these alleged things?
They extradited him by force because Venezuela wouldn't. They don't have an extradition treaty. If Venezuela doesn't want this to happen again - negotiate a treaty.
The USA doesn't "accept" the ICC because it's not a party to the agreement. There are not-insignificant constitutional problems with the USA being a party. It's because they have such strong civil protections that those issues come up.
The ICC is also complementary - you misunderstand what it is for. If the USA is able to prosecute this guy themselves, you don't need an ICC, because it doesn't apply in this case.
Ok, war crimes are illegal too. So I guess someone extracting some US military people by force and trialing them somewhere else is fair game then?
Anyway, your whole comment is just word-sauce.
Notice the hypocrisy of the "explosions reported" title instead of "US bombs Venezuela".
no, that makes sense. It's probably too soon to be sure what has happened. This is why we need actual journalists and not just tiktok and yt commentators
POTUS confirmed it, first on CBS News and prior to the Guardian posting that, then on his Mastodon server. There is no room for doubt about who bombed where.
As this is an evolving situation, the OP headline has now been changed to "Trump claims US has captured Venezuelan dictator and wife" and is basically a different article at this point.
The bias in this Guardian reporting is very visible beyond just the headlines.
(I don't blame you for being confused btw)
Suggesting "US bombs Venezuela" for HN headline (still uncertainties around the "capture").
Welcome to the wonderful world of news/media. Try this with US/China, EU/russia, Israel/Palestine, etc. Note the framing, word usage, etc. Both sides could do the same thing but the headlines diverge. One side gets "aggressive", "destablizing", "terrorism", etc. The other gets "defensive", "stabilizing", "anti-terrorism", etc. Not to mention who gets called a "dictator/authoritarian". That one is real funny.
Do you understand what the word ”hypocrisy” means? This is textbook responsible journalism in a scenario where ”common sense” is not yet verified.
edit: this comment made before two threads were consolidated. Original thread titled "Explosions reported in Venezuelan capital Caracas"
While I agree that "hypocrisy" isn't the right word here, I see where OP is coming from.
At least in American media, the use of passive voice (or as I've heard it called sometimes "exonerative voice") often obfuscates or otherwise provides cover for authorities. For example, "Tower collapses after missile strike" and "Man dies after being struck by bullet during arrest" are both technically true and yet also leave out important context (the country who fired the missile, the person who fired the gun and why).
Even if this headline is appropriate for now, it's not surprising that there should be questions over how it's worded.
It mainstream media, it's not about providing cover or obfuscating.
It's simply about not claiming causality where it hasn't been confirmed.
They teach you this stuff in journalism school. Once it gets confirmed, the new articles describe it causally, explaining the attribution.
The only goal here is accuracy. It's standard journalistic practice.
(I'm not talking about ideological publications.)
It's not textbook responsible when it's consistently and predictably done for only one side of every conflict.
That's like if a waiter gives the appropriate amount of attention to the tables with white guests and disregards tables with minority guests. You can't clutch your pearls and say that it isn't hypocrisy to notice that the waiter treats a given table correctly.
Yes they know what "hypocrisy" means. It is the hypocrisy of western media of jumping to say "evil country X bombed/invaded country Y" when it's a non-western country doing something (not that I'm justifying any country bombing/invading another) but when it's done by a country like the US the report is just "wow these buildings in Caracas just popped, crazy huh?"
You’re hand-waving, not stating causality when it has not been confirmed is basic journalism and is standard practice in all serious media outlets regardless of what parties are involved.
Actually you are hand-waving. Look at the original post, it says "Notice the hypocrisy of the "explosions reported" title instead of "US bombs Venezuela".". It is referencing the usage of passive voice and the lack of mention to the actor that did the reported act, it is not referencing the absence of casualty at all. So you are just straw manning and criticizing an argument that neither the OP nor myself defended at any point of the conversation.
One would have to completely ignore the context of the last few months to not make a link in causality with basic inference.
These are the same "serious media outlets" that repeat that same context in their articles over and over again as if readers haven't come anywhere near a news source in over a year.
It's like they are back in school trying to hit that arbitrary 500 word requirement when it's entirely unnecessary. Modern journalism is neither serious nor rigorous.
If this is all true, then China has been pretty much given green light to invade Taiwan, in my opinion.
Or maybe it is a message that we have a madman at the top with a finger on the trigger. Do not even try.
Did current Taiwan president ignore elections results?
Trump himself did much worse in 2020.
Just to clarify: Trump didn't do worse than Maduro (he got stopped) but he did do much worse than "ignore the election results" in that he actively tried to overturn the results.
There are two possibilities. Either we live in a rules-based international order, in which case China would be punished for invading Taiwan. Or we live in a world where power decides outcomes, in which case China would still be punished, this time by the United States, which is arguably still the strongest actor.
Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
With the US being now engaging her Navy in South America more, I am not so sure that America can really match a Blitzkrieg-style invasion, and it is probably not quite able to project enough soft power to get the 'vassal states' to effectively help.
So while I am by no means pro-Taiwan invasion, I do believe that there is a very significant downside wrt China with this move.
N.B. I'm no military wonk or political strategist, far from it. I just call 'em as i see's 'em.
>Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
There's someone else in this thread suggesting that the quid pro quo was exactly that. My brothers in Christ, I am worried.
What makes you think China needs a green light lmao? International Law has been dead for years now, might makes right
US can easily annihilate Russia. Yet Russia still invades Ukraine. Yet US doesn't do much about it.
Hell, Europe can annihilate Russia. Yet they don't do much of anything to Russia.
International Law is more like a boy scout code.
China hasn't invaded Taiwan because of US's military power. That is it. It is not worth it at the moment.
It is not because US isn't a hypocrite. Come on. How naive do we have to be about it this?
I would have agreed completely yesterday.
Today, I just think that the downside just seems much less. I am just not sure how much the political calculus has changed with this move.
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"Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to 'liberate' by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest.
The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election', 'protecting interests', 'restoring order'. The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.
The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable."
-Jose Mario
https://bsky.app/profile/cristianfarias.com/post/3mbjlwkmb6c...
I own stocks in an american oil company.
The media can blast propaganda all they want about the reasons. It’s just history repeating itself. Never trust american politicans.
If this started a war with China (it wont, but as a thought experiment), wouldn’t american politicans at least want to pretend this was the will of the people? Or are they just so sure they can set the discourse that democracy no longer has a meaning?
> tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election'
It was actually yesterday. Check Argentina and honduras.
Rules and laws only matter if you can enforce them.
The UN sits and is "deeply concerned" about terrible leaders and events all around the world all the time. Leaders of so many EU countries "condemn" people they disagree with. But they can't enforce anything, so it doesn't matter.
I prefer living in a world where a country I'm more aligned with than most can enforce their morality on the world _effectively_, like this. Not just empty words and platitudes and endless talking about "this is against international rule of law" -- none of that is real unless you _enforce_ it.
Venezuelans seem to be celebrating this. Maybe let them speak for themselves for once. And let's not forget, Maduro was indicted under Biden. This isn't a recent invention by the Trump administration.
Some Venezuelans are celebrating. Some Iraqis celebrated when Saddam’s statue fell. How they felt five years later is the more relevant data point.
“Let them speak for themselves” is doing a lot of work here. Which Venezuelans? The ones in Miami and Doral? The ones still in Caracas who’ll live with whatever comes next? The ones who’ll be caught in the crossfire if this destabilizes into civil war?
> I prefer living in a world where a country I’m more aligned with can enforce their morality on the world effectively.
So does everyone. The problem is that China and Russia feel the same way. Rules exist precisely because “let the powerful enforce their values” is a race to the bottom.
You’re comfortable with this because you trust the current enforcer. But frameworks outlast administrations. You’re not just endorsing this action, you’re endorsing the principle that whoever has the most power gets to decide. Hope you still like that principle when the power shifts.
Enforcement without wisdom is just violence with good PR.
You're not going to stop Russia with rules unless you enforce them. Look at Ukraine. Same with China. They're not going to leave Taiwan in peace unless you are willing to back up your "concern" with _force_.
Maduro trafficked humans, colluded with terrible gangs, was working with Iran, and had so many opportunities to stop. He was given an olive branch by the current US government and ignored it. He fucked around, now he found out.
If you want Putin to stop harassing Ukraine, you either are willing to go to the FO stage, or your words are wind. Because Russia is. And now, luckily, so is the US, and my way of life as a Norwegian is _so much more_ aligned with the US way of life than China or Russia or a socialist dictatorship like Venezuela was under for decades. I _want_ my allies to be able to enforce my world view _if and when_ our opponents don't respect us.
Edit: The EU is a perfect example of an (unelected) ruling body that plays nice with everyone, diplomacy first, always concerned, never willing to back up anything by force. Your perfect utopia judging by your own words. They _never_ get _anything_ done, and nobody respects them. Especially not its enemies like Russia or China. Spineless bureaucrats that are so far removed from everyday human reality they don't even understand how laws _work_.
You’re conflating two different things: defending allies against invasion (Ukraine, Taiwan) and unilateral regime change (Venezuela, Iraq, Libya).
I agree that deterrence requires credible force. Defending Ukraine from Russian invasion is enforcement of a principle (sovereignty) against an aggressor. That’s fundamentally different from the US deciding a government is bad and removing it.
The problem isn’t “using force ever.” It’s “using force to overthrow governments we don’t like, without allies, without a plan for what comes next, based on a track record of catastrophic failures.”
Norway’s security depends on NATO credibility, which depends on the US being seen as a rule-enforcing power rather than a rule-breaking one. Every time the US acts unilaterally, it makes it harder to maintain the coalitions that actually protect your way of life. Russia points to Iraq and Libya to justify its own actions. You’re not strengthening the enforcement regime; you’re eroding the legitimacy that makes enforcement possible.
“Fucked around and found out” is a framework for bar fights, not foreign policy.
You talk about "rules" again. Let's look at what NATO does when it thinks the rules are in the way of doing what it thinks is right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
Yes Russia points to Iraq and Libya, and they may be right. We can point to Georgia and Ukraine, and maybe we are right. At the end of the day, and I'm repeating myself because people forget this constantly, rules and laws don't mean _anything_ unless you're willing to back them up with consequences -- and in this context, military might.
It's just like raising a child. When a child starts kicking you in the shins, you can say "please stop dear" as much as you want, they'll keep doing it until there's consequences. Might not need more than a strategic targeted pinch in the ear that hurts just enough to back up what you should've said: "That hurts, stop it right now."
This way of removing Maduro wasn't excessive force. It was a strategic pinch in the ear.
Yugoslavia had NATO consensus, active ethnic cleansing in progress, and regional support. It’s a stronger case than Venezuela, and even it is still debated.
Countries aren’t children. This framing smuggles in an assumption that the US has legitimate authority over other countries’ governance, which is exactly the point in dispute.
The “strategic pinch” assumes this is the end. Removing Saddam was also supposed to be surgical. The mess comes after. Ask me in five years if this was a pinch or another amputation.
This is a lot of rationalization to justify conservative worldview, America playing world police, and other such shortsighted political talking point fallacies.
I’m a Norwegian, I don’t ascribe to any one political leaning. But I observe the failings of the EU and European countries from within and know where this path leads, I see it every day. Call me any <label> you prefer I don’t care and don’t identify as any. I judge events and actions individually based on my own life experience and foundational morality, which also means I am not shackled by having to like everything a leader does when I like some things.
This was a good thing. It gets Venezuela out of Russia and China’s grasp, removes a cruel dictator, and puts the country’s resources to better use for both its people and the West. And as many problems as I have with many facets of the west it sure as hell beats whatever shitholes Russia and China are cooking — they are incompatible with the things I value, and yes I have been to the latter and will never return.
China has a good economy and export business that it wants to protect, which “protects” Taiwan since much of their export business goes poof if they decide to invade the island. The “detachment” of the US and Chinese economies makes an invasion of Taiwan more likely, not less. Economic entanglement has led to more peace than military force projection.
You can and need to have both. Look at Ukraine.
Ya, but Russia was an economic basket case with a resource curse before they invaded Ukraine. They didn’t lose much economically because they didn’t have much to lose, and perhaps Putin used Ukraine as a huge distraction for Russia’s huge domestic problems. China is different, they are going to grow into the #1 super power this or next decade. Hopefully that makes it much less likely for them to turn their back on the western world (at least until that happens).
The EU isn’t my utopia, and I’m not sure where you got that. My point is narrower: unilateral regime change has a bad track record, and defending allies against invasion is a different category of action. You seem to be arguing against a position I don’t hold.
We’ve gone from “Venezuelans are celebrating” to “the EU is spineless bureaucrats.” I think we’re past the original topic of discussion at this point.
> the world reverts to the law of the strongest.
insert "always has been" meme
Man, I don't want to be that guy calling AI on everything, but it's odd that almost every sentence of that is some form of "not X, but Y". Is that an LLMism that persists even in other languages?
It’s estimated there are over a million Venezuelans in the U.S. who fled the country. Over 600,000 are currently under temporary protected status with asylum claims. 7 million in neighboring countries.
Who gets to decide that this is good, but removing the dictator behind this is bad? Who gets to decide that we must live with this chaos because taking action might not reduce the chaos.
> Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election'
Why? Those are two completely different things. We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
> We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
The US has claimed the capacity to make this evaluation before, repeatedly, and has been wrong in ways that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe we're not the ones who should be deciding this unilaterally.
"Oh, but this time is different", you might say. "Maduro is an unambiguous dictator who stole an election, caused 7 million refugees, and was already under indictment. This isn't like Iraq, where we invented WMDs."
The justification was "real and documented" for Libya too (Gaddafi was about to massacre Benghazi, remember?). The result: Libya was rated as the Fragile State Index's "most-worsened" country for the 2010s decade, with ISIS using the country as a hub to coordinate regional violence and Libya becoming the main exit point for migrants trying to get to Europe. The intervention may have also made nuclear nonproliferation harder, since Gaddafi had already given up his nuclear program and then been overthrown anyway. Iran and North Korea both noted that "the Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson".
The issue isn't whether Maduro is bad; he obviously is. It's whether US military intervention produces better outcomes than the alternative. I honestly hope it does this time. I truly hope it's a case of "a broken clock is right twice a day". But am I holding my breath? Absolutely not.
Thanks, this is a more convincing argument than insisting that we must respect the sovereignty of a unelected dictator.
No serious person actually argued the category error of respecting the sovereignty of a dictator but rather respecting the autonomy of a a nation and a people. And the empirical historic reasons are WHY this principle/heuristic ought to be followed, even if those did not articulate that.
It's a litmus test for conservative value systems since anyone who paid attention in high school social studies and history should have at least passing familiarity with the arguments.
Claiming we must honor the autonomy of people who have had their autonomy stripped away by a dictator is just as silly as saying we need to respect the sovereignty of the dictator himself.
I'm not sure why we're debating this as if the people had a say in this at all. This was clearly an operation led by Trump and the military, planned for months in secret, and carried out in a single day. There were no debates in congress or the senate. There was no vote to the people.
All we can do is try to figure out what the short, medium and long term conesquences of this might be, and consider how to pressure the government to limit the power of the executive branch to do things like this without oversight in the future.
People want to determine if the inportant events surrounding them are bad or good, even if they don't have a say in them. Perhaps it's even a way to cope with the lack of influence we have.
But I do like the idea of imagining how to limit the executive branch. Spitball here - we use sortition, and permission to use force of any kind has to go through a council of say, ten, randomly chosen, representative citizens.
Sure you removed the "bad dictator". Gratz! Will you now leave Venezuelan oil alone ? I am guessing not. The U.S. oil companies effectively become the new dictator behind the scenes, at-least until people realize they are being merrily looted and rise up.
Respectfully, offering asylum to Venezuelan people and choosing to invade Venezuela and remove their dictator are nearly orthogonal. The USA could instead choose not to provide asylum to these people in the future, and accept the reality that for the millions it already has, it has made its bed so to speak.
One is a matter of internal policy, the other is a matter of international law and order. One the USA had complete and total control over for decades, the other is a delicate and precarious matter which requires significant planning, oversight, congressional approval, and international engagement.
> Why? Those are two completely different things.
These are different things, yes, but the problem is exactly that: the same methods and justification will be applied in either case, despite deserving totally different treatment. I believe this is the consequence of permitting brazen realpolitik principles into government.
> The USA could instead choose not to provide asylum to these people in the future, and accept the reality that for the millions it already has, it has made its bed so to speak
And who decided that? American citizens certainly did not. Biden’s de facto open border policy was very unpopular with most American citizens, and all but guaranteed the reelection of Donald Trump. Besides that, only 60% of the Venezuelans who fled into the United States did so as asylum seekers. It’s estimated there are another ~500,000 here illegally. Who made that bed?
And this ignores the 7+ million people that other countries had to absorb. So even if the US secured its border and stopped providing asylum, we’re ignoring the actual human suffering of the millions of people who were compelled to flee from their lives and homes and families.
So it’s better to ignore the cause and let the problem continue indefinitely out of deference to international bureaucracy? Sorry, we are not Europe.
I'm not convinced that invasion solves or even addresses the problem you're describing. It could actually make it worse through causing unrest and destabilization, which is evidently a risk according to past American interventions.
There is more than just one person behind Venezuela's misfortune. The external pressure to undermine the country has been immense and shouldn't be discounted. As always, not black and white.
> Who gets to decide that this is good, but removing the dictator behind this is bad?
The sovereign governments who agree to take in refugees. It's not a complicated answer. They get to decide what happens within their sovereignty.
It’s not a complicated answer, it’s just an arbitrary answer.
Did the citizens of those countries agree to take in the asylum seekers? What alternative would you suggest when 8 million people flee across the border? In the U.S., there are an estimated 600,000 Venezuelan asylum seekers, and another 400,000 to 500,000 undocumented immigrants. Who in America decided that was good? Was it Americans citizens? No, the Biden administration decided that unilaterally when they stripped the border patrol of the power to do its job. But he’s gone, his disastrous policies led to Trump regaining power, and who gets to decide what’s good now? And weren’t Maduro’s actions, which led 8 million Venezuelans to flee to neighboring countries, not directly impacting those other countries (if not encroaching on their own sovereignty)? If so, how did you get to decide that “sovereignty” gives a dictator impunity to act free of consequences?
The answer to every one of your questions is:
the word is "sovereignty", not "democracy". dont confuse "is" with "ought". this discussion is about legality, not ethics.
It is usually those who never experienced dictatorship complaining
And it's usually those who have never experienced the aftermath of US intervention defending it. Ask Iraqis how they feel about the intervention that killed hundreds of thousands and created ISIS. Ask Libyans enjoying their open-air slave markets. [1]
The people who lived through US regime change have plenty of complaints. We just don't center their voices when it's inconvenient.
1. https://humantraffickingsearch.org/resource/the-open-slave-m...
You should speak to a resident of Libya. The days of Gadaffi are now considered the golden days of paradise.
Or the Vietnamese refugees who fleed on boats 50 years ago. I grew up listening to radio with Vietnamese announcements towards the boats every morning. Sadly Americans abondoned them, they lost their home country and were left behind.
If there are terrible crimes being committed by a dictator then there is the ICC and the UN. It would require building up rather than undermining the institution but it’s there.
"There's so much oil in here, US is about to invade this dish!"
--Chef Ramsay
So the US will be excluded from the SWIFT banking system? Heavy international sanctions will be put in place? Europe will send weapons and money to help Venezuela defend itself?
No? Oh... just checking.
They extradited a guy for crimes also illegal in Venezuela. What would the point of sanctioning actions like this be?
This is about the cleanest extraterritorial action you can take. A guy probably did some seriously illegal stuff in your country and his, who was probably illegally elected, who probably had people killed.
Why not do this? Why not say to Venezuela, hand him over or we'll take him ourselves?
He's not going to gitmo, he'll have the same due process that every other American gets. Rights Maduro denied to millions. If you asked me to describe "justice" - I have to give this as a good example. He's going to die in prison like Noriega, after a fair trial.
By your reasoning, Putin invading the US and kidnapping President Trump for his crimes is equally valid
If the EU could we would.
It would be fun to station a few French nukes on Greenland as a response :)
But probably the wise choice is doing nothing publicly. Behind the scenes stop buying US weapon systems.
The key difference is: tHe Us BrInGs DeMoCrAcY
FIFA looking awful silly right now.
> FIFA looking awful silly right now
They can take bribes with impunity for another 2 years. That's better than 2015 [1] and probably everything they wanted from that trophy.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-...
Pretty sure they knew what they wrought.
What's the FIFA connection here?
FIFA Peace Prize laureate is the person responsible for giving the order to attack, assuming that those are caused by the US military.
https://inside.fifa.com/campaigns/football-unites-the-world/...
"The President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was presented with the inaugural 'FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World' by FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ at the iconic John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC" [1].
[1] https://inside.fifa.com/campaigns/football-unites-the-world/...
Their peace prize…
…that they invented from whole cloth this year just so they could award it to Trump, the most deserving president of a fake prize from one of the most corrupt organisations on Earth.
...and the Nobel Committee awarding the 'Nobel Peace Prize' to Maria Cornia Machado for 'democracy' and now will be used for the toppling of a leader in another country and creating another war. [0]
This is why the Nobel Peace Prize has become completely meaningless.
[0] https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...
Is it more “peaceful” to rule over people illegitimately?
Yes, it's more peaceful than war. Especially when the "illegitimately" part is determined by US-aligned and sponsored organizations for the purpose of manufacturing consent for regime change.
Didn't citizens of Venezuela themselves actually verify and prove that election was stolen?
Citizens of the USA "verified" that the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections were stolen. Doesn't make it true (or necessarily false).
Not true at all! Please read up on that.
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Genocide? Explain
Not just FIFA, also the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
If it's to get access to the oil reserve, it is bad news for the shale oil industry in the USA : maybe "drill baby drill" is not feasible any more, and the only way to maintain the level of GDP is to get the oil from somewhere else.
Or it's just banking oil to prepare a war with China.
Thank FSM some AI-first is going to create fusion any time soon to power the robots solving climate change.
Don't expect the administration to make any sense on this topic. The same time they were signing executive orders and blabbing about the US oil industry, they were telling OPEC to lower prices. There's no coherency to be had with them. They simply don't understand the world or trivial economics.
I can steelman this into a “everything is about oil today, and minerals tomorrow”.
* Let’s assume the US is going to stabilise Venezuela quickly enough, that the Venezuelan oil will soon flow around, but only to “selected” countries (basically, …. Anyone but China)
* Let’s assume that the US is going to keep the war in Ukraine dragging on (it’s winter anyway), so that Ukraine can continue bombing the Russian oil infrastructure and
Then the outcome would be:
* USA kept happy because cheap oil will flow from Venezuela to USA, which would help keeping gas price down at the pumps, during an election year
* Europe kept obedient, because it’s not guaranteed to be on the list of “selected” countries that will get the cheap oil. Maybe they’ll even strike a “nice” bargain for Groenland, “or else...”
* Ukraine kept busy fighting ; and the “coalition of winning” kept “unable” to put boots on the ground in Ukraine (which they only want to do at the latest possible time, as the first “coalition” soldier to fall will trigger a domino effect leading to either WW3, or humiliation
* Putin kept annoyed, because they can’t sell cheap oil at all without refineries in Venezuela, and with less and less infrastructure in Russia
* China kept annoyed, because they can’t buy cheap oil, or at least not enough to stockpile for a war against USA
* OPEC kept “happy ish”, I guess, because they can hike up prices for whoever is not on the “selected” list of countries approved by Emperor Trump ?
* Eventually, maybe the USA gets the minerals in Ukraine and Groenland, making them double-happy
Of course I’m missing things, this is pure keyboard geopolitics.
But my point is just that I don’t need USA to be completely “crazy” to justify what they’re doing. Just “more willing to take bold risks” then we have been used to. In a sense, that’s what USA voted for in 2024.
Pray the Emperor may ignore you for long enough.
> * Let’s assume the US is going to stabilise Venezuela quickly enough, that the Venezuelan oil will soon flow around, but only to “selected” countries (basically, …. Anyone but China)
This is a bad assumption. Trump has already promised China their oil on the first day of this nonsense. You don't need to steelman anything. Incompetence does exist in the real world. There's no more reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Well, If I strawman them now, this assumption fail in a different way: I very much expect the cartels and narcos to organise a guerilla that will disturb oil trade for a while. (Russia would be incentivized to fund / equip / help the cartels. This would backfire, of course, but what doesn't ?)
It’s incredibly depressing to watch the same mistake made again well within my own lifetime. Regime change by chopping off the top failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and it’ll fail here too. Many will die. It doesn’t matter how bad or illegitimate the deposed leader is.
Don’t forget Lybia
I get slightly desperate realizing how people are lead to such naive discussions, even in a place with supposedly instructed, informed persons. Maduro may be a dictator, a murderer, whatever. This has absolutely no relation with the reasons for US invading, bombing and killing Venezuelans, or whichever country. For about a century, US has been doing it all over the world, not because they wanna live in a better, peaceful world - quite the opposite, they've been doing it for supporting coups and stablishing dictatorships that favour their supremacy, their role as the most powerful country in the world. Do you really, really believe Mr. Donald is very concerned about the lives of poor venezuelans? Or, just to stay in the region, he supports El Salvador dictator because he's a very nice fellow?
I don't understand what you're saying here. First, yep, countries act in self-interest. There's no war in the history of the planet that was started out of the kindness of one's heart. That doesn't mean that the outcome of a self-interested intervention can't be just or good for the country in the long haul. I don't know how this one will pan out, but I suspect that the interests of the US and of the citizens of Venezuela are aligned much more closely than, say, in the Middle East.
Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum. The reality is that there's a fierce competition between superpowers to broaden their spheres of influence and ultimately control the world. There's no future in which a relatively small, resource-rich, and politically dysfunctional country is left to its own devices. The choice is between Russia, China, and the US. Venezuela was more or less one of the Russian client states, and that status quo was maintained through undemocratic means, including mass murder of political opponents using the military gear provided by RU. Now, the US is going to try its hand, probably in a far less brutal way.
The US regime hates Maduro because he kept Venezuelan oil nationalized so it can be benefit the Venezuelan people rather than foreign shareholders of oil companies. Although US sanctions intended to choke their economy and bring about regime change have made that difficult in practice.
The interests of the US imperialists and the Venezuelan people therefore could not be more diametrically opposed.
Nobody was benefiting from the oil nationalization, least of all the Venezuelan people. All their oil engineers left! You can't walk around Doral, Fl; Katy, Tx; or Alpharetta, Ga without tripping over young venezuelans with petroleum engineering degrees who have fled the poverty and repression of Maduro's Venezuela.
All this guessing is based on historical examples of results of US involvement in Americas, I presume?
I'm playing devil's advocate as a non-interventionist but Panama was considered successful.
Grenada as well. One of the more successful countries in the Antilles.
reality has been a rules based order where states voluntary agreements with each other, not spheres of influence.
this is a change to how russia wants the world to work
It is very much about spheres of influence. Look at China and ports in Africa. And Russia trying to mingle in militias and whatnot. The US is losing a huge amount of influence currently, due to how they treat former allies in Europe and currently due to inept leadership playing a losing game. Russia same. Russia couldn't even defend its border, if Europe collectively decided to invade, to make them finally shut up. But Russia got nukes. It might soon just be an oversized North Korea, if it continues getting decimated in Ukraine. The only winner currently is China, who is catching up with the US in influence and military fast.
> I don't understand what you're saying here.
You clearly did, US is acting out of pure self interest and pretending otherwise.
> Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum
Invading a foreign nation, stealing their resources and imprisoning thier leader is a malicious act, no matter how you slice it.
Just because there are other competitors or good "may" come out of it (so you say), doesn't justify it.
The mental gymnastics by Americans to position themselves as "liberators", while bombing other countries and stealing their territory / resources is stunning.
So, the taken is, as China and Russia are very evil, it's OK if the US is evil (but just a bit less than the other actors).
I though they (the US?) were aiming to be better. Like, the "great" in MAGA wasn't like in "great empire". /s
I believe the argument is, this can simultaneously be a bad thing yet the best achievable outcome within the current reality.
In other words, the point is that the hypothetical good choice is not actually on the menu.
I will note a similarity to the US political situation with respect to people who, rather than choose the lesser of two evils, opt not to vote entirely.
Nevertheless, that doesn't mean humanity shouldn't strive for better.
It's a win-win, it's good for Venezuelans and US wants the country to become an ally. People behind the decision probably took both into account.
In principle, it's morally good to overthrow a dictator in some circumstances. The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
> It's a win-win
Bold statement considering the history.
win-win: Panama, Grenada.
not win-win: Brazil, El Salvador, Bolivia, Iran, Nicaragua, Chile, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya.
Fair point, it's not certain that this will be a win for Venezuelans. But I think it probably will be. Economically it can't get much worse.
Win-win: France, Germany, Korea...
> Win-win: France, Germany, Korea
These countries don't well match those on the overthrowing-the-dictator list, which now includes Venezuela.
For Germany we defeated it's government with a crap-ton of help, after Germany had declared war on us. For France we ousted an invading foreign power (again, with a crap ton of help). For the third we were effectively partitioning the country in prep for the proxy war with the Soviet Union.
Japan is also a good example. If the US is going to marshall aid (or the equivalent) Venezuela for the next many decades then I think it'll certainly be a win-win.
Unlikely to happen though. More likely they will just engage in resource extraction. The US doesn't have the mindset of the past any longer.
given that the US again intends to attack and conquer panama, i dont think you could consider that a win
I mean this kinda implies that there's a chance it could fail but failure basically is no worse than doing nothing?
Most of those examples were failed or problematic countries before and after US intervention. If there's a chance of sucess that's better than doing nothing no?
Well, last time the US intervened in my country it was to actually install a dictator that would benefit them.
It's too early to say it's a win-win situation.
Which country is that if I may ask?
Chile, if the parent's contact info is indicative.
There we backed the overthrow of Allende's government and installed Pinochet.
Who hired former nazi torturers to kill the left wing.
> Who hired former nazi torturers to kill the left wing.
I can't tell if this is a question or an assertion.
If it's a question, Pinochet utilized Nazis to torture people (ex:Colonia Dignidad) and had lots of leftists tortured and disappeared (too many to list here).
If it's an assertion, yeah.
About half of south America.
_The School of the Americas has entered the chat._[1]
1: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2N77mwUI0pDOBOP6gIknkU?si=9...
Almost listened to all episodes now. America sure used to have a lot of bastard, still do but used to too.
Love a good Mitch reference!
And I went through a year or two of binging from the beginning and caught up to present day a year or two ago, but took a break for Jamie Loftus stuff and Knowledge Fight, as well as Some More News and Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff to help balance the bummer lol
Knowledge fight would be interesting, but always balk at their episode count. Also watch some more news when they have something interesting. Basically everything from the frequent bastards guests.
Maybe you'll like the Blowback podcast.
I’ll put that on the list, thanks!
There is a _lot_ of KF there, I started that from the beginning and I’m close to episode 300…I shudder to think how much of my last two years has been Alex Jones content…but it’s fascinating. And frustrating that his whole shtick seems so transparent yet too complex to get through to people already wrapped up in it
chile based on the email address in profile
It’s surprising how hard it is for some people to understand this. Yes oil blah blah. A few billion bucks, but the much bigger picture is (at least in this theory) Venezuela gets a democracy and the U.S. gets a stable strategic partner in an important part of its back yard. I’m not evaluating it yet, but there is definitely a bull case for this move on the geopolitical level.
> Venezuela gets a democracy and the U.S. gets a stable strategic partner in an important part of its back yard.
They wishes are, at best, one possible outcome from a long list of possible outcomes.
The most obvious example is a fantasy in your mind.
The most obvious counter-example is the entire history of unilateral regime change.
The US has not conducted a successful nation building project since WWII. This is not a coincidence. We don't have the capability.
Killing the dictator is the easy part.
South Korea. And Eastern Europe in the 80s.
Which Eastern European nations did the US build in the 80s?
> The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
So let's say they take out Kim jong Un...
Now you have a country where every living being from their birth has been trained that US is bad and their leader is like God on earth.
Your 'little risk of something going wrong' is wishful thinking or naive
> > So let's say they take out Kim jong Un...
It will never happen because Kim has nukes. All these regime changes starting from the Afghaninstan, through Saddam, through Gaddafi....now Maduro they are just teaching strongmen to get nukes as the only way to be safe from U.S. (or others) regime change
Wouldn’t NK say the same against US? Are we the good guys? Or they are? Or nobody?
NK is a dictatorship with concentration camps, where a small group of people has 20 million hostages. The US is a democracy. (For the record, I'm not American and I wanted Harris to become the president.)
The definition of democracy usually includes the rule of law, that no longer exists in USA. Trump declared himself to be dictator, and his handlers are having him act that way. They take no account of USA law, nor of international law, nor ethics of any religious group AFAICT.
Also, paying another country to run your concentration camps is no less evil.
The US government is not even in the same universe as NK in regard to what they do to their population.
Yet, we’re heading a dangerous path.
Ice could easily start rounding up citizens soon… I mean “domestic terrorists” which is how anyone opposing Trump could be labeled soon
If only it were that easy…
Overthrowing a dictator most often gets either a new dictator or years of brutal violence and turmoil
Were you in favor of the Iraq war?
This is "we don't let poor people have money because they'll only get fat if they have food to eat" levels of rhetoric.
USA military should be taking heed of their own country's laws before pretending to be enforcing laws in other countries in order to further enrich their oligarchy.
Sure, remove the NK dictator that USA is partly responsible for being put in to power ... but only with international agreement and a plan for rapid move to have open elections. USA is in no place to do this given the lack of democracy there.
Do you really believe the story about freeing Venezuelan's? You're in for a surprise then when USA rapes them for their oil.
How would you feel if Iran captures Trump, a convicted felon with no respect to the rule of the law, running crypto schemes from the office and with proved connections to a pedophile ring trafficking and planning for a 3rd therm and staying in the office for life?
I’m sure a lot of Americans will be celebrating it on the streets. Will that be a win win too?
I don't think Americans would celebrate on the streets but many would be secretly happy. How would I feel? Depends on what I think would be the consequences for the world.
You can know the consequences only in retrospect, not when its time to celebrate or not.
Is it?
"Trump announced US oil companies will rebuild Venezuelan oil industry
Oh would you look at that
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZaKSfiOzCw
The US could be acting in their own interest and their actions could benefit Venezuelans at the same time. Venezuela has insane amounts of oil and could be the Saudi Arabia of south America. Why aren't they? Why are there food shortages there? Where's all the oil revenue going? Why isn't there more oil revenue?
A major factor is that Venezuela's oil is mostly heavier crude, which is denser and more viscous. This makes it costlier and more difficult to extract and refine, and usually sells for a lower price than lighter crude.
There's also rampant mismanagement, poor infrastructure, and sanctions affecting the output and outcomes. See also: "resource curse"
Well it could have something to do with the US previous involvement in Venezuela dating back over 100 years.
Sometimes bad people do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, but there is some good aspect to it.
Based on where I was born and my background, I should not know as much as I do about Venezuela. Improbably, life led me to develop close ties to some Venezuelans, and with them as a window, I've learned a lot about that country.
In this case, the people of Venezuela are desperate to get rid of their socialist government. It has, predictably and inevitably, led them directly to poverty, starvation, and violent repression.
I have a lot of reservations about the way in which Trump is operating and in this case, the legality of every aspect of how he is doing this operation in Venezuela. Despite all those reservations, this is a rare situation where this action benefits everyone and the world.
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HN comments is a heavily biased and propagandized place. The most moderate opinion you'll find here will be something like "actually Venezuelans are happy that they are being bombed by the US!"
> The most moderate opinion you'll find here will be something like
The large majority of what I'm seeing is from the other side of the aisle.
Literally the top comment of the post right now is saying that a lot of Venezuelans are happy and that Maduro is bad
Yeah, what a weird comment...
Have you considered that it might not be HN being propagandized but instead all other social medias from which you likely use to construct your worldview? It would be an incredible waste of time to try and sway opinion here on global politics.
Out of all the sources I'm checking with different political biases this is one of the few places that people are so desperately trying to frame a country bombing another country to steal their oil as something good
Trump just literally announced that oil companies are coming to get the Oil of Venezuela. Sorry, everything else was naive to believe.
Ironic comment. El Salvador’s president has extremely high approval ratings and was definitely elected democratically. The US hasn’t ousted a democratically elected government since the end of the Cold War (as far as I know).
Could it be because democratically elected governments are becoming a thing of the past?
Uh what? I’m all about American hegemony but let’s not stupid.
Mossadegh Arbenz Allende Goulart Lumunba And Maduro was elected as well though you can go on with it being corrupt if you want.
These are just the ones we directly overthrew who were elected. There are 20 more or so we’ve done so indirectly.
You missed the part of my comment that said “since the Cold War”. All of your examples are during the Cold War, of course. (Other than Maduro, and I don’t think most people believe he was democratically elected.)
Uh you had ww2 there first no?
Nope, you can confirm you misread
I think people are overindexed on the US's failures to turn Islamic theocracies into democracies. The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
> The people in Venezuela want democracy.
Venezuela had a democracy for decades. It's the US that has been trying to destroy it for decades because the venezuelans voted for the wrong guy. It's funny how we forgot that the US also tried to remove the previous elected leader of venezuela.
Last year the people decided to vote for an alternative and the dictator decided to stay in power.
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No - we know Maduro lost the election. That's knowledge, not opinion. And he stayed in power, while crushing the opposition. Maduro is a garden variety dictator. Spectacularly corrupt, jails his political opponents, having taken over the media and so on.
How do you know? The official election council certified that he won. A bunch of foreign governments and US-aligned media claimed it was rigged. But the US has been trying to regime change them since they nationalized their oil.
You're trying to paint a picture that it's just the US and it's lackeys that claim the election was rigged.
In truth, we know that the election was neither free nor fair, with the government prosecuting and oppressing the opposition.
The Venezuelan opposition made a point of providing evidence that they won, most notably official tally sheets which collaborate that they won. The government did not produce evidence or even care to refute the opposition's claims.
A lot of my friends in Venezuela told me.
You should go talk to some venezuelans.
You'd think Machado winning the Nobel peace prize would be enough for people to not question the popularity of Maduro, but here we are, random keyboard warriors defending dictators nonstop.
> You'd think Machado winning the Nobel peace prize would be enough for people to not question the popularity of Maduro
You mean the woman advocating for the US to invade venezuela got the nobel prize? How shocking. It's almost as if the nobel prize is a political tool.
> but here we are, random keyboard warriors defending dictators nonstop.
"dictator". Sure. Everyone is a dictator and authoritarian.
Your comment doesn't make any sense. The Nobel Peace Prize isn't decided by Venezuelan people, it's decided by a council appointed by the Norwegian government.
Reminder that Kissinger won the Nobel Prize in his time. Winning the Nobel Prize means you align with US geopolitical interests, nothing more.
No, people can't just kick out an authoritarian dictator. Such rulers don't need democratic support to stay in power. Strong men only leave their palaces due to two reasons - death from old age or an even stronger power forcing them.
> No, people can't just kick out an authoritarian dictator.
If that was the case, the US wouldn't exist. Might want to brush up on american history.
> Such rulers don't need democratic support to stay in power.
They most certainly do. Once they lose it, they collapse internally. Read up on some history.
As I said, if maduro had lost the popular support, the US wouldn't have had to invade and kidnap maduro. The venezuelan people would have done so. The only time foreign intervention is required is when a significant portion of the populace supports the leader.
This is fundamentally incorrect. A dictator can oppress 90% of the people by just treating 10% of the population well, provided the 90% isn't allowed to heavily arm themselves anyway.
You jump from "some revolutions have happened" to "revolutions always happens and always succeed"...
By your logic why are there any tyrannies at all in the world? Do you really believe all governments are supported by their people and that oppression does not exist?
You people aren't serious
Given the US position in favor of Bolsanaro against Lula indicates that Trump is not interested in Democracy if it produces the wrong result. If Venezuelans elect a Socialist, they will immediately be out of our good graces.
> The people in Venezuela want democracy. It's a fundamentally different situation.
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney (but I'm sure it'll work out this time)
There is a whole lot of directions this can go after we arrest the dictator, but a liberal democracy magically immediately popping isn't on my list. There might be one in the future but there will be a lot of chaos and violence between now and then.
What happened in Europe after WW2? Dick Cheney didn't invent the idea of America liberating a country and being greeted as liberators, it had happened before, specifically in countries that had a history of liberal democracy.
For some reason he thought it would apply to Islamic theocracies and it clearly didn't. Pattern matching Venezuela against Iraq or Afghanistan is an obvious mistake.
We aren't occupying Venezuela and rooting out everyone in the current regime and putting them on trial. We just arrested a handful of people leaving the rest of the government intact. It playing out like WW2 doesn't make sense
Trump has today, explicitly said that the US administration - specifically his administration - will run Venezuela, with boots on the ground, for as long as is necessary.
I was listening to the press conference and almost went back to edit my comment with a note about it. Honestly, coming out of that I have no idea if what is his saying is reality. As things stand and what we know, it doesn't make sense. We don't know about more troops currently on the ground. He said the VP has agreed to assist, but she is publicly saying very different things. I hate we are in a place as a country where we can't believe basic things about important topics our president says.
I think you are misquoting slightly. Trump said he's not afraid of putting 'boots on the ground' in the country if necessary, not they are confirmed.
Also in the Q&A he mentioned this was mostly targeting the protection of the oil extraction/American companies taking over, not the rest of the country.
(tho not sure how much we can really trust what he says)
> What happened in Europe after WW2? Dick Cheney didn't invent the idea of America liberating a country and being greeted as liberators, it had happened before, specifically in countries that had a history of liberal democracy.
Those countries were actually being liberated from a foreign power that had invaded them just a few years prior.
There are very few examples where a foreign nation overthrowing the indigenous government (no matter how despised that government may be) are greeted as liberators, and in those select few instances the sentiment is almost universally short lived.
> The people in Venezuela want democracy.
Let’s assume for a second this is true, and the US is genuinely helping by removing a dictator.
Why Venezuela? Why not one of the other dozens of countries in the world this is the case?
Hint: oil.
I don't know if you remember that Hugo Chavez was voted into power, had a legitimate mandate to dismantle the democracy that elevated him, and then his voters defended him against a violent coup to restore that democracy.
"had a legitimate mandate to dismantle the democracy"... citation needed.
I wonder if you would defend Trump for the same actions, and also don’t forget ‘dismantling free press’ in Hugo’s list of accomplishments.
I don't support Trump, but I would not support a foreign power unilaterally abducting him.
The funny part of that narrative is the US government currently being led by people who have been trying to tear down the concept of democracy in the US. Maybe once Venezuela has their democracy back, they can help out the people in the US?
What’s even funnier is that, in some kind of trial, Maduro should enjoy Presidential Immunity.
And the US want oil and other resources.
So Venezuela has to vote correctly otherwise it will get "freed" again
Going by what recently happened in Honduras, they won't even need to vote. The US will just choose for them!
How convenient.
Why would Washington try to get oil from Venezuela when its domestic oil industry produces all the oil the US needs (and if production were to decrease, the US economy could easily make up the shortfall by buying oil from Canada)?
It's not about needing the oil to use, it's about profit for American oil companies. Resource extraction from foreign countries at gunpoint is a major basis of the US economy.
US has a long history of overthrowing both democracies and dictators to allow their companies to extract resources lining the pockets of already rich industrialists.
The US intentionally uses only a fraction of its oil reserves so it can control the price, and will still have plenty when others run out.
Check out the capacity of the Alaska pipeline, and how much goes down it each day. Literally the least possible to keep it well maintained.
Has that got anything to do with why these[1] graphs of US oil and gas production are limited to "Lower 48 states". I found that restriction to be very strange.
[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=66564
Domestic crude oil is mostly not compatible with US refineries, so it mostly gets exported. The US imports heavy crude, like that produced by Venezuela, for our domestic use.
Why would you buy oil from Canada when you can take oil from Venezuela?
>Domestic crude oil is mostly not compatible with US refineries
The oil produced in Texas is easy to refine. Some of it is exported as crude, and an approximately equal amount of heavy crude is imported because US refiners have a competitive advantage in refining it. It is not that US refiners cannot refine Texas crude: they make more money refining the heavy stuff or stuff with a high load of contaminants.
>Why would you buy oil from Canada when you can take oil from Venezuela?
But the US is not going to take it, just like they never took oil from Iraq after conquering that country. The value of all the oil produced worldwide in 2023 was about $1.7 trillion. Of course it cost a lot of money to extract the oil. That year the IRS collected over $4.7 trillion in tax revenue. The US government has easier ways of getting money than invading oil-rich countries.
The US does not want any country or economy in the Western Hemisphere to be stragically dependent on Russia or China, so kicking Chinese or Russians out of the oil industry in Venezuela might have been one goal of the current military action.
To hinder China, so sell it themselves, to prevent competition
Don’t forget I mentioned other resources too. Venezuela has more than oil.
Can you guess what resource the US is trying to procure by this military action?
I think you are trying to force an incorrect simplistic narrative on the situation. Obtaining natural resources is not an important motivation for US military action with the possible exception of US intervention in the Persian Gulf during the Cold War (and even there I see no evidence that the US was trying to get out of paying the going international rate for the oil as opposed to merely ensuring that willing sellers in the Gulf could continue to transport their oil over the ocean). Venezuela's cooperation with Moscow and Beijing is a much more likely motivation, i.e., US national security.
> Venezuela's cooperation with Moscow and Beijing is a much more likely motivation, i.e., US national security.
If that’s the case why pootin got a red carpet in Alaska instead of orange jumpsuit?
Why if ruzzia is such a “threat to national security”, current government of “no new wars” doesn’t help Ukraine?
Don’t forget that eliminating (or reducing its influence to nothing) ruzzia - would hurt China immensely. Two birds with one stone and all… also with a benefit of a true legitimacy of helping Ukraine and destroying ruzzian totalitarianism.
Can you tell me why Vance and others speak of stolen oil?
What oil was stolen? Whose oil was stolen?
Determining the goodness of a blatantly illegal action by its ultimate success is a very Machiavellian view. Why have laws if all that matters is the final result?
What kind of democracy do Venezuelans want and will it be the same kind of democracy Trump wants to install? What if they want a democracy that continues to be friendly towards Cuba and wary of the US? Will Trump accept that?
If your hypothetical plays out I'll say you were right.
The problem US has always had with Latin America is that it's population likes a Socialist flavour of Democracy.
That doesn't rub well to the ruthless capitalist ideals of America. That's the reason why the US has destabilized the region again and again.
Boy I wish I was still this naive
"the common people sew dragon banners and pray for your return"
I can talk to Venezuelans and see videos of them celebrating in the streets.
For your own sake I hope you realize you are being shown those videos specifically to manipulate your opinion on this.
I can talk to them. I can talk to the Venezuelan refugees, who came here not because they are "political refugees" like some claim but because there was a famine in Venezuela.
None of that implies that what comes next will be any better, and to think otherwise is simply being ignorant of history.
I don't think the US has any interest in a democratic and stable middle east.
It's much easier and cheaper to extract resources from a balkanized region.
My entire life, we have always been at war. :|
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.” ― George Orwell
I'm old enough that I grew up (well) before 9/11. Many in my age bracket will describe the 90s as the last great decade. I feel sad for those who are younger who never experienced that world, the world between the Cold War and the War on Terror.
It was a time when you could walk up to the gate in an airport before the TSA. A lot of younger people don't realize that's how it actually was. They think it's one of those things made up for movies.
Houses were cheap. Rent was cheap. Cars were cheap. Gas was cheap. Food was cheap. A friend of mine had college buddies who shared a 4 bedroom house in Iowa for $175/month. Not each. Total. I rented a 2 bedroom apartment close to a train and the city center for a little over $200/month. I lived as a student just fine on $200/week (in 1995), including paying for rent. My degree cost me about $10,000.
The other side of that was the Cold War when we lived under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. I think this was generationally traumatic to people who grew up in the 50s (way before my time) but by the 80s? It wwas like background noise.
There was a lot of optimism with the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Union. On reflection, much later, I think this was terrible for the world. When the USSR existed as a counter to the US, the US was forced to at least do something for its citizens. The Red Scare destroyed collectivism and the US does things like the War on Terror now and, well, capturing the Venezuelan president, with complete impunity. They're open about it too: it's for oil. A handful of billionaires will get richer as a result of this.
The Big Lebowski is, to me, the most 90s movie of all time and it just gets better with age. Oh, the output of HOllywood in general was amazing in the 1990s. At that time I used to go see movies once or even twice a week. There was always something good on. Goodfellas and Terminator 2 spring to mind.
There just seemed to be more hope then. Now? I feel for anyone who was born after 2000. Crippled with debt with limited prospects of any kind of security. It's just so different to how it was.
EDIT: qualified that the $200/week figure was in 1995, not the 1980s. That's like $430 in today's money by the same inflation calculator.
I am Polish and I was 15 in 1990 when the Berlin Wall fell.
Lately I was thinking if it was only me or my fellow Poles remembering 90s as times of freedom and hope.
Thanks for confirming it is much wider experience and memory.
yes, i can relate to that. everything went down-the-fucking-hill since then.
but let's not forget the war in Yugoslavia – even in the best of times there were wars.
Important to note here that the $200/week figure from 80s is the same as $830/week today due to inflation [0]. Rent and degrees specifically have gone up a ridiculous amount, yes, but as far as the rest of it goes, most students today would jump at the opportunity of having that much disposable income.
[0] https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Is there a job you can work as a student in Iowa that pays $830/week net in 2026? (I'm from the UK and have no idea about such salaries)
Not to be that guy who always turns up and points out things aren't that bad, but you can easily rent a 5 bedroom home in Iowa for quite a bit less than 830 / week ($3300 / month) today.
5 bedroom home currently goes for about $2400 / month on Zillow.
I have to think part of the issue is that people no longer want to live in Iowa / LCOL and now prefer NYC / HCOL.
You're wrong, you've mixed up the numbers. Their general living expenses were $200/week. Their rent was $200/month, that's $200 for the whole month, not per week.
I believe the Jesus Jones song, "Right Here, Right Now" has become an ironic commentary on Gen X; in that brief moment in the 90's when we thought the nuclear sword of Damocles dangling over all of us had finally been cut down...
Not a great song, but one that expresses the zeitgeist in a pretty succinct way.
We thought that we were at the cusp of a new era... one where we could overcome the injustices of the past and author a future based on the best version of ourselves.
In the end, Gen X never even got a chance to start; we watched from the sidelines as geriatric Boomers clung (and still cling) to power -- leaving less and less of that (ever more naive) dream behind.
"Right here, right now,
there's no other place I'd rather be.
Right here, right now,
watching the world wake up from history."
The song hasn't aged well & has become a cloy reminder of that time and what we didn't become.
> the world between the Cold War and the War on Terror.
Wasnt US involved in Iraq and Bosnia? ( I dont want to google it)
> When the USSR existed as a counter to the US
The new counter is China, the US seems to be taking AI seriously, they dont want China to win.
Competition is good for the private sector and the public sector it seems
90s Hollywood was immense man. With you there!
"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. On the sixth day of Hate Week... it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally."
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
“Big Brother is Watching You.”
I'm horrible at reading between the lines, but this just smells of oil related concerns. It's not about a bad leader, it's not about drugs.
The standard playbook. If its not nuclear weapons, it's the spread of democracy, or "helping people". The global police just securing their natural resources, nothing to see here.
There's nothing to read between the lines. Trump has stated very clearly that he wants to "take back" the oil.
So we are back to the 1980's CIA actions destabilising South America, each day feels more like Cold War is here.
Yeah because a communist dictatorship is so stable /s
That isn't the problem, but you know it.
No dictatorship has been communist. They use the mantle, that it's for nation and country, but they don't even pay lip service to communism ideals and mechanism. They are just crony capitalist, where the head of the state is the one that uses the state to control the economy rather than the rich doing it by proxy.
> the head of the state is the one that uses the state to control the economy
That's the exact opposite of capitalism.
If you continue reading, you would understand the entire context... also, political and economic system don't have to be married to each other.
I understand perfectly your attempt at muddling definitions to blame all the ills of authoritarian leftism on capitalism.
No, I'm blaming the ills of humanity on humanity. Capitalism isn't a system that existed till... like 180 years ago. The industrial revolution didn't happen when "capitalism" as a concept existed. Capitalism existed in the time that Marx was alive. Also, I'm muddling concepts? No, the public doesn't know crap about this stuff. I studied 6 years economics, so I have become very annoyed when people call communism or socialism to countries that were neither just because their governants called themselves such.
Read any good book about history of economic theory and thought, you will see that the crap that people talk about on tv and the internet isn't even near with what actual academics study.
Read: https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-us-is-attempting-...
Prof. Philips P Obrien's analysis is an interesting one, also highlighting Cuba's reliance on Venezuelan oil, which complicates the situation further.
Venezuela accuses US after explosions and low-flying aircraft reported in Caracas – live
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Venezuela accuses US of attacking Caracas as explosions rock capital
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/explosions-rep...
At best this is a violation of international law, at worst we have seen many times how badly things can turn when leaders are removed by foreign power.
And Maduro was never in violation of international law? Why didn't anyone enforce the law?
“If we [Economic Hit Men] falter, a more malicious form of hit man, the jackal, steps to the plate. And if the jackal fails, then the job falls to the military.”
John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Hard to draw conclusions from early reports like this. Situations involving explosions tend to generate a lot of noise before verified facts emerge, especially in politically tense environments. Best to wait for confirmation on cause, scale, and impact before speculating, and hopefully accurate information follows quickly.
Based on the fleet and aircraft movement and mobilization reports, this was probably a combination of 3/75 Ranger Regiment and/or RRC, Delta/CAG, 24th STS, and probably 1 or more SEAL teams based on the sub movement.
The clear fly-out with rotary wing craft seemingly without a concern in the world tells me they absolutely decapitated Venezuela's air defenses.
Their intelligence must have been flawless to have this level of confidence.
This wasn't just a raid, it was an extremely visible one meant to send a message.
Edit: Bloomberg is reporting they captured and extracted Maduro
https://archive.is/2026.01.03-094534/https://www.bloomberg.c...
>this was probably a combination of 3/75 Ranger Regiment and/or RRC, Delta/CAG, 24th STS, and probably 1 or more SEAL teams based on the sub movement.
If you're going to flaunt nerd speak then just say JSOC.
TikTok videos showing Apache helicopters shooting missiles at targets. Lots of planes and helicopters flying over Caracas
followup: the little black outlines in the video correspond to helicopter-like objects. I just referred to Apache for some reason, most local memory of an attack helicopter. apparently it's something else
I agree. It's now confirmed that DJT ordered military attacks on Venezuela
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/venezuela-us-military-s...
[flagged]
I’m not suggesting it’s “nothing” or minimizing it. Just that in the first hours after explosions, reports are often incomplete or wrong. Past cases show everything from industrial accidents, gas explosions, ammo depots, infrastructure failures, or internal security incidents getting misattributed early on.
Jumping straight to geopolitical conclusions before verified facts usually adds heat, not clarity. Waiting for confirmation on what actually happened doesn’t excuse anyone’s behavior, it just keeps the discussion grounded in evidence rather than emotion.
I think you are wishing on a star.
The administration chose not to comment, a simple denial could have sufficed. It’s obvious.
[flagged]
That's not going to play well with DJT's bid for Nobel Peace Prize. Although I guess invading Sweden would be a solution, and there are probably plenty of reasons to invade Sweden - they must be looking badly at Russia, or he can mix it up with Groenland, or something.
That being said, how many continents are we left from being able to call that a bona fide world war ? Can we count Africa as "in a state of war per default", leaving only Oceania ? Should Australians brace themselves ?
To be fair, the existence of Surströmming [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming] is a valid casus belli. We aren't talking about food here - it's "haloanaerobic bacteria producing hydrogen sulfide in a pressurized vessel". An unregulated bio-weapons program hiding in plain sight.
> Should Australians brace themselves ?
Australians are currently paying him billions for 2nd hand nuclear submarines (which are not likely to ever be delivered), so that they can protect themselves from their biggest trading partner.
Australia is spending close to $30 billion a year to protect our trade routes to China from China.
Comedy is becoming reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgspkxfkS4k
Australia is more dependant on Chinese trade than the reverse. If something untoward happens and China's relationship with Australia changes, it is prudent for Australia to have long range submarines.
The deal is admittedly shakey, but so is most things the US is involved in these days.
So, Australia has a trade déficit with China ? Surely Trump is going to invade Australia to put tarifs between New-Zealand and "Newer-Zealand", as Emperor Trump is soon planed to rename Australia.
A trading partner that has absolutely nothing to gain from ever setting foot on the Australian continent, and has never expressed or even implied the slightest intention to do so.
But hey, if making up a bogus threat is what it takes to sell guns…
Peace prize is given by the Norwegians.
Therefore invasion on Sweden is 100% consistent with US logic.
It is the best land border for an invasion of Norway.
The land border between Sweden and Norway is what everyone is aware of and expects to be invaded via. It is at the border between Norway and Finland no one would expect a little special operation.
Norway also shares a border with Russia.
tell ya what, if Trump resigns after the mid terms then I'd fully support him getting Peace Prize.
Well maybe not considering he's just clearing the way for the current nobel peace prize winner to assume power
Australians are hoping he continues being stupid with our trade agreement so we can get a better one.
The Australians made China blink - I don't have any worries about them.
He already has the FIFA Peace Prize, he doesn’t care anymore.
Restoring a democracy and getting rid of a dictator sounds pretty peace-prize worthy to me. If Kissinger can get it then he’s always got a chance.
What about self-determination? Peace enforced by whom?
> Restoring a democracy and getting rid of a dictator
If that was the goal he would put González in charge and not go after oil and minerals.
If you're being honest, though, you would admit that was never the goal.
Why Sweden? Did you mean Norway, perhaps?
As other realized, assuming DJT would mix up Sweden, Norway and Groenland _would_ have been spot on - but truth be told, it was my mistake :D
Just because DJT has limited subtlety, doesn't mean he has zero subtlety. The ambassador to Sweden will tell the members of the committee, one by one in a way where they can't confer with each other, to accept the bribes or "else". It's not like it would be the first inducement to the committee in recent years, so they are likely to go along with it.
Edit, for the benefit of all: /s
Why is it so popular to make up ridiculous fantasy stories about bad things that people/organizations you don't like might do? There's plenty of real stories you can refer to. It's almost as if you want your enemies to do more bad things to justify your hate.
It's called 'humor', some people use it as a way to cope with unpleasant realities. You should give it a try.
That requires being funny first, and the OP failed.
Now you're confounding 'humor' with 'quality humor'. The first one only needs that the intent of the sentence is tongue-in-cheek and not meant to be taken literally; which the OP clearly was, and the first reply clearly missed.
I said it was a fantasy. I didn't miss anything.
Would he be as equally justified to correct the names of Greenland and Iceland (by swapping their names) as he was justified to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America?
I actually believe the majority of children who need to study geography would prefer Greenland (which has a lot of ice) to be called Iceland, and Iceland (which doesn't have a lot of ice) to be called Greenland.
I think a majority consensus would be easily achieved.
Language is defined by how people use it, not decreed top down. It would just be convenient if the very apogee of power (despite the deep state) concurred with and recognized the wisdom of the least represented in the world: children.
On the legality front
Congress practically matters when significant mobilization, boots on the ground, money, with high likelihood of many lives lost. Iraq. Not random one-off adventures.
Otherwise modern Presidents have done this thing for decades.
I think it’s more an effective argument to question this as a policy. As in “is there a plan for what comes next”. Congress should be holding hearings and performing oversight to understand whether theres actually a plan and to allow debate.
Footage is quickly spreading, looks like strikes on military bases as well as a bunch of low-flying helicopters, so a strike + a ground invasion? They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent for a war against Venezuela. Wonderful.
We don't need to manufacture consent anymore. The days of protest ending a war that the US is engaged in are long gone, if they were ever here.
Even the ballot box isn't enough. We don't have an anti-war party in the US.
Our news media are largely captive to the military, with the embedded reporter system.
Congress has abdicated broad war powers to the president, and the courts won't intervene.
The global community can't do anything to the US. Sanctions are very unlikely.
> Even the ballot box isn't enough. We don't have an anti-war party in the US
This is lazy and wrong. Simple answer is leadership is betting this won't lose them the Congress in the midterms because enough Americans won't care. Conceding ex ante the ballot box is literally proving that hypothesis.
Do you think there will be midterms?
And will the results be honored?
Right now it’s even money it won’t.
> We don't need to manufacture consent anymore.
You can see it on every popular internet thread
I mean they did it in US media, even used the same wording as they did for the Iraq war.
Protest has never stopped a government from doing what it wanted. Not a single time in history.
When it's appeared to work, that has one of two causes: either the government didn't really care very much to begin with, or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group's demands while saving face. (See civil rights)
> Protest has never stopped a government from doing what it wanted. Not a single time in history
This is nonsense.
> or it was the other extremely violent group that made the government choose to appear to back the protest group in order to give into the violent group's demands while saving face
Violence isn't needed. Protest is designed to tip the balance of power.
Name some times protests worked, then. It wasn't civil rights, nor was it Stonewall (which was a riot).
Some of the Eastern European anti-Soviet revolutions probably qualify. I suppose it depends on whether the U.S.S.R. "wanted" to crush the protests violently but couldn't. It certainly did conduct violent reprisals in several cases.
Civil rights in the US has been, I agree, sanitized. No, civil rights didn't progress solely because the majority in power was touched that minorities demanded their rights so peacefully and insistently. There was a violent side too, that provided necessary pressure.
> Name some times protests worked
We're three days out from 2025 and Nepal and Madagascar have already been forgotten?
Like, there is criticism of the 3.5% rule [1] for being too narrowly based. But the hot take that protest never works is genuinely one I haven't seen yet.
Are you confusing protest and terrorism?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3.5%25_rule
Is that really necessary? Venezuela recently held an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power. Very few US citizens will find this particularly odious.
Of course Trump is very much against election fraud in other country unless it's his buddy Putin:
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/595299071/president-trump-con...
> They didn't even try very hard to manufacture consent
Chomsky was smart and influential. But he was a linguist. Not a political scientist. The manufacturing-consent hypothesis sort of worked under mass media. But even then, it wasn't a testable hypothesis, more a story of history.
In today's world, unless you're willing to dilute the term to just persuasion in general, I'm not sure it applies.
Instead, the dominant force here is apathy. Most Americans historically haven't (and probably won't) risk life, liberty or material wealthy on a foreign-policy position. Not unless there is a draft. (I'm saying Americans, but this is true in most democracies.)
Most of Manufacturing Consent is about ideological alignment in media and government being an emergent property, not the product of deliberate conspiring. People seek out jobs with people/organizations they already agree with. People hire people they already agree with. People are more likely to get promoted if their boss thinks they have good opinions, etc. It's not a conspiracy, at least there doesn't need to be a conspiracy, because Manufacturing Consent describes an anti-conspiracy. All of this obviously still happens today, there hasn't been any fundamental change in human behavior, people still have special affinity for people they agree with. Always have, and always will.
Chomsky, as a linguist, was probably better equipped to understand the implications of emergent behavior than more mainstream political scientists.
Unlikely to be ann invasion, they appear to be SOF Chinooks so probably a snatch or pinpoint raid.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/03/americas/venezuela-explosions...
Trump ran on "no more wars". Manufacturing consent means admitting that he's entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it's not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.
Plus, the more of a splash, the more Epstein stays out of the news.
MAGA: It's not really a war if they can't retaliate.
No doubt the regime will come up with a "special military operation" equivalent to avoid calling it what it is.
> Trump ran on "no more wars". Manufacturing consent means admitting that he's entering a conflict. His more effective play is to pretend it's not happening and attack anyone who criticizes him.
Or, he could acknowledge that their is a conflict, and pretend he didn't start it but Venezuela did. Like he could claim that Venezuela invaded the US first (oh, wait, he actually did that last March, using it as the pretext for invoking the Alien Enemies Act.)
We have seen the same scenario. First military occupation, second a puppy US-phile government, third oil infra rebuild by US oil companies. Simultaneously a clear sign to Russia/China who the boss is in South America.
Replace Venezuela with Iraq, and Maduro with Saddam, and read this whole comment section. We never learn.
That was different. There was an ultimatum, there was a coalition.
Yes, the recreational wars were dumb, wrong, illegal and just all around bad ideas.
But there was a solid attempt at giving them legitimacy. This matters.
You’re describing how Iraq was sold, not why it was justified.
Oh, I wouldn't want to justify it ;)
But the fact that it had to be sold was probably a good thing.
This is more Panama 1989 than Iraq 2003.
It is early in the news but I also read about the US working on directly having the nation transition. Gives me bad vibes as someone who lived through the invasion of Iraq. TBH, I am not very knowledgeable but I assume there's less sectarianism and lack of infrastructure so it is a different situation. Although with all things Trump, it's his execution and competency following through after the immediate ready decision.
Yeah, I also read that in the news, which was the thought behind my comment honestly.
how can you possibly make such a call so early on
Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Easy: he’s the Emperor of America. The Republican-controlled Supreme Court said that laws don’t apply to him and the Republican-controlled Congress disbanded itself. Are you honestly surprised that he’s just doing whatever he wants?
Based on the speech he just staggered through he genuinely believes he’s emperor of the west. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Wonder who we will we bomb tonight. Mexico? El Salvador? New York?
Wtf kind of dumbass answer is this. It's not even out of character for the USA to do this.
The brain-rot seeping from this comment.
The guy committed crimes in Venezuela and USA. Now he's going to be tried for him. They could have just killed him - they didn't. He will be tried and spend the rest of his life in prison.
And for cleanly executing that we have people talking about an emperor and disbanded congress.
If you want a real answer, it's because the president is the supreme commander ("commander-in-chief") of the US armed forces. He can order them to, and it's unlikely that they would refuse to carry out an operation like that.
If you're asking "why is it legal", that's a somewhat separate question, but the short answer is that the Congress has long abdicated this responsibility and has not sought to reassert it. Basically, they're OK with it, and there's no one else in power in the US who will be upset about the US successfully arresting Maduro.
> Can somebody please explain how was he able to do that without Congress approval?
Decades and decades of Congress generally refusing to do their job and also refusing to counter the ever-larger expansion of the Executive branch's assumed authority.
You might also note that the last time the US has declared war was WWII. [0] Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Those weren't wars, they were "military actions", "military interventions", or "international police actions". [1]
[0] <https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/declarations-...>
[1] See the "The Korean War" section here: <https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11236>
Presumably under the War Powers Resolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Provisio...
It's been like this for a while. It has been assumed that Congress doesn't have that power anymore but the president does. Here is a letter that President Obama wrote on the subject that explains it a bit (but if you want to hear more about this check 99 Percent Invisible podcast on the latest constitution breakdown series).
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/0...
I haven't yet seen what the legal cover for this use of military action was but there's a lot of guessing it will be the same Authorization of the Use of Military Force that was passed in response to 9/11 [1]. Yes, seriously.
The actual reason is that the Supreme Court has made Trump a dictator and Congress has abdicated any responsibility on checking the power of the president.
The people behind this don't call Trump a dictator. They couch it in softer, more legalistic language. It's called the unitary executive theory [2].
FWIW (not much), you can say that this kind of thing isn't unprecedented for a US President. I'm referring specifically to Panama's General Manual Noriega [3].
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
He has delegated authority, from congress, to do this. Rephrase please. This is not abdication. Are you a Chevron deference die hard too? Yes the executive and legislature didn't turn out exactly as the framers intended - deal with it in healthier ways than calling him a dictator.
You misunderstand unitary executive theory. It's not completely settled law but most of it is and requires your own interpretation of Vesting - but that has nothing to do with what happened in Venezuela so I'm not sure why you bring this up.
Unitary executive is about executive power. Go read some opinions about it, even the 5-4 opinions don't have much daylight between them. If you can cite AUMF you can read judicial review of the executive. It is so annoying to have taken the time to read these things and then come across some nitwit saying unitary executive is a softer way of saying dictator. Go say that in a law school.
unitary executive and dictator are different things.
a unitary executive cant make new laws, but a dictator can
That's a distinction without a difference.
If the president oversteps their supposed authority and those polices or executive orders get enforced without a legal basis and the courts and the legislature decline or fail to rein in the president, then they're effectively making new law.
There is no legal basis or even a hint of presidential immunity in the Constitution yet here we are. The Supreme Court is fully behind this unitary executive theory, at least when it comes to Trump, and they've invented all sorts of "doctrines" to contort their way into the constitutionality of various actions such as the major questions doctrine (which allows SCOTUS to ignore the executive and the legislative branches if they decide the language wasn't clear enough to their liking) and the "history and traditions" test.
SCOTUS has ruled from the emergency or shadow docket to empower the president such that there's no even a ruling to to go over in some cases.
These judges like to maintain this air of legitimacy so they can't let everything through. They occasionally rebuff the president but not in a way that's precedent setting. Instead they'll simply deny standing, meaning the plaintiff doesn't have the right to sue. So they're not ruling against the president on the merits (generally) so the administration is free to challenge again if they find some novel standing to intervene.
Watch this whenever the Supreme Court rules against the administration and see if it's because of standing. More often than not it is.
The Supreme Court is probably the worst in our history, even worse than the 1850s Supreme Court that gave us such gems as Dred Scott. There is very little pretense that they aren't ideologues acting for their political interest.
And that's how we get to a president who is effectively writing new laws. Like a dictator.
The same way every president since ww2 has been able to.
> CNN, citing a source: The Trump administration justified Maduro's arrest to Congress by stating that President Trump is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Trump does whatever he wants. He ignores the courts and congress. Approval only matters if a power exists to hold him accountable (enforcement of laws). It doesn't. Trump has the military and law enforcement in his pocket, so there is no power capable of challenging him.
Hmm, think about that if China does the same thing to Taiwan tonight as well. Capture the current pretendent and install a new pro-China government.
headline: The wicked CCP that openly flouts human rights
In doing so I feel like my mind just tried to divide by zero.
China does not the capacity to execute such a clean job.
Do as the priest says not as the priest does.
China survives and thrives because someone as dumb as you isn't the one running it. What the actual fuck are you saying?
China loses an ally and influence so they decide to flip the table? OK Buddy.
A boy receives a horse as a gift. Villagers say, "How wonderful!"
The Zen master replies, "We'll see".
The boy falls while riding the horse, breaks his leg. Villagers say, "How terrible!"
The master says, "We'll see".
War comes, all young men are drafted, but the boy is spared due to his leg. Villagers say, "How lucky!"
The master says, "We'll see".
If you think this is primarily about drugs and authoritarianism, don't overlook this one important dimension: the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world is...Venezuela.
[0] https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/8...
It's not just oil, it's heavy crude oil; the type US is equipped to process, and rapidly running out of.
a nice visual in support of your comment
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-oil-reser...
That's a terrible diagram. I would have assumed that Iran and Saudi Arabia have the biggest oil reserves from looking at that diagram, since they are front and centre on that visual. Why aren't the shapes uniform?
And where is the legend? What do the colours mean? Why are Libya and China the same colour?
all good questions but you'd have to ask the site that published it.
..i thought it unclear that Venezuela was biggest from the graphic too, had to really stare at it to figure it out.
it seems the colors are continents.
More importantly, they recently started trading in yuans.
US also bombed the harbor last night. Maybe that will change the currency back.
Source? How recently?
Mostly due to Trump's actions.
They aren't even trying to hide it. The administration has openly stated this is about recovering "stolen" oil resources.
It also is predominately heavy crude oil, something the US lacks (it's what it mainly imports, with domestic shale oil being 'light') even though a lot of it's refineries are optimised for this.
Oil that was being given to Cuba, Iran, Russia, China...
By "given" you mean sold and by "Cuba, Iran, Russia, China..." you mean the only countries that aren't gonna follow the US' absurd sanctions that have led to so much suffering inside of Venezuela
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
From what I gather, most of the food insecurity in Venezuela arose pre-2017 back when Obama was doing narrowly targeted sanctions on key individuals. You can see undernourishment rockets upward after Maduro takes power in 2013:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-undernouris...
Nothing Trump has done to Venezuela was justified or sensible. I just want to clarify that the nation's dysfunction does not seem to be primarily due US activity. (Maybe if we wait a little bit, it will be!)
It's their oil to give.
Who is “they”? Maduro is not the elected leader of Venezuela.
How did you come to that conclusion?
Western logic.
Literally nobody believes he won the last election. Biden said this repeatedly.
Neither is your Trump the elected leader of Venezuela.
Trump pardoned a drug kingpin exactly one month ago. Of course this isn't about drugs.
I certainly didn't. Along with the oil is more distraction from the Epstein files. Call me jaded but he has done this several times as a distraction.
Seems like the Epstein files are the obvious distraction at this point
This
And yet, somehow, people are poor.
This really doesn't have much to do with oil. This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge and subscribe to an absurd notion of Domino Theory where communism will fall. Maduro already promised to stop trading with China and negotiate absurdly favorable mineral and energy deals. He even conceded to give up power on a 2-3 year timeline. Obviously, we will go in and control the nation and take a ton of resources. However, this was primarily about Marco Rubio living out his father's fantasy as outlined in his autobiography. It was sold to Trump as a drugs bust because he is an absolute moron and needed a distraction from Epstein.
Honestly, this is disgusting. Trump is personally renting and selling out America for personal profit. To Israel and now a cadre of South Floridians. He is selling passports and pardons and letting countries have trade deals or bases. I simply do not understand how everyone with power is letting this happen. This is not even ideological. The country is in recession and we are attached to 3 wars. WTF IS HAPPENING?
> This is because Marco Rubio and a cadre of wealthy elite immigrants who fled communism in the last half century have this grand vision of revenge
Maybe. Combating communism in south america is certainly a noble goal. Maduro is one of many communists that plague this region and his fall will undoubtedly contribute to significant power shifts in south american politics.
But it's not Marco Rubio who holds the power, it's Donald Trump. And Trump absolutely will deal with communists if it's profitable for him and/or the USA. His dealings with Brazil prove it. He embarrassed not only Rubio but various other staff and arguably his entire administration by leveraging tariffs and Magnitsky sanctions into some kind of deal with the communist brazilian president.
Trump could not care less about communism in south america. His past discourse on the matter of Venezuela is entirely focused on oil. He's been talking about seizing the resources for years. It's also easy to see how doing so benefits him and his country greatly.
I was hoping that he'd also end up unwittingly fighting the communists and drug gangs over the course of his war so that south america as a whole might at least reap some benefit but now it looks like even that was too much to hope for.
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How are we not thugs in this situation? We're taking resources on other's land.
If resources don’t have a legitimate owner, they’re effectively unowned. This is the case of all dictatorships. Any free country can take those resources and integrate them into their system, provided they recognize and enforce property rights. Otherwise it’s anarchism, a dysfunctional hybrid of old dictatorship and American pragmatic profit, not a secure system of property rights.
(Assigning ownership to nation as such wouldn’t fix the problem. A nation without property rights cannot own anything.)
Why should a second country take the resources, instead of making Venezuela free and they keep their own?
If “making free” means building outside a system of freedom, that’s too expensive. The U.S. tried to build a “democracy” in Iraq but failed.
If “making free” means just leaving people alone do what whatever they want, it’s not necessary. (They’d end up with another warlord anyways.) If the citizens of a free country want resources, why not provide them with a legitimate way to get it? The U.S. could, instead of making hypocrite puppet regimes, fully integrate (with military if needed) the resources they need into her system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination
https://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/self-determination_of...
aynrandlexicon.com, for when Merriam-Webster won't suffice.
And Trumpty Dumpty promised he wouldn't be nation building or starting wars. I believe "no more wars, America first!" was a campaign talking point. And now a war started in our own backyard against an "enemy" who posed no threat, but had resources to grab. Trump is a fraud.
Terra nullius for the 21st century.
It does seem like a accurate summary
Except when it's other thugs who do the confiscation.
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I’m sure a moron for living in a dictatorship, seeing what kind of compromises perpetuate it (such as the right to self-determination) and trying to break them.
We tried every peaceful way to get rid of the regime, they stole the elections, commit multiple human rights violations, the list of crimes is too long. The majority of Venezuelans wanted this to finally happen.
Really??
Yes, we won the 2024 presidential election by a landslide only to be stolen by Maduro.
So please get rid of the regime, the majority of the country wants to go back to democracy.
I think the democracy you want is not the same as the invaders want
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey%27s_Paw
Turns out Douglas Dykhouse really meant this years US New Year wishes when he said "Americans and Russians share the same values".
I am in favor of leaders fighting each other directly instead of sending millions of their citizens to die in their stead.
I can only hope there's a plan for what happens in Venezuela now. But I'm certain that as long as it isn't a protracted war with millions dead, it is better for everyone than what's going on in Ukraine.
The problem with having leaders fight eachother is you get a situation like feudal europe where all your leaders are soldiers whose chief qualifications are skill in combat and extracting resources from their subjects to keep them combat ready.
You really want to stop unnecessary wars, make the leaders dig the latrines for any forces they want to send off to fight.
This sounds fine, except it is not what happened here. I would give Maduro better odds than Trump in a 1:1.
I'm not advocating cage matches here. Just that the objective of any military action should be capturing or killing opposing leaders as efficiently as possible rather than any other objective.
I will spare saying the obvious illegality of such actions and how serious this is.
I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s, when the world felt like it was going towards a brighter age of peace and respect. Berlin wall falling, China opening, Apartheid ending in South Africa, even Palestine and Israel were moving towards a more peaceful future.
But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages.
General public not caring anymore about any tragedy, it's just news, general public being fine with their press freedom being eroded, journalists being spied and targeted, more and more conflicts all around.
I just don't see nor feel we're heading where we should considering how developed and rich we are.
We should boast in how well we raise our kids, how safe and healthy our cities are, but it's nothing but ego, ego, money and money.
This is all turning worse and worse.
I agree with your condemnation of this and other conflicts, but disagree that this is in any way new or worse than any purported golden age.
One month after the Berlin Wall fell the US invaded Panama to kidnap its leader so he could stand trial in the US on drug trafficking charges [1], an almost identical situation to this one.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
Isolating similar events doesn't negate what the OP says.
There's a wider picture involved here which has more global leaders helping to paint that picture with blood and darkness.
The sentiment I’m pushing back on is that 30 years ago the world was bright and is now painted over with blood and darkness. I pointed out that during the bright times an almost identical event occurred. Other commenters have listed the many other horrible conflicts and genocides that occurred during those bright times. The invasion of Panama was not an isolated event.
I do fear for the US domestic situation, which has been deteriorating in increasingly alarming ways, but lawless aggression against Latin America is not new.
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I agree that the outcomes were largely how Americans wanted them, but in the 80's and 90's we had plenty of big and little problems as a world:
- USSR vs. Afghanistan.
- The chaos after the collapse of the USSR
- Russia vs. Chechnya
- US interventions South America
- US in Somalia
- The Gulf War
How much of our upbringing was our limited media exposure?
to continue your list
I remember these happenings, but still from personal rights to major events we had serious step forwards.
Now we have only the bads but none of the goods.
It seems like a cycle. Peace --> war --> new world order --> peace.
Also, there's probably correlation between wealth inequality and war. Wealth inequality leads to radical leaders which can lead to wars.
I think the cycle is because people forget how destructive war is for all sides, how much human wealth is thrown away in order to achieve enormous human misery. If it's happened in recent memory, people are reluctant to let those who think they might benefit from it to pursue it. The more time that passes, the easier it is to distract people from the misery and the easier it is to persuade people that it's justified.
"But since then the world has just progressed toward darker and darker ages." For a different perspective you should read Better Angels by Pinker.
Yeah as someone being born in the early 90s to Eastern European parents who experienced generational joy when Causescu and his wife were shot dead, the globalization that followed hasn’t exactly delivered for people - mostly so in the West.
Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since, but beyond that, wealth has flowed to the top 1% any country you look at (check median wealth ownership in the US, basically plummeted for the average Joe since the mid 80s), the environment has gone to shit and the generational promise that the children will have it better than their parents has gone over board with asset prices ballooning.
I‘m right there with you, the societal promise of meritocracy and the middle class was broken in the early 90s and so far there is no replacement in sight.
> Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since...
That... seems like something that shouldn't just be waved by.
And if you include China and India it's more like hundreds of millions. Like, if you think about the people of the world and not just "the West" the standard of living since the time Causescu was overthrown has increased dramatically.
Nobody "waved it away"?
What is at work is that you cannot treat it like electrical charges and say that the sum is neutral (and even there distance matters, such a statement would only be within a very small distance).
What happens elsewhere is elsewhere. If you get sick, do you want to be sent home because the public health statistically educated doctor tells you that overall health has increased worldwide (just using it as an example, I make no statement about actual worldwide health)?
There is this public discussion phenomenon that in every discussion somebody will inevitably use such a "neutralization" method to "balance" somebody's statement. I find this less than helpful for any discussion.
If we talk about too few good bakeries in the state of Idaho, there is no point in saying that New York has more than enough of them.
Similarly bad discussion phenomena: We cannot even talk about problem X, never mind do anything about it, as long as completely unrelated problem Z exists elsewhere. Or, we should not spend money on X as long as there is Z.
It's like some people assume a Single Global Lock mechanism exists, and the lock is set whenever somebody somewhere attempts to deal with some problem, preventing others from doing anything about theirs.
> the societal promise of meritocracy and the middle class was broken in the early 90s and so far there is no replacement in sight
That was less of a "promise" than a bait-and-switch, and we're in the switch part.
>I will just say something else: I grew up as a kid between the 80s and 90s
We didn't start the fire, it was always burning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn't_Start_the_Fire#Histo...
Nothing happened in the 50s.
We didn't have the internet back in the 80's and 90's to doom scroll all day. We read the events in the newspaper and watched it on on the news at 6pm and that was it. This might be partially why things seem darker.
isn't it the case by pretty much every quantifiable metric the world is better than ever?
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>Across the world, people are living longer.
https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
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Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines? You've been doing it repeatedly and we've already asked you to stop. If you keep doing it, we'll end up banning you.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
Feel free.
I'd prefer to persuade you to use HN in the intended spirit!
> a brighter age of peace and respect
The first thing to learn from a well-examined life and study of history is that we must always be vigilant and active to protect progress and human betterment.
The second thing to learn from recent history is that transnational petroleum interests will not quietly and meekly surrender their control, influence and interests.
That's because the WWII generation who created these institutions and laid the groundwork for many of these change were still around for all that time. Around 2016 the last remaining members passed away. Now we have the boomers in charge and they are at long last able to enact all their fantasies without restraint in their final few years before they too pass.
There’s probably something to theories of generational cycles. But the people in charge are put their by voting populations who aren’t all one demographic.
The "blame is on the boomers" idea is rather poorly supported by facts or even rational ideas.
Having a democracy heavily weighted in voting numbers by people with the smallest timescale left (and no prospect of being drafted into the armed forces) to consider has consequences. This compounded by the fact younger voting block often unable to spend much time in voting related activities due to working 2,3 jobs to afford the housing that cost boomers 1/2 the price in real terms, either because housing was cheaper or it was legal to live in an urban ~hovel that would now be declared violating one of a million regulations that have since been enacted.
I wonder if Tim Cook is enjoying how his “investments” are being spent.
As for the rest of the us, I suppose now we should sanction the US
Why wouldn't he?
He didn't give Trump a gold CD to invade Venezuela.
He gave Trump a gold CD so you didn't have to pay a 30-50% tariff on iPhones, and it worked.
If it was as simple as giving Trump a golden CD to stop being a moron, some billionaire would've done that already. Turns out, that problem is much harder to solve.
Yep, Cook has worked against his personal interests for decades. He probably feels like a sociopath, but why would that stop him? There's money to be made.
Moreover, it's fascinating how both sides of America's political aisle refuse to see anything but the best in Apple. To liberals, Apple is a shining beacon of innovation and social justice that exercises their private cudgel to bring digital offenders in-line. To conservatives, Apple is a stalwart defender of private capital and the halcyon of privacy and free speech for the common man. Neither one can decipher the fact that they've been duped, instead they both hold onto the belief that Apple will fully embrace their politics and vindicate their faith.
This is illegal, immoral, unsupported by the vast majority of the US population and requiring immediate action by every US citizen and elected official.
> the vast majority of the US population
Well, it's hard to know whether it's true
It’s actually not. 60% opposed,+20% not sure is 80% of the population would count as a “vast majority”
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53787-scant-ameri...
Are these polls as good as the election pools? dubious at best.
Election polls were only ever off a couple percentage points. US elections are hard to predict because they are so close. And because of the electoral system. So missing by a bit can mean making a wildly wrong prediction.
This does not apply to opinion questions that show huge differences (not single digit percentage point differences), though there validity, not reliability is a bigger concern, especially since there exists no voting benchmark you can measure against.
Still: I think it’s awfully convenient to just wholly discount actual empirical evidence whenever you feel like it because it might not be perfect. Why exactly do you think your gut feeling is better?
Unlike popular opinion before other US actions like this, opinion polls show any military action in Venezuela as being very unpopular, like half the popularity of Trump, 20% popular.
That can change after the action, especially depending on how the media covers it, so we will see. The past few years have greatly lessened my faith in the inherent goodness of Americans, and I believe that we have let ourselves abandon our traditional ideals.
Well, at least for now Epstein is off the front pages so mission accomplished I guess?
> This is ... unsupported by the vast majority of the US population
The people that voted for the current president tend to support whatever he tells them to support, so I don't think that's true.
Trump got 77 million votes in 2024, which is 44% of the eligible voting population and a mere 32% of the US adult population. Trump's current approval rating is 39%. Even among those who support Trump overall, presumably a non-trivial portion don't support this particular action.
I am ashamed being part of HN where a lot of people here supporting this terrorism.
No matter how fucked up any country can be, US president has no right to bomb or terrorize other countries.
HN seems to mostly lean right...maybe not most users, but certainly the mods. It's not really surprising since it's a VC backed forum and concern for maximizing profit dwarfs everything else, even/especially moral issues.
Just look at how often relevant stories get suppressed.
Risking being downvoted to oblivion but as a South American this is a way more complex situation morally speaking.
Law-wise I agree and it has set an awful precedent.
But in the other hand Venezuelans all over the world (certainly the Venezuelans here that I know) are celebrating. I myself am in some way relieved. This is a dictator that did unspeakable things to their own population, set proxy criminal organizations, sent hitmen to kill dissidents in my country, highly decreasing our perceived safety.
So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
"I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country."
Yeah, what happens next is kind of the sticky part. That and "unintended consequences".
The Shah and the current state of Iran comes to mind.
No. The most similar precedent was the Panama invasion and arrest of Noriega.
Willing to completely give up domestic control of your energy sector in exchange for this regime change?
Because that's what has actually happened here.
It's not like there will be peaceful and organized elections now. The template from US actions in Latin America in the past is: A puppet regime will be installed and it will be involved in heavy domestic oppression of its own.
> Willing to completely give up domestic control of your energy sector in exchange for this regime change?
You're saying this as if they (the people) had any control before.
A military intervention should always be the last resort. Two examples of military intervention / occupation working out in the long run are Germany and Japan in WW2. Maybe even South Korea (stabilization of a dictatorship and economic development lead to a democratic revolution later). One can be hopeful that this starts a better chapter for the Venezuelians as well.
> Two examples of military intervention / occupation working out in the long run are Germany and Japan in WW2. Maybe even South Korea (stabilization of a dictatorship and economic development lead to a democratic revolution later). One can be hopeful that this starts a better chapter for the Venezuelians as well.
Ignoring the fact that we have been using these examples for decades now as reasoning for going to war, these were all done after years of war. What makes you so convinced that this is "over" and the Venezuelean people can live happily ever after? History says it's far from over.
I'm in LA.
The Persian expats here want us to Bomb Iran. The Vietnam expats want us to go back Into Vietnam. The Cubans want us to go take over Cuba again.
People who flee country X to the global hegemon seem to be in support of invading country X.
It's a selection bias. Kinda like saying everyone who walked out on their job at company X doesn't think much of company X.
I mean heck, you can probably find Canadians who fled for one reason or another and want America to invade Canada.
I really don't put any credence into that perspective and have been trying to explain this to my Venezuelan friends that this is simply an oil grab.
They don't get it.
The Venezuelan diaspora is of approximately 8 million people. The current Venezuelan population is around 28 million. That’s a huge percentage of the population you a disregarding. And note that most still have relatives in their country of origin and they are also supportive of US intervention. At the end the oil is the least of their concerns. It’s easy to disregard them from a moral and legal point of view, but the suffering of this whole continent because of that dictator is very real.
The administration that has been saber rattling about "Tren de Aragua" and has had dozens of deportation flights of venezuelan refugees...
let me get this clear: you think this administration is somehow simultaneously raiding and deporting people to a place they are so empathetic to the refugee and asylum claim of that they are bombing it for humanity while also rejecting the asylum claims?
The administration that is pardoning major drug traffickers but bombs boats on a theory of importing a drug that they do not make. Then they destroy all the evidence that could support their claim?
This has nothing to do with the fact that this country has more proven oil than Saudi Arabia? Or their chosen successor María Corina Machado wants to privatize oil on day 1, that's just you know, random noise?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oi...
Iran is oil. Somalia is oil. Venezuela is oil. That bizarre Christmas strike in Nigeria a few days ago? oil.
When Trump said in Nov that killing Khashoggi wasn't a problem to MBS, his weird idea about making Canada the 51st state...
That Greenland thing? About reversing this ... https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/greenlan...
You can solve all Trump foreign policy mysteries with one weird trick.
People like to say "no, this is all very nuanced". I mean come on... Is Trump quoting Frantz Fanon and Hedley Bull? I mean what planet do you live on. This is a man with a golden toilet that eats at mcdonalds.
He's a crude man.
The rare earth minerals as well https://venezuelanalysis.com/infographics/subsoil-bonanza-ve...
> The Persian expats here want us to Bomb Iran. The Vietnam expats want us to go back Into Vietnam. The Cubans want us to go take over Cuba again.
Because the world sees your government as a bully.
It is. Members of the imperial core will always find a way to rationalize their imperial brutality.
I mean I'd like to imagine that expats see through it but actually maybe they are less likely since they took great sacrifice to come to the US while I am merely an american because of the geography of my birth.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20473862>
Got it. Forgot that rule.
Exactly this, as a Colombian with many friends who fled Venezuela, the consensus is that the means aren't good but it's looking like a great outcome for democracy (might be too early to tell)
As an American, I’m outraged at this blatant disregard for international norms.
As a person living in the Americas… I’m surprised at how good this outcome is? Did we just remove a terrible regime in a comparably bloodless way?
This appears to be a prisoner’s dilemma. What just happened is probably a utilitarian win. But the president it sets could enable horrible abuses in the future.
> As a person living in the Americas… I’m surprised at how good this outcome is? Did we just remove a terrible regime in a comparably bloodless way?
It's way too early to tell this. I mean, hopefully yes, but it's way, way too early to tell.
That's also how it seemed after the Iraq invasion and the removal of Saddam Hussein. “Once we get rid of the bad guy at the top, everything in Iraq will get better.”
It didn't turn out well. I hope this one turns out better.
> Did we just remove a terrible regime in a comparably bloodless way?
You captured Maduro in an blatantly illegal act of war and until now the Regime is still there.
I hope for the people in Venezuela that this will end without a bloodshed. AFAIK Maduro has still support, especially in the poorer part of the population.
As an American I would hope you know how to properly use the words prisoners dilemma and president
Same as you. This piece of shit needed to be gone. I've seen Venezuelans begging for food, money and shelter in geographic areas where you wouldn't even imagine due the exodus. I've seen South American communities orbiting xenophobia on Venezuelans because the lack of opportunities of immigrants where almost impossible in countries where there weren't any for many of the current residents.
>So one part of my heart is glad. Plenty of Venezuelans are. I just hope they are quick to either put Corina Machado in charge or call for elections and at last bring true freedom to that country.
Putting her in charge just means that the country will get looted by the Western Parasite Capitalist class instead of the South American Socialist Mobster class.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMt1TDA848M
Let's say best case scenario, zero innocent casualties and a democratic government takes over and Venezuela prospers - would you still consider it immoral?
That isn’t how morality works. It’s expressly the opposite, a restating of “end justifies the means”. It’s a defensible position to hold, but not a moral one.
Plenty of moral frameworks (there are more than one!) would hold that view. You don’t have a monopoly on the word “moral.”
Consider this, from an FAQ on consequentialism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism):
> The end does justify the means. This is obvious with even a few seconds' thought, and the fact that the phrase has become a byword for evil is a historical oddity rather than a philosophical truth.
> Hollywood has decided that this should be the phrase Persian-cat-stroking villains announce just before they activate their superlaser or something. But the means that these villains usually employ is killing millions of people, and the end is subjugating Earth beneath an iron-fisted dictatorship. Those are terrible means to a terrible end, so of course it doesn't end up justified.
> Next time you hear that phrase, instead of thinking of a villain activating a superlaser, think of a doctor giving a vaccination to a baby. Yes, you're causing pain to a baby and making her cry, which is kinda sad. But you're also preventing that baby from one day getting a terrible disease, so the end justifies the means. If it didn't, you could never give any vaccinations.
> If you have a really important end and only mildly unpleasant means, then the end justifies the means. If you have horrible means that don't even lead to any sort of good end but just make some Bond villain supreme dictator of Earth, then you're in trouble - but that's hardly the fault of the end never justifying the means.
(Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140220063523/https://www.raiko...)
Note that it's not clear whether the end does justify the means in this specific case, and likely won't be for some time, if ever.
Hang on you’re asking me to consider a philosophy that is explicitly aligned with the concept as a counterpoint?
Admittedly I was raised Catholic and it was pretty much the opposite of that. I’m not holding to any one point I guess. I just feel like I “know” regardless of outcome, the current administration did what they did for all the wrong reasons.
It's a philosophical question, I don't think there's a single objective truth.
Regardless I'm curious as to what is inherently immoral in arresting a dictator?
There is a single objective truth, it's just, not only unfeasible, but also undesired to determine it.
What is inherently true about the words “arresting” and “dictator” here?
USA invaded a country. It was unprovoked, Venezuela did not pose any immediate threat to the safety of USA. There is no moral justification for any of this no matter how you try to spin it. Now Putin can gleefully say: "See? I told you that the West is full of warmongering fascists!"
Just like Iraq. Remember?
Videos from the event already show that civilians were targeted during the attack.
We are well past the point that “videos from the attack” can be trusted, no matter which argument they support. It’s a terrifying state of affairs.
Source?
NYT published confirmation from the USG that at least 40 people were killed.
Why stop there? The best case scenario would include prosecution of Trump and his administration.
There's precedent in the 1989 invasion of Panama and the capture of Manuel Noriega, who was indicted for drug trafficking in the US.
If it wasn't a man suspected of being impeached over a looming child-sex trafficking scheme so deep that it makes watergate look like a game then maybe we'd pretend drugs has anything to do with it.
Watergate does seem rather trivial these days.
I doubt you'll ever find anything against Trump in the Epstein files, as Biden had those files and would have used such against Trump.
We've already seen plenty of stuff that Biden could have used against Trump but didn't. Regardless of why it wasn't used, there's no reason to believe there isn't more.
Trump comes up over 1,500 times in the Epstein files in what's currently unredacted. [1]
Given that birthday note I'm sure there are more records somewhere.
1 - https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+times+does+trump+co...
> > Trump comes up over 1,500 times in the Epstein files in what's currently unredacted. [1]
Trump's name would be coming up the same amount of times with every relevant escort agency owner in NYC and West Palm Beach had they received the same scrutiny from law enforcement agencies as Mr. Epstein.
Their close relationship is a matter of public record, and Trump is all over the files.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_of_Donald_Trump_a...
There are probably a hundred books written about the JFK assassination coverup, but so far no credible evidence. I'm not holding my breath.
> I'm not holding my breath.
Just squeezing those eyes closed as far as they go.
To steel-man and provide a more charitable interpretation of last night:
1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
2. These people quietly oust Maduro in the middle of the night.
3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
5. There is still stability because most of the people in charge are still there. Only the illegitimate president is gone. Venezuela can have a real election now.
> 1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
> 3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
Concern:
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.(
* https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/2007450814097305734#m
> Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
A more direct comparison would be if Mexico decided Trump's lies about the 2020 US election were correct and kidnapped Joe Biden and his wife.
You cant condone these actions and also claim to believe in the rule of law...
> Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
With enough guns, anything is possible.
You don't need to do this, actually. Nobody needs you to lie for the regime, to invent a charitable reading of their actions.
How is it a lie? It’s a plausible story to be sure and you certainly haven’t given us any reason to think that a different story is more likely than this one
Multiple reasons:
1. Trump lies more than he tells the truth. What that means is that when this administration makes a claim, we must assume it is a lie, and then try to prove it's not a lie. Yes, this is the opposite of how it usually is and no, there is no other reasonable way to go about it.
2. Venezuela has the largest amount of oil reserves in the world.
3. The oil Venezuela has is crude oil, which the US is adept at extracting.
4. There has been past tension between Venezuela and US oil companies, so I think we can all see where this is going.
5. Most US-backed coups are done for reasons outside of official statements. Usually economic and political control reasons.
6. Therefore, the most reasonable answer is that this was done for economic (oil) and political control reasons.
what do you think "steel-man" means, if not inventing a charitable reading of the regime's crimes?
steel-man means trying to interpret someone's argument in the most favorable light rather than arguing against a weaker interpretation. It does not mean making up a different argument for them that you like better.
No. What you describe is closer to “giving the benefit of the doubt”. “Straw manning” was always inventing reasons that are easy to refute, and steel manning has always meant its opposite
> Venezuela can have a real election now
Assuming the US wants and will allow that. Which isn’t at all clear, given the desire to get a hold of Venezuelan oil.
> ... we're making that decision now. We can't take a chance on letting somebody else run it, just take over where he left off. So we're making that decision
they have already signaled that this is not what will be allowed to happen
Yes. I am generally dumbfolded on how many of these comments trying to explain the situation completely ignore oil, when it is the main drive for US going to war in the last 50 years. This _is_ an oil motivated attack no doubt
it would 100% be somebody who is aligned with far-right Trumpian values. so basically a fascist kleptocrat a la Bolsonaro, Putin, Orban, et al.
a la Juan Guaidó
The US has no use for Venezuelan oil. The US is sitting on a vast reserve of relatively good quality oil and is pumping as much as the global markets can handle. Venezuela is sitting on massive reserves of low quality, difficult to process oil.
The US goal is deprive China of access to Venezuelan oil. China is ~80% of all Venezuelan oil exports (legal or illegal). Venezuela represents a very large potential supply of oil for China, for the next 30-50 years (a time after which oil probably won't matter very much to China).
Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil. China & India mostly have got that output. The US spent trillions of dollars, used its super power military to fully invade and occupy Iraq, and then did not take its oil. Read that again if anybody still feels brainwashed from the false campaign that endlessly proclaimed the US invasion of Iraq was to Steal The Oil.
Iraq was about the great power conflict with Russia across the Middle East (see: Syria, Libya, etc).
Venezuela is about the great power conflict with China and controlling what the US considers its backyard.
> The US has no use for Venezuelan oil. The US is sitting on a vast reserve of relatively good quality oil and is pumping as much as the global markets can handle.
First, our oil tends to be better for making gasoline but worse did asphalt or diesel, so there is a market for Venezuelan oil replacing Alberta’s.
Second, this is what the man himself has been talking about. He spent weeks going on about the nationalization in the 70s–and note how much of his worldview is stuck half a century ago when he was young—and in the first interview today he said this: “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave.”
There are reasonable arguments about how much this is really worth but one thing we’ve learned is that he doesn’t do subterfuge or misdirection well. If he’s talking about making the world safe for Exxon, I’d bet that he believes it.
> The US has no use for Venezuelan oil.
Actually it's just the exact opposite. The US might be the biggest oil producer, but it still imports 60% of its oil that it uses from Canada. Why is that? Apparently because US infrastructure was built for heavy oil, not the light version the US produces.
Well, well, well ... It just so happens that Venezuela sits on the worlds largest repository of heavy oil.
The US consumes about 20 mil bbls of oil per day and imports around 4 mil bbls per day from Canada, about 20% of US consumption. Total oil imports is about 6 mil bbls/day, with about 2/3 of imports coming from Canada.
Two fun facts: 1) the US is now the largest producer of crude oil on the planet and 2) the US exports about 4 mil bbs of oil per day. Venezuela is a distant #18 at around 1 mil bbls/day
And lastly, pretty much anything you can distil from heavy crude, you can also distil from light crude, just less of it (by volume). There's a reason tar, asphalt and such is so cheap, it's made from the distillation waste products.
> 20 mil bbls of oil per day
Almost double that of Saudi-Arabia, roughly 20 times that of Venezuela
Imported heavy crude rose from 12% 50 years ago to 70% today.
> pretty much anything you can distil from heavy crude, you can also distil from light crude
You can, but at what cost and where? The largest raffineries are apparently built for heavy crude and you can’t just retrofit them to handle light crude.
> with about 2/3 of imports coming from Canada
There are just two other countries equipped with large enough resources to compete for that market share: Russia and Venezuela
“The US has no use for Venezuelan oil.”
> Trump also said he believes that American companies will be “heavily involved” in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt
Considering this was one of his first statements on what happened, I think it’s a clear signal for what his priorities are.
We are straight back to the Reagan years of toppling regimes for our own resource interests. There is no way we did this out of the kindness of our hearts or because we believe in open, free elections. We have clear material interests and he’s not even trying to hide it.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy (/s obviously) but let’s not pretend this was some sort of magnanimous gesture or that it shouldn’t be deeply concerning to their neighbors that the US has no problem attacking a sovereign nation’s capital city and making off with a country’s leader + family when we’re not even at war.
Again I am not losing sleep for Maduro specifically but the way this was handled is not something that should be simply glossed over because of who he was and how he came to power, and we should definitely not pretend “the US has no use for Venezuelan oil.”
Agreed, and it would have played out the same if Trump liked the abduction of the Dalai Llama for Tibetan oil.
the president just announced that they are directing US companies to take control of Venezuelan oil.
Sure, and it's silly. There's very little oil in Venezuela that isn't too expensive to extract.
propaganda, keeping it in the ground away from china or others, handouts to friendly companies, it has uses
Before the invasion, influence and control was iraqi state owned. Afterwards, it was controlled by the US government up to ~2011. Then the western oil companies had influence. So sure they didn’t use it but they can dictate where it goes.
> Venezuela is about the great power conflict with China and controlling what the US considers its backyard.
Sure, can you extend that idea to China v Taiwan?
"Taiwan is about the great power conflict with US and controlling what the China considers its backyard."
Sure: it would be dumb for Washington through inaction to allow China to become secure in its region like the US is secure in its region because then China would be free to intervene all over the world, like the US does and has done for 80 years, which would be bad for the US, so Washington should try to prevent it.
In short, great-power competition is mostly zero-sum, and intuitions derived from relations between individuals in a civilized society mostly do not apply.
The US may have no use for Venezuelan oil, but Venezuela nationalized US investments in 1976, stealing Exxon and Gulf Oil's assets then paying them back a pittance.
Venezuela owes those companies several billion in 1976 dollars, money they have not repaid. The US will now likely use their oil as collateral to force them to pay. No I am not dumb enough to think they will stop only there or do this in a justifiable way, but I would assert, when someone steals something from you, you have the right to use force to get it back, even if the method just used is not the right one.
I'm fairly certain that there's a large segment of the population who would deeply dislike that rationale, especially if it's applied consistently to all past actions (cough slavery)
Why wouldn't apply to the people that keep or have kept slaves? It's probably harder to find anyone alive who has kept slaves or conspired with those who kept slaves, but I'm sure you could find some. Most of them are sex trafficking victims nowadays.
(to be clear here, living person Maduro was in an active conspiracy with the [at the time] living person Chavez who seized those assets* and Maduro knowingly and intentionally used the stolen assets of currently living shareholders of Exxon and and Gulf oil, this isn't even remotely analogous to some nebulous group of white people paying people who look like they might have been slaves but have never been slaves for the sins of other dead people who happened to be the same skin color who kept slaves)
If you mean just grabbing some random person who looks like a former slaveholder and then going after them for reparations to someone who happens to look like they might have been a slave if born in another time, then no that doesn't make sense. In fact most white people that are here probably can trace their lineage to the post civil war pre-WWII mass immigration, they don't even have a family lineage or personal inheritance lineage to slave holders.
>, especially if it's applied consistently to all past actions (cough slavery) reply
Also of note here, it was applied against slaveholders in a literal civil war where a notable portion of them were killed, although it by no means made up for what happened nor was it even the sole reason for the war. So yes the US government has done far more against slaveholders than they have against the Maduro/Chavez regime.
* Yes it happened before Maduro was in the Chavez regime, but he wittingly and knowingly later entered the conspiracy and used the stolen assets of living people as an ongoing continuation of the theft.
Where do you draw the line in the list of "not the right [method]"? I would assert that this is not justified, (in addition to not being the right method).
Can we send troops down there and just starting kill people until they pay us? Torture them maybe? Start spraying agent orange?
If someone steals something from me, I'm justified in beating them up, threatening their family, maybe even burning their house down until I get what I want, 50 years later?
Where do you draw the line between justified and unjustified when it comes to "not the right [method]"?
Conveniently leaving out over 100 years of US involvement in Venezuela and stealing of natural resources huh.
Then let Exxon and Gulf Oil try to use force to get it back. Why should I be forced to help them?
You shouldn't. But you are, and taxes ultimately are there to force via violence people to pay to help fund what they won't pay voluntarily. Now we're only left thinking about how we got here. You and I have next to nill say in this, particularly since the guy ordering it is a 'lame duck' with no further vote to worry about and has a nearly unilateral command of the military by congressional deadlock on any funding hiccups until at least midterms.
--------
Re: taxation is theft argument below regarding taxpayer monies used for justice (my comments throttled so I can't reply in thread)
Didn't say American taxpayers should have to help. I fully agree any self-help should be fully funded by the victim and not the taxpayers. I completely agree with your argument; simultaneously I'd argue they do have the right to fund an operation to seize their assets. I stated the US did this for this reason; I'd also agree if someone say steals my bike it is theft to try and use taxpayer funds to use the police to get it back, but I'd still acknowledge why the police did it and acknowledge the right of the person with the stolen bike to get it back even though I might not acknowledge they've done it in the right way.
>Your previous comment was saying that the US has the right to use force to get back assets that Venezuela seized
I did not. I said the person that has them seized has the right to get them back. You assumed I meant I supported the US doing it via violence of forcing taxpayers to do it.
The general populace is far more agreeable to theft of the general populace for justice of theft than you or I, though, our arguments fall completely flat in the face of that of an argument for a democratic republic. Generally taxation is considered an acceptable for the securement of the most basic tenants of life, liberty, and property under such political ideology.
----------
>Huh? You commented on an American military operation by saying that If someone steals from you then you have the right to use force to retrieve it.
Yes I commented that because that is the rational used why the US did it; they are wrongly doing proxy by justice under a principle that could be right if done correctly. I agreed with the underlying rational but not the US forces doing it by proxy via taxpayer expense. However under the popular argument that taxation isn't theft I think your argument falls flat.
I did not say the US had the right to retrieve it via violence against innocents, in fact I said exactly what you said, the person that has it done has the right to retrieve it, not that you could force someone else to do it at gunpoint as the US has done to its citizens.
I explicitly said * even if the method just used is not the right one* to reflect my agreement with your argument, but I did not say your argument out loud, because it is deeply unpopular and it would just get my comment ignored/flagged because that has happened everytime I've used your hardcore-libertarian type logic.
>Was that just a total non sequitur? Were you just saying the oil companies have the right to use force, unrelated to the US military, on a comment thread that is specifically about the US using military force?
It is not at all unrelated that the oil companies wanted something (that might be moral, if done correctly) and then the US went on to do something they wanted in an immoral way, have you been paying attention at all to politics in the US for the past 30+ years? It's baffling you could even come up with this conclusion.
Of course even if they limited the mission to getting back Exxon assets, they will be damned either way. Either for using private mercs at their own expense, people will say they're operating outside the law. If they use the sovereign state, then people will argue the taxation is theft argument about using military assets for misplaced justice and argue they should have just used mercs. They really cannot win either way.
I don’t understand. Your previous comment was saying that the US has the right to use force to get back assets that Venezuela seized. Since I’m an American taxpayer, that means the US has the right to force me to help with this. Now you’re saying I shouldn’t be. That seems like the exact opposite of your previous statement.
I completely agree that this is happening regardless of what I think and all we can really do is consider how we got here. But that wasn’t at all the comment I was replying to.
> Didn't say American taxpayers should have to help. I fully agree any self-help should be fully funded by the victim and not the taxpayers. I completely agree with your argument; simultaneously I'd argue they do have the right to fund an operation to seize their assets.
Huh? You commented on an American military operation by saying that if someone steals from you then you have the right to use force to retrieve it.
Was that just a total non sequitur? Were you just saying the oil companies have the right to use force, unrelated to the US military, on a comment thread that is specifically about the US using military force?
Sorry for the wonkiness, I now have an extra comment to reply in-sequence. Thank you for your grace in handling that and the inconvenience there.
I think the crux of your difficulty of understanding is not understanding the difference between a victim being able to fight back, a victim being able to fight back with the assistance of a willing proxy, and the wrongness to force 3rd parties to pay.
It is possible that Exxon has the right to fight back. And that Exxon can use a mercenary force to effect that effort. It is possible that the US military is a mercenary force. The wrong part would be that the mercenary force forced you to pay. Not that Exxon might get justice via proxy.
It can be simultaneously true that a mercenary force could act justly, while also being true they did not act justly, in part because they also used violence against uninvolved 3rd parties (in this case, taxation against you and perhaps also violence against some uninvolved Venezuelans). I think that is the case here.
I’m not sure why you’re talking about hypotheticals where a different act could be just. I thought we were talking about what’s actually happening. In the context of a news story about US military actions that I help pay for, you stated that force is justifiable to recover stolen property. Either this describes what we’re actually discussing i.e. the actual events taking place, or it’s a confusing non sequitur.
Let me be explicitly clear in the context, and take on good faith you're just not understanding.
In this particular, concrete event I believe Exxon had the right as a victim to take back their assets, and I believe that the funding of the US military by taxes is immoral, the very act of the people doing so is moral only so far as it does not affect innocent third parties such as yourself or go beyond compensation for the theft. I think I have been pretty clear about this, that in the concrete I think it's simultaneously true that recovery is justified but the funding method was not.
I do believe the US military actions insofar as they recover stolen property is justified, but not the funding mechanism by which they've done so. I'm not sure why this is hard to understand -- if say the police recover your stolen bicycle I can remark the police had a right to go get it even though the police have done it in the wrong way by using violence to tax 3rd parties to go get it. In this case two results -- the victim by proxy rightly recovered the stolen property but also wrongly used violence against third parties to achieve it, both simultaneously true. You are trying to muddy things by suggesting if I agree with one I must agree with the other.
I think I see the disconnect. I thought you were saying that it’s ok for an entity to recover its own stolen property by force, and conflating the United States with US-based oil companies. But you actually meant that recovering anyone’s stolen property by force is right.
Suffice to say I don’t agree with this expanded version in all cases, especially when it’s the military doing it.
Yes I would argue this is a fundamental aspect of property rights. Stolen property held with intent to deprive the owner of the assets, has no legitimate title to be held by the person holding it. Therefore you definitely do not do anything wrong to the thief by taking it.
Whether you do anything wrong to the real owner very much depends on the intent and actions taken after you take it from the thief. If the owner asked you to take it, then well you have clearly done nothing wrong. If the owner did not ask you, then it depends on your intent and your immediate disposition to the owner. If you did not intend to deprive the owner of the property from enjoying the property for any additional time, and you took all reasonable actions to return it immediately, then it definitely cannot be theft against the thief nor the owner. Therefore it is at the very least not wrong, and probably right.
I do very much doubt though that the US military will simply take the assets, immediately return them to Exxon et al, and that will be that. And the drug and machine gun charges against Maduro, are certainly not defensible in my opinion.
Then why isn't Trump saying this in his speech. Instead he's talking about Venezuela emptying it's prisons into the US and making cities he sent the NG to crime ridden because the Democratic leaders failed or some such rationalization.
Because he doesn’t write his speeches.
> The US has no use for Venezuelan oil
Someone should tell Trump that because he’s not been remotely subtle about his thought process.
> Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil
That doesn’t mean there was no desire to take that oil. And there very transparently was. Looking at the end result and working backwards is faulty thinking. The US disastrously mismanaged Iraq. They certainly didn’t intend to.
>Someone should tell Trump that because he’s not been remotely subtle about his thought process.
Maybe Trump just believes it'll be a good lie for his target demographic, because it certainly is a lie.
Or, and hear me out here, he’s not very smart and thinks “oil good”. He’s literally said US companies are going to be taking control over it.
It's possible, but we'll probably never know. However, the WTI price is under $60 and going down. The last thing any big oil companies need is more crude supply into the market lowering the benchmark price even lower, especially particularly expensive (to extract) Venezuelan crude
> The last thing any big oil companies need is more crude supply into the market lowering the benchmark price even lower, especially particularly expensive (to extract) Venezuelan crude
Check Chevron's stock on Monday to see if you're right. My prediction: It will be significantly up, showing that the action benefited them.
I think you’re looking in the short term. Long term control of those supplies would be valuable.
US controls those supplies anyway because nobody else is going to develop the capabilities to profitably extract Venezuelan crude. Not Venezuela, certainly not China or Russia.
> a more charitable interpretation
Never in the past 60 years has it been more clear from observing the current US administration in its international "relations" and its domestic abuses that there is no charitable interpretation.
No, you're not steel manning. You're just justifying unilateral regime change.
None of that matters.
There was no declaration of war powers from Congress, this entire operation is a flagrant violation of US and international law.
And, to point 1, this operation was carried out by a US President who attempted to violently overthrow the US government to avoid ceding power, which really puts a damper on point 1 I think.
> unilateral regime change.
The Venezuelan people voted for regime change. Maduro is the one who acted unilaterally by stealing power.
If Maduro stole the election from someone else, and the US does not put that someone else in power, then what does that mean? If the US exercises their own decision making and judgement when installing someone in Maduro’s place and overrides or eclipses the will of the Venezuelan people, then how is this in support of democracy?
Are dictators hypnotists? Are they wizards? If the regime functioned on the existence of a single man in a single chair, and EVERYONE around him wanted him gone, why does it take the military force of a different country to make it happen? Why isn't it the responsibility of the people in that country to remove him from power?
Good background explanation: USA motives, oil, history ... https://youtu.be/4N9-qop-R8M
So as long as we have excuses we can bomb a country? Right? This time we don’t sanction and shut off swift, visa, Mastercard? Because this time we are the good guys?
>Venezuela can have a real election now.
Only if the right candidate wins.
Or you can just quote the man himself.
Fox News: What do you see as the future of Venezuela’s oil industry?
Trump: Well, I see that we’re going to be very strongly involved in it. That’s all I can say. We have the greatest oil companies in the world—the biggest, the greatest—and we’re going to be very much involved in it.
> 4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
What's the point of this? Surely there's no deniability if the bases were abandoned?
It doesn't matter. The supreme court has made Trump immune, Trump has no accountability. He can just do this and face little consequences. Your steelman means nothing. Nor does the opposite.
We're powerless. Trump isn't.
The discussion should be about accountability of his actions first. When he can actually be made accountable then steelmanning and debating his actions in general can come into play because then it will actually mean something.
The SCOTUS ruling I think you are referring to was about crimes commited by the person who happens to be president, and whether they are punishable. (So not stuff like "you need to undo that bad thing", but "you will go to jail for that".) The acts of the executive branch are absolutely still accountable to the Court via suits of legality and constitutionality.
Also, raise hell at your law makers who thought it was a good idea for Congress to give sweeping powers to the executive in the first place.
> To steel-man and provide a more charitable interpretation of last night:
But why? Why not stick with the most probable explanation? The idea that Trump's primary goal is to restore democracy in Venezuela is beyond absurd.
You might have convinced me that steelmanning is a bullshit rhetorical device.
Come on, this is borderline insulting. I think most of us are educated enough in US history and foreign policy to know that this is fanciful.
I don't doubt that there were people in the Venezuelan govt who want Maduro gone and would be happy for a US-backed coup and collaborated with the US (i.e., provided intel, etc.)
But it's still a foreign coup and military-backed regime change, no matter how you or Trump spin it.
The lesson to the world continues to be: if you're big and powerful, you can do whatever the f you want in other countries to ensure they are "on your side" and to gain access to their natural resources.
6. Don't forget the oil
Good one, can you steelman the Epstein files or Nazi Germany next please?
What about Trump wanting to accelerate global warming by taking all the oil?
EDIT: Instead of just downvoting, tell me how I'm wrong.
Trump literally said we want their oil. We are there to install US oil companies and a US friendly government.
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Alright well now we know what Joseph Goebbels has to say about this whole thing
Steel-manning is always dishonest and never necessary. They can make their own arguments.
Do you have zero historical knowledge, like absolutely none?
Alternative explanation: The election was stolen overnight by US barbarism, prepared by years of reactionary rhetoric by the election stealer in chief.
Just commenting here to see how many American clowns justifying these actions based on my down votes.
American anti human parasites are curse of this planet.
Laws often fail to matter in cases where they should. If a country as powerful as the USA wants to handle a problematic country (from its perspective) by whatever means, they will do so and with a glaikit smirk on the faces of its leaders and politicians. "Here's democracy and justice on your face," has been a typical American foreign policy for a long time whether we like it or not. A lot of people thankfully do see through this pretence, but also at the same time, the fierce followers of Cheneyism are trying hard to find possible explanations to legitimize this.
> "We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition"
How do you run a country without invading it or at least having a puppet regime already in place?
This part of the situation is the interesting thing to me.
Is this US administration establishing itself as the effective dictator of Venezuela indefinitely? What does running that country have to look like directed by the US president and what changes will they make to restrict the position to prepare it for transition? Is the plan to make no changes to the position and then forever make a mockery of their elections by only letting people run in the future who suite US interests? It feels like this situation has the potential to turn into a colonial-like relationship always under threat of direct US military intervention.
It’s wild to me that (at least for now) Trump has publicly repudiated the second (or first if one swings that way) place vote getter in last election as unqualified even after she brown nosed Trump hard. He apparently needs a bigger sycophant in charge like his cabinet members https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-03/nobel-win...
This is a masterpiece on how to sidestep a national debt crisis.
1. Don't acknowledge the problem directly.
2. Take over Venezuela's GDP by benevolent force or whatever he is calling it.
3. Pay off the debt interest with new funding windfall.
4. Profit
tell me the direction the bond market moves then, and show me your positions. this is the dumbest thing i've read in this thread.
Long on bonds, what's your point?
"US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Venezuela that strong action would be taken if Guyana is invaded or an attack is launched on ExxonMobil's oil assets in the Stabroek Block." https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news... Why take a chance?
Before jumping in with an opinion on this event, it's a good idea to bone up on the modern history of Venezuela. I recommend this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHXW1vOBI4
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. If you're looking for bias, he is neither American nor lives in the US.
It also helps to know why the US is so desperate for Venezuela's oil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk
Surprise, surprise, US still the country of regime change and military intervention, when control of or access to valuable natural resources are at play.
US flexing its muscles and showing that it's in charge of its "backyard", just as it always has been.
Please don't insult our intelligence with comments about how this is about justice, drugs, or democracy. I've lived long enough to have seen this movie many times.
This is going to make the US look less predictable to adversaries, and that's, on balance, perhaps not such a bad thing.
It will be interesting to observe how the aftermath unfolds. If the US succeeds in installing a gov't which gains some level of legitimacy, perhaps by stoking the economy, then this will be a significant win for the US. If not, it will be a strong "the US is the newish sick man" signal.
That said, it's one thing to pull this in Venezuela, another thing to annex Greenland.
Meanwhile, One America News Network's front page reporting that Mamdani is undoing protections against "antisemitism"; DOJ is demanding Minnesota voting records; Will Smith accused of sexual harassment of a male violinist; and, of course, polling readers on the question "Does President Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?"
http://archive.today/PIvHL
So we know what many Red-Hats are seeing right now.
The "president of peace," everybody!
Maybe the whole attempt is to bully the current government into giving the Venezuelan/Cuban faction in the US government exactly what they want. They want an entry into the society, and to open it up, maybe among other things.
With this USA is essentially saying that "see I can just walk into your home and no one will stop me, so better do as I say".
I will be surprised if USA tries to land ground troops into that country. Running the country, I suspect, will be extremely ugly for USA. OTOH, if they can just coerce the existing government into giving them exactly what they want, then it would certainly be mission accomplished.
It's all a huge gamble, and will depend on how obstinate the Venezuelan setup is.
Hypocrisy is the greatest western value. And the west really likes its values
Reading through this thread is disturbing not because people disagree, but because of how the disagreement is happening.
What I'm seeing is a breakdown in the ability to hold consistent principles across contexts. The same people who condemned Russian actions in Ukraine are now making "realpolitik" arguments about Venezuela. The same people who claim to oppose foreign intervention are now calculating whether this was "done cleanly enough." Positions seem determined entirely by tribal affiliation rather than any coherent framework about sovereignty, international law, or the use of military force.
There's also a striking historical amnesia at work. The US has been running this exact playbook in Latin America for over a century. We have extensive data on how these interventions typically unfold, what the second and third-order effects tend to be, and how the initial justifications relate to the actual outcomes. Yet that entire body of evidence seems to have evaporated from the conversation. People are reasoning about this as if it's a novel situation requiring fresh analysis, rather than a well-worn pattern.
Most concerning is the casual normalization. We're discussing whether it's "justified" to invade a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader as if this is a routine policy question. The window of what's considered shocking has shifted so far that outright imperial aggression gets the same treatment as a zoning dispute. When someone points out we didn't even attempt to follow Constitutional requirements for declaring war, the response is essentially "yeah, we stopped doing that decades ago, so what?"
The nihilism is the most insidious part. "What are we supposed to do about it?" Well, at minimum, we could refuse to let the Overton window keep drifting. We could maintain some continuity of ethical standards. We could recognize power plays for what they are instead of generating elaborate post-hoc rationalizations about democracy and narcotics.
The question isn't whether Maduro is a dictator (he is) or whether this particular operation succeeded tactically (it apparently did). The question is whether we've collectively lost the capacity to see what we're actually doing and where this pattern of behavior leads.
I completely agree with you on all points. It's terrifying to see these things you've described playing out.
The US is completely cooked man, the right has fully committed to mashing the gas pedal towards fossil fueled 'based' racist authoritarianism while the so-called-left is writing strongly worded op-eds. Even if Dems win again, they've proven to be way too cowardly to fix anything, this democracy is 100% done. Personally I just hope California is able to secede and do a Nordic Model before the entire country becomes Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but I'm pretty doubtful anything good can ever happen here. Good luck everyone.
All your "moral" comments don't matter, I live in Argentina and the ABSURD amount of venezuelans that migrated here in the last 10/15 years is nothing you'll ever see. I have 3 venezuelan friends here and a couple more that I only know (one is an Uber I once took and have a couple neighbors in the building), all were able to escape the dictatorship and left their family there, I just can't express with words the JOY I saw in their statuses from WhatsApp and Instagram today when the door to maybe go back to their country finally opened.
One of my friends is my motorcycle mechanic, met him in 2015 when I bought my first KTM, still my mechanic to this day. A lot of the bike services I stayed with him talking while he worked, I listened to a lot of his stories from back in the day, why he had to run, why his family stayed, how he had to send money to them to eat and some other horror stories.
In the name of my friends, if you think what happened today is bad, you can respectfully go fuck yourself.
So the USA is officially a roque state internally and externally and was brought down by its very own law and order party. Poetic.
Considering the former state AG lost the election to the felon facing two open-and-shut federal cases, I think the "law and order" label has to be retired.
On the plus side, nothing here is permanent, this guy is out in just over three years. How much more damage could he possibly do?
You really believe he will be out in three years?
There's only one way he'll be out, and voting will not be part of that
I do. Pretty certain he only ran to avoid being convicted in the Jan 6 and classified documents cases. Now he can pardon himself and even if the next DOJ prosecutes he can run out the clock.
Why do you think he will try to stay in office? Cause he said he might?
You think that he's afraid of going to prison only? Oh noo, house arrest in Mar-A-Lago for x amount of years due to "bad health".
I think the man is severely and uncurably addicted. Got his ultimate high and will do anything and throw anyone or anything under the bus to maintain that.
Why should he leave? Who would make him leave?
No I am saying this time around there is zero chance he gets convicted of anything before he dies, due primarily to the SCOTUS immunity decision for anything this term and the fact that self-pardons for prior crimes would require another trip to the Supreme Court.
> I think the man is severely and uncurably addicted.
How do you distinguish this from him rubber stamping other people's agendas and falling asleep all the time?
Because he wants the power, and the money.
No way in hell he goes out with regular old elections.
That is a lot of certainty for your vague intuition about his desires three years from now. Money is no longer a concern and he seems to play a lot of golf for someone drunk on power.
An awful lot.
> USA is officially a roque state internally and externally
All of the great powers are. So are most of the regional powers. It's basically the EU and Brazil hanging on to the old rules-based international order.
Never thought that whataboutism was going to be the coping mechanism.
It’s not a coping mechanism, it’s a reality-facing mechanism. What happens here and how the world responds both provides insight and will be a huge input into whether and how Xi Jinping decides to invade Taiwan.
> Never thought that whataboutism was going to be the coping mechanism
Not a coping mechanism and definitely not an excuse. Just a statement of reality. This doesn't make America special. America at least sometimes trying to uphold that system is what used to make it special. Now we're back to spheres-of-influence realpolitik.
Here in middle Europe the rumble is that it is time to BDS the United States. I hear this everywhere, on the streets, at parties, at work.
I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
It’s going to be bumpy if/when it happens, but does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice. Everything else is doom.
> rumble is that it is time to BDS the United States
I doubt Europe’s fondness for self-flagellation goes that far.
Maybe its ruling class aren’t into it, but the people are pissed and have definitely had enough of the US’ shit. They’ve also had enough of the EU’s shit too, incidentally.
I would say we are not a Democracy and it doesn't matter who we vote for. I think it will take a full on dollar collapse to end it, and I think Washington would sacrifice every one of us to not lose grip on power.
Perhaps Venezuela is just a reaction to the action that is already happening, namely a world-wide concerted effort to abandon the petrodollar…
> Perhaps Venezuela is just a reaction to the action that is already happening, namely a world-wide concerted effort to abandon the petrodollar…
The petrodollar hypothesis is obsolete. It has been since America became an oil exporter.
The way you're presenting it, it's never been the case. Petrodollars let America finance a massive military. The military gives it power. We aren't sanctioning Venezuela into submission. We're bombing it.
Also, oil has been traded in non-dollars for ages. I've personaly done it at a bank trading desk in Connecticut.
What, per your reckoning, is the petrodollar hypothesis?
I see it as the world starting to become very unwilling to trade anything at all with the US, and moving to other currencies and finance systems for trade and economic transfer.
> What, per your reckoning, is the petrodollar hypothesis?
Petrodollar recycling [1] backed by U.S. military might. It was a way, in the 1970s and 80s, for us to secure our oil supplies by e.g. guaranteeing the security of the House of Saud.
The point was securing oil. The dollar benefits were a side effect. The dollar is ascendant because we're massive consumers.
> I see it as the world starting to become very unwilling to trade anything at all with the US
This has nothing to do with the petrodollar!
> moving to other currencies and finance systems for trade and economic transfer
Sure. Folks talk about this. It has nothing to do with Venezuela. (Again, oil is traded in multiple currencies and has been for at least two decades.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_recycling
The dollar is ascendant because the rest of the world is forced to use it for trading purposes, under threat of military incursions or other forms of massive civil undoing, courtesy of the American MIC.
And the point is, the American consumer market means less and less to a world that is sick and tired of the suffering the American people bring to it.
>two decades
Yes, that’s the point, the world is moving off the US Dollar as a global currency, and this is why America needs more endless, endless war, and its why we have endless, endless war. The rest of the world sees this all too clearly now.
you ready to BDS all computers, good chunk of phones and a bunch of other tech ?
You ready to hunt for your loved ones under burning piles of rubble?
Nobody is going to be buying iPhones during a world war. Yes, Europeans will stop buying American stuff. It has already started to happen.
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> I guess it’s the only way the American people will get a grip, if the rest of the world starts punishing the US and its allies economically.
I doubt that. It's far more likely to backfire into increased support for aggressive right-wing populism of the kind Trump peddles. It also seems doubtful that Europe could really afford that economically at the time when it's already in an open confrontation with Russia and not exactly on friendly terms with China.
> does anyone see any other way to reign in the warmongers? What say you, Americans? You are, after all, the only effective mechanism by which your own war mongers can be brought to justice.
We do not have an effective mechanism for that. Even if our democracy were truly functional, people have voted for candidates who promised no more wars for >15 years now, and yet here we are. Meaningful reforms that would _perhaps_ enable this require constitutional amendments, which have such a high bar as to be unattainable in this political climate. I don't think the system can recover, but it still has a lot of capacity to do damage as it breaks down.
There is a groundswell of activity among the European populations to bring these conflicts to an end. It’s there, but you won’t see it in the nightly news, you have to actually get out there and talk to people.
I just completed a tour of Italy, through 9 cities, and everywhere I discussed these issues I found that people are just sick and tired of the US’ (and Israels) bullshit, and they want to start divesting from these nations activities. This may not be visible for a few more months or even years, but I do believe there will be political ramifications on the horizon that might give us a bit of hope.
Note, I live in middle Europe, and this is a sentiment shared here as well…
Israel is easy to sanction economically speaking. US is a lot harder.
And I have no doubt that Europe can pull it off in principle. But can you afford that while also ramping up your defense spending to the levels necessary to stand up to Russia?
Europeans do not have as much invested in the “Russia is the enemy” meme as Americans do. Sure, there are easily-duped segments of European society who will just parrot this line from their American and British cousins, but there is a far greater segment who see peace with Russia as being the only reasonable approach going forward, returning to an era where Russia and Europe were actually economically aligned, able to work together, and thus profiting from the partnership. Not everyone outside the Western bubble believes that Russia is going to roll tanks into Berlin - only those who seek to profit from that fantasy, actually parrot it as a possibility. Many in Germany and other middle European states remember when Russians were actually decent trading partners, not so long ago, before the UK and the USA started to interfere in what was, to be fair, a pretty good deal for Europe - but not so great for the Brexiteers and American MIC profiteers.
I'm Russian myself, and quite frankly, I think that Europeans who think they can play ball with Russia and not get burned are idiots.
More rogue than ignoring the results of a presidential election?
If this results in Maduro leaving office with a small number of mostly military deaths, followed by the swift return of Venezuelan democracy, I would concede that the hawks made a good call this time. It is extraordinarily uncommon for US regime change wars to go that way and I don’t think this is going to be the exception.
(E: Honesty compels me to come back and say that it is looking somewhat likely I was wrong and will have to concede to the hawks.)
Invading a country is worse than having a constitutional crisis yes.
So people should live under prima facie illegitimate governments forever with no recourse?
I bet the one that gets implemented by an invasion force will be great. It's a crisis that has to be handled internally by the populus of the country. Not by a country which leader implied he wants the natural resources of the country they are now "freeing from a dictatorship" or whatever cope you are coming up with in your mind.
It's hard to think through the implications of living in a world where it is accepted that countries with more power simply invade each other and take land and possessions from those with less power. I can't think how it doesn't ultimately lead to broadscale instability and ultimately, war. In turn it depresses me that this is toxic to the humanity progressing and solving its bigger picture problems.
No imagination is necessary: we've been there. The 1800s were exactly that and culminated in two world wars on the next century.
You can even go further, _all_ human history had stronger groups taking things from weaker groups. On the classical era of Aristotle and on the paleolithic pre-history. We sometimes forget that humanity can be cruel and work only for self-interest, we like to think that war and pillaging is something from the past, but it will be forever with us
This isn't universally true. There are actually a very large amount of cultures where we have ZERO evidence of violence. E.g. for the Sámi in southern Scandanevia we have zero evidence of violence. Similarly the Tripolye culture in modern Ukraine/Moldova/Romania is famous for building megaworks and housing for up to 15,000 people. But despite this large population there is virtually zero evidence of walls/forts/moats/any defensive fortifications. Not specialized weapons.
Evidence of large-scale warfare in prehistoric periods is also extremely rare in general. Most violence we have evidence for seems to be driven by personal conflict. This could just be due to decreased population densities but the conclusion that humans have always widely used war or organized violence is certainly not supported by the existing evidence
right, but NO ONE was expecting this from FIFA Peace Award winner
Speaking of the 1800s, I wonder if we could learn anything about peace in a multipolar world by studying the Concert of Europe. Might be a good topic for a historian to write a book about. I'm looking right now, and it's kinda sad to see so many books about WW1 and so few about the peaceful period which came before.
Just the 1800s? We’ve been doing for the past 150 years at least
Isn't it literally all of history??
Years of advocating against bullies, my takeaway from this thread is “the US did this because it can”. So bullying is ok now I guess.
I’m sure it had nothing to do with oil too, just about democracy.
When has the US not been the bully?
How about when Carter made peace between Egypt and Israel? Carter also gave the canal back to Panama and normalized ties with China.
Carter may not have won the FIFA Peace Prize. But he did win the Nobel one. My father respected Carter more than almost any other living person, and I trust his judgement.
A lot of people woke up to the news and had their initial "Are we the bad guys?" moment.
As a non American its pretty funny to watch.
No, they didn’t, and if your media tells you that’s what’s happening, it’s either misinformed or propaganda (or both).
Our political left already thinks we’re the bad guys. Our political right is posting pictures of eagles on Facebook. Nobody feels any different than they did yesterday.
If they don't that's on them.
Why? It really isn’t anything new. The only new thing is the admission it is for oil, which we usually pretend it isn’t.
Those of us who are opposed to it probably didn’t vote for Trump and surely have no foreign policy influence, which is the same as when Bush invaded Iraq. Same old song and dance.
Because you should update your figures based on past performance.
If you don't see this as anything new then that is not in my power to change. To me it is something new.
This isn’t out of line with past performance. We have spent decades toppling regimes. Basically since WW2.
Hows this any different than what we did to Noriega? Saddam? Qaddafi?
That’s my original point, to anyone who is paying attention it’s already been priced in. The method was novel perhaps, but nothing else about it was anything different. I’m not that old and I’ve already seen it happen several times.
If somebody punches you in the face from Monday through Friday, then they punch you in the face on Saturday you probably don’t feel any different about them on Sunday.
True, those are good examples and in particular Noriega because there are some close parallels.
Even so I think this was not exactly expected. It makes me wonder how close we are to an actual invasion of Mexico, Cuba, Canada or Greenland.
I certainly can’t say I expected the exact method of capture, but I had no doubt all of those carriers were moving to the Caribbean for some reason other than show. I figured we would just blow some stuff up and topple the regime that way.
I would guess not at all for any of them. Drugs clearly aren’t that much of the reason involved here. If you were listing the countries that export the most drugs to us, Venezuela wouldn’t even be top five. I am not sure I would be opposed to us taking out cartel leaders in Mexico, but there are certainly a lot of downsides to it that have held us back. I don’t think Gloria Shienbaum is on our enemies list.
What they have that we care about is a third of the world’s oil reserves. They are friendly with our biggest geopolitical rival, China. This is not to endorse what we did at all, but it’s pretty clear that there is a future coming where oil gets scarce, and the last thing we want is China to have a better supply of it than us.
I don’t think this was probably the right way to solve the problem, but it is a problem that needed to be solved, and even though I don’t like it, I have to admit there is a lot of upside.
Whether there is a lot of upside or not remains to be seen.
Let's revisit this in five years. That's usually long enough to see where the rocks have landed.
Yeah, I don’t have high confidence guesses on anything anymore. I wish they had a reminder feature here.
Going by the historical record the chances of a mess are larger than the chances of a net positive. One thing is for sure: the US reputation abroad just sunk a little lower and it really did not need that.
Certainly possible. There are plenty of examples where these sorts of interventions worked for the country we intervened in though. Even in Latin America, which I’ve travelled extensively. I’ve talked to them about it.
A year ago today I was in Grenada looking at a statue of Reagan. The Grenadians love America (and the older ones love to tell you about it) for our intervention in the 80’s which I was not old enough to remember. They did not want to become another Cuba and we saved them from it.
South Korea. Japan. Germany. There were some solid wins in our nation building along with the losses.
Upside for Americans.
The rest of world will gladly watch the US burn when the time comes.
Because of the upside of course.
Yeah things were so great in Venezuela that they can really only get worse.
The adults are talking, go eat your legos.
I think the shock is more of a shift from the lawful evil spectrum, where the US either did things covertly or had a much better narrative prepared, to chaotic evil. Apparently Congress had no clue here, and Trump simply called them "leakers".
To be more blunt, we knew America was a pompous asshole, but it always pretended to be orderly. This is the US putting in a toupe and plucking its mustache. The act isn't surprising, the shift in attitude is.
Thats all of human history.
Our biggest problem is us, the Earth will be a much better place when we are gone.
Responsibility for the aftermath is with the US. They previously didn't do a good job in Afghanistan or Iraq after they assumed defacto control, without really trying to make the countries stand on their own. Life is not much better for the average person there.
Venezuela has lots of oil and drugs. If different factions fight between themselves there's no reason you couldn't end up with a divided and dangerous country that in some ways could be worse for the people than Maduro.
The best way for "oppressed" people to be liberated is through some joint effort by parties that really want to help out and assume responsibility, or by supporting a revolution that naturally takes over. I don't think there's been any cases of success from this process of forcibly removing the dictator, and crossing your fingers that things will go well.
Putting aside, for a moment, a lot of important questions around (gestures broadly at the political situation in the US), what are the economic implications of a conflict between the US and Venezuela?
Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?
I don't think you can meaningfully answer this without knowing the military goals or the ultimate outcome.
The worst-case outcome for the US is that it gets pulled into another unpopular, long-term conflict that undermines its international standing and allows assorted rogues to advance their goals (Ukraine, Taiwan, who knows what else).
The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran. How you assess the likelihood of these outcomes sort of depends on your priors.
I would say, however, that the recent history of US military interventions doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Venezuela is nowhere near being the cluster---- that we've dealt in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc, but who knows.
> Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria
There are 2 differences that stand out.
Intelligence seems more capable nowadays compared to 2003, probably due to better cyber/SIGINT. It took 3 years for the coalition to find Saddam despite a large ground presence. I wouldn't give Maduro more than a month if the US was intent on taking him out, after the capabilities that we saw in Iran and South Lebanon the last two years that simply did not exist 2 decades ago. For the first time, war has been inverted, and it's the regime that dies first instead of the soldiers.
Second difference is the absence of political Islamism as a dominant ideology in the culture. This makes it more comparable to regime change wars against Japan and Germany in WW2 than recent wars in MENA.
> Intelligence seems more capable nowadays compared to 2003
And would you look at that, Maduro has already been captured after 3 hours. This is why it categorically not like Iraq 2003.
Give it some time. They might dropship Eric Trump tomorrow pronouncing him new leader of Venezuela.
What about radical communism as a binding ideology instead of radical Islamism? I swear that I've heard during at least 5 different wars in my lifetime that things would turn out differently. And I'm not old. Now I want consequences.
I could say the same thing about radical fascism in Germany and Japan, and yet.
Historically, fascism and authoritarianism communism have been temporary secular hysterias that come and go. Ukraine post-Maidan, for example, embraced democracy because they tried communism already and learned that it sucks.
Islamism seems more potent and durable and always rears its head in instability like in Bangladesh most recently, or the Arab Spring before. My explanation for this durability is that it is tied in with religion and is believed to be divinely ordained, rather than just a human made system that sucks.
This is unlike Christianity which is structurally secular by doctrine ('render unto Caesar').
> Islamism seems more potent and durable and always rears its head in instability like in Bangladesh most recently, or the Arab Spring before. My explanation for this durability is that it is tied in with religion and is believed to be divinely ordained, rather than just a human made system that sucks. > This is unlike Christianity which is structurally secular by doctrine ('render unto Caesar').
That's historical crackpottery. Christianity went through two centuries of religious warfare starting in the early 1500s, with the German population suffering a per-capita death toll higher than WW2. Before that, it launched centuries-long crusades into the Middle East - at some point wiping out the non-Christian people of the city of Jerusalem, which was, and eventually returned to being, a multi-religious city under Muslim rule.
Radical Islamism has only existed since 1979 because of the Iranian revolution. It looks like it's on the decline now. It might have only emerged because of failed efforts at modernising. Europe and the West might have only lapped MENA because they were geographically well-placed to pillage the Americas - not because of any cultural superiority.
[EDIT: I've just read over this, and I'd like to clarify that I like Christianity and Christians in many respects, even though I'm not a Christian myself. I also like the modern West. I just hate lying, hypocritical, cowardly, proud and murderous xenophobes like you]
> I could say the same thing about radical fascism in Germany and Japan, and yet.
Germany and Japan stopped being fascist because nobody was going to let them go back to gassing people.
I'm sorry that I spoke so uncarefully as to cause this reaction in you. I did not knowingly lie, although I may be wrong about many things. I will try to speak with more care next time, especially on topics related to people's identities, which is understandably a sensitive area of discussion that can contribute to fears even if that is not the intention. The world definitely doesn't need more xenophobia on social media.
There is zero actual radical communism in Venezuela at this point.
What about the chance of a Colombian, Bolivian, Ecuadorian or Brazilian missile crisis?
> The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran.
There is no need to scare Iran. The mullahs are already scared shitless and were utterly humiliated this summer. They could have easily been removed, but it was decided that it was not worth it, as the next regime could be even worse. A weak, scared Iran is the best outcome.
It won't help with oil. The Permian's breakeven prices have crept upwards and, because VZ crude grades are high-sulfur, the US refinery complex can't absorb it without retooling away from the plants specialised for the low-sulfur Permian output.
Possibly dragging supply down, with no net effect at best.
>90% of Venezuelan crude has been refined in China in recent years.
This is going to hurt China economically, and in a way that isn’t going to be seen as targeted at China or unfair by international community.
Russia’s production and refining capacity has been seeing attrition from Ukraine’s efforts. They’re producing less oil, selling it for less, and for rubles that each buy less.
I’ve said before on HN that I thought Venezuela was intended to soak up Russian resources - this is just the next step.
US moves on Venezuela, China moves on Taiwan. With no chips, all AI speculation goes to ..? We live in interesting times!
> China moves on Taiwan
What is the risk calculation one would perform before attempting to invade Taiwan while Trump is calling shots? Whatever else you think about Trump, for better or worse, he is not bound by establishment prerogatives: make the "wrong" move, as Trump exclusively defines it, and anything — literally any conceivable thing plus a distant horizon of things you are cognitively incapable of conceiving — might happen.
Maduro is in a cage somewhere pondering this right now. Iran's leaders are all thinking about the threats Trump made not 48 hours ago, possibly to the great benefit of rebels in the streets right now. Federal investigators are closing in on Walz and friends in Minnesota right now: he could find himself in a cell within earshot of Maduro at any time.
Don't forget to breathe!
Probably not much. If Maduro is kicked out, you still need time to establish a new government and ramp up oil production. That's bullish, but it's far from guaranteed; there could be coups, instability, etc. If Maduro isn't kicked out, things get murky. Will the US intervene with boots on the ground? Will they just keep sanctions in place? For how long? Will there be resistance?
Actually, thinking about it more, this makes little sense. There's very little upside (and it's far off), while there's plenty of short and long-term downside. Great geopolitical strategizing out there.
Doesn't move the needle at all. FX to be determined by what bond markets think about the supply/demand of treasury bonds.
Always remember the role of the Nobel Peace Prize committee in preparing this unprovoked and illegal (under international law) attack on Venezuela by awarding the prize to María Corina Machado.
Julian Assange actually filed a Swedish criminal complaint against Nobel Foundation officials, alleging misappropriation of Nobel endowment funds and facilitating war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado, and it seeks immediate freezing of funds and a full investigation: https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...
Not just Assange, incidentally.
Can't reply to the comment, but no idea why this was flagged.
As a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.
Also, some people seems to miss the fact that South America military power is very weak, and we, culturally, are way less proned to fight and die than people in middle east.
Yeah, we know this is all about oil, and I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge. But the fact is we don't have a, undeniable, dictator as neighbor, and my friends can see their families again.
No, we are not happy. We were not happy when they intervened and installed their friendly dictator. I can criticize Maduro and I can censure these actions. I don't want any other country to invade mine because they didn't like the government that we had.
> I'm interested to know what kind of democracy will emerge
If history teaches us anything, a democracy won't emerge. Nothing good comes from the US intervening in foreign affairs. This is being done to the benefit of the invaders, not those being invaded.
>> Nothing good comes from the US intervening in foreign affairs.
Idk, I sure prefer Germany / Japan circa 2026 to Germany / Japan circa 1936.
The last time the US did something similar was in Panama in 1989, and that country seems to be a thriving democracy now.
Too early to know how this will play out, but things are more nuanced than you're suggesting.
> The last time the US did something similar was in Panama in 1989
Libya
A key difference is that we didn't act alone in World War II, and we were fighting very legitimate aggression (fascism).
This is hardly a regime change. Only Maduro has been captured, the rest is still in power.
Kidnapping a leader is a regime change. When a coup happens you topple the leader.
But now we are looking at a civil war, if we are lucky.
it is very early to tell what it is
It is, and I understand the hope, but Maduro wasn't a good replacement for Chavez, yet he persisted because of the support of the rest of the regime. I hope for the best, but this is not an auspicious beginning.
Publicly, it's about oil, privately, it's also about China getting a foothold in South America, on the USA's doorstep and denying them a source of cheap oil from the world's largest proven reserve. It's the modern version of the Great Game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Game
You are still young so you don't seem to get it yet but history has shown that killing or capturing the leader of a country with outside actors rarely leads to anything good. It usually just leads to more instability.
Pop-culture shows you that if you get rid off Mojo Jojo you suddenly get rainbows and flowers but reality doesn't work that way very often and it is just propaganda.
Colombian here. Maduro wasn't the leader of a country; he lost the elections and became a cruel dictator. He led a regime that murdered, tortured, and disappeared thousands of people, turning Venezuela into a narco-state run by the ELN and other paramilitary groups. It may not have worked in other areas, but the US intervention in Panama, which resulted in the capture of another dictator, Noriega, transformed Panama into the fastest-growing economy in Latin America (6% average annual growth). Poverty fell by 60%, and today it's a very prosperous country. I can assure that there will be massive celebrations today by all our Venezuelan brothers and sisters living in Latin America.
Edit: I just discovered that Noriega was also captured on January 3rd.
> Maduro wasn't the leader of a country
Maduro was the leader of the country. Leadership is a practical matter, it doesn't depend on elections or democracy. Stalin wasn't elected either, and nobody says "he wasn't the leader of the USSR".
Likewise, there are leaders of countries who weren't elected that are currently aligned with the US, and nobody claims those leaders aren't the leaders.
A dictator or a king aren't elected, but sometimes they are leaders nonetheless. They are leaders if they de facto lead their countries/kingdoms. If insurgents wrestle control, they cease being leaders.
Well it didn't take long for Trump to announce he now runs Venezuela to plant US companies to export oil to the US. Once you understand American foreign policy it is just predictable.
That's good to hear. As a European, I do hope our leaders keep this in mind... It may be an unconventional move, but it's hard to argue this is a bad outcome.
I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
> I get the concern about forever wars some are raising, but this clearly isn't going to be a forever war for the reasons you state. Plus if the US secures some oil
Why would the US be entitled to any oil here? And how would that be a good outcome for the people of Venezuela?
> and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
That's a big if. Ask the Iraqis how well it went when their dictator was gone. And that was with boots on the ground not just leaving a power vacuum like this.
> It's controversial to say these days, but I think this is exactly how the West should be using it's military force – to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
Wait a few decades till China does this to you and we'll see how you feel.
China will and is doing this through their own means. I’d rather our guys, with the values I hold, win and get there first.
If you think the EU’s “diplomacy over force” approach will deter anyone, look at Ukraine.
I meant does this to the US or any other country. The precedent that's being set is that you can just fly in and kidnap a head of state that you disagree with.
> If you think the EU’s “diplomacy over force” approach will deter anyone, look at Ukraine.
Enlighten me, what's the policy of the USA as of last year? Because I honestly don't know. It depends who the guy last talked to. That's American foreign policy now, no plan, all based on the irrational behavior of an 80 year old.
I think it's pretty clear based on the intent. We are not privy to the details of policy making, we are only privy to what is actually shared publicly.
The _intent_ of the policies seem to be "treat the US better as a trading partner than you have under Biden, or get punished in ways that hit you the hardest", usually via tariffs or other means. NATO members have exploited the US with lopsided investment in the alliance under Biden, and many European countries had really bad trading agreements with the US -- bad for the US, not for us. I'm surprised we got away with it for this long.
You do realize the guy also ripped up the trade deal with Mexico and Canada, right?
That was negotiated by whom again? Oh, right, trump in his first term...
So the only conclusion I can draw is that he's like a toddler. If you give him what he wants he'll want more. That's foreign policy now.
Also, NATO has seen article 5 invoked once. By the US and it's allies helped out after 9/11. So it hasn't been too bad for the US. I don't disagree with the fact that a lot of European countries should've been spending 2% of GDP though all along
You will quickly discover that the values that you hold and the values that they hold are not at all similar. They were just pretending to get your support. And after they no longer need the useful idiot guess what will happen to you?
I’m a Norwegian. But had I voted for Trump as an American I would so far have gotten what I wanted. He’s doing exactly what he ran on; still a lot of work left to do, particularly on the real economy of the average Joe (stonks aren’t real IMO), but he’s fixed the border, made America respected, working for the American people’s future. Removing at least some wasteful government spending and getting rid of illegals.
If only Norway had the political system to allow something similar…
> made America respected
Did he? Or did you mean "feared"? So "respect" in the Machiavellian sense of the word?
A lot of people now dealing with Trump, even his allies, seem to be walking on egg shells, trying not to say something that angers him, appeasing him with adulation and false praise, and trying very hard to remind him "we're all friends". Much like one would treat a dangerous guys who happens to be holding a gun.
A forever war implies people in the ground that actually would want to resist, and barring conscription (Which will be limited, because diaspora) I don't see how that could actually work
Check social media or go ask a trusted Venezuelan / Latino, happiest I've ever seen the community, because regardless of what's comming, it looks like the light at the end of a tunnel
And bomb civilians?
> Plus if the US secures some oil and the Venezuela people get to live better lives, that's ultimately a great outcome for everyone.
Agreed about the better lives, but has it come to a point we accept invading other countries to "secure their oil" is a great outcome? I mean, what is this, Hitler's "Operation Blue"?
Securing oil is NOT a valid reason to invade countries. Does this need to be said!? Mind boggling.
This is peak cynicism. I'm really surprised to read some opinions here.
Next up: "imperialism wasn't bad, securing a big empire with colonies is a great outcome".
Fixing the dilapidated oil production will take years I think. But my best wishes to all my Venezuelan friends. Hoping for a bloodless transition and a brighter future for the country.
> As a Latino and friend of several people that scaped from Maduro's regime I can easily say that people in South America are happy as ever.
No, we aren't. You don't speak for the majority of us.
Yes I'm quite sure the Venezuelans are greeting us as liberators.
Yeah, they are [1]
1- https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/internacional/venezuelanos-vao-...
Well color me impressed the CIA managed less than 24 hours turnaround on their dancing locals images! I'm disappointed we didn't get anything like the toppled statue in Baghdad but what can you expect with a rush job?
At this rate I assume they'll have the "mission accomplished" banner up by Tuesday.
It's the international community who should decide this sort of thing.
Did the UN agree to this invasion?
Nations aren't supposed to unilaterally attack other nations.
My comment is locked, but I wanted to conclude:
I'm too ignorant of Venezuelan politics to know if removing Maduro benefits Venezuelans, in practice.
I'd sleep easier if the Trump administration had done this by the book (approval from US Congress, and from the international community)
And I am a non-American with friends from the US that surely would be happy if someone assassinated Trump. That doesn't make it a good thing.
[flagged]
Trump is the elected leader of the US though. There's a huge difference there.
For example, if Trump doesn't step down in 2028 then we should hope someone does take him out.
Of a electoral system that makes sure that the votes of the few are worth more than those of the plenty. We democracies actually make sure that all votes are worth the same.
The whole system is flawed. We need national popular vote and a proportional representation system put in place.
He does seem to be invading other countries without popular support? One can find a reason (especially post-hoc) to allow, or disallow, any intervention. The US in cases like this just picks whatever is convenient. Dictator matters here, but in Saudi Arabia it doesn't.
His loyalty test for subordinates is saying that he beat Biden in 2020…
it's a positive step for the population, my worry is about global signalling.. we were trying to keep the armed fascists floodgates tight since putin invaded ukraine and now US is doing bold military regime changes, not even covert (some would argue old CIA was worse).
hard to sleep well these days
ps: if anybody knows places where people discuss this, feel free to hit me
Yeah, totally agree. Like anything that matters this is a complex topic with multiple reasons to each move in this game, my positive position towards what happened is pretty much related to the reactions of my Venezuelans friends and my personal perception of how people has suffered with Maduro's regime.
[ ok let's just say ] it's a one side deal
[flagged]
Democracy emerge? Good luck.
Venezuela had a democratic-ish government before they voted for Chavez.
On a side note, it was kind of strange watching the media dance around what Chavez was doing. When he first took power and started seizing money and power it was all framed as he is demolishing the corrupt institutions. Then as election irregularities started happening and the economy started failing, the blame was placed on the U.S for boycotting them.
So did the US before Trump 2 :)
Sounds like you ok with genocide in your neighbourhood tho. How they see their families if they get bombed?
I think you're severely cheapening the definition of a genocide.
I am saying it too early?
If USA bombs civilians because they are Venezuelan thats genocide.
If USA bombs civilians because they want to overthrow the government that's a war crime.
I know the difference, its about attacking a group by ethnicity.
Yeah, we know this is all about oil
"War for oil" is always the easy go-to to criticize any American military action, even in countries that don't have oil.
And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
America has more oil than it knows what to do with, and because of that, prices are so low that there are lots of newspaper articles about how American oil companies have dramatically slowed exploration and production. Plus, even under the current administration, America is using more and more renewable energy sources (some states now get more than 50% of their energy from wind/solar).
With the whole Chevron situation, I'm willing to think that oil may play a role here, but again the "war for oil" seems like nothing more than a convenient slogan for a high schooler's protest sign.
Direct quote:
“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
This along with other direct quotes from officials is what led me to the conclusion that, yes, oil is a large factor.
Direct quote:
The problem is that you can't cherry-pick quotes from this administration and use them as a source of truth like you could with previous administrations.
Especially from Mr. Trump, who says something and then an hour later states the opposite. (See his record on solar, electric vehicles, various personnel and congressmen.) Keeping people guessing is part of this administration's strategy, and is inherited from how he did business.
It wasn't just him making such quotes, as I indicated before, and I made no attempt to make an exhaustive account of such statements which can be easily found elsewhere. It's very reasonable to conclude that that is an issue at play here. That is all I attempted to convey.
America has plenty of the wrong type of oil. They need heavy oil as that's what the usa oil refinery are made to handle, but they have a shortage of heavy oil, and a oversupply of light oil. Venezuela has the heavy oil they need
There's not loads of idle refinery capability just waiting for more Venezuelan crude in the US.
Yes it most probably about oil not democracy [1].
US even mastermind amd helped overthrowned Iranian elected government and then only recently admitted and apologized to that but the damaged already done [2].
[1] The real reason Venezuela matters [video]:
https://youtu.be/Pgwny1BiCYk
[2]1953 Iranian coup d'état:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
interesting how they say it's about drug trafficking but then keeps confiscaating oil tankers tho?
There are sanctions on Venezuelan oil due to the drug trafficking. The oil tankers are captured to punish violations of the sanctions. We don’t capture and appreciable amount of oil this way. And in fact the sanctions drive up the price of oil.
Yet another incoherent policy for this administration that will be interesting to see people defend. Why does Maduro get invaded and captured but convicted drug smuggler (and ex Honduran president) Juan Orlando Hernandez get pardoned?
I think economic sanctions are a stupid policy, but the sanctions on Venezuela were in place long before this administration.
It's interesting that you're anti-economic sanctions but pro-tariffs. This administration talking points specifically justify tariffs as punishments for countries' behaviors.
Anyway be clear, I'm talking about this administration. Specifically their choice to invade Venezuela and capture their head of state, while simultaneously pardoning the ex-Honduran head of state who was convicted for the exact same thing. When I say inconsistent, I mean: they are saying (vocally and militarily) that they are anti-drug cartel, but also they are apparently pro-some-cartels? It makes no sense to me.
> It's interesting that you're anti-economic sanctions but pro-tariffs. This administration talking points specifically justify tariffs as punishments for countries' behaviors.
I agree that tariffs and economic sanctions are similar. But tariffs are in theory targeted at economic conduct that affects us. While sanctions are used to police the moral behavior of other countries, which I don’t support.
> And while Venezuela has oodles of oil, is this really the case of America wanting Venezuelan oil?
Yes it is.
> But Trump has also made his desire for Venezuelan oil clear. He said that the blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going to and from the country would remain “until such time as they return to the United States all of the oil, land, and other assets that they stole from us.” He did not clarify what land and “other assets” he was referring to.
> In a social media post, Miller also characterized the expropriations as an injustice against the US. “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” wrote. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property.”
> And in a 2023 speech, Trump was even more pointed about his designs on the country’s oil. “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse,” he said, referring to the end of his first term in the White House. “We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-17/trump-s-v...
This is especially silly because the US is always going to control oil extraction in Venezuela because nobody else has the technical capabilities required to do so profitably at a large scale.
There's no need to really fight with the Venezuelan government over this, unless Venezuela decided that they'd rather leave the oil in the ground.
What about Chinese, Russian or European oil majors ?
The only comparable large-scale extraction projects in the world would be the oil sands in Canada.
This is a super small niche, with oil margins constantly getting squeezed around the world it'd probably be tricky to convince anyone to significantly scale up production in Venezuela even if the US lifted all sanctions and whatnot.
I was shouting “War for Oil” in 2003 as a college freshman. In retrospect, was oil why we invaded Iraq? How much oil did we get out of the deal?
> How much oil did we get out of the deal?
Apparently a lot.
> The 2003 Iraq War, initiated as a U.S. unilateral action, has also been viewed through the lens of economic interests, particularly oil access. Following the conflict, significant American business opportunities arose, notably through contracts with oil companies to exploit Iraqi oil fields, marking the end of Iraq’s long-standing oil nationalization policy. Technological advancements were another key economic byproduct of these wars; innovations developed for military use often transitioned into civilian applications, influencing various sectors.
> Additionally, a trend towards privatization emerged, as private firms undertook roles traditionally held by the military, further intertwining the defense industry with the economy. This shift raised ethical concerns and sparked debate regarding the implications of privatizing military functions. Overall, the Iraq wars illustrate the complex intersection of military action, resource control, and economic interests within American foreign policy.
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/military-history-and...
Assuming it was about oil was giving them far more credit than they deserve. That is a sane reason if an immoral one. I think it has far more to do with economic systems and opportunity. It is about creating freedom for capital. That means oil but also a mirage of schools, defence, healthcare, condos.
"US will be ‘strongly involved’ in Venezuela oil industry, Trump says after Caracas attacked and Maduro captured"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Yes, US foreign policy is connected to oil. It's not just about control but price.
Trump has a history of using resource cutoff as a bargaining or coercive tool. hes doing it with Minnesota right now with the scandal and has done it with NYC. control over oil flows to European allies or other allies and adversaries gives his tactic more reach.
The more credible narrative is Trump and co trying to do good for the Venezuelans and for the regular US folks! /s
Democracy being restored, one oil well a day.
Hey, show some respect, you’re talking about the first ever winner of the prestigious FIFA peace prize!
Is your opinion that we're going to get less oil and less democracy? It seems likely the opposite would be true.
Venezuela GDP is all upside - it's practically a free lunch if they stop punching themselves in the face.
And simultaneously denying China a source of oil and (yet another) foothold in South America on the USA's doorstep?
It's like Cuba all over again.
Oil is fungible. If America takes Venezuelan oil for themselves and doesn't let China have any, China will just buy more from Russia and the Middle East instead. There's no oil blockade to China, those ships aren't being stopped, and the minute such a blockade would be announced is the minute this 5th generation warfare WW3 turns into a 3rd generation war.
You need to understand marginal economics and why China will have to pay slightly more for oil as a result of this. Resulting in China having less money to spend on other things.
Plenty of things are fungible, that doesn't eliminate scarcity.
Trump himself just now said he is good friends with Xi and they will get their oil.
Is that the beginning of a three-days special military operation?
Aggregated the discussions for easier reading: https://hn-discussions.top/venezuela-maduro-captured-us-stri...
What I find interresting and would like to see discussed more, is the psychology at play that makes us believe this is another "exception to the rule of international law". I wonder if one could generalize the terror management theory (TMT) to social obedience?
"Be the change yo want to see", I guess. So, my pet peeve theory is that "the rule of law" is not something the ruling class needs to cover their track; it's something the ruled class needs to cover their shame. Shame of being ruled, but also terror of being ultimately subjected to arbitrary power.
For instance, I believe that in the feodal past lay people used to genuinely believe that kings got their authority from God; not because kings were good observants of the precepts of religion (they were not), but because that protects the self-esteem and helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes.
I find it surprisingly hard to try to convince myself that there is no such thing as "rule of law", that for instance the overthrown of a non-aligned regime could be just about the oil and competition with China, although I know that's how future historians will deal with that non-story; There is some surprising amount of resistance from within to this idea. It's interresting to do the experiment.
Have you read Thucydides, "The Melian Dialogue"? Or Zweig, „Schachnovelle“?
Zweig yes, but I can't remember it well enough to connect it to this story. Could you elaborate a bit just to give me a clue?
Part of Schachnovelle as I remember it is that Dr. B as Weltbürger is driven crazy by the dual facts that Czentovic is both a primitive brute and yet succeeds at chess via brute force, which perhaps is meant to be compared with his earlier imprisonment in 1938, by people who succeeded at politics not by subtlety but by brute force.
The idea that cosmopolitan, educated, and cultivated people could be left like deer in the headlights by brutes setting themselves through by force reminded me of your description of TMT, or at least the ego-protective "helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes" part of your explanation.
Does this unpacking make any more sense?
(meanwhile, the Melian Dialogue is the source of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479662 )
Note also that Thucydides' Athenians say that if they were to speak to the many, they would not put the matter so baldly, but since they are speaking to the few, they feel they may be frank.
The subtlety of Trump is a "self-stabilizing" meme?
Brutality only to outsiders-- see how he handled Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ?
https://youtube.com/shorts/dV8wsaaY0oQ
I'm sceptical of directly "transpiling" lessons from history-- & in general I find that Austrians are full of it* (sorry! It does feel like they are on the elitist end of the populist-elitist divide)
*Earnings
Ps: >Be the change yo want to see
It's Gandhi's saying that needs (more) elab :) I'll be that hypocrite and leave you to it
E- 1974 Lorrance
https://jenniferlphillips.com/blog/2021/2/24/origin-story-be...
>We but mirror the world
>However, the passage was written in the explicit context of animal attacks.
Yeah, I was thinking self-stabilizing while writing that, but generally try to avoid bringing in too many doorknobs with unknown interlocutors :)
> Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ?
As that old russophone meme went: the diner sits; the waiter stands?
(can't find it right now, but along the lines of strategic ambiguity this is an amusing one: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEZLJn8WYAQreU0?format=jpg&name=... )
This is wonderful! Not only does Gandhiji speak on multiple levels, but unlike many who attempt it he carries the conceit through to perfection, offering valid first-aid advice to complete the surface reading. https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/M... (if one were only to read the first and last few pages, one would miss completely the change of tone in the middle; did EAB pick up this habit from the subcontinent?)
Heh. I just noticed DJT literally used the words "extraordinary military operation" during his press conference; does VVP's «специальной» have vastly different connotations in ru from "extraordinary" in en? Unlikely to be intentional plagiarism, maybe just parallel evolution?
Given that "both sides" are quick to thow the fascist label, one has to be more specific about the lesson that hasn't been learnt.
Like: "weaponize constitution against executive branch".
https://ash.harvard.edu/articles/why-federal-courts-are-unli...
What was it you had in mind? A more effective ICJ?
(Some will argue, eg that getting ERII schooled in (nothing but) the subtleties didn't do anything)
Guess I'd been reflecting on how close CBO and EMO (if I'm doing justice to the ru meaning?) sound to me. But I was already complaining at the formation of the DHS that it sounded remarkably parallel to an infamous organisation:
so I'm probably just a whiner and malingerer.There's always the general lesson; even if Hillel[0] didn't get nailed to a stick[1] for preaching it, he doesn't seem to have many followers in, say, Likud.
A more specific lesson for the Old Country would be The Frogs Who Desired a King?
I've lifted^Wliberated this from somewhere, but can't remember where atm: the trouble with revolutions is that when they succeed[2], you rapidly discover that you didn't need a better government, you needed better people.
One reason I haven't finished the Durants' The Story of Civilization yet is that if you binge it, you rapidly discover that despite the pleasant turns of phrase, it's largely 13'549 pages of people treating each other poorly.
Pedantry to (nothing but): ERII could at least take a Landy offroad[3], even if in practice, as a lady, she often left it up to her chauffeur.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder#/media/File:H...
[1] I do love the characterisation in Master & Margherita which makes it sound like Mr. INRI was maybe on the spectrum (come to think of it, M&M is another frame story, but with the fantastic and realistic elements reversed)
[2] as the US 1776'ers, the Girondins, and the Mensheviks (to take just 3) might know?
[3] making her more accomplished than the modal Chelsea Tractor driver?
[2] Algolia-fu on yourself ;) do the inner party of SV or Fed have better people? It's possible that each of our "three hegemons" lose sleep over that question
Thanks!
The law of large numbers suggests that all of the hegemons:
should optimise their practices and procedures for the population mean[0]: although one of them will obviously have slightly better people at any given point, which one is subject to time and chance, and the odds that that advantage would be larger get exponentially smaller.(then again, the boundaries are more porous[1] than in the feudal days; I know of at least two MGIMO alums moonlighting in the economic realm)
[0] we've already covered 孫中山's triad, right?
[1] or are they? I think a typical "retirement plan" for an aging but rich bellator was to endow[2] a monastery with a comfortable amount of land, and then take orders there, because who would bump off an orator[3]? In the modern world, I see RAK (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/12/29/world/29FACEBOOK-...) has grown a long beard since I last saw him; is he in the process of transitioning from bellator to orator? Maybe not: he seems to be feeling acutely unwell.
[2] compare El Cid's provision for his wife and daughters; or even Goldmund's father "gifting" Blaze the pony
[3] compare "Hideyori's son, Kunimatsu (age 8) was captured and beheaded; his daughter Naahime (Princess Naa) (age 7) was sent to Tōkei-ji, a convent in Kamakura, where she later became the twentieth abbess Tenshūin (1608–1645)."
Ok, yes I think it helped me to understand what you had in mind.
I'm not interrested in the mind of violent sociopaths as much as I'm interrested in that of the decent people who have to accept to live under their rule, not only because of the numbers involved. Rulers might be a bit shy about their motives at times (although I can apreciate a candid one), but living under one's reign is one of our strongest taboo - thus my interest.
> ...decent people who have to accept to live under their rule...
On one hand, there's the option of voting with one's feet, which Zweig describes in "Die Welt von Gestern" (1942)
On the other hand, another alternative is "inner emigration", eg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innere_Emigration
On the gripping hand, there might be the possibility of ignoring wanna-be authoritarian leaders but convincing people not to follow them, à la https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278
Maybe there are more possibilities of which I am unaware; of these three, I chose the first.
Maybe you've been outside for too long.
Both those who voted for Trump or abstained from Harris believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians.
(BB was kinda fiction-in-a-fiction and would have provided no clue either for Harris and against Trump-- and 1984 (/Schachnovelle) didn't give a clue on how you might recognise an inner party-goer if you ran into one? Maybe Animal Farm would be better?)
<anger>
Maybe it looks to you as if those who voted for Trump believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians, but I've lived among them.
I was still living in their midst when they tarred and feathered the Dixie Chicks (as they were then) for having the audacity to say GWB's Iraq Adventure might not be the most wonderful thing since sliced mayonnaise. (could we say they "cancelled" the Chicks?)
Then they claimed to be voting for DJT (a public figure whose bully bona fides go back at least 4 decades, eg https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6131533-trumpdeathpe... ) on an "isolationist" platform.
But now they're cheering Operation Southern Spear as if it were a homecoming game, as they did for GHB's Iraq. My local paper even had https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266 (sorry for the X link) in it this morning.
They may say they're voting on a mind-your-own-business-principle, but whenever you look at what they do, they've consistently been voting on a leader-principle.
</anger>
Q. How do you describe a principled authoritarian follower?
A. "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind"
you are talking about the base that Trump knows he can always count on. they don't matter as much these days. (I completely forgot about them no airquotes) I'm not sure David Graeber ever publicly got angry at these guys, however*
Ask PH (or Algolia it) about who he is angry with on the left. Those who drove the Swing voters (the prole equivalent of interchangeables) over to the other side or got Biden to "abdicate" . Loosely reminds me of the turncoats at Sekigahara and Bosworth Field
https://www.hkml.net/Discuz/viewthread.php?tid=125577
(*The rival camps that the Trump "inner corporatists" take seriously are SV "inner-outer party" (Shu Han?) and WallStreet/Fed (Wu?). With their bands of incorrigible rationalists/technocrats.
Imho Trump _wants_ leftist intellectuals distracted from his true strategy, and this is why he's more careful with Mamdani-- enemy of my enemy yada yada)
https://webcdn.guangming.com.my/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/i...
One of the ways to learn a smattering of a language would be to look at YouTube comments; sentences of the form "in YYYY they still made real music" and "is anyone watching in YYYY?" seem to occur in every natural language.
(for Sekigahara I wonder if part of the issue was credibility: if Tokugawa promises so many koku, you can be pretty sure you're getting them [and in the event he even lasted into his 70s] but if Ishida promises you so many koku, well, a lot can happen in 7-8 years: what are the chances that young Toyotomi will honour Ishida's old deals?)
Edit: come to think of it, both Shu and Wu do spend many of their waking hours trying to figure out how to intermediate themselves into any possible otherwise-dyadic transaction... Wei supposedly does as well, but compared with Shu and Wu, at least here, Wei has a light touch.
more evidence in favor of PH's hypo: I'm bouncing off the 粤剧 :(
Ah you read that the singer, e.g., was canto-op trained? (From prelude I was expecting Morricone https://youtu.be/R4xWbRBLj2I:)
Re koku:
You bring the point that politics goes back to an older mode where one does not have to account for solidarity (so, not even morality)?
(Headspace is crowded. Might have to take things slowly.)
> they don't matter as much these days
True, but you were talking about voting Trump/Harris, which pretty much implies the wide electorate, no matter who the real selectorate may be.
(speaking of selection, I completely forgot to include the judiciary in previous models. Would the whole Civil Rights thing have even happened if it hadn't been for the Warren Court?)
[Not that Warren was an angel, but despite his bigotry in other ways —or maybe because of it?— he was able to win state office by just winning both party's primaries, which I hadn't even known was a thing]
In the old days the J was a force for solidarity?
Now SV (purports to fill that role, as a champion of the "technocratic faction")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Court#Decisions
There's a wonderful line in one of the Retief stories where The Corps Diplomatique Terrestrien attempts to introduce "one sentient one vote" on some planet out in the galactic boondocks, and the natives instantly grasp its corollary: one less sentient, one less vote...
I'd believe the low of SV to be such a force; the high appear to be heading for https://www.angryflower.com/348.html , and I've been away for over half a lifetime, so I don't know what the mid may be doing. Blowing in the wind, probably?
How you might recognise an inner party-goer? In the case of the US, I think long-tenured legislators were part of it during my tour, but in DJT's time I'd guess they, alongside silicon valley owners of various social graphs, are to be found among the interchangeables*.
Certainly casual Trump-watching is even less useful than the old days of Kremlin-watching; his inner circle changes so often (cue Bueno de Mesquita & Smith) that it's a good thing we have the web now — the airbrush artists probably would've organised and gone on strike if they'd had to keep up.
(I guess I should give DJT his due: I had thought the two party system was a structural problem, yet he's delivered an existence proof that it is indeed possible to do something about it)
* should someone send all 535 members of congress a copy of the snakebite article? It's not going to be me; that's their problem.
Yes!!
What international law is being broken here? And why does that law take precedence over the laws of Venezuela and USA?
When I said this discussion about international law was not worth taking place on HN, I actually meant it, sorry.
In principle, our diplomats have mentioned "respecting the prohibition on the use of force enshrined in international law and the territorial integrity of sovereign states"
using those words as search terms yields:
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2/english/rep_supp7_vol1_a...
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml
In practice, command responsibility is generally upheld against losing commanders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
but an effective way to avoid being tried, at least in the short term, is to be a winning commander: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0072-...
(Alexander the Great, on his deathbed, was asked who would inherit his empire; whether because he was an early "realist" or because he was apathetic or simply narcissistic [or?], he replied: the strongest)
Apart from command responsibility, every combatant has a duty to disobey a manifestly unlawful order; note the restrictive adjective "lawful" in both https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title10/html... and https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2024-title10/html...
Furthermore, even before the purely legal aspects of UCMJ, there's the plain common sense of Adm. Holsley (Ret.): https://www.southcom.mil/MEDIA/NEWS-ARTICLES/Article/4359115...
> "To be a trusted partner, [SOUTHCOM] must be credible..."
Emanuel Macron, President of the French Republic:
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible. "
- https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/2007525843401154891
They should have done the same stunt in Iran and remove Chamenei. Dictatorships without a dictator don't survive long.
Damn. And no large-scale military activity in play.
I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win, especially where Maduro has been considered being more and more authoritarian, rejecting democracy, and probably would've been willing to sacrifice thousands of lives in a ground war if this increasing threat was handled less finely.
Add to this the fact that Venezuela has crazy amounts of oil BUT a totally mismanaged and badly exploited extraction operation and the economy is in the toilet. Unless this somehow leads in to a Libya situation, everyone could benefit from this, compared to the hopelessness of the past.
> this increasing threat
What threat? There is no threat to the US from Venezuela. This is another Banana war.
> I hardly see how this could be considered anything but an absolute win
It has only been a few hours, so nobody knows what is going to follow. Even if US does not engage further this may well trigger a civil war in Venezuela with massive casualties.
There was a time in my life when I would spend a few hours learning about US-Venezuela relations and the Venezuelan government and related topics so I could have a skin deep understanding of it and play an internet expert in threads like this.
I’m not going to do that today. It’s sunny, and I want to spend time with family. Being naive about this topic doesn’t affect the core of things I want to be knowledgeable about. And the reality is, having a vote only gives me nominally more agency over US foreign policy than someone who can’t vote. I am mostly just observing.
[flagged]
I would love to hear what you are doing differently.
Not patting myself on the back for accepting some kind of notion that "I am too stupid to consider what is this all about and go about my life with that understanding."
I see. It seems you’ve done just about as much as me, but you’re choosing to use the little agency you do have to be rude to people online.
Cuckoldry is not a good thing to most people. The rude thing is trying to project your spinelessness to everyone else.
If you're wondering WHY, good to read the Maduro indictment from 2020[1] and the press release at the time[2]
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6819579-Maduro-Indic...
[2] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
That’s not why, it’s just the official justification and the charges we’ll use to keep him.
Also good to read the Hernández indictment from 2022[1] and the press release at the time[2].
> Maduro and Other High Ranking Venezuelan Officials Allegedly Partnered With the FARC to Use Cocaine as a Weapon to “Flood” the United States
> Hernández Allegedly Partnered with Some of the Largest Cocaine Traffickers in the World to Transport Tons of Cocaine through Honduras to the United States
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21698603-us-v-juan-o...
[2] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/juan-orlando-hern%C3...
I'm generally confused about how the US DOJ has jurisdiction in Venezuela.
They don't have an extradition treaty so they took him. What Maduro was doing was illegal in Venezuela too.
If you can give me an argument about why it's illegal or improper to try Maduro in a USA court for crimes he committed against the USA, like drug trafficking, I would love to hear it.
If you think the extraction itself was illegal - under what law? What do you think a military is for? If you have a military to defend your country and capture a criminal who you then try for laws that he broke - this seems like a good reason to have a military.
Under normal circumstances - diplomatic relations can solve this, but the consequences of breaking diplomacy is that the only way to get criminals into court is military/CIA. It's not diplomacy or nothing, that's not the world I want to live in, that's Neville Chamberlain theory.
"Might is right", pretty much.
I guess somehow the US will argue that Maduro was directly responsible for smuggling drugs to the US, and that he has broken US laws. Or acts of "drug terrorism".
The second someone without US jurisdiction as much as investigates US servicemen abroad, or Israel for that mater, they are sanctioned by the US. See ICC judges that have been sanctioned for doing exactly those things. The US argues that ICC does not have any jurisdiction to do so.
When it comes to US geopolitics, there's a wafer-thin line between taking the moral high ground, and straight up hypocrisy backed up by "who's gonna stop us?"
Is this likely to meet any substantial legal resistance in any US courts?
[flagged]
As far as I can tell from the narrative, Venezuela was basically serving as a puppet state for China, and if that's true, I would probably give that as the primary reason, but who knows. Maybe it's because Venezuela did poorly in the FIFA World Cup qualifier and this was action dictated by his recent peace prize award.
On a slightly more serious note, the charges against Maduro were actually filed in 2020: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
Good call on the China angle. Maduro is a first grade asshole. But this is just one bully taking out another on a pretext. I'm thinking more along the lines of a gang war over territory than a goal of lifting up Venezuela to the point that they will be freely able to deal with whoever (or nobody) when it comes to their natural resources.
What a well reasoned take.
Let's hear your well reasoned alternative take then.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-N...
Read the following section
Western Hemisphere: The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Yes, oil.
Was it too long for you to read?
No, your comment history speaks volumes, you are also as of now muted.
Oh, do tell how, please!
https://soitis.dev/comments-owl-for-hacker-news
I got it through a comment that I wished that it existed and it turned out someone had already made it. Best thing since sliced bread.
> Trump loves ... drug dealers as long as they kiss the ring.
I'm not aware of a specific example. Who is a drug dealer that Trump loves?
The one he just pardoned a couple weeks ago?
Sorry for not being specific enough: former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, convicted of importing over 400 tons of cocaine into the United States.
You’re getting downvoted but your take is simply the truth. Trump does not think like a politician or leader- he does not listen to, care about, or consider things like facts or broader consequences. Insiders in his administration have repeatedly leaked that they are not allowed to communicate information or facts to him, and he never shares reasons for his orders, they have to creatively make that up after the fact for the media. He operates the presidency as a reality TV show, he is interested only in how an action will play with the public and his base in the short term- will it increase his power and help him shift public narratives the way he wants, or not?
It gets better, the comment is now flagged, which is funnier still considering that Trump & Co are now on the record that it was indeed about the oil. I wonder how that will affect Maduro's court case...
None of these things are the most likely reason. The national security establishment doesn't want a Chinese-allied socialist state with a regime perceived to be hostile in South America, especially if its resource-rich. But the timing is very convenient for burying the Epstein stuff.
keep that american imperialism propaganda bullshit narrative to yourself.
I mean the real answer to "why" is probably going to be pretty boring considering the nature of this administration.
That's not to say that the steelmanned "why" isn't much more interesting than the real "why".
Whoever is telling you it is about drugs is lying.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/02/trump-honduras-pard...
Indeed:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Or in the words of DJT (quoted in article):
> "We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we’re going to be very much involved in it."
May the liberation of Venezuelan oil fields commence!
Maybe Trump captured Maduro just so he could pardon him? This would be a joke but comedy died when that man was elected, and this might actually be the case.
This is a unilateral invasion and regime change operation with no Congressional authorization, no UN mandate, no coalition. It's unprecedented in its brazenness—not because the U.S. hasn't done regime change before (Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, etc.), but because there's not even the pretense of justification or coalition-building.
The "narco-terrorism" charges are a legal fig leaf. The real drivers appear to be oil (Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves), geopolitical positioning (removing a Russian/Chinese/Iranian ally from the hemisphere), domestic politics (Trump wants a "win" and to appear strong), and what seems like a personal vendetta given how publicly Trump has obsessed about Maduro.
What's disturbing goes beyond the act itself. Trump literally said the U.S. will "run Venezuela"—not "support democracy," not "help transition"—run the country. That's colonial language with no euphemism.
There was no Congressional authorization. This violates the War Powers Act at minimum. If a president can unilaterally invade a country, kidnap its leader, and declare we're taking control, what's the limiting principle? Where does this stop?
The mask is completely off. Previous imperial adventures at least performed the ritual of justification, built coalitions, went through motions at the UN. This is naked power. Trump explicitly mentioned oil, saying American companies will "invest billions" to "refurbish" Venezuela's oil industry. He's just admitting it openly.
What we're witnessing is the final abandonment of even the performance of international norms. The question isn't whether this is legal or justified—it clearly isn't. The question is whether there are any remaining constraints on executive power when it comes to foreign military action.
Man, the guy probably broke a ton of Venezuelan and American laws. Maduro is responsible for the break down in diplomacy - what did he think was going to happen if he kept breaking the law?
There's no extradition treaty - how else does the USA bring him to trial?
Go to the courthouse when he gets convicted and yell about how clearly illegal it all is. You'll look like a nutcase. I'll just celebrate that he's going to die in prison.
What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal? Why does he get away with it because he's a president? He's not even the president of Venezuela, it's disputed - chiefly by Venezuelan's themselves.
Now we get to hold him to account in an open court. This is just good ass news. You don't get to declare the whole thing illegal and unjustified.
He will get returned in 20 years and probably tried for murder by the people he repressed.
Finally - he's a really cool thing about the US legal system, if his rendition was illegal, as you say, he can claim that in court. It won't work because it wasn't.
> What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal?
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml
Interesting that World War 3 never happened; instead, we smoothly transitioned to War World, where war is just something that happens all the time, randomly, intermittently, undeclared, and interminably.
I’m not so sure. This War World is very similar to the geopolitical game played by the great European - and increasingly US as well, especially in SA - powers in the 19th century. That Belle Epoque was of course what drove the global politics into the first Great War.
Kissinger maintained his goal was to avoid stumbling into another Great War; we may or may not believe him, but at least he took the trouble to rationalize his actions.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia!
> "Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare"
Neither XJP nor Trump are semi-divine by the benchmark of BB, but perhaps the "political structures" (non-pyramidal) are
Good point wrt BB; I think "pyramidal" was referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...
(I have a friend who is a PRC citizen; I don't know her background precisely but her habitus reminds me of nothing so much as the slightly younger women I'd met at a boarding school in Palo Alto, so I think it's safe to say that socialism with chinese characteristics has at least one non-prole class :-)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493504 has another take on
I remember, when people said, that the military would refuse illegal orders.
Good times
And had a good laugh
Statement from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
https://x.com/i/status/2007359985546674407
You might want to directly link the tweet in question.
And use xcancel.com rather than the largely-inaccessible source.
Righteous Americans are coming! They are here to fix the whole world!
Especially parts of the world with large oil reserves.
I think Venezuela should take this to the ICC. (The ICJ is irrelevant).
What for? The ICC is only "allowed" to take down criminals with the approval of Western govs.
The squirming from the vassals would be worth it alone.
So they can write a strongly worded letter?
You don't know what the ICC is for. It absolutely cannot stop the USA from trying him for breaking domestic USA law. That is a foundational principle of what it is.
Claim: according to any sensible definition of international law, this action was illegal. See [1] for example.
Would anyone care to offer a genuinely held counter argument? Preferably based on legal expertise.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/is-there-any-l...
> Vice President J. D. Vance suggested on X that this morning’s incursion is legal because “Maduro has multiple indictments in the United States for narcoterrorism.” But as my colleague Conor Friedersdorf has noted, this logic would mean that the president can order an invasion of “any country where a national has an outstanding arrest warrant.”
- The Atlantic
Worse, it means that any country that the US wants to invade, it can justify it by manufacturing an indictment against the ruler.
There is no international law. Who enforces it? There are loose treaties that change all the time.
> There is no international law.
This is incredibly confused.
A reasonable person can say international law is unevenly enforced. This does not mean it does not matter. Both positive (what exists) and normative (what is ethical) considerations matter.
Communicating well matters. The above style of exaggeration is unhelpful if one cares about making sense of the world. Try to predict what happens in the future without factoring in international agreements and laws. Predictions from such models will be inferior, relatively speaking, to a version that does include paying attention to law.
I hope the rest of south america doesn’t let this stand. Heavy sanctions on US, maybe even military intervention. The US can’t go to war with an entire continent.
Are you from South America? Do you think the neighboring countries are happy about all the Venezuelan refugees? What about Guyana - do you think they would join sanctions in support of Venezuela?
Military intervention? Some farmers with sticks?
Do you even know what the Rio Treaty is?
Yes, I am, and yes I don’t particularly mind the immigrants.
Even if I did mind them, venezuelan immigrants are preferable to the US military invading my neighbours.
The TIAR? The one that says an attack on one is an attack on all, which both USA and Venezuela are members of? Fat lot of good that did to protect them.
But I don’t know why I bother to reply to you when given your “farmers with sticks” comment it’s clear that you’re a racist asshole.
The only interest Americans have is oil. nothing else.
Put your bet here re: oil inflows from Venezuela to the USA.
Put a number on it. Stop talking shit.
Aren't you watching the news? Trump himself says it.
„The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
President DONALD J. TRUMP“
Lots of people seem to expect that the map will look exactly the same a thousand years from now; but the last hundred years of relative - historically speaking - stability are the exception, not the rule.
"Venezuelan allies Russia, Cuba and Iran were quick to condemn the strikes as a violation of sovereignty."
Right, Russia, who has been attacking Ukraine not just for one night, but for four years, is now going to lecture the US about violations of sovereignty. Their moral high ground, if they ever had any, is long gone.
I'm not sad if Maduro's gone. I'm even less sad if this results in actual freedom for Venezuela after 20 years of nightmare.
But I am not happy about the president of the US, on his own authority, choosing to remove the head of other countries, on rather flimsy pretexts. (If he presents actual evidence that Maduro was actively and deliberately shipping drugs to the US, or worse, criminals, then I will change my opinion. But I need evidence, not just claims and bluster.)
russia doesnt need moral high ground to be correct.
its not like the US is now banned from supporting ukraine just because they overthrew the Iraqi government and created a migrant crisis in europe.
Last month the US president pardoned a Honduran politician who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into America.
Whatever is behind this attack, it has nothing to do with drugs.
Nobody with interest in politics thinks it's about drugs. It's a pretext and a way to gain legitimacy to exert force over foreign nation with some legitimacy that would otherwise clearly go against international law.
Has overtaken Saudi Arabia as nation with largest proven oil reserves.
Although it is 'heavy' oil, the 'brown coal' of liquid fossil reserves (i.e. low quality).
The fact that such a fuss is being made about low-grade oil is a concern in itself.
Most of the USA's refineries specialize in low grade oil. The best grade oil is often shipped out of the USA for refining. Shipping costs are so low on a grand scale that it's more profitable to ship the USA's high quality oil overseas than building new refineries in the USA just for that: https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/05/13/the-u-s-exports...
> The fact that such a fuss is being made about low-grade oil is a concern in itself.
Keep in mind there's a lot of 'idle' refining capacity at the southeastern coast of the US which was built for heavy oil.
It must be about oil.
It's always about the oil.
Venezuela has a substantial amount of heavy crude oil. which the USA is good at refining. Shocking.
Many might not like it, but given US interests and Chinese ambitions, the Monroe doctrine is one of the few parts of American foreign policy that makes sense (in a realpolitik way) in the current geopolitical landscape.
The state sponsored drug smuggling is symbolic of a country not paying sufficient fealty to its master, but is secondary to the larger strategic issues in play.
I believe it's well established that it is primarily about gaining access to the vast oil reserves.
It's the new world order preached by Russia and supported by the BRICS.
The difference is that the US has the resources to play this game ruthlessly and effectively for the most part.
The coherent BRICS reply should be "we pray there's peace".
This is scary stuff.
The multipolar world is truly new and terrifying
Now, even the USA invades foreign countries!
(https://x.com/EventsUkraine/status/2007431899107758263)
The only thing I disagree is that "is truly new".
It's not new, it's been the prevalent way of being for thousands of years - we had a brief moment of piece with the creation of the UN.
But apparently there are a lot of countries that think the UN and international law is cumbersome, and are in the way of securing their "sovereignty" (more like securing regimes) - it was obvious this was going to be outcome.
Funny enough, some of those have collapsed or are in the verge of collapsing: Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Russia...
Let's hope Europe doesn't flip to far right and start their own campaign, history shows they can be quite effective and destructive.
The best outcome is that this is just the final breath of those old regimes, and this is temporary.
You did not understand the point of the quoted post at all and you’re turning the matter on its head.
For the US and its friends, the UN system and international law have always been a tool. Used when beneficial, circumvented when necessary.
> Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Russia...
Yes, the US decades-long lawfare and warfare against these countries in various domains is a great examples of the above.
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Don't troll on HN.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484803 and marked it off topic.
I don't have the ability to be a giant meteor
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Guess that means throwing rocks at passing cars
With an attitude like that, no wonder you feel so superior to your fellow humans
Who said anything about being superior?
I deserve to be washed away along with the rest of us.
I did. It’s clear you feel that way, despite your words.
I didn't know Eren Yaeger was a hacker.
“You know as well as we do that justice, as the world goes, is only a matter between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” From Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War.
I personally think this quote explains the Trump administration’s worldview far better than anything Trump himself would say.
If the last couple of years have taught anyone anything, your country is an open target if it doesn't have its own Iron Dome.
Or nuclear weapons.
Bin Laden found in Afghanistan? Invade and occupy the whole country.
Bin Laden found in nuclear-armed Pakistan? Quietly sneak in with a handful of SOF operators to shoot him in the face then GTFO.
or nukes... Welcome to the new arms race.
> Nicolás Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States.
I'm sorry but "possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
When did this happen exactly ??
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Somehow, I'm starting to agree with Russia's reason for launching the war because Ukraine wanted to join NATO.
Because...?
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That easily makes a Nobel Peace Prize. An attack on Iran will make it into the world's first Double Nobel Peace Prize.
Now, it's also very important to even further unite the entire world against Russian agressive war.
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The fact that the cureent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has called on the foreign power most responsible for the problems in her home country to launch a war against her home country is all the proof anyone should need of how much of a sham this prize is (if Kissinger getting it has gone out of living memory, of course).
Not to say that the Maduro regime is not terrible, it obviously is, but cheering on a literal invasion makes you either a complete moron, or a psychopath of the highest order, hoping to rule over the ashes.
You could argue the winners of elections should get to run the country they are elected to.
Sure, that would be good, but that doesn't justify US military action in any way, shape or form. If the USA was concerned with this, they could just bring this up before the UN council and ask for an authorization to conduct a specific military operation in Venezuela to put this right.
> fact that the cureent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize has called on the foreign power most responsible for the problems in her home country to launch a war against her home country is all the proof anyone should need of how much of a sham this prize is
...wouldn't the alternative be to listen to what she's saying?
Sure, listen to her here:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-10-31/internal-em...
[Note: in the following, I will use quote marks around thinks I'm paraphrasing, since there is no official transcript and I don't have the patience to carefully check every word]
She says that the killings of Venezuelan citizens that were killed by the US army were the fault of Maduro, by his refusal to stop collaborating with drug dealers. She also calls Maduro's actions "starting wars with other countries", parroting Trump talking points. She is saying that "finally, there is action from an international coallition", calling her own state a "narco terrorist" state, again parroting Trump pro-war talking points.
When the interviewer point blank asks her if she would support US strikes on Venezuelan territory, she says that "the escalation that is taking place is the only way to get Maduro to understand that it's time to go" - so yes, she does support such strikes. To furhter the point, she talks about such escalation being the last chance for a peaceful transition, and that they have tried everything else. The interviewer presses on this point, and asks her again whether, given that Maduro was unlikely to give up power, she thinks US military actions are the only way forward - and again she confirms, using vague language - "it is absolutely required for a credible threat to exist".
All of this part starts at around the 6m mark and continues to the 12m mark at least.
Someone could be both anti-Trump and anti-Nobel Peace Prize 2025 winner. It could be the case.
I rejoice any time something doesn’t go Donald Trump’s way because he frequently says that he hates me and wishes to do me harm. I separately agree that Nobel Peace Prize awards often don’t make much sense.
Trump takes time out of his day to specifically say he hates you and wishes to do you harm? That sounds really scary, random HN user.
No, his hatred is quite general, directed at various groups which I belong to some of. One time I remember well, for example, is when he posted a video of himself dumping poo on No Kings protesters (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna238521). If a friend or relative responded to some political dispute with a video of them pooping on me, I’d be pretty scared.
If your biggest fear is that Trump is going to come and poop on you, you are very well protected and safe! And any stress you have is totally self inflicted.
My biggest fear is that the kind of insane person who threatens to poop on me might do other, much worse things. It's not likely to ever happen, but doing what I can to stand against Trump seems like an effective way to minimize the risk. I celebrate when he fails, I'll celebrate when he croaks, and I hope that dancing on his grave one day will help future political movements learn what you and your favorite dictator-in-chief couldn't.
Main character syndrome.
I feel like you’ve learned a strange, distorted version of the concept of “main character syndrome”. There’s a number of main characters who the Trump administration has gone out of their way to immiserate, and it’s entirely reasonable for fear that you might be next to motivate your politics. Trump doesn’t care about me personally yet, and presenting as many obstacles as possible to the causes he cares about will help keep it that way.
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Military action on a sovereign state is an act of war. Is that not correct?
Sarcasm is dead on the internet.
Before anyone starts telling us how they are attacking a legitimate president and that the people will defend it, take your time to find your closest Venezuelan (there are 8 million around the world, so don't need to look to far) and ask him how he feels about this, you will find that happy is part of their emotions.
I found two, and happy is not part of their emotions.
Just because you don't like your government doesn't mean you want the US to come and deliver your next US flavored dictator
So that juatifies this attack does it? How many dead Venezuelans does it justify?
Are they Venezuelans living in Venezuela? I think the ones you have to worry about are the ones still living there.
Additionally, might it be that every dictatorship is hated by most expatriates? I think that that was the case for the 2 (or 3) countries that the neo-cons invaded, and I don't remember any of those invasions turning out well. Reckless.
I imagine, purely as a thought experiment, if you asked a sample of US expats what their reaction to the "forced removal" of the current president from office you'd get a similar response.
8 million is a lot in a country that around 30 million population.
Plus the opposition won the 2024 election by a landslide, but it was stolen by Maduro.
The overwhelming majority wants the regime to end.
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I don't see a single comment in this thread praising Maduro, I have basically never heard anyone express this sentiment in these discussions: "Maduro: Democratic leader, universally loved by his ever grateful people for standing up to the autocratic regimen of the USA" the argument is that regime change and military intervention in foreign conflicts have led to disaster time and again.
You wrote out a fantasy here that says more about what content you seek out than anything else.
Let me strap on my vocabulary filter for this site and say very diplomatically that what you typed is completely, entirely incorrect, a caricature, and is not relevant.
This is a bit like asking Cubans in the US how they feel about Castro. The ones who left don't tend to be the most ardent supporters of the regime...
If you’re tracking signals around geopolitical events, there’s a quirky one a few folks like to watch: the Pentagon Pizza Index. It’s a real-time dashboard that monitors pizza shop activity near the Pentagon as an informal indicator of unusual late-night activity. Historically people have pointed to spikes in food orders before major operations as a sort of low-tech OSINT signal. https://www.pizzint.watch/
Obviously this isn’t hard intelligence — correlation isn’t causation — but when combined with more grounded indicators (verified reports, diplomatic channels, satellite data) it can be a piece of the broader picture. Just a fun example of how people try to find patterns in publicly available data.
You would expect them to have started baking the pizza inside the pentagon already by now :)
Or they order Chinese food to throw it off
Why bother monitoring junk food purchases when we can watch videos of helicopters flying over Caracas being uploaded almost in real time?
Hmm, I guess delivery app API can provide some useful signals if monitored.
(jk, Pentagon OPSEC is TIGHT from what I've been told)
Interesting that they chose to capture him alive. Surely this poses a great problem to the administration. Maduro didn't exactly commit any crimes....
This is a horrifying way for any country to act, and millions of people will be hurt. Truly a travesty of the greatest order.
> Maduro didn't exactly commit any crimes
Lol. Lmao even
Do you disagree? Come, let's inspect your thoughts. What news have you been consuming. Who do you trust? We can precisely evaluate your degree of susceptibility to propaganda. Aka "retardation"
You can start by listening to what any Venezuelan thinks of the situation. Those on the low end of the bell curve do tend to think highly of themselves.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46474353
Ok, lets also inspect the thoughts of Venezuelans who aren't abusive shitbags
He needs the oil to fuel the military as they invade Canada and Mexico and Greenland. He wants a north American empire.
Come back in 3 years and tell me if i was right.
Those who rejoice today with the fall of Maduro may not rejoice when China or India or any other regional player decides to topple the government of another country and kidnap their leaders and then install a "friendly" regime in their place.
Regardless of how you feel personally about Maduro and his regime, this sets the precedent that it can be done and that the rest of the world and especially the EU who is always so quick to remind everyone of the rule of law will do nothing and let it happen.
Will the EU sanction the US and cut it off from SWIFT? Will the EU arm the Venezuelans should they decide that their new leaders are not legitimate?
Either the rules apply to everyone or the rules don't exist. If it's not acceptable for Putin to go to Kiev and remove Zelensky and if it's not acceptable for Xi to go to Taiwan and remove their leaders, then what happened is simply not acceptable. You can't have it both ways.
Finally this will remind everyone that the only real protection you have in this world is nukes. If Venezuela had nukes then the US would probably not have been so quick to invade.
1. Take over the oil companies
2. Reduce price of Gas in USA.
3. Everyone will celebrate
4. Next election. > 80% majority.
"Venezuela has ~2.7× as much proved oil as the UAE (303 / 111 ≈ 2.73)."
Pretty incredible
The big difference is that the oil in UAE is easy to extract and use, the oil in Venezuela isn't.
Looking just at the facts, the action to take over Venezuela seems to be a good decision.
1. Public opinion isn't as important anymore, as Trumpism has found a way to flood the zone with so much shit, they have many more options
2. International environment looks way harsher and less cooperative, stressing the need to gain resources/influence
3. Resource rich, unstable country that has been in the headline and run down for years, right on the doorstep of the US
If they really gain access to all that oil the challenges US hegemony is bolstered up again. Seems low risk high reward. If they give it the facade of legitimacy by installing a local puppet government, they might get away with it.
As expected: "Trump now turns now to oil. He claims the oil business in Venezuela has been a 'bust', and that large US companies are going to go into the country to fix the infrastructure and "start making money for the country"."
The irony is that this is a president of the US that wants to have a Nobel peace prize.
Well they gave it to a Venezuelan rival to manufacture consent on this invasion instead. Still a good deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Corina_Machado
I get why some people were neo-con the first 3 or so times (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) but it's criminal not to learn after failing 3 times over. I want the most severe consequences for the people who have enabled this to happen again.
Do any of those people regret those first three?
Unless Maduro was somehow actually deposed BEFORE the US mil came into the country, or at least into Maduro's residence, Trump just changed the standing international order of centuries to allow kidnapping of heads of state
So, Putin could now legitimately go grab Zelenskyy for "crimes", or Xi could go grab Trump for "crimes".
This so-called administration is insanely bad at thinking ahead.
I'm a bit relieved that UN will do something about this:
https://youtu.be/9DLuALBnolM?si=Vg56GgJCisLOqvw0&t=146
https://vxtwitter.com/FaytuksNetwork/status/2007338956241985...
Not Venezuelan helicopters...
it's truly incredible the harm that the psychological need for "strong man" leaders has on the world. What's even more strange, in my opinion, is that the bumbling and incoherent stuff Trump says is actually viewed by anyone as tough or strong. In my view it shows tremendous fear of directness and accountability. To call it womanish would be an insult to women.
Similarly, how does picking on much weaker countries (some of whom are allies) seem tough to anyone? In my view it's ugly and shows weakness rather than strength.
24 hours and no zionists complaining about how this is not tech news/flagging the post.
Thank you, I guess, for allowing the rest of us to talk about whatever we want.
It’s interesting to see how Americans assume Venezuelans aren’t happy about this. People are so clueless. I’m in South America right now and everyone is happy for the Venezuelans. Especially the Venezuelans. It’s been 25 years of hell. They don’t really care at the moment if Trump did it for oil. You think Russia and China just wanted the recipe for Arepas? That’s the common saying. Venezuelans just wanted a chance to live a normal life. This is not a society like Afghanistan that cannot function as a democracy when autocrats are removed.
The world failed to solve this problem for decades. Trump is a loose cannon, but this shot was a good one. Of course it’s TBD how things play out. But at least there is hope.
Americans may lack theory of mind of Venezuelans, but that doesn't invalidate thethe concerns of outsiders, as you yourself says it's TBD how things play out, especially with global ramifications and in the long run for all nations affected by this American action.
Agreed. But… the other alternative is continued repression and suffering of millions of people. Iranians are wishing their captors would fall next. Not that people will see those posts on blue sky.
>It’s interesting to see how Americans assume Venezuelans aren’t happy about this. People are so clueless. I’m in South America right now and everyone is happy for the Venezuelans.
It doesn't matter at all. Venezuelans may be over the moon about this, but the fact remains that Trump broke international law and committed an act of war without the authorization of Congress. You don't see the problem with that? This is the slippery slope of authoritarianism. They start by doing illegal things that seem like they're good things, but which break down the rule of law. Once they've normalized this, they start doing it with less popular things.
Humans are so stupid with their ideas of "my team won so it's OK!". It's not ok. This is how the system begins to implode, and it's by design.
I just called my representatives and told them they need to do their jobs and put a check on the executive branch and stop this illegal, undeclared war. Please do the same.
Well this aged like shit [1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46100816
> this aged like shit
Your comment was chemically and biologically decomposed by microorganisms and fungi, which extracted energy from it and returned the remaining nutrients to the surrounding soil, providing a fertile ground for the growth of plants?
If USA can attack Venezuela for oil, why other countries, like France, couldn't do the same to Qatar or Koweit for example? France has more needs for oil that USA.
They attacked Venezuela because it's ruled by an illegitimate leader who allegedly commands a drug cartel responsible for smuggling cocaine and fentanyl.
It's also not difficult to see the broader strategy: every US adversary (China, Russia, Iran) has been taking a piece of Venezuela over the past several months. They were already "conquered". This could also give the US an upper hand in ending the war in Ukraine as it further weakens Russia as it loses access to cheap oil.
How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about ideals like liberal democracy or allies, but is a warmongering corporatist autocracy.
We won't know for a while but I don't imagine there will be mass civilian graves, abducted children, or the intent to annex the country. This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.
"This is more about oil and deposing Maduro." Scary how overt these 'operations' are these days. 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this. Someone said 'lack of shame' is very concerning with governments of today. Wonder if this is a reflection of where we as a humanity are heading.
> 50 years ago governments would try hide stuff like this
The Cold War was openly about changing governments.
> This is probably more about oil and deposing Maduro.
Correct.
"This isn't about conquering Ukraine, it's about coal and removing Nazi Żeleński from power"
I wasn't paraphrasing Trump but rather speculating about his actual intentions.
I know, not disagreeing with you on that. I felt though it's important to add that too though.
Putin has always been very clear about conquering Ukraine and eliminating anything Ukrainian, including its statehood. Tons of public writing, won't shut up about his fake history of the region, etc. Putin is as clear about his intentions as Hitler was about his intentions.
Could you point to some sources please? Every time I see Putin talk on Ukraine, he clearly expresses the very opposite, so I'd like to see where he's said otherwise.
en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
A lot of reading there, thanks!
I can't honestly claim to have paid attention to the whole interview and followed all of his rambling, but he seemed to express in the Tucker interview that he views Ukraine as traditional/rightful Russian territory. Tucker was trying to lead Putin into the claim that the invasion was prompted by NATO doing NATO things (which is the talking point favored by right-aligned American commenters, who want to somehow blame Obama/Biden foreign policy for the war), but Putin just wanted to talk about shit that happened centuries ago.
Yeah that interview was accidentally pretty interesting and also boing af.
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> We have ethnic cleansing at home
We really do not. And if we want to keep it that way, blurring the lines with this term is something we absolutely should not do like this.
But it is being proposed. What do you think Elon is doing when he tweets support for remigration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration), which is literally ethnic cleansing? Or when the DHS posts memes in public proposing to deport 100 million people (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dhs-100-million-deportations-...)? These are acts of ethnic cleansing being normalized before it actually happens. Let’s not ignore it. Instead, let’s vote out every single GOP politician that supports this or stays silent about it.
How well would you say it has been working out so far, to steelman Republican policies and attempt to find common ground and compromise? Personally I was doing so up until ~June of 2020 and all I really got for it was a lot of grief with still no recognition that I understand and care about many of the things they claim to care about. And society wide? Well, here we are.
> > We have ethnic cleansing at home
> We really do not. And if we want to keep it that way, blurring the lines with this term is something we absolutely should not do like this.
We really do, and if we want not to, we need to address it rather than denying it.
> We really do, and if we want not to, we need to address it rather than denying it
What are we doing that constitutes the mass expulsion and killing of an ethnic or religious group in America?
Ethnic Cleansing is a policy of rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area. You seem to be using a commonly cited inaccurate definition of genocide instead of the broader term “ethnic cleansing”, but note that even genocide does not require killing as the means, as it is defined (in the 1948 Genocide Convention) as any combination of one or more of seven different acts (one of which is killing members of the group) when undertaken with the specific intent to destroy the given racial, ethnic, national, or religious group.
TIL that neighborhood crime causing white flight is actually ethnic cleansing.
No, that's probably not ethnic cleansing, since the white people who fled to the suburbs were in a position of privilege and wanted to give up their homes. The American government practices ethnic cleansing, as you assert, so and for some reason they just made it illegal to do it in their own cities for the benifit of the most privileged ethnic demographic. Perplexing.
> Ethnic Cleansing is a policy of rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area
So removing non-white Hispanics from America would count? What if the goal isn't to render the area ethnically homogenous?
> So removing non-white Hispanics from America would count?
Obviously that’s the argument put forth. Why phrase it as a question?
> What if the goal isn't to render the area ethnically homogenous?
A fair point, since a favorite argument of the regime and now protected legal doctrine is “the bad thing happened but it’s ok because we didn’t mean it like that”.
Except that doesn’t apply in this case since the goal is explicitly stated.
Ukraine didn’t hold an election in which the results were simply ignored by the leader in power
Yep. They just ousted the elected president without the votes their constitution mandates.
That was 2014, there have been multiple elections since then, with multiple winners and international observers.
Yes, there were elections where at most only 18M people voted, compared to the 24M people that voted when the pro-Russian candidate won, in 2010. Because there were almost no ballot station in those regions leaning more towards Russia. Yet the government didn't think that was a problem at all; in fact, it was good for them (imagine if Trump could just make that people in some blue states couldn't vote). All this in a climate with banned parties and where all the media was controlled by the "Maidan" parties.
So it doesn't look the situation in Ukraine was very democratic either.
> "ousted"
The guy literally ran away to Russia.
I.e. the closest country with some international weight that would give him refuge.
But interesting take. So, if Zelenskyy at some point is forced to flee to Poland, is that a proof that he was a Polish puppet all along?
If he would barely speak Ukrainian, communicate mostly in Polish instead of Ukrainian, sacrifice his country’s interests in favor of Poland for 15 billion instead of following EU integration path, then yes – he was a Polish puppet all along.
Well, Zelensky actually barely speaks Ukrainian. He communicates mostly in Russian. As for his country's interests, we'd better wait to see how Ukraine is after all this finishes, and who are the biggest beneficiaries, in comparison to how it was when his term began.
Seems like a thin reason to invade a country
> a thin reason to invade a country
No invasion (yet). Just bombing.
We have at the absolute very least, invaded Venezuelan airspace.
> We have at the absolute very least, invaded Venezuelan airspace
This is not a useful delineation for what constitutes a military invasion. Invasion means landing troops and controlling territory.
Why am I seeing footage of Chinooks if it's only a bombing? Those are troop-carriers.
> Why am I seeing footage of Chinooks if it's only a bombing? Those are troop-carriers
Based on what we're being told now, this was an extraction. (Slash detention. Slash kidnapping. In any case, requiring troop transport and extraction.)
And kidnapping their president in violation of every international law. No big deal /s
Seriously, I'm patiently waiting for the day America or Russia will do the same to Netanyahu, who is an actual war criminal. Not holding my breath.
That's just one of the fake reasons Russia likes to point at, with useful idiots like yourself aiding the effort.
I don't think you fully understand their comment.
It’s not any different. I have totally lost my faith in America as an American.
Now you did ?
You should've been keeping scores on US' wars and regime changes, you'd had lost faith long time ago.
It's so much easier to keep score these days. Up until the 90s, you were tube-fed the news from your TV (pun intended). You would have to go out of your way to read anything contrary to the sanctioned narrative or to see the effects of your country's policies and actions.
These days everything is live-streamed. So, anyone with an inquiring mind can lookup different sources and make their own conclusions.
But I fear this won't be for long. It is slowly becoming clear that the AI rally is less about productivity and more about mass surveillance and controlling online dissent globally [1].
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dz0g2ykpeo
Well considering Taiwan's independence and Putin's absolute obsession over NATO, it seems like the score ought to reflect the whole story. I'm not saying it's great, but it's gotta be better than historical comparables.
I am against China attacking Taiwan, I am against Russia attacking Ukraine, but I am also against Ukraine wanting to join NATO. The war started because of NATO and the US, and it almost fucked us over here in Germany when the US helped the Ukrainians blow up Nord Stream.
I am against any offensive action which leads to the misery and impoverishment of people, for some stupid power games of power hungry idiots.
I am sorry, you are blaming the United States for Russia invading Ukraine? Because Ukraine wanted to join a defensive alliance to protect themselves from a country that invaded them in 2014 and tried to keep their puppet in power before Maidan punted him?
Hilarious.
Do you think it is realistic that a (relatively) small country next to a superpower seeks protection from the rival superpower ?
What would happen if panama wanted to join a defence pact with Russia ?
What happened during the Cuban missile crisis ?
I wish all countries could be independent and free of meddling from superpowers. But at some moment you have to be realistic.
> Do you think it is realistic that a (relatively) small country next to a superpower seeks protection from the rival superpower ?
Like the Baltics, Poland, Taiwan, South Korea, Berlin, ... Yeah seems pretty realistic.
> What would happen if panama wanted to join a defence pact with Russia ?
Russia or a defensive alliance that includes countries like Germany and France?
> What happened during the Cuban missile crisis ?
A bunch of cold war nonsense? Russia tried to station first strike weapons and the US responded poorly.
> I wish all countries could be independent and free of meddling from superpowers. But at some moment you have to be realistic.
Lmao and that is why you conclude that Ukraine should not be permitted to seek a defensive ally after being invaded (2014).
> The war started because of NATO and the US
"Bro please just look at the expansion map. I swear bro the war started because of NATO and the US. It’s not an invasion bro it’s a forced reaction to unipolar hegemony. Just one more provocation and the bear had to bite back. Please bro just admit it's a proxy war. I promise bro if the West just stayed out of the sphere of influence everything would be fine."
Do you have anything of substance to add ?
This tribalism that you display is exactly the reason that we end up in situations that we have. Do not pledge tribal allegiance to anyone. Pledge allegiance to critical thinking.
> This tribalism
> The war started because of NATO and US
Hmm…
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
As a Ukrainian I would assume US forces don't intend to conduct a campaign of mass murder, rape and looting, and US government overall doesn't plan genocide and erasure of national identity of Venezuela together with annexation of its territories?
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> Sala Ukraini!
You won't get far in your troll farm hierarchy this way.
Sure, everyone who opposes Ukrainian lies must be a troll.
>> Sala Ukraini!
Right.
See: Panama, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
OP's question was about how the current Russian invasion of Ukraine is different, not about some grand total score of infractions by major powers in 20th century. Overall I find this opinion of many western liberals that it is only fair for Russia to murder some Ukrainians, loot their homes and rape their women because US did some bad things before quite perplexing.
That wasn't my point. My specific argument is about US operational policy on the ground in similar engagements. Based on precident, we would expect them to engage in the behavior the commentor indicts.
I dream that neither of these imperial powers - Russia or the US - will be allowed to inflict imperial violence, but I wouldn't be mistaken and assume that this military action will be any different than, say, JSOC in Iraq.
Do you expect US soldiers to systematically loot homes on occupied territories? Or arbitrary murder anyone speaking language they don't like or found to be subscribed to Telegram channels they don't approve of on mass scale? Do the US plan to conduct genocide and annex Venezuela in your opinion?
The conduct of VSRF in Ukraine could perhaps be compared to the US conduct in Vietnam but definitely not in Iraq.
In Iraq, JSOC operational doctrine was literally to target assassination campaigns based on 'nodal analysis' from contacts lifted from cellphones; if telegram had existed, they certainly would have used it too.
Famously, they didn't have enough Arabic translators, so Delta Force was often taking targets entirely based on reported association. They couldn't target based on language because they couldn't even tell what language locals were speaking most of the time.
Russia's goal is to destroy Ukraine as nation and a country, because there's no "Ukrainians", there's no "Ukrainian language", and every country that speaks Russian should be controlled by Russian tsar. That's why they don't care and demolish ("liberate") Ukraine, town after town.
Do US do/want the same for Venezuela?
For one the whole country of Ukraine is fighting like hell for almost 4 years following the orders of their elected government to defend their country.
If Russia was on the right, the people of Ukraine would have just hanged Zelenskyy and his gov, instead of sending their children to the meat grinder.
Let’s see if Venezuelans will put their lives on the line to protect the regime.
Military police are forcefully abducting people on the streets by now. Fighting the power of the state is not something that just happens.
Military (or part of) can (and historically does) initiate a coup. If civilians are also on board the gov is over in hours. Coups typically fail when people are not on the same page.
Turkey is a great example. Heck Putin also had Wagner knocking his door in Moscow.
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
Cynically: maybe Venezuela will get a bit less sympathy because it's a somewhat shittier (see emigration numbers) and less democratic government than Ukraine's. And I suspect we have a more positive view of US troops than Russian troops, despite everything (Abu Ghraib is seen as an aberration and not as the normal way of working).
> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?
Cynically it's different in that Trump hopefully will not going to kill 220,000+ and leave 500,000+ war invalids of US military personnel in process. Though you never know...
It does differ, in ways that many others listed below. That doesn't make it any legitimate, though.
A surgical strike that was over before the news broke out vs. a 4-year campaign of plundering with literal criminals, press-ganged foreigners, and chechen blocking detachments, featuring mass rape, executed civilians, abduction and forced reeducation of thousands of children, gross mistreatment of PoW, etc.
Hmmmm... indeed, hard to tell the difference!
Emphasizing that I’m not defending this war at all, but one key difference I’m extremely confident in is that the US will not attempt to annex its favorite regions of Venezuela.
It doesn't care about regions. There's a lot of precedent for annexing resources though.
Let's see if some american company is granted all kinds of rights to Venezuelan oil in the end.
Which, if it happens, should really be treated as blood oil like blood diamonds are and then sanctioned by the world
FWIW Russia was initially quite happy with "independent" Ukraine provided that their guy Yanukovich was in charge. It was only when he was ousted that they switched to open invasion tactics.
So from that perspective, I don't think US is really much different, just better at keeping its own puppets in power.
Russia didn’t react to his ouster by demanding a restoration of proper governance, they reacted by sending clandestine troops to seize Crimea in preparation for annexation the next month. Annexing other countries’ sovereign territory is a red line for good reason.
I'm not defending Russia here. Yanukovich was ousted for good reasons (and arguably he carried out a coup first when he reverted the country's constitution). My point is that, if we don't invade other countries only because their leadership does what we want, then we aren't really qualitatively any better.
Absolutely no reason to believe that
do you think that a pro US replacement regime in Venezuela will get US backing and support for it’s claims to eastern Guyana?
No. I suppose I’m less confident in that, but I still don’t think it’s very likely. The American oil companies with contracts in Guyana would certainly be unhappy about it and it’s not clear what political benefit anyone in the US could hope to gain.
"We have to wake up to the world where USA no longer cares about <thing USA has never cared about>, but is a <things USA has always been>"
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Idiot.
Countries that "defend itself" don't annex territories of other countries.
Offensive aggression has certain leeway; it can be covert so that the aggressor can deny the very fact of aggression. West likes that position very much; it suits its lying nature. Defensive aggression has no such freedom: here the aggression has to be visible.
I was born and grew up in Russia, and all my life I heard people like you telling us that NATO is going to invade any time now. Maybe it's time for you to wake up and realize that this was never a threat to begin with, just a justification for bullying others.
NATO is invading. They just don't do it overtly. You don't think those Chechen "freedom fighters" were, like, independent? It was USA all along. It was not a mistake, some leftover from Cold War or something, some project they forget to close now when Soviet Union broke. It was the policy all the time. There is no way to somehow negotiate it to stop short of surrendering. We have to fight. We do not want to, but there is no other option.
Recently there was a terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow and about 150 people were killed. The actual attackers were rather simple-minded Tajik people. No way they could plan such an attack themselves. You do realize that there was someone else? "A quiet American"? (Or maybe a British; doesn't matter.) Some timidly looking guy visited that concert hall before that attack, walked around and made notes. He noted, for example, whether the finishing materials were flammable. He did that reconnaissance in several places and finally picked that concert hall. That fellow belongs to a group that does this kind of things. They have something like a list of cases, teaching materials and lectures. You don't see such people in the news; but they surely do exist.
This is how a modern Western invasion looks like.
Thank you for the comment. It's a very good illustration of the kind of paranoia that is prevalent among Russians in general and their rulers in particular, and this is exactly why NATO is necessary and Europeans shouldn't assume that feeding Ukraine to the wolves will help in the long run.
Ex-superpower, still regional power, defends itself from Ukraine, right.
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Interesting.
Another difference that has not been mentioned in other comments is that: The US is not completely delusional about its military capabilities and could actually complete this invasion in three days. In fact, it may already be over, as Maduro have been captured.
I’ll bet FIFA feels pretty silly now about their peace award.
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US ..."
should be
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US authoritarian government ..."
or (better, really)
"Venezuela has accused the US ..."
Holy whataboutism. Regardless of what you think about Trump the US system is nothing like that of Venezuela or Russia or any other actually authoritarian state.
Yet.
The "whataboutism" accusation is absurd--that's not even remotely an example of it. All my comment was about was editorial insertions of biased loaded language into a supposed news report. And I didn't say that the U.S. "system" is "like" Venezuela or Russia--that's a blatantly intellectually dishonest misrepresentation ... a) "authoritarian" is broader than the most extreme examples, and b) the Trump regime is acting outside of the "system". And: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5340753/trump-democracy...
"A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism."
That's from April ... the move to a "Department of War" and the actual waging of unauthorized war pushes things considerably further.
The USA are a blight on the Americas and the larger World. Their fanatic population will immediately jump in to justify a violent, naked attempt at stealing this country's mineral resources. This already happened dozens of times, always with terrible outcome, yet here we are again. The fall of the American empire can't happen fast enough.
Your enlightened president, a few minutes ago on Fox News, when asked about Venezuelan oil: "What can I say? We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it."
What's to stop Russia from simply abducting whoever we install in his place? If we can do it, anyone can. The arrogance is unbelievable.
well maybe the world is indeed back to different spheres of influence, as per the latest US security policy
overall it should make the world a bit more stable hopefully, and locally of course it would make more sense for Venezuela to be in bed with US, rather than far away giants
hopefully the country doesn't plunge into endless domestic conflict / war, we have enough of that happening already everywhere..
No Interpol or ICC warrant, no answer to sovereignty or jurisdictional issues, no justified claim of extraterritoriality.
Can't we call a kidnapping what it is?
All Americans are at fault since it claims to be a democracy. They should all be sanctioned into the ground. This is the M.O they deal with others on.
For everyone defending these actions on the basis of Maduro's own corruption and the desires of Venezuelans, I would encourage you to research the history of American intervention and regime change in Latin America. It is impossible to anticipate the second and third order effects of this change, and how it will be absorbed in the local politics. We are witnessing the return of American military intervention in Latin American, nothing more and nothing less.
To everyone proclaiming that we should turn to Venezuelans to assess these actions, how dare you assert that Americans have no autonomy in the actions of their own government. It is tremendously unfortunate that congress has forfeited all decision making authority to the executive branch, but as our democracy was intended this would amount to an act of war, which would require authorization by congress.
Politics aside: If this is all true and was a snatch and grab, it will go down as one of the most impressive military operations in the 21st century.
Sky News reports that it might have been a "negotiated exit". https://x.com/SkyNews/status/2007391354884894820
Yeah. Maduro was pretty clear he wanted a deal. I’d believe this angle.
You can't really put politics aside when the US was obviously dangling the return of the Monroe doctrine for Ukraine. Let's see what that "deal" looks like.
It'd be in stark contrast to Russia's attempted decapitation strike.
imo this was negotiated, we need more details
and if nobody was killed.
Oh, it seems Mexico is next. I'm afraid to go to sleep these days, you never know what kind of world you will find in the morning.
Well, this thread certainly hasn't aged well. Lots of people here trying to spin this as an act of liberation while the real motivation has been more than obvious.
Turns out the Trump administration doesn't even bother to change the regime as long as it is willing to give up the oil reserves. They just kidnapped Maduro to set an example and coerce the regime to cooperate. Trump and Rubio aren't even trying to hide it, they are saying it plain and clear on national TV!
Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea. Surely some fanatics and crazies existed, but society at large didn't "need" it.
One person made a decision.
And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.
Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.
> If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time
I don't think any latin american country can withstand the US for any amount of time, unless it turns into a guerilla war.
I'm sure you wish well, but
> Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea.
is just bollocks.
> On 21 May 1992 the Supreme Soviet of Russia declared 1954 transfer of Crimea as having "no legal force", because it was adopted "in violation of the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Russian SFSR and legislative process", but because subsequent legislation and the 1990 Russo-Ukrainian treaty constituted that fact
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Crimea
Russians were planning Crimea takeover for a long time.
I talk about people, not government. Unfortunately it's two different things. And of course I don't mean 100% of people. But percentage wise - you wouldn't say that majority wanted to "get it back". And that's my point - leaders less and less represent the people.
As for the government - your are absolutely on point. And I don't disagree.
How did you measure that? Are you just making this stuff up? Where did you read or experience it? Are you Russian?
It will be pretty amusing to watch all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it.
As a westerner, who believes in the rules based order, I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague.
Our leadership are war criminals, and should be treated as such.
Some, specifically, are war criminals who have committed crimes that carry the death penalty, and should be arrested, tried, and (if found guilty) executed.
> I would give anything for our leadership which is launching this illegal war to be sent to the Hague
Simpler: send them to prison at home. There is no world in which the Hague can enforce its law in America without the U.S. government's consent. At that point, skip the extra step and make war crimes actually illegal.
The only force that can do anything about this, is the American people.
Which is why they have been subverted and subjugated and all their will usurped.
>Which is why they have been subverted and subjugated and all their will usurped.
But America's armed populace and the stalwart vigilance of its militias are supposed to make that impossible.
Americans were more up in arms (literal and figurative) over Obamacare and Covid lockdowns than anything Trump has done, domestically or abroad. The only rational conclusion is that they're either complicit or else they simply don't care.
Americans are the most propagandized peoples on the planet. Those bullets can’t stop information, and there is a massive information war going on to keep the American people divided.
Those who could effectively field a real protest or uprising are either too busy trying to keep their credit cards from defaulting, or are living on the streets addicted to drugs. General strikes? Forget it, America doesn’t have the infrastructure in place (local food sources) to sustain such a thing…
America's armed populace is a relatively small percentage of its citizenry, and predominantly leans right populist, so...
Populations of far less affluent countries under far more oppressive regimes without a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms and a billion dollar domestic arms industry that flooded their country with more guns than people and a culture of "give me liberty or give me death" have managed it.
The right got Jan. 6th and the left got Portland, so resistance is possible on both sides. In any country that took things half as seriously as the US claims to, Washington DC would look like a war zone. But what are we doing? Twerking in front of ICE in frog costumes?
> But what are we doing? Twerking in front of ICE in frog costumes?
Once again, the people who are broadly approving of violence as a way to solve problems, and who actually have the guns, are largely supportive of what ICE is doing. Many of them are quite literally itching to pull the trigger on some libs. I've been in the middle of that crowd and seen it all close up. Those people are not the potential solution - they are a part of the problem.
Countries with oppressive regimes see revolutions if the population gets discontent enough that a strong majority wants it, or is at least willing to go along with it. That is certainly not true of US right now.
The American people voted for this man in a free and fair election. No subjugation or subversion needed.
This man did not say he was going to bomb anything until after he was voted in, so the American people were - once again - completely duped by their own hubris.
> This man did not say he was going to bomb anything until after he was voted in
Except Mexico (https://www.vox.com/policy/363146/trump-policy-war-mexico-tr...) and Iran (https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4898919-trump-iran-smi...).
A third of the American people voted for him, based on a campaign which promised a completely different economy than he has delivered (remember when people were pretending Biden had an egg-price level in the Oval Office?) and no foreign wars. It is unreasonable to look at that election and say a plurality voted for this.
> American people voted for this man in a free and fair election
Americans voted for a man who promised no foreign wars and, in his first term, was relatively peaceful [1].
[1][ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_first_Tr...
And the american people can get their shit together and hang him for his crimes.
Now this I would like to see, but I have serious doubts it will ever happen. I don’t think the American people have the courage to do something about their heinous, out of control government, personally. Happy to be proven wrong, because it would be a legitimate step to world peace on behalf of the American people, but I seriously doubt they are, as a population, capable of it.
I largely agree with you. Democratic leadership responded to an attempted coup by slow rolling prosecution with the hope that Trump would simply recede from public life and they'd never have to do the hard thing of trying and convicting a former president.
The Democrats have just as much blood on their hands as their Republican counterparts, and that is the problem - the only force capable of dealing with this conundrum is the American people, and they are too busy playing sides to actually confront the reality of their nations heinous war crimes record.
The entire media apparatus is owned by oligarchs: from Fox News to Twitter to Meta, now CNN... All are relaying non-stop right-wing propaganda. There can be no real democracy while information is this captive.
> war crimes actually illegal.
To be clear, war crimes are illegal here. They can carry the death penalty.
I think there's a strong case to be made for Pete Hegseth to be executed for his crimes, according to US Law.
But you're right. There's no expectation that the Hague enforce international law without the consent of the US Government. Our government should either try our leaders in our courts, or hand them in manacles and chains to the ICC and The Hague.
But I agree, I don't expect the international community to be able to do this over our objections. It's something we must do.
> war crimes are illegal here. They carry the death penalty.
Asking to learn: under what law?
18 U.S. Code § 2441 - War crimes
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441
---
There are also provisions in the UCMJ that are applicable to members of the military
---
(I also had a consequential typo in my earlier post, which I've now edited. I originally wrote they "carry the death penalty", but I meant to write "they can carry the death penalty", and it depends on the specific circumstances of the war crimes committed.)
"Murder.— The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause" [1].
Hmm. Filing this away for 2028 or 2032.
[1] ¶ (d)(1)(D)
Yes, if you’re curious the DoD’s own Laws of War manual uses shipwrecked survivors of an attack as “hors de combat” or out of combat.
This is very relevant to the second strike on the Venezuelan boat. I think the original strikes are also war crimes, but the second strike on the shipwrecked survivors is like… beyond all doubt a murder
>one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities
Remember when we bombed Yemen and in the Signal chat they laughed about killing a High-Value Target while he was visiting his girlfriend? Sounds like this section would apply for her.
I don’t think the US is going to be allowed to act outside the ICC for too much longer. All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again.
The US previously never faced real pressure on this, a new administration would see it as an easy win.
> don’t think the US is going to be allowed to act outside the ICC for too much longer
The U.S. is not a signatory. (Most of the world's population isn't subject to ICC jurisdiction [1].)
> All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again
Nobody is treating the ICC seriously [2].
To be clear, this sucks. But it's America joining China and Russia (and Iran and Israel and India and every other regional power who have selectively rejected the rules-based international order).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/27/world/middleeast/france-n...
> The U.S. is not a signatory.
Being a signatory is not required for being subject to ICC jurisdiction, though it is one route to being subject to it, and, in any case, not being a signatory is not an immutable condition. So the upthread suggestion that “All of your former allies are going to insist on it before they will even think about treating your normally again” is not rebutted by observing that the US is not currently a signatory of the Rome Statute.
> But it's America joining China and Russia (and Iran and Israel and India and every other regional power who have selectively rejected the rules-based international order).
No, the US despite rhetorically appealing to it when other countries are involved, has led, not followed, in rejecting the rules-based order when it comes to its own conduct.
The "allies" would have mass riots and six-digit death tolls (shortly after an initial 3-6 month period of adjustment) without the supplies of LNG, fertiliser and payment clearing services the U.S. exports. America has the rest of the west by the balls, with maybe the exception of Australia and Japan. Nobody will even give the C-levels responsible for Grok arrest warrants for the many serious crimes their product carries out.
I hope to god the next administration actually holds the criminals in the current administration accountable. Gerry Ford set a disgusting precedent when he loudly said that those who hold the office of the President should never be be held accountable for their actions.
He believed that within the limits of the political culture of America introducing accountability would lead to a tit-for-tat cycle of imprisonments and executions by each party against the other under the cover story of accountability, with the possibility of gradual escalation towards an end state of states mobilising armored brigades against each other to siege cities and cleanse target populations. Like the Congo, or Rhodesia. His memoirs are wacky stuff.
unlikely. trump didnt held obama accountable for all sorts of crazy things that happened during his administration (bombing libya, drone striking a us citizen minor, using USAID to mount a fake vaccination campaign for DNA surveillance in pakistan e.g.). why would the next administration hold trump accountable?
The Biden administration was prosecuting Trump though. They didn’t complete the prosecutions because Trump’s strategy to avoid accountability was to be reelected and then shut down the investigations, and that worked. But the fact he was indicted by Jack Smith who very likely could have convicted him goes to show lack of accountability is not for lack of trying.
Its very much for lack of trying. They had 4 years, we got no epstein files and they slow walked prosecutions to happen during the election, thinking it would help them. It didn't work, here we are.
It’s clear you didn’t follow these cases if your opinion is the SC slow walked them to enhance Democrats’ electoral out look. They secured multiple indictments and were heading to trial, which they were likely to win. Delays were caused by Trump appointed Judge Cannon and Trump appointed SCOTUS justices.
Securing indictments and going to trial is an instance of actually trying. So you really can’t say they didn’t try, because that is factually false. It’s true they could have done more, but they didn’t do nothing as others are saying.
I'm not a lawyer, and I didn't follow every motion, you're right. Still, in my book, fast walking would have meant moving faster. Venue shop if you have to. Release/declassify documents to make the bad guys look bad. There's lots of "improper" stuff they could have done and are currently getting owned by.
I'm not a lawyer either but I did follow the cases closely. My opinion is that Merrick Garland did a disservice to the country by not appointing a SC immediately, but beyond that Jack Smith moved with lightning speed in prosecuting the cases. Moreover, Congress did make the bad guys look bad -- they held a whole summer's worth of hearings where they prosecuted the case in public, offering plenty evidence. And I encourage you also to look at how it was the Supreme Court who slow walked their decisions, which ultimately benefitted Trump in obscene ways. You can't venue shop SCOTUS.
One thing about prosecuting a former POTUS for the first time is it has to survive the test of time. You can't behave like them if you want the prosecution to be legitimate, because they are lawless. But it was the failure of voters to do their due diligence to not elect a felon who bear the ultimate blame, as they are the final check. Now we bear the consequences. But again, not for lack of trying.
It's late where I am so I don't have a well-reasoned response, just wanted to say I understand what you're saying. It sucks, given what the current admin is getting away with, but I understand it.
i would feel better about that if the biden administration also prosecuted obama. they didn't. besides trump I (nor biden) didnt do any new foreign adventures AFAICT. we had a blissful 8 years of waning US imperialism
It's unclear if most if not all of those things you were actually crimes legally (regardless of how morally and ethically reprehensive they might have been). Regardless there was an established precedent for what Obama was doing. Not so much for the crimes Trump was being accused..
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a 16-year-old United States citizen who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, a country with which the United States was not at war with.
Please let me know what was the established precedent for allowing extrajudicial assassination of American citizens is.
Edit add:
He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all.
A 16-year-old American boy accused of no crimes was killed in American drone attack
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a14796/abdulrahma...
So please, I would love to see the precedent.
pretty sure when obama murdered Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (nb: not talking about the more famous Anwar) that was unprecedented. Trump later murdered Abdulrahman's sister, but at that point, it was "precedented" by obama.
He did prosecute his political opponents like Bolton though for doing exactly what Trump did just on a likely several magnitudes smaller scale...
All this fuckery date from at least bush 2nd. Election mess, with heavy involvement of his brother the governor despite promises to revise, crowds attacking poll workers, war crimes, putting incompetent friends at the head of agencies (remember FEMA response to Katrina? Or the initial response to the subprime crisis?), attacks on science programs and schools, and the use of executive orders to bypass congress. Obama was so tame compared to Bush2.
Europe is not the military power that once was at the beginning of the 20th century... aging populations, economic decline, trade deficits, their former colonies are now independent, they haven't waged war in a while.
Seems extremely telling that you would phrase things that way.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, a European power could prevail in India, China, Japan, etc.
And in the 21st century? not so much. It is a different world now.
Europe is powerful but the Royal Navy couldn't go today to Hong Kong and seize control of it for example.
And military power influences diplomacy.
> And military power influences diplomacy.
Negatively. That has always been the problem of the US, it's the reason why they cannot act like the most of the rest of the world. The military has way too much influence on decision making.
Just watch one of the sessions of the UN general assembly. There are many speeches about fixing all kinds of situations. If the best ideas were implemented we would be in a utopia with flying cars, free ponies for everyone and open bar. But we don't live in such world because if one motion somehow makes one of the countries with veto power uncomfortable, they will just veto the resolution and that's the end of it. And countries with veto power are backed by military power. That's the world we live in and it has always been like that.
And things work like this at every level in every organization. For example people in your line of reporting at work can veto any decision you make unless you are protected by law, which is an entity that can shut down your company by force.
That’s just the reality of it. The GDP of Russia and Canada is about the same but nobody cares about Canada from a geopolitical context because it has an irrelevant military.
ICC is a joke though. It can only accomplish anything if the home country of the perpetrator is cooperating. Those allies also have much politically important economic and geopolitical concerns than prosecuting war criminals (unfortunately only small minorities in western countries care about things like that at all)
No, they wouldn't. Not if they're the Democrats as we know them. They fight tooth and claw against the new normal, until it's the new normal, and then they fight tooth and claw to defend the new normal. There's very little principled opposition to Trump in the corridors of power. There's plenty of opposition, but it's more about which horses have been bet on.
It sadly never happened for the perpetrators of the Iraq/Ukraine/Libya/Afghan/Syria/Yugoslav/... wars. Remember Collateral Murder? And that was just the tip of the iceberg. Also, no one really cared about all the veterans back home, many of whom suffered and still suffer from PTSD. The U.S. truly is the biggest sh*thole on earth.
The fact that it didn't happen for the those previous administrations is why it's happening again now.
If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes, and the guilty parties were cooling their heels in a jail cell, then we probably wouldn't be seeing this action tonight.
"If those previous administrations had been tried for their various crimes"
and yeah who is gonna charge them ???? US have (arguably) strongest military on earth, who can put justice to them if not themselves ???? and themselves I mean US Gov. which is would never happen since every administration have "blood" in some form and another
> and yeah who is gonna charge them ???? US have (arguably) strongest military on earth, who can put justice to them if not themselves ????
It must be us. It must be the American people.
This is (one of) the deepest moral failings of our voting public that we haven’t demanded it of our leadership.
You’re right that our leadership won’t do it unless the people absolutely demand it.
And… well, we haven’t demanded it.
So, the failure to bring them to justice belongs to me, and to every other American citizen that is eligible to cast a ballot.
> since every administration have "blood" in some form and another
Trump 45 could have come on board with a clean slate. Hell, Trump 47 started out without too much war-crimey cruft from his first term.
Dude went on a witch hunt and forgot to bring his pitchfork.
The problem is that nearly everyone in the US national security establishment believes that the US should be involved in lots of wars. You may recall how little sympathy Biden got for pulling out of Afghanistan. I genuinely don’t think you could assemble Washington staff with the foreign policy expertise a president requires without ending up with a majority who support bombing Maduro.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan may have occurred under Biden, but it was Trump who made the decision to pull out. The only change Biden made was delaying our withdraw by a couple of months.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Taliban_...
Libya was a UN Security Council resolution, doesn't get any more legit than that.
To be fair that applies to Maduro to if you count crimes against humanity in general. Certainly applied to Sadam.
So now the question is how to do you capture this leadership without foreign intervention while they are still in power?
Talk is nice... but there is no real mechanism to impose what you are proposing besides this.
You do it as part of an international order, i.e. an impartial UN. Though obviously we don't have that yet.
The only 'leaders' that end up in the Hague and convicted are those forcibly captured via military action. And those 'orders' declared by the UN can, and be vetoed by China, Russia, USA, UK, and France. Guess which two use their veto all the time?
And there are not that many indications that we are moving towards that direction or we can even ever have. I guess that sort of idealism might have existed in the late 40s immediately after the UN was established but it never had a chance.
External or internal (which seems rarely feasible unless the government is highly incompetent) regime change realistically is the only thing that worked.
That sort of idealism existed as late as 1962, but its leading proponent was cancelled in 1963: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46482997
Come to think of it, WJC signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but then GWB unsigned it in 2002, which, coincidentally or uncoincidentally, was followed by the first reports of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone... in 2003
Presumably also the ones who invaded Iraq and occupied Afghanistan, carried out extrajudicial executions, droned weddings, deposed Libya's leader and laid ruin to the country, trafficked arms and money to cartels in South America and ISIS / "JV team" terrorist groups to destroy the Levant Or was that "rules based order"?
I think you've been had with the whole "rules based order thing". You can keep winding the clock back and it's the same thing. Iraq 1, Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Somalia. When exactly would you say this alleged "rules based order" was great?
Seems like since they're vocally condemning the war criminals, they have neither "been had" nor are inconsistent in any way.
I don't think you followed the part where they said they believed in the rules based order and I questioned that in a bit of a sarcastic way. It was the entire point of my comment really. There is no "rules based order", the rules based order has always been whatever the wealthy and powerful can do to further enrich themselves and cement their power is the rules, and the order is that they remain on top.
If you think that is what you accomplished. To me, you simply pointed out exceptions to the rules-based order and in no way proved it is a hoax.
It's not a hoax, it's an empty platitude designed to fool people into thinking their side is in the right. Unfortunately many people are incapable of ever admitting they have been fooled.
Every war criminal should be arrested, and tried. I think they should also be hanged, but they generally don't do executions at the Hague is my understanding.
Yes, lots of the ruling class should be hanged for a lot of reasons, and they're not going to do it themselves at their Hague.
I think the notion of the comment about westerners is to highlight that as a common person you can believe in rules based order, or you are made to believe in that and live your life by that, however the leaders don't really care about it all that much. They are happy the masses are "ruled" and controlled, but as for their decisions - rules don't always apply.
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
For non-US countries the solution is to be more independent in terms of foreign policy and defence.
you assume war crimes, but which war crimes?
In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
> you assume war crimes, but which war crimes?
Hegseth allegedly double tapping survivors is almost certainly against the Geneva Conventions [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/us/hegseth-drug-boat-stri...
Once they declared it a terrorist organization (which is the problematic side of everything), they can claim these are unlawful combatants and do not have any of the protections of the Geneva convention, like any other war on terror assassination.
So I don't think double tapping is a war crime, any more than bombing a car with terrorists in the first place and that doesn't seem to be regarded internationally as a war crime. However, they could have done better to highlight Venezuela actual involvement with terrorism (which is real but not enough for this) rather than magically declare them terrorists just to not go through Congress
That "unlawful combatant" designation was invented by the US as an excuse and has always stood on shaky legal grounds even in the US. Other Western countries don't support this legal construction. That being said, the double-tapping was ordinary murder, not a war crime. Every bombing of those ships could have been avoided by boarding them and presenting those drugs as evidence, as the Coast Guard normally does. But that would only have worked if there had been any evidence to start with...
Western countries that had recently used that clause to assasinate terrorists are the US, UK and France. There is no reason to believe other european countries attacked by ISIS would not do the same if needed or if capable.
Regarding double tapping, that's exactly the modus operandi of assassinations, as the UAVs goal is not the car/ship but the people inside.
That said, the Venezuelan case is a huge overreach
Not a shred of evidence was ever provided that the crewmen of these boats were "terrorists." That alone makes these murders very different from other illegal extrajudicial killings, where this evidence is usually provided or readily available.
That's not to say that I would in any way support extrajudicial killings, in many cases the high civilian/bystander casualties have been completely unsupportable. I just wanted to point out the stark difference between "normal" extrajudicial killings and these murders.
If you need to look for loophole justifications to claim there was no war crime, there was probably a war crime.
Just like Obama did
https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol69/iss1/7/
https://archive.is/ruphc
War of aggression is itself a crime.
> you assume war crimes, but which war crimes?
There are some credible war crimes accusations (in fact, some pretty flagrant war crimes), but the most critical crime is actually not a war crime, but one precedent to their being a war at all, the crime of aggression.
but unfortunately starting a war is not a crime, unless if you are using "war crimes" as a metaphor for acts of war you deem unethical
Starting a war is generally what is known in modern international law as the crime of aggression (in the language of the Nuremberg Charter, this was, “crimes against peace”, the first listed category of crimes subject to the tribunal, above war crimes and crimes against humanity.)
Rudolph Hess, notably, was convicted and imprisoned for life solely for this crime.
Funny how declaring a war is a crime while shelling cities in another country is not.
This is a bit confused-if you send them to the Hague, they can’t be executed-because neither the ICC nor any ad hoc tribunals located in that city have the death penalty. As an abolitionist state, I doubt the Dutch government would ever consent to a capital trial taking place on their territory.
On the other hand, in an alternate reality, this could be preventing a North Korea style dictatorship. Or to flip it, had the USA stayed in South Korea and carried on fighting, it might have prevented North Korea and the Kims and saved literally millions of deaths of North Koreans at the hands of their own government.
What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
> Maduro rigged the last election in 2024 and denied them their democratic choice?
Thats probably true, but trump also tried to rig an election, so its not really up to him to unilaterally decide is it? Especially as hes bumchums with putin who shocker, rigs election, killed hundreds of thousands of his own people invading other countries.
> had the USA stayed in South Korea
Korea was a UN action, not US unilateral. but alos hugely costly in everyone's lives
The number of deaths due to the Kim dynasty is in the millions, including their kwanliso murder camps and man-made famine, and vastly outnumbers war casualties unfortunately.
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> Should that administration be brought before the Hague?
Yes.
Many right-leaning people continue to never understand that many left-leaning people have actual principles and do not treat politics as sportsball.
- against ISIL, againg al-Qaeda - UN Security Counsil resolution
All those are either against some terrorist organization or its multi-country sanctioned.
We get it, you love Trump and hate Obama.
Other than that, whats the reverence of your whataboutism?
Considering your post history it's clear exactly what you're doing, but I don't think it's as much of an ideological gotcha as you might think because the answer is yes. We can throw Trump and what remains of the Obama administration in jail; I don't really give a fuck. We can work our way down the list as far as you want and I'd give it the thumbs up if it means we can ensure future presidents and politicians think at least four times before doing something.
What exactly is my post history doing?
> What exactly is my post history doing?
You're trying to present criminality as a partisan affair. If you're for law and order, you should be for putting criminals in both parties in jail.
My post history?
>My post history?
I'd venture to guess that GP is referring to this[0]. Or are you just incredulous that your past comments are being used to inform current ones?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=EnPissant[1]
[1] Not making any value judgement as to the content as I haven't reviewed your post history.
I know what a post history is. Obviously I was not asking someone to link to my profile.
>Obviously I was not asking someone to link to my profile.
That's true. I misread your comment. My apologies.
Unfortunately, I can't delete my comment any more, but it should be (and deservedly so) pretty well grayed out by now.
Although I'm a bit confused since your profile as well as every other users' profile is linked by HN in each and every comment you (or I, or any other user) make.
If it's poor etiquette to "link to my profile," why does HN do that on every single comment?
Edit: Added context.
yeah
Well, 'western' 'rules based order' involves democratic elections and being in 166th place for government transparency isn't a good sign. Appointing your successor isn't exactly democratic, in fact it's very much the sign of most countries that end in dictatorship:
"Chavez was elected to a third term in October 2012. However, he was never sworn in due to medical complications; he died in March 2013.[95] Nicolás Maduro was picked by Chavez as his successor, appointing him vice president in 2013."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela#Bolivarian_governmen...
Some certainly will, but not many I think. There are very few westerners outside of the US, who want to have anything to do with what the US are doing now.
Going back 7 months: Germany’s Merz says Israel is doing the ‘dirty work for all of us’ by countering Iran
In this case probably attitude is probably similar
matched by the hegsdeth signal chat that the US bombed the houthis on europe's behalf
i saw on cnn site list of reactions from europe. it looks like at most they are slightly annoyed but probably cheering on the background.
> all those westerners who, not so long ago, were talking about "rules based order" pretend nothing is happening or to justify it
MAGA is a rejection of the international rules-based order. Trump joins Putin and Xi in explicitly rejecting it. To the extent anyone in America is calling for a return to that order, they're doing it while criticising Trump.
The UK, for example, stopped intelligence sharing in the Caribbean so as to not be party to war crimes.
Adding: UK just come out saying they are not involved at all https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4qgvwxp08o
This feels so foreign: since Suez the UK government has been backing the US and giving them the fig leaf of international legitimacy in their actions.
They have the same respect for domestic laws as they do for international ones
MAGA at its core is a rejection of the lower classes having wealth.
If the last 2 years of Gaza genocide didn't do that, I'm n not sure why this would. They'll spend the first 20 minutes talking about how bad Maduro is and the next 5 minutes saying this is "misguided" and didn't go through the proper channels.
Rules based order has always only applied to small and medium countries. The UN Security Council does whatever the hell they want
It's unreal.
I don't think Trump ever cared about rules based order.
His defenders kept, and keep, using it as an excuse.
> His defenders kept, and keep, using it as an excuse
Genuine request for a source here.
Seconded. I don't recall hearing anyone talk about "the rules based order" until a couple of years ago.
When Trump talks about rules, laws, and order it’s in the “L'État, c'est moi” (the state is me) sense. I.e. following the law means following his whims.
https://time.com/5846321/nixon-trump-law-and-order-history/
(They said law and order, because they couldn't say anti black)
> (They said law and order, because they couldn't say anti black)
Law and order != rules-based international order.
Never. Trump wants to be a dictator, he loves Putin, he wants power and any "rules" that control him are antithetical to his entire political program and to his political party.
Anybody who wants a rules based order is extremely anti-Trump, just as they are anti-Putin.
that's what you get for having conversations with fascists
"rules based order" means putting people with dark skin in handcuffs on TV
No idea what you're going on about. Those in the West who stand for a rules-based international order certainly didn't ask for this war, and Trump, who did start this war, never gave a shit about rules or norms, international or otherwise.
Trump hardly is a representative for "westerners", actually the majority of them think he's a lawless looney. No one outside of his administration or party is justifying his actions.
Your comment is just bigotry.
Rapist presidents have no authority to defend 'rules based order'. Were you also ok with him defending 'rules based order' by arming Israel as they committed genocide? Or when he committed war crimes by blowing up the boats over the last few months?
after Iran and now venezuela
Iran, I totally understand that if they want to acquire nuclear weapon but Venezuela ????
what are they want to do in Venezuela ????? Oil ??
Oil.
We also have a crusade in Nigeria next on the docket for project 2026.
Actually Trump has stated very clearly that Venezuela has "stolen American oil which resides in Venezuela".
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This is illegal, immoral and not supported by the vast majority of the country. Every us citizen and every elected official needs to act, now, to stop this.
I'd avoid speaking in absolute terms, especially when you're wrong.
At this very moment I am likely a lot of things, but at the top of the list is mad. Very, very mad. I don't have words for this anymore or the patience to debate the intricacies of the broken system that has gotten us here. I am just viscerally, exceptionally, mad. Something will change.
A hostile dictator that caused lots of suffering to his people was removed from power. I don't think mad is the right sentiment but to each his own.
Oof - imagine if the rest of the world decided to abduct the US president using the same argument - and oh yeah, Americans better be grateful.
To be analogous, hundreds of US civilians would be murdered leading up to the events and the US itself would be bombed to aid the abduction.
Don't threaten me with a good time.
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Not supported by the people of the USA or the people of Venezuela?
The majority of the country voted for this. Don’t let them off the hook so easily.
Technically ~49.8% of voters, ~31.6% of eligible voters, or ~22.7% of the US population. Or at least those were the numbers when I looked it up 10 months ago.
> not supported by the vast majority of the country
Votes suggest otherwise.
We both know this is an imperfect statement without getting into a lecture about representative democracy or voting modalities.
Americans have been all for this the last couple of rounds as well.
This is muddying with jargon. You're insisting on nuance where there is none: Trump won emphatically, and the campaign couldn't have been clearer about what MAGA intended to do in power.
The combined margin in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania (which could combine to flip the election) was about 250,000 votes. That's not all that emphatic.
Nope, I will not get myself dragged into this mud, except maybe to say that by the numbers, "not voting" won.
As I recall, Trump specifically campaign on the promise of no more wars.
Trump won the electoral vote [edit: and the popular vote]
That’s the one that governs, but in 2024 he also won the popular vote.
I guess we'll forever wonder how much of the lack of turnout was due to backing the wrong party outside a swing state.
The polls[0] on the war do not necessarily fall along party lines
[0]: https://usapolling.substack.com/p/america-marches-into-anoth...
> 60% of Americans oppose sending US troops into Venezuela to remove Maduro from power. Support is heavily concentrated among Republicans, with 58% in favor, compared to just 21% of independents and 14% of Democrats.
But they do.
So there we see that the vast majority of the country opposes this war.
60% is far from vast and the party in power is all for it.
60% represents a considerably greater margin than any presidential election in recent memory
Now that Trump has reported that Maduro was removed from power, it will be interesting to run this poll again and see the support given the success of the operation.
He promised his voters no new wars. So your statement is completely wrong.
Perhaps it is just a Special Military Operation?
He asked why he can't use nukes in 2016. Trump is pro raw power, pro war, always was, always will be. "We didn't vote for this" - all Germans 1945. SPOILER ALERT: They did, it was all in "Mein Kampf".
I hate it when everyone says "Nazi Germany" instead of just "Germany".
The majority of the country voted for this.
Trump won the electoral vote.
Trump asked why the US can't nuke other countries when it has so many nukes. Trump loves war ("department of war") loves bombing other countries - always has. That he is so eager to use nukes should frighten everyone.
I agree with the rest of your point but I dont think its factual to say the majority of the country voted for trump. 77m/343m or ~20% of the country voted for trump, though I'm sure this is what you meant to say.
1. The majority of voters voted for Trump 2. People who don't vote are like fine with whoever wins like "What pizza? I'm fine with every pizza you bring"
Yes, 5 year olds didn't vote for Trump.
False. Comment demonstrates ignorance of the electoral college and disregard for fact. Even among eligible voters who did vote, Trump got less than 50% of votes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
You don't need > 50% of the votes to make a majority when you're pool is more than 2, which it was. Weird thing to hang your hat on.
Majority means > 50%. Perhaps you meant plurality.
Regardless, US presidential elections do not depend on getting a majority or even a plurality of popular votes, but rather on a majority of electoral votes. And Trump did not get a majority of popular votes as claimed.
This being HN, the fact-check seemed appropriate and I stand by it.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/majority
Of the definitions, seems like the third is correct for this context:
3 : the group or political party having the greater number of votes (as in a legislature)
>And Trump did not get a majority of popular votes as claimed.
I would think that he did.
Trump won less than 50% of the popular vote.
Especially in the US, this is a strawman. There is simply not enough granularity of choice that you can make voters accountable for every action Trump does.
Trump was wildly transparent about what kind of person he is. In this case, you can and should.
Guy: "Why do we have nukes if we don't use them?"
Same Guy: "If Europe doesn't buy more weapons from us, Russia should invade Europe, torture, plunder and kill people and do their worst."
People: "I guess I vote for that guy!"
Guy randomly bombs Iran, Yemen, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq, Somalia and Syria - people "Huh? I didn't vote for this".
The US only has two parties and decisions are decoupled from the wishes of the people.
It is already a stretch to call it a democracy - which is required to insist on democratic reasoning.
The US only has two parties because people only want two parties. The "our team vs. other team" is so ingrained in US all thinking, people can't stop. Football is not played with three teams. The election system doesn't help, but there is nothing in the constitution that says "Only two parties".
It’s because of first past the post voting system.
The polling indicates that the US is desperate for an alternative for something other than the two incumbent parties. They're wildly unpopular and there actually seems to be a political consensus that the US is sliding into ruin which reflects badly on the mainstream policy consensus the majors have been pushing over last few decades.
Just a post ago you identified that Mr. "Why do we have nukes if we don't use them?" was the best available option. That doesn't mean he's a good option, it means there were two choices and the other one was generally seen as the same or worse than Trump. Which given all the stuff that got thrown at Trump is an impressive level of failure.
The two party nature is a part of it - historically it might have worked. I currently it seems like oligarchic structures are what's ruining the democracy.
Regardless, If allowed intellectual hoolahop, then most systems of governance can be argued to be democratic.
I believe the problem with democracy is that it's affected by various problems analogous to the ones of markets, but often amplified.
In this case, to me, it really seems a matter of extreme information asymmetry as you'd never see in a regular market.
Does he actually mean those things, or is that some sort of joke? How do you even know? BTW, he didn't actually use Nukes, and I don't believe he will. On the other hand, he said he wanted to end wars and sounded like he was against starting new ones.
I've seen people regretting voting for Trump because of tariffs, even though they supported tariffs in the first place. They had no idea that Trump's "tariff" would mean some blanket tariffs at those rates. They thought it was some small tariffs on "key industries".
A further confirmation of the information asymmetry is that after a year, support for Trump is far below what would be needed to elect him.
I'm not sure what the solution is.
> The majority of the country
He did not win the popular vote.
He won the popular vote, but not a majority of it.
Trump won the popular vote. Those who didn't vote, were "Nah can't be bothered, I'm fine with whoever wins"
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Rules based order.
The other takeaway: if you have oil, and no nukes, in due course, the US will come to steal it.
What kind of visa Mr. Maduro was using when he entered the US?
I'm guessing it must be very good since, let's just say he kinda fits the profile which President Trump might describe as "worst of the worst", and yet the US Customs still just letting that guy walk right in.
But anyhow I hope Mr. Maduro don't illegally overstay because if ICE found out about it, there's a chance they'll deport Mr. Maduro to Venezuela.
US declares war on Venezuela without Congress. The republicans have really destroyed the constitution.
It can’t be fun running HN right now. Sorry, dang et al.
It’s like you’re the owners of a particularly popular pub that’s suddenly filled up with Johns, Jameses, Evas, and Annes, all loudly making their thoughts known while ordering a nice normal Western drink at the bar.
Vodkas, baijius, and sojus all round!
(To be fair, there are probably some Coors Lite and Stella drinkers here too.)
What did y’all think María Machado won the Nobel for over Trump? Does it even matter or is orange man bad all you care about anymore? HN was over the moon to see her win just a few months ago.
Summary: Venezuela just lost its oil.
I honestly have little sympathy, and not because Maduro is a dictator or whatever label the US has given him. It's because he spent his country's resources on useless, incompetent staff that fell apart before any conflict even began. Say what you want about Iran, but at least they maintain a solid defensive posture.
Any country that doesn't invest in its own tech stack gets what it deserves. This is information superiority in action; made possible by the deep proliferation of American technology. The US is now leveraging information warfare for what used to require physical force. The difference is stark. We've seen it with the Hezbollah pager attacks, high-profile targeting in Iran, and now this.
Natural selection in progress.
How much equity in chevron will the federal gov get for this? 20% seems fair.
Will BP want “their” fields back?
The fed gov gets nothing.
Trump personally gets the 20%
I understand the point that some dictators are so bad he damages the whole region. The world invented the procedure to resolve it through the UN and the international institutions. Yet one superpower decides to do it itself because no one can stop it. I think that makes world more chaotic, it is the opposite of restoration of the order ax it was declared.
When is the US military going to start going after all those Venezuelan fentanyl labs?
Does Americans really believe a chief of a big country is state is a drug smuggler?
The question is irrelevant as the US just pardoned a major Honduran drug smuggler head of state, not to mention the well documented US involvement in the foreign drug trade (e.g., Afghanistan).
> Does Americans really believe a chief of a big country is state is a drug smuggler?
Manuel Noriega
Shit, we did this on the anniversary.
Noriega was the American supported dictator of a very small country.
Dang - is there a way to view all the comments on a story in a single page?
https://x.com/Kasparov63/status/2007435764678705347
I don't like our dictator, but I am glad our dictator took out this other dictator (for personal reasons) who was working with other dictators (some of which our dictator supports) because it might mean that we have less dictators even if it comes with the risk of severe instability.
Ok, thanks Garry.
I can understand this position and have always admired Kasparov's principled ideology, but I think this is too narrow of a look. More things could've been done to peacefully attempt to oust Maduro with the cooperation of other countries.
Let him cook. He's playing 2D chess.
Name the things
They're American aircraft. It sure seems like after repeatedly threatening to invade Venezuela, Trump is now invading Venezuela. For what though?
Same reason USA invades anything.
The largest oil reserves in the world are in Venezuela
last unredacted copy of epstein files /s
Maduro has apparently been indicted in New York on various drug trafficking conspiracy charges and gun charges[0].
Seeing how various other cases have went (James Comey, Letitia James) in this administration run by loyalists, what are the chances that he's acquitted due to prosecutorial incompetence?
0: https://xcancel.com/AGPamBondi/status/2007428087143686611
I grow tired of the might makes right world we inhabit again. If you are not a citizen of a hegemon, or their allies, all the best envisioning a stable environment to thrive for your children when you know that the price of sovereignty and nationalised natural resources is a US invasion.
I think something like The Hague is the moderate position with this administration.
There's a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel, disallowing them access to things like Microsoft software and unbanking them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14203
> a definite reason that the Trump regime has sanctioned ICC personnel
Yeah. Pettiness. The ICC doesn't have jurisdiction in the United States. We aren't a signatory to the Rome Statute. (Most of the world's population doesn't live under its jurisdiction.)
There is no way the former allies of the US are going to normalise relations with them before they fix this though. The fallout for this is going to be a lot larger than I think you suspect.
> no way the former allies of the US are going to normalise relations with them before they fix this though
I think you genuinely hold this take and it's admirable. I'm not seeing any indication (a) our militarised allies are behaving particularly differently or (b) they're concerned about us bombing stuff in the Western Hemisphere. (Versus in their backyards, creating refugee crises.)
> fallout for this is going to be a lot larger than I think you suspect
Maybe. Hopefully. I doubt it. Russia, China, Israel, France and the UK are doing fine.
Name a government in the OECD that’s fundamentally opposed to this intervention
Most European governments have already, in their own (weak) way expressed that this intervention isn't legitimate according to international law.
Which international law? Where's the book of international law?
Seriously? There you go:
https://legal.un.org/avl/studymaterials/handbook/english/boo...
That's just book one, BTW.
And if you violate those laws, what happens?
Denmark? They already condemned it, and are also repeatedly threatened by the schoolyard bullies
Translation: "Name a Zionist-holocaust-of-babies-supporting-pedophile-rapist-infested-government in the OECD that’s fundamentally opposed to this intervention"
Great moral measuring stick...
Venezuela is in process of leaving ICC and USA is not party to ICC.
This administration is just a continuation of the last administration. Same policies on anything important. But it is possible you missed the Gaza Genocide?
Don't know why, this link gives me:
Access Denied
Our apologies, the content you requested cannot be accessed.
Works well, maybe it was a small hiccup?
No surprise Pam Bondi can just use her Grok subscription to make an incitement appear out of thin air, but what jury is going to be fair and unbiased here? How are American citizens Maduro’s peers? How could a judge have jurisdiction over him?
It is not about oil but... blue gold[1]
[1] https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11372/
It's explicitly about oil, right?
Wikipedia [1]:
> Andrew McCabe quotes Trump as saying of Venezuela "That’s the country we should be going to war with, they have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”
> In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."
PBS [2]:
> "We want it back," he added. "They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_United_States_invasio...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-we-want-it-back-...
Venezuelan oil is kind of crappy. I would say the two biggest reasons for this are 1. Trump wanting migrants from Venezuela to stop and 2. Ending Venezuelan support for Cuba. Oil is definitely one of the reasons though.
Venezuelan oil is very heavy, but the US oil industry is literally designed to process this type. The US exports their sweet crude elsewhere because they can't process it.
How much of that do you think is idle?
It is heavy crude but it's what our refineries are set up to use. There was a very informative news report on this recently posted to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk
Apparently shale oil mostly comes out as light, so our own production doesn't feed our refineries and we've increasingly taken to importing heavy crude.
Where are you people getting your information that the USA somehow has idle heavy oil processing despite record production levels?
I literally linked my source. It's less than 7 minutes long. It's not that refineries are idle, it's that we have to import the heavy crude to keep them producing. Heavy crude went from 12% of imports to 70% as of 2025. The most relevant graphs, if you really can't stomach 7 minutes of video, are shown from 3:30 - 4:30ish in the video. And again, record production levels of shale oil is producing LIGHT crude. The information you're seeking has already been provided to you.
Hey Abigail, just following up. Were you able to find the information you needed? Where'd ya go?
Maybe worth mentioning I posted this before seeing the news about Maduro being captured. No idea whether/how that might change the calculus.
Yup it's the oil.
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/03/g-s1-104346/trump-venezuela-m...
Wtf
Captured? To do what with?
To remove, to prevent martyrdom in death, to force a change of government that sells them better oil. Same thing the US always does.
Tune in at the livestream 11am Mar-a-lago time :^)
My guess: he will be imprisoned in a 3rd country, he can't be allowed to move back to Venezuela
The other day there were people here seriously arguing that China was more interventionist than the US.
The latest US mass theft and aggression is far from surprising to anyone that studied south American history. Trump just drops the humanitarian pretexts, but the act itself is exactly in line with how US treats South America.
Can china use that excuse to do the same thing to Myanmar?
Brazil, Iran and China should be prepared for the worst now
Wondering what and who is going to fill the power vacuum there.
Huh. I thought Greenland was going to be the 51st state.
That's Israel
looking through the comments one thing I find strange that no one has picked up on is that maduro had met the chinese hours before being captured. To me I think the initial plan was to just let the economy tank by blockading the economy, chinese stepped into help and trump goes nuclear and kidnaps the guy. still pretty shocking that they wont hand over power to the party who won the election and plan on setting up a puppet state and steal the oil, does seem USA has become some despot country albeit with a large army.
I don't think people didn't "pick up" on it, I just don't think anyone thinks it matters. There is no smoke-and-mirrors back-room strategizing here. It looked cool on Fox News. Then the president went onto Fox News and talked about how cool it looked on Fox News. The text is text. The subtext is nonexistent.
The Guardian reports that Maduro has been charged with: "narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States."
Good to know that possession of machine guns is finally being made illegal by the US!
Marco Rubio needed this for his presidential run in 2028. Does this mean that Putin will look the other way for Maduro as long as Trump looks the other way when Putin captures or kills Zelenskyy? Have they officially agreed to divide the world as spheres of influence?
That's one way to bring down energy inflation...
So they are taking the oil reserves, that's why they came, oh the hypocrisy is unbearable, the democratic powerhouse terrorising a weak country the same way for what they condemned Russia for.
Gotta get those gasoline prices down before the midterms.
There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?
The congress people who are military veterans recently put out a public service announcement reminding those in the military that they must refuse illegal orders, and Trump called that reminder of the law "treasonous" and said the veterans should be executed for reminding people of the law.
There should be military tribunals for all involved here to ensure that law and order is maintained. The US is losing its constitution, its rule of law. There is not country if we have two different sets of laws, one for normal people but zero laws for those following rhe president's wishes. That's a monarchy.
No American, but the War Powers Resolution seems to allow for these kind of actions? That doesn’t make them any better but I was wondering the same thing
> the War Powers Resolution seems to allow for these kind of actions?
Which one?
> Which one?
There is exactly one law (Public Law 93-148, originating in the 93rd Congress as H.J.Res. 542, and passed over Presidential veto on November 7, 1973) which has as its official title the “War Powers Resolution”. Since it’s passage, it is also frequently referred to by a less-official name as the “War Powers Act” to emphasize that it has completed the process to become an official Act of Congress. The reference, especially to the exact official name, is not at all ambiguous.
> There has been no congressional declaration of war, no AUMF, no nothing, right?
No. From an international-law perspective, Trump is stepping into the footprints left by Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, Khamenei and his own predecessors in D.C.
From a domestic-law perspective, this is un-Constitutional.
He just called it a "war" on TV, and only Congress can declare war.
1. This distracts from the Epstein files.
2. President for peace he never has (silly FIFA award aside).
3. They’re more interested in oil than any other stated goals.
4. This is straight out of the republican playbook of tanking the economy and using a war to distract from it and prop up defense contractors.
5. US regime changes are always a disaster.
Crazy how far down I had to scroll to see this. Yeah, the timing of it is an Epstein thing. He knows he's gonna get impeached again and files will be released in 2026 when he loses midterms, and needs to concoct an emergency.
Here's how to know if I'm right -- since this isn't high enough drama, he'll make it amp up by a factor of 1-5 with false-flag attacks on America or something else to try to create a real sense of emergency in the next year.
Just checked on r/conservative what the diehard MAGA fans are saying and they seem to be very happy that Trump is attacking the Cartels and Chinese influence in their backyard. That seems to be the current narrative among MAGA right now.
MAGA is quite literally a cult of personality, so that's hardly surprising.
> they seem to be very happy that Trump is attacking the Cartels and Chinese influence in their backyard
If Trump had just globalised the seizure of shadow tankers, he could have dealt a serious blow to Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
And bring oil prices up 2x-3x to never get re-elected.
Trump's post: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...
As a German I see a lot of history repeating.
The U.S. did perform a regime change in Germany too, not too long ago.
Who might be the first European head of state or similar they lift out? Ursula von der Leyen? :-D Air defenses in the EU does not seem to be in the best shape, the way Russian drones seem to operate without trouble.
We can only hope.
Fingers crossed
What a disgrace
arabs and iran you should now team up and do something about your collective security, because US is now openly started kidnaping the future of countries. team up with pakistan and ensure it's economic stability and make some NATO like agreement and get atleas 10 Nukes each otherwise you will also see the same day as maduro. i beleave you have very little time.
Trust in the US is officially broken
If Maduro had paid the going rate to the right lobbyists it wouldn't have come to this.
He should have learned from the example of the ex Honduran president who was recently pardoned by Trump.
So the US can just fly into a country and kidnap it's president and his wife at will now? Just because Donald Trump feels like it. And most Americans will somehow praise and love it.
What the hell? I hate getting too political because it ends up so toxic and divisive, but with what logic is this not insane?
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It’s so simple to understand. There are tens of dictatorships around. Why this one? Shit is fucked more a lot more in Congo. Why is the US not interested? This is not about human rights. This is about oil.
Venezuela's major crime is having natural and human resources that it won't allow multinational corporations to exploit.
Venezuela has had plenty of recent multinational support in recent years from China National Petroleum, Anhui Guangda Mining, Rosneft (Russia), and Iran.
Trump's handlers have proven the USA military don't care about the Constitution. They're happy to enforce the dictators will even though they know it to be unlawful. Seems like that is a significant movement that opens the door for Trump to be even more evil. They've rallied to the sex offender, they probably have to follow through now to avoid joining him and his cohort in jail.
The Constitution isn't that long - state the violations here plainly for all of us to see and critique.
Yup. Venezuelans voted for the Bolivaran Revolution. This is it. We shouldn’t waste our time with it. Especially because every time we topple a regime like this it creates a refugee crisis and a huge influx of refugees to the U.S.
The US already has a refugee crisis because of Maduro's leadership, that refugee crisis is one of the reasons for this.
The US already had a huge influx of Venezualan refugees because of the Maduro regime.
I didn't know Maduro was responsible for protecting the US border. Perhaps he should be charged with "dereliction of duty"? To go along with his other trumped up charges (ha.. ha..) such as "possession of machine guns and other destructive devices".
There might be more than one reason for an ongoing crisis, and different takes on who’s responsible. However Maduro is responsible of huge number of refugees fleeing Venezuela, and we (and some other countries around) have some obligations to help asylum seekers.
Except we didn’t and there’s already an ongoing refugee crisis.
[0] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_refugee_crisis
Does it matter to you that they then voted against it, probably more than once?
What is the “it” they voted against? Did the reject the ideology? Or are they just unhappy with the current dictator but will vote for the next one that comes along?
The refugee crisis was already ongoing precisely due to the dire situation of Venezuela. They stole the 2024 election as well, the opposition won BIG.
...except there already is a refugee crisis caused be the regime that is supposed to be toppled, 20% of Venezuelans have left the country.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like a new kind of crime committed by the US? We've been involved in a lot of regime change operations but I can't think of one where we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state and bring them to the US. I guess Saddam Hussein but that was after we caused the collapse?
Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
> I can't think of one where we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state and bring them to the US.
I believe Noriega was captured when the US invaded Panama in 1989. But yeah, this is wild (though maybe not unprecedented).
The US has historically captured and executed heads of states in wars, including Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 2006 (executed by the US-administered Iraqi government), and Imperial Japan's Tojo in 1948.
The US extradited, convicted, and imprisoned Honduras' Juan Orlando Hernández, for drug trafficking crimes (though Trump, incongruously, pardoned him in 2025).
Another notable example, the UK arrested Chile's Pinochet in 1998 on a Spanish arrest warrant claiming universal jurisdiction, though no conviction followed from that.
edit: And US Marines captured Grenada's Hudson Austin in 1983, turning him over to Grenada's new government who sentenced him to death, commuted to prison.
edit²: Two other heads of state imprisoned in the US were Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala (extradited to and convicted in US courts in 2014), and Pavlo Lazarenko of Ukraine (fled willingly to the US, convicted in 2006).
The US has been in a lot of wars/conflicts (even if they were not officially declared) since WWII. Heads of state have not typically been captured. It’s not unprecedented but also not the norm.
It's almost like it's a Republican-Party thing.
It has been presented as a law enforcement action to bring a wanted criminal to justice. What do you mean by “televised sham trial”? Are you suggesting the US manufactured evidence?
Have you considered this is part of a negotiated exit?
It's an illegal invasion and kidnapping of another head of state. Nothing else.
Nobody believes this bullshit about drugs. Just like nobody believed it when they committed war crimes by blowing up innocent guys fishing
It looks that way, yeah. I think it’s too soon to know. It’s possible Maduro wanted out and this was part of a negotiation.
Noriega in Panama, Milosevic in Kosovo/Serbia... it's been patterned. Question is... who's going to do anything about it?
> we just straight up kidnap a foreign head of state
Head of state according to whom?
>Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
Would they really need a sham trial?
USA, the world's bullying.
Maduro was a monstrous dictator who was guaranteed to kill more people than this US strike did. And there is an opposition party which has been suppressed by Maduro, but is otherwise ready to go. There is much hope to be had for this beautiful country and its people now.
Hopefully this act will also have a chilling effect on other vile left wing dictators like those in North Korea and Cuba
Very disappointing to see some of the arguments being put forth in favour of this blatant aggression. After reading through quite a few comments I'm left with the impression that very many people seem to hold some pretty dubious opinions:
1. That previous justifications in the lead up to this event are now irrelevant or to be ignored or forgotten about ('narco-terrorism', 'it's our oil', 'sanctions busting', etc).
- These were all weak to begin with (but are still relevant because the truth is in there and stated almost explicitly - i.e. 'US interests').
2. That this attack on Venezuelan sovereignty was done for moral reasons ('bad regime').
- Even accepting that the government of Venezuela is a 'bad regime', this is insufficient - there are many arguably much worse governments in the world.
3. That might is right.
- Correct in some sense but morally bereft.
All in all a lot of post-facto nonsense on display.
I'm frankly appalled at the self-serving moral blindness on display here. I refuse to believe that people are arguing in good faith here. Disappointing to see from the otherwise thoughtful commenters on this site.
To anyone making the above arguments, let me ask you - what do you think of the saying "do unto others as you would have done unto you"?
It brings joy to my heart every time democracy is brought to an oil rich country, no matter what the price is.
Yeah, sure.
It is called "Mission Accomplished"[1], right?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
Venezuelan president Maduro captured and flown out of country following ‘large scale’ US attack, Trump says – live
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
"Trump claims Maduro 'captured and flown out of the country' US president Donald Trump claims that the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife have been “captured and flown out of the country”.
In a Truth Social post shared only moments ago, Trump wrote:
The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow. There will be a News Conference today at 11 A.M., at Mar-a-Lago. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.
The Guardian has been unable to independently verify this report."
Combat footage is coming out by the minute. Watching it, I don't understand how Americans can be so fundamentally evil. Watching helicopters gun people on the ground down. What makes you so sick in the head that you would do this? How could you obey these orders and feel nothing as you slaughter innocent people? There isn't even any possible pretext to this invasion. They know what they're doing and still choose to do it. It's utterly incomprehensible.
Genuinely, I think ~30% of Americans just like it when other people suffer. This might also be true of people in general
Yep. It's the illiberal authoritarians. The people who need hierarchy, for domination and submission. This is why equality is an scary abomination to them.
All societies have such people. But civil societies prevent them from gaining significant power. Failing that, it's going to be expensive.
This society elected a known abuser. Of course this society will be abused. But also because of this society's global power, the world will also be abused.
I'd like to see a study or more information that backs up this ~30% statement - That is alarming!
There was a large scale self-reported study in November of 2024. It was actually way over 30%, if you ignore non-respondents.
Let's see it - Sounds like it would be easy to find?
The hostility toward your comment proves the point: Americans willl only understand when their own cities suffer the same fate
Ironically, that prospect is approaching with each passing year
I regret to inform you that this is not how the cycle of violence works. As the US itself has repeatedly found, inflicting violence on people makes them more supportive of violence, both because you’ve taught them it’s a legitimate tool and because many of them want revenge on you.
I didn't mean violence, i specifically said "fate"
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2013/06/13/us-whites-fa...
US states literally have been built on the motto "come and take it." Americans have been the most common foreign volunteers to die in places like Ukraine and Syria.
Invading America would be like invading Afghanistan. If you wrestle a pig, expect they might even enjoy it. And yes I have fought in a civil war, I know what it's like, even without the advantage of American weapon, so no need to go down the road of me not understanding the implications. It would only embolden us, we wouldn't learn the lesson you're thinking.
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Oil's a hell of a drug
Chinese envoy was meeting Maduro just hours ago in Miraflores. Wonder how that factors into the situation
If one believes we are moving towards major conflict with China this sort of operation is justifiable given Maduro's closeness to the CCP.
It is very unlikely this will be met with anything like a coordinated condemnation from the Europeans given Maduro's closeness to Russia. Hence giving Trump some degree of international political cover for the move.
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I think it will be regarded as a poor move long term to so boldly put the us stamp on what will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or two
I'm admittedly somewhat ignorant of all the details but I don't see what the real benefit is
my only guess is that it's to disincentivize the Russians and Chinese from being more involved in South America but it feels like it could do the opposite and act as an annoying wedge
> will undoubtedly become a chaotic situation over the next decade or two
It will be a small miracle if it doesn't spark a refugee crisis.
Venezuela already was a refugee crisis ~5 years ago, until they liberalized the economy slightly some years ago. Not sure what the current status is.
I could foresee
* some US-backed pro-business president coming to power * GDP going up * still no completely liberal democracy but anyway better than Maduro * less emigration or maybe people start coming back
The main casualty is the notion that the US follows rules instead of doing whatever it wants. I'm not sure if I'd say democracy is a casualty as well, because (AFAIK with my non-leftist sources) Venezuela wasn't a real democracy.
Spark? Venezuela has already been undergoing a refuge crisis. That crisis is the biggest reason for this invasion, trump hates refugees.
Yes, I’m sure a US invasion will help the local populace finally understand that they should be friendly with Uncle Sam and his freedom loving ways rather than the Russians and Chinese who brought mostly shady investments as a way of building influence.
Drill baby drill.
I guess even the last former voter now understands that a certain orange man is a huge liar. So much for "I'm gonna get the peace nobel prize" by Invasion 2.0. Actually, it is not even an invasion right now - it is just a distraction from certain files. How much has not yet been revealed with regard to that network involving underage people?
What a publicity hound. Ratings plummeting? Nothing like a foreign war to pump the numbers.
Best it be a puny helpless country, so nobody (important) gets killed. Just some brown folk from South America, nobody cares about them.
Anything to serve the ego; absolutely no crime or moral outrage is off-limits. Long as it serves that endless pit that is ego.
Fantastic news. Hope Venezuelans are able to have their Democracy back.
Am I going to see Venezualan flags pop up all over European capitals like I did when Putin did the exact same thing in Ukraine that Trump just did? I had highly doubt it. I guess invading foreign countries is fine if it’s „our“ side doing it.
If you have the view that all military action is bad - you will remain as confused as you are right now.
A more mainstream view has a different opinion.
Trump is solidifying control over (North and South) American oil to ensure oil reserves in the event of a global war. China's first move would be to control middle eastern and russian oil - choking manufacture.
There is a war coming. A larger war.
Non-USA citizen here. What's going on?
I just woke up to this madness, and have heard nothing about it prior to today. Has this come as a surprise to everyone in the USA too, or were there murmurings leading up to it? What was the reason given? I'm presuming there was _something_, even if it was clearly nonsense?
It's not entirely unexpected - you must have missed the recent deployment of the US Navy in the region, which looked like a naval blockade. But this operation is certainly daring - far more impressive than simply blowing Maduro up with a drone strike, which I personally expected.
It's justified by portraying Maduro as a drug kingpin responsible for the fentanyl epidemic in the US. He is also blamed for some gang activity.
I figured it was coming because of Dear Leader's ramblings. TBH, I thought it was going to be the focus of the sudden address given on December 17. Instead we got amphetamine-fueled yelling about "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, THE ECONOMY IS REALLY GREAT" and something about a military bonus that was really just a way to rename and tax a pre-existing housing allowance.
Trump just said that Maduro and his wife have been captured and flown out of the country.
This will lead to a long drawn out guerilla war in the name of oil. Thousands or tens of thousands will die. And trump does. Not. Care. At. All. Neither their lives, or yours or mine, have any meaning to him and his cabinet. They simply do not care.
From the standpoint of international law, this is an unprovoked attack, it's a war crime and act of terror. Trump and United States of America can now be officially treated as a terrorists and terrorist state!
Didn't Trump just pardon a narco-terrorist head of state (Juan Hernandez, Honduras). Now we go to war for a different one.
Can Maduro just pay off Trump for a pardon, like Juan did?
Or is it really. Honduras doesn't have oil?
Why U.S. army takes orders from a mentally ill person
The whole thing is so weird; both sides are coy.
Venezuela is playing the usual card about America trying to seize oil; US playing usual card about narcotics. You can believe what you want, or buy into whatever mainstream narrative you want, I’m not here to judge, but I’ve seen these cards played out so many times in my lifetime.
Neither makes sense to me for this level of resistance and response from the US. I have a feeling this has to do far more with Iran, Russia, and China, than Venezuela/drugs.
For instance next-door, China is active around the Darien gap region, developing roads and highways. Allegedly this is for port infrastructure, but given Chinese history of low intensity conflicts and island building techniques in the South China sea, this could be a land version of that strategy.
I need to read up about Venezuelan and Iranian Russian connections and interactions. I think the most underrated piece of news is the seizure of tankers under embargo, with blowing up drug boats as the distraction.
One thing is for sure; even the most hard core right of uneasy to support Trump in a new war, and Trump has publicly lamented the expense (of all things) of war.
Myself: no thanks. No more wars please.
Fuck these imperialists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Not too much info out yet, but I'm guessing one of these happened:
A) Maduro negotiated some deal for himself and his family.
B) His whole military leadership sold him out.
(A) Makes sense if you assume that he had no other exit strategies. If he could have fled to Russia, he'd already done that. I'm thinking that Trump pressed hard on Putin not to take him. With no strong allies left, there's no exit for him. At best he'd be exposed to full-scale invasion by the US, civil war, or other internal power struggles.
(B) Makes sense if you assume that someone simply took the bait, and were flown out of Venezuela with the US operatives. But from a military perspective, it wouldn't be easy - any serious country has contingency plans, and there are many moving parts. Obviously one (or many) generals could provide these things in great detail, but there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of military personnel that will stick to their procedures once shit hits the fan.
From what I've seen, some airstrikes took out AA systems. And there's been reported some fighting back.
I don't know. (A) sounds a bit more likely to me. By any measure, the man was backed into a corner. I think his hail marry was for Putin to offer to save him. But that never happened...a big clue will be how Russia, and the Russian disinformation campaigns react to this.
It's a US military invasion. I hope that an unpopular invasion with zero justification results in some level of political consequences for Trump but sadly I remain skeptical
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Hell, the current administration doesn’t even see those north of the northern border as worth considering either.
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That account's history is... Erratic.
Abuse of power by a self-serving oligarchy, redux. “ Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny out of the most extreme form of liberty.” ~ Plato (The Republic)
Trump is acting exactly as an agent of Russia would. Pissing off allies, trying to break up the EU and NATO, creating a distraction war to cut aid to Ukraine.
<< America needs to be at war so that Trump can halt normal domestic process and procedure under war powers acts etc. This is the next step. >>
Good riddance! But there are other key figures that need to be captured.
regime change starts at home
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. The dead and imprisoned for it are evidence.
No doubt. In the US the phrase has a strong undertone of "we need to change the regime that's undertaking this latest foreign regime change".
Maduro arrested https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...
Considering the general incompetence of this administration, this level of success with such a surgical operation seems completely out of character.
Incredibly impressive operation, whether or not you agree with it. Although the ability to operate helos over Caracas with such impunity may very well suggest high-level collaborators in the local military.
The army is full of very competent people regardless of who's in charge for the last 4 years, it's not like they start from scratch at every new administration. And most of them just like to blow shit up regardless of the moral aspect of it, as we've seen in the past
I certainly don't doubt the competence of the US army, but the fact that they spent only minutes on active SEAD bombing raids to enable this operation suggests that it wasn't just cool tech or super competent SOF operators that truly enabled this operation.
We're talking about the top #1 military power VS one of the most corrupt country in the world, lead by a dude who has a sub 20% approval rating, and a tiny ass army equipped with last century russian surplus equipment which hasn't been in any hot conflict since the 60s...
Maduro is extremely unpopular so I don’t think it’s incredibly difficult for the CIA to recruit.
Yeah, probably not. I'd also imagine that the significant show of force by the US would have forced many in the military to assess their options, even if they might otherwise have supported Maduro.
> suggest high-level collaborators in the local military
This - almost guaranteed that this was a negotiated outcome/coup from the military.
Also it's telling i had to scroll halfway down the page to find the first non "trump therefore bad" comment. The cognitive dissonance of the posters vis a vis Machado is pretty astounding.
It's really a shame topics like this attract such lazy ideological struggle on HN. Reiterating Trump=bad over and over simply doesn't make for interesting conversation regardless of how true it may be.
Even on this particular story, there are so many interesting HN-worthy details to discuss. Instead we're stuck lazily debating whether this was right or wrong.
You can find higher-quality, much more aggressively moderated conversations on topics like this on r/CredibleDefense. However, even that subreddit struggles with the traffic from high-profile events like this.
If you wanna stay up to date on this one just refresh the Wikipedia page. They are on it like crazy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_strikes_in_...
I'd suggest twz, they'll have much better informed takes than wikipedia https://www.twz.com/news-features/explosions-ring-out-across...
So Trump is jalous because it did not have its peace Nobel and take it on Maduro. Shall we give it to a Russian political opponent next year ?
Rules-based global order, right?
I still care more about what’s on the Epstein files
When Russia invaded Ukraine it was imperialism, regardless of their "reasons".
When Trumpistan invades Venezuela it is also imperialism, regardless of its "reasons".
It seems that every 20 years the Americans forget the lessons from the wars 20 years ago.
I only hope a lot of Americans die, if that is the price to pay to avoid them to invading other countries and stop their imperialism.
This administration is lawless to an almost a comical degree. First murdering people with little more than the most obvious figleaf, now invading a country without Congressional approval. Clearly the US constitution is just a list of suggestions to Trump.
I guess it'll just be another count added when the Dems start impeachment proceedings on November 4th.
Thank God, Chavez turned the richest country in south america into the poorest and Maduro continued his legacy with the average person losing 17lbs in a year when the price of oil fell. Although I'm surprised Trump is getting involved in world affairs we're at least at a point where the situation can't get any worse. Hopefully Trump will end socialism and bring back democracy to Venezuela
> we're at least at a point where the situation can't get any worse.
That is incredibly optimistic and completely wrong. It can and probably will get worse. You just don’t create a power vacuum and hope for the best.
EU is just headless chicken. They will just blindly agree to whatever Trump says
So they got Maduro now they gonna commit genocide or why the hell keep bombing??
They have stopped bombing and they're not going to commit genocide. The US isn't Israel.
Looks like the bar is set very low in this day and age.
bush: theres uh, nuclear weapons.. we gotta stop him and free the country! also hes a jerk and i hate him
trump: drugs or something. but mainly we need the oil so if they won't give us the oil we'll just take the oil. who's gona stop us, canada? lol
It's the Epstein Distraction Action.
Wag the Dog.
This is just sad. We have a long history and lots of data to know this will be catastrophic for the Venezuela. Hope it doesn’t go that way but feels inevitable. The us is never expected to learn from its mistakes so nothing new there, with the administration desperate to distract from the Epstein files has decided war is the way.
It's funny how all the comments are discussing it from a "was Maduro good or bad" point of view.
This is an invasion for oil, nothing to do with drugs since they come from Mexico, and that propaganda is weak. And nothing to do with Maduro being a dictator or anything similar since each one of our politicians is objectively worse than him, I wish this was an exgeration, but when you look at the Epstein files, even the few unredacted things found there (and most of them are redacted) make it obvious that we are literally ruled by criminals.
Now you either look at it as it is, and accept that Santa isn't real, and that life is hard, and we are greedy, and we don't care about other people, and then you stop the moralizing when you do nothing about it, or you keep gobbling up the lie after lie, that Murica is the good guy, and everyone else is evil, and that all Murica's wars are moral and bringing freedom and liberating those third worlders.
TLDR: free your mind before you talk about freeing others (which is ironic because I'm doing the same thing, but I'm also writing this message for myself).
oil price down
Okay, that was smooth and effective. But now what? Let's hope not another Libya.
There was already an Israeli pundit on Fox News saying that Venezuela harbors Hamas and Hezbollah operatives. My assumption is that they are throwing that out there to garner support from Trump’s “anti-war unless it’s defending Israel” supporters.
Looks like Maduro and his wife were captured https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...
This is a crime. It is an unlawful act of aggression which may defacto trigger an international armed conflict. There will be paper thin justifications of course but those are merely to give loyalists talking points and a thread to grasp to in their mental gymnastics.
In normal parlance, this is an act of war.
Taiwan is doomed.
I suggest reading the few south american comments in this thread hidden by the usual whatever Trump does vitriol fro EU/US commenters.
r/venezuela is one placce to start. Very different tone there than the ill informed commenters here ( and I say that with detest for “that other site”)
Hopefully the Venezuelan people will have a fighting change to restore their country now.
Time will tell I suppose.
If by “restore their country” you mean “have their oil reserves taken by force without compensation”.
What's the desired strategic outcome here - to remove the incumbent president and his political party from power and replace it with one more favorable to US oil interests? And to do that without putting ground troops in to some Latin American Vietnam? Good luck with that.
Maria Machado? I thought independent observers mostly agreed she won the election?
It'll be the usual playbook: replace Maduro with a pet dictator. It won't go well for Venezuela and it's people, but since when did the USA give a damn about people?
Things can not get worse for Venezuelans than they were under maduro
Hyperbole - they most certainly can get worse
You know what's worse than a shitty economy under a dictator?
Your family dying in the rubble of a bombed house.
Personally I’d rather be buried in rubble than starve to death
It's not an either-or, lots more people starve during wars as well.
And yet droves and droves from south and Central America want to come here and live instead!
Also do these countries governments care for their own ppl? Seems like no as if they did ..they wouldn’t be corrupt 2nd to 3rd world countries & their citizens wouldn’t be fleeing to America in droves
You might want to look into the history of why South and Central America have been blighted by corruption and dictators - the USA has had a large hand in it.
Why are comments allowed on these posts? What is the point? What is ever gained? Conservatives question and deny. Liberals point out the multiple laws broken. People from the rest of the world tell those of in the USA that we have our head up our ass.
How are any of us better for this? How is this better than Facebook's engagement-bait?
Peace. Out.
International law does not exist.
Regardless of how retarded maduro was, "i felt like it" should not be justifiable reason to kidnap a president of a different country on their own turf.
Maybe i felt better about that if trump wasnt in bed with another dictator.
1. It's distraction on a grand scale from the Epstein Event Horizon, also on a grand scale.
2. Trump: (2018) We don't want to be the policemen of the world BY BRETT SAMUELS - 04/30/18 [0]
> President Trump on Monday said the U.S. should no longer serve as the “policemen of the world.”
> “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
> “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldn’t be the priority,” he said.
> Trump ran on the promise that he would extricate the U.S. from foreign wars.
[0] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/385521-trump-we-...
How on earth was this allowed?
Neither the republican nor democrat base wanted this. There wasn't even an attempt at justification, the drugs argument was a complete and utter joke. They could at least do a little false flag attack.
If voting does it solve it what does?
Trump will do anything for his oil friends.
Maduro was captured by Trump
Hernàndez was captured by Biden. Trump pardoned him because Biden bad.
This world is a shitshow. Honestly, I am GenX and always read of wars and tensions as historical artefacts (there were wars, but localized and far away from France).
Now I am seriously wondering if this is going to end well for us over here. I do not work that much about myself, I had an interesting life, but rather about my children whom I now start to regret. I did not expect to hand them a world like this one.
I know, global warming was there but I was 30 and was looking my close surroundings. My bad. This said, if I know what the world would be today I wrote reconsider having them.
If countries are able to just fly in and kidnap criminal presidents now will someone be coming for Trump? For the rape and various other crimes.
Trump ballon d'or 2026
"The oil must flow"
Imagine the terror felt by those in the capital as American warplanes flew overhead launching munitions.
Boy is trying to outdo both Regan and Dubya. He didn't even try to sell it to us like they did with Iraq.
Venezuelans, I'm sorry my shithole country is about to inflict a fascist puppet state on you. Nobody here gives enough of a shit despite all the chest-thumping and "MUH LIBERTY TREE". We'd rather have drum circles and ask for permission to dissent.
It's time for you Americans to wake up. You're supporting the wrong things!
National sovereignty is a fundamental principle of international law and cannot be selectively applied according to the interests of global powers. Donald Trump’s threats and aggressive rhetoric toward Venezuela undermine this principle by treating a nation’s self-determination as negotiable. Criticizing this stance does not mean endorsing the Venezuelan government, but acknowledging that sanctions, intimidation, and external pressure rarely affect political elites and instead harm ordinary people, deepening humanitarian crises.
Latin American history reveals a recurring pattern of foreign interference framed as the defense of democracy. From a moral standpoint, collective punishment and imposed solutions are indefensible. If such actions would be unacceptable when directed at the United States, they cannot be justified against Venezuela. A responsible international approach requires multilateral dialogue, international mediation, and genuine respect for the sovereignty of nations.
Forget it, man. Gringos just don't give a shit. You're preaching to the wind.
Do you know what will work? Money.
We need to increase our trade with China.
Latin America needs to stop depending on the U.S. and China is a golden opportunity.
Sometimes the wind is smarter than some of them.
Project "don't talk about Epstein" is well under way.
So, uh, anyone seeing any educated guesses as to what we're bombing?
It’s looking like very carefully selected military targets
until things go sideways, which they always do. We haven't won a war since WW2.
another country, without justification, again after we promised not to do that after the last dozen similar cases, duh.
and Trump said he want nobel peace prize, such a joke
Without justification?
idk, is "drug trafficking" enough justification to topple a country? I don't really think so. And the claim is rather spurious anyway...
Ignoring the results of an election seems like a reasonable justification to topple a specific leader (no country is being toppled here)
Next up: Greenland
The reaction on HN to what just happened in Venezuela is exhausting and revealing. People who have never lived under socialism, communism, dictatorship, or military rule speak with total confidence while dismissing those who have.
More than 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country, one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. They are celebrating. You are being critical. That alone should give pause.
Those condemning this action (and almost defending the oppressors) have never:
Latin America knows this story well. Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela have followed different paths with the same outcomes: repression, exile, fear, and destroyed civil society. Venezuela didn’t “fail suddenly.” It was dismantled over decades through nationalization, purges, censorship, and military collusion with organized crime.If you claim to care about migrants, human rights, or the oppressed, you cannot only care after people escape. You cannot oppose every serious attempt to end regimes that jail, torture, and kill their own citizens while calling yourself humanitarian. That is not morality, it’s distance.
Is oil involved? Of course. Venezuela’s oil industry, built with foreign investment, was expropriated, looted, and mismanaged into ruin. But this is also about state-backed criminal networks, narcotrafficking, and regional destabilization that have killed hundreds of thousands beyond Venezuela’s borders.
If you had lived under these conditions, if your family had been broken by fear, disappearance, or exile, you would not be citing abstract “international law” to defend your oppressors. You would be hoping, every night, that someone powerful enough would intervene.
What’s missing here isn’t compassion. It is context.
Before defending dictators from the safety of a functioning democracy, have the self-awareness to ask whether you understand the reality you’re judging. Otherwise what comes through isn’t moral clarity, it’s ignorance dressed up as virtue.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=venezuelan+cele...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reacciones+de+v...
yeah might is right. if you wanna bully citizens like dictators do - now they fear some big bully might come snatch them in the middle of the night like bully does to its citizens
Your comment is completely and utterly disconnected from reality. Venezuelans WANT THIS and have been wanting this for decades.
I lived in Argentina at the time when the military were making people disappear by the thousands, never to be found again. Most commenters on HN have no clue what they are talking about and no context whatsoever.
Give it a few weeks. Maybe a few months, hard to say. You will see people joyfully demonstrating on every street in Venezuela flying both Venezuelan and American flags. Just hold your thoughts and opinions if you can for a a bit of time and you'll see. And, of course, don't get your news from leftist outfits who are angry about a socialist/communist/dictator losing power. You'll be able to watch news directly from Venezuela.
Important point: Venezuela is NOT Iraq or Afghanistan. I've seen people equate events. Again, ignorant. Venezuelans WANT democracy. Latin Americans are culturally and religiously aligned with the west. They want this and they want the socialist-dictatorial nightmare to be over.
As is always the case, most are not thinking past the headlines. Venezuela, once the transition to sanity, rule of law and democracy is completed, is likely to become a major player both in the region and globally.
How?
Well, most go for the obvious: Oil.
That's not it though. Expand beyond that: Energy.
And expand beyond that yet again: Manufacturing.
And yet one more time: AI data centers (which need energy, manufacturing and a stable environment).
Venezuela could become a magnet for investment and development we cannot possibly imagine. This one move by Trump, if executed well, will change the face of the American continent --for the better-- in ways that are hard to imagine today. This is a good moment in history. I hope other nations understand the reign of terror is over and join a coalition to truly make Latin America not only great again, but part of what could become the most powerful association in the world, a new, powerful, integrated and developed American continent. I hope to see this in my lifetime. It would be amazing.
I'm actually saying it was the right thing for maduro to get snatched.
I know about the horror of maduro - my first boss was from Venezuela.
hell I would say America should make Venezuela a protectorate for at least 50 years.
Ah, my apologies, this threw me off,
> yeah might is right
It sounded like a sarcastic comment meaning characterizing the action as unjustified bullying rather than what it was.
The left's position on what just happened isn't only immoral, it is 100% dislocated from the opinion of the 9 million Venezuelans living in the diaspora as well as almost the entirety of those still in Venezuela. The reason I say "almost" is that there's a small layer (politicians, military, etc.) who were making a living or getting rich from the regime that is now evaporating.
This is historically positive moment in history.
Had a few interactions in person over the holidays where the presence of discussion of certain narratives would cause an otherwise normal and talented adult person to almost immediately respond in a repulsive rage.
Yes, that's very much the type of brain virus we've been dealing with for around a decade. Social media did not help. Critical thinking went out the door completely. And the pandemic made is massively worse, driving people into deep dark holes characterized by ignorant resonance with a healthy dose of zero thought given to everything.
Right now you have entire news networks defending --actively defending-- a brutal dictator who exported death in the form of drugs, tortured, jailed and killed his own people. I almost feel like I am watching a primitive primate culture from space driven to rage without a clue or care of where reality lies.
I think this will pass eventually, but it might take another ten years.
My AI summary of these 4k comments
Yes—there are very clear, recurring *themes*, and what’s striking is how consistently people keep circling the same fault lines from different angles. I’d group them like this:
---
## 1. *Legality vs. Morality*
*Core tension:*
> Is overthrowing a dictator morally right even if it violates international law?
* One side argues law exists precisely to restrain power, not to reward virtue. * The other argues moral urgency overrides abstract legalism when human suffering is extreme. * This becomes a meta-question: Who decides when morality trumps law?
This is the philosophical backbone of the entire thread.
---
## 2. *Precedent Anxiety*
*“Today Maduro, tomorrow anything.”*
* Fear that once unilateral regime change is normalized, the justification becomes infinitely elastic:
* Libya and Iraq function as *cautionary archetypes*, not historical footnotes.This is less about Venezuela than about *future permission structures*.
---
## 3. *Outcomes Over Intentions*
*Ends don’t redeem means if outcomes are catastrophic.*
* Even commenters who despise Maduro emphasize:
* Post-intervention chaos (ISIS, slave markets, fragmentation) is cited repeatedly. * There’s deep skepticism that this time will be different, even when facts are “better documented.”This is pragmatic pessimism rather than ideological purity.
---
## 4. *American Power & Self-Deception*
*A recurring, uncomfortable self-indictment.*
* Several comments converge on the idea that:
* The line “Americans want this but don’t like knowing they want it” resonates strongly. * Counterpoint: lack of agency within political structures blunts individual responsibility.This becomes a debate about *collective guilt vs. structural impotence*.
---
## 5. *Realpolitik vs. Institutionalism*
*Power acting directly vs. power constrained by process.*
* Appeals to ICC, UN, asylum frameworks represent belief in institutions. * Skeptics argue those institutions are deliberately weakened by the same powers invoking morality. * Others argue asylum and invasion are orthogonal issues—and conflating them is rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Underlying question: Is global governance real, or decorative?
---
## 6. *Lived Experience vs. Abstract Judgment*
*Who gets moral authority?*
* “Those who’ve never lived under dictatorship say this.” * Counter: “Those who never lived through US intervention say that.” * Venezuelans in-thread complicate narratives of total collapse or total liberation. * Firsthand testimony destabilizes neat moral binaries.
This creates epistemic friction: *whose suffering counts as evidence?*
---
## 7. *Cynicism About Motives*
*Oil never disappears from the conversation.*
* Even when people argue it’s not literally about barrels of crude, they frame it as:
* What’s new is not cynicism—but how brazen the cynicism feels.Several commenters note the lack of even performative moral cover.
---
## 8. *Democratic Exhaustion*
*A sense that democracy is no longer the brake it claims to be.*
* Rapid escalation vs. slow electoral correction * Legislatures perceived as compliant or irrelevant * No clear mechanism for popular restraint short of catastrophe
This feeds resignation rather than outrage.
---
## 9. *Historical Echoes & Decline Narratives*
*“We’ve seen this movie.”*
* Arab Spring * Iraq * Libya * Panama (Noriega)
History is invoked less as analogy and more as *warning fatigue*—people feel trapped in a loop.
---
## 10. *A Deeper Subtext: Loss of Moral Coherence*
Perhaps the most important theme:
> The argument isn’t about whether Maduro is bad. > It’s about whether the system judging him is still capable of moral credibility.
That’s why the thread feels less like debate and more like *collective unease*.
---
### If you zoom out:
This isn’t really a Venezuela thread. It’s a conversation about *power without trust*, *law without enforcement*, and *morality without consensus*—and whether any of those concepts still function in the current world order.
If you wanted to fictionalize this, it wouldn’t be a war story. It would be a story about *people arguing at the edge of legitimacy*, trying to decide whether the rules still mean anything once the strong stop pretending they do.
So many people in the comments arguing as if the U.S. government made a rational decision based on specified goals and policies.
Trump is a pathological narcissist and sociopath. He admires dictators like Putin and wanted to emulate his invasion of Ukraine. Stephen Miller is pure evil, and Hegseth is a fool, so they came up with a pretext to attack Venezuela. All of this conveniently distracts from the Epstein files.
Nothing that's happened is justified, legal or rational. It's just the egos of idiots who should not be in power.
We need regime change in the U.S. immediately.
there are other people behind these decisions proposing them to trump as options, and its following the current US strategic plan about militarily dominating the americas.
its gonna be some other central and south american countries next like panama, the on to conquering greenland from the danes and greenlanders, then canada
there is a rationale, even if you dont like it
It's so hard to talk about this from the perspective of a venezuelan.
Venezuela is under a dictatorshipt that has violated human rights massively, in Caracas (the capital) there's a prison know as El Helicoide, that's the headquarterts of the SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia), they are the secret police and the have arrested opposition members, reporters, human rights activists, and even family members of any of the three. Their headquarters is El Helicoide, a prison that is the equivalent of Guantanamo, but in Venezuela; it is the largest torture center in Latin America.
On July 28, 2024, presidential elections were held, which were extremely difficult to reach. Negotiations with the government were necessary to allow the opposition to participate. The opposition held primary elections to determine its candidate, and María Corina Machado (MCM) (the previous year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate) won with approximately 90% of the vote. There was also a high voter turnout that the government had not anticipated, so they disqualified her, she then proposed another candidate, but this person was also disqualified, and ultimately, they had to put forward Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU), an stranger in Venezuelan politics, and had to convince him to participate in the elections.
During the campaign, the government placed every possible obstacle in their path to prevent them from campaigning, closing roads, arresting campaign workers, and issuing threats. On election day, there were several irregularities, and at midnight, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced that Maduro had won. However, MCM claimed there had been fraud and, days later, presented evidence. She had conducted a large-scale operation to collect all the electoral records from every polling station in the country, managing to gather the vast majority, which showed that EGU had won with 67%. This sparked widespread protests and severe repression, including the arrest of many members of Vente Venezuela (MCM's party). She was forced into hiding, and EGU was forced to leave the country, but only after making a deal with the government while taking refuge in the Spanish embassy. His son-in-law was also arrested and remains missing to this day.
If you ask any Venezuelan, many agree with an US invasion. The vast majority are against the regime, just like me, although many aren't aware of how dangerous Trump is, or the things he's done in the US. To me, Trump isn't so different from Chávez: he insults those who disagree with him, he doesn't respect institutions, he installs his people in positions of power, and he only cares about loyalty. That's why I'm in a very complicated position, because on the one hand, I want this dictatorship to finally end; on the other hand, I don't like Trump. He's quite capable of trying to establish his own dictatorship in his country. He's not doing this just to liberate us; he's doing it because he has his own interests.
There are also many people who have spoken ill of MCM; many have said she didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and that she's just a puppet of Trump.
I couldn't disagree more with those statements.
I don't completely agree with her; I have a somewhat different ideology than hers, but even I can see how much effort she puts into everything she does. Here in Venezuela, she's greatly admired. I'm not one to admire people or have idols. I even criticize her a bit because she never makes it clear what the plan is for getting out of this situation and always says that freedom will come soon, something that gets very tiresome, but even so, I can understand her.
Being in her position is very difficult, due to the alliances the government has made. A large part of the left worldwide has sided with the dictatorship or doesn't denounce its atrocities, and because of that, she has no choice but to ally herself with right-wing people, including Trump. I don't think she agrees with everything he does, and she's even asked him to treat Venezuelans better, but she can't anger him either, because he's the only ally who can help her with this. That's why she told him he should have received the Nobel Prize, to avoid further anger and to try to appease him.
It's also important to mention something else: the Venezuelan government has used various operations to manipulate public opinion, both inside and outside Venezuela, trying to portray itself as a legitimate government and claiming that everything the U.S. does is for the sake of oil. While this is partly true, it also attempts to tarnish the reputation of MCM and the opposition. It's possible that here, on Twitter, Bluesky, or many other sites, there are fake accounts trying to promote this narrative, so be careful what you read, because this government has committed atrocities; don't forget that.
Talking about all this is very difficult, because on the one hand this is a dictatorship that we want to free ourselves from, but on the other hand Trump is one of the worst things that has happened to the world.
Excuse me if my text seems strange, I originally wrote it in Spanish and translated it in Google Translate, although I know English, it was easier for me to do it this way.
Word, the regime needs to go. That’s what most outside don’t understand.
8 million of us had to flee the country.
There's no more proof that any Venezuelan election's results has been tampered with than with any US election. The state of Venezuela's state is sad, and so is the fact that millions of people have felt forced to flee the country due to economic uncertainty. But this is probably a mix of culture, ingrained corruption and US blockage for decades.
It’s completely unrelated, I find a bit insulting that even our own wrongdoings have to be blamed to the US. Not everything wrong that happens in the world is caused by the US, the regime has been very capable of their own wrongdoing and mismanagement through the past couple of decades. Just look up the UN reports of human right abuses committed by the regime, thousands killed and tortured.
> There's no more proof that any Venezuelan election's results has been tampered with than with any US election
This is false (if by “proof” you mean “evidence” and not absolute certain knowledge).
Here’s how Wikipedia describes the election results:
US 2024 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
> The Republican Party's ticket—Donald Trump, who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and JD Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio—defeated the Democratic Party's ticket—Kamala Harris, the incumbent U.S. vice president, and Tim Walz, the incumbent governor of Minnesota.
US 2020 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_elections
> The Democratic Party's nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump in the presidential election.
Venezuela 2024 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
> The election was contentious, with international monitors calling it neither free nor fair,[4] citing the incumbent Maduro administration's having controlled most institutions and repressed the political opposition before, during,[2][5] and after the election. Widely viewed as having won the election, former diplomat Edmundo González…
You have to fix your problems yourself. I say this as a citizen of a nation in South-East Asia. Do not depend or cheer external actors like the U.S. to solve internal issues - they will only use and throw you away. The U.S. is also a nation whose political culture respects only strength - they hold absolute contempt for soft, weak/poor and divided nations. A home-grown dictator is better than a foreign one promising "democracy". It is one of the reasons that the U.S. regularly takes leadership out - they would like nations in their sphere to remain weak, poor and/or fully economically dependent.
You can look forward to U.S. oil companies doing free looting now. Sure, the "trickle down" effect will make some Venezuelan's prosperous but you have effectively given up the resources of your nation and chosen to become subservient slaves. And U.S. billionaires will become even richer.
I just want to say, this is an outstanding comment, and it’s surprising and embarrassing that it’s ranked so low.
It's down here for a reason. Anything that even alludes to the fact that Trump's broken clock might accidently be right for some people twice a day can't surface. Thus the anti-regime Venezuelans get their comments pushed down into the shithole, because we can't outright say the very people we are white-knighting are wrong so we just ignore them.
Where would you go to hear an honest account of what Venezuelans think?
Need to get this comment to the top.
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Democracy incoming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
Orange man is, in fact, bad.
This takes the American Oligarchy to the next level. Trump is now enabling his billionaire friends plunder another country, no doubt Trump will get a cut of the profits.
Muhrica gonna muhrica. It's been like this since time immemorial, the "regime" changes but the modus operandi is the same. True for all other empires.
Prediction: this headline will be renamed "US invades Venezuela" very soon.
It's not an invasion, it is just a special military operation.
A Superb Military Operation, some even say it's Super, one of the best military operations they've ever seen!
First US need to lose 220,000+ of military personnel dead there and then you can call it that. Otherwise comparison with Russia is kind a dull.
It was called a military operation long before they lost 220,000+.
Which is just a euphemism for a certain kind of invasion
Yes they’re referring to what Russia called invading Ukraine
If any other country ran what they called a “special military operation” like this in the US, we’d call it an invasion.
> If any other country ran what they called a “special military operation” like this in the US, we’d call it an invasion
It's a reference to "the official term used by the Russian government to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine" [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_military_operation
Don't need to go that far. Refugees coming to the U.S. is called an invasion.
Heck, the US claims Venezuela has been and is conducting an invasion of the United States, based on...a whole lot less than that.
When did we stop calling them “police actions” when side-stepping Congressional approval?
I think the term is “humanitarian aid”
> Prediction: this headline will be renamed "US invades Venezuela" very soon
I'll say I'm doubtful. I think we'll bomb from afar and hope to pot Maduro.
There is a science fiction book "The inhabited island" ("Prisoners of power"?) by A. and B. Strugatsky. In one of episodes they try to describe the feeling of being in a very human-looking but also completely alien culture (a different planet with humanoid inhabitants). So they describe how a group of people works out a credentials/paperwork situation (they need to move a prisoner from one place to another) but literally, as these actions are seen by the prisoner who does not understand the meaning. "This one gave that one a yellow rectangle but that one refused to take it and said something in a raised voice."
I always remember that episode as I see headlines like that.
Prediction: it won't. HN is very touchy about things that make the president look bad, as well as about bold statements, as well as about politics (except when it's good for VC money, then it's apolitical).
It doesn’t make him look stupid, it makes him look like a criminal.
Like Reagan. But they’ll find some guy, I don’t know, Bob South, who will take the fall.
No, not actually. But the mods do remove political content, so this whole thread will be gone soon.
They remove political content they don't like. Plenty remains up.
Where does this come from?
We don’t “remove” anything, and what we “like” doesn’t come into it; our job is to keep discussions healthy and curious and maintain the trust of the community.
Stories that are primarily about political controversy will generally get downweighted by:
- community flags
- flamewar penalties
- software penalties that are applied by default to publications and topics that are primarily focused on daily politics controversy.
But even with these penalties the stories can easily be found on /active, and everything that’s ever posted can be found on /newest (with ‘showdead’ turned on).
When a story contains “significant new information” we turn off these penalties to ensure it gets exposure on the front page, which we’ve done here and which we’ve done for every major breaking story over the many years that this approach has been in place.
Yes, I agree, it's very traditional for businesses to use the behaviour of their software as an accountability sink, as if they didn't create that behaviour to begin with, don't have the ability to change it, and don't have the ability to override it.
Some of the other threads about this have been removed, and not for being duplicates.
All content is political. Some gets removed.
Nothing gets “removed” unless a user specifically asks us to delete an earlier post.
Some things get downweighted in accordance with the guidelines and community expectations but everything can still be found.
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It won’t, they will just quote whatever the Trump admin says
I try to stay humble when predicting the future. But there is just no way there will be a literal military invasion. Trump would never risk a bunch of american dying on the ground, it would be terrible optics.
If you think he cares about Americans? Let alone optics. I've got a bridge to sell you.
I think he cares about the optics of Americans dying at least between now and the midterms.
I think the strategy is more by creep. Desensitization. This will be just another inching forward
Or maybe not :(
Did this thread get down-rated on HN due to too many comments? Please keep one main thread on this alive. Thanks.
Flags. It's still on /active [1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/active
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Hacker News?
As a European:
His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
In reality, he's building out Imperium Americanum, he is fighting wars without Congressional approval and proper casus bellis, he's not bringing the troops home and it is clear he represents the fucking Deep State even more than any of his predecessors since JFK. Shame on him for renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center. Which is absolutely disgusting given the reality of things!
Prime example: Invading Venezuela to steal their oil, just like his predecessors did with Syria (if you do not believe me, look where the US Army is located in Syria, and the prime locations of their oil fields).
Additionally: Trump's United States now has given Putin's Russia and Xi's China precedent to do whatever they fucking want to whoever or whatever. Because who fucking cares about international law if even the United States government, home of freedom and democracy and the rule of law, currently doesn't even give a fuck?
So now fucking what?
(And yes, as you might have noticed I AM FURIOUS AS HELL.)
> His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
A journalist asked him in the press conference just now how capturing Maduro and running the country in iterim is "America First". His simple answer is that a more stable set of countries in the region is good for America.
Just like outright stealing Greenland from Denmark "for national security" in his crazy narrative likely is.
And now I wonder what fucking insane manufactured casus belli he will create to invade and annex Canada.
So many people thought he was grand standing and just talking shit. But now it looks like he wasn't doing that at all, hasn't he?
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> Your mind is crashing.
Ok, that crosses the line. Your endless bad takes in this thread are one thing but you really should lay off the personal attacks.
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> Their handle is “mindcrash” in case you hadn’t noticed. Lighten up.
I had noticed, that doesn't change a thing.
> Are you worried that Trump is going to steal Greenland and annex Canada? From where I sit it seems like a mindless worry.
Many Canadians and Greenlanders think otherwise.
> I’m pretty sure that if you’re a European right now, you are hoping that your Russian neighbor wasn’t such a despot.
As a European, I would be less worried if the USA had competent management.
Right now the US have not invaded Venezuela but in effect attempted to precipitate a "coup". We shall see what happens now. Note, too that Maduro is not widely recognised as President by Western countries because of accusation of election rigging.
This is classic US action South of the border since the 19th century so I think the outrage is excessive. Perhaps people think, wrongly, that this is new becaude of Trump. What is new is that this seems actually aimed against China.
Regarding international law, it seems that it's been invoked so much in recent years that people have "drunk the Kool Aid" and actually believe that this is something carved in stone that must be obeyed, or even just actual "law"...
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Is everyone sufficiently distracted yet?
Y'all never lived under a dictatorship, and it's felt.
"Fuck venezuelans, how can you capture a dictator, that violates a law no one gives a fuck about". You should be really happy how Trump treats putin, like a dear friend, not violating any law. I hope marines will raid kremlin next.
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That's an excellent outcome to hope for. The odds are that we have already used up our "stopped clock is right every 12 hours" karma. Not that anyone should feel sorry for Maduro.
Unfortunately I believe an invasion of Greenland is more likely.
as far as Trump capitalizes on Europe's demise, this won't happen
The news of Europe's demise are greatly exaggerated. What's it going to do? Sink in the ocean like Atlantis?
The roman culture of old surely did. I don't see anyone trying to claim the temple of Jupiter anymore?
While it is possible for modern Europe to repeat the mistakes of Rome, that played out slowly over centuries.
I'd be more concerned with making sure to not repeat e.g. the surprise rapid end to the USSR, along with a few other sudden scenarios like "gets invaded".
But a third of the world still celebrates Saturnalia!
Nope, nukes will prevent that.
Episodes like these only serve to cement that Iran and North Korea are right to think that having nuclear deterrence is the only viable insurance policy.
(Delivery & effectiveness is another subject on its own but still)
I thought exactly this. The first comment talked about potentially destabilising not only the country but the entire region. In reality it perpetuates violence globally.
Not sure why you're putting Iran and North Korea together here, as Iran is hoping for a nuke, while NK already has them, and has for many years. And yes, calls for toppling the brutal NK dictatorship have completely disappeared once that happened - so the theory is extremely soundly proven.
Because they're trying to get one for the stated reason of it working as a deterrent.
North Korea is not trying to get a nuclear bomb, they've already got nuclear bombs and have for more than 10 years.
This is why I'm confused. They're also not the only examples of dictatorial states getting nuclear bombs - surely the Soviet Union and China are earlier examples of that.
I was speaking of Iran. You could use other examples of successful nuclear deterrence, yes.
What we saw with Venezuela was something nukes wouldn't prevent. Doing the same with Putin is infinitely harder, but if it did occur, chances are whoever fills in the power vacuum in Russia would be pretty happy with their situation.
> but if it did occur, chances are
With nukes "chances are" is not an argument.
I'm not saying chances are with regard to nukes, I'm saying with regard to whoever gets to take over Russia. In either case they definitely aren't using nukes because it means mutual destruction over one man who has 0% chance of ever returning to Russia.
Yeah, that was actually a good demonstration of a way out of Russian aggression. I wonder if that was one of the goals.
Scare Putin to shievers. Bro already spent the first year of the 2022 invasion in a bunker. I'm sure he liked that.
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Trump was arrested?
Na. He’s the good guy.
I am critical of Trump, but in this case you're actually correct. Maduro is a dictator. Trump is not.
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You're obviously just trolling. The US is still a solid democracy - a country you disagree with, sure. In a couple years Trump will be out and life goes on. As for Maduro, he's a dictator - he needed to go. He works closely with Iran, Russia and with China doing very nefarious things.
I agree however that Trump is largely self centered and this is a risk. Oil should not be the goal here, it should be the freedom of the Venezuelans.
It is not a solid democracy if the only two political parties are largely aligned on most issues, leaving citizens helpless to change the way the uni party functions.
As for foreign policy, yes the United States is a terrorist state and has been for a long time.
You can literally go to DC and hold up a board saying "United States is a terrorist state" and not be arrested.
That should tell you everything you need to know.
It tells me that doing that is a meaningless performance. If it weren't, they'd actually try to actively ban it. Look at all the anti-BDS legislation for an example.
USA bombed iraq, killed thousands of civilians USA bombed libya, killed thousands of civilians USA funding israel, killing thousands of civilians USA bombed vietnam, killed thousands of civilians and the list goes on.
I am not trolling, USA is built on white supremacy by genocide of native americans and is sustained by war because military industrial complex needs to sell their weapons so some american can afford starbucks.
America is a terrorist state, far from democracy where avg citizen doesnt even know the crimes of their govt. Just few days ago their whole leadership was revealed to be sinister pedophiles and americans basically did nothing. Americans are the most propagandized people ever
Not to forget with which moral superiority you are calling out countries allying with russia an china. USA itself does trade with China
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Ukraine has a democratically elected government and president who isn’t a dictator.
(I’m not trying to justify US action in Venezuela here. Just answering your question)
Ukraine hasn’t had an election in 6 years.
That's true, but how can elections be safely conducted during an active phase of the war?
Only during 2025 russian forces launched over 54,000 long-range drones and over 1,900 missiles
> Only during 2025 russian forces launched over 54,000 long-range drones and over 1,900 missiles
This would be a lot more compelling of an argument if the Ukrainians were not trying to use social media to PsyOp the world into believing that life in Ukraine is going on as usual.
I could accept the idea that an election can’t be effectively fortified during a war, but if the war was as popular as the Ukrainian government wants me to believe, why are men barred from leaving the country and being abducted off the streets to serve as conscripts?
Even though the military was involved, I think this was officially a law enforcement action, much like capturing Manuel Noriega and sentencing him to prison.
Nicolás Maduro was indicted for various crimes in 2020. I have a feeling the "possession of a machinegun" charge will be dropped, but the US does have a long track record of saying drug activity affects the US enough that it can arrest and prosecute almost anybody.
The invasion of Ukraine, on the other hand, is -- I believe -- a regular military exercise. Putin has claimed that he wants to achieve some unusual goals ("denazify the Ukraine special forces"), but even those goals aren't really law enforcement.
Main difference is that Russia is 1409 days into their 3 day "special operation" that has obviously become a war, while this looks like it was actually a special operation.
A "special operation" that makes hypocrites of every US official complaining that the EU is engaged in over-reach* and that EU has no sovereignty in the USA, but still it is success (at least with regard to the immediately stated objectives) that's the difference.
Long term, I expect this to be a colossal failure for the USA, the USA has a very poor record for pulling long term benefits out of this kind of action, and Trump is a sub-unity multiplier on that.
That said, if I was anyone in Mexico right now, I'd be worried by the rhetoric. There's things Mexico can do to prepare for this, that's not going to be any fun at all for the USA. I can see a big pile of dry tinder here waiting to ignite, but I don't want to suggest details because path dependency is a huge variable, e.g. consider that Trump himself could be impeached for all the Epstein stuff at fairly short notice by Republicans worried he's dragging them down in domestic polls.
* with regard to the EU telling Big Tech that certain content is not welcome within the EU. I mean, imagine if any EU nation did this to forcibly extradite Musk. Or if the UK did it for 4chan. I wouldn't cry over either, but I would definitely be shocked. And neither Musk nor 4chan's staff have diplomatic immunity.
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I assume you’re completely ok with other countries doing the same for their own self interest?
I.e. 9/11
They already do. I don't understand?
Russia invaded Ukraine under a U.S. President that believed (and talked about often) in "international norms". Due to which international law violation did the Japanese attack pearl harbor? Do you think the reason China didn't attack Taiwan yet is because "well, America is acting moral, we can't go around disturbing the global order"
It’s sad you want to live in a world with aggression and war.
I hope saner heads prevail.
Vigorous foreign policy?
You realize that this kind of vigorous foreign policy that you are a fan of is going to rebound massively? Or have the last 80 years worth of lessons learned passed you by?
Plundering Latin America is not just going to be unpopular with European HNers, it will be with the vast majority of the world. You are hoping for 'exciting times', you fail to realize that 'may you live in exciting times' is a curse, not a blessing.
Broadly speaking, you can shape the world, or decide to sit it out and let everyone else try.
We should absolutely do everything in our power to make the world a better place for us.
The last 80 years taught me we can take down the USSR if we try, we can build europe back up if we try etc. I don't know what lessons you've learned from the past but there were many who were anti fighting (not literally, but through proxies, economics - soft power) the USSR and they were wrong. It's possible to win! & yes, I'm happy we have that spirit again
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Does fact that Congress, not the President, has the power to "To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water" matter? Or is the constitution not what you voted for?
You are correct, but also it doesn't matter because the US has flaunted the constitution in precisely this way for every single war America has been in since WW2. Wars without congressional declaration are de facto legal and have been for as long as you and I have been alive.
This, of course, is one of the reasons why people's opinion of the USA has been steadily dropping.
They don't play by the rules that they themselves created. They are not a trustworthy partner.
Any country that can ought to be removing any and all dependencies on the USA as a matter of priority - as Europe is doing for military matters. It's actually pretty easy, you just schmooze the orange fuckwit and tell him everything's ok, and then you do what you want, incrementally so you can boil that frog.
Europe's defense newswires are full of interesting stuff supposedly happening, but until money is reallocated from welfare to defense, nothing is actually happening for all practical purposes.
In other words: a bunch of hot air. And will EU denizens agree to lowering their welfare spending to fund defense? Questionable, given the recent tantrums in France over raising the retirement age (which is objectively necessary for their budget.)
Finally, no superpower in the history of humanity has or will irrevocably bound themselves by the "rules they create" on the global stage. Expecting any superpower to do so is sheltered naïveté at best. The real world does not work that way, superpowers will do whatever they feel is in their best interest regardless of "international law" and this will never change so long as geopolitics exists.
This is factually incorrect.
The Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorized war in Vietnam. A Joint resolution authorized the Gulf War. Two of many counter examples.
Look I agree this whole thing is wrong, but to say this instance of regime change, unprovoked attack, war, whatever you call it is UNIQUELY unconstitutional is obviously wrong.
Every US President since the end of WW2 has waged war without a formal declaration of war from Congress. And presidents from both parties will continue to do so.
This is not to say it's right or good. But there is surely widespread agreement that it is constitutional to do things like this, and there has been for nearly a century.
> but to say this instance of regime change,
A regime is not a single person, e.g. Mr Maduro largely continued from Mr Chavez.
If it is true that Mr Maduro has been abducted, there will surely be changes to the regime in Venezuela. A complete change of regime, however, is not guaranteed. And trying to do it might require more application of forcer, with all the attendant risks of that.
I’m pretty sure he didn’t vote for the constitution.
> "Sovereign head of state" tortured, "disappeared", and murdered thousands, and rigged elections.
can't wait for someone to kidnap trump as well
Is what you describe Maduro specific? Or specific to the ruling party of Venezuela?
It’s not like the ruling party gives up power and dissolves in this situation. That level of regime change requires an invasion or coup.
> This is what I voted for. I am so fucking happy.
This isn't over. There are so many ways how this can backfire. E.g. how long until a bunch of random Americans are kidnapped as a way to get him back?
Sure, that could happen if anyone actually liked Maduro. What we are seeing instead is widespread celebration.
> Dictators will go to sleep just slightly more terrified tomorrow night.
And Putin?
Mark another instance of ignoring the US Constitution down. Sounds a bit like America has their very own dictator.
Any nuclear-empowered nation is obviously off limits, but any nation without nuclear and with active hostilities towards the US is certainly thinking twice.
> This is what I voted for. I am so fucking happy.
Did you vote to pardon drug bosses too?
> Dictators will go to sleep just slightly more terrified tomorrow night.
Not at all. They will simply route a bit more money into Trump's pockets and celebrate their newfound ally.
Trump has spent the last year (decade actually) doing a disgraceful show of pleasing a dictator who invaded his neighbour. To say nothing of his own authoritarian projects at home. And let's not even get started about Netanyahu.
How can you talk about this as if it was a crusade for justice against dictators? Some people are just terminally gullible.
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> Dictators will go to sleep just slightly more terrified tomorrow night.
The irony of someone who (presumably, from statements) voted for Trump saying this while their own country tortures, disappears and in some cases murders thousands, plus potentially rigged elections...
I don't see any case of US citizens being tortured, murdered, and disappeared at scale. Source please?
Source on rigged elections? I didn't believe it when Trump cried wolf and I don't believe it when people think 2024 was rigged.
Edit: "But ICE!" - ICE is deporting (not torturing or murdering thousands of) non-citizens. They are doing a fantastic job (low false positive rate, maybe 10/300,000 with 0 permanent citizen deportations.) I am asking specifically about citizens.
We have masked men grabbing people off the streets with no accountability. Perhaps you should be asking for evidence of lack of human rights abuse.
Grabbing illegals* off the streets, which is fine in my book. They also aren't being tortured or killed en masse, so comparing this to Maduro is hysteria at best.
Any non-citizens grabbed (very few! shockingly low false-positive rate, given 300k+ deportations) have been promptly let go.
We could have had a more formal process if the borders weren't opened to literally millions of illegals, but unfortunately that ship has sailed and this is the only practical way to deal with the problem.
> I don't see any case of US citizens being tortured, murdered, and disappeared at scale. Source please?
ICE exists, and does all of those.
Source? How many thousands of citizens has ICE tortured to death?
They didn't use the word "citizens"
You deflected criticism earlier by describing yourself “brown”. Surely you know the US is leading the scoreboard in their murder.
And nobody said citizen. Your posts reek of trolling.
A nation is only ultimately responsible to its citizens. I care not about illegals being deported - in fact, I support it.
The US certainly is not leading the scoreboard in the murder of my people; I regret to inform you that my own people lead the scoreboard in their own murder.
as usual with Trump supporters: trying to make both sides seem "equal" on election rigging, when one side (in 2020) caused Jan 6 to happen and still won't accept the election results from 2020, whereas a few fringe people (I guess) had some problems with 2024.
In your anger you are not reading what I wrote: I don't believe either election was rigged.
> This is what I voted for
You voted for brown people on flimsy boats to be blown up in extrajudicial killings and for regime change? I thought MAGAs were all about love and peace unlike the war monger, Barrack Obama.
> Brown people
hold up, I'm a "brown person."
Those people were trafficking drugs (as evidenced by the pallets of cocaine that fell out of their absurdly overpowered "fishing boat.")
I don't really care about extrajudicial killings of drug traffickers, as someone that has been impacted by them.
Out of all the many years of fighting a war on drugs, what difference is this going to make? Some lackeys (forced potentially) get blown up, the barons find some more, or use different methods, and 40 years later we're still fighting the war on drugs.
People love drugs. They really want to get hold of them. Someone is going to keep supplying drugs, no matter how many lackeys you blow up.
It’s ~1,000 miles from the US to Venezuela. Have you ever been on a fishing boat? Especially an “overpowered” one? Guess how much fuel they burn? It’s very unlikely a boat has enough fuel to make it to the US, and if it did it would need fuel to get back. Where are they getting the fuel for these drug runs?
You can read about the logistics from countless sources.
For most boats, it's not a straight shot to the US, they often refuel from boats at sea or utilize refueling points in Central America; or perform a handoff in Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic.
They don't "need the fuel to get back," the boats are scuttled on arrival. The value of the boats and fuel is a rounding error compared to the value of the drugs.
5000 years of civilisation and a sizeable chunk of the population of first-world countries still doesn't understand why law and courts are better than "just kill people who are le bad".
Let's not even talk about the killing of shipwrecked people who are hors de combat according to the Geneva Convention. Even the Nazis during unrestricted submarine warfare had the decency of not murdering shipwrecked crews and passengers. We are truly in a wretched time when nothing matters anymore.
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1) there's no evidence that they were trafficking drugs, and especially fentanyl (which the orange is on a crusade about)
2) if that's true, how do you feel about him pardoning one of the biggest drug traffickers ever[0]?
0: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/nyregion/honduras-hernand...
What does “there is no evidence” mean in this context? Does the government typically provide public “evidence” to support military actions?
No evidence, as in, it was just Hegseth saying they were "narco terrorists" and using that as justification for military force. Whether or not it's typical for the government to provide it, I don't know, but the public certainly demands it because killing foreign nationals in fishing boats doesn't pass the smell test.
If they were confident about their "narco terrorist" statement, why not arrest them and put it on trial? We're obviously very capable at stopping boats because we seized an oil tanker recently.
Also, you didn't acknowledge the pardon.
> No evidence, as in, it was just Hegseth saying they were "narco terrorists" and using that as justification for military force
Isn’t that the way it always is? Was there a PowerPoint presentation citing evidence every time Bush and Obama blew up a wedding in Afghanistan?
> Was there a PowerPoint presentation citing evidence every time Bush and Obama blew up a wedding
Does it matter? I personally didn't support those actions and would condemn them just as harshly as these ones. You're doing the "But what about Obama?!" meme. A large part of Trump's 2024 campaign was about "peace" which turned out to be a complete lie. Will you admit that Trump lied or are you going to deflect to Obama again?
You again failed to acknowledge the pardon of a drug trafficker, btw.
Saying the government shouldn't carry out extrajudicial executions of terrorists without providing a trial in domestic court is just very sheltered/naive. It's simply not what the real world demands.
Killing fisherman as a pretext to regime change is not what the "real world demands", but okay at least you're admitting it was all a lie.
EDIT: the drugs narrative was a lie too. Trump just admitted that it was about extracting oil in his speech. Now we're running the country until him and his buddies can strike a d—sorry, figure out a "transition" plan.
> You're doing the "But what about Obama?!"
I’m not. My point is that the ordinary rule accepted by most people, especially the mass media, is that the government doesn’t provide public evidence for military actions. So when the New York Times complains that “there is no evidence” here it seems like special pleading.
Given that it was used as justification for regime change ("Venezuela is sending fentanyl and killing Americans!!") then I'd say the pleading should be special.
We were talking about the strikes on the drug boats. Those are just being justified in terms of them being drug boats. Those are limited stakes.
If you want to expand the point to include Maduro’s regime more generally, there’s a lot of evidence of what he’s done.
Ah yes, inexplicably alluding to race makes every argument stronger. May as well throw in some inaninity about climate change while you're at it.
I only did because that's the phrasing everyone uses for describing our operations in the middle east. Those are bad, but doing the same in South America is good because evil drug traffickers?
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I bet you they hand it over to the legally elected government. But look forward to a new friendship American military base coming soon to Venezuela.
They have probably already been working on this in the lead up to their forceful engagement. It is a pretty standard state department et. all tactic
> They're going to put in another dictator, except this one will be friendly to US interests
I don't believe you have any evidence that this is the plan - what if democratic elections are held again?
In any case, even if it does happen: Far better than a dictator unfriendly to our interests.
Why do your interests dictate who should or shouldn't get ousted? Will the new dictator work in the interests of other powers? If they are unfriendly to Chinese interest will it be fair game for China to launch an invasion?
So why bother with the earlier hypocritical pretence bringing up torture and murder? Just straight up say you approve of the move because a new U.S. stooge in Venezuela would be better for US geopolitical interests.
So “torture”, "disappeareance", “murder of thousands”, and “rigging elections” are fine if it's in US interests now? Then why use them as argument in the first place.
> Far better than a dictator unfriendly to our interests.
You’re contradicting yourself.
better for whom? It's, at best, a lateral move for Venezuelans (you know, the people who's country we just bombed) and it's very unlikely that the average American will benefit from a fascist junta in South America.
Can we please report vapid personal attacks like this comment? This is a reddit-esque answer.
You're right, I'm very frustrated with my government right now and I was a jerk to the guy. I'm an adult and I should behave like one.
Thanks for calling out my bullshit, sincerely.
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and from my little corner of the world: tusk, kaczyński, czarzasty, michnik, lis and their whole gangs
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This is a completely unacceptable comment on HN, and we have to ban accounts that post abusive comments repeatedly. HN is for people who have higher standards than this in what they think is appropriate to post online. Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them if you want to keep participating here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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Just wait a few years for Trump to pardon you as he did for the jailed former Honduran president recently, same charges even. The hubris of this administration is off the charts.
This is a crime to the Venezuelans, the US citizens, and the whole of South America.
Most Venezuelans will make a very loud point to disagree with you.
Source?
8 Million refugees?
This lot of Venezuelans don't seem too worried https://www.nbcnews.com/video/venezuelan-community-in-miami-...
Didn't most Latin Americans living in Florida move there to escape their generally left-leaning countries? Makes sense they would celebrate.
If someone murdered Obama while in office you could have filmed a video just like this in America, crazy that you’d post this
But it's not murder. It's an arrest of someone who wouldn't leave office after losing an election. Admittedly the people celebrating are Venezuelans abroad rather than in Venezuela. Hope it goes ok there too.
i know, I was being hyperbolic, same point of have <country> arrest Obama while he was in office..
It's not hyperbolic. At least the last four American presidents are war criminals.
Venezuelans are cheering.
And what are they going to to do against the militias and military that are loyal to Maduros political party?
I'll tell you. Nothing. They are going to do nothing. Because they can't.
We’ll see about that. In the meantime I get to see Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded on a US warship heading to NY.
Life is good.
>> And what are they going to to do against the militias and military that are loyal to Maduros political party?
> We’ll see about that.
This seems hand-wavy - like you're not aware of any plan for the future and that you're comfortable with that. If I'm mistaken, what specifics have you heard?
> In the meantime I get to see Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded on a US warship heading to NY.
This sounds like great joy to have working to install leadership that won't massively harm VE (for once).
But this joy would also sound ominous in the absence any such work - like you're being distracted while something awful is put in place.
At the least, I'd check out this post with news links - that this US admin has designs on VE's oil facilities.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46473348#46478023
Life is good? Your feeling about the goodness of life depends on if a powerful country captures the leader of another country?
Whatever you think of the morality and ethics of the man, the precedent, the outcome, the extrajudicial action is opening the door for less law and order in the world.
This sets a precedent that the US is back to regime change and world policing, and that went swimmingly in the past as we all know.
Are you under the impression that Maduro is a fairly and lawfully elected leader? Because he absolutely is not.
That's true. But a similar case could be made for many other world leaders, they just don't happen to be sitting on top of a lot of oil and/or are able to credibly defend themselves. This was never about Maduro or democracy.
A murderer dictator was brought down. We shall celebrate, yes.
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It’s also a crime against the US constitution and the international legal order. By condoning “might is right” Trump has given an excuse to every tinpot dictator, from Putin to Kim, to invade and kill whoever they want
And the voters who elected Trump because he promised to stop with "nation building".
But with Venezuela's +300bn oil barrels at Trump's disposal now, I bet the gas prices will plummeted. I wonder how the MAGA fanbase will react (probably will be happy to let just this one "nation building" project to slip through their ethics).
I doubt they'll like it, but like most Americans, I think they mostly gloss over foreign policy.
Most Americans can't find Venezuela on a map. (Presumably most humans can't)
They'll overlook this (and similar moves) and pay attention to domestic policy, unless we're dragged into an extended war.
If you remember the aftermath of the Iraq2 invasion (which a lot of people claimed was about oil) gas prices did not plummet at all but the reverse. Gas doubled at the pump, maybe slightly more.
Because the US completely botched stabilizing the country despite 10s of thousands of troops on the ground for years. Meanwhile the indigenous insurgency and the previous to the invasion non-existent but subsequently massed foreign Al-Qaeda in Iraq both ensured no meaningful exports could be accomplished.
In Venezuela it's extremely unclear how suddenly creating a giant power vacuum will allow the US to obtain Venezuela's oil.
On one hand, this seems classic from the Trump Admin in that rash actions have been taken with no future plans in place (cf. DOGE), on the other hand this does appear in line with the promise of "no forever wars" (no sustained US ground presence) and if the US does actually end up with the oil, then it will be at a very low cost (in terms of US blood and treasure).
Gas prices would have plummeted in any case, we have an over supply of LNG that is scheduled to get exponentially worse in the next 5 years
The US casually eliminating a nasty despot is likely to have a chilling effect on the other nasty despots.
Putin and Kim will -not- be emboldened by this act - quite the opposite.
If only this were about eliminating a nasty despot…
Whatever innuendo you'd like to apply to Trump's action, Maduro is objectively a nasty despot.
It's really not a crime against the US constitution. And "International Law" isn't really law, because there is no enforcer.
International politics is anarchy. Rules are enforced by the hegemon.
Article I of the Constitution, Section 8: only Congress has the power to declare war.
International law exists - it’s the very purpose of the International Court of Justice
War hasn't been declared.
> The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (often called the War Powers Act) is a U.S. law designed to limit the President's power to commit the U.S. to armed conflict without congressional approval, requiring presidential consultation with Congress before deploying forces and mandating reports within 48 hours, with a 60-day limit for troop deployment without a formal authorization, though presidents have often challenged or sidestepped its provisions.
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Don't be, just stop doing it.
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You - and Venezuela - should solve your own internal problems at your own time table. Foreign intervention more often than not translates into puppet regime installation.
Beyond this, if you are from Venezuela it's difficult to stay in the middle beyond the outcomes, it is completely different when prople talk without living or being an expat.
> should solve your own internal problems at your own time table
That's not how international geopolitics works. There are many means in which nation states pull levers to take on problems that exist in other countries. Sanctions, diplomacy, trade barriers, propaganda, military interventions, threats, etc. are all tools that are used by nation states around the world every day.
The post you replied to didn’t say things are not like that. He said things should not be like that.
> He said things should not be like that.
Why should they not be like that? Absolutist non-intervention is not a realistic strategy in a universe where nation states border each other and their actions affect each other.
Correct me if I'm wrong but the bulk of human history shows that interventions has largely been disastrous in terms of long-term effects.
As a German, I can say I‘m very happy for the intervention some decades ago, but it’s of course just one example, potentially a bad one, and likely cannot be generalized — just wanted to throw this into the ring as a positive example.
Which country was Venezuela at war with?
Germany waged war on just about the whole world, the response to that was one of defense, not offense.
> Which country was Venezuela at war with?
> Germany waged war on just about the whole world, the response to that was one of defense, not offense.
I find it useful to distinguish legality from morality of the move of capturing Maduro and his wife.
One way I approach it is to ask myself: if one could have Maduro returned to Venezuela today, would one? Perhaps the answer that most people would give is yes (i.e. everyone would be better off), but I'm not so sure.
And some of them are levers that we should not tolerate.
I'm not sure who Trump is doing favors for here, but much like when it was Bush doing favors for Haliburton, we could end up with decades of pointless war which neither of the corrupt parties that started it take any responsibility for cleaning up.
Whether through politics or sabotage, its appropriate to intervene if somebody is about to stick you with the bill for something like this. We can't be all "boys will be boys" about it. The consequences are often too severe.
The US only exists due to the foreign intervention of France, and the at-the-time foreign intervention of a few Indian tribes, to help overthrow the crown regime. You might note the domestic efforts were also a dominating force, but I have no reason to believe anti-Maduro domestic efforts were not an instrumental force in making such a smooth operation possible for the US.
Iraq worked out quite ok after 20 years if my contacts there are to believed.
Afghanistan failed miserably.
Sadam was there because of the US (1959), and he was removed by the US, and not because he was a ruthless dictator.
Bin Laden & Afghanistan same (though obviously he was not their head of state) but much worse. Afghanistan has been abused by so many people it is hard to reason about it without having to go back a century or more.
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We live in a world where even regional nuclear war will trigger a nuclear winter that starves people across the earth. Nationalist isolationism makes no sense in the modern world.
You know, you’re right. Nationalist isolationism makes no sense in the modern world. It’s a good thing we got Maduro and are supporting Ukraine.
That's complete nonsense. We've already nuked the planet thousands of times to no effect.
That's a very, very bad take and I'm really surprised that you can't see the difference between helping people defend themselves vs interfering in a foreign country because their leadership does not want to give you access to their natural resources on a pretext.
Are you really trying to paint Maduro’s authoritarian regime, who traffics people and drugs, and helps Russia evade international oil and arms sanctions and the US arresting of him as “their leadership doesn’t want to give America access to their natural resources”?
The EU doesn’t even recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela and he forced the democratically elected president into hiding!
Are you arguing two wrongs make a right? This most recent wrong would likely gestate an even worse authoritarian regime than the earlier wrong.
Where is the right you're seeing?
By that logic the US shouldn’t get involved in any other foreign entanglement or global police action because of unintended consequences. Tell me, who from the international community will seize Russian shadow fleet oil tankers evading sanctions!
Wait! Crap!
We can’t sanction Russia - if we do it might destabilize the Russian dictator and if he goes out a worse authoritarian regime might come to power!
Which nation did Maduro invade again? Did you confuse Venezuela with Russia?
> By that logic the US shouldn’t get involved in any other foreign entanglement or global police action because of unintended consequences.
Strawman. No-one is claiming that.
> translates into puppet regime installation.
Isn't that good for the US? I mean at least it reads a lot better that totalitarian and terrorist regimes preinstalled.
Meh. The US has a history of installing totalitarian or terrorist governments. The middle-east is a lovely example; the US was responsible for the likes of Osama Bin Laden (CIA asset), for the installation of Saddam Hussein, and many many more.
> As an American, I’m glad to see an authoritarian dictator removed
Personally I'm not. This is like kidnapping the CEO of Kroger because your eggs are too expensive, and then telling everyone you did it because he wasn't listening to his employees enough.
We can't undo this and this was a very big stick we used. I highly doubt this was done with the interests of the common American in mind.
> I highly doubt this was done with the interests of the common American in mind.
It is spelled 'Venezuelan'.
You think it’s a good idea for foreign countries to overturn domestic elections? The Bolivarian regime came to power in a free and fair election.
> You think it’s a good idea for foreign countries to overturn domestic elections?
I certainly don't, and I don't speak for the person you replied to but I figure most people commenting here don't think that either
> The Bolivarian regime came to power in a free and fair election
Hugo Chavez was elected president legitimately in 1998, so it's true that the Bolivarian regime came to power fairly. But just about nobody that's paying attention thinks Maduro won the presidential election in 2024. Elections were held, Maduro lost (by a huge margin), and he continued being president anyway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections… The official results reported Maduro winning with about 51 % of the vote.
European Parliament resolutions and reports explicitly described the process as lacking transparency and integrity such as not publishing detailed polling station results, meaning the results could not be independently verified, and concluding the election was neither free nor fair.
You may recall María Corina Machado was barred from running shortly before the election itself.
Maduro was reported winning with 5,150,092 votes, or 51.20000% of the vote, and the main opposition had 44.20000% of the vote. These are considered suspiciously round percentages.
Which election. I find no source for that. And even if that where the case, it wouldn't be too far fetched to think someone computed votes from rounded percentages when writing an article.
The Carter Center has a 43 page report that goes into the facts of the 2024 election in detail.
For example “A few minutes after midnight, with 80% of the votes counted, the CNE declared Nicolas Maduro the winner, with 51.2% of the vote, followed by Edmundo González with 44.2%. The CNE did not publish the results by polling station, claiming - without providing evidence - that a cyberattack had made it impossible to upload the results to its website. However, the CNE did not release the results by any alternative method. The lack of detailed results prevented independent verification of the overall results announced by the CNE The CNE canceled three postelection audits that could have verified the alleged cyberattacks. This included a second citizen verification exercise. The integrity of the elections was damaged by the lack of transparent information. In a parallel effort, the opposition - through party representatives, observers, and citizens — collected and published online more than 80% of the results forms produced by the voting machines. According to these results, González received 67.1% of the vote, and Maduro received 30.4%. The Venezuelan government claimed - without providing evidence - that the results forms published by the opposition were forged. However, the result forms published were deemed legitimate by external auditors and academics. The Carter Center reviewed the data in the results forms and found it to be accurate.”
> I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections…
I've heard that American elections are rigged too. That still isn't an open invitation for an invasion by another nation to kidnap government officials on US soil. Even if Maduro had abandoned elections entirely and installed himself as king it wouldn't justify what the US has done.
If you look at the Wikipedia article on the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, it seems to be unlikely that the outcome of that election was that Maduro won.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
The opposition boycotted the election and told their supporters not to vote, then cried foul when they lost. It may not have been a representative election, but the incumbent party had no need to rig it.
I think that was the 2025 one?
Venezuela haven't had any free and fair election since the dictator in power was Chaves.
IMO, the US doing piracy around it is way more concerning than kidnapping a dictator that sent the military against its people, architected a couple of famines, and forced a double-digts percentage of their population out of the country.
Still, this won't lead to anything good. Because the entire US Executive is composed of incompetent sadistic people right now. But it could be a good thing for Venezuela in different circumstances (but I imagine anybody capable of making good change there would refrain from doing so).
Maduro's regime? The election results were so tainted the entire world was laughing - even the number of votes placed altogether exceed 100%.
So once elected more than 25 years ago they are allowed to stay and perpetuity and stage sham election just because they won a legitimate one a generation ago?
Venezuelans didn’t just vote for a candidate. They voted to re-found the country under a new constitution and ideology. They’re enjoying the consequences of the ideology they voted for.
Not according to the nobel prize committee
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Well, technically, it is also Charles III last term as king.
why would you think that?
> This is Trump's last term.
Remains to be seen.
As an American, you're biased.
Telling someone they're biased must be the most low-effort comment there is. Everyone is biased about any subject where they have even a nuanced self interest in. And in your case, you didn't even specify which part of their comment was allegedly being affected by bias. Nor did you acknowledge your own bias.
Aren't we all?
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Drugs? No. War?! No, words have meanings and that's not what "war" means.
Ignoring diplomacy? Are you accusing the US of ignoring diplomacy, because that's the only half ways reasonable interpretation.
This is weak and pathetic misinformation. I guess it will take a few days before the propaganda machine gets going to try to justify this gigantic waste of taxpayer money and pointless destruction. Hopefully the pros get involved because this is just sad.
You can watch even CBS explain why this was done. Maduro was letting the cartel use private planes under diplomatic immunity to traffic drugs and weapons. EVEN CBS. Don't close your eyes and ears now.
Trump gave one of the biggest drug dealers ever a pardon as well as the Silk Road guy. Time to sanitise where you get your news, you seem to be eating all the propaganda.
They are likely a troll/AI etc given the name, I suspect most of those posts here are nowadays, and this thread is almost entirely such.
Have you heard about making deals with criminals for intel? Pardoning is a tool.
And did Biden not pardon a _lot_ of sketchy people, including his own son..?
Come on, try harder
Maduro had it coming, although I'm not surprised the bleeding hearts on HN can't see that. The guy was a dictator. Fuck him. Well done USA and happy new year.
I really don't understand one thing: is there a single american who still think this has been done to liberate a country from a dictator in the name of freedom? Seriously? This has been done for economical and power interests and USA is the most destabilizing power in the world and a source of war and desperation and death: they supports israel to get political power in middle east, they invaded countries as done in Iraq, they push Nato to the border of Russia and provoke war (not to say Putin had right to invade Ukraine but what would have done usa if mexico Canada or Cuba had russian weapons and support? Oh yes, we knew about Cuba). And the president Trump: he’s just a ridicolous bully like the ones you can find at high schools.
Please US citizens, grow up. There had been a time when you were admired and respected, now your country is killing the world.
> they push Nato to the border of Russia
No, former Soviet satellite states begged and pleaded for NATO membership. And their immediate Western neighbors advocates for it.
They didn't do that because the US asked them to. They were motivated by other concerns.
The US does bad things, yes, but the death toll is nothing like Stalin or Mao.
And the US don't tend to stick around occupying a country for half a decade.
I wouldn't dare to justify this. But it's not the same as Russia or China.
I’m not saying former soviet countries lived better under soviet imposition, but no one can be so naive to think US did that to help and free people.
When a mobster comes to you and free you from your previous mobster, it’s not because he is a good man and wants you to live freely: he does it to impose you his will and power exactly as US have always done.
As the parent comment said, the Warsaw Pact countries pleaded to join. Even Russia wanted to join at one point. America did it for its own reasons? Good, they win and we win.
I live in one of the former soviet republics. We begged to join NATO because we experienced the joy of living under 50 years of russian occupation
For some reason I can’t reply to your next comment on nato forced on your country.
When I’m implying that nato has been pushed to former soviet countries I’m referring to the influence done by US to support different governments. In Ukraine revolution in 2014 has been greatly supported by US.
I’m in no way saying China, Russia or whatever country is acting better, I’m just saying nobody can be so naive to not understand that there is no ideal of freedom involved in any US action but only political/power interests.
I’m curious to see which freedom-related justification will be used for the future annexation of Greenland
I have already said that living under soviet would have been worst but that is not the point.
The point is: usa is acting not in the falsey mith of global freedom but only in the name of extending its power and influence.
In Venezuela they didn’t combat narcotraffic otherwise I must expect Italy (my country) invasion since we are the home of one of the greatest cancer in history: mafia.
Don’t drink the lie USA are fighting for freedom otherwise a lot of human lives will be sacrificed uselessly
I am only responding to the retarded take that NATO was forced on us.
How is NATO a mobster? It's a collection of countries that band together to protect each other.
The Ukraine invasion is what happens when you don't have that kind of support.
This is a very strange case of false equivalence. You might not like the US but that doesn't impact on the basic idea of NATO.
Nato is an extension of usa in the sense that even if it is a group of nations, in reality, it’s under usa command and influence since usa is its “major shareholder”.
The US provides a large amount of the military force so it has a lot of influence but you're missing the point: it is a mutual protection agreement. Each country agrees to protect the other against attacks. This would be the case even without the US. It is not under US command since it a cooperative organization that elects its own leader and everything it does is though mutual agreement.
But you didn't answer my question: how is NATO a mobster? Because the US is involved? Even if one accepts your anti-US view in this regard, how does that make the other countries in NATO mobsters? Guilt by association? Other NATO countries have shown to be quite independent from the US in recent history.
You misread my comment: when I referred to mobster I was talking about the US “liberating” other countries and not to NATO.
So this is the response to your question.
Anyhow NATO is still under US great influence so in a way or another is acting as an extension of US.
There is nothing bad in joining a coalition but please don’t tell me NATO is not acting as a branch of US when exercising US influence.
Now go back to the point: US liberated Venezuela, yes for sure and it didn’t do for oil or other political interests and it won’t force it’s interests upon those of Venezuelans nor it will put people in command that are neutral and are not puppets in the hands of the US…come on how can you believe the bullshit of war to export democracy and freedom, how?
I responded to your comment as written, you're adding more to it in this reply or importing earlier of your comments. I still disagree with your characterization of NATO.
The US invasion of Venezuela illegal under both US and international and just plain wrong.
I don't support it and never said I did, go through my comment history and check if you want to.
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Wow, the chief idiot just said on Fox News that Maduro is on the Iwo Jima.
Like, holy classified military secrets Batman!
Bolivian here - no tears will be shed over this scumbag. Check tiktok live and people are celebrating in the streets. Believe venezolanos, and neighbors, and not redditors lol.
So crazy how all of this is highly probably due to the Epstein files. Has anything like this ever happened in history?
Anyone arguing that we cannot legally capture Putin may reconsidered their stance.
The world is complex... It is a fact that Chavez and Maduro have completely ruined Venezuela.
That doesn't mean things can't get worse.
I pray the majority of Venezuelans really have had enough of socialist dictatorships and can find a way to govern themselves. The US should not govern Venezuela - but neither should Maduro or his cronies.
God bless America and God bless President Trump!
This can only be good news for the Venezuelans, having lived in such poor conditions for so long. Soon they will be able to go to McDonald's, drink Starbucks, and maybe one day if they really prove themselves to have that special drive and spirit that only Americans have, apply for US citizenship!
What does this have to do with technology?
All in all, probably a good thing.
Wishing the new cold war will be equally bloodless all along
It is definitely not Russia unprovokenly and illegibly attacking its neighbor, so why even care?
Yay more political posts on the techie news site. Closing the tab for the weekend this time.
Alright So I'm fully expecting that companies like Visa and Mastercard to promptly exit US market, for the EU to stop issuing visas to US citizens and harsh sanctions on the US economy by the EU.
Right? Right?
The world is not a 30 line program
“The EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela” seriously https://x.com/kajakallas/status/2007405051896123707
"Officials from the United States and other countries have questioned the legality of the strikes."
Look, this is getting tiring. You have no idea what the people in this country went through and they might as well see it as a "good thing". I think the same applies to Iran, an intervention by the US could be the best thing that ever happened in these countries, so the "legality" issue doesn't quite sound warranted in my opinion.
Im not sure we want the president to be going around bypassing congress in regards to the military. I would prefer a congress that took back its power from the executive.
I'm not well informed on how this came to be, but to consider this with regard to US's own interests, I think it is simply a problem to be dealt with sooner than later. You definitely don't want to ignore it until it's a "real problem".
edit: I'd also add that this was also a message to the Supreme Leader -- he seems to be oblivious to the consequences of the threats for his own people and, quite frankly, counts on the percentage of people who disagree. The sheer volume of the lies that is going around is astonishing and you have to live it to know.
a chinese intervention to overthrow trump i think would also be quite welcomed, but still not the best thing to do
Ends justify the means is bad policy in any context.