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...
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.
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.
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.
> Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Have you seen the people running the US right now? The president is in late-stage dementia, and his cabinet couldn't put together a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.
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.
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.
> 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 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".
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 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?
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.
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".
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..
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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].
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
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, chooses to ignores the real direct hurt currently endured by non-actors (LATAM and US citizens) from the policies of Maduro.
I do concede that whatever follows 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 act was invalid.
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.
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
> , 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"?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
Ahh yes, the old “the president will declare martial law to remain in office” prediction. Didn’t happen when it was claimed by folks in 1992, 1999, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. It also won’t happen in 2028.
You can bookmark my comment along with the one above.
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!
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).
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.
> 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
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.
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.
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)
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!
> 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.
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.
> 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…
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, during which countless atrocities have been committed against the population.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Worth remembering that Russia experienced three revolutions in the beginning of the 20th century: in winter of 1905, turning it into a constitutional monarchy; 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 its parliament.
That single comment breaks so many HN guidelines I'm not sure which one to quote, so I'm just going to link you to all of them so you can be a better member of this community:
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).
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.)
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.
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.
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
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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 gave Ukraine 8 long years of failed diplomacy to resolve the conflict diplomatically. Russia attempted a last ditch effort at proposing an updated European security architecture in late 2021 but that proposal was rejected by the west. Russia stood by while everything Russian, including the Russian language which is the native language of millions of Ukrainians, was facing many restrictions. Ukraine’s NATO aspiration wasn’t not being forgone and Russia was done with empty promises that aren’t on paper like the promises made to them in 1991 about NATO’s expansion eastward.
>> 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.
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.
> Here's a trick I've learnt to get an authentic view of events like these
A trick I've learnt to get disingenious views of these events is how neatly they line up with official media/government positions. In these events, if commenters parrot media/government talking points, it's most certainly a disingenious one. Kinda like yours.
> 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
And yet, all you do is spout state propaganda. Funny how you haven't mentioned the millions of venezuelans who voted for maduro.
> No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
In those threads there are genuine comments. And those that parrot the official state/government propaganda - "Fentanyl", "drugs", "migrants", "venezuelan perspective".
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
You’re getting downvoted but your take is simply the truth. Trump does not think like a politician- 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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cut the shit. Both are willing to fuck the other countries up and kill people to achieve whatever goals they have. And the victims do not give a flying fuck about the reasons they're being raped.
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.
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...
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.
> 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.
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.
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'...
> 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.
Amen to that. Now let's also do the same for all social "sciences".
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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...)
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.
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).
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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).
[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"
"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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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
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.
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)
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.
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
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.
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.
> 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:
"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.
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.
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?
> 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.
> 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.
>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.
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.
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.
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”
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.
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 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
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".
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?
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.
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.
US has essentially taken control of trillions of dollars worth of energy, choking Russia's dependence on energy exports and making China's energy dependence on Middle East, Russia and Australia that much less resilient.
It has also basically seized Chinese investments into Venezuela.
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".
Russia and China are the only two countries that can wipe the US off the map.
The most costly misjudgement was on part of the Ukrainian nationalists who thought the US would protect them. The US leaders however don't feel like dying in the nuclear fire for the fans of Bandera.
>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
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.
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.
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.)
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.
"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.
> 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."
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").
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.
This is illegal, immoral, unsupported by the vast majority of the US population and requiring immediate action by every US citizen and elected official.
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.
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.
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 some boats on some theory of importing a drug that they do not make. Then they destroy all the evidence that could possibly demonstrate this?
And 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?
Still about oil. Iran is about oil. Somalia is about Oil. Venezuela is about oil. All the meetings with the Saudis is. Trump's weird idea about making Canada the 51st state...
you can solve all the trump foreign policy mysteries with one weird trick and it's just a three letter word.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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!"
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?"
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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?
> 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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
You’ve been emotionally played by the media if you are genuinely mad about this. Only surface level emotional manipulation makes sense to explain such a reaction.
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.
> 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.
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.
Let’s hope the fallout is as clean as the operation. Wanting your dictator gone is one thing. But no one wants to be invaded and have a puppet planted.
I mean surely they are going to have elections now, right? Right?
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 case. They did make the bad guys look bad -- they held a whole summer's worth of public hearings where they prosecuted the case in public. 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. 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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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.
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.
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).
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.
"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."
„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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
> 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.)
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.
"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."
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.
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.
> 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?
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?
He asked what does differ, not what's similar. What differs is western propaganda this time will have all those claims of atrocities and abductions to be carried not by the U.S., bit by the other side. Sala Ukraini!
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.
> 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...
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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
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.
"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.)
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 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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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?
> 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
They haven’t removed the government. They removed Maduro. Very different.
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.
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.
On the other hand, Chile was a success. Not ethically, of course, but they accomplished what they wanted.
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.
I conclude that you cannot apply consequentialism when the outcome is unknown, so the US has done something immoral and illegal, end of story.
> Why have you concluded the US is unable to put anything in the place of Venezuela's previous government?
Have you seen the people running the US right now? The president is in late-stage dementia, and his cabinet couldn't put together a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.
> 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!
The same people were probably like "Joe's fine"
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.
> 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.
Trump's only aims are:
* money for himself (and family)
* attention (see also narcissism)
As long as those around him (Miller, Vought) do not interfere with those things they can do whatever they want:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
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.
> * 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.*
Trump's only aims are:
* money for himself (and family)
* attention (see also narcissism)
As long as those around him (Miller, Vought) do not interfere with those things they can do whatever they want:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
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.
> 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.
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".
> 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.
This is a coup and she is part of the conspiracy
> It's not obvious Trump will let her stay in charge.
What's he going to do, kidnap her? Oh, wait.
That's the plan.
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.
> 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.
Law of unintended consequences weighs heavy…
No. It couldn't be. Not even a remote chance.
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.
> "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.
They did not do this for Ukraine either, which seems quite a bit larger.
We should find a new name for wars that aren't wars. Maybe a some kind of special operation?
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".
Notably trustworthy individual Marco Rubio
> What gives you that impression?
What's the next stage then according to the administration?
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..
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
MIGA?
My favorite computer was a MIGA
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.
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
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.
They did not capture the Iranian leadership, though.
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.
I think it has been like this forever, since the beginning of human civilization.
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.
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.
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
Or Afghanistan
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.
"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.
>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. :)
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They'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?
You have to remember Trump is an adjudicated rapist. It makes sense he wouldn't consider consent important.
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.
Who is already seeing this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day?
What?!? Not end in one day? Nonsense!
Soon you will be telling me the Taliban still run Kabul.
> 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.
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, chooses to ignores the real direct hurt currently endured by non-actors (LATAM and US citizens) from the policies of Maduro.
I do concede that whatever follows 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 act was invalid.
Invading and kidnapping the leader of a sovreign nation sounds rather illegal to me.
There's no such thing as a sovereign dictatorship, that's a contradiction in terms.
I've met Ron Paul.
You, sir, are no Ron Paul.
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.
That way lies madness.
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.
> 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.
Don't think that's true of Britain and France these days...
Xi Jinping is probably sending thank you cards to Trump right about now.
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?
Very apt username for the occasion.
> 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.
> , 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"?
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.
Who decides when a leader is illegitimate or not?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Socialist dictators must be glad they can count on the leftists of HN.
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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
Ahh yes, the old “the president will declare martial law to remain in office” prediction. Didn’t happen when it was claimed by folks in 1992, 1999, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. It also won’t happen in 2028.
You can bookmark my comment along with the one above.
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..
Done what, exactly? Abduct Maduro?
Yes, for example, or forcefully remove the leader of the country of your choice.
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?
>You have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to contend that Zelensky is not the democratically legitimated head of state of Ukraine.
He won the election in the most corrupt country in Europe. Then, he suspended the next election and no more elections have been celebrated ever since.
> 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.
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?
> 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.
Contrary to popular belief by ameridumbs, Ukraine does not have the US constitution.
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!
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.
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.
> 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
Right, like Iraq and Afghanistan right?
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
> They can’t. So the USA shouldn’t either.
That's not the way international relations work.
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
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.
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.
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.
> 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…
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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
Umm, yeah, just go look at Vance's statements about European politics. Literally.
No, it's not.
Having lived roughly 50 years on the planet, I recognise this as both a view I used to hold and as pretty naive.
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.
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.
Basically the entire theme of the Culture novels by Iain. M. Banks.
Intervening in another nation, for whatever purposes, requires much more discussion and negotiations than there was here.
Sadly I don't think anyone is coming to save us.
It would be true if the invading dictator didn’t have ulterior motives and dubious intentions.
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?
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.
If only there was some process in the constitution for Congress to declare a war or something.
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.
"In the absence of higher authority, everything that is possible is allowed." -- Reality
Britain certainly can take the US back in today's environment. If only they had the navy for it.
>If Trump becomes dictator tomorrow
The moment he started ignoring the US Constitution, he became one.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
> 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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe. But there is still popular support; and some of the elections Chavez won, he actually did win.
True, but that is irrelevant today, they squandered that support and people want a change now.
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'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.
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.
I'm surprised Castro's Cuba still exists.
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.
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.
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.
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, during which countless atrocities have been committed against the population.
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.
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.
Yep - Reddit is unfortunately now where the simpletons hang out. This is far better, you can have intelligent debates
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.
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
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...
Putin and Xi must be ecstatic at the leverage this gives them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
> 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.
There have been uprisings that weren't coups in many countries in the world.
At some point is what you believe, but based on lost elections and literally millions of exiled people.
Whether or not Venezuelan's are ha
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.
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.
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 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.
A wide majority of Venezolans are happy with having Maduro out.
I'm not sure many people will believe you saying that
Fortunately, their disbelief does not make it not true.
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.
Agreed
I have concerns about my own country because it has a big border with Venezuela.
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?
Because GP is paying attention this time.
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.
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.
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.
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; 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 its parliament.
Well, who could've anticipated red plague to grip a whole country?
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
This is a crime to the Venezuelans, the US citizens, and the whole of South America.
This lot of Venezuelans don't seem too worried https://www.nbcnews.com/video/venezuelan-community-in-miami-...
And Maduro stealing elections and the Chavez dictatorship before that wasn't?
are you capable of holding more than one truth in your head?
That single comment breaks so many HN guidelines I'm not sure which one to quote, so I'm just going to link you to all of them so you can be a better member of this community:
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Most Venezuelans will make a very loud point to disagree with you.
Venezuelans are cheering.
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.
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
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).
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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?
Americans can delete Italy.
Venezuelans can't delete America.
Yes, a bit of a one way street.
> Americans can delete Italy.
Boy, Americans really do have an overinflated sense of their power.
There are american military bases all over italy already...
Hello idiot
What would actually happen?
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.
Wiping off Italy for no reason is enough to trigger a French nuclear response.
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.
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.
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 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.
> Italy can unilaterally bomb San Francisco?
They can try.
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.)
> 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
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?
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.
do you spend a lot of time fantasizing about civilians getting killed?
> 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.
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.
> 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
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.)
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
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.
Interesting comparison. Did Luigi do anything wrong?
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.
Sure, they can certainly try. Sovereignty is an illusion until it is tested.
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 gave Ukraine 8 long years of failed diplomacy to resolve the conflict diplomatically. Russia attempted a last ditch effort at proposing an updated European security architecture in late 2021 but that proposal was rejected by the west. Russia stood by while everything Russian, including the Russian language which is the native language of millions of Ukrainians, was facing many restrictions. Ukraine’s NATO aspiration wasn’t not being forgone and Russia was done with empty promises that aren’t on paper like the promises made to them in 1991 about NATO’s expansion eastward.
>> 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
The fish celebrate when the bear is hunted. It does not mean order has been restored to the wild.
> Here's a trick I've learnt to get an authentic view of events like these
A trick I've learnt to get disingenious views of these events is how neatly they line up with official media/government positions. In these events, if commenters parrot media/government talking points, it's most certainly a disingenious one. Kinda like yours.
> 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
And yet, all you do is spout state propaganda. Funny how you haven't mentioned the millions of venezuelans who voted for maduro.
> No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
In those threads there are genuine comments. And those that parrot the official state/government propaganda - "Fentanyl", "drugs", "migrants", "venezuelan perspective".
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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?
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.
Yeah, it's a long list. https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
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 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.
"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.
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...
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...
That’s not why, it’s just the official justification and the charges we’ll use to keep him.
The 'Why' has absolutely nothing to do with Maduro's indictment.
You get to choose between 'oil', 'get Epstein off the front page' or 'dementia'.
There is no way there is a coherent plan behind any of this. Trump loves dictators and drug dealers as long as they kiss the ring.
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.
You’re getting downvoted but your take is simply the truth. Trump does not think like a politician- 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?
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
This is pretty standard for America, nothing new.
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
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?
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
Riiiiight, and so are all those dead Iraqi and Afghan civilians, amirite.
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.
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?
>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.
Cut the shit. Both are willing to fuck the other countries up and kill people to achieve whatever goals they have. And the victims do not give a flying fuck about the reasons they're being raped.
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?
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.
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...
That bar was one the ground with the patriot act and never left it since.
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
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...
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.
> 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.
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.
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'...
> 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.
Amen to that. Now let's also do the same for all social "sciences".
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.
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 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.
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
> The only one who did was Tony Blair
"You forgot Poland."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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...)
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.
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.
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
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).
> 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.
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.
> 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...
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.
> 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?
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).
What a joy to see socialist scum whine that one of their dictators will be brought to justice.
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.
"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 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?
I believe matters of international law are typically decided upon by a randomly selected panel of internet commenters.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
>"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's a country not a ticker symbol. VE is proper but even VZ would be better.
VZLA is the abbreviation Venezuelans use
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.
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.
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.
US is an expert in trying to artificially build democracies.
They're more expert at demolishing democracy right now, their very own.
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.
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.
Maduro is a coward and has no military power
People here saying it's "unjustified" should go and talk to a displaced Venezuelan.
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.
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
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.
> Whatever the US is trying to achieve in Venezuela, it's probably not that
Presumably we're only trying to annex their oil reserves
> 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.
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 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.
I wonder who is financing your efforts with throwaway accounts? Iran? Russia? China? or is it from drug cartels?
I'm a bit relieved that UN will do something about this:
https://youtu.be/9DLuALBnolM?si=Vg56GgJCisLOqvw0&t=146
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...
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.
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...
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?
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?
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.
The vice-president: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delcy_Rodr%C3%ADguez
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.
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.
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.
>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.
Even the slightest shadow of a "rules-based international world order" is dead. And all it took was some post-pandemic inflation.
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?
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.
> 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)
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.
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?
> 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.
> 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.
It's true that Russians didn't vote to attack Ukraine. Nevertheless, the invasion had broad popular support at the beginning.
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.
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.
2014 was before covid.
"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.
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.
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?
> 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.
> 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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Should be on the lookout for major upcoming domestic news they're trying to bury.
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.
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.
Nukes make a lot of difference though, wouldn't be so sure about russia
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.
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.
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
South Korea is doing very well. So is Taiwan.
I don't see how Taiwan is relevant here.
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.)
There are still Maduro-linked armed rebel groups like the ELN in Venezuela that aren't that keen on the US version of freedom.
What? The current Russian regime is extremely popular in Russia, despite what US/EU media might tell you. Have you ever been?
There's a difference between happy for the regime to fall" and "a superior military invades and starts a war"
Bombs are not the solution.
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.
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
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".
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.
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?
...except there already is a refugee crisis caused be the regime that is supposed to be toppled, 20% of Venezuelans have left the country.
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.
I wish more people understood this.
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 would argue it goes far beyond Monroe 2.0.
US has essentially taken control of trillions of dollars worth of energy, choking Russia's dependence on energy exports and making China's energy dependence on Middle East, Russia and Australia that much less resilient.
It has also basically seized Chinese investments into Venezuela.
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 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.
>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?
> 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.
Sounds like Russian leadership should have known they're not a match for Americans. A costly misjudgement.
Russia and China are the only two countries that can wipe the US off the map.
The most costly misjudgement was on part of the Ukrainian nationalists who thought the US would protect them. The US leaders however don't feel like dying in the nuclear fire for the fans of Bandera.
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)?
A lot of people do think exactly that.
>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
>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
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.
This administration is so incompetent, the CIA might actually do good this time around.
Panama
> 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.
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.)
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.
"There's so much oil in here, US is about to invade this dish!"
--Chef Ramsay
"Venezuela has ~2.7× as much proved oil as the UAE (303 / 111 ≈ 2.73)."
Pretty incredible
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…
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?
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.
He already has the FIFA Peace Prize, he doesn’t care anymore.
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
Well maybe not considering he's just clearing the way for the current nobel peace prize winner to assume power
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.
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.
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?
https://inside.fifa.com/campaigns/football-unites-the-world/...
FIFA Peace Prize laureate is the person responsible for giving the order to attack, assuming that those are caused by the US military.
"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?
Not just FIFA, also the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
> 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...
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").
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.)
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.
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?
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.
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 some boats on some theory of importing a drug that they do not make. Then they destroy all the evidence that could possibly demonstrate this?
And 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...
Still about oil. Iran is about oil. Somalia is about Oil. Venezuela is about oil. All the meetings with the Saudis is. Trump's weird idea about making Canada the 51st state...
And that Greenland thing is about reversing this ... https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/greenlan...
you can solve all the trump foreign policy mysteries with one weird trick and it's just a three letter word.
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.
The rare earth minerals as well https://venezuelanalysis.com/infographics/subsoil-bonanza-ve...
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20473862>
Got it. Forgot that rule.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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
>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.
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.
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?
Why stop there? The best case scenario would include prosecution of Trump and his administration.
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...
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!
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.
I agree. It's now confirmed that DJT ordered military attacks on Venezuela
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/venezuela-us-military-s...
TikTok videos showing Apache helicopters shooting missiles at targets. Lots of planes and helicopters flying over Caracas
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.
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!
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.
Trump himself just now said he is good friends with Xi and they will get their oil.
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.
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.
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.
I remember, when people said, that the military would refuse illegal orders.
Good times
And had a good laugh
Hypocrisy is the greatest western value. And the west really likes its values
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.
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.
Imagine the terror felt by those in the capital as American warplanes flew overhead launching munitions.
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.
<< 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. >>
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
Do as the priest says not as the priest does.
Does Americans really believe a chief of a big country is state is a drug smuggler?
> 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.
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 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.
Righteous Americans are coming! They are here to fix the whole world!
Venezuela's major crime is having natural and human resources that it won't allow multinational corporations to exploit.
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.
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.
> 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.
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 must be about oil.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
Maybe worth mentioning I posted this before seeing the news about Maduro being captured. No idea whether/how that might change the calculus.
It brings joy to my heart every time democracy is brought to an oil rich country, no matter what the price is.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
You’ve been emotionally played by the media if you are genuinely mad about this. Only surface level emotional manipulation makes sense to explain such a reaction.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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...
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"
Let’s hope the fallout is as clean as the operation. Wanting your dictator gone is one thing. But no one wants to be invaded and have a puppet planted.
I mean surely they are going to have elections now, right? Right?
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.
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.
So maybe some other country should 'capture' Trump and fly him back to have him stand trial for being a paedophile and let's see what happens.
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.
> 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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey%27s_Paw
I think the democracy you want is not the same as the invaders want
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.
I think Venezuela should take this to the ICC. (The ICJ is irrelevant).
So they can write a strongly worded letter?
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.
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.
And the american people can get their shit together and hang him for his crimes.
> 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...
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 case. They did make the bad guys look bad -- they held a whole summer's worth of public hearings where they prosecuted the case in public. 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. 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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
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_...
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.
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
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
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
Funny how declaring a war is a crime while shelling cities in another country is not.
> 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
If you need to look for loophole justifications to claim there was no war crime, there was probably a war 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.
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.
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.
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.
"rules based order" means putting people with dark skin in handcuffs on TV
> 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.
MAGA at its core is a rejection of the lower classes having wealth.
They have the same respect for domestic laws as they do for international ones
Rules based order has always only applied to small and medium countries. The UN Security Council does whatever the hell they want
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
Yes I'm quite sure the Venezuelans are greeting us as liberators.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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?
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.
[ ok let's just say ] it's a one side deal
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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
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.
There is zero actual radical communism in Venezuela at this point.
> 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.
What about the chance of a Colombian, Bolivian, Ecuadorian or Brazilian missile crisis?
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!
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.
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)
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.
Is that the beginning of a three-days special military operation?
Trump's post: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...
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.
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.
> this increasing threat
What threat? There is no threat to the US from Venezuela. This is another Banana war.
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
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".
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.
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?
Of course the far-left dregs on HN are outraged that the socialist dictator and drug lord is being brought to justice.
Somehow, I'm starting to agree with Russia's reason for launching the war because Ukraine wanted to join NATO.
Because...?
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.
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...
Unlikely to be ann invasion, they appear to be SOF Chinooks so probably a snatch or pinpoint raid.
> 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.
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.)
Turns out Douglas Dykhouse really meant this years US New Year wishes when he said "Americans and Russians share the same values".
how is this different from what putin doing to ukraine?
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.
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.
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).
So now fucking what?
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.
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 ?
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."
All in all, probably a good thing.
Wishing the new cold war will be equally bloodless all along
„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“
"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.
Wondering what and who is going to fill the power vacuum there.
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.
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?
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?
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!
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?
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.
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.
> "ousted"
The guy literally ran away to Russia.
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.
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.
> 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."
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!
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.
> 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?
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?
He asked what does differ, not what's similar. What differs is western propaganda this time will have all those claims of atrocities and abductions to be carried not by the U.S., bit by the other side. Sala Ukraini!
> Sala Ukraini!
You won't get far in your troll farm hierarchy this way.
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.
> 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...
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.
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
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.
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.
It differs very much. Russia defends itself.
Ex-superpower, still regional power, defends itself from Ukraine, right.
Countries that "defend itself" don't annex territories of other countries.
USA, the world's bullying.
Democracy incoming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
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.
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.
> 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.
Yay more political posts on the techie news site. Closing the tab for the weekend this time.
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.
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.
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?
Oh, my sweet summer child.
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
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.
Wtf
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.
I still care more about what’s on the Epstein files
"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.)
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.
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.
So they got Maduro now they gonna commit genocide or why the hell keep bombing??
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?
Chinese envoy was meeting Maduro just hours ago in Miraflores. Wonder how that factors into the situation
Okay, that was smooth and effective. But now what? Let's hope not another Libya.
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?
Trump just said that Maduro and his wife have been captured and flown out of the country.
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".
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
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?
oil price down
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.
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
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.
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?
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
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
https://vxtwitter.com/FaytuksNetwork/status/2007338956241985...
Not Venezuelan helicopters...
Next up: Greenland
"The oil must flow"
Looks like Maduro and his wife were captured https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1158304287678...
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.
> 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?
Noriega in Panama, Milosevic in Kosovo/Serbia... it's been patterned. Question is... who's going to do anything about it?
Oh the salty tears of all the cryptocommunist woke shiteheads with purple hair trying to excuse a dictatorship.
Shows how dumb many devs really are.
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.
It's the Epstein Distraction Action.
Wag the Dog.
Trump will do anything for his oil friends.
Wow, the chief idiot just said on Fox News that Maduro is on the Iwo Jima.
Like, holy classified military secrets Batman!
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.
So crazy how all of this is highly probably due to the Epstein files. Has anything like this ever happened in history?
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.
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.
America is a terrorist state, bombing anyone they want for resources. Build on genocide, sustained by war. This country needs to go.
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.
Is everyone sufficiently distracted yet?
Gotta get those gasoline prices down before the midterms.
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.
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?
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…
I just want to say, this is an outstanding comment, and it’s surprising and embarrassing that it’s ranked so low.
Need to get this comment to the top.
Prediction: this headline will be renamed "US invades Venezuela" very soon.
It's not an invasion, it is just a special military operation.
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
When did we stop calling them “police actions” when side-stepping Congressional approval?
A Superb Military Operation, some even say it's Super, one of the best military operations they've ever seen!
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.
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.
It won’t, they will just quote whatever the Trump admin says
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.
All content is political. Some gets removed.
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.
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
Hacker News?
I hope similar fate awaits Putin
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Just because you don't like your government doesn't mean you want the US to come and deliver your next US flavored dictator
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...
It is definitely not Russia unprovokenly and illegibly attacking its neighbor, so why even care?
Anyone arguing that we cannot legally capture Putin may reconsidered their stance.
“The EU is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela” seriously https://x.com/kajakallas/status/2007405051896123707