Remember the 'Arab spring' and what came after.
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...
Imagine some other country kidnaps your country's President and he sends this message to you
But the main point remains the same. This is an act of terror every sane human should condemn
I think Trump is hoping to get a short popularity boost the way George Bush did with the capture of Manuel Noriega, but people cared more about who controlled the Panama Canal in the 1990s than they care about who controls Venezuela today. And I don't know anybody who expects this to impact drugs coming from Venezuela or Latin America in general.
The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
Another comment was discussing how shocked they were with how brazen a move this was for oil, and that in the past the government wouldn't have been so honest. As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
The truth is Americans mostly don't like this, but have little means to do much due to the political structure of how our government works. Our legislature is silently approving and it is clearly costing the seats, even thought it is still 10 months before the next cycle of elections for those seats. But that's 10 months away, and while tensions were strong for months this happened in a single day. It's so much easier to tear down than to build up.
And the truth is that most of us aren't going to try and perform a violent upheaval against a trillion dollar military complex. We lack the skills, resources, and even geography for that. I can't even afford a plane ride to DC at the moment.
I'm not a particular fan of the "you critique society yet you participate in it" argument. This assumes a lot of agency in the individual that doesn't exist without collective bargaining.
>As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
Every country has inconvenient truths it tries to hide. It being brazen about the evils it commits is the truly surprising part. The whole point of propaganda is convincing your people that they are the good guys, and there was none of that pomp here.
If Venezuela descends into a state of anarchy, they can ask congress to approve a plan to restore order. We’re irrevocably involved in the situation now.
But I will be blunt, the problem is not just the current government. One of our political parties starts at least one large conflict every time they are in power. This has happened for 35 years now, if this continues my entire lifespan will have existed in a perpetual state of war.
GW's popularity steadily declined from the summer of '03 until the end of his presidency. If the election had been any later, he would've been below 50% and wouldn't have been able to pull it off. Meanwhile Democrats chose the least energizing presidential candidate I've seen in my entire adult life. (I've been voting since Bush v. Gore.) And when Kerry was nominated and the Swift Boat smear campaign started - a group whose claims have been since been discredited - Democrats did very little to fight back.
Even if we did "want this" back then, support for the invasion of Iraq plummeted during Bush's second term and has never recovered. Two-thirds of Americans, and almost that many veterans who actually fought in the war, said it wasn't worth fighting and still say so today.
So no, the majority of us don't want this.
More than 40% want this. You would condemn cultures around the world happily if significant percentage are like this. Why are you so special then?
In general, hedonic adaption ends either with internal retrospection (shifting from pleasure to purpose) or an external disruption. In America's case, the former is extremely unlikely IMHO - the American people will not put their money where their mouth is because they enjoy the wealth generated this way. It will be upto external disruptors to check on Uncle Sam's endless thirst.
China is their only competitor, but so far people clearly prefer to chat with AI companies from USA.
I'm not so sure. Sure, they want the benefits that are provided. However, if being aware of what the costs are to get those benefits apriori, I'm not sure Americans would think the exchange worthwhile.
no being aware is the key here. For example just on NPR - 40% of American kids think bacon is a plant.
(Don't get me wrong - i intentionally immigrated to US and i like all those benefits of life here. Speaking about the costs of that to the rest of the world - back in Russia i worked for domestic employers as well as for a US based one, and being "exploited" by the US based employer were much nicer than by the domestics.)
They also believe a fat man dressed in red zips around the earth one night to give everyone presents.
They’re children. They don’t need to know where bacon and hot dogs come from.
I doubt those children care about anything outside their bubble.
not sure about that. Around age 7 i saw a full butchering of a pig at my grandmother's farm, and i was still happily eating pork for the next 20+ years, and i don't remember anybody in my childhood not knowing where the bacon is coming from. I stopped eating beef and pork though about 20 years ago exactly for the reason where it comes from.
Btw, "They don’t need to know where ... come from" can be said by the powers-to-be about people of any age.
Most people would probably eat less meat if they knew exactly what was happening to the animals in that process. We'd eat less chocolate if we really thought about the slavery in the chocolate supply chain. We'd not buy certain products because of the environmental impact and working conditions.
But instead we just mostly deliberately avoid learning and thinking about those things. And I count myself as well. The incentives all push Americans to be OK with this.
I'm asking about 218 elected representatives and 67 senators to do their job. This isn't a matter of "we (the people) need to start a civil war to show our disdain for these actions". At least, not yet. There's so many channels to address this that doesn't involve "sacrificing ourselves", but the channels are at best clogged and at worst compliant, despite what they were voted to do.
I'm 37, so I was young at the time of Afghanistan/Iraq, about 14. I recall thinking the adults who said it was "for the oil" were dangerously naive: neither had significant oil resources that would alter supply dramatically, gas prices weren't high, the administration had 0 to say on that front, and it wasn't even close to a focus once fighting settled.
This leaves me curious about conclusions drawn from that.
Remember Dick Chaney had huge conflicts of interest. It was also about oil but not only oil.
In reality, an administration with an ideological bent towards using military force reacted, with universal acclaim, to 9/11.
Future historians, it didn't used to be like this. Started getting really weird around 2018.
It's typically not an empirically based conviction.
If I'm understanding correctly, I'm reminded of an old saw I think I made up:
You can lie (shade people's interpretations) by either using percentages, or gross amounts.
I'm sure that's a TON of oil, gross amount.
I'm also sure 8% is "not particularly huge".
For instance, if I could get you without this frame, and told you that you got a 92% on a test, you got an "absolutely bonkers amount" of questions wrong...you'd argue with me.
If you started crying when I told you that you got a 92% on the test, then told you that's a "not particularly huge" amount to get wrong, I think you'd agree, if not be consoled.
Now imagine if only one student out of a class of ~200 (~195 countries in the world) can get the right answer to each question (200 questions total) and once one person answers the question, no one else can get credit for it (if you burn oil, it's gone).
By default, each country should get 1 question or 0.5% (percent of oil) on the test. Now the teacher announces that the answer to 16 questions (8%) can be found in the library and the person who gets there first gets all those points.. Getting a hold of even ONE block of 8% probably puts you in the top 10 students in the class. If you can find such a block to add to your 3% (US), at 11%, you're likely to be in the top 5 students in the class. Add another 10% (Venezuela) and 6% (Canada), and at 27%, you're probably #1.
I think you are correct that Bush had a very different ideology. I view him as more of a buffoon than a robber baron. (We spent $2-3T in Iraq -- if it was robbery, it was not effective.) I doubt it makes much difference to people whose lives were ruined. But it could be important in the broader context of predicting US behavior: Bush started the PEPFAR program which saved millions from AIDS in Africa; Trump wrecked it.
One very sad possibility is that Bush discredited the ideology of "compassionate conservatism" in the US through his bumbling, and that contributed to the relative popularity of Trump's "amoral conservatism".
The robbery was done against the American people. They are the ones who were robbed! Imagine in what shape the country would be if you would have gotten free higher education and free healthcare instead?
The other and with that the biggest victim were the causalities from the invasion, but they were not robbed but rather assaulted…
And having been lucky in the last century+ that none of your neighbors did anything wild. Not having to fight an actual war in your own country helps a lot in getting ahead.
And no, pearl harbor doesn't count, as bad as that was it's nothing compared to the destruction of 2 world wars that set Europe back a century
As someone from central Europe: lol
There is a tiny portion that makes the GDP look nice, but as someone who knows average Americans outside of tech, it's an absolute joke. Especially when you look at necessities you basically cannot get around (medical costs, taxes, etc.).
Sure if you are on HN chances are you might not notice, but I know people that effectively live in somewhat close to slavery because they need to work every working hour simply to live and has been caught in a nice web where they don't even have time to reconsider life. Something the employer clearly set up that way, including things like being the landlord.
That's why there can be an elite and a "middle class" that lives off these people.
The homeless problem not just in SF but all the way to the midwest is ridiculous and how these homeless people are dealt with - basically like a pest is outrageous.
People here get severely upset about how bad people have it here, when they do have it much nicer. Meanwhile people in the US seem to largely turn a blind eye.
All that while taking the hit of refugees that have (largely) been caused by US politics.
I am sorry, but things don't work despite meddling with any country that has natural resources.
And I mean that as it is. I know it's not easy to come out of it. But the thing is starting a war every now and then doesn't seem to help a lot of fixing actual problems. Despite all the benefits it clearly has for the US.
Having moved to Europe from Mexico, I sometimes get asked if Spain is regarded as "having brought civilization" to Mexico; the first time I heard the question, it took me a while to collect my jaw from the floor: I could not believe someone was that accidentally uninformed... seems like it had been a deliberate choice to not teach about the race systems that their ancestors had imposed (i.e. inventors of apartheid, in a way), the raping, the slavery, nor systematic complicity of the church, as well [1]:
> In 1512, the Laws of Burgos forced the conquistadores to respect the rights and freedom of Indigenous peoples. This was followed formally by the papal bull, Sublimus Dei of 1537 which declared Native Americans were no longer to be considered “dumb brutes created for our service” but were “truly men” capable of thinking, acting, and deciding their own destiny, control their own properties, and enjoy liberty. It proceeded to formally prohibit the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, one year later, this was nullified (Pope Paul III, 1537).
And that's not even covering the destruction of written history and books [2].
So, I think you may be right... this entire world may be filled with selfish monsters that do not want to know --- really know --- how much they are benefiting from other people's suffering.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a9xlQrcbx0
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/spanish...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa#Suppression_of_...
Well allowing Iran unlimited access to global markets would certainly help that.
Same for Venesuela, lifting sanctions and making it easier for them to develop their infrastructure would have lowered the global price of oil.
Governments in both countries are more than happy to sell more oil if anyone allowed them to.
It's not like US politically controlling a large oil producing country makes oil cheaper for Americans. They still have to buy it at the same price as everyone else.
Profits of American oil companies is quite a different matter, though.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/us-will-look-tap-ven...
If they're lying... that's an awfully strange choice of lies. It makes them look rather thuggish. Usually you pick a lie that would make you look better, right?
They are telling you who they are. Believe them.
For myself, I could not disagree more. I don't want this. And if you know of a lever I can pull to make it stop, I'm all ears - as long as it's not voting, calling my reps, or holding a sign. I've been doing those things for over 25 years and they haven't done squat.
I don't think Oil is the sole reason for this, I think that the influences of Iran, China, Russia and Cuba in Venezuela as well as the drug trafficking coming through them is the larger issue... getting back the Oil trade in the end is just icing on the proverbial cake. I also think it could be better for the people of Venezuela in the long run vs the authoritarian and communist influences they've had over the past half century.
Trump is funny, dishonest as hell when it comes to his ego, but more honest than any other politician I've ever even heard of at the same time.
Or, is reducing it to “dictator bad; gone good” unobvious, and something that slipped by everyone?
To wit: we’re in a thread for the top comment for a 3844 comment post, and that comment is noting that when there’s a power vacuum, things usually* get worse for the citizenry.
* nigh universally
No, it was a terrible outcome. US stold gold and oil while the rest of the world had to cope with the aftermath.
US and Izrael are notoriously breaking international laws, both countries are ruled by criminals.
https://chatgpt.com/share/695a2613-97e8-800e-b2e4-28fc7707f2...
And the media is already reporting that 'somehow' all of his inner circle seem to have survived.
Not every country is Iraq or Afghanistan. At least here it's fairly clear that removing Maduro reflects the popular will of Venezuelans.
America is very clearly a legitimate democracy, even if who was voted in office and the actions of that democratically elected government don’t align with your expectations or world view.
I didn’t vote for the guy. But I did vote. And as a poll worker I can tell you first hand that we ran a free and fair election as we have for any year I can think of. Legitimate Democracy. Period.
We have a legitimate democracy in terms of vote-counting, and you personally contribute to that.
It looks a lot less legitimate to me when I think about factors like votes having vastly varying weights because of gerrymandering and the Electoral College.
It gets even less legitimate when I think about how severely restricted our choice of candidates are, and how they are more or less chosen by party leaders and the oligarchy via billions of dollars of lobbying etc.
I'd also like to see a better runoff system than what we have in place, which could give a chance to more parties coming out. Right now, there are alignments into the two major parties and a lot of infighting because they are at least closer to what each group wants, but not really aligned and these create hard splits where there shouldn't be on a lot of issues.
The mechanism by which we choose leaders isn’t even in the top three most important prerequisites for a functioning democracy. If you didn’t pay attention in history and civics classes this may come as a surprise.
This should be doubly apparent in this thread, where this specific invasion would likely still be happening even if the fascists had lost in 2024 - this has military industrial complex's manufacturing consent and nation building all over it, regardless of it benefiting Trump to distract from the childrape files and whatever other corruption/stealing he can wedge in.
Can’t help but think it’s orchestrated by Russian bots.
You do realize the current government won the elections and the president won the popular vote right
Technically he won a plurality of the popular vote, but he didn't win the popular vote. This is typically not a distinction that matters, but in this case it's what happened. The majority of people voted for someone else, but he got votes from more people than any other candidate did.
Of course, what really matters is the electoral college, but the popular vote is often seen as lending even more legitimacy to a victory.
For instance, I wrote an invalid write-in candidate since both major parties ran clowns in 2024, but Harris carried my state by a mile.
Regardless, I think it's important to be precise about claims like this, since there is actually a difference between winning the popular vote and winning a plurality of it. Imagine making the claim if 10% of the popular vote went to third-party candidates, or even 20%!
That makes you part of the problem. And no, only one party ran a clown, and that party won because of people like you.
Secondly, tribal behavior is strengthened through sports teams, college allegiances, rep vs dem party lines and many other things, with the latter of those being the main reason.
Thirdly, the dems were very pro zionist while Trump was able to maintain deniability. This swung a lot of dem voters.
Lastly, Kamala got something like 0 votes in the primary. Wishing she would win the general election was delusional. Dems should themselves in the foot twice vs Trump with Kamala and when they betrayed Bernie to help Hillary.
You should engage in some critical thinking yourself instead of blasting your insecurities over the internet. Your media diet (bet $1000 that reddit is a big part) needs a do-over.
Critical thinking is a base human ability, which religion can indeed erode before it has a chance to grow.
> Secondly, tribal behavior is strengthened through sports teams, college allegiances, rep vs dem party lines and many other things, with the latter of those being the main reason.
This doesn't negate anything I've said, it adds to it. It is notable that the more religious parts of the US act more religious about their political party, however - something not seen in most western countries.
> Thirdly, the dems were very pro zionist while Trump was able to maintain deniability. This swung a lot of dem voters.
They were not as pro zionist as the "Lets demolish Gaza and build new resorts" GOP.
> Wishing she would win the general election was delusional.
Only because the US population is what it is, which is why wishing the only rational choice got elected is too much to hope for.
> blasting your insecurities over the internet.
I'm doing no such thing, however the way you make assumptions so haphazardly shows you yourself could benefit from some critical thinking instruction.
Colloquially majority means 'greatest share', and he certainly had the greatest share of votes out of all candidates. I don't like it, but it's correct to say he won the popular vote.
This is like asking someone to distinguish between a hypothesis of who killed JFK when they say they have a theory of who did. You're mixing the colloquial usage for no reason.
Majority doesn't mean more than 50% of the vote in everyday language, it means 'the most'. Trump got the most votes of any one candidate.
I guess it depends on whom you hang out with and talk to. I completely agree that some people can't understand the difference and speak accordingly. But I don't think we should redefine words based on the lowest common denominator of understanding/usage.
And in this case, it's especially important not to redefine "majority" because if we do then there's no word left to refer to an actual majority. That's not the same thing as JFK conspiracy theories.
No one is redefining anything. Merriam-Webster and Oxford both have a definition for majority meaning most, and that's the more common definition that is used in everyday speech.
Context matters.
> And in this case, it's especially important not to redefine "majority" because if we do then there's no word left to refer to an actual majority.
In this context, talking about the popular vote, no information is lost, nothing is miscommunicated by using the word majority and understanding how people are using it. Which, by the way, they are using correctly as per dictionary definitions.
> That's not the same thing as JFK conspiracy theories.
No, but it's the same as per my example in that you are being pedantic about a word in a way that serves no purpose, except maybe to try and make people feel stupid.
I don't have a subscription to Oxford's dictionary, but MW's lead definition mentions being more than half [1]. The fact that there is some other definition that doesn't specifically mention this is not probative of your claim that this is the more important definition. And your unsubstantiated claim that this is the more common usage is belied by the fact that your preferred definition is not the lead definition.
lol, why are you acting like you can't find it?
The definition you're attached to/fixating on, is marked as definition 'a'. Definition 'c' is defined as: the greater quantity or share - it's two lines below, you must have seen it.
That's the definition most people are using, and they are using it correctly. It's some shameful attempt at elitism to insist on correcting people, especially when they are not wrong - really it's just a completely inability to understand that different contexts use different definitions.
> And your unsubstantiated claim that this is the more common usage is belied by the fact that your preferred definition is not the lead definition.
I'm not sure the ordering of definitions indicates what you think it does, in any case it's trivial to find examples of the word majority being used to mean definition c. Ask your favorite AI, I bet they'll tell you you're wrong - and you know what? There's nothing wrong with that.
> a number or percentage equaling more than half of a total a majority of voters a two-thirds majority
I never said I couldn't find it, and I linked to it above. It's not a "shameful attempt at elitism" to point out that the first-listed definition is what I said. Your rejoinder that there exists some definition that could encompass your preferred usage does not refute what I said. Since you seem to be impervious to such logic, I'll leave it here. Have a good one!
That wasn't the behavior backing the claim, and you know it. The behaviour backing the claim was ignoring the definition being used as an excuse to try and correct people when you know well what they were saying. It's a sign of insecurity, generally.
> Your rejoinder that there exists some definition that could encompass your preferred usage does not refute what I said.
The fact that the word as a definition that shows that people were using it correctly is what refutes your claim.
> Since you seem to be impervious to such logic
I have no problem with logic, but I am critical of various peoples "logic".
> I'll leave it here.
I'm skeptical, but if you follow through I'll be appreciative.
Alternatively the UK violating the millennia old Magna Carta by halting jury trials for criminal offenses with less than 2 years of jail time.
As for your assertion that anyone who opposes unlimited unrestricted immigration is somehow far right: you are simply wrong.
If you want to find out how wrong you are I would encourage you to try moving to Norway. Then tell me if the process feels "unrestricted".
I would suggest knowing things before you express strong opinions.
Maybe I should make a website where example.com/e/Europe shows whatever I want people to think Europe thinks, and people will treat it as an authority for some reason? That's basically what you're doing with Reddit.
I don't partake in that subreddit so I have no clue as to the content or if this claim is true or false but it doesn't seem like a crazy idea for Russia to do. Sure there's plenty of content Trump gives Russia to potentially amplify, but there could still be bots amplifying things and making some opinions or takes on a story be more popular than reality.
Besides, elections isn’t what defines a functioning democracy.
Why do so many people fail to pay attention in history and civics class? And why do people get so upset when their ignorance is pointed out to them.
«He was elected» is not a justification. If it were then the rest of the world would take a dim view of Americans. Be glad that hasn’t become worse.
I have news for you...
The people who can not present a problem. Regardless of what pairing of nationalities.
You just have to look at the protests in NYC over Venezuela to see it... they aren't actually for what the people of Venezuela seem to want (they're celebrating), the protestors are clearly pushing for and protecting at what represents communist values, even if Maduro isn't really much of a Communist.
Harris received 97% of Trump's vote count.
There is not that strong a popular mandate for Trump, which shows in his approval ratings.
There, I said it.
The Democratic Party is at odds with Democrats, in my opinion. They just don't want to let anyone but the party itself pick the candidate, then are surprised when their own voters don't feel the candidate is theirs.
Obama was nominated in spite of the party, and people showed up for him.
Trump is awful, but losing to him twice is unfathomably stupid.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5447450/trump-2024-elec...
https://data.blueroseresearch.org/hubfs/2024%20Blue%20Rose%2...
2024 eligible voters: 244,666,890
2024 ballots cast: 156,766,239. 64% of eligible voters cast a vote
Trump votes: 77,284,118. 49.2% of votes cast, 31.6% of eligible voters
Harris votes: 74,999,166. 47.8% of votes cast, 30.6% of eligible voters
Trump got 1% more of the eligible voting population to go through the effort of casting a vote. That's not nothing, and it put him in office, but it's not a landslide that grants him an unquestionable public mandate.
Making assumptions that non-voters would or would not support particular policies is erroneous. Harvard-Harris did a poll question on this last month, and found that 76% of Americans supported the U.S. arresting Maduro and bringing him to stand trial in the U.S.: https://harvardharrispoll.com/press-release-december-2025. That means most Americans are further to the right on this issue than a bunch of isolationist conservatives who voted for Trump.
Nonsense.
> Can’t help but think it’s orchestrated by Russian bots.
Rational people can.
> the president won the popular vote
False.
Trump won the popular vote in 2024. He lost it in 2016
Sure is a bold statement considering Spain was a dictatorship as recently as 1975.
Historically in the American Republic, this has been true more often than not. There's a reason something taking "an act of Congress" is not a new expression for difficulty.
I seem to remember the 116th and 118th Congresses pushing back against executive power, which were the last times the US had divided government. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Presidents-Coinciding/...
And I wouldn't exactly say that Congress is wholly supporting unrestricted presidential power currently either. E.g. Senator Thune continually shooting down Trump's more oddball pleas.
There are very vocal supporters of the president in both the House and Senate GOP caucuses, but they're not the majority.
I think the strongest version of your argument would be something like 'In recent US Congressional history, both parties when in power have used congressional power to tactically check opposition party presidents, but neither have sought to permanently expand and defend the bounds of congressional power.'
Just re-read the USA constitution. Despite much effort, I did not find any "power rankings" of the three branches. Please point me in the right direction.
Now the president can do police actions and stuff but it seems like the intention was congress being the branch that had independent autonomy to just do things and get the ball rolling.
At that point, combined with the recent Supreme Court decisions holding 'official acts' as non-prosecutable, has swung the power meter severely to the executive.
Hint: Look at who has which powers. Congress has the power to check every other branch. Neither the President nor the courts have symmetrical power over Congress. This asymmetry reflects its position.
I must admit I am a bit flabbergasted. How can you not understand what you read? And if a portion of Hacker News users, who are likely to have above average cognitive ability, don’t understand this, how poorly does the rest of the population understand the core ideas of how their political system works?
Congress was not set up to be more powerful than the other branches. The president can veto laws that Congress tries to pass and the Supreme Court can also completely undo laws that Congress has passed.
I have been looking at productivity numbers for congress over the past decades. And I don’t get why people aren’t furious over the current congress not doing their job.
The opposition refused to address internal issues with the incumbent until they were painfully evident, then switched in a much weaker candidate in the final months who had never won a primary.
Had a stronger candidate been offered from the beginning, Trump well could have lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_efforts_to_di...
Also, Trump ran on a populist message. Yet if you look at what he has done materially since he got into office, it seems his true allegiance is with the billionaire elite.
I think most Venezuelans want freedom, prosperity, peace, and sovereignty.
I’m not sure in what order.
It would have been better if Maduro had respected the choice of Venezuelan voters. But that didn't happen, so here we are.
They are not.
And Trump has decided the Nobel peace prize winner doesn't have enough support of the people to take over. So whatever democracy there is to be had in the future seems to be up to a foreign government.
That is at best premature. Maybe wait for the outcome?
we've seen this over and over again in foreign policy of large powerful countries
lets not pretend that this is about establishing democracy; it's about access to Venezuelan oil
it's the US showing it can do whatever it wants in its "backyard", just as it always has
No wonder Trump likes Putin
Venezuela had a... let's call it "respectable" democracy since the late 50s. Chavez did it no favors but it didn't completely collapse until Maduro.
If Venezuela recovers and improves, are you willing to fundamentally change your opinion about US interventions?
Uhh, no?
My opinion is that US interventions are incredibly risky. There have been numerous successes. There have also been numerous failures. Both have required immense resources and focus from us.
Some interventions are worth the risk, and others are not. I have not seen any compelling rationale for the risk-reward of this particular intervention, and have very low hopes for the follow through, which makes the risk-reward calculus even worse.
If I wear a blindfold, cross a highway and am not hit by a car, am I willing to concede that crossing the highway blindfolded is safe?
Are you suggesting that cutting off oil flow to those nations will be advantageous to us? Is this like... tomorrow? During a potential armed conflict? When?
By what specific mechanism does the US assert "control" over the oil? POTUS just now said it's via a ground occupation "until transition of power." What's the transition plan?
Also probably helps to ensure the petro dollar is here to stay for longer.
Obviously this is a very shallow analysis, and there's definitely significant risks, but I do think it's obvious that it has large potential upsides.
So again: conceivably sure, but the details matter. The details we have right now do not look very promising IMO.
Edit: So, that took only 8 minutes, the other shoe just dropped, it was about the oil after all. Where do I collect my check?
We ("the opposition") can't get into the frame where we say that everything Trump does is wrong. It's not frequent, but sometimes - yes even for totally wrong reasons - he does things which are probably right. Our identity needs to be more than just "the opposite of what Trump does", otherwise the Trumpists will frame all debates around issues that make us look crazy, rather than the issues that demonstrate blatant grift and criminality.
If Maduro is gone, it's a good thing. Let's go back to talking about the clear and obviously terrible things Trump does. Don't let them change the subject.
Agree with your overall sentiment but this is just a ridiculous position to hold at this point. History is absolutely full of horrible people being toppled just for more horrible people to take their place. There is literally no evidence whatsoever of a plan for post-Maduro Venezuela. At all!
They're either acting completely clueless for the cameras for some unknown reason, or this is very likely going to go really badly.
I think the Venezuelans will work it out, despite Trump's ineptitude.
Things going badly does not mean — even at all — that things cannot go much much worse.
Libya was bad and got worse
Syria was bad and got worse
Afghanistan was bad and got worse
Sudan was bad and got worse
In fact, nearly every really bad situation was already bad, and then it got worse.
Unlike all those places you mention, Venezuela has a democratic tradition which was only recently derailed. This isn't some middle eastern theocratic monarchy. It's "get back on track" not "find new tracks where none existed before".
I and many others are asking for evidence of such a plan. The US administration has denied the existence of such a plan.
Maybe those factors you mention will turn out to be relevant or even determinative, and maybe not. I suspect in absence of an actual plan, the mere tradition of democracy will not suffice.
Maduro in prison is an improvement from Maduro still in power. Accept it as a tiny win and move on.
You are aware you're allowed to say, "it'll take some time for this to shake out sufficiently to understand whether it's a tiny win, a huge win, net-neutral, or regionally catastrophic," right?
I'd push the delete button for every unelected dictator on the planet if I could. Repeatedly. It's morally offensive not to.
So what you say may happen, but not if "it" (being the plan stated by the orchestrator and executor of said move) is successful.
You're making a pretty good case for high risk.
But also remember that Russia is occupied in Ukraine and couldn't even help the Assad regime which was a much closer ally, and same with Iran.
It's more like (similar to other sanctioned countries) "forcibly coerced by the USA into being a ally of Russia, Iran and China by sanctions".
In reference to this, have you seen the footage of Saddam Hussein taking power? It’s chilling.
There isn't just a single universally agreed upon moral framework that serves as the basis for ethics.
Depending on whether you adopt a Rawlsian, Utilitarian, Libertarian, or Communitarian moral framework, your actions would look different depending on the circumstances.
Specially, the Utilitarian moral framework optimizes for the greatest good for the greatest number. Willing to sacrifice the few of the many. It might not be your or my moral framework, but I don't know that we can rule it out as a valid way to approach ethics.
No, the proponents of the utilitarian moral framework try to justify illegal actions retrospectively if the outcome was good and refuse to take responsibility if it is bad.
Ethics should guide your decisions beforehand and require you to take responsibility for all possible outcomes.
Are you arguing that Utilitarianism isn't a way to guide decisions? And are you saying it is an invalid moral framework?
FWIW, many ethicists suggest using multiple frameworks and would argue using Utilitarianism for policy.
For example, in the EU utilitarianism is rarely used as the sole moral foundation but serves as the primary tool for practical decision-making and public policy. Most visible in how the EU balances competing interests to achieve the "greatest good".
If your hand is on the track switch, you're just as responsible for the trolley no matter which way it goes. Walking away from the switch does not absolve you.
Thinking about this some more: good chance this whole thing was decided in a board room a while ago.
"The opposition" is rarely a large and representative enough group to effect national power transition. (Btw, thanks for flagging that incorrectly as affect, Apple)
Especially in multi-ethnic states, most cohesive national identities are forged through extremely popular singular leaders.
Unfortunately, those are exactly the same leaders external regime-change initiators are wary of (too independent).
In terms of nation-building, it's not the worst plan. See Carville's "It's the economy, stupid."
Popular support of any government is mostly (a) quality of life & (b) individual freedom. Quality of life is directly correlated to the economy and public finances.
If someone can quickly boost Venezuelan oil production, and therefore state revenue, then all sorts of social funding programs become feasible.
The issue with autocracies is that they selectively enrich key supporter groups (internal police, military) at the expense of others (wider population).
If you can substantially boost public revenue, then you don't have to make a tradeoff -- everyone gets more!
And there are certainly worse beginnings for new governments.
(All of this ignoring the flagrant violation of international law, international ramifications vis-a-vis Taiwan, climate change, etc.)
He was asked “who will govern” and “when will there be elections” and “will there be boots on the ground” over and over.
His answers were “I don’t know”.
A bad look, but I seriously doubt the state department doesn't have some sort of plan for continuity of government.
Especially since, in critical difference with post-Hussein Iraq, no one in this administration seems ideologically opposed to working with the old guard, if they put on new colors.
Would be very surprised if the remaining elements of the government aren't put in temporary charge with guidelines (no killing protestors, freeing political prisoners, monitored elections on X date, etc.), then things are left business as usual.
With additional strikes if anyone tries to buck the system.
But higher placed members of corrupt regimes tend to be pretty pragmatic about their own skins when the winds shift, so I'd be surprised if anyone goes to the mat for a leader who's already been extradited.
Right now the evidence is as I’ve stated it.
'It's the only information about the plan presented in the last 15 hours' would be better.
The President of the United States has stated over and over now that there is no transition plan. There is no successor. There is no plan for elections.
This isn't "he hasn't been asked" or "he has declined to comment." He has said affirmatively there is no plan.
So either he's lying or there's no plan.
In either case, my presentation is correct, and your assumptions are completely unfounded.
At this point in his second administration, I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.
Big decisions? Sure, he makes yes/no. But "Let me hear the plan for day x+1?" In what universe would the Trump we've seen ask that question? We're talking about the McDonald's guy.
> I'm firmly convinced that the bulk of the details aren't communicated to him and/or he forgets them.
But at the same time:
> time no one wanted to risk contradicting his fancies on recorded television.
So they're making plans, but they won't actually commit to any of the plans because in the end the plans are meaningless and Trump is going to push for whatever he wants at the moment. Doesn't that make the actual plans practically worthless?
Sometimes Trump doesn't decide to veer off-script and scupper plans. But it happens more than never!
And rarely, when he does, more informed heads are able to turn him back around. E.g. the bullshit 'Ukraine tried to assassinate Putin' scheme
A scarier possibility, which I think is actually far better evidenced, is that he's surrounded by people who largely believe he's competent (because it's a cult) and who are themselves not competent at all.
There are probably some true-believers among his cabinet, but most of those are evidenced by their paper-thin CVs and lack of their own power-bases (Hegseth, Bondi, Rollins, Chavez-DeRemer, Turner, McMahon, Noem, Zeldin, Loeffler).
Building which nation? The despotic dictatorship of USA one would have to assume you mean. The profits are no more likely to go to Venezuela's further development than they are to bring in universal health care in USA.
QoL is nothing if it is bought through the pain and suffering of others.
I don't know why you think this is a new beginning, it's just extension of USA's dictatorship to ensure even more people suffer and the USA oligarchy gets even more insanely wealthy.
And before you know it you have a genocide on your hands.
Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint Louverture, Simon Bolivar, Giuseppe Mazzini, Otto von Bismarck, Mustafa Atatürk, Gamal Nasser
It's complicated because Maduro banned her from running in the last election (and still lost anyway). In a just world maybe she deserves the position. But if we want to restore democracy in Venezuela, González would be a natural place to start (along with new elections).
Example footage that seems to track with BBC confirmed Caracas strike locations: https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2007340229536239646
The US had previously positioned a lot of USAF and Army air assets in Puerto Rico and on offshore platforms: https://www.twz.com/news-features/cv-22b-osprey-mc-130j-comm...
Those appear to have been used: https://x.com/sentdefender/status/2007339573156950095
In addition, USAF/USN have been flying ELINT platforms (e.g. RC-135s) off the coast for months now.
So even without the cooperation of any of the Venezuelan military, it's possible the mission was:
1. Precision long-range strikes on air defense radars around Caracas (and possibly assets)
2. Closer SEAD with F-35s to clear a path
3. SOAR Delta Force infiltration with tactical air suppression
4. CAP from F-35s to intercept any scrambled fighters
5. Exfiltration along same route
See: Desert Storm air campaign. Having capable anti-air assets doesn't matter when your enemy has access to more timely intelligence and the means to do something with it.
Either way, although Trump might every now and then be a bit too friendly with Putin, but a) cooperation at this scale and b) the bad looks and damage to Russian investments I think makes it seem unlikely. Putin doesn't stick his neck out for others unless it serves him. I'm not that well read on the Russian involvement in the area though...
(edit - whoops)
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/venezuela-explosions-car...
https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rh1YcFoC...
Medieval kings were considered the embodiment of the government, but that didn't make them autocratic. Indeed, they were not only bound by a thicket of obligations and customs, but authority itself is only legitimate when it is just, a view that is traditional; it is modern legal positivism that roots authority in fiat, making it inherently tyrannical.
Ultimately they were bound not by tradition, but by the reality that they may lose their heads, often at the hands of a competing relative, but also at the hands of starving subjects.
Trump is far from universally loved, but just imagine what the US would become if an outside nation swooped in and captured him. 100% of the american people would be screaming for blood.
Absolutely not. I'd be out celebrating.
Meanwhile, the individual upthread suggesting they’d support a foreign power invading the US and capturing Trump is the ridiculous, childish, and deeply unserious brand of self-loathing that we are voraciously (and necessarily, if our country is to survive) opposed to.
Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't be one of them.
https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/trump-isnt-building-a-...
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.
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".
It just took a few years for the sanctions to bite, as the Venezuelans conserved & used stockpiles.
Again, a completely dishonest take. Speaks volumes, when most defenders of todays criminality keep spouting arguments to this effect.
>Her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the national assembly, is in Caracas, three sources with knowledge of his whereabouts said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-vice-presid...
>While reports circulated that Ms. Rodríguez was in Russia at the time of the attacks, Ms. Rodríguez is in Caracas, according to three people close to her. Russian state media also denied reports that she was in Moscow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/world/americas/maduro-ven...
"Trump says that the US is going to be "strongly involved" in Venezuela's oil industry moving forward." [0]
(Permalink, since it's on the second page of the live thread now.)
This live format is kind of irritating. Here's another one:
> He claims the oil business in Venezuela has been a "bust", and that large US companies are going to go into the country to fix the infrastructure and "start making money for the country"
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt?post=asset%3A27af...
I mention Taiwan because I think it is the only currency that could make the Chinese government give up those barrels of oil without retaliating.
The fact is, his tactics and plans end where his nose does.
Many of his advisors are capable of planning, but there are times he just doesnt listen to them and lets whatever heavy metals are in the spray tan do all the thinking. See January Sixth for one example that got people killed. See USAID for another.
No reason to think there will be follow up investments or even follow up thoughts.
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.
Alternatively there's María Corina Machado who overwhelmingly won the presidential primary for that election but wasn't allowed to run.
So you can't just install this person as president now.
I am not sure what you mean by "control the government had"...they are the same thing. It is like the situation with IRA and Sinn Fein, this bizarre roleplay where people (for various reasons) went to massive effort to imply they were separate when it was obvious they were led by the same people. There is no distinction between the government and cartels...the assumption that there is makes no sense at all given the latitude they have to operate.
What's he going to do, kidnap her? Oh, wait.
If if had to guess, Maduro could have been take out with a GBU or two, but the US holds a grudge against him so they took him out to humiliate him, and send a message to others.
Not too many countries will go to the mat to support a leader who was engaged in narcotics trafficking, if the US is able to present a viable case (which they seem to intend to, if he's being charged in US federal court).
Commonly known as "kidnapping."
The US has no jurisdiction over Venezuela. This is pure mafia behavior by the US.
That is an insane take
I'm skeptical, as it seems to have that ring of circa-2003 WMD justification about it, but I won't dismiss it out of hat.
And if the US intends to prosecute Maduro on drug crimes in SDNYC (good!), then they'll have to present evidence to the court, which presumably means they think they have a case.
Personally, I doubt Maduro intentionally ran a narco-state as a primary focus. But I can very much see a sizable narcotics enterprise, with state support, being used as a key way for him to enrich select supporters absent a viable economy. Money to pay the generals has to come from somewhere...
"Right" rarely matters in geopolitics.
What matters is who opposes a course of action, and how far they're willing to go in their opposition.
Is China or the UK going to insist that former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández be prosecuted on drug crimes? If not, then the US is realpolitik free to do what it wants.
Similarly with Maduro. Who's going to support him? And how far are they prepared to go?
Pardoning a different drug dealer can be a way to show Maduro that they were serious about the offer, that they really would have gone easy on him.
Maduro is not a drug dealer and even if it was not directing all the limited resources of its government to stop the drug trade we are talking about allocation of resources which should have happened in order to put Americans Interests first whereas Venezuela has so many other serious problems.
Also even if all that was true we are talking about cocaine, the party (and somewhat productivity) drug.
The fentanyl is produced 10,000 miles away from Venezuela, in CHYNA which used to be a great talking point in 2016 but of course nothing ended up happening
Getting rid of a head of state that brings your primary competitors (china) influence to your doorstep is not head scratching. Just try to think in real-world terms
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.
Iraq was a textbook example of why you don't dismantle the entire administrative state.
I don't think either is relevant here. Other central american shenanigans are the better reference points IMO.
No strongman in charge, sorta-kinda democratic government (more democratic than almost anywhere else in the Arab world), violence has subsided, the country didn't disintegrate into pieces unlike Yugoslavia, the economy has grown moderately, and they haven't become an Iranian puppet regime.
Frankly, by the standards of the Near and Middle East, this is very much not an abysmal failure.
The insurgency that preceded this was very bad, though. No denying that. But some other modern nations have such insurgencies in their recent history, such as Ireland, and that didn't stop them from developing towards prosperity.
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 shouldn't Russia or China just do the same and interfere with the leadership of countries they don't like.
Also it is impossible to argue the cost of the war in Iraq was worth the benefit, even if we agree Iraq is in a better place now then it was under Hussein.
But the Iraquis didn’t pay the military monetary cost (arguably they paid a different cost, but it’s very hard to balance that against living under a dictator, and I said that from experience), and I’m sure US’ imperialist shenanigans could recoup the monetary cost. Seeing as US doesn’t have compulsory conscription, that takes away part of the reprehensibility of the human cost of US’ personnel caused by its interventionist policy. Which, to my eyes, leaves the thing as a net positive.
One thing can be said with certainty about countries like Venezuela and Cuba: they are broken and they cause untold pain to their citizens. The moral imperative to fix them is there, even if one can certainly discuss how and maybe quibble a little about the monetary cost.
The government of nations is anarchy and in anarchy the only rule is that “might makes right”. Some seem to have a view that there is a world government and that there are “rules” when in reality there are none.
There are international agreements, consequences, and parties that may or may not choose to enforce those consequences.
E.g. the entire UN Security Council was predicated on the idea that no other country could/would force a nuclear power to do anything it didn't want to
There is such thing as a post-Vietnam America, and its record is pretty bad.
What an absurd thing to say. The US doesn't only overthrow dictatorships - it supports them too, as it suits its self-interest. Why not include the US interference when it SUPPORTED Hussein and later changed its mind - still think "interference turns out well" after backing a genocidal monster, supporting his invasion of a neighbour, invading twice and related deaths of 400 000 people?
Countries stabilise over time, that's what their people make happen. You ignore Indonesia, Iran, El Salvador, Nicaragua and dozens of disaster of US imperialism but give credit to the US when their populations rebuild them.
The US has done some positive things but they're the convenient accidents you've cherry picked to make your point.
Are we counting the financial support that Wall Street and the budding CIA boys at Sullivan & Cromwell gave Hitler to harass the Soviet Union, which ultimately had to take care of the problem they created, in the "turning out well" column here?
It's hard to argue that was to buy time, especially given they had spent more effort conquering their neighbors and helping the Nazis than building defenses against the them. They just wanted a larger chunk of Europe and Western Asia.
Their attempt failed because Stalin got greedy with what chunk of Europe he wanted and their poor performance against Finland convinced the Nazis to double cross them and invade.
Perhaps this was one of the self-serving Soviet narratives, like the nonsense of having to side with the Nazis and invalid Poland because the Allies refused them - as opposed to actively double dealing and choosing the Axis because they offered the best deal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet_Axis_tal...
Are you referring to this?
Regarding the counterproposal, Hitler remarked to his top military chiefs that Stalin "demands more and more", "he's a cold-blooded blackmailer" and "a German victory has become unbearable for Russia" so that "she must be brought to her knees as soon as possible."[12] Hitler had already decided to invade the Soviet Union in July 1940,[13] but this apparently accelerated the process.
It all goes back to what Zhukov said, "we rescued Europe from fascism, and they will never forgive us for it."
And of course the Allies' own self-serving behavior and cutting deals with Hitler, or leaving the internal dissident generals within the Wehrmacht to twist in the wind, is always to be completely ignored, the fruits of four decades of history textbooks published by Ghislaine Maxwell's capitalist spook father.
Yeah, they "rescued" it alright. Like they rescued, err stolen, Moldova from Romania and they kept it for more than 40 years. Heck, they're still messing with it. Then at the end of the war they robbed and raped civilians from the countries they "liberated".
is that why modern Russia bankrolling every fascist party under the sun?
https://nypost.com/2022/03/09/video-russian-troops-brandishi...
Then?
Germany would have quite literally run out of oil (and other materials and even grain) a few months after conquering Poland. Most was imported was imported from the Americas before the war.
The French and British could have pretty much waited Germany out had Stalin decided not to bankroll the Nazis invasions of Norway and France. The allies were quite seriously considering bombing Soviet oil fields in Azerbaijan before France fell.
Presumably Stalin was hoping to prop-up Germany just long enough for them to get stuck in a protracted war in France so that he could swop in and "liberate" Europe. Unfortunately for millions it turned out to be a slight miscalculation...
Also saved millions of people from starvation in the early 20s by ending a devasting famine while the Soviets were busy blowing up their economy.
It's not exactly obvious that the Bolshevik regime would have survived the famine of 1921–1922 had Hoover et al. not bailed them out...
Re. Iraq, interestingly the US invasion has vastly increased Iran's influence in the country because the majority is Shia while Saddam was from a Sunni tribe.
Which is somehow inherently wrong due to what reason exactly?
But yes, the South Korean regime in the 50s (and the RoC one in Taiwan to a lesser extent) was extremely brutal and oppressive and hardly much worse than the one in the north.
Park Chung Hee took a country that could not be a functional democracy, provided leadership and put it onto the path of economic success. Iirc, the reduction in poverty through that period is the fastest in human history (when you consider that China, that is an incredible statement).
I think people (still) assume both that democracy is superior economically for every situation and that people who don't have any food care about being unable to vote...neither of these things is obviously true. Indeed, in the latter case, we now have a good test case of poor countries adopting democracy early and they have generally not been successful as power rotates between various quasi-dictators who give massive handouts to the poor to retain power (without doing anything actually useful).
1945 to ~1947 were very rough in Germany even in the allied occupation zones (and that was at least partially an outcome of a conscious decision by the allies to not allow German industry to recover)
Grenada is something of a joke in this context - the entire thing came about because the communist government fell apart and started fighting internally, so it's pretty likely the regime would have shortly collapsed with or without the invasion
Maduro is not popular. Go find the nearest Venezuelan and ask them what they think about the situation if you want to learn more.
It you have an opinion, just say it. You don't have to pretend like you care about what other people are saying or what facts or evidence they have.
You can just be honest from the start that you don't agree with them and don't care what they have to say or show.
We both know you are. You'll immediately dismiss anything people bring up no matter what it is and then follow up with another fake question.
You simply dont care what other people have to say. Which is fine. But stop phrasing it as a question. Just make your opinion known, say you disagree and think they are wrong and you don't care what they have to say, and leave it at that.
But the whole Q/A thing? Where you phrase a dismissal as a question pretending like you care about the answer? Its boring. Played out. Predictable.
I promise you that you'll be much happier with yourself if you just say your opinions with the full force of your true convictions instead of playing faux debate games with others.
You might even be able to convince some people, if you stop phrasing your opinions as fake questions. The fake Socratic method just gets annoying after a while, once people see through it.
Feel free to go ask ChatGPT for some answers if you like though.
You can just say that you don't care. It's fine. Lots of people don't care about other people's opinions.
Clinton won the popular vote by 2% and she was on average 3-4% ahead in the polls..
In fact she she got more votes than predicted in early November since 3rd party candidates significantly underperformed relative to what they were polling.
It seems the only evidence you would accept is written testimony signed by Maduro himself. I don't think it's a reasonable standard though.
If we accepted your standards we would be helping dictators stay in power. This is not reasonable way of thinking imo.
As I wrote, "the US says so" is not evidence.
Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino shared Mr Blinken's view, writing in a post on X, formerly Twitter: "We can all confirm, without a doubt, that the legitimate winner and President-elect is Edmundo González."
Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Peru have also recognised Mr González as the president-elect...
[Machado] claimed her party's candidate, Mr Gonzalez, won by a landslide and Ms Machado said she could prove this because she had receipts from more than 80% of polling stations.
Ms Machado appealed for help, saying it was now up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate what she called an illegitimate government.
"[Machado] claimed her party's candidate, Mr Gonzalez, won by a landslide and Ms Machado said she could prove this because she had receipts from more than 80% of polling stations."
Can you not substitute the mean expected outcome where the factual outcome is not yet known?
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.
Eventually? Withdrawal was announced in May 2021 and was to occur over a few months.
By late August the Taliban had full control.
What a complete fiasco.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_U.S._troop_w...
It is unclear what will happen next, but likely the regime or large elements of it will survive. Perhaps a more moderate faction will take control? That would be the best case scenario.
When one nation’s military illegally enters another nation’s sovereign territory to carry out military actions, that’s usually called an invasion.
Of course everyone knows it’s trivial for police to apprehend home invaders because invasion implies that they stay after they break in.
>> In geopolitics, an invasion typically refers to a military offensive in which a polity sends combatants, usually in large numbers, to forcefully enter the territory of another polity,[1] with either side possibly being supported by one or more allies. While strategic goals for an invasion can be numerous and complex in nature, the foremost tactical objective normally involves militarily occupying part or all of the invaded polity's territory. Today, if a polity conducts an invasion without having been attacked by their opponent beforehand, it is widely considered to constitute an international crime and condemned as an act of aggression.
“an invasion typically refers to a military offensive in which a polity sends combatants to forcefully enter the territory of another polity”
Anyways, Trump removed all ambiguiti today saying the US is gonna run Venezuela. It invaded and took over.
I don’t know how to politely say that your misreading is why I needed so many words.
Per the Cambridge Dictionary: "an occasion when an army or country uses force to enter and take control of another country"
In our case no 'taking control' has occurred, so this is not an invasion.
Clearly the US administration believes they have taken control.
We cannot discount an assertion that this administration is expressing faith based upon falsehoods, as they have done before.
Air operations also are not seen as invasions, and the recent stealth strikes by the U.S. in Iran are not seen this way.
It appears to me that armed troops in place that are taking and holding territory for a prolonged duration are the definition.
The dictionary definition below is "the incursion of an army for conquest or plunder."
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invasion
Is Maduro and his wife "plunder?" That would stretch this meaning, I think.
Sure. But “We are going to run the country” sounds an awful lot like “conquest”.
If it comes by financial aid to the elected president and oil deals to rehabilitate PDVSA, then it is not.
"the incursion of an army for conquest or plunder."
We sent in an army for conquest but now you don’t like that definition anymore.
"something conquered, especially : territory appropriated in war"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conquest
Is this Maduro and his wife?
The object of conquest remains to be seen, and if a standing army is used to achieve it.
While that may come to pass, I think today we should call what has happened an "extra-judicial kidnapping" for the purposes of federal prosecution.
That is frightening enough.
Edit: if the Maduro kidnapping is an invasion, then it follows that the Eichmann kidnapping was likewise.
https://www.annefrank.org/en/timeline/136/israel-kidnaps-ado...
This is just making stuff up. None of the definitions offered up here posit this requirement aside from the one apparently in your head.
The United States sent ground troops into another country to depose its leader and install a government that will bend to United States demands. The president of the United States and his advisors have openly stated that this was done to take over the other country and extract money. This is an invasion by any reasonable definition, including the ones that have been shared here.
> Edit: if the Maduro kidnapping is an invasion, then it follows that the Eichmann kidnapping was likewise.
Was Eichmann the leader of Argentina? Did this action effect a systemic change in the government of Argentina or give Israel power or access to Argentinian resources?
His claims to control the country and its resources would be inadmissible as charges, because they have not happened. They would be admissible to establish intent, but that would lead to lesser charges.
While I realize that the lower limit of a legal definition of the events of the last twenty-four hours is in the thoughts of very few, no overt actions of force have been taken as yet to obtain those goals.
That lower limit is extra-judicial kidnapping.
Edit: if someone involved in an assault says the words "I want to kill you," then that can establish intent and trigger, among other things, a restraining order, or perhaps elevate the charge to aggravated assault.
The words themselves cannot be used to prosecute for murder.
In the same way, there are many ways that nations inflict violence upon one another, and I think "invasion" is premature, but certainly possible.
However, none but Maduro and his wife were taken, so perhaps the force of arms will be judged sufficient.
I fail to see the relevance of this tangent. You haven’t even specified what the hypothetical inadmissible charges would be.
It seems like you are trying to say that an unsuccessful invasion should not count as an invasion, which is absurd. If Canada sent 100k troops to DC to take over America but they were all promptly killed, would that not count as an invasion?
'...no U.S. troops would be on the ground "if the vice president does what we want..."'
'[Rodriguez] also left the door open to a dialogue with the Trump administration, calling for "respectful relations," according to the Associated Press.'
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/03/trump-maduro-venezuela-delc...
My hope is that the use of the word "invasion" is premature. I fear that it will come to pass.
The semantics are cute for technical documents. But please get some perspective. Buildings and destroyed and innocent lives lost. I don't care what you call it, it's bad.
And to think that Dick Cheney just barely didn't live to see this. (Died November 2025)
The US has not toppled Venezuelan government.
I am little confused about the meaning of "peace"
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?
Could be!
Could also be really bad.
It has nothing to do with ICC.
Maduro will be tried in New York and then in Florida. Those are the two places where prosecutors charged him, according to CNN.
The intended consequence here is to demonstrate to an organized crime group that being part of the government does not mean they are safe. There is no other intention, it has worked.
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.
What is this endless desire to claim that the right lacks any agency whatsoever.
Statements made by politician need not be taken as truthful.
No more democracy.
Question is whether the Supreme Court will sell us out or not.
Trump just ended the National Guard deployment in LA, Chicago, and Portland after an overwhelming Supreme Country loss: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/31/donald-trump-nation...
Ironically, the current administration thinks that American courts can hold any president accountable for crimes, except the American president.
I'm not American, my 'war powers act' statement wasn't pointing at specific legislation, it was a hand wave to the past.
It rhymes.
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..
So you're saying that authoritarianism works and is just fine. The implication is that Venezuala is a shithole and it's people are unhappy with their leader because of sanctions, not because of the lack of democracy.
As much as I dislike it, there are also an acceptable amount of human right abuses before we care, and its somewhere between punishing dissidents and genocide.
Venezuela had economic issues before sanctions due to chronic mismanagement of the economy, which led to a humanitarian crisis causing a mass exodus (which made the economic issues worse).
If the issue was what was “right” then Trump wouldn’t have cozied up to Putin and abandoned Ukraine, or cozied up to MBS and waved away his murder of a US journalist, and on and on it goes. This administration has zero moral credibility. I don’t know what will happen in Venezuela but we should all be skeptical of fruit from a poisonous tree.
I'm pointing this out specifically because I'm surprised to see that Google and also DuckDuckGo both suppress the true definition if you don't already know it.
What's the next stage then according to the administration?
This is kind of more like a "gasp" moment, even if Maduro sucks.
> This is like the first stone of an avalanche.
And things have already happened. Close allies have stopped sharing intelligence information with the US. Even if the US doesn't need the info the deterioration of those partnerships is concerning. Or maybe good from the perspective of weakening the global surveillance machine but that's a whole other issue.
Not to mention all the other things that happen that when you put together are more concerning.
People forget, there are no real "big things".
Instead there's just a bunch of little things that come together to look big. As programmers we should be intimately familiar with this. Though normally we're using it in the other direction: taking a big problem and determining all the little problems that come together to create the big one. Working in the assembly direction is much harder than the disassembly direction (far larger solution space) but the concept is still the same.
But I agree with you, this isn't the end. This is definitely a concerning inflection point.
"Allies" like "The West" who take our money, don't have the same beliefs or core values, no shared religion or culture? those "Allies"?
good riddance. I am sick of us propping up failed European states
Anybody who voted for current POTUS who is actually surprised at this turn of events...words fail me.
Whether you like the man or not, DT and his team have been more than forthcoming on what their plans were and they have more or less delivered to a T.
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.
There we have it. The real reason for the invasion. Looks like the start of yet another avalanche as you say.
Jan 6th, extrajudicial killings, ICE deportations, threatening to takeover Greenland, and now the kidnap of a foreign country's leader. The world needs to wake up and realise the USA is just China/Russia with better PR.
Edit: And now he's confirmed the US will run the country until they decide otherwise.
This is not surprising, this is how society ultimately works, even internally, not just on international scale.
I live in a democracy. I could still name several laws of the land that I consider fundamentally unjust, but the might of the majority translated into political and physical power means that I have to obey them, right or wrong. It is better that this power is controlled democratically and not by a single autocrat or a single ruling party, but it is still fundamentally coercion.
Are there even any alternatives? Ultimately we cannot all agree on what is right for everyone.
Is that satire or am I confused? Do we actually think any sovereign nation in the world has “no interest in nuclear weapons”?
It's almost like that dude who keeps saying, "FSD in my EVs is just months away."
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.
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.
Let's just focus on the not-legitimately-elected ones. Venezuela was a functioning democracy until Maduro took control through force and fraud. Shed not one tear for him.
That's correct. One at a time, I'd say. :)
Trump is risking organized human life by helping accelerate global warming and ecological collapse.
This is not a good outcome for the world.
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.
And our primitive spell checkers often cannot deduce from context, as there are many, perhaps most cases, where Columbia is the most-likely correct rendition. Even if we transcend our own difficulties, Siri might defeat us.
You are correct that the correct English spelling for Colombia is Colombia, and surely it is problematic to localize a foreign country's name.
So please reciprocally acknowledge receipt of our formal request for Colombians to stop calling the USA "EE. UU.", "Estados Unidos de América", and all other such indignities. :)
You don’t see the irony in claiming Trump wasn’t elected in a democratic fashion, by using undemocratic methods to force him out?
I see the irony.
It was a plurality of the popular vote, not a majority[0]. A majority is >50%. Trump received 49.8%.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
Multiple lawsuits and inquiries on Trump were stopped when he became president.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-venezuela-take...
Of course, that doesn't mean that there is a deal, but it is certainly a possibility.
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.
The most recent election in Venezuela was in 2025 and Maduro's faction(s) won a landslide victory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Venezuelan_parliamentary_.... Nothing indicates that the results were fraudulent.
Venezuela was a prosperous, serious and fully democratic country before Maduro and their predecessors took over.
Trump just said in the press conference that from now on the US will run Venezuela...The US is "designating" the people that will run the country.
They mentioned the president of Colombia has to "watch his ass" and that Cuba is a mess. And said that the US will be selling the oil to other countries, and the US will take "our oil".
Insanity does not even starts to describe it...
I hope to be wrong, but think it certainly will. all the money everyone is spending on arms it seems soon the only game left in town in the military industrial complex. the other career options are to become a doctor, or nurse.
the US in its current form is heading towards long drawn out collapse like the Roman empire, and they're dragging all their former allies down with them. there seem to be no peaceful options to prevent that collapse.
E.g.:
- I do not see any way they can modernize their messed up political system.
- their population is divided more than any country on the planet
- thanks to heavily propagandized citizens they don't have the critical mass to bring in change (not in a country where the companies have so much power)
The Roman empire collapsed for more than 250 years. Longer than US exists. I think it's too early to compare those two.
When Noriega was arrested by the US, the legitimate president started operating normally a few days after.
I'm skeptical it will be over soon.
We in the USA now own Venezuela. It's all our fault going forward.
Machado seems to be the opposite of an exile until she escaped to accept the Nobel Peace Prize last month.
Machado was prohibited from leaving Venezuela by a decade-old
government-imposed travel ban and, by late 2025, had spent months in hiding
amid the risk of arrest.
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 massive oil reserves and its leadership has been anti-Zionist since Chavez.
It’s a juicy target close to home, been a thorn for decades, and not as prickly as Iran or Yemen.
But you’re right, it’s noteworthy they are not attempting to sell interventionism to the public anymore. 15 years ago they’d have staged a color revolution and gone with the populist uprising narrative. They seem to have dropped the narcoterrorist narrative already. The use of raw force without moral justification is a sign of decline. The Twitter right is trying to sell this as an imperial / Nietzschean triumph but few are going to buy it.
You can be socialist if you cooperate. You can be a dictator if you cooperate. It’s not about political philosophy or forms of government, just playing ball with the hegemon.
> Or did a very lousy job of it.
It's more obvious than lousy.
However, fentanyl is produced mainly in Mexico and reaches the US almost exclusively via land through its southern border."
Think of it this way - Maduro could had died from choking on a turkey bone over Christmas - would there inevitability be a civil war?
What matters is whether there is a fight for political power as a result - and particularly what the generals think. ie any fight is much more likely to start from the top rather than the bottom.
My guess, and it's just a guess, is that the smoothness of the extraction mission strongly suggests serious inside info/cooperation. ie somebody did a deal with the US - involving giving up Maduro in exchange for removal of the sanctions ( particularly oil which the US has escalated with tanker seizures ) which was crippling the country.
So my prediction is an internal smooth transition of power, cooperation around oil, with neither the US nor the new leader being keen on quick elections as that will interfere with the execution of the deal.
All the Trump cares about is the public 'win' and the oil and minerals flowing. The Venezuelan leadership will want to end the US sanctions and get the countries economy working again - if this happens they will think election prospects will improve - can't see Trump caring that much about Venezuelan internal politics as long as he get's the win and a positive flow of oil revenue and strategic access to minerals.
The real knee-on-the-neck was the US blockade/piracy of oil tankers and associated sanctions.
Trump has done a great deal already to incentivize nuclear proliferation by destroying confidence that the US will be a reliable defensive ally.
I doubt any of our allies like Canada or European countries can trust us again.
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.
The indecision of the international community to act is what caused the suffering lasting a decade, led to the rise of ISIS and refugee crisis of enormous proportions.
Both of them were more moderate than ISIS lol.
But yeah, Egypt is more moderate than the Muslim brotherhood. Jordan is moderate. The non-Hezbollah part of Lebanon. UAE, Qatar, Oman all quite moderate. The Saudis are even secularizing a tad to try calming down fundamentalist sentiment. All these states actively suppress Islamism and generally are pro-west.
Most of the states I listed stayed on the right side of the US and US military equipment and aid keeps them stable.
Colombia managed a decades long violent armed conflict with the same demographics. Organized crime, political instability, political ideologues, etc all can get people to kill each other without religious extremists.
Oh, the so called "extremists" are/were the ones with power. This is where it tops out. I know it's hard to see from a distance but you have no idea how bad can it get under the safe and sound status quo.
Too late, Maduro is in custody - that bargain is for the next Venezuelan president to make
The arab spring exploded, because obama rerouted us-surplus food from subsidizing allied regimes (egypt) into bio-fuels, causing wild price spikes to the bread prices in egypt and the arab world. These situations are not really comparable - like at all. Not even on the surface level.
Soon you will be telling me the Taliban still run Kabul.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-22/oil-gold...
As long as they can protect the mining and refining operations the rest doesn’t matter. And I fully expect the America First, America Only group that claims to be the next thing after MAGA, to find ways to justify this regime change and corruption.
It may not work out this time but when you start from a terrible rock bottom status quo the chances are already biased.
Looking at the middle east right now compared to 2020 I see a much bigger shitshow, including Syria. Having a bunch of people die chaotically doesn't serve anyone's interest, it just creates the next generation of radicals.
And countless lives have been saved in Syria now that Assad is out.
It may actually mean next to nothing geopolitically other than to outrage the rest of the world and make Trump look tough.
But only to his loyalists.
The people he needs at home are pretty simple. This type of thing makes it easier for his loyal propagandists to do their thing.
It be like the Russians taking out Trump only to have Vance take over. Hes still propped up by miller, hegseth, bondi, the house AND senate AND courts and the cavalcades of sycophants who really only are doing the whims of oligarchs who have no interest in helping society as a whole.
So, your prediction is "anything is possible".
I gotta say nobody can disagree with that.
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.
We're all going to die.
This too shall pass.
100%
I have another one. A better one. A less risky one. "true is true"
It never really recovered. Probably need a hearing aid, but I can just use the other one.
So you'd prefer.. inaction? So we know for a fact we will going to reach world peace ten years from now having done absolutely nothing?
The non-intervention principle applies if you are not actively suffering intervention.
The flaw however, is that applying non-intervention in this instance, is choosing to ignore the real, direct hurt currently endured by non-actors (LATAM + US citizens) from the policies of Maduro.
I do concede that whatever follows Maduro, may be worse.
If I'm getting poked by a neighbor for years and i finally punch back, punching is a valid response. If the neighbor then comes back later and shoots me with a gun, it doesn't mean that my self-defense act was invalid.
> The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or head of state to head of municipal government or head of a chivalric order. As a result, the word sovereignty has more recently also come to mean independence or autonomy.
People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things, not whoever is doing currently doing it.
> People want an Eisenhower doing these kinds of things
Why would people who don't want Trump doing it want an Eisenhower doing it? He helped overthrow democratically elected Árbenz in Guatemala with even weaker justifications than Trump overthrowing Maduro (Maduro at least seems to lack popular support and probably cheated in elections).
Eisenhower:
Overthrow of Árbenz to protect fruit company profits > series of military dictators > 30+ years of civil war where the US-backed government committed a genocide against Maya people
You, sir, are no Ron Paul.
He sounds insufferable.
Why do you think it won't work like that with Venezuela?
PS: I realised that i made a mistake, so-called Palestine is absolutely pro-Russian, the entire ethnic group is created by Russians out of thin air in 1967, but it's a separate case and they did not participate in Arab Spring anyway.
That pretty much sums it up. I think Zack covered it well too. [1] I do not understand what benefit there was to a dictator remaining in place and why so many on HN support him. Over a third of Venezuelans fled that country and lost everything to escape tyranny.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_x9aWccFCE [video][52m][language]
Things can always get worse.
The GP didn't say changing Maduro to other president is bad, but that "periods of violent transition" can have dire consequences for the regular people. And US seems to be in it for the money, not to liberate the downtrodden.
I wish them peace and prosperity, though.
Collapsed states are the worst, these becomes breeding grounds for organizations like IS.
Most places often hold as failed states and by our standards, they look terrible. Law enforcement doesn't work, so gangs become enforcers. Money doesn't really work either. But it still beats total anarchy and especially anarchy of a region with a lot of natural resources. A few hundred billion dollars of oil may not be much to a country, but it's a hell lot to terrorist organizations who are waiting to come in once the US pulls out.
Because "anything orange man does is bad, no matter what."
There was a very evident omission during Trump’s press conference: Any mention of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the duly elected president-elect of Venezuela (who won with a super majority last July - backed by Maria Corina Machado). Instead, Trump bad mouthed Maria Corina saying that “she does not have the support or respect of the country to run it”. They ousted Maduro, but they kept his VP (Delcy Rodriguez - which along other things is in charge of running the torture centers for political prisoners) as “she will do anything we ask her”. Trump doesn’t care about democracy or regime change - these things take time and are a long, thorny road (this wouldn’t be the US’ first rodeo). Instead they’ve chosen to keep the regime obedient with the threat of force, and instead just come in and extract as many riches as humanly possible…
Dark times ahead for Venezuela and the Venezuelan people
All the best to you and your family and friends. For what it’s worth (not much I’m sure) many of us didn’t vote for this and are aghast.
This white knighting is getting rather tiresome. Why does the _why_ of why it happened matter besides virtue signalling? What matters is the end effect of the action. And the end effect here is better for EVERYONE (or at the worst neutral) involved other than Maduro and his cronies.
PS: As an aside, since I was a child growing up in 90’s Venezuela, the overall political mentality of people was that things were so bad that they couldn’t get any worse - and yet they continued to worsen. A lesson that I’ve learned is that in politics things need to be intentionally built - there is no “rock bottom”, the fact that things have been horrible doesn’t mean that they can’t get even worse. Thus my hesitation with what’s going on. There are no guarantees that this isn’t going to be a deal with the devil that leaves us in an even worse state…
I think you're jumping to conclusions. What Trump has said is that he wants the demands of the US satisfied. One of those is ultimately elections in Venezuela. You're mistaking taking a case-by-case approach for "non-interest".
Really? The Venezuelan community online (eg. /r/Vzla and /r/Venezuela) communicate using memes and rather unintelligent discourse.
It's not enough to want democracy, democracy and stability happens when there is an engagement in collective thinking , whereas disorder and chaos happens when people don't want to work and don't think things through
I believe it’s naive to assign Reddit and social media “discourse” any importance. Anything else is an exercise is confirming your already held bias.
Why does the post on a website by some people (who says they are even Venezuelan?) allow you to make the claim a nation “ doesn’t think thing through”?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_1992_Venezuelan_coup_...
You’re rewriting history.
The "revolution" was done by the Tripoli (western) tribe, against the Cyrenaica (eastern) one - it was more a civil war starting than a popular uprising.
Gaddafi could have indeed crushed them, bring back order to the country, avoiding the current long lasting chaos, civil war, open slavery, migrant waves and so on.
It's hard to evaluate situations with a westerner mind, in countries that are structured around very different cultural norms, and with deep ethnic divisions. "Democracy" is not the silver bullet it those cases, and maybe we should acknowledge that.
The reason France and its crook leader invaded Libya was, according to public reports[1], because they had negotiated back-room deals with anti-Qaddafi rebels for oil. 35% of Libya's oil production in exchange for French support. Literally a war for oil.
Qaddafi's atrocities were real, but they were never the motivation of the French-lead bombing of Libya. That was a false rationalization made up to manufacture public consent. Manufacture consent for a failed intervention, that left Libya worse off than it had ever been.
> "was approved by the full UN Security Council"
Whose members actually knew about the corrupt oil deal[2], and chose to go along with the fraud, lying to their own people.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_financing_in_the_2007_F... ("Libyan financing in the 2007 French presidential election")
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/01/libya-oil ("The new Tripoli government has denied the existence of a reported secret deal by which French companies would control more than a third of Libya's oil production in return for Paris's support for the revolution")
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/libyan-oil-gold-and-qaddafi-... ("Libyan Oil, Gold, and Qaddafi: The Strange Email Sidney Blumenthal Sent Hillary Clinton In 2011")
The paradoxical thing about these actions though, is that when they are run by humble mission-oriented and very effective people, they quickly disappear from the public consciousness. So we are all biased to when it goes wrong, ie to when we have incompetent leadership at the helm.
Everyone remembers the bad ones only.
What about Germany and Japan after WWII? What about South Korea?
Korea is still a split country.
I guess I have to give you Japan, although now you could say "clearly the solution is nukes" if you're just going blindly on data.
Even if you think it's going to go well this time, you have to admit this sort of thing does not have a good track record.
I'm wondering why you don't think they count.
In the presence of more similar experiments, only with pure dogma or dishonesty that one can opt to infer the outcome based on far less similar and even less contemporaneous experiments.
It only gave a damn from Japan to retaliate against it... And let's not pretend it became all sunshine and rainbows for Japan post WW2. Internment camps. No standing military. Huge cultural disruption.
SK who remembers the war doesn't have the best opinion of the US either. They essentially pulled out and did a half assed job. Who's even to say that a communist Korea wouldn't have been the best long term plan? It might have destabilized faster than what we know today as North Korea.
Pretty much everyone who wasn't in on the CADIVI scam or the subsidized gasoline racket or selling $0.05 screws to PDVSA for $75 stands to benefit from a new government. Many corrupt dictators understand that stealing a small percentage of a bigger pie is a more stable arrangement that can ultimately be more profitable in the long run but the clan that ran Venezuela was so greedy they wanted to take everything as fast as possible.
That plus a power vacuum. So maybe Haiti?
And even their own citizens come to the realization after a long time living under them; partly because they get caught in the constant propaganda campaign which is one hallmark of these regimes. They always live in the propaganda mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ThZcq1oJQ
A fairly optimistic way to spin this situation is as follows. Either it somehow works out for Venezuela, in which case we effectively helped millions of people Homer Simpson style. Or, more likely, failure disgraces Trump the same way it disgraced GWB. Then (fingers crossed) we elect a humbler, more realistic leader who works to rebuild the country we wrecked, and we can move on from the Trump era.
I think the only hope is that the guy is old and unhealthy, in contrast to e.g. when Putin or Orban grabbed power. And it is possible that the GOP will fracture over fights between who see themselves as his successor. If this doesn't happen, I don't have much hope for the US as a democracy.
https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/world/the-united-states-hist...
edit: typo
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.
Per the speech given by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this operation was already green light for an unspecified period of time, but they waited on ideal weather conditions to launch the operation.
Ah yes that well known conspiracy site known as “The New York Times” /s
It's a long read but that should not be a surprise to most people.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479679 is the fourth-highest subthread now, and (not sure whether they meet your criteria but) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46476455 is the second-highest, and yours is the fifth-highest but would be higher except that we downweight the meta aspect [1].
One thing to keep in mind is that reflexive comments always show up first, because they're the quickest responses to feel, to write, and to post. Reflective and thoughtful comments—such as ones that express concern for people, as you were wanting to see—are slower to arise, take more time to write, and therefore are slower to show up in threads [2].
[1] not because of the content but because meta always draws excessive attention - see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... and https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... for explanations if curious
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
These sorts of events are tricky on HN, all the user can do is flag flag flag and hope you or others like you (mods) will sort it all out and give the front page its one thread on the topic, if we don't the front page will be consumed and the community will die. But we can't always rely on mods, you have lives and have to rely on certain pragmatism, you have to wait and see how the community reacts/events unfold to see if something should get a thread on the front page or risk the consequences. And I think you did weigh in but vouching on a single thread may have won out against the flagging, as it should. So I gave the thread a chance and started reading.
One of the only changes I think HN could use, is mods being able to make a post in a thread that can not be voted on or replied to but will remain top post and simply stating that the community has ruled and this submission will live but every related submission will be killed as a dupe until the thread dies. But that would be very difficult to do without being accused of having an agenda by one side or the other.
Part of the reason I avoid becoming too much a part of sites like HN is because I fear being asked to be more than a user. I do not envy your position but I appreciate all you do.
> One of the only changes I think HN could use, is mods being able to make a post in a thread that can not be voted on or replied to but will remain top post and simply stating that the community has ruled and this submission will live but every related submission will be killed as a dupe until the thread dies.
We do sometimes make pinned posts like that—I've listed a few below—but they're mostly for reminding people to follow the site guidelines. In a way, that includes the message you're talking about (i.e. we're allowing this thread because the community insists on it), but only implicitly.
> Part of the reason I avoid becoming too much a part of sites like HN is because I fear being asked to be more than a user.
Can you say more? What would constitute being asked to be more than a user?
---
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221528 (Dec 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45203452 (Sept 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44432526 (July 2025)
That was mostly a way to say that I really don't want your job. Mostly, I want to retain my ability to occasionally make posts like the one I made in this thread.
>practically unique!
Are you saying that I am unique in a practical, salt of the earth fashion or that I am almost unique? I ultimately did exactly what I admonished in this thread and just admitted to wanting to cling to being able to be salty and moody, which fits well with almost unique. It was very Gassian in its phrasing and quite good. Even if unintended, it was very on point.
Alas I was not, but I like this version so much better that I'll retroactively sign up for it :)
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?
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?
As I'm not a historian, I can only note that it hasn't gone well recently even when multiple successive presidents want it to
In Venezuela, it appears they are simply moving the gun to the head of Maduro's replacement.
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.
Hey, we had a guy who tried to do that too! Thank goodness it didn't work out.
If the administration had evidence, it would be in its best interest to have shared it already. Instead they keep on pushing points they can barely articulate and that conflict with known information.
Maybe, who knows! Let's send a commando raid into the US, send Trump to DF to be indicted. Then we'll find out.
This won't happen simply because Mexico is an ant and the US is a bear, and so Mexico cannot pull this off. Also, Mexico isn't out of their minds.
They are already backtracking on the "Cartel de los Soles" accusation, after finally realizing there's no such organization, but it was always a slang frase about corruption in the military. Maduro cannot possibly lead an organization that doesn't exist. Source: NYT.
The indictment removed almost all of the mentions of this cartel, now phrasing the accusation in much broader, vague terms.
It wouldn't surprise me if at some stage they changed tack entirely and tried a different angle than drug trafficking, since, let's face it:
It's about oil. Trump is not shy about this.
That by itself does not demonstrate that the majority have been exiled, even if we want to expand the definition of "exile" to be inclusive of those who were not actually forced to leave, but felt it was necessary to leave due to political persecution.
The majority of Venezuelans will never have a legal option to reside in the United States. This incentivizes Venezuelans to make asylum claims in order to gain entry. Similar abuses of the asylum process are seen at far smaller scales in Canada and the European Union.
What sort of persecution are these people claiming to have experienced, and more specifically, what rights are they alleging to have been deprived of by the Maduro regime?
Well the videos of ~200,000 Venezuelan people partying in the capitol of Argentina is a start. As well as many other pictures and videos of gatherings wherever there is significant Venezuelan refugees.
It's always slightly odd that a country with the largest oil reserves in the world doesn't manage to stock up its supermarkets.
I don't want to excuse corruption and cronyism, but surely, the US sanctions at least deserve a mention?
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.
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.
But check the news, the web, talk to people objectively.I can be wrong, but I think the evidence is overwhelming, statistically speaking.Check for yourself.
At this point, it's hard to imagine that you are actually arguing in good faith.
That is what OP is saying: HN users, in order to promote their personal politics, are being concerned for a people that don't want and actively reject your concern because they are happy with the outcome.
HN is doing the equivalent of (a) denying Venezuelans appreciate this, and when that fails (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
> (b) claiming they know better than Venezuelans wrt whether this is good or bad for them.
Well, this isn't surprising at all. At least these two points also apply to the right within the US, the HN bubble doesn't even try to understand their actual views either.
It’s very dangerous to do the “right thing” for the wrong reasons in a complex situation. This is step 1. Does anyone have faith that the Trump admin will properly execute steps 2..N?
I would have some respect if the administration announced that it would support a provisional government led by the apparent winner of the last election in Venezuela. As such it seems to be that the administration has left the existing power structure in place and established a client/patron relationship with the leadership. This is revolting.
Venezuelans do not care for this train of thought. No one else was going to do it, and their equivalent of Hitler has just been ousted.
Far better, from their perspective, to have the evil guy removed than endless do-nothing hand-wringing from the international community that shares your train of thought.
Democratically held elections will be run again in the country.
The "wrong reasons" can still be mutually beneficial. The US gets its oil and Venezuela gets its dictator disappeared.
As for drugs, if Trump cared about drugs, he wouldn't pardon so many drug kingpins.
Some say this has to do with asserting control over China's oil imports, but according to https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/fi... and other sources, Venezuela barely makes it into the list of China's top 10 suppliers. So while China is indeed Venezuela's best customer, this argument doesn't seem persuasive unless I'm missing something. Venezuela's next-highest volume customer is the US itself.
My guess is drugs, not because Trump cares, but because they had become too powerful, controlling Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, as well as a wide net of politicians.
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?
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.
Russia is funding its war in Ukraine with profits on thier oil production. All else being equal, this makes it harder for them to keep doing that. They reportedly spent $6 billion on air defense systems in Venezuela, not for no reason.
Lower oil prices also reduce China’s dependence on Russia for energy. Reducing the incentive for those two countries two cooperate would be in US interests.
Energy is fungible and lower oil prices will help reduce the cost to operate AI data centers. On the margin it will improve their profitability and reduce public backlash about rising electricity prices in the US.
A large portion of the migrant crisis in the US has been driven by Venezuelan refugees fleeing Maduro’s gross mismanagement of the country. If the subsequent government can bring prosperity back to the country it also reduces illegal immigration in the US, something the current US administration clearly supports.
Lots of positive things could result here and you don’t have to be a “Kissinger psychopath” to imagine them and hope they materialize.
I’m sympathetic to your sentiment but that train left the station likely before you were born.
The the Venn diagram of people who supported aid for Ukraine and people who think this action is illegal and wrong is very nearly two concentric circles.
Also, freedoms don’t “erode”. Old farts like yourself decide to allow the government to violate them over and over until we get to this point where you pull out SurprisedPikachuFace.gif and start justifying why it’s not your fault things are this jacked up.
The US doesn't need their oil. It's about stopping China from getting it.
It's possible they have tried to justify, but via Fox News and Truth Social. Neither of which you and I read, I presume.
The invasion is meant to orient the US to fight China. We are cutting away the Middle East war baggage, trying to end the Ukraine war baggage so we can focus on China. Russia would be a nice ally against China.
China was moving around Lat Am and we are removing the communists from the hemisphere.
China likes oil. Loves oil but can’t get enough oil which is why it’s building solar and nuclear so quickly. The US can clamp down on the oil if Venezuela is an ally. So the US wants a strong Venezuela that can’t be used against us.
It’s hard to conduct war without oil.
The US has a strong incentive to make sure Venezuela comes out strong, and the Chinese have a strong incentive to not let that happen.
tldr: it’s all about china
He wasn't the president. My educated guess is that with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, together with China support cartel become too powerful. They systematicallly buy politicians in México, Spain, Colombia, probably Brazil and Argentina. They expanded too much. But again, it is just speculation.
Maduro was not fairly elected, it was a fraud, but he was the de facto head of state of Venezuela.
The whole cartel excuse is just a sham in my opinion, it is all about power, sending the example and getting the oil. Maduro, and Chavez before him, challenged the US grip on SA, and actively fought american interest in the region.
Venezuela was not a sovereign state, it wasn't people's will at all to have Maduro as head of state, rather the opposite is true.
As I have mentioned, we can only guess the real motivation behind this.
What evidence is there of that?
Do you have sources for this not including the official White House position?
Is there any evidence of this?
Calling exilees "abusive shitbags"[2] and "shitty people" is not the kind of discourse we accept here.
3) Trump pardoned the Honduras president. The drug smuggling excuse is moot. This is a power grab, as usual. And it came from Trump's mouth. We're no better than Russia if we choose to go with this narrative.
That's an allegation. We are from a nation of laws where this behavior within it's borders would be in violation of the constitution.
> Maduro was smuggling drugs in USA
Shall we talk about what the CIA has been doing in Venezuela for decades?
> You want China and Russia be there?
The worst form of whataboutism.
> And people from Venezuela were the biggest migration wave in the World last decades.
Is that because they hate Maduro or because they need money?
> You want millions of refugees?
We already have them. Can we /please/ talk about WHY without getting distracted by nonsense drug dealing claims?
If difference exist between two people then the quickest way to resolve them is to reveal them. It seems some people prefer to paw around in the dark out of deference. I did not believe this was part of the "hacker ethic."
You aren't asking questions in good faith, you're trying to score points.
> It seems some people prefer to paw around in the dark out of deference.
You're doing it here, implying that I'm a deferential coward instead of stating it outright. I would urge you to review the site guidelines. The only reason this site is worth visiting in the first place is because it isn't ordinarily full of the sort of Reddit-style commentary you're engaging in right now.
We should all agree with each other and sing along how lucky Venezuelans are that US, the self proclaimed world police, came to steal their oil and bomb their capital (terrorism/war crime)?
What are you talking about? The war on drugs is just a bad excuse. Trump keeps claiming that Venezuela is responsible for the fentanyl crisis, which is demonstrably wrong.
And if the US administration was so worried about drugs, why did Trump pardon Juan Orlando Hernández, ex-president of Honduras, who had been sentenced to 45 years for drug trafficking? https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o
It's not important at all. I've seen this exact line repeated all over the Internet today, almost like it's not a real sentiment and instead a pre seeded talking point to muddy the waters.
It is amusing to see the consent factory so efficiently spit this shit out though.
Let’s be real, the vast majority of Americans couldn’t even place Venezuela on a map.
The default state for humans isn’t caring about everything and everyone, nobody has the mental capacity or resources to do that.
We only care about something when we are incentivized to by actual self interest, familial bond, or emotional stories that align this 3rd party with our familial instincts via empathy.
* My country just did something I think is wrong.
* My country is led by people elected by a process that I generally trust but believe is under stress.
* The process or the people have failed and I want to stop this from happening by fixing the process so the people are replaced.
And, now I am stuck on how to do this. There a other actions I can take to help the people of Venezuela, but from a civics perspective, I believe it is my responsibility to partake in a discussion about the systemic failure that lead to this.
I think it is common for Americans to do this because we have a history of at least trying to fix our government because we usually believe we can.
How can they get away with ignoring their constituents? Well: gerrymandering has made it so that representatives can select their constituents (and their opponent's constituents, or lack thereof). They will remain in their post indefinitely, regardless of this carefully-selected minority of constituents wants, so long as they continue to bend the knee and kiss the ring for you-know-who.
If an existing politician already lacks both the moral compunction and a self-interested political survial motivation to say a thing is bad, then a letter from a minority-opinioned constituent of theirs won't change their mind.
> It is hard to believe narco dictators have too much love from people anyway.
You must be confusing venezuela with a state that traffics in drugs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
https://youtu.be/qxlpRDr6aEg?si=jQdhOwslOLrZBN_5
https://youtu.be/FRbX18Evcvg?si=OLpsLCY4MQwAyIEP
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/09/americas/venezuela-election-r...
and you can google similar keywords from a variety of sources - many dispute the integrity of the 2024 elections
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
If Venezuela actually becomes a functioning country again and drugs, gangs and illegal immigrants stop flooding America then i personally would applaud the operation. Still, you really shouldn't just kidnap other countries presidents just like that as a general rule.
It's a political event between two countries. So people are discussing two things: What it means for Venezuela that Maduro is gone, and what it means that Trump can completely sidestep Congress to start a war. Both seem relevant. But you're trying to reduce it to something narrower. Most of us are aware that feelings in the first 24 hours of something like this are completely irrelevant. Time will tell if this is a net positive.
The main players: - current government - local army - invading army - chinese and Russian proxies - multiple smaller groups - opposition
And probably more will play the power struggle in the foreseeable future. Unaffiliated people will somehow need to find a way to navigate this mess
Meanwhile, I hold disdain for my country's actions and have some minimal pull to at least protest and complain to my reps about it. So the focus of my discussion will be around those actions.
This may surprise folks who don't live in the U.S., because Americans describe their country as a nation of immigrants and say things like "I'm Italian" and "I'm Irish" when describing their identity. Yet these same folks haven't set foot in Italy or Ireland, don't speak the language or have awareness of present-day concerns from those countries.
You can no longer get the full picture because all the guys with alpha (investing term) left and post on Twitter/X now. All rando accounts without their faces. Anything interesting for AI is on there now and you can chat with the actual researchers too, you don’t need to bump into them at a shoes off party after work.
There’s a lot of very uncomfortable discussion on Twitter/X if you can stomach it, you’ll end up with a much clearer picture of the world. There’s a lot of dumb stuff on there too! You have to sift through it.
HN hit its Eternal September. There’s still some really great technical stuff you can find on here though. I don’t know how long the decline has been but it doesn’t seem to be getting better.
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.
(My opinion of Maduro is that he was not a legitimate leader.)
Somehow it's not ok for the USA to violently meddle in the internal affairs of another country, but it is for the PRC because... Taiwan is nearby? Because the people speak the same language? Because the ghosts of the CPC's past are here on the island? It's frustrating.
China is much weaker than the Golden Empire.
Go type "list Russian regime change operations from the last 20 years" in chatgpt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_involvement_in_regime_...
* resource extraction focus
* dismissal of local leadership (Machado "does not have the following or respect" -- Nobel hurting?)
* no transition plan to self-governance (perhaps it is early)
* military occupation ("not afraid of boots on the ground", "military will protect oil operations")
North Korea ‘has fired ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/north-korea-ha...
UK and France carry out strikes against Isis target in Syria https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/politics/uk-france-s...
It's also clear that Trump only respects power, which China clearly has. He already backed off tariffs with the critical minerals threat. Unlikely he'd come to Taiwan's aid in my opinion.
With political polarization in America, you can bet all kinds of fingers would start pointing at Trump in America, saying he enabled it by meddling with Venezuela. Stock market collapse from TSMC blockade would enhance this even moreso. I wouldn't count on much, if any, rallying around the flag effect.
How does Maduro being ousted change the physical realities of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan? You think international law is what has been preventing Xi from invading?
Trump does only respect power, as do all other serious leaders. Power is all that matters in the end.
How do you think the system of international law came into existence? It was imposed by the US at the end of WWII because of their overwhelming military strength and the fact that no other nation had nuclear weapons at the time.
The armchair analysis from some folks on this topic is really lacking. You guys are just wrong, and the hubris you bring with your “analysis” is really off putting.
It doesn't change the physical realities of that much at all besides maybe slightly further cementing that the US will not come to Taiwan's aid.
No, the main change is that now Xi can more reliably expect a weaker, less unified response from the west due to political divisions inside America as well as between western nations. He can expect less diplomatic pushback, fewer sanctions, etc.
Also, no all serious leaders do not only respect power. Serious leaders who are also morally and ethically good also take into account right and wrong when they make decisions.
The right thing to do would be for America to try to preserve and enforce a rules based order, regardless if other countries do. America has significant agency in the world and should consider how the world should be and try to get there. Not only consider how the world is.
Following an ethical code in international affairs constrains the nation following it. It provides an asymmetric advantage to others who choose not to follow that code.
This is partly why China has become so powerful over the past three decades. They chose to ignore western ethical codes around intellectual property rights, fair trade, environmental protections, and human rights. They are powerful today in no small part to their willingness to disregard these things.
This is difficult for people to understand because in interpersonal relationships following an ethical code is 100% the path to healthy and meaningful relationships, and most modern history education attempts to anthropomorphize past interactions between nations. But the cold fact is that international politics is nothing like interpersonal relationships.
A nation can encourage other nations to follow their ethical code by threatening to use force if they don't. They can create incentives to encourage nations to change their behavior through trade or treaty. But I can't think of a single time in history when a nation was such a shining star of morality that they inspired other nations to change their ways and adopt their ethics.
You can't expect other nations to respect your nation's moral and ethical values when they don't care about them in the first place and in fact hope that you choose to follow them to the fullest extent so that you're easier to compete against.
Isn't that the opposite? The US just demonstrated that it can still conduct military operations, and the presence of Chinese envoys in the country does not deter it in any way. As of now, China has one fewer source of oil it can rely on in case of an invasion.
I get that military resources devoted to one theatre can’t be used in another and for that reason the US might be less able to defend Taiwan, but that may not make them less willing.
A more reasonable read is that the aircraft carriers and other naval assets in the Gulf of Mexico are more effective there than they could be in the Pacific. Venezuela doesn’t have hypersonic anti-ship missiles. China does.
This can mean different things to different people, such as:
(A) Power dynamics determine outcomes i.e. a claim about how the world works
(B) Might makes right i.e. rejecting ethical notions of right and wrong
I'm pretty sure you mean (A). Fair? Are there other meanings you want to endorse? Some form of nihilism perhaps?
Taking the beaches here would require spilling the blood of tens of thousands of PLA troops, but as demonstrate two days ago, the only real barrier to blockading us was the threat of the USA showing up.
Xi's hunger for Taiwan shouldn't be underestimated. It's utterly irrational but it is his obsession. It's becoming clear he intends to die in office, and he's seeing his legacy as a mirror of that of the entire communist revolution - he wants to be the next Mao, with a permanent framed photo on the wall of every school and many houses in the PRC. Mao was happy to waste millions of PLA in every conflict the PRC engaged in as an outright military strategy, he called it something like "drowning the enemy in a sea of bodies," Xi will be the same.
Xi himself probably already had war gamed what it would look like to kidnap the president here in Taiwan from the presidential palace or whatever. The main difference is, now we're all talking about it - if it was that easy to snatch a president, will the PRC try it against us? Will the KMT throw Lai under the bus so the PLA can do a targeted kidnapping or assassination, perhaps alongside his US-friendly VP?
Big assumption to be sure, and time will only tell if it’s a correct one.
In a place like Taiwan or the US that assumption is almost certainly false. Imagine Xi kidnaps the US president. Does anyone honestly believe the entire government and its people just roll over and say, “I guess China owns us now”?
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
I have put in good faith efforts to convert with MisterMower, for example, in [1]. Shortly after that, they insulted me. [2] This is also against the HN Guidelines, and that kind of behavior is not welcome here. Here are additional examples of hostility and insults they've made:
> Old farts like yourself [3]
> In case you don't understand how analogies work [4]
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488285
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46495327
I would also point out that you have engaged in bad faith argumentation of your own, but I'm not so petty as to go through your comment history to point out each instance and appeal to the moderators that you shouldn't be welcome here.
I apologize if my comments came across as offensive. That was not my intent, and I think a charitable interpretation of them reveals no malice. I hope you can find more people in your life that will speak directly and honestly to you so it won't be so jarring in the future.
This is exactly why a lot of people support Trump and his actions. He's at least direct and honest. It's about oil. Yeah, we had the power to do it so we did. It's in our interests. Everybody else can go pound sand. You may not like the reasons, and I'm not sure I do either, but at least he isn't a coward who lies and claims he's doing something altruistic instead, like you are with your model building and deference to unnamed experts.
I know that frightens people like yourself who go through life exerting influence on the people around you not by direct communication and action, but by appealing to fake authorities like the moderators in this situation, or international law in the case of what we're discussing.
Americans increasingly reject the kinds of arguments you're making and the fake systems of power that keep impotent, second rate thinkers in power and grant them an outsized level of respect in public commentary.
I encourage you to engage in some introspection. Your priors are clearly wrong: international law obviously didn't matter in this case and probably won't matter in the future. Why is that? What changed? Was international law ever relevant? If it was, why was it?
Xi made a new years address just a few days ago essentially saying China would reunite Taiwan.
This is the incorrect word to use since the PRC has never held territory here. If the PLA sets foot on Taiwan, that's an imperialist invasion, nothing less, unless the people of Taiwan have democratically chosen to abdicate their government for CPC rule, in which case the word should be "unify" or "merge."
We use the term "reunification" for Germany but the Federal Republic never "held territory" in the Democratic Republic. However, of course both states were the result of a split of "Germany". This is the same with the ROC and PRC so bringing both sides together, whatever the mean, is a reunification in that sense.
The narrative of rejecting the term can be said to be broadly propaganda but plays on a peculiarity that both sides don't recognise each others.
> This is the same with the ROC and PRC
It really isn't.
Note that West Germany did not have to invade East Germany to re-unify and that East Germany was on a per-capita basis much poorer than West Germany.
Unlike Taiwan, which is doing more than twice as good. So this would be more in line with Russia invading Ukraine. And that's precisely the rhetoric they are using: 'unification'.
China has factually split, like Germany before. Whether any "reunification" happens peacefully or not is irrelevant to the use of term and so is which side is the richer.
Russia and Ukraine is obviously not the same at all, and "unification" is obviously not the same as "reunification".
Define "China." 中國? 中華人民共和國? 中華民國? 大清? 大明? 大元? The English term is far overloaded, kinda like the word "dumpling." Having this conversation in English is really hard for that reason.
The key word is 中國, typically translated literally as "middle country," though if you put it in google translate it'll just say "China." Really though, the word means "empire." Empire of what? China? No, just, The Empire. E.g. 一個中國原則 "one China principle," all things that we could call 中國 ruled by the same government.
That's the issue I have. The CPC claims a mandate of heaven for a "Chinese" meta-dynasty, claiming to have domain over everything any government in the region has ever touched (even the Mongols!). I reject this, a mandate to rule should be earned basically every day, and self determination matters far more than maintaining a dynasty of a culture.
Like many empires, the PRC is even creating an ethnostatic justification, calling everyone Han 漢族人 or Hua 華人 and claiming a mandate to rule everyone that could feasibly be called that, using race science to expand their domain. Like "white," under scrutiny, these terms are meaningless. We could translate either, in the context of their usage by the CPC, as "people the CPC thinks it should be allowed to govern." That includes people in Xinjiang, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, America, hell even Okinawa lately.
That kind of ethnostatic imperialist expansionism should be roundly rejected by anybody that values self determination. And, that's why "reunify" isn't the correct word, because there is no country on earth called "China" and there never has been, there's just a government ruling a territory that wants some more territory. The PRC isn't some magical inheritor of every racial, cultural, linguistic, and historical aspect of that region. "China" has not split with the fleeing of the KMT to Taiwan in the 50s, nor was "China" overthrown when the Taiwanese deposed the KMT military dictatorship in the 90s, or when the Qing dynasty was overthrown by the KMT.
You are trying too hard and doing so does you a disservice because it makes you write nonsense that any sources can disprove.
So... why? Why do people get so attached to a narrative? Is it like religion, cult? Need to believe in sonething?
Past history is what it is. It does not mean that the people of Taiwan have to be forced into re-joining the mainland but let's keep the facts otherwise we are really leaving in 1984. If you want to say that the people of Taiwan have a moral right to remain independent if they wish to then just say so.
Have you considered the possibility that you are just wrong? Your 'uncontroversial and rather obvious historical fact' is neither uncontroversial nor is it obvious.
That's why we have a 32 page article on the subject on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan
And it is one of the most heavily brigaded pages there. With edit wars going back as long as the page exists.
As well as articles like this:
https://www.justsecurity.org/87486/deterrence-lawfare-to-sav...
There is only one country where your 'historical fact' is seen as true, and it isn't Taiwan. And that is why China is threatening to invade, and why you yourself use Taiwan without further qualification right after 'South Korea':
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46478045
The 'one China' term itself is overloaded, depending on who you ask (Chinese, Taiwanese) you get different answers.
Taiwan is an independent country, if not de jure then de facto. That China is a much larger and much more dangerous country is the only reason everybody tiptoes around this.
This is bizarre at this point.
Perhaps you wrongly assume that by "China split" I meant "the PRC split" although it is abundantly clear that I didn't.
You can continue to stick to your worldview, or you can admit that maybe the matter is more complex than you thought it was. The point is that there are multiple viewpoints on this and yours is not necessarily the only one and given that you claim not to have a horse in the race it is strange that you would end up carrying water for one of the parties.
Agreeing to disagree is a thing too, you're perfectly entitled to your own take on this no matter how wrong I think it is. But you are not entitled to your own facts and if you really believe this to be an uncontroversial thing then I don't think I can help you with that.
How is that at odds with "facts"? What "facts"? What do you think I claimed? How is it controversial? I am not sure you know at this point as you are being evasive and shifting to ad hominems.
Claiming that the Earth is round is "controversial" to flat-Earthers. Does this make it a controversial topic?
I also know, generally, what people mean when they say "goblin," but that doesn't mean goblins are real, and it's also true that two people might be thinking of very different things when a goblin is mentioned. Such is the same for the word "China."
> any sources can disprove.
Well then, should be pretty easy for you to disprove me with some sources then!
> So... why? Why do people get so attached to a narrative? Is it like religion, cult? Need to believe in sonething?
Please explain to us how you aren't also attached to a narrative. Are you a omnipotent entity, immune to human narratives, and the one true knower of Universal Truth? I think it's unintentional, but you come off that way, and that's why you're getting such a strong response here.
> Past history is what it is.
This sentence is genuinely meaningless.
The problem is, you've made some unsubstantiated claims (you can't even define "China"), presumed to be right, and then acted aghast when a bunch of people said "hm no, that's not quite right, here's why," and then you doubled down without providing any further substance to your argument other than just repeating in different ways, "I'm right and you're all wrong."
What's the point of talking with someone like that? I'm happy to have the conversation but I don't see the purpose when people behave like that.
I agree that "China" may mean several things but in the context of this discussion and previous comments it is rather clearer.
You can have a look at the Wikipedia link about the political status of Taiwan that @jacquesm posted. You can also have a look at related article about the history of China or Taiwan.
Quick summary (to mostly repeat myself as you point out but it does seem hard to get you guys to even read the links you provide yourselves, or don't want to accept them) is that China asserted control over Taiwan since the 17th century (as a reaction to European imperialism) with Taiwan acquiring province status towards the end of the 19th century. It was then ceded by China to Japan after the First Sino-Japanase war, and "reunited" in 1945. Following the Chinese civil war the communists took over the mainland and the government kept, and retreated to, Taiwan, which led to a split with de facto two states and official policies to "reunite".
That's all there in the links mentioned. So, again, I don't understand the drama.
I never denied that Taiwan was de facto a state independent of the mainland, or that the majority of the people of Taiwan do not want to be absorbed by the PRC, or even that a portion of the people of Taiwan would like no affiliation with "China" and be simply the Republic of Taiwan. And, yes, Taiwan was never controled by the PRC (like East Germany was never controled by West Germany prior to German "reunification", and there is still no country called "Germany" or "Korea"...). But that said I do have a problem with rewriting history and fallacious arguments to further a political aim.
This is a great example of why your usage of this word is an expression of your agreement with the idea of an ethnostatist meta-dynasty that a government like the CPC can claim a mandate to rule, rather than a universal fact.
It seems you don't believe Khagan-emperor Kublai was Chinese, since you pin the first "Chinese" assertion of control in the 1600s, even though the Yuan dynasty claimed Penghu.
You also give away your political agenda a bit when you accurately refer to Western actions on the island as "imperialism" but simply refer to Chinese empire activity as "asserted control," rather than what it clearly was, which is also imperialism. In fact it's especially interesting you did this considering that the entire reason the dutch colonists were expelled from the island was because of a battle between two entities that wanted to be called "China": the Qing dynasty, and Zheng Chenggong's remnant Ming dynasty. So here's another question: Manchus, Chinese, or no? Qing dynasty, Chinese, or no? Both yes? Well then both the Kingdom of Tungning and the Qing dynastic territories were China, despite being engaged in a deeply ethnostatist battle defined clearly on Han vs Manchu racial identity. And now the Manchus are 華人 just like everyone else, which demonstrates my point that the words "China" and 中國 are just a political propaganda tool to claim a mandate to rule an empire. The same fight has been fought before, except this time Taiwanese people have no desire to claim the mantle of The Empire.
You believe you're stating facts when actually you're just stating support of the CPC's claim to dynastic inheritance. Thus it's not "never clearer" what's meant by "China" in a time when all people who could be labeled "Chinese" (including PRC citizens) are reckoning with what that identity means in regards to governance and nationality.
> Ad hominem attacks and character assassiination are the tactics of the CPC, not of democratic Taiwan...
You clearly have never watched even 5 minutes of Taiwanese tv or politics lol.
I think it is time for you to nail your colors to the mast.
You're subconsciously echoing Chinese propaganda.
This is a factual statement, not propaganda. The propaganda (or political theatre in mainland China) is that the ROC does not exist and Taiwan is part of the PRC.
Taiwanese do not see themselves as Chinese, just like Ukrainians do not see themselves as Russian even if they speak the language. By playing along you are effectively carrying water for the Chinese. That may be your goal, but then you should be clear about that. If that is not your goal you should refrain from adopting the language of the party that is clearly the aggressor here. The 'ROC' moniker stems from a bunch of Chinese that fled there in 1949 after they lost their struggle with the communists inside China. They ruled Taiwan and they named it 'Republic of China', a name that has caused a lot of confusion with those unfamiliar with where it came from.
This is the reason the Chinese now lay claim to Taiwan, and it is about as misguided as it gets. They got Hong Kong by being patient, they may take Taiwan by force.
If you are playing into their hands by parroting their terminology you are fractionally helping to normalize their behavior towards Taiwan. If it should come to pass that China will take Taiwan by force that will have grave consequences, for the Taiwanese, the Chinese and the rest of the world as well due to the central spot that Taiwan occupies in the global supply chain.
Taiwan was part of China and ceded to Japan by treaty after the first Sino-Japanese war of 1895. It was then "reunited" to China following WWII... that's really the root of the current situation since that's why the Chinese government (ROC) retreated there in 1949. Taiwan held the Chinese seat at the UN until the 1970s!
Hongkong was also seized by the UK through naked imperialistic aggression and it is testament to the power of propaganda that China be painted as "the bad guys".
Your comment is not factually correct irrespective of rights and wrongs or wishes of the people in Taiwan.
Why should people always have an ulterior motive beyond stating things as they are?...
Unless you are one of those I don't think you get to speak for them.
No need to discuss further if that's going to turn into this. People really need to take a step back and a deep breath when discussing world issues.
I am not even Chinese or Asian if that is your suggestion (a little in the gutter, by the way). I don't have skin in the game and am just looking at history in the most factual way I can.
Into what? A discussion where one party berates another for not appreciating the 'wishes of the people in Taiwan'?
You can't credibly make that claim without being transparent about your own nationality.
With the US unreliable and distracted all bets are off on how this will unfold, the chances China attempting to take over Taiwan have substantially increased.
I think what's missing is that opinion in Taiwan in actually split. The KMT, certainly up to the last president in 2016 is simply opposed to declaring "independence" because they share the position that Taiwan is China, just obviously not the PRC.
That is only because of the history of the KMT, which is only a fraction of the story of Taiwan. By the same token the Dutch could invade Taiwan tomorrow morning and claim re-unification.
I was just quoting the actual speech. The point is, for anyone claiming the US attempting regime change in Venezuela is going to factor into China's long standing plans to invade Taiwan is delusional.
The US has been involved in regime change operations spanning like 40+ different countries, and almost continuously for a century. This is not a unique event in even recent US history, even though folks with orange-man syndrome would like you to believe otherwise.
As if Xi is thinking "gee, I'd really like to invade Taiwan, but people might get upset! If only Trump would conduct the US's 5th regime change operation this decade...then people would...not care anymore about Taiwan or something?? Wait, this fantasy may have logical flaws..."
The bending over backwards that Americans do to convince themselves the US is responsible for everything that happens is always amusing.
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.
* https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/2007450814097305734#m
Also, the irony:
> the administration's position is that American courts can hold any president accountable for crimes, except the American president
Maduro's remaining cronies could call on Russia for help since they just signed a military alliance. However, that's not likely to work.
Take Isabelle Robinson from parkland. Paraphrasing: "It's not my responsibility to "befriend" a person who is showing violent red flags; it’s the school’s job to intervene and provide professional help or remove the threat." So she did notice the red flags, but didn't do anything, she believe the school should do something not her. The failure in this line of reasoning is that every institution is made up of individuals, if they all think the same way nothing will change.
This is literally a school shooting victim saying she doesn't believe that she should personally have to pay... well she didn't have to pay as much as some of her classmates.
The school of will find their own people to blame.
Pretty much every major religion teaches something like: If they slap one cheek show them the other, and that we are all one.
Nevertheless, very few people will take any amount of responsibility for another "individuals" actions. The logical conclusion is that we sit in silod VR pods until the life support systems fail
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 these affairs ought to be handled through international bodies. The UN seems to have no mechanism for it.
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.
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.
To phrase it more completely, regime change and general destabilization of Latin American countries has definitely led to the immigration crisis in the United States now. Lack of stable governments and economies has absolutely exacerbated the production and transportation of drugs into the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed or disappeared by US-empowered gangs or governments.
Now that said, I don't know what the world would look like had their right to self-determination been preserved. Nobody knows. But as a general rule, countries whose power structures were not toyed with by colonial powers do better than countries whose power structures were toyed with.
> every attempt to remove a dictator "for the greater good" is usually 1) selfishly motivated and 2) backfires horribly.
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.
Once the genocide started though I do thing all considerations, including national stability and continuity, are lower priority than ending the genocide as fast as possible.
That's what made Trump so dangerous, it is insane that such terrible people have such a charismatic appeal. To me they are horrible men, to others they seem to come across as some kind of savior.
Basically, "leave it to the population to sort out themselves, even if they've lost the democratic means to do so," up until a government has gone so insane it's massacring its people, or other people.
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.
For example if your country is subject to a terror bombing campaign, it's very tempting to assassinate the one leader who had the power/respect/authority to order the attacks to start but often they're also the only leader who can order the attacks to stop
In the 1970s/1980s presumably the UK could have had IRA leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness assassinated. But it sure turned out to be useful, in the late 1990s peace process, that the IRA had identifiable, living leaders who could engage in negotiation, sign an agreement, and get the bomb makers to stop making bombs.
China on the other hand doesn’t get visibly involved in almost any remote conflict and they’re obviously a (if not the) superpower.
China has everything that Russia lacks and more.
China was another example of superpower “style”. Not the Russian or US “let’s invade this country” or “let’s kidnap that leader”.
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"?
Don't get me wrong, I live in Taiwan so it's not something I want to have happen, but the PRC seems focused on localizing its economy as much as possible, so it may be that if that time comes, it doesn't matter if other countries boycott it. Didn't seem to matter that much to Russia in the Ukraine situation, or at least, it didn't stop them.
If they would actually do that, they would loose their threat model to keep the EU in check.
Opinion, public or not, cannot enforce anything.
But enforcement is not even my point. I'm referring to a moral principle.
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.
The entire post-WWII system with the UN and international law was an attempt to change this.
That is why the 5 most powerful countries were permanently put on the security council with complete veto powers.
Democracy, free trade, free speech and freedom of religion had "won" over the soviet union. International treaties were reducing stockpiles of nuclear and chemical weapons. The WTO had just started resolving trade disputes through negotiation rather than trade wars. International peacekeeping forces were preventing ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, even though there wasn't anything like oil motivating the peacekeeping forces. Planners of the genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda were being prosecuted by an international war crimes tribunal.
Then-UK-Prime-Minister Tony Blair believed in this stuff pretty earnestly - in fact he wanted to get a UN resolution authorising the Iraq invasion so badly he was happy to submit fabricated WMD evidence to get it.
Of course, even at the height of the "rules-based international order" there were always some stark inconsistencies - especially in the middle east, for example.
It was in his documentary series War, but I don't remember which episode.
> Pray you stay on the good side of the Emperor closest to your home.
I think we painfully agree, here :/
Trump contends that Biden wasn't the legitimate President because the 2020 election was rigged.
If Trump ends up contending the 2026 mid-terms are not legitimate is that valid too? Are they able to act on those contentions to… do stuff?
[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...
Was he tried and convicted? As far as I know the powers that be instead decided for some reason to attack him on other charges (sexual misconduct, corruption, etc.)
This was appealed to the US Supreme Court, who didn't rule that this wasn't true, they ruled that the 14th amendment needs to be applied by Congress for reasons of consistency across states... which sidestepped the entire issue and was a dereliction of duty in my opinion, in the sense that they are the highest court and could have ruled on the issue of insurrection, or at least required some kind of jury proceeding at that time. They basically didn't do their one job.
Then Jack Smith later amassed a case about it, with grand jury approval. He ran out of time to try and convict Trump before he was elected, basically published a summary report of his case. Recently he testified before a congressional committee about it and asserted he was extremely confident Trump would have been convicted. He testified that he never consulted with Biden about the case, and asked that the rest of his materials from his investigation be publicly released.
Legally speaking there is a strong argument that Trump engaged in insurrection; he's just been shielded from the consequences by political maneuvers and poor timing.
Put differently, one state supreme court decided he so obviously engaged in it that it didn't require a trial. Another federal attorney presented his evidence to a grand jury and they decided he was likely to succeed if it went to trial.
My personal belief is historians will look at the evidence presented and conclude that US Congress made catastrophic mistakes by not impeaching Trump the first time (for obstruction of justice first, and insurrection second), and that SCOTUS made an equally catastrophic mistake (or corrupt decision) by not ruling on insurrection as the highest federal court, either on its own or with a grand jury trial.
You can bookmark my comment along with the one above.
For starters, TSMC has opened facilities in Az, but these are still owned and operated from Taiwan and rely significantly on Taiwanese capability for substantial inputs to the development process in both knowledge and operational capacity.
The new wafer capacity is not a replacement for Taiwan based infrastructure, but rather an extension of those operations.
And to be blunt: If amerika were to immediately about-face on 1975's "back-to-basics" math movement and resume math theory based primary education in order to develop the foundational comprehension necessary for the materials science at|in the design level workforce, it would still be at least one generation before homegrown capacity was 'on-par' with the current Taiwanese (and Dutch) resources.
TLDR; not a concern from a rational leadership condition.
However, pretending that one TSMC plant in Az is sufficient reason to TACO and post on social media in saggy golf pants == very much a potential outcome; regardless of the absolute immediate cost in lives and material capability, and the unavoidable long term consequences both within the US and around the world caused by said capricious behaviour.
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.
Two things intersect here:
"War is the continuation of politics by other means" - Carl von Clausewitz
"Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex" - Frank Zappa
There's a third quote that kinda sums it all up neatly: "War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it." — George Orwell
The media in the US, being a wholesale production of the oligarchy now, has been brazenly honest about the fact that this is purely a large-scale looting of Venezuela.
Just speculating, but I wonder if there is another purpose as well: To hand the military a story it can tell itself to assure they are still the "good guys" - i.e. ensuring "troop morale".
If you have thousands and thousands of servicemembers, not all of them might submit to drill or be motivated by money or career advancements or other personal goals - some people might ask questions about the bigger picture, about why they are doing an operation, etc. I imagine for situations like this, it's useful for an officer to have some ready-made answers available that they can use to counter those questions, even if the answers really don't make a lot of sense.
For all the personnel who executed the Maduro operation, the "we're just helping law enforcement to arrest a criminal" story was probably the practical reality for the last months, no matter how ridiculous it is in the larger context.
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.
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.
The impact of that is on display in this very thread. Random unproven accusations, conspiracy theories and repetition of “facts” that have been disproven long ago.
If your goal is to educate yourself about the US leadership, or really any subject, you’re not going to do it by what you see on social media.
Are there more reliable sources of information that you can point to?
Every person who has been out in the world had to deal with a Trump like person in the workplace or wherever .
And people don't like it, as a matter of fact they despise it, he's only kept afloat by those who fail to connect the abusive bullying behavior of DJT with their own personal experience with a similar character and those who enjoy bullying or are paitiently waiting in line to do some bullying.
Ultimately, there's a war between the haves and the have-nots and one side clearly has more resources.
It's demoralising.
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.
With no infrastructure, and ten years of massive investment needed, I read.
The idea that oil in Venezuela is particularly attractive to anyone is patently absurd. Crude oil prices are already at uncomfortable levels for producers with significantly higher margins, and the situation isn't going to get any better.
>and is starting a war over it
Anyone who in 2025 still blindly believes what Donald Trump says is an idiot. And even if that were true, you'd still be an idiot for assuming that Trumps motivations are grounded in reality.
So why was US oil companies moving in specifically mentioned during the takeover if their oil is sooooo worthless?
Oh wow, we're in 2026 already.
It then goes on to note that output could be more than doubled in two years. That alone would put them as the 11th largest oil producer and the third largest in the Americas. The decade timeline and budget was for creating maximalist infrastructure for fully exploiting the resources.
The strongest proof that the article has that trump isn’t interested in oil is his word that he isn’t interested in oil. How much faith do you put in Trump’s honesty?
I don’t doubt that other motivations exist. I do not think that the US would have gone after them if they did not have oil. I do not think the US government would be crowing about all the money they will finally be able to make with oil, if that wasn’t a motivation.
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.
This is one such event.
Cuba is going to fall next, and then Nicaragua, and then Brazil, probably.
The DPRK is not going to.
Maduro was a terrible dictator but toppling governments 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...
If polls show over 95% of Venezuelans are happy with this outcome after three months, I may shift my position a bit. In general though, I think it's a bad precedent for the world superpower to bomb countries and abduct rules because the ruler is bad. Plus, Trump's motives here are not remotely pure.
Now it’s not clear who is running the country. Maduro’s administration is saying they’re still in charge via their VP, but the opposition has said they are “prepared to assume power,” wherever that may mean.
I fear that there could be so much suffering as a result of this. Power vacuums and forced regime changes don’t seem to go well.
This reminds me a little of when the US toppled Saddam Hussein in Iraq - initially there was celebration, which soon gave way to, “oh shit… now what?”
Trump is happy lining up behind far more monstrous characters.
It will be about his pocket, and then about what affects polling.
Just saying that I get your argument - but when are we taking control over all of those other territories then?
Instead, the joke about the US invading for oil proves true once again, and look at everyone fooled by the justification for it. Maduro a bad person? Yeah duh...so why US moving in to take profits from their oil as well as supporting politicians there who were allied with Maduro...
US are liars. And Venezuelans on here gonna act happy bc Maduro gone. But just you wait, 30 years will go by then Venezuelans will be crying about reparations for their natural resources being raped by the US.
And everyone is now giving proper consideration to that important fact and forgetting those pesky domestic issues.
That's not the way international relations work.
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.
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.
Fair, most folks are completely clueless about this being an ongoing concern for nearly 5 years now.
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…
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.
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 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.
Anyway, that is the exact argument the Trump admin is making (drugs/gangs) but they didn't take it to Congress, as required.
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.
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.
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.
Right now, us is ruled by literally fascist party and promoting the same elsewhere.
If you look at what Miller, Vance, Hegsberg and the rest of them say and do, you find a huge amount of fascist rhetorics.
>Now, I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don't go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.
>Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years, we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values.
>Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defense of democracy, but when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say "ourselves" because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team. We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them.
>Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the Cold War positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that canceled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not, and thank God they lost the Cold War.
>They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, to invent, to build.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-vice-p...
You are more than welcome to disagree with him, but it's hardly literal fascism advocacy.
The churches were not closed by some hostile state forces. People stopped being christians out of their own choices.
> We must do more than talk about democratic values.
This is dishonest to the maximum. Vance does not believe in democracy. Not in the USA and not in the Europe. He is trying to dismantle it and replace it with authoritarian fascism. He does not care about laws either, he cares about making his own thugs unreachable by law.
Imagine in Hungary if a sort of pro-establishment (NATO/EU/Ukraine/etc) type won, and then they cancelled the election, banned this candidate, and reran it after making some mostly unprovable (and ultimately false) claims of foreign meddling. Can you imagine how you would feel about this? Can you imagine how the unelected EU bureaucrats would act, or what they would be calling it? For people on the other side of the political aisle, you just had an act carried out that would more than justify all the rather hyperbolic rhetoric you're using about the US. And when it's reality, and not just rhetoric, this ends up shaping the views of people for decades.
[1] - https://www.politico.eu/article/investigation-ties-romanian-...
It was also done with carrots, not sticks.
Can't really say the same for what happened in the rest of the world.
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.
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 merely a cover story: sand in the eyes of the public.
My country, USA, yearns for freedom. Please someone, anyone, liberate us!
Nobody else has the right to have anything to do with it, unless that dictator is attacking you.
The moment he started ignoring the US Constitution, he became one.
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
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?
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.
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: I fully understand the deterrents. I'm making the case that attacking for the sake of 'liberty for all' is a farce.
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.
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"
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.
your donations go straight into the pockets of the elites. You need to be an idiot to think you are helping by sending money, unless you are sending it to your relatives.
[1] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-...
You fool no one.
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.
As much as I wish I could go and pontificate about how much better and more moral the PCC is than any other government on the face of the earth, they are in the worst possible spot right now.
It's less of a 'will they topple the revolutionary government in Cuba?' and more of a 'will they do it before or after they topple the revolutionary government in Nicaragua?'.
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.
In the meantime, though, this action is already having effects beyond the US and Venezuela. Withholding judgement until this conflict has fully played out carries with it an implicitly permission for similar actions in other places and situations. After all, maybe those will be for the better too!
That's why I oppose this action. Not in support the Maduro regime, which in my view has little to nothing that's worth defending, but because of the precedent that it sets for future events. This is hardly the first time a nation has had its sovereignty violated by a stronger power, and I'm not so naive to believe that it will be the last if only enough people spoke out. But at the same time, I strongly believe that accepting it as something that's inevitable (or even good) will only make it happen more often.
It wasn't a good day for the million Iraqi civilians that the US murdered.
Are we against democracy now?
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.
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...
Not arguing about other nations actions, just a reminder that if you apply many western logic indiscriminately, the resulting bad actors are very different.
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 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.
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.
It should be up to the Venezuelans to decide who leads them. Maduro decided to ignore the will of the people when he held power through clear and blatant election fraud. If some sort of global public service could reach out and punish all politicians who do this, the world would be a better place.
If you are unfamiliar with Venezuela, this is a good primer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHXW1vOBI4
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. He is neither American nor lives in the US.
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.
This has always been the case throughout the vast majority of human history including current day.
You are sovereign if you can prove it, and you aren't sovereign if you can't.
"International law" is something superpowers ignore at will. It is not "wrong" or "right", it simply is.
"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...
And it's not like the US gives a shit about democracy outside its borders. The CIA overthrew Jacobo Árbenz in the 50s, supported the military coup in Brazil in 1964, pinochet and Hugo Banzer in the 70s. This is normal behavior for the US in Latin America. It's nothing to do with concern for Venezuela's citizens.
How people can just read one article and think they know the world is fascinating to me.
Claiming this could “destabilize” the country suggests that the country is stable. It’s not.
You mention the 30+ million people who live there, under the dictatorship, but ignore the 8+ million who have fled the country in recent years and the instability that has unleashed on country and the entire region.
We all know any attempts to frame USA choices as noble right now is dishonest.
It's really insane but also not surprising to see considering how many people do truly live in their own fictional world and never bother to reassess it.
So, they create these BS rationalizations.
He is an illegitimate president who has systematically violated the rights of the Venezuelan people. He has bought off the military, the judiciary, and other key institutions, hollowing out the state to ensure his grip on power.
His regime has also supported and benefited from the existence of drug cartels in Venezuela as another mechanism to maintain control and stay in power.
Together with Chávez, Maduro has ruled the country for more than 27 years, a period marked by countless atrocities against the population, from forced disappearances to torture and rape.
The result is one of the largest humanitarian and migration crises in modern history: more than 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country to escape the regime.
The international community has proven itself unwilling to act. The UN will do nothing. NATO will do nothing. No one will.
We were, and perhaps still are, watching Venezuela turn into another Cuba, with one crucial difference: Venezuela sits on vast oil reserves.
The "Crazy Red" is a pig, but at least he is the only one willing to confront Maduro. This may end up being the only genuinely positive thing he does during his presidency.
Yes, the attack is not "ideal". But in an ideal world, there would be no dictatorships, there would be no Maduro.
And I say all this as a South American with family in both Colombia and Venezuela.
EDIT: this is written by the Vzla admins in Reddit: Foreigners, if your opinion comes without ever meeting a Venezuelan part of the biggest diaspora of the 21st century, I would advise against commenting. You might deserve a ban from this subreddit, thank you for your attention to this matter.
Err
> Since 2019, more than 50 countries, including the United States, have refused to recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s head of state.
Including the EU and its member states
> a country of 30+ million people
If those 30 M being the remainder after ~8 M fled the country (20% of the population) within the last 10 years, the „destabilization“ was already there.
----------
"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.
> “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...
Here I often will get a deep thread with one user that's quite interesting, even if we disagree in many ways. It's also usually polite for the most part.
In the American model, anything that could destabilize society is the fault of an individual who should be punished, ironically this means collectives can do no wrong. Leaving AI safety up to people living in such a country is frightening.
Race is the one exception (maybe sports teams too), but that definitely doesn't help Venezuelans
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.
USA sanctions means Venezuela can't be a Petrostate, that's it. There's nothing stopping the government from organizing state industries in agriculture and mineral extraction as well as distribution to build a hyper localized economy. Hell, they're supposed to be communists, this is supposed to be the whole thing they're meant to be doing anyway.
The state of Venezuela is mostly the fault of Maduro's failed governance, and some of the responsibility lays also on the heads of Venezuelans. I personally believe to pretend it's all America's fault is to engage in a prejudice of low expectations.
I don't belittle what VE has gone thru and I accept that something awful for you has been removed from the board.
> it’s one of the reasons of what happened today.
I would clarify that the current US leadership has little/no history of taking actions that are genuinely for others' welfare. The admin continually claims it is doing good. It's a continual stream, one after the other. By the time one is debunked (and they are), ten more are issued.
This method is dividing many Americans (by design) between those who believe the stream of claims and those being overwhelmed by the mountain of debunked falsehoods.
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.
On top of that, removing a ruler without any plan for follow-up frequently makes things worse, not better. We seem to have already forgotten that removing the leadership of Iraq led to the rise of ISIS and its horrifying consequences.
If it's in our interest, absolutely. Venezuela nationalized (which is a nice way to say they stole) American oil interests and companies decades ago, has assisted Russia in flouting US sanctions, and has in part enabled the drug cartels. Each of those things cost us money. We're also getting a ton of immigrants from Venezuela that we have to spend money dealing with. Venezuela could also be a much better trading partner for us in the future with a liberal democratic society. All of that is directly in the best interest for the US. Believe it or not, sometimes our interests lie outside our borders.
Isolationism is a failed policy by every nation that tries it, and this is something that used to be taught to every school child in America about our past policies. It's a shame those lessons seem to have been forgotten by our people.
> On top of that, removing a ruler without any plan for follow-up frequently makes things worse, not better. We seem to have already forgotten that removing the leadership of Iraq led to the rise of ISIS and its horrifying consequences.
This is absolutely true. You have to destroy the security forces as well, and support the elected democratic leadership. We may fail to do so in this case.
The Russians were oppressed and had a revolution about it. Then they didn't like Communism anymore and broke up the USSR about it. Taiwan had a military dictatorship that was killing and jailing people in the thousands, and managed to overthrow it with absolutely zero outside intervention in the 90s, all while the PRC salivated over taking the country even back then.
I'm not sure I think "citizens should just be left to suffer under brutal regimes," but I also want to avoid a prejudice of low expectations. I also wonder, to what degree do citizens bear shared responsibility for the crimes their government commits against others? How responsible for the invasion of Ukraine are Russians for not deposing Putin? How responsible are Americans for the destabilization in southeast Asia, the middle east, south America?
I hate this statement with a passion.
Let's ignore the politics of the current situation for a while and look at the first principles of right and wrong.
1) When somebody knowingly and intentionally hurts another person without a valid reason, that's wrong.
2) Now the aggressor is in the wrong and requires punishment (there are multiple purposes to punishment: taking away any advantage gained by the offense, further disadvantaging aggressors, compensation for the victim, retribution, deterrence, etc.).
3) A punishment is just if it's proportional to the offense but only those with sufficient certainty about the extent of the offense, about the offender's identify and his guilt can carry it out. Usually, in western style societies, courts serve this purpose but courts are a legal concept, justice is a moral concept. Morally, the punishment can be carried out by anyone who satisfies the criteria, there's nothing to put one person above another morally.
Legality has multiple tiers: tier 1 is individuals, tier 2 is states. States are a tier 2 institution imposed on tier 1. There is no tier 3 court-like institution which can be imposed on tier 2 entities.[0] Does that mean wrongs by tier 2 entities should go unpunished? No. They often do but there's no moral principles saying that it has to be that way, let along that it should be.
4) Punishment by its nature is the act of intentionally and knowingly hurting another person. But it's not wrong because unlike in point 1), it has a valid reason.
*What some people consider the second wrong is not actually a wrong.*
[0]: You could think of international organizations but they don't have a monopoly on violence above state level and therefore no actual mechanism for enforcement.
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.
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.
The EU does the same. Putin has a warrant for his arrest in every EU country, and they are legally allowed to extract him from russia AFAIK.
Is Maduro the head of a sovereign state? Says who?
The only thing it reinforces is the US' military superiority.
Trump announced that the plan is to “run Venezuela” but there are no troops on the ground, the US controls no territory. This isn’t The Wizard of Oz where you kill the wicked witch and the flying monkeys leave. This is only just starting.
High probability that trump gets distracted by something else and forgets, but if not welcome to the next three years of your life.
No, Russia attempted it, failed, moved goalposts, failed again, and keeps moving goalposts to save face.
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.
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.
"Good" news! The War on Drugs and The War on Terror have been combined with the invention of the concept of "narcoterrorism"!
But most of those doing the condemning were also supportive of Pres. Obama (or at least refused to condemn his actions) back in 2011 when he attacked Libya, and in 2013 and 2014 when he attacked Syria -- all of this happening after we should have learned from what we were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those people who didn't protest against Pres. Obama's illegal actions have lost moral high ground to protest against Trump.
Obama deliberately went to Congress for authorization to strike the Syrian chemical program in 2013, and after it quailed from taking a vote, the strikes didn't happen.
The 2014 strikes were against ISIS, not Syrian government forces, and carried out under the existing AUMF authorization to combat Al Qaeda and its affiliates. One can argue whether ISIS qualified (even the administration at the time acknowledged it was a stretch and wanted a more clear-cut resolution from Congress), but it definitely was a major terrorist threat in the region and had been working with AQ in the past.
[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-exec...
I don't remember him setting up a foundation and giving away all his money and assets prior to getting into office!
Though I don't like it as explanation or topic as it ventures into "it's just business" and "business as usual" in a way that normalises it
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.
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.
* - Claims 2 years ago about the removal of Hamas; 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.
Otherwise there would have been american aircraft shot down with russian tech. Or really any kind of support except empty words.
Yes, because as we all know Russian military technology is completely on par with that of the United States.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.clarin.com/mundo/respuesta-nicolas-maduro-explos...
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.
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.
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 :)
But afterwards, there's going to be a free-for-all struggle between ACTUAL cartels. That will be indistinguishable ftom a civil war.
US corporations will be brought in to exploit oil the same way they did in Iraq where they actually had to amend the constitution to allow for foreign corporations in.
The Venezuelan opposition leader was extracted and moved to Europe and I assume the US wants to install her. Maybe that is more likely, but a military takeover before the US can install whatever puppet government they're hoping for.
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.
The question is whether the Venezuelan situation is more like those two, or more like Vietnam / Iraq / Afghanistan.
When have we not heard this line? When has it even been true?
We always hear it, it's never true.
> 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.
The problems started after...
So it did not eventually "prove breezy".
People here saying it's "unjustified" should go and talk to a displaced Venezuelan.
There have been widespread protests in Venezuela throughout Maduro’s regime, but especially after the election.
The reaction I'm seeing from second-hand and direct reddit comments from actual Venezualans seems really positive.
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.
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.
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.
Presumably we're only trying to annex their oil reserves
I know some sheltered academics on Epstein's list disagree with that but that's a hill I will die on
It won't happen, but I wonder what could the US possibly do about it.
The problem is they’d have to donate delivery systems too and I believe the only part of the triad they have is submarines.
Most European countries simply couldn’t use it. But some could.
The fruits have just ripened, and they're starting to harvest them.
Maduro is not good for Venezuela.
The US should not be the decider of who stays in power on another country.
The president should not have the power to apprehend a countries president IN THEIR COUNTRY without a process thats more than just "I really want it".
The US is giving another clear message that it does not care about global order, just global control. We're back in the 70s.
There is ZERO concern of the current US administration about the welfare of Venezuelans, its a power play, if maduro played by the US rules, he would be in power regardless of crimes. Pinochet, The Brazilian regime are all here as testament to that.
I hope the power change turns out better for the Venezuelans. I hope this is a catalyst of change for a better government. Ideally one that does not sell itself to the US for legitimacy. I don't think that is the likely outcome.
And then a few seconds later: "US oil companies will go into Venezuela"
Never the US has been so honest around so many lies in the same speech.
I am still curious about the whole side bar about Washington being now safest and free of crime.
And all that as official doctrine, not even some secret strategy paper or covert ops campaign.
Edit: I had to chuckle at his "reviewing" of the Monroe doctrine as DONroe doctrine. There is "on the nose" and there is "punching someone in the face"...
I don’t want to sound like I’m running coverage for the Americans, but wasn’t a lot of that infrastructure built by foreign multinationals and then expropriated by Chávez in 2007?
If you follow this reasoning - after what happened today - you will get Iran 2.0: Venezuelan boogaloo
I have zero optimism that after this - ordinary Venezuelans will have better outcomes in 10 years time.
Current USA government is some weird klepto-oligrachy. Hates brown people. It’s not doing it out of benevolence to Venezuelans. Venezuelans will get either colonialist resource extraction treatment or some power vacuum will bring just another despot.
You're reading tealeaves to support your own hate-fueled nonsense belief. Correlation doesn't equal causation and all that.
- Claimed Haitian immigrants were eating neighbors' pets
- Currently claiming Somalian immigrants have setup vast networks of fraudulent daycares
- While he's worked diligently to stop immigration from, what he calls, "shithole countries" like Somalia, Haiti, and Afghanistan, he's advocated for increased immigration from "nice" or "beautiful" countries like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. He also specially carved out a special South African Afrikaner refugee status for white South Africans.
- Habitually calls predominantly non-white opponents "low-iq individuals".
- Repeatedly called SARS-CoV-2 the Chinese virus, "kung-flu", etc.
- Told four congresswomen of color (3 of whom were born in the U.S.) to "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came". A bipartisan resolution was passed in The House condemning these comments as racist.
- And we can go back a long time ago, and remember the Central Park Five, where he relentlessly attacked five innocent black and latino children, calling for the death penalty for them. Even after DNA evidence proved their innocence, Trump never apologized or acknowledged wrongdoing.
Each of these you could try to individually explain away as a misunderstanding or whatever. But there's an abundantly clear pattern of racism, not just with Trump, but much of his administration.
But, at every level in the US, that plan b is viable. And it's used over and over and over again, from small local businesses with local politicians to the US Federal Government and military for the likes of the oil industry.
At what point do you just accept the truth: that you (me!) are the dumb one because you hold onto this fantasy of how you think things ought to be as opposed to how they are?
And what is to say that plan (b) isn't taken into account when doing the risk assessment in plan (a)?
1898 is a while ago (the Banana wars).
In this case, the administration (correctly!) assessed that there was virtually no cost or risk (albeit, a very high profit.)
It must be lovely to exist in a world where you think you can punch someone in the face and nothing will ever happen to you if they don’t respond immediately.
Good thing the window of opportunity for retaliation is now firmly closed and we’ll never see anyone come back years later for revenge.
Unrelatedly, has anyone seen the twin towers lately? I visited NYC for the first time in 30 years and I couldn’t find them anywhere.
One of these days someone is going to set off a nuke in a capital somewhere and we're all going to wonder where that came from...
Incidentally, I believe Bin Laden is in part responsible for Trump's election.
I assume you don't mean he does that from his secret base on the dark side of the moon, but rather 9/11 -> patriot act - war on terror -> ..?
This isn’t over and out adventures like this tend to create adversaries that bite us in the ass later, even when a competent admin is the one with their hands on the wheel
This is one of those weird moments where I have a hard time wondering what new people we can even piss off that somehow weren't already against us from prior LA incursions.
At the risk of coming across as flippant: Why? I don’t think the math has worked out on most peer conflicts during the past hundred years. The cost of the operation has likely already exceeded the value of whatever infrastructure was left in Venezuela to be reclaimed. But why should we expect courts and bailiffs to enforce the law domestically and not expect soldiers to enforce it internationally?
Do you:
(Plan A) Realize you fucked up
Or
(Plan B) Send in the military to kidnap the president and take over the country, retroactively claim the law wasn't the law, undo its effects (but only for you) and then change the law so that property rights work exactly the same way they work in your country.
Now you see why people are saying plan B is bad, and would cause everyone to be at war all the time.
In this case your property is actually not your property though. Assuming property == oil, then it belongs in Venezuela - you seized control of it but it’s not really yours.
I'm sorry, I can't resist extending your metaphor:
The problem comes when "swinging your dick around" you accidentally get the other country pregnant. Then you have to co-parent the resulting child government, and they are always moody, rebellious, and ungrateful.
As soon as they're standing they run all over the house, painting the walls, breaking things, and costing you gobs of money. You can't ever go out, because the moment your attention wanders even a little they throw a party and invite their hooligan friends over; and wrapping up the party and throwing out their friends is another expensive debacle.
Not to mention the endless shady boyfriends/ girlfriends that parade through the place. They're "just experimenting" they claim: fascism, communism, and dictatorship are just phases they're going through as they explore who they really are.
Eventually they get resentful and want to live on their own. To accomplish this they kick you out of the house, and you end up leaving your car and many other possessions behind, and many times they trash the place as you leave.
If you're lucky, you both mature and you can develop an adult relationship in time. If you're not, they end up beating up their cousins and you have to break up the fights and pay for the broken furniture.
In short: don't swing your dick around, and if you must, be sure to use protection. I'm not sure what that equates to in this metaphor, but it's obvious the U.S. flunked sex-ed.
Question back to you: who decides when the government gets involved in getting your property back? You cool with it if they don't do anything to get your property back because of the size of your property; the cost to make it happen; you're not friends with the right person; etc.? Or better yet they don't get yours back but they get your competitor's/neighbor's back? Seems like the thing that happens in these situations is that someone maybe gets their property back and then the dick swings to piss on the people who didn't.
Like I said, fantasyland over here.
As far as I recall, in Guatemala, United Fruit had undervalued the worth of their land to reduce their taxes. So when they were compensated for the nationalization of their land based on their own valuation, they said that they were under compensated. United Fruit complains helped trigger the US intervention.
That’s very different from actual colonization, where countries showed up and expropriated resources the natives were already developing.
If that's all accurate there are numbers out there for what they owe, and it shouldn't be whatever the POTUS decides.
If these countries had been smarter they would have negotiated better deals and solicited competition from international companies to get the best terms. But that’s their own fault.
Such a line of reasoning used to justify this kind of extrajudicial and warlike activity is somewhat similar to France’s nonsensical demand for long term reparations from Haiti for colonial infrastructure.
I believe “built” here refers to the financiers. Like when someone says “I’m building a house” they mean they’re paying to have a house built, unless they’re actually in the construction business, etc.
The Donroe Doctrine.
Being explicit, I'm saying that having access to a resource doesn't mean you get to sell it to whoever you like.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(military)
There is no plan. Again.
Machado is standing by. But she’s a woman so Trump has ruled her out.
Like Jefferson lobbied France to help us out with Britain.
Better analogy would be Pinochet's coup. Nationalists calling for the US to coup their own country and place them in charge in exchange for acting like docile puppets to US interests. This is exactly what is happening there, Trump said so a few hours ago.
If $1-6 million buys a pardon, how much buys a country?
That won't change just because Maduro isn't there, whomever does take control, will need external protection, or the US acting as an unspoken enforcer (Unspoken because "No boots on the ground right now" but "prepared for a second wave")
Which implies it's may not be the actual reason. The reason might be as trifling as being salty over Machado getting the Nobel peace prize, and not Trump.
I'd make the case it depends on who's defining what is and is not a crime.
Consider that the POTUS is a 34x convicted criminal, and yet he not only has total freedom, he literally has the highest quality personal protection ecosystem on the planet, and so much more.
So, who is the criminal here? Which are the crimes? And what is _actually_ going to happen?
- falsifying business records - 1st degree
- falsifying business records - 1st degree
- falsifying business records - 1st degree
...
- falsifying business records - 1st degree
https://www.scribd.com/document/737791944/Trump-verdict-shee...
He was charged 34 times for the same payment, multiple times per check, because they were entered as payment for lawyer instead of hush money for porn star.
"Falsifying business records" is a not a crime, unless it's done in the pursuit of another crime. The other crime was trying to influence the election (literally his job as a candidate). This is despite the fact that the books were cooked as payment to lawyer in 2017, after the election.
Alvin Bragg, the person who convicted Trump, specifically ran on prosecuting Trump.
It was entirely a political prosecution. If Trump had paid cash, he would have 10000x counts against him, one for each dollar bill.
34x of 4 years means he could have been convicted for a maximum of 134 years. One count for 4 years wasn't enough, they had to give him more time than some serial killers.
The judge specifically postponed the conviction after the election to see if he should receive prison terms or not. He absolutely would have had he lost.
To be fair, they were political persecutions and show trials just so that people like you could write that sentence and help the Democrat Party keep the presidency.
I’m not saying Trump is innocent in life, so don’t mistaken what I am saying for that. I am clearly and specifically saying that the 34 convictions are a joke and that only the gullible and the zealots buy into them.
It is not like they invented extra fake actions that Trump did not do, it is all part of the same fraud. Either you recognize that Trump was guilty in this affair, and he gets X counts of fraud, X being a large number due to the number of document involved (and maybe someone can argue on the exact count, but 34 or 28 is not a big difference, so it is a different argument that move the goalpost), or Trump was not guilty at all. You cannot really say "well, Trump is guilty for the first 2 counts, but then not the 32 other counts": how can he be guilty in one document and not be guilty in the other which is basically identical except for the date?
Also, isn't a large number of counts of conviction pretty common in case of fraud? (for exactly the reason I've given: the falsification of each document counts for 1 count)
People who claims that 34 counts of conviction is the result of a political persecutions seems to have no idea that 1) this is usually how it works, this is usually what people get for fraud, there was no special treatment for Trump, 2) pretending that it was maybe 1 or 2 counts of felony but not 34 does not make any sense, 3) even if they wanted, it would not have been possible for the trial to conclude "just 1 or 2 counts", and it is therefore ridiculous to pretend that this number is the result of a political bias where they choose the higher number just to be mean toward Trump.
You're writing your own narrative there bud. I'm not even a USA citizen, I have literally zero ability to influence the USA electorate to any degree. So cut the rhetoric, it's tiring and frankly destructive to real discussion.
I'm neither gullible nor a zealot. Trump has a long standing history of ripping people off for many millions of dollars, regardless of the currency. There's an endless supply of receipts, give me a break.
And that's long before we even consider that he's literally operating illegal wars (not approved by congress), which _is_ breaking USA law.
You can call it "The penal code", "Common law", or "Crimes" (as opposed to violations).
And in almost all countries in the world the list is the same and has been for hundreds of years: Murder, robbery, theft, rape, battery and so on.
Do you think people walking the streets of Washington DC are less safe because of crimes such as those Trump was convicted of? Or are their main concern murder, robbery, theft, rape, battery and such?
Edit: Of course my comment nets a hacker down vote instead of a discussion, but for example Nordic countries make a difference between "crimes" and "illegal things" in their laws. And so do South American countries.
The United States has the "felonies" category, which is very comparable. But they also include victimless and non-serious crimes such as tax evasion and copyright infringement.
This seems like an intellectual gymnastics exercise in justifying corruption
Trump definitely killed probably 100s of thousands of people, with how he handled COVID, and USAID. The law doesn’t consider those as murders, but it’s quite obvious that they were.
The rape on your list is even funnier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._T... Oh sorry, sexual assault.
And theft is the funniest, because he was convicted basically for stealing from his companies.
Also, the laws of the world have definitely not had the same list for hundreds of years, and the old ideas of those things are somewhat different to the modern versions. For example, for most of those hundreds of years, "rape" wasn't just about intercourse, it was about kidnapping (same etymology as "rapture": snatch and carry off). This is specifically why spousal rape, in the modern usage of the term, needed to be added to the statue books: little to no thought given to the idea of a husband kidnapping their own wife.
Also on that list for hundreds of years: charging interest on loans.
Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote sounds like an admission of sexual battery to me. Now, it's important to note that I'm not a lawyer, but here's the thing: lawyers have also said this about that quote.
Even if you ignore all the stuff about Epstein, even if you limit yourself to just that self-chosen set of goalposts, he's a wrong-un.
You're correct. The list has been the same for thousands of years, not hundreds. Since the great Hammurabi. Then it has been added on to, and very rarely redefined. As in the good example you give.
> Also on that list for hundreds of years: charging interest on loans.
Usury is still a crime, but has been redefined away by legislators. Just as rape is again being redefined away in some countries right now.
Now back to the topic at large:
> Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" quote sounds like an admission of sexual battery to me.
> Trump has lost lawsuits related to sexual abuse
If you go to walk the streets in Washington DC, would you be afraid of Mr. Trump charging out of the White House to sexually abuse you, perhaps grabbing you by your genitals? Or stealing your purse? Or would you be more concerned about your more common criminal doing something like that?
Because the hacker above claims Trumps crimes somehow negates public safety campaigns in Washington DC.
No it hasn't.
First, I've read some of the code of Hammurabi. Fun stuff like this:
7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.
110. If a "sister of a god" open a tavern, or enter a tavern to drink, then shall this woman be burned to death.
282. If a slave say to his master: "You are not my master," if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.
(Also, bit of fun, number 6: "If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death." - to which I point at the photos of all those documents he was supposed to return after his first term in a bathroom in Mar a Lago).
Second, I've also read Leviticus. Fun stuff like this:
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
The "Law of Moses" in ancient Israel was different from other legal codes in the ancient Near East because transgressions were seen as offences against God rather than solely as offences against society (civil law).[6] This contrasts with the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu (c. 2100–2050 BCE), and the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BCE, of which almost half concerns contract law).
> Then it has been added on to, and very rarely redefined.
Oh gods no. Even the Christian Bible has seen significant politicised re-translations, famously with the King James Bible, but also fundamentally the New Testament itself is a refutation of almost all Torah law.
Even just within European Christian nations, there's been huge variations of what was allowed. 1066 England, Normans became a ruling military elite over the now-conquered Anglo-Saxon population, a native Englander killing a Norman triggered severe penalties, but a Norman killing an Englander did not.
And I've not even touched on Islamic law, the range of things in pre-contact Americas, across Africa, across the east Indies, in Asia.
Not all cultures even have a concept of personal property for theft to be a coherent concept. You may object that you said "countries", but go back pre-Westphalia and you don't even find something we'd really recognise as countries.
> Usury is still a crime, but has been redefined away by legislators.
That's tautologically false: if something is "still" a crime it cannot also "have been redefined away by legislators".
> Just as rape is again being redefined away in some countries right now.
"Away"?
At most, I'm seeing a return to the old definition (IIRC, this would include Russia?)
> If you go to walk the streets in Washington DC, would you be afraid of Mr. Trump charging out of the White House to sexually abuse you, perhaps grabbing you by your genitals?
Given I'm not his type, too old and too male, that's a silly question.
If I had a teenage daughter, I'd avoid DC just in case.
> Or stealing your purse? Or would you be more concerned about your more common criminal doing something like that?
I would not fear a common criminal stealing my purse before or now.
Trump, however, I would fear ordering his people locking me up with a demand that I hand over money to make the problem go away.
It's not like he's obeying the constitution or anything.
> Because the hacker above claims Trumps crimes somehow negates public safety campaigns in Washington DC.
Just look at the subject of this very thread: he's essentially just stolen an entire nation.
The run-up to this involved ordering the deaths of 114 confirmed dead plus 1 more missing presumed dead, by way of the strikes on alleged(!) drug boats, when actual convictions even if those boats had reached US waters would not have been death penalties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_strikes_on_alleg...
This, *by itself*, is about twice the difference in DC homicides between 2024 and 2025, 187 -> 128.
Have inconsistent definitions over time. Hence my example of legalised murder in post-Norman conquest England, and cultures without personal property where theft is a nonsensical concept.
Also, just ask around left- and right-coded answers to "is taxation theft?", or in the US specifically "is abortion murder?" or "is the death penalty just state-sanctioned murder?"
"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"
Similar disagreements (albeit by non-lawyers) are had regarding all wars I recall in my lifetime.
You can argue for or against anything by quoting edge cases. That doesn't mean that every case is an edge case. Very few cases are edge cases.
> There's lawyers looking at the videos of Venezuelan boats being destroyed saying "the US murdered those people". Is one of the sides here, pro or con it doesn't matter which, a victim of "severe brain washing"?
What's the argument being made? That's war, which is of course murder. A soldier's job is to murder the enemy.
As for your examples, they are probably not as certain as you think. Good luck secretly taking somebody's favourite hunting spear from him and then tell him that personal property doesn't exist.
Congratulations on knowing that people have different perspectives on most things, and that these can vary through time and through places. You are not the only person who knows this. What is interesting are the common values which sprung up in different cultures, different times and different places.
If somebody murders your child or your sibling, you are going to be outraged if you are a human. Only severe brainwashing and total dehumanization could make a person react in a different way.
What about the storming of the Capitol 6th January? The criminals got pardoned and the people investigating the crimes conducted that day were fired. This shows that Trump does not care about law and order at all, only about personal power and control.
(To be clear I'm not a fan of Chávez or of Maduro.)
The Venezuelan economy was dying before the sanctions.
Burning the economy to hand out free money isn't good for the people.
Maduro and Chavez fixed the exchange rate, imposed price controls, printed money and did a wave of nationalisation (not the oil infrastructure that was in the 70s). USA isn't to blame for Venezuelan dysfunction.
Sanctions go way beyond just direct trade with the US; they attempt to prevent all countries on earth from trading with the sanctioned entity, by force of the USD settling system, or as the past week has shown - the US Navy. So it reduces the number of potential trading partners from hundreds to a handful with (near) reserve currencies, and a navy that's not a pushover.
Also tells you how serious US is with sanctioning russia and its army of oil&gas resellers btw, which is the primary cash flow financing russian war in Ukraine.
Where it failed is that Venezuelans are an utterly corrupt people lacking any sense of nationalism or patriotism.
I'm reminded of Noam Chomsky and what has recently come out about his social time with Epstein. He would talk about how the media only allows leftist thought in public as a sort of controlled opposition. Then he turns out to be exactly what he was complaining about. One moment he's calling Steve Bannon the enemy and the next he is smiling with him and Epstein, in a photo I've heard multiple people describe as "the happiest they have ever seen him".
All this is to say: it's not enough to "say the right things". Your actions have to match.
Also can’t believe that no matter who I voted for in 2016 I had to vote for someone who performed fellatio on bill clinton.
sounds like a common theme… only this one involves war and prison and taking oil money for US cronies.
whole thing truly makes me skeptical of anyone’s claims that “socialism always leads to corrupt leaders while capitalism doesn’t.”
Well, technically it's only better for the few that are not poor, for all of the others, it's the same. It's even probably worse because rich people in a country with mostly poor people tend to be very efficient with capturing most of the value produced by the others.
Russian-US relations are tense for the same reasons due to the saga of Sakhalin-I's nationalization from Exxon [4] following the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine and Russia's sale of Exxon's stake to Japanese [5] and Indian [6] interests.
The previous administration also stopped Saudi and UAE from invading Qatar in 2017 [7] due to Rex Tillerson's personal interests with Exxon's stake in Qatar's energy infra [8]
That said, assuming the US doesn't attempt a Venezuelan version of de-Baathification [9], this should be a fairly standard transfer of power - US-Venezuela relations only really tanked when Maduro came to power and hard pivoted Eastward, as even under Chavez American business operations continued and the relationship wasn't severely tense. And from the sounds of it, the faction backing Delcy Rodriguez chose to give Maduro up and (reading between the lines) roll back nationalization in return for staying in power.
Almost everything in political science can be modeled using Tsebelis's Veto Player model, Mesquita's Selectorate Theory, Kuran's Revolutionary Threshold, and the Agency Problem.
[0] - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/may/02/oilandpetro...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuela-approves-1...
[2] - https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-says-oil...
[4] - https://www.upstreamonline.com/production/russia-takes-contr...
[5] - https://www.japex.co.jp/en/business/oilgas/sakhalin1/
[6] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-moves-cl...
[7] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/1/rex-tillerson-stoppe...
[8] - https://www.qatarenergylng.qa/english/AboutUs/Corporate-Stru...
If someone pushes back on DoJ authority, the Trump admin will point to Juan Orlando Hernandez's (Honduras) indictment in 2021 [1] and get an opportunity to bash the Biden admin and call out "double standards" for his base. If not, then this will stand. That's why I find the drug indictment angle interesting - it seems that it is being used in lieu of the now revoked FCPA because it also gives the ability to leverage physical force whereas the former only really gave an economic lever.
Essentially, the rules-based consensus was a 1989-2014 era anomaly, and we already made a return to multi-polar power competition. Most foreign policy leaders under Obama 2 onwards have all been "realists" like Allison, Doshi, Mastro, and Colby and the worry of great power competition has been the primary topic of conversation for almost 2 decades now.
[0] - https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
[1] - https://2021-2025.state.gov/u-s-actions-against-former-hondu...
To be very clear I do not support this -- out leaders should be held to account to their people, not foreign invaders deciding for us. Even if it seems unlikely that they ever will be, it's our process and people.
This argument doesn't really hold water because the jurisdiction of a nation isn't the whole world.
If we have a warrant for a Sovereign or someone else with Diplomatic Immunity we -- at the very least -- should not invade their territory to carry it out. That's not how the civilized society works, and that's not how we want it to work as evidenced by the thought experiment above.
If we are at war with a nation or people, and reject the premise of their fundamental sovereign or diplomatic nature of course it's a different story since we are talking about a fundamental disagreement of reality. There's a separate process for that weighty decision by the US people's representatives.
The US isn't a participant to the ICC, so I'm not sure what exactly your implication is... ?
I do not think we should invade Israel and kidnap their leader. I believe the people of that country should self-govern within their sovereign rights. I don't think China should invade the US and kidnap it's leader. I believe the people of the US should self-govern within their sovereign rights. I don't believe the US should invade Venezuela and kidnap their leader. I believe the people of Venezuela should self-govern within their sovereign rights.
so, in the moment that something as basic as diplomatic immunity can be violated by warrants for investigation (not for trial), invading another country to arrest somebody based on warrants that you had issued domestically is not that big of leap
And then comes ICC (via Rome statue, ratified by 125 countries and half a dozen of them in process of withdrawal) and trashes with it warrants diplomatic immunity.
So in case international law/treaty from 1961 is all of sudden not binding, why wouldn't uniliteral invasion (actually it looks like it more of arrest operation) (which is probably prohibited by some other international treaties) not be ok ?
The only country that has agreed to the terms of the ICC here is Venezuela -- but there is no ICC arrest warrant for anyone involved, nor is the US acting on behalf of the ICC nor does it have any authority to do so.
The invasion (which was required to perform the arrest, since it was within the territory) was definitely an invasion and morally wrong.
As noted several times, there are many ways that this could have been done that are in accordance with civil society it. It wasn't, and that is bad.
this is violation of international law that multiple countries openly stated that they will perform.
essentially it means that international law is not binding and selectively enforced. this is slippery slope.
if you can ignore vienna convention why not ignore whatever other part of international law that prohibits invasion ?
PS. UK and France just bombed ISIS in Syria. Is it also invasion and morally wrong ?
- Diplomatic Immunity (through various treaties): Countries that participate will respect diplomats - ICC: Countries that agree will participate in ICC judicial process
From what I can tell, you seem to be under the impression that there's some conflict here. If that is your position then you are wrong. A country can both simultaneously respect foreign diplomats and work with the ICC to ensure that local citizens are held accountable in the ICC.
BUT, a further point -- international law can never be binding. It's between sovereign peers, and is based on the concept of reciprocal benefit. International treaties give the participants some benefit in exchange for something else. This has to be the case because there is no superior entity to arbitrate violations of the law. If you don't keep up your end of the bargain, you risk the other participants not keeping up their end of the bargain.
This is, for example, why having the top US officials committing war crimes is bad -- it's not because some superior nation will inflict justice upon the violator (because no such entity exists) but because other signatories have no legal obligation to not commit war crimes against us (although, many people are morally opposed to most war crimes and wouldn't commit them anyway).
A further note about your PS, which seems unrelated to the topic is that bombing isn't itself an invasion (it may be part of one), but for my opinion I think that killing people without due process is bad and should be a last resort for defense.
in case international law is not binding, than whatever US did is ok.
and according to usa it was law enforcement operation. not invasion. just like uk and france didn't invade but casually bombed
Do you believe that the Vienna Convention requires that countries treat their diplomatic representatives in some special legal way ? For example, do you believe that the Vienna Convention obligates the US to extend diplomatic immunity to the US Ambassador to France ?
If so, that's backwards. It doesn't obligate one country to treat their own diplomats specially inside their own legal system, it defines how participants of the treaty will treat FOREIGN diplomats. The benefit of being part of the treaty is that your diplomats are treated specially when they are in foreign lands, and the cost is you treat foreign diplomats specially when they are in your land.
The currency of treaties is reciprocity.
A treaty can never be binding, there exists no superior entity for which to bring your appeal which can then ultimately use their monopoly on force to extract justice -- each nation is sovereign and a peer in that respect.
Finally, I didn't address your last paragraph but I will now: It does not matter if the USA calls it a law enforcement operation and not invasion, it was still an invasion. It was an invasion because it meets the definition of the word. But ALSO it wasn't a law enforcement operation because the laws of the US do not apply in Venezuela. Also, it's illegal in the US to use the US Military for enforcing US laws except in times of invasion... although it sadly specifies that the US must be the entity being invaded, not just there be an invasion.
> not how this works
When you say this, what exactly are you referring to?
The law of the jungle is reality. World War II was won by terror bombing civilians. It is lamentable, but reality is reality. So to say "that's not how it works" is denying reality.
And you appear to believe this is a pretext for humans to ignore their own laws and commit atrocities, when they could choose otherwise.
It may be reality that jungle law is currently how humans almost always handle conflict at nation-state scale. Non sequitur that it should remain so.
This usually means weaker (militarily/economically) countries banding together to hopefully provide some dis-incentives for strong arming.
It only works until someone calls the bluff.
But it doesn't, so the charges of "possession of machineguns" [0] is an utter bullshit. Talk about kangaroo courts...
[0] https://xcancel.com/AGPamBondi/status/2007428087143686611
How do you reach this conclusion that you can’t help suffering?
Your mistake is in equating the US to other countries. You cannot. It is a superpower.
When other countries act hostile to the US, it can simply ignore their sovereignty at a whim, and this is a huge benefit to living in US.
Is it unfair? Sure. Who cares?
Obviously, there's more than just military might, we have the most innovative and powerful economy on the planet as well.
However, with a country like Venezuela, where none of our allies truly care what we do (sure, they might blow hot air but whatever), we are free to use hard power to achieve our objectives.
However, international law has always been a thin veneer over the reality of international relations. History shows that nations act in their own self-interest, regardless of the "rules."
The concept of one country "bullying" another is irrelevant moralizing. You are applying playground rules (or the rules of civil society) to a global stage defined by anarchy: there is no "teacher" to stop the "bullying" here. It is a zero-sum game of security and power. At this level, "bullying" isn't a meaningful concept, only leverage is.
Should the world be this way? I wish not. Political realism is a grim framework. Unfortunately, game theory tells us that so long as any one superpower believes in realism, the rest of us must as well, or risk getting outmaneuvered. And Russia/China certainly believe in it.
> there is no "teacher" to stop the "bullying" here.
It's funny how the same person can mention "realism" and then proceed to "leverage" in the same conceptual realm of thought about the present day US. Just wait until three to four (insignificantly) smaller powers collude, target, and act against you like hyennas do, then try applying your leverage of ... what exactly?
What do you mean, "who cares"? Obviously a lot of us not from the US care, and many Americans care, too.
Even if the answer to the first part can be narrowed down to a few nations, the answer to the second part can be narrowed down to zero.
What Trump just did is an act of war, undeclared and deceitful in every way.
It makes diplomacy much harder to do in the future. It makes the US untrustworthy.
That's explicitly been the case since 45 was elected a second time. Even if we get an adult in charge again, there is no guarantee of stability anymore with the way the population is.
Kamala was the obvious choice and the only adult running in the last election, but she lost largely due to sexism, racism and gullibility of the red state population.
Assuming we get to have another election, we'd hopefully have someone like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both performed significantly better than Harris did in the 2020 primaries. Maybe one of them would have been the responsible choice.
Right, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter that she wasn't the ideal choice, it only matters that she was so much significantly better than the alternative.
Capturing the de facto leader (elected or dictator) of a country is an act of war.
You could argue the war is justified, or that this dictator was bad for both his country and the US, but it's still an act of war.
How come the US can engage in acts of war without legally declaring it? Shouldn't congress be involved?
We all mocked Putin's "special military operation", why are we not accusing the US of doing the same thing?
Is your position that if someone commits a coup, some other country or the international community can't go in and uninstall that person from power?
This doesn't depend on what the successors think. They might later declare this act of war was necessary for the liberation or whatever, but it's still an act of war.
You may agree with the act, but it's an act of war.
Do you dispute this?
It doesn't matter what Maduro thinks. It doesn't matter whether he's a bad guy or a dictator. The situation after the fait accompli also doesn't matter.
What matters is that the military of a country crossing the borders of another country without permission, to conduct a military operation, and kidnapping the (de facto or legal, doesn't matter) leader of said country is an act of war.
There's no "it depends". It might be a justified act of war, but it's an act of war.
It boggles the mind that you dispute this. You seem to be confused, mentally adding "evil" or "illegal" to the words "act of war".
> Does the current President of Venezuela consider it an act of war?
Yes. Why does it matter?
I find the assumptions behind your question fascinating.
Where did I say anything about what a country can or cannot do? A country can do whatever its military might and ability to absorb repercussions allows it to do.
This is completely unrelated to whether the path the country does decide to take constitutes an act of war or not.
If you're asking me whether I like that the US is playing world police and deciding who must face the law, and take them by force anywhere in the world, weeeell... let's say it's really messy to try to justify the US when it supports some coups, some dictators, and some brutal regimes, but acts against others, and the overall rule seems to be "if they play ball with the US it's ok, if they don't then war".
A small consolation is that the US is seemingly stopping their horrifying practice of extraordinary renditions and torturing suspects abroad, outside the scrutiny of US society and institutions. I think that was Bush era, but maybe it persisted during Obama too.
Invading a foreign country with military force is a war even if the purpose is to effect an arrest. And when the President claims that the intent is also that the US will run the country afterwards, its even more clearly a war.
> In the same way we didn't need to declare war against Pakistan to go in and get Osama
Congress had already exercised its power to declare war with an open-ended declaration almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, which covered the operation direct against the head of al-Qaeda.
https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
They are getting their message very confused. Is this about drugs? About the Venezuelan elections? About oil? All of the above? None of the above? Who knows anymore.
For example:
Not taking sides here, just trying to steelman: some Americans might want to sell their relatives into sex trafficking.
This framing implies that the US administration considered US or Venezuelan public opinion before taking this action.
We have no evidence of that.
Some ukrainians welcomed russia,
some polish will welcome russia,
some estonians will welcome russia
etc etc etc.
Look, you don't just regime change, It didn't work in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. It only really kinda worked in Kosovo, but even then it was touch and go, require lots of troop time and a load of money and ongoing international police.
Has not come to fruition for previous US regime change operations.
This kidnapping operation doesn’t give insight one way or the other into the will of the Venezuelan people. It, in fact, completely disregards it.
Didn't the East Germans later want to be annexed by West Germany?
Don't the people of both Koreas want unification?
we can’t simultaneously say we don’t like corruption of socialist governments while literally bombing another nation and imprisoning political enemies just so we can have its oil for our cronies.
A country is either powerful enough to enforce sovereignty, or it is not actually sovereign; so this hand-wringing about "Venezuela's sovereignty" is meaningless. It's already been proven false, to some extent.
The US is free to do what it wants with Venezuela, or virtually any non-nuclear country in the world. Always has been, really. It simply doesn't exercise said power very often.
I am not making a call to do anything, I am simply describing the nature of international relations throughout the vast majority of human history (including the current day), in a framework most commonly defined as realism.
Superpowers act in their self interest, ignoring "international law" when the benefit meaningfully exceeds the cost. They can do this because there is no one to stop them. They will do this because it is in their self interest.
Americans will probably benefit from this action, or at least that is the administration's thesis. Is it moral? No, but discussions of morality are irrelevant on the world stage, which is a zero-sum game defined only by leverage.
> the world stage, which is a zero-sum game
I'm not at all convinced this is true.
You should think about the question posed in my first comment - why do you think we don't choose to overpower one another regularly to take what we want?
(a) moralizing is simply irrelevant, discussions about whether this is "good" or "bad" are childishly naive and have no place - only whether it was advantageous or not; and
(b) sovereignty is meaningless if a nation does not have the hard/soft power (and the will) to back it, just as if you declare your house a "sovereign nation" it will not be respected unless you are able to back it up.
Perhaps this is an obvious/vacuous truth to you, but most HN'ers are clearly failing to grasp this.
> why do you think we don't choose to overpower one another regularly to take what we want?
Because it is not always advantageous to do so. When it is clearly advantageous, nations tend to do so (as evidenced by virtually all of human history, including the current era.)
Yes, alliances are a thing, and the framework fully accounts for these.
To think that some like to pretend HN is better than reddit.
You may not like the framework of realism but it is the reality of international relations today (and throughout most of history.)
Rules-based international order has always been a thin veneer over the fact that nations will always act in their self-interest regardless of what they say.
Finally, game theory tells us that as long as one superpower behaves according to the principles of realism, the rest must as well, or risk getting outmaneuvered.
More on topic, I hoped there would be some support from Colombia, Russia, and China in place to help with this situation. Instead it seems like Maduro took an exit deal and left the country at the hands of the GOP who openly promulgate the idea that the US should lord over all other countries in the western hemisphere.
It's explaining in too many words that might makes right. We all know that.
On the other hand I believe, but I could be wrong, that the many comments of the sort in this thread are a way for some people to cheer these sort of actions without being too obvious about it because they know it's not a good look in some circles, hn being one. So rather than chanting usa usa usa like their gut tells them too, they resort to such emotionally distanced statements, obvious to everyone, pretending to simply constate the gap in military capabilities of the US versus other powers.
And indeed, I find that appalling.
Thanks to the regulars on here, I now hear clearly when folks like Alex Karp, Peter Thiel or Lucky Palmer speak.
Their combination of intelligence + lack of empathy + arrogance will eat the world.
It is definitely not a guarantee that a local enriching elite will at some point lead to something better, but most examples that come to mind about "colonies" (places very far from a center of power), resulted in said places to develop much harder.
I'm surprised no lesson the US learnt from similar overthrows in the past, but again this is Trump. The country can get so unstable that by the time Marco start giving out "legitimate" orders, there will be 30 different groups fighting and killing each other. True unchecked anarchy. So what's then? Boots on ground. Are we still in the spirit of sacrificing 150,000 American soldiers in the name of freedom, like we did in Iraq? When we kicked out Russians from Middle East we were not aware they kept islam jihadists at bay, then Al Quaida came to live and we all now how it ended.
Iraq had no goal. The stated reason was WMDs and 9/11, so bogus and unrelated. Stability wasn't our concern either, I mean we funded Saddam Hussein to begin with. US companies did set up oil drilling, but I really don't think the driving motivation was oil, otherwise we'd have gone to Venezuela first.
Its not Trump, its the US.
Someone always comes along trying to attack/occupy a country. Making big promises. Years later when nothing is achieved. Someone else will come along talking about how much US is spending, taxpayers dollars being lost, failures etc.
In recent example, Afghanistan and Trump come to mind. Everyone talked about how Afghanistan was a waste of taxpayer dollars. But now here we are.
The only thing which I can say specifically about Trump is that I wouldn't be surprised if the flip towards "Venezuela was a waste of taxpayer money" happens during his administration and he comes out saying "I have never heard of Maduro".
What moral and ethical system brings you this supposition?
I thought the US was well aware of this, since the US was funding the Mujahideen at the time?
What are you talking about? Even Vietnam only had a third of that many casualties. Who told you this bullshit? ChatGPT?
Being honest about doing bad things doesn’t make them less bad. Doing bad things covertly is still bad.
We obviously haven't and won't do this to a nuclear-armed country.
Right... which means that every regime knows they have to become a nuclear-armed country.
Why wouldn't China do the same in another country whose president is not acting in China's national interest? If you were Iran[1], would abandoning your nuclear weapons program for sanctions relief still be an option?
1. Or Saudi Arabia
Anything as brazen as capturing a president? Not yet. But I can absolutely see them doing this if they deem the cost/benefit great enough.
I wouldn't be surprised if China goes further and launches a full-scale invasion of Taiwan in the next decade, they've certainly been preparing for it according to our intel.
What the fuck do you think Iran is going to do next time Israel acts up and the US supports it?
They will continue to blow hot air but ignore it, unless they truly and sincerely believe it is a real military action worth starting a war over (and destroying both economies over.)
> What the fuck do you think Iran is going to do next time Israel acts up and the US supports it?
They will continue developing their weapons program thinking they can do it in secret, and it will continue to get compromised and/or blown up.
You’re probably one of the worst people I’ve ever interacted with.
Re. nuclear weapons, sovereignty - I am not "advocating" for anything. I am simply describing the factual reality of international relations, and "political realism," the school of thought that governs international relations between superpowers in the current day and throughout most of human history.
That you are ascribing to this description some sort of moral stance on my part is a judgement error on yours.
Do you think a nuclear war would be good for you? Obviously not, so you shouldn’t want your government to threaten to start one. And you shouldn’t support your government when they signal to the world that the only way to be safe from interventionism is to develop nuclear weapons. Or when they signal to other superpowers that they don’t respect international treaties, or the sovereignty of other nations.
Since you’re not (by your own admission), spend more time reading the globalist (1950s - present) reasons why the US meddles with foreign governments and what forcibly creating a power vacuum does for the local populace.
Then you’ll be better equipped to have a conversation with knowledgeable people about the topic at hand, instead of blithely wondering “hmm, is it actually bad when we extra-judiciously remove a head of state because we want oil?”
And Republicans won’t see a problem with that.
> "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country. And we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so."
> "We're not afraid of boots on the ground if we have to have it"
> "It's gonna make a lot of money"
> "Well, you know, it won't cost us anything because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial"
Reading @atrupar.com 's live transcriptions,
Venezuela is down to 1 million barrels per day, down from 3 million per day from the 2000s because of the sanctions after Hugo Chavez. They own the worlds largest reserve (about 300 billion barrels worth) and it was always my understanding that we worked with them before Hugo Chavez went the route he went and brought a great nation to shambles for a power trip.
I think Venezuela will recover with our aid, but a lot of their old infrastructure is gone, they will need investors. They will also need to deal with their crime problem and hold real elections for once.
Its more this: https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeTikToks/comments/1q34556/mill...
I heard that as Trump doing his usual thing patting himself on the back while justifying the continued use of our military for domestic law enforcement.
The new President of Venezuela will be called Fulgencio Batista...
I get the impression they are concerned at least a bit with the welfare of Venezuelans. Maybe a secondary consideration to drugs and oil but here's what Trump was saying:
>We're going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious
transition. So, we don't want to be involved with having somebody else get
in. And we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years. So we are going to run the
country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious
transition. And it has to be judicious because that's what we're all about. We
want peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela. (https://youtu.be/cQdRlS4uf0E?t=3784)
100x times this!
US administration doesn't care about the welfare of most human beings in the world (including in the US).
We saw it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Yemen and now Palestine. Having an assumption that this move was made for Venezuelans and now they're liberated from evil is wrong.
Unless you mean the potential for a boycott like what happened back in the day. However the geopolitical situation has changed enough that i think that is exceptionally unlikely.
I suspect they will just continue to try and economically strangle iran and pick off their allies one by one in the hope of an internal revolution (or wait until there is so much economic damage they aren't relavent anymore)
By now my radar assumes Israel is somehow connected like many other events we've witnessed in the past. Venezuelas president was quite staunchly against Israel and it's interests, close with Iran too.
Israel is just an extension of the US in the middle east under the branding of Judaism. The desire is to weaken and eventually ignite the region in conflict. Already taking place between Saudi, UAE, Yemen etc. Weakening takes time.
I mean... The Taliban caused 9/11... What did you exactly expect the US to do?
It looks like propaganda. Day after, and then all the American news sites post stories about Venezuelans celebrating? Looks like propaganda. Almost no dissenting stories, no real discussion. Blackhawks and missiles at night, and hooray, spontaneous street parties, and news reporters just happen to be there to capture their "spontaneous" rejoicing. Reuters, Bloomberg, ABC, NBC. Rejoicing, dreams of democracy, yatta. CBS seems like one of the only sites that actually carried somewhat balanced coverage of people burning US flags, and no to American war.
I'm mostly wouldn't like an external coup because it'd activate all my neighbors and we see a whole lot of violence in that struggle. I imagine I'd feel the same way if I lived in another country and some 3rd party deposed my government for arbitrary reasons.
Even pretending to follow international law when you don’t actually do so is, to some small degree, support for international law. What the US did is essentially state kidnapping of the sitting head of an another state. This is going to be vastly more stabilizing than Maduro cheating.
As opposed to what? Who "should" be the decider? China? Russia? Maduro? The Venezuelan Military?
The alternative is not that Venezuelans choose who stays in power democratically. The alternative, as we just saw until now, is that the Maduro dictatorship maintains power through force.
Why they don't attack Saudi Arabia then? Saudi's even had a role in 9/11.
Decades of lies shaped the narrative that all invasions US do is because countries have dictators, it's being the narrative even now when they explicitly say it's because of oil.
Today seems like a day to rewatch Team America: World Police
My take concords with what @JumpCrisscross said elsewhere in this thread:
"HN sometimes has trouble understanding coalitions. Some support for oil. Some want to unseat a dictator. Some are concerned about Venezuela being a hive of Chinese, Russian and Iranian activity. Some did it to destabilise Cuba, or lay the groundwork for hitting Iran. Still others are just plain psychopaths and like blowing things up."
I would add that personal pique probably had as big a part in this decision as anything else.
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/03/g-s1-104346/trump-venezuela-m...
Some support for oil. Some want to unseat a dictator. Some are concerned about Venezuela being a hive of Chinese, Russian and Iranian activity. Some did it to destabilise Cuba, or lay the groundwork for hitting Iran. Still others are just plain psychopaths and like blowing things up.
They look at clouds and see the patterns they want to see.
It turns out things are usually more complicated than that.
It's Narco Rubio. He probably started shooting ropes the very moment he knew the operation was successful.
If the US could press a button and have all dictatorships automatically become stable, liberal democracies, I'm pretty sure they would do that and we'd all be happy.
But the US cannot just topple the government of all dictatorships at once. If it tried that, it would just cause immense chaos, and all those countries would unite against the West.
The US has to ally with some dictatorships against other dictatorships, like it did with the USSR against the Nazis and how it does with Saudi Arabia against Iran.
Iran hates us since the Islamic Revolution (when we supported the Shah), and finances multiple terrorist groups such as Hesbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship, but at least it's not a revisionist state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionist_state) and has a more peaceful objective towards its neighbors.
If the US refused to ally with dictatorships, the only country in the entire Middle East that it could ally with is Israel. It would have to fight all other countries at once.
International law clearly states that a sovereign nation has the right to self-rule, without external intervention. The UN Charter doesn't differentiate between democractic and non-democratic nations - it's up to the people of a nation to select their leadership.
We've seen this principle violated before, when the Ukrainian people took the streets for months to topple their leader in 2014. Russia to this day takes this as an excuse to question Ukrainian sovereignty, framing the events as a "US coup" to justify their violent invasion of Ukraine.
The argument you make just plays in their hand. "There was a violent coup - we need to remove the coup government and bring back democracy to Ukraine", they say. Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized.
What if the US decides that it will not recognize the government of Denmark as democratically elected and moves to liberate the people of Greenland from their despotic dictatorship?
You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
As an example, the American Revolution had support from France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Britain saw this as shocking interference in an internal matter, as did loyalists in America.
Personally, I think it was a good thing, helping a people determine their own fate. Applying the same measure here, I simultaneously think it's great Maduro is out, but that the manner of it is terrible. As well as being foolishly shortsighted, both for the US and the world more broadly.
The charter limits the powerful nations. Rule #1 is nations cannot start wars. Starting a war is a crime.
The charter requires some consensus by the international community to authorize use of force against another country.
Article 51 acknowledges the right to self-defence. The only country that has a right to violence is the defending nation and those who aid it from aggression.
And this is, once again, American aggression. We aren't doing it because it's right. We're doing it because we can. In violation of international law.
There will always be indirect interference anyhow (think social networks, books, press, people talking, tariffs, visas, etc.), so there is some possibility for states to push things in their direction.l
I think imagining there can be some "authority" that could decide when "direct interference" is allowed or not will be a disaster at some point, because even if at first is OK, as a society we don't seem to be at a point where we can have organizations that work well for hundreds of years.
you do know who the president of the United States currently is RIGHT ?
But to what extent did they do it to "free" america vs to take Britian down a peg because they worried Britian was getting too powerful?
I think most people here are doubtful of Trumps motives or that this coup will actually lead to a free Venezuela.
America worked out really well. There are many many examples in history where imperial powers interfering in a local power struggle worked out very poorly for the average person of the country.
That really depends on who you are asking.
And I don't think there's any reason to be doubtful of Trump's motivations. He's a would-be tyrant and has made it clear that this is about world dominance, Venezuela's oil, and enriching American businessmen. He has no interest in a free, democratic Venezuela. If this does work out well for Venezuelans, it'll be more due to Trump's flaws (arrogance, laziness, increasing dementia, and the TACO phenomenon) than any intent on his part.
I'm not sure this argument makes sense. Maduro stole an election to force his way to dictatorship, is widely blamed for running the country into mass poverty, and continues to hold onto power through threat of violence. The Venezuelan people don't have any recourse here.
Also, in your example of Ukraine you indicate that Russia frames the uprising as a "US coup", suggesting that the reality of whether there even was external involvement isn't so important.
Even so, if some nation tried to use this strike on Venezuela as further justification for violence wouldn't they be violating the same international law you cite anyway?
Obviously the US has a rough track record of replacing foreign governments (a much stronger argument against this kind of act IMO), but so far this mission has looked pretty ideal (rapid capture of Maduro, minimal casualties, US forces instead of funding some rebel group). There is opportunity for a good ending if we can steward a legitimate election for Venezuela, assist with restoration of key institutions (legal, police, oil), and we avoid any deals regarding oil that are viewed as unfair by the Venezuelans.
Whether Maduro stole the election or not is exactly and only the Venezuelans' issue. No one but them as a standing in the matter.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/03/world/trump-united-s...
I'm just not convinced that removing Maduro is some horrible violation of international law. As I said in my original comment, I'd be more sympathetic to the argument that the US has a horrible track record with regime change.
Regardless, given the geopolitical significance of Venezuela's relationships with China and Iran it is ignorant to suggest that "[only Venezuelans have] a standing in the matter." And the illegitimacy of Maduro's election is not a topic of serious debate as your phraseology might suggest. He stole the election, he's bad for Venezuelans, and he's good for our geopolitical rivals. It is yet to be revealed whether our intervention will be a net positive.
The US didn't loot Iraq or Kuwait.
Trump is supremely transactional, so he doesn't do anything for free, but the high likelihood is that the US as a whole will spend more than it gets back in revenue, especially government revenue.
Which is exactly what they want to do with the Venezuelan oil.
Today, the Panama Canal is owned and operated by the government of Panama.
> The US first built Panama, and then built the canal.
We can concede that the US played the most significant role in the construction of the canal and applying pressure for Panamanian secession from Colombia, but Panama’s national identify predates the United States.
I love the USA too, but please chill with the rhetoric.
you havent made a good enough hypothetical yet.
there's no lack of slave states around, including ones that the US does business with happily. i think yes, if you made your hypothetical "what if the US had a slaver neighbor" yes, the US would be leaving them alone, other than some economic pressures here and there
Who cares? What are they going to do about it?
> Because in your framing leaves open who gets to decide what it means to be democratically legitimized.
That was already the case. Our enemies don't care about the concept of hypocrisy. They aren't waiting for some moral high ground. They are going to do what they want to do regardless.
> You're argument opens the door for unlimited military intervention.
No it doesn't. If it is bad to invade somewhere, we can simply not do that. And we can judge this based on the situation and the consequences.
Yeah, sorry. You're an imperialist. There's not point reasoning with imperialists. Just as there's not point reasoning with bullies.
I'm not sure why you think that matters either.
Your tut tutting isn't going to get Maduro back in power. That's what the guns and helicopters were for.
Additionally, if you want to actually figure out what was right or wrong, Id recommend that you go talk to some actual Venezuelans about this. The opinions are quite universal.
I really wish people would accept that political realism is how the US really operates, rather than buying into the fantasy that there is some rules based order and quoting the UN Charter.
> The argument you make just plays in their hand.
Any argument made on this site by anyone here will have absolute no effect on the outcome in anyway. That has been the case for all of human history and will never change.
"Article 1 (2) establishes that one of the main purposes of the United Nations, and thus the Security Council, is to develop friendly international relations based on respect for the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”. The case studies in this section cover instances where the Security Council has discussed situations with a bearing on the principle of self-determination and the right of peoples to decide their own government, which may relate to the questions of independence, autonomy, referenda, elections, and the legitimacy of governments."
https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/purposes-and-...
With politics and most importantly international politics, there is no law and no right & wrong. It's basically actions and consequences and whether the advantage you gain from your actions is worth the consequences.
People and groups of people (nations) will press their advantage. We press our advantage every day. Most people driving frequently exceed the speed limit - why? Because you can get away with it. If one could skip paying taxes and get away with it we would have done it. The reason the tax skipping doesn't happen often is because the consequences of doing it are high compared to the advantage.
The US just pressed its advantage today because it could get away with it and with minimal cost.
Correct. The UN charter is a piece of paper.
Pieces of paper don't do anything. They are not magic spells that enforce anything, and they only matter in so far as they are enforced by other actors with real power.
If you want to talk about what other countries with a military or trade power might do, go ahead. But the piece of paper is rarely relevant at the international stage.
This idea that law can’t exist if it doesn’t have a clearly identified enforcer is very modern-a lot of traditional/customary law (e.g. the Pashtunwali in Afghanistan or the Kanun in Albania) never had a clear enforcer but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, people sometimes paid attention to it, it influenced how people behaved even if they sometimes got away with ignoring it
International law is defined as "the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations".
When people say that international law is not real, what they mean is that "international law" is to "law" as a "guinea pig" is to a "pig".
The primary differentiation is enforcement.
People bastardize the term law, because they like to throw the word "illegal" around and imply "evilness" without being arbitrary. But guess what: Trump can be evil, without his actions being "illegal".
Without international law, actions would be the same (Serbia gets punished, Rwanda gets away), but you would have to argue for morality individually. Instead, people can point to some tome some unelected people wrote and say "this book says you're evil and you can't argue with it". The book says it's illegal and that's that.
Exactly.
Sorry, but I don't buy into that imperialism shit.
My point is that there's no entity with the authority to declare a government illegal - besides the UN security council. Next thing you know China invades Taiwan and it will be hard to argue with "sovereignty of nations". Nobody - not even the US - cares about it anymore, right? We just declare a government as illegitimate and presto - no need to justify it anymore. Here we go for some more foreign wars.
This is not about "liberating Venezuela" from a dictatorship. It's just about placing a new dictator at the head of Venezuela, equally illegitimate and equally authoritarian. Venezuela has become an US protectorate for the foreseeable future. At least until the oil runs dry [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/03/world/trump-united-s...
Once you accept that there may be cases where you need to interfere with another country’s internal affairs, you can make up all sort of justifications to interfere (or not) in any given case. So yes, Russia would argue that the specific circumstance justify their actions. I would argue they don’t, but clearly Russia doesn’t care about me (and frankly wouldn’t care even if my opinion was that there is never a justification for interfering).
> My point is that there's no entity with the authority to declare a government illegal - besides the UN security council.
Now that’s an interesting claim. Why does the security council have this authority? From where do they derive that authority? Just 15 nations can declare your government “illegal”? Unless of course the government you want declared illegal happens to be one of those 15 I guess. So some nations internal affairs are more sacrosanct than others? And what happens when the UN declares your government “illegal”. Can anyone just waltz their military in and overthrow your government despite the fact that no one is supposed to have the right to interfere with the internal affairs of another country?
> This is not about "liberating Venezuela" from a dictatorship.
You appear confused because I never argued that it was. I merely objected to the idea that there was never a justification to interfere with the internal affairs of another country.
How does “we should not interfere in other countrys’ internal affairs” imply “we should not destroy the aggressor in a war they started”?
Now you might argue that a declared war is no longer a situation where “non-interference” applies, but war can be declared unilaterally. So you might say that only the initial defenders have a right to engage in regime changes, but does that mean that the Ukrainian people have a right to overthrow the Russian government in response to the current war? Do the Palestinians have a right to overthrow the Israeli government? Do the Irish have a right to overthrow the British monarchy for their previous aggressions? Do the British have a right to overthrow the US government for the American Revolution?
Which ultimately is just a long way of getting back to my point that “non-interference” might be (and IMO is) a good default policy, it’s also an unrealistic one for all situations. At some point something about the current political landscape requires a nation to interfere in the “internal affairs” of another country. But that is a dangerous game that should never be the default.
Now going with that, it means Russia invaded Ukraine in an act of pure aggression. Instead of the halfway support Biden gave, we should be directly fighting Russia over this. Putin won't start WW3 over us stopping a totally unjustified expansion, unless he's already intent on WW3 anyway.
Ukraine was NEUTRAL and NON-ALIGNED when russia invaded in 2014.
Putin's "NATO expansion" excuse is a barefaced LIE, and it's time more people called it out.
"From 2010 to 2014, Ukraine pursued a non-alignment policy, which it terminated in response to Russia’s aggression. In June 2017, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted legislation reinstating membership in NATO as a strategic foreign and security policy objective. In 2019, a corresponding amendment to Ukraine's Constitution entered into force." (https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/partnerships-and-cooperat...)
"I welcome the decision by President Viktor Yushchenko, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and Parliament Chairman Arseny Yatsenyuk to declare Ukraine's readiness to advance a Membership Action Plan (MAP) with NATO" -Obama
Before 2005, there were already smaller steps taken, including granting NATO military access. 2005 was a disputed election with both Russia and US involved.
It doesn't make Putin any less of a liar and a monster.
A full ten months elapsed before Ukraine finally decided to change its constitution. That rather destroys your argument.
Even if Russia didn't attack, Ukraine would've gone back to NATO alignment just as they were doing pre 2010. Maybe even more seeing how the entire point of the 2014 revolution was to push away from agreements with Russia, and the protest leaders were all loudly pro-NATO politicians. How could this possibly have led to nonalignment, aside from "this is a Russian talking point"?
Anything multilateral for starters, and involving multilateral nonviolent interventions first.
How can you say that like it’s a real argument? You’re REALLY, in 2026, defending that the US is “bringing democracy” to other countries by force?
I… How?
Not to mention that the "end" here is first and foremost enriching the administrative "elite" and extending their power. If they cared about democracy, they'd stand firmly behind Ukraine instead of humoring Russia.
The whole "we got him" is a bit fishy. I think the Venezuelan military (and the current vice president) wanted Maduro out. A coup would have been messy. So the US comes in and does them a favor.
Someone should tell him Iran has loads of oil and China is getting it all...
This is crony capitalism. This is Trump shoring up support from oil companies.
Mr Trump has purposefully depressed the value of non-petroleum energy sources in the US, which props up the value of US oil Producers and processors.
And now, This is a territory takeover by a mafia don, so he can hand favors to other rich guys. Maduro wasn’t doing the deal Trump wanted, so this is what Trump did.
If solar and wind were thriving in the US (as they could be!) then this new oil territory would be worth less. That’s why Trump hates wind. He cannot convert clean energy into a benefit for himself.
It’s not about drugs or fentanyl. It’s not about democracy or corrupt elections in VZ.
To be fair we did almost exactly this in 1989 in Panama [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
Vs. "70s" sounds far more like Vietnam. And a whole load of other bigger/uglier/longer conflicts, under Presidents whose moral and military leadership seemed rather lacking.
(one could make the case euro bonds are a superior alternative to US treasuries based on governance trajectories)
A more important question is if he does get sentenced will Trump just pardon him https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9qewln7912o
Genuine question, the decades long dictatorship backed by the US military in 64 or the recent pressure Trump made to try and put Bolsonaro back into power despite his crimes?
All of Maduro's people are still in power and the president just said the woman who actually won the vote is not suitable to be in charge
Good luck with the US running another country when we are cratering ourselves
Impeach him and send him to the Hague for trial if this was so justified
BTW they are now talking about Cuba, we are headed for WW3 by 2028
The fourth estate xor corporate media.
I can't edit the original comment any longer so I hope people read this one. In any case, the situation is still very fluid.
Depending on how cynical you are, you could say that all American administrations are like that. (I don’t think that’s quite true—I think Reagan/Bush had a genuine ideological vision of using foreign policy to promote democracy and capitalism around the work. But it’s certainly a common criticism.)
Ultimately it's going to be outside actors, and no matter who it was, even the UN, Venezuela could just say we don't recognize your authority and nothing would happen
Lol this is already proven false.
The put the Vice President in power who is now coincidentally supporting what the US is doing, including sending oil companies in to as Trump put it “sell oil to the Chinese”.
Neither was doing that with other countries they ransacked. The other was pouring enough propaganda at you so that you think it is somehow different.
See for yourself: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BctQ7hV798imS4cF8?g_st=ipc
They’re dead and have been for decades. The reason is they had no enforcement arm.
In 1962, he and NSK managed to arrive at a diplomatic cooperation; the reward for both of them was being cancelled.
For the UN to ever fix a international issue it would require that country to anger all 5 UN powers. Venezuela has Russia and China on its side, so nothing would have happened.
I don't think this was a humanitarian mission. I'm speculating from Trump's perspective, Maduro was a major de-stabilizing factor. The Western world also seems to tacitly agree that the man had to go -- I don't think Maria Machado's recent Nobel Peace Prize was coincidence.
This is a new opinion. What is your basis for not believing might makes right in an anarchic system?
This is the key. Trump loves dictators, no matter how they got into power. As long as they give him what he wants or he's afraid of them.
Trump might not have a choice not because they don't exist, but because he is incapable of understanding them. He's clear on not believing in win/win scenarios.
What the US have just done is not something new because of Trump.
We are told about "international law" and "norms" so much that we perhaps forget that this is mostly BS.
I guess sometimes you just need WW3.
The people who actually experienced (either directly fighting in, or living through it) have already died or are rapidly dying out.
We have no concept of just how horrifying a world war would be.
Everybody that is cheering this on has a significant gap in their education.
Macron, President of the French Republic, for reference, says:
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible."
International law has always been BS, what works is fear of retribution by the offended party or retribution from the observers thinking they might be next and getting together to enact preventive measures
So there is no cause and no effect, it is something mutually reinforcing.
"International law" are voluntary agreements but countries remain sovereign. The only way to force something is to have bigger guns and/or more economic power than the other countries and, as it happens, the US are #1 on both.
Edit: The best protection we have against WWIII is not "international law", it's that the big guys can instantly nuke each others.
The US is a superpower of course, but world wars are multilateral, and US alliances are not what they were just a year ago.
The US is no longer a credible partner, and without coalition forces the recreational wars in the 2000s would have been a lot less "fun".
I'm not so sure you want a global order based on strength. You don't want small countries with little to loose arming do with nukes. But voting for it is suddenly very attractive.
The global order is based on strength, both military and economic strength. I am just stating the obvious here.
> The global order is based on strength,
To an extend yes, but small countries wouldn't be as eager or willing to play with the US, if the rules weren't largely followed.
And yes, this is not something new. It is something old. It is something that we have left behind us and Donald Trump should therefore be condemned.
On the other hand, countries are sovereign. They are not subject to "laws", and if they do it is on a voluntary basis. Ultimately it boils down to military and economic strength for a country to be able to stand its ground and do what it wants. We never left this behind, this has always been the case.
From the replies it seems that commenters believe that countries are subject to "laws" the same way that they are...
If you toss that out you have to at least acknowledge all possible outcomes. People - even powerful people, and powerful countries too - should be subject to the law because no single person and no single country stands above all the others.
> powerful countries too - should be subject to the law
Perhaps so but that is idealistic. Again, countries are sovereign, there is no such things as "laws" in the sense that applies to individuals that apply to them, only voluntary agreements. Practically you would also need a level above countries with its own overwhelming force to enforce it, and that simply does not exist.
I am trying to discuss the world as it is, including indeed in the legal sense, not as it might be in dreams because that's pie in the sky and totally unbounded in scope.
Your worldview is essentially a pessimistic one, mine an optimistic one: I think we are capable of change. We just make the stupid mistake of putting egomaniacs in positions of power all the time and then we are surprised by the outcomes.
Some of the most powerful words ever spoken in American history were 'I have a dream'. Dreams are good, especially if they are dreams of a better world and we all should strive to create that world, not to declare it a pipe dream and get on with the business of raping each other.
I don't have anything against what you wrote but I think that it has no discussion value in context and probably in general.
As said there were no arguments presented nor anything to discuss about the geopolitical situation so I don't know what to engage with.
An interesting discussiin might be about the reasons for the US' actions and their reasons for this course of action (capture) vs more classic coup.
If so, what’s the next step and how long do you think it will take for a world in which no country is above the law… but no mechanism to create and enforce such law?
Even so, there is a lot of potential for abuse there too and it will most likely never happen because human nature is what it is.
I assume you would want such a world government to be some form of democracy? If so, it would mean near-zero voice for Australians (0.32% of world population), Germany (1%), The Netherlands (0.21%), UK (0.83%), France (0.83%).
It would, however, mean much more say for Russia (1.7%), China (17.2%), India (17.8%).
What moral code should such a democratic world government adopt? Would it be secular or religious?
Even if we thought that end-state is ideal, I have a very hard time seeing practical steps that get us there other than through bloodshed (similar to how many current nation states got formed). One exception might be a common enemy that unites the vast majority of humans, e.g. an alien invasion.
Given the huge coordination problem of forming and maintaining a single world government (top-down), I would prefer a more bottoms-up, federated approach where secular, democratic, free-ish market, values continue to spread.
Then once the theater of the war shifted to Global and Japan brought the USA into the war things changed rapidly.
And right now, the entire right wing is cheering on this situation. These are people who wanted an isolationist America that does not start new conflicts. Spineless Republican senators and legislators are staying quiet as they allow this horrific dictatorial action to go on without any criticism. And meanwhile, tech billionaires like Elon Musk are continuously tweeting sycophantic support for this illegal act of state terrorism.
How will America recover? Its political system is broken. And its international reputation is shattered.
I’m sure it is easy to say that this is what everyone should have expected, but I feel like the conduct has gone well past what people expected. The scary thing is I don’t think it will be easy to do something about this. Half the country thinks everything that is happening is completely justified and completely legal. And in practice that means it is effectively legal. So are there any remaining checks and balances that are functioning?
I don't think there are any checks and balances that are still functioning other than the ones that have served us well to get rid of evil people since thousands of years ago and sooner or later these assholes will be gone. But they will always be replaced by new assholes with the same ambition: to own and rule over a disproportional share of the world.
Unfortunately this behavior has been a part of a portion of the country for a long time and we will be dealing with these people for the rest of our lives. EU, Canada and the rest talk a big talk about making moves to disconnect from the US. It would be nice to have independent democracies that can take up the mantle if things here need time to correct themselves.
I posted something there about good faith journalism, if you're still interested.
60 Minutes in 1990 would have DREAMED of breaking the MN scandal story. I remember them breaking a story like Gasoline pump fraud in the 90s and it didn't do any research other than recording gallons pumped into Gallon Water jugs - but they still posed it as fraud.
Well, they said they wanted that. But maybe Trump wasn’t lying to them as much as lying alongside them.
Which Venezuelans? I ask because this exact same argument was used to justify the many failed assassination attempts, the Bay of Pigs debacle and sanctions on Cuba where many Cuban Americans were anti-Castro.
Now that might've been true but consider the source: many Cubans in America fled when Batista was ousted or in response to that. A famous example of that is Rafael Cruz, the father of Senator Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz famously said he hates communism because his father was tortured... by Batista [1]. And it's a failure in journalism that he wasn't challenged and lambasted for this idiotic take.
There are a lot of Venezuealsn in the US who justifiably fled the chaos there. But why was it chaotic? The US will try and tell you it's because of Maduro. But what about the sanctions? As a reminder, sanctions are a nice way of starving "we're goign to starve you and deny you medicine in the hopes you do what we want to the administration we can't otherwise topple".
Also, the US doesn't actually care about any of the crimes they accuse Maduro of. This is the same country who deposed Allende and installed Pinochet into Chile, who was a brutal dictator. That too was about resources. Oh and let's not forget Iran, who had their democratically elected government deposed to install yet another brutal dicator, the Shah, in 1953, again for oil. Or the United Fruit Company in Guatemala. The list goes on. This happens so much there's a Wikipedia page on it [2].
So, for anyone who celebates this (and I mean this generally, not at the commenter I'm responding to), you will see no benefit for this. A few billionaires will get richer, probably. The US was probably pour countless billions into supporting some puppet, probably Machado but we'll see. And I would be surprised if the lives of Venezuelans gets any better.
And if the lives of Venezuelans does actually get better, it's probably by lifting sanctions and you should be asking why we were starving them in the first place.
As a reminder, the US knows the effects of sanctions. When confronted by a report on sanctions killing 500,000 Iraqi children in 1996, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State responded [3]:
> “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” asked Stahl, “And, you know, is the price worth it?”
> “I think that is a very hard choice,” Albright answered, “but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[3]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
All which are currently in foreign countries and are free to express their voices without fear of prosecution. I live in spain with my venezuelan girlfriend, and everybody here from her venezuelan bubble is celebrating and cheering - hoping this is a first step towards freedom. You can turn on your TV to "rtve Telediaro", it is a spanish 24h news channel where they also show venezuelan expats getting together and celebrating from within spain. Other cities in latin america are the same, just watch some news channels from the spanish-speaking world.
They were probably also cheering in the streets in the US, if they weren't afraid of ICE deportations.
Whatever your (valid) criticisms of Maduro, it's important to remember that:
1. The US was intentionally starving Venezuela through sanctions. If conditions improve because the sanctions now get removed, it's not because Maduro is gone. It's because Venezuela's oppressor (the US) just stopped opressing (as much).
Let me put it this way. If I take all your people and put them into a ghetto in Warsaw and build a giant fence around it, letting nothing in or out. And I then decide to let food in once you've given me all your valuables or given up some leader and you now have something to eat, I'm still not the good guy because I later let food in after looting your people and I'm still responsible for starving you in the first place.
2. 20+ years ago the US would lie and say they're doing this to spread democracy and that the people would welcome them as liberators. This was the exact script for Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though it was all about oil they'd never say that. Now they don't even pretend. Trump has outright said that it's about oil and they're going to govern until a suitable puppet is put in place, who will let Western companies loot Venezuela's natural resources.
So good luck with the coming brutal dictatorship and kleptocracy your girlfriend and her countrymen are now celebrating.
Just like removing the President of the United States wouldn't mean the country descends into chaos.
It does send a very clear message to whoever becomes the top of the pyramid next, however.
Oh, it would definitely. There would be a power vacuum, people would wonder if the remaining government would obey the constitution or ignore it, etc...before Trump I would have said the process would have been resolved smoothly, now I have no idea.
Removing the head of a government doesn't break the government, but it definitely creates chaos before the top is filled. If the government has transitioned into a top-down autocracy, the chaos is even worse, as government agencies would have lost their ability to act independently over time. At that point, various factions start shooting at each other to try and take control of the country (aka a civil war). Throw in one or two foreign militaries in the background and there is even more reasons to start shooting.
Kind of absurd to say this. Even with Jan 6. - things still ran like they were supposed to, and will continue doing so. The government is huge and filled with millions of people. It would take an unprecedented level of coordination to not do what is supposed to happen.
Venezuela has a VP, and a rightfully elected President (not Maduro). I guess we'll see what happens there. The US has committed to maintaining order during the transition - so it seems unlikely to devolve into a civil war as anyone initiating such a thing would have to contend with the US military.
Time will tell... regardless - it seems clear as day Venezuelans will be better off without Maduro. The amount of money that is about to flow into Venezuela will be stunning. Yes, oil companies will swoop in, but the money spent there will rebuild a failed economy, provide untold numbers of jobs for Venezuelans, and lead to a more prosperous nation over time - like it was before Chavez/Maduro.
All a puppet would've done was be a brutal dictator who suppressed and disappeared anyone who resisted while enabling Western companies to loot the natural resources and the local populace would see no benefit from that at all.
You might say that Cubans would be better off if Castro had been deposed. Is that because you'd expect the sanctions to be removed? If so, the problem is the sanctions. You're basically saying "you would've been better off if you let me install a puppet dictator and loot your natural resources because then at least I would've stopped intentionally starving you".
And if you can't see the problem with that statement, well, I'm not sure what to say.
1. By overthrowing a democratic government in the first place to make the Shah a dictator, creating the seeds of revolution; and
2. When it becamne clear that Iran was "lost" (to the West) and fearing a takeover by the Communists and Iran falling into the Soviet sphere of influence, the US got Saddam Hussein, our then-puppet in Iraq who we used to stoke a war for a decade killing more than a million people as an aside, to release the Ayatollah Khomenei from prison in the hopes that the Islamic fundamentalists rather than the communists would win the revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini%27s_life_in_...
It was about the Soviet Union. The British convinced the US that Mosaddegh was going to align himself with the Soviet-proxy communist party (Tudeh) to stay in power. The British, on the other hand, did it because Iran had nationalized British oil fields. The US' oil interests were in Saudi Arabia.
Also the way people describe this is rather twisted. The Shah was not installed by the US. The Shah had been in power since 1941. He was installed by the British, same as his father. The coup replaced Mosaddegh with Fazlollah Zahedi, not the Shah.
Moreover, Mosaddegh's government was not remotely democratically elected. There's a rather in-depth State department memo from the era that describes how those "elections" worked in Iran which made clear that the people voting had little to do with who won. Elections were full of ballot stuffing, bribery and just outright manipulation by pretty much everyone - the Shah, Mosaddegh, Tudeh, foreign governments, etc. [1]
Plus, Mosaddegh had halted Parliamentary election counting early to prevent more opposition from getting elected risking his majority (his party controlled the more urban areas of Iran which finished "counting" earlier). He began ruling with emergency powers and jailing his opposition. That led to mass resignations in Parliament - to the point where they couldn't even form a quorum. Mosaddegh then dissolved Parliament and granted himself full dictatorial powers and ruled by decree after another sham election where 10% of the population "voted."
And it's at this point that the coup happened. The Shah, using his power under Iran's constitution, wrote a letter dismissing Mosaddegh. He was replaced with Fazlollah Zahedi and the Shah started to take a far more active role in government.
[1] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1951-54Ira...
Mosaddeq sought fairer royalties for oil from what is now BP but what was then the AIOC after decades of tension and a decrease in Iran's royalties (with increasing British revenues) in the 1940s, ultimately culminating in the nationalization of AIOC in 1951 [1].
Relations deteriorated. Britain isolated Iran through sanctions and oil embargoes. The US sided with Britain but initially rebuffed attempts at a coup, I believe initially under Truman but Eisenhower was also initially reluctant.
Britain did argue that nationalization of oil and other British interests in Iran was Soviet-led and made an argument to Eisenhower's SEcretary of State that a coup was in the interests of fighting communism, something the administration was likely more receptive to given the Truman doctrine and "containment". The Korean War was ongoing at the time.
So did Britain argue this was to fight commmunism? Yes. Was it really? No. It was about Britain's oil interests and colonial ambition. It was no more about fighting communism than invading Iraq in 2003 was about spreading democracy.
Fears of the USSR played a much bigger role in the 1979 Revolution where the US got their then ally, Saddam Hussein, to release the Ayatollah Khomenei from prison to try and make Iran fundamentalist rather than falling into the Soviet sphere of influence.
As for any election abnormalities, nobody cares about that. Like, at all. It's undeniable that Mossadeq was immensely popular in the early 1950s for his stance that Iranian oil should benefit Iranians, first and foremost, rather than a colonial power.
[1]: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/iran-nationa...
More than one party was involved. They had different reasons for their involvement.
The United States' reason was to fight against communism (read: the Soviet Union). As quite a few internal memos make clear, the US did not particularly care about Britain's oil issues and wished to stay out of it. Rather, the US was almost single minded about it's fight against the Soviets. Britain used that to manipulate the US into getting involved.
> As for any election abnormalities, nobody cares about that.
If no one cared about it, people would stop stressing he was "democratically elected."
> It's undeniable that Mossadeq was immensely popular in the early 1950s for his stance that Iranian oil should benefit Iranians
And he was incredibly unpopular by 1953 as he was blamed for the deterioration of the economy caused by the British refusal to ship Iranian oil and he went full autocrat.
Indeed, had Mosaddegh remained popular, the Shah never would have agreed to go through with the coup. After all, he had seen what had happened after Mosaddegh resigned in 1952.
Your perception about Iran in 1953 is badly wrong.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articl...
A referendum to dissolve parliament and give the prime minister power to make law was submitted to voters, and it passed with 99 per cent approval, 2,043,300 votes to 1300 votes against.[83] According to historian Mark Gasiorowski, "There were separate polling stations for yes and no votes, producing sharp criticism of Mosaddeq" and that the "controversial referendum...gave the CIA's precoup propaganda campaign to show up Mosaddeq as an anti-democratic dictator an easy target".[84]
A person has to be very gullible to believe 99% of the vote went one way in a fair election involving 2+ million people.
"I really want it" is not the reason. Come on! Maduro is indicted in the Southern District of New York. Both charged with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the US.
The military operation was merely to lead the operation to allow FBI to arrest. Now, the oil issue certainly can be argued as the real reason for the strike and capture, but frankly they were OUR oil fields (funded by US companies) before Maduro seized them and nationalized them.
Good thing then that Maduro isn't the president of Venezuela, but a narco-terrorist usurper.
EDIT: Downvoting me will not change that fact, only hide it.
The U.S. has all the oil it needs right now.
The message from the U.S. to the world is: don’t nationalize our businesses infrastructure and then use it against our interests (even if they are on your sovereign territory) - we do not forgive and we do not forget.
Also I presume that it is not OK for the US to have its say on who stays in power in Venezuela, but it's OK for Cuba or Russia to do so?
Second line: You presumed that out of feeling? I did not write anything hinting at that.
This event will also serve as a measure of how strong China actually is. Venezuela is very important strategically for them, they can't let it slide unless they're weak.
Surely, they won't go as far as direct US confrontation, but if they don't make Venezuela into a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there, one can draw the conclusion that China isn't as strong as many make them (including me, I confess).
But it wouldn't be that surprising if Venezuela turns out being a death trap for any US soldier being stationed there...
Without some sort of underlying religious ideology to neutralize being concerned about the likely outcome of hellfires dropped on you from 20k feet if you kill American soldiers, I can’t see many stepping up.
Even if they are aided by others, they would still be fighting for THEIR freedom, in THEIR land.
(distinguishing the good guys from the baddies becomes easier, when you strip away the fluff)
A "proxy" is someone who primarily serves someone elses interests first. Their own interests are subservient to that (if they come in at all).
Venezuelans who may end up fighting for Venezuelan freedom to rule themselves as a soveriegn free nation, with the right to fully benefit from THEIR own natural resources, are NOT proxies of anyone. Regardless of who helps them.
When you're a closet imperialist who thinks nothing of stealing other peoples land, resources, dignity & even lives, then everyone opposing you starts to look like a terrorist, an insurgent or a proxy.
The issue isn't them. Its you.
Chinese intervention in Venezuela is a suicide mission by every rule of warfare. You are surrounded, you have no supply line and you can't amass your material at the front since America is already there.
Sending money is nice but Venezuela is blockaded.
I mean, the US can't even keep migrants from illegally crossing their borders with dangerous drugs. Are you really making the case that as soon as the US have boots on the ground, that Venezuela's borders are a 100% secure? America, fuck yeah!
No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
But knowing the usual modus operandi in SA, a dictator is more likely to be installed than not.
It's about grudges held since hundreds of years. Blood feuds are still a thing in the region.
Anyway, the main point is that as nice as getting rid of a dictator sounds, the consequences can be much worse than the dictatorship itself, at least in the short term (which can last for a decade or more…).
I sincerely wish the best to Venezuelans, but previous US toppling of terrible dictatorships don't have a stellar record to say the least.
Living in a country stuck in a decade of counterinsurgency warfare doesn't feel particularly great, and I'm sure the Iraqis or Afghans would agree.
Whereas the Bolsheviks took very little time to effectively surrender to Germany and its allies only half a year before Germany itself surrendered to the former allies of Russia. (Thus freeing up the returning army to wage several years of civil war amongst various parts of itself.) Every option sucked here, much like in every other case during WWI.
And yes, it’s absolutely true that little good usually comes from violently overthrowing a dictator. The best results are obtained from the dictator peacefully resigning after a promise of amnesty for them and their inner circle, however crass and unfair that sounds. Generally speaking, it’s not very helpful to put people in power before a choice of either losing everything or attempting to maintain their hold on that power by whatever means necessary: it’s going to be the second one every time.
And also don't humiliate the opposition leader right in the abduction debriefing…
Now, can we imagine a world where the Czar was replaced with a Western-style democracy, where the Russian population would have ended up much better than they did? It's possible, sure - but there are no guarantees.
Not during the Russian civil war, which is the point I'm making.
Sure, just ask them about the legacy of Chevron in South America next.
If they're old enough ask them about the United Fruit Company.
> You can extend this to anything really with good results.
Your trick is not enough to overcome your ignorance of history.
> No valuable insight will be gleaned from chat boards and reddit in the immediate aftermath of these sorts of events.
Ridiculous. How exactly do you expect me to probe the feelings of an entire nation of people? Have CNN do it for me?
But i think the opinion of venezuelans has leaked and it s pretty obvious his regime is not popular at home
That's close to 20% of their population. And the most relevant factor deciding if people fled or not was whether they could reach another country before Maduro closed the borders.
Those that leave are mainly the ones with means and/or the ones who feel strongest about it.
A lot of Iraqis were happy when Saddam was deposed. They certainly didn’t like what happened next.
They could’ve actually done what they stated, talked about the people, instead of just a meta-criticism of HN, which is probably the #1 type of comment on threads on HN already.
And yes I’ll acknowledge this is a meta criticism of a meta criticism.
It doesn't work.
Or should this only be a one way street? Is dropping bombs to disapprove of elections how we're being adults in 2026?
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 lunatic fringe has long seen global institutions as arms of a shadowy conspiracy to destroy national sovereignty and impose a world government. Far from being instruments for exerting US control, they’re seen as holding us down.
It’s just like vaccines. Why would a country deliberately weaken and sicken its population by discouraging the most effective medical interventions ever devised? Because the nuts have take over and conspiracy theories have gone mainstream.
If you think this kind of caveman-era diplomacy is the future And want humans to be a multi-planetary species then lol, good luck.
This word is doing a lot of lifting here. You are essentially saying "the world should be better" without even a hint of suggestion of what a minority of countries could do to achieve it (in the presence of adversarial, nuclear states)
Let's say someone is sick and they want to roll around in dog shit to cure themselves. I can say that's a bad idea and not be a doctor with a clinical diagnosis. That's a valid position.
Unilaterally bombing a country, overthrowing its government and installing a puppet leader to capture its oil reserves can be called a bad idea.
I don't need to have a fellowship at Georgetown or some sophisticated alternative.
Some things are obvious: stabbing your eye is a bad idea. no ophthalmology degree required.
You'd expect them to have air defenses on high alert 24/7 prepared to immediately respond to any US actions.
You could shoot down a helicopter with a WW2 AA gun.
Look at Dilma Rousseff who stepped down without much of a fight. Mujica, Allende, Morales, the left wing is really bad at holding on to power because they give into perceptions and affectations of mass sentiment regardless of their authenticity or accuracy.
It's part of the praxis.
Venezuelans can't delete America.
Yes, a bit of a one way street.
The rest of the world wouldn't do anything about it either, IMO. Just like they're doing for Ukraine now.
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
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.
Attacking one of the world largest Western economies, would turn the other ones against you
I'm just talking about reality. America can do pretty close to whatever it wants.
There's more than four non-European countries in the world, Christ.
Also, I think America can make it on its own, no help. And still be a powerhouse. You don't have to agree.
I honestly don't see that happening. Yes, there are Hungary and Poland, but if Italy - currently a US ally - got wiped off the map for some lame reason, why would or should anyone trust their alliance with the US?
Non-EU European countries also have mixed feelings about the US (and the West in general). See Serbia for example.
> Also, I think America can make it on its own, no help. And still be a powerhouse. You don't have to agree.
Yes, I'll disagree. We once had the whole making-it-on-our-own story in many countries in Eastern Europe. There were numerous shortages of even the most basic household items like fabric softeners and coffee. Many of those countries even had some trade between each other (Comecon) but it wasn't enough and that was 50+ years ago when we weren't dependent on China for electronics and every other piece of plastic out there.
The world is now more globalized and codependent than ever. You don't have to agree with me either.
Also no Nation can't make it on their own in 2026 without massive losses in Quality of Life
Response was: Yes, Italy could choose to do so. However, American would probably delete Italy if Italy made that choice.
So France would not be looking at the US deleting Italy for no reason.
I think we're have strayed too far from the point of ´might makes right' is bad, actually. GP very clearly chose Italy as an example because it's less polemic than the obvious option with a enormous manufacturing base and nukes.
You really think the French are going to sacrifice themselves to avenge the Italians?
To be clear, if we are talking about a salt-the-earth level conventional bombing for pure annexation / genocide of a EU nation the French would:
1. Remind the US via diplomatic means that they have nuclear subs and the will to use them.
2. If ignored, select some non-mainland territory (PR or Hawaii) and make a ultimatum. Mention that if the US does not desist they will wipe it, but will not launch attacks on the continental US.
3. Repeat 2 until they stop or escalate.
The French would absolutely do this, the thing you propose is so beyond the pale (even now) that the only conclusion is that the French would be next.
In the normal state of human affairs, being a pariah doesn't matter as long as your goals get done
Boy, Americans really do have an overinflated sense of their power.
These hypotheticals aren't helpful though.
As history has clearly shown, it doesn't do much to prevent conventional wars, especially involving third parties.
I don't think anyone in power truly believes that France would actually use nuclear weapons to protect Italy during a conventional war against a nuclear power when France itself isn't in danger - let alone in a war Italy started. That's a no-win scenario for France.
Doctrines and policies are meaningless under pressure. Would France risk global nuclear armageddon and the near-extinction of humanity for Italy? Almost certainly not, regardless of what their "doctrine" says.
We saw what happened when France triggered the mutual defense clause in the EU charter after the terrorist attacked. Even when they all but begged other EU states to help them, they were rebuffed.
There's little reason to believe France would behave any differently if the roles had been reversed in the especially if there was any real risk to themselves if they got involved.
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.)
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.
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
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.
Then what is the expected scale of a revenge tour for 48,422 fentanyl overdose deaths in 2024 and 76,282 in 2023?
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.
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 precursors are made in legal-ish Chinese and Indian labs and shipped to the US and Mexico (y'know close where the users are). It's finished state-side or in Mexico where the DEA has less power. In fact one of the routes is:
China Lab -> Conventional Post -> Porch of a clueless gringo with a new 'online job'-> Smuggled to Mexico -> Mexican Lab -> Smuggled to the USA -> Distribution
[0]: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...
If China invaded overnight and absconded with Trump, I’d say I disapproved even though I don’t like him.
They view Luigi's alleged actions as self-defense/ defense of others, i.e. morally justified.
I wouldn't personally morally disagree with someone Luigi'ing Maduro or the other guy mentioned according to that same standard, but in this situation and the knock-on hypotheticals of government intervention, this is not an individual using personal force according to their beliefs, these are governments (which have no moral rights, just the assertion/ imposition of authority by violence) expropriating them for political purposes. So not defense of others.
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.
Remember: innocent until proven guilty
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.)
Military response means men in uniform battling for their country. Terrorism is not a military response, it's one of several ways to cope with the enemy's superior military forces. They can't overtly bomb america back to the stone age, so they resort to tradecraft and clandestine operations.
It actually works, which is why governments pull all the stops when it comes to fighting terrorists. Even this plays into their ideological objective of forcing america to compromise on its founding principles, thereby corrupting it from within.
Apologies.
> I'm just saying that it's a basic geopolitical fact that anyone who's actually foolish enough to declare war on the USA is going to get killed.
That's mostly true. But a bunch of Saudi's got away with it and are still getting away with it.
> They can't overtly bomb america back to the stone age, so they resort to tradecraft and clandestine operations.
> It actually works, which is why governments pull all the stops when it comes to fighting terrorists. Even this plays into their ideological objective of forcing america to compromise on its founding principles, thereby corrupting it from within.
Precisely. So now try to imagine what the effect would be if the USA started to engage in wars on the American continent. You reap what you sow and if you're the biggest bully on the block that isn't going to be any use if you can't protect your backside.
All this talk of invading Greenland, Canada, Mexico, Cuba and I probably missed some is going to backfire spectacularly, and in many ways it already does.
On the world stage I see everything on display that we try to teach our children to avoid. Lying, bullying, law breaking, it's all in our faces. And the real problem is that it is supported and even celebrated on television, in print, and socia media.
They can try.
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.
Where does that come from? I've seen this verbatim in a few places. Let me guess, the s o c i a l m e d i a?
Yeah this is just flawed.
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.
Please don't spread Russian propaganda by taking over their talking points.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The 2003 dispute over the island of Tuzla - whose status had not been clearly settled during the independence of Ukraine from the USSR - was settled diplomatically. If you call this occasion an "attempt to annex Ukraine", then we could equally say that "Romania attempted to annex Ukraine" when the countries had several rounds of negotiation and arbitration for control of Snake Island in the Black Sea.
Once that Rubicon was crossed (sanctions were in place and there was nothing to lose), they annexed the four regions of Ukraine that they partially controlled.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t2vz4v/ria_news_ac...
No, they'd be fine with that, as long as they get their cut.
This is what Russians would presumably also do if able.
So your point doesn't stand
I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do or if it will have negative implications in the future. I didn't liked when Russia invaded Ukraine and sure as hell would not like to see China invading Taiwan. I have a different opinion about Venezuela though.
Having said that, international law is a myth. At the power level of nation states what we have is basically anarchy where interests is what matters. Not saying its right or wrong but it is what it is.
Any predictive model I would construct about geopolitics does include international agreements such as treaties and laws.
I challenge anyone to build a predictive model that ignores these factors. I’ll make this bet: any such model you come up with could be improved by including notions of international agreements and laws.
I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
Countries appeal to international law when they don’t have enough power to achieve their goals through brute force alone.
Countries that do appeal to international law but also have the wherewithal to do what they want only make those appeals to conceal their naked ambitions under the guise of the rules based order. It’s just good marketing. Nothing more.
The model you should construct should assume treaties and agreements are stable insofar as the incentives for players to maintain them remain in place.
It’s all about national interest, always has been, and at this point I’m surprised anybody can be so dense as to not be able to see this.
> I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today.
You are misunderstanding me. I had hoped my claim was clear, but maybe not, so I'll try again: if you want to understand and predict the world well, factoring in international law is an important factor. Claim: no serious scholars or analysts would disagree. Of course they will build different models (unfortunately relatively few are quantitative, but there are exceptions) and argue the details.
Now to your statement "I mean, if you ever needed smoking gun proof this is a lie, you got some today."...
Recency bias has a huge effect on people. But today is one data point out of many. It matters, in context, weighted appropriately. But how to weight it? Have you put thought into this? What was your prior and how much did today change it? (Admittedly, few people write down their priors, so for most of us, this exercise is sort of like a retrospective where we realize we probably never thought about it carefully in the first place!)
When convenient they will use international law and norms as justification for actions they would take regardless. When inconvenient, they will just ignore them.
To the extent that superpowers do “follow” international law, it is only because those laws were written by the superpowers themselves or align with their interests at any given time.
Appeals to scholars or analysts is meaningless in this context. You should post why those people think they matter, or what their reasoning is, not, “hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters.”
My priors before this were that international law mattered a little, but this event has convinced me it’s all a farce. Exhibit A: the UN’s increasing irrelevance as we move toward a multipolar world.
Why do you think international law constrains nation states, despite much evidence to the contrary, including today’s events?
---
> Why do you think international law constrains nation states, despite much evidence to the contrary, including today’s events?
For clarity, I didn't say nor mean «ILN determine/constrain actors in all cases». I conveyed, to the best of my ability: «ILN are a useful factor to include in a model»".
In the text below, I'll elaborate quite a bit on why ILN matter as factors to include.
---
As I read your comment, I'm interpreting it as claiming to argue against «ILN is a useful factor to include in a model». You put forth an argument saying it doesn't matter. I'll argue against your argument.
But I should pause. I should not assume... I don't know your age, your nationality, your educational and/or professional background, and so on... Do you know what I mean by a quantitative model? Even people with Ph.D. can easily talk past each other on this. I'll give just one example of what I'm talking about: [1]. It is likely easier to grok than a dense statistical analysis 'locked up' in an academic paper.
Here is some context about why I care about this. Professionally I've worked as a software developer, entrepreneur, machine learning & statistical researcher and analyst, and lots more. At my core I both (a) build technology to solve human problems and (b) enjoy building things because it is fun and enabling. About ~10 years ago I build a search engine to surface quantitative models. One of my key underlying drivers is to help people to move past merely talking about stuff. Talk is cheap and imprecise. There are many kinds of models, none perfect, but the use of them is vastly better than pretending like any one framing _is_ reality. Recognizing a model as a model is the first step. Then you can step back and figure out "what is this model useful for?". With models we can put things 'on paper' and point and them and say things like "what happens when we factor in X"? We don't have to fixate on one model. We can be fluid and think about what we're trying to understand and predict.
---
> When convenient they will use international law and norms as justification for actions they would take regardless. When inconvenient, they will just ignore them.
This is both a false binary and (for lack of a concise phrase) 'starting very late in the causal chain'. I'll start with the first and then explain the second afterwards.
1. The above is a false dichotomy. There are at least three other cases. ILN are (to some degree):...
A. ... imbued in a leader such that they don't even _want_ to venture too far outside the parameters of 'acceptable'.
B. ... perceived to have consequences that need to be accounted for. Over time the leader will more or less compare their perceptions of reality to what happens in reality.
C. ... these consequences (perceived and actual) affect the decision space of a leader. A change in the decision space, in general, may change the decision. (not always of course).
There is variation in how much A, B, C apply and play out. This variation provides informational value -- a foundational concept in modeling. More informational value, ceteris parabus, makes model predictions better. We're on the same page?
2. You may have noticed that above I've already implicitly explained my second criticism. If you want to predict how leaders act, it is unwise to start the analysis at the point of 'where they made their mind up'. Instead, you want to predict how and why they form their views and goals. My claim is that factoring in ILN (international laws and norms) is useful -- it is better to factor it in than to exclude it. To skip past it is 'starting too late in the causal chain'. It would be analogous to saying "Once the trigger is pulled, the laws against murder cannot stop the bullet."
2'. If one wants to build an even _better_ predictive model, one would want to predict what kinds of leaders come to power. Imagine some counterfactuals. What if there was no UN Declaration of Human Rights? In such a world, what kind of leaders would come to power? In general, they would be different than the current slate. I'd predict to see more warlord-like behavior; there would be less trust and more military spending. Without trust, more force and threats of force are necessary. I hope you can see I've sketched out an argument for why ILN provide some shared basis for countries to cooperate based on shared values. [2]
In short, if you are arguing -- and want to continue doing so -- that ILN have no predictive value, I challenge you to build a predictive model and prove it. But I don't think you really will hold such a view once you step away from the keyboard and reflect.
I don't confuse my approximations for reality. I once rigidly held a view not too different from the one you probably do. I thought my model was 'real'. But no longer. I've found better models for predicting.
---
> My priors before this were that international law mattered a little, but this event has convinced me it’s all a farce. Exhibit A: the UN’s increasing irrelevance as we move toward a multipolar world.
Two responses:
3. It is too soon to assess the scope of international responses to Trump's invasion of Venezuela. My response here is the same as the section above. The problem is reasonable people will struggle to find consensus on how to operationalize "farce" into a prediction. It is too squishy. We can do better than this; we can build models. I've already covered this ground above.
---
> Appeals to scholars or analysts is meaningless in this context. You should post why those people think they matter, or what their reasoning is, not, “hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters.”
I don't think I'm really fully tracking you here, so I'll respond as best I can... We're standing on the shoulders of giants. We cannot discount the work of scholars throughout history.
My claims are not arguments from authority. They are arguments along the lines of 'smart people have taught us that thinking about the world in terms of models is superior to not doing so.' To use another phrase that conveys the same idea: don't confuse the map with the territory.
No charitable person would claim that my argument is anything like "hey, guys that I think are smart say this matters". If you go back and reread, now, you don't really think I'm saying that, do you? To make such a claim would be to ignore large parts of what I wrote -- it would involve tossing those out -- and myopically and forcing an uncharitable interpretation onto my words. Hacker News works better when people are charitable. [3]
---
I'll gone to some lengths to try to understand your position and explain mine. At this point, I hope you will reciprocate.
[1] https://conflictforecast.org ... this is just an example to give flavor. I'm not holding it up as a great model, but at least it is relatively clear in how it works – compared to what you'll typically see when some pundit says something about some risk of conflict: """Our forecast uses millions of newspaper articles to make the conflict forecast. In our analysis of the content of the newspaper articles we rely on a so-called topic model which summarizes the millions of articles and words into topics using unsupervised machine learning. The topic model allows us to calculate 15 topic shares for each country/month which we display in the bubbles to the right."""
[2] Some people can't or don't see this. Some people fixate on isolated individual behavior. They ignore evolutionary foundations that people exist in a social context. They don't understand or appreciate game theory or theory of mind; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind .
[3] """Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.""" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
1. It is too soon to assess the scope of international responses to Trump's invasion of Venezuela. A large part of ILN is what happens after a particular event.
2. "Farce" is rather squishy. One interpretation (one I agree with) means i.e. "international responses often fall short of rhetoric". Ok, sure. But few savvy people expect rhetoric to match reality. The impact of ILN are neither a 0 nor a 1. It is probabilistic -- not totally random -- and it depends on the circumstances. More detailed models have the potential to make better predictions (if they don't overfit).
We need to drive towards measurable (quantitative) predictive models. Here's an example question: "If the United Nations changed its charter so that one veto was not enough to block enforcement, how would state-based aggression change (by how much)?" See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...
Go touch grass, brother. Life is more than models. Most things in life really aren’t that complicated. People do what they want and make up the reasons for why they did what they did as they go. It’s basic human behavior at the state level.
And you'd have lost the bet with such a naive understanding of geopolitics and power dynamics played by nation states. Are you reading the thread you're on?
Start with model M which does not account for international law.* For any such model, that model can be modified by including information about international law. Call that M'. I claim M' will do better than M. Do you agree? Disagree? Why?
Onto my next point. Please take the context into account. I was responding to a comment that said:
>>> Having said that, international law is a myth.
This is why I said:
>> Arguments over definitions really bore me. To any reasonable person predicting the future, international law is an important factor. It cannot be simply waved off because it is flawed and unevenly enforced.
I am having a hard time understanding how you think I'm naive for saying the above. To me, it would be naive to ignore international law altogether, simply because it is nuts to ignore relevant information. Am I just redefining my claim to be "this information is relevant to predicting an outcome". Maybe, but even this seems to be getting lost in translation.
May I ask if you've done geopolitical analysis at the international level? I have no idea -- you very well might have. By the same token, I may have as well. This isn't a who-has-the-bigger GPU question. I'm just trying to understand if you understand the game we're talking about. If you're trying to predict price stability, election outcomes, how long a dictator stays in power, etc... what models do you build?
If you want to compare some models on this, let's do it. We'll compare and see if including international law/agreements has predictive value (relative to not including them). Are you game?
* It is possible a model could build up an internal representation of international law even if not provided it directly. If such an internal representation proves useful and predictive, this serves to prove my overarching point, albeit in a different way; namely international law (conceptually) matters. It doesn't matter if we call it 'real', 'fake', 'a myth' or whatever. Arguing such terminology is a waste of time. If we can measure it (somehow, to some degree) and use it to make better predictions, that is good enough for me.**
** It is also good enough for physicists! People may argue the _metaphysics_ of quantum physics tirelessly, but if the equations work, that is pretty darn impressive. Call it "spooky action at a distance" or "entanglement". In an an important sense, these are just words, metaphors, attempts to make sense of reality. Focus on how to turn the crank on the theory and don't get hung up on what is 'real'.
> But my read is that you over index on the notion of laws
To be fair, nothing I said asserted the relative importance of international law in comparison to other influences (i.e. military power, strategic goals, economic interests, a vindictive leader).
> hence your general befuddlement on the current outcome
Where do you get the impression that I'm befuddled? I was disappointed in the lack of nuance of some comments, so I pushed back, but I'm not 'befuddled' by current events.
> Sovereign nations follow international law and order to the extent their goals align and perceived costs of contravening them exceeds some threshold.
This sounds like the 'rational actor' model from international relations. [1] But that model is not the only game in town, nor is it universally the best model to use!
> Might ultimately makes right, has always been the case.
I would happily see this phrase fall out of usage. It is what authoritarians want you to believe. What is right != who has power. Normative != positive. They are not the same. We would do well not to blur 'what is' with 'what should be', not even in an aphorism.
[1]: http://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps12/03-rational-decision-...
Yes I would like that phrase to fall out of use too. My intention was less of the idiom's original normative meaning but to emphasize that it is ultimately power that enables or constrains a nation's possible actions. Apologies for my confusing use of the phrase.
> but to emphasize that it is ultimately power that enables or constrains a nation's possible actions.
If one interprets this as "perceived power" I think we'd be getting closer. But even that is not enough.
I would also need us to recognize "the power that ideas have in shaping worldviews". Consider the Magna Carta, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and so on. They can't simply be accounted for using a probabilistic calculus of consequences w.r.t. military force, economic sanctions, popular uprisings, and so on.
International law and notions to some degree also become normative. They are worldviews and aspirations that spread. (Memetics is a powerful analytic frame here!) These laws and norms take hold in people's minds and they shape how leaders and their people think about what is good and what should be done. In this sense, even though they are ultimately just neural patterns (if you are a materialist like me), they can be thought of as 'real' and impactful when it comes to making predictions about how leaders act.
I wonder if we would both agree on this: as people lose faith in the normative force of law, they care relatively more about the perceived consequences. Seems pretty straightforward?
Such a degradation, seems to me, cannot be good for civilization. A world where everything is purely contractual or consequentialist does not work in a world of agents with very limited computation.* It is just too costly to formalize everything in terms of individual incentives. Building systems where all the consequences are perceived by actors at the right levels of the system is really hard. Maybe it can work with certain kinds of information systems. But with humans, with our current biology and technology, I don't think it scales well at all. (At this point you might wonder if John Von Neumann is rolling is in his grave, but I suspect if he lived today, he would agree! His work spanned computation theory, game theory, and more.)
* Here is a guess that seems plausible (hypothetically): In a perfect world of unlimited computation, agents would be smart enough to think of interactions as long-run games and might be able to have a healthy society even if they don't 'believe' in norms.
I dont like Maduro but I hate the aftermath of removing him violently.
I mean, why?
This is BS. If he was an issue for the region he needed to be tried by his country by his own people and they should get their power back. A foreign power taking over the country to siphon it's oil doesn't help in any way.
It's the same situation with Trump, China swooping in and kidnapping Trump wouldn't help. We'd need the US population to fix it's own mess if we're hoping for any improvement.
We're just getting into another cycle of pain and grudges.
Ah ok, so this was about China. MAGA's fixation on China is certainly going to lead to more instability.
> Hispanic” when immigration was pronounced negatively. reply
I think it means Chinese, Indian, and other ethnic groups too.
The disastrous War on Terror spanned 4 presidential administrations, 2 Democrat and 2 Republican. Middle East policy differences between the two parties are somewhere between superficial and nonexistent.
Even something like Ukraine where you might say Republicans and Democrats differ isn't true. Had Trump been in office when Russia invaded Ukraine, the two parties would simply be in each other's seats.
This is 100% the case when it comes to China too. Oh, and when it comes to Taiwan (and Hong Kong), official US policy is the so-called One China policy [1].
As for US manufacturing, it's dead. Because capitalists killed it by moving it to China to increase profits and (under Regan, in particular) to destroy unions and the labor movement [2].
As for China and IP, US companies did this to themselves knowingly to increase short-term profits and to break unions and suppress wages. At no point will I accept the framing that a Chinese person, a Mexican, an Indian or a person from [developing country of choice] stole someone's job. No, a capital owner made a choice to take your job and give it to someone else so he or she could become slightly richer.
I'm not sure how immigration factors into China concerns.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_China
[2]: https://ourfuture.org/20140930/reagan-set-up-the-death-of-th...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
Obviously anyone with common sense understands that the above translates to exporting oil to the US. Just like that, a lot of noise about democracy goes out of the window.
So what? That's not very useful when getting said oil out of the ground costs more than you can sell it for, is it?
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
If this is a list of atrocities, I am already somewhat underwhelmed. Almost all of those bases are present with the consent of the host country, except for Gitmo. Besides Gitmo, the US always leaves when requested in the cases I have been able to find.
(Why do we still have a base in Gitmo? Because Florida is a swing state. It sucks.)
To be fair, the rest of the list looks like an excellent argument for closing all the bases.
Let's hope Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Russia follow soon.
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.
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.
The fascists are also advocating for an end to foreign aid. Gonna be hard to repeat post war rebuilding efforts.
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.
Yeah, because in Russia if you don't support the regime then straight to jail.
I think that if a good chunk of the people that don't agree with their government are basically forced to emigrate you don't get to turn around and say "See, everyone that remains loves the government!"
This usually (never) goes well for the USA. (Source: pick a regime change war.)
What happens if the Venezuelan people decide they want their oil profits to stay in Venezuela rather than flowing into oil company coffers? Will they have the "freedom" to choose that?
Don't get me wrong, Maduro being toppled is a positive in isolation, but it's still wait-and-see regarding what he gets replaced with.
"We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so" [1]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/03/trump-venezu...
Which boys?
Besides, how realistic is a fear that a law abiding citizen would be endangered by the ICE?
[1] https://nipnlg.org/news/press-releases/ice-deports-man-claim...
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."
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.
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
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.
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-...
I'm way more concerned with regular law enforcement endangering American citizens than ICE.
My concern covers all LEO fucking with American citizens, especially the masked and unidentified ones.
Between .0005% and .0003% chance that if ICE grabs someone up, they're a citizen. I think that's a pretty good record, actually. I don't think it's very alarming.
We have 348 million citizens, 170 got held for...days! While we conducted the most effective deportation of illegals in history.
I'm pretty sure ICE isn't going to accidentally get me. This problem may as well be non-existent.
What's real is actual citizens wrapped up in actual bullshit with regular LEO. With probably several orders of magnitude difference, wouldn't you agree? Maybe thousands per day, instead of 170 per year? Costing folks more than a few days' detention.
Why do you figure they're wearing masks?
If you mean they're deporting illegals without them seeing a judge, I'd be in favor of that.
Why does a 0% chance of a citizen being deported alarm you?
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...
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?
Whataboutism
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.
Frankly that's just propaganda.
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.
It's pretty bad, but sure, if you just go along with it you'll probably be fine.
Genocide is an attempt to kill a group; That does not happen only by murdering people - it's also forced assimilation. In this case, Russia is directly violating article 2) e) of the Genocide Convention*: "Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
>citizenship
Citizenship is not relevant to the genocide convention at all.
Russian imperialism needs Ukraine, since without Ukraine there's no Russian empire. Russia invaded Ukraine out of imperialist delusion, not for humanitarian reasons.
You have thoroughly bought into Russian propagandist lies.
Indeed, but Hitler is not famous for mass-murdering the Sudetendeutsche.
And I never claimed that Russia invaded Ukraine for humanitarian reasons. I think it did because it could not tolerate a Ukraine fully integrated in the West and NATO- but this just means exercising political control over Ukraine, it doesn't imply an ethnic cleansing or genocide of Ukrainians.
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.
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.
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.
Because if you want to "win" arguments by randomly swinging hundreds of years to make a point, then it's pointless, because anyone can pick a point in thousands of years of History to show "look - they were bad here".
I think discussions about modern history are sufficient for the post-WW2 period, as there was a global consensus on international law and the Charter of the UN.
If you hold grievances about events hundreds of years old to make points about current events, then it's pointless.
I don't think they're the same, so many institutions were established that over the years that I don't see them as the former colony of the British crown.
But hey, if you want to discuss semantics, go for it.
What about segregation then, is that recent enough for you? Or that wasn't about culture/language, so that too isn't applicable? I'm afraid that with rose-tinted glasses, everything has an explanation why your favorite is different than their favorite.
It's the biggest geopolitical event in modern History to prevent the death of millions, by attempting to stop the expansion of borders through military force and making countries recognize the borders of each of its members.
> What about segregation then, is that recent enough for you?
What about segregation? Where? In different European countries? USA? South Africa? India?
Was there a global consensus to end segregation? Or were different events at different points in time, achieved in different manners? Is there still segregation happening in some societies?
Thanks for explaining why Russia is less unreasonable than the US.
You're basically saying that one countries interpretation of events is enough to annex another. That's the old logic of pre WW2 lol
Especially Russia that has revised their history so many times they even have a saying that "Russia's past is uncertain".
So to have that interpretation of what I said shows that you have a very poor understanding of History and current events, or it's just a deficient provocation.
So they invaded their own internationally recognized territory. Wonderful. By that standard Ukraine invaded Donbass after they declared themselves independent of Ukraine.
>Syria
Even more outlandish claim, considering they were invited by the government. Whether the west considered the government illegitimate or not didn't matter.
>Moldova >Georgia
in both conflicts in protection of a minority, on whose territory a larger state laid claim using Soviet drawn borders and dissolution of the USSR. Since the Ukrainian conflict started I observed lots of enthusiasm for Soviet borders on the side of Russia's detractors, which were often drawn with territories assigned as a form of favoritism, simply because communist leadership in Moscow had better a relationship with the communist leaders of one of the ethnicities in question. That way historic Armenian land of Artsakh was assigned to Azerbaijan for example -- the recent ethnic cleansing outcome of that is well known.
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.
https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/us_atrocities...
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.
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.
It's actually quite an impressive feat of negotiation.
Nor is "US carries out murder campaign in Latin American country for unclear reasons"
> "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'...
If God does exist, then what's the problem exactly?
I suppose all of this assumes that God is infallible, but I imagine God has more information and processing power than the President.
I am not suggesting a theocracy. I doubt God is whispering in anyone's ear today, and humans can still make bad decisions and claim it was God's will. Just a thought exercise.
> humans can still make bad decisions and claim it was God's will.
god could still be infallible at achieving his goals but they still arent the right goals.
Amen to that. Now let's also do the same for all social "sciences".
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.
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.
"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."
I wish that were true, but as somebody from Denmark I can tell you that it isn't
"You forgot Poland."
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...
He should be tried for war crimes for dragging the UK into a war on false pretences.
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...)
So this was purely a political move on the part of Blair to cozy up to the US. Maddening.
(edit: I was wrong. Italy, UK, Spain, Poland, Turkey among others.) Anyway, the point is that there was some sort of coalition.
Upon reflection, the justifications to invade Afghanistan were every bit as flimsy as the justification to invade Iraq.
What Iraq had to with it, i honestly have no idea. Somehow we pivotted from Afghanistan to Iraq
The right move by the US would have been to kill osama the way they ultimately did, through intelligence gathering and a targeted strike.
That seems like a solid casus belli.
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).
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
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)
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...)
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.
No one has ever expected a former President to want to become a VP — a lower office.
I don't really think you're that clever, no offense. Other humans can think of "what ifs" just the same as you.
There's probably a historical record of how they arrived at the language, if you care about that kind of thing.
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.
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.
it is, for better or worse, precedented
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 the sense of "went to congress for a declaration of war". You know, that thing Presidents stopped doing in the early 2000s.
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)
For example I'm not american and mostly on the right, and I think it's doubtful if it's legally justified (how does one legally justify a was anyways? it's extra-judicial almost by definition), but it makes a lot of sense, it aligns with realpolitik and it's morally good for several independent reasons. In particular it has a hugely disproportionate geopolitical impact, and less importantly it can bring a few million people from under a dictatorship.
As an interesting aside, I recently did a quick research on the Grenada invasion, widely spoken of as an embarrassing moment. It went... very well. They came, remove a budding dictatorship right after a coup, left in two months, and Grenada had no ill effects in the years after (both by subjective reporting, and by GDP per capita comparable to neighboring countries). The alternative would have been "do nothing", skip the reputational hit and have yet another hellhole in the region. The number of dictatorships that did well in recent history is exactly two, and neither was socialist (SK and Singapore).
I see we’re now living in a world where many people genuinely don’t even remember the answer to this question.
Roughly, you can legally justify a war if (i) it’s in self defense or (ii) you get a UN Security Council resolution. That’s why GWB tried to get a security council resolution before going into Iraq, as the case for self defense was pretty shaky.
Is it common for actual wars to meet these legal requirements? No. But that’s just because wars are something that generally shouldn’t happen. It’s also not common for murders to meet the requirements on justifiable homicide.
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...
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.
It’s more than lip service.
Ah a textbook case of outgroup homogeneity bias. [1] Your follow up comment about Bernie and AOC is icing on the cake.
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.
Just because it's ignored every time doesn't make this time okay.
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?
Seems on “Illegal” side of things, for whatever that matters in ‘26 huh?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Unilateral action by the US against a souvenir nation should be criticized regardless the nation.
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.
Why not?
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...
On the other hand, if much of the world agrees with you anyway, not bothering with asking the UN might not matter at all.
Decided by whom?
International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of rules, norms, legal customs and standards that states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generally do, obey in their mutual relations. In international relations, actors are simply the individuals and collective entities, such as states, international organizations, and non-state groups, which can make behavioral choices, whether lawful or unlawful. Rules are formal, typically written expectations that outline required behavior, while norms are informal, often unwritten guidelines about appropriate behavior that are shaped by custom and social practice.[1] It establishes norms for states across a broad range of domains, including war and diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights.
They're talking about Venuzela stealing their oil (it's not) and of transporting drugs to the US (while pardoning drug king pins).
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.
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.
> 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.
It's a low bar, and clearly one that the current Venezuelan government clears.
Ah, but when it's the US it's fine. They're the champions of democracy, aren't they?
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.
I think my assumption that the legitimacy of a government rests in the eye of the beholder is pretty reasonable.
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?
>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.
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.
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
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.
>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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
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.
Baloney, you said this:
>"You can't profitably extract Venezuelan crude without US involvement"
Pretty sure given enough efforts could play for others as well.
Not really, given the investment involved in developing the necessary technology in the first place.
Only way this could make sense for any third country would be if it was strategic, but Venezuela is kind of poorly located for that.
It actually terrifies me ...
It's like we're missing intellectual depth of moral backbone where it really matters (and no, I don't mean on Twitter).
I 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.
These things are messy.
If we really want to "promote democracy" so badly, let's start with Saudi Arabia.
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.
But the Russian narrative would be that Viktor Yanukovych was ousted by the Ukraine Parliament in 2014 in what Putin described as a "coup". So Moscow will allege that any president from a future election is illegimate.
Just listened to the Trump press conference, it seems Machado won't be involved in the US-led transition government. He said she is deeply unpopular in Venezuela and it wouldn't work. Conversations are developing between Sec.State Rubio and Venezuela VP Delcy Rodriguez who is Acting President.
This situation feels messier by the minute.
Such self centric view that usually leads to dark places.
I think all that's required here is that Maduro had such bad relationships with everyone both inside and outside the country that there was no one to defend him.
If the UN calls for a vote to condemn the US, it will likely fail even without veto power.
[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...
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.
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.
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.
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
Edit: Twitter? Why would anyone but the far right still be on Twitter these days?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Army_(Colo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
I can however not find any good public opinion for that war.
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.
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.
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.
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?
On the plus side, that's probably good for the odds of success.
On the minus side, they're not paying the bill.
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.
Back in the 90s, my dad told me a quote from someone big in oil:
"Oil is too valuable to burn"
Oil as a fuel will, hopefully, be over soon. 2028 is… I think that's too soon, though it would be good if it was. But oil is useful for a lot more than just fuel, and engineered bacteria synthesising more is probably more like a 2030s thing than a 2028 thing.
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.
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.
Russia is also desperate. And is extracting oil in Venezuela easier than doing it while under Ukrainian bombardment? Good question but we can summarize: extracting oil inside Russia is failing, thanks to Putin's 3-day special military operation ... and they've already had to import fuel twice in the past 6 months, despite how utterly ridiculous that is: the country that out-produced Saudia Arabia when it comes to oil needed to import fuel.
Venezuela is also simply too far from China to be a reliable source of oil.
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
Yulia Tymoshenko (pro-West), she urged her supporters to take to the streets when the pro-Russian candidate won the election. For a long time she wanted to withdraw from the Russian/Ukrainian deal that the Black Sea Fleet could be in Crimea until 202? (can't remember the exact year right now).
When those protests erupted Russia (unofficially) sent forces to protect their interests, Crimea. The conflict then escalated to the invasion.
> Third sentence "we've" always been at war with Eurasia
We as in the West, are always at war with the east. We want a world order where we are at the top of the food chain and we'll stop any attempt to rise. If we're going to prosper the rest of the world has to remain as cheap labor.
Look into any conflict this and the previous century and you'll see the same pattern. It's always been a game och risk between the East and the West.
One interesting thing to look into is which countries along the Russian border are not Nato members. Correlate this to where there has been pro-Western protests and even coup attempts in the last decade.
The world is run by psychopaths and they have most of their populations living in ignorance of how geopolitics actually work. My most important principle in life is to judge "my side" harder. Russia and China don't have to be our enemies, but a country is easier to run if there's an external threat. And that's why Oceania in Orwells' 1984 is always at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia.
It's a big subject and it's difficult to summarize in a comment, that's why I listed a few questions to look into. I can dump facts and events all I want but the best thing one can do is to look into these conflicts themselves and find the patterns. It's always about who's allied with who, and who's extracting the resources. Gas/oil/minerals/power.
We were fine with Saddam (that we put in power in the first place) trying to exterminate the kurds, but mention leaving the petrodollar, oh no you didn't.
What deep currents are those? As a European situated close to Russia, I do not feel that this is the case.
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?
It’s telling that they consider this a possibility. If EU wanted it, they could protect Belgium. But anticipation of business as usual means that whoever distances from such decisions better, will do better.
„Let Ukraine die“ decision was made in 2022, when NATO chose not to engage directly and not to switch to war economy, rapidly scaling production of military equipment and supplies. In NATO vs Russia war, Russia had no chances, but it quickly became Ukraine vs Russia war with token Western support, where Ukraine has no chances in the long term. As for increase in military spending, it’s necessary, but whatever is done, is insufficient. It is barely enough for containment of Russia, and EU needs independent operation in Middle East and Africa, pushing out USA from the region (whatever America does there, always ricocheting on Europe, so they should be denied action without approval of allies)
It is not like citizens of Iran decide to attack Israel or like sponsoring terrorist orgs attacking Israel. I am not sure if Russians freely vote in referendum to attack Ukraine. These decisions are made by despots ruling these countries and then their citizens suffer. Either they die in trenches or suffer economic misery. What for? China too can live without Taiwan. Chinese people do not need to have another island belonging to their country. Only despots wants to have statues raised after them, or write their names in history books, because all other things: Power, Money, Sex they already have.
According to whom?
You should understand that public opinion surveys in authoritarian countries are problematic. In autocracies, people might want to hide their opinions and give socially desirable answers that conform to the official government position for fear of facing repression or deviating from the consensus view.
According to my own relatives, friends, and acquaintances in Russia (where I'm from) – no one supports or ever supported in the beginning the total idiocracy which is happening.
They sure as hell didn't protest much when Russia occupied Crimea and started war in Eastern Ukraine.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Yet this one strange paper keeps getting cited as if it were God's own truth, the holy grail of economics that changes everything that was known before.
Supply restrictions are not binary, though that's how your paper treats them, and they perform none of the causal analysis that would be needed to extend their analysis to the conclusions you are trying to draw.
Here's a random paper with completely different results that agrees with the rest of the field:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009411902...
I remember the last time the "we can't change zoning" folks passed around a paper like the NBER paper you shared, and it was one about transit-oriented-development in Chicago, where allowing small upzonings close didn't change pricing much. It was contra to the vast majority of the literature, covered only a small geographic area with fully adequate housing supply, yet for a few years nobody could suggest doing the obvious zoning reforms without people claiming that Chicago proved that upzoning doesn't change pricing.
From your random paper:
> Fig. 5 shows the event study results for the change in log hedonic rents. In contrast to the housing supply, we find no statistically significant effect of upzoning on rents.
So it looks like your paper actually agrees with mine.
As I've said over and over: we should overhaul zoning for sure. However there is not good evidence that will solve affordability, and there's basically zero evidence that it is the cause of "all" the problems, as you so boldly claimed.
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.
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...
While yes, Congress authorized the "War on Terror", there is very obviously no possible justification for applying that to the case of Venezuela.
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.
> 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;
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.
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 SpoonerYou 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.
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?
War Powers Act of '73.
It's some sort of DOJ operation.
Wait and see.
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.
Isn't that a justification?!
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?
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].
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.
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.
Is it?
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.
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.
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.
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.
>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?
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).
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...
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".
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 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.
All quite successful as well. It’s a shame interventions in Haiti haven’t helped that place much.
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.
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?
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.
I'm surprised Maduro wasn't just killed, and wonder if he might somehow die in US custody. The US will have to make a case in court while the whole world watches. That will be embarrassing I expect.
They extradited him by force because Venezuela wouldn't. They don't have an extradition treaty. If Venezuela doesn't want this to happen again - negotiate a treaty.
The USA doesn't "accept" the ICC because it's not a party to the agreement. There are not-insignificant constitutional problems with the USA being a party. It's because they have such strong civil protections that those issues come up.
The ICC is also complementary - you misunderstand what it is for. If the USA is able to prosecute this guy themselves, you don't need an ICC, because it doesn't apply in this case.
Anyway, your whole comment is just word-sauce.
The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election', 'protecting interests', 'restoring order'. The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades.
The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable."
-Jose Mario
https://bsky.app/profile/cristianfarias.com/post/3mbjlwkmb6c...
The media can blast propaganda all they want about the reasons. It’s just history repeating itself. Never trust american politicans.
If this started a war with China (it wont, but as a thought experiment), wouldn’t american politicans at least want to pretend this was the will of the people? Or are they just so sure they can set the discourse that democracy no longer has a meaning?
It was actually yesterday. Check Argentina and honduras.
The UN sits and is "deeply concerned" about terrible leaders and events all around the world all the time. Leaders of so many EU countries "condemn" people they disagree with. But they can't enforce anything, so it doesn't matter.
I prefer living in a world where a country I'm more aligned with than most can enforce their morality on the world _effectively_, like this. Not just empty words and platitudes and endless talking about "this is against international rule of law" -- none of that is real unless you _enforce_ it.
Venezuelans seem to be celebrating this. Maybe let them speak for themselves for once. And let's not forget, Maduro was indicted under Biden. This isn't a recent invention by the Trump administration.
“Let them speak for themselves” is doing a lot of work here. Which Venezuelans? The ones in Miami and Doral? The ones still in Caracas who’ll live with whatever comes next? The ones who’ll be caught in the crossfire if this destabilizes into civil war?
> I prefer living in a world where a country I’m more aligned with can enforce their morality on the world effectively.
So does everyone. The problem is that China and Russia feel the same way. Rules exist precisely because “let the powerful enforce their values” is a race to the bottom.
You’re comfortable with this because you trust the current enforcer. But frameworks outlast administrations. You’re not just endorsing this action, you’re endorsing the principle that whoever has the most power gets to decide. Hope you still like that principle when the power shifts.
Enforcement without wisdom is just violence with good PR.
Maduro trafficked humans, colluded with terrible gangs, was working with Iran, and had so many opportunities to stop. He was given an olive branch by the current US government and ignored it. He fucked around, now he found out.
If you want Putin to stop harassing Ukraine, you either are willing to go to the FO stage, or your words are wind. Because Russia is. And now, luckily, so is the US, and my way of life as a Norwegian is _so much more_ aligned with the US way of life than China or Russia or a socialist dictatorship like Venezuela was under for decades. I _want_ my allies to be able to enforce my world view _if and when_ our opponents don't respect us.
Edit: The EU is a perfect example of an (unelected) ruling body that plays nice with everyone, diplomacy first, always concerned, never willing to back up anything by force. Your perfect utopia judging by your own words. They _never_ get _anything_ done, and nobody respects them. Especially not its enemies like Russia or China. Spineless bureaucrats that are so far removed from everyday human reality they don't even understand how laws _work_.
I agree that deterrence requires credible force. Defending Ukraine from Russian invasion is enforcement of a principle (sovereignty) against an aggressor. That’s fundamentally different from the US deciding a government is bad and removing it.
The problem isn’t “using force ever.” It’s “using force to overthrow governments we don’t like, without allies, without a plan for what comes next, based on a track record of catastrophic failures.”
Norway’s security depends on NATO credibility, which depends on the US being seen as a rule-enforcing power rather than a rule-breaking one. Every time the US acts unilaterally, it makes it harder to maintain the coalitions that actually protect your way of life. Russia points to Iraq and Libya to justify its own actions. You’re not strengthening the enforcement regime; you’re eroding the legitimacy that makes enforcement possible.
“Fucked around and found out” is a framework for bar fights, not foreign policy.
Yes Russia points to Iraq and Libya, and they may be right. We can point to Georgia and Ukraine, and maybe we are right. At the end of the day, and I'm repeating myself because people forget this constantly, rules and laws don't mean _anything_ unless you're willing to back them up with consequences -- and in this context, military might.
It's just like raising a child. When a child starts kicking you in the shins, you can say "please stop dear" as much as you want, they'll keep doing it until there's consequences. Might not need more than a strategic targeted pinch in the ear that hurts just enough to back up what you should've said: "That hurts, stop it right now."
This way of removing Maduro wasn't excessive force. It was a strategic pinch in the ear.
Countries aren’t children. This framing smuggles in an assumption that the US has legitimate authority over other countries’ governance, which is exactly the point in dispute.
The “strategic pinch” assumes this is the end. Removing Saddam was also supposed to be surgical. The mess comes after. Ask me in five years if this was a pinch or another amputation.
This was a good thing. It gets Venezuela out of Russia and China’s grasp, removes a cruel dictator, and puts the country’s resources to better use for both its people and the West. And as many problems as I have with many facets of the west it sure as hell beats whatever shitholes Russia and China are cooking — they are incompatible with the things I value, and yes I have been to the latter and will never return.
We’ve gone from “Venezuelans are celebrating” to “the EU is spineless bureaucrats.” I think we’re past the original topic of discussion at this point.
insert "always has been" meme
Who gets to decide that this is good, but removing the dictator behind this is bad? Who gets to decide that we must live with this chaos because taking action might not reduce the chaos.
> Today it is 'overthrowing a dictator'; tomorrow it will be 'correcting an election'
Why? Those are two completely different things. We have the capacity to evaluate whether overthrowing a dictator is good or bad on its own terms.
The US has claimed the capacity to make this evaluation before, repeatedly, and has been wrong in ways that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Maybe we're not the ones who should be deciding this unilaterally.
"Oh, but this time is different", you might say. "Maduro is an unambiguous dictator who stole an election, caused 7 million refugees, and was already under indictment. This isn't like Iraq, where we invented WMDs."
The justification was "real and documented" for Libya too (Gaddafi was about to massacre Benghazi, remember?). The result: Libya was rated as the Fragile State Index's "most-worsened" country for the 2010s decade, with ISIS using the country as a hub to coordinate regional violence and Libya becoming the main exit point for migrants trying to get to Europe. The intervention may have also made nuclear nonproliferation harder, since Gaddafi had already given up his nuclear program and then been overthrown anyway. Iran and North Korea both noted that "the Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson".
The issue isn't whether Maduro is bad; he obviously is. It's whether US military intervention produces better outcomes than the alternative. I honestly hope it does this time. I truly hope it's a case of "a broken clock is right twice a day". But am I holding my breath? Absolutely not.
It's a litmus test for conservative value systems since anyone who paid attention in high school social studies and history should have at least passing familiarity with the arguments.
All we can do is try to figure out what the short, medium and long term conesquences of this might be, and consider how to pressure the government to limit the power of the executive branch to do things like this without oversight in the future.
But I do like the idea of imagining how to limit the executive branch. Spitball here - we use sortition, and permission to use force of any kind has to go through a council of say, ten, randomly chosen, representative citizens.
One is a matter of internal policy, the other is a matter of international law and order. One the USA had complete and total control over for decades, the other is a delicate and precarious matter which requires significant planning, oversight, congressional approval, and international engagement.
> Why? Those are two completely different things.
These are different things, yes, but the problem is exactly that: the same methods and justification will be applied in either case, despite deserving totally different treatment. I believe this is the consequence of permitting brazen realpolitik principles into government.
And who decided that? American citizens certainly did not. Biden’s de facto open border policy was very unpopular with most American citizens, and all but guaranteed the reelection of Donald Trump. Besides that, only 60% of the Venezuelans who fled into the United States did so as asylum seekers. It’s estimated there are another ~500,000 here illegally. Who made that bed?
And this ignores the 7+ million people that other countries had to absorb. So even if the US secured its border and stopped providing asylum, we’re ignoring the actual human suffering of the millions of people who were compelled to flee from their lives and homes and families.
So it’s better to ignore the cause and let the problem continue indefinitely out of deference to international bureaucracy? Sorry, we are not Europe.
The sovereign governments who agree to take in refugees. It's not a complicated answer. They get to decide what happens within their sovereignty.
Did the citizens of those countries agree to take in the asylum seekers? What alternative would you suggest when 8 million people flee across the border? In the U.S., there are an estimated 600,000 Venezuelan asylum seekers, and another 400,000 to 500,000 undocumented immigrants. Who in America decided that was good? Was it Americans citizens? No, the Biden administration decided that unilaterally when they stripped the border patrol of the power to do its job. But he’s gone, his disastrous policies led to Trump regaining power, and who gets to decide what’s good now? And weren’t Maduro’s actions, which led 8 million Venezuelans to flee to neighboring countries, not directly impacting those other countries (if not encroaching on their own sovereignty)? If so, how did you get to decide that “sovereignty” gives a dictator impunity to act free of consequences?
the word is "sovereignty", not "democracy". dont confuse "is" with "ought". this discussion is about legality, not ethics.
The people who lived through US regime change have plenty of complaints. We just don't center their voices when it's inconvenient.
1. https://humantraffickingsearch.org/resource/the-open-slave-m...
Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that Trump effectively gave China the green light. Which is not out of the question, but I would find quite surprising.
So while I am by no means pro-Taiwan invasion, I do believe that there is a very significant downside wrt China with this move.
N.B. I'm no military wonk or political strategist, far from it. I just call 'em as i see's 'em.
There's someone else in this thread suggesting that the quid pro quo was exactly that. My brothers in Christ, I am worried.
Hell, Europe can annihilate Russia. Yet they don't do much of anything to Russia.
International Law is more like a boy scout code.
It is not because US isn't a hypocrite. Come on. How naive do we have to be about it this?
Today, I just think that the downside just seems much less. I am just not sure how much the political calculus has changed with this move.
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").
While I agree that "hypocrisy" isn't the right word here, I see where OP is coming from.
At least in American media, the use of passive voice (or as I've heard it called sometimes "exonerative voice") often obfuscates or otherwise provides cover for authorities. For example, "Tower collapses after missile strike" and "Man dies after being struck by bullet during arrest" are both technically true and yet also leave out important context (the country who fired the missile, the person who fired the gun and why).
Even if this headline is appropriate for now, it's not surprising that there should be questions over how it's worded.
It's 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.)
That's like if a waiter gives the appropriate amount of attention to the tables with white guests and disregards tables with minority guests. You can't clutch your pearls and say that it isn't hypocrisy to notice that the waiter treats a given table correctly.
These are the same "serious media outlets" that repeat that same context in their articles over and over again as if readers haven't come anywhere near a news source in over a year.
It's like they are back in school trying to hit that arbitrary 500 word requirement when it's entirely unnecessary. Modern journalism is neither serious nor rigorous.
--Chef Ramsay
No? Oh... just checking.
This is about the cleanest extraterritorial action you can take. A guy probably did some seriously illegal stuff in your country and his, who was probably illegally elected, who probably had people killed.
Why not do this? Why not say to Venezuela, hand him over or we'll take him ourselves?
He's not going to gitmo, he'll have the same due process that every other American gets. Rights Maduro denied to millions. If you asked me to describe "justice" - I have to give this as a good example. He's going to die in prison like Noriega, after a fair trial.
But probably the wise choice is doing nothing publicly. Behind the scenes stop buying US weapon systems.
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-...
[1] https://inside.fifa.com/campaigns/football-unites-the-world/...
…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.
This is why the Nobel Peace Prize has become completely meaningless.
[0] https://just-international.org/articles/assanges-criminal-co...
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.
* Let’s assume the US is going to stabilise Venezuela quickly enough, that the Venezuelan oil will soon flow around, but only to “selected” countries (basically, …. Anyone but China)
* Let’s assume that the US is going to keep the war in Ukraine dragging on (it’s winter anyway), so that Ukraine can continue bombing the Russian oil infrastructure and
Then the outcome would be:
* USA kept happy because cheap oil will flow from Venezuela to USA, which would help keeping gas price down at the pumps, during an election year
* Europe kept obedient, because it’s not guaranteed to be on the list of “selected” countries that will get the cheap oil. Maybe they’ll even strike a “nice” bargain for Groenland, “or else...”
* Ukraine kept busy fighting ; and the “coalition of winning” kept “unable” to put boots on the ground in Ukraine (which they only want to do at the latest possible time, as the first “coalition” soldier to fall will trigger a domino effect leading to either WW3, or humiliation
* Putin kept annoyed, because they can’t sell cheap oil at all without refineries in Venezuela, and with less and less infrastructure in Russia
* China kept annoyed, because they can’t buy cheap oil, or at least not enough to stockpile for a war against USA
* OPEC kept “happy ish”, I guess, because they can hike up prices for whoever is not on the “selected” list of countries approved by Emperor Trump ?
* Eventually, maybe the USA gets the minerals in Ukraine and Groenland, making them double-happy
Of course I’m missing things, this is pure keyboard geopolitics.
But my point is just that I don’t need USA to be completely “crazy” to justify what they’re doing. Just “more willing to take bold risks” then we have been used to. In a sense, that’s what USA voted for in 2024.
Pray the Emperor may ignore you for long enough.
This is a bad assumption. Trump has already promised China their oil on the first day of this nonsense. You don't need to steelman anything. Incompetence does exist in the real world. There's no more reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum. The reality is that there's a fierce competition between superpowers to broaden their spheres of influence and ultimately control the world. There's no future in which a relatively small, resource-rich, and politically dysfunctional country is left to its own devices. The choice is between Russia, China, and the US. Venezuela was more or less one of the Russian client states, and that status quo was maintained through undemocratic means, including mass murder of political opponents using the military gear provided by RU. Now, the US is going to try its hand, probably in a far less brutal way.
The interests of the US imperialists and the Venezuelan people therefore could not be more diametrically opposed.
You clearly did, US is acting out of pure self interest and pretending otherwise.
> Second, you're portraying US as a malicious actor operating in a vacuum
Invading a foreign nation, stealing their resources and imprisoning thier leader is a malicious act, no matter how you slice it.
Just because there are other competitors or good "may" come out of it (so you say), doesn't justify it.
The mental gymnastics by Americans to position themselves as "liberators", while bombing other countries and stealing their territory / resources is stunning.
this is a change to how russia wants the world to work
I though they (the US?) were aiming to be better. Like, the "great" in MAGA wasn't like in "great empire". /s
In other words, the point is that the hypothetical good choice is not actually on the menu.
I will note a similarity to the US political situation with respect to people who, rather than choose the lesser of two evils, opt not to vote entirely.
Nevertheless, that doesn't mean humanity shouldn't strive for better.
In principle, it's morally good to overthrow a dictator in some circumstances. The most obvious example is North Korea - if the US had the ability to transition that country into democracy with little risk of something going wrong, they should obviously do that.
Bold statement considering the history.
win-win: Panama, Grenada.
not win-win: Brazil, El Salvador, Bolivia, Iran, Nicaragua, Chile, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya.
These countries don't well match those on the overthrowing-the-dictator list, which now includes Venezuela.
For Germany we defeated it's government with a crap-ton of help, after Germany had declared war on us. For France we ousted an invading foreign power (again, with a crap ton of help). For the third we were effectively partitioning the country in prep for the proxy war with the Soviet Union.
Most of those examples were failed or problematic countries before and after US intervention. If there's a chance of sucess that's better than doing nothing no?
It's too early to say it's a win-win situation.
There we backed the overthrow of Allende's government and installed Pinochet.
I can't tell if this is a question or an assertion.
If it's a question, Pinochet utilized Nazis to torture people (ex:Colonia Dignidad) and had lots of leftists tortured and disappeared (too many to list here).
If it's an assertion, yeah.
1: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2N77mwUI0pDOBOP6gIknkU?si=9...
And I went through a year or two of binging from the beginning and caught up to present day a year or two ago, but took a break for Jamie Loftus stuff and Knowledge Fight, as well as Some More News and Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff to help balance the bummer lol
Maybe you'll like the Blowback podcast.
There is a _lot_ of KF there, I started that from the beginning and I’m close to episode 300…I shudder to think how much of my last two years has been Alex Jones content…but it’s fascinating. And frustrating that his whole shtick seems so transparent yet too complex to get through to people already wrapped up in it
They wishes are, at best, one possible outcome from a long list of possible outcomes.
The most obvious counter-example is the entire history of unilateral regime change.
Killing the dictator is the easy part.
So let's say they take out Kim jong Un...
Now you have a country where every living being from their birth has been trained that US is bad and their leader is like God on earth.
Your 'little risk of something going wrong' is wishful thinking or naive
It will never happen because Kim has nukes. All these regime changes starting from the Afghaninstan, through Saddam, through Gaddafi....now Maduro they are just teaching strongmen to get nukes as the only way to be safe from U.S. (or others) regime change
Also, paying another country to run your concentration camps is no less evil.
Ice could easily start rounding up citizens soon… I mean “domestic terrorists” which is how anyone opposing Trump could be labeled soon
Overthrowing a dictator most often gets either a new dictator or years of brutal violence and turmoil
Were you in favor of the Iraq war?
USA military should be taking heed of their own country's laws before pretending to be enforcing laws in other countries in order to further enrich their oligarchy.
Sure, remove the NK dictator that USA is partly responsible for being put in to power ... but only with international agreement and a plan for rapid move to have open elections. USA is in no place to do this given the lack of democracy there.
Do you really believe the story about freeing Venezuelan's? You're in for a surprise then when USA rapes them for their oil.
I’m sure a lot of Americans will be celebrating it on the streets. Will that be a win win too?
Oh would you look at that
There's also rampant mismanagement, poor infrastructure, and sanctions affecting the output and outcomes. See also: "resource curse"
In this case, the people of Venezuela are desperate to get rid of their socialist government. It has, predictably and inevitably, led them directly to poverty, starvation, and violent repression.
I have a lot of reservations about the way in which Trump is operating and in this case, the legality of every aspect of how he is doing this operation in Venezuela. Despite all those reservations, this is a rare situation where this action benefits everyone and the world.
The large majority of what I'm seeing is from the other side of the aisle.
Mossadegh Arbenz Allende Goulart Lumunba And Maduro was elected as well though you can go on with it being corrupt if you want.
These are just the ones we directly overthrew who were elected. There are 20 more or so we’ve done so indirectly.
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.
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney (but I'm sure it'll work out this time)
There is a whole lot of directions this can go after we arrest the dictator, but a liberal democracy magically immediately popping isn't on my list. There might be one in the future but there will be a lot of chaos and violence between now and then.
For some reason he thought it would apply to Islamic theocracies and it clearly didn't. Pattern matching Venezuela against Iraq or Afghanistan is an obvious mistake.
(tho not sure how much we can really trust what he says)
Those countries were actually being liberated from a foreign power that had invaded them just a few years prior.
There are very few examples where a foreign nation overthrowing the indigenous government (no matter how despised that government may be) are greeted as liberators, and in those select few instances the sentiment is almost universally short lived.
Let’s assume for a second this is true, and the US is genuinely helping by removing a dictator.
Why Venezuela? Why not one of the other dozens of countries in the world this is the case?
Hint: oil.
So Venezuela has to vote correctly otherwise it will get "freed" again
How convenient.
Check out the capacity of the Alaska pipeline, and how much goes down it each day. Literally the least possible to keep it well maintained.
Why would you buy oil from Canada when you can take oil from Venezuela?
The oil produced in Texas is easy to refine. Some of it is exported as crude, and an approximately equal amount of heavy crude is imported because US refiners have a competitive advantage in refining it. It is not that US refiners cannot refine Texas crude: they make more money refining the heavy stuff or stuff with a high load of contaminants.
>Why would you buy oil from Canada when you can take oil from Venezuela?
But the US is not going to take it, just like they never took oil from Iraq after conquering that country. The value of all the oil produced worldwide in 2023 was about $1.7 trillion. Of course it cost a lot of money to extract the oil. That year the IRS collected over $4.7 trillion in tax revenue. The US government has easier ways of getting money than invading oil-rich countries.
The US does not want any country or economy in the Western Hemisphere to be stragically dependent on Russia or China, so kicking Chinese or Russians out of the oil industry in Venezuela might have been one goal of the current military action.
Don’t forget I mentioned other resources too. Venezuela has more than oil.
I think you are trying to force an incorrect simplistic narrative on the situation. Obtaining natural resources is not an important motivation for US military action with the possible exception of US intervention in the Persian Gulf during the Cold War (and even there I see no evidence that the US was trying to get out of paying the going international rate for the oil as opposed to merely ensuring that willing sellers in the Gulf could continue to transport their oil over the ocean). Venezuela's cooperation with Moscow and Beijing is a much more likely motivation, i.e., US national security.
If that’s the case why pootin got a red carpet in Alaska instead of orange jumpsuit?
Why if ruzzia is such a “threat to national security”, current government of “no new wars” doesn’t help Ukraine?
Don’t forget that eliminating (or reducing its influence to nothing) ruzzia - would hurt China immensely. Two birds with one stone and all… also with a benefit of a true legitimacy of helping Ukraine and destroying ruzzian totalitarianism.
What oil was stolen? Whose oil was stolen?
That doesn't rub well to the ruthless capitalist ideals of America. That's the reason why the US has destabilized the region again and again.
It's much easier and cheaper to extract resources from a balkanized region.
It will be interesting to observe how the aftermath unfolds. If the US succeeds in installing a gov't which gains some level of legitimacy, perhaps by stoking the economy, then this will be a significant win for the US. If not, it will be a strong "the US is the newish sick man" signal.
That said, it's one thing to pull this in Venezuela, another thing to annex Greenland.
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.” ― George Orwell
It was a time when you could walk up to the gate in an airport before the TSA. A lot of younger people don't realize that's how it actually was. They think it's one of those things made up for movies.
Houses were cheap. Rent was cheap. Cars were cheap. Gas was cheap. Food was cheap. A friend of mine had college buddies who shared a 4 bedroom house in Iowa for $175/month. Not each. Total. I rented a 2 bedroom apartment close to a train and the city center for a little over $200/month. I lived as a student just fine on $200/week (in 1995), including paying for rent. My degree cost me about $10,000.
The other side of that was the Cold War when we lived under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. I think this was generationally traumatic to people who grew up in the 50s (way before my time) but by the 80s? It wwas like background noise.
There was a lot of optimism with the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern Union. On reflection, much later, I think this was terrible for the world. When the USSR existed as a counter to the US, the US was forced to at least do something for its citizens. The Red Scare destroyed collectivism and the US does things like the War on Terror now and, well, capturing the Venezuelan president, with complete impunity. They're open about it too: it's for oil. A handful of billionaires will get richer as a result of this.
The Big Lebowski is, to me, the most 90s movie of all time and it just gets better with age. Oh, the output of HOllywood in general was amazing in the 1990s. At that time I used to go see movies once or even twice a week. There was always something good on. Goodfellas and Terminator 2 spring to mind.
There just seemed to be more hope then. Now? I feel for anyone who was born after 2000. Crippled with debt with limited prospects of any kind of security. It's just so different to how it was.
EDIT: qualified that the $200/week figure was in 1995, not the 1980s. That's like $430 in today's money by the same inflation calculator.
Lately I was thinking if it was only me or my fellow Poles remembering 90s as times of freedom and hope.
Thanks for confirming it is much wider experience and memory.
but let's not forget the war in Yugoslavia – even in the best of times there were wars.
Wasnt US involved in Iraq and Bosnia? ( I dont want to google it)
> When the USSR existed as a counter to the US
The new counter is China, the US seems to be taking AI seriously, they dont want China to win.
5 bedroom home currently goes for about $2400 / month on Zillow.
I have to think part of the issue is that people no longer want to live in Iowa / LCOL and now prefer NYC / HCOL.
Not a great song, but one that expresses the zeitgeist in a pretty succinct way.
We thought that we were at the cusp of a new era... one where we could overcome the injustices of the past and author a future based on the best version of ourselves.
In the end, Gen X never even got a chance to start; we watched from the sidelines as geriatric Boomers clung (and still cling) to power -- leaving less and less of that (ever more naive) dream behind.
"Right here, right now,
there's no other place I'd rather be.
Right here, right now,
watching the world wake up from history."
The song hasn't aged well & has become a cloy reminder of that time and what we didn't become.
"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
“Big Brother is Watching You.”
That's the exact opposite of capitalism.
Read any good book about history of economic theory and thought, you will see that the crap that people talk about on tv and the internet isn't even near with what actual academics study.
Prof. Philips P Obrien's analysis is an interesting one, also highlighting Cuba's reliance on Venezuelan oil, which complicates the situation further.
John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
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...
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...
If you're going to flaunt nerd speak then just say JSOC.
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/venezuela-us-military-s...
Congress practically matters when significant mobilization, boots on the ground, money, with high likelihood of many lives lost. Iraq. Not random one-off adventures.
Otherwise modern Presidents have done this thing for decades.
I think it’s more an effective argument to question this as a policy. As in “is there a plan for what comes next”. Congress should be holding hearings and performing oversight to understand whether theres actually a plan and to allow debate.
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 ?
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.
Comedy is becoming reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgspkxfkS4k
The deal is admittedly shakey, but so is most things the US is involved in these days.
But hey, if making up a bogus threat is what it takes to sell guns…
The Australians made China blink - I don't have any worries about them.
If that was the goal he would put González in charge and not go after oil and minerals.
If you're being honest, though, you would admit that was never the goal.
Edit, for the benefit of all: /s
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.
Yes, the recreational wars were dumb, wrong, illegal and just all around bad ideas.
But there was a solid attempt at giving them legitimacy. This matters.
But the fact that it had to be sold was probably a good thing.
Based on the speech he just staggered through he genuinely believes he’s emperor of the west. “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.”
Wonder who we will we bomb tonight. Mexico? El Salvador? New York?
The brain-rot seeping from this comment.
The guy committed crimes in Venezuela and USA. Now he's going to be tried for him. They could have just killed him - they didn't. He will be tried and spend the rest of his life in prison.
And for cleanly executing that we have people talking about an emperor and disbanded congress.
If you're asking "why is it legal", that's a somewhat separate question, but the short answer is that the Congress has long abdicated this responsibility and has not sought to reassert it. Basically, they're OK with it, and there's no one else in power in the US who will be upset about the US successfully arresting Maduro.
Decades and decades of Congress generally refusing to do their job and also refusing to counter the ever-larger expansion of the Executive branch's assumed authority.
You might also note that the last time the US has declared war was WWII. [0] Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan? Those weren't wars, they were "military actions", "military interventions", or "international police actions". [1]
[0] <https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/declarations-...>
[1] See the "The Korean War" section here: <https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11236>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Resolution#Provisio...
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/0...
The actual reason is that the Supreme Court has made Trump a dictator and Congress has abdicated any responsibility on checking the power of the president.
The people behind this don't call Trump a dictator. They couch it in softer, more legalistic language. It's called the unitary executive theory [2].
FWIW (not much), you can say that this kind of thing isn't unprecedented for a US President. I'm referring specifically to Panama's General Manual Noriega [3].
[1]: https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
You misunderstand unitary executive theory. It's not completely settled law but most of it is and requires your own interpretation of Vesting - but that has nothing to do with what happened in Venezuela so I'm not sure why you bring this up.
Unitary executive is about executive power. Go read some opinions about it, even the 5-4 opinions don't have much daylight between them. If you can cite AUMF you can read judicial review of the executive. It is so annoying to have taken the time to read these things and then come across some nitwit saying unitary executive is a softer way of saying dictator. Go say that in a law school.
a unitary executive cant make new laws, but a dictator can
If the president oversteps their supposed authority and those polices or executive orders get enforced without a legal basis and the courts and the legislature decline or fail to rein in the president, then they're effectively making new law.
There is no legal basis or even a hint of presidential immunity in the Constitution yet here we are. The Supreme Court is fully behind this unitary executive theory, at least when it comes to Trump, and they've invented all sorts of "doctrines" to contort their way into the constitutionality of various actions such as the major questions doctrine (which allows SCOTUS to ignore the executive and the legislative branches if they decide the language wasn't clear enough to their liking) and the "history and traditions" test.
SCOTUS has ruled from the emergency or shadow docket to empower the president such that there's no even a ruling to to go over in some cases.
These judges like to maintain this air of legitimacy so they can't let everything through. They occasionally rebuff the president but not in a way that's precedent setting. Instead they'll simply deny standing, meaning the plaintiff doesn't have the right to sue. So they're not ruling against the president on the merits (generally) so the administration is free to challenge again if they find some novel standing to intervene.
Watch this whenever the Supreme Court rules against the administration and see if it's because of standing. More often than not it is.
The Supreme Court is probably the worst in our history, even worse than the 1850s Supreme Court that gave us such gems as Dred Scott. There is very little pretense that they aren't ideologues acting for their political interest.
And that's how we get to a president who is effectively writing new laws. Like a dictator.
The Zen master replies, "We'll see".
The boy falls while riding the horse, breaks his leg. Villagers say, "How terrible!"
The master says, "We'll see".
War comes, all young men are drafted, but the boy is spared due to his leg. Villagers say, "How lucky!"
The master says, "We'll see".
China loses an ally and influence so they decide to flip the table? OK Buddy.
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.
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.
And will the results be honored?
Right now it’s even money it won’t.
You can see it on every popular internet thread
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)
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.
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.
Are you confusing protest and terrorism?
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/595299071/president-trump-con...
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.)
Chomsky, as a linguist, was probably better equipped to understand the implications of emergent behavior than more mainstream political scientists.
Plus, the more of a splash, the more Epstein stays out of the news.
No doubt the regime will come up with a "special military operation" equivalent to avoid calling it what it is.
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.)
[0] https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/8...
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-oil-reser...
And where is the legend? What do the colours mean? Why are Libya and China the same colour?
..i thought it unclear that Venezuela was biggest from the graphic too, had to really stare at it to figure it out.
it seems the colors are continents.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/05775132.2019.16...
> This article analyzes the consequences of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S. government since August of 2017. The authors find that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population. The sanctions reduced the public’s caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They made it nearly impossible to stabilize Venezuela’s economic crisis. These impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-undernouris...
Nothing Trump has done to Venezuela was justified or sensible. I just want to clarify that the nation's dysfunction does not seem to be primarily due US activity. (Maybe if we wait a little bit, it will be!)
Honestly, this is disgusting. Trump is personally renting and selling out America for personal profit. To Israel and now a cadre of South Floridians. He is selling passports and pardons and letting countries have trade deals or bases. I simply do not understand how everyone with power is letting this happen. This is not even ideological. The country is in recession and we are attached to 3 wars. WTF IS HAPPENING?
Maybe. Combating communism in south america is certainly a noble goal. Maduro is one of many communists that plague this region and his fall will undoubtedly contribute to significant power shifts in south american politics.
But it's not Marco Rubio who holds the power, it's Donald Trump. And Trump absolutely will deal with communists if it's profitable for him and/or the USA. His dealings with Brazil prove it. He embarrassed not only Rubio but various other staff and arguably his entire administration by leveraging tariffs and Magnitsky sanctions into some kind of deal with the communist brazilian president.
Trump could not care less about communism in south america. His past discourse on the matter of Venezuela is entirely focused on oil. He's been talking about seizing the resources for years. It's also easy to see how doing so benefits him and his country greatly.
I was hoping that he'd also end up unwittingly fighting the communists and drug gangs over the course of his war so that south america as a whole might at least reap some benefit but now it looks like even that was too much to hope for.
So please get rid of the regime, the majority of the country wants to go back to democracy.
I can only hope there's a plan for what happens in Venezuela now. But I'm certain that as long as it isn't a protracted war with millions dead, it is better for everyone than what's going on in Ukraine.
You really want to stop unnecessary wars, make the leaders dig the latrines for any forces they want to send off to fight.
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.
One month after the Berlin Wall fell the US invaded Panama to kidnap its leader so he could stand trial in the US on drug trafficking charges [1], an almost identical situation to this one.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...
There's a wider picture involved here which has more global leaders helping to paint that picture with blood and darkness.
I do fear for the US domestic situation, which has been deteriorating in increasingly alarming ways, but lawless aggression against Latin America is not new.
- USSR vs. Afghanistan.
- The chaos after the collapse of the USSR
- Russia vs. Chechnya
- US interventions South America
- US in Somalia
- The Gulf War
How much of our upbringing was our limited media exposure?
- Yugoslav Wars (1991-1999)
- The Troubles
- Ethiopian Civil War (1974 - 1991)
- Ugandan Bush War (1981-1986)
- Angolan Civil War (1975 - 2002)
- Mozambican Civil War (1977 - 1992)
- Second Sudanese Civil War (1983 - 2005)
- Rwandan Civil War and Genocide (1990 -1994)
- First Congo War (1996 - 1997)
- Second Congo War (began 1998)
- Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 - 2009)
- Salvadoran Civil War (1980 -1992)
- Guatemalan Civil War (1960 - 1996)
- Nicaraguan Contra War (1981 - 1990)
- Iran–Iraq War (1980 -1988)
- Lebanese Civil War (1975 - 1990)
- Israeli–Palestinian First Intifada (1987 - 1993)Now we have only the bads but none of the goods.
Also, there's probably correlation between wealth inequality and war. Wealth inequality leads to radical leaders which can lead to wars.
Yes, millions of people in the poorest nations have been raised out of absent poverty since, but beyond that, wealth has flowed to the top 1% any country you look at (check median wealth ownership in the US, basically plummeted for the average Joe since the mid 80s), the environment has gone to shit and the generational promise that the children will have it better than their parents has gone over board with asset prices ballooning.
I‘m right there with you, the societal promise of meritocracy and the middle class was broken in the early 90s and so far there is no replacement in sight.
That... seems like something that shouldn't just be waved by.
And if you include China and India it's more like hundreds of millions. Like, if you think about the people of the world and not just "the West" the standard of living since the time Causescu was overthrown has increased dramatically.
What is at work is that you cannot treat it like electrical charges and say that the sum is neutral (and even there distance matters, such a statement would only be within a very small distance).
What happens elsewhere is elsewhere. If you get sick, do you want to be sent home because the public health statistically educated doctor tells you that overall health has increased worldwide (just using it as an example, I make no statement about actual worldwide health)?
There is this public discussion phenomenon that in every discussion somebody will inevitably use such a "neutralization" method to "balance" somebody's statement. I find this less than helpful for any discussion.
If we talk about too few good bakeries in the state of Idaho, there is no point in saying that New York has more than enough of them.
Similarly bad discussion phenomena: We cannot even talk about problem X, never mind do anything about it, as long as completely unrelated problem Z exists elsewhere. Or, we should not spend money on X as long as there is Z.
It's like some people assume a Single Global Lock mechanism exists, and the lock is set whenever somebody somewhere attempts to deal with some problem, preventing others from doing anything about theirs.
That was less of a "promise" than a bait-and-switch, and we're in the switch part.
We didn't start the fire, it was always burning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn't_Start_the_Fire#Histo...
Nothing happened in the 50s.
The first thing to learn from a well-examined life and study of history is that we must always be vigilant and active to protect progress and human betterment.
The second thing to learn from recent history is that transnational petroleum interests will not quietly and meekly surrender their control, influence and interests.
As for the rest of the us, I suppose now we should sanction the US
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.
Moreover, it's fascinating how both sides of America's political aisle refuse to see anything but the best in Apple. To liberals, Apple is a shining beacon of innovation and social justice that exercises their private cudgel to bring digital offenders in-line. To conservatives, Apple is a stalwart defender of private capital and the halcyon of privacy and free speech for the common man. Neither one can decipher the fact that they've been duped, instead they both hold onto the belief that Apple will fully embrace their politics and vindicate their faith.
I doubt you'll ever find anything against Trump in the Epstein files, as Biden had those files and would have used such against Trump.
Given that birthday note I'm sure there are more records somewhere.
1 - https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+times+does+trump+co...
Trump's name would be coming up the same amount of times with every relevant escort agency owner in NYC and West Palm Beach had they received the same scrutiny from law enforcement agencies as Mr. Epstein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_of_Donald_Trump_a...
Just squeezing those eyes closed as far as they go.
Well, it's hard to know whether it's true
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53787-scant-ameri...
This does not apply to opinion questions that show huge differences (not single digit percentage point differences), though there validity, not reliability is a bigger concern, especially since there exists no voting benchmark you can measure against.
Still: I think it’s awfully convenient to just wholly discount actual empirical evidence whenever you feel like it because it might not be perfect. Why exactly do you think your gut feeling is better?
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.
The people that voted for the current president tend to support whatever he tells them to support, so I don't think that's true.
No matter how fucked up any country can be, US president has no right to bomb or terrorize other countries.
Just look at how often relevant stories get suppressed.
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.
Yeah, what happens next is kind of the sticky part. That and "unintended consequences".
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.
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.
Ignoring the fact that we have been using these examples for decades now as reasoning for going to war, these were all done after years of war. What makes you so convinced that this is "over" and the Venezuelean people can live happily ever after? History says it's far from over.
The 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.
let me get this clear: you think this administration is somehow simultaneously raiding and deporting people to a place they are so empathetic to the refugee and asylum claim of that they are bombing it for humanity while also rejecting the asylum claims?
The administration that is pardoning major drug traffickers but bombs boats on a theory of importing a drug that they do not make. Then they destroy all the evidence that could support their claim?
This has nothing to do with the fact that this country has more proven oil than Saudi Arabia? Or their chosen successor María Corina Machado wants to privatize oil on day 1, that's just you know, random noise?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oi...
Iran is oil. Somalia is oil. Venezuela is oil. That bizarre Christmas strike in Nigeria a few days ago? oil.
When Trump said in Nov that killing Khashoggi wasn't a problem to MBS, his weird idea about making Canada the 51st state...
That Greenland thing? About reversing this ... https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/greenlan...
You can solve all Trump foreign policy mysteries with one weird trick.
People like to say "no, this is all very nuanced". I mean come on... Is Trump quoting Frantz Fanon and Hedley Bull? I mean what planet do you live on. This is a man with a golden toilet that eats at mcdonalds.
He's a crude man.
Because the world sees your government as a bully.
I mean I'd like to imagine that expats see through it but actually maybe they are less likely since they took great sacrifice to come to the US while I am merely an american because of the geography of my birth.
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.
It's way too early to tell this. I mean, hopefully yes, but it's way, way too early to tell.
It didn't turn out well. I hope this one turns out better.
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.
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.
> 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.
Admittedly I was raised Catholic and it was pretty much the opposite of that. I’m not holding to any one point I guess. I just feel like I “know” regardless of outcome, the current administration did what they did for all the wrong reasons.
Regardless I'm curious as to what is inherently immoral in arresting a dictator?
American anti human parasites are curse of this planet.
1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed.
2. These people quietly oust Maduro in the middle of the night.
3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
4. The US bombs some bases, providing plausible deniability to Venezuelan military. This was coordinated and the Venezuelans abandoned these sites ahead of time.
5. There is still stability because most of the people in charge are still there. Only the illegitimate president is gone. Venezuela can have a real election now.
Can US administration claim a domestic election (like the upcoming 2026 mid-terms) was stolen and… do stuff?
> 3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes.
Concern:
> This argument means that any time a president wants to invade a country "legally," he just has to get his DOJ to indict the country's leader. It makes Congress' power to declare war totally meaningless.(
* https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/2007450814097305734#m
A more direct comparison would be if Mexico decided Trump's lies about the 2020 US election were correct and kidnapped Joe Biden and his wife.
You cant condone these actions and also claim to believe in the rule of law...
With enough guns, anything is possible.
1. Trump lies more than he tells the truth. What that means is that when this administration makes a claim, we must assume it is a lie, and then try to prove it's not a lie. Yes, this is the opposite of how it usually is and no, there is no other reasonable way to go about it.
2. Venezuela has the largest amount of oil reserves in the world.
3. The oil Venezuela has is crude oil, which the US is adept at extracting.
4. There has been past tension between Venezuela and US oil companies, so I think we can all see where this is going.
5. Most US-backed coups are done for reasons outside of official statements. Usually economic and political control reasons.
6. Therefore, the most reasonable answer is that this was done for economic (oil) and political control reasons.
Assuming the US wants and will allow that. Which isn’t at all clear, given the desire to get a hold of Venezuelan oil.
they have already signaled that this is not what will be allowed to happen
The US goal is deprive China of access to Venezuelan oil. China is ~80% of all Venezuelan oil exports (legal or illegal). Venezuela represents a very large potential supply of oil for China, for the next 30-50 years (a time after which oil probably won't matter very much to China).
Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil. China & India mostly have got that output. The US spent trillions of dollars, used its super power military to fully invade and occupy Iraq, and then did not take its oil. Read that again if anybody still feels brainwashed from the false campaign that endlessly proclaimed the US invasion of Iraq was to Steal The Oil.
Iraq was about the great power conflict with Russia across the Middle East (see: Syria, Libya, etc).
Venezuela is about the great power conflict with China and controlling what the US considers its backyard.
First, our oil tends to be better for making gasoline but worse did asphalt or diesel, so there is a market for Venezuelan oil replacing Alberta’s.
Second, this is what the man himself has been talking about. He spent weeks going on about the nationalization in the 70s–and note how much of his worldview is stuck half a century ago when he was young—and in the first interview today he said this: “We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave.”
There are reasonable arguments about how much this is really worth but one thing we’ve learned is that he doesn’t do subterfuge or misdirection well. If he’s talking about making the world safe for Exxon, I’d bet that he believes it.
Actually it's just the exact opposite. The US might be the biggest oil producer, but it still imports 60% of its oil that it uses from Canada. Why is that? Apparently because US infrastructure was built for heavy oil, not the light version the US produces.
Well, well, well ... It just so happens that Venezuela sits on the worlds largest repository of heavy oil.
Two fun facts: 1) the US is now the largest producer of crude oil on the planet and 2) the US exports about 4 mil bbs of oil per day. Venezuela is a distant #18 at around 1 mil bbls/day
And lastly, pretty much anything you can distil from heavy crude, you can also distil from light crude, just less of it (by volume). There's a reason tar, asphalt and such is so cheap, it's made from the distillation waste products.
Almost double that of Saudi-Arabia, roughly 20 times that of Venezuela
Imported heavy crude rose from 12% 50 years ago to 70% today.
> pretty much anything you can distil from heavy crude, you can also distil from light crude
You can, but at what cost and where? The largest raffineries are apparently built for heavy crude and you can’t just retrofit them to handle light crude.
> with about 2/3 of imports coming from Canada
There are just two other countries equipped with large enough resources to compete for that market share: Russia and Venezuela
> Trump also said he believes that American companies will be “heavily involved” in rebuilding Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt
Considering this was one of his first statements on what happened, I think it’s a clear signal for what his priorities are.
We are straight back to the Reagan years of toppling regimes for our own resource interests. There is no way we did this out of the kindness of our hearts or because we believe in open, free elections. We have clear material interests and he’s not even trying to hide it.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy (/s obviously) but let’s not pretend this was some sort of magnanimous gesture or that it shouldn’t be deeply concerning to their neighbors that the US has no problem attacking a sovereign nation’s capital city and making off with a country’s leader + family when we’re not even at war.
Again I am not losing sleep for Maduro specifically but the way this was handled is not something that should be simply glossed over because of who he was and how he came to power, and we should definitely not pretend “the US has no use for Venezuelan oil.”
Sure, can you extend that idea to China v Taiwan?
"Taiwan is about the great power conflict with US and controlling what the China considers its backyard."
In short, great-power competition is mostly zero-sum, and intuitions derived from relations between individuals in a civilized society mostly do not apply.
Venezuela owes those companies several billion in 1976 dollars, money they have not repaid. The US will now likely use their oil as collateral to force them to pay. No I am not dumb enough to think they will stop only there or do this in a justifiable way, but I would assert, when someone steals something from you, you have the right to use force to get it back, even if the method just used is not the right one.
(to be clear here, living person Maduro was in an active conspiracy with the [at the time] living person Chavez who seized those assets* and Maduro knowingly and intentionally used the stolen assets of currently living shareholders of Exxon and and Gulf oil, this isn't even remotely analogous to some nebulous group of white people paying people who look like they might have been slaves but have never been slaves for the sins of other dead people who happened to be the same skin color who kept slaves)
If you mean just grabbing some random person who looks like a former slaveholder and then going after them for reparations to someone who happens to look like they might have been a slave if born in another time, then no that doesn't make sense. In fact most white people that are here probably can trace their lineage to the post civil war pre-WWII mass immigration, they don't even have a family lineage or personal inheritance lineage to slave holders.
>, especially if it's applied consistently to all past actions (cough slavery) reply
Also of note here, it was applied against slaveholders in a literal civil war where a notable portion of them were killed, although it by no means made up for what happened nor was it even the sole reason for the war. So yes the US government has done far more against slaveholders than they have against the Maduro/Chavez regime.
* Yes it happened before Maduro was in the Chavez regime, but he wittingly and knowingly later entered the conspiracy and used the stolen assets of living people as an ongoing continuation of the theft.
Can we send troops down there and just starting kill people until they pay us? Torture them maybe? Start spraying agent orange?
If someone steals something from me, I'm justified in beating them up, threatening their family, maybe even burning their house down until I get what I want, 50 years later?
Where do you draw the line between justified and unjustified when it comes to "not the right [method]"?
--------
Re: taxation is theft argument below regarding taxpayer monies used for justice (my comments throttled so I can't reply in thread)
Didn't say American taxpayers should have to help. I fully agree any self-help should be fully funded by the victim and not the taxpayers. I completely agree with your argument; simultaneously I'd argue they do have the right to fund an operation to seize their assets. I stated the US did this for this reason; I'd also agree if someone say steals my bike it is theft to try and use taxpayer funds to use the police to get it back, but I'd still acknowledge why the police did it and acknowledge the right of the person with the stolen bike to get it back even though I might not acknowledge they've done it in the right way.
>Your previous comment was saying that the US has the right to use force to get back assets that Venezuela seized
I did not. I said the person that has them seized has the right to get them back. You assumed I meant I supported the US doing it via violence of forcing taxpayers to do it.
The general populace is far more agreeable to theft of the general populace for justice of theft than you or I, though, our arguments fall completely flat in the face of that of an argument for a democratic republic. Generally taxation is considered an acceptable for the securement of the most basic tenants of life, liberty, and property under such political ideology.
----------
>Huh? You commented on an American military operation by saying that If someone steals from you then you have the right to use force to retrieve it.
Yes I commented that because that is the rational used why the US did it; they are wrongly doing proxy by justice under a principle that could be right if done correctly. I agreed with the underlying rational but not the US forces doing it by proxy via taxpayer expense. However under the popular argument that taxation isn't theft I think your argument falls flat.
I did not say the US had the right to retrieve it via violence against innocents, in fact I said exactly what you said, the person that has it done has the right to retrieve it, not that you could force someone else to do it at gunpoint as the US has done to its citizens.
I explicitly said * even if the method just used is not the right one* to reflect my agreement with your argument, but I did not say your argument out loud, because it is deeply unpopular and it would just get my comment ignored/flagged because that has happened everytime I've used your hardcore-libertarian type logic.
>Was that just a total non sequitur? Were you just saying the oil companies have the right to use force, unrelated to the US military, on a comment thread that is specifically about the US using military force?
It is not at all unrelated that the oil companies wanted something (that might be moral, if done correctly) and then the US went on to do something they wanted in an immoral way, have you been paying attention at all to politics in the US for the past 30+ years? It's baffling you could even come up with this conclusion.
Of course even if they limited the mission to getting back Exxon assets, they will be damned either way. Either for using private mercs at their own expense, people will say they're operating outside the law. If they use the sovereign state, then people will argue the taxation is theft argument about using military assets for misplaced justice and argue they should have just used mercs. They really cannot win either way.
I completely agree that this is happening regardless of what I think and all we can really do is consider how we got here. But that wasn’t at all the comment I was replying to.
> Didn't say American taxpayers should have to help. I fully agree any self-help should be fully funded by the victim and not the taxpayers. I completely agree with your argument; simultaneously I'd argue they do have the right to fund an operation to seize their assets.
Huh? You commented on an American military operation by saying that if someone steals from you then you have the right to use force to retrieve it.
Was that just a total non sequitur? Were you just saying the oil companies have the right to use force, unrelated to the US military, on a comment thread that is specifically about the US using military force?
I think the crux of your difficulty of understanding is not understanding the difference between a victim being able to fight back, a victim being able to fight back with the assistance of a willing proxy, and the wrongness to force 3rd parties to pay.
It is possible that Exxon has the right to fight back. And that Exxon can use a mercenary force to effect that effort. It is possible that the US military is a mercenary force. The wrong part would be that the mercenary force forced you to pay. Not that Exxon might get justice via proxy.
It can be simultaneously true that a mercenary force could act justly, while also being true they did not act justly, in part because they also used violence against uninvolved 3rd parties (in this case, taxation against you and perhaps also violence against some uninvolved Venezuelans). I think that is the case here.
In this particular, concrete event I believe Exxon had the right as a victim to take back their assets, and I believe that the funding of the US military by taxes is immoral, the very act of the people doing so is moral only so far as it does not affect innocent third parties such as yourself or go beyond compensation for the theft. I think I have been pretty clear about this, that in the concrete I think it's simultaneously true that recovery is justified but the funding method was not.
I do believe the US military actions insofar as they recover stolen property is justified, but not the funding mechanism by which they've done so. I'm not sure why this is hard to understand -- if say the police recover your stolen bicycle I can remark the police had a right to go get it even though the police have done it in the wrong way by using violence to tax 3rd parties to go get it. In this case two results -- the victim by proxy rightly recovered the stolen property but also wrongly used violence against third parties to achieve it, both simultaneously true. You are trying to muddy things by suggesting if I agree with one I must agree with the other.
Suffice to say I don’t agree with this expanded version in all cases, especially when it’s the military doing it.
Whether you do anything wrong to the real owner very much depends on the intent and actions taken after you take it from the thief. If the owner asked you to take it, then well you have clearly done nothing wrong. If the owner did not ask you, then it depends on your intent and your immediate disposition to the owner. If you did not intend to deprive the owner of the property from enjoying the property for any additional time, and you took all reasonable actions to return it immediately, then it definitely cannot be theft against the thief nor the owner. Therefore it is at the very least not wrong, and probably right.
I do very much doubt though that the US military will simply take the assets, immediately return them to Exxon et al, and that will be that. And the drug and machine gun charges against Maduro, are certainly not defensible in my opinion.
Someone should tell Trump that because he’s not been remotely subtle about his thought process.
> Note that the US also did not take Iraq's oil
That doesn’t mean there was no desire to take that oil. And there very transparently was. Looking at the end result and working backwards is faulty thinking. The US disastrously mismanaged Iraq. They certainly didn’t intend to.
Maybe Trump just believes it'll be a good lie for his target demographic, because it certainly is a lie.
Check Chevron's stock on Monday to see if you're right. My prediction: It will be significantly up, showing that the action benefited them.
Never in the past 60 years has it been more clear from observing the current US administration in its international "relations" and its domestic abuses that there is no charitable interpretation.
None of that matters.
There was no declaration of war powers from Congress, this entire operation is a flagrant violation of US and international law.
And, to point 1, this operation was carried out by a US President who attempted to violently overthrow the US government to avoid ceding power, which really puts a damper on point 1 I think.
The Venezuelan people voted for regime change. Maduro is the one who acted unilaterally by stealing power.
Only if the right candidate wins.
Fox News: What do you see as the future of Venezuela’s oil industry?
Trump: Well, I see that we’re going to be very strongly involved in it. That’s all I can say. We have the greatest oil companies in the world—the biggest, the greatest—and we’re going to be very much involved in it.
What's the point of this? Surely there's no deniability if the bases were abandoned?
We're powerless. Trump isn't.
The discussion should be about accountability of his actions first. When he can actually be made accountable then steelmanning and debating his actions in general can come into play because then it will actually mean something.
Also, raise hell at your law makers who thought it was a good idea for Congress to give sweeping powers to the executive in the first place.
But why? Why not stick with the most probable explanation? The idea that Trump's primary goal is to restore democracy in Venezuela is beyond absurd.
I don't doubt that there were people in the Venezuelan govt who want Maduro gone and would be happy for a US-backed coup and collaborated with the US (i.e., provided intel, etc.)
But it's still a foreign coup and military-backed regime change, no matter how you or Trump spin it.
The lesson to the world continues to be: if you're big and powerful, you can do whatever the f you want in other countries to ensure they are "on your side" and to gain access to their natural resources.
EDIT: Instead of just downvoting, tell me how I'm wrong.
With this USA is essentially saying that "see I can just walk into your home and no one will stop me, so better do as I say".
I will be surprised if USA tries to land ground troops into that country. Running the country, I suspect, will be extremely ugly for USA. OTOH, if they can just coerce the existing government into giving them exactly what they want, then it would certainly be mission accomplished.
It's all a huge gamble, and will depend on how obstinate the Venezuelan setup is.
How do you run a country without invading it or at least having a puppet regime already in place?
Is this US administration establishing itself as the effective dictator of Venezuela indefinitely? What does running that country have to look like directed by the US president and what changes will they make to restrict the position to prepare it for transition? Is the plan to make no changes to the position and then forever make a mockery of their elections by only letting people run in the future who suite US interests? It feels like this situation has the potential to turn into a colonial-like relationship always under threat of direct US military intervention.
1. Don't acknowledge the problem directly.
2. Take over Venezuela's GDP by benevolent force or whatever he is calling it.
3. Pay off the debt interest with new funding windfall.
4. Profit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHXW1vOBI4
From a few days ago, "The Crisis in Venezuela. Explained." It's from Warfronts, one of Simon Whistler's projects. If you're looking for bias, he is neither American nor lives in the US.
US flexing its muscles and showing that it's in charge of its "backyard", just as it always has been.
Please don't insult our intelligence with comments about how this is about justice, drugs, or democracy. I've lived long enough to have seen this movie many times.
One of my friends is my motorcycle mechanic, met him in 2015 when I bought my first KTM, still my mechanic to this day. A lot of the bike services I stayed with him talking while he worked, I listened to a lot of his stories from back in the day, why he had to run, why his family stayed, how he had to send money to them to eat and some other horror stories.
In the name of my friends, if you think what happened today is bad, you can respectfully go fuck yourself.
So we know what many Red-Hats are seeing right now.
The "president of peace," everybody!
What I'm seeing is a breakdown in the ability to hold consistent principles across contexts. The same people who condemned Russian actions in Ukraine are now making "realpolitik" arguments about Venezuela. The same people who claim to oppose foreign intervention are now calculating whether this was "done cleanly enough." Positions seem determined entirely by tribal affiliation rather than any coherent framework about sovereignty, international law, or the use of military force.
There's also a striking historical amnesia at work. The US has been running this exact playbook in Latin America for over a century. We have extensive data on how these interventions typically unfold, what the second and third-order effects tend to be, and how the initial justifications relate to the actual outcomes. Yet that entire body of evidence seems to have evaporated from the conversation. People are reasoning about this as if it's a novel situation requiring fresh analysis, rather than a well-worn pattern.
Most concerning is the casual normalization. We're discussing whether it's "justified" to invade a sovereign nation and kidnap its leader as if this is a routine policy question. The window of what's considered shocking has shifted so far that outright imperial aggression gets the same treatment as a zoning dispute. When someone points out we didn't even attempt to follow Constitutional requirements for declaring war, the response is essentially "yeah, we stopped doing that decades ago, so what?"
The nihilism is the most insidious part. "What are we supposed to do about it?" Well, at minimum, we could refuse to let the Overton window keep drifting. We could maintain some continuity of ethical standards. We could recognize power plays for what they are instead of generating elaborate post-hoc rationalizations about democracy and narcotics.
The question isn't whether Maduro is a dictator (he is) or whether this particular operation succeeded tactically (it apparently did). The question is whether we've collectively lost the capacity to see what we're actually doing and where this pattern of behavior leads.
Evidence of large-scale warfare in prehistoric periods is also extremely rare in general. Most violence we have evidence for seems to be driven by personal conflict. This could just be due to decreased population densities but the conclusion that humans have always widely used war or organized violence is certainly not supported by the existing evidence
I’m sure it had nothing to do with oil too, just about democracy.
Carter may not have won the FIFA Peace Prize. But he did win the Nobel one. My father respected Carter more than almost any other living person, and I trust his judgement.
As a non American its pretty funny to watch.
Our political left already thinks we’re the bad guys. Our political right is posting pictures of eagles on Facebook. Nobody feels any different than they did yesterday.
Those of us who are opposed to it probably didn’t vote for Trump and surely have no foreign policy influence, which is the same as when Bush invaded Iraq. Same old song and dance.
If you don't see this as anything new then that is not in my power to change. To me it is something new.
Hows this any different than what we did to Noriega? Saddam? Qaddafi?
That’s my original point, to anyone who is paying attention it’s already been priced in. The method was novel perhaps, but nothing else about it was anything different. I’m not that old and I’ve already seen it happen several times.
If somebody punches you in the face from Monday through Friday, then they punch you in the face on Saturday you probably don’t feel any different about them on Sunday.
Even so I think this was not exactly expected. It makes me wonder how close we are to an actual invasion of Mexico, Cuba, Canada or Greenland.
I would guess not at all for any of them. Drugs clearly aren’t that much of the reason involved here. If you were listing the countries that export the most drugs to us, Venezuela wouldn’t even be top five. I am not sure I would be opposed to us taking out cartel leaders in Mexico, but there are certainly a lot of downsides to it that have held us back. I don’t think Gloria Shienbaum is on our enemies list.
What they have that we care about is a third of the world’s oil reserves. They are friendly with our biggest geopolitical rival, China. This is not to endorse what we did at all, but it’s pretty clear that there is a future coming where oil gets scarce, and the last thing we want is China to have a better supply of it than us.
I don’t think this was probably the right way to solve the problem, but it is a problem that needed to be solved, and even though I don’t like it, I have to admit there is a lot of upside.
Let's revisit this in five years. That's usually long enough to see where the rocks have landed.
A year ago today I was in Grenada looking at a statue of Reagan. The Grenadians love America (and the older ones love to tell you about it) for our intervention in the 80’s which I was not old enough to remember. They did not want to become another Cuba and we saved them from it.
South Korea. Japan. Germany. There were some solid wins in our nation building along with the losses.
The rest of world will gladly watch the US burn when the time comes.
Because of the upside of course.
The adults are talking, go eat your legos.
To be more blunt, we knew America was a pompous asshole, but it always pretended to be orderly. This is the US putting in a toupe and plucking its mustache. The act isn't surprising, the shift in attitude is.
Our biggest problem is us, the Earth will be a much better place when we are gone.
Venezuela has lots of oil and drugs. If different factions fight between themselves there's no reason you couldn't end up with a divided and dangerous country that in some ways could be worse for the people than Maduro.
The best way for "oppressed" people to be liberated is through some joint effort by parties that really want to help out and assume responsibility, or by supporting a revolution that naturally takes over. I don't think there's been any cases of success from this process of forcibly removing the dictator, and crossing your fingers that things will go well.
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?
There's only one way he'll be out, and voting will not be part of that
Why do you think he will try to stay in office? Cause he said he might?
I think the man is severely and uncurably addicted. Got his ultimate high and will do anything and throw anyone or anything under the bus to maintain that.
Why should he leave? Who would make him leave?
> I think the man is severely and uncurably addicted.
How do you distinguish this from him rubber stamping other people's agendas and falling asleep all the time?
No way in hell he goes out with regular old elections.
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.
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.
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.
I doubt Europe’s fondness for self-flagellation goes that far.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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 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.
I just completed a tour of Italy, through 9 cities, and everywhere I discussed these issues I found that people are just sick and tired of the US’ (and Israels) bullshit, and they want to start divesting from these nations activities. This may not be visible for a few more months or even years, but I do believe there will be political ramifications on the horizon that might give us a bit of hope.
Note, I live in middle Europe, and this is a sentiment shared here as well…
And I have no doubt that Europe can pull it off in principle. But can you afford that while also ramping up your defense spending to the levels necessary to stand up to Russia?
(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.)
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?
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.
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.
And would you look at that, Maduro has already been captured after 3 hours. This is why it categorically not like Iraq 2003.
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').
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 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.
Possibly dragging supply down, with no net effect at best.
This is going to hurt China economically, and in a way that isn’t going to be seen as targeted at China or unfair by international community.
Russia’s production and refining capacity has been seeing attrition from Ukraine’s efforts. They’re producing less oil, selling it for less, and for rubles that each buy less.
I’ve said before on HN that I thought Venezuela was intended to soak up Russian resources - this is just the next step.
What is the risk calculation one would perform before attempting to invade Taiwan while Trump is calling shots? Whatever else you think about Trump, for better or worse, he is not bound by establishment prerogatives: make the "wrong" move, as Trump exclusively defines it, and anything — literally any conceivable thing plus a distant horizon of things you are cognitively incapable of conceiving — might happen.
Maduro is in a cage somewhere pondering this right now. Iran's leaders are all thinking about the threats Trump made not 48 hours ago, possibly to the great benefit of rebels in the streets right now. Federal investigators are closing in on Walz and friends in Minnesota right now: he could find himself in a cell within earshot of Maduro at any time.
Don't forget to breathe!
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
Libya
But now we are looking at a civil war, if we are lucky.
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.
Edit: I just discovered that Noriega was also captured on January 3rd.
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.
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.
If you think the EU’s “diplomacy over force” approach will deter anyone, look at Ukraine.
> 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.
The _intent_ of the policies seem to be "treat the US better as a trading partner than you have under Biden, or get punished in ways that hit you the hardest", usually via tariffs or other means. NATO members have exploited the US with lopsided investment in the alliance under Biden, and many European countries had really bad trading agreements with the US -- bad for the US, not for us. I'm surprised we got away with it for this long.
That was negotiated by whom again? Oh, right, trump in his first term...
So the only conclusion I can draw is that he's like a toddler. If you give him what he wants he'll want more. That's foreign policy now.
Also, NATO has seen article 5 invoked once. By the US and it's allies helped out after 9/11. So it hasn't been too bad for the US. I don't disagree with the fact that a lot of European countries should've been spending 2% of GDP though all along
If only Norway had the political system to allow something similar…
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
Agreed about the better lives, but has it come to a point we accept invading other countries to "secure their oil" is a great outcome? I mean, what is this, Hitler's "Operation Blue"?
Securing oil is NOT a valid reason to invade countries. Does this need to be said!? Mind boggling.
This is peak cynicism. I'm really surprised to read some opinions here.
Next up: "imperialism wasn't bad, securing a big empire with colonies is a great outcome".
No, we aren't. You don't speak for the majority of us.
1- https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/internacional/venezuelanos-vao-...
At this rate I assume they'll have the "mission accomplished" banner up by Tuesday.
Did the UN agree to this invasion?
Nations aren't supposed to unilaterally attack other nations.
I'm too ignorant of Venezuelan politics to know if removing Maduro benefits Venezuelans, in practice.
I'd sleep easier if the Trump administration had done this by the book (approval from US Congress, and from the international community)
For example, if Trump doesn't step down in 2028 then we should hope someone does take him out.
hard to sleep well these days
ps: if anybody knows places where people discuss this, feel free to hit me
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.
"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.
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]:
[2]1953 Iranian coup d'état:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
Anyway be clear, I'm talking about this administration. Specifically their choice to invade Venezuela and capture their head of state, while simultaneously pardoning the ex-Honduran head of state who was convicted for the exact same thing. When I say inconsistent, I mean: they are saying (vocally and militarily) that they are anti-drug cartel, but also they are apparently pro-some-cartels? It makes no sense to me.
I agree that tariffs and economic sanctions are similar. But tariffs are in theory targeted at economic conduct that affects us. While sanctions are used to police the moral behavior of other countries, which I don’t support.
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...
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.
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.
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...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
Yes, US foreign policy is connected to oil. It's not just about control but price.
Venezuela GDP is all upside - it's practically a free lunch if they stop punching themselves in the face.
It's like Cuba all over again.
Plenty of things are fungible, that doesn't eliminate scarcity.
"The Venezuelan people are today liberated from the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro and cannot but celebrate it.
By seizing power and trampling on fundamental freedoms, Nicolás Maduro has committed a grave affront against the dignity of his own people.
The transition that is now opening must be peaceful, democratic, and respectful of the will of the Venezuelan people. We hope that President Edmundo González Urrutia, elected in 2024, can ensure this transition as soon as possible. "
For instance, I believe that in the feodal past lay people used to genuinely believe that kings got their authority from God; not because kings were good observants of the precepts of religion (they were not), but because that protects the self-esteem and helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes.
I find it surprisingly hard to try to convince myself that there is no such thing as "rule of law", that for instance the overthrown of a non-aligned regime could be just about the oil and competition with China, although I know that's how future historians will deal with that non-story; There is some surprising amount of resistance from within to this idea. It's interresting to do the experiment.
The idea that cosmopolitan, educated, and cultivated people could be left like deer in the headlights by brutes setting themselves through by force reminded me of your description of TMT, or at least the ego-protective "helps hide the facts that their life was dependant of the whimsical violence of the princes" part of your explanation.
Does this unpacking make any more sense?
(meanwhile, the Melian Dialogue is the source of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46479662 )
Brutality only to outsiders-- see how he handled Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ?
https://youtube.com/shorts/dV8wsaaY0oQ
I'm sceptical of directly "transpiling" lessons from history-- & in general I find that Austrians are full of it* (sorry! It does feel like they are on the elitist end of the populist-elitist divide)
*Earnings
Ps: >Be the change yo want to see
It's Gandhi's saying that needs (more) elab :) I'll be that hypocrite and leave you to it
E- 1974 Lorrance
https://jenniferlphillips.com/blog/2021/2/24/origin-story-be...
>We but mirror the world
>However, the passage was written in the explicit context of animal attacks.
> Mamdani face to face. Like 2 lions ?
As that old russophone meme went: the diner sits; the waiter stands?
(can't find it right now, but along the lines of strategic ambiguity this is an amusing one: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEZLJn8WYAQreU0?format=jpg&name=... )
This is wonderful! Not only does Gandhiji speak on multiple levels, but unlike many who attempt it he carries the conceit through to perfection, offering valid first-aid advice to complete the surface reading. https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/cwmg_volume_thumbview/M... (if one were only to read the first and last few pages, one would miss completely the change of tone in the middle; did EAB pick up this habit from the subcontinent?)
Heh. I just noticed DJT literally used the words "extraordinary military operation" during his press conference; does VVP's «специальной» have vastly different connotations in ru from "extraordinary" in en? Unlikely to be intentional plagiarism, maybe just parallel evolution?
History repeats
But then again, it has to
Nobody listensLike: "weaponize constitution against executive branch".
https://ash.harvard.edu/articles/why-federal-courts-are-unli...
What was it you had in mind? A more effective ICJ?
(Some will argue, eg that getting ERII schooled in (nothing but) the subtleties didn't do anything)
Department Ministerium
of für
Homeland Staats-
Security sicherheit
There's always the general lesson; even if Hillel[0] didn't get nailed to a stick[1] for preaching it, he doesn't seem to have many followers in, say, Likud.
A more specific lesson for the Old Country would be The Frogs Who Desired a King?
I've lifted^Wliberated this from somewhere, but can't remember where atm: the trouble with revolutions is that when they succeed[2], you rapidly discover that you didn't need a better government, you needed better people.
One reason I haven't finished the Durants' The Story of Civilization yet is that if you binge it, you rapidly discover that despite the pleasant turns of phrase, it's largely 13'549 pages of people treating each other poorly.
Pedantry to (nothing but): ERII could at least take a Landy offroad[3], even if in practice, as a lady, she often left it up to her chauffeur.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder#/media/File:H...
[1] I do love the characterisation in Master & Margherita which makes it sound like Mr. INRI was maybe on the spectrum (come to think of it, M&M is another frame story, but with the fantastic and realistic elements reversed)
[2] as the US 1776'ers, the Girondins, and the Mensheviks (to take just 3) might know?
[3] making her more accomplished than the modal Chelsea Tractor driver?
The law of large numbers suggests that all of the hegemons:
bellatores military ML
laboratores economic IEF
oratores political DI
(then again, the boundaries are more porous[1] than in the feudal days; I know of at least two MGIMO alums moonlighting in the economic realm)
[0] we've already covered 孫中山's triad, right?
[1] or are they? I think a typical "retirement plan" for an aging but rich bellator was to endow[2] a monastery with a comfortable amount of land, and then take orders there, because who would bump off an orator[3]? In the modern world, I see RAK (https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/12/29/world/29FACEBOOK-...) has grown a long beard since I last saw him; is he in the process of transitioning from bellator to orator? Maybe not: he seems to be feeling acutely unwell.
[2] compare El Cid's provision for his wife and daughters; or even Goldmund's father "gifting" Blaze the pony
[3] compare "Hideyori's son, Kunimatsu (age 8) was captured and beheaded; his daughter Naahime (Princess Naa) (age 7) was sent to Tōkei-ji, a convent in Kamakura, where she later became the twentieth abbess Tenshūin (1608–1645)."
I'm not interrested in the mind of violent sociopaths as much as I'm interrested in that of the decent people who have to accept to live under their rule, not only because of the numbers involved. Rulers might be a bit shy about their motives at times (although I can apreciate a candid one), but living under one's reign is one of our strongest taboo - thus my interest.
On one hand, there's the option of voting with one's feet, which Zweig describes in "Die Welt von Gestern" (1942)
On the other hand, another alternative is "inner emigration", eg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innere_Emigration
On the gripping hand, there might be the possibility of ignoring wanna-be authoritarian leaders but convincing people not to follow them, à la https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786278
Maybe there are more possibilities of which I am unaware; of these three, I chose the first.
Both those who voted for Trump or abstained from Harris believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians.
(BB was kinda fiction-in-a-fiction and would have provided no clue either for Harris and against Trump-- and 1984 (/Schachnovelle) didn't give a clue on how you might recognise an inner party-goer if you ran into one? Maybe Animal Farm would be better?)
Maybe it looks to you as if those who voted for Trump believed they were acting _against_ authoritarians, but I've lived among them.
I was still living in their midst when they tarred and feathered the Dixie Chicks (as they were then) for having the audacity to say GWB's Iraq Adventure might not be the most wonderful thing since sliced mayonnaise. (could we say they "cancelled" the Chicks?)
Then they claimed to be voting for DJT (a public figure whose bully bona fides go back at least 4 decades, eg https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6131533-trumpdeathpe... ) on an "isolationist" platform.
But now they're cheering Operation Southern Spear as if it were a homecoming game, as they did for GHB's Iraq. My local paper even had https://x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266 (sorry for the X link) in it this morning.
They may say they're voting on a mind-your-own-business-principle, but whenever you look at what they do, they've consistently been voting on a leader-principle.
</anger>
Q. How do you describe a principled authoritarian follower?
A. "The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind"
Inner Party Pigs
Outer Party Dogs
Proles the Equal animalsAsk PH (or Algolia it) about who he is angry with on the left. Those who drove the Swing voters (the prole equivalent of interchangeables) over to the other side or got Biden to "abdicate" . Loosely reminds me of the turncoats at Sekigahara and Bosworth Field
https://www.hkml.net/Discuz/viewthread.php?tid=125577
(*The rival camps that the Trump "inner corporatists" take seriously are SV "inner-outer party" (Shu Han?) and WallStreet/Fed (Wu?). With their bands of incorrigible rationalists/technocrats.
Imho Trump _wants_ leftist intellectuals distracted from his true strategy, and this is why he's more careful with Mamdani-- enemy of my enemy yada yada)
One of the ways to learn a smattering of a language would be to look at YouTube comments; sentences of the form "in YYYY they still made real music" and "is anyone watching in YYYY?" seem to occur in every natural language.
(for Sekigahara I wonder if part of the issue was credibility: if Tokugawa promises so many koku, you can be pretty sure you're getting them [and in the event he even lasted into his 70s] but if Ishida promises you so many koku, well, a lot can happen in 7-8 years: what are the chances that young Toyotomi will honour Ishida's old deals?)
Edit: come to think of it, both Shu and Wu do spend many of their waking hours trying to figure out how to intermediate themselves into any possible otherwise-dyadic transaction... Wei supposedly does as well, but compared with Shu and Wu, at least here, Wei has a light touch.
True, but you were talking about voting Trump/Harris, which pretty much implies the wide electorate, no matter who the real selectorate may be.
(speaking of selection, I completely forgot to include the judiciary in previous models. Would the whole Civil Rights thing have even happened if it hadn't been for the Warren Court?)
[Not that Warren was an angel, but despite his bigotry in other ways —or maybe because of it?— he was able to win state office by just winning both party's primaries, which I hadn't even known was a thing]
Certainly casual Trump-watching is even less useful than the old days of Kremlin-watching; his inner circle changes so often (cue Bueno de Mesquita & Smith) that it's a good thing we have the web now — the airbrush artists probably would've organised and gone on strike if they'd had to keep up.
(I guess I should give DJT his due: I had thought the two party system was a structural problem, yet he's delivered an existence proof that it is indeed possible to do something about it)
* should someone send all 535 members of congress a copy of the snakebite article? It's not going to be me; that's their problem.
using those words as search terms yields:
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2/english/rep_supp7_vol1_a...
https://legal.un.org/repertory/art2.shtml
In practice, command responsibility is generally upheld against losing commanders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
but an effective way to avoid being tried, at least in the short term, is to be a winning commander: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-02-02-0072-...
(Alexander the Great, on his deathbed, was asked who would inherit his empire; whether because he was an early "realist" or because he was apathetic or simply narcissistic [or?], he replied: the strongest)
Furthermore, even before the purely legal aspects of UCMJ, there's the plain common sense of Adm. Holsley (Ret.): https://www.southcom.mil/MEDIA/NEWS-ARTICLES/Article/4359115...
> "To be a trusted partner, [SOUTHCOM] must be credible..."
I’m not going to do that today. It’s sunny, and I want to spend time with family. Being naive about this topic doesn’t affect the core of things I want to be knowledgeable about. And the reality is, having a vote only gives me nominally more agency over US foreign policy than someone who can’t vote. I am mostly just observing.
The "narco-terrorism" charges are a legal fig leaf. The real drivers appear to be oil (Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves), geopolitical positioning (removing a Russian/Chinese/Iranian ally from the hemisphere), domestic politics (Trump wants a "win" and to appear strong), and what seems like a personal vendetta given how publicly Trump has obsessed about Maduro.
What's disturbing goes beyond the act itself. Trump literally said the U.S. will "run Venezuela"—not "support democracy," not "help transition"—run the country. That's colonial language with no euphemism.
There was no Congressional authorization. This violates the War Powers Act at minimum. If a president can unilaterally invade a country, kidnap its leader, and declare we're taking control, what's the limiting principle? Where does this stop?
The mask is completely off. Previous imperial adventures at least performed the ritual of justification, built coalitions, went through motions at the UN. This is naked power. Trump explicitly mentioned oil, saying American companies will "invest billions" to "refurbish" Venezuela's oil industry. He's just admitting it openly.
What we're witnessing is the final abandonment of even the performance of international norms. The question isn't whether this is legal or justified—it clearly isn't. The question is whether there are any remaining constraints on executive power when it comes to foreign military action.
There's no extradition treaty - how else does the USA bring him to trial?
Go to the courthouse when he gets convicted and yell about how clearly illegal it all is. You'll look like a nutcase. I'll just celebrate that he's going to die in prison.
What law are they breaking by forcefully extracting a criminal? Why does he get away with it because he's a president? He's not even the president of Venezuela, it's disputed - chiefly by Venezuelan's themselves.
Now we get to hold him to account in an open court. This is just good ass news. You don't get to declare the whole thing illegal and unjustified.
He will get returned in 20 years and probably tried for murder by the people he repressed.
Finally - he's a really cool thing about the US legal system, if his rendition was illegal, as you say, he can claim that in court. It won't work because it wasn't.
"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."
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.
What threat? There is no threat to the US from Venezuela. This is another Banana war.
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.
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6819579-Maduro-Indic...
[2] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
> 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...
If you can give me an argument about why it's illegal or improper to try Maduro in a USA court for crimes he committed against the USA, like drug trafficking, I would love to hear it.
If you think the extraction itself was illegal - under what law? What do you think a military is for? If you have a military to defend your country and capture a criminal who you then try for laws that he broke - this seems like a good reason to have a military.
Under normal circumstances - diplomatic relations can solve this, but the consequences of breaking diplomacy is that the only way to get criminals into court is military/CIA. It's not diplomacy or nothing, that's not the world I want to live in, that's Neville Chamberlain theory.
I guess somehow the US will argue that Maduro was directly responsible for smuggling drugs to the US, and that he has broken US laws. Or acts of "drug terrorism".
The second someone without US jurisdiction as much as investigates US servicemen abroad, or Israel for that mater, they are sanctioned by the US. See ICC judges that have been sanctioned for doing exactly those things. The US argues that ICC does not have any jurisdiction to do so.
When it comes to US geopolitics, there's a wafer-thin line between taking the moral high ground, and straight up hypocrisy backed up by "who's gonna stop us?"
That's not to say that the steelmanned "why" isn't much more interesting than the real "why".
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/02/trump-honduras-pard...
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!
> "Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare"
(I have a friend who is a PRC citizen; I don't know her background precisely but her habitus reminds me of nothing so much as the slightly younger women I'd met at a boarding school in Palo Alto, so I think it's safe to say that socialism with chinese characteristics has at least one non-prole class :-)
inner party psychopaths essentials
outer party clueless interchangeables
proles losers everyone elseGood times
And had a good laugh
Would anyone care to offer a genuinely held counter argument? Preferably based on legal expertise.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/is-there-any-l...
- The Atlantic
This is incredibly confused.
A reasonable person can say international law is unevenly enforced. This does not mean it does not matter. Both positive (what exists) and normative (what is ethical) considerations matter.
Communicating well matters. The above style of exaggeration is unhelpful if one cares about making sense of the world. Try to predict what happens in the future without factoring in international agreements and laws. Predictions from such models will be inferior, relatively speaking, to a version that does include paying attention to law.
Military intervention? Some farmers with sticks?
Do you even know what the Rio Treaty is?
Even if I did mind them, venezuelan immigrants are preferable to the US military invading my neighbours.
The TIAR? The one that says an attack on one is an attack on all, which both USA and Venezuela are members of? Fat lot of good that did to protect them.
But I don’t know why I bother to reply to you when given your “farmers with sticks” comment it’s clear that you’re a racist asshole.
And use xcancel.com rather than the largely-inaccessible source.
Put a number on it. Stop talking shit.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484803 and marked it off topic.
I deserve to be washed away along with the rest of us.
President DONALD J. TRUMP“
I personally think this quote explains the Trump administration’s worldview far better than anything Trump himself would say.
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.)
its not like the US is now banned from supporting ukraine just because they overthrew the Iraqi government and created a migrant crisis in europe.
Whatever is behind this attack, it has nothing to do with drugs.
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.
Keep in mind there's a lot of 'idle' refining capacity at the southeastern coast of the US which was built for heavy oil.
Venezuela has a substantial amount of heavy crude oil. which the USA is good at refining. Shocking.
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 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.
Now, even the USA invades foreign countries!
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.
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.
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...
Bin Laden found in Afghanistan? Invade and occupy the whole country.
Bin Laden found in nuclear-armed Pakistan? Quietly sneak in with a handful of SOF operators to shoot him in the face then GTFO.
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.
Plus the opposition won the 2024 election by a landslide, but it was stolen by Maduro.
The overwhelming majority wants the regime to end.
Now, it's also very important to even further unite the entire world against Russian agressive war.
2. Reduce price of Gas in USA.
3. Everyone will celebrate
4. Next election. > 80% majority.
This is a horrifying way for any country to act, and millions of people will be hurt. Truly a travesty of the greatest order.
Lol. Lmao even
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.
(jk, Pentagon OPSEC is TIGHT from what I've been told)
Regardless of how you feel personally about Maduro and his regime, this sets the precedent that it can be done and that the rest of the world and especially the EU who is always so quick to remind everyone of the rule of law will do nothing and let it happen.
Will the EU sanction the US and cut it off from SWIFT? Will the EU arm the Venezuelans should they decide that their new leaders are not legitimate?
Either the rules apply to everyone or the rules don't exist. If it's not acceptable for Putin to go to Kiev and remove Zelensky and if it's not acceptable for Xi to go to Taiwan and remove their leaders, then what happened is simply not acceptable. You can't have it both ways.
Finally this will remind everyone that the only real protection you have in this world is nukes. If Venezuela had nukes then the US would probably not have been so quick to invade.
Thank you, I guess, for allowing the rest of us to talk about whatever we want.
Pretty incredible
1. Public opinion isn't as important anymore, as Trumpism has found a way to flood the zone with so much shit, they have many more options
2. International environment looks way harsher and less cooperative, stressing the need to gain resources/influence
3. Resource rich, unstable country that has been in the headline and run down for years, right on the doorstep of the US
If they really gain access to all that oil the challenges US hegemony is bolstered up again. Seems low risk high reward. If they give it the facade of legitimacy by installing a local puppet government, they might get away with it.
So, Putin could now legitimately go grab Zelenskyy for "crimes", or Xi could go grab Trump for "crimes".
This so-called administration is insanely bad at thinking ahead.
The world failed to solve this problem for decades. Trump is a loose cannon, but this shot was a good one. Of course it’s TBD how things play out. But at least there is hope.
It doesn't matter at all. Venezuelans may be over the moon about this, but the fact remains that Trump broke international law and committed an act of war without the authorization of Congress. You don't see the problem with that? This is the slippery slope of authoritarianism. They start by doing illegal things that seem like they're good things, but which break down the rule of law. Once they've normalized this, they start doing it with less popular things.
Humans are so stupid with their ideas of "my team won so it's OK!". It's not ok. This is how the system begins to implode, and it's by design.
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.
Not Venezuelan helicopters...
Turns out the Trump administration doesn't even bother to change the regime as long as it is willing to give up the oil reserves. They just kidnapped Maduro to set an example and coerce the regime to cooperate. Trump and Rubio aren't even trying to hide it, they are saying it plain and clear on national TV!
It's also not difficult to see the broader strategy: every US adversary (China, Russia, Iran) has been taking a piece of Venezuela over the past several months. They were already "conquered". This could also give the US an upper hand in ending the war in Ukraine as it further weakens Russia as it loses access to cheap oil.
overall it should make the world a bit more stable hopefully, and locally of course it would make more sense for Venezuela to be in bed with US, rather than far away giants
hopefully the country doesn't plunge into endless domestic conflict / war, we have enough of that happening already everywhere..
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?
Your enlightened president, a few minutes ago on Fox News, when asked about Venezuelan oil: "What can I say? We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we're going to be very much involved in it."
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.
The Cold War was openly about changing governments.
Correct.
So it doesn't look the situation in Ukraine was very democratic either.
The guy literally ran away to Russia.
But interesting take. So, if Zelenskyy at some point is forced to flee to Poland, is that a proof that he was a Polish puppet all along?
No invasion (yet). Just bombing.
This is not a useful delineation for what constitutes a military invasion. Invasion means landing troops and controlling territory.
Based on what we're being told now, this was an extraction. (Slash detention. Slash kidnapping. In any case, requiring troop transport and extraction.)
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.
You should've been keeping scores on US' wars and regime changes, you'd had lost faith long time ago.
These days everything is live-streamed. So, anyone with an inquiring mind can lookup different sources and make their own conclusions.
But I fear this won't be for long. It is slowly becoming clear that the AI rally is less about productivity and more about mass surveillance and controlling online dissent globally [1].
I am against any offensive action which leads to the misery and impoverishment of people, for some stupid power games of power hungry idiots.
Hilarious.
What would happen if panama wanted to join a defence pact with Russia ?
What happened during the Cuban missile crisis ?
I wish all countries could be independent and free of meddling from superpowers. But at some moment you have to be realistic.
Like the Baltics, Poland, Taiwan, South Korea, Berlin, ... Yeah seems pretty realistic.
> What would happen if panama wanted to join a defence pact with Russia ?
Russia or a defensive alliance that includes countries like Germany and France?
> What happened during the Cuban missile crisis ?
A bunch of cold war nonsense? Russia tried to station first strike weapons and the US responded poorly.
> I wish all countries could be independent and free of meddling from superpowers. But at some moment you have to be realistic.
Lmao and that is why you conclude that Ukraine should not be permitted to seek a defensive ally after being invaded (2014).
"Bro please just look at the expansion map. I swear bro the war started because of NATO and the US. It’s not an invasion bro it’s a forced reaction to unipolar hegemony. Just one more provocation and the bear had to bite back. Please bro just admit it's a proxy war. I promise bro if the West just stayed out of the sphere of influence everything would be fine."
This tribalism that you display is exactly the reason that we end up in situations that we have. Do not pledge tribal allegiance to anyone. Pledge allegiance to critical thinking.
> The war started because of NATO and US
Hmm…
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?
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.
The conduct of VSRF in Ukraine could perhaps be compared to the US conduct in Vietnam but definitely not in Iraq.
Famously, they didn't have enough Arabic translators, so Delta Force was often taking targets entirely based on reported association. They couldn't target based on language because they couldn't even tell what language locals were speaking most of the time.
Do US do/want the same for Venezuela?
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.
Turkey is a great example. Heck Putin also had Wagner knocking his door in Moscow.
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).
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...
Hmmmm... indeed, hard to tell the difference!
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
So from that perspective, I don't think US is really much different, just better at keeping its own puppets in power.
should be
"Venezuela’s authoritarian government has accused the US authoritarian government ..."
or (better, really)
"Venezuela has accused the US ..."
"A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism."
That's from April ... the move to a "Department of War" and the actual waging of unauthorized war pushes things considerably further.
Can't we call a kidnapping what it is?
To everyone proclaiming that we should turn to Venezuelans to assess these actions, how dare you assert that Americans have no autonomy in the actions of their own government. It is tremendously unfortunate that congress has forfeited all decision making authority to the executive branch, but as our democracy was intended this would amount to an act of war, which would require authorization by congress.
I'm guessing it must be very good since, let's just say he kinda fits the profile which President Trump might describe as "worst of the worst", and yet the US Customs still just letting that guy walk right in.
But anyhow I hope Mr. Maduro don't illegally overstay because if ICE found out about it, there's a chance they'll deport Mr. Maduro to Venezuela.
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 don't think any latin american country can withstand the US for any amount of time, unless it turns into a guerilla war.
> 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.
As for the government - your are absolutely on point. And I don't disagree.
The other takeaway: if you have oil, and no nukes, in due course, the US will come to steal it.
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.
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.
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…
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?
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.
Except Mexico (https://www.vox.com/policy/363146/trump-policy-war-mexico-tr...) and Iran (https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4898919-trump-iran-smi...).
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...
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.
Asking to learn: under what law?
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.)
Hmm. Filing this away for 2028 or 2032.
[1] ¶ (d)(1)(D)
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
Remember when we bombed Yemen and in the Signal chat they laughed about killing a High-Value Target while he was visiting his girlfriend? Sounds like this section would apply for her.
The US previously never faced real pressure on this, a new administration would see it as an easy win.
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...
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.
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.
One thing about prosecuting a former POTUS for the first time is it has to survive the test of time. You can't behave like them if you want the prosecution to be legitimate, because they are lawless. But it was the failure of voters to do their due diligence to not elect a felon who bear the ultimate blame, as they are the final check. Now we bear the consequences. But again, not for lack of trying.
Please let me know what was the established precedent for allowing extrajudicial assassination of American citizens is.
Edit add:
He was a boy who was still searching for his father when his father was killed, and who, on the night he himself was killed, was saying goodbye to the second cousin with whom he'd lived while on his search, and the friends he'd made. He was a boy among boys, then; a boy among boys eating dinner by an open fire along the side of a road when an American drone came out of the sky and fired the missiles that killed them all.
A 16-year-old American boy accused of no crimes was killed in American drone attack
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a14796/abdulrahma...
So please, I would love to see the precedent.
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.
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.
And things work like this at every level in every organization. For example people in your line of reporting at work can veto any decision you make unless you are protected by law, which is an entity that can shut down your company by force.
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.
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
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Taliban_...
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.
External or internal (which seems rarely feasible unless the government is highly incompetent) regime change realistically is the only thing that worked.
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?
And in many cases western societies tend to express the idea that inn other, dictatorship countries, people sort of "let the dictators dictate", while "westerners" not.
But I think this current case (and Trump's presidency at large) is an example of how little we can decide or influence. Even in the supposed "democracy".
I wish to believe that voting matters, but Trump showed that you can make people vote for anything if you put massive upfront effort into managing information/missinformation and controlling the minds through populism, etc. Then voting becomes... Powerless. As it has no objective judgement.
And despite possible disagreements some might voice - revolutions don't happen anymore. People can't anymore fight the leaders as leaders hold a monopoly on violence through making sure the army is with them.
Well... We as people lost and losing the means to "control" our leaders. Westerners, easterners - doesn't matter.
In general international law is much more lenient than people are willing to believe. e.g. it's legal to kill civilians if you are attacking a military target which is important enough
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...
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
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
That's not to say that I would in any way support extrajudicial killings, in many cases the high civilian/bystander casualties have been completely unsupportable. I just wanted to point out the stark difference between "normal" extrajudicial killings and these murders.
There are some credible war crimes accusations (in fact, some pretty flagrant war crimes), but the most critical crime is actually not a war crime, but one precedent to their being a war at all, the crime of aggression.
Rudolph Hess, notably, was convicted and imprisoned for life solely for this crime.
What do the Venezuelans actually think about this, given that 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
"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...
In this case probably attitude is probably similar
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.
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.
Genuine request for a source here.
(They said law and order, because they couldn't say anti black)
Law and order != rules-based international order.
Anybody who wants a rules based order is extremely anti-Trump, just as they are anti-Putin.
Your comment is just bigotry.
Iran, I totally understand that if they want to acquire nuclear weapon but Venezuela ????
what are they want to do in Venezuela ????? Oil ??
We also have a crusade in Nigeria next on the docket for project 2026.
It’s like you’re the owners of a particularly popular pub that’s suddenly filled up with Johns, Jameses, Evas, and Annes, all loudly making their thoughts known while ordering a nice normal Western drink at the bar.
Vodkas, baijius, and sojus all round!
(To be fair, there are probably some Coors Lite and Stella drinkers here too.)
Votes suggest otherwise.
[0]: https://usapolling.substack.com/p/america-marches-into-anoth...
But they do.
I hate it when everyone says "Nazi Germany" instead of just "Germany".
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.
Yes, 5 year olds didn't vote for Trump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
Regardless, US presidential elections do not depend on getting a majority or even a plurality of popular votes, but rather on a majority of electoral votes. And Trump did not get a majority of popular votes as claimed.
This being HN, the fact-check seemed appropriate and I stand by it.
Of the definitions, seems like the third is correct for this context:
3 : the group or political party having the greater number of votes (as in a legislature)
>And Trump did not get a majority of popular votes as claimed.
I would think that he did.
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".
It is already a stretch to call it a democracy - which is required to insist on democratic reasoning.
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.
Regardless, If allowed intellectual hoolahop, then most systems of governance can be argued to be democratic.
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.
He did not win the popular vote.
Will BP want “their” fields back?
Trump personally gets the 20%
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.
Manuel Noriega
Shit, we did this on the anniversary.
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.
Ok, thanks Garry.
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
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.)
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.
https://legal.un.org/avl/studymaterials/handbook/english/boo...
That's just book one, BTW.
Great moral measuring stick...
The latest US mass theft and aggression is far from surprising to anyone that studied south American history. Trump just drops the humanitarian pretexts, but the act itself is exactly in line with how US treats South America.
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My guess: he will be imprisoned in a 3rd country, he can't be allowed to move back to Venezuela
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-...
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.
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/03/g-s1-104346/trump-venezuela-m...
Good to know that possession of machine guns is finally being made illegal by the US!
2. President for peace he never has (silly FIFA award aside).
3. They’re more interested in oil than any other stated goals.
4. This is straight out of the republican playbook of tanking the economy and using a war to distract from it and prop up defense contractors.
5. US regime changes are always a disaster.
Here's how to know if I'm right -- since this isn't high enough drama, he'll make it amp up by a factor of 1-5 with false-flag attacks on America or something else to try to create a real sense of emergency in the next year.
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.
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.
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.
If Trump had just globalised the seizure of shadow tankers, he could have dealt a serious blow to Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
Come back in 3 years and tell me if i was right.
He should have learned from the example of the ex Honduran president who was recently pardoned by Trump.
What the hell? I hate getting too political because it ends up so toxic and divisive, but with what logic is this not insane?
1. That previous justifications in the lead up to this event are now irrelevant or to be ignored or forgotten about ('narco-terrorism', 'it's our oil', 'sanctions busting', etc).
- These were all weak to begin with (but are still relevant because the truth is in there and stated almost explicitly - i.e. 'US interests').
2. That this attack on Venezuelan sovereignty was done for moral reasons ('bad regime').
- Even accepting that the government of Venezuela is a 'bad regime', this is insufficient - there are many arguably much worse governments in the world.
3. That might is right.
- Correct in some sense but morally bereft.
All in all a lot of post-facto nonsense on display.
I'm frankly appalled at the self-serving moral blindness on display here. I refuse to believe that people are arguing in good faith here. Disappointing to see from the otherwise thoughtful commenters on this site.
To anyone making the above arguments, let me ask you - what do you think of the saying "do unto others as you would have done unto you"?
[0] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2024/08/02/what-are-the-odds-...
Hopefully this act will also have a chilling effect on other vile left wing dictators like those in North Korea and Cuba
It is called "Mission Accomplished"[1], right?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished_speech
Is the goal now to just put Maduro through a televised sham trial as a new cover for the Trump admin?
I believe Noriega was captured when the US invaded Panama in 1989. But yeah, this is wild (though maybe not unprecedented).
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).
Have you considered this is part of a negotiated exit?
Nobody believes this bullshit about drugs. Just like nobody believed it when they committed war crimes by blowing up innocent guys fishing
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?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/jan/03/caracas-e...
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 societies have such people. But civil societies prevent them from gaining significant power. Failing that, it's going to be expensive.
This society elected a known abuser. Of course this society will be abused. But also because of this society's global power, the world will also be abused.
Ironically, that prospect is approaching with each passing year
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2013/06/13/us-whites-fa...
Invading America would be like invading Afghanistan. If you wrestle a pig, expect they might even enjoy it. And yes I have fought in a civil war, I know what it's like, even without the advantage of American weapon, so no need to go down the road of me not understanding the implications. It would only embolden us, we wouldn't learn the lesson you're thinking.
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'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
It will be a small miracle if it doesn't spark a refugee crisis.
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.
There is a war coming. A larger war.
A more mainstream view has a different opinion.
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 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 justified by portraying Maduro as a drug kingpin responsible for the fentanyl epidemic in the US. He is also blamed for some gang activity.
Can Maduro just pay off Trump for a pardon, like Juan did?
Or is it really. Honduras doesn't have oil?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_strikes_in_...
When Trumpistan invades Venezuela it is also imperialism, regardless of its "reasons".
It seems that every 20 years the Americans forget the lessons from the wars 20 years ago.
I only hope a lot of Americans die, if that is the price to pay to avoid them to invading other countries and stop their imperialism.
That is incredibly optimistic and completely wrong. It can and probably will get worse. You just don’t create a power vacuum and hope for the best.
I guess it'll just be another count added when the Dems start impeachment proceedings on November 4th.
trump: drugs or something. but mainly we need the oil so if they won't give us the oil we'll just take the oil. who's gona stop us, canada? lol
This is an invasion for oil, nothing to do with drugs since they come from Mexico, and that propaganda is weak. And nothing to do with Maduro being a dictator or anything similar since each one of our politicians is objectively worse than him, I wish this was an exgeration, but when you look at the Epstein files, even the few unredacted things found there (and most of them are redacted) make it obvious that we are literally ruled by criminals.
Now you either look at it as it is, and accept that Santa isn't real, and that life is hard, and we are greedy, and we don't care about other people, and then you stop the moralizing when you do nothing about it, or you keep gobbling up the lie after lie, that Murica is the good guy, and everyone else is evil, and that all Murica's wars are moral and bringing freedom and liberating those third worlders.
TLDR: free your mind before you talk about freeing others (which is ironic because I'm doing the same thing, but I'm also writing this message for myself).
Wag the Dog.
In normal parlance, this is an act of war.
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.
How are any of us better for this? How is this better than Facebook's engagement-bait?
Peace. Out.
Your family dying in the rubble of a bombed house.
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
Regardless of how retarded maduro was, "i felt like it" should not be justifiable reason to kidnap a president of a different country on their own turf.
Maybe i felt better about that if trump wasnt in bed with another dictator.
2. Trump: (2018) We don't want to be the policemen of the world BY BRETT SAMUELS - 04/30/18 [0]
> President Trump on Monday said the U.S. should no longer serve as the “policemen of the world.”
> “We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
> “We’re spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldn’t be the priority,” he said.
> Trump ran on the promise that he would extricate the U.S. from foreign wars.
[0] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/385521-trump-we-...
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?
Hernàndez was captured by Biden. Trump pardoned him because Biden bad.
This world is a shitshow. Honestly, I am GenX and always read of wars and tensions as historical artefacts (there were wars, but localized and far away from France).
Now I am seriously wondering if this is going to end well for us over here. I do not work that much about myself, I had an interesting life, but rather about my children whom I now start to regret. I did not expect to hand them a world like this one.
I know, global warming was there but I was 30 and was looking my close surroundings. My bad. This said, if I know what the world would be today I wrote reconsider having them.
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.
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.
Do you know what will work? Money.
We need to increase our trade with China.
Latin America needs to stop depending on the U.S. and China is a golden opportunity.
Yes—there are very clear, recurring *themes*, and what’s striking is how consistently people keep circling the same fault lines from different angles. I’d group them like this:
---
## 1. *Legality vs. Morality*
*Core tension:*
> Is overthrowing a dictator morally right even if it violates international law?
* One side argues law exists precisely to restrain power, not to reward virtue. * The other argues moral urgency overrides abstract legalism when human suffering is extreme. * This becomes a meta-question: Who decides when morality trumps law?
This is the philosophical backbone of the entire thread.
---
## 2. *Precedent Anxiety*
*“Today Maduro, tomorrow anything.”*
* Fear that once unilateral regime change is normalized, the justification becomes infinitely elastic:
* “correcting elections”
* “restoring order”
* “protecting interests”This is less about Venezuela than about *future permission structures*.
---
## 3. *Outcomes Over Intentions*
*Ends don’t redeem means if outcomes are catastrophic.*
* Even commenters who despise Maduro emphasize:
* removing a dictator is easy
* building a functioning state is hardThis is pragmatic pessimism rather than ideological purity.
---
## 4. *American Power & Self-Deception*
*A recurring, uncomfortable self-indictment.*
* Several comments converge on the idea that:
* Americans benefit materially from interventionism
* but psychologically disavow responsibility for the costsThis becomes a debate about *collective guilt vs. structural impotence*.
---
## 5. *Realpolitik vs. Institutionalism*
*Power acting directly vs. power constrained by process.*
* Appeals to ICC, UN, asylum frameworks represent belief in institutions. * Skeptics argue those institutions are deliberately weakened by the same powers invoking morality. * Others argue asylum and invasion are orthogonal issues—and conflating them is rhetorical sleight-of-hand.
Underlying question: Is global governance real, or decorative?
---
## 6. *Lived Experience vs. Abstract Judgment*
*Who gets moral authority?*
* “Those who’ve never lived under dictatorship say this.” * Counter: “Those who never lived through US intervention say that.” * Venezuelans in-thread complicate narratives of total collapse or total liberation. * Firsthand testimony destabilizes neat moral binaries.
This creates epistemic friction: *whose suffering counts as evidence?*
---
## 7. *Cynicism About Motives*
*Oil never disappears from the conversation.*
* Even when people argue it’s not literally about barrels of crude, they frame it as:
* control
* leverage
* profit flows
* contractor ecosystemsSeveral commenters note the lack of even performative moral cover.
---
## 8. *Democratic Exhaustion*
*A sense that democracy is no longer the brake it claims to be.*
* Rapid escalation vs. slow electoral correction * Legislatures perceived as compliant or irrelevant * No clear mechanism for popular restraint short of catastrophe
This feeds resignation rather than outrage.
---
## 9. *Historical Echoes & Decline Narratives*
*“We’ve seen this movie.”*
* Arab Spring * Iraq * Libya * Panama (Noriega)
History is invoked less as analogy and more as *warning fatigue*—people feel trapped in a loop.
---
## 10. *A Deeper Subtext: Loss of Moral Coherence*
Perhaps the most important theme:
> The argument isn’t about whether Maduro is bad. > It’s about whether the system judging him is still capable of moral credibility.
That’s why the thread feels less like debate and more like *collective unease*.
---
### If you zoom out:
This isn’t really a Venezuela thread. It’s a conversation about *power without trust*, *law without enforcement*, and *morality without consensus*—and whether any of those concepts still function in the current world order.
If you wanted to fictionalize this, it wouldn’t be a war story. It would be a story about *people arguing at the edge of legitimacy*, trying to decide whether the rules still mean anything once the strong stop pretending they do.
More than 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country, one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. They are celebrating. You are being critical. That alone should give pause.
Those condemning this action (and almost defending the oppressors) have never:
- Lived under a dictatorship where dissent leads to prison, torture, rape or disappearance
- Watched the military and police become criminal enterprises
- Seen private property and entire industries seized by the state, as happened under Chávez and Maduro
- Experienced the collapse that follows decades of corruption, repression, and ideological control
If you claim to care about migrants, human rights, or the oppressed, you cannot only care after people escape. You cannot oppose every serious attempt to end regimes that jail, torture, and kill their own citizens while calling yourself humanitarian. That is not morality, it’s distance.
Is oil involved? Of course. Venezuela’s oil industry, built with foreign investment, was expropriated, looted, and mismanaged into ruin. But this is also about state-backed criminal networks, narcotrafficking, and regional destabilization that have killed hundreds of thousands beyond Venezuela’s borders.
If you had lived under these conditions, if your family had been broken by fear, disappearance, or exile, you would not be citing abstract “international law” to defend your oppressors. You would be hoping, every night, that someone powerful enough would intervene.
What’s missing here isn’t compassion. It is context.
Before defending dictators from the safety of a functioning democracy, have the self-awareness to ask whether you understand the reality you’re judging. Otherwise what comes through isn’t moral clarity, it’s ignorance dressed up as virtue.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=venezuelan+cele...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=reacciones+de+v...
I lived in Argentina at the time when the military were making people disappear by the thousands, never to be found again. Most commenters on HN have no clue what they are talking about and no context whatsoever.
Give it a few weeks. Maybe a few months, hard to say. You will see people joyfully demonstrating on every street in Venezuela flying both Venezuelan and American flags. Just hold your thoughts and opinions if you can for a a bit of time and you'll see. And, of course, don't get your news from leftist outfits who are angry about a socialist/communist/dictator losing power. You'll be able to watch news directly from Venezuela.
Important point: Venezuela is NOT Iraq or Afghanistan. I've seen people equate events. Again, ignorant. Venezuelans WANT democracy. Latin Americans are culturally and religiously aligned with the west. They want this and they want the socialist-dictatorial nightmare to be over.
As is always the case, most are not thinking past the headlines. Venezuela, once the transition to sanity, rule of law and democracy is completed, is likely to become a major player both in the region and globally.
How?
Well, most go for the obvious: Oil.
That's not it though. Expand beyond that: Energy.
And expand beyond that yet again: Manufacturing.
And yet one more time: AI data centers (which need energy, manufacturing and a stable environment).
Venezuela could become a magnet for investment and development we cannot possibly imagine. This one move by Trump, if executed well, will change the face of the American continent --for the better-- in ways that are hard to imagine today. This is a good moment in history. I hope other nations understand the reign of terror is over and join a coalition to truly make Latin America not only great again, but part of what could become the most powerful association in the world, a new, powerful, integrated and developed American continent. I hope to see this in my lifetime. It would be amazing.
I know about the horror of maduro - my first boss was from Venezuela.
hell I would say America should make Venezuela a protectorate for at least 50 years.
> yeah might is right
It sounded like a sarcastic comment meaning characterizing the action as unjustified bullying rather than what it was.
The left's position on what just happened isn't only immoral, it is 100% dislocated from the opinion of the 9 million Venezuelans living in the diaspora as well as almost the entirety of those still in Venezuela. The reason I say "almost" is that there's a small layer (politicians, military, etc.) who were making a living or getting rich from the regime that is now evaporating.
This is historically positive moment in history.
Right now you have entire news networks defending --actively defending-- a brutal dictator who exported death in the form of drugs, tortured, jailed and killed his own people. I almost feel like I am watching a primitive primate culture from space driven to rage without a clue or care of where reality lies.
I think this will pass eventually, but it might take another ten years.
Trump is a pathological narcissist and sociopath. He admires dictators like Putin and wanted to emulate his invasion of Ukraine. Stephen Miller is pure evil, and Hegseth is a fool, so they came up with a pretext to attack Venezuela. All of this conveniently distracts from the Epstein files.
Nothing that's happened is justified, legal or rational. It's just the egos of idiots who should not be in power.
We need regime change in the U.S. immediately.
its gonna be some other central and south american countries next like panama, the on to conquering greenland from the danes and greenlanders, then canada
there is a rationale, even if you dont like it
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.
8 million of us had to flee the country.
This is false (if by “proof” you mean “evidence” and not absolute certain knowledge).
Here’s how Wikipedia describes the election results:
US 2024 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...
> The Republican Party's ticket—Donald Trump, who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and JD Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio—defeated the Democratic Party's ticket—Kamala Harris, the incumbent U.S. vice president, and Tim Walz, the incumbent governor of Minnesota.
US 2020 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_elections
> The Democratic Party's nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump in the presidential election.
Venezuela 2024 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
> The election was contentious, with international monitors calling it neither free nor fair,[4] citing the incumbent Maduro administration's having controlled most institutions and repressed the political opposition before, during,[2][5] and after the election. Widely viewed as having won the election, former diplomat Edmundo González…
You can look forward to U.S. oil companies doing free looting now. Sure, the "trickle down" effect will make some Venezuelan's prosperous but you have effectively given up the resources of your nation and chosen to become subservient slaves. And U.S. billionaires will become even richer.
It's 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
I'll say I'm doubtful. I think we'll bomb from afar and hope to pot Maduro.
I always remember that episode as I see headlines like that.
Like Reagan. But they’ll find some guy, I don’t know, Bob South, who will take the fall.
We don’t “remove” anything, and what we “like” doesn’t come into it; our job is to keep discussions healthy and curious and maintain the trust of the community.
Stories that are primarily about political controversy will generally get downweighted by:
- community flags
- flamewar penalties
- software penalties that are applied by default to publications and topics that are primarily focused on daily politics controversy.
But even with these penalties the stories can easily be found on /active, and everything that’s ever posted can be found on /newest (with ‘showdead’ turned on).
When a story contains “significant new information” we turn off these penalties to ensure it gets exposure on the front page, which we’ve done here and which we’ve done for every major breaking story over the many years that this approach has been in place.
Some things get downweighted in accordance with the guidelines and community expectations but everything can still be found.
Or maybe not :(
His voters thought Trump would be different, he would bring the troops home, put the homeland first, and that he would fight the Deep State.
In reality, he's building out Imperium Americanum, he is fighting wars without Congressional approval and proper casus bellis, he's not bringing the troops home and it is clear he represents the fucking Deep State even more than any of his predecessors since JFK. Shame on him for renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center. Which is absolutely disgusting given the reality of things!
Prime example: Invading Venezuela to steal their oil, just like his predecessors did with Syria (if you do not believe me, look where the US Army is located in Syria, and the prime locations of their oil fields).
Additionally: Trump's United States now has given Putin's Russia and Xi's China precedent to do whatever they fucking want to whoever or whatever. Because who fucking cares about international law if even the United States government, home of freedom and democracy and the rule of law, currently doesn't even give a fuck?
So now fucking what?
(And yes, as you might have noticed I AM FURIOUS AS HELL.)
A journalist asked him in the press conference just now how capturing Maduro and running the country in iterim is "America First". His simple answer is that a more stable set of countries in the region is good for America.
And now I wonder what fucking insane manufactured casus belli he will create to invade and annex Canada.
So many people thought he was grand standing and just talking shit. But now it looks like he wasn't doing that at all, hasn't he?
This is classic US action South of the border since the 19th century so I think the outrage is excessive. Perhaps people think, wrongly, that this is new becaude of Trump. What is new is that this seems actually aimed against China.
Regarding international law, it seems that it's been invoked so much in recent years that people have "drunk the Kool Aid" and actually believe that this is something carved in stone that must be obeyed, or even just actual "law"...
"Fuck venezuelans, how can you capture a dictator, that violates a law no one gives a fuck about". You should be really happy how Trump treats putin, like a dear friend, not violating any law. I hope marines will raid kremlin next.
I'll tell you. Nothing. They are going to do nothing. Because they can't.
Life is good.
> We’ll see about that.
This seems hand-wavy - like you're not aware of any plan for the future and that you're comfortable with that. If I'm mistaken, what specifics have you heard?
> In the meantime I get to see Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded on a US warship heading to NY.
This sounds like great joy to have working to install leadership that won't massively harm VE (for once).
But this joy would also sound ominous in the absence any such work - like you're being distracted while something awful is put in place.
At the least, I'd check out this post with news links - that this US admin has designs on VE's oil facilities.
Whatever you think of the morality and ethics of the man, the precedent, the outcome, the extrajudicial action is opening the door for less law and order in the world.
This sets a precedent that the US is back to regime change and world policing, and that went swimmingly in the past as we all know.
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).
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.
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).
Putin and Kim will -not- be emboldened by this act - quite the opposite.
International politics is anarchy. Rules are enforced by the hegemon.
International law exists - it’s the very purpose of the International Court of Justice
> The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (often called the War Powers Act) is a U.S. law designed to limit the President's power to commit the U.S. to armed conflict without congressional approval, requiring presidential consultation with Congress before deploying forces and mandating reports within 48 hours, with a 60-day limit for troop deployment without a formal authorization, though presidents have often challenged or sidestepped its provisions.
Please US citizens, grow up. There had been a time when you were admired and respected, now your country is killing the world.
No, former Soviet satellite states begged and pleaded for NATO membership. And their immediate Western neighbors advocates for it.
They didn't do that because the US asked them to. They were motivated by other concerns.
The US does bad things, yes, but the death toll is nothing like Stalin or Mao.
And the US don't tend to stick around occupying a country for half a decade.
I wouldn't dare to justify this. But it's not the same as Russia or China.
When a mobster comes to you and free you from your previous mobster, it’s not because he is a good man and wants you to live freely: he does it to impose you his will and power exactly as US have always done.
When I’m implying that nato has been pushed to former soviet countries I’m referring to the influence done by US to support different governments. In Ukraine revolution in 2014 has been greatly supported by US.
I’m in no way saying China, Russia or whatever country is acting better, I’m just saying nobody can be so naive to not understand that there is no ideal of freedom involved in any US action but only political/power interests.
I’m curious to see which freedom-related justification will be used for the future annexation of Greenland
The point is: usa is acting not in the falsey mith of global freedom but only in the name of extending its power and influence.
In Venezuela they didn’t combat narcotraffic otherwise I must expect Italy (my country) invasion since we are the home of one of the greatest cancer in history: mafia.
Don’t drink the lie USA are fighting for freedom otherwise a lot of human lives will be sacrificed uselessly
The Ukraine invasion is what happens when you don't have that kind of support.
This is a very strange case of false equivalence. You might not like the US but that doesn't impact on the basic idea of NATO.
But you didn't answer my question: how is NATO a mobster? Because the US is involved? Even if one accepts your anti-US view in this regard, how does that make the other countries in NATO mobsters? Guilt by association? Other NATO countries have shown to be quite independent from the US in recent history.
So this is the response to your question.
Anyhow NATO is still under US great influence so in a way or another is acting as an extension of US.
There is nothing bad in joining a coalition but please don’t tell me NATO is not acting as a branch of US when exercising US influence.
Now go back to the point: US liberated Venezuela, yes for sure and it didn’t do for oil or other political interests and it won’t force it’s interests upon those of Venezuelans nor it will put people in command that are neutral and are not puppets in the hands of the US…come on how can you believe the bullshit of war to export democracy and freedom, how?
The US invasion of Venezuela illegal under both US and international and just plain wrong.
I don't support it and never said I did, go through my comment history and check if you want to.
Like, holy classified military secrets Batman!
That doesn't mean things can't get worse.
I pray the majority of Venezuelans really have had enough of socialist dictatorships and can find a way to govern themselves. The US should not govern Venezuela - but neither should Maduro or his cronies.
This can only be good news for the Venezuelans, having lived in such poor conditions for so long. Soon they will be able to go to McDonald's, drink Starbucks, and maybe one day if they really prove themselves to have that special drive and spirit that only Americans have, apply for US citizenship!
Wishing the new cold war will be equally bloodless all along
Right? Right?
Look, this is getting tiring. You have no idea what the people in this country went through and they might as well see it as a "good thing". I think the same applies to Iran, an intervention by the US could be the best thing that ever happened in these countries, so the "legality" issue doesn't quite sound warranted in my opinion.
edit: I'd also add that this was also a message to the Supreme Leader -- he seems to be oblivious to the consequences of the threats for his own people and, quite frankly, counts on the percentage of people who disagree. The sheer volume of the lies that is going around is astonishing and you have to live it to know.